Thursday, October 27, 2011

Saddened that Cooper Union is helping to destroy the neighborhood

From the EV Grieve inbox ... reaction from the Cooper Square Committee about Cooper Union's rejection of a rent decrease for St. Mark's Bookshop...


[JVNY]

While Cooper Union's negative decision is a disappointment, the Cooper Square Committee remain committed and vows to increase its efforts to ensure that the St. Marks Bookshop will not become another casualty of the economy. Cooper Union is the landlord for the St Mark's Bookshop.

On Tuesday, October 25, 2011, three separate meetings took place regarding the St. Mark's Bookshop. The bookshop is one of the few remaining independent bookstores in NYC and it is in severe financial crisis. It has requested a rent reduction of $5,000 from the monthly rent of $20,000, which would allow it to continue operating and serving the community.

The first meeting was an impromptu meeting of three representatives of the Cooper Square Committee and Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha, initiated when the Committee delivered 43,630 signed petitions to his office in support of St. Mark's Bookshop.

The second meeting took place later in the day between the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop and T.C. Wescott, a Cooper Union Vice President. During this meeting, it was confirmed that Cooper Union would not agree to a reduction in rent.

The third meeting took place at the bookshop with Jamshed Bharucha and T.C. Wescott shortly after the bookstore owners returned to the bookshop. At this follow-up meeting they reiterated that they could not reduce the $20,000 monthly rent.

Joyce Ravitz, chair of the Cooper Square Committee, a Lower East Side neighborhood preservation organization, notes that Cooper Union originally offered the St. Mark's Bookshop favorable terms on its lease in 1993 as a good will gesture at a time when the Cooper Union's expansion of its dormitories had angered the neighborhood. The rent has since gone to $20,000 with built-in yearly raises.

Property values have skyrocketed in this neighborhood partly because of institutions like theaters and bookshops. We had hoped Cooper Union would play a role in stabilizing and preserving the character of the Lower East Side, and are saddened that it seems to be choosing to help destroy it.

It's ironic that Cooper Union touts its proximity to neighborhood bookstores as one of its attractions.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah Moss has started a petition to boycott any business that moves into the space at 31 Third Avenue should St. Mark's Books be forced to close. You can find the petition here.

As he writes:

Sign the petition if you love St. Mark's Books. Sign it if you just love books. Sign it if you're sick and tired of watching New York City's cultural touchstones go down the toilet day after day. Sign it if you miss the East Village before it became a frat house. Sign it if you don't like the way Cooper Union contributes to real estate overdevelopment in the neighborhood. Sign it if you hate having a bank on every corner and a chain store on every other.

Iconic St. Mark's lions not going anywhere — just being obscured by new trash cans

Oh, just a quick follow-up from Tuesday's post on the iconic lions at 96 St. Mark's Place... they're just partially being buried behind a new trash contraption, that's all...

[Photo by Nat Esten]

An appreciation: Yonah Schimmel's dumbwaiter

Stopped by Yonah Schimmel on Houston the other day... always a pleasure...


The dumbwaiter has been in operation for more than 100 years...


How many other dumbwaiters are still in use in NYC bars/restaurants? Old Town has the oldest in operation... Are there others?

Subtle changes at the Mystery Lot, kind of; plus, another Ode!

Since The Real Deal reported last week that a developer had purchased the Mystery Lot, we've been getting card, letters and questions about the Mystery Lot.

For instance: Have you noticed any changes at the Lot?

Why yes. There's is a newish lock and chain on one of the gates...


...and the fence along the 13th Street side now has these supporty things ...



Moving forward, we will be camped out at the three units here at the back of 123 Third Ave. with balconies overlooking the site...



Hope that the residents don't mind.

And now, another reader submitted Ode to the Mystery Lot poem, or something. Via Cheeks:

To the tune of Like A Prayer, by Madonna...

The Lot is a mystery
The Monster must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home


Meanwhile, the other day, Off the Grid had a post about a public hanging here back in 1824.

Last-minute Halloween costume ideas


Think I'll go for the pedophile-friendly "sweet li'l treat."


Actually, this year, I'm going as an Illegal Rooftop Addition.

EV Grieve mosaic

Thank you to Jim Power, aka Mosaic Man, for including EV Grieve on his under-renovation mosaic on the southwest corner of St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue...


Who says that the East Village is no longer a bohemian mecca?


Item: Recent New York Times article on the St. Mark's Bookshop, which opened in 1977...

[Co-owner Bob] Contant acknowledged that the East Village was no longer the bohemian mecca where he and four partners ... had chosen to open their business, in a 600-square-foot storefront at 13 St. Mark’s Place that rented for $375. At the time, Mr. Conant’s apartment was $63 a month. When he moved a few years later to nicer digs with a fireplace, his rent soared to $120.

Item: Forwarded by an EV Grieve reader...via Thrillist...

Scoff at ordinary serving sizes and gird yourself for glorious gluttony from Avenue C’s flatscreen-’n-football fortress East Village Tavern.

Anytime Feast for 1: Individually assault a 90 min barrage of all the under-$7 craft brews you can slug from an ever-rotating tap selection, plus unlimited grub in the form of 5 types of sliders, or mac ‘n cheese flecked with bacon, sausage, beef, or vegetables, just like you'll be after such a heart-stopping meal.

Game Day Party for 4: Normally $184, you and 3 amigos will crush 90 min of your choice of drafts plus endless buffalo wings & fries, kicked off with a plate of Tavern’s lip-smacking pulled pork, Philly cheese, and beef sliders.

Oh.

Casimir starting a burlesque night; launching a mini-fondue bar

From the EV Grieve inbox...

[Peekaboo Point]

Starting Oct. 27 at 10 pm, East Village French bistro Casimir will host “Thursday Night Burlesque,” an evening of titillating entertainment sure to astound and delight. Join performers Peekaboo Pointe for classic burlesque, Russian contortionist Miss E. Katarina and exotic fan dancer Jezabel Express for saucy and sizzling fun – and admission is free! It’s the perfect way to kick off your weekend.

Every Thursday Night Starting October 27, 2011
10 pm
Free Admission

Featuring
Peekaboo Pointe - Classic Burlesque
Miss E. Katarina - Contortion (Russian)
Jezabel Express - Fan Dance

Also....

Date of Opening: November 9 or November 10

The former Moroccan Lounge at East Village French institution Casimir will be transformed into Casimir Fondue. The cozy 35-seat annex to the main restaurant will operate as a fondue-only min-restaurant featuring cheese, meat and chocolate fondue. New décor highlights the warmth of the space, making it the perfect backdrop for Casimir Fondue’s indulgent offerings. This new and exciting concept is the brainchild of new management that is poised to reinvigorate the restaurant, an early pioneer of the East Village dining renaissance. New owner Mario Carta has amassed over a decade of expertise managing and developing restaurant concepts which he plans to utilize in this his latest endeavor.

On Avenue B between Seventh Street and Sixth Street...

[Image via]

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Oh, the Kenneth Cole bus is here


On Seventh Street ... via Dave on 7th.

Not so nice: Demolishing XOXO on Second Avenue

The Death Watch continues along the 11-17 Second Avenue, where the low-lying buildings will soon be pulverized to make way for a 12-story apartment building.

[Bobby Williams]

Meanwhile, EV Grieve reader Steve Carter sent us some photos of when workers demolished the other side of East First Street in 1997 to make way for the sterile, glassy hell of Avalon Bowery Place... and back in the day before sidewalk sheds and construction netting...


XOXO at 19 Second Ave. was Julius Klein's performance space and gallery — things that developers don't have much use for...






And today, of course...

[Updated] Letters about St. Mark's Bookshop; and an uncertain future

From the EV Grieve inbox ... a compilation of letters sent to President Bharucha of The Cooper Union on behalf of St. Mark's Bookshop....


Dear President Bharucha

Like many admirers of the Cooper Union I have been very disturbed by the thought that you may force the St Mark's Bookshop to close by imposing rents on them which they cannot pay. The St Mark's Bookshop is as much a New York institution as the Cooper Union is. I urge you not to make this irreversible cultural mistake.

Please reduce the bookshop rent to $15,000 a month until the economy improves. To destroy one of the city's last, great independent stores for the sake of what to you would be a paltry increase in income would be ... if I may say this as someone who has been proud to appear in the Great Hall on many occasions, and to bring the PEN World Voices Festival there ... unforgivable.

Many of us care about this deeply. Save the St Mark's Bookshop. Please.

With my best wishes,

Salman Rushdie.

Dear President Bharucha:

My father is an artist and taught at Cooper Union in the early 1960s and I have lived in the East Village since 1986. I've been a patron of St. Mark's Bookshop when it was located on St. Mark's Place and then when it moved to its current location. I walk by Cooper Union several times a day, always proud that my family was part of its legacy.

I am surprised and disappointed that a community has had to launch a campaign to urge you to reduce the rent of St. Mark's Bookstore, and to now learn that you are still about to make a decision. You should not have had to think twice about this. It's the right thing to do.

The bookstore is a vital, vibrant part of this community, a community that has changed dramatically over the past two decades. The neighborhood is in danger of becoming just like all the other neighborhoods in New York, beholden to those with deep pockets but sorely lacking the artistic and creative qualities that have made the East Village the most special of places, and that give it literary and artistic value. Surely Cooper Union--dedicated to the arts, architecture and humanities--can understand this. Surely, as an icon in schools promoting the importance of visual thinking, you can understand the power of symbols?

My father and I were dismayed to learn that you will not reduce the bookshop's rent by $5,000 a month during hard economic times. What does Cooper Union stand for? A school that does not charge tuition to its students--one of the best schools in the country in what used to be the most arts-friendly neighborhoods in the nation? Please stay true to your founding values and reduce the rent of this worthy bookstore.


Heidi Boghosian
Avenue A
New York NY

Dear President of Cooper Union,


As a novelist based in downtown Manhattan for thirty years I'm desperately worried by the idea that St. Mark's may be lost because of the high rent imposed by Cooper Union. Surely everything Cooper Union stands for would seem to insist that this unique bookstore must survive. I'm far from alone in saying that from my earliest years as a writer in New York I've largely educated myself by means of what I've found on St Mark's shelves: the classics and contemporary works I knew I needed, and a host of unusual and unexpected works I didn't know I needed, but which proved invaluable for my literary and intellectual development. St Mark's has been both a library and an informal meeting place for decades of my life as a writer here.

To allow St Mark's to die would be a serious blow to the cultural vitality of lower Manhattan. It is no ordinary bookstore, it is that increasingly rare thing, an independent that is perfectly attuned to the tastes and needs of the community it serves. It would be a careless act to let it go under, and it would be a source of real regret for all concerned in years to come. Its loss would be very badly felt. We would all suffer, and more deeply than would the institutional bottom line. This is a special case. Please, I beg you, allow St Mark's to continue to nourish one of the last truly creative communities in Manhattan.

St Mark's Bookstore is a special case.

yours


Patrick McGrath

Dear Mr. President,

In the 1930s, Cooper educated my immigrant great-uncle for free. He went on to create an award-winning invention that revolutionized allied military communications in World War II.

He was the first member of my family to go to college. Now a university professor myself, I am writing to ask Cooper to invest -- once again -- in something of unquestionable value to our world and for our future.

I understand that the cost of operating a university, particularly one of Cooper's famed generosity and caliber, in downtown New York is overwhelming.

However, in the case of St. Mark's -- which helps set and preserve the cultural tone of the Cooper area -- issues of value and cost need to be evaluated from higher perspectives.

The East Village doesn't need another sushi bar or boutique. It doesn't need to follow the fate of Soho and become a suburban mall.

It needs to maintain the high intellectual, cultural, and artistic standards for which it has so long been known -- the standards that draw top students, as they did my great-uncle, to Cooper and NYC: students who will later bring honor back upon Cooper through their contributions.

The loss of St. Mark's -- easily the finest curator and purveyor of intellectual, cultural, and art-and-design volumes in the US, matched only by a few counterparts in Germany and France -- would mean more than few thousand dollars in additional rent it would bring.

Please show the world that Cooper is dedicated to much more than easy profit by making an exception in this one important case and allowing St. Mark's to continue to operate.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Professor S.I. Salamensky
Theater and Performance Studies
UCLA


Meanwhile, last night, Patrick Hedlund at DNAinfo reported that St. Mark’s Bookshop isn’t any closer to having its rent reduced by Cooper Union after a meeting with school officials. Cooper Union offered a deferral of one month’s rent, co-owner Bob Contant said.

Per the article:

“They claim they’re broke and they can’t afford it financially,” said Contant, noting that the school offered the shop a chance to postpone paying a month’s rent to another time over the course of the next seven years left on the lease.

Updated:

Here's the Daily News headline today:

St. Mark's Bookshop not granted rent cut from landlord, faces closure despite community's support

Per the article:

Owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy found out their bid for a $5,000 rent cut was nixed by landlord Cooper Union in a meeting with T.C. Westcott, a vice president for finance and administration at the arts and engineering school.

"They don't feel they can do anything in terms of the rent," McCoy said. "She started out by telling us that Cooper is really losing a lot of money."

Contant and McCoy meet with Coop President Jamshed Bharucha tomorrow.

Former 13th Street crack house may become housing for homeless LGBT youth



The long-vacant building at 222 E. 13th St. near Third Avenue may be getting a new life as housing for 12-to-18 homeless LGBT youth. On Monday night, CB3's Land Use Commitee unanimously voted in support of the proposal at the former SRO and notorious crack house that has been boarded up for nearly 20 years. Per the website of the Cooper Square Committee, who is spearheading the campaign:

Their proposal (in partnership with the Ali Forney Center) is "to turn a vacant city owned building at 222 E. 13th St. into housing for 12 - 18 homeless LGBT youth. Community Board 3's resolution will urge HPD (the City's housing agency) to grant us site control so that we can apply for the funds needed to renovate the building. We appreciate the support of the more than 500 people who signed the petition in support of our proposal. We will continue to need community support to move this project forward to a successful conclusion. There are over 1,500 homeless LGBT youth in NYC, so this is a small, but important, step in addressing the larger crisis."

Find more information on the project here.

For a lot more of the complicated history on this building, read our post here: A haunted house on 13th Street?

For further reading:
The New Community Activism (City Journal)

And now, photos of a rat eating a bagel in Tompkins Square Park



Photos by Bobby Williams.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Get your bladder-busting 100-ounce beer tube!

Last noticed this 100-ounce special at Cafetasia on Avenue A back in May ...


Now, EV Grieve reader Kurt spots a new happy hour sign... don't recall the beer being served in a tube last time...

Maybe it's time to landmark the Saint Mark's Lions

Workers are on the scene here today at 96 Saint Mark's Place ... don't know what they're up to...


...we're hopeful that they won't be removing the iconic lions...


[Photos by Allen Semanco]

Report: Cops bust Craigslist apartment scammer

In the Post today, there's an NYPD Daily Blotter item about a woman trying to lease a man an apartment on East Sixth Street that was already occupied.

The victim responded to an ad on Craigslist and arranged with Emma Hunt, 25, to lease the pad on East Sixth Street, between First and Second Avenues, for $3,250, court papers claim.

The victim forked over the money and was given a set of keys that didn’t work, cops said.

Hunt was arrested Oct. 19 and charged with grand larceny.

What do we think of the renovated Met Foods so far?

Renovations continue over at Met Foods on Second Avenue between Sixth Street and Seventh Street... One reader remarked that it was "nice to have it looking clean."



It certainly is cleaner... and it looks bigger. I'm not a regular here, so I don't have much to say on the matter... New deli is in the works...


Curious what will happen with the floor...


As Jeremiah has written about, a Ratner's was located here for more than 50 years ... (Read Jeremiah's post here.) The R remains, but for how long? Hate to see another sliver of history disappear...



And so far, that exposed piece of Ratner's old wall is still there.

9th Precinct asking supers and maintenance workers to meet this morning

Several weeks ago, the NYPD put up "beware!!" and "be safe!!" flyers on sections of East Third Street and East Fourth Street between First and Second Avenue...


And several readers told of having their apartments broken into by someone who accessed the buildings via the roof...

So now... if you walked along First or Second Avenue the last few days, or side streets between Second and Sixth... then you probably saw these flyers...


EV Grieve reader Steph took this photo... we're told that it's an educational-type meeting for the workers. You know, when you go on a lunch break, lock the door behind you and what not.

I took a look at the 9th Precinct crime stats for the year... As you can see, there has been an uptick in burglaries in the past 28 days — 22 reported during the period, which is 11 more than the same time period last year. (100 percent increase! Call the Post!)


Overall, though, reported burglaries are down this year compared with 2010.

Tonight at Theatre 80: Transgendered Jesus, Juggernut and more

[Transgendered Jesus via]

The Howl! Arts month-long benefit supporting HOWL H.E.L.P. is winding down... (H.E.L.P. = Howl Emergency Life Project. Read more about them here.)

And an evening of music and what not tonight: Transgendered Jesus, Juggernut, The Love Butchers & The Blowdryers

8-11 p.m. $10.00 Theatre 80 St Marks, 80 St Marks Place

Find the whole schedule through Monday here.

The Meatball Factory opens today, puts up new mailbox

Earlier in the month, a resident who lives above the new Meatball Factory on Second Avenue and 14th Street noted that the restaurant had switched addresses.

The address of the previous tenant — the Arthur Treachers-Nathan's-Pizza Hut combo! — was 251. E. 14th St. But the Meatball Factory is using the address of the apartment building — 231 Second Ave., which caused some mail confusion ... all the Meatball Factory mail was going to the residents.

Anyway! Problem solved... the Meatball Factory put up a mail slot in the lobby of 231 Second Ave.


And thank you if you made it this far.

Oh, and The Meatball Factory opens today.