At the MulchFest

Going on until 2... 2 p.m.

And speaking of recycling...I'll recycle this from last year's MulchFest post...for no good reason.

World's smallest Christmas tree discarded

On St. Mark's Place near Avenue A. Or perhaps it belonged to the mice.

Got Milk?: NetFlix habits of 10009

There's an interactive feature at the Times that examines NetFlix rental patterns, neighborhood by neighborhood, in a dozen cities.

What did the NetFlix queue look like for 10009?



The popularity of "Milk" here may be one reason the Blockbuster on Broadway and 10th Street has so many copies for sale...

Anyway, this list above is for 2009... And Netflix has a feature that allows you to search for favorites by zip code. I just did this for 10009. Here's what I found:



It's also worth checking out the comments section for this feature too...Says one: "It'd be interesting to see the correlation between areas where Mall Cop coincides with Palin supporters."

Previously on EV Grieve:
What movies people in the 10009 zip code are watching

Behind the landlord ultimatum at Ray's Candy Store

A few hours ago, Chris Flash interviewed Ray Alvarez, the proprietor of Ray's Candy Store at 113 Avenue A, for The Shadow. As you may recall, Barbara Chupa, the managing agent of the building that houses Ray's store, with the help of a bodyguard, reportedly threatened to padlock his store unless he paid the two months of rent ($8,000 in total) that she says he owes.

Here is an excerpt from The Shadow exclusive:

Ray's landlord is the Leshko family, from whom Ray also rents an apartment in which he lives upstairs from his store. Though the Leshkos have had a good relationship with Ray since Ray opened his store in 1974, Ray says it is Chupa who wants him out. Since 2000, Chupa has been managing the Leshko properties on the Lower East Side. These include Ray's store at 113 Avenue A, 131-33 East Seventh Street and 66 St. Mark's Place.

Ray told The SHADOW that at Chupa's insistence, since 2000, Ray has been renting his store with no lease at $4,000 on a month-to-month basis. According to Ray, under Chupa's management, 25 other stores in the neighborhood are operating without the protection of a lease.

On Thursday night, Chupa told Ray that she has a new tenant who will pay $5,000 per month for his store. If so, Chupa could get a $10,000 commission, the equivalent of two months rent, from the new tenant. As Ray is already paying a peak rent for his small store, and as the neighborhood is already full of empty storefronts, it is doubtful whether a new tenant would be able or willing to pay as much or more for Ray's store.

Read the whole story here.

Meanwhile, Bob Arihood at Neither More Nor Less reports that the deadline passed without Ray making the back rent payment. Ray's is still open...

For further reading on EV Grieve:
The comments section on the post "Deadline Friday: Ray's Candy Store in imminent danger of closing"



[Photo by Bob Arihood via The Shadow]

An A + for the B Girls

The B-Girls, who made their CBGB debut opening for the Dead Boys....

Mystery of 39 Second Avenue solved; new restaurant row in the works

Back in December we wondered what would be coming to the new "for lease" space on the northwest corner of Second Avenue and Second Street...



Eater now has the answer: Another Italian restaurant from the folks behind Max on Avenue B.

Meanwhile, as you may recall, the southwest corner (behind the German-themed plywood) will soon be home to Heartbreak Cafe, which will apparently feature German/Swiss fare from Pylos owner Christos Valtzoglou.



We'll see you at Mars Bar for some after-dinner drinks.

Previously on EV Grieve:
What's behind the German-themed plywood on Second Avenue?

39 Second Avenue for lease

Wetsex and the city

Sign bandits on the loose in the Delancey/Essex Street station! Many thanks to EV Grieve reader Ryan for the photo.

Hello again: Revisiting the past of St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue

On Wednesday night, we noted that the sidewalk shed was finally being removed from the northwest corner of Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place...And seeing the corner again....




...got me thinking about one of its former occupants, the St. Marks Cinema. According to Cinema Treasures, a theater was in operation at this location from 1914 to the spring of 1985. (Jeremiah had a Jim Jarmusch-related post on the Cinema in July 2008 that you should read.)

There are many fine remembrances of the place in the Cinema Treasures comments section, such as this one:

We lived on the Bowery near the St. Marks from the 60's thru the 80's. It was fondly nicknamed "The Itch". Nobody dared sit in the front row because it was reserved for the "Hell's Angels" ... Everyone was stoned. I remember a triple feature of "Eraserhead", "Freaks", and at midnight "El Topo" ( or El Poto"). After the show we staggred out and had cabbage soup at the Kiev. Those were the days.

Meanwhile, here are some shots that were linked to the Cinema Treasures page...





...the theater also showed "Return of the Jedi." (Last listing in the Manhattan section.)



Cinema images via here, here and here.

For further reading:
St. Marks Cinema and Theatre Condos both via Jeremiah's Vanishing NY.

Dunkin' Donuts week in review

Monday:



Wednesday:


[Photo by Melanie!]

Thursday:



Related:
From the Post today: "Since the city began compelling restaurant chains to post calorie information, coffee drinkers have proved likelier to get their java from a Starbucks than from the Dunkin' Donuts down the street. A Stanford University study found drink revenues up 5 percent at Starbucks stores within 100 yards of Dunkin' Donuts since health officials made it mandatory that menus include nutritional data."

A short history of tags outside Kurve/Rhong Tiam East/that crazy looking Thai place on Second Avenue and Fifth Street

Last April, Eater noted the arrival of the first tag on the Fifth Street side of the eatery formerly known as Kurve...



Since then, the place has started to attract a few more street artists...






And earlier this week we welcomed the latest member of the street-art family here...




And maybe in a few more months...


[Photo via CityRag]

East Village rents fell in 2009

In his Mixed Use column this week at The Villager, Patrick Hedlund summarizes 2009 in rent...

The East Village and Lower East Side experienced the steepest residential rent drops of any Downtown neighborhoods last year, making them among the most desirable areas across Manhattan for discount-driven renters. According to the Real Estate Group New York’s year-end rental market report, the East Village and Lower East Side saw average decreases of 5.98 percent and 6.25 percent, respectively, for all doorman and non-doorman unit types combined in 2009. Doorman studios led the downward trend in both neighborhoods, with such units falling by 12.1 percent in the East Village and 22.4 percent on the Lower East Side over the past year. Over all, the East Village recorded drops for each one of its unit types, while the L.E.S. saw modest gains for non-doorman studios and two-bedrooms only (up 1.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively).

So can we say now that rent is just really expensive instead of unfucking-believably expensive?

A Norfolk Street Now and Then

Jill at Blah Blog Blah found this great site, Dino's NYC Now and Then Pics. Pretty self-explanatory.

Here is one of Dino's now and thens...looking north on Norfolk Street on the LES in October 1942...



...and this past December...



And here's a Now and Then group on Flickr of random various cities...