Freshly paved. Nice for skateboarding at the moment. Or falling down on dead drunk next weekend. Or tonight!
Two weeks ago... torn up for paving... Not so good for skateboarding. Or falling down on dead drunk.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Third Avenue is now nice and smooth
Freshly paved. Nice for skateboarding at the moment. Or falling down on dead drunk next weekend. Or tonight!
Two weeks ago... torn up for paving... Not so good for skateboarding. Or falling down on dead drunk.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Report: Former Internet millionaire part of 9th Precinct gun heist story
According to published reports, the officer, Nicholas Mina, is addicted to prescription painkillers. He reportedly stole the weapons to pay a drug debt to a Queens drug and gun dealer, prosecutors said yesterday.
Police also arrested Ivan Chavez, described by Assistant District Attorney Chris Prevost as "a prolific and daily drug dealer" of heroin, oxycodone and other prescription drugs, as the Post reported.
That's one part of the story. Also involved in all this is Jennifer Sultan, who along with her boyfriend Adam Cohen, sold their Web streaming-media company Live On Line for a reported $70 million in 2000.
The couple is now penniless, living in a 10-room penthouse with a private elevator on East 17th Street. They have filed for Chapter 11, per the Post.
However, the NYPD also arrested Sultan for, as prosecutors said, pulling "large-scale drug deals" with Chavez in Queens. From the Post: "Prosecutors said cops found at least 60,000 pain pills that Sultan had sold in Chavez's Woodhaven apartment when they raided it on Thursday."
You can read the rest of the Post article here ... and the piece from the Times is here.
Meanwhile, I'll await the piece in Vanity Fair this fall about how this $70 million Internet couple lost it all.
An article on the upcoming summer in the Hamptons from May 2000 in the Observer noted that Cohen and Sultan rented a $400,000 house in Quogue with 11 bedrooms. They also had a pool installed for $35,000. Said the broker about the couple: "There are people who just don't know what to do with [their money]."
A warning
@evgrieve Some tweaked out lady just kicked our puppy and assaulted a woman on 14th and B, cops are after her- watch out she's violent
— David Ban (@d_ban) July 14, 2012
Noted
Matt LES_Miserable spotted this along Tompkins Square Park near St. Mark's Place this morning... No word on any free samples.
Friday, July 13, 2012
A man with both temperance and faith?
Tompkins Square Park today. Headline and photo by peter radley.
All Tomorrow's Parties coming to Pier 36 this fall
As you may have heard today, the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival is moving to the Lower East Side this year. (Well, technically, it's "I'll Be Your Mirror" — a series of artist curated music, film and art events launched in 2010 to serve as "sister events" to the ATP Festivals.)
Anyway!
Per Ben Sisario at The New York Times, the festival takes place from Sept. 21-23 at Pier 36 between the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge. Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs is the programmer this year. Other headliners include Philip Glass with Tyondai Braxton, the Roots, the Make-Up, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Dirty Three and Chavez, among others.
The official site is here with ticket information and all that.
Report: Cop arrested in 9th Precinct gun theft
Alleged gun-trafficking officer Nicholas Mina, 31, boosted four 9mm firearms from the seventh-floor locker room at the Ninth Precinct in the East Village, a law-enforcement source said yesterday.
Mina — a six-year veteran who worked midnight patrol tours — was assigned to guard the lockers as part of a 24-hour security detail created by department brass after the embarrassing thefts began in February.
The NYPD also arrested three civilians involved with the thefts, the Post notes.
Previously.
[Image via New York Songlines]
The best East Village bar that no one goes to
The Odessa Cafe and Bar at 117 Avenue A. Always a little surprised why more people don't drink here. Or not. It's exactly the kind of bar that people tell me they wish we had more of around here in the era of artisanal cocktails and fratty chicken-wing-fueled woo.
You now have more (warning) time to cross the Bowery
The other day we pointed out that this woman didn't have enough time to cross the Bowery at East Fourth Street... there's a newish 7-second countdown to cross six lanes of traffic... Other readers had raised concerns about this as well...
We heard from a local activist and EV Grieve reader who reported that he contacted the Department of Transportation to implore them to take quick action to have this rectified...
Anyway, last evening, as we were crossing the intersection, we noticed that the Don't Walk countdown began at 20-seconds... so pedestrians now have an additional 13 seconds (if our math is correct!) to make it across ...
Well, the photo shows 16 seconds because we didn't have our camera out in time...
Updated — Good point in the comments:
I would guess the timing of the traffic signals didn't change. You likely don't have more time to cross. Instead of, let's say, a walk signal for 23 seconds with a 7 second countdown there's a 10 second walk signal with a 20 second countdown.
Here's Arabella 101 on Avenue D
The Post yesterday noted the arrival of Arabella 101, the rental building that sits atop the new Lower Eastside Girls Club on Avenue D between Seventh Street and Eighth Street.
And the leasing office opens next week. Arabella 101 has 78 apartments (half of which are market-rate, the other half affordable).
Per the Post:
"Starting prices [for market-rate units] are about $2,500 for a studio, $2,900 for one-bedrooms," says Drew Spitler, director of development for the Dermot Company, Arabella 101’s developer. "And they're going up from there."
And the Arabella website has more details on the units... as well as the amenities like gym and roof deck...
Here are photos of the apartments from the website...
As we understand it, the Girls Club space is 30,000 square feet... while the residential portion of the building is 50,000 square feet. The main entrance into the Club will be on East Eighth Street while their cafe-bakery will have an entrance on Seventh Street, per Girls Club executive director Lyn Pentecost.
And the Girls Club is not developing or managing the residential component of the project, according to their website.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Passion and progress at the new home of the Lower Eastside Girls Club
Why there's an Airstream trailer inside the new Lower Eastside Girls Club home
Here is the new home for the Lower Eastside Girls Club
Here's what the Bea Arthur Residence will look like on East 13th Street
Here's a follow-up to the news that the long-vacant building at 222 E. 13th St. near Third Avenue is becoming the Bea Arthur Residence, providing housing for up to 18 homeless LGBT youth.
Serena Soloman's coverage of the story at DNAinfo including floor plans and a rendering for the space, seen above ...
And how the building looked earlier in the week...
h/t via Joe. My. God.
Previously on EV Grieve:
A haunted house on 13th Street?
Abandoned 13th Street building becoming the Bea Arthur Residence for homeless LGBT youth
New business opens
And with this on East 14th Street, the Axis of 11 in the East Village is almost complete...
The Bowery. Check! St. Mark's Place. Check! East 14th Street. Check!
And now, we await the 7-Eleven coming soon to 813 Broadway near 12th Street ... into a building owned by Ben Shaoul's Magnum Real Estate, according to the DOB.
Previously on EV Grieve:
A quick East Village 7-Eleven inventory
Harley Flanagan on the Cro-Mags melee at Webster Hall
New York Natives has the first interview with Flanagan, and his account of the evening is in contrast to what has been previously reported... to an excerpt:
According to Harley, he was invited to the dressing room back stage and instead of being welcomed as he expected he was jumped by a group of men. "When I saw that door get pulled shut I was literally fighting for my life. I was afraid these guys were going to kick me half to death, roll me down the back steps and that no one would see it... and there would be no witnesses and that would be that....and all I could think about was getting home safe to my kids...I wanted to save my life, to protect myself and these guys were trying to do me in."
[Image via New York Natives]
The great Alphabet race
We waited until last night to wade through the cover story of the real-estate section in the Post... A piece on "Alphabet City" titled "Love Letters." It's the usual blather about how expensive the East Village is getting, how people luck out and find a $4,000 apartment, etc.
In any event, we learned a few tidbits about projects that we've been watching...
• For instance, 316-318 E. Third St. — the 33-unit Karl Fischer jobbie — "should be finished in the fall of 2013."
• The empty lot across the street at 321 has been sold. We've seen some activity at the location...
David Amirian, co-principal of the development firm for 316-318, told the Post "that a deal was in the works for the empty lot directly across the street by a developer."
• Amirian also that "another project adjoining his (with frontage on Avenue D) is going to be a rental with both market-rate and affordable units."
That development will be going at this now-empty field on the northwest corner of Avenue D at Houston.
This is what that field looks like now...
This is what was in the works a few years back, as for reported on by the Lo-Down ...
And why the popularity in the East Village? To the Post..."Inventory is so limited and so many people want to be in the neighborhood," says Elizabeth Kee, a broker for Core who lived in the neighborhood in the early 2000s. "Never in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine [prices would be this high], but it's a simple supply and demand curve."
Thursday, July 12, 2012
At the Citi Bike demonstration in Tompkins Square Park
So there was a Citi Share biking demonstration today in Tompkins Square Park ... Shawn Chittle stopped by to take a few photos...
Shawn's not really sold on this concept... Did anyone try out a bike? Any thoughts to share?
Oh, and here's the official City Bike website... still don't see an official start date for this program...
Shawn's not really sold on this concept... Did anyone try out a bike? Any thoughts to share?
Oh, and here's the official City Bike website... still don't see an official start date for this program...
This man's dogs need help
A reader sends along the above photo, taken on East 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B today. The reader has seen the man, who is likely homeless, and the dogs around the neighborhood and in other parts of the city.
The reader is concerned about the man's well-being... as well as worried about the dogs.
"[The dogs] look like they are eating, but the smaller one's coat is a knotted, tangled mess. And as dog people know, it's actually physically uncomfortable for a dog with longer hair to be covered with all of these knots," the reader said.
The reader saw the man earlier today with the dogs on Avenue B. "The little one is in dire need of a shave, and it's hot out, and he doesn't have any water for them. As I passed on his left side, he started calling me a motherfucker. Then he started yelling at the poor dogs who hadn't done anything wrong. Obviously, this man is mentally disturbed and not capable of caring for himself let alone these poor animals, who I suspect might have been someone's pets at one time."
The reader called ASPCA to see if anything can be done. However, they are too overwhelmed with calls now to respond to this situation given that the reader didn't see any outright physical abuse.
An ASPCA rep told the reader to call 911 the next time the dogs appear to be "in a bad situation."
Per the reader: "I feel so helpless. I am wondering if there might be an independent animal rescue group who could come in and take a look at these dogs and try to help them."
Cabrini conversion under way
Work has started on converting the former Cabrini Nursing Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation into residential apartments. As previously reported here, Cabrini, who had been renting the space since opening in 1992 on East Fifth Street at Avenue B, turned over the building to its new owner, developer Ben Shaoul, on June 30.
A chute arrived on the scene late last week...
And the gut renovations were going strong yesterday...
According to permits on file with the DOB, the first floor of the remodeled space will contain the lobby, six apartments and retail. Floors two through six will house 15 apartments on each floor. (We previously heard that the building would contain one-bedroom rentals.) The basement is earmarked "residential amenities."
The estimated total conversion cost is $6 million, per DOB documents. The architect on record is Richard DeMarco of Montroy Andersen DeMarco. That firm's high-end conversion work includes 5 Franklin Place and 225 Rector ...
And, despite a neighborhood rumor, there aren't any plans on file for a pool in the building.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Cabrini Center patients out by the end of today; closes for good June 30
Claim: Ben Shaoul is the new owner of Cabrini nursing home, will convert to condos
Report: Local politicians reach out to Ben Shaoul as re-sale of the Cabrini Nursing Center seems likely
More details on Cabrini's closing announcement
Q-and-A with Patricia Krasnausky, president and CEO of Cabrini Eldercare
The New York Times profiles Ben Shaoul
On the topic of Ben Shaoul, currently developing the former Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on Avenue B and East Fifth Street ... as you may have seen, he was the subject of a lengthy feature in The New York Times on Sunday.
Writer Rebeccca Flint Marx chronicled how the president of Magnum Real Estate got his start ... amassing an estimated 40 buildings in the East Village alone. ... she also documented some of criticism that he has garnered from tenants along the way ...
However, as the article noted, Shaoul defends his record and wonders why he doesn't get a "pat on the back" about renovations/improvements from residents ... he also said that he doesn't understand why people hate him. "I'm a regular guy, I have feelings."
There's too much in the article, which also quotes EV Grieve, to summarize here. You can read the whole article here.
Croxley Ales looking to expand on Avenue B
Croxley Ales, the beer-wing-and-sports bar on Avenue B, is on the CB3/SLA committee agenda Monday night with a planned expansion.
More details about all this are now on file at the CB3 website (PDF here).
According to the documents, Croxley would add more room for dining by expanding next door into 30 Avenue B... a "separate dining space" that would add 13 tables and 48 seats to the overall Croxley capacity...
Anyway, I couldn't even remember what was next door here between Second Street and Third Street ... a real estate office?
You might recall that Croxley Ales once had the beer garden on the south side of their current location... the garden closed about five years ago... and the space remains empty.
The CB3/SLA meeting is Monday at 6:30 p.m. The usual place: JASA/Green Residence, 200 E. Fifth St. at the Bowery.
More details about all this are now on file at the CB3 website (PDF here).
According to the documents, Croxley would add more room for dining by expanding next door into 30 Avenue B... a "separate dining space" that would add 13 tables and 48 seats to the overall Croxley capacity...
Anyway, I couldn't even remember what was next door here between Second Street and Third Street ... a real estate office?
You might recall that Croxley Ales once had the beer garden on the south side of their current location... the garden closed about five years ago... and the space remains empty.
The CB3/SLA meeting is Monday at 6:30 p.m. The usual place: JASA/Green Residence, 200 E. Fifth St. at the Bowery.
The baby spires of St. Brigid's
On Tuesday, Dave on 7th pointed out the arrival of the small (baby?) spires atop the south tower of St. Brigid's on Avenue B at East Eighth Street...
Yesterday, courtesy of Bobby Williams, we got a better look at the new tops after workers uncovered them...
Well, not quite the 50-foot, crocketted steeples that, as The Villager noted, "adorned the church until they became unstable and were removed in the 1960s" ...
[St. Brigid's in the 1870s]
...but impressive enough?
Yesterday, courtesy of Bobby Williams, we got a better look at the new tops after workers uncovered them...
Well, not quite the 50-foot, crocketted steeples that, as The Villager noted, "adorned the church until they became unstable and were removed in the 1960s" ...
...but impressive enough?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)