Posts that I never got around to posting: New fence at St. Brigid's

Before!



Now!



That should keep out those squatters...

Previously on EV Grieve:
We hope the Archdiocese didn't spend any of the $10 million on the new "no parking" sign for St. Brigid's

Posts that I never got around to posting: Mad hatters

Outside China 1 on Avenue B near Fourth Street.

Ugh: Bazzini — "final holdout of Tribeca's past" — to become fancy eatery

Downtown Express has the bad news:

In the latest example of “new Tribeca” beating out “old Tribeca,” the Bazzini grocery, cafe and nut shop on Greenwich St. will soon become a Sarabeth’s restaurant.

This won’t be the first time that a neighborhood fixture in Tribeca becomes a chichi food destination — but it could be one of the last, as some see Bazzini as the final holdout of Tribeca’s past.

Bazzini opened 119 years ago. The current owners said the new Whole Foods down the street was cutting into their business.

The Tribeca Tribune had the story earlier this week. And apologies to Eater: I missed their piece on this news last week. The story is here.

Tishman Speyer Properties lose

From the Bloomberg wire:

Tishman Rent Rise in Manhattan Voided by New York’s Top Court

By Patricia Hurtado

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Tishman Speyer Properties LP, owner of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, Manhattan’s largest apartment complex, lost a tenants’ lawsuit in New York state’s highest court accusing the company of improperly raising rents.

The New York Court of Appeals in Albany said today the rent increase on about 4,350 apartments in the massive complex on Manhattan’s east side violated the law because it was built with city assistance and the building’s owners received tax breaks.

The ruling upheld a decision by a lower appeals court in Manhattan. That court ruled in March that Tishman and the prior owner, MetLife Inc., wrongfully deregulated the apartments by raising the rents because of a sale of the property in 2006.

Today’s decision means the companies might have to pay millions of dollars in rent rebates to thousands of tenants. State law entitles tenants to triple damages for illegal rent increases, lawyers in the case said.

Will Avenue D finally turn into Avenue C?

The three-story building that houses the bodega on the southeast [OOPS! SouthWEST] corner of Seventh Street and Avenue D is now for sale for $1.4 million...



According to the listing:

91 Avenue D is a 3 story mixed-use building that is available through an estate sale. There is one store and two residential units. The two apartments are currently vacant while the lease on the ground floor expires in June of 2011. The store is currently paying well below market rent. It is perfect for a user looking for a space to run their business and expand in the future.

This is a tremendous opportunity to buy an investment property with future development potential on a prime corner in the East Village. It is located in one of the most densely populated areas in Manhattan and benefits from the heavy pedestrian traffic.

This is interesting for many reasons. For starters, the new home of the Lower Eastside Girls Club will be built on Avenue D between Seventh Street and Eighth Street. (This 12-story building -- a new development that will actually give something back to the neighborhood -- will include a community center and 72 apartments.)



And, just around the corner on Seventh, you'll find the Flowerbox Building, where the record-breaking $10 million penthouse recently closed for $5.2 million.



Perhaps some enterprising foodie type will nab this corner spot at Seventh and D for some signature-drinks outpost... and be ahead of the pack for the day when the condofication reaches the eastern edge of the neighborhood. Or maybe some luxury housing.

Could this finally be the start of Avenue D turning into the new Avenue C?

Of course, this speculation has been going on for years... As the Times noted in March 2005:

The frenetic about-face that transformed Alphabet City from a drug-infested no man's land to the epicenter of downtown cool hasn't quite made it to Avenue D, and some predict it never will. Capped at the south by the bustle of Houston Street and at the north by the soaring smokestacks of Con Edison's East River generating station, the 12-block artery remains largely a relic of the neighborhood's pre-hip past.

There is nary a bar in sight. Not a single boutique. The handful of restaurants serve tostones and chicharones, not goat cheese tapas or tuna tartare. Tough-looking boys hold tough-looking pit bulls at the end of steel chains, mothers push shopping carts to coin laundries, and wrinkled old men in newsboy caps putter in front of the grocery store, keeping a cagey eye on the street.

Still, recent rumors about the fate of the two sprawling public housing projects on the avenue has fueled broader speculation about the avenue's future. Now that Avenue C has become what Avenue A was a decade ago, many residents of Avenue D wonder if their street will become the new Avenue C.

[Flowerbox photo: Elizabeth Felicella for The New York Times]

Chico's new anti-violence mural on Houston and Avenue B

As we mentioned on Monday, the Lower Eastside Girls Club was bringing Chico back from Florida to paint a few murals. Yesterday, Chico and the POP (Power of Peace) Youth Anti-Violence Coalition finished work on a new mural on Houston at Avenue B.




The Lo-Down stopped by to catch the work in progress yesterday.

Mr. C's, we hardly knew ye

Well, this was one of the quicker open-and-shut eateries that we can recall...



Mr. C's, the Italian Trattoria that opened back in May on Avenue C near Seventh Street, certainly appears to be closed. It has been dark the past few times that we've walked by... and there's not much inside to indicate the place has seen any life of late.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Mr. C's on C now open
Ayyy: It's Mr. C's on Avenue C

Costumes on a budget

Out front of the deli on Second Avenue and Third Street. I dig the Village People look.

Cafe 81 is still on vacation

They were due back Oct. 1. On Seventh Street near First Avenue.




Previously.

Claim: LA's delis are better than NYC's delis

In his new book "Save the Deli," Brooklyn resident David Sax says the country's best delis are in....Los Angeles.

And he didn't come to this decision overnight. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

On a two-month cross-country trip, Sax hit all the major deli hubs: Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and, of course, New York, even working for an evening as a counterman at the legendary Katz's deli on Manhattan's Lower East Side. But he also fanned out across North America to Denver; Detroit; Scottsdale, Ariz.; St. Louis; Cleveland; Las Vegas; Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Montreal; Toronto; and a dozen other cities. He even made a trip across the Atlantic to visit delis in London, Brussels, Paris and Krakow, Poland, one of the birthplaces of the modern Jewish deli.

Now for some comparisons!

Where New York delis tend to be cramped and covered in an intangible layer of old world schmutz, Los Angeles delis are the height of midcentury, suburban modernity. If New York delis are as intimate and familiar as your bubbe's kitchen, then Los Angeles delis, with their spacious banquettes, polite wait staff and abundant parking, are like younger, sexier spokesmodels for the deli world.

Here's a book excerpt from the JewishJournal.com.

Looking at the Michelle Obama Halloween mask at Duane Reade

Only $9.99, though it's on sale now for $7.99 with your Duane Reade Dollar Reward Card. From the "Fright Factory" collection. Doesn't this just seem -- wrong?



And Duane Reade really needs fitting rooms to try on masks and stuff ... instead, shoppers are forced to quickly put things on in the middle of the store.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Decision 2008

The milled glass and "shocking Ferrari red" walls coming to the Bowery; "like a beacon"

There's plenty of activity at 257 Bowery, just a wee south of Houston, these days. The Times checks in today on this future home of the Sperone Westwater gallery. The world-renowned Norman Foster is designing the eight-story "sliver of a building," as the Times notes.

Sliver, eh? So "Foster’s solution was a giant elevator, measuring 12 by 20 feet, that would not only transport art and visitors from floor to floor but serve as an exhibition space as well." And they talk to the man himself.

While the elevator could fit up to 240 people, only a few are expected to occupy it at a time. It will move more at a rate of 50 feet per minute, rather than the more typical speed of 150, to allow time for people to admire the art inside.

[Th]e elevator will have the same polished concrete floors and white walls as the stationary galleries, and it will be possible to park it on one or another of the floors to extend its space.

Because the building will be sheathed in milled glass and the elevator exterior walls colored a shocking Ferrari red, the moving gallery will be visible from outside, a "dynamic element of the facade inside this translucent tube," Mr. Foster said.

[Gallery co-founder] Angela Westwater sees this feature as "like a beacon, like a lighthouse," she said.

And the Times had the following photos:





For further reading on 257 Bowery:
Jeremiah's Vanishing NY (A look back at what used to be here...)
Curbed
BoweryBoogie
The Observer