Sunday, July 15, 2012

Dueling Tompkins Square Park signs on Avenue B at East 10th Street


Earlier today at Union Square


Photo by Bobby Williams.

Shredding it on East 12th Street


Spotted by Shawn Chittle on East 12th Street between Avenue B and C this afternoon.

We have collected all of the paper, and will put it back together to see what it was. Before completion in 2017, any guesses what these documents were? (No serious replies please.)


Chico's Healthy Choice gates

Chico is keeping busy... fresh off the former Nice Guy Eddie's plywood project ... today, several readers spotted him at work on the incoming New York Healthy Choice market at Avenue C and East 11th Street....

[By Andrew Adam Newman on Ave C]

[EVG reader David]

The last tenant, the Monk Thrift Shop, closed in December 2010. At the time, neighbors heard that a bank branch would open here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Monk Thrift Shop is closing — but, it remains open for now

2 signs of summer on East 12th Street



Near Avenue B.

East Village Radio celebrates Johnny Thunders, who would have been 60 today


Via our friends at East Village Radio ... this afternoon at 4, "Jesse Malin will be celebrating the life and legacy of Johnny Thunders. Malin will be playing the music of Thunders, born John Anthony Genzale, Jr. on July 15, 1952, as well as the artists and sounds that inspired the Queens-born singer and songwriter."

Thunders, an original member of the New York Dolls, died in 1991.

Find more info (and videos) here at East Village Radio.

If you want more Johnny Thunders, then you can check out the annual Johnny Thunders birthday bash tonight at Bowery Electric.

Lick it up


East First Street at Avenue A.

Previously.

Headline h/t via

Tonight: 'NYU and the Destruction of New York'

From the EV Grieve inbox from McNally Jackson Books...
NYU and the Destruction of New York
Tonight at 7, Peter Carey, Fran Lebowitz, Kevin Baker, Joseph McElroy and Jefferson Mays will all be in the store to protest NYU’s Sexton Plan.

The Sexton Plan may not be familiar to those of you who don’t live in the Greenwich Village or are affiliated with NYU, but it should. This is a proposal that anyone who cares about New York should know about, and be concerned about.

NYU’s expansion plan, as proposed, will erect up to 2.5 million square feet of new building space in the Greenwich Village. In the process, they will destroy three acres of green space. That includes the Sasaki Gardens, the Mercer Street Dog Run, the Key Park Playground and a beautiful grove of trees. It also will require 20 years of continuous construction, without any delay, to begin this August.

The replacement? A number of NYU buildings, including eventually, a pedestrian mall slung between two skyscrapers. This is not the Greenwich Village you think of when you think of Dylan Thomas and James Baldwin and Jackson Pollock and John Cage living in its streets and making art. It’s not even the Greenwich Village you think of now, full of young people and old, dogs and stragglers, tourists and long-time residents. Imagine Washington Square Park. Now imagine it in the shadow of a 48-story hotel tower.

Peter Carey, Fran Lebowitz, Kevin Baker, Joseph McElroy and Jefferson Mays (reading the work of Eileen Myles) will all be present to speak against the plan, and refreshments (wine) will be provided.

They’re mad. We’re mad. And you should be too.

McNally Jackson Books is at 52 Prince Street between Lafayette and Mulberry.

[Image via Curbed]

This afternoon in Tompkins Square Park: Miss Guy, Transgendered Jesus, more...


Good lineup today from 2-6...

Miss Guy
Liquid Blonde
Hussle Club
Transgendered Jesus
Little Annie
Two Times the Gun
MC-Stiletto from Roma

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.

7:54 a.m., Avenue A, July 15

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Reel around the Fountain


Tompkins Square Park today... photo by Bobby Williams.

Report: Former Internet millionaire part of 9th Precinct gun heist story

The story of the officer who allegedly stole guns from a locker room at the 9th Precinct on East Fifth Street is getting really, well, fucked up, for lack of a better description on a Saturday morning.

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

Noted


Matt LES_Miserable spotted this along Tompkins Square Park near St. Mark's Place this morning... No word on any free samples.

The Dark Knight Razzes


East Houston near Chrystie.

Noted

Last Saturday!


Today!


Fourth Avenue at East 10th Street.

How you can mend a broken heart


Dave on 7th spotted this on Second Street and Avenue B...

Friday, July 13, 2012

East 11th Street, 11:01 p.m., July 13


Photo by Shawn Chittle.

A man with both temperance and faith?


Tompkins Square Park today. Headline and photo by peter radley.

A place in the Sun



Blondie. Late 1976/early 1977 with "In the Sun."

Bus stoooooooooooooop


10th Street and Avenue C.

Photo by Bobby Williams.

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

The NYPD arrested a fellow cop last night on charges that he was breaking into lockers at the 9th Precinct on East Fifth Street and stealing guns that were sold on the street, the Post reports today.

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

[Photo from Tuesday night by Shawn Chittle]

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

By now you probably know about the Cro-Mags melee last Friday night at Webster Hall... the NYPD arrested founding member Harley Flanagan and reportedly charged him with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

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 the corner looked like at the start of demolition in July 2008 ...


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

Free bagels this evening on Avenue C!

At East Ninth Street... Just one minor catch...


Photo via ‏@harrisonmarkey

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...