Innocent East Village neighborhood invaded by sin, lousy ad slogans

I'm sorry to interrupt your summer Friday to let you know that there is pornography and sin among us. Sin! Not to mention lousy advertising slogans. So once again, it's time to rally the troops to protest this, this... this.

[Last photo by Dave on 7th]

A petition will be circulating shorty about something or another.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Other East Village signs someone can take issue with

The Phoenix is remaining the Phoenix, though a few changes are in the works

The Phoenix is also on Monday night's CB3/SLA docket for a liquor-license transfer. The gay bar with a well-stocked jukebox on East 13th Street near Avenue A is in store for some possible changes.

Brenda Breathnach is one of the principals who may take over the space here. Via email, she told me that the bar will still be called The Phoenix and "cater to the local gay and lesbian community."

As for changes, she'd like to host an occasional open mic poetry reading and perhaps a session of traditional Irish music. (She is going to add soundproofing to the space.)

Overall, she described it as "a cafe-style tavern for the community to chat in and hang out to meet new people and make new friends."

Any other changes? "I intend to clean it up a little with nicer bathrooms."

Live in the house that inspired the art for 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie'

Yes, that's the bonus trivia question that comes with this lovely house at 264 Seventh St. between Avenue C and Avenue D.

According to the Corcoran listing: 'Felicia Bond lived in the Garden Duplex when she illustrated the renowned children's book 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.'"

Otherwise, the rest of the place:

This incredible East Village three unit townhouse has great bones and endless possibilities! Currently set up as a parlor floor duplex with back yard and two floor through apartments, this classic townhouse is a great investment property or could be made into your own single family home! 48 Hours Notice required to view.

Asking price: $3.2 million. Perhaps a young writer will be inspired to write or illustrate "If You Give a Pub Crawler the Last Shot of Patrón" here.

DNA profile on Avenue C

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Robert Galinksy for sending us this photo he took this past weekend on Avenue C. This man has a tattoo of his DNA strands and the DNA strands of his boyfriend ...

Avenue A, midnightish, July 15

Photo by Shawn Chittle.

This evening in models awkwardly posing outside the Christodora House

Police provide descriptions for suspects in recent armed robberies

The other day, we noted an item from the Post about a double mugging on 11th Street near Avenue B.

The police blotter in the new issue of The Villager has more information on two other armed robberies that occurred on June 27. (You can read The Villager for those details.) The same men are suspected in all the robberies.

Here are the descriptions of the alleged suspects via the paper:

One suspect was described as Hispanic, between 20 and 25 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall, having a long, black ponytail, wearing blue jeans and a baseball cap and armed with a handgun. The other suspect was described as Hispanic, between 20 and 30 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing about 200 pounds, and wearing blue jeans and a dark shirt.

When Lenin was told to go fly a kite

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Tom for this photo... a view looking to the south toward Red Square on Houston ...

...and if you zoom in a bit...

And if you have a photo or two to share, we'd love to see them/post them... You may send to grieve98@gmail.com

Banjo Jim's space to become home to an 'artisanal neighborhood cocktail bar'

Banjo Jim's is on the docket for Monday night's CB3/SLA meeting. Banjo Jim's opened in December 2005, and the small space quickly became a well-known spot for live (and inexpensive) Americana, bluegrass and jazz music.

Lisa Zwier-Croce named the space for her husband, the musician James Casmire Kaminski Croce (Banjo Jim), who died in a car accident in January 2003.

However, we understand that Lisa is moving on, and Rob Ceraso and his business partner hope to get the OK for the liquor-license transfer.

"The space has sentimental value to me," Ceraso said via email. "Not only have I been coming to Banjo's for bluegrass for the last five years, but my wife and I also celebrated our wedding across the street at La Plaza Cultural Garden four years ago ... with musicians that I met at Banjo's."

Ceraso, who runs White Noise on Avenue B with Timothy Falzone, provided us with details about what they have planned for Banjo Jim's. The working name — The James Daniel.

"We are calling ourselves an 'artisanal neighborhood cocktail bar,' which I know is a mouth full," only because I couldn't think of another label that necessarily fit what we'd like to create," Ceraso said. "Cocktail bar in the sense that we will offer beautifully rendered cocktails, putting care into ingredients and making as much as we can from scratch."

"Neighborhood bar in the sense that we are trying to do what we do with the same spirit of creativity mixed with a tinge of rebelliousness that has existed in the neighborhood for the last 60 years or more. We're not putting ourselves on [that] level, but if we can do our thing with the spirit of creativity that existed ... then that would be cool with us."

A few other details...

Food:
"We'd like to push the limits a little of what you can create with a small convection oven and a couple of induction cooktops," he said. "It will be a learning experience for us and I'm sure everything won't be awesome, but I can promise it will be interesting and made with care."

Live music:
"We thought it would be great to be able to honor it with an occasional "Banjo Jim's" night of music. We're thinking of something weekly or monthly as well as possibly having some piano and fiddle, etc. for happy hour from time to time. Whatever we end up doing it will be pretty low-key. We would always plan it for earlier than later and we aren't getting any of the amplification equipment from Banjo's. All we're hoping to hang onto is the old piano."

The block:
"We love the block, the two gardens around us and the neighborhood. To us it embodies the same bohemian sensibilities that used to exist everywhere downtown. [Avenue] C seems like it's becoming the last refuge for everyone escaping the craziness and fratty takeover of the LES. We'd like to be part of that refuge and maybe help to remind people a little of what the spirit of the neighborhood still is to a lot of us."

In closing...

"If we're doing our thing right, neighbors can come in and talk about and enjoy some food, drink, music and neighborhood culture."

[Banjo Jim's photo via Down Home Radio]

Noted

Avenue A at Second Street last evening...

Thanks to our friend BaHa for sending these photos along.

[Perhaps better viewed while watching this. Don't worry — it's not ZZ Top.]

Gang warfare tonight in Tompkins Square Park

Tonight marks the third of the free music-movie nights in Tompkins Square Park. This evening's picture show: The Warriors.

And of course, the most terrifying gang The Warriors encounter: The Punks in a desolate Union Square Station! Those fellows in roller skates, rugby shirts and denim overalls.

This must be what it's like to get into a tiff at a Gabe Stulman restaurant...

Hey ho!

And the rest of the summer's lineup...

July 21 — Star Trek
July 28 — Arthur
Aug. 4 — Pope of Greenwich Village
Aug. 11 — Kickass
Aug. 18 — Rosemary’s Baby
Aug. 25 — The Godfather
Sept. 1 — Stake Land

Here's the official website for the summer movies.

A loft on the Bowery — with a catch

Here we are at 354 Bowery Apt. 5 ... between Great Jones and Fourth Street... This loft is going for $1.1 million.

Here's the listing. See if you can spot the catch!

This is a rare opportunity to get 1200 sqft on the Bowery!!!

Unbelievably large, entire floor, penthouse loft on a 5th floor of a walk-up building. The space is now setup as one bedroom and can be converted easily to a two bedroom or even 3. The loft gets great light thanks to its big windows and two exposures east/west, and more than that, 2 skylights with the option to create a 3rd one. Also an option to a third exposure (south).

The loft just got new pipes and new electricity , and 2 fireplaces that could operate again with a little bit of work. The apartment currently is under construction so a bit of a mess inside, and is missing the rear wall (part of the building’s plan to rebuild the rear wall).

New sculptures in the Kenkeleba House Garden

EV Grieve correspondent Bobby Williams notes some new sculptures in the Kenkeleba House Garden on East Third Street just east of Avenue B...

For more on the Kenkeleba House Garden, go here.

East Village skies, during and after the rain tonight

Photos by Bobby Williams.

There's a moon over the Christodora House tonight...

Photos by Shawn Chittle.

Temporary traffic light down at Houston and Norfolk

Well, that was a helluva 10-minute storm...

A reader delivers this report:

That quick storm that blew through the neighborhood tonight knocked down a huge temporary traffic light/street lamp pole and attached wires on Houston St in front of the Red Square building. DOT has been doing work here as part of the Houston St construction project and put up these temporary light poles a couple of months ago. As usual, looks like they went with the cheapest contractor and subsequently got shoddy, unsafe work. You can see the knocked over pole in the middle of the pictures. It looks like it wasn't secured to anything, and the concrete base was blown right over by the wind from the storm. The gold SUV across the street swerved to miss the falling wires and hit another pole, but shortly after drove away. Luckily no one else was hurt.

So will workers just prop the pole back up and leave it to fall over again the next time a thunderstorm rolls through?

Houston temporarily closed between A and B

And samo notes that Houston is closed between A and B due to the downed temporary light pole...

The rainbow, from ConEd to the Bowery

EV Grieve reader AC is first to check in with a rainbow photo...

...and from @bio623

... and @saywhatagain

... and @czilka ...

... and John Iz...

... and Han Shan from Third Avenue and 11th Street ...

...and Curt Hoppe...with a photo from the Bowery...

...and from Steven Hirsch...

And this shot by @Section215 gives us a nice perspective on the double rainbow...

...And a shot from the FDR by @nsanchis

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Part of the old Ratner's revealed at Met Foods (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Black-and-white photos of the Second Line parade for dba's Ray Deter (Neither More Nor Less)

Some of Charles Cushman's NYC color photos from the 1940s (Stupefaction)

A death in Tompkins Square Park Monday afternoon? (BoweryBoogie)

NYC to get more Midwestern with arrival of first Steak 'n Shake (Eater)

Celebrating the summer with live music (The Village Voice)

And now the Strokes with their new ad for Dramamine® ...