Puke Island Part 5 is this afternoon in Tompkins Square Park

Bands today will include:

2 p.m. — Universal Truth Machine
2:45 — The Graveyard School
3:30 — Skitzopolis
4:15 — Get Ignorant
5 — Lucifer Jones

Find more details here.

Manhattanhenge this

@evgrieve St.Mark's pic.twitter.com/B0mnAKLye9

— Christian Burns (@Knickerbock4Lif) June 7, 2015

Bringing home the bacon

Spotted outside Porchetta this morning on East Seventh Street … via EVG correspondent Steven…

'The Oracle of the Past, Present and Future' now on display in Tompkins Square Park

Artist Jorge Luis Rodriguez installed his new sculpture yesterday in Tompkins Square Park …



Here's more about it via Facebook:

"The Oracle of the Past, Present and Future" (2015) consists of geometric interlocking parts of steel, wood and glass elements that stands about 12 feet high with a magnificent steel dome and designed for Tompkins Square Park …"

The sculpture is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Growth, his large-scale, permanent work at the East Harlem Art Park at East 120th Street and Sylvan Place.

EVG correspondent Steven took these photos of Rodriguez, who teaches at at the School of Visual Arts, Manhattan Community College, and Kingsborough Community College.



The installation will officially be dedicated today at noon … you and the night heron have until May 2016 to enjoy this in the Park.

Some earlier reports did contain a little misinformation…

@evgrieve did you see the shrine the rats built? pic.twitter.com/3WKv662lD3

— EdenBrower (@edenbrower) June 5, 2015

Zoltar, now with the personal branding back in place

[September 2012]

Zoltar graced us with his presence outside Gem Spa starting on Sept. 23, 2012 (as seen in the above photo).

And Zoltar hadn't really looked the same since his glass was bashed by a skateboard in April 2013 here on Second Avenue at St. Mark's Place… the replacement glass didn't carry the ZOLTAR name…



Now, though! Yesterday, the ZOLTAR SPEAKS lettering returned!



See?!



Though given how vocal Zoltar can be, is the SPEAKS part necessary?

The beautiful south

The debut record by Atlanta-based Algiers came out on Tuesday… Here's a quickie band bio via label Matador:

A trio of émigrés of the American Deep South, now split between New York and London, Algiers synthesizes its eclectic influences, from Nina Simone and PJ Harvey to Suicide and Public Enemy, into frightening new forms.

The video here is for "Black Eunuch."

Afternoon break

Outside St. Stanislaus on East Seventh Street today via Derek Berg…

EV Grieve Etc.: A rise in serious crime; an homage to Arthur Russell

[Photo on East 7th Street by Derek Berg]

A rise in serious crime in most NYPD precincts, including the 9th (DNAinfo)

Some 100,000 rent-stabilized apartments may go market-rate (The Real Deal)

June is Gay Pride Month (Off the Grid)

East Village-based photographer Sally Davies has an exhibit at the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery (Bernarducci Meisel Gallery)

The story behind the mural "Nepal 2015" on the Avalon Chemists building at Second Avenue and Houston (Bedford + Bowery}


[EVG photo of "My Nepal" from Saturday]

An homage to Arthur Russell (The Independent)

Egg Rolls, Egg Creams & Empanadas Festival returns to Eldridge Street this Sunday (The Lo-Down)

A bike/coffee shop opens on Canal Street (BoweryBoogie)

The Super 8 films of Stephanie Gray playing at the Anthology Film Archives (The Villager)

One resident's unchain challenge (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Midtown's vanishing historic architecture (The New York Times)

...and won't someone please help Santa in Tompkins Square Park?

Name change for Bar Akuda?

[EVG photo from May 8]

Bar Akuda, the sports bar-restaurant at 16 First Ave. between East First Street and East Second Street, opened on May 21.

Perhaps ownership decided to rethink the name, which sounds like a Heart song.

An EVG reader notes this morning that the Bar Akuda is sign is gone... and there's a banner noting a more dignified-sounding name — The Grayson...



There isn't any mention of a name change on the bar's Facebook page... here is the latest entry...

On the road again: Who's behind the wheel of that apocalyptic-looking RV

You've likely seen this Mad Max-era RV parked around the neighborhood in recent months.

Back in March, BoweryBoogie spotted the vehicle with corrugated siding and barred-over windows parked at the Baruch Houses. (We've seen it moored on East Fourth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.)

BoweryBoogie reported that this Urban Assault Vehicle had "instilled a sense of intrigue (nay, suspicion) among the population." (Curbed wrote that "this might be the scariest vehicle, recreational or otherwise, we have ever seen.)

For the past three weeks, the RV — which has a bed and some flowers inside its rather nondescript interior — has been parked on East Houston … anywhere between Avenue A and Avenue C. A few residents apparently have complained "because of garbage in the street and [the owner] sitting there idling, causing noise and fumes," one resident told us.

One resident also said that the owner, who apparently lives inside, was BBQing on the street, which prompted a visit by the FDNY.

Anyway, the owner has introduced himself as "an artist working at the Whitney Museum."

You can see Jared Madere's work starting Oct. 16 at the Whitney.

Perhaps the artist will even arrange a shuttle service between here and the Whitney.

Brewer and Mendez celebrate Mayor's signature of new tenant notification law

[The good news is your shower curtain is fine]

Via the EVG inbox…

Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer and Council Member Rosie Mendez [on Tuesday] celebrated Mayor Bill de Blasio's signature of Int. 222, legislation requiring landlords provide tenants with advance notice for non-emergency repair work that will result in disruptions to building services.

The new law establishes a general baseline of 24 hours’ advance notice for most work. For work affecting elevators, the bill requires 10 business days’ notice for major alteration work and 24 hours’ notice for any other work that will suspend all elevator service for more than two hours.

This legislation, sponsored jointly by Mendez and Brewer, closes a gaping hole in the city’s tenant-protection laws, which previously did not provide no such advance-notice requirements.

“It’s also no secret that no-notice quality-of-life disruptions labeled as ‘maintenance work’ are a frequent harassment tactic to push tenants out of rent-stabilized apartments. The new notice requirements in this law will be easy for honest, everyday landlords and building managers to respect, but they will take another harassment tool away from abusive landlords,” Brewer said.

“This legislation codifies common sense and common courtesy,” Mendez said. “No longer will tenants come home from a hard day’s work to find out that work in their building is interrupting some basic service and/or possibly obstructing access to their apartment. This law requires that landlords notify tenants when such work will affect services and for how long.”

Many landlords and management companies already provide advance notice of planned repairs to tenants – but many others do not. The reasonable notice requirements established by Int. 222 would help tenants plan ahead to minimize the impacts of these service disruptions on their lives, and also help tenants distinguish between disruptions for planned work on the one hand, and emergent service failures or landlord harassment tactics on the other.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Department of Buildings will be responsible for enforcement and rulemaking in relation to the new law. The law will take effect in the fall of 2015.

Previously

Here then, the new dorm on Cooper Square

After shedding most of its construction netting at the beginning of the year, workers removed the sidewalk bridge this week here on Cooper Square at East Sixth Street… showing off the dorm that will house students from Marymount Manhattan College starting this fall…







Marymount's campus is on East 71st Street, so the students will have a bit of a commute to class...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Something 28,998 square feet or so coming to Cooper Square (and goodbye Cooper 35 Asian Pub?)

Here's what's coming to 35 Cooper Square: 9-story dormitory

Proposed dorm for former 35 Cooper Square looks to be 4 floors taller

City OKs 13-floor dorm for Cooper Square

Updated: Here's what the newest East Village dorm will look like

Dig bottoms out on Cooper Square; here comes the dorm, here comes the dorm!

Your chance to lease the retail space in the new Cooper Square dorm