Icon Realty providing free space for Celebrity Catwalk events this weekend

[152 2nd Ave. via the Icon website]

Via the EVG inbox... edited for length...

Icon Realty Management is working with Celebrity Catwalk to provide free space for adoption and fundraising events at available retail spaces in New York City.

Celebrity Catwalk works with local animal rescue organizations to help with fundraising and awareness of national animal rescue. Celebrities include Jamie Foxx, Nicole Richie, Heather Mills and Melissa Rivers.

Icon Realty Management owns and manages over 1,800 apartment units located throughout the City and also has retail space. Icon feels it is important to give back to the NYC community and local neighborhoods and helping save lives of NYC homeless pets is a great addition to our community work.

“We are excited to work with Celebrity Catwalk to provide free space for adoption and fundraising events for animals,” said Terrence Lowenberg, Principal at Icon. “We are committed to giving back to the neighborhoods we are part of in as many different ways as we can and we are proud to do that here.”

Celebrity Catwalk will be hosting a weekend of events called “Paws in the City” including a “Pink Paws for a Cause” reception on May 20th 7-9 pm with an on-site veterinarian doing cancer pet screenings, which will take place at an Icon building. Additionally, on May 21st 5-8pm there will be the “Paws and PJ’s” event, which will also be held at an Icon building.

According to the release, Icon has been working with Celebrity Catwalk for the past four years.

Both events will take place in the vacant storefront at 152 Second Ave. between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street. The dress code for tomorrow evening's event is "Pajamas, Sleepwear, Loungewear."

Find more details on the events here.

As DNAinfo put it in their coverage of this: "The events will occur as Icon’s reputation in the neighborhood stands on shaky ground."

Stabilizing NYC, a coalition of City-funded tenant advocates and neighborhood organizations, named Icon Realty as one of the city's worst landlords last year.

During a rally outside two Icon properties on May 9, Cooper Square Committee and several elected officials accused Icon of employing "construction-as-harassment" tactics to displace rent-stabilized tenants.

Previously

Look at the babies!

In recent days, at least two of Christo and Dora's 3-week-old offspring started poking their heads out from the duplex nest in Tompkins Square Park (inside the Eighth Street entrance off Avenue B) ... Bobby Williams got a few photos of the nestlings ...









Sources say that Christo and Dora's other six kids feel as if this 2016 class is pretty spoiled growing up in a large nest in an actual tree as opposed to a stupid air conditioner, like in 2014 and 2015.

Goggla has some great shots of the nest and Christo and Dora being red-tailed hawks right here.

[Updated] McDonald's remains closed on 1st Avenue after 'the accident'

Just after 7 this evening, an EVG reader noted that there was a fire at the McDonald's on First Avenue near Sixth Street. We're not sure about the extent of the fire — it didn't make the cut for the @FDNYalerts on Twitter.

There doesn't appear to be any visible damage in the restaurant. However, this location remains closed for the evening. Signage on the door refers to "the accident."



Updated 5/20
The restaurant is back McOpen.

Also, per Giovanni in the comments, there was a grease fire in the kitchen. (Perhaps the employee unwittingly sat on this East Fifth Street tree guard?)

Today in (possible) Rivington House mis-deeds

More headlines about the controversial sale of the former Rivington House on the Lower East Side.

Another top de Blasio aide was also involved in talks concerning Rivington House as early as January 2015 (New York Post)

LES resident quizzes de Blasio about the Rivington House during Brian Lehrer's "Ask the Mayor" segment (The Lo-Down)

The Mayor must now sign off on any future deed lifts (The New York Times)

To the usual recap: In February 2015, the Allure Group paid $28 million for the property, promising that 45 Rivington — the former Rivington Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation — would remain a health facility. In November, a city agency lifted the the deed in exchange for the Allure Group's $16 million payment to the city. Earlier this year, Allure then reportedly sold the property for $116 million to the the Slate Property Group, a condo developer who plans to create 100 luxury residences in the building that overlooks Sara S. Roosevelt Park.

The 40th annual St. George Ukrainian Festival is this weekend

One of our favorite neighborhood activities (traditions?) is this weekend... here are some highlights of the 40th annual St. George Ukrainian Festival via the EVG inbox...

This year's festival on East Seventh Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square will run from Friday evening, May 20, through late afternoon Sunday, May 22, with stage performances featuring folk dancing and singing beginning at:

Friday 5/20 - 6:30 pm
Saturday 5/21 - 2 pm & 6 pm
Sunday 5/22 - 1:30 pm & 4 pm

Admission: Free

A KidsZone will be active on Saturday and Sunday, with activities for children including Ukrainian art-making stations and face painting.

Tens of thousands of sought-after Ukrainian dumplings have been prepared in advance by church volunteers (see Dumplings for the Lord) and in addition to these "varenyky," there will also be plenty of cabbage rolls (holubtsi), beet soup (borsch), sausage (kobasa) and sauerkraut for sale. NYC mainstays Veselka Restaurant and Korchma Taras Bulba will also be on hand all weekend long with some of their favorite Ukrainian menu items.

Saint George Ukrainian Catholic Church, located at 30 E. Seventh St., was founded in the East Village in 1905. The church has sponsored an annual festival since the very first one in 1976, then officially a co-celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial and 100 years of Ukrainian immigration to America. The historic parish will open the church to the public in between stage shows on Saturday, and four Divine liturgies will be celebrated on Sunday beginning at 8:30 am. Visitors will be able to enjoy the breathtaking church ornamentation, paintings, and incredible mosaics in the Byzantine-Ukrainian style.

Find the official Facebook event page here. (And you can find our previous coverage here.)

The festivities officially begin Friday at 4 p.m. And let's hope the weather holds off for Saturday. (Ditto for the Dance Parade, which will post about later.)

The Tang bringing Chinese noodles and wraps to 120 1st Ave.

Over on First Avenue next to the International, a new restaurant is in the works...

EVG correspondent Steven spotted friendly signage up from the proprietors behind The Tang, "a contemporary Chinese noodle bar" ...



The Tang expects to be open in late July here between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place. The previous tenant, Wechsler's Currywurst and Bratwurst, closed in December 2014 after nearly five-plus years in business.

Historic 25 Bleecker St. one step closer to being demolished for a 6-story building (w/ penthouse)

Over in the NoHo East Historic District, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a proposal to demolish the existing 25 Bleecker St. to make way for a new mixed-use building, as New York Yimby reported.

The existing three-story structure was originally constructed around 1830, though as NYY points out, its facade was heavily altered in 1984 ... there was also the addition of a rear extension.

Plans here call for a six-story (plus penthouse) mixed-use building with three residential units. Here's a look at a rendering...



Here's more from the article:

Commissioner Adi Shamir-Baron struggled with what to do here, but in the end decided the approach was “excellent” and supported it.

On the matter of demolition, Commissioner Michael Goldblum said there was still some historic material there, but not on the front. He said the only case for maintaining the existing structure could be volume, not appearance. Of course, its neighbor is seven-stories-tall. “What are you holding on to?” he asked rhetorically, concluding that the remnant doesn’t rise to the “gotta keep it standard.”

Community Board 2 recommended against the approval, as did reps from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and NoHo-Bowery Stakeholders, among others.

The plan still needs the approval of the Board of Standards and Appeals.

Head over to New York Yimby for more on the story, some renderings and a cool shot of No. 25 from the 1940s.

Previously

Formerly elusive night heron makes triumphant return to Tompkins Square Park

[Photo by @nitenateperry]

The black crowned night heron that captivated audiences around Tompkins Square Park just about this time last year ... is back!

Several readers tonight reported seeing the heron hanging out in the Park near the entrance on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place...


[Photo by Jose Garcia]

Here's more about the heron via the National Audubon Society:

Seen by day, these chunky [ed note: husky?] herons seem dull and lethargic, with groups sitting hunched and motionless in trees near water. They become more active at dusk, flying out to foraging sites, calling "wok" as they pass high overhead in the darkness. Some studies suggest that they feed at night because they are dominated by other herons and egrets by day.

The Park has been proven to be a good foraging ground... as seen here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The night heron apparently comes out at night in Tompkins Square Park

Elusive night heron becoming less elusive

Noted

EVG reader Camila spotted this flyer on the corner of Houston and the Bowery...



Who's gonna email them and fork over a $1???

Everything is waiting for you, downtown

[Click to go big]

East Village-based artist/photographer Daniel Root shared this photo looking toward the East Village from the MetLife building... They have some kind of film over the windows, which led to some distortion, but you get the idea...

Headline H/T