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

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: Mike Schweinsburg
Occupation: Community Activist
Location: Tompkins Square Park, East Eighth Street and Avenue B
Time: 3:20 on Thursday, Sept. 11

I was born in San Francisco and raised in Buffalo, from where I escaped when I was 16. Came here to New York City. Since then, I’ve lived and worked all over this country, Europe and Africa. And every location I went to, I always came back to New York.

It was a New York interruption. When I finished with one career or endeavor then I’d come back to New York. You would think it was pursuing a career, but no. I’ve been involved in real estate, broadcasting, international shipping and trading, food supply, transportation, temporary employment services, and then I said, "Mike, what is the matter with you? Why can’t you just grab ahold of one of these things?" This was around 1995.

So I had to examine where I was at. I realized that sadly all my family was dead, so there was no one whose expectations I had to live up to. Not going to have any children, so I don’t have to amass a fortune, leave an inheritance, fund a college education or a wedding. I was really free, so I decided one day to do whatever it was I wanted to do. I realized that the only common thread to all those sort of endeavors was that one way or the other, each of them exposed me to some form of social injustice, and so I wanted to help do something about that. I wanted to help create change. I wanted to make a difference.

So then I became a full-time activist — first with the Anti-Violence Project. Now at the time I believed that all politics was bullshit and all politicians were bullshit. But I was very close with the executive director of AVP and her partner. One day she came to me and said, "Mike I’m leaving." I was crushed. Besides the work that the agency performed, she was my inspiration. So I felt kind of rudderless. "Where are you going? Why are you doing this?" She said, "Well I’m going to run for political office." I said, "I believe in you. Sure, get somebody like you in elected office and then we’ll do some shit."

That person was Chris Quinn, who became Christine Quinn and became less recognizable as the hero that she was to me. But, it did get me involved in politics.

So I was actually thrust into a district leader campaign over on the West Side for Arthur Schwartz, who was running for district leader against all the established clubs. It was a big win. Now I’m really interested in politics. So I began, and a candidate came to me named Larry Sauer, who wanted to run for City Council on the Upper West Side. I tried that. I’m not going to say I saw that one through because it was just too full of holes, but during that time Margarita Lopez approached me ... So I went to work for her. Now that got me involved in the Lower East Side, and that captured me entirely. The great thing to come out of that experience was meeting Rosie Mendez, who was chief of staff [for Margarita López]. That tied me forever more to the Lower East Side.

So I’ve been [in this neighborhood] now for about 10 years and stayed involved, well not as involved as I should be. I started to get complaints from my friends here saying, "Mike, you know, when you lived out in Queens we saw 10 times as much of you as we do now that you live here." I was working for a Brooklyn Councilwoman for eight years as her communications director and she is the only incumbent in the last cycle to have lost her election, so I was unemployed from the first of the year, but I didn’t rush into getting another job. I said, "I need to reconnect with my old community."

So that’s what I did for several months, got involved in housing justice issues with GOLES, several community things, but the thing I’m happiest with is I formed a block association for East Eighth Street from Avenues B to D and that’s going very well. We have 45 members already and we’ve only had one real general meeting. We’ve been helping with the plantings on the street and all that working with the Parks Department and the Lower East Side Ecology Center. We’re planning a big block party next year with a pet fair, bringing in the ASPCA with half a dozen of their big vehicles to give free vaccinations, spay-neutering, microchipping, behavioral and grooming advice, and bringing in all the animal care agencies.

That’s kind of the vision for next year for the block party, but we have a lot of other things to do. You know, we’ve got a couple of Croman-owned buildings on the block, so [we’re] always at war. We certainly have no objection to our more wealthy neighbors. That makes for the mix, you know. It’s been a very rewarding experience because I’ve gotten to know my neighbors through all of this, and the more I know them the more I love them. I used to have dreams of retiring in Africa, which held my heart for a long, long time after I left there. Now my sole dream is to get old and die here.

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

The Lower East Side/East Village: The neighborhood continues to go (AGAIN AND AGAIN AND...)

I recently posted the May 28, 1984, New York magazine cover story titled "The Lower East Side: There Goes the Neighborhood." WELL! Turns out New York wasn't the only media outlet in town to notice something going on in the East Village/Lower East Side.

On Sept. 2, 1984, the Times took a similar look at the neighborhood in a piece cleverly titled "The gentrification of the East Village."

To some excerpts!

WHEN Susan Kelley looks out her window she sees a beginning. ''There are so many young professionals sitting on the stoops, ties undone, just talking,'' said the 24-year-old Wall Street real-estate broker as she surveyed East 13th Street, where she has lived for two years. ''There's a feeling of togetherness, of movement. A feeling that things are different every day.''

When Barbara Shaum looks out her window she sees an end. ''I see them walking down the street in identical blue suits with their briefcases and I think, 'There goes the neighborhood,' '' said the leathercrafts maker who has lived in a loft behind her studio on East Seventh Street for 21 years. ''Why are all these people coming here, where they're so riotously out of place? I don't want my neighborhood to change.''

In the meantime, residents of the East Village live in a mixture of past and present, hope and anxiety.

The neighborhood is now home to people like Miss Kelley, who graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton two years ago with a degree in art history and works for a Wall Street real estate broker. She moved to her renovated two-bedroom apartment on 13th Street because the rent was low - $900 a month, which she splits with a friend - and ''because it was an adventure - I liked the idea of being part of the change.''

It is also home to people like Mrs. Shaum, who watched her neighbors come and go in waves for more than two decades - first immigrants, then flower children, then drug dealers and now young artists and professionals. The rent on her store and adjoining loft was $200 until last year, when her landlord tried to evict her and renovate the building. After a court fight he agreed to give her a three-year lease at $450 a month for the first two years, $500 a month for the last year. ''But when that is up,'' she said ''he's going to try to make me leave again.''

Their neighbors are people like Sally Randall, a fashion editor whose tastes run toward magenta eye glitter and who moved to the area as a student nine years ago and stayed because ''I liked the atmosphere.'' Or Carolyn Dwyer, a clothes designer who opened her boutique, Carioca, on East Ninth Street eight years ago ''because I didn't want to live someplace slick like SoHo.'' Or Mark Clifford, a business writer who has lived near Tompkins Square for three years and felt the need to defend the red Lacoste shirt he was wore to brunch one Saturday morning. ''I'm not one of the preppies everyone's railing against,'' he said. ''This shirt happens to be older than me.''

They recognize the changes they and their peers have brought to the neighborhood.

''When I took these spaces over, nobody wanted them,'' Miss Dwyer said. ''It was a mess outside. People threw garbage in my doorway. I cleaned up, I did my time. To be threatened after you helped to make it a nice place is an insult.''

3 chances to hear about the city's plan to stormproof East River Park — and the East Side

[Photo of East River Park from last week]

You have several chances this week to learn more about the city's plans to stormproof the East Side of Manhattan ...



Per the invite via the city's Department of Design and Construction (DDC):

Please stop by to learn more about current plans for flood protection along Manhattan’s Lower East Side and planned park improvements. City agencies and members of the design team will be available to explain and answer questions about the design, the associated Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) application, and the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Community members are encouraged to drop in to the Open House at their convenience.

Community Open Houses
• Tuesday, May 14
4-8 p.m.

• Wednesday, May 15
2-8 p.m.

Both info sessions are at the Lower Eastside Girls Club, 402 E. Eighth St. at Avenue D.

And on Thursday, DDC reps will make a presentation before CB3's Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency Committee at 6:30 p.m. That public meeting is at the BRC Senior Services Center, 30 Delancey St. between Chrystie and Forsyth.

As previously reported, to stormproof the East Side and protect residents from storms the magnitude of Sandy, the city plans to "lift" East River Park by up to 10 feet when work starts in March 2020.

Creating the intricate flood protection system would see the city close East River Park for up to three and a half years, shutting down the current amenities, cutting down many of the trees and rebuilding the newly renovated running track, among other things.

The draft environmental impact statement — 900-plus pages — for the East Side Coastal Resiliency project is currently available for review and comment. My previous post here has more details on the review process and links to relevant materials.

Last fall, the city unveiled an updated plan, which took residents, community leaders and local-elected officials by surprise after years of outreach and groundwork. The revamped plan — released without any community input — is radically different than what had been discussed, and its expected cost will increase from $760 million to $1.45 billion. City officials have said in various presentations that this approach will provide a reduced construction time, resulting in an operable flood protection system for the 2023 hurricane season.

Meanwhile, community coalition group East River Alliance has a petition in circulation calling for a change to the plans.

Per the petition:

East River Park is the largest park in Manhattan below 59th Street and a precious recreation space for a community where many residents cannot afford vacations.

There will be no access to a 3-mile stretch of waterfront from 23rd Street to Montgomery Street. No ball games, barbecues, sprinklers and playgrounds, runners, bikes, walkers — for nearly four years.

We demand that the City reconsider this plan. Our community deserves a resiliency plan that includes:
• Flood protection now and during construction
• Phased closing during construction and immediate reopening of completed sections
• Real alternatives for healthy recreation during construction
• Consideration of other options including flood protection along the FDR and covering the highway to create additional parkland

Find the petition here.

[Updated] Structural damage prompts evacuation at East 12th Street school building

The following notice went out this afternoon:

FROM: Notify NYC

Staff/Students of East Side Community School (420 E 12th St) will be relocated to PS 19 (185 1st Ave) 9/25 until further notice.

There isn't any other information at the moment on the school's website or Twitter feed... Currently, the school's entrance is blocked by caution tape... a hard hat at the scene said that they were "still trying to figure out" what happened...

The address is also home to the Girls Prep Lower East Side Middle School. According to DNAinfo, students at Girls Prep were sent to P.S. 188 on East Houston.

More details as they become available...

Updated 7 p.m.:

Here's a message on the East Side Community School website from Principal Mark Federman...

As you may know, earlier today we experienced a structural issue concerning our school building. The building’s East wall (adjacent to the nearby church) was found to be separating from the rest of the structure. Experts from the city’s Department of Buildings and the School Construction Authority are still assessing the situation but we know for certain that extensive review and repairs are required to ensure the building’s safety before we may re-enter it.

For tomorrow (Tuesday), our school is relocating to nearby P.S. 19, located at 185 1st Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets. Students should arrive by 9am (and there will be a parent information session for parents who are able to attend.) High school students will be dismissed at 12:30 pm and middle school students will be dismissed at 3:30pm. Beacon is available tomorrow at P.S. 19 until 6 pm for families who cannot make other arrangements after school.

We will be located off-site on a day-to-day basis, until the building situation has been resolved. Please remember that school is out on Wednesday for the Yom Kippur holiday. For Thursday, our school may have a temporary home for the duration of the repair work. The temporary site will be determined shortly and as soon as I have that information, I will pass it along to all of you as well as hold an information session. The Department of Education will also be holding an informational session with parents and staff to discuss in more detail what happened at our building and the nature of the repairs required to allow our safe return.

DNAinfo noted that the discovery of the structural problems prompted school officials to evacuate the building.

DNAinfo has more on the story here.

Updated 9-25:
The account in the Post adds a little drama.

Some students ... said they felt desks shake just moments before school officials notified them of the structural damage.

Updated 2:45 p.m:

Here's the latest via DNAinfo:
"Beginning Thursday, students at Girls Prep Lower East Middle School will be housed in P.S. 158, located at 1458 York Avenue ... The East Side Community School will move to Norman Thomas High School at 111 E. 33rd Street.

Meanwhile, the DOB issued full vacate orders at the school ... as well as for the Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church next door ... and the adjacent Mary Help of Christians school on East 11th Street.

Both properties had been vacant. The church closed for good after mass on Sept. 9.

3rd Avenue and 14th Street cited as one of the city's most dangerous intersections for cyclists

[Google Street View]

According to an analysis of intersections citywide, Third Avenue and 14th Street is among the most dangerous in NYC for cyclists, new research shows.

Last week, Mayor de Blasio’s announced his "Green Wave Bicycle Plan" in reaction to a recent spate of cycling deaths. (Em Samolewicz was killed Monday morning in Sunset Park, marking the 18th cyclist to die on city streets this year — eight more than all of 2018.)

The mayor's $58.4 million initiative will ramp up enforcement at the 100 most crash-prone intersections and target enforcement on highest risk activities: speeding, failing to yield, blocking bike lanes, oversized trucks/trucks off route.

Over the next five years the city will also renovate 50 intersections with turn-calming treatments and re-design areas where fatalities occur. (The city has yet to disclose those locations.)

On Monday, the data and real-estate listings website Localize.city released the results of an analysis — using public data from 2014 to 2018 — to identify which intersections have seen the most cycling injuries and fatalities during that four-year period.

Intersections in the East Village and Lower East Side represent three slots in the top 10:

1. 6th Ave & W. 23rd St., Chelsea

21 Injuries

2 (Tied). Jay St. & Tillary St., Downtown Brooklyn

20 injuries

2 (Tied). Atlantic Ave & Bedford Ave, Crown Heights

20 injuries

4. 3rd Ave & E. 14th St., East Village

18 injuries

Per Localize.city: New separated bike lanes along East 12th/East 13th streets should offer a safer route, at least for cycling crosstown.

5 (Tied). Chrystie St. & Delancey St., Lower East Side

17 injuries

“Chrystie Street has a two-way bike lane, and the lane closest to traffic rides against traffic flow, which is a huge design flaw,” says urban planner Sam Sklar of Localize.city. “It doesn’t help that Delancey Street is extremely wide, as it accommodates car and bus travel to and from the Williamsburg Bridge. Additionally there isn’t currently any bike lane on this stretch of Delancey Street.”

5 (Tied). St. Nicholas Ave & W. 141st St., Harlem

17 injuries


[Allen at Houston]

7 (Tied). Allen St. & E. Houston St., Lower East Side

14 injuries

“Cyclists and drivers approaching this intersection often have obstructed views because of the width of East Houston Street, plus the width of East First Street along with obstructed views from street trees and bus traffic that potentially blocks views for drivers and cyclists,” says Sklar.

7 (Tied). Graham Ave. & Grand St., Williamsburg

14 injuries

7 (Tied). Jay St. & Myrtle Ave., Downtown Brooklyn

14 injuries

7 (Tied). Roebling St. & South 4th St., Williamsburg

13 injuries, 1 death

Says Sklar: "If you’re thinking about taking up cycling you should know if the intersections and streets near your home are dangerous."

LostLES: A celebration of an iconic neighborhood

On Friday, Michael Brown, an environmental designer and East Village/LES resident, debuts "LostLES" — described as a panoramic installation that celebrates "the vivid character of the Lower East Side through its distinct architectural heritage."



The installation will be on display throughout the summer at Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop at 129 Rivington St.

Brown, founder and creative director of Lot71, answered several questions about the project via e-mail for EV Grieve.

How will the historic spirit of the Lower East Side be reflected in the installation/mural?

Kevin Gregor, my friend and owner of Tiny's Giant, approached me in February with the idea of designing an installation for his restaurant. Having lived in the East Village/LES for 12-plus years, I have long been a fan of this part of Manhattan.

The neighborhood has a cultural diversity different than any other part of the five boroughs. The historical heritage of immigrants — my family's included — resounds in this area through the architecture, the storefronts, and the lasting cultural markings of industry and arts. I have often drawn from the rawness of spirit and visceral character unique to the EV/LES in my work and my research. Ultimately, I began to consider the "place" (neighborhood, community, environment) as the driving narrative for the work I would create.

LostLES has been described as a true celebration of an iconic
neighborhood. Can you elaborate?

LostLES is a celebration of this iconic neighborhood in several ways. Tiny’s is set behind two plate-glass windowed walls that create a transparent, double-sided environment — from the outside, an intimate space on a vibrant LES street corner; from the inside, court-side seats to experience the vibrancy flow by, in all directions. Inspired by the camera obscura photography of Abelardo Morell, the mural is a reflection of the old Lower East Side superimposed across the new.

I shot a photograph of an old tenement building on Orchard and Broome that we will project inside Tiny's Giant from a single source. The image will streak across the walls and ceiling of the space, and a group of scenic artists (several who are local to the EV/LES) will then paint the mural from this guide. The resulting effect will appear as a cast silhouette, or reflection, of the old architecture that has redefined the sculptural space of the restaurant.

Ultimately, the graphic/2-d image will transform the 3-d space, rendering the space with a new narrative/experience. In the work is a metaphorical play on exterior space over-layed on interior space, as well as a visual comment of the old tenement architecture re-imagining a space for the new. It will transform Tiny's Giant into a jewel-box, experiential stage of the LES.

The work is intended as a gesture of honor to the old architecture, and in our painting style, the scenic artists will be informed by the longstanding traditions of street mural and graffiti artists in the neighborhood.



Some longtime locals are upset about the changing skyline — the condos, the hotels — and feel as if these changes take away from the spirit of the neighborhood. How do you feel about this mix of the old and the new?

I, too, am discouraged by some of changing skyline of the EV/LES. While I'm not entirely well-read on the matter, I find it staggering that this area was not landmarked or otherwise, considering that close to 25 percent of U.S. citizens can trace their genealogical roots to this neighborhood.

I certainly appreciate modern architecture — there are qualities of Tschumi's Blue Building, as well the New Museum, that appeal to me within the context of the EV/LES. However, respect for the past and balance of context for the new is very important to me, and there are certainly several instances of egregious condo-fication here that pain the eye.

Ultimately, the context/balance of which I write guided the choices I made for LostLES. I am hopeful that with my installation I am able to create a space that celebrates the past with a deference to the present. I do not intend my work to be sentimental, but rather simply an encouragement to open one's eyes anew and reflect on our surroundings — cultural, architectural, and spatial.

To learn more about the project and make a pledge to support the work and community, watch this video.

City Councilmember Carlina Rivera makes bid for Congress official

NY-10 is my home. It's where I was born and raised, where I learned the importance of community.

My love for this city drives everything I do—and now, I'm running for Congress to help build a future that every New Yorker can see themselves in.

¡Vamos!: https://t.co/SdCbxwn3BB pic.twitter.com/cdjdorxGDU

— Carlina Rivera 利華娜 (@CarlinaRivera) June 1, 2022

District 2 City Councilmember Carlina Rivera made it official yesterday, announcing that she is running for Congress in the newly redrawn 10th District that spans parts of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

It's a highly coveted seat, with competition that includes former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Rep. Mondaire Jones, Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, former New York City Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman and Dan Goldman, former lead counsel for House Democrats during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. 

In interviews yesterday, Rivera emphasized her local roots. 

"I was born in Bellevue Hospital. I grew up in Section 8 housing on the Lower East Side. I went to school here. I played basketball here. Every milestone in my life is here," she told City & State. 

Here's more from The City: 

The new 10th District leans heavily Democratic, spanning all of Manhattan below 14th Street and areas of Brooklyn spanning Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights to Park Slope all the way to Sunset Park and Borough Park. Whomever wins the Democratic primary in August is expected to cruise to a November general election victory. 

First elected to the Council in 2017, Rivera now represents several Manhattan neighborhoods where she'll be wooing voters, including parts of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, the East Village and Alphabet City. 

In a phone interview on Tuesday, Rivera listed housing and climate change among the top issues in the district and touted her efforts to expand affordable housing development and climate resiliency.

Meanwhile, Politico pointed out the challenges her campaign faces. 

A POLITICO analysis of the 2018 Democratic primary for governor — the last year New Yorkers voted in a midterm election — showed that parts of Rivera's lower Manhattan district, including Chinatown and the Lower East Side, voted in far fewer numbers than Park Slope and Cobble Hill. Not only did those Brooklyn areas lead turnout in the newly drawn congressional seat, they are consistently among the highest-performing districts across the city, election returns and data from the CUNY’s Center for Urban Research show. They are also the home turf of competitors, including de Blasio and Simon.

And...

While she doesn’t have the baggage of former Mayor Bill de Blasio ... she also doesn't have his near-universal name recognition. What's more, Rivera hails from lower Manhattan and hasn't appeared on the ballot in some of the most civically active neighborhoods within the district, which de Blasio represented for eight years in the Council.

While she grew up in the district — unlike fellow hopeful Rep. Mondaire Jones , whose nearest office is more than 20 miles away — she now lives eight blocks north of its boundaries. And she has just begun to fundraise, whereas Jones already has $2.9 million in the bank as of the most recent filing.

Still, her team believes she will prevail, as outlined in an email — titled "Carlina Rivera NY-10 Path to Victory" — sent to media outlets yesterday.

We believe that Council Member Rivera has the clearest and most straightforward path to victory in NY-10 of any announced or potential candidate in the race. 

Rivera has a reliable voter base in Council District 2, the clear ability to win Hispanic voters across Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, a history of winning in NYCHA and housing cooperatives, and a proven appeal to high-turnout liberal voters in racially and economically diverse neighborhoods throughout the district who aligned with Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary. 

No other candidate in this race combines such a strong existing constituency with such a  clear path to building a district-wide coalition, and no other candidate has been able to secure such a strong level of support from elected officials both within the district and around the city. 

A recent poll conducted by PIX11/Emerson College/The Hill (before Rivera entered the race) found that 77% of Democratic voters in the district are undecided on who they would vote for in the Aug. 23 primary.  

--

For further listening: Carlina Rivera on Running for Congress in the New NY-10 (Podcast at Gotham Gazette)

A petition and holiday card campaign to help return the former PS 64 to the community

A few updates about the former PS 64 and CHARAS/El Bohio community center on East Ninth Street.

Back in September, the Department of Buildings put a stop, for now, to developer Gregg Singer's plans to convert the long-emtpy building between Avenue B and Avenue C into a dorm.

City Councilmember Rosie Mendez's office recently launched an online petition asking Mayor de Blasio to return the building to the community. Per the petition:

The building at 605 East 9th Street had an impact on many generations of the Lower East Side / East Village residents. [The] landmarked building that was auctioned off by Mayor Guiliani 16 years ago and the building has been empty for more than 13 years. This building has been a beacon of hope, inspiration, culture, and community for the residents of the Lower East Side.

We need to bring back the building for community use and ensure that our history is not forgotten or erased. Our community still needs this building for engaging in the arts, educating each other of our history, and providing social programs for the children, young people, adults, and seniors that make up this beautiful neighborhood.

We’re asking Mayor Bill de Blasio to use his power to undue an injustice perpetrated by Mayor Guiliani and listen to the Lower East Side/East Village community by returning this building for community use.

You can find the petition here.

Meanwhile, the grassroots organization SOCCC (Save Our Charas Community Center) has been collecting holiday cards from neighbors to deliver to Mayor de Blasio in person on Tuesday (Three Kings Day). Find out more details about this here.

Finally, the sidewalk bridge on East 10th Street is celebrating its 17th month with expired permits…



Previously on EV Grieve:
Testimony Of Councilmember Rosie Mendez regarding the former PS 64

[Updated] At the 'Save Our Community Center MARCH AND RALLY'

Landmarks Preservation Commission asks to see modified plans for former PS 64

The Landmarks Preservation Commission approves application for modifications at PS 64

'Misinformation' cited as DOB issues Stop Work Order at the former PS 64; community meeting set for Sunday afternoon

East Village rents fell in 2009

In his Mixed Use column this week at The Villager, Patrick Hedlund summarizes 2009 in rent...

The East Village and Lower East Side experienced the steepest residential rent drops of any Downtown neighborhoods last year, making them among the most desirable areas across Manhattan for discount-driven renters. According to the Real Estate Group New York’s year-end rental market report, the East Village and Lower East Side saw average decreases of 5.98 percent and 6.25 percent, respectively, for all doorman and non-doorman unit types combined in 2009. Doorman studios led the downward trend in both neighborhoods, with such units falling by 12.1 percent in the East Village and 22.4 percent on the Lower East Side over the past year. Over all, the East Village recorded drops for each one of its unit types, while the L.E.S. saw modest gains for non-doorman studios and two-bedrooms only (up 1.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively).

So can we say now that rent is just really expensive instead of unfucking-believably expensive?