Stage owner Roman Diakun responds to allegations of illegally siphoning gas

[Image via Facebook]

The following was published yesterday on the Stage's Facebook page...

In response to the recent news, Roman Diakun, the proprietor of Stage Restaurant has released this statement:

We at the Stage Restaurant are deeply troubled by the landlord’s false allegations that we engaged in any illegal siphoning of gas. Stage is a long-standing restaurant with deep connections to the community – we have never siphoned gas, and have committed no wrong.

In response to a complaint made by one of the residential tenants of the Building, Con Edison turned off the gas to the entire building, including Stage’s gas supply as a precautionary measure in light of the recent tragic events that transpired on March 26, 2015.

Con Ed promptly came to the Building and performed an inspection, which made no findings that Stage had ever tampered with the meters or pipes. In connection with restoring gas services to Stage, a licensed plumber determined that Stage needed to replace one of the pipes servicing Stage.

In an effort to remedy the issue as quickly as possible, Stage commenced work prior to obtaining what was later learned to be a necessary work permit, and a stop work order was issued. Stage immediately complied with the stop work order, paid the fines thereon and hired a licensed plumber to apply for the proper applications to perform this work, so that Stage can get back to servicing the community it has had the pleasure to serve for the last 35 years. Stage has requested that the Landlord sign off and cooperate with Stage’s efforts in this regard.

However, to date, Stage has been unable to secure the Landlord’s consent to completing this repair work, which is vital to the safe and continued operations of Stage, as well as for the safety of the community. Stage has requested that the Landlord withdraw the termination notice, and cooperate with Stage’s efforts; however, the Landlord in not interested in promptly remedying a potentially dangerous issue at the Premises, but instead the Landlord is seizing on the recent tragic events as an opportunity to wrongfully evict us for reasons unknown to us.

The building has several violations which are not related to the present issue, and none are indicative of the Landlord’s spurious and malicious claims that Stage has engaged in any wrong-doing other than overzealously attempting to remedy a potentially dangerous condition.

As amNY reported on Tuesday, Joseph Goldsmith, a lawyer for landlord Icon Realty, believes that the Stage was "trying to cover up the siphoning that they had previously done and the Department of Buildings went for an unnanounced inspection and caught them in the act."

Goldsmith told amNY that Icon is waiting for gas use records and pictures that a DOB inspector had taken during the visit in late March.

Bedford + Bowery has more from both Goldsmith and Diakun here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The possibility that the Stage won't reopen on 2nd Avenue

City serves stop work order on Icon Realty-owned building for installing gas pipe without permit across from deadly 2nd Avenue blast zone (48 comments)

Petition to help reopen the Stage

Tenants at 128 2nd Ave. file suit against Icon Realty in housing court

Troubling talk about 128 Second Ave, and the long-term future of the Stage

[Updated] Report: Icon Realty serves the Stage an eviction notice

About the 'Love Saves the East Village' benefit concert on Saturday

La Palapa is hosting a daylong benefit concert Saturday for the victims of the Second Avenue explosion.

Here are a few details via the benefit's Facebook event page…

There is a $25 donation at the door (kids get in free). All money collected at the door and from the cash bar will go to Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), which has aided displaced residents in the explosion's relief efforts, The Mayor's Fund for the East Village Collapse and individual tenant funds.

The music starts at 11 a.m. and ends at 7 p.m. Here's the lineup:

11 a.m. — Willie Vargas
11:45 a.m. – The Go-Kartel featuring Scary Slumber Party 9
12:30 p.m. – Akie Bermiss
1:15 p.m. – Ivan Julian
2 p.m. – Carrie Ashley Hill
2:45 p.m. – Alyson & Tony
2:55 p.m. – Jeffrey Lewis
3:30 p.m. – Laura Cantrell
4:15 p.m. – Steve Shiffman & The Land Of No
5 p.m. – Tigers and Monkeys
5:45 p.m. – Felice Rosser & Faith NY
6:30 p.m. – Steve Almaas & The Crackers

Find more info here.

La Palapa is at 77 St. Mark's Place between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

Ellie & Jack's Bar & Kitchen looking for lodging in the former Kabin

[EVG photo from March 12]

Kabin Bar & Lounge hit the market early last month ... closing a short time later.

Now the bar owners looking to take over the space at 92 Second Ave. between East Fifth Street and East Sixth Street will appear before the CB3/SLA licensing committee on Monday night.

According to documents (PDF!) at the CB3 website, Ed Donovan and Christopher Barsa, who run Wharf Bar & Grill in Murray Hill, have plans to open Ellie & Jack's Bar & Kitchen.

Per the CB3 documents, the space will hold 20 tables seating 50 people. The proposed hours are 11:30 a.m.-3 a.m. Sunday-Wednesday; until 4 a.m. Thursday-Sunday.

The CB3 documents also include sample drink and dinner menus... here's a look at some of the offerings...





The meeting is Monday night, 6:30, at the Community Board 3 office, 59 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

Deception Burglary alert

An EVG reader received this notice from a police officer early last evening on Avenue C…

Per jcroot: "A friendly cop was handing them out to people walking by and warning that some things were happening in the neighborhood and to keep my eyes open and stay safe. He couldn't/wouldn't tell me much more, though."

Anyway, you've been warned.

[Updated] 2 weeks left to enjoy Lan Cafe

As we reported back on March 26, Lan Cafe, the family run Vietnamese vegan restaurant at 342 E. Sixth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue, closes at the end of this month. after service on April 29.

The lease is up and the rent is also going up.

Meanwhile, the space is on the market. There isn't a mention of rent on the listing at ABS Partners.

The ad notes that the space will be ideal for "restaurant, wine bar, juice bar, coffee shop, hair/nail salon."

A No Catcall Zone on St. Mark's Place

[Photo from Monday]

Brokelyn and Gothamist have more on the No Catcall Zone signs that have popped up around parts of the city, such as here on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue... they are the work of nonprofit clothing company Feminist Apparel and Pussy Division... as part of Anti-Street Harassment Week...

Updated

Per the comments, someone defaced the sign...

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: Diane McLean
Occupation: Child Psychiatrist at Lincoln Medical Center
Location: East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Time: 10 am on Friday, April 10

I’m from New York, born on the Upper West Side. My father was from Baton Rouge, La., and my mother grew up on a farm in Canada and became a nurse. They met in Montreal and had never lived in New York, but they came, got married and loved the city. My brother and I were born here, grew up here. After college my father became ill and my mother ended up leaving the city.

I wanted to come back after college and build a home here because the city was my home. I had $300 in my pocket. I lived in the living room of my college roommate's apartment with her friends. I got a job. I was able to sublet and share an apartment. That was in January 1979 and by August two friends and I found an apartment. It didn’t have any ceilings. It didn’t have a bathroom. It didn’t have a fridge. It didn’t have a stove — anything. It only had two outlets in the whole apartment. But it had light, windows and high ceilings.

We wrote a contract with the landlord and we committed to building a home. It was my first adult, actually my only adult home. This has been it. We renovated it and created the apartment. The landlord then sold the building to the Hrynenkos. We ended up being in landlord tenant court for nine months because they decided not to put in a stove, fridge, bathroom or wire it for lights. So eventually they had to do that.

I took over the lease in the early 1980s. Love Saves the Day was in the retail space of my building [at 119 Second Avenue at East Seventh Street]. The people who owned it were friends. Tom Birchard and Sally Haddock, who owned Veselka, lived in my building.

When we were working on that apartment, I locked myself out and my two roommates were working late. I couldn’t get in, so I went to Veselka, but I had no money because I was a graduate student. I could only buy coffee and I sat at a table and the hours started to go by. The waitress came by and said, ‘Oh aren’t you going to get anything else’ and she kept coming back and finally I said, ‘You know, I don’t really have money and I’m just waiting for my friends.’ And then she came over and brought a huge plate of food, enough to feed three people and she said, ‘Eat, eat, you have to eat. You’re young, you need strength, you need meat on your bones.’ She fed me. And that for me was our neighborhood. People helped each other out in the East Village.

---

Affordability and light and air brought me to the neighborhood. Light and air were a priority for me, so it didn’t matter that the apartment had nothing. There was nothing I could afford anywhere else, and also, everything was open at night. I started a masters in public health at Columbia a month after we started that apartment. I was given the gift of my parents believing in education. I was fortunate to go to an amazing university, Harvard, and then to Columbia, and I always felt I could put that back into use. You use your skills to give people the best and I could do that.

I’ve always done public service. As a New Yorker, I felt I could put my education to use. I was first an epidemiologist. I have a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia and a Masters of Public Health. Epidemiology is a science to understand the causes of disease in people. Why do people get sick and what can we do to prevent it. I committed to trying to understand this.

In 1990, two surgeons at Harlem hospital published a paper saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute, people in our community of central Harlem are dying at earlier ages than men and women in Bangladesh, which has fewer resources. Why in the greatest city on Earth, are people dying from preventable illness before they’re 65 in central Harlem? So the CDC funded a network of research centers to understand that. In 1991, I became the first director of research of epidemiology at that center, based in Harlem Hospital, connected to Columbia. We were committed to doing participatory research, involving the community, in figuring out what was happening in the community. People were really dying of preventable illnesses.

At that time, I met doctors at Harlem Hospital who were amazing. They could have worked anywhere and they were committed to doing just that. Not just the research, but providing the best care to people in the community. I got inspired to go back to school and become a doctor. I went back to school at night. I took physics, biology, organic chemistry at night as a second job in addition to this. And I applied to medical school. I was incredibly fortunate that Cornell accepted me. I was their oldest student at 42. It’s a progressive medical school. It’s one of the most diverse in the country across social class, background and education.

Right now, I am incredibly fortunate to be a child psychiatrist, working in the Child Outpatient Clinic of Lincoln Hospital. We serve the South Bronx community, one of the most underserved in the country. We serve children and families. I have great colleagues and we’re a wonderful clinic. We do everything we can.

---

I’m a single mother with an 8 year old and two 5 year olds. I’m an alternative family. I’m an older mother, and I’m a single mother by choice. This is a diverse neighborhood, and that’s what I want my kids to know — that you can have every kind of family. Every kind of person lives in our neighborhood. That’s what I want them to in a sense take in by breathing by walking around. Our neighborhood is a little microcosm of New York.

[After the deadly explosion and fire of March 26], my challenge that keeps me from not sleeping is that my family has to find a home. We don’t have a home. Cooper Square Committee is inviting me for an interview, which I am so grateful for. They are the only ones to do that. They might possibly have a studio. I would be grateful for a roof over our head but four people in 375 square feet is very tough. People are looking but there’s nothing out there. So that’s our challenge — to somehow, somewhere find affordable housing where we can commute to the Children’s Workshop School.

I’m absolutely trying to take a positive attitude. I believe in the future and I’m a positive person. But that does not mean that we’re OK. People gave me everything I’m wearing besides my shoes and my jacket — the shirt, the pants, the socks. But I feel good about that. I’m walking around and I can say, ‘Oh yeah, Lori and Rachel gave me that,’ and my kids can get up in the morning and say, ‘I’m putting on Ella’s clothes, I’m putting on Zachary’s clothes.’ We’re wearing people’s care and that’s practically helpful, but now we have to get to the next step. I’m really overwhelmed on how we’re going to get there, and that’s what I don’t know.

I’m hoping we can find that and I’m hoping all of my neighbors can, especially my other neighbors who were rent-stabilized and rent-controlled. Every person was displaced. Every person lost their homes and every person lost everything. But we lost the ability to pay for housing. We lost the ability to create new housing. That is so far not what the city can offer. They can offer us shelter but they’re not offering anything else. And probably they have goodwill and maybe they can’t. You want to think the best.

We’re going back, definitely, for real. I know that corner from every possible angle, in every weather, in every season. I know everything about it. I can walk through every inch of that apartment in my memory; I can walk through every life stage of that apartment. I made it a home for my kids. It was my only home.

--

You may find more information on Diane's GoFundMe page here.

--

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

Report: Man sentenced to 14 years in prison for rape of East 7th Street resident

[Image of Fermin Flores from surveillance video]

A Manhattan judge yesterday sentenced a man to 14 years in prison for raping a 22-year-old East Seventh Street resident in her apartment on Jan. 13, 2014.

According to reports at the time, Fermin Flores was at the Second Avenue San Loco when the victim walked in alone to the restaurant. He reportedly then followed her home and forced his way inside her apartment. Surveillance video captured Flores, who worked at the San Loco in North Williamsburg, in the East Seventh Street building.

As the Post reports today:

“I did it because I was on drugs and drunk, I know that’s not an excuse,” he said in Manhattan Supreme Court. “I deserve this and I take full responsibility.”

Flores, 33, copped to rape in the first degree in February as part of a plea deal offered to spare the victim the “agony” of having to testify at trial, prosecutors said.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] NYPD investigating possible sexual assault on East 7th Street

NYPD releases surveillance video of East Seventh Street rape suspect

Some love for Paul's Da Burger Joint

[Photo of Matt Wardrop last summer by Stacie Joy]

As part of its Burger Week, Eater gives some love to Paul's Da Burger Joint, the 26-year-old restaurant on Second Avenue at St. Mark's Place.

Here's a little of the interview with owner Matt Wardrop, who discusses his beginnings here in 1989, the gas explosion a few storefronts away on March 26 and what makes a good burger:

You took this over from your cousin, Paul. Why did Paul decide to give it up?

Matt Wardrop: He had been there 18 years. He wanted to spend some more years on a second place in Florida. I think there were some family issues at the time on his end, so he was just like, "I've been here all this time, I got some issues to take care of, You'll take the place." And it kind of worked out, you know?

Were you working here before then?

I'd come hang out, come and eat once in a while. And I'd help out briefly, on different shifts if someone was missing, that kind of thing. But never really the full, on-the-line work.

What were you doing before?

A couple different things. I was in the automotive repair business for a long time. My partner and I had a shop in Queens. Completely different feel from here. I mean, it's still a retail business, but a completely different thing. So I didn't have any hardcore restaurant experience when I came here. I just got thrown in and learned quickly.

Read the whole Q-and-A here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Celebrating 25 years at Paul's Da Burger Joint

Agavi Juice now open on East 7th Street

The juice bar opened Monday at 72 East Seventh St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue…



They are offering an array of juices, smoothies, protein shakes and acai bowls …


[Image via Facebook]

And here's a closeup of the menu via Yelp…



The address was home until last fall to Fab 208, the clothing boutique that closed after 23 years on the block. (At this address and across the street.)

Fab 208 owners Jo and Alan told Racked the following:

"We just no longer see retail in the [East Village] as a business model worth sticking with. We are not bitter about how the hood has changed but it has lost all sense of itself and has no community left to support independent stores like ours."

As for Fab 208, they will be opening a store soon in Jacksonville, Fla.

Marcha Cocina announces itself on Avenue C

[Photo by Dave on 7th]

The signage (at least part of it?) has arrived for Marcha Cocina, the incoming tapas bar at 111 Avenue C near East Seventh Street.

It's the second location for the Washington Heights-based Marcha Cocina.

Per the Post back in February:

The Uptown spot is known for live music and favorites like hongo con cheddar croqueta and shrimp crujientes. The chefs are brothers Freddy and Virgilio de la Cruz, who got their start at Pipa, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s former tapas spot.

This location is expected to open in May.

The previous tenant, Cafe Cambodge, closed this past November. Before the revamp, the space was home to Arcane for six years.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Washington Heights tapas outpost aiming for former Cafe Cambodge/Arcane space on C

Joey Ramone: May 19, 1951 – April 15, 2001

[Image via Wikipedia Commons]

Joey Ramone died on this date in 2001. He was 49.

We recently looked up to take in the Joey Ramone Place street sign on the Bowery and East Second Street…



For a moment we thought someone had stolen the sign again…



No, just looks like someone or something whacked it a few times…



Back in 2010, the Post reported that Joey Ramone Place is perhaps the most stolen of the 250,900 street signs in New York, according to the Department of Transportation. It has been stolen at least four times … and workers raised the sign to 20 feet. Standard street signs are between 12 and 14 feet off the ground.

Meanwhile the Joey Ramone Birthday Bash is May 19 at the Studio at Webster Hall. Find details here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Mickey Leigh on his brother Joey Ramone's 'New York City' video

Looking for Joey Ramone Place

More on Joey Ramone Place

At Sunday night's 2nd Avenue benefit concert at Theatre 80

[Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye]

On Sunday night, an array of performers and musicians came together at Theatre 80 on St. Mark's Place for a benefit to aid displaced residents from the deadly gas explosion on Second Avenue on March 26.

According to published reports, the benefit, spearheaded by East Village-based writer Alan Kaufman and artist Jim Storm, raised some $50,000 in donations and ticket sales. The donations raised Sunday night will be managed by the Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), which has aided displaced residents in the explosion's relief efforts.

Here are a few of the performers from the night via EVG contributor Stacie Joy ...


[Emcee Randy Jones of the Village People]


[Dev Hynes of Blood Orange]


[Mollie King]


[On Ka'a Davis and Ensemble]


[The Bowery Boys]


[Edgar Oliver]


[MOTHXR]


[Kayvon Zand]


[Tammy Faye Starlite]


[Jesse Malin]


[Theatre 80 proprietor Lorcan Otway]


[Alan Kaufman]

Noted

[Photo by Maria]

Ah, just taking in the three-wheeled Polaris Slingshot on Avenue A near East Seventh Street late this afternoon...


[Photo by Bill the Libertarian Anarchist]