Avenue A's Key Food 1980s playlist, explained (sort of)

Interview by Stacie Joy

EVG photo on loan from Fotomuseum Winterthur 

Following our post yesterday about the 1980s-heavy playlist at Key Food on Avenue A (and the introduction on the EVG Key Food Playlist on Spotify), an anonymous (and highly placed) Key source agreed to talk, with one caveat:

"This is some proprietary information that is highly sensitive and could be commercially very damaging should it be disclosed…"

With that, right to the Q&A. 

Who is the Key '80s music lover who selects the deep-cut hits? 

It's genuinely a mystery. There are a few options with this service, but we decided not to mess with a good thing. 

Are you paying for a service for these amazing music selections? You mentioned they used to be on CDs, but now it's a system, correct? 

It's a satellite radio service — there's a satellite on our roof. We used to get a new CD sent to the store once a month.

The Paso Muzak Series 3000 Integrated Professional Amplifier T3130BGM 

Do you ever veto a song choice? 

We do not and cannot interfere with the song selection process — it is sacred. 

Aside from the December holiday season, are there ever non-1980s (or early) hits at The Key? 

Why mess with a good thing? 

Do you/does the '80s music lover have a selection of favorite Key hits? 

Here is a non-exhaustive list: 

• "Waiting for a Star to Fall" — Boy Meets Girl 

• "Call Me" — Blondie 

• "Hold On Loosely" — 38 Special 

• "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" — Cutting Crew

• "Surrender" — Cheap Trick 

• "Rock the Casbah" — The Clash 

• And any Dire Straits song 

When did the 1980s playlist start in Key history? Was it the actual 1980s, and nothing ever changed? 

We took over the store in 1993, and that's when it became a Key Food, so it had to be after that. 

Do you get feedback from customers and/or staffers about the music selection?

Aside from EV Grieve, not frequently. [Editor's note: AHHAHAHAHA.] 

Do you ever turn a song up really loud and dance down the produce aisle singing along? 

Only when no one is watching. The volume is connected to the intercom, so it would blast the intercom announcements if we did. 

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So the source of the playlist remains unclear ... but the 1980s hits continue, uninterrupted.

Previously on EV Grieve:

• Don't Disturb This Groove: We made a 13-hour Key Food playlist on Spotify

[Updated] SantaCon president arrested; prosecutors allege misuse of funds

Photo from 20924 by Stacie Joy 

See update below.

First posted on 4/15

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Is this the "con" in SantaCon? 

The president of SantaCon was arrested today on federal charges accusing him of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for charity to personal expenses, according to CNBC. 

Prosecutors allege that Stefan Pildes used funds from the ticketed holiday bar crawl, which claims to raise money for charity, for a range of purchases, including home renovations, luxury vacations, and a Manhattan apartment. 

According to the indictment, only a small portion of the roughly $2.7 million raised through SantaCon was donated to charity.

A Gothamist analysis from 2023 found that "the organization raised $1.4 million through SantaCon programming from late 2014 through the end of 2022, and that less than a fifth of that money has gone to registered nonprofits." 

Updated 4/17 

The FBI released a bulletin saying they are "seeking victim information in SantaCon investigation." 

Per the bulletin: 

The FBI's New York Division is seeking to identify potential victims of Stefan Pildes, who organized and operated the annual SantaCon event in New York City, from at least 2019 to present. Pildes was recently charged with wire fraud. The FBI believes Pildes primarily targeted SantaCon attendees who purchased tickets to the event, as well as bars that participated in the event, between the timeframe of October 2019 to present. 

Find more info here.

Wednesday's parting corner shot

If you've walked by the SW corner of St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue in the past week, you likely noticed that the sidewalk work wrapped up... (which we meant to note last week — photo below from Thursday night).

Not sure exactly what the crew was doing here in recent months, other than replacing the sidewalk outside and around Poetica Coffee and Paul's... work that dragged on and made it challenging to enter the businesses. 

Backing up a bit... last July, workers demolished the building extension on the St. Mark's side. (New owners bought the three buildings on this SW corner in 2024.) 

The longtime vendors here left earlier in 2025. For decades, vendors sold items such as sunglasses, floppy hats, wigs, umbrellas, and novelty holiday merchandise from outside the corner mainstay Gem Spa. (These items are still available outside Funky Town, mid-block, and at the kiosks closer to Third Avenue.) 

Before the vendors, the wall housed a bank of payphones — a location for New York Dolls photo shoots, among other phone-related activities.

Monday's parting shots

The end of "Wuthering Heights" holiday weekend at the Village East by Angelika on Second Avenue and 12th Street, where the film is playing in the classic Jaffe Art Theater that dates to 1925 (with an opening in 1926).

Signs of Valentine’s Day (pizza) in the East Village

Photos by Stacie Joy 

Earlier today, we spotted artist Peach Tao painting Valentine's Day scenes on the windows at East Village Pizza on the southwest corner of First Avenue and Ninth Street.

Since 2019, East Village Pizza has offered heart-shaped Margherita, Pepperoni and White pies for the holiday — a tradition that returns again this month...

A visit to Afterword Bookshop on 6th Street

Photos and interview by Stacie Joy 

TeamEVGrieve was excited to see signage going up late last year promising an independent bookstore in the neighborhood, and the recently opened (Dec. 13!) Afterword Bookshop delivers on that promise. 

We talked with co-founders Lulu Mourning (left) and Nika Voron on a blustery January afternoon at the space at 216 E. Sixth St. (between Second Avenue and Cooper Square) about the shop, the neighborhood, and their curatorial process.

How did Afterword Bookshop come to be? What brought you two together to open a bookshop? 

We met while working at another bookselling job. We bonded over our shared love of merchandising and curating '70's funk. I had always wanted to open a bookstore, but it was something I thought about doing way down the line, more of a dream than a five-year plan. 

Nika was looking for a way to share her curation skills and her unique vision with NYC. We started talking about what it would look like if we started a bookstore together — how we would have more space to try out new, creative ideas, how we could build our own community hub, and how we could create value for ourselves instead of for someone else. 

Eventually, we got so excited about the idea that we knew we had to try to turn it into reality. 

What brought you to the East Village and this particular location to open your shop? 

We were looking for a neighborhood with a strong arts identity, because our tastes are on the funkier side. Being in this neighborhood, which has such a history of avant-garde art, fashion, music, theater, cinema, and literature, allows us to stock a wide range of titles that wouldn’t necessarily move in more traditional areas. 

As for this particular location, we fell in love with the idiosyncratic architectural features, the columns, the random window onto an alley — the alcove that currently holds kids' books, and the backyard, which we are definitely going to do more with when the weather gets warmer. 

You have a carefully curated selection of books. How do you select what books and what genres you sell? 

We are interested in a wide range of topics and genres. Our curatorial "mission," so to speak, was to stock the store with only cool books, which translates to books we thought were interesting or that we love, but doesn't actually correlate to coolness in the traditional sense. 

We both did months of solo research on books we could stock, and then we went through the lists we had made together, discussing every title and making adjustments. 

We have a little of everything, which hopefully includes a lot of titles our visitors have never seen before.

There are also other things available at the shop: cards, puzzles. Do you plan on expanding into other merchandising areas? 

Short answer: We've already started expanding into art — we are passionate about supporting local artists. We want to maintain books as our main focus, of course, but we plan to do a lot of experimenting.

To that end, we’re installing more substantial shelving in the spring, which will allow us to hold more inventory and expand our current selection. 

How has the reception been since you opened? Do you have a typical customer? 

 The reception has been warm and enthusiastic since our opening day. We feel so lucky to be in a neighborhood full of book lovers and people who really want to see independent businesses thrive. 

As for our typical customers, it’s a mix. We get a ton of traffic from locals, which is great to see. It will be interesting to see how January plays out now that all the students have returned from the holiday break. We’re still getting a sense of who our typical customer is.

Book recommendations for the winter:

Nika recommends "Bliz-aard Ball Sale" by David Hammons; "the performance piece took place just a block away."

Lulu recommends "Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh, "because January is a time for revisiting old selves and old memories — the novel is sweet and sad and romantic, and bears a reread if you haven't picked it up recently."

Follow @afterwordbookshop on Instagram for updates.

A look inside the sidewalk stations that test the East Village’s drinking water

Photos and interview by Stacie Joy

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, while walking with a visiting relative of a friend, I was asked about a series of sidewalk-based metal structures on lower First Avenue. 

I knew they were municipal water-quality testing stations, but I had no idea how they worked. 

Needing to know more, I contacted the NYC Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Public Affairs and started asking for information — and a peek at the sampling process. 

First Deputy Director of Water Quality Salome Freud and press secretary Rob Wolejsza shared the date and time of the next scheduled sampling at that station, and they agreed to allow photos and questions about the process. 

We met at station number 30150 on First Avenue near Third Street on a cold, wet, and windy early-winter morning, complete with atmospheric fog, and to the curiosity of passersby, many of whom stopped to watch for a bit. 

We were joined by water ecology scientist Amy Murphy, who conducted the tests and was endlessly patient with my requests for clarification and results.

After the sampling was done, a NYC DEP spokesperson signed off on the interview and provided the test results for the neighborhood's water. 

How many sampling stations are there in the city, and in the East Village/Lower East Side? 

There are approximately 1,000 drinking water sampling stations located throughout New York City. There are 15 stations located in the East Village/Lower East Side neighborhoods. 

There are three sampling stations in close proximity on First Avenue between Houston and Fourth Streets. Why are there three grouped together, and why did you select the (middle) one you sampled from today? 

The purpose of having three sampling stations is to meet the requirements of the Revised Total Coliform Rule, which states that when an initial sample is positive for coliform bacteria, we must go back and resample within 24 hours from the original location, as well as at sites within five service connections upstream and downstream. Having more than one station at a site also gives us options when the REG (regular station)/middle station is inaccessible for any reason. 

You mentioned these sampling stations have been here for many years. How long have they been on the streets, and how are they made and maintained? What happens if they are damaged? 

The stations were installed back in 1996. The shells of the stations are cast iron with interior plumbing components and are maintained by DEP personnel. When we receive reports from the public through 311 that a sampling station is damaged, we coordinate with DEP plumbers to perform repairs. 

We also coordinate to get them painted and have used DEP and DOT personnel to accomplish that. [Reporter's note — there was some discussion about how the stickered and street-art decorated sampling stations here are uniquely East Village-y.] 

OK, to the good stuff: Can you walk us through the stages of sampling, from arrival to departure? And discuss what, specifically, you are testing for? 

Once an inspector arrives at a sampling station, they inspect that it is operational by opening it up and running the water. Initial observations of color and clarity are performed, and readings are taken for pH and specific conductance, and then the water is turned off, and the tap is disinfected for a minute or two. 

The water is then turned back on, and the tap is flushed before we take additional field readings and collect samples. Specifically, we test the drinking water for the following parameters in the field: pH, temperature, specific conductance and chlorine.

The collected samples are brought back to our distribution water-quality laboratory, where additional testing is performed, including coliform bacteria and basic chemistry, as well as metals and organics analyses.

Can you share the results from today's sampling? How does the East Village's water supply look?

The results of the samples collected from this site were:

 

pH 7.11 

Specific conductance 348 

Temperature 6.7 C 

Chlorine 0.41 ppm 

Coliform bacteria/E /E. coli: negative 

The readings from this site were what we normally expect and in keeping with the high-quality drinking water that we see throughout the distribution system. 

We'd been told our water comes from the Ashokan Reservoir/the (mighty) Esopus Creek upstate. Is that correct? 

This is partially correct as the drinking water supply for NYC actually consists of three watersheds: Catskill, Delaware and Croton. And those watersheds are made up of 19 reservoirs, one being the Ashokan. The water at the sample station we visited was a mix of all three watersheds. 

Where can people learn more about water quality, testing, and supply? 

 For more information about NYC's drinking water, refer to our website and our NYC Drinking Water Supply and Quality Report.

H/t to Ellen and a thank-you to H. for helping set this up.

An update on Evelyn, the East Village restaurant worker arrested by ICE agents on Christmas Eve

Reporting by Stacie Joy

Top photo from Dec. 24

As we first reported, Evelyn, an asylum-seeking Peruvian-born woman who has a 10-year-old child here, was arrested outside her workplace at Ho Foods on Christmas Eve morning. 

After receiving a summertime removal order from a judge, Evelyn had been wearing an ankle monitor and arriving at monthly check-ins at Federal Plaza while she appealed her case. It is unclear what led to her arrest at work that day on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

While at work in the Ho Foods prep kitchen, Evelyn was notified via the USCIS app that her ankle monitor needed adjustment and that she needed to step outside her place of employment to meet agents. 

When she stepped out the door, she was immediately arrested and taken by masked ICE agents, as shown in this video clip filmed by Jeannine Kiely. 

Within hours of her arrest, Evelyn was transferred from Federal Plaza to Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) El Paso Camp East Montana, in El Paso, Texas. 

Friends scrambled to file a habeas corpus petition (a legal filing that challenges potentially unlawful detention and confinement) on her behalf, and it was filed three minutes before the plane wheels touched down in Texas, giving New York (US District Court, Southern District) jurisdiction over the case. Her family found out she'd been transferred to Southern Texas her via the online ICE tracking portal. 

This was the first known DHS ICE arrest in our neighborhood, and interest in what happened to Evelyn and participation in her fundraiser has been high. 

We spoke with Evelyn's friend, former coworker, and activist Zibby Trewartha-Weiner for an update.

What happened to Evelyn's case after she was arrested? 

The initial meeting (an Order To Show Cause) was held via Zoom on Jan. 2, 2026, before Judge Vernon Broderick in the Southern District of New York. He expressed frustration with the incorrect information the ICE lawyers had. Counsel stated that she was picked up at an immigration check-in, which was incorrect, and the judge was upset by this misinformation. Especially since it was a holiday. 

We hear that Evelyn must be returned to New York. Do you know where and when she will be returned?

All I know is the "NYC area" — reportedly, via the counsel for ICE/DHS, there is limited bedspace for women in the area. They need a court order, which I believe is what is in process. 

Does she have official paperwork in for transfer and jurisdiction? 

There is notice that she must be transferred for any hearing and cannot be deported. We have a timeline for her hearing and case: amended petition on Jan. 9; respondent to file an answer to the amended petition on Jan. 20; petitioner to file any reply on Jan. 26. She has a G-28 document (a notice of entry of appearance as an attorney or accredited representative). 

Which judge is sitting/presiding on the case? 

Edgardo Ramos. 

We were told that when ICE took her, they didn't let her get her glasses, and that she has vision challenges without them. Has she received her glasses? 

The request for glasses to be sent was received on Jan. 2. We are waiting to confirm that the glasses will be received by her before sending. 

Is there still an ongoing need for fundraising? 

We don't know the financial constraints yet of the detainment. We have heard that people often have to pay for detainment fees, etc. We are hoping that the money we have raised will support those costs.

That being said, she worked a 40-hour week and rarely took time off, so there is a significant amount of her income being halted. 

Has anyone spoken with her? 

Yes, family, lawyer, and friends. 

How is she? 

Hard question to answer — stressed, but understanding and patient. I mean, how could you be?

What would you like to see from the East Village community? 

Keep an eye on it! Don't let the news fall below the surface. We need pressure to get her moved, etc. 

Has she received assistance from any elected officials? Have any organizations/people been especially helpful? 

Assistance in the form of contacts, yes; however, the lawyer that we are working with came through a coworker. That being said, Make the Road has also offered legal assistance. 

For now, we are continuing to work with lawyer Margot Hoppin, because she now has so much information regarding the case. She has been by far the most helpful! We have also received support from UnLocal. The bulk of the financial support has come from Ho Foods staff, former staff, and immediate friends and family. 

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We have reached out to ICE officials for comment, but have received only "out of the office until after January 5" replies. We will continue to monitor this developing story. 

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• On Christmas Eve morning, ICE agents take East Village restaurant worker into custody on 7th Street

Week in Grieview

From a holiday week with fewer posts than usual … with an NYE  photo on 1st Avenue by Derek Berg

Never miss an EVG post with the weekly EVG newsletter. Free right here. 

• Stella of Ray's Candy Store, remembered by the neighborhood (Dec. 29) 

• Metro Acres Market confirmed for former East Village Rite Aid (Dec. 30) 

• Bands we like: Homade (Jan. 2) 

• Reading the signs: An art show opens at Psychic Readings on 5th Street (Jan. 4) 

• Openings: Justin’s Salt Bread on 2nd Avenue (Jan. 2) … Moon Coffee Lab on 1st Street (Dec. 29) 

• A hazy shade of winter in Tompkins Square Park (Dec. 29) 

• A December EVG recap (Dec. 30) 

• The most-viewed EVG stories of 2025 (Dec. 31) 

... and an NYE photo on St. Mark's Place via EVG reader Jason D. Newton...

6 posts from December

A mini month in review... with a scene from Orchard and Delancey on the LES... 

• Stella of Ray’s Candy Store, remembered by the neighborhood (Dec. 29) 

• NYPD makes an arrest in the hit-and-run driver who killed a pedestrian on Clinton and Stanton (Dec. 22) 

• The secret life of Key Food’s holiday decorations (Dec. 17) 

• Timeline for reopening northern section of East River Park pushed to end of 2027 (Dec. 16) 

• SantaCon 2025 recap: A quieter crawl through the East Village? (Dec. 15) 

• Scenes from the 34th annual Tompkins Square Park tree lighting (Dec. 14)

Scenes of the season, lately

A few holiday scenes as seen the last two weeks (or so)... a happy holiday season one and all!

Dec. 23's parting shots

Photos by Stacie Joy 

A holiday tip reminder at C&B, 178 E. Seventh St. near B... and a rat-adorned Christmas tree at Spooksvilla + Friends, 309 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue...