Week in Grieview

[Avenue A]

Bar 82 is closing (Friday)

More details on the new community center on East Ninth Street (Wednesday)

About 'Straight Outta Tompkins' (Thursday)

8th Street Winecellar expanding to East Fourth Street (Monday)

Plans for the open space at Meltzer Tower (Friday)

Checking in on The Treehouse above 2A (Thursday)

Something Sweet hopes to revive its bakery (Monday)

Get your apartment with a 3-level zen garden (Wednesday)

Looking at the David Schwimmer estate (Friday)

What it's like working at Zaragoza (Wednesday)

Comet spotting with East Village resident Felton Davis (Tuesday)

Another laundromat closes (Monday)

Remembering St. Patrick's Day Weekend 2013 (Monday)

Renovations for new Apartment 13 (Tuesday)

At the residents meeting for Smith Houses (Friday)

More on Jennifer's Way Bakery (Tuesday)

Renaming Riceton on East 14th Street (Tuesday)

This East Village residence has its own screening room (Monday)

'This is elderly abuse' — Warhol star Taylor Mead lives in squalor during building's gut renovation

Taylor Mead's home life in his fifth-floor walk-up continues to be a living hell, the Post notes today.

As you may have read in The Villager or at BoweryBoogie, Ben Shaoul bought the building Mead lives in and two others on Ludlow Street for $16.5 million last summer. Mead, 88, continues to live in his rent-stabilized apartment while the rest of the building is converted to market-rate homes. (Mead has lived here for 34 years and pays $380 a month in rent.)

Per the article:

Workers hammer outside his door from 7 a.m. till the evening. Plaster falls from his walls and roaches crawl up his legs. The kitchen sink doesn’t work.

Mead’s friends suspect Shaoul wants the poet to evict himself.

“It’s going to kill him,” said Clayton Patterson, a neighborhood activist and longtime friend. “This is elderly abuse. It’s pretty Third World when you think about it.”

You can read more about the legendary Mead, an actor, writer and poet, here. (Read this feature on Mead from The Paris Review last summer here.)

Of course, history doesn't mean much to developers.

“[Shaoul] is out for profit. He doesn’t give a shit about who I am,” he said. “It’s going to be hell.”

The end of the Viking Age?

Avenue A this morning.

A moment with Super Bad Brad in Tompkins Square Park yesterday

Thanks to EVG reader John G. for sharing this video of Brad Prowly (aka "Super Bad Brad") from Tompkins Square Park yesterday...

Today's hawk and squirrel show in Tompkins Square Park

Photos by Bobby Williams.

Saving the world in time for Easter

Our friend Curt Hoppe sent along these photos from today... where Arturo Vega was installing a mural on Prince and Elizabeth...



Vega says that it's "for the people saving souls."

Tomorrow is Opening Day at Coney Island, where Zoltar is only $1

Coney Island has its grand opening tomorrow... the Cyclone, Luna Park and Deno's Wonder Wheel Park are all set to reopen ... this after millions of dollars in Hurricane Sandy-related repair work and upgrades.

Our friends at Amusing the Zillion have been carefully documenting the opening-day developments. Find more details on rides and restaurants here ...

Per ATZ:

The amount of activity far exceeds anything we’ve seen in past years because of the extra added work of recovering and rebuilding from Superstorm Sandy. Even though Palm Sunday, Coney’s traditional opening day, is early this year, the great majority of the rides, games and eateries are ready to open.

Sandy KO'd Deno's Wonder Wheel Park's Zoltar. But! There is a new one...



And, as ATZ reminds us, the Coney Island Zoltar is only $1, as opposed to the $2 Zoltar outside Gem Spa.

Speaking of Zoltar... here's a shot of our own Zoltar this morning ... flashing some jewelry and his carefully placed flute, as always...



[Thanks to Amusing the Zillion for permission to repost the photos]

[Updated] Cab ends up on sidewalk outside Horus Café on Avenue A and East 10th Street

A reader sent along this photo from Avenue A at East 10th Street... we do not have any information on what happened or if there were any injuries... another reader thought it happened around 10:15 a.m.

Updated 10:41

Via @mikebarish — "didn’t see it happen but saw him extricating himself (with police help)"

This might be the largest pink limo ever in the East Village

Bill the Libertarian Anarchist spotted this on Ninth Street between Second and Third Avenues... Per Bill: "I walked off 35 feet for the length. Biggest limo I ever saw."

Freaky Friday

At the ping-pong table in Tompkins Square Park today... photo by Bobby Williams.