The evolution of fashion

On the Bowery… photo and headline by Grant Shaffer

Well blow me down

For some reason there is a tent on the roof of the building housing Tarallucci E Vino on the northwest corner of 10th Street and First Avenue.

Anyway, the tent is now on the sidewalk below this afternoon thanks to a nice gust of wind...



Steven Hirsch, who took this photo, says that no one was injured… Police are on the scene.

RIP Donna Harris

Felton Davis, who works at Maryhouse on East Third Street, shares the following with us about Donna Harris, a homeless resident of Avenue A/Tompkins Square Park these past five years...

Donna was long known to us at Maryhouse, and had a ton of stuff in storage here. She was photographed with her friends here on Christmas day of 2014.

She told me she couldn't spend another winter in the Park, and was going to accept some sort of hospitalization in 2015. She stopped by Maryhouse last weekend for her mail. And then the temperature dropped, and the last snowstorm of the season took place.

And Donna made her departure.

She died last Monday. She was 52.

Several people memorialized her outside the former Odessa Cafe and Bar at 117 Avenue A near East Seventh Street, where she often slept on the sidewalk.





Updated: A memorial service for Donna takes place on March 21. Details here.

Former Mobil station transformed into gorgeous Styrofoam® Park

[Last weekend]

Last weekend, the soon-to-be-demolished Mobil station on Avenue C and East Houston became a splendid and scenic cafe for two…

Now, in recent days… giant blocks of Styrofoam® have been carefully placed at the scene (along with some discarded furniture) …





What might next week bring?

Catching up with legendary street photographer Flo Fox

We've written about the prolific street photographer Flo Fox in the past … Today, at age 69, Fox, despite blindness, multiple sclerosis and lung cancer, continues to take photos on a daily basis thanks to her attendants, friends and sometimes total strangers.

Curbed has a new interview with her, which you can read here.

Do you find today's New York less photogenic than it was in the 70s and 80s?

No. It's always a place to be. I am a tourist every day in my own town. I don't miss the '70s and '80s, but the '50s and '60s. The doo wop. The rhythm and blues.

Meanwhile, check out her interview on Tom Snyder from 1980...



You can watch part 2 here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Watch this 10-minute documentary on the amazing street photographer Flo Fox

The photography of Flo Fox

Tweets and free irons that leak

For starters, thank you to Thrillist for including @evgrieve in the listicle "42 NYC Twitter Accounts You Need to Follow NOW."

Per Thrillist: "No East Village neighborhood news is too small to report for the EV Grieve."

Hmmmk.

Meanwhile, might be late on this … Crazy Eddie spotted this yesterday on Avenue A near East 13th Street… dunno if someone has already claimed it…

RIP Amnon Kehati

Amnon Kehati, a longtime partner in Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A and more recently Mark burger on St. Mark's Place, died Feb. 19 after going into cardiac arrest. He was 64.

The Villager has a feature obituary on Kehati in this week's edition.

“Restaurants are a way of life rather than a business,” his daughter said. “People would say that he shouldn’t be working so hard, but it wasn’t work to him.”

An East Village Sugar sighting

There have been several reports of a Sugar sighting on East 12th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C today…

SOS. #FINDSUGARNYC seen running on East on 12th st towards the River DO NOT CHASE

— FindSugarNYC (@FindSugarNYC) March 6, 2015

ALPHABET CITY VOLUNTEERS: Spread out. Walk slowly. Stay calm. Sugar is a rescue. If she's there we need to coax her out. #FindSugarNYC

— FindSugarNYC (@FindSugarNYC) March 6, 2015

SOLO PAW PRINTS SPOTTED (sent by M's friend) - entrance to gated alley south side 12th btwn B&C #FindSugarNYC pic.twitter.com/1NxHKkwJ1P

— FindSugarNYC (@FindSugarNYC) March 6, 2015

ALPHABET CITY VOLUNTEERS: Pls check alleyways/behind trash bins. Sugar is a rescue. Please stay calm. Responds best to SHUGY #findsugarNYC

— FindSugarNYC (@FindSugarNYC) March 6, 2015

Sugar, whose owner is an East Village resident, is the Amstaff/pit bull mix that went missing on Feb. 23 under mysterious circumstances. Read more background here and here.

For the latest, head to Twitter and Facebook.

The reward is now $10,000. Find more details here.

Along comes Mary

Oh, because we're reading the Kim Gordon memoir at the moment. Sonic Youth and "Mary-Christ" from 1990's "Goo."

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[East 11th Street the other night by Peter Brownscombe]

RIP Gray Wolf, a longtime member of the 6th and B Garden (The Villager)

Get involved in #SaveNYC (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Photos from Ash Thayer's new book on East Village squats (The New Yorker)

Spending the night at Katz's (Grub Street)

The history of Puerto Rican migration to the Lower East Side (Off the Grid)

Many great films in the Screenwriters and the Blacklist series at Anthology Film Archives, including Sidney Lumet's "Fail-Safe" from 1964 with Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau...



Another look at the 1980s East Village photography of Ken Schles (Dangerous Minds)

More about Elvis Guesthouse opening soon at 85 Avenue A (Bedford + Bowery)

12 great lost NYC music venues (Flaming Pablum)

Drone footage of the demolished Roseland Ballroom (Animal NY)

What Christo and Dora did during yesterday's snowstorm (Gog in NYC)

More delays for Hotel Indigo on Orchard Street (BoweryBoogie)

More about the new Richard Taittinger Gallery on Ludlow Street (Bloomberg Business)

At The Ramones Museum in Berlin (NPR Berlin)

... and tomorrow at The Neighborhood School on East Third Street between Avenue A and First Avenue...

A Village moon view

The moon seemingly setting just beyond Village View this morning around 6:20 ... photo by Bobby Williams

The Cardinal has apparently closed on East 4th Street

Not too many signs of life over at The Cardinal, the Southern-style restaurant from chef-owner Curtis Brown at 234 E. Fourth St. just west of Avenue B.

The restaurant hasn't been open of late. The phone is not in service. The website domain is available for sale.

Plus, last month, in a sale of assets, CB3 gave the OK to a "a full-service Spanish-influenced international restaurant" in the space. (You can read a PDF of the applicant's paperwork here.)

The restaurant, which opened in August 2011, received positive notices. (Robert Sietsema liked it when he was over at Fork in the Road.)

But it wasn't easy here. Brown, who previously worked at Bubby's in Tribeca, told The Local in September 2012 that he spent an estimated $35,000 to upgrade to a full liquor license via CB3 for the space. (Brown said that it was a handicap to not have a full-liquor license, particularly at brunch.) Then there was the increased competition, with Root & Bone, also serving Southern fare such as fried chicken, opening last June a block away on East Third Street.

All of which didn't go unnoticed at The Cardinal.

Here's their last Facebook post, a doozy from Jan. 8:

Best fried chicken in nyc? while walking around the east village yesterday i noticed three separate restaurants with the claim "the best fried chicken in nyc" displayed on sandwich boards in front of their respective establishments.

How can this be?? How can there be three restaurants with in three blocks of one another all claiming to have "the BEST fried chicken in nyc"? Now I understand there is no accounting for taste and that people's idea of the best fried chicken in new york city may vary, that being said our fried chicken IS the best in new york city.

While our service may be touch and go and maybe you can say our music is a bit too funky from time to time and we could be accused of not necessarily being "kid friendly", there may times when your waiting on a drink and our waiters are outside smoking a joint, but in a straight up chicken battle we SLAY all competitors.

Report: East Village Radio aims for a spring return

Back in November, Brooklyn Vegan had the scoop on East Village Radio returning to the Internets. The station is part of the all-new Dash Radio network, which includes the new Brooklyn Radio.

So what's been happening?

General Manager Peter Ferraro told DNAinfo yesterday that EVR will return this spring. Ferraro has been busy, he said: "finalizing the lineup, which will retain its 'eclectic' mix of music and talk programming" with new and old programming.

East Village Radio signed off after 11 years last May 23, as we first reported.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Exclusive: East Village Radio is signing off after 11 years; final day of broadcasting is May 23 (53 comments)

Signs of life at East Village Radio, but what does it mean?

Matty's now serving eviction papers on Avenue B

That is apparently officially it for Matty's at 25 Avenue B.

Last week, we noticed a rent-due notice on the gate for the sum of $38,326.77 (just for January) here between East Second Street and East Third Street.

And now, there is a mass of eviction papers... noting that the landlord is in possession of the space, etc.



Matty's, run by some folks who had a bar called Matty's on the Drive in Wilton Manors, Fla., took over the Idle Hands space... opening on Dec. 12. They didn't get around to painting the new sign until Jan. 17. And by Feb. 17, the landlord served them rent-due notices. We haven't seen them open since the end of January.

We're trying to remember a bar that came and went so quickly in the neighborhood... opening and closing in under two months. Can you think of a place that closed in less time than this?

Previously on EV Grieve:
A bar called Matty's in the works for Idle Hands on Avenue B

Matty's makes it official on Avenue B