A place in the 'Sun'

Here is "Sun Glass," something new from Fucked Up … who released "Glass Boys" last week on Matador.

Look for them at Irving Plaza on Sept. 6.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Photo at The Library on Avenue A by Ricky Knapp]

CB3 problems loom large in chairperson race (The Villager)

Some love for Big Bar on East Seventh Street (The New York Times)

East Village Radio's sendoff (The New Yorker)

3 LES community centers in danger with city budget shortfall (The Lo-Down)

This East Village co-op comes with a home recording studio (Curbed)

Video feature about Donostia on Avenue B (Vimeo)

Not an episode of Portlandia: The long lines at Shake Shake for a truffle-topped burger (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Video from 2008: Thurston Moore on the No Wave scene (Dangerous Minds)

Rising real-estate prices force longtime LES fencing school to close (DNAinfo)

Parking garage on Kenmare boarded up to make way for luxury housing (BoweryBoogie)

A look at the legendary BC Studio in Gowanus (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Williamsburg is turning into a high-end mall (The Wall Street Journal, sub. may be required)

And … here's another video from East Village resident Stephen Nangeroni … who did the lovely "Snow Day" last year. His latest is "One Day in New York City," and was made for the "One Day on Earth" filmmaking initiative. The aim of the piece was to capture the ebb and flow of activity on a lively, spring day in the city, and it was largely filmed in and around East River Park.

A comment from the Cadillac with the Tiger in it

[Photo from the going-away party this past Saturday]

As you might know, the 1978 Cadillac Sedan Deville — aka, the Cadillac with the Tiger in it — has left its 22-year-home on East Second Street.

Ernest, who works nearby as a custodian, is the proud new owner. This past Saturday, the owner of the Cadillac with the Tiger in it presented the car to Ernest.

Since then, several people have asked how things were going. We don't really know, though the Cadillac with the Tiger in it left this comment on Wednesday night:

I thank all of you who have expressed interest in my stories. I made it safely to my new location and Ernest is taking good care of us. Soon I will update you all with photos and info about the farewell gathering, which was wonderful. But the tiger and I need to rest a little first — we've had a long journey and a lot of excitement the past week!

Previously on EV Grieve:
That Cadillac that we've long admired on East 2nd St. now has a stuffed tiger on the front seat

And now, stories from the Cadillac with the Tiger in it on East 2nd Street

And now, another story from the Cadillac with the Tiger in it on East 2nd Street

Alas, the end is near for the Cadillac with the Tiger in it on East 2nd Street

Everything that you wanted to know about the Cadillac with the Tiger in it

Also! The Cadillac with the Tiger in it now has its on website. Find that here.

Report: Retired detective leaves gun behind after throwing up in The Phoenix

[EVG file photo of the Phoenix]

In an "exclusive" today, the Post reports that former NYPD Detective Eric Reynolds left his Colt. 38 behind after drinking for six hours at the Phoenix on East 13th Street.

Specifically:

Reynolds placed his cellphone and pistol on the sink while worshipping the porcelain god, picking the phone back up only when he took off at around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, the sources said.

He and a buddy had made it all the way to Union Square when Reynolds patted his gun holster and realized his epic mistake.

The NYPD is checking surveillance video to find who may have taken the misplaced gun.

According to an unnamed owner of The Phoenix:

“We all make mistakes. Maybe he had been drinking. He made a mistake,” said the woman, who would not give her name. “Maybe he shouldn’t have brought a gun with him.”

The Post also sent a reporter to Reynolds' home, and note that he "answered the door with his Chihuahua and declined to comment."

Meanwhile on St. Mark's Place in 1968….

[Click on image to enlarge]

Here's a photo that EVG reader George Cohen took in 1968 "of the hippie scene on St. Mark's Place between Third and Second Avenues, looking east."

How did these people survive without $1 pizza along that corridor?

Ipswich Watch & Clock Shop has moved to East 11th Street

Ipswich Watch & Clock Shop has a new home at 434 E. 11th St. just west of Avenue A.

The shop had previously been subletting space from Archangel Antiques on East Ninth Street. However, Archangel's owners are retiring after 21 years at the end of June.

Meanwhile, if things work out, then Ipswich will have a new neighbor soon in the form of Royal Tailor Shop. Gino DiGirolamo says that he will be moving here from East 14th Street in the coming weeks…


[At the Royal Tailor Shop on May 31]

With this and the upcoming Gabay's Outlet move to Avenue A, it's nice to have some positive small-shop news for a change.

Desi Shack opens today on 4th Avenue

After a lunch trial run the past two days, the quick-serve Indian-Pakistani restaurant here near East 13th Street opens for good today.

This is the second Manhattan location for Desi Shack.

You can find their menu here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Desi Shack signage arrives on Fourth Avenue

Hey, Funkiberry is now open on 3rd Avenue

Another FroYo choice as of yesterday here at East 12th Street.

Can you feel the excitement?

This is the third Funkiberry location in NYC. And according to the Funkiberry website, they are — apparently for real — opening locations in Moscow, Rome, Kiev, Paris and Fuzhou.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Stuff that you can't make up: More FroYo for the East Village

Ghost signage uncovered on Third Avenue and East 12th Street

DOUBLE ghost signage discovered at 88 3rd Ave.

Hey, the Funkiberry sign is up on 3rd Avenue

What it takes to move a Steinway baby grand piano into an East Village townhouse

Today at 410 E. Ninth St., movers were on the scene between Avenue A and First Avenue to get a Steinway baby grand piano off the truck and into the condo duplex ...



This maneuver required a crane ...



... and the removal of the window frame on the third floor...







All told, one of the crew members told EVG reader dbs, who took these photos, that the whole job likely cost some $20,000. A small price for some beautiful music?

Say goodbye to the temporary fire truck garage on East 14th Street

[EVG file photo from August 2013]

Workers today disassembled the temporary structure outside Engine Company 5 on East 14th Street near First Avenue. For the past 10 months, the pen had been housing the truck from Ladder Company 3 on East 13th Street near Fourth Avenue ... while that station house underwent repairs ...


[Photo by EVG reader Pinch]

Previously on EV Grieve:
This open, airy, East Village studio seeks $2,600 a month

Deconstructing Launderette

Workers are gutting Launderette at 97 Second Ave. this morning ... one day after the longtime laundromat near East Sixth Street closed for good.



As we previously reported, the operators of Launderette also owned the building ... and they decided to sell "for a host of personal and business reasons," according to a detailed letter to customers.

Stuart Zamsky, who took these photos, calls this a "huge loss" for those residents who have depended on Launderette through the years.

The new landlords are hoping to attract a restaurant, the last thing this part of Second Avenue needs, into the space.

Previously on EV Grieve:
It will be 'easy to convert' Launderette into a restaurant on 2nd Avenue

Longtime Second Avenue Launderette will close this summer

After 45 years on 1st Avenue, Gabay's Outlet is on the move

[Photo by Jena Cumbo via Time Out]

After 45 years at 225 First Ave., Gabay's Outlet, the designer discount store, is moving July 1 to 195 Avenue A.

There is a familiar reason behind the move.

"We just couldn't hang with the rents," proprietor Joseph Gabay told us on the phone. "We were concerned that we wouldn't even be able to find another space."

The new rent at 195 Avenue A, previously the Spin Hair Salon, is roughly half of what the going rate will be at 225 First Ave. between East 13th Street and East 14th Street.

"We are going to continue for at least another 10 years," said Gabay, the third generation of the family to run the store.

His grandfather Sam, a Turkish immigrant, began selling extras from garment factory floors in a pushcart on the Lower East Side in the 1920s. He eventually opened his own shop at 1 St. Mark's Place in 1940, one of several locations the store would call home in a 10-block radius before settling in at 225 First Ave. in 1970.

"We are thrilled that we are staying in the East Village," Gabay said.

On 2nd Avenue, Ryan's Irish Pub has closed to make way for the Copper Still

Ryan's Irish Pub, a dependable enough place through the years (it opened in 1992), has closed at 151 Second Ave., as these photos by EVG regular esquared™ show.



Meanwhile, new operators are opening The Copper Still here between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street. One of the principals served as a manager of Ryan's the past year.



A look at their menu shows an emphasis on whiskey ... with a menu featuring pub fare such as burgers, mac n' cheese, fish n' chips, etc.

Perhaps the Copper Still will continue to serve as a less woo-ey alternative to The 13th Step next door.

CB3 approved the new liquor license for this address last month.

4th Avenue water tower gets some STIK figures

UK-based street artist STIK has painted the water tower at 127 Fourth Ave. at East 13th Street ... bringing a little color to this corner near Union Square ...







Back in September, STIK, working with the Dorian Grey Gallery, created the mural titled "Liberty" on the building above Doc Holliday's on East Ninth Street and Avenue A.

As for 127 Fourth Ave., that vintage-looking clock arrived up here in April as part of a rebranding effort for the apartment building. Not sure if STIK's work is part of that same rebranding.

Does anyone feel like discussing where to watch the World Cup in the East Village?

[Zum Schneider on Avenue C and East 7th Street]

Anyway, as we exclusively reported first, the World Cup kicks off today when Brazil takes on Croatia in the first of the group games.

Perhaps you may be interested in one of these games (matches?) on TV. At a bar. And seemingly every place with a TV set that you wouldn't necessarily think of to watch soccer is advertising the World Cup. (Spoiler: Nicoletta.)

We're not so big on listicles around here. So in an attempt at some kind of Open Thread Thursday (and to probably annoy esquared™), anyone want to suggest, um, suggestions for World Cup viewing in a neighborhood full of bars?

Anyone?

Please no blatant shilling.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Avenue C is for...crazy German fans

More photos from yesterday's German-themed Avenue C street fair

Argentina 3, Mexico 1

On the market: Jennifer Convertibles closing on 3rd Avenue

The store closing sale continues at Jennifer Convertibles at 111 Third Ave. between East 13th Street and East 14th Street…



The 2,700-square-foot space has been on the market since March … According to the listing, possession of the furniture/sofa chain is July while the rent is upon request. The listing also notes that this location is "surrounded by NYU and new luxury residential developments."

Noted

@evgrieve Seen at 1st Ave/9th St. Not sure I want to know what's in that concrete. pic.twitter.com/AEX62gJXJy

— Academy Records NYC (@AcademyRecords) June 12, 2014

The latest issue of The Shadow is now available

Look for NYC's only underground newspaper at the following locations:

• The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS): 155 Avenue C
• Gem Spa: St. Mark's Place/Second Avenue
• Saint Mark's Bookshop: 31 Third Ave. (East Ninth Street)
• East Village Books: 99 St. Mark's Place (Avenue A-First Avenue)
• Revolution Books: 146 W. 26th St. (Sixth-Seventh Avenues)
• Bluestockings: 172 Allen St. (Stanton Street)
• INK: 66 Avenue A (East Fourth - Fifth Streets)
• Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books: 34 Carmine St.
• Kamara Deli: East Fifth + Avenue A
• The Source: 331 East Ninth St.

The issue includes an essay on Hyper-Gentrification by Jeremiah Moss…

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Tompkins Square Park photo by Michael Sean Edwards]

A look at the Vanished Spaces exhibit at ABC No Rio (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

The end is very near for Olympic Restaurant and Jade Fountain on Delancey (BoweryBoogie)

Big Gay Ice Cream will open a Philadelphia location (Grub Street)

City pays $583,024 to Occupy Wall Street protestors (Runnin' Scared)

Not much left of the Cherry Street Pathmark (The Lo-Down)

Claim: the NYPD made 80 low-level weed possession arrests a day so far this year (Animal NY)

NYC taxis through the years (Untapped Cities)

What's new at Paul's Daughter in Coney Island (Amusing the Zillion)

And from Death and Taxes ...

While it may seem well beyond unfathomable, it took nearly 40 years for the seminal debut from The Ramones to achieve “Gold” status with the Recording Industry Association Of America, indicating it has sold in excess of 500,000 copies

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: Anthony Rocco
Occupation: Substance Abuse Counselor at Su Casa Methadone-to-Abstinence Residence
Location: 3rd Street and Avenue C
Date: Monday, June 9 at 2 p.m.

I grew up in the neighborhood. I’m 58. I’m Italian by descent. I’ve seen all the changes. It’s changed for the better, in a sense. For some reason my journey through life has always brought me back, for whatever reason.

When I was growing up, it was a rough neighborhood. I remember in the 1970s and 1980s on 6th Street, you could get a 6-room apartment for like $35 a month, cause it was a bad neighborhood. Drugs were running rampant.

I’ve had a couple of careers in my life. I went to Brooklyn Automotive to become an auto mechanic, but I wound up becoming a boiler mechanic. I did that for 14 years. I actually became a heroin addict. I’m in recovery now. I’ve been 18 years clean. I have total, absolute sobriety, but I lost that job and was running the streets with the drugs, selling — and eventually I did time.

I came home, got into the plumber’s union, became a plumber. I wasn’t one to rob so I had to support my habit one way or another. That or be sick. You do what you gotta do. It’s a crazy lifestyle. It builds character in the negative sense, but the things that have happened to me in my life, that’s what made me into the man I am today. It’s funny how God gives you a hand and you have to play it out. I’ve been blessed that I woke up and found sobriety.

Avenue B, right over there where there’s a condo, there used to be a gas station. I remember standing out there in the winter one time with the 55-gallon drums, with wood and whatever you could burn because it was like 10 degrees outside and we were out there at night trying to keep warm. There were none of these outside restaurants. Art galleries were unheard of.

It’s a beautiful neighborhood. It was always a nice melting pot of people. It was just that early on, when I was younger, the drugs were running rampant. It was always there when I was a kid growing up, but then it got worse over the years. It got to the point where places like Avenue B, Norfolk Street, were drug markets. Drug dealers were all over the corner. If you wanted heroin, the Lower East Side was the place to be. This was the mecca.

I guess they say it’s when you hit your bottom. I was thrown in the back of a police van once again, looking at another B felony for sale and I reflected back on my life. I knew then and there that was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I remember, I made bail and I told myself I was going to get help, and I did at a place on 6th Street. I went to a place called Su Casa, right over there. It’s a treatment facility. Actually, I’m a counselor there now. So you remember me saying at the beginning that for some reason I keep coming back after things happen.

I was actually paralyzed from the chest down. I’m walking with this cane because my legs are weakened from the paralysis, so I couldn’t do the plumbing work that I was used to. I was in a wheelchair for a month. That’s a whole interesting story in itself. They gave me steroids cause a virus attacked my spinal cord and kind of cut everything off. Physically I’ve been the same for awhile. I accept it for what it is. I’m walking. I had to learn how to walk and I had to learn how to live in chronic pain.

After I accepted dealing with the pain and that I wasn’t going to get any better I went to college. I got an associate's degree in drafting and design in 2008 at City Tech. It took me three years to get a two-year degree but I proved to myself that I could do it.

In 2008, the economy was really bad. I wasn’t getting any work so I decided to go to Metropolitan College down on Canal Street to get my CASAP — Control, Alcohol, and Substance Abuse Counselor. I knew I could get a job doing that, and I had affiliate with Su Casa, being an alumni. It’s where I got clean. I lived there for two years. They saved my life. I mean, I had to do the work of course, because if I wasn’t open and willing and if I didn’t have the desire to get clean… You have to want to. And it’s been fulfilling.

I guess my life has kind of come full circle and now I’m a counselor in the rehab. Su Casa is a treatment facility — a 12- to 18-month residential program. My house, your house. It’s an extremely good program, with people from all walks of life and from different states.

Again, I’m a product of it. It’s behavior modification. Addiction is basically a disease, so hit it kind of hardcore there, with consequences for negative actions. If you make a bad decision you have to pay the consequence. The only difference is that in there you may get like a contract called LE, which is a learning experience where you clean or work all day. But in there it’s just a contract, whereas out on the streets that negative behavior can catch you a bullet. There’s really nothing in there that could hurt you.

It’s tough for the young kids coming in today. There is [a resurgence], especially with the young kids with the Xanax and then the Oxycontin. Some people get into car accidents and then they become addicted to Oxycontin, but Oxycontin is expensive so they go to the heroin and the methadone. I’m just happy I got clean when I did because I could see myself doing the same thing, as far as the Benzo. That’s a hell of a thing.

There’s always hope. There are a lot of people that may want to get help. A lot of people know we’re over there, but for those who don’t and are seeking help, I would recommend it.

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