'One of the East Village’s last standing bohemians soldiers on'

The Times has a feature today on Larry Fagin, who continues to give private creative-writing lessons as well as edit and produce various small publications. Article excerpt:

Four stories above East 12th Street, down the hall from Allen Ginsberg’s old apartment, one of the East Village’s last standing bohemians soldiers on.

Mr. Fagin, 74 years old, second-generation beat, New York School veteran, friend of Ted Berrigan, publisher of Ashbery, lives with his wife, Susan Noel, also a writer, in adjoining rent-controlled apartments in the building near Avenue A.

The article notes that he pays $150 a month in rent "in what he calls the 'Chelsea Hotel of the East Village.'"

Read the article here.

Flashback August 1996: A two-week tribute for Merlin

We posted the following item on Aug. 18, 2010 ... Every year since Merlin died in 1996, someone creates a memorial for him on Avenue A at Sixth Street where he lived for eight years on the sidewalk. Bob Arihood has a photo of this year's memorial here.

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I wanted to follow-up on the Merlin's Memorial post from yesterday...



Bob Arihood, who took the shot above, documented the scene on Avenue A and Sixth Street on Neither More Nor Less after Merlin passed away on Aug. 16, 1996...



As Bob wrote:

A wake and vigil of considerable moment, lasting for the better part of 2 weeks , was held in the neighborhood at Merlin's corner . Some nights the sidewalk and street around the memorial were so densely packed with people that it seemed that everyone in the neighborhood and the surrounding communities was attending , crowded together ,all kinds of folks , from all professions and callings , from high and low paying their respects to Merlin .

Here's Merlin on his corner as many people here remember him...



Per the Times from July 1996:

There are few certainties in this changeable city. But on Avenue A and Sixth Street, a place that has been convulsed by change in recent years, one thing has remained constant through the riots and real-estate booms: Merlin, a 41-year-old homeless man who uses only one name, has made the intersection's southeast corner his residence for eight years. Neither blizzards nor blistering heat have routed him from atop a set of wooden pallets in front of a Con Edison substation.

"People move in and out of the neighborhood, but I never budge," he said last week, lounging beneath a pair of tattered umbrellas, his only guard against the sting of the sun. A stroke has left him partly paralyzed, and frostbite cost him several toes three winters ago.

To strangers, he is but another intrusion on the East Village's gritty streetscape, a reason to avert their eyes. But to many local residents, he is a cherished asset: a timekeeper, a message center, a town crier and a source of good, solid conversation. "Merlin is a social hub," said Tatiana Bliss, 25, a local artist. "If you're looking for someone, Merlin probably knows where they are. If you want to leave something for a friend, he'll make sure they get it. He makes this crazy city feel like a small town."

Jeremiah also writes about Merlin today, asking the following: "Could such a memorial happen for a homeless man in the East Village today?"

Remembering Michael Shenker

As you may know, Michael Shenker, a longtime squatter and community activist, passed away last Saturday morning. Colin Moynihan wrote a feature on Shenker's life and death earlier this week for the Times:

Mr. Shenker was perhaps best known in the neighborhood as a tactician who thought up ways to protect appropriated buildings and community gardens that were subject to eviction or bulldozing. Some of the projects he started ended up with narratives as dramatic any of the operas he loved.

Meanwhile, there are several gatherings scheduled to celebrate his life.

Friday
Musical program in honor of Michael
7 p.m.; music starts around 8 p.m.
At 5C Cafe, Fifth Street at Avenue C
Burt Ekoff, Michael's piano teacher, and friends will be performing.

Sunday, October 10
Time's Up Garden Party
3:30 p.m. at El Jardin Del Paraiso
Located on Fourth-Fifth Streets between Avenues C and D
Michael was a co-founder of the More Gardens Coalition and a force behind saving NYC gardens. Reverend Billy and the choir will be at this event.

Saturday, October 16
March Around the Neighborhood
Meet in the middle of Tompkins Square Park at 5 p.m.
Friends will march around the neighborhood and arrive at his funeral.

Funeral for Michael at Mary House (Catholic Worker)
7 p.m. at 55 E. Third St.

Sunday, October 24
Celebration of Michael with Eric Drooker and Eden and John's East River Strong Band.
6-10 p.m. Location TBA



Previously on EV Grieve:
Michael Shenker, 1955-2010

Watching football at DeRobertis Pasticceria and Caffe

I remember walking in East Village institution DeRobertis here on First Avenue a few years ago... it was a Sunday afternoon... and it was the first time that I noticed the 100-year-old-plus bakery-cafe had a few flat-screen TVs installed.... One of the women working there was really into the Jets game.



...nothing wrong with that, I suppose ... just seemed like a funny place to watch an NFL game... But, every so often during a big sporting event, I'll walk in here to catch a glimpse of the game....



...and maybe use the restroom...



I love this place.

Flashback August 1996: A two-week tribute for Merlin

I wanted to follow-up on the Merlin's Memorial post from yesterday...



Bob Arihood, who took the shot above, documented the scene on Avenue A and Sixth Street on Neither More Nor Less after Merlin passed away on Aug. 16, 1996...



As Bob wrote:

A wake and vigil of considerable moment, lasting for the better part of 2 weeks , was held in the neighborhood at Merlin's corner . Some nights the sidewalk and street around the memorial were so densely packed with people that it seemed that everyone in the neighborhood and the surrounding communities was attending , crowded together ,all kinds of folks , from all professions and callings , from high and low paying their respects to Merlin .

Here's Merlin on his corner as many people here remember him...



Jeremiah also writes about Merlin today, asking the following: "Could such a memorial happen for a homeless man in the East Village today?"

A memorial for Merlin

There's now a tribute to Merlin here on Avenue A at Sixth Street by the ConEd substation.... marking the anniversary of his death.





Per the Times:

There are few certainties in this changeable city. But on Avenue A and Sixth Street, a place that has been convulsed by change in recent years, one thing has remained constant through the riots and real-estate booms: Merlin, a 41-year-old homeless man who uses only one name, has made the intersection's southeast corner his residence for eight years. Neither blizzards nor blistering heat have routed him from atop a set of wooden pallets in front of a Con Edison substation.

"People move in and out of the neighborhood, but I never budge," he said last week, lounging beneath a pair of tattered umbrellas, his only guard against the sting of the sun. A stroke has left him partly paralyzed, and frostbite cost him several toes three winters ago.

To strangers, he is but another intrusion on the East Village's gritty streetscape, a reason to avert their eyes. But to many local residents, he is a cherished asset: a timekeeper, a message center, a town crier and a source of good, solid conversation. "Merlin is a social hub," said Tatiana Bliss, 25, a local artist. "If you're looking for someone, Merlin probably knows where they are. If you want to leave something for a friend, he'll make sure they get it. He makes this crazy city feel like a small town."

[Thanks to EV Grieve reader Anna for the photos]

More on the Mosaic Man removing his mosaics

Per the earlier post today.... EV Grieve reader Marjorie Ingall passed along these photos from a few weekends ago...




Already this morning, Marjorie and several other readers have written to say that they hope that Jim reconsiders removing the mosaics; that they are vital and iconic part of the neighborhood....

Benefit for Ray's: "I am thrilled to be part of this moment in our community of the East Village"

As a reminder... Bob Arihood and Slum Goddess have already made mentions of this....

Benefit for Ray's Candy Store
Monday, March 8
7:30 p.m. - 11 p.m.
Theater For The New City, 155 First Ave.
Between 9th and 10th streets.
Suggested donation of $15 — sliding scale from $5 to $15

Here's the official information from Facebook:

It promises to be a wonderful evening of giving love to a neighbor in need. Ray himself will be there with us! and some of our East Village activists. This will be an event from our beloved neighborhood to Ray, a men who has work hard and long and have give back, support, smiles, someone who has protect many of us! today we can give back to him and celebrate the spirit that still lives among us! the spirit that mayor Bloomberg and his politics want to finish, to eradicate ... We will fight against it! Lets get united to celebrate the very beautiful Ray!!! Lets have him for many more years! He'll be our strongest representation... right here in the heart of our little Villlage. please assist, collaborate, The whole East village will be there! So fun...

Show Schedule

7:30 — D.J. DiDi of the Brazilian Girls

7:45 — Ms. Marilyn singing her smash hit "My Man Ray!

8:00 — Rev. Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir

8:20 — Janine Otis

8:35 — Joff Wilson of the Bowery Boys

8:50 — Marni Rice

9:05 — Blind Boy Paxtion

9:20 set up

9:30 — East River String Band

9:55 set up

10:00 — The Bill Murray Experience

10:30 — D.J. Didi

11pm End of show!!

Francisco Valera is helping organize Monday's benefit... I asked him for his story.

Hello this is Francisco Valera. I am a former member of the Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir. I've lived in the East Village for the past 17 years, upstairs from Ray's Candy Store. Ray is a great friend and over the years I have come to love him as family. Ray and I share the same Landlord. I have been aware of his situation for a while now and we talk about it, as myself, up until a week or two ago was very late with my own rent, due to lack of work in the middle of such difficult times... does it sound familiar? I hear it all the time, from some many different kinds of people... Ray just became 77 years old recently, we had a very cute party in there, and he has been working at the little store for almost four decades, since i was a baby!


He is truly a sweet, sincere, funny, workaholic, knowledgeable, humble gentleman, a totally honorable man! He is an Icon, although nowadays that term is use so commonly... when it comes to Ray, it gains all its original meaning...

I am thrilled to be part of this moment in our community of the East Village a legendary one, with such an amazing Human Being Ray Alvarez, It can't get any better!

Meanwhile, Bob Arihood has the latest news on Ray's at Neither More Nor Less.

Reminders: Benefit for Mosaic Man tonight at Theatre 80

The Villager has all the details... Slum Goddess has more on it here... As a matter of fact, Eden and John's East River String Band are one of the groups playing a set...

Remembering Bingo Gazingo

My friend Karen Lillis passed along a link to me the other day about Bingo Gazingo, described by the Times in 1997 "as the near-toothless underground performance sensation." The author of such songs as "I Love You So Fucking Much I Can't Shit" died on New Year's Day from injuries that he suffered after getting struck by a cab. He was 85.

Life Just Bounces had a lovely tribute to the man:

You'd hesitate to call him a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination, but New York street/performance poet Bingo Gazingo's obscurity likely served as an aid to his singular imagination and oddball creativity.

With his often crude, spiky, agitated and hilarious rants about sex, dementia, and, especially, popular culture, Gazingo (born Murray Wachs in Queens in 1924) was a Monday night regular every week at New York's Bowery Poetry Club. He was struck by a taxi on his way to one of these very events, presumably on December 28th, and died on New Year's Day.

As Karen told me, "Bingo was wildly unique, and relentless at what he did."

The Times wrote about Bingo in Janaury 1997:

As a young man, he says, he worked as a logger for Broadcast Music Incorporated, or B.M.I., the music licensing agency, sitting over radio play lists with a blue pencil, identifying songs for which the company was entitled to royalties. And then, he says, he disappeared into the United States Postal Service, where he worked for decades sorting mail and loading trucks. "Doing that is like spending 20 years in one day," he says.

But through it all, he says, he never abandoned his dream of being a songwriter. He wrote ballads, novelties, show tunes, country-and-western songs, anything he thought would sell, and left them at stage doors at the Roxy, the Paramount and the Strand, in a time-honored tradition "to try to get my songs to the artists."

"But they never took one of my songs," he says, waving his hands at the memory. ''I thought I would be discovered or something, but it doesn't work that way."

I always intended to go see Bingo one of these Monday nights, but I never did. Wish I would have taken the time to meet this NYC original....

Here's Bingo in action at the Lakeside Lounge in 2006...



And at the 6 stop at Astor Place...