![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhziR7XwS-B3HXiHSlBXvokcgB5c2hVzML1JB7D8K1fzbCio_VOesM1afvdQP2sSkw3Slm7-FkmmIqTnooW-Xi53lAYx53cPoYgvpwIi7d6ba35Uj2bVr4lErHHYSnCuPFtW_ZXRDI-G9hz/s540/bed.jpg)
EVG reader John notes a free hideaway bed/couch combo on East Eighth Street at Avenue B… but there are some stipulations…
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHjF-lXoU1waIpkjFtXEcNkHpe6sTUp11KevCJIm7cu78YXQbHgIu4kysesFYuFwRpzDCowi_5FYsWu0hb29o5gdGK889ZXLN5Ttp_GGzQ7sVMpckNVxH0Y7hHhtZN3DlcnvM_8eaKyRl/s540/bed1.jpg)
BEGIN at Wash Square Park then march north on 5th Ave.
Head west on 14th St. to 6th Ave.,
Turn north on 6th to 32nd St.,
Turn east on 32nd to Broadway,
Head south on Broadway until Worth/Lafayette St. turns,
END at 1PP - NYPD Headquarters
Composer Phil Kline will lead a massive chorus of boomboxes from the West Village to the East Village in the 23rd annual holiday presentation of UNSILENT NIGHT. People gather at the arch in Washington Square Park, and less than an hour and mile later, end up in Tompkins Square Park.
Phil Kline will hand out a limited number of vintage boomboxes from his collection — and cassettes and CD’s for those who bring their own. The public is strongly encouraged to bring their own boom boxes ... and to pre-download the track. Find out more about how to participate and download the tracks here.
Music from Mandel & Lydon Trio
Carolers of Olde New York from Theatre for the New City
Refreshments from Veselka Restaurant
Additional Support from East Village Books, Vazacs/7B, Saifee Hardware, Apple Savings Bank
HOSTED BY:
East Village Parks Conservancy
Third Street Music School Settlement
Tompkins Square Park Neighborhood Coalition
New York City Bike Share (NYCBS), the operator of the Citi Bike program, failed to both adequately inspect Citi Bike equipment and ensure stations were fully functional according to an audit of NYCBS’s compliance with its contract with the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) released today by New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer.
“New York City Bike Share’s management of Citi Bike left too many New Yorkers in the lurch,” Comptroller Stringer said. “While Citi Bike has become part of our urban landscape, auditors found that the bike sharing program’s spotty maintenance, poorly cleaned bikes and substandard docking stations inconvenienced riders and discouraged growth in the system. Moving forward, I hope that these findings will provide a road map for ways to improve safety and performance for this critical component of our transportation network.”
The Comptroller’s audit examined maintenance of Citi Bike equipment by NYCBS during the period of May 2013 through May 2014. The Citi Bike program has a fleet of approximately 6,000 bikes and 330 stations throughout the City. Bikeshare Holdings LLC recently announced an agreement to purchase Alta Bicycle Share — the parent company of NYCBS. With a promised infusion of additional capital, Bikeshare Holdings has announced plans to improve maintenance and double the size and geographic reach of the Citi Bike system by 2017.
According to NYCBS’s own maintenance data, 28 percent of bikes system-wide were inspected in November 2013, 34 percent in December 2013 and 38 percent in January 2014, despite contract requirements that 100 percent of bikes undergo a complete maintenance check at least once per month. NYCBS cited the layoff of 16 on-street bike checkers during the winter months as a reason behind the decline in maintenance checks.
By March 2014, following the re-hiring of inspectors, inspections rose to 54 percent of the fleet and to 73 percent by April. However, a sample of the maintenance records of 25 bikes from July 2013 through December 2013 found that NYCBS completed only 60 percent (84 of 141) of required monthly maintenance checks.
Introducing The East Luxe - Brand New Boutique Elevator Building In Prime East Village
Condo-quality apartment features include: Each apartment is gut-renovated w/ central air. Open kitchen features black marble counter tops & stainless steel appliances w/ dishwasher. Washer/Dryer in every unit. Solid white oak flooring throughout. High ceilings. Video intercom.
Building features, Elevator and landscaped roofdeck. Pets allowed.
The Bowery Mission is pleased to announce the L.E.S. Art Drive, the first annual fundraising initiative for The Bowery Mission supported by its neighbors in the Lower East Side visual arts community.
This one-day silent auction will be hosted at the New Museum’s ground-floor space at 231 Bowery, next to The Bowery Mission, on Sunday from 1-6 pm. The event will raise funds essential to help the Mission continue their efforts to provide meals, shelter, clothing and services to New Yorkers in need. The Bowery Mission has been serving New York’s homeless and hungry for over 135 years.
Due to the planned protests on Saturday, Santacon is scaling back this weekend's festivities in order to create the lowest possible impact on the city we love while still maintaining our glorious traditions this holiday season.
Santacon has respect and compassion for the hard-working municipal organizations of NYC, as well as for the important civil rights demonstrations currently shaping our city’s future. Thus, we are changing the format of this year’s Santacon.
This evening, all participating Santacon bars and venues will be announced on nycsantacon.com. Their halls will be decked, and they’ll be ready and waiting for Santa to come down their chimneys. PLEASE PATRONIZE THESE VENUES ONLY. If a venue isn’t on this list, it’s because they don’t want you there. Please move around throughout the day from venue to venue but spend most of your time inside, not on the streets.
Finally, it’s more important this year than ever to pace yourself, watch out for your elves, and stay safe. Fighting, public urination, and vandalism are unacceptable and a great way to ensure that there will be no Santacon in 2015. #DontScroogeSantacon
Come celebrate with the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space at our two-year Birthday Bash, which will take place at the museum's storefront location in the legendary C-Squat. If you haven't visited the museum or attended any of our community events yet, now is a great time to come check out the space and join us for our two-year anniversary party!
Featuring a slideshow and presentation by Fly, performance by Seth Tobocman, DJ and dancing, and cake!
Sliding scale: $10.
All proceeds from the event help support MoRUS 2015 programming.
Though home prices are no longer cheap, the East Village still offers a slim advantage in terms of value over other Manhattan neighborhoods… The average price per square foot of a condo in Manhattan this year through Nov. 30 is $1,643; in the East Village, it is $1,562, which is about 16.5 percent higher than 2013. There are only about 33 condos on the market…
[Bond New York broker] Wagner said he does not notice much difference between average condo prices in the East Village and those in Chelsea or the West Village. Studios typically run around $485,000; one-bedrooms about $900,000; and two-bedrooms about $1.5 million, with outliers in both directions. Co-ops typically cost about 20 percent less than condos, he said.
MAN ALL HANDS 542 E 14 ST, MULTIPLE DWELLING FIRE ON 3RD FLR,
— FDNY (@FDNY) December 10, 2014
MAN ALL HANDS 542 E 14 ST, MULTIPLE DWELLING FIRE ON 3RD FLR, UNDER CONTROL
— FDNY (@FDNY) December 10, 2014
MAN ALL HANDS 31 E 1 ST, MULTIPLE DWELLING FIRE IN THE BASEMENT,
— FDNY (@FDNY) December 10, 2014
"She was bigger than life and too young to die," said her grieving father, Richard, who visited the apartment Wednesday afternoon.
Investigators say the fire was accidental, caused by a power strip plugged in with many appliances.
By James Maher
Name: Arthur Nersesian
Occupation: Writer
Location: St. Mark's Bookshop, 136 E Third St. between Avenue A and First Avenue
Time: Wednesday, Nov. 19
Picking up with the last paragraph from Part 1
I always wrote. It took time to learn how to do it. Writing is a wonderful calling but it’s a bad profession. I always equate it to being a heroin addict without getting high. You spend your whole life struggling to do this thing, to set time aside so you can write. You beg, borrow and steal to be able to create the time to do all this work. And I’m regarded as this relative success. My 11th book came out and I’m still doing odd jobs. It’s a hell of a profession.
My earlier books, a lot of them were set in the East Village of the early 1980s and 1990s. A lot of them dealt with artists living in the city, finding love, and supporting themselves and doing their art in different varieties and different tones. "Chinese Takeout" is about a painter who is living out of a van, "Unlubricated" is about an actress trying to get a start in acting and film, and "dogrun" is about a woman writer who does a collection of short stories.
Each of them have their own little stories and dramas. I initially wanted to do them as a trilogy that were interconnected, but I couldn’t find an editor who would publish it, so I ended up doing three separate books. I had met so many artists over the years back then and thought that this was a fertile ground for some wonderful work. All of them were kind of a Frankensteinization of my life and people who I knew.
I wrote "The Fuck Up" in 1988 and I finally got an agent to accept it after sending it to 50 or 60 agents. He sent it to all the major publishers and by 1989 or 1990 he threw it back in my lap and said, "Can’t sell it, I’m sorry." Then I just figured, fuck it, I’ll publish it myself, I’ll never write a book again, this will be my tombstone, but I put years of work into it.
I self-published and went to the St. Mark's Bookshop, and they kindly gave it a nice display in the front and I thought that would be the end of that. Then I went by there a few weeks later and they sold out and said, "You got any more of these?" I was like, "I don’t know that many people, who was buying them?" So I gave them more and it kept selling and it sold through the printing and then I reprinted it. It took about 10 years before I got a letter from a small press and then it went from there to a large press and it just kept selling and selling. I think now it has sold 120,000 copies. But I really had no hopes.
The bookstore is an integral part of the neighborhood. They’ve taken up their cause because to me it represents literature in the neighborhood. It's a great old store and it has a wonderful tradition. Everyone in the neighborhood used to go to one of the old businesses. I remember when the bookshop was kind of the outpost of civility in the East Village. This was a frontier and you did not come this far south or east for anything and there was this neat little bookstore that had this great selection and they would be packed until closing. There was no Internet. They were the Internet. You'd find everybody there
I have had one book that sold to film, "dogrun." We ended up selling the film rights, which after a mishap with the taxes I ended up getting less than my agent. That was in spring of 2003 and it had a 10-year aversion clause, so by the spring of 2013 I thought that there were no longer any rights out there.
So last year about this time, I was leaving a book party and I got a message from EV Grieve on my Facebook page, and it said, "Congratulations, your film's being made!" And I wrote back, "I’m sorry, I don’t have a film being made." EV Grieve said something like, "Go into Tompkins Square Park and take a look."
So I go into the Park and there’s a film set in the dog run and I see Heather Graham and Gina Gershon. The PA stops me and says, "I'm sorry we're shooting a film here you can't come in." So I said, "Can I ask what's the name of the film you’re shooting?" And they said, "My Dead Boyfriend, it's based on a novel by Arthur Nersesian called dogrun." And I said, "Oh shit, I’m Arthur Nersesian, can I speak to somebody because I think that the rights have lapsed?" It turns out that they had some kind of extended clause and there was a very limited time where they were still allowed to film the thing. It’s still in editing or I don’t know where it is.
It was funny because I spoke to the director, Anthony Edwards who was in "ER" and he was flabbergasted. He was very gracious and said I could be a background extra on one of the scenes. They were shooting a Wigstock scene. I used to go to Wigstock and so I go and there are all these people in the scene and Lady Bunny is on the stage. She was the big MC. So I suddenly realize, Tompkins Square Park was loaded with addicts and stuff. It still is, so I’m going to pretend to be nodding off. I started keeling over and nodding off throughout the takes and the other extras started coming over to me, saying, "Are you OK? Do you have epilepsy?" "No no I’m a heroin junkie." They didn’t know what it was. For like three hours I had to nod off, but none of them knew what I was doing.
My new novel is "Gladyss of the Hunt." It’s a crime novel but I try to use a serial murderer as a metaphor for land development in Manhattan. I remember back in the 1970s thinking, "God if only the city was just a little more upscale." Be careful of what you wish for because once you get that toothpaste out of the tube there’s no putting it back.
I worry that, in time, the East Village as well as New York City is going to get this representation as this sort of sterile corporate platform.
It’s a tricky line to walk because it’s so easy to romanticize the good and forget the bad. You have to keep perspective and remember that it wasn’t 100 percent. I think it was better on the whole for artistic and creative types because it was affordable. Half my life you didn’t want to be in the city and it was terrifying and cheap but dirty and dangerous, and the other half of my life I can’t afford the city and I feel kind of marginalized, pushed out and intimidated by it. There was this brief time in the middle where it was just right.
The City of New York recently fined Ray's $200 for not having an adequate ingredients label on a packaged doughnut. Ray has now discontinued this line of packaged doughnuts but still carries a few croissants that do possess the correct labeling.
Good to know that the city is on top of this sort of thing.
With the seasonal backlash against SantaCon in full swing, organizers of the infamous pub crawl have retained famous civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel to represent them.
I’ve brought the map to a point where I feel it needs to be printed. But doing a professional print run is absurdly expensive. I am asking for donations from the community to support The Tompkins Trees Project. I am hoping to get enough support to be able to finance a large enough print run to make future printed maps affordable to the public.