Week in Grieview

[Photo from Christmas Day by Derek Berg]

A look at Matcha Cafe Wabi, now open on East Fourth Street (Friday)

Video: "11 Minutes of Hell" on the Lower East Side (Wednesday, 54 comments)

Demolishing the last two East Village gas stations (Monday)

DF Mavens arrives (Tuesday)

Checker's opens on First Avenue (Monday)

The number of chain stores increased this past year in NYC, though not in the East Village (Tuesday)

Back Forty abruptly closes (Tuesday)

Remembering Joe Strummer on the anniversary of his death (Monday)

A really good sunrise (Saturday)

Sleepy's coming to Third Avenue (Monday)

Another holiday season with Jonathan, the cheery Christmas-tree salesman of First Avenue (Tuesday)

The gut renovation of 137 Avenue C (Tuesday)

$13 billion hedge fund latest 51 Astor Place tenant (Tuesday)

Shakespeare & Company ultimately got kicked out for a Foot Locker (Wednesday)

McSorley's does not have the oldest liquor license in the East Village (Friday)

The Year Without a Trailer Park Santa Claus (Friday)

EVG turns 7 (Wednesday)

… and a dog in a bag at East Village Cheese…


[Photo by Derek Berg]

A 1980s 'Night Walk' in downtown NYC

[Screengrab from the "Night Watch" trailer]

The Times has a feature today on Ken Schles, who spent part of the 1980s living and taking photographs in the East Village.

He now has a follow-up to his 1988 book "Invisible City" titled "Night Walk."

Here's a description of the book:

Schles revisits his archive and fashions a narrative of lost youth: a delirious, peripatetic walk in the evening air of an irretrievable downtown New York as he saw and experienced it. Night Walk is a substantive, intimate chronicle of New York's last pre-Internet bohemian outpost, a stream of consciousness portrayal that peels back layers of petulance and squalor to find the frisson and striving of a life lived amongst the rubble.

Here's a trailer for the book...



Schles, who now lives in Fort Greene, "rejected the recent tendency to view the East Village of the 1980s as a golden age of louche glamour," according to the Times. "A lot of dysfunction has been romanticized," he said.

The book "is dedicated to the memory of those who died in the scourge of AIDS and violence that gripped the East Village during the 1980s."

Today's hawk posing

Top two photos via Bobby Williams... and via EVG reader BaHa...

And now, the waxing crescent moon

Local astronomy buff Felton Davis had his gear set up earlier on Second Avenue and East Third Street ... here's a shot of the waxing crescent moon via Brian Van ...

X marks the spot above 1st Avenue

Or maybe a belated xmas message? Photo this afternoon via Grant Shaffer

Can't wait for this open house on St. Mark's Place!

Spotted the other day at 128 St. Mark's Place…

Things people were talking about on East 2nd Street this morning

A few people were wondering what happened to this car between Avenue A and First Avenue...

This morning's spectacular sunrise

The view from East Second Street… Photo by Caz Lulu via Facebook…

There's 1 more free concert this year in Tompkins Square Park

This afternoon...

Still crazy like a Fox...

Television is playing Sunday night at Irving Plaza... ahead of that, here's "Foxhole" from 1978...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Photo earlier this week on East 2nd Street by Bill Buchen]

A crime of passion from the 19th century that played out on East 13th Street and Avenue A (Ephemeral New York)

More details about DF Mavens, opening today on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place (DNAinfo)

The Manhattan Borough President's Office now accepting applications for Community Board membership (DNAinfo)

Still time to see Art & Ephemera from 98 Bowery, 1969-89 (The Lodge Gallery)

Update on the new Dirt Candy on Allen Street (Eater)

The end of Cafe Edison (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Please do not push your sofa out a 6th-floor window (BoweryBoogie)

… Animals, the Wayland's sandwich shop on Avenue C and East Ninth Street, has started local delivery — Monday-Friday from Noon-6 p.m.



… and noted…

overheard in an #eastvillage cafe, "and by tinkerbell i mean cocaine."

— jdx (@jdx) December 24, 2014

Pumpkins — not just for Halloween anymore

They also make for decorative additions to street lights, like seen here on Second Avenue and East Ninth Street … photo via John Coakley.

Matcha Cafe Wabi now open on East 4th Street

Matcha Cafe Wabi recently opened at 233 E. Fourth St. near Avenue B.

The cafe's owners offered up a sneak preview for neighbors back in October. EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by for a look ... and taste. Here's her report:

The open house was for the neighborhood to introduce them to the matcha and sencha tea drinks, the red-bean paste and green tea pastries (gluten free!), matcha tea lattes, and the Japanese roasted coffee drinks.

I tried the classic pour-over coffees from 95 RPM Coffee Roasters (co-owned by Hiroki Kobayashi and Osamu Igano), which I drank as suggested — straight up without milk or sugar. I also tried the soybean black-sesame drink, which thankfully had no caffeine and was sweet and delicious — and unusual to my admittedly uneducated palate.

Kimie Kobaya (pictured below), the shop’s enthusiastic and friendly manager, brought around trays of samples to the guests and patiently translated between the English-speaking and Japanese-speaking visitors.



We learned about Wabi-Sabi, the aesthetic of imperfection, which was a difficult concept to translate from Japanese. (Kimie suggested the Wikipedia page definition.) We enjoyed a (truncated) tea ceremony, courtesy of Yuji (pictured below), who showed us the usu-cha-style bamboo whisks used to blend the bitter green tea powder into tea, and how the bowls are prewarmed, and about the bubbles that mimic a lake and shore in the tea bowl.



The owners of the new shop are Hideaki Minamida and Ken Mitsui, who you might recognize from Pirka Salon next door. (Both shops share the address 233 E. Fourth St.) The tiny to-go spot’s green-tea colored walls and minimalist décor mimic the healthy and happy feelings you experience when ingesting the drinks.

What East Village bar has the oldest liquor license?

[Photo by James and Karla Murray]

OK, the photo gives it away, of course.

Anyway, some interesting research via I Quant NY, who examined the data on New York State's open data website.

A few things from the post:

The oldest recorded NYC license in the dataset belongs to the Harmonie Club on E 60th St in the Upper East Side, though you have to be a member to enjoy a drink there. It dates to 1933. The oldest beer license is for Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island, which dates back to 1934. And the oldest liquor store license is from 1941, and it belongs to North End Wine and Liquor in the Bronx.

And in the East Village, the oldest license belongs to Vazac's/7B/Horseshoe Bar, which dates to 1948.

But what about, say, McSorley's?

Per I Quant NY:

Note that this does not mean these are in fact the oldest bars or restaurants, but rather the oldest with a single continuous liquor license and a proper start date on record.

McSorley's has changed hands a few times, he explains, the last being in 1977, when the state issued a new license.

'Dear Lord' — A Christmas song from Suicide

The fine folks over at Dangerous Minds posted about a Christmas song by one of our favorite bands, the misanthropy* duo Suicide.

Here are details per Dangerous Minds:

In 1981, the great no-wave label ZE Records — home to the eardrum-hurty likes of Lydia Lunch and Arto Lindsay — decided that the label would release A Christmas Record, a compilation of original Christmas music by its deeply underground artists. It seems, and was, pretty ridiculous, but that album yielded an actual enduring holiday season classic in the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping.” Other artists who contributed were Material with Nona Hendryx, Cristina, and Was (Not Was). It was and remains deeply regrettable that Lydia Lunch contributed no Christmas song, but there was one by the equally malevolent Suicide, and another by that band’s singer Alan Vega.

Head over to Dangerous Minds for more, including the Vega track...

* misanthropy is Dangerous Mind's description. We like that.

The Year Without a Trailer Park Santa Claus

[Another holiday season]

Well, as you may have noticed, grubby ol' St. Nick never arrived this year at the tree stand on East 14th Street and First Avenue…

Instead, we were treated to some lame perky inflatables …



Waited until later to pass this along so as not to ruin the holiday.

Anyway, time to toss the tree and pick up your Easter Candy at Kmart…

Christmas Eve, Tompkins Square Park

Photos by EVG reader Mr. Baggs...

Christmas Eve, Astor Place

Jerry Delakas at Jerry's Newsstand, site of one of the more positive neighborhood stories this year.

Photo by Kelly King

Holiday movies: 'Blast of Silence'

Reposting this repost this from Dec. 23, 2011…

I know that I've written about "Blast of Silence," Alan Baron's New York (slightly hokey) indie noir from 1961.

Will repeat some of it now... the movie is about a contract killer in New York for a job during the Dec. 25 holiday season ... well, the trailer will tell you what you need to know...



Of interest hereabouts... the main character, "Baby Boy" Frankie Bono, stays at the Valencia on St. Mark's Place... which is the St. Mark's Hotel today, of course...

[Via]

In the background, you can see the former Saint Marks Russian and Turkish Baths ... which became the New St. Marks Baths ... and, eventually, Mondo Kim's ... and now the NYC Tofu House…

Some early xmas eve smoking manhole action on East 14th Street

Several readers told us about smoke billowing (or whatever) from a manhole on East 14th Street at Avenue B around 3 … and the FDNY was quickly called to the scene, EVG reader Greg Masters noted…