East 11th Street burglar worked for real-estate company

The New York Times today has more about the purple-gloved man the NYPD arrested for twice breaking into an apartment at 516. E. 11th St. ... After a burglary in June that showed no signs of a forced entry, the tenant set up a surveillance camera ... which led police to apprehend 24-year-old convicted felon Piotr Pasciak in Brooklyn...

Michael Wilson at the Times interviewed Pasciak at Riker's ... where Pasciak admitted that he is a heroin addict... here's an excerpt from the article that explains how he came to break into No. 516...

In April, working for the real estate company, he was showing apartments all over Manhattan. It was hard work, and after a particularly stressful week with a prospective tenant who ultimately did not sign a lease, he left and soon returned to his $50- to $100-a-day heroin habit.

His money ran out. When he left his job, he said, he kept the keys to the apartments he was showing. One of them was on East 11th Street. Someone had moved in. On June 12, he rang the doorbell and, satisfied no one was home, entered with the key and stole the video games.

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” he said. He refused to name the real estate employer or say what he did with the electronics, other than that they were used to get heroin. The building’s super said various real estate brokers showed apartments there.

Rain delay

Avenue A and East 11th Street during this morning's rain shower...

Mr. Romney ordered a blue sports wagon, where is it?

The anti-Romney "Vacation"-themed wheat paste makes an appearance on the plywood adjacent to the First Avenue Rite Aid... BoweryBoogie had spotted these back in the spring on the Lower East Side...

Meanwhile, I'll get to the bottom of this. Davenport!

Despite predicament, Mickey Mouse still smiling

We spotted this tragic scene earlier this week on Avenue A at East 10th Street ... some poor child is now Mickey balloon-less...

At this point, we do not know if the balloon was lost before or after its intended destination. Perhaps an errant delivery person accidentally let go of the balloon on the way to the party ... or, after the celebration, the excited child let the balloon slip from his or her grasp... only to see it tangled above Avenue A ... slowly losing air... but Mickey, still stuck as of this morning, is managing this crisis. Still smiling.

This morning outside Lucky Cheng's

Lunatic fringe

Eh. Seems like a good weekend song. Fun Boy Three circa 1981 with "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)."

Noted

Spotted on the plywood outside the incoming David Schwimmer Estate on East Sixth Street...

You can now expect Citi Bikes in March, maybe

[Citi Bike NYC]

From a DOT news release...

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), bike share operator New York City Bike Share (NYCBS) today announced that the Citi Bike system will launch in March 2013 with an initial phase of 7,000 bikes implemented at 420 stations. The timeline, agreed to by all parties, does not affect the Citi Bike sponsorship structure, which uses $41 million in private funding from Citi to underwrite the system for five years and ensures that NYCBS will split profits with the City.

“New York City demands a world-class bike share system, and we need to ensure that Citi Bike launches as flawlessly as New Yorkers expect on Day One,” said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. “The enthusiasm for this program continues to grow and we look forward to bringing this affordable new transportation option to New Yorkers without cost to taxpayers.”

(Via Curbed)

Things that you don't do at the Stage: Talk on a cellphone

EVG reader Paul D. shares an anecdote from the Stage Restaurant, the beloved eatery on Second Avenue...

A young guy puts dry-cleaning on stool next to me and I realize, when he gets on his cellphone to chat... that he's the first person I can remember blabbing on his phone at this venerable institution in the years I've been going there.

OK, others might have received calls and had a brief conversation, but I can't remember anyone initiating a recreational conversation. I wanted to tell him that he was violating an unspoken taboo, but he was speaking very softly, though his conversation was predictably annoying. The other oblivious thing was his asking for sweet-potato fries (not) in this classic joint.

If there's a moral, it's having "a little more respect for what is already here"* aka when-in-Rome. Also (amazingly) there are still places and parts of the culture that have resisted the can't-be-alone-for-a-moment tech plague

*from a Times story about Montauk’s Hipster Fatigue

Anyway, why would you want to talk on your phone here? There's always too much to take in sitting at one of the stools (16? 18?), like watching Roman work the counter... getting to the coffee and back to the register in 2.4 seconds... or listening to the snippets of conversations going on, like the man, the other afternoon, telling his friend about an acquaintance in the Bronx. "He doesn't have a bed. His table is his bed."

He repeats this several times for it to sink in for his friend. His table is his bed.

Report: Historic Anglo-Italianate townhouse on East 10th Street to serve as Olsen twin love nest

You know those beautiful homes at 123-125 E. 10th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenues, the single-family Anglo-Italianate townhouses? These.


After nearly four years on the market, Crain's reported in June that an unnamed buyer picked up the five-story, 4,200-square-foot home at No. 123 close to its asking price of $6.25 million. (No. 125 remains on the market.)

Today, Page Six reveals who bought the house: Olivier Sarkozy, who is the half-brother of the former French president as well as the beau of Olsen twin Mary-Kate.

Per Page Six, he "plans to share the palatial 146-year-old love nest with Olsen, sources said. Sarkozy is buying it because he and Olsen “like that it is old,” a real estate insider told The Post’s Jennifer Gould Keil. The 4,200-square-foot home, built the year Abraham Lincoln took office, was designed by architect James Renwick Jr., best-known for St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Smithsonian."

And!

"The sale has brokers wondering if Mary-Kate’s sister Ashley will snap up the house’s twin."

[Heh — twin]

Anyway, here's a look inside the place from a previous post. Meanwhile, we have some Photoshopping to do...

This is the smallest kitchen(ette) that I've probably ever seen

It's in a nice little studio ($1,595) on East 13th Street ... here's the listing ...

To clarify, I've been in apartments that didn't have a kitchen... well, at least one with functioning appliances. Sort of a Bill Cunningham thing ("Who needs one?") where people used the kitchen for storage, etc. And I've been in living spaces, like some sort of quasi loft, that never had a kitchen to begin with ...

But this might be the smallest advertised kitchen(ette) that I've seen...

Anyway, do you really need a kitchen? Maybe just a mini fridge by the bed for beer or Powerade? Maybe some bologna and cheese?

Another gut renovation for 103 Second Ave.

An EVG reader passes along word about the gut renovation going on inside 103 Second Ave. at East Sixth St., most recently home to the recently gut-renovated Vandaag, which closed back in May.

We've lost track of how many eateries have been in and out of here in just the last, oh, 15 years... and each time, there's a gut renovation, which is the EVG Keyword of the Day. No big deal. You put in a new restaurant. You gut renovate the place. Just what you have to do. Until the building falls down or something. And the Vandaagers put a lot of time and attention into the interior. And someone new comes along and starts over...

Anyway, Eater had the scoop that the address will soon be home to the first "brick and mortar location" of Mighty Quinn's, a BBQ food truck, specializing in sustainable smoked meats, favored by food truck foodies in Brooklyn.

They will open after the gut renovation.

And now, photos of a 5-inch slug on East 4th Street

Via EVG reader Steven Matthews.

Mystery Lot plywood expands

Hey now. The Mystery Lot Plywood is eating up parts of the East 14th Street sidewalk ...

Last week!

This week!

It's called the Plywood Creep. Please let us know when it reaches the curb.