Don't mess with Mr. G

Been a little slack. On my to-do list since, uh, last summer...join Jeremiah's Urban Etiquette Signs pool at Flickr. Anyway, here are a few candidates from making the rounds in recent months...

Jaws

A few weeks back our pal BoweryBoogie mentioned the Western Union ads on the vacant groundfloor storefront along the Ludlow...

Anyway, this damn thing continues to terrify me...

Appreciating a great bar on a day where it's not safe to go into any bars

Mars Bar, of course. First Street at Second Avenue. Not that you'll see anyone here today in green plastic hats and what not, but you never know what pub crawlers might be around on March 17...












Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day. May you not have to spend it near anyone who has been drinking Irish Truck Bombs. (Yeah, it's a pitcher instead of a pint.)

Just another photo of a dog trying to hotwire a van

Looking how guilty he/she looks! Caught on Ninth Street between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue.

What's wrong with this picture?

Spotted in the Financial District.

Avenue ATM (aka, how many stupid ATMs does one block need?)

A new ATM was recently installed in front of the China Wok on Avenue B at Third Street....



Fine, though there was already an ATM across the street by Mama's Bar...



and one a few feet away farther south on Avenue B...



and one a few feet farther than that on the same side of the Avenue...



and two directly across the street from these...



Not to mention the ATM outside the Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union on the northeast side of Avenue B at Third Street.

For those who need some spiritual intervention while preparing your taxes this year

On Avenue D.

What's on the minds of the neighborhood's youth?

Let's take a look at the chalk art some schoolchildren recently left in Tompkins Square Park...based on this they seem to be well-read...with a firm grasp of important societal issues....





And they seem to be reading the tabloids as well...

Looking at the crack at St. Brigid's

The Villager recently has an article on the architectural plans to renovate St. Brigid's at Eighth Street and Avenue B....One of the major challenges: the large crack on the north side, which is partially detached from the church. Here's what it looks like:

Two posts from one year ago on EV Grieve...

East 7th Street, 4:50 p.m., March 16



Just wait until tomorrow.

AND:

You've been warned



AKA Amateur Hour.

Tweet and lowdown...the tweet smell of success...tweet dreams...the tweet hereafter....after dark, my tweet...

Heh. Sorry. A just love bad Tweet puns! So. For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me yet, I signed up for a Twitter account, so I can start writing insightful things like, "Meeting Jeremiah for brunch at Chocolate by the Bald Man." Well, not really. Anyway, if you want to get in on the hot 140-character action, here you go!
BoweryBoogie is there too. And maybe a few other people.

Wide load?

At Second Avenue and First Street.

The "Eyes" have it: For five bucks

Back in January we linked to a post the Bowery Boys did on the old NYC howler "The Eyes of Laura Mars" starring Faye Dunaway. A friend of EV Grieve reported that this hammy laugher was in the $5 bin at the Union Square Virgin Megastore... well worth the hours of entertainment the film will provide. Uh, in other words, I bought a copy.

The Condo Fucks

I'm still looking for my 7-inch of "Fuckin' Gary Sandy." Anyway! The backstory of the Condo Fucks:



(Thanks, BrooklynVegan)

Meanwhile, another Condo-Fucky-y band to enjoy....

Friday photo follies (with apologies)

Just passing some time at Nathan's at Coney Island...

Two good bags: At J. Baczynsky's East Village Meat Market

I love everything about J. Baczynsky's East Village Meat Market at 139 Second Ave. near Ninth Street...seen here in this shot taken by EssG (via Flickr).



...including their shopping bags. I treat the bags like a piece of art. While I could recycle them whenever I go visit to the shop, I greedily get another one...




...which is one reason they may have run out of the bags the other day...they were left to use the common "I heart NY" variety...



I was told the bag shortage was only temporary. Still, these things can't be cheap to make.

For further reading:
Bye-bye Burritoville (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

We hope the Archdiocese didn't spend any of the $10 million on the new "no parking" sign for St. Brigid's

At Eighth Street and Avenue B.

At home as it is in the tavern

At the all-new Robin Raj at 114 Third Ave. near 14th Street.

How about IM and texting?

East Seventh Street at First Avenue.

A rally at P.S. 64

"East Village activists and preservationists rallied outside the old P.S. 64 Monday afternoon, demanding that the Landmarks Preservation Commission save the neglected turn-of-the-century school from ruin." (The Villager)

A Polaroid from 1982

Blogger Jack Brummet at All This is That today posts a Polaroid that he received in 1982...It's a shot of Keith Haring's mural on Houston and the Bowery....



The photo was affixed to a postcard and mailed to him from San Francisco...the former NYC resident was living in Seattle. You can see the postmark on the bottom left of the photo....

The horror: Goldman Sachs staffers on biz must deal with free Bud and 250-thread-count Hilton Hotel-brand sheets made of a 60/40 cotton-poly blend

Entertaining story in the Journal today about the poor bastards at Goldman Sachs in town on business who now have to stay at the Battery City Park Embassy Suites, which goes for $250 a night with a special corporate rate.

It's a far cry from the plusher digs Goldman employees used to enjoy at the Ritz-Carlton and the Carlyle. But cost-cutting and government oversight mean finding out how the other half lives.

Some of the bankers aren't happy with the switch. "No one's supposed to complain out loud, but, let's face it, we're spoiled," says one Goldman employee. "They turned us into hotel snobs."

One night recently, a dozen Goldman employees from the Chicago office were yucking it up at happy hour, which starts at 5:30 sharp. The group was huddled around three tables in a cafeterialike room overlooking the headquarters of Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America, drinking free Budweiser out of plastic cups and eating pretzels and tortilla chips.

Golly! Sounds good to me!

Inside Goldman, the hotel has become the butt of jokes. There are grumblings about its accommodations and a wake-up call service that blares "cock-a-doodle-do" into the telephone. For the many Goldman executives who visit New York for meetings in midtown Manhattan, the hotel's location on the far southwestern edge of the island is inconvenient.

Hmm...still, at the Embassy Suites, there's the free beer and popcorn at happy hour and a complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Not to mention a 10 percent discount at the Chevy's next-door.

Though just a mile from each other, the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park and Embassy Suites Battery Park are worlds apart. Rooms at the Ritz offer views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty; Embassy Suites rooms look out across the Hudson River, at Jersey City, N.J. Ritz guests luxuriate in 400-thread-count Frette linens made of 100% Egyptian cotton, while at the Embassy Suites guests sleep on 250-thread-count Hilton Hotel-brand sheets made of a 60/40 cotton-poly blend.

And forget free breakfast or drinks at the Ritz, which offers an $11 Irish oatmeal brûlée with berries compote in the morning and a $14 Ritz Carlton Martini (gin, muddled cucumber, mint and fresh lime juice) at night.

On Avenue A: Blue bolts; waiting for the return of Lucy's

Blue, the fancy dress shop on Avenue A between St. Mark's and Ninth Street, has moved to a new location in Nolita. Prime chunk of EV real estate is now presumably available — right across the street from the Park. By the way, the store is directly next door to Lucy's, which we hope reopens tonight as the sign on the door promises...

Bloomy is now wealthiest resident of NYC

Last year, the media mogul's worth clocked in at $11.5 billion. But after he bought back 20 percent of his company Bloomberg LP from a foundering Merrill Lynch in July, his value skyrocketed and he is now worth a staggering $16 billion.

Related!
The number of American millionaires fell by more than a quarter last year, as the financial crisis decimated their investments across the board, a report said yesterday. (New York Post)

A doll's eye view of Third Avenue

I now feel as it is my civic -- and moral -- duty to keep you up-to-date on the wall space on Third Avenue near 12th Street. After a few weeks of a blank wall, we have a new (creepy as fuck) ad.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Off the wall