Happy holidays, featuring Giuseppi Logan

You probably know all about Giuseppi Logan, though if not... here's more on him via WFMU. WFMU also posted this incredible video of Giuseppi and his son from Tompkins Square Park circa 1966 ...

Unsilence is golden

Many thanks to Bobby Williams for sending along some photos from Tompkins Square Park from Phil Kline's "Unsilent Night" this evening....

Fire on Second Avenue

...near Sixth Street...



Photo via @isaidgoshdamn. Anyone have any information on what happened here?

Monk Thrift Shop is closing — but, it remains open for now

On Monday we noted that the Monk Thrift Shop on Avenue C at 11th Street had closed. Well, as a walk by today revealed, the store is closing, but they remain open... with 50 percent off sales...



And what of the Madonna/Jesus pairing... ?

10:11 a.m., East 11th Street, Dec. 18

Holiday tree lighting in Tompkins Square Park tomorrow

The sign gives you all the details... Meanwhile, this will be the last year for the tree lighting. On Jan. 3, workers will tear down the tree to make way for a new, 12-story tree. In three years, the current tree will be offered a space here, though at current market rates.

Uh, sorry. still in a state about this. On a serious note, I won't be around here tomorrow afternoon... so if you have any photos from the tree lighting that you'd like to share... grieve98 at gmail dot com.

Previously on EV Grieve:
On St. Patrick's Day, a Christmas miracle in Tompkins Square Park

Looking at the Nevada Smith's blow-job Santa

Or maybe Glory Hole Santa.

Speaking of Santa, guess what next Saturday is? That's right. Heat vs. the Lakers!

Or would you rather hear ANOTHER holiday song?

O Holy 'Unsilent Night'

The Wall Street Journal writes today about one of the cooler traditions around... Phil Kline's "Unsilent Night," now in its 18th year... happens tomorrow night... Here's the Journal:

The premise is simple: On Saturday at 7 p.m., people of all kinds will gather in Washington Square Park, and everybody with the means to do so will press play on a tape or CD or MP3 of music composed by Mr. Kline for the occasion. Then the whole mass will walk — more than a little majestically— to Tompkins Square Park, where the affair comes to a gentle end 45 minutes later. The music is wordless, made up mostly of what sounds like bells and chimes swirled together into something communal. The effect of it moving down city streets is mesmerizing.

"It's an overwhelming physical experience," said Luc Sante, author of the fabled book of New York lore, "Low Life," and a friend of Mr. Kline's. "Listening to it echo back and forth and ripple through the crowd — it's a collective activity, like being in a choir without singing."

Find all the details at the official site.

Image via.

13th Precinct pays visit to local blogger; deemed safe to society

Back on Nov. 2o, Stuy Town's Lux Living posted a satirical item titled "Tenant to Children: STFU." The post was based on an e-mail in which a resident complained about screaming children playing in Stuy Town early Saturday mornings.

Per the resident: "Parents, nobody likes your kids. THEY ARE ONLY CUTE TO YOU. Keep them indoors, tied up, gagged, drugged, WHATEVER, and stop letting them loose at 8AM on Saturday mornings."

Lux Living illustrated the post with a crying child in a rifle scope's crosshairs. Which didn't go over well with some residents. In total, the post generated 70 comments... Given the controversy over the image, Lux Living changed the illustration to the one pictured above. Meanwhile, a few angry residents were fearful that a real whackjob was living among them.

Enter the police.

I'll let the folks at Lux Living, who shared this with me, pick up the story from here.

Detectives from the 13th Precinct stopped by today to check on my lucidity and be sure there were no guns in my apartment after some tenants complained that I was inciting violence by posting an email sent to me for the "Tenant to Children: STFU!" post. They were really nice and understood the Lux Living post in question was satire but they had a job to do. After a tour of my apartment and some light conversation about my art collection and antique furniture it was clear to them that I am just a writer with a dark sense of humor and not a threat to society.

Yesterday, the Lux Living team felt compelled to write a clarification for the benefit of new readers.

It has come to our attention that some of Stuy Town's new suburban transplants haven't caught on that Lux Living is a satirical website even with such lively content. Unfortunately, when they moved to the city not only did they bring their ill-behaving children and bourgeoisie sensibilities, they also brought their fear mongering.

The downside to this, aside from becoming a terrible bore to those around them, is that they lost the ability to distinguish a perceived threat from over the top, in-poor-taste, Married With Children / John Waters / Always Sunny-esque humor.

And just to spell it out: "There is nobody targeting children, setting neon colored bear traps baited with mint candies and silly bandz, or razor scooter jousting taking place."

The post includes an epic comment from Park Avenue Grinch, who discusses the "the tsunami of suburbanite dullards that are spreading throughout the city like Dutch Elm disease – another suburban blight."

Hanging out at the Christodora House in 1929

Dec. 25 came early for a lot of NYC history buffs and other assorted bloggers... As you probably heard, the Museum of the City of New York has added like 50,000 archival photos to its, uh, archives... Shawn Chittle was the first to pass along the news to me Wednesday...Since then, I'm been ransacking looking through the photos, searchable by borough, era, etc.

So... some of my early favorites are the shots of Avenue B's Christodora House circa February 1929....Not much has changed from the exteriors....





Dunno about the interiors... never been inside ... so, here's the "music auditorium" (Did Iggy play here when he lived at the Christodora?)



the "Christadora medical clinic"



"fireplace in lounge"



My favorite: "Miss Kupkey's bedroom, D-4"



a "general view of the dining room"



And lastly... the fabled Christodora House pool!



The Christodora was built in 1928. Read more history here.

See more of the old-timey NYC photos at Curbed and Eater... and Jeremiah's Vanishing New York...

Photos by Samuel H. Gottscho
All photos from the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York.

PS
Two photos I took last month of the Christodora House that I didn't know what to do with...

The EV Grieve Last-Minute Gift Guide

aka, Random EV-related Gifts that We'd Like to See!






















Sadly (or not!), none of these item are actually available for sale... but we can dream about the possibilities while goofing around at Cafe Press.

As pit bull fear grips the East Village.... free dog park etiquette class tomorrow

From The Villager this week:

On Sat., Dec. 18, at 11 a.m., Drayton Michaels, who specializes in training pit bulls, will give a talk and demonstration at the Tompkins Square dog run on how to handle the dogs. He will discuss dog park etiquette, how to referee dogs in large groups, how to defuse potentially dangerous situations and how to break up dogfights. He will also discuss pit bull traits and “why your dog may be too much for the other dogs.”

“Dogs sometimes get into situations they can’t handle,” said Rosso, who is himself a dog trainer. “There’s little awareness among new dog owners about this. It’s a hot-button issue.”

And leave your weapons at home.

[Photo via]

A balls-out challenge to EV Lambo

Thanks to the EV Grieve reader who captured this oh-so-brief glimpse of a silver Lambo zipppppppping down a Lower East Side street last night ... Through the magic of YouTubing, we were able to preserve this obvs challenge to our EV Lambo....

Channel 7 joins the pit bull media clusterfuck

Our friend Melanie at East Village Corner passes along word (and this photo!) that Channel 7 was on the scene in Tompkins Square Park today to interview dog owners about... dog owners who may carry weapons to protect themselves from pit bulls...



CBS 2 and WPIX 11 have already filed stories on this nonstory last night... Where in the hell is NBC?

And look — a pit bull in a pink sweater!

Feeling Seven-Ups

We've always liked this ride usually parked on 13th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue (photographed here in October 2008)...

We particularly like Bagnostian's take on it via his Tumblr...




Seems like it could have been an extra in The Seven-Ups.