The EV Grieve cooling center

From the blizzardpalooza this past February... a few shots of Tompkins Square Park for this 100-degree (or so!) day ....

More vintage doom: Beauty Crisis is closing

Another thrift/vintage store is closing in the East Village...Beauty Crisis on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue is wrapping it up in the next two weeks...




[Many thanks to EV Grieve reader Blue Glass for the tip and photos.]

Meanwhile, the vintage carnage continues...among the closures this year:

Monk Thrift Shop on Avenue B

Atomic Passion on Ninth Street

O Mistress Mine on 11th Street

Andy's Chee-Pees on St. Mark's Place

Fab 208 is moving into a smaller space on Seventh Street

Not to mention previous closings:
Love Saves the Day
Howdy Do
99X

Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village vintage stores doomed?

Atomic Passion has closed

The East Village continues to lose retail diversity

More small businesses continue to close...



City Copies on Seventh Street between Second Avenue and First Avenue closed about one week ago. An EV Grieve reader noted the friendly owner. "I'd go in and he'd call me 'friend.' He knew what I needed." According to the reader, the owner could no longer pay the rent and the high taxes.

And this is an awfully big space...likely destined to become some kind of specialty food joint to fit alongside the other eateries down on Seventh Street...



The barbershop at 150 E. Second St. near Avenue A is gone... (This shares the address with Nicky's, which will move...)



And Village Fabrics on First Avenue and 11th Street is on the way out... there's a "for rent" sign above the store now...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Of the 147 storefronts on Avenue A, 70 of them are bars, restaurants or vacant

Something other than a bar opening on Avenue A between 10th and 11th Streets

Next door to the Horus Cafe. Workers on the scene said that it will be a hair salon.

The East Village is officially well-represented in the nail/skin salon category

Nothing against nail/skin salons. But. I'd argue that there are enough of them now in the East Village to keep our nails and pores nice and pretty for some time...

A new skin salon is opening is opening on Second Avenue near Fourth Street (a few doors away from a recently renovated salon...)



Meanwhile, new salons recently opened on Fifth Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square ...



and Seventh Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue ...

165 Avenue A being prepped for a bar/restaurant?

Speaking of this stretch of Avenue A... several residents have said that 165, the former home of the Monk Thrift Shop, is being turned into a bar/restaurant...



The space is adjacent to Diablo Royale Este. Nothing from the DOB suggests that a restaurant is (legally) in the works...

Even Duane Reade wants to be a bar in the East Village

Everyone is getting in on the act! Ha, OK...so Duane Reade outlets have sold beer for awhile now...



However, the DR brass has decided to advertise now, like here at Avenue B and Second Street...

EV Grieve Eatery Etc.: The 13th Step's sign; the Stage's holiday

Noted, outside Cheap Shots (or, Spanky and Darla's) on First Avenue...



Noted, outside the Pig on Seventh Street on July 4...



There's an opening-night party at the 13th Step tonight... I was kindly given an invite to stop by too...



And don't be alarmed to see the Stage closed for awhile...



..they're just taking a summer break...

Same time next year

And from James and Karla Murray, a shot of some East Village fireworks from last night...



[Photo via James and Karla Murray Photography]

Seems like a nice way to end a holiday weekend

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Shawn Chittle for the photo.

NYC's shifting demographics, and the vanishing middle class

I'm catching up on some news...The Times noted that for the first time since the 1970s, a majority of Manhattan's population is non-Hispanic white. According to census figures examined by the paper, the white share of the population rose to 51 percent last year from 40 percent in the 1990s. The rest of the borough's residents were 24 percent Hispanic, 14 percent black and 11 percent Asian.

Per the Times:

Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, expressed concern that the "conflation of luxury development and good strong public housing stock" means that "that the borough is becoming a place for very, very wealthy people and enclaves for poor people and that middle-income people are finding it impossible to stay here."

[Image via]

Noted

From the Page Six "Sightings" today:

Scarlett Johansson, in a fedora and thick, black-rimmed glasses, playing pool at Lucy's in the East Village . . .

Noted

At the L stop on First Avenue and 14th Street.

Nighthawks... and Nighthawks

Remember Jeremiah's series on looking for Hopper's Nighthawks? He wrote a condensed version of it for the Times... and his op-ed appears there today.

Meanwhile! Speaking of Nighthawks...reminds me that I haven't seen "Nighthawks," the surprisingly decent Sly Stallone-Rutger Hauer thriller from 1981 in years....it features a climatic scene aboard the Roosevelt Island tram...



(Image via Roosevelt Island 360 ... where you can read more about the movie...)

The CBGB saga continues

For those of you following the CBGB Estate-Buyer saga... Karate Boogaloo has more on it... As KB notes: "I find it very difficult to believe that anyone could purchase a brand name like CBGB, and NOT be able to do something...anything...with it."

[Image via.]

First Street, 10:21 a.m., July 4

You've been warned! And I am taking names!

Good way to make "up to" $1,000... narc on your friends with fireworks from their visit to South Carolina. And what is in that cup there? Hope that it's not a urine sample. 13th Street and Avenue A.

Greetings

From the incomparable Blarney Cove.

More photos from yesterday's German-themed Avenue C street fair

So anyway, as I mentioned yesterday, German fans were in a celebratory mood after beating Argentina 4-zip in the World Cup. Some fans watching the match at Zum Schnieder, Alphabet City Lounge, Kafana, Arcane and the Porch all converged. A fire truck arrived... and the firefighters good-naturedly joined in the celebration, honking the truck horn and waving a German flag. And posing for photos. When a few fans jumped on top of the truck, the firefighters quickly made them get down... The entire celebration all seemed pretty harmless and went on for about 15 minutes...














Previously on EV Grieve:
Avenue C is for...crazy German fans

Ray's delivery team to be featured on Fox tonight

[Photo via Bob Arihood]

Bob Arihood sent us a note saying that the Ray's delivery team will be featured tonight on the Fox News channel at 9 (Fox News is Channel 44 on Time Warner.) The delivery team will be roughly 1/3 of the program that will be hosted by John Stossel. The program will air again tomorrow night at 9.