From FroYo to piercings on St. Mark's Place

[High FroYo Season]

Over on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, the Yogurt Station covered up their windows with trash bags for months at a time … giving us the impression that they had closed for business. But they always came back for the FroYo Season.

We thought the same thing when they closed earlier in the fall. Then the sign came down… and we waited and waited to see what would take the Station's place...



… the sign for the new business arrived last Friday. (Or maybe Thursday.)

The Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins combo is back, better than ever, or exactly the same

After a fews weeks of renovations, the Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins in the Shoppes at Red Square on East Houston between Avenue A and Avenue B is back in action...

Saturday!



Sunday!

Parting thoughts from the weekend...

East 11th Street yesterday… photo by Goggla…

Hawk fight, then dinner

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

Tompkins Square Park today…


[Photo by Goggla]

Week in Grieview

A walk through the East Village in June 1986 (Friday)

City shutters Jerry's Newsstand on Astor Place (Monday … Monday… Thursday)

Il Bagatto has closed (Monday)

Happy first anniversary MoRUS! (Thursday)

Break a tree, steal a bike (Monday)

Out and About with Santo Mollica (Wednesday)

Let's go "Online Mating" with HiLa tHe KiLLa (Wednesday)

The former 7-Eleven is for rent on St. Mark's Place (Friday)

Hells Angels fighting for clubhouse rights (Wednesday)

THE NEW PHONE BOOKS HAVE ARRIVED!!! (Wednesday)

How rats get fat (Tuesday)

Johnny Thunders estate battle (Monday)

Aerial views of the 100 Avenue A takedown (Thursday)

Tompkins Square tree lighting (Sunday)

Vandalizing 51 Astor Place (Tuesday)

Track your neighborhood crime (Wednesday)

Someone broke the window at McDonald's on First Avenue (Friday)

New home for East Village Shoe Repair? (Monday)

The Pub Crawl Santa Suit (Wednesday)

SantaCon 2013 Fight Night

Some Santa-brawling action on Third Avenue and East 16th Street.

Here's another angle via Gothamist…

A break in the Santa action yesterday, starring a Yeti

East 10th Street and First Avenue… photo via EVG reader Marina.

It was a dark and snowy night...

The excellent photos by Grant Shaffer

East Village residents share their positive experiences with SantaCon 2013

Heh. Ok. This ol' gag. Like, you know, there weren't any positive experiences...

But if you do have something positive to say about SantaCon 2013, then please do so in the comments. (And "it wasn't that bad" and "it could have been worse" don't count...)

The quiet beauty of today — without the assholes

Photos by Bobby Williams

Noted

Go home Santa, you're drunk. #santacon #aftermath #nyc #eastvillage #thumbsup #snow pic.twitter.com/rZsVfdaA5v

— Erik Valind (@ErikVPhoto) December 15, 2013

Earlier today on St. Mark's Place

"I walked two feet out of my apt on St. Marks and already a guy with a group of Santa pals says what cute tails to the dogs then looks at me and says "I gotta get a tail by the end of the night." Then without any response from me he says "huh huh. She knows what I'm talking about" ... One guy yells out "not very good Santa costumes" to my dogs. Already!" — Chloe Sweeney McGlade via Facebook

Noted

Oh no, the drunk Santas have bikes now. I love you Citibike but what have you done... pic.twitter.com/r2stbv4DTG”

— Charles Thorp (@charlesthorp) December 14, 2013

Squashing those rumors that the 13th Step isn't participating in SantaCon

Unless they are in line early for Alder?



Photos via EVG reader Steven Sonnenblick

It was all fun and games until...

Spotted: 5 #santacon Santas wobbly cycling CitiBikes in the snow. Headed south on 1st Ave. Be afraid. #eastvillage @evgrieve

— Adele (@missy__m) December 14, 2013

Your SantaCon map, for better or worse

Thanks to EVG commenter extraordinaire Giovanni for passing along the official handy-dandy SantaCon map. This is from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m., at which time they'll all be coming by my apartment for tea and homemade scones.

First we take Manhattan...

Just getting started…

Photo by @GeorgyGirlNYC

And with sincere apologies to Leonard Cohen.

-----

Moments later… via EVG reader Steven Sonnenblick…

Turning to a higher power for answers today

[Updated] We're saved from SantaCon! Jesus is here!

Tompkins Square Park via EVG reader David…



Wait a minute. We've been duped. Jesus doesn't wear red suede Pumas…

Updated 1:52

Oh well.

#EastVillage #SantaCon update: @evgrieve readers report that "sexy Jesus" is already throwing up on 9th and 1st. http://t.co/McklhIdex7

— Adele (@missy__m) December 14, 2013

The NYPD apparently got the SantaCon memo

The scene on Avenue A and Tompkins Square Park ahead of the official 10 a.m. gathering time for the start of SantaCon...


[Via EVG reader David]


[Via EVG reader mdmn]


[Via EVG reader mdmn]

Yep, it is officially snowing

FUNKtional Art Fair kicks off today

From the EVG inbox...

Looking for a relaxed and joyful holiday shopping experience? Visit the East Village's very first FUNKtional Art Fair, a holiday fair of functional art for the funky at heart.

When: Saturdays & Sundays, 12pm-9pm
December 14, 15, 21, & 22
Where: La Plaza Cultural Community Garden at the southwest corner of 9th St. & Avenue C.
What: A fair that features an amazing selection of seasonal gifts; Christmas wreaths & trees, holiday decorations, clothing, costumes, jewelry, housewares, leather goods, paper goods, custom millinery & children's items.

A portion of the money raised will go to La Plaza Cultural Community Garden

Find more info about the vendors here.

Because it is supposed to snow today...

Who knows?! Several inches? Possible!

Anyway, it's an excuse to trot out this video again that East Village resident Stephen Nangeroni created after Nemo (the Storm of Feb. 8™) … a feel-good look at people (and hawks and dogs) enjoying Tompkins Square Park (while it is still here!) and the East River Park.

SantaCon makes it official: The fucking thing starts in Tompkins Square Park

There were some people who thought the whole "SantaCon starts in Tompkins Square Park" was a bad dream. Not so! The official SantaCon website makes it official tonight… 10 a.m. in Tompkins Square Park.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, the 9th Precinct's annual children's Christmas event is tomorrow on East Fifth Street from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (times cut off in the photo)… So…. Do with that information what you will...



Meanwhile Part 2, as BoweryBoogie points out tonight, the Lower East Side allegedly got nixed from the Official SantaCon Bar Crawl Route, according to the LES Dwellers…

'Boogie' fever, yes

The Kills sweat to Captain Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie" circa 2005.

Enjoy an 'Unsilent Night' Saturday

[A scene from 2010 via Bobby Williams]

The 22nd annual Unsilent Night returns tomorrow … here are the details via the official event site:

This Saturday, in Washington Square Park, you have an opportunity to dust off your own pre-digital music players and join the world’s biggest boombox parade conceived by composer Phil Kline. Kline will lead a musical chorus of boomboxes and sound-blasters through the streets of Manhattan to Tompkins Square Park all playing an arrangement of the holiday classic Silent Night

The parade begins at 7 p.m.; meet in Washington Square Park at 6:45. Find more info here.

Previously.

Updated: Here's what the newest East Village dorm will look like

[Photo by Robert Miner]

This morning, workers put up the rendering showing what developer Arun Bhatia's 13-floor "new student housing building" on Cooper Square at East Sixth Street will look like … right next door to the Standard East Village…



There are still some unknowns publicly about the project, such as who the dorm is for... Updated 1:58 p.m. Our friends at Curbed point out that Marymount Manhattan College will be leasing the space. Marymount's campus is on East 71st Street, so the kids will have a bit of a hike to class...

The Arun Bhatia Development Organization has developed dorms for the New School and Marymount Manhattan College, among others, through the years.

The dorm will sit on a lot previously occupied in part by 35 Cooper Square, the Federal-style building that dated to 1825.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Something 28,998 square feet or so coming to Cooper Square (and goodbye Cooper 35 Asian Pub?)

Here's what's coming to 35 Cooper Square: 9-story dormitory

Proposed dorm for former 35 Cooper Square looks to be 4 floors taller

City OKs 13-floor dorm for Cooper Square

'Quite simply, SantaCon is a parasite'

[Photo by A. Sasaki]

At The New York Times today, East Village resident Jason O. Gilbert, a writer and editor at Yahoo News, puts in an opinion piece about SantaCon.

To an excerpt!

Perhaps most distressing about SantaCon is its size and the way that it shuts down and befouls dozens of blocks. Any East Villager (I am one) can tell you that the event makes doing absolutely anything beyond one’s front stoop an impossibility, unless you own swamp waders and a riot shield. Last year, an estimated 30,000 carousers participated in the festivities.

But really, it’s not the disruption or the noise that rankles. New Yorkers can endure street closures and inconveniences for any number of events so long as there is a beneficent impulse, or an obvious reason for the disruption. For a New York City event of its size, however, SantaCon is distinctive, and arguably impressive, in that it contributes absolutely zero value — cultural, artistic, aesthetic, diversionary, culinary or political — to its host neighborhood. Quite simply, SantaCon is a parasite.

Read the whole column here.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for a positive counter-point… someone to discuss how awesome SantaCon is now, not what it may have been 15 years ago.

Walk with Tish Gervais in the East Village of the mid-1980s

Here's another slice-of-East-Village life from the 1980s courtesy of downtown filmmaker Nelson Sullivan … (this video isn't newly uploaded, just new to us).

From the YouTube description:

At this time in the mid-1980s, Tish Gervais was the transgendered star of the moment in New York — not only because she was transgendered but also because she was sexy and talented too. Along the way, Tish and Nelson encountered Lady Bunny with DJ Dmitry and Tish found serveral magazines featuring her photograph. Video by Nelson Sullivan.

There's not a whole of lot action… just sit back and take in the scenery and see what you can still recognize… (EVG Facebook friend Michael Paul put the date at June 1986.)

Sullivan's archive is now at the Fales Library at NYU. He died of an apparent heart attack on July 4, 1989.

H/T esquared™

Previously on EV Grieve:
The East Village of Nelson Sullivan

The first nice Sunday of 1987 in the East Village

'The Fabulous Personalities of 1980s New York'

You can now rent the former 7-Eleven space on St. Mark's Place

We've been waiting for the "for lease" signs to arrive here at 37 St. Mark's Place at the site of the former 7-Eleven, which closed on Nov 30 as we first reported.

And brokers put one up yesterday.

The listing isn't online just yet. For now, the retail space in the Theatre Condo complex is almost all empty, save for Verizon Wireless store. In the corner slot, a retail outpost of DF Mavens ("The finest dairy-free ice cream in the world. Made in NYC.") will take the former Eastside Bakery (.net?) home.

Meanwhile, the empty 7-Eleven has been oddly photogenic…





Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Reader report: The 7-Eleven on St. Mark's Place has closed (48 comments)

There goes the 7-Eleven awning on St. Mark's Place (23 comments)

Looking again at St. Mark's and 2nd Ave., and more photos of the former St. Marks Cinema

Not many signs of life at The Toucan and the Lion

We can't recall the last time that we saw the well-regarded Toucan and the Lion open for business over on East Sixth Street near First Avenue.

This may not be a big surprise: New operators were aiming to take over the nearly two-year-old self-described "Asian gastropub" during this month's CB3/SLA committee meeting. (Read about that here.)

There isn't a sign noting a closure on the front gates … or any messages on their voice-mail, website or social media properties. (Their last Facebook update is from Sept. 17.) And the restaurant is no longer available for reservations on OpenTable. ("We're sorry, but the restaurant you requested could not be found.")

Prior to the Toucan and the Lion, which opened in January 2012, the address was home to Mara's Homemade.

Someone/Something broke a big window at the 1st Avenue McDonald's

From last night. Over here on First Avenue at the McDonald's next to the Subway… the big window is smashed. Seems pretty recent. (Pretty sure we walked by here Wednesday night and didn't see a smashed window.)

Anyway, take a look at the hole...



Oh wait.





Seems almost too perfect too be manmade. So we're going with alien. Like, an alien laser. Anyone else care to guess what happened here?

C'mon, you guys. This is important.