CB3 committee takes no action for now on proposed restriction of 'corporate formula stores'

On Wednesday night, members of of the No 7-Eleven group and the 11th Street A-B-C Block Association presented a proposed resolution to CB3's Economic Development Committee to restrict corporate formula stores in the neighborhood through a zoning amendment.

It turns out that Wednesday night was the first time that a community group had brought a resolution to this relatively new committee. Its procedure for this was not entirely in place, and the committee declined to take any action — for now.

Rob Hollander, representing the Block Association and No 7-Eleven group, submitted the resolution and supporting documents several weeks ago. However, the background and documents hadn't been distributed to the committee members.

As Hollander noted, "So members may not have read it in its submitted form and they didn't have any documents to look at during the meeting. As a result, some concerns were raised and discussed that were not contained in the resolution itself."

He said that the resolution is just a way to give all community boards more say in local land use. "It doesn't prescribe what any community board should do about land use, it just allows them to exercise choice," Hollander said.

And for the time spent Wednesday night?

"I don't begrudge the lost time — I enjoyed meeting the members who I didn't already know, it was a pleasure to see again the members that already knew, and presenting is fun," Hollander said. "But we did lose a month. At the very end an important and relevant concern was raised: On what criteria would the Community Board decide up or down on a given corporate store? It seems to me it raises serious legal liabilities of discrimination. So the meeting was not a waste by any means."

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] More from the anti-7-Eleven front on Avenue A and East 11th Street

Avenue A's anti-7-Eleven campaign now includes arsenal of 20,000 stickers

'No 7-Eleven' movement goes global with BBC report

7-Eleven fallout: East Village groups propose resolution 'to restrict corporate formula stores'

The photography of Jefferson Siegel

You've likely seen Jefferson Siegel's news photography (and byline) in The Villager, Daily News and elsewhere... He recently launched a new site showcasing his photos ... (and he continues to add to it...)

I've always liked his work, especially his Occupy Wall Street coverage. You can find his site here.

Winter Friday flashback Extra Place is now officially a Dead End

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from April 14, 2009...

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As the new city sign on the left shows...

Previously on EV Grieve:
The End of Extra Place

A game of chess at 100 Avenue A

Under the awning this afternoon at 100 Avenue A, where East Village Farms closed on Feb. 7, 2012.

Photo by Bobby Williams.

Analyzing Astor Place's mystery artwork

Well, this was sitting by the Cube this morning at Astor Place. (Via Twitter around 8 a.m.)



Another angle via @bomarrblog...



Guesses at what this is supposed to be included... Ziggy, a Cheeto/Cheeseball, a nipple and a gift for Emperor Palpatine.

City OK's 6-floor, 6-unit condo for former East Seventh Street parking lot

[September 2012]

Massey Knakal issued the following news release this morning:

A development site at 277 East 7th Street, located between Avenues C and D ... was sold in an all-cash transaction valued at $1,850,000. The vacant 22.25’ x 97.5’ lot benefits from a curb cut. Currently, the lot is used for ten parking spaces. With a zoning of R8-B and FAR 4.00 residential, the site contains approximately 7,461 buildable square feet. The sale price equates to approximately $248 per buildable square foot.

We noted that this parcel was for sale (asking: $1.95 million) back in February 2011. As reported here in December, there are plans in place to build a six-floor, six-unit apartment building (with presumably a garage of some kind).

The city OK'd those plans from Eisner Design LLC back on Feb. 13, according to city records. South Fork Partners LLC is listed as the owner.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The next sliver of space for development: The parking lot at 277 Seventh St.

Seventh Street parking lot destined to become 6-floor apartment building

A look at the dwindling number of East Village lots

Noted

EVG regular Andrew Adam Newman on Ave C points out this unfortunate juxtaposition from this morning's Groupon email for the area...

Revisiting Fetus Squat on East 9th Street in the early 1990s

Katie Jones lived in Fetus Squat on East Ninth Street between Avenue C and Avenue D for several years in the early 1990s. She recently shared several photos with me. Jones, who now lives in Oregon, left the neighborhood in 1996.

"I think that putting these photos out there after all this time has actually released me in some ways. With technology the way it is today, I was able to post many squatter photos from the early 1990s on Facebook. In doing that I have been back in touch with many people from this time. That part has been awesome," she wrote in an email.

"I wanted to be able to give them their history back and letting go of these pictures people are reminded of what we fought for. They are reminded of their part in the struggle to maintain those squats. I am nostalgic about the past in some respects. I miss the community we had back then. I miss the sense of ultimate trust I had in my activist friends. I also see too many faces in those photos that have died — that part is hard."

She return to the city several weeks ago for a long weekend.

"I had not been to NYC since 1997, so it was the first time I had seen the full effect of the gentrification on the LES. Shocking and sad," she said. "I had been warned by friends who still live in the area, but it really was a mindfuck."

Here are several of the photos with a brief description from Katie. (And a special thanks to MoRUS for putting me in contact with Katie.)

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Fetus Squat 1992
My home for most of 1992 until a fire destroyed the entire building. This shot was taken on 9th Street toward Avenue C. To the left of Fetus is a giant garden that had been reclaimed from one of the numerous vacant lots that were so prevalent in the LES during this time.

I loved living at Fetus Squat. I really found my niche in this building. I learned how to do masonry, put up insulation and sheetrock, gather food from dumpsters and restaurants, and make window frames out of police barricades. (Actually, we used those police barricades for everything from stairs to lofts.)

It really was my first communal experience. I think there were about 30 of us living at Fetus by the time I got there. I had moved to NYC from Miami. The scene was young and punk rock with a lot of political ideologies. More than any other squat, Fetus was where I felt at home. I am still in touch with so many of my friends from this building 20 years later.

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Amy and Soy During Fire at Fetus Squat
This shot was taken during the fire that engulfed Fetus Squat in October of 1992. Everyone got out. The fire department showed up, but only put water on the adjacent building. One of the firemen turned to me and said “Is this your house?” to which I said in a confused, numb way “Yes…” He replied “Not anymore! Hahaha!”

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Fetus Rubble
This photo is of Fetus Squat after the wrecking crew came and demolished all remains of our home. It seemed like days that we all gathered there to sort through the rubble trying to retrieve something from out shattered lives. Scott looks on as Frankie crosses the street with some of his unburied belongings.

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Fetus Rubble Black Flag
This was such an impossibly surreal time for all of us. We were homeless and digging through the remains of our old Squat on 9th and C. You can see the old doorway still intact with the Anarchist Black Flag next to it. We spent days sifting through the rubble looking for belongings.

Shortly after this I decided to travel. Some friends had found a ride down to New Orleans. The guy who was driving put in a mixed cassette tape and I recognized it as one of mine! It kind of freaked me out and I asked him where he got it. He said he found it at the Fetus lot. I never knew this guy before the road trip and here he was with one of my mixed tapes scavenged from the fire. He told me I could have it back, but I was homeless and traveling so I told him to keep it. We all lost everything we had in that fire.

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Lot Between Serenity and Dos Blocos
This shot was taken from the Serenity Squat Roof around 1993. This Lot was on 9th street between C and D. People were living in the van and maybe some of the other vehicles in the lot. A garden and chickens were in the lot next to all the vehicles.

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Lot Between 8th Street and 9th Street
This lot was massive! It was between 8th and 9th streets and Avenues C to D. It was a combination dumping yard and shanty town. The little shacks were made out of items collected in the lot. People were growing small vegetable gardens and I even saw a chicken or two.

I took this shot from the 5th floor of Serenity Squat. This would have been around 1994. On this day the lot clean up by the city began. All of the people that lived in the tents and shanties were evicted. The city came through with bulldozers and just crushed everything in the way. It was very chaotic as people ran around trying to grab pets and possessions.

Construction for new housing began. This construction lasted the whole spring and summer of 1994. At one point a pile driver took up residence and banged four-story metal rods into the ground. Serenity Squat would shake from the impact! We monkey wrenched it a few times just to get some peace and quiet.

St. Mark's Place is dead! Long live St. Mark's Place!

[Window Shade Repairman, St. Marks Place, New York, 1938, by Joe Schwartz. Via Stephen Cohen Gallery]

Ada Calhoun is a freelance journalist working on a narrative history of St. Mark's Place. Last September, Calhoun sold the book, titled "St. Marks Is Dead," to W.W. Norton. Calhoun has her own narrative history of St. Mark's — she was born and raised on the block between Second Avenue and First Avenue in the mid-1970s and 1980s.

The book is due at the publisher next spring, and she is looking for some help.

Per the Facebook events page:

My goal is to track down the best stories, photographs, and historical documents related to the street. I've been going through archives and conducting a few interviews a week, but I know I'm only scratching the surface. In the interest of efficiency, I'd like to invite anyone with St. Marks-related stories or pictures to share to drop by the lovely Neighborhood Preservation Center on March 10th, anytime between 12 and 4, for a St. Marks Place story-gathering event.

ST MARKS STORY DAY
Sunday, March 10 from 12-4
Neighborhood Preservation Center
232 East 11th Street, Buzzer #1
(Near St. Mark's Church)
Snacks provided!

I recently spoke with Calhoun about the book, and what it was like growing up on the block.

"I didn't know any different. I thought it was totally normal. I was used to stepping over bodies walking down the street or being offered drugs every five steps," she said. "I did have this experience when I went to visit cousins in Ohio when I was 11 years old. They had a kiddie pool in the backyard and we went to a drive-in movie theater. And we got root beer floats, which I never had before. I came back fuming at my parents. I was like, What the fuck — you never told me any of this! I felt totally deprived!"

The book will explore the history (going back to the 17th century) and mythology of the street. So far she has talked with more than 100 people about the block and its meaning to them.

Any common themes emerging so far?

"The thing that I kept running into [were] people saying that there was this golden moment on the street when St Mark's was really itself and reached its full promise on this date and for these five years there was no better place in the entire world. It was the heart of culture — the center for music, art and poetry," she said. "People would describe passionately how it was so vibrant and they were so alive, then it died this horrible death."

For instance, Jack Kerouac biographer Joyce Johnson said that St. Mark's was all over in 1974 when someone flipped a cigarette into her son's stroller.

Another person Calhoun interviewed said that the scene died in 1974. Someone else said that all started in 1974. She also heard that the block reached its peak in 1978. Not to mention 1980. And so on.

"I'm really curious what's going on now. Basically my theory right now, based on doing this book, is that everyone was wrong. Everyone who thought it was dead was wrong," she said. "So people who think it's dead now are probably wrong too. My theory is that people coming out of karaoke bars or yogurt shops ... this is going to be some new wave of culture that we don't know about and won't even know about until it's over."

[St. Mark's Place on 2009, via the EVG files]

The Smith eyes basement expansion on Third Avenue

The Smith, the popular bistro on Third Avenue near East 10th Street, is on this month's CB3-SLA committee docket. According to documents, the owners are proposing to add a bar to the restaurant's basement. (The PDF of the application is here.)

In addition to a small bar, The Smith plans to open up the basement area for dining as well.

A media rep for the restaurant told us: "Currently, The Smith East Village is hoping to expand this summer and revamp the downstairs area, but all is still pending final approval."

Restaurant staffers are currently collecting signatures in support of the expansion.

[Image via]