"In the late 80s and the early 90s everybody could afford to live in the East Village"

From a Q-and-A with Moby in Black Book:

People say they miss the old New York. Do you like it better now?

Only the things that I miss. it was cheaper. When you went out you never expected to spend a lot of money, so this whole bottle service, when someone goes out and has to spend $1,000 for a good night out, that’s just absurd. In the late 80s and the early 90s everybody could afford to live in the East Village, so everybody lived and worked and went out in the same neighborhood, and it just made everything a lot much nicer. So now, its almost like the NYC diaspora has happened where some people live in Bushwick, some people live in Redhook, some people live in Jersey City, some people live in Inwood, so the good old days where everybody lives on top of each other, those are gone. New York is always going to be big enough to accommodate anyone who wants to live here. There’s always going to be some new derelict neighborhood where 20-year-old artists are going to move to. That’s what Soho was, that’s what the East Village was, that’s what Tribeca was, and that’s certainly what the Lower East Side was.

A holiday classic

A little holiday spirit courtesy of the East Village institution DeRobertis Pasticceria & Caffe on First Avenue. Since 1904.

Read Jeremiah's piece on the beloved shop here.

Let's talk about rats

Which reminds me...

East Fifth Street update

Wow, that was fast. This is all that's left of 532 E. Fifth St.




Previously on EV Grieve:
Demolition on East Fifth Street

Can someone please explain this to me?

On 33rd Street near Penn Station. A taste of India via the Pacific Northwest? Or just haven't gotten around to changing the sign?

Gee, so much has changed in the last 12 years...

For the post I did earlier on Hop Devil Grill closing, I Iooked around for information on that space's former tenant, Stingy Lulu's. I came across this article in the July 6, 1996, Times that's worth highlighting:

Not long ago, Avenue A was a drug-infested no man's land, a forlorn strip given over to vagrants, anarchists and punks. At least that's how Karazona Cinar, 30, a local entrepreneur, remembers it. "Because of businessmen like me, things are much better," said Mr. Cinar, a Kurdish immigrant who owns Stingy Lulu's, a restaurant on St. Marks Place off Avenue A, and Robots, a bar on Avenue B.

Krystyna Piorkowska has different memories of Avenue A. Ms. Piorkowska, 47, who has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years, laments the loss of beloved merchants like the kosher butcher, the cobbler and the pirogi maker, all of them driven out by the forces of gentrification. To her dismay, the old mom-and-pop stores have been supplanted by nightclubs and bars, businesses that can afford the avenue's pumped-up rents. In her view, Avenue A has become a place for unbridled carousing, where bar-hopping youths keep residents awake until dawn and where broken glass and the stench of urine greet early risers. "Avenue A has become the East Village theme park," she said last week, standing amid a late-night crush of thrill-seekers. "It's now a place where you come to get drunk and see tattooed girls with spiked hair."

By the way, all the places mentioned in the article -- Stingy Lulu's, Robots, Arca and Nation -- have since closed.

And I also feel as if I've read variations of this article about 300 times in the last 12 years...

Lordy, he's STILL talking about the Hop Devil Grill

OK, OK...just a point of clarification after a conversation about the Hop Devil Grill closing with a friend. The Belgian Room, an extension of Hop Devil Grill at 125 St. Mark's Place, also closed. All part of the same deal: Will reopen on Dec. 3 with a new concept, management, etc.

The way we were on 13th Street

On 13th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. Someone hung a large photo of the what the street looked like before the A Building was completed. You know, the A Building, where people shit in the laundry room.

What banks become

First things first. There's a Vitamin Shoppe coming to the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue at the site of the former First Federal Savings and Loan Association. This thing had been carved up some time ago. I recall it being one of the last Love Stores...and more recently a Duane Reade.




This spot makes perfect sense for a store that sells vitamins given that GNC is one block away on the corner of 13th Street and First Avenue.



Anyway, seems as if so many of the city's impressive old banks have all been turned into, say, high-end food shops, condos, performance spaces, clothing stores, etc., in recent years. This topic was discussed in a February 2005 Times article.

Why build such evocative Greek temples to begin with? To inspire confidence. When the United States economy collapsed in the Panic of 1893, many people blamed banks for the depression that followed and withdrew their money.
So, banks built in that era (until the end of the Great Depression, when banks began to demystify themselves with glass-fronted branches) were meant to suggest strength, as if they had been there forever.

I'm sure the new generation of high-end clothing stores appreciates these qualities in a building.

RIP Hop Devil Grill

The Hop Devil Grill on St. Mark's near Avenue A is gone. Was way too bland and fratty for our liking, but they had some tasty suds on tap -- 31 or so on a rotating basis.



Looks like it will reopen....and be completely different. New concept? Why does this give us the fear?



They were shut down in February for allegedly serving minors; in July, they were reportedly denied a liquor license renewal due to prior violations for selling to minors.

P.S.
The Hop Devil Grill Web site was still up and running as of last night.

P.S.S.
Thanks to Jeremiah for reminding me in the comments that this space used to be Stingy Lulu's, which was there 1992 to, what, 2004? Hop Devil opened in March 2005.

Public "Enemy"

How long will Christian Slater continue to haunt Times Square now that his show was canceled last week?

There will be hell to pay for this

So that was a large group of (ahem) motorcycle enthusiasts hanging out on Avenue A Sunday afternoon. What do you think, some 50-60 bikes in total on either side of the street between Seventh and Sixth? Not real big on having their picture taken, huh? But one fellow was nice enough to finally say OK to this shot.

Still a landmark

Good news from the City Room about the former school at 605 E. Ninth St. between Avenue B and Avenue C:

A justice in State Supreme Court has rejected a developer’s bid to overturn a 2006 decision by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate the former Public School 64 in the East Village, which closed in 1977, as a city landmark. The ruling is another step in a complex, decade-long battle over the fate of the building, which has become a symbol of broader struggles over gentrification.

Here's some history of the school, via the East Village Community Coalition Web site:

During the summer of 1911 P.S. 64 became the first Public School in the City to offer free open-air professional theater to the public. One of the reasons the school was chosen to premiere the series is because it was the first school in the city to have electric lights in its yard. Julius Hopp, director of the Theatre Centre For Schools tried unsuccessfully to stage The Merchant of Venice on the raised courtyard facing 10th street. The noise from the trolleys rumbling down 10th street made the performance inaudible but the thousands of people gathered across the street, packed onto the courtyard and peering from the tenement windows were treated to an impromptu rendition of Kipling's Gunga Din, recited by Sydney Greenstreet, one of the actors in the production. (Greenstreet became famous as the "fat man" in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.) Undaunted, Hopp regrouped and presented the play two days later in the school auditorium. The thrilled audience got a chance to see the young Greenstreet and Warner Oland (later to play Charlie Chan) in Shakespeare's grand Comedy. Needless to say, the harsh stereotypical imagery of the play was not lost on the neighborhood's burgeoning Jewish community.

In the 1920's P.S. 64 was a required stop for politicians campaigning in New York City. Governor Alfred E. Smith, Mayor Jimmy Walker, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt all recognized how important it was to make time to speak in the school's auditorium. Walker railed against his opponent, then Mayor Hylan, Governor Smith confronted the Hearst News Empire, and Roosevelt assessed his strength with Jewish voters by the neighborhood turnout for his speech at P.S. 64.

(Photo: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)

Shit that you can't make up: Mental hospital edition

Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Charlie Parker, Sid Vicious and Edie Sedgwick have been among the many who have had a mental vacation at Bellevue. It's more than a nuthouse, of course: It's the oldest public hospital in the United States. Oh, well, now the original Bellevue building at First Avenue and 30th Street might become a fucking hotel. (New York magazine)