The new fence at La Plaza is officially complete

It's official: The new fence is complete at La Plaza Cultural on Avenue C and Ninth Street...





The community garden/green space has been closed to the public since the spring for the fence work.

An official grand reopening will be announced soon.

The previous chain-link fence was sagging in spots and in need of repair. Winter Flowers, handmade sculptures from discarded materials that Rolando Politi started creating in 2000, lined the top of the fence. The collection had grown to nearly 250. Not sure if any of those might return.


[Photo from September 2018]

Meanwhile, La Plaza volunteers will be holding onsite member registration, orientation and dues payment from 1-4 on Saturday and Sunday if you're interested in being part of the garden.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A fall day to remove the Winter Flowers from La Plaza Cultural

A wake for the last willow trees at La Plaza Cultural

Soft opening for Craft+Carry on St. Mark's Place

[Photos by Steven]

The East Village outpost of Craft+Carry will have a soft opening today at 116 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue...



Craft+Carry, which also has locations in the DeKalb Market (since June 2017) and on Third Avenue (September 2017) in Gramercy Park, sells several hundred varieties of craft bottles and cans to take home... there's also a small bar with a rotating batch of taps and free Skee-Ball. (Among the other amenities: the Crowler machine, which employees can draft beer for customers at the bar, and homebrew equipment and recipe kits.)

The recently renovated storefront previously belonged to a Ukrainian religious organization.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Craft+Carry outpost slated for 116 St. Mark's Place

Transaction wire: 182-184 Avenue A; 743 E. 6th St.

[File photo of 182-184 Avenue A]

From the transaction wire via The Real Deal: 182-184 Avenue A between 11th Street and 12th Street has changed hands for $11.5 million.

Per TRD:

The four-story-tall walk-up sits on two tax lots between East 11th and East 12th Streets. The seller was an entity linked to Granite International Management and the buyer was another limited liability company linked to Great Neck-based landlord Bahram Hakakian.

Hakakian was once on City Councilmember Bill de Blasio's "Slumlord Watch List," according to the Daily News in 2009.

In 2011, The Real Deal's analysis of city records found that "there were 3,020 housing code violations on the 334 units" in the 17 buildings that Hakakian reportedly owned. (He had just sold many of the properties.) That figure came out to about nine violations per unit.

---


[743 E. 6th St.]

Meanwhile, 743 E. Sixth St., a three-story building between Avenue C and Avenue D, just sold for $3.2 million.

According to the listing, the property was vacant ... and features a garage-studio on the ground level (the former Manny's Auto Repair) ... and a single-family residence on the second and third floors.

Traded: New York reported the buyer as David Mashaal.

The property will reportedly be leased as a rental in the short term with long-term development plans. There were 4,430 square feet of air rights available to the buyer.

A photographic memoir at the Tompkins Square Library branch

The photography of longtime LES resident Paul Adrian Davies is currently on display at the Tompkins Square Library branch on 10th Street.

Saturday (July 27) afternoon at 3, Davies is giving a talk followed by slide presentation about previously unseen work from his extensive archive of photographs of the neighborhood, which stretches back to 1985.

His work will be up at the branch, 331 E. 10th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, until Aug. 24.

Grant Shaffer's NY See

Here's the latest NY See panel, East Village-based illustrator Grant Shaffer's observational sketch diary of things that he sees and hears around the neighborhood.

Report: Bartender files federal complaint against Bar None for harassment

Bartender Kaitlin Day filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint last week alleging that Bar None, 98 Third Ave. between 12th Street and 13th Street, promoted a culture of sexual harassment and assault, according to published reports.

Per the Daily News:

The complaint alleges that owner Frank Steo let his friends use the basement as a crack den, the rain poured into the bar when the weather was bad and she had to put up with gross ogling from the toxic boss’s buddies.

And:

The last straw came on June 18, when a man Day believes is Steo’s cousin allegedly went behind the bar to serve himself. When she complained, the man, Kurtis Burns, put his hands on her breasts, squeezed her butt and tried to put his finger inside her vagina, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

A warrant has been issued for his arrest. Burns was previously charged with multiple counts of harassment and assault stemming from a fight near the bar on June 2. The News reported that Burns failed to show up for previous court dates.

Day's attorney says that they plan to file a lawsuit after the EEOC makes its determination. Steo did not return calls for comment to the News.

Citi Bike of the day

Derek Berg spotted the one at an impromptu docking station on Seventh Street near First Avenue.

About the Heap of Ruins Garden Party tomorrow night on 6th Street and Avenue C

There's a garden party of sorts tomorrow (July 26) night on the northeast corner of Avenue C and Sixth Street — that long-empty lot dubbed Lot6C...



The poster out front offers details on what to expect from 6-9 p.m. via Monty Cantsin (aka Istvan Kantor) along with X Pitts, who has been curating this experimental trash-art garden ...



Via Cantsin's Instagram...

We have to meet and talk and make shit happen. This is the only place left, the remaining hideout, the urban guerrilla site where spirits rise high and revolutionary creativity rules, thanks to X Pitts, the poet, who successfully kept this lot alive... come and bring us some hope for the future, join the party, read your poetry! Neoism Now and Then!

View this post on Instagram

Monty Cantsin Speaks! X Pitts Reads! Friday, July 26, 2019, 6pm - 9pm at LOT6C LOT6C, located at the NorthEast corner of 6th Street and Ave C, is a unique experimental trash-art garden, a socio-archeological site managed by X Pitts, poet, archivist, community activist, a long time LES/East Village resident. This event is a collaboration between X Pitts and Monty Cantsin Amen, Neoist performance artist, Rivington School spokesman, well known for his revolutionary art interventions in NYC and throughout the world. For ten years X Pitts was a member of the homeless community at the Tompkins Square Garden. He is best known for reading/improvising revolutionary poetry and conducting discussions about survival strategy. Monty Cantsin aka Istvan Kantor is infamous for defacing museum walls around the world with his own blood. At LOT6C Kantor/Cantsin will give a speech, sing his Neoist anthems, set props on fire and pose the way only a heroic heretic would in front of a firing squad, blindfolded, embellished by detritus and holding in his last breath. LOT6C is located at the NorthEast corner of 6th Street and Ave C, in Lower Manhattan. Admission is free but donations are welcome. #xpitts #neoism #rivingtonschool #loisaida #nyc

A post shared by Monty Cantsin (@neoism.news) on Jul 17, 2019 at 2:57pm PDT

It appears this might be the last hurrah for the lot, a former gas station, which has been empty since the early 1980s. There have been efforts to build on the corner dating to 2003.

According to DOB records, there are now approved plans to construct a 6-floor residential building with space for an unspecified community facility. The city approved the plans in May. The specs were pre-filed in 2012.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Hole watch 2017: Long-empty lot on 6th and C now waiting for 5-story building

Old Fashioned Pizza coming to 13th Street

EVG reader Jimmy shares this photo from 244 E. 13th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, where Old Fashioned Pizza is in the works for the former Thaimee Box space.

We don't know too much about this operation at the moment or what constitutes old-fashioned pizza.

And to recap a busy pizza week: Bruno Pizza announced that it will not reopen down the block after a fire closed it last November... Pizza Rollio is also officially gone from Ninth Street... while Nolita Pizza has debuted on Second Avenue.

Sorbet Cray Cray debuts today on A

The owners of the the Chikalicious dessert shop on 10th Street have revamped their Churro Cone space at 131 Avenue A between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street.

After a few weeks in soft opening mode, Sorbet Cray Cray (!!!!) opens this afternoon. Florence Fabricant at the Times wrote about it earlier this month:

They use their homemade yogurt as the base, and add a made-to-order sorbet whizzed on the spot in a high-speed Pacojet blender. July’s flavors are rosemary, basil and watermelon. Next month, you’ll find lemongrass and honey-thyme. It will be open until late fall when they will open a more permanent outlet for the dessert nearby.

You can hit up the Cray Cray Instagram account here for more views of their "best-in-show, first-rate, silky smooth sorbets in proprietary sauce."

H/T EVG reader Annabelle!