Daughter of Peeler Man booted from Union Square Greenmarket

For some reason this article isn't posted yet online at the Post. Anyway, Ruth Ades-Laurent, whose dad sold the vegetable peelers on Union Square and elsewhere for 15 years... has been booted from the Union Square Greenmarket, she said. Joe Ades died Feb. 1. He was 75. She was allowed to take over for her father for several weeks, then she was sent packing by Greenmarket officials. "They said, 'We put up with him long enough, and we're not putting up with you,'" she told the paper. Greenmarket officials said that only official vendors can operate on market grounds. The article is on Page 2 of the Post today. The headline: Losing all her a-peel.

For further reading:
The Gentleman Grafter (Vanity Fair)

New Dominican restaurant coming to Avenue B

The folks at Chabela's, 40 Avenue B (site of the former pizza joint Russo's)...



are on the docket for a beer and wine permit next Monday.



Interesting to see what transpires: This is an application within one of CB3's "restricted areas." According to CB3, there are 42 liquor licenses on Avenue B between Houston Street and 14th Street. (Is this number still accurate?)

Meanwhile, this addition will bring the Avenue B empty storefront count down to 19.

Signs from the H1N1 (swine flu!) pandemic

I'm so looting this store now. Must find cure...

Busy Saturday for Cooper Square construction

Busy Saturday on Cooper Square. Construction all around...

At the Cooper Square Hotel:






At 2 Cooper Square:



At the Cooper Union:




P.S.
A little CBGB nostalgia on Fifth Street:

"They're dead meat" -- and the celebrities who complained about living near a meat warehouse

As Eater reported on April 8, Pat La Frieda's West Village Meat Warehouse was put on the market for $31 million.

In an article titled "They're dead meat," the Post took a closer look at the La Frieda's warehouse, which has been there for 30 years. A few excerpts:

A lot of people would like to see us out of here. We don't fit no more," La Frieda said as he gestured toward the luxury apartments that have sprouted around his warehouse just south of the district.

and...

...La Frieda no longer feels welcome, with noise complaints from ritzy neighbors piling up and city-issued tickets during loading and unloading totaling $84,760 last year.

and...

Actress Eva Mendes and one of the Olsen twins, who briefly owned a penthouse across the street, were among the star-studded cast of complainers, La Frieda's son Pat Jr. claimed.

and...

The La Frieda warehouse was put on the market for $31 million last month, and boutique hoteliers Ian Schrager and Peter Moore have expressed interest, Sotheby's broker Robson Zanetti said.

In its heyday, 250 wholesale butchers chopped meat within the dozen blocks officially known as the Gansevoort Market. By 2003, as men in snug tennis sweaters started outnumbering those in bloodstained aprons, the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation counted just 35 butchers.

In the past year, at least nine meatpackers quietly moved out.

As for the lack of the district's namesake businesses, "It doesn't make a difference to me. I didn't even know this area existed four years ago until I came," said Mario Cameron, controller for the warehouse's new owner, Robert Isabell.

The exodus leaves only seven butchers in the district, all inside a city-owned co-op with a lease set to expire in 2014.

For further reading:
Interstate Food, Inc.: Vanishing (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Signs from the recession

Houston near Norfolk.



Avenue A near Third Street.

Why the paparazzi will be in the East Village tomorrow (OMG! Angelina!)

"Salt" is expected to be one of the big Hollywood summer movie smasheroos upon its release on July 23, 2010. It's a CIA thriller (a rogue agent!) with Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It's being directed by Phillip Noyce.

First, of course, the movie needs to be made. Which is why they're filming in the East Village tomorrow, specifically on Second Street between First and Second Avenues.




It promises to be one humdinger of a production. (Let's hope this scene doesn't call for confetti.) "It's the biggest film shoot in New York City right now," a crew member told me. They've been filming around the city...and in Albany! (It's such a big film, Tom Cruise was once going to play the lead role.) The crew member was sitting on the steps the Russian Orthodox Cathedral keeping an eye on the equipment. This was the easy part, he said. Because tomorrow...





...he'll have to help keep the paparazzi at bay. "You'll know when she's here."

"Salt" substitute

The Divine Liturgy this morning at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection on Second Street was held in the basement this morning...




...as the church is prepped for a scene tomorrow in the Angelina Jolie thriller "Salt." (And now you know why the headline to this post is so corny.)




Wardrobe and hair and makeup will also be taking place tomorrow in the basement hall.

Things I really probably don't want to know about (with apologies)

Like what, exactly, is all this on Seventh Street outside Caracas this morning. Quite a spectacle. Whatever it is, it's all over the family truckster too.

Sunday in the Park

More details here.

On the bus to Belmont (and no one apparently likes to go the the racetrack anymore)

As I've mentioned, the MTA eliminated train service to Belmont Park race track. (You can take a shuttle bus now courtesy of the New York Racing Association.) Yesterday, the Times paid a visit to the park to see what was what as fans watched live races and the Kentucky Derby simulcast.

Here are a few passages:

For more than a century, the Belmont Special carried throngs of thoroughbred lovers, inveterate gamblers and people who just craved a festive day in the Belmont Park grandstand to the doorstep at one of the grand palaces of American horse racing.

and...

The Belmont Special has been losing ridership for years — a sign of a sharp decline in racing attendance across the nation. Railroad officials say that made it a logical choice to cut. “We’re talking about 100 customers a day, on average,” said Joe Calderone, a railroad spokesman.

and...

On weekdays, the train carried 30 to 35 people last year; so far this spring, the shuttle has carried 7 to 9 passengers a day, Mr. Cook said.

It is a far cry from when train service to Belmont began, on May 4, 1905, the day the park opened. Forty thousand people journeyed to see the inaugural running at the track, most traveling by train in a “pall of soft-coal smoke,” The New York Times said, adding that “when the trains were full the throng had to stand wherever it was when the gates closed until fresh trains could be run in.”

and some logic...

Racing association officials, who lobbied against the elimination of direct train service, estimate that the park will lose more than $5 million this year because of the cut, while the authority says it will save about $112,000.

[Photo: Robert Stolarik for The New York Times]

Triple trouble

At the OTB on Delancey. A big scratch.

Mind Joe, please

Good morning. Construction on Seventh Street near Avenue A.





DO NOT look at the guy standing there with a camera...



And the truck matches the mural...

The end is near

At 14th Street and Fourth Avenue.

Flashback to last fall...