Speaking out against a 'Silicon Alley' in this neighborhood

A coalition of community groups and preservationists hosted a rally last evening titled "Don't Turn Our Neighborhood Into Silicon Alley" on on Third Avenue outside 51 Astor Place/the IBM Watson Building/Death Star ... and across the street from where a 7-story office building is in the works for the northeast corner of the Avenue at St. Mark's Place...



An estimated 50-75 residents turned out... as well as several elected local officials, such as State Sen. Brad Hoylman.
EVG contributor Peter Brownscombe shared these photos... Curbed has a recap of the rally here, which the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) organized ...

It’s the latest new development that’s destroying the fabric of these neighborhoods, local residents argued at the rally on Wednesday. While Greenwich and East Villagers, along with their outgoing City Council member, Rosie Mendez, have been demanding protections for this area for years, this latest push for rezoning was prompted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement of a new tech hub at the old P.C. Richard & Son on East 14th Street.

And...

GVSHP is encouraging the mayor to create height restrictions in the area, that would limit building heights to between 80 to 145 feet, and would have incentives for creating affordable housing. [GVSHP Executive Director Andrew] Berman said he wasn’t opposed to the tech hub per se, but was unable to get behind it without all the other neighborhood protections in place. The tech hub can only be approved through a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), and will ultimately come before the City Council for final approval. The incoming City Council member from the area, Carlina Rivera, also backs the zoning protections, so it remains to be seen how the Mayor’s project will fare.

Bedford + Bowery has coverage here.

State Assembly member Deborah Glick said preserving the residential, mixed-use character of the neighborhood was important to maintaining the vibrancy of the East Village and that she was disappointed in the proposed developments. “Seeing New York homogenized during the Bloomberg administration – we thought it would come to an end but it’s only getting worse,” she said. “I want to say to Bill de Blasio: Don’t turn yourself into Bloomberg 2.0. We deserve to keep our open skies, air and light – don’t suffocate us just for a quick buck from developer.”

Out and About in the East Village

In this ongoing feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village or Lower East Side.



By James Maher

Name: Ronald Rayford
Occupation: Actor, Writer
Location: 4th Street and Avenue A
Time: Monday, Nov. 13

I’m from Buffalo. I was living in Chicago when I was 23. I didn’t like it right then, so I said, hey, I’m looking for a job, I can find a job in New York. I started out in Brooklyn, around Nostrand Avenue, but I knew somebody in the neighborhood, and eventually I got an apartment on Avenue C and 10th Street. That was about 1967.

I got a job at a haberdashery, a tailor shop on 125th Street. I worked for him for awhile and I was going back and forth from there to the Lower East Side, down to Orchard Street to pick up the fabric. It was bigger then, much more stuff was going on back then.

There were some good spots and some bad spots, but as I look back on it there were a lot of bad spots. The area on Seventh Street was kind of rundown but so was 10th Street. My friend who encouraged me to come to New York died on 10th Street. Aww man, it was a bad scene.

Truth be told, I got into some drug situations for a time back then — I’ve got to tell the truth. Eventually I got busted with some drugs on me. I was in the Tombs — they were overcrowded. They were putting so many people in there. There was a riot while I was in there in 1969. They were rioting against the way they were treated. I was in there for about 90 days but then I got sentenced and they sent me up to Dannemora from there.

After that I got out. My mind was clear of the drugs. I started acting with Woodie King down here at the Henry Street Settlement, and they gave me a little money too. That was part of some program in the neighborhood.

Then I had a woman that I knew, she came down here to be with me and we had a child. From there, I started acting seriously in plays and stuff like that. I got into a play that Woodie and Joe Papp produced at Lincoln Center, so I got a break there. It was called "What the Wine-Sellers Buy." Then another break came in "Saturday Night Live," and I was on there for a little while. I was studying with the Strasberg institute, studying acting

Then I broke up with the wife and I went back to the drug thing like a fool. I stayed in that drug thing for a couple of decades. Then from there I had another son and that cleared my mind up even more. Since then, I’ve been pretty much on the straight and narrow.

People get a bad deal with the issue on drugs. In Norway, Denmark, and other countries, they stopped their war on drugs because war on drugs translates to a war on Black folks. Because of this war on drugs, people are incarcerated at a massive rate — it’s incredible. They are not helping the people at all, but now seeing that it’s moved into other communities other than this particular community, now it ain’t just junkies, dope dealers – they are opiate addicted. They put a whole new name on it, you dig? They knew that in the 1970s, Oliver North and others were bringing that stuff into communities all over this country, and they incarcerated all these people. How they could not see this stuff is insane? This is not a policy to help the people. It’s a genocidal policy on the people.

And now with the aid of Mr. Sessions and Mr. Trump, they want to reinstitute this policy that the previous president had tried to break down a little bit. It’s just another name for slavery, because it’s free labor, and it goes deeper than that, because with unpaid internships, that’s another form of slavery. Anytime you’re talking about free labor, you’re talking about slavery. It’s basically because the working class has collapsed, so something’s got to change.

These days I’m doing very little acting. I would like to do it when I can. I did a few things, something I started over at the Theatre for New City. And I’m doing a little writing now too. But now I would say my focus is on activism. I met some very interesting people, Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Amy Goodman, Van Jones, and Jacqui Lewis, who is head pastor of the Middle Collegiate Church on Seventh Street and Second Avenue.

Right now, what I’m doing is I am part of this group in the church called the Butterflies. They carry the food, and sometimes I help them make the food, put them in sandwich bags and lunch bags, and take them out to Tompkins Square Park and to Sara Roosevelt Park. That’s activism.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Saying goodbye to Clayworks Pottery after 44 years on 9th Street

[Storefront photo from 2009 via Facebook]

Late last week, Helaine Sorgen made official what had been a poorly kept secret among her customers — Clayworks Pottery is closing after 44 years at 332 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

The upcoming closing has nothing to do with, say, a decline in business.

"My building has been bought by a predatory landlord who will not renew my lease," she said. "It's been over a two-year fight, and the time has come to close up shop."

She shared with me a copy of her goodbye letter to the community. (The letter is displayed on the front window of the shop.)

Her last day will be around Sept. 15.

---

Well, it’s been quite a ride. When Clayworks opened in the EV in Jan, 1974, it was like an outpost of civilization. Empty stores were everywhere. Clayworks was the kind of unique, individual store that helped build this neighborhood into the desirable commodity it is today. Through four decades, I have been able to watch the EV grow and change from my window. It has been the finest front row seat I could ask for.

Clayworks survived everything the mad universe pitched at it — Hurricane Sandy, blizzards, The Great Recession, swastikas painted across the storefront, the front window being intentionally blown out, water main breaks, ceiling caves, the crack epidemic, and of course 9/11, all come to mind, plus the usual personal real-life challenges. Clayworks has always held its own, with great thanks to the support of this neighborhood and my loyal clientele.

That is, until the recent and well documented invasion of the EV by predatory landlords and perfidious financiers. You see, Clayworks now occupies real estate deemed too valuable to allow it to stay. The new building owner and the plethora of shell companies he hides behind wants me out, and this is a war that I cannot win. I have spent the past 2 years fighting. I am tired and my time is up. Let me be clear — this is not the story of an unsuccessful store hanging on for dear life. This is the intentional stomping out of yet another mom and pop store by predatory real estate weasels. We small businesses are a family. Every store whose light goes out is a small death among us, another cross in the graveyard. There, we are legion.

Clayworks is as much a part of the EV as the EV is a part of Clayworks. I live here. My heart lives here. The EV is my neighborhood, my community. I want to see thrive. I know there are 2 camps of thought in the EV currently. There are those who want to keep the wild, fierce, gritty, creative, independent EV spirit. There are others who want less edge and attitude and more sameness — tamer, user friendly stores, plus bars and restaurants that are trendy and cater more to the on-demand desires of a new generation. Why can’t we have a balanced mix here is the question.

I believe, if protected and supported by the City, it would be possible to have both — to support change, and yet maintain the unique identity that many of us treasure. But the Small Business Jobs Survival Act languishes in the purgatory of the City Council. Some form of this legislation, which supports small businesses the way other more enlightened cities do, has been moldering in the CC since Miriam Friedlander’s time. Politicians wave it around to get votes, but as soon as they are elected, it goes back into the junk drawer.

Now, we hear there is a movement to form a small-business-only region, and a protective registry for legacy businesses that have been around for 35 years or more. Well, that would be Clayworks, but, ironically, it’s too late for me.

I am not opposed to change but frankly, what is going on here is full-scale rape and pillage. So folks, it’s up to you. You vote with your ballot and you vote with your dollar. The kind of neighborhood and community you want to see is in your hands. If it matters, and it should, then be mindful. Exercise your right to vote and your right to make some noise.

It has been an incredible privilege to have been able to earn a living being a potter in the EV. I’ve always hoped that in a small way, Clayworks helped to make the world a better place, one mug at a time. I want to thank, sincerely and gratefully, every person who laid down their hard earned bucks to buy my work and support me. In my 44 years here, I have gotten to know many of you personally and my life has been greatly enriched by your company.

Everyone who came into this store, who shared their stories and lives, wove a fabric that connected us together, warp and woof, a tapestry of community and friendship. We made magic happen here. That’s really what it’s all about.

My last day will be sometime around Sept. 15. Whatever work I have left is all that there’s gonna be, so if you’ve been looking at something and can’t make up your mind, don’t wait too long! I will pack and store the rest with the intention of starting an online store (anyone out there who can help me set it up?). Or call me- I’ll meet you at the Veselka, you bring the $$$ and I’ll bring the goods!

With sadness and love,
Helaine Sorgen/Clayworks

P.S.

A special shout out of love for Santo and Margaret at The Source, who have generously supplied me with great quantities of packing boxes. Also to GOLES, which has helped so many here to organize and fight back. And to Cooper Square, especially SaMi Chester, who works tirelessly for EV tenants, and has been more than generous in sharing support and information and encouragement in my battle, even though commercial tenants are not really his purview.

And to 9th Street, the best little block in the EV and my home for 44 wonderful years!

Previously on EV Grieve:
29-year-old Gallery Vernon is closing on East 9th Street

Report: Teen lied about assault at Avenue A deli

[Image via]

Back in April, Dia El-Deen Hassan, a clerk at Kamaran Deli and Grocery on Avenue A at Fifth Street, was arrested for assault after reportedly hitting a customer with a baseball bat and calling her a tranny.

Authorities now say that the bashing claim was bogus, the Daily News reports today.

The clerk and his attorney denied the allegations from the outset and said that 18-year-old Noel Torres was trying to steal beer.

Surveillance video from the deli reportedly confirms the clerk's version of events. The charges against Hassan are expected to be dropped next week.

Police arrested Torres, who was charged with filing a false report charge, per the News.

The clerk's attorney, Stuart Meltzer, said this about Torres' actions:

"Laws designed to protect the disadvantaged, those that are different, that stand out in society and that are clearly targets … are very important laws and they're designed to protect the fabric of our society."

Out and About in the East Village

In this ongoing feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Candice Brewer
Occupation: Pharmacist
Location: Avenue A, between 2nd and 3rd
Time: 3:30 on Monday, Oct. 31

I sell drugs for a living. I’m a pharmacist. I’m an Army brat, so I’m from all over the place.

I moved here in 1978, I’ve lived on 7th Street and 11th Street, and then I moved down to below Houston Street in 1986. Everybody I knew lived down here. Affordability brought me here too, because it was a real dangerous neighborhood. I certainly didn’t go to the lettered avenues. That was way too scary, and there were blocks that I wouldn’t even walk during the day. They were too deserted.

If you ever looked at some of the old photographs, you’ll see that there was nothing going on. The buildings were burned out; the cars were trashed. I would walk home in the middle of the street, because people could come out from between the junked cars and places like that. I had the keys in my hand, and always checking before you opened your door so somebody wasn’t behind you. I’ve come out of my house and seen the police going, ‘Freeze!’ And I’ve seen busts where they’ve knocked down doors… and all the helicopters. Now I’m the scariest thing on Avenue C.

Like all of Ludlow Street, Orchard Street went dark at 5. It was all fabric stores and a lot of it was gravestone stores. The Mercury Lounge was a store for gravestones and you got free parking for a half an hour — you know, cause you could make that decision in half an hour. You can see along Suffolk Street, there are still some of the hoists and tackles on some of the old buildings, so they could pull the gravestones in to do the carving.

I love the music scene. You’d see a lot of interesting people, and there were a lot of artists living around here. There used to be such good clubs around here. It was really a fun time. The Ludlow Street Café, which doesn’t get a lot of press anymore, was the first bar on Ludlow Street, and that was like our living room. I think that came in around 1985, maybe even before Max Fish I believe. We would have parties there, Christmas parties, and birthday parties. It really was our community center – our country store so to speak.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

At the Moxy hotel protest on 11th Street last evening

[Photo by Derek Berg]

A group of residents, preservationists, local elected officials and union reps came out early last evening to protest the incoming hotel by Marriott's Moxy brand slated to replace a row of buildings at 112-120 E. 11th St. between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue.

The speakers blasted Mayor de Blasio's administration, who despite the purported dedication to affordable housing, is allowing the 300-room hotel aimed at millennials to move forward.

The Lightstone Group paid Pan Am Equities $127 million for the portfolio.

In July 2015, Mayor de Blasio appointed Lightstone Chairman and CEO David Lichtenstein to the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Board of Directors.

According to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), who helped organize the rally, the five buildings were ruled "landmark-eligible" by the city in 2008. However, when the buildings faced the threat of demolition this past summer, the city said that they no longer qualified for landmark status, per GVSHP.


[DB]


[DB]


[Photo by Peter Brownscombe]


[Photo by PB]

Here are a collection of comments distributed to the media following last evening's rally..

"Community groups, preservationists, affordable housing advocates, and labor all agree that this development stinks. Something is wrong when a Mayor who claims to care about neighborhoods, average New Yorkers, affordable housing, and organized labor allows his campaign contributor and political ally to avoid landmark protections so he can demolish historic buildings with affordable housing to put up a high-end hotel with non-union labor. Preserving these buildings and the housing they provided represents everything New Yorkers and residents of this neighborhood want; the hotel plan represents everything they do not want." — Andrew Berman, GVSHP Executive Director

“It is disappointing, but sadly not surprising, that a project like Lightstone Development’s Moxy Hotel on 11th Street has been approved by the City of New York. Disappointing because it will eliminate desperately needed neighborhood affordable housing, provide no decent career pathways for New Yorkers, and is being driven by a developer known to use contractors with a history of safety violations and worker exploitation ... Not surprising because Mayor de Blasio’s appointment of Lightstone’s CEO David Lichtenstein to the EDC raises serious concerns about who is watching out for the public good of the city’s economic driver plans." — John Skinner, President/Political Director Metallic Lathers Reinforcing Ironworkers Local 46


[Photo of Rosie Mendez by PB]

"I stand by my original statement and my continued disappointment that we are losing five buildings in my district that contained several dozen affordable rent regulated units, as well as the fact that these were architecturally and historically significant buildings built in the late 1800s. Instead we will have a hotel that will be architecturally out of character and out of scale with our neighborhood. I am extremely disappointed that this mayoral administration has not come forward with any legislative/zoning solutions to prevent these types of 'as of right developments' from reoccurring. — Council Member Rosie Mendez


[Photo of Brad Hoylman by PB]

"It’s wrong that units of affordable housing on an historic East Village block are slated to be demolished and replaced forever by expensive hotel rooms by a developer who has a poor safety record in protecting workers. This case is a glaring example of the work we need to do to protect the historic fabric and character of our neighborhoods and ensure we use union labor for new construction." — State Senator Brad Hoylman

Previously on EV Grieve:
6-building complex on East 10th Street and East 11th Street sells for $127 million

Report: 300-room hotel planned for East 11th Street

Preservationists say city ignored pitch to designate part of 11th Street as a historic district

Permits filed to demolish 5 buildings on 11th Street to make way for new hotel (58 comments)

Out and About in the East Village, Part 2

By James Maher

Name: Rafael Hines
Occupation: Sales Director, Morningstar, Writer
Location: Café Mogador, St. Mark's Place
Time: 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 9

In part 1, Hines talked about growing up with his mother on Avenue D and East Third Street starting in 1961. "We were there until 1968. Our upstairs neighbor was trying to date my mom. She said no, so he set our apartment on fire." They eventually moved to St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Being part of the community has been fantastic. On the positive, the artist culture and the music — one of the things that kind of pushed me to be a writer, is all the creativity, which is still here. I see so many of the same people, who were quote-on-quote citizens like myself.

Back then, you were a citizen or involved in this whole other life. Those people I still see, and many of them are still on the block. My wife says, ‘Oh you’re going to the store, so you’re going to be back in two hours,’ because I have conversations every step of the way. All these people moved here, created a healthy economy in the neighborhood, and have been that fabric outside of this other stuff that’s been going on, which kind of comes and goes. There are just so many good people in this neighborhood.

I want to give Mogador a plug, because this place right here is magic. It’s been around for about 30 years. The hostess would carry each of our kids around when they would seat people. My kids eat here three times a week for dinner, and I come here for breakfast.

There was this guy Steven, who lived upstairs, and for year and years he would print out the Good News Newspaper, from newspapers all around the world. It was all articles about people helping other people, and he would staple it together and hand it out here in the morning. There was me and probably six other regulars and we would read our own newspaper and have this morning dialogue about people helping other people. He passed away about six months ago now. He was a really interesting guy.

I remember, the Boys Club and the 14th Street Y for me was just like home. I’m on the board there now. I went there as a kid and now I’m on the board and I’m part of the scholarship committee. The way people impacted my life and mentored me, I try to do the same thing. My mother was on the board there for years. My mother was such a part of this community as well.

That Y does such amazing things. I could talk about that for two hours. It’s a community center. They have a theatre, and then there’s the early childhood program ... a nursery school, a community center for the elderly and yoga classes — all under one roof. They also have a special-needs program, where no one is turned away, where the whole family can be involved. There’s basketball, soccer. All the counselors and everyone involved are deeply committed to caring about this community and the people who it serves.

My mother also had a bridal store on East 9th Street, until she got really sick last year. At one time, I actually had three bridal stores. I was going to be the gown king. It was a total side project. I had three stores on 9th Street between 1st and 2nd, which started out as a little side gig and then grew and grew, until they all kind of imploded.

Now I work for the company Morningstar, which does the ratings for mutual funds and everything else. I’m on the energy side. They acquired the company I worked for in 2009. We were a family-run businesses for commodities and energy.

I’m also a writer. In the past, I used to fly all over the place for work, and I would always pick up the latest thriller and the latest bestseller. I kept thinking, ‘You’ve got a story in you.’ And then during 9/11, my office was in the south tower. Obviously the whole tragedy was overwhelming. At the time, I think a lot of people thought there would be follow-up attacks, although it never happened.

That was my thought and from there that was the genesis of my book that’s coming out this week. I started by just putting small stories together that I thought were funny and then characters started showing up and dialogue started appearing out of nowhere and now I’ve got a full suspense thriller, "Bishop’s War."

It’s an action thriller about a guy who stops a terrorist attack in Union Square Park. The terrorists come after him and his family, but his family is a crime family on the Lower East Side, so it comes full circle. The characters are based on all the people who I grew up with, basically the cops and gangsters. I did a ton of research and I have friends who are over in Afghanistan, who I was sending chapters to.

It’s funny. The first agent I went to said, ‘You know, the dialogue doesn’t ring true.’ I said, ‘That’s funny, because that is word for word what that guy said.’ I didn’t even make that up. I was just using someone’s lines.

Read Part 1 here.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Royale looking forward to the next 10 years on Avenue C

As we've been reporting, the owners of The Wayland on Avenue C are planning on opening a new neighborhood bar called The Drift ... first at 129 Avenue C, then when those plans didn't work out, at 157 Avenue C, the current home of Royale. In fact, co-owners Robert Ceraso and Jason Mendenhall were on this month's CB3/SLA agenda for a new liquor license for the space.

Apparently, this is no longer in the making at the Royale space. We heard from Royale's management yesterday, and they assured us that they aren't going anywhere ... Royale even renegotiated a new 10-year lease at No. 157 between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street.

Here's a statement that Royale management shared with us:

As we go into our 10th year of business, we would like to thank all of our loyal customers for their dedicated patronage. We are unendingly grateful to all of our wonderful neighbors, who together have helped to weave the complex and rewarding fabric of this exceptional community.

After being welcomed so many years ago, we have always attempted to return the favor the only way we know how: with a smile, a burger, and a place you can hopefully call your home away from home.

Even when tragedy struck in the form of Hurricane Sandy leaving us as well as our neighbors struggling, it was your continued love and support that allowed us to grow and move forward.

Most of all, though, we just feel really damn lucky to be part of your lives.

All of us at Royale are looking forward to serving our beloved community for the next 10 years and we hope that you will join us.

Happy 2016,
Royale

We asked Ceraso for comment on this development.

"The Wayland supports the Royale team's decision to continue at their location on Avenue C. They have always been good neighbors and we are glad that they will continue to be for years to come," he said via email.

And as we noted yesterday, Ceraso is hosting a neighborhood meeting tonight at the Wayland, 700 E. Ninth St. at Avenue C. This meeting is still a go, though the agenda is slightly different with the Royale space off the agenda.

"We still extend our invitation to our neighbors to come and have a sit down with us at the Wayland to discuss anything and everything anyone has on their minds and to try to start a healthy dialogue between neighbors and bar owners that we hope can benefit all of us," Ceraso said. "We’ll serve some food and some drinks and hopefully make some new friends."



Previously on EV Grieve:
Wayland owners catching a Drift on Avenue C

Wayland owners now eyeing Royale space for The Drift on Avenue C

Wayland owners hosting a neighborhood Q-and-A tomorrow night about new venture at 157 Avenue C

In op-ed, Raphael Toledano says that he wants 'to make the East Village a better place'

In an article published last week, The Villager reported that the residents living in East Fifth Street buildings newly aquired by Raphael Toledano's Brook Hill Properties had "documented more than 140 interactions, altercations and outright threats by Toledano and his camp during the two-month period from this July 8 through Sept. 8."

In a Talking Point column in this week's paper, The Villager lets the 25-year-old Toledano outline his plans for the neighborhood:

The reason I chose to grow my business in this beautiful neighborhood is simple: I believe in the East Village. I am not here to transform this community, rather I am determined to become a part of the fabric of the neighborhood that so many wonderful New Yorkers call home.

And!

My plans for these buildings are simple. We want to renovate the apartments and common areas, improve the outward appearance and take suggestions from tenants for how to make the East Village the ultimate live / work / play community.

Beyond that, we are committed to making meaningful contributions to improve the welfare of the community. I have been engaged with a number of organizations to find out what we can do to help, and I look forward to announcing new partnerships in the next few weeks. But in the meantime, what you need to know is that my company is here to make the East Village a better place.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Claim: Landlord of 444 E. 13th St. threatened 'to drop dynamite on the building'

Report: State investigating East Village landlord Raphael Toledano

Report: Uncle suing nephew broker Raphael Toledano over $100 million East Village deal

Report: Raphael Toledano completes purchase of 16-building East Village portfolio

Brook Hill Properties launches chocolate offensive

More about alleged harassment and landlord visits via Brook Hill Properties

Last chance for input on the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project

[Image via]

There are two remaining design presentations and outreach sessions this week regarding the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project.

Officials will be presenting actual design alternatives that residents can provide feedback on the project, which is being designed to mitigate future climate change and flood risks along the East River.

Here's the official description of the project:

The East Side Coastal Resiliency Project is a federally funded coastal protection initiative aimed at reducing flood risk due to coastal storms and sea level rise on Manhattan's East Side from East 23rd Street to Montgomery Street.

The ESCR Project is a priority of the City of New York as outlined in the 2015 One New York: The Plan for a Strong and Just City and by the innovative Rebuild by Design competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The project design intends to integrate flood protection into the community fabric, improving access to the waterfront rather than walling off the neighborhood.

As a CB3 rep told us:

"If folks are interested in providing feedback on what the waterfront will look like for the foreseeable future, then they should attend one of these two sessions ... these sessions are the opportunity for the public to weigh in on actual design alternatives. The waterfront will never look the same again, and people deserve a right to weigh in on that decision-making process."

Presentation locations:

Tuesday, Oct. 6
5:30-7:30PM
Grand St. Settlement
80 Pitt St.

Thursday, Oct. 8
6:30-8:30PM
Washington Irving High School
40 Irving Place

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Ilyse Kazar (and Shiro)
Occupation: ‘Professional Dilettante’
Location: 4th Street between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue
Time: 6 pm on Wednesday, June 10

I’m from very far away in the nether regions of Long Island — a universe away. I moved here when I was 20, so I’ve done my major growing up here. I was going to school in Long Island and I had picked my courses out there. I came here for the summer just to experience the city — 38 years ago. It’s been a long summer.

I actually started out on the Upper West Side, but I got my first job at Phebe’s, when it used to be Phebe’s. I just fell in love with New York and I still am. I’m hanging on here in the East Village.

But more than anything it was, for me, the foundation of what this neighborhood used to be, which was an incredible network of people who formed an adoptive family. That started right of the bat for me in this neighborhood, whereas on the Upper West Side at the time, particularly in the area of Columbia University where I had my first sublet, I wasn’t feeling it at all and they weren’t feeling me. I couldn’t find a job.

Somehow just by happenstance or by fate, I ended up all the way down on 4th Street and the Bowery, and got a job. I walked in, said I was looking for a job for the summer, because that’s what I thought. I was tired of lying trying to get a job, so I just said I have no experience but I’m just here for the summer, and I got the job on the spot.

Imagine being from suburbia, having gone to a suburban high school that had tennis courts and then coming here and getting your first job in a restaurant where everyone you worked with and almost everyone that came in was an actor, a dancer, an artist, a writer, a musician, a composer. It was amazing. It wasn’t uptown art. It was that downtown spirit. I was 20 years old. I was fresh blood.

It was a community of people who were misfits, where they came from, and of course there was the continuous population of immigrants. I think there probably was always a high population of students and artists because it was just so low rent. When I moved in my apartment was $135 a month. I’ve been in the same place [ever since]. I was 20 and I have two daughters who I raised here and the baby is 22 now.

I worked at Phebe’s for a couple years and then did a number of restaurant, food and beverage service stints. Then computers came in and I picked up on that, everything from temp office work to starting my own tech business. Mainly I’ve just lived a very unstructured East Village life. I’ve raised my kids… now I’m just rethinking things. I’m the crazy lady — you might find me after a good rainstorm scavenging umbrellas. I snip the fabric off of them. I’m involved in composting, in particular with an organization called Earth Matter that’s headquartered in the Lower East Side and their facility is on Governors Island.

It’s hard to explain. It was just like a big soup pot that was spiced just right. Back in the day, which is some extent to this day, you could interact with people of every type, the person who hands you the slice of pizza, the person standing on line with you at the bodega, the people who used to be in my building. You could knock on your neighbors door and ask, do you have a Q-tip? We knew everyone by first name; we’d have dinner at each other’s houses; we raised kids together. And now I actually find with the people moving in that when you try to introduce yourself, ‘Hey I live in this apartment. I’ve lived here a long time, if you have any questions. I just want you to know who your neighbor is and knock on my door any time you need.’ They actually look at you like you’re weird and they literally back up. Who’s this strange lady talking to me?

But that’s my strongest memory of this neighborhood … that as much as there was a range of ethnic backgrounds, a certain range of income level, and everything from blue collar to complete drop outs, to well-known artists, who were all able to talk to each other. There was a lot of inspiration and cross-pollination going on.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

'Small Biz Crawl' this Saturday on 2nd Avenue

From the EVG inbox...

#SaveNYC is a grassroots, crowd-sourced, D.I.Y. movement to protect and preserve the diversity and uniqueness of the urban fabric in New York City. As our vibrant streetscapes and neighborhoods are turned into bland, suburban-style shopping malls, filled with chain stores and glossy luxury retail, #SaveNYC is fighting for small businesses and cultural institutions to remain in place.

After a disaster like the deadly Second Avenue explosion and fire, impacted small businesses struggle to survive. #SaveNYC is holding a Small Biz Crawl along Second Avenue to bring customers, cash and attention to those mom-and-pops in need. This weekend, we’ll do the western side of Second Avenue; next time, the eastern side.

Meet #SaveNYC on Saturday, April 11, at noon. We’re starting at Gem Spa on the northwest corner of Second Avenue and St. Mark’s Place. Buy your magazines, newspapers and egg creams at this first stop. From there, we’ll head down toward 7th Street. Do some gift shopping at Himalayan Visions. Then it’s lunch at the B&H Dairy or Paul’s Da Burger Joint. Your choice. After lunch, we’ll weave our way across the barricades of 7th Street to stock up on groceries at the New Yorkers Foodmarket. Please bring your #SaveNYC sign to let everyone know who we are and why we’re there. Click here to print out signs — and to find out more about #SaveNYC.

In a tweet to us yesterday, Paul's said that their business was down 75 percent since the explosion.

Other food choices on the west side of Second Avenue are Taqueria Diana and Ramen Misoya.

As for B&H, they are hopeful to be back open tomorrow.

Out and About in the East Village, Part 1

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Christopher Reisman
Occupation: Police Officer, retired
Location: 9th Precinct, 5th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue
Time: 11 a.m. on Monday, May 5

I’ve lived here since 1969 and I also used to work here. I was a cop. I grew up in the suburbs, in Westchester, and I left school early and wound up in the Army when I was 21 years old. Most of the guys who I was hanging out with there were from New York.

I got out after three years — two years, 11 months and 14 days. I knocked around for a little while and came over to the neighborhood when I was 25. When I was in college I used to come around here for music. I used to listen to a lot of music. You had the Five Spot on 5th Street and then they moved up to St. Marks. You had Port of Call East, East Village Inn, Pee Wee’s, Slug’s.

The area always intrigued me. It has always been unusual. The area was unique in the city for a number of reasons. It had been crushed by urban renewal. There was a very strong neighborhood identification in those days. There were Polish blocks and Italian blocks and Ukrainian Blocks. For the most part, the Jewish families were gone by then. In those days, nobody owned the entire neighborhood. They might have owned their own blocks, but no one group was strong enough to bully the others. If you were going to be a bully you had to stay on your own block. It was almost exclusively blue collar. By the late ‘60s people were starting to be damaged by the war.

As in most communities, the low level criminality was always the cottage industry — selling little pieces of dope or betting on the numbers. Socially, everybody stood down from whatever their position or status was. I remember in Phebe's you’d see cops, actors, firemen, dancers, kids from Chinese youth gangs, and Hells Angels all drinking together, because nobody was in charge. That was the deal.

There were a lot of people involved in the arts because they could afford to live here and work some little job to pay the rent and then practice the rest of the time. It was always to a degree bohemian. It was inexpensive. It was a community that did not for the most part sit and judge you. Everybody had a place as long as you didn’t impose yourself on people.

I knew Hilly Kristal, the guy that owned CBGB. That was an interesting place. It was kind of a sentiment of the times too There were some of us who drank at his other bars — he had a bar on West 9th Street and another bar on West 13th Street, and those were part of the nightlife. We all knew each other and long story short, the night before he opened Hilly’s on the Bowery, typically, he was not ready to open. He still had to put down the floor, which he had neglected to do. So it was me, my roommate who was an electrician, a waiter, and one of his bartenders, and we laid the floor the night before he opened, for a bar tab. This was probably in ‘73 or ’74.

When I joined the cops, I kind of engineered my assignment here, and I wasn’t disappointed. I worked at the 9th Precinct and I first started in May 1969. You had an area where there wasn’t a lot of money and there was certainly very little affluence. For the most part it was not considered a choice assignment. As a matter of fact, very often, cops who couldn’t be punished would be assigned here under the theory of how much harm can they do?

Beginning in the late 1960s, drugs started to erode the social fabric of the neighborhood. I didn’t have any basis for comparison because I hadn’t lived here before, but it became very obvious that this was increasing. There was also a little street culture here, for everybody, in the sense that most people lived in very small apartments, but they lived with their whole families and there was no air conditioning.

Consequently, any opportunity they could get out the apartment was a good thing. So people literally lived on the sidewalks. It was either that or go to a gin mill. It was much, much tougher. Jail was not a unique experience. The sensibilities and sensitivities of incarceration were pretty much evident on the street. If you stepped on somebody’s foot and didn’t sincerely apologize, you’d probably get badly hurt.

We came right during a social change, for us as well, because the department and the city were changing rapidly. The older fellows… we learned from some of the smartest cops in the city, because they had defeated the police department. There were some very creative and intelligent men. Many of them were veterans from the Korean War and several World War II vets. They were all from the city. And then there were the people that you didn’t want to spend any time with.

In those days you worked around the clock. We used to say, if you want to [sleep on the job] it was pretty safe in the daytime, you could go to sleep, because nothing was going to happen. From 10 at night to seven in the morning it was usually pretty busy. They called it the three-platoon system. The first platoon was from midnight to eight, the second was the day shift, and the third platoon was four pm to midnight, and it changed every week. Consequently, you were always sleep deprived.

As time went on you’d probably end up in a job where your hours were a little more regular, but by that time your children were already grown, and your wife was already completely estranged. It was tough that way. There was a very intelligent reform, maybe around the late ‘70s, when they gave cops the opportunity to pick their hours. It also gave them an opportunity to get side jobs, because when you worked around the clock it became very difficult to get a part-time job.

For a cop to get a side job they had to submit a request and identify the employer, get permission and almost always the conditions were impossible, so the cops would take the job on the side and hope they didn’t get caught, cause you had to. I was making a $112 a week, but I was single. If you had a family, you couldn’t do it. Now you had a choice. You either had a part time job or you get cozy with somebody who was going to give you money. In many cases, to some extent it was deliberate by the powers that be. Jimmy Walker had a famous saying when somebody came up to him and said the cops want a raise. He said, ‘Let them get their own raise.’

When I came on the job the police department was very conservative, and part of it still is today. A policeman was fired because he was living in sin with his girlfriend. If you were working here, everybody in the whole world is doing it. The irony was very often that the cops were expected to respect the rights of the individual that they themselves were not entitled.

The early ‘70s was at a time where the police department as a whole was very passive. If you were in uniform and arrested a man for narcotics, the cop would be investigated automatically. If you had too many of these they assumed you were a crook. The official orders would be, if you see narcotics, do not take action. So the public sees me walking by a drug dealer and thinks I’m corrupt. Out of an effort to be genuinely pristine, the job inadvertently created a mass corruption image. So Tompkins Square Park was the result of this type of a free zone, which was really sad for the people that had no other place to be. It was pretty much no blood, no foul.

For the most part, I always worked at night. I worked what was called the public morals, which was called the vice squad. I was assigned to the career criminal apprehension unit. I did that for three years and then went into detective work. I was what they called an active cop. I made a lot of arrests.

We would get what you’d call a kite from a precinct commander, ‘there’s a bookie and he’s working out of candy store x’. We’d go in and place bets and so on. When we started here we didn’t have radios. When you worked the foot post you worked by yourself and it was very instructive because you had to learn how to cope with whatever was going on by yourself without any help. It was only your reputation or how you presented yourself initially that enabled you to do anything at all so you stayed alive.

Burglaries were certainly prevalent. We used to wonder whether there were more than five television sets in the entire precinct, because they would be stolen and resold everyday, which was particularly savage because it was almost always poor people being robbed. The poor people were at the mercy of the vestiges of the middle class and the upper class. Polite solutions were imposed on situations that just didn’t work.

Everybody has watched television, and so everybody knows about crime and how that works and how institutional corruption works, but they don’t have a clue. It’s not their fault. They’ve been educated to think that they know. So this also created problems for us, not the least of which was that none of us have a 26-minute solution to a problem. It’s much more dull and much more unsatisfactory.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

In Part 2, Christopher Reisman talks about the murder of his partner in 1975.

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher
Names: Kathy Kemp (left) and Kimberle Vogan
Occupations: Clothing designer/owner, employee at Anna
Location: Anna, 11th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave.
Time: Friday, May 2 at 4:30 pm

Kathy: I’m from outside of Reading, Pennsylvania. It was a pretty small town. I usually just tell people I’m from Philadelphia. I was 23 when I moved to Philadelphia. I went to college there and studied cultural anthropology and then I didn’t know what I was doing, so I moved here with a friend.

I never was drawn to New York City or the East Village but I was always interested. Somehow I landed here. I knew I wanted to do something in fashion but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had friends who were stylists and then someone said to me, ‘You should just do something that you love. Think about what you love and what you are good at.’ I thought, ‘Well, I’ve always made clothing and I know how to sew really well. I love shopping. I’ll open a store!’

What a great idea, because I didn’t have any money at all, but I looked around and found a place on East 3rd Street in 1995. Then it was definitely doable; there were people doing it all over. It was stupid and easy if you wanted to take the chance. If you just wanted to, you could blow the $3,000 that you had, go have fun, and meet a lot of new people and connections. Now you can’t even do that. I feel really sorry for people today who want to do this, because it’s almost impossible to do it these days.

I had less than $5,000 dollars and my rent was $600 to start but the catch was that my store used to be a drug-dealing place that sold cocaine and pot. The place had just been busted; it was broken apart. It used to be called Village Bikes — a bike shop that wasn’t really a bike shop. I walked in there and the police must have smashed everything, including the electrical box. We went back to the bathroom area and the toilet was completely smashed down to the sewer line. The only other thing that was in the space, besides smashed-up stuff and graffiti and old, smashed up florescent lights, was this huge mound of bikes in the middle, to make it a convincing bike store to be in. I had to clear those away and underneath all of the bikes was a giant hole in the floor that you could see the basement through. That was why it was $600 a month.

Then after I opened my store, for like 10 years afterwards, people used to come in and ask, ‘Is this the bike shop?’ I’d have to say, ‘No, this is a clothing shop.’ And then they’d ask, ‘Oh, well… do you sell bike parts?’ Ironically enough, the bike people had moved to the tire shop down the street. There was a tire shop where the Snack Dragon is now.

Kimberle: If your friend came into town and they got their car broken into you could just go to the tire shop and be like, ‘Yo, can we at least have the luggage back? Can you just keep what’s in it?’ And they’d be like, ‘Well, if you go down to Avenue D on the corner and look in the garbage can, it might be there.’ So you could go there to pick up your lost stolen belongings.

Kathy: People would get meth around the corner and some people would sell it on 3rd Street right out front. They’d go into the phone booths and leave the drugs in a paper bag. They all knew that nobody normal was going into a phone booth these days. Then the next person would come along and pick up the paper bag.

Kimberle: Every Monday and Friday were Meth Monday and Friday. I would go outside and just start sweeping really big and they’d plead me to stop.

Kathy: When I think about it, I was really stupid when I opened up the store, but I was also very, very lucky. I never would have done it knowing everything that I learned the hard way for 20 years. I was lucky because I landed in this spot. It was the 1990s in the East Village. Everyone was so supportive. It seemed like I landed in freelance central, where I was surrounded by writers, so people wrote about me, and stylists, who were walking home from pulling for their jobs and got stuff from my store. Even makeup and hair people would kidnap me and do makeovers on me. It was like a dream.

The first day that I opened my store so many great and amazing people came in that I left thinking it was too good to be true. I left thinking the store was going to burn down because this couldn’t be happening. It was the opposite vibe of now, where everyone walks around seeing what’s closed. It was, what’s new, what’s going on, what’s that going to be?

I opened up at 12 or 1 at the time. I was a workaholic when I first opened. I love the city so much I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t leave for three years at all until I met my husband. I’d wake up and work, do all my fabric sourcing and stuff and I’d go to work and a lot of people from the neighborhood would roll out of bed right as I was opening my gates. People would come in and have their coffee with me. It was really, really cool. A lot of the same people have shopped here since then.

Kimberle: It was like a therapist’s office. Lots of neighborhood people would come in to talk. I’ve worked with Kathy off and on for 17 years, but I shopped here every day for 3 years before I started working here. I was one of the crazies. Every day I shopped here because she got things in all of the time and for a lot of the pieces there are only one or two or three of them, so you want to know what she’s doing and you want that piece. I would come in everyday after work to look for what to wear to work the next day.

Kathy: I design all the clothes now but when I first opened up I was a vintage shop. I immediately realized that if you have a vintage shop, then everyone wants the same thing, so I just started changing everything to look like that one thing. For instance, one of the items that we did was dyed slips. We started dying slips in crazy colors. We dyed them day-glow colors. People were just crazy then. People would come in and would be going out to clubs at night and would want to wear something that was crazy. When I design something, I usually buy the fabric and make the sample on a mannequin or myself and then I give it to my sample maker who I’ve been working with for 17 years. I design everything except the jewelry.

Kimberle: I remember back in the day, it wasn’t always about going home to get ready to go out and planned out like that. You either worked or you didn’t work in the daytime, and if you did or didn’t, you just went over to a coffee shop like Café Limbo and hung out. Sometimes they’d have a sale, and then you might go down and have some Sushi at Avenue A Sushi. You’d go there and get sushi and then you’d go to Anna and somewhere else and you’d pick your outfit.

Kathy: Everyone was trying to outdo everyone, but not in a competitive way — just because it was fun.

We moved to 11th Street nearly two years ago. I loved 3rd Street and I missed my neighbors. It’s hard for me to change. I’m someone who resists change.

Kimberle: Moving to this street seems like a big upgrade to a lot of people. “Wow, you’re on shopping alley and you have all this space.” On 3rd Street we didn’t have a bathroom or a dressing room but it was home. It was the people who came there that made it home. We used to have people just walk around the store in their bras. There would be like 5 people just in their bras. They were comfortable. Those people come here now and it feels like being in a mansion. They want to take their clothes off in the middle of the store and we’re like, ‘there’s a dressing room now.’

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Local politicians call on SantaCon ' to adopt good-neighbor principles'

[Dave on 7th, from 2011]

From the EV Grieve inbox…soundbite alert!

Coalition of Local Elected Officials Calls on SantaCon to Adopt Good-Neighbor Principles

New York, NY – Today, New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, along with State Senators Liz Krueger and Daniel Squadron, Assembly Members Richard Gottfried, Deborah J. Glick and Brian Kavanagh, and City Council Members Daniel Garodnick, Rosie Mendez and Margaret S. Chin, announced a set of principles organizers must follow to rein in the annual scourge known as SantaCon. During this massive pub crawl, thousands of participants dressed as Santa Claus overwhelm neighborhoods, violating numerous laws and regulations and creating major hazards to public safety along the way.

The coalition of officials recognize that SantaCon may be a short-term boon to a select group of local businesses, but it imparts many adverse impacts, such as vomiting in the streets, public urination, vandalism and littering. In a letter sent today, the officials requested that SantaCon adhere to the following three principles:

1) Make public and follow defined routes;

2) Ensure respectful participants; and

3) Implement a comprehensive safety plan.


“What should be a frivolous and lighthearted event has become little more than a costumed parade of drunken lawbreaking,” said Senator Hoylman. “Any large event in New York has to be respectful of its surrounding community. To avoid ending up on the naughty list again, SantaCon organizers must adopt these principles and maintain an orderly event.”

The coalition letter reiterated a request that Senator Hoylman made to SantaCon organizers last month to work with local Community Boards and the New York City Police Department to identify ways the event can significantly mitigate its impact on the communities it visits. Despite assurances from SantaCon organizers that they would work with the NYPD, no details have been made public.

“For hundreds of years merry-making in taverns, beer halls and bars has been part of the fabric of life in our city, but there’s nothing merry about a costumed, abusive crowd wandering the streets spreading mayhem,” said Senator Liz Krueger. “If SantaCon’s organizers want to spread cheer instead of fear in our neighborhoods this holiday season, they’ve got some work to do.”

“’A group of drunks in Santa suits walk into a bar’ might sound like the start of a joke, but there's nothing funny about SantaCon,” said Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, who represents Hell's Kitchen/Clinton. “If the organizers and participating bars can't protect the public, the police and the State Liquor Authority need to act.”

“Our communities have suffered by the actions of participants of SantaCon for too many years. While I appreciate patronage to small, local businesses, this event does so at the expense of public health and safety of participants and community members. A thoughtful, public plan must be established and made available,” said Assembly Member Deborah J. Glick.

“Dress as Santa to go drinking if you must, but you’d BETTER be good, for goodness sake,” said Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh.

“Anytime we have a large, organized event in New York City, we need to ensure that the NYPD and local communities know what to expect,” said Council Member Dan Garodnick. “We are looking to the organizers to develop a plan that allows the fun to continue while respecting the rest of the community.”

“We have made a list of guiding principles for this year’s SantaCon—and we’re checking it twice. While everyone appreciates holiday cheer, it is important that the organizers and participants respect the surrounding neighborhood and work toward a festive but safe event,” said Council Member Margaret S. Chin.

Reactions?

The Strand using sprinklers to evict the homeless — now in comic form

As DNAinfo first reported yesterday, the Strand installed an outdoor sprinkler system to drive away homeless people sleeping under their red awning along East 12th Street, according to employees. (Management had said the sprinklers were there to clean off the sidewalk.)

The incident prompted Strand employee Greg Farrell to draw a comic based on his firsthand experience of the situation.

The comic is posted at the blog "Strand Ask Us," a nine-part account of the labor struggle that took place between the workers and management at the bookstore in the spring of 2012. (A book on this is due next year from Microcosm publishing.)

Farrell said that the sprinklers were installed this past summer. "So, in fairness, there was no risk of anybody freezing to death at the time."

Updated 2:17
At Vanishing New York, Jeremiah Moss discusses the sprinkler situation ...:

So many of the corporations in the city do horrible, inhumane things every day, on a much larger, often global scale, than spraying water on the homeless. Boycott the businesses that rely on sweatshop and child labor. Boycott the businesses that commit horrifying daily acts of animal cruelty. Boycott the businesses that deliberately destroy the fabric of our communities--and our environment. Do not boycott the Strand. To attack the Strand and not Apple, Amazon, The Gap, and others like them, is a gross misplacement of anger and energy.

De-Flea Market today at Double Down Saloon

Via the EVG inbox...

Socially conscious, savvy shopping, mingling, & festive fun to welcome Summer & support Oklahoma Animal Rescue!

This Summertime Edition will be an Outdoor/Indoor Artist Flea Market held in Double Down Saloon's beautiful & spacious graffiti art backyard, which is a hidden urban oasis. We will also have vendors inside the bar, featured in their their newly built game room!

****3 TILL 8PM****

-Healing gemstone jewelry from resident gypsy Anais L'Amour
-Punk crafts and vintage finds from Our Lady of Perpetual PMS
-Reese Rox Chinese knotted jewelry & decopage punk gift boxes
-LuCrafts: fabric/paper collaged light switch plates, magnets, kitschy creations
-Tony Limico's homemade Kim Chi
-Handmade soy candles & captivating home scents by Amanda Wood of Amanda's Pouty Palette
-Taylor Bowen's punk art & paintings
-Tina Portilla's incredible crocheted creations
-Vintage clothing by Divaqueen Kathleen
-Quirky Jewelry by Eileen of e.i Works
-Rez Barquet's hand painted signs & art
-Nordea McKoy's homemade soaps

Find more info on the Facebook event page.

Opposition to The Living Room moving to East Second Street

[Photo by Edward Arrocha]

The Living Room is on tonight's CB3/SLA committee docket. The Ludlow Street venue — dubbed "NYC's Best Acoustic Listening Room" on their Facebook page — is looking to take over the space on East Second Street that currently houses Klean & Kleaner, the laundromat that has lost its lease and is expected to close very soon.

We've covered all this before. A quick recap:

This potential Living Room move was a topic of conversation during a community meeting back in March. Co-owner Jennifer Gilson attended that meeting, and made her case on why the Living Room would be a good neighbor, such as shows for kids, use of the space for neighborhood fund-raisers and no pub crawls.

However, from the meeting, East Second Street residents said that they are "vehemently opposed to the possibility of The Living Room" in that space for a variety of reasons, including:

• East 2nd Street is a residential side street whose residents include a large number of seniors and families with young children.
• As a residential street, we already endure excessive noise due to late night crowds from the many bars and restaurants already on our block and nearby.
• While we believe The Living Room is a wonderful part of the cultural fabric of New York City, its presence at 173 East 2nd Street will severely and negatively impact our quality of life.

Ahead of tonight's meeting, someone placed these flyers along East Second Street between Avenue A and Avenue B encouraging people to come out against the Living Room's plans tonight ... a reader sent this one from inside his building on that block...



We've also heard from people who very much want to see The Living Room stay in these parts ... instead of being pushed to Brooklyn. The Living Room currently has a lease on Ludlow Street through August, as BoweryBoogie has noted.

Previously.

Get your Load OUT tomorrow on East 3rd Street

From the EV Grieve inbox... via Fourth Arts Block...

Load OUT!
A Reuse and Repurposing RIOT

Saturday, 12-3PM

Location:
19 East 3rd Street
Between Bowery and 2nd Avenue

FREE E-Waste & Clothing/Textile Collection:
By Lower East Side Ecology Center and GrowNYC / Wearable Collections, April 6th, 12-3PM.

Admission to Load OUT!:
FREE admission for artists and art students
$5 for the general public

At Load OUT!, enjoy an afternoon of repurposing and recycling activities that showcase creative thinking about sustainability and the arts!

GET: Attendees are invited to take home all the donated costumes, props, and furniture they find. Artists are invited to participate for free. The general public will be charged a $5 entrance fee to participate. Whatever you decide to take away with you is FREE of charge.

GIVE: Load Out! also features clothing, textile and e-waste community collections — all open and free for everyone. A full list of accepted donations and other art-related activities is available below. Call 212-228-4670 ASAP to schedule an early donation.

For more details here.

Find articles about this year's event at DNAinfo and Gothamist.

Also.

Artist Amanda Browder will be working with FABnyc for the next few months to create a new piece that will cover a building on East 4th Street. DONATE FABRIC during Load OUT! for Amanda's project. Here are some suggested fabrics that you can donate for the project:

*Cotton, stiff fabrics that are not stretchy (flannel, wool, polyester, etc.)
*Colorful or striking patterns
*Bigger sections than a 1ft square — small scraps are always welcome, but the big stuff is useful.

[Image via Fourth Arts Block]

Some East 2nd Street residents want a laundromat, but not a Living Room

The Living Room received another lease extension for their current home on Ludlow Street, as BoweryBoogie reported yesterday. Third extension in as many months for the live music venue.

Meanwhile, the folks from The Living Room are moving forward with plans to find a new home on East Second Street. As we reported last September, Klean & Kleaner, the laundromat at 173 E. Second St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, was on the market for use as a bar or restaurant.

This potential Living Room move was a topic of conversation during a recent community meeting. Co-owner Jennifer Gilson attended that meeting, and made her case on why the Living Room would be a good neighbor, such as shows for kids, use of the space for neighborhood fund-raisers and no pub crawls.

However, from the meeting, East Second Street residents said that they are "vehemently opposed to the possibility of The Living Room" in that space for a variety of reasons, including:

• East 2nd Street is a residential side street whose residents include a large number of seniors and families with young children.
• As a residential street, we already endure excessive noise due to late night crowds from the many bars and restaurants already on our block and nearby.
• While we believe The Living Room is a wonderful part of the cultural fabric of New York City, its presence at 173 East 2nd Street will severely and negatively impact our quality of life.

The Living Room will go before the CB3/SLA committee next Monday. Gilson told BoweryBoogie:

Of course there’s a good chance that if they block our liquor license, another less-neighborhood friendly business with less community history will take the space.

[On April 8] I will argue why after 15 years of enhancing the quality of life by hosting great music, kids shows, fundraisers, theater, etc., I should be able to stay in my neighborhood, which I helped to transform, and not be pushed to Brooklyn…

One 18-year resident of the block told us in an email that he didn't have problems with The Living Room, "but I'd much rather keep the place as a laundromat."

Of course, the landlord has different ideas...