Last week here. A trend?
Friday, April 6, 2012
Billy's Bowery Boys refuse to let Billy's Antiques die
Billy's Antiques may be dead for now on East Houston near the Bowery, but... the sales live on...
[Right to left] Toothless Pete, Sugar Bear and Trinny-Trinidad
Earlier via Bobby Williams...
[Right to left] Toothless Pete, Sugar Bear and Trinny-Trinidad
Earlier via Bobby Williams...
Jesus walks in the Second Avenue bike lane
Good Friday celebration this afternoon on Second Avenue near East Fifth Street... photos by peter radley....
[Updated] Something rammed this tree along Tompkins Square Park
Doesn't look like an accident...
Updated 2:11 p.m.
A photo from EV Grieve reader Steven shows more damage to the tree... the work of a truck, perhaps...
[Updated] EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition
Hear the "new" Joey Ramone single (Spinner)
The end of the city's rent regulation laws? (The Villager)
Proposed development for empty Rivington Street lots (BoweryBoogie)
At the East of Bowery reading at Sidewalk (Tripping With Marty)
A new era for Orchard Street shopping? (The Lo-Down)
The $14,000 penthouse at Blue on Norfolk (Curbed)
Here comes "MePa Creep" (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)
5 years without Chumley's (Off the Grid)
The West Side Piers of the early 1980s (Gothamist)
An Alamo Drafthouse Cinema slated for the UWS (Eater)
Ruby's renovations under way on the Coney Island boardwalk (Brooklyn Paper)
DeNiro-less, Scorsese-less "Raging Bull 2" is really happening (IndieWire)
...and as you probably read this week, One World Trade Center has reached 100 floors... the view from the East Village...
And from EV Grieve reader Mike ...a little life at the old Life Cafe space this afternoon....
All is still quiet at Schwimmer Manor
Work appears to still be suspended at David Schwimmer's new home at 331 E. Sixth St. following Tuesday afternoon's debris mishap. The city issued a full Stop Work Order. We didn't spot any workers as usual this morning.
A Good Friday look at Mary Help of Christians
Mary Help of Christians on East 12th Street near Avenue A opened in 1917... and the ornate Roman Catholic church closed in 2007, as the Times reported. It was part of a realignment by the Archdiocese of New York.
Rumors of development here have been swirling since 2008, when The Real Deal reported that two-thirds of the playground space along Avenue A had been sold in an all-cash deal for $10.4 million.
Some four years later, the Church and adjacent school are still standing. But for how long? We heard from a longtime parishioner back in November, who said: "There are rumors that the church and school property are being sold by the Spring ... I'm afraid that NYU is buying it and going to build dorms." (Reps from NYU and the Archdiocese didn't respond to emails requesting comment.)
There is still a Spanish-language mass at the church every Sunday morning at 11:30. (The sign also mentions an English-language mass, but a church volunteer told me that they did away with that about 16 months ago.)
I went to mass there a few months back. There were perhaps 50 people there, an equal mix of older parishioners and young families with toddlers.
Last week, Off the Grid interviewed Janet Bonica, a parishioner who was born and raised in the East Village.
Here was her reaction to the church closing in 2007:
Our very foundation was pulled out from under us. We were always told that being a Catholic was more than just going to Sunday Mass; it was being a part of a parish community. We had a vibrant, active community, and it was taken away from us.
If Mary Help of Christians Church is demolished, I don’t think I will ever be able to go past that property again.
There are no words to describe the loss I feel. It is as deep as losing a beloved family member and, tied to the loss of the church, is the loss of our beloved Salesians of St. John Bosco. I cannot help but feel that we lost our church because it is sitting on a valuable parcel of real estate.
Indeed. Just look at the aerial view (via Off the Grid)... think what a developer could/would do with this prime real estate... the church, adjacent school and rectory, and playground where vendors set up for the weekend flea markets... (the three buildings on the southeast corner of 12th Street and Avenue A aren't owned by the Archdiocese...)
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and other community groups submitted a request to the Landmarks Preservation Commission asking them to landmark the church. The LPC denied the request. (Read about that here.) Janet Bonica said that she has written to Mayor Bloomberg and Cardinal Egan to no avail. She said they have even written the Vatican. As she told Off the Grid, "Obviously nothing helped."
The church in 1920 via the NYPL Digital Gallery ...
The makeshift shelter outside East Village Farms
If you've walked by the former East Village Farms on Avenue A between Seventh Street and Sixth Street early in the morning recently, then you've that seen the space is serving as a makeshift shelter of sorts...
The landlord is still waiting for the city to approve plans to renovate the space and add a rooftop residence.
Photos by Dave on 7th
The landlord is still waiting for the city to approve plans to renovate the space and add a rooftop residence.
Photos by Dave on 7th
Starbucks vs. the Bean
This is from our friends at Neighborhoodr... A quick headcount Wednesday evening:
1 customer inside Starbucks, First Avenue and Third Street
28 customers inside The Bean, Second Avenue and Third Street
Reminders: Tompkins Square Greenmarket is tomorrow
Not Sunday this weekend... so that people can be at home with their families, waiting for the premiere of Lifetime's "Client List" starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Also, because of Easter.
This is what the southeast corner of East Third Street and Avenue C looked like on March 28, 2012
This year, we'll post photos like this of various buildings, streetscenes, etc., to capture them as they looked at this time and place... The photos may not be the most telling now, but they likely will be one day...
Hunts that involve Easter eggs and not pub crawls this weekend
Saturday at St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery...
[Bobby Williams]
Sunday at La Plaza Cultural...
Please let us know about any other Easter-related hunts that involve eggs...
Sunday at La Plaza Cultural...
Please let us know about any other Easter-related hunts that involve eggs...
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Tanning season has started in Tompkins Square Park
And now, the East Village via Google's augmented-reality glasses
Our friends at Wheeeeeeee! shared the video below... Nick Bilton at the Times has been writing about Google's sorta-secret augmented-reality glasses — Project Glass. Yesterday, Google shared its first venture into wearable computing in this video that shows the potential uses of the glasses... and the East Village has a starring role...
Please discuss.
Meanwhile, will someone please check on Jeremiah Moss?
Please discuss.
Meanwhile, will someone please check on Jeremiah Moss?
From illegal hostel to residential at 27 E. Seventh St.
Back in April 2010, the city shuttered The Village Inn, the hostel that had been operating at 27 E. Seventh St. near Cooper Square.
[April 2010]The city said that there were illegal hotel rooms in the residential building. The Inn's owners said differently.
In any event, in August 2010, the building hit the market for $6.85 million. Per the listing, "There are many possibilities for this structurally sound and restored building ... [it] would be perfect to house a non-profit organization, but could also be converted to floor-through condos, a rental building or a spacious single-family home."
The other day, we noticed the arrival of a sidewalk shed out front (photo at top) ... and via the DOB, we learned that there are plans on file for an "interior gut rehab" with a change in use from a commercial facility to residential.
The city disapproved the first plans on Feb. 22. Yesterday, the city issued permits for workers to remove plumbing fixtures and "interior non-fire proof structure."
We're not sure of the condition of the building. However, here are two interior shots from the August 2010 sales listing... Before becoming The Village Inn, the building served as a rectory for the pastor and priests of the Order of Saint Basil the Great ...
...and the view from the roof...
The address apparently started life as a hostel back in February 2008, as Down By the Hipster noted. As of March 2011, the building was going for $5.9 million, and then Douglas Elliman removed the listing, according to Streeteasy.
Per DOB documents, developer Jay Wartski remains the building's owner. The Observer has described Wartski as an "accused slumlord and shady hotel mogul."
Previously on EV Grieve:
The Village Inn hostel on Seventh Street closed by city
East of Bowery tonight at Sidewalk
In 2008, writer Drew Hubner and photographer Ted Barron joined together to create East of Bowery, a collection of short stories capturing unvarnished moments from the neighborhood circa the 1980s.
In December, Sensitive Skin published a book version of the collaboration.
Tonight at Sidewalk, Barron and Hubner will present a multimedia version of East of Bowery featuring live music from Kurt (Pussy Galore, Boss Hog, Lapis Lazuli) Wolf. The show starts at 6:30. (No cover charge, but buy a drink or some food or something.) And if you can't make it tonight, they'll be doing it again on April 18 at the Cake Shop on Ludlow.
Here's an excerpt from Hubner's Next Stop Times Square post:
My last morning was like any other. I awakened with my mouth open, in the snow, with no shelter to speak of. Some of us called the empty lots behind the old matzo shop, at the corner of Norfolk and Rivington, the toxic waste dump. One never knew what or who might end up there, shiny needles, wine and other more intimate fluids were exchanged freely, we kept each other warm with song, spit and stories, of better, longer days and places where the sun filtered soft and lovely through fluttering leaves and left Indian paint patterns on our innocent faces.
Maybe there were fifty or so of us in the lot that night, none of our mothers when they walked us to kindergarten that first day and left us in the parking lot imagined their lovely child would ever end up in a place like this, even for one night. Everyone knows vacant lots are haunted by the men who once came home here where the walk was and hugged their pealing children tightly to their chests. It was almost an entire block, big enough for a baseball field. Some of us had fashioned temporary bivouac structures out of discards: cardboard boxes, found pieces of wood and orphaned plastic tarp.
------
Read an interview with Baron and Hubner at No Such Thing As Was.
Find East of Bowery here.
(Semi) Daily Pixel is Baron's photo site.
Find more information about the book at Sensitive Skin.
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