A proposal to co-name part of 2nd Avenue and 7th Street after the victims of the 2015 gas explosion

Members of CB3's Transportation & Public Safety/Environment Committee will hear a proposal this month to co-name Second Avenue between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place after the two men who died in the gas explosion here on March 26, 2015.

Authorities have said that siphoned gas at 121 Second Ave. was to blame for the explosion, which killed Moises Ismael Locón Yac and Nicholas Figueroa, and injured two dozen other people.

Figueroa, 23, a recent graduate of SUNY Buffalo State, was at Sushi Park with a co-worker. Locón, an employee at Sushi Park, was 27. Locón sent most of his paycheck back to his family in Guatemala, where he worked as a school teacher before moving to the United States in 2008.

Here's more information about the street co-naming proposal via a petition:

In memory of these young men, we ask that our community honor their lives and demonstrate to their families who their loss was also our loss and that we share in their sorrow by co-naming these blocks.

The petition must be signed by a minimum 75 percent of the total number of residential units and 75 percent of the total number of businesses on these blocks. (We appreciate the support, but do not need signatures from elsewhere in the neighborhood. The petitions will be available at neighboring businesses.)

If approved, then City Council will vote on this in May or June. If passed in the City Council, we will set a date with the Department of Transportation for a street blade installation and have a street co-naming event.

Here's a document (PDF) with more information on CB3's guidelines for co-naming a street. (If you have any questions or want to get more involved, then please email nicholasandmoises [at] gmail [dot] com.)

The committee meeting is May 9 at 6:45 p.m. at Downtown Art, 1st Floor Theater, 70 E. Fourth St. between the Bowery and Second Avenue.

The committee is also expected to hear a request to co-name Second Street between Avenue A and Avenue B for Mary Spink.

Spink, a local business owner and member of CB3, was a community activist and later served as executive director of Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association. She died in January 2012 at age 64.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Updated: 2nd Ave. explosion — landlord, 3 others charged with 2nd degree manslaughter; showed 'a blatant and callous disregard for human life'

Memorial for Mary Spink tomorrow

RIP Nicholas Figueroa

RIP Moises Ismael Locón Yac

The housing limbo of Raphael Toledano's (former) East Village tenants

The New York Times delved into Raphael Toledano's crumbling East Village real-estate empire yesterday... focusing specifically on the resnt-stabilized residents who accepted buyouts to leave their homes — but have yet to receive their payment.

When we last checked in with Toledano, Madison Realty Capital had replaced the 27-year-old landlord as the property manager of 15 East Village buildings while a deal to transfer the ownership was worked out.

Toledano planned to use $124 million worth of financing from Madison Realty Capital for buyouts and renovations.

Per the Times:

What followed was a familiar playbook: Coerce tenants to give up their valuable rent-regulated apartments with threats of eviction or offers of cash payouts, or both. Once the tenants leave, renovate the empty spaces and lease them for considerably more money. “At the end of the day, it’s a part of the business plan,” Mr. Toledano said in a telephone interview.

Then...

“He made it really clear that he was going to make it a miserable place to live,” said Jen Bekman, 47, an entrepreneur who lives in another Toledano-owned building, on East Fifth Street. She also fielded daily calls and texts from the landlord. “Sometimes he’d lose his temper. You could just tell that he was kind of volatile.”

The clock was ticking for Mr. Toledano. His deal with Madison Realty Capital gave him a year to clear out apartments, then renovate and rent them.

In the end, 140 of the 300 tenants who lived in the 15 buildings signed buyout agreements, totaling $7 million in payouts, Toledano confirmed. (Bekman received the largest payout offer — $600,000 for the $1,900-a-month, one-bedroom apartment she lived in for 25 years.)

However, by the time all the buyout offers were finalized, Toledano no longer had the money to pay his debts.

To shield himself from personal liability, Mr. Toledano had purchased each of his properties using limited liability companies. Last summer, the L.L.C.s that owned the buildings in the Madison Realty portfolio went into default and Madison stopped funding the buyouts.

So the residents who took the buyouts are in various stages of housing limbo. You can read the piece for more.

Meanwhile, Toledano has sold off other pieces of his East Village portfolio, as we've noted.

You may want to warn anyone you know who lives in the West Village.

Back to the Times:

[Toledano] said he was in contract with an investor to buy a $200 million portfolio of properties in the West Village, a neighborhood where he said tenants were less organized.

“I kind of want to get out of the East Village walk-up business, to be honest,” he said, without a hint of remorse. “There is so much scrutiny of the buyouts.”

Previously on EV Grieve:
Foreclosure notice arrives on Raphael Toledano-owned building on 12th Street

Claim: Landlord of 444 E. 13th St. threatened 'to drop dynamite on the building'

Cleaning up 444 E. 13th St.

Report: State investigating East Village landlord Raphael Toledano

Health Department to inspect Raphael Toledano's East Village properties for toxic levels of lead dust

Foreclosure notice arrives on Raphael Toledano-owned building on 12th Street

Report: Raphael Toledano files for Chapter 11; $145 million deal for EV portfolio is off the table

Raphael Toledano tenants take to Midtown streets to speak out against their landlord and his lenders

L'Apicio serving its last meal on May 20

L'Apicio has announced a closing date. The upscale Italian restaurant on First Street in the Avalon Bowery Place complex will shut down after service on May 20.

Here is their announcement via Facebook:


Back in March, we reported that Chef Sujan Sarkar was applying for a new liquor license for the space for an unnamed restaurant that will serve "upscale modern Indian cuisine."

Sarkar is the chef partner at Ek Bar, "India's first Artisanal cocktail bar." He is also the chef of Rooh, a similar-sounding restaurant that recently opened in San Francisco.

L'Apicio debuted in 2012. Here's what Pete Wells at The New York Times had to say about it in a generally positive review from December 2012: "L'Apicio can deliver a very enjoyable night out if you don't ask too much of it."

This large space with outdoor seating (capacity inside/outside is 266) here between Second Avenue and the Bowery was also home for four years to the Bowery Wine Company.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Chef Sujan Sarkar bringing 'upscale modern Indian cuisine' to the Bowery

Parantha Alley opens in the Bowery Market today

Parantha Alley, a regular on the Brooklyn food-fair circuit, debuts today at the Bowery Market, the year-round open-air food court at 348 Bowery and Great Jones.

Parantha Alley serves Indian flat bread with a variety of fillings. (Their menu is here.)

Colleen Kong-Savage created the mural...

Just about done w @ParanthaAlley mural! Add counter, menu, sign, then fresh paranthas come to Bowery Markt May 1! #indianfood #illustration pic.twitter.com/0doW0mFyj6

— Colleen Kong-Savage (@KongSavage) April 23, 2017

Parantha Alley joins Alidoro and Sushi on Jones here. The Market launched last July with five vendors... and since then, the mini outposts of Champion Coffee, The Butcher's Daughter and Pulqueria have moved on, as previously noted.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A winterized Bowery Market, now down to 3 vendors

The Bowery Market opens today with 5 year-round food vendors

A new vendor for the Bowery Market

Bowery Road and the Library of Distilled Spirits check into the Hyatt Union Square

The new bar-restaurant is now open at the Hyatt Union Square — please welcome Bowery Road to Fourth Avenue and 13th Street.

Here's more about it:

Gather at Bowery Road, a neighborhood American restaurant. Chef Ron Rosselli's flavorful and thoughtfully prepared dishes are inspired by long relationships with local farmers and purveyors and loaded with seasonal produce from the Union Square Greenmarket. The restaurant takes its name from its location on 4th Avenue, which was formerly called Bowery Road when it served as the pathway to Peter Stuyvesant's farm.

Located directly off the lobby, Bowery Road is open from 7am-11pm for breakfast, lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.

Rosselli has also worked at Locanda Verde and The Standard Grill.

The hotel now also sports The Library of Distilled Spirits, which: "pays tribute to liquor makers and their craft with over 700 bottles made around the world. Explore the collection neat, or shaken and stirred into more than 150 classic cocktails. Barkeepers and encyclopedic volumes of single spirits will help you choose."

As previously noted, The Fourth and Singl, the hotel's two dining-drinking options, had closed. Marco Moreira and Jo-Ann Makovitzky, the restaurateurs behind these two as well as a third Hyatt space, Botequim, reportedly parted ways with the hotel last spring.

The two new establishments are operated by APICII, "a multi-concept restaurant company."

The hotel opened in April 2013.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Slim dining options at the Hyatt Union Square for the time being

Juice Press annex for rent on 1st Street

[Photo from October 2015]

Going back to September 2015, the flagship Juice Press on First Street seemingly had dibs on the small retail space next door here between First Avenue and Second Avenue… The official JP signage/brandage eventually appeared.

The space sat empty for more than a year. Last fall, the space became a gym ... where we would see founder-CEO Marcus Antebi working out.

Anyway, to bring this storefront story to a close... that space is now for rent...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Juice Press is up to something on East 1st Street

Sunday's parting shot

Photo in Tompkins Square Park today by Steven...

About the Moon passing through Orion, and other upcoming 2nd Avenue Star Watcher events

Here's a dispatch about last evening via East Village astronomy buff Felton Davis...

As Virgo rises in the East, Orion sets in the West, and the seasons change. (At last, after weeks and weeks of nothing but clouds and rain!) When the light from Aldebaran left the star 65 years ago,"Guys and Dolls" was playing at the Shubert Theater on Broadway. When the light from the Pleiades left the star cluster 400 years ago, Shakespeare was writing his plays. When the light from the Orion Nebula set forth 1,600 years ago, Rome was sacked by the Visigoths (later defeated by Attila the Hun). The crescent Moon tonight was passing through Orion between Taurus and Gemini, but was repeatedly blocked by passing clouds.

However, there will be more opportunities for sky gazing from Second Avenue and Third Street...

Upcoming events:

May 7 — near conjunction of waxing Moon and Jupiter in Virgo

June 3 — another near conjunction of waxing Moon and Jupiter

June 9 — near conjunction of full Moon and Saturn in Sagittarius

July 6 — near conjunction of waxing Moon and Saturn

August 21 — total eclipse of the Sun in the afternoon. (A partial in NYC.)



Find more 2nd Avenue Star Watcher pics here.

Illustrations/photos here courtesy of Felton Davis

Week in Grieview

[Photo of 2nd Avenue Friday evening by Regina Shvartsman]

Stories posted on EVG this past week included...

Permits filed for 6-story building in long-empty lot at 89 First Ave. (Monday)

Ravi DeRossi moving Ladybird to the East Village; taking residence at former Bourgeois Pig space (Thursday)

Alphabet Scoop open for the season on 11th Street (Saturday)

Preliminary vote on increases for rent-stabilized apartments (Tuesday)

Out and About in the East Village, 2017 recap (Wednesday)

Reader report: A car drives in the First Avenue bike lane (Thursday, 40 comments)

Katrina del Mar's "Feral Women/Filmed Portraits" exhibit is up through May 18 (Thursday)

Another sign of spring: the annual Dance Parade is May 20 (Friday)

The Black Rose has closed on Avenue A; welcome Tompkins Square Park Art Bar (temporarily) (Thursday ... Friday)

Silverstone Property Group gets to work on buildings (previously) owned by Raphael Toledano (Monday)

Townhouse rich in art history for sale on 11th Street; air rights included (Wednesday)

More about Artichoke's move across 14th Street (Wednesday)

Pop-up bubble tea exhibit brings crowds to the Bowery (Monday)

Own Olympic snowboarding champ Shaun White's A Building condo (Friday)

Sandwicherie opens on Fourth Avenue (Tuesday)

A retail vacancy at 51 Astor Place (Monday)

Yuan Noodle in the works for the former Biang! space on Second Avenue (Tuesday)

Whole Foods Market® Bowery replacing beer with coffee in prime corner spot (Tuesday)

Something for future generations to discover on Second Avenue (Tuesday)

Ben Shaoul's East Houston Street condoplex makes first street-level appearance (Monday)

...and practicing for the upcoming Shirts vs. Skins ping-pong tourney...


[Photo by Derek Berg]

... and like 10 days later, no one picked up the table as they promised to do tomorrow...



---

Follow EVG on Instragram and/or Twitter

14th Street gate all dolled up

Spotted on 14th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C...





These were remnants from a stoop sale yesterday.

And in case you were wondering, Art in Odd Places takes place this year along 14th Street from Avenue C to the Hudson River on Oct. 12-15.

Report: Target takes aim at Essex Crossing with a small-format store

[Rendering of 500 E. 14th St. via RKF]

As you may recall, Target is leasing 27,306 square feet in Extell's new development at 14th Street and Avenue A for a small-format store expected to open in the summer of 2018.

That store will have some competition with itself. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Target will also lease space in the second floor of the tower under construction at 145 Clinton St. in the Essex Crossing complex. This space will also house a Trader Joe’s.

Some details via the Journal:

Essex Crossing, which extends roughly between Stanton and Grand streets to the north and south and Essex and Clinton streets to the west and east, will have 1,061 rental and condominium apartments and include a movie theater, a bowling alley, a three-block-long marketplace and a medical facility.

A majority of the retailers that have signed for space at Essex Crossing are expected to open in 2018, offering services in an area that has been underserved, said Andrew Katz, a principal of Prusik.

Target “sees tremendous potential” in New York City, where there is a dense population and plenty of tourists, making the area one of the company’s priority markets, the spokeswoman said.

Target is using the stores to support its online shoppers, offering them the ability to order online and pick up purchases in the store within an hour. The company plans in June to test same-day delivery service from its Tribeca location, offering store shoppers the option of having their purchases delivered within a certain time frame to locations in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, for a fee.

Previously on EV Grieve:
New 7-floor buildings for East 14th Street include 150 residential units

Target offers details about its flexible-format store opening summer 2018 on 14th and A

The disappearing storefronts of East 14th Street

1st free concert of the season in Tompkins Square Park is tomorrow (Sunday!)

Starts at 2 p.m. Here's the lineup:

• The Brass

• Future Punx

• Porvenir Oscuro

• Lion's Cage

• Rebuschaos

H/T Steven!

When you take time to read the wet paint sign on the bench in Tompkins Square Park

Photo yesterday in Tompkins Square Park by Derek Berg... Volunteers from Partnerships for Parks were out with the paint getting things ready for spring/summer travelers...



...and a few more paint pics via Steven...

Noted

An EVG reader shared this photo on Avenue A between 12th Street and 13th Street ... a discarded Santa suit on the sidewalk is up for grabs...

And just about seven-plus months until SantaCon...

Alphabet Scoop open for the season on 11th Street

In case you are out shopping for ice cream on this 80-degree day... Alphabet Scoop, run by The Father's Heart Ministries next door, is now open for the season at 543 E. 11th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B...

And here's more about them:

Alphabet Scoop is a job and life skills program for teens. The program is designed to prepare teens with the skills needed to advance in their school and work endeavors. Teenagers receive classroom instruction and work under a shift supervisor in the retail store.

We recruit and screen mentors to work with the teens, offering friendship, guidance, support and encouragement aimed at developing the competence and character of the mentee. We belong to the Mentoring Partnership of New York. Every time you buy our ice cream, you are helping a teen remain in a teaching and nurturing environment and off the streets.

They are open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. today.

And upcoming on May 12...

Bad hair days: Kings Hairstyling closed for renovations

Brown paper covers the windows at Kings Hairstyling on 14th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue... thought it might be another small-business casualty ...

But! They are merely closed starting today for a renovation... with a reopening on May 8...



I always liked the look of this place ... with veteran barbers in sporty shirts...


[Image via Yelp]

Friday's parting shots

[Photo by Goggla]

Thanks to Goggla and Bobby Williams for the lovely sunset-time photos...


[Photo by Bobby Williams]

'Perfect' way

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme died this week. He was 73.

Aside from the film credits ("The Silence of the Lambs," Melvin and Howard," "Philadelphia," "Stop Making Sense") you likely know about, he also directed this New Order video for "The Perfect Kiss," set in the band's practice studio, from 1985.

The short life of the Tompkins Square Park Art Bar captured on video

As noted yesterday, the Tompkins Square Park Art Bar rose out of the ashes of the former Black Rose on the corner of Seventh Street and Avenue A... it was a short-lived operation that the NYPD and Sanitation Department shut down after 24 hours or so...

And there is video of both the (fake) bar in all its glory and, starting at the 10-minute mark of the first video, the arrival of the NYPD...





H/T to the reader who forwarded the video to us...

Another sign of spring: the annual Dance Parade is May 20

Organizers of the 2017 Dance Parade have released more details about this year's event... via the EVG inbox...

Dance Parade New York is pleased to announce details for its 11th-annual event, showcasing over 150 dance groups across 83 unique styles of dance in celebration of peace and unity.

Grand Marshals for this year’s Dance Parade are capoeira master, Mestre João Grande; Broadway legend, Maurice Hines; American pioneer of techno music and founder of the Peace, Love, Unity and Respect movement, Frankie Bones; and the honorable Council Member, Rosie Mendez, who has been a committed supporter of Dance Parade since inception. The Grand Marshals will kick off the parade and festival with a ribbon cutting ceremony that begins at 12:45 p.m. on Saturday, May 20.

At 1pm on May 20th the parade unfolds with 10,000 dancers who salsa, sashay, 2-step and boogie their way down Broadway from West 21st Street, through Union Square and University Place and across 8th Street/Saint Mark's Place to a grandstand in Astor Place Plaza where performances take place.

Ending in Tompkins Square Park, DanceFest comes alive from 3 to 7 p.m. highlighting the artistic excellence and cultural treasures found in the Dance Parade. Festivalgoers are invited to view the richness of its cultural forms on four stages, participate in social dancing and take dance lessons — all FREE to the public.

This year's parade theme is "Dance for Peace."

City Council candidates to discuss 'Historic Preservation Issues' on the Lower East Side

An array of neighborhood groups are hosting a forum on Monday night (May 1!) with candidates for City Council Districts 1 and 2 to share their thoughts on "Historic Preservation Issues."

Per the invite:

You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions about their plan to preserve the historic architecture, streetscapes and character of the Lower East Side, from Chinatown to 14th Street.

The event takes place from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Third Street Music School, 253 E. 11th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.

Find more details and to RSVP here.

Own Olympic snowboarding champ Shaun White's A Building condo

Shaun White, the two-time Olympic gold-medalist snowboarder, is selling his penthouse condo over at the A Building on 13th Street, the Post reports.

Here's the listing for the unit (NOT the one that had the slide) in Ben Shaoul's pool-topped condoplex between Avenue A and First Avenue via Citi Habitats:

Come inside this stunning and south facing Two bedroom Two and one half bathroom sunlit highly coveted penthouse at the A building. Floor to ceiling windows and soaring 12 foot+ ceilings with open layout provide downtown views and beautiful sunrises on your private patio. The building is a full service luxury doorman building with fully equipped rooftop including a vibrant pool scene, gym, and garden. Modern finishes throughout the apartment combined with an abundance of natural light are sure to impress.

The Real Deal notes that the unit last sold for $2.9 million in 2014. Presumably White has owned it since then. (Not sure how much time he actually spent there.)

Current asking price: $2.79 million.

Previously on EV Grieve:
People apparently love the condo with the giant metal slide, according to article about how much people love the condo with the giant metal slide

Your chance to stand in line outside a 7-Eleven to meet Shaun White today

No. 117 is the latest Avenue A storefront for rent

[Photo by Daniel]

One day after the Marshal's notice eviction was posted at the now-former Black Rose bar space at 117 Avenue A ... the for rent signs arrived here between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place.

The listing isn't online just yet at Steve Croman's 9300 Realty site... this storefront joins two other nearby Croman properties for rent — 115 Avenue A (former Blink Fitness membership office) and 147 Avenue A (formerly La Lucha).

Back in 2014, the space, which housed the Odessa Cafe and Bar, was asking $22,500.

Reader report: A car drives in the 1st Avenue bike lane

[Reader-submitted photo]

An EVG reader shared this from this afternoon...

I was just on First Avenue and St. Mark's, and a silver car drove past me, moving uptown on First Avenue in the bike lane! The guy was driving in the bike lane! I was shouting you are in the bike lane, and a delivery guy with a handtruck who was in the car's path was shouting the same thing.

But the guy kept driving, and turned left on 9th Street right where Kelly Hurley was hit. I chased after the car, but he zoomed down 9th Street and turned left onto Second Avenue. I went back to the corner of First Avenue and St. Mark's hoping he would come around, so I could snap a photo of the car, but he didn't. The car was silver, and I didn't see what kind of car it was.

Anyway, it was shocking to see someone do this right after a cyclist was killed here. It was shocking that the guy ignored us. His window was down, so he had to have heard us. It goes to show that First Avenue is a free-for-all. It is yet more evidence to me that cops need to be stopping not bikes but cars on First Avenue and ticketing them and informing them of the rules of the road.

City shuts down the Tompkins Square Park Art Bar after 1 day

[Yesterday!]

Well, after one day, the Tompkins Square Park Art Bar (aka the remnants of the now-closed Black Rose) is no more... EVG regular Daniel reports that a city sanitation crew stopped by the corner of Seventh Street and Avenue A and took away the bar and most everyone else that Jerry and Co. had assembled from the cleared-out space at 117 Avenue A...





Just some of Jerry's paintings and his shoes — and the Black Rose's Jimmy Page Monolithic Riff — remain...

The Black Rose has closed on Avenue A; welcome Tompkins Square Park Art Bar (temporarily)

The Black Rose, which billed itself as a neighborhood rock-and-roll bar, has closed at 117 Avenue A between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place.

EVG regular Daniel shared these photos and the tip.

The Marshal took legal possession yesterday of the nearly two-year-old bar on behalf of landlord Steve Croman.



The space was quickly cleaned out...



As we understand it, the Black Rose management told Jerry, the artist who occasionally takes up residence on the corner of Avenue A and Seventh Street, and company to take what they wanted... and so for at least part of the day there was the all-new Tompkins Square Park Art Bar...



...featuring framed posters of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, velvet rope, red banquettes, bar stools, a disco ball and other former Black Rose items along the Seventh Street entrance to Tompkins Square Park...







No. 117 was the longtime home, until August 2013, of the Odessa Cafe & Bar.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Black Rose, 'a neighborhood rock and roll bar,' opening in the former Odessa Cafe and Bar space (73 comments)

Ravi DeRossi moving Ladybird to the East Village; taking residence at former Bourgeois Pig space

[Photo of 111 E. 7th St. from last October]

Last summer, restaurateur Ravi DeRossi turned his Bourgeois Pig into vegan tapas bar Ladybird over on MacDougal Street in the West Village. (DeRossi started going meat free on the menus at his establishments in early 2016. Ladybird sends part of its profits to DeRossi's BEAST Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending animal cruelty.)

Now, DeRossi plans to relocate Ladybird to 111 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue — the original home of The Bourgeois Pig before its move to the West Village in late January 2015. (Eater reported back in November 2014 that a rent increase was behind DeRossi's decision to pack up the 10-year-old bar.)

"The landlord has offered me a very fair deal, so I have decided to move Ladybird from MacDougal to Seventh Street, where it should have been in the first place," DeRossi, whose home and office is in the East Village, told us via email.

Next month, he will appear before CB3's SLA committee for a new beer-wine license for No. 111.

The previous No. 111 tenant, the wine bar Virgola, closed last October after 10 months in business.