Do you have what it takes to be the coolest block in the neighborhood?

So, do you think your block is cool? Here's a chance to prove it.

This month, the Lower East Side Ecology Center is launching "The Coolest Block in the Lower East Side" (and NOT a Magnetic Fields song), billed as "an exciting new initiative designed to encourage community stewardship of street trees in the East Village, Lower East Side and Chinatown neighborhoods.''

OK! What else?

... this community-driven contest fosters environmental awareness, local engagement, and a healthy dose of competition, bringing together neighbors, schools, and organizations to transform their blocks into vibrant, green spaces. 

Residents, community groups, block associations, schools, and local organizations are invited to compete for the title of the Coolest Block in the Lower East Side. Participants will focus on key street tree care activities such as soil aeration, mulching, watering, and general cleanup, all while showcasing creativity and community spirit. 

Interested? Then, fill out this Interest Form.

There will also be a kick-off event on Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Sixth Street Community Center. For event information, click this link. 

Report: Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union loses challenge to Trump pick for CFPB

A federal judge ruled that the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union on Avenue B lacks standing to challenge President Trump's appointment of Mick Mulvaney to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The ruling was made public yesterday. Here's more from Reuters:

U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan said the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union lacked legal authority to sue, rejecting what he called the plaintiff’s “fear-based theory of standing.”

Gardephe said the credit union failed to show that any actual or expected policy changes under Mulvaney, who is also White House budget chief, would undermine its ability to fulfill its mission of improving the health of underserved communities.

“Organizations advocating for a particular policy goal who have alleged no injury to themselves as organizations may not establish their standing simply on the basis of that goal,” Gardephe wrote. His decision is dated Thursday.

A lawyer for the Credit Union told Reuters: "We are evaluating our options in this extremely important case."

In early December, the Credit Union accused the President in a complaint of "an illegal hostile takeover of the CFPB." You can read more on the challenge here.

The Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union was founded in 1986. Today, it has nearly 8,500 members as well as locations in East Harlem and on Staten Island.

More details on Cabrini's closing announcement

[Photo via GammaBlog]

Here's some follow-up on our story yesterday about the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on East Fifth Street at Avenue B closing in the next four-five months.

First, here's a copy of the letter that circulated to dozens of local elected officials and friends of Cabrini yesterday about the closure...

[Click to enlarge]

A few excerpts...

In order to give families enough time to transition and keep patient care at the highest level, we expect to continue the closure process as long as is necessary, likely until July. We are working collaboratively with the owner, Ben Shaoul of Magnum Real Estate, to ensure that our respective goals are achieved during this time.

The closure process will cost $7 million dollars, which represents expenses including unemployment insurance, pension funding and severance pay for the employees, whose devotion to Lower East Side families has truly made Cabrini a place worth fighting to maintain. To help cover these significant costs, we have requested a $7 million HEAL grant from the DOH. We ask your help in advocating for the Department of Health to grant Cabrini’s worthy request for HEAL funds. If we do not receive these closing funds, Cabrini will be forced into bankruptcy.

We take these obligations very seriously, and are currently in the process of negotiating the sale of 117 beds (the maximum number allowed by DOH, based on borough need), to a private nursing home operator in Borough Park. The transaction, which must be approved by the state, will offset closure costs by approximately $2.5 million and, most importantly, allow some Cabrini residents and employees the option of moving collectively to Brooklyn.

Local officials responded by issuing the following statement:

STATEMENT FROM LOWER EAST SIDE ELECTEDS ON CABRINI CENTER FOR NURSING & REHABILITATION

NEW YORK — Today, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, Borough President Scott Stringer, Councilmember Rosie Mendez, and Councilmember Margaret Chin released the following statement:

We are deeply disappointed that Cabrini will be shutting its doors after two decades of service to its patients and the Lower East Side community.

We collectively and aggressively worked to encourage the parties to reach a better conclusion, and believe they should have reached an agreement to keep Cabrini open in its current location until a new site became available.

This is a terrible loss for the Lower East Side, and for the greater New York City community. We're committed to working with Cabrini and the community to ensure a smooth and dignified transition for patients, their families, and Cabrini employees.

In addition, we heard late yesterday afternoon from Kenneth Fisher, the attorney representing developer Ben Shaoul, who purchased the building last fall. Fisher wanted to clarify a point in our post:

Your statement that we would not grant an extension so that Cabrini could build a new facility on land provided by the Archdiocese isn't quite correct. We were willing to consider something, but Cabrini turned out not to be able to move forward with it. We also at their request attempted to sell the building to a for profit operator at their request who turned out not to be able to perform. It was only after those alternatives failed that we advised Cabrini that no extension would be granted. Please bear in mind that this situation was created when the previous seller decided to sell ad set a price that Cabrini couldn't meet. We attempted to work with them in good faith.

Read the full story here.

"Whether or not the seedy Lower East Side will ever catch on as a trendy destination is open for debate"

Vice magazine celebrated its 15th anniversary this past weekend. To mark the occasion, the editors allegedly reissued their very first issue from 1994, which included this piece titled "Ludlow Street, Mon Amour."

The first paragraph:

The Lower East Side of Manhattan is not a fashionable destination. Populated primarily by dive bars, nodding junkies, and boarded-up storefronts, the thought of anything even remotely related to trendiness, fancy clothes, or art happening down here would be pretty hard to believe. In fact, the only reason anyone from another neighborhood would even set foot on the LES in 1994 would be if they were looking for illicit substances, of which there are plenty.

The last paragraph:

Whether or not the seedy Lower East Side will ever catch on as a trendy destination is open for debate. My guess is probably not. In fact, I hope not. Seeing Ludlow Street overrun with normal people looking for a “hip kick” would turn my stomach faster than a bad bag of dope. But last weekend, if only for one night, the Lower East Side was most certainly the place to be in New York.

I'm curious if anyone fell for this prank...

Related:
Hipster Media Magnate Picks $2M East Village Flower (Curbed)

Your 'Saints of the Lower East Side'

Oops... we're really late with this one...



We received the news release last week... and here it is...

Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc) presents "Saints of the Lower East Side" by artist Tom Sanford, the latest in a series of exhibitions produced through FABnyc's public art program, ArtUp. The outdoor exhibition features seven painted portraits mounted 14 feet above street level on a scaffolding bridge at the 70 East 4th Street Cultural Center. ...

This exhibition is Tom Sanford's first outdoor public art project. The array of large gilded paintings are intended as an homage to cultural icons who lived and worked on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In the artist words, "These seven individuals [Martin Wong, Joey Ramone, Miguel Piñero, Ellen Stewart, Charlie Parker, Arthur Fellig and Allen Ginsberg], along with hundreds more, make the Lower East Side the crucible of the American avant-garde and a neighborhood that captivates my imagination as a New York artist."

A reception for the artist will be held on June 26th, 2012 at 6pm at FAB Café. ..

.



The art will be up until Sept. 5 or so... Sanford and Graham Preston installed "The Saints" on June 4... Here's one of the photos via Sanford's website...

Lower East Side History Month starts now

Via the EVG inbox…

May 2015 brings the second edition of Lower East Side (LES) History Month, a month-long celebration of the rich, diverse history of New York City's historic Lower East Side (including the neighborhoods of the East Village, Chinatown, Little Italy, and Alphabet City).

With participation by more than 80 Lower East Side-based cultural organizations, community groups, and businesses, LES History Month will feature a huge variety of affordable and unique events including live performances, exhibits, gallery and walking tours, talks, film screenings, festivals and more. Find the current event calendar on our website here.

Jimmy Webb will make dreams come true with new rock 'n' roll boutique I Need More

[Photo of Jimmy Webb for EVG by Walter Wlodarczyk]

Jimmy Webb, a familiar figure in the East Village during his long tenure as the manager and buyer at Trash & Vaudeville, is opening a rock 'n'roll boutique next month on the Lower East Side at 75A Orchard St. between Broome and Grand. Webb gave me a quick overview about the shop, called I Need More, which opens on Oct. 13.

Why did you decide to return to the retail business?
What else would I do? In my heart I never really left.

I’ve never really looked as myself as a seller of anything or even as someone in the retail business. What I do is I make dreams come true and I love doing it! I simply find what’s inside people, I help bring it out, and then I help them dress it up! I guess that’s the retail business, but the word "business" sounds so disconnected from "dream maker," and I’d rather make "dreams come true!"

Why did you pick the Lower East Side for the shop?
I didn’t pick the Lower East Side, or any special place for I Need More. I was very open to where the rock 'n' roll angels were leading me when I finally decided to open a store. A certain group of friends, I call them angels, guided me to the clarity that I needed to open a brick-and-mortar store. Loving all of New York City I was very open to anywhere in Manhattan. My heart and spirit is in ALL of New York City.

Of course the Lower East Side is a HUGE part of my life since I ran away and arrived in the city in 1975. So I wasn’t the least bit surprised when that second batch of angels ended up leading me right to 75 Orchard Street — 75A in fact! How cool is that? I take that leap of faith and run away to New York City in 1975 as a 16-year-old boy. Decades later another leap of faith leaving everything I know and ending up at 75A Orchard Street.

What can people expect from I Need More?
It’s about the spirit of New York City — past, present and future, And also the spirit of what art, music, and everything else that colors the world! It will be about everything that is real, raw, energetic, welcoming, passionate, dirty, beautiful and most of all — honest!

I’m a firm believer in "we are the future.” That "no future” pessimism doesn’t cut it with me. Like Joey Ramone singing “What a Wonderful World” or Iggy singing every song that Iggy sings. I Need More aims to please with every heartbeat within it. It’s here to make dreams come true.

Thanks to Walter Wlodarczyk for the photo. Find more of his work here.

Q&A with Steven Matrick, co-founder of the New Colossus Festival, taking place this week at East Village and Lower East Side music venues

Photos and interview by Stacie Joy 

Longtime Lower East Side resident Steven Matrick arrives at Pianos (158 Ludlow St.) excited to talk about music and bands — and I am excited to let him, as he details some acts he's especially keen on seeing (and hearing) at this year's New Colossus Festival.

Since he's the co-founder of the nearly weeklong event, which is rapidly approaching (today through Sunday), we take some photos at one of the fest's 11 venues and chat about the NYC music scene, what it takes to run a festival, and his favorite moments from previous ones.

What inspired you to start The New Colossus Festival, and how has it evolved since its inception? 

I was on a series of panels with the other bookers on the Lower East Side, and we kept talking about how much we all missed CMJ. This was in 2018. Festival Co-Founder Mike Bell approached me about the New Colossus Festival as the booker of Pianos, and then his partner quit, so we teamed up. He rightly pointed out the scattershot nature of bands coming to NYC on their way to SXSW and how we should centralize it in the neighborhood we love. We chose Lio Kanine from Kanine Records to help us with booking, as he always threw amazing parties at CMJ. 

We did a test run in 2018 on both floors at Pianos the week before SXSW, and it went extremely well, so we went full throttle in 2019. The festival lineup has gotten bigger (more bands) and better (more amazing bands) with each year. We’ve been able to rely on locals less and less with each edition, and our mission is to welcome international bands to NYC, so we’re very happy about this. We also have done 22 weeks of shows (with 5 bands at each one) at 18th Ward Brewery the last three years, so we’ve at this point worked with about 300 local bands and are able to figure out which ones we want to showcase every year. 

The festival name is derived from Emma Lazarus's poem about the Statue of Liberty. How does that symbolism influence the Festival’s identity? 

NYC has been one of the epicenters of music for a very long time, and we want to welcome artists from all over the world to play their first shows in March. This was Mike's idea, and I'm a very sentimental person, so I was and always have been really into it. 

It is really beautiful, and there is a way in which musical artists wash up to NYC looking to play: 

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she 

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

How do you see The New Colossus Festival contributing to NYC's cultural and artistic landscape? 

Well, we're an indie rock festival. The indie rock music scene started in the East Village with CBGB and Max's Kansas City, moved to the Lower East Side in the early 2000s (Mercury Lounge, Luna Lounge, Pianos, Cake Shop, Don Hills, etc.), moved to Williamsburg in the early 2010s, and then eastward to Bushwick. Now, there are a ton of venues in Ridgewood and BedStuy.

The move eastward has to do with artists finding affordable places to live. It is extremely important to us that we have this Festival in the Lower East Side/East Village to bring these kids back to playing in these historic venues. 

We're also functioning as an entry point for what will be 800 bands by the end of the Festival, and most of them gain a footing so that their next show in NYC has the capacity to have a good-sized audience at it. It's a wonderful thing.

Many artists are performing in New York City — or even the U.S. — for the first time. How does the Festival support them in making that leap? 

Well, when you go to SXSW, you're technically only supposed to play one show and certainly not more than one at night during official festival hours. This year, we’ve given all international bands two to three shows and many locals two shows. It is so excellent to provide multiple showcases for them during their trip. 

In the past, at Pianos, a band from Norway would showcase at 7 p.m., and sometimes the rooms were empty because nobody knew who they were yet. This is a much better way to play your first NYC shows. 

Are there any artists or performances you’re particularly excited about this year? 

Yes! I'm a punk rock guy and am throwing two label parties. All of the bands on those parties are amazing: Test Plan, Prostitute, Public Circuit, Peer Pleasure and Bucket (two bands I saw at Ireland Music Week), Joe & the Shitboys from the Faroe Islands, who are opening three shows for Iggy Pop soon, and some really excellent weird bands from Ohio: Big Fat Head, People in the Daytime and Touchdown Jesus, that Pons, who are on our label, sent over to me.

On the nonpunk front, I can't wait to see Prism Shores, You Said Strange, Delivery, Hachiku, Cusp, World News, Dictator, Dutch Mustard, Snoozer (Alex G's band), Wax Jaw, Bleary Eyed … and I can go on and on and on! 

Looking back, what are the festival moments that stand out for you?

1. Lowly (Denmark) at Pianos in 2019 completely blew our minds. Think Stereolab. 

2. Paul Jacobs (Montreal) blew us away at Pianos in 2022. 

3. GIFT (Brooklyn) played Berlin in 2022 and were so great I wound up managing them.

4. Ducks Ltd. (Toronto) blessed us with three shows last year. Their album Harm's Way was the theme album for the Festival, so I enjoyed every moment of all three shows—as did everyone else who was there! 

5. Roost.World (Vermont) closed out the Festival last year at Baker Falls on Saturday Night, and it was a full-on amazing dance party. 

What are your long-term goals for The New Colossus Festival, and are there any new elements or expansions you’re considering for future editions? 

We'd like to continue holding it in small venues to keep it manageable for everyone and evolve the number of people who come out for the week. This year, we did six shows with Super Bock, three shows with Groover, and, again, 22 weeks of shows at 18th Ward Brewery, so the Festival has become more of a year-round thing. 

We'd like to continue expanding who we partner with for shows and throw great shows throughout the year.

Find the entire schedule and band info at this link.

Schools making it work while repairs continue at 420 E. 12th St.

This past Tuesday, workers arrived at the Mary Help of Christians parking lot on Avenue A at East 11th Street to repair the eastern wall of the school at 420 E. 12th St. (We had photos here and here.)

According to the Department of Education, the structural defect, discovered Monday, "will require the immediate demolition and subsequent rebuilding of that wall." They expect the demolition work to take "several weeks."

Students from East Side Community High School (grades 6-12) and the Girls Prep Lower East Side Middle School, who share the space at 420 E. 12th St., have been temporarily relocated to other schools.

We didn't have a chance to survey the scope of the project up close until this past weekend... and you can see in the following photos how extensive the work is...

Open Road Park next to the school is closed too, of course... so the skateboarders are also displaced ...

[Bobby Williams]

[Bobby Williams]

Meanwhile, parents of the displaced students are understandably concerned and upset... we spoke with a few parents, who commend East Side Principal Mark Federman for his leadership.

East Side students made it work last week... attending classes in hallways or the gym at PS 19 or holding study sessions at the Neptune on First Avenue...

[Images via @MarkEastSide]

On Monday, students had to leave the building quickly ... with the school sealed up, students don't have access to their supplies. East Side parent Jane Nina Buchanan wondered if any local business could help out with donating school supplies for the students. (Any queries should be directed to school officials via the East Side website.)

Meanwhile, some East Side parents have launched a website titled "No Way to Learn." The site's mission:

The school that we send our children to recently experienced a structural issue concerning the school building ... We don't know when our children will be allowed back into their school and we're not satisfied with how things are being handled in the meantime by the NYC Board of Education. We hope to share some of our stories, as well as essential information for the parents of East Side Community High School students, here.

Reminders tonight: The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited

The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited
CUNY-Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave., Manhattan, Elebash Recital Hall

Join panelists:
Joyce Mendelsohn, author
Annie Polland, the Tenement Museum
Clayton Patterson, photojournalist and author
Eric Ferrara, the Lower East Side History Project

Joyce Mendelsohn’s "The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited," first published in 2001 and is being re-released by Columbia University Press in a revised and expanded edition, including a new section on the Bowery. Panelists will discuss the neighborhood's venerable churches, synagogues and settlement houses as well as the breakneck changes that have taken place. Transformed from historic to hip – aged tenements sit next to luxury apartment towers, and boutiques, music clubs, trendy bars and upscale restaurants take over spaces once occupied by bargain shops, bodegas, and ethnic eateries.

*RSVP FOR TICKET AVAILABILITY

Date: December 2, 2009
Time: 6:30 PM-8:30 PM
Phone: 212-817-8471
E-mail: gotham@gc.cuny.edu

Check out the Web site for more details.

At the Lower East Side Sports Academy car wash on Avenue D

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

I’m meeting with Lower East Side Sports Academy founder Frankie Alameda on a very hot Thursday afternoon on upper Avenue D near 14th Street. We're in the shadow of the Con Edison substation and across the street from the Manhattan pump station (NYC Environmental Protection municipal water treatment building). His sports academy’s team is in action — washing cars as part of an ongoing fundraiser.

Frankie has set up a mobile car wash station to help provide summer jobs and activities for local kids and to provide a much-needed service for those who own or drive vehicles.



Frankie’s arriving with pizza for himself and the kids, and with bags of PPE to provide to community members who may be in need. Masks, hand sanitizer, gloves and wet wipes are all provided by the office of local Assemblymember Harvey Epstein.



Between overseeing the kids’ work on the line of waiting cars, distributing tips from satisfied customers, and greeting neighborhood regulars, Frankie answers my questions about the car wash.

How did the car wash idea get started, and how is it tied in to the Lower East Side Sports Academy?

The car wash concept started with the idea of raising some money for LES Sports RBI baseball team, for uniforms, equipment, healthy snacks and scholarships for the kids.

How can kids — and their families — get involved with the car wash and the LES Sports Academy?

LES Sports kids earn a stipend and get tips as well from our customers. We have created five jobs for the community. The parents come and help with posting on social media, bringing their cars, and helping with some food.



When is the car wash available and how long do you expect it to last?

The car wash is available every day from noon to 7 p.m. and we plan to stay until the end of the summer, adjusting the hours to accommodate play once that is allowed and it’s safe.

During the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdown, what has been the best part of this experience, and what has been the worst? How are the kids coping?

The pandemic has given us time to focus on new ways to reinvent ourselves and the community. The worst part is not being able to have physical sports for our kids ... I believe most kids are coping with the pandemic, but some have very tough times being home in a small apartment with a large family. Cabin fever!

You mentioned that you hope eventually to buy a generator and a van. What are some of the needs you and the kids have going forward? How can the community support the effort?

Since we opened the car wash, we noticed we needed more things to make our work more efficient and make the cars nice and clean. We are hoping to get a mobile car wash van, with a power wash, and lastly, a generator to be complete.









What’s next for the car wash team?

Sharing our best practices with other youth sports organizations.

You can keep up with the Lower East Side Sports Academy and the car wash — as well as other activities for kids — here. They have a PayPal account at this link.

Newcomers to the Lower East Side have 'amnesia of some sort — a self-entitlement'

At the City Room this morning, Sarah Maslin Nir has a recap from last week's panel discussion titled "The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited."

The panelists were:
Joyce Mendelsohn, author
Annie Polland, the Tenement Museum
Clayton Patterson, photojournalist and author
Eric Ferrara, the Lower East Side History Project

A few passages from the article:

The influx of luxury buildings and the moneyed residents who can afford them, panelists like Mr. Patterson seemed to say, erase the color and vibrancy of the area, even as they shoo away perceived blight like the suppliers of drug baggies. But if the roof is made of glass and steel and is designed by a celebrity architect, are the stories underneath less “real life”?

The problem, Mr. Ferrara said, is that newcomers to the Lower East Side have “amnesia of some sort — a self-entitlement. Somebody’s paying $3,500 to live in the same two or three rooms where somebody’s grandmother used to sit in the window crying, ‘How am I going to pay my rent?’ ” If they were aware of the history behind sky-high real estate, he said, the pricing out would be “a little easier to bear.”

Yet the very history being rubbed out by developers and yuppies is, paradoxically, what draws them to the area, Ms. Polland said, citing, for example, the Hotel on Rivington’s founding concept: “The area has arrived, but retains it’s colorful, urban diversity,” says literature on the hotel’s Web site. It “caters to the upper class,” she said. “It’s staking its image on the identity of a neighborhood that in order to have that diversity,” officials “would need to be thinking about affordable housing.”

Image via Museum of the City of New York

Report: David McWater is resigning from Community Board 3

[David McWater, seated left, during last week's CB3/SLA meeting. Photo by BoweryBoogie]

Longtime CB3 member David McWater will resign during tonight's full board meeting, according to an article published at The Villager this morning.

Per the article:

“I’ve done more than any community board member in the history of New York City,” McWater told The Villager. “Nobody in the last 20 years did anything like the Lower East Side rezoning and SPURA. The community owes me a debt — nobody’s ever done what we’ve done. Nobody — nobody ever did anything like SPURA and the rezoning.

“The proudest moments in my life were the Lower East Side rezoning and SPURA,” he said. “With the Lower East Side rezoning we stopped N.Y.U. in their tracks at Third Ave.; except for a few areas, you can’t go over eight stories. We stopped the dorms, we stopped the hotels. It’s the greatest bulwark against gentrification the Lower East Side could ever have — and I believe, in my heart, we saved the homes of hundreds and possibly thousands of people, protecting them from being harassed out of their homes by landlords and developers to build buildings.”

McWater said that he'll likely make his remarks to the Board and community tonight "between the public session and the period where politicians and their representatives give their reports."

The resignation comes one week after an ugly confrontation between McWater and neighborhood group the LES Dwellers during the CB3/SLA committee meeting on Sept. 16.

You can read the entire Villager piece here.

Saved from the dumpster: Classic Lower East Side signage rescued

An iconic Lower East Side sign won't disappear with its storefront — it's headed to a museum.

Yesterday, workers from the New York Sign Museum (housed in space adjacent to Noble Signs in Brooklyn) removed the Louis Zuflacht/154/Smart Clothes sign from 154 Stanton St. at Suffolk Street, sparing it from an unceremonious ending in a dumpster. (Thanks to EVG reader Seth for the photo and tip!) 

The New York Sign Museum is a nonprofit foundation "dedicated to preserving and promoting the history of advertising and signage in New York City and the surrounding areas." 

The current two-story building on Stanton and Suffolk is due for a luxury upgrade, adding two floors and a penthouse. Here's a rendering showing the possibilities for a lux conversion at No. 154 (we haven't seen a final rendering) ...

According to Ephemeral New York, the sign dates to 1942 and served (until yesterday) as a "a time machine to the Lower East Side's midcentury days as a neighborhood crammed with cut-rate clothes and accessories shops — and aggressive store clerks hawking their goods to crowds of shoppers." 

Mr. Zuflacht was born in Austria in 1881 and arrived in New York in 1900. After an unsuccessful attempt at selling clothes at 184 Stanton St., Zuflacht took over No. 154 in the early 1940s and worked for decades with his sons at the tailor shop and haberdashery. He died in 1986. It's not immediately known when the shop closed. 

Since the mid-1980s, the space has been home to various businesses, including a vintage shop or two and the New York Studio Gallery. 

The subsequent businesses (and the landlord) kept the Zuflacht signage up through the years. 

Per Ephemeral New York: 

And why should they? It's a wonderful remnant of a certain era in Manhattan, and an accidental memorial to a man who invested much of his life in a Lower East Side garment district of inexpensive "smart" clothes for bargain-hunting buyers. 

And we're glad to see it preserved as part of the city's rich small business history.

LES survey: "Small businesses are constantly facing the possibility of rent increases or eviction"

This week's issue of The Villager reports on the results of the Good Old Lower East Side survey titled, “No Go for Local Business: The Decline of the Lower East Side’s Small Business Identity.”

It's about as grim as you'd expect:

The survey found that small businesses are constantly facing the possibility of rent increases or eviction. Almost half of small business owners reported that their overhead costs were rising. Nearly one-third identified rising commercial property rents as their “greatest challenge,” and three-fourths said that their profits are not growing at a sustainable rate compared to the substantial increase in the cost of doing business on the Lower East Side.

Ninety-five percent of small business owners surveyed rent their store space, and nearly half of them hold leases of five years or less.

Redevelopment and gentrification of the Lower East Side were cited by 46 percent of business owners as directly affecting their businesses.

Richard Price on the Lower East Side: "This place is like Byzantium"

There's a feature on Bronx-born Richard Price today in the Times. His new novel, Lush Life, is set in the Lower East Side, and concerns a seemingly random murder.

Excerpts from the article:

About the Lower East Side today, Mr. Price said, “This place is like Byzantium. It’s tomorrow, yesterday — anyplace but today.” He added that he sometimes thinks of the neighborhood as a very busy ghost town, where many of the ghosts milling around still speak Yiddish.

His grandparents got their start in the Lower East Side, he explained, and while Mr. Price was growing up his father worked here as a window dresser for the many small clothing shops that used to be an important part of the neighborhood economy.

“In a way the whole place has come full-circle in five generations,” Mr. Price said. “A hundred years ago there were Jews trying to claw their way out of here, and now the descendants of those people are paying $2,000 a month to live in what used to be their tenements.”

[Price image by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times]

Details on the additional funding for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project

The city has announced new details about plans for East River Park after the years-long gutting commences later this year. 

According to an announcement by Mayor de Blasio and published reports, additional funding — totaling $145 million — will allow for a new amphitheater (with roof), more amenities at Murphy Brothers Playground and a flyover bridge for the narrow bikeway at 14th Street.

In addition, Deputy Mayor Vicki Been confirmed in a letter that the Lower East Side Ecology Center's compost yard would be able to return to its longtime home upon completion of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project.

NY1 had more details on the amphitheater: 

The reconstruction project ... was set to demolish the current amphitheater and replace it with a smaller stage, albeit one without a roof... 

Now, an infusion of $4.83 million that was announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio will allow the city to create a roof structure for the amphitheater, said Ian Michaels, the executive director of public information for the city’s Department of Design and Construction, which is overseeing much of the park's overhaul. 

City Hall did not respond to a question about where the funding is coming from.

Michael Marino, the founder of Friends of Corlears Hook Park, which is across the FDR from the amphitheater, told this to NY1: "I don't think it should have taken this long for this to happen. I feel like every once in a while, after years of the community complaining about something, we get a little crumb, and that's supposed to appease us."

Marino said he is pleased that the amphitheater will have a cover of some kind, but is still concerned that the current plan does not include bathrooms or sufficient seating for performances. 

 A covered amphitheater would offer "that grandiose vision" for people entering the park, he said. 

Renderings of the new amphitheater show that it is considerably smaller than the current version, which can seat an estimated 2,500. Instead, the new space looks to hold 400.

Here is the list of other "improvements" that the city announced back on Thursday:

• $5.8 million to build a comfort station at Murphy Brothers Playground, a 1.27-acre park at Avenue C and East 17th Street. The playground was already scheduled to receive updated recreation facilities and flood protection. Other improvements to the playground will include a new basketball court, new synthetic turf ballfields, a new dog run, a new power source for the existing Little League scoreboard, and enhanced landscaping.

• $129 million, in a separate capital project, to the Department of Transportation to fully fund a future flyover bridge that will improve bike and pedestrian access through this critical part of the Greenway. The bridge will span the "pinch point" area of the Manhattan Greenway as it passes 14th Street along the East River, where the Greenway narrows to just a few feet wide to fit between the river, the FDR Drive and adjacent Con Edison facilities. The bridge construction will be coordinated with ESCR.

The announcements aren't likely to appease opponents of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, who have demanded a "real environmental review" of the $1.45 billion plan to protect the Lower East Side and surrounding neighborhoods from a 100-year-flood event and sea-level rise. 

Opponents of the city's current plan — where workers will raze the 57.5-acre plot of land, bulldozing 1,000 mature trees and rebuilding the park atop eight feet of landfill — say there are better ways to preserve the park and provide flood protection, such as the one mapped out in the years after Sandy.

In late 2018, the city surprised community stakeholders by announcing a complete overhaul of a plan discussed over four years of local meetings.

In October 2019, the city announced that they would phase in the construction, so only portions of the park are closed to the public at any given time. According to various reports, the city has committed to leaving a minimum of 42 percent of East River Park open to the public. It is projected to be completed in 2025, a timetable opponents say will never be met.

As previously reported, the lowest bids have come in, and they've already exceeded the budget by $73 million, which doesn't cover the entire project. To date, the city has yet to select a contractor, a process mired in a lawsuit at the moment.

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• City tries again with the release of a Value Engineering Study for East River Park

• Report: Lowest bids for East River Park construction are $73 million over budget 

• East River community group gets action on the release of (heavily redacted) Value Engineering Study

• Advocacy group: The city's Value Engineering Study for East River Park does not exist

Out and About in the East Village, part 2

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: Regina Bartkoff and Charles Schick
Occupation: Artists, Performers
Location: 292 E. 3rd Street between Avenue C and D
Time: 7 pm on Thursday, March 12

Picking up from part 1 last week, where Regina was talking about her job working with horses at the Aqueduct Racetrack in her native Queens...

Regina: I didn’t want to be at the track forever and I didn’t know what I was doing, so I left and took the A train to Manhattan and got a job at WABC Radio. I don’t know why I did that. The whole thing started again. I had no friends and they thought I was weird and I was so depressed. I missed being outside. I felt my soul shrinking.

And then one day this temp came in and she had this black hair and cowboy boots and I remember just looking at her. And at 3 she just put her feet up on the desk and said, ‘No human being can work past 3.’ I said, ‘Yeah but they’re paying us till 5.’ And she said, ‘I’m a director and I have acting classes.’ She asked me to join them. The class just blew my mind because everything she talked about method acting was just incredible to me. I just fell in love with it. I just stuck with it. I met a boyfriend in the class and life was starting to come together.

I did a play down here and I came down to the Lower East Side and the first thing I fell in love with was Leshko’s and Odessa. My friends at the time said, ‘Why do you like this? It’s dangerous.’ Tompkins Square Park at the time was called ‘dog shit park.’ There would be like a million dogs running around the park and you would not walk through it at night. My friend Al said, ‘I’m going to try it.’

He got held up about six times walking through the park. I came down here walking around Avenue D. It looked like there were a thousand people on the street. I said, ‘What are these people doing? They said, ‘Hey little girl get out of here if you don’t know what they’re doing.’ This whole drug sale was going on. I don’t know why, but nothing flipped me out. I didn’t care if it was dangerous — there was life here.

I had a job at Phebe’s and then at an all-night restaurant, where I met Charlie. I didn’t like him at first. I though he was real arrogant. By then I was not the same shy person anymore. I was just on the Lower East Side, this little punk girl, in love with art. It was like the Leonard Cohen song, there was music on Clinton Street all through the evening. I loved it even more.

I remember when Charlie took me down to see his apartment on the Lower East Side. We all went there and he didn’t have money for canvas and so he just used his walls — all totally painted, the ceilings too. I thought it was magic and I said, ‘I want to do that.’ And he said, ‘yeah just get some canvases, some paint, some brushes. You don’t have to go to school for it, take it from me.' And I did, I was in a little apartment on East Fourth Street and I went there and I started to paint. That was it.

Charlie: We really haven’t progressed since then. It’s sort of like, do your own thing and you’ll be king. We’ve had odd jobs, worked in restaurants. I work right now as a tour guide on top of the buses.

Regina: Then we moved in together. We just ran around New York. We loved the Lower East Side, we loved Coney Island and in 1984 we had a kid together, Hannah, and then it was the three of us. It was really hard. We were broke.

Charlie: When she was coming we had to borrow money for a cab. We were kind of unprepared. It worked out though. Our life with Hannah was the best thing that ever happened to us. She’s getting married on April 4. We couldn’t be more proud!

Regina: Hannah was about 4 years old and I needed a job. So I got a job at El Sombrero on Stanton and Ludlow. They almost went down for good two years ago and then this relative took it over and I got hired back, and I’m there again.

At that time, you could work one day, maybe two days a week and be OK. And that was great about being an artist too because I thought, ‘I’ll take that deal. I’ll take five days off from work.’ Some people would have their feelings hurt about being a waitress. I was like, ‘Are you kidding, my mind is free even when I’m there.’ It’s easy and it was good money; pockets full of money and then you’d have five days off.

I missed the horses daily. And by luck — or so I thought — I got a job grooming horses at one of the biggest Carriage Houses. I lasted only a few months. Conditions were terrible for the horses and it was hard to take. That's another long story and why I'm against them today.

Acting and the sheer raw stark beauty of the Lower East Side had taken over from the horses and won my heart. It was a sweet life and you could live simply. The neighborhood was wide open then ... and you just breathed in freedom. Tompkins Park was open 24/7, a little more safe and it was great to have when you're broke with a kid. After the Tompkins Square Park riots they smashed the bandshell, the heart, that took a piece out of me too and it closes now at midnight.

Charlie: Not to romanticize starving artists, but you had to be willing to do this. God knows what’s going to happen. It was a different time and a different mindset. But the main thing for us is that doing it is the great reward.

Recently we've been doing Tennessee William's later plays. "In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel" and last year's "The Two-Character Play." It was a play we had been obsessed with for quite some time. We transform the entire space [at at 292 Gallery, 292 E. Third St.] every time we do a play. In our tiny 20-seat house it's intimate and electric, you can feel the energy exchange from the audience right close up in your face.

Regina: Now we go between painting and theatre. We have to find plays that we can do together. So far the track record has been a play, painting show, a play, a painting show. Also because we’re performers, when we paint it’s almost a performance. I have to be really awake and in the moment. I started doing pastels because oil paints are a living thing to us. It’s very fluid. Charlie’s got about 50,000 images behind that [painting]. But with the chalk you can only go so far before the paper rips.

Charlie: The change is difficult for us because it felt like home in the early days. You’d walk down the street and know everybody. It had a soulfulness to it. Not to romanticize violence and other aspects that you had to put up with if you were willing to live here. There was something to the people, faces, characters, and energy, and every street felt different. I felt there was so much interesting stuff to see. You didn’t have to look very hard. It was alive and surprising. Some days you just get a glimpse of the old. Just on some fluke you’re riding the subway home, and it just brings it all back. It’s a different world, I guess everywhere, but one that we don’t quite fit in.

Regina: What made me not feel like I fit into suburban New York? I don’t know. It wasn’t like I was a punk when I was a kid. What was it that that I just didn’t like and what made me come down here and feel immediately accepted?

Read part 1 here.

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

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The exhibit Inner Cities continues through Saturday at 292 Gallery ... the exhibit features photos by Romy Ashby, drawings by Regina Bartkoff and paintings by Charles Schick. The gallery is at 292 E. Third St. between Avenue C and Avenue D. Gallery hours are 2-5 p.m. on Saturday and by appointment.

Your chance to discuss proposed changes coming to the M14A and M14D bus lines

There's a town hall with MTA officials this coming Tuesday night from 6-8 (details below) to discuss proposed changes to the M14A and M14D bus routes on Avenue A and Avenue D.

As previously reported, with the the new planned SBS route, the MTA may eliminate M14A and M14D stops throughout the East Village and Lower East Side.

The proposal would turn the M14A and M14D into an SBS route, lowering the number of stops on Avenue A and Avenue D and along Grand Street.

Last Friday, local elected officials spoke out against these proposed moves during a rally on Avenue A and Fourth Street. (You can read coverage of this at Curbed and Patch.)

Here's a statement released following the rally:

With the partial shutdown of the L train fast approaching, this compromise SBS route would eliminate a number of local stops near senior centers and NYCHA developments, while not removing enough stops to provide significantly improved speeds.

A real M14 SBS with supplemental, local service, would service vulnerable populations while improving on the proposed SBS plan and providing real “express” travel times that other routes have. In fact, there is already a successful model for this kind of plan just a few avenues away, where the M15 SBS runs parallel to an M15 local route. The MTA must pursue a similar strategy for the M14 route.

The Lower East Side, which encompasses most of the future M14 SBS route, is home to one of the 10 largest senior populations in New York City who rely on the current M14A/D to get to medical appointments, supermarkets, and social activities. The current proposal also ignores the challenges that stop removal will pose for residents living in NYCHA developments and the 28 percent of residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown who live below the Federal Poverty Level.

"Our M14 bus is the second-busiest bus route in Manhattan and sadly also the second slowest: I believe we must and can do better in serving our East Side residents," said City Councilmember Carlina Rivera. "We need solutions for both those who need faster transit options and those will be forced to walk over half a mile between the proposed new bus stops and their homes, with no other affordable options. The current M14 SBS plan not only fails seniors and low-income New Yorkers – it also diminishes how transformative an SBS route could be for the area."

Tuesday night's meeting is at the 7th Precinct, 19 Pitt St., which is just south of the Williamsburg Bridge and Delancey Street.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Local elected officials urging the MTA/DOT to keep local service in M14 SBS plan

RIP Anton van Dalen

Photo by Anthony Lindsey from the documentary, "Anton: Circling Home"

Longtime East Village-based artist Anton van Dalen passed away in his home on June 25. He was 86.

P·P·O·W, the gallery that had represented him over the years, announced that he died of natural causes in his sleep. 

Some background on his life and work:

Van Dalen was born in Amstelveen, Holland, in 1938 to a conservative Calvinist family during World War II. He began rearing pigeons at 12, seeking solace in the companionship of a community outside the instability around him. 

Enraptured by the magic of their flight, van Dalen saw his own migration journey, from Holland to Canada and ultimately to the United States, reflected in the migratory nature of the birds.

After arriving in New York's Lower East Side in 1966, before ultimately settling in the East Village, van Dalen served as witness, storyteller, and documentarian of the dramatic cultural shifts in the neighborhood.

While active in the alternative art scene in the East Village during the 1980s, van Dalen began his career as a graphic designer. Working as a studio assistant to Saul Steinberg for over 30 years, van Dalen learned the stylization and design aesthetics that would ultimately ground the visual language he used to discuss the culture around him.

Van Dalen became known for his Night Street Drawings (1975–77), a monochrome series of graphite drawings documenting the surrounding Lower East Side with tenderness and empathy, including vignettes of car wrecks, sex workers, crumbling buildings, and more.

As poet and critic John Yau wrote, all of van Dalen's work arose "out of a meticulous draftsmanship in service of an idiosyncratic imagination merged with civic-mindedness."

Van Dalen lived at 166 Avenue A — the PEACE house — between 10th Street and 11th Street since 1971. He documented the changes there in this post for EVG. 

His flock of snow-white pigeons from his rooftop loft were a common site in the nearby skies. (Photo from 2015 by Grant Shaffer.)

We had the great pleasure of meeting van Dalen several times, first over a dinner at Odessa. We appreciated his kind, thoughtful manner and deep affinity for the East Village. He shared several dispatches with us over the years (see the end of this post for a selection). 

Van Dalen was especially upset about the 2013 demolition of the Mary Help of Christians church, school, and rectory on Avenue A between 11th Street and 12th Street, which made way for the block-long Steiner East Village condoplex. 

He shared this photo and sketch for a post in August 2013.

The  neighborhood's transformation was a common theme in his work, as seen in his one-man performance piece "Avenue A Cutout Theatre," which featured "a portable model of his house, which he uses as a staging ground for telling the story of the evolution of the East Village."

He first performed the Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre in 1995 at the University Settlement House on the Lower East Side. The performance has been shown at numerous institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and The New York Historical Society. 

As he wrote in a post for EVG in October 2020: 

I consider myself a documentarian of the East Village, yet I am a participant and spectator to its evolution. Began documenting my street surroundings in 1975, urged on by wanting to note and remember these lives. Came to realize I had to embrace wholeheartedly, with pencil in hand, my streets with its raw emotions.

Van Dalen is survived by his older brother, Leen van Dalen; his two children, Marinda and Jason; their spouses, René van Haaften and Ali Villagra; and three grandchildren, Cleo, Aster, and Diego.

P·P·O·W said that memorial service announcements will be forthcoming.

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• One East Village family's protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine 

• Documenting 166 Avenue A through the years

• Anton van Dalen, drawing in isolation

• Anton van Dalen's Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre 

• Down On Avenue A, 1922 

 • On St. Mark's Place, 'this parable of neglect' 

• Anton van Dalen's pigeons, connecting us back to nature above Avenue A 

• The 'senseless shocking self-destruction' of Mary Help of Christians