Holiday Fair at the Neighborhood School (plus, pix of cute kids!)

From the EV Grieve inbox...

The Neighborhood School’s Holiday Fair:
A FUN FAIR FOR A GREAT CAUSE!

The Neighborhood School’s beloved Holiday Fair is back! On Sunday, December 5, from 11 am to 5 pm, come out to support a local public school and have a blast. There’ll be carnival games, arts & crafts, face-painting, print-making, henna and temporary tattooing, a huge kid-built maze (made of deconstructed cardboard boxes — the Avenue A equivalent of a corn maze), a raffle and great food from neighborhood vendors including Ciao for Now, Solo Pizza and Mudspot.

And of course there’s the silent auction. A mere sampling of items up for bids this year: Gift certificates to terrific local shops, salons, spas, yoga studios and gyms; passes to the Landmark Sunshine; museum memberships; theater subscriptions; Knicks tickets; Doyle & Doyle jewelry; family portraits by professional artists and photographers; meals at fave neighborhood spots like Mama’s Food Shop, Esperanto, Il Buco, Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Café Mogador, Caracas Arepa Bar, Balthazar and many more! Bid online or in person. Neighborhood School dad and EV institution Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba and writer Zoe Hansen will host a live auction at 3pm. Bidding closes at 4pm.

Admission to the fair is free and open to the public. Wondering what a progressive public school in the East Village is like? Come check us out! This is a great (and cheap) way to have fun indoors with your kids on a chilly winter’s day; you can have a nosh and shop for some great items while your kids run around playing and art-making with their friends. Proceeds from the fair support the Neighborhood School PTA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization that pays for the school’s art and music education, field trips, classroom supplies, special programs and teacher support. The Neighborhood School is at 121 East 3rd Street between First Avenue and Avenue A

And a school parent passed along photos of some of the students... most of them were taken by the kids, some in an afterschool photography class (taught by a parent, since there is no more funding for afterschool programs) and some in school as part of the curriculum.

A Visit with Frank 'Frankie Christmas' Bianco

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

It’s hard not to get excited about Christmas when visiting Frank “Frankie Christmas” Bianco. 

The 52-year-old longtime East Village resident, who moved here from Brooklyn in 1980, welcomes me at the door of his fully decked out apartment on Avenue D, where he lives and works as the boutique building’s manager.

He’s painstakingly laid out more than 9,300 lights and six Christmas trees, ranging in height from 2 to more than 7 feet tall, and has a winter wonderland inside the one-bedroom space, complete with music, lights, pine scent, decals, garlands and ornaments.

Drinking a (perhaps) nontraditional beer, Frankie shows me around his space, pointing out special ornaments and his Christmas stockings, and his 30 snowflake tattoos, and custom Santa backpiece, which is truly amazing, in addition to flash pieces dedicated to the holiday elsewhere on his body.

We have a seat at his holiday-themed table to chat about Santa and Christmas and how his obsession with the holiday came to be.

 
When and how did your fascination with Christmas start?

My fascination with Christmas started with my mom who always made Christmas special. As a teenager I started helping my mom with decorations and then I always wanted to go bigger and better. 

Can you walk us through the process of decorating your apartment? When do you start/finish?

I start decorating in September, as it takes close to 100 hours to decorate. It’s more about laying things out and ordering what I need.

What’s Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like for you and your family?

My family is so spread out these days that I won’t know what I’m doing until a couple of days before Christmas. 

What do you friends, family and neighbors think of your decorations? 

Everyone loves it. My family and friends love it and they all know where to go to get into the Christmas spirit. Most of my neighbors stop by and bring their friends to see my apartment. 

Any other holidays pique your interest the way Christmas does?

I enjoy all the holidays throughout the year, but nothing even comes close to Christmas!

Have you ever decorated other locations — commercial, residential, or religious spaces?

I’ve never decorated anywhere else. 
 
Do you have any special plans for next Christmas?

I’m already thinking about how I’m gonna decorate next year…I want to do a tree with Swarovski crystal snowflakes.

EVG Etc.: Looking for holiday volunteers; Remembering Aldo Tambellin

• The Bowery Mission and City Harvest need volunteers this holiday season (FOX 5)

• Remembering Aldo Tambellini, the pioneering filmmaker and artist who in the 1960s opened the Gate and the Black Gate in the East Village, screening films by Kenneth Anger and Yayoi Kusama, among many others (The Guardian ... ARTnews) 

• East Village restauranteurs talk about the possibility of the state suspending indoor dining (Gothamist) 

• An analysis of the ZIP codes New Yorkers exited between March 1 and Oct. 31. Topping the list: Upper West Side, 10023 — 3,368. At No. 20: East Village, 10009 — 728 (The Post)

• East Village resident Douglas Stuart discusses his acclaimed debut novel, "Shuggie Bain" (New York) 

• The Landmarks Preservation Commission is reviewing proposals to renovate and refurbish the façade of Bathhouse Studios on 11th Street (NYY ... previously on EVG) 

•  A positive review (it "wows") for Mokyo on St. Mark's Place (Forbes)

• A preview of the new Half Japanese record (Dangerous Minds) 

• "Dash & Lily," an eight-episode holiday-themed romantic comedy series, debuted on Netflix this past week to positive notices (100% on Rotten Tomatoes!).  As you may recall, the crew filmed quite a bit around the neighborhood in late 2019 (here and here for instance). In the trailer, you can see the locations include Two Boots on Avenue A and the Strand...

Time for the Neighborhood School's Holiday Fair

The Neighborhood School's annual Holiday Fair take place tomorrow (Sunday!) from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The holiday fair features an artisan market with items like soaps, jewelry and screenprinted T-shirts. There will be food, a photo booth, games and activities for kids ... as well as a book fair run by McNally Jackson.

The school is at 121 E. Third St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Holidays in the East Village (part 1)

[Exit9, Avenue A]

EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these holiday scenes from around the neighborhood... (and look for more photos tomorrow — Dec. 25!) Happy holidays from EVG...


[Elsie Flores at the Andrew Glover Youth Center, Avenue B]


[Casey Rubber Stamps, 11th Street]


[ChaShaMa popup Pawn Shop, Avenue A]


[Club Cumming, 6th Street]


[Duane Reade, 2nd and B]


[Rossy at Rossy’s Bakery, 3rd Street]


[Two Boots, Avenue A]


[Nowhere Bar queer arts holiday fair, 14th Street]


[Con Ed lobby, 14th and Irving]


[Lancelotti, Avenue A]


[Amaryllis making poinsettia at the LES Girls Club]


[The Odessa, Avenue A]


[Crimson Kitty and Lacy Stoner at Hetrick-Martin Institute's holiday party, Astor Place]


[Otto's Shrunken Head, 14th Street]


[Hamilton Fish recreation center, East Houston]


[Flower Power, 9th Street]


[Santa, 14th and 1st]

Previously on EV Grieve:
At the 28th annual Tompkins Square Park tree lighting

The Holiday expands its hours

After Stefan's death earlier this year, the Holiday was only open on the weekends. Now, though, as this flier on St. Mark's shows, the Holiday is expanding its hours. Which is a good thing.

The holiday lights are already up along 14th Street

You may have noticed that the holiday lights have already arrived on 14th Street at First Avenue ... all the way west to around Union Square... this is the earliet that we can recall seeing them by about three weeks... perhaps in a bid to just hurry us through the rest of 2020...

Previously on EV Grieve: • Holiday lights make you momentarily forget how horrible the intersection of 14th and 1st is

'Tis the season for keeping ConEd in business: The holiday lights are up at Rolf's

One of my favorite NYC holiday traditions. The over-the-top holiday lights -- some 70,000 light bulbs in total -- and Victorian-era tchochkes went up at Rolf's last week. For the last month, a few members of the staff at the French-Bavarian eatery at 231 Third Ave. at 22nd Street have been putting up the decorations after hours...they'll be on display until the middle of January. The restaurant opened in 1958, and the lights apparently started going up a few years after that...(at times, it still feels like 1958 in here...). Anyway! The lights!









It gets horribly crowded at Rolf's during the holidays, of course...Just grab a seat at the bar (if you can during off-peak hours)...the food is too heavy for my tastes (hmmm, suckling pig), unless I'm trying to spike the LDL level in my bloodstream. In any event, if Rolf's is mobbed, Paddy Macguire's down the street -- between 19th and 20th -- is a decent alternative for drinks during the holidays. They have some lights as well -- and a much smaller carbon footprint.