Winter Friday flashback Extra Place is now officially a Dead End

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from April 14, 2009...

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As the new city sign on the left shows...

Previously on EV Grieve:
The End of Extra Place

[Winter Friday flashback] Rite Aid's sign gets more comical

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from April 28, 2010 ...

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On 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

[Winter Friday Flashback] Valentine's Day tragedies: When you mix up Union Square Cafe and the Gramercy Tavern

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Feb. 16, 2010...

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We heard about this third-hand... So we can't verify the authenticity of it. But! A man from out of town was here this past weekend to be with his girlfriend. She is new to the city, and was interested in trying one of Danny Meyer's highly regarded eateries, such as the Union Square Cafe or Gramercy Tavern.

Anyway, some details were apparently lost in translation, and the couple arrived here at the Gramercy Cafe on 17th Street and Third Avenue for an early Valentine's Day weekend dinner on Saturday...



Not all was lost. After realizing their error, they made their over to the Gramercy Tavern on 20th Street near Park Avenue South... they eventually got seats at the bar...

Winter Friday flashback: The Hells Angels unveil new line of defense for their bench

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Feb. 7, 2011...

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Back in June 2009 we pointed out the sign on the bench outside the Hells Angels headquarters on Third Street ...



This was an effort to thwart clueless hotel guests from the Sanctuary Guest Suites next door for plopping down here ... However, this reporter still saw European thrillseekers taking a seat here...

So now! It's a little more difficult...

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Hells Angels kindly request that hotel guests please refrain from sitting on their bench

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Postscript:

The City made the Hells Angels remove the bar a few weeks later.

Winter Friday flashback: Jeff Bridges at Sophie's

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Feb. 22, 2010...

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One day last month, American Songwriter Magazine did a photo shoot at Sophie's with Jeff Bridges for an upcoming feature... a photographer for The New York Times was also there for a feature titled "Nine days on the road with Jeff Bridges."

Bridges was in character as Bad Blake from his Oscar-nominated turn in "Crazy Heart." Here are two of the photos that Peter van Agtmael took for the Sunday Times magazine at Sophie's...

Winter Friday Flashback: On East Second Street, a sink hole and an Icicle Audi

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Jan. 23, 2011...

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Thanks to RyanAvenueA for this shot... of a large hole in the middle of Second Street near Second Avenue...

Come spring, we'll move the cars, throw around some deck chairs, and open a Shake Shack here.

Oh, and here's a closer look at the new icicle Audi model.

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Postscript. The Icicle Audi, of course, went on to international acclaim. From Jan. 25...

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H/t to esquared™ for reminding me about this anniversary.

Winter Friday flashback: At the 2009 Unemployment Olympics

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from March 31, 2009...

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The Unemployment Olympics are under way now in Tompkins Square Park. Hard to say whether there are more contestants (athletes?) or reporters on the scene.



After waiting in line to sign up, you waited in line to take part in the first activity of the day, Pin the Blame on the Boss.




Organizer Nick Goddard had to ask the assembled reporters to move back several times...the media kept inching closer to the Pin the Tail sign, and there wasn't enough room for the participants to spin and pin.

There are other activities planned, including the Fax Machine Toss (which looks suspiciously like a phone), the You're Fired Race and a stress-relieving piñata.

All of this got old pretty quickly. The reporters got their cutesy, "aw, we're-having-fun-in the-recession!" soft news bit and started to leave. Curiosity seekers had time to gawk.


Some Pin the Blame on the Boss video:

Winter Friday Flashback: Last day for Love Saves the Day is Sunday

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Jan. 13, 2009 ...

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On Dec. 2, Jeremiah was first to report that Loves Saves the Day will shutter its iconic corner store on Seventh Street and Second Avenue. A sign on their storefront confirms the store's last day.


Meanwhile, what will become of the pay phones on the south side of the store? No way will Duane Reade keep them once they open their newest location here...(And yes -- I will burn in Hell for writing that...)

Winter Friday Flashback: Nickel beer at Sam's

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Jan. 6, 2009 ...

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Jeremiah's awful news yesterday on the possible demise of the Holiday on St. Mark's inspired to me look into some other old haunts on the street from year's past...I came across this article in the Time magazine archives on Sam's Bar & Grill.

The Nickel In St. Mark's Place
Monday, Apr. 4, 1949

Pale and shaken, 51-year-old Sam Atkins backed away from himself with a feeling somewhere between disbelief and awe. By a single, splendid cerebration he had been lifted out of the ruck into the status of a television curiosity. In his humble Manhattan saloon, Sam had decided to cut the price of beer (the 7-oz. glass) from a dime to a nickel.

Up to that moment Sam was just a pensioned pumper driver from the Bayonne (N.J.) fire department, and Sam's bar & grill was like any neighborhood joint around St. Mark's Place on the Lower East Side. Its only distinctive touch was Sam's cousin, "Bottle Sam" Hock, who amused the trade by whacking tunes out of whisky bottles with a suds-scraper. But the customers got a joyful jolt when Sam opened up one morning last week.

All around the walls, even over the bar mirror, tasteful, powder-blue signs proclaimed in red letters: "Spring is here and so is the 5¢ beer." The early birds drank and took their change in mild disbelief. The nickel wasn't obsolescent after all. The word spread. Sam's bar & grill started to bulge like Madison Square Garden on fight night. People drank, shook hands with strangers and sang.

Then something went sour. The two breweries that supplied Sam cut him off, and an electrician came around and took the neon beer sign out of the flyspecked windows. Somehow, it seemed, Sam had betrayed free enterprise. An organization of restaurant owners muttered that Sam might not be cutting his beer, but he was cutting his throat. The Bartenders Union threw a picket line in front of the place because it was nonunion.

But Sam hung on. He signed up with the union, managed to get his beer through a couple of distributors and a Brooklyn brewery, announced that he was going to have the windows washed, and keep at it. Said he solemnly: "The people want it." By this week Sam's idea had spread to other saloons in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey, and Sam was getting more trade in a day than he had drawn before in a week. The nickel beer was here to stay, Sam announced.

Photos via the Time archive.

Winter Friday flashback: The East Village Penistrator finally gaining attention of the international community

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Jan. 28, 2009...

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Thanks to the good people at the River blog for reporting on this news that deserves global coverage, especially overseas. Anyway, my Italian isn't so good. So I have no idea what this post says.

Our intern ran the post through The Yahoo! Babelfish translator...and it goes something like this:
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To Rome on the dirty cars there is who writes "washes to me", or more varying others veraci. To New York, from some time, there was a joker who went designing make them and an other series of "obscenity" on the parked cars. After a big wave of collective curiosity, of the case the net has been taken care also pettegolezza of Tmz, that it has sguinzagliato for Manhattan its photographers. At the end the graffitaro-penologo has been pecked: it would be such Haley Joel Osment, university student and protagonist of "The Sixth Sense".

Previously on EV Grieve:
A stunning development: Is Haley Joel Osment the Penistrator?

Winter Friday Flashback: Any more friendly and I would have thought that I was at the DMV

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from April 17, 2008...

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So I had a stack of coins that I needed to cash in. Will usually lug them over to the Coinstar machine at the Food Emporium. Easy enough.

Meanwhile, I always walk by the newish Commerce Bank branch on 10th Street and Third Avenue. Made something of a vow to never go into any of the 37 bank branches that have opened in this three-block radius. Still. The bag was heavy. Anyway, Commerce doesn't charge a fee for the coin machine. Plus, I figured I'd save a few blocks of needless exercise. And I was curious about the spiffy new branch.

I was immediately greeted by a Commerce hostess/representative. She took me over to the coin machine. She asked me if I had ever used one before. I said yes. So she showed me how to use the machine anyway, and explained that there was some contest in which I could try to guess the total amount of coins. She went about all this as if she was the prom queen forced by her mother to be nice to the kid with the thick glasses and asthma. (I don't wear glasses or have asthma. But you get the idea.)

After the coin counting had ended (I missed my guess by $25!), I stood in line with my coin receipt to hand to a teller. There were three tellers working. And no line. Each teller had his or her head down, intently working on something. I stood there for a few awkward minutes before I started coughing, clearing my throat, etc., to perhaps alert the tellers that someone was standing there.

Finally a teller motioned me forward. The machine didn't take a Susan B. Anthony $1 coin. I asked the young man if they were still in circulation. (Perhaps this might be worth, say, $1.15 now!) He sighed and said yes. I asked him then if I could please trade it in for a bill. "As you wish," he said. At the end, I said "thank you." He did not.