Tuesdays at Sophie's

Kyle de Vre is never without a camera. So it made sense that de Vre, an East Village resident who has worked at Sophie's for the past four-and-a-half years, would put his camera to use while behind the bar.

During his Tuesday afternoon bartending shifts, de Vre started taking portraits of patrons seated in the comfortably worn bar on Fifth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

The results can be seen in a new photo book, appropriately titled "See You Next Tuesday," which he'll release in a limited edition next Tuesday, Sept. 4, at Sophie's.

As he writes about the project on his website: "All of the subjects positively impact the neighborhood in one way, shape or form. Community is important and these are the types of people that make this neighborhood special."





I asked de Vre a few questions about the book.

What compelled you to start taking photos of patrons from behind the bar?

I had brought my camera to Sophie's a few times over the first two-to-three years that I worked there. I mostly took street photography as well as photos when I travelled. I got a new camera early last year, which was great for taking portraits — something I had never really done before.

So I started taking it into the bar every Tuesday because I knew I would have subjects to shoot. There was just enough light in the bar that I could [take photos] without a tripod or flash on Tuesday afternoons.

At what point did the idea for a book come about?

A friend was on the phone and I just started taking photos of him from behind the bar. Although the images weren't the greatest, the idea and framing were there.

So the next week, [my friend] Kayla came into the bar to chat with someone. I asked her if I could take her photo from behind the bar — more so along the lines of a traditional portrait. I shot four images of her while she drank her gin and tonic. When I saw the photos, it just kind of clicked in my head — why not start taking photos of everyone I know who visits me on Tuesdays.

What is your favorite thing about - or any day — at Sophie's?

The Tuesday day shift was just my first shift at Sophie's. Every day at Sophie's is pretty much any old day at Sophie's — and that's why I like it.







The "See You Next Tuesday" book launch is Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 9 p.m. at Sophie's, 507 E. Fifth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B. All photos by Kyle de Vre. Posted with permission.

Spend the day looking at more photos from East Village artist Carole Teller

[Undated photo outside Gem Spa on St. Mark's at 2nd Avenue]

The folks at the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) have uploaded another batch of photos from the personal collection of East Village artist Carole Teller.

In this archive, you'll discover photos like this from the early 1960s showing the north side of First Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue, including (L-R) 40-56 E. First St. (For a reference point, Prune is at 54 E. First St. today.)



You can find "Carole Teller’s Changing New York, 1960s-1990s" featuring shots of the East Village, Lower East Side and some other areas right here.

And here's one more photo from this series... a look at the northeast corner of Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place circa 1991...



This assemblage will be demolished in the months ahead for a boutique office building.

You can access the previous Teller sets here ... here... and here... and shots from when "The Godfather Part II" filmed on Sixth Street here.

All photos by Carole Teller via the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

Meryl Meisler's Lower East Side of the 1970s and 1980s

[On the Bowery in 1977]

NYC-based photographer Meryl Meisler's work will be on display starting tomorrow in an exhibit coinciding with Lower East Side History Month.

"LES YES!" showcases some of Meisler's photography taken on the Lower East Side during the 1970s and 1980s.

The opening reception is tomorrow night from 6-9 at the Storefront Project, 70 Orchard St. between Broome and Grand. The exhibit is up through June 3. Find more details here.

Meisler was born in the South Bronx and raised in North Massapequa, Long Island. After college in Wisconsin, she returned to NYC in 1975. Here's part of a recent feature on Meisler in the Times:

"I felt like I belonged," she said. "I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, even though I had a teaching degree. Maybe because the city itself was out of joint. I had just come out as a lesbian, but I felt like I belonged here. I felt safe.”

She eventually spent 31 years as a NYC public school art teacher.

Here's a sampling of the LES photos that will be on display...




[On East Houston]


[At the Henry Street Settlement]


[At Famous Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse]

In a recent interview with Bedford + Bowery, she said that she still sees some of the old LES here despite all the changes. "It’s busy and alive and yet, there are still people on the street that are true New Yorkers. New York is always changing, but I still see the essence of it there."

All photos by Meryl Meisler ... and courtesy of The Storefront Project & Stephen Kasher Gallery. Reprinted with permission.

12th and Broadway, Thursday

In the air and on the ground... thanks to Dan Efram for letting me repost the photos...

Inflight entertainment

Photo on Seventh Street and Avenue A by Colin Clark via Instagram...

A former intern revisits the summer of 1977 on 7th Street

In 1977, Bob Stewart arrived here from Alabama to spend the summer interning for the New York Metropolitan Baptist Association. He spent most of his time that summer on a two-block stretch of Seventh Street between Avenue B and Avenue D. He lived on Seventh and B.

He also had an Olympus SLR, and he took photos during his internship. A selection of these shots will be on display starting Sunday at the Graffiti Church on Seventh Street. The exhibit, titled "40 Years Ago," includes 20 framed photographs and a video slide show.

Stewart later returned to Seventh Street and Avenue B, where he resided from March 1978 to the spring of 1980.

Stewart, who today is the director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, came back for a visit shortly after his granddaughter was born in 2015.

"That’s what prompted me to pull out the negatives and color slides," he told me in an email. "I realized it’d be 40 years in 2017, so I started working on the project."

The following is an excerpt about the exhibit that he shared...

"I was in college in Birmingham when I was offered the chance to go to New York City for the summer," said Stewart. He jumped at the opportunity, spending 10 weeks on East Seventh Street working alongside several other summer interns.

"Mostly, we did puppet shows and sang songs in one of the small parks between Avenues C and D," Stewart said. "We also took kids on a subway ride to one of the beaches, as well as to a Yankees game."

Stewart used his Olympus SLR to photograph neighborhood kids, as well as his fellow summer interns, who, like Stewart, came from outside the city.

"We were mostly suburban college students, mostly from the South, so entirely unfamiliar with life in the East Village," Stewart said.

One of the young interns Stewart met in 1977 was Taylor Field, a Princeton Seminary student assigned to work in Harlem. Field now serves as pastor of Graffiti Church, which will host the exhibit.

"I remember the heartache, the trashcan fires, and the friendliness of the neighborhood," Taylor said.

Amidst their daily activities, Stewart and his fellow college-age interns — like other residents of the city that summer — had to cope with extraordinary events like the citywide blackout that left entire neighborhoods looted, as well as the threat of serial killer Son of Sam.

"Looking back on that summer, I realize now that we lived through a difficult time in the life of New York City," Stewart said. He recalled seeing a guy get stabbed just down from St. Brigid's School, across the street from Stewart's East Seventh Street apartment.

But most of the weeks were filled with the ordinary, steamy days of a hot New York summer, working with about two dozen "regulars," Stewart said. As the kids got to know Stewart and the other summer interns, they became more trusting of each other.

"Whereas we probably saw each other as very different when we first moved into the neighborhood, by mid-summer we felt at home walking down the street," Stewart said.

Stewart's memories were reignited in 2015 when walking his newborn granddaughter around the neighborhood.

"I recalled having a notebook full of black and white negatives, as well as several small boxes with color slides," all taken during the 1977 summer. Stewart bought a flatbed scanner and started working his way through the acetate sleeves of negatives.

The "40 Years Ago" exhibit opens at 5 p.m. on Sunday at the Graffiti Church, 205 E. Seventh St. between Avenue B and Avenue C.

The exhibit is up through Nov. 30. After Sunday's opening, the gallery hours are:

Sundays: 10 a.m. to noon, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Wednesdays: 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Thursdays: 9 to 11 a.m.

Free photos on the street

[Photo outside Grand Central Terminal]

I've posted some photos by Roy Lee in the past. Like here.

Starting today, Lee, a former East Village resident, is leaving his photos around a few locations in the city free for the taking.

Here's the background:

I've made prints of some of my NYC street photos from the past few years, and I plan to share them by hanging these prints in the exact spot where i took them. (or as close as i can get.) These prints can be yours by going there and taking it. The prints are 12x18...

Lee will be leaving a handful of photos around the East Village, such as these locations...





Anyway, in case you see a photo sealed in plastic hanging around.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Found photos in the East Village from the early 1990s

The photography of Ryan John Lee at 9th Street Espresso (on 10th Street)

East Village-based photographer Ryan John Lee has a selection of his work on display at 9th Street Espresso (the location on 10th Street near Avenue B)... you can read more about this exhibit, which is up through Sept. 22, here.

He has shared his work with EVG in the past, such as here and here.

On the street

EVG Facebook friend Roy Lee, a former East Village resident, was back in the neighborhood earlier this month... he shared a few photos that he took...

















Previously on EV Grieve:
Found photos in the East Village from the early 1990s

Godlis at Night

[Image via @GODLIS]

East Village-based photographer David Godlis has a new book, "History Is Made at Night," which chronicles the heyday of the scene at CBGB between 1976 and 1979.

There's a publication party tomorrow night with a slideshow and talk at 7 in the Howl! Happening space, 6 E. First St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

In a special airing Friday from noon to 2 p.m. (ET), Godlis will be my guest during an East Village Radio program. We'll be joined by Marc H. Miller, co-curator of "Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk" going on now through July 31 at the Queens Museum. We might talk about the Ramones.

Listen in via dashradio.com/EVR or the Dash Radio app.

Godlis will also be out at the Queens Museum on Saturday for a day billed as Ramones Mania. Details here.

Updated

The EVR show plays again today...

ICYMI, @evgrieve w/Marc H. Miller & @GODLIS_photos, listen Saturday (6/25) 12pm ET/9am PT & 8pm ET/5PT on EastVillageRadio. @RamonesOfficial

— East Village Radio (@EVRadio) June 24, 2016

About 'Gay Arms,' a new photo exhibition by Grant Shaffer

East Village resident Grant Shaffer, a frequent contributor to EVG, is having a photo exhibition starting tomorrow evening.

Here are some details:

For the exhibition, "Gay Arms," Grant Shaffer presents a body of nearly 100 new photographic works. The series is documentary in style, with its subjects pulled from the artist's life.

Shaffer describes his artistic process as a means of understanding: "When I'm taking pictures, I think of myself as an alien who's here for a while, trying to understand the experience of my sliver of life on this planet. It's hard to say what my photos and this show are about. It's just intuitive. It's me trying to take in the world and asking people to notice or consider something."

La MaMa Galleria
47 Great Jones St.
(between Lafayette and the Bowery)

The show runs from Feb. 26 through March 13. The opening is tomorrow (Friday!) night from 6-9.

And here's one of my favorite photos of Shaffer's that I posted at EVG... from Tompkins Square Park in January 2014...

In the cold, cold night

East 11th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C by @georgygirlnyc

Cruise control

Second Avenue at East Houston by jdx

The 1970s NYC photography of Camilo José Vergara

[Photo on Avenue C by Camilo José Vergara]

Mashable has a photo essay on Camilo José Vergara, who started taking photos in the the South Bronx and Lower East Side in 1970 while a grad student at Columbia.

Read the essay and browse the photo gallery here.

A found collection of photos from the 1980s East Village

The Wall Street Journal today has a short feature on Tony Mangia, a photographer who found a long-lost collection of his photos from the 1980s East Village. (He believed the photos were destroyed during a fire.)

His work, he said, is from the Other Paper, a twice-a-month community newspaper that covered the neighborhood from 1980-1982.

The collection ranges from quiet images of dilapidated buildings to the Ninth Precinct narcotics squad (a crew usually donning Yankees caps known on the street as the “Baseball Team,” according to Mr. Mangia) making a drug bust. The images are reminiscent of a time when the city was “dirty, dangerous and way more interesting than today,” Mr. Mangia said.

You can find the article and a selection of the photos here.

Catching up with legendary street photographer Flo Fox

We've written about the prolific street photographer Flo Fox in the past … Today, at age 69, Fox, despite blindness, multiple sclerosis and lung cancer, continues to take photos on a daily basis thanks to her attendants, friends and sometimes total strangers.

Curbed has a new interview with her, which you can read here.

Do you find today's New York less photogenic than it was in the 70s and 80s?

No. It's always a place to be. I am a tourist every day in my own town. I don't miss the '70s and '80s, but the '50s and '60s. The doo wop. The rhythm and blues.

Meanwhile, check out her interview on Tom Snyder from 1980...



You can watch part 2 here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Watch this 10-minute documentary on the amazing street photographer Flo Fox

The photography of Flo Fox

A 1980s 'Night Walk' in downtown NYC

[Screengrab from the "Night Watch" trailer]

The Times has a feature today on Ken Schles, who spent part of the 1980s living and taking photographs in the East Village.

He now has a follow-up to his 1988 book "Invisible City" titled "Night Walk."

Here's a description of the book:

Schles revisits his archive and fashions a narrative of lost youth: a delirious, peripatetic walk in the evening air of an irretrievable downtown New York as he saw and experienced it. Night Walk is a substantive, intimate chronicle of New York's last pre-Internet bohemian outpost, a stream of consciousness portrayal that peels back layers of petulance and squalor to find the frisson and striving of a life lived amongst the rubble.

Here's a trailer for the book...



Schles, who now lives in Fort Greene, "rejected the recent tendency to view the East Village of the 1980s as a golden age of louche glamour," according to the Times. "A lot of dysfunction has been romanticized," he said.

The book "is dedicated to the memory of those who died in the scourge of AIDS and violence that gripped the East Village during the 1980s."

East 11th Street in photos at the 11th Street Bar

Longtime East Village resident Jack Smead has been taking and collecting photos of the neighborhood since 1969.

Neighbor Ruth tells us that he has gathered his favorites, focusing on East 11th Street, "into a terrific collection" showing at the 11th Street Bar, 510 E. 11th St., between Avenue A and Avenue B.



The photos are up as of tonight. We're looking forward to stopping by to check them out...

An East Village then-and-now photo project featuring 1984

[222 E. Third St. then and now]

Earlier this week, East Village resident Daniel Root shared a new photo project with us, a Tumblr titled EV NY: 30 yrs and now.

The site is pretty straightforward. Per its description:

Photographer Daniel Root documented the East Village in 1984. Today, he revisits the locations and documents their current state.

In addition to the then-and-now shots, Root added a photo of the contrasting scenes at the sites.




[119 Avenue C]

How did all this come about?

"I have been living here since the summer of 1984," Root told us via email on Tuesday. "At the time a friend of a friend wanted to write a book about the changing East Village and she wanted some photographs to pitch the book. The book was never written. Last year it occurred to me that those photographs were about to be 30 years old and I thought to hang them approximately where they were shot. The Tumblr site was a relatively recent addition prompted by a friend."


[174 Avenue A]


[141 Avenue A]


[307 E. 8th St.]

"I think what struck me the most while looking at the 'then vs now' shots is how much cleaner, neater and orderly things looks now," Root said. "On the other hand, a number of places don't look that different. For example, the Pyramid and the southwest corner of Tompkins Square Park."

Find more of his then-and-now shots here.

14 photos of the 1980s East Village

[Northeast corner of 1st Avenue and 6th Street/John Fensten]

In recent months, EVG Facebook friend Susan Fensten has posted photos that she and her father, John Fensten, took around the city in the 1980s. Of particular interest to us: The shots of the East Village from that time period.

Susan, who grew up in the neighborhood, gave us permission to post these photos. (Unfortunately, we do not have exact dates and locations for all these.)

Updated to note proper photo credits.


[West side of 3rd Avenue between East 10 and 11th Streets/Susan Fensten]


[Looking north from East Fifth Street/John Fensten]


[Random wall from 1984/Susan Fensten]


[Tompkins Square Park/John Fensten]


[East 5th Street between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue/John Fensten]


[First Avenue/John Fensten]


[Union Square/Susan Fensten]


[Looking north on 3rd Avenue at East 13th Street/John Fensten]


[Astor Place/John Fensten]


[Avenue A near East 7th Street/Susan Fensten]


[Behind East Fifth Street between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue/John Fensten]


[Leshko's on Avenue A and East 7th Street/Susan Fensten]


[East 4th Street with the Merchant's House on the left/John Fensten]