EV Grieve

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Restoration update at St. Brigid's (with new photos)

Here's the latest message from Edwin Torres, chairman of the Committee to Save St. Brigid's:

"The restoration continues. The south and north walls have been reinforced. They are currently working on the center support."

Torres also posted new photos from inside the church on Avenue B at Eighth Street...

Looks rather heavenly...

What neighbor of Katz's has a new $250,000 roofdeck with private hot tub?

This press release came over the transom yesterday...

New York City-based Town and Gardens, Ltd. and green wall manufacturer greenscreen® collaborated to transform two city rooftops into inviting spaces with great views and green benefits. The uniquely designed East Village Penthouse Terrace and Museum Towers Terrace, located in Manhattan, feature greenscreen® green walls to provide privacy in the form of aesthetically appealing vertical gardens. Town and Gardens contributed to both the design and build of each project.

The East Village Penthouse Terrace, located across from the well-known NYC eatery Katz’s Delicatessen, consists of roughly 3,000 square feet. The $250,000 project, which began in 2008, was designed to feature a play area for kids, space for entertaining and a large hot tub. The rooftop is part of a private residence that had recently been completely renovated on the interior.

Lead designer Eric Greenblott of Town and Gardens worked with the facility owner to develop the owner’s vision for the building’s terrace. The goal was to create a clean look with various levels. Town and Gardens helped to design and install a sunken play area covered in rubber mats as well as a private space for the rooftop hot tub. Because of the hot tub’s location, privacy was a main concern.

“The client wanted something different than traditional parapet walls to surround the terrace,” Greenblott explains. “Town and Gardens was familiar with greenscreen® and suggested using greenscreen® green walls and clips to attach the wire trellising structures to the parapet walls.”

The vertical gardens created by greenscreen® feature a mixture of vines and grasses that, according to Greenblott, only require maintenance twice a month. The green walls increase privacy and camouflage graffiti on the surrounding buildings. Additionally, the installation creates a lush backdrop for the enclosed hot tub while the natural city skyline and Empire State Building serve as the background for the rest of the East Village Penthouse Terrace.

What, exactly, is the East Village Penthouse Terrace? And where is it? Plenty of clues in the press release... and I did a search on Google, but the aerial view is old...

(And why is the listing for Max Fish in the middle of Houston?)

Speaking of rooftops: 'Own a piece of history in this boutique condo Penthouse of the historic Kiehl's Building'

I've always been intrigued by the cabin-looking home atop the Kiehls's building on 13th Street and Third Avenue. Here are two photos from a post that Scouting NY did on the house earlier this year...I read somehwere that one of the Coen Brothers used to live here...

Anyway, I came across a listing for 203 E. 13th St. #PH4B. Apparently this one has been on the market for some time. This PH doesn't include the cabin, though you at least have use of part of that rooftoop space...

According to that listing:

Own a very unique penthouse apartment in the Historical Kiehl's Building built in 1851. This astonishing loft like large one bedroom is in pristine condition with soaring 11 ft ceilings and is flooded with sun. This stunning apartment has original exposed brick & enormous brick arched windows all facing south. It comes equipped with a washer/dryer, built in security system and a beautifully renovated kitchen and bath. The spiral staircase leads to your own very private roof garden oasis of over 400 sq ft! Pets are welcome. Come and see for yourself. Own a piece of history in this boutique condo Penthouse of the historic Kiehl's Building now called Pear Tree Place named after the pear tree that once grew just beyond the front door.

This space can be yours for $1.265 million (715 square feet). But that price doesn't include the hellacious views that you'll have of the mystery lot next door!

The Wacky Wok opens on Avenue D

The Wacky Wok opened on Avenue D and Ninth Street last week. According to their menu, "Healthy food is our priority: using healthy oils, house-made sauce without preservatives, organically grown ingredients, wild fish, free-range meats and poultry whenever possible." (Their emphasis.) Their motto: "Discovering Asia through the flavors."

WW has a tofu Caesar salad ($5.50), a wacky burger with Korean BBQ sauce ($6) and Asian banana split ($4), among many other things...

Noted

Via TwitPic with this message:

"Oy, the pantsless look has reached the East Village."

A meaty role

"Law & Order Criminal Intent" is casting for an upcoming episode about the underground goth scene. Among the roles being filled:

[BLOOD WHORE] 30s. Male. Found in the shadows of a park in the East Village after dark peddling blood. He’s the man in charge of this seedy operation. When the detectives meet him on his turf to ask some questions, he is nonchalant and seems to enjoy messing with them. (1 scene)

Feel free to submit your jokes about real-estate agents and developers...

Monday, December 7, 2009

Newcomers to the Lower East Side have 'amnesia of some sort — a self-entitlement'

At the City Room this morning, Sarah Maslin Nir has a recap from last week's panel discussion titled "The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited."

The panelists were:
Joyce Mendelsohn, author
Annie Polland, the Tenement Museum
Clayton Patterson, photojournalist and author
Eric Ferrara, the Lower East Side History Project

A few passages from the article:

The influx of luxury buildings and the moneyed residents who can afford them, panelists like Mr. Patterson seemed to say, erase the color and vibrancy of the area, even as they shoo away perceived blight like the suppliers of drug baggies. But if the roof is made of glass and steel and is designed by a celebrity architect, are the stories underneath less “real life”?

The problem, Mr. Ferrara said, is that newcomers to the Lower East Side have “amnesia of some sort — a self-entitlement. Somebody’s paying $3,500 to live in the same two or three rooms where somebody’s grandmother used to sit in the window crying, ‘How am I going to pay my rent?’ ” If they were aware of the history behind sky-high real estate, he said, the pricing out would be “a little easier to bear.”

Yet the very history being rubbed out by developers and yuppies is, paradoxically, what draws them to the area, Ms. Polland said, citing, for example, the Hotel on Rivington’s founding concept: “The area has arrived, but retains it’s colorful, urban diversity,” says literature on the hotel’s Web site. It “caters to the upper class,” she said. “It’s staking its image on the identity of a neighborhood that in order to have that diversity,” officials “would need to be thinking about affordable housing.”

Image via Museum of the City of New York

A Building residents forced to use the service entrance

The lobby of the infamous A Building on 13th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue is finally getting that much needed makeover...

Oh, wait, the building with the rooftop pool and cabanas and hard-partying flip-cup crowd is less than two years old. Hmm. Maybe those Pietra Bedonia stone walls in the lobby needed some buffing?

Oh, and the $2.3 million penthouse is still on the market...there was an open house yesterday on the unit being being flipped for some $300,000 over the original value...

Looking at the "OMG! Car Hit and Flipped By Wrecking-Ball in NYC!" video

In case you haven't seen this viral YouTube thing yet...

According to the description:

Dodge minivan that entered a closed construction zone in Manhattan was accidentally hit and flipped over by the wrecking ball as onlookers watch in horror and ran for cover. Driver escaped with minor injuries.

Mashable discusses the video's authenticity.

Live music returning to the Continental (for at least one night)

And check out the lineup at the Rock 'n Roll reunion on Jan. 17...

Third Avenue near St. Mark's Place. I actually haven't been here since they renovated the space and did away with live music several years ago. As Trigger, the owner, said at the time: "When he first opened the club 15 years ago, the East Village was still the East Village. Now I’m surrounded by McDonald’s and Starbucks and K-Mart and I’m paying that level rent..."

The bacon is back: Permanent Brunch reopens

I just can't type "Permanent Brunch" without shuddering... So how about Permanent Bacon?

Anyway! After PB's seizure last week, the eatery reopened on Saturday...

...at which time EV Grieve reader Creature snapped the following shot...

Still no sign of Burgers, though. Meanwhile, our plans for Permanent Press are on hold...

Pizza place replaces pizza place: No. 28 offshoot coming to Second Avenue

A Numero 28 is coming into the former Singas Famous Pizza space on Second Avenue near 11th Street. Brick oven pizza from Naples, which is supposed to be a replica of the original -- No. 28 on Carmine Street. (Another offshoot, Numero 28 Pizzeria Romana, opened on Spring Street in October.)

Previously on EV Grieve:
Another East Village pizza parlor closes

Cooper Union giving away a couch

Getting more neighborly by the day! What's next? When will they get their own community garden?

And the couch is leftover from Performa 09.

Previously on EV Grieve:
New Cooper Union building gets its first (temporary) storefront tenant

Spot aiming for the middle school set on St. Mark's Place?

Spot, the new dessert bar in the former Iron Fairies space on St. Mark's Place, has unveiled this really subtle sign...

Indian restaurant replaces Indian restaurant on Second Avenue

At the former Madras Cafe space near Fourth Street.

Important news about models who may be moving in near you

According to BlockShopper, Serbian-born model Natasa Vojnovic bought a one-bedroom, two-bath condo at 115 Fourth Ave. for $995,000 in the eight-story Petersfield condominiums near 12th Street. She has worked for Chanel, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent ... and Lenny Kravitz, appearing in the laughable "Where Are We Runnin?" video.

And according to her SuperModel page, she was born in 2005.

Tkettle loses the BBQ Chicken on St. Mark's Place

The Korean-based BBQ Chicken chain at 26 St. Mark's Place that shares space with TKettle....

is now becoming just a TKettle space, and peddling bubble tea and other things...

The BBQ/TKettle place was shuttered by the DOH back in August. Anyway, I don't know a thing about bubble tea, but several people swear by ThirsTea on 10th Street near Avenue A, which opened last summer. There has even been a Courtney Love sighting there, I've been told, which may or may not be a good thing...