At NatureEs, the Mars Bar replacement that apparently is no longer open

There hasn't been much, if any, daytime activity over at NatureEs, the juice bar/cafe/"wellness center" combo at 21 E. First St. in Jupiter 21, the residential building that rose from the grave of the Mars Bar and several other businesses here between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

Former Mars Bar owner Hank Penza was reportedly a partner in this new venture that included a founder of Juice Press.

The cafe space was seemingly cleaned out about a month ago… the doors are always locked during the announced business hours… for at least a week in late September, there were signs on the door noting a closure for a private event...



An EVG reader noted bouncers and a line outside on several nights in early October (there is an active liquor license for the space)…



Out of curiosity, I stopped by NatureEs twice during its run … once right after it opened this past May. There was a disorganized vibe to the place, though you may expect a little chaos shortly after opening.

NatureEs actually didn't have much for sale in this huge space — six juices … a chia bowl. The (presumably?) manager, who treated me like an undesirable party guest, said they were making smoothies, but they didn't have menus yet. They also had hot soup — a lentil bean concoction, which seemed a little much on this unseasonably warm May afternoon. They had two small to-go dishes. The chia bowl and a broccoli/cauliflower mix. Neither item had the ingredients (nor the price) listed. The vegetables had a sauce, but no one knew what it was. Also, the AC wasn't working.

I returned later in the summer, when NatureEs looked more inviting…



I looked around the well-appointed space … I was the only person there, other than the lone employee…



I looked at some body oils and scented candles… it had the feel of a fake store created for a film set…



Eventually I decided to — in the name of blogalism — fork over $11 for a smoothie … the Starter Wife, featuring avocado, pineapple, spinach, ginger and coconut water, sounded appealing (enough).



The employee said of course, and disappeared into the back room. He returned several minutes later with a sheepish look and the news that he did not have any avocados on-hand to make this smoothie. Maybe come back?

Yesterday, CB3 released its roster of meetings for November, including the SLA committee meeting set for Nov. 16.

Among the items on the agenda under alterations:

• Naturees (Paulmil Cafe Inc), 21 E 1st St (alt/op/convert juice bar to Spanish bistro and add additional bar)

So it appears there are plans to convert the juice bar/spa into a bar-restaurant.

Previously on EV Grieve:
NatureEs calls: About the organic cafe coming to where Mars Bar 2.0 was in the works

A quick look inside NatureEs, the new organic cafe coming to 21 E. 1st St.

Hitchcocktober movie of the week: 'Rear Window'

Tonight at 8, a personal favorite with the Hitchcocktober movie of the week at the Village East Cinema on Second Avenue at East 12th Street... it's "Rear Window"



And thus we conclude another Hitchcocktober. See you next month for NovemBay, featuring the oeuvre of Michael Bay...

An Autumn afternoon

Photo in Tompkins Square Park today by Bobby Williams...

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Robert, who is a little camera shy, with Stellar
Occupation: Hair Stylist
Location: 2nd Street and Avenue A
Time: 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 23

I’m from upstate New York originally. I moved to California after graduating from SUNY Binghamton. I went to beauty school and ended up having my own salon. It was great. I had traveled around California and had friends who were living in Monterey. I spent 15 years there. But I became sick of the friggin’ fog.

I came to the city in 1986. My parents were moving back up from Florida. I spent two weeks with friends from California and partied my ass off. Then an apartment I had fell through at the last minute and friends said, oh but so and so knows this place on St. Mark's and 1st, so I ended up there with a couple of roommates.

At that point, I would come to Avenue A, go to Odessa, go to the Pyramid Club to go dancing and stuff, but you couldn’t go into the Park. It was a real mess. But I enjoyed the part of the neighborhood you could walk in. It was friendly. You could actually talk to people and meet people and stuff. There’s a sense of community. It’s changing. There are all these new buildings that to me don’t seem to fit in.

My career went really great in California. After a few years I got a clientele together and had my own salon. I was busy as hell. Then when I moved here, I found a salon to work in on 7th and 23rd. It was called Eclipse. I started dating the hair colorist. Then the salon closed for back taxes. We were able to get clients files. So we ended up sitting on 23rd Street splitting up the files. It was coming up summer and you know how dead the city gets. We were like how are we really going to survive?

I ended up back in California because that was the place where I knew. Only lasted a year there because [my boyfriend] freaked out. I think he expected Florida. In California, he'd stand on the balcony looking out through the fog and say, They called this place fuckin’ beautiful?

So we moved to Orlando. This was back in the 1990s. There were lots of job openings and, of course, the weather was great. We had a pool in the backyard and a two-bedroom house. But you can’t make any money. After doing hair for 20 years I was getting paid like $7.50 an hour. I stayed for two years and had eight jobs. I worked a couple jobs for Disney — for the Epcot Center.

I ended up coming back here. I moved to an apartment on Avenue A near 14th Street. There was a large thunderstorm once when I wasn’t there. I came back and said something’s wrong downstairs. There was black mold from floor to ceiling and all around. And [management] did their half-assed renovation of it. They just took a cloth and washed it and slapped on some paint. I didn’t think it was healthy to continue living there. I tried to get the landlord to check it out, to do something about it. The building manager wouldn’t so I got a local lab. I took a piece and they tested it and it came back with like four pages. It was Stachybotrys plus seven or eight other molds. My landlord was like, You’re just freaking out. I was like, You’re goddam right I’m freaking out.

So it was time to move. And now I'm in an apartment between C and D. It is a safer place in a lot of ways, but, then again, I would say that I don’t think it’s that safe, especially on Avenue D and especially later at night. I was returning home [over the summer] and walking the dog. I went up the steps and I saw the cops who were walking by me and I said, thank you for being out here and walking the beat, because I feel like Avenue D is going downhill and they turned to me and said, the whole neighborhood is going downhill.

In my building, two people have reported junkies walking in during the afternoon … and finding junkies in the hallway shooting up. As you walk down the stairs, there are stairs that lead into the basement. I walked out awhile ago and there was a junkie on the steps. He turned and looked up at me and carried on.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Check out the new 10-story building for the former 2nd Avenue BP station

The demolition work got underway yesterday (officially anyway) at 24 Second Ave. at East First Street.

As if that's not newsy enough, the city OK'd the plans (per DOB records) on Monday for the new 10-story retail-residential complex that will call this corner home. (Pretty speedy turnaround for the city. Reps for the developer only filed the plans in July.)

Dumbo-based RSVP Studio is the architect of record. While we didn't find any renderings at RSVP, there is a new one on the website for mortgage lender Ladder Capital, who provided a bridge loan for … brace!



Permits show some 45,000 square feet for the 31 residences (rentals? condos?) … and another 5,700 square feet for the commercial space.

As New York Yimby first noted in July when the developers filed the permits, apartments will begin on the second floor, with four to five units per floor through the sixth story. The seventh and eighth floors will host two duplexes, and the ninth and tenth floors will hold one penthouse duplex with a private roof deck. Amenities include a shared terrace and recreation space on the second floor, and a fitness room, storage and bike storage in the cellar.

The BP — which was the second-to-last gas station left in the East Village — closed in July 2014.

Previously on EV Grieve:
RUMOR: Gas station going, boutique hotel coming on Second Avenue? (31 comments)

BP station on 2nd Avenue closes this month

The 2nd Avenue BP station has closed

Report: 50,000 square feet of condos coming to the former 2nd Avenue BP station

Permits filed to demolish former 2nd Avenue BP station

More about the 10-story building taking the place of the former BP station at 24 2nd Ave.

A look inside the last East Village gas station

On 2nd Avenue, Moonstruck Diner is now The Kitchen Sink

So we're told the sign/name switcheroo happened in the middle of last week here on Second Avenue at East Fifth Street ... goodbye Moonstruck Diner, hello The Kitchen Sink...



As we understand it, the ownership is the same... and while the diner standbys (burgers, omelettes, sandwiches, etc.) remain, the menu has been glammed up a bit, which would explain the cringeworthy arrival of Punk Rock Shrimp...



The owners revamped the space back in January ... this was on top of the fall 2014 revamp that ushered in the arrival of a new bar, draft beer and multiple flat-screen TVs ... (and — mason jars!)... running a diner in NYC is a tough business these days with rising costs and changing tastes.

Anyway, we've stopped by several times in recent months for dinner ... and the food was always solid, and the service friendly… we'll give The Kitchen Sink a whirl one of these days too, though the thought of saying We're going to eat at The Kitchen Sink doesn't sound so appealing…

[Updated] Former Sustainable NYC space for lease

The for rent sign has arrived at 139 Avenue A, previously home to Sustainable NYC the past seven years between St. Mark's Place and East Ninth Street.

The sign just arrived, and so the listing hasn't made its way to the Douglas Elliman website yet. Updated: The rent is $12k a month.

The eco-minded general store and café closed back at the beginning of August after waning sales and missed rent payments.

And some related reading from the Times in 2007 … when the address was home to Alt Coffee … because someone usually mentions Alt Coffee in relation to this address.

There are now 2 ping-pong tables in Tompkins Square Park

[Photo last week by Derek Berg]

The city installed the ping-pong table in Tompkins Square Park back on March 18, 2011… and while the table has been the scene of mindless bloodletting through the years… The table has proven to be a popular draw… so much so that the city has placed another one in the Park … over near the basketball courts…


[Image via Facebook]

Both tables come courtesy of local manufacturer Henge, whose president, Alan Good, is an East Village resident.

We asked Good why he donated another table to Tompkins Square Park.

"Tompkins won over other locations because of the astonishing growth in spirit of the core group of players there," he said via an email. "The age range is now 11 to 75, with a wide mix of economic classes, with people giving lessons to newcomers."



Henge continues to hold ping-pong tournaments on Saturdays this fall (see their Facebook page for details).

And now, a look though the EVG archives at some non-ping-pong moments at the ping-pong table…


[August 2014 via Bobby Williams]


[March 2013 via Bobby Williams]

[March 2012 via Bobby Williams]

[May 2011 via EVG]

[Updated] American Apparel packing up its spandex, cotton and denim and leaving the LES

BoweryBoogie points out today that the 11-year-old American Apparel outpost on East Houston and Orchard has closed… probably not a shocker given that the company is teetering on the verge of financial collapse or something less dramatic sounding.

On this occasion, we will dig deep into the EVG archives for this post from December 2009 thoughtfully titled "And now, my collection of the newish American Apparel ads" …







… and maybe our first sighting of the American Apparel van on Avenue A in December 2008… bringing the micro-mesh to the people…



Updated 6:38 p.m.

An American Apparel spokesperson emailed us the following statement:

"This store closure is a next step in implementing our previously announced turnaround plan, which includes closing underperforming locations and investing in new stores in promising areas."

So the LES is no longer promising?

Saint's Alp Teahouse closes for good after today

Saint's Alp Teahouse, purportedly the first teahouse to bring bubble tea to New York City, is closing its door after service tonight on Third Avenue.

Owner Bob Chan didn't offer any reason for the closure. (Lost lease? Increased rent? Decline in business?)

Here's a note from Chan from under the "About Us" tab on the Teahouse website:

The first location opened in 1995 in Chinatown on the corner of Mott Street and Bayard Street. Back then I don't believe bubble tea was even a word in the English Dictionary. Now you can get bubble tea almost anywhere.

When foods get popular, they get commoditized. It becomes a way for many people to cash in on what's popular today. This is a double edged sword. The obvious benefit is the popularity. I am very happy that the product is getting national, even international recognition. The downside is that in many attempts to cash in, some very important aspects are taken for granted. The quality is compromised for profit margins. The experience is compromised for convenience.

This outpost of a Hong Kong-based chain opened in the East Village in 1999. They closed for a month at the beginning of the year for a renovation and menu upgrade.

East Village writer Christine Champagne told us about the closure. She had been a regular since 2002. "I come on my own a few days a week to get a break from work. It is one of those places where you can sit and think and not be bothered or you can chat with the employees if you are so inclined."

The retail strip in the base of NYU's Alumni Hall between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street is rather barren now: Four of six storefronts will sit empty. Subway was the last tenant to go. Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery closed in July 2014. Citi Habitats moved out in June 2014.