Report: Shakespeare & Company closes for good at the end of the month

[EVG file photo]

As we first reported back on April 7, Shakespeare & Co. had lost the lease to its longtime home at 716 Broadway.

Now comes word that the bookstore will officially close at the end of this month, an employee told Gothamist.

Per Gothamist:

Right now, books and other merchandise are on sale at the Broadway store for 30 to 50 percent off. Go purchase some, and experience the soon-to-be-extinct joy of turning real, paper pages.

The current asking rent is $50,000 for the storefront between Washington Place and Waverly Place. A broker told The Commercial Observer that is likely two or three times what Shakespeare is paying now.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reader report: Shakespeare & Company loses lease on Broadway

Shakespeare & Company space is for lease on Broadway

Today at Tompkins Square Park

Yonkers-based artist Jeffrey Reid was back with his large portraits outside Tompkins Square Park at Avenue A and East Seventh Street.

We've seen his portraits of the First Family, Donald Trump, Spike Lee, the Mona Lisa, etc. (Here and here.)

He was showing new work today, though.

Photo by Bobby Williams.

Workers back demolishing what's left of 98-100 Avenue A

The demolition has picked up again at 98-100 Avenue A, where Ben Shaoul is building a 6-floor residential building with 29 apartments.

Work had come to a stand still here between East Sixth Street and East Seventh Street for several months … but workers are back knocking over the carcass of the former theater-turned grocery. You can see the remnants of the auditorium in these photos from EVG reader Erika…





Demolition started last November. At this rate, the new building should be up by, say, 2021. Not that anyone is in a hurry for another brick box from Ben Shaoul.



Previously on EV Grieve:
A little bit of Hollywood on Avenue A

East Village Farms is closing; renovations coming to 100 Avenue A

Inside the abandoned theater at East Village Farms on Avenue A

Reader reports: Village Farms closing Jan. 31; building will be demolished

Asbestos abatement continues at 98 Avenue A, Ben Shaoul's latest East Village trophy

Ben Shaoul's proposed new Avenue A building will be 8 stories with a roof deck

Meanwhile, 98-100 Avenue A is lying in ruins

Reader report: More about being aware of ATM skimming

[Photo from July 18]

An EV reader has a follow-up to our July 19 post "Beware ATM Skimming these Beware ATM Skimming signs say."

It seems as if a friend and I were both taken by this scam recently. We've both woken up to fraud alerts from Chase in the past week that our debit cards have been used elsewhere in the City.

Given that we both reside in Alphabet City, frequent the same places, and were still in possession of our cards, it suggests that it was indeed a scamming operation to steal the card data and produce dummy cards. Chase confirmed as much over the phone when I spoke with them. I'm very careful about using my card, so wherever the operation is it must be pretty stealth. We think it happened somewhere along Avenue C.

Free tonight in Tompkins Square Park: 'Midnight Cowboy'

[Where's Joe Buck?]

The Films in Tompkins series ends tonight with the Oscar-winning "Midnight Cowboy" from 1969.



Anyway, you know how it works. The films start at sundown... and there will be local bands or DJs performing from beforehand. And think about mosquito repellent.

Updated: Former First Avenue Pierogi and Deli space for rent

After 30 years here at 130 First Ave. near St. Mark's Place, proprietor Wieslawa Kurowycky and her family decided to retire and close First Avenue Pierogi and Deli.

We noticed a "for rent" sign in the window the other day. The listing isn't online just yet at the Quality Living website. So we don't know what the asking price is for this prime real EV real estate…

And we miss the food at First Avenue Pierogi and Deli.

Updated 8-16
The asking rent is $6,500.

Previously on EV Grieve:
After 30 years, First Avenue Pierogi and Deli is closing

At 205 Avenue A, where the NYPD stops by 'almost every weekend'

[205 Avenue A roof shot by William Farrington via the Post]

The Post has a follow-up story about our piece on the rooftop parties at Icon Realty's 205 Avenue A.

To the article!

Mitch Kossoff, a lawyer for Icon Realty, said there are guidelines in place for rooftop access, which only the top-floor tenants have access to. Parties past 10 p.m., loud music, consumption of alcohol, barbecuing and smoking are prohibited. Kossoff said he wasn’t aware of any complaints from last weekend’s bash but he’s ready to take necessary action, including eviction proceedings.

And!

Kyle Frey, 25, who lives on the first floor of the newly renovated building said cops come by “almost every weekend.”

And from the EVG inbox: Neighbors concerned about the noise from 205 Avenue A can contact the North Avenue A Neighborhood Association via email.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Friday night's rooftop party at Icon Realty's 205 Avenue A (49 comments)

Your 6-bedroom dream 'frat house' awaits you in the East Village

Icon Realty's new Avenue A 'frat house' is attracting attention

How's life by 326-328 E. Fourth St. these days?

Hibachi Dumpling Express now open on 1st Avenue

Last week we noted that Hibachi Dumpling Express was taking over the space previously held by the 2 Bros. Pizza on First Avenue near East 14th Street.

Hibachi opened today … their phone isn't even working, but they are cranking out some pretty good food…



There are 16 seats inside… though it will likely be better as a to-go or delivery place…



You can find their menu here. (They also have a location on East 23rd Street.)

And a quick turnaround of the space given that the 2 Bros. closed after July 17.

Remembering good times and dead bodies at The Blarney Cove

[June 2013]

The Paris Review has an essay by Joe Kloc on the late, great Blarney Cove on East 14th Street…

Tommy, another regular, recounted an oft-told Blarney Cove legend. One evening, he said, a regular was sitting alone at the end of the bar, minding his business, enjoying his $1.50 mugs of beer with all the usual contentment of an old drinker on a young night. Suddenly, but without fuss, the man set down his mug, shut his eyes, slumped forward, and died right there in his chair. “They put him in the freezer,” Tommy said. And the next day his body was gone.

Read the whole piece here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Here is the future of East 14th Street and Avenue A: 7 stories of residential and retail

City OKs permits to demolish the empty storefronts along this section of East 14th Street

The Blarney Cove closes for good after tomorrow night

The Blarney Cove sign is down! The Blarney Cove sign is down!

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: Gary Bell
Occupation: Martial Arts Teacher, Boys Club of New York
Location: 3rd Street between A and B
Date: 6:30 pm on Thursday, July 31st

I have lived around here for 35 years. I grew up in Harlem and was raised in South Carolina. As soon as I got out of the military I came down here and took up certain courses. I must have been 22 or 23. At first, I was working in the Wall Street area, for Solomon Brothers. I was doing a receptionist job and one of my co-workers asked me what would I want to do on the side. I told him that I’d teach martial arts, so he got me an interview at the Boys Club.

I started off as a volunteer and ended up working for the Boys Club for 30 years. I was the martial arts teacher. I noticed that most of the kids I dealt with had single moms. A lot of the kids were being bullied. I’m a big advocate of kids not being bullied, so I put my hand in that and I got a couple of kids really standing up for themselves. They had self-esteem, honor, dignity. Most of the kids became policemen, lawyers. It was amazing.

All in all I’m very proud of the work that I did. The best is when they came back to me and their parents would say, ‘By the way, George is playing baseball for a high school team and he’s the top pitcher in the nation.’ I said, ‘This kid was so nervous.’ He had a problem, but he came out good. If I walk just a couple of blocks I’ll see a kid and they’ll say, ‘Hey sensei, how you doing?’ Some of them left and came back and brought their kids.

Another thing that brought me down here was homesteading. I renovated an abandoned building right here on 2nd Street. I started in 1986 and finished it up in 1991. I’m a veteran and I was thinking about buying a building off of my VA Bill and I ran into this and it was a dream come true.

It was an organization run by the Archdiocese. Koch was the mayor at that time, What they’d do is find an abandoned building and squat in it and take it over. There has to be at least 12 homesteading buildings in this neighborhood. So they’d put you on a trial basis working on other people’s buildings and in return they’d give you your own building, abandoned — totally, totally abandoned.

It gave me a lot of respect for construction workers, because I had to do mostly everything — putting up sheetrock, putting in a new roof. Everything you did you were like an apprentice, but the big time stuff like electricity and plumbing, the government gave you professional people to come down here. They started us off with $300,000 to fix the building, but they gave us a time restraint. So they said, ‘OK, we’ll give you this money and this will pay for all the professional people, but you’ve got to finish it off in seven years, because if you don’t, the day before your time limit is up the city can just take the building.’

My building started off with like 12 people, and I guess the work wasn’t going fast enough because a lot of people quit and a lot of new people came in. We’ve got actors, accountants, carpenters. We’ve got all kinds of people.

The neighborhood was rough in the beginning. I was thinking of backing out of the deal because this neighborhood was rampant with crime and drugs. I was here when Tompkins Square Park was literally just homeless people. If you would have looked at it back then you would have never believed this transformation. It had me fooled too. There were no banks around here at all and hardly any restaurants. Now you’ve got them back-to-back. I never thought that would happen. It was very risky. I’m really proud of this neighborhood because a lot of people stuck with it and stayed strong.

The red tape was the biggest problem — the politics behind it. With every building, the Cardinal blessed the abandoned building before you got into it. At that time Mayor Dinkins came by and gave a little speech. Of course the politicians came by and wanted to take pictures of us. We had to put in 20 hours a week.

The whole deal cost me $225 dollars. There are some pictures that will scare you. You would go, ‘Oh my God.’ I said, ‘No way.’ I said, ‘Nah, I can’t do this,’ but as time went on, plus at the time my girlfriend was pregnant, so my son needed some space. So I was focused. I think it took me six years to complete it. It was Christmas Eve 1991 that I moved in. I have a duplex, parquet floors, a rooftop garden, and it’s beautiful man. You wouldn’t believe it.

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

East 7th Street apartment undergoing alien probe remains on the market

Heh.



Thanks to the EVG reader who spotted this (hopefully!) under-renovation studio at 70 E. Seventh St. for rent on Streeteasy.



Think about having an ax and a mirror at the ready when checking the place out… never know when there might be an alien probe…

Checking out the Adele's roof deck

[EVG file photo from April]

For the past two years or so we've been looking at the Adele, the 12-story mixed-used apartment building now renting at East Houston and Avenue D.

A few of the listings mention the roof deck … to date, though, we've only seen the OMG rendering…



We spotted a listing for a two-bedroom unit ($5,133) that includes photos of the roof deck … no pool, but nice city views…







And the "grass" is definitely greener on the roof than it is on the sidewalk outside the Adele.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Adele joins The Robyn in pop star-friendly East Village corridor

Report: New 12-story, mixed-use building in the works for Avenue D

Familiar business opening in The Adele's retail space on Avenue D and East Houston Street

The transformation of Goat Town to GG's on East 5th Street

We walked by the former Goat Town space the other morning ... where the 4-year-old bistro at 511 E. Fifth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B closed in early July.

Workers have gutted the restaurant to make way for a new concept from the owners called called GG's, which "will serve a very different menu than the current New American menu, but will still include ingredients sourced from the restaurant's back garden," a rep told Eater.

As far as the new space goes, we took a look through the mostly papered windows… still appears to be in the gut renovation stage…



The address has been home to several restaurants since Le Tableau closed in December 2007. Before Goat Town, the space was home to Seymour Burton and Butcher Bay.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Goat Town is closing to make way for a pizzeria

East Village apparently down a hookah bar now

Gaia Lounge at 103 E. Second St. between Avenue A and First Avenue was served with an eviction notice on Monday…



Seems as if they weren't here all that long. The hookah bar was the spawn of Temple of Ankh on Clinton Street, which BoweryBoogie reported was "an establishment with the apparent distinction of garnering the most complaints in all of Community Board 3."

CB3 denied Gaia a beer-wine license back in March due to the hookah bar's connection to Temple of Ankh, per BoweryBoogie. (The applicant was apparently a waiter from TOA.)

Feel free to leave your favorite memories of Gaia Lounge in the comments.