The great New Double Dragon signage shines brightly again, now on the Lower East Side

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

New Double Dragon was forced to close earlier this month with the pending demolition of its longtime home at 37 First Ave. between Second Street and Third Street.

However, that great NDD signage lives on.

NDD owner Shawn Lin is friends with Kenney Shi, the proprietor of Soley Tea at 111 Eldridge St. between Broome and Grand. (Both men are Fujianese.)

The two had been discussing preserving the sign for months — once Shawn learned this winter that he might need to shut down his quick-serve Chinese restaurant this year.

Once Shawn finally closed, Kenney hired a sign company to carefully remove and transport it to his shop on the Lower East Side this past July 11...

Kenney saved all the (nonworking) lightbulbs and bought new wiring for the sign with the hopes of having it illuminate his small shop. 

Kenney has also saved and restored other Chinese and Chinatown-area signage, which he displays in his boba tea shop and art gallery...

Soley Tea is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. if you want to pay a visit.

Postscript

After my first visit this past week, Kenney got the signage to light up... even adding a dimmer switch ...

Sami & Susu bring you the Pita Shop by day on Orchard Street

Samu & Susu, the Mediterranean restaurant and wine bar at 190 Orchard St. just south of Houston, is using the space for a new daytime concept called Pita Shop.

Owners Jordan Anderson and Amir Nathan started the business as a lunchtime pop-up in Brooklyn before settling on the Lower East Side in 2021.

Per an Instagram post: 

Pita Shop brings back all the best pita sandwiches you know and love: our sensational cauliflower with red cabbage and zhoug, the spicy harissa chicken with pickles and tahini, and our juicy lamb kebab pita with charred vegetables and shatta. We will have rotating specials along with a big salad and a lamb over rice dish. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Pita Shop (@pitashopnyc)

If all goes well, they hope to make the Pita Shop permanent: "In the near future, we will be able to find it a place of its own as an independent quick-service restaurant."

Pita Shop is open Wednesday to Friday from noon to 4 p.m. Find the website here ...  and the Instagram account here.

Meanwhile, Sami & Susu remains open nightly from 5:30-11.

Incoming...

A look to the south toward the Lower East Side (and Lower Manhattan) this afternoon as stormy weather moved through the area.

Thanks to EVG reader Michael Kramer for sharing this shot! (Click on the image for a bigger view!)

Construction watch: 270 E. 2nd St.

Foundation work recently commenced at 270 E. Second St. between Avenue C and Avenue D.

This will be a new state-of-the-art facility for Barrier Free Living (BFL). This project has been on hold for a few years. 

We got the first look at the new 12-story building with a twisting façade back in December 2018. The rendering on the plywood shows a very similar structure — designed by JCJ Architecture — in the works here...

And here's a full view ... from our December 2018 post...

And here's more from the 2018 news release about the new building for the nonprofit, which provides services and support for survivors of domestic violence with disabilities

The new 65,000-square foot facility will provide permanent housing specifically to meet the needs of this population and will include 74 apartments, administrative offices, a rear garden, an elevated outdoor recreation area, and community and support spaces.

The building will challenge assumptions about the aesthetics associated with supportive housing and create a more direct and engaged relationship for residents with the surrounding environment. The new facility is intended to efficiently serve the needs of BFL’s clients, to provide a sense of pride, place and home for residents, and to create a unique architectural presence in the rapidly changing neighborhood where the East Village and Lower East Side converge.

January 2025 is the new completion date. 

Workers demolished BFL's previous structure here in 2020.

A trip 'Wire'

 

Bush Tetras, the influential post-punk/no-wave band that got its start on the Lower East Side in the late 1970s, just released a new video for their single "Bird on a Wire." 

The video, featuring singer Cynthia Sley in front of EV storefronts that housed some iconic businesses, also includes a supporting role from East Village-based photographer GODLIS. 

The track is from the band's new LP, They Live in My Head, out on July 28. 

And catch Bush Tetras — with new members bassist Cait "Rocky" O'Riordan and drummer Steve Shelley joining original guitarist Pat Place — on Sept. 15 at Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker Street.

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with more air-quality alerts from the Canadian wildfires)...

• Ink on A can use some help (Monday) 

• About the fire at 204 Avenue B (Friday)

• The latest distribution for asylum seekers took place this past week (Tuesday)

• On St. Mark's Place, Funzi's Pizzeria is a throwback modeled after grandmother's house (Tuesday) 

• Farewell to the Champagne's of storefront signs in the East Village (Friday) 

• Last summer for the current configuration of the multipurpose courts in Tompkins Square Park (Wednesday) 

• Weeping for this lost tree on Avenue A (Tuesday)

• Khiladi NYC is closing on Avenue B (Sunday) 

• Six Feet Under Sound with The Acute (Thursday)

• The incoming Shake Shack on the Lower East Side owes nearly $200k back rent: legal notice (Monday) 

• At 2nd and 2nd, a change in plans (Monday) 

• Is 334 Bowery now officially a doomed location for restaurants? (Thursday) 

• For those who rocked: Legendary East Village venue Fillmore East closed on this date in 1971 (Tuesday) 

• City pools open (but not the Tompkins Square Park mini pool) (Thursday) 

• Do you remember the Unicorn Frame Shop? (Wednesday)

• Retail moves: Westerlind relocates to East Houston Street (Wednesday) 

• Roasted NYC slated for this 2nd Avenue storefront (Wednesday) 

... and a surprising number of people have asked about the status of Healthy Choice, the deli-market on the SW corner of Avenue A and Sixth Street. Temp signage for My Deli 3 Corp. arrived on June 23. Same ownership and management here... an employee told EVG contributor Stacie Joy that the sign is temporary and relates to their beer license renewal...

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On 7th Street, the Clyde Romero Memorial Garden celebrates a longtime garden activist

Photo by Dave on 7th

The Lower East Side Ecology Center Garden on Seventh Street has been rededicated in honor of its late co-founder.

Moving forward, the green space on Seventh Street between Avenue B and Avenue C will be known as the Clyde Romero Memorial Garden.

Romero, a longtime East Village resident, was co-founder of the LES Ecology Center. He died in January 2022 at age 84. 

During a ceremony this past Thursday, Romero was celebrated "as an artist, community and environmental activist, a dear friend to many." 

Volunteers and donations sought for asylum seekers in the East Village this week

Photos and text by Stacie Joy 

Here is information about the next distribution for asylum seekers temporarily staying at the former St. Brigid School on Avenue B and Seventh Street ... featuring an interfaith coalition with participating religious institutions including: 

• St. Brigid/St. Emeric/Most Holy Redeemer 

• Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish 

• Graffiti Church 

• Middle Middle Collegiate Church 

• Hope Church NYC

Residents can drop off clothes and goods starting today ... plus tomorrow and Thursday from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. at the St Brigid's rectory, 119 Avenue B between Seventh Street and Eighth Street. 

The distribution will be on Thursday, June 29, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Volunteers are welcome to attend and help. (A bonus if you speak French or Spanish.)

In-demand donations include adult clothing, blankets and bedding, backpacks, and shoes (especially chancletas). (Please note: no children or infants are at this location.)

Previously on EV Grieve:

• Inside the East Village 'respite center' for asylum seekers

• Missed meal deliveries and a need for basics: the developing situation at the East Village respite center for asylum seekers

• At the former St. Brigid School, a generous outpouring of community support for asylum seekers

• Despite the city's endless bureaucracy, East Village residents continue to aid asylum seekers at the former St. Brigid School 

• How these East Village volunteers finally made Wi-Fi a reality for asylum seekers

• Cafe Mogador provides a free meal to asylum seekers staying in the East Village

The incoming Shake Shack on the Lower East Side owes nearly $200k back rent: legal notice

From the outside, the new Shake Shack outpost looks ready to open on the SE corner of Rivington and Norfolk... the chain's first Lower East Side location of its burgers-and-fries operation.

News of this arrival dates to last July. (Signage arrived in November.) To date, this address has yet to appear on the Shake Shack website.

Meanwhile, multiple EVG readers pointed out the recent arrival of a legal notice on the front gate...

According to the 14-day notice, the landlord, ID'd here as 122 Norfolk Street, LLC, is seeking $194,974.79 "for rent for the Subject Premises."

The notice states that Shake Shack New York LLC has to pay the amount within 14 days from the date, listed here as June 13. (So that would make tomorrow, Tuesday, June 27, the deadline.) We reached out to the Shake Shack press department and will update this post if anyone responds.

This corner spot has sat empty since Schiller’s Liquor Bar closed after 14 years in 2017.

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a photo of Ray at Ray's Candy Store on Avenue A by Roflo) 

 • Iconic gay dive bar the Boiler Room is closing later this year ahead of a move to a new East Village space (Tuesday) 

• About The Pastry Box, now open on 12th Street (Thursday)

• The Regal Union Square multiplex is not closing after all (Monday) 

• Openings: Caffe Corretto on 12th Street (Tuesday) 

• At the start of the 2023 Drag March in Tompkins Square Park (Saturday) 

• Someone placed an ad for AMC's 'The Walking Dead: Dead City' over the George Floyd mural on Houston and the Bowery (Monday)

• At MoRUS, a new exhibit explores the network of community fridges in NYC (Friday) 

• The arrival of the smart composting bins in the East Village (Thursday) 

• The Zine Fair has been rescheduled to July 8 (Friday) 

• Salter House bringing sustainable housewares and clothing to 2nd Street (Thursday) 

• Residents eager to track down the source of this 'loud mechanical sound' in the East Village (Saturday) 

• "Make Me Famous," a documentary on 1980s-era East Village-based painter Edward Brezinski, debuts  (Monday) 

• Watch Kim Petras (or her stand-in!) walk around the East Village in medieval-style armor (Wednesday) 

• A subway ride from Union Square to Coney Island on this day in 1987 (Tuesday) 

• Chrissy's Pizza taking over the former Superiority Burger space on 9th Street for its first pizzeria (Thursday) 

• Lower East Side venue Rockwood Music Hall crowdfunding to stay alive (Saturday) 

• The East Village Panda Express is hiring (Tuesday) 

• Reaching the top of the 21-story 360 Bowery project (Tuesday) 

• More unlicensed cannabis shops busted in the East Village (Thursday) 

• 1 St. Mark's Place looking a little close to beaming up (Wednesday)

• Closings: Sauced Up! on 2nd Avenue (Thursday) 

• About the new tenant at 37 Avenue A (Wednesday)

• A Smoke House for Avenue A (Friday) 

• A transformation for the Ugly Duckling on 3rd Avenue and 13th Street (Tuesday) 

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Lower East Side venue Rockwood Music Hall crowdfunding to stay alive

Rosewood Music Hall, 196 Allen St., between Houston and Stanton, is in danger of closing after 18 years of providing multiple stages for independent and emerging musicians. 

As Variety reported, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles launched a #PreserveRockwood benefit concert series that begins on Friday. 

The venue also announced a GoFundMe campaign yesterday to help stay in business. 

Per the appeal: 

Like many small, independent music venues across the country, Rockwood is struggling to stay open. Without the support of artists, the music community and fans of music, Rockwood is in danger of permanently closing, shutting off a vital place for independent and up-and-coming musicians to develop their artistry and give fans the opportunity to discover new music in a live setting. 

You can find the campaign here. Find details on the benefit shows at this link.

The arrival of the smart composting bins in the East Village

Photos: Salim, Stacie Joy and Garth Johnston 

Over the past week, the Sanitation Department has been placing the orange, solar-powered compost drop-off bins (aka Smart Bins) on sidewalks around the East Village and Lower East Side. 

This is part of the city's ongoing effort to expand organic waste collection. Residents can access the curbside bins 24/7 through one of two smartphone apps. (The apps include a map with all the bin locations.) 

So why the hassle of a QR code? Curbed explains: 

This extra step is an effort to prevent contamination — or when non-compostable materials wind up with organics in the containers. (The issue of mixed materials became such a problem for the street recycling program that DSNY removed many of those bins entirely.) When it comes to the Smart Bin, the agency believes that the app offers just the right amount of friction. 

"We want the bins to be simple enough so that people passing it on the street look at it and immediately know what it is," says sanitation commissioner Jessica Tisch. The city also, crucially, wants this piece of its composting program to succeed, and that means keeping busted umbrellas and the errant tall boy out of the bins. 

The bins are meant to complement the existing drop-off composting sites, such as at the Tompkins Square Park Greenmarket, the Down to Earth Garden on 12th Street, and La Plaza Cultural on Avenue C and Ninth Street. (There's a citywide map here.) 

Smart Bins have been spotted on Avenue B at 12th Street, First Avenue at Fourth Street, and Second Street at Second Avenue. (There are more! But you get the idea.)

The bins will likely look familiar — they are made by the same company that designed those Big Belly Solar trash cans. 

The Smart Bins first debuted in 2021 in Lower Manhattan and Astoria. This City Limits piece has more background.

Composting will reportedly be mandatory by October 2024, thanks to the recent passage of the Zero Waste Act. 

Thank you to everyone who sent in photos of the bins!

About the Lower East Side Book Crawl — Pride Edition — tomorrow (Saturday!)

Tomorrow (Saturday!), six downtown businesses "will celebrate the diversity and resilience of the neighborhood's indie bookshops by offering discounts, special giveaways, and curated selections of queer books."

The participating shops:

• Bluestockings Cooperative Bookstore, 116 Suffolk St. 

• Book Club Bar, 197 E 3rd St. 

• P&T Knitwear, 180 Orchard St.

• Printed Matter, 38 St. Mark's Place (at Second Avenue)

• Sweet Pickle Books, 47 Orchard St.

• Yu & Me Books, 44 Mulberry St.

Hours for the book crawl: noon to 7 p.m.

Sauce returns to service on 12th Street

After a months-long closure, the Sauce Pizzeria outpost at 345 E. 12th St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue is back in service. (Thanks to the reader for the tip!)

A sign for patrons, dated Dec. 16, stated that they "have made the tough decision to close our doors for the next few months." And: "We are planning to relaunch this location with great enthusiasm, and we look forward to serving you again soon!" 

The reopening coincides with a fresh colorfully painted storefront...

Sauce arrived here in 2018. 

The pizzeria also has outposts on the Lower East Side (Allen at Rivington) ... plus Brookfield Place and Moynihan Train Hall.

[Updated] And now, your signage for the Popeyes opening on 14th Street near Avenue A

Photo by Edmund John Dunn 

In the breaking news [🚨🚨🚨] department here at noon ET, the signage for Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is going up at its new home at 442 E. 14th St., just west of Avenue A.

No word on an opening date.

This makes the second EV Popeyes: an outpost opened in October 2020 at 39 First Ave. between Second Street and Third Street.

The new 14th Street Popeyes combined two storefronts — the Lower East Side Coffee Shop, which closed here after 13 years in February 2021 ... and New Herbal World, which left in September 2019. 

Updated: 

Now with a final signage shot via Vinny & O...

Previously

On Avenue A, a golf-related shop fore people who might like golf

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

It's a Cinderella story, out of nowhere: Whim Golf is shaping up to open at 66 Avenue A between Fourth Street and Fifth Street.  

Here's more about the company:

For people who might like golf. Founded in 2019, Whim Golf is an American fashion brand on a mission to democratize golf. Built to bridge the gap between art and sport, Whim designs timeless products, artful content, and immersive experiences that together build a community that shifts the narrative about who belongs in golf.

Or, as a 2022 feature in Golf Digest put it, "Taking the coolness from streetwear, the whimsy from fashion and the silhouettes from golf, [Whim Golf] is looking to refresh the sport's image."

And: "So the mission is twofold: make golf style everyday style, and increase golf’s visibility along the way."

If this sounds somewhat familiar, Whim Golf opened a pop-up location on the Lower East Side in the summer of 2019.

The Avenue A outpost will feature golf apparel and related accessories... as well as a putting green, which was under construction the other day when EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by...

... and talked with co-founder Will Gisel, who started the company with childhood friend Colin Heaberg. (They also own a creative agency called Whim.)

Whim Golf is expected to open soon.

The retail space has been vacant since Lancelotti Housewares left in the fall of 2021 after 25 years in business. A collectible sneaker shop had been in the works here, but the business never materialized. 

6 posts from May

A mini-month in review (and belated HBD to Joey Ramone this past May 19)... 

• Inside the East Village 'respite center' for asylum seekers (May 30)

• At the new home of The Joyce, which aims to be a hub for the performing arts in the East Village (May 23) 

• This East Village resident is bringing a classic 82-year-old radio back to broadcasting life (May 18) 

• With Community Board approval, Sammy's Roumanian Steak House takes another step to returning to the Lower East Side (May 16) 

• Mayor Adams visits Tompkins Square Park (May 15) 

• After deadly collapse, city issues vacate order at the Little Man Parking garage on 9th Street (May 2)

A few scenes from the annual Loisaida Festival

Photos by Stacie Joy

The 36th edition of the Loisaida Festival took place yesterday under sunny blue skies ... as attendees took part in this annual Memorial Day weekend celebration of the rich heritage of the Lower East Side. 

EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared a few photos from along Avenue C where attendees enjoyed live music, theater, food, pony rides, bouncy houses ... and a lot more...

Entertainment away from the main stage included the Casa Adela Rumble with Hip Hop Jibarito...

You can visit the Loisiada Center here for information about year-round programming.

Saturday's parting shot

Photo by Derek Berg 

A moment on 10th Street today during the 28th annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts at Theater for the New City ... day 3 is tomorrow (Sunday!)...

About the annual Loisaida Festival, taking place tomorrow

The 36th edition of the Loisaida Festival takes place tomorrow (Sunday!) from noon to 5 p.m. on Avenue C, from Fifth Street to 14th Street. 

Per the invite: 

Enjoy the unity and resolve of the Lower East Side in featuring our diverse immigrant communities marking in its history, Latino culture, music, cuisine, and art of our ever-growing communities. 

Find the day's schedule of live bands and performances here. 

And check out the highlight reel from last year's festival...