Hello Mary headlines Bowery Ballroom

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

This past Thursday, local trio Hello Mary headlined the Bowery Ballroom for the first time in support of their recently released second full-length album, Emita Ox. 

We've enjoyed watching the band's evolution, from almost-shows in Tompkins Square Park to Nublu ... and Webster Hall and now Bowery Ballroom. Following openers Bleary Eyed and Starcleaner Reunion, the hour-long set spotlighted Hello Mary's take on '90s alt-rock, blending raw energy with emotional intensity.

We caught up with the band before the show backstage — (from left) drummer/vocalist Stella Wave, Guitarist/vocalist Helena Straight and bassist Mikaela Oppenheimer ...

Backstage is calm and relaxed, with an air of happiness and playfulness. The trio, energized by the presence of friends, family, and even a few parents in the audience, laugh and joke together. Before stepping on stage, they run through a warm-up song and vocal exercises, finishing with a lively dance to stretch, loosen up, and keep the mood light.

Hello Mary has been on a U.S. tour, their first time as a headliner.

Said Wave, "We've never headlined a full U.S. tour before, so it feels very exciting — especially to play in our hometown and headline a venue like Bowery Ballroom, where we've attended so many shows."

Keep tabs on the band via Instagram.

Celebrating the life and work of longtime East Village artist Anton van Dalen

Anton van Dalen with his pigeons from the documentary "Anton: Circling Home." 

 Photo by Anthony Lindsey. 

Longtime East Village-based artist Anton van Dalen died in his home on June 25. He was 86.

P·P·O·W, the gallery that represented him over the years, is hosting a celebration of his life and work this Saturday afternoon from 2-4 at the SVA Theatre, 333 W. 23rd St., between Eighth Avenue and Ninth Avenue.

Organizers encourage folks to RSVP, which you can do via this link. 

As P·P·O·W stated: 

Immigrant, humanist, artist, activist, educator, and lifelong pigeon keeper, Anton van Dalen dedicated his life to documenting the Lower East Side's evolution from dilapidation to gentrification in paintings, drawings and sculptures that, as the critic and poet John Yau states, "arose out of a meticulous draftsmanship in service of an idiosyncratic imagination merged with civic-mindedness."

RIP Anton van Dalen

Photo by Anthony Lindsey from the documentary, "Anton: Circling Home"

Longtime East Village-based artist Anton van Dalen passed away in his home on June 25. He was 86.

P·P·O·W, the gallery that had represented him over the years, announced that he died of natural causes in his sleep. 

Some background on his life and work:

Van Dalen was born in Amstelveen, Holland, in 1938 to a conservative Calvinist family during World War II. He began rearing pigeons at 12, seeking solace in the companionship of a community outside the instability around him. 

Enraptured by the magic of their flight, van Dalen saw his own migration journey, from Holland to Canada and ultimately to the United States, reflected in the migratory nature of the birds.

After arriving in New York's Lower East Side in 1966, before ultimately settling in the East Village, van Dalen served as witness, storyteller, and documentarian of the dramatic cultural shifts in the neighborhood.

While active in the alternative art scene in the East Village during the 1980s, van Dalen began his career as a graphic designer. Working as a studio assistant to Saul Steinberg for over 30 years, van Dalen learned the stylization and design aesthetics that would ultimately ground the visual language he used to discuss the culture around him.

Van Dalen became known for his Night Street Drawings (1975–77), a monochrome series of graphite drawings documenting the surrounding Lower East Side with tenderness and empathy, including vignettes of car wrecks, sex workers, crumbling buildings, and more.

As poet and critic John Yau wrote, all of van Dalen's work arose "out of a meticulous draftsmanship in service of an idiosyncratic imagination merged with civic-mindedness."

Van Dalen lived at 166 Avenue A — the PEACE house — between 10th Street and 11th Street since 1971. He documented the changes there in this post for EVG. 

His flock of snow-white pigeons from his rooftop loft were a common site in the nearby skies. (Photo from 2015 by Grant Shaffer.)

We had the great pleasure of meeting van Dalen several times, first over a dinner at Odessa. We appreciated his kind, thoughtful manner and deep affinity for the East Village. He shared several dispatches with us over the years (see the end of this post for a selection). 

Van Dalen was especially upset about the 2013 demolition of the Mary Help of Christians church, school, and rectory on Avenue A between 11th Street and 12th Street, which made way for the block-long Steiner East Village condoplex. 

He shared this photo and sketch for a post in August 2013.

The  neighborhood's transformation was a common theme in his work, as seen in his one-man performance piece "Avenue A Cutout Theatre," which featured "a portable model of his house, which he uses as a staging ground for telling the story of the evolution of the East Village."

He first performed the Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre in 1995 at the University Settlement House on the Lower East Side. The performance has been shown at numerous institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and The New York Historical Society. 

As he wrote in a post for EVG in October 2020: 

I consider myself a documentarian of the East Village, yet I am a participant and spectator to its evolution. Began documenting my street surroundings in 1975, urged on by wanting to note and remember these lives. Came to realize I had to embrace wholeheartedly, with pencil in hand, my streets with its raw emotions.

Van Dalen is survived by his older brother, Leen van Dalen; his two children, Marinda and Jason; their spouses, René van Haaften and Ali Villagra; and three grandchildren, Cleo, Aster, and Diego.

P·P·O·W said that memorial service announcements will be forthcoming.

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• One East Village family's protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine 

• Documenting 166 Avenue A through the years

• Anton van Dalen, drawing in isolation

• Anton van Dalen's Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre 

• Down On Avenue A, 1922 

 • On St. Mark's Place, 'this parable of neglect' 

• Anton van Dalen's pigeons, connecting us back to nature above Avenue A 

• The 'senseless shocking self-destruction' of Mary Help of Christians

A Luscious new market option on 2nd Avenue

Top photo by Stacie Joy

Luscious Market Deli has debuted at 68 Second Ave. on the SE corner of Fourth Street.

Signage for the market promises freshly prepared items for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

EVG reader Danimal, who shared the following two photos, offered a quick assessment: "It looks like a nice selection of hot food and pantry staples and NOT A SMOKE SHOP!" (Ed note: Woo.)

As we noted on Feb. 28, this arrival marks the end of the storefront's usage as a bar, often without success.

In 2021, the English-style pub Queen Vic became just Queen ... before evolving into Watering Hole. The for-rent sign showed up in September 2022. 

Queen Vic had a decent run, opening in September 2010. This ended the revolving door of bars here with awnings, including 2x4, Ambiance and Evolution. 

We don't know the etymology behind Luscious, a name not often associated with Boar's Head sandwiches. Maybe it's an homage to Luscious Jackson, whose members lived in the East Village back in the day.

The NYPL's archive of the legendary East Village Eye now available to the public

Images from the NYPL

The New York Public Library's extensive archive of the East Village Eye is now processed and available to researchers. 

In February 2023, the NYPL acquired the East Village Eye archive from founder and editor Leonard Abrams. The collection consists of documents, manuscripts, artworks, videos, ephemera, and a complete run of the original printed publication (72 issues in total), which was published from 1979 to 1987 and covered the neighborhood's arts, politics, and social currents during a transformative decade. 

The collection also documents the daily workings of a small publication – advertising, correspondence, datebooks, financial records, and more. Contributors included resident advice columnist Cookie Mueller, Richard Hell, and David Wojnarowicz, and the newspaper featured images from dozens of acclaimed photographers early in their careers.

"The Library's acquisition of the East Village Eye archive is the perfect outcome of our years-long search for the best home for these materials," Abrams said upon the purchase last year. 

"We are looking forward to seeing the creative ways that the collection will be used by scholars, students, educators, artists, activists, and anyone passionate about the history and culture of downtown New York City,"  said Julie Golia, associate director, manuscripts, archives, and rare books and Charles J. Liebman curator of manuscripts, in a statement.

Highlights of the collection include: 

• A full print run of all 72 issues of the East Village Eye in pristine condition (no other public institution possesses a complete print run of the periodical)
• Extensive administrative records and founding business documents for the magazine, including correspondence with staff, contributors, advertisers, and readers throughout the Eye's eight-year run
• Abrams' handwritten pocket planners showing his relationship with artists, musicians, businesses, and writers across the neighborhood and beyond
• Promotional materials created by the Eye, including maps and guides of the East Village and invitations and flyers for Eye-affiliated parties, openings, and events
• A collection of photography of the downtown scene by a roster of acclaimed photographers employed or engaged by the Eye, including Marcia Resnick, Eric Kroll, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, and others
• Candid and behind-the-scenes snapshots of Abrams and the Eye staff and contributors at work and as participants in the neighborhood's vibrant nightlife

Per the NYPL: "The records of the Eye will be essential to researchers studying the evolution of the punk movement, the growth of hip-hop, the rise of HIV/AIDS, and the early careers of artists like Basquiat, Mapplethorpe and Fab Five Freddy."

Researchers can access the East Village Eye records in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room for Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 476 Fifth Ave. at 42nd St. (Find more info here.)

You can learn more about the East Village Eye records from the collection guide and this blog post by the NYPL's Golia.

Sadly, Abrams (above left with Fab Five Freddy) died suddenly last April, only a few months after the collection came to the NYPL. He was 68. 

The NYPL "is proud to provide access to the archive that represents Abrams' important cultural and journalistic legacy."

Previously on EVG:

• Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

Deli marks the end of the revolving door of bars on the corner of 4th Street and 2nd Avenue

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

The long-vacant bar space on the SE corner of Second Avenue and Fourth Street is undergoing a gut renovation.

A worker at the scene told us that a deli-market is in the works for the storefront (an actual deli-market and not a smoke shop)...

The worker did not know about an opening date.

In 2021, the English-style pub Queen Vic became just Queen ... before evolving into Watering Hole. The for-rent sign showed up in September 2022. 

Queen Vic had a decent run, opening in September 2010,  which ended the revolving door of bars here with awnings, including 2x4, Ambiance and Evolution.

More about the return of Bereket to the Lower East Side

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Yesterday we had the scoop about the opening of Ankara Turkish Restaurant on Houston and Orchard ... from the owner of longtime LES favorite Bereket Turkish Kebab House.

After 19 years in service, Bereket was forced to close in June 2014 to make way for the new luxury condo via Ben Shaoul on the block. The property housed a single row of storefronts, including Bereket, Ray's Pizza and Lobster Joint — all demolished. (As Shaoul told the Times back in 2017, the small businesses that closed were "part of evolution ... You call it gentrification, I call it 'cleaning it up.'") 

EVG contributor Stacie Joy returned to the quick-serve restaurant, which debuted last week...

... and met with Ramazan Turgut, who owned Bereket and now Ankara Turkish Restaurant, which has two outposts in Brooklyn...

... and manager Aydın Günaydın...

Ramazan said that he always wanted to return to this neighborhood and that it wasn't his choice to leave. In the interim, he opened the two restaurants in Brooklyn under the Ankara name. When Bereket closed, he said he didn’t want to open a Brooklyn restaurant with the same name because it was special, and the name belonged to this area. 

He signed a lease when this space at 183 Houston St. (the former Dr Smood) became available directly across the street from the previous outpost. 

Since there are two other Ankara Turkish Restaurants, he decided to keep the name for continuity. Still, he wants people to know it's still Bereket (hence the "Bereket is Back" banners on the storefront). 

The menu items remain unchanged — including the famed vegetarian red lentil soup...

... and the variety of gyros (the chicken gyro option is new)...

There are also a variety of Turkish beverages (no alcohol!) ...

Ramazan said several former customers have come in and confessed how much they missed Bereket. One customer even started crying, which prompted tears from the staff too. 

During this soft-opening mode, the hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, with plans to expand to 4 a.m. soon.

EVG Etc.: an East Village population increase; an interview with EV artist Anton van Dalen

Recent headlines of possible interest include (with a photo from Fourth Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery) ...

 • "So what Manhattan neighborhoods are the hottest in our new, post-pandemic normal? At the top of the list is the Upper West Side, which saw a 30% increase in residents between November 2019 and October 2022. Next up are the East Village/Gramercy and the area around City Hall, all hovering around 25% during that same span of time." (The Post) 

• On Jan. 25, homeless outreach workers will fan out across the city and into the subway system to count the number of New Yorkers who call the streets and subways home (Gothamist) 

• Remembering Patrick Briggs, frontman for Psychotica, who died on Dec. 27 at age 58 (Legacy.com) 

• An interview with longtime East Village artist Anton van Dalen (artnet ... previously on EVG) 

• Personal essay about the East Village squatters' standoff of 1995, and how Dan Kois made it the center of his new novel, "Vintage Contemporaries" (Curbed) 

• Catching up with red-tailed hawks Christo and Amelia in Tompkins Square Park (Laura Goggin Photography) 

• What to know about Lunar New Year 2023 (6sqft) 

• Al Diaz on the evolution of NYC graffiti (huck ... previously on EVG) 

• About the fried mashed potato sandwich at Rowdy Rooster on First Avenue (Tasting Table) 

• A Fred Ward retrospective, including "Tremors," "The Right Stuff" and "Henry & June" (Anthology Film Archives) 

• The ashes of actor Robbie Coltrane were scattered around his favorite New York haunts — including Katz's (The Daily Mail) 

• Paddy Reilly's, the 36-year-old Irish saloon with live music on Second Avenue at 29th Street, is closing. The landlord won't renew their lease. (Gramercy Local) 

• At Cooper Union on Jan. 25: A panel exploring issues of mental health, addiction and social justice. Hip hop/theater artist Baba Israel, sound artist Fay Victor, and NY Phil Director of Media Production Mark Travis discuss the nuanced impact that the criminalization of addiction and drug use has had on music and other creative arts. (Official site)

Anniversaries: 15 years ago today

The very first post arrived on this site on Dec. 21, 2007. It was an item from Page Six (!!!???) about the possible sale of Sophie's and Mona's, two longtime favorite East Village bars.

The site went by — not joking! — Sophie's Bar Blog for a brief period. (And why not Mona's Bar Blog?) After a few weeks of handwringing, it turned out that the bars would stay in the family and remain pretty much the same to this day 15 years later. (I explain the site's evolution from Sophie's Bar Blog to EVG here.)

Anyway, taking this moment to thank you for reading the site for however long it has been these past 15 years and 38,546 posts, and for sharing in the adventures of living in this neighborhood — for better or worse. And thank you for sharing tips, photos, anecdotes, observations, complaints, and perspectives on day-to-day life here, past and present.

Couldn't do any of this without all of you. 

I'm incredibly grateful to Derek Berg and Steven for their daily contributions... and to Stacie Joy for lending her photography and reporting talents in covering happenings around the neighborhood.

And now, a happy and healthy holiday season to you. (If you have a Christmas tree and need to discard it before leaving town, please place it where we can get a good photo of it!)

 Photoshopped photo from the archives courtesy of EVPinhead. And I give that business six weeks!

EVG Etc. Remembering Chef Colin Alevras; assessing the mayor's street sweeps

• RIP Colin Alevras, who ran the the Tasting Room with his wife Renee on East First Street from 1999-2006 before moving to Elizabeth Street. He died of glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. (The New York Times) 

• Assessing Mayor Adams' street sweeps six months later: "Property destroyed, people separated from services, no reduction in street homelessness" (1010 WINS) 

• Dysfunction in the Adams administration fuels housing crisis (The Post) ... And the mayor parties until late at Little Sister at the Moxy East Village (Page Six)

• State court keeps possibility of permanent outdoor dining program alive (Gothamist) 

• New program will convert unused newsstands to rest stops for delivery workers (The City) 

• Primary Wave Music has acquired a major stake in Joey Ramone's music-publishing assets for around $10 million (Variety) 

• Interesting behavior from Christo and Amelia in Tompkins Square Park (Laura Goggon Photography) 

• Fake heiress Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey) is living in the East Village upon her release from prison yesterday (The New York Times... the Post) 

• The story of Angel Ortiz, Keith Haring's overlooked collaborator (i-D) 

• Some history of the recently opened Nine Orchard hotel on the LES ... aka, the old Jarmulowsky Bank building (The Forward) 

• Double Chicken Please on Allen Street named one of the world's best bars (6sgft) 

• The evolution of the egg cream (Eater) 

• Iggy Pop Covers Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker" (Pitchfork) 

• THIS WEEKEND: A few screenings left of Kathryn Bigelow & Monty Montgomery's "The Loveless" and Abel Ferrara's "The Addiction" (Anthology Film Archives)

Longtime bar space at 68 2nd Ave. hits the rental market

A for-lease sign now hangs on the front window at 68 Second Ave. at Fourth Street, bringing an official end, for now, to a bar in the corner space. (Thanks to Steven for the photo!)

Last year, the queer-friendly English-style pub Queen Vic from the owners of Boiler Room next door became just Queen ... and more recently, Watering Hole.

Queen Vic opened in September 2010, ending the carousel of bars here, including 2x4, Ambiance and Evolution.

The fullest full reveal to date at Zero Irving on 14th Street

Workers recently removed the sidewalk bridge from outside the 21-story Zero Irving (formerly the Union Square Tech Training Center, 14 @ Irving and tech hub) on 14th Street...

... providing a near-complete look at the building, developed jointly by the city's Economic Development Corp. and RAL Development Services ... which will feature 14 floors of market-rate office space as well as a technology training center, co-working and event spaces on the seven floors beneath. Urbanspace will operate a food hall on the ground level.

Per the Zero Irving website:

Zero Irving is more than a trophy-class office building, it’s an ecosystem ideally engineered to foster growth, flexibility, productivity, and the evolution of new ideas in Manhattan’s ultimate live/work neighborhood.

Zero Irving has reportedly signed several full-floor deals recently, including data analytics software company Sigma Computing Inc. on the ninth floor and B2B payments platform Melio on the 15th and 16th floors. And most recently: Laurel Road, a digital banking platform and brand of KeyBank, leased space for offices on the 11th floor. 

Long contested by local preservationists and community groups, the new building sits on the former site of a P.C. Richard & Son on city-owned property.

Foundation work started here in August 2019.

Previously

Proposed plans now call for a 24-story residential building on 14th Street and Avenue C

Updated 6/15: L+M Development Partners is not a developer in this project. According to a spokesperson, L+M's only role was assisting NYCHA in selling air rights. The post has been modified to reflect this.

There are proposed plans to build a 24-story, 166-unit residential building — including 50 "affordable" units — at the long-vacant lot on the SW corner of 14th Street and Avenue C. The development would include retail space and a community facility. 

Tonight, CB3's Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing Committee will hear a presentation from reps for New York City Housing Authority and Madison Realty Capital. 

The corner property — 644 E. 14th St. — has been in a stalled-development mode for years. (This corner property last housed the single-level R&S Strauss auto parts store, which closed in April 2009.) 

There are already approved plans here for a 15-floor mixed-use building, though there aren't any affordable units attached to this version. As revealed in the spring of 2021, several developers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby the city for NYCHA air rights to make this a larger structure with more housing.

This past spring, the NYCHA and Madison Realty Capital filed documents seeking a non-ULURP modification — known as an LSRD — to the development plan.

PincusCo first reported on this. Per their report:

The application seeks to modify the boundaries of the previously approved plans and zoning calculations by expanding the zoning lot to include 644 East 14th Street (Block 396, Lot 29). Through the zoning lot merger, the development rights from the existing LSRD comprised of Campos Plaza I and II, which are owned by a joint venture that includes NYCHA ... can be transferred to Block 396, Lot 29, a vacant property owned by Madison Realty Capital.

According to a presentation posted to the CB3 website, the benefits of this air-rights deal would: 

• "Generate revenue for NYCHA, which will fund repairs exclusively at Campos Plaza II."

• "Enhance the pedestrian experience for both Campos Plaza and the surrounding community with new ground floor retail, ground floor community facility, lighting and new street trees." 

• "Provide additional affordable housing units pursuant to the Affordable New York Program Option B." 

• "MRC will commit to a resident hiring plan."

The presentation includes a rendering of the proposed building, a "massing evolution" and a slide on the "appropriateness of height" ... 

As previously reported, Madison Realty Capital paid Opal Holdings $31.3 million for the property in May 2020. Opal Holdings bought the parcel in June 2016 for $23 million. 

Concerns over new plans

Meanwhile, there are concerns about the plan for the larger-scale development.

One group of locals started a Facebook group to help notify residents of the ongoing plans at No. 644.

"While we are all for the development of that corner ... and the affordable housing element of the plans, we are not happy with the sheer size of the footprint and the excessive height that goes along with the proposal," one of the organizers told EVG. "We believe it will have countless negative effects on the local community and is out of place in this neighborhood. One major, immediate concern is that they have done little outreach and have kept plans for the project very quiet, which seems to be an obvious strategy to avoid any scrutiny from the local public."

Before a presentation last month prior to CB3's Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing Committee, Tenants Taking Control, a group of 100-plus long-term tenants in 15 East Village buildings owned by Madison Realty Capital, spoke out against the plans.

In a "warning letter" to CB3 members and other local elected officials, the group, which has had Madison Realty Capital as a landlord since 2017, alleged: "We believe from first-hand experience that they disregard East Village tenant and community needs for their own financial benefit."

Tonight's committee meeting starts at 6:30. You can find the Zoom link here. 

The Brant Foundation debuts its next show, Julian Schnabel's 'Self-Portraits of Others'

Starting tomorrow, the Brant Foundation debuts its next show, "Self-Portraits of Others," a solo exhibition of new works by Julian Schnabel. 

Per the Brant website:

Created between 2018 – 2020, this series explores the evolution of Schnabel's artistic practice while making "At Eternity's Gate," a film about the life of Vincent van Gogh. The exhibition features 25 plate paintings that examine the theme of portraiture throughout art history.

Some details... the exhibit is open to visitors, free of charge. Advance tickets will not be required and walk-ins are welcome during open hours:

Wednesday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Thursday: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Friday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Saturday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Proof of a COVID-19 vaccination is required to enter.

"Self-Portraits of Others," up through December, is the third exhibition to be held at the Brant Foundation 421 E. Sixth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.

In its first, from March to May 2019, the Brant Foundation featured an exhibit by Jean-Michel Basquiat, some 70 works collectively valued at $1 billion. Brant later extended the show by a few weeks.

The Brant Foundation features 7,000 square feet of exhibition space over four floors. Brant bought the building — a former Con Edison substation and Walter de Maria studio — for $27 million in August 2014.

Brant had said the space would host two exhibitions open to the public each year. 

The 9th annual MoRUS Film Festival arrives in community gardens tomorrow evening

The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) on Avenue C is once again hosting its end-of-summer tradition — its annual film fest, a four-evening event titled "Steal This City: NYC Urban Occupations on Film" that starts tomorrow evening in local community gardens.

For its ninth iteration, MoRUS teamed up with the Loisaida Center, with additional support from ABC No Rio, to present the curated collection of films and guest speakers that will examine "how in a city where real estate dominates spatial reality, activist-driven occupations show how another world is possible."

Here are highlights for tomorrow night:

Thursday, Sept. 9, 7 p.m.

"Steal These Walls: Graffiti and the Fight for Free Expression"

Green Oasis/Gilbert’s Community Garden, 370 E. Eighth St. b/t Avenue C and Avenue D

This night explores the cultural complexities of graffiti and the use or occupation of public walls, spaces and structures to create a space for alternative communities and foster the rise of new art forms, from graffiti to murals to hip-hop.  

• "Graffiti/Post-Graffiti" (1985, 30 minutes). Directors: Marc Miller and Paul Tschinkel 

This documentary captures a key moment in the evolution of graffiti from illegal street art to rarified commodity exhibited in high-profile galleries.  

• "Girl Power" (2016, 92 minutes). Directors: Sany and Jan Zajíček

Following female graffiti writers from 15 cities — from New York to Prague to Cape Town and all the way back to New York, the documentary illuminates their paths as they navigate this predominantly male world where men often share the view that graffiti is not for girls. 

Just added! "We have the honor to host the esteemed "first lady of graffiti," Lady Pink, and SoHo Renaissance Factory co-founder Konstance Patton in a panel for our opening night." (Thursday's rain date: MoRUS, 155 Avenue C between Ninth Street and 10th Street.)

You can find more details on the festival right here. Advance tix are available at Eventbrite. You can also buy tickets on the evenings of the screenings in the garden venues. (They offer sliding-scale pricing.)

Succession to the throne on 2nd Avenue

In a battle for the crown, Vic has apparently lost out... an EVG reader shared this photo from Second Avenue and Fourth Street, where the queer-friendly English-style pub Queen Vic is now simply going as Queen.

Queen, from the owners of Boiler Room next door, has not been open since the PAUSE went into effect last March.

Queen Vic opened in September 2010, putting an end to the carousel of bars here, including 2x4, Ambiance and Evolution.