From 1996, Luna covers Donovan's "Season of the Witch" ... a version that also appeared on the "I Shot Andy Warhol" soundtrack.
Friday, October 31, 2025
There's a Halloween afternoon show in Tompkins Square Park TODAY
Another look at last night's collision on 4th Street and Avenue A
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Here are more photos and details about yesterday's late-afternoon collision at Avenue A and Fourth Street.
According to witnesses, the cab was heading north on Avenue A when it was struck by an SUV traveling east on Fourth Street just past 5:30 p.m.
Witnesses said the SUV was speeding when it hit the cab, then jumped the curb, striking the liquor store, taking out a postal relay box and a pay-by-plate touch-screen meter before coming to a stop against a tree.
The driver of the SUV was awake at the scene and transported to the hospital. There wasn't any update on his condition.
The cab driver (below, talking with police) and his passenger escaped serious injury. The passenger suffered a minor leg injury, while the driver, who asked for prayers, was not hurt.
Both vehicles were heavily damaged and not drivable.
No pedestrians were injured — which, given the typically busy stretch of sidewalk near Key Food at that hour, is a miracle.
The force of the collision ripped the SUV's front bumper off.
A search of public records reveals that the owner has five recent moving violations, all of which occurred in Brooklyn. There are three for Failure to Display Meter Receipt, one for Blocking Crosswalk, and one for No Standing — Commercial Meter Zone.
Friday's opening shot
Always liked the cornice on this building on the NW corner of Avenue A and Sixth Street.
Nothing else to see. Definitely nothing perched on the roof.
Happy Halloween to all who celebrate.
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Thursday's parting shot
Photo by Stacie Joy
A post-storm scene in Tompkins Square Park late this afternoon (the Halloween stuff was there before; it did NOT blow in with the wind).
A close call on Avenue A as a car jumps the curb at 4th Street
Photos by Robert Miner
Updated 10/31 here.
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We have received reports from readers of a vehicle that struck a cab on Avenue A at Fourth Street and jumped the curb, near the Untitled building.
Witnesses claimed the car was speeding on Fourth Street, traveling eastbound, when it struck the northbound cab at A. (We'll have an update tomorrow.)
Thankfully, there weren't any reports of injuries along a typically busy stretch of sidewalk...
A USPS relay box was taken out on Fourth and A...
Anyone else witness this?
Nai to close on Nov. 8 after 15 years in the East Village
Nai — which means "mother" in Gallego — has its roots in Galicia, Spain, where Rodriguez drew inspiration from his mother, Ana Maria Gonzalez Arias.
The restaurant had several EV locations, beginning on First Avenue and later its current spot, 84 Second Ave. between Fourth Street and Fifth Street.
In a message to EVG, Rodriguez wrote:
Been a very heartbreaking couple of weeks making this decision. Last couple of days I couldn't imagine how many private messages from people I've never met about how much Nai meant to them. I leave with nothing but gratitude. Unfortunately, it was my time to go.
This is part of Nai's official closing notice via social media and its website:
What began as a small dream — a place to share the flavors of Spain, the warmth of family, and the joy of gathering — became something far greater than we ever imagined.Nai became a home. For our team. For our guests. For our neighborhood.Fifteen years is a lifetime in restaurant years. We close this chapter not with sadness, but with gratitude — for every plate served, every story shared, and every person who walked through our doors.
Fifteen years is a solid run in these parts.
Rodriguez also operated the now-closed Kōbo by Nai at 202 Avenue A and Emilia by Nai on First Avenue.
Saba Candy & Grocery opens tomorrow (Friday!) on Avenue B
Photos by Stacie Joy
Saba Candy & Grocery opens tomorrow (Halloween!) at 106 Avenue B between Sixth Street and Seventh Street.
The market will sell your usual convenience store items — snacks! Candy! Soda! Beer! Lottery tickets!
This is one of the two recently renovated storefronts in this building at No. 106. The northern space will eventually be home to Shinzo Sushi. (Background here.)
Signage alert: UZ Grill House on 1st Avenue
Top photo by Choresh Wald; 2nd pic by William Klayer
Workers yesterday did a signage switcheroo on the SE corner of First Avenue and 11th Street.
The short-lived Hubani space will now be UZ Grill House, offering, per the sign, "Oriential fusion cuisine."
While Hubani was only open for a few months, it garnered a few fans who appreciated its budget-friendly shawarma plates.
We'll see if this corner's newest tenant sticks around longer than its predecessor.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Wednesday's parting shot
Thanks to EVG reader Brian Carroll for the photo.
Splints, Scotch tape, and a very determined sunflower on 1st Avenue
Text by Donald Davis
Photos by Kelley Ryan
Following is an update we never thought would happen regarding sunflower behavior in the fenced yard of a local public elementary school, PS 19.
This year, there were two distinct plantings, one in early March, a foot away from the sidewalk, and the other in late April, adjacent to the building at the corner of 11th Street and First Avenue.
Approximately 16 of the March seeds germinated into seedlings, most of which were lost early due to various environmental and human factors.
In the past, these sidewalk-facing flowers grew eight or nine feet tall. This year was different. Four plants made it, with some assistance, to a foot and a half. They seemed unable to grow further. The leaves were mottled, possibly due to a toxin, perhaps natural or from the street (also, burrowing rats will destroy seedlings and mottle developing leaves).
Eventually, the plants adjacent to the building grew quite tall and bore beautiful flowers, most of which were gone by July or August. If you walked by there, you may have noticed these very large sunflower stalks lying on the ground with healthy flowers attached.
They had grown too close to the building and were unable to maintain themselves upright. In the background of one of our pictures, you can see the remnants of a skinny one still erect against the side of the school, bearing a scrap of dead flower.
Sometime in May, the stunted sidewalk plants also encountered a trauma issue, perhaps human-induced. Two of them snapped mid-stalk at 90-degree angles. We used a method of repair we have perfected over the years: chopsticks and scotch tape (one piece above and one below the break, and a third right across the wound).
This works if at least 60% of the fibers are still intact. One of the photos shows our splints during this spring repair.
We would periodically check in on the issue, noting that these mottled leaf dwarfs had not grown, certainly not tall enough to bud and flower. The beautiful garden grew around, and the birds in the famous sparrow tree sang out. Our observations tapered around the time school resumed in August.
All that remains of the beautiful sunflower garden on the Seventh Street and First Avenue traffic island is a few buttercups and Black-eyed Susans.
In our own garden at 97 Saint Mark's Place, we are looking forward to winter and have planted hairy vetch, a cold-resistant commercial agricultural cover crop that takes nitrogen from the air and adds it to the soil.
Sunflowers will thrive in this healthier soil in the spring. In the schoolyard, momentousness has taken over. Walking past earlier this month, we discovered that one of our splinted adoptees has decided that life is very beautiful. At some recent point, the plant endeavored not to take stunting for an answer, and to give senescence a real battle.
It has, seemingly out of nowhere, out of season, grown as tall as the people walking past. It has not only opened a bright flower, but also invited the bees back for a final dusting of pollen.
You can see the location of the splinted wound site at the base of its thick stalk. This is a large knot that marks a change in direction of growth (the natural process of plant orientation combined with some missing fibers due to the wound).
What is nearly as incredible comes from humanity.
Last May or so, one of the schoolchildren drew a sign for the garden and placed it at this exact spot on the fence.
By remarkable providence, the sign asks PLEASE DON'T PICK THE FLOWERS. It is the only remaining sign of all the ones the children made.
Wall plaques in museums are often not installed with such precision — this flower museum, this wonder of nature.
Tis the season at Trash & Vaudeville
Photos by Stacie Joy
Trash & Vaudeville has once again dressed up its Seventh Street storefront for Halloween.
The longtime boutique, in the neighborhood since 1975 (move history here), leans into the season — and the staff gets into the spirit too.
Trash & Vaudeville is at 96 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.
The shop has extended its hours for Halloween: noon to 9 p.m., with an 8:30 p.m. close on Friday.
Farewell to NYC Convenience Gifts (and the hot nuts)
The sprawling shop burst onto the scene in May 2024 with a little bit of everything — officially licensed NYC merch, vaping gear, ice cream, luggage … and eventually, hot nuts. Basically, a souvenir shop that looked like it missed a turn and ended up some 30 blocks south of Port Authority.
And for the record: despite persistent neighborhood lore, those mannequins in the window were not the inspiration for the kids in "Weapons."
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Search & Destroy is still Search & Destroy on St. Mark's Place; plus, free babies
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
We've fielded a few questions about Search & Destroy, the punk-vintage emporium that opened in 1992 at 25 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.
Yuji Umeki, owner of Search & Destroy and Kenka on the lower level, passed away last month.
The arrival of a new sidewalk sandwich board reading "Chaotic Vintage Clothing Store" prompted some readers to ask if the place has a new name (or new owner).
An S&D employee says the sign is meant to describe what potential shoppers can find inside.
Also, once inside the front door, help yourself to a free baby...
About the cardboard graveyard outside Tompkins Square Park
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
On Sunday afternoon, East Village–based artist Jackie and her friend Disco Vandenberg set up a small cemetery of cardboard tombstones outside the Avenue A and Ninth Street entrance to Tompkins Square Park.
The markers memorialized some of the neighborhood's late, great businesses and organizations, including The Kiev, Odessa, Gem Spa and the Sunshine Cinema, among many others.
This wasn't just a seasonal installation. Jackie told us it's part of a budding effort to bring neighbors together and reckon with what's been lost — and what's worth protecting.
The tombstone-making session with friends and neighbors was only the group's second meeting.
The next gathering is slated for Saturday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m. back in Tompkins Square Park, billed as a lesson in "how to be a non-gentrifying East Villager" — or, as they put it, an "ethical transplant class."
The working title for the collective: East Village People's Town.
The group previously posted these "Will this city die?" posters around the neighborhood.
'Ginger Twinsies' ends its run at the Orpheum Theatre
Photo by Steven
Crews yesterday began removing equipment from the Orpheum Theatre at 126 Second Ave., between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place... this after the completion of the nearly four-month run of the "Parent Trap" parody "Ginger Twinsies" over the weekend.
This was the first of the last four productions here to make it through its scheduled time, as "The Jonathan Larson Project," "The Empire Strips Back" and "The Big Gay Jamboree" experienced sluggish sales.
No word yet on the next production. (And will we see another "Stomp" at 29 years?)
And some history of the space, though this is from a different source ("Tinkle Tankle"?):
The Orpheum began its artistic life at the turn of the twentieth-century, as a beer garden and music hall catering primarily to Eastern European immigrants; it’s raucous environment led to it being lovingly dubbed "Tinkle Tankle" by its patrons, a moniker lovingly adopted as well in a rave Times review that popularized the venue.By 1913, the Orpheum was a dedicated movie house, and it changed hands many times and went through numerous renovations(including spending a period as a Yiddish theater during the "Jewish Rialto" era of Second Avenue) until opening as a venue for straight plays and musicals in 1958.
Monday, October 27, 2025
Monday's parting shot
Workers were seen turning over the dirt and removing small samples, though it wasn't immediately clear what kind of intervention was underway.
We'll keep an eye on this tree pit to see what, if anything, may sprout from today's efforts.
Attempts to revitalize the space — including a spring planting rescue mission in March 2024 — have, unfortunately, not taken root.
Spider-Man takes a wall on Avenue A
The work is by French artist Cyril Valade, who has a new show at Krause Gallery, 149 Orchard St. between Stanton and Rivington.
Here is a nighttime view (via Stacie Joy)...
The wall here is curated by the Lisa Project.
A look at the new housing for Barrier Free Living on 2nd Street
Barrier Free Living works with survivors of domestic violence with disabilities. The new complex will include 74 affordable and supportive apartments for homeless adults in need of services and for seniors transitioning out of nursing homes.
Per the architects behind the project (JCJ Architecture): "Seeking to change the perception and mindset of what a supportive living facility ought to look and feel like, the design reaches beyond the typical typology associated with 'shelters' by redefining the aesthetics."
Gov. Hochul's office funded $6.9 million for the project in July 2022. Funding for related services and rent support will come from the Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative.
Foundation work for the 65,000-square-foot facility started on the site in the summer of 2023.
Workers demolished BFL's previous structure — a four-story timber-frame former schoolhouse — here in 2020.
The building is anticipated to open later this year.
H/T EVG reader Patty Rat!
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