New bar on Avenue A has pianos, fancy drinks and referral-only reservations

Thrillist has the following item today on Ella, the piano bar at 9 Ave. A that opens Thursday:

From the Gallery Bar guys, Ella's a semi-private, bi-level, black-lacquered and mirror-bedecked lounge that aims to provide classy ivory tickling from both accomplished house acts and the occasional signed artist (read: people no longer offering music lessons). The intimate, b&w-tiled downstairs sports a jet-black upright Yamaha, a small stage for jazz/blues/torch singers, and a DJ booth, all under a multi-colored lit ceiling evocative of Willy Wonka's terrifying psychedelic tunnel. For a break from the crooning, walk up to the chandeliered, Tinseltown-chic bar & lounge: floral-print couches and semi-circular red suede banquettes fresh from the '07 Oscars flanking a 15-seat bar, which slings speciality cocktails inspired by post-WWII cinema, e.g., the vodka & muddled grape Daisy Kenyon, and the ginny Mildred Pierce ("if you loved Working Girl...").

Ella's opening Thursday, reservations are referral only, and the door policy is doorman's discretion -- so there's a decent chance you'll be stranded outside with Paul and Davy, who's still in the Navy, and probably still hasn't finished The Duplex Supremacy.

Oh, and here's their drink menu.

STILL speculating about the future of 159 Second Ave.

Still going with a dessert shop.

The Times looks at Extra Place

The Times looks at the possible development of Extra Place. As you know, Avalon Bay wants to pave it and add boutiques and wine bars and stuff. Others argue that it remain a public space. And kind of like it was.

“The ground was magnificent,” said Danny Fields, the manager of the Ramones, who took the photograph in November 1976. “It was filled with junk, shreds of clothes and pieces of barrels, posters, leaves, ropes.”

(The article also mentions Jeremiah Moss.)

Previously on EV Grieve:
"All of Manhattan has lost its soul to money lords"

[Photo: Michael Falco for The New York Times]

Seventh Street, 1 p.m., Sept. 27

City businesses will reportedly miss out on making $141 million this fall because the Yankees failed to make the playoffs. How much will the city lose if the Mets lose today and miss the playoffs? (Oh, sorry -- I don't have the answer...just curious...)

“This used to be an area where people got their start. Now it’s a place to land once you’ve made it”

The Times has a great story today about two women who saved their home from destruction at 27 Cooper Square to make way for Cooper Square Hotel. We hear from 74-year-old Hettie Jones and her garden:

“I grew the most fantastic tomatoes and peppers up there, veggies that need lots of light,” lamented Ms. Jones. “We used to have views from every angle, but now they only exist from the hotel’s penthouse.”

She has lived here since 1962.

Pointing to the cluster of new luxury towers rising in the square, Ms. Jones added with a sigh: “This used to be an area where people got their start. Now it’s a place to land once you’ve made it.”

Jeremiah had a post on the history of 35 Cooper Square this past summer.

[Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times]

Some buildings that should be torn down

Nicolai Ouroussoff has an interesting idea in the Times today:

So here’s what I propose. True, the city is close to broke. But even with Wall Street types contemplating the end and construction of new luxury towers grinding to a halt, why give in to despair? Instead of crying over what can’t be built, why not refocus our energies on knocking down the structures that not only fail to bring us joy, but actually bring us down?

Ugliness, of course, should not be the only criterion. There are countless dreadful buildings in New York; only a few (thankfully) have a traumatic effect on the city.

Among the buildings that he suggests tearing down: That ugly curved glass residential building at Astor Place designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates:

[T]he crude quality of its execution is an insult . . . Gwathmey’s tower is squat and clumsy. Clad in garish green glass, it rests on a banal glass box that houses — what else? — rows of A.T.M.’s inside a Chase bank.

But lack of taste is not the point here. Neighborhoods are fragile ecosystems. And while enlightened designs can challenge the past, that is not the same as being oblivious to it. Astor Place would seem more comfortable in a suburban office park.

The East Village is saturated with memories of youthful rebellion. In recent years it has emerged as a crossroads between the world of would-be punks, awkward students and rich Wall Street types. The Gwathmey building serves only the last camp: it’s a literal manifestation of money smoothing over the texture of everyday life.

[Photo by everystreetinmanhattan via Flickr]

Paul Newman dies at 83

So many great films to choose from...Aside from the obvious, I always liked Fort Apache the Bronx.

The Post likes the LES on Sunday afternoons, though, wisely, not Saturday nights

The Post checks in on the LES:

On a Saturday night, the Lower East Side might as well be Meatpacking District Lite. Overpriced drinks? Check. Annoying restaurants? Check. And don't even get us started on the people.
Lower East Side Sunday afternoons are a different thing altogether. Because while the neighborhood is host to one of the more obnoxious night-life scenes, there's also another scene that's cropped up, and it's a cool one.
The 'hood has one of the most vibrant art scenes in town: 35 galleries, lots of them run by young, hot dealers. It also boasts a brand-new museum called, fittingly, the New Museum.

This was the caption to the photo (not the one that I'm using) that accompanied the article:

No red velvet ropes here! On a Sunday afternoon, art enthusiasts can chow down on doughnuts and stroll around the nabe without glimpsing any B&T barflies (They took the train home to Syosset last night).

A new name for Wall Street

Tom Robbins on the financial meltdown in this week's Voice:

Here's one small bit of payback that angry and frustrated New Yorkers could easily bestow on the grasping financial merchants behind last week's meltdown: Have the City Council — always down for a good street renaming — simply re-tag Wall Street with a new label, one more in line with its recent history: Boulevard of Greed? Gluttony Gulch? Chozzer Terrace?

For those of us prone to take the low road, these are the sort of names that instantly spring to mind, the nastier the better. And why not? How else to describe an industry that applauds nearly $500 million in bonuses for executives recklessly steering straight into the fiscal rocks, taking an entire economy down with them?

The drama of squirt guns

The Times has a piece today on people who go around town and shoot each other with squirt guns.

StreetWars was created in 2004 by Franz Aliquo, then a 28-year-old securities lawyer, as a cure for a boredom phase he was working through. Mr. Aliquo named himself Supreme Commander and, with a friend known as Mustache Commander and other helpers, has held several killing tournaments in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London and Paris. The game resembles the 1980s campus phenomenon Assassin, itself a reminder of the 1985 film “Gotcha!” starring Anthony Edwards and his paintball gun.

The contestants are mostly in their 20s or early 30s, from what could be called the kickball set; about 35 percent in the current war are women.