[If it doesn't rain] Free tonight in Tompkins Square Park: 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

[Updated: CANCELLED New date is Aug. 22]

IF IT DOESN'T RAIN LIKE IT IS SUPPOSED TO... then! Tonight marks the first (after last week's wash out) of the free music-movie nights in Tompkins Square Park. This evening's selection: O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coen brothers movie starring George ("Grizzly II: The Predator") Clooney.



There's also free pre-movie music from The Dapper Dans.

Check the Films in Tompkins Facebook page for updates on tonight's screening. The weather forecast isn't so promising — 100 percent chance of heavy rains later today and tonight.

And upcoming:

June 20 — Rushmore
June 27 — Reservoir Dogs
July 11 — Easy Rider
July 18 — Drive
July 25 — The Big Lebowski
Aug. 1 — Rocky Horror Picture Show
Aug. 8 — Chico + Rita
Aug. 15 — Romeo + Juliet

Random new bench randomly arrives on East Houston and the Bowery

[Bobby Williams]

Swear that this wasn't here on Tuesday... anyway! Perfect for sitting and watching diners on the DBGB sidewalk cafe ... or taking in the ongoing Bowery/East Houston Street reconstruction project. Not sure which one is more fun!

Last night

Everyone (well, a lot of people) have been talking about last evening's cloud/sunset show. (Check out Goggla's photos here.)

Liz Lee took this panoramic shot last evening... you have to click on the image for the full(er) effect...

Updated:

And here are two more photos from Liz...

Remembering Arturo Vega: 'there might not have been the Ramones without his support'

[Photo by Curt Hoppe from March 2013]

Arturo Vega, the artistic director for the Ramones who created their iconic logo, died this past weekend. He was 65.

John Holmstrom, the founding editor of Punk Magazine who designed two of the Ramones best-known album covers, shared some stories about Vega with Maximum Rock'n'Roll, including:

“But his loft on East 2nd Street – wow! He had his paintings on display, hundreds on Ramones t-shirts in a huge closet, and Joey and Dee Dee lived there. And it was almost on top of CBGBs, so when they would perform there, they’d often hang out at home, then walk downstairs into the club and play their set, then go back upstairs. Arturo was kind of supporting them in those early days, so in a way there might not have been the Ramones without his support.

As the Times noted, Vega was instrumental in getting the City to name part of East 2nd Street Joey Ramone Place.


Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk Magazine

John Holmstrom on the CBGB movie and the East Village of 2013

Today's morning sky photo

St. Mark's Place

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Elisabeth Diekmann
Occupation: Office Manager and Writer
Location: 7th Street between 2nd and Cooper Square
Time: 5:15pm on Saturday, June 8

I’m from New England originally. I came to New York in late ’77 when I was 20. I came down here for love. A boyfriend brought me here but I kind of had it in my mind to come here anyhow. I met him up in Maine and he lived in the City at the time. My father lived in Boston, I loved to travel, and I wanted to come to New York. I wanted to experience it. We got an apartment on 37 First Avenue.

I also subletted on 5th and A and on 12th Street. For awhile I lived in abandoned buildings, a couple of working ones, squatters. I had a lot of problems that I hadn’t dealt with that surfaced. I was ripe for addiction and I had an alcohol problem. But I survived. I lived in a good squat that was on 7th Street. There were a lot of politics and game playing within them. It was not the greatest experience, but I’m glad that I had it and I’m glad that I saw it. I had some friends that bought the buildings for $1 and worked on paying the back taxes. I have two friends that still have them. Then I got an apartment on 3rd Street and that’s where I lived for 17 years.

I loved walking down the street, I loved sitting on the stoops, even though there were drugs. In general, I always had really good experiences here. People sat on the stoops until around the late 80s when that became more forbidden. People began putting gates up by the end of the 80s when they started working on the real estate here. One of the things was to put gates up and not let people sit.

There were so many great people around. Keith Haring was a good friend of mine. He lived below me. Keith was just a really great, sweet guy — very low key, calm, casual. Before he even became well-known he used to have these art parties. He was very prolific and he would invite you to his space and he had his art all over. It was like a gallery showing but informal, with all kinds of drawings all over. You hung out and he’d try to sell stuff to pay his rent and whatever. He gave me a couple of pieces, which my boyfriend and I argued about who owned when we broke up.

There’s very few of us left that had survived all of the changes — a lot of people sold out, but they sold out for nothing. It’s hard to convey to the young people now what it was like then. It wasn’t what the outsiders think of it. It was the kind of community and the sense of comfort walking out on the street. Maybe the word comfort isn’t good. There was a dynamic or an energy, but to me it was very comfortable because I felt good in it.

And there was always something happening. Even if it was just on the street, there was an energy. You’d find things happening by walking down the street. There were also so many great, cheap places to eat. That’s where a lot of people would meet in the mornings, at Leshko’s and the one right next to it [the Odessa]. There were a lot of cheap breakfast meetings and gatherings.

I’m reading a historical novel by Jeannette Walls, who I really like, called "Half Broke Horses." Her writing is really amazing. "The Glass Castle" was her first book and was the memoir of her being brought up by a very transient family. Her father had a hard time holding a job and living in normal society and so he and his wife traveled a lot and it was the experience of the children and what they had to go through. The kids were more of the parents and they finally broke away. The first child moved to New York back in the mid 1980s and came to this neighborhood. True Story. And the parents eventually followed them here, no kidding, and lived in an abandoned building on 9th Street. Jeannette had gotten a good job by then and remembers in a cab seeing her mother on 3rd Avenue, right up there, picking garbage out of a dumpster. It was really an incredible story about coming out of a difficult life.

It’s been very inspirational, especially for my historical novel, which I’ve been working on. This whole time I’ve always wanted to be a writer or an artist. That was really my goal so I’m still working on that in my spare time.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

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Here's a photo of Elisabeth on a stoop on St. Mark's Place in 1985...

The Landmarks Preservation Commission approves application for modifications at PS 64

[Photo from June 4 by Edward Arrocha]

Back on May 8, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) heard public comments regarding the former PS 64 and CHARAS/El Bohio community center on East Ninth Street. As you know, developer Gregg Singer will need approvals from the LPC in order to make changes to the exterior of the landmarked building for his proposed 500-bed dormitory.

During the May meeting, the commissioners reportedly responded positively to the architect's plans for renovation. While they did not vote on the proposal, the commissioners made suggestions to the applicant to modify the plans.

And yesterday, the LPC approved the application with some minor modifications. (How minor? The stair bulkheads were modified to be narrower, the rooftop railings will be black-painted metal instead of glass and will be set back an additional 2 feet, etc.)

As expected, for preservationists, the next battlefront will be with the Department of Buildings, who must approve plans to convert the building into a dorm.

"We always knew this battle would really revolve around the dormitory use, rather than the landmarks approvals. Working with a coalition of groups and elected officials, we are continuing to challenge the legitimacy of the dormitory arrangement, which has not yet been approved by the Department of Buildings, and which we hope and will fight to ensure is never approved by DOB," Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, told me in an email. "We are still quite optimistic that this plan, like all of Singer's prior totally inappropriate plans for the old PS 64, will end up in the dustbin of history."

Preservation groups and some local residents want to see the building returned for community use.


[Edward Arrocha]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rebranded P.S. 64 up for grabs: Please welcome University House at Tompkins Square Park to the neighborhood

Deed for 'community facility use only' at the former P.S. 64 now on the market

Efforts continue to fight the dorm planned for the former PS 64 on East 9th Street

Testimony Of Councilmember Rosie Mendez regarding the former PS 64

[Updated] At the 'Save Our Community Center MARCH AND RALLY'

Landmarks Preservation Commission asks to see modified plans for former PS 64

The staging obviously sold this Avenue C duplex

An EVG regular shared this apartment listing with us...

Step right up to a UNIQUE 2BR/CONV3 with space for four to share!

Nestled on Avenue C - the new block du jour of the East Village, this is a sprawling listing in a new building.

Upstairs you'll find the kitchen, two HUGE bedrooms (Queen sized beds and dressers, check) a full kitchen and full bath.

Down the spiral staircase you'll find a MEGA studio space plus alcove, plus half bath. And a private second entrance. It's like a whole other apartment. You also have access down here to your HUGE OUTDOOR SPACE!

Yes, blah, blah. It was the accompanying photos, though, that really bring home this duplex's best features ...







... no word if the can of Lysol and the plastic beverage cooler are included on the HUGE OUTDOOR SPACE!



Anyway. Doesn't matter. Staging sells, of course, and devotees of the lived-in bro look likely couldn't pass this one up! Plus, demand being what it is, this place was on Streeteasy less than a week before some people rented it. Price: $3,595.

'Global tapas' on tap for 186 Avenue A

[February 2013]

Here's a look at another item on this month's CB3/SLA docket. (The meeting is Monday.) A "global tapas" bar going by the name Cork 'N Fork is vying for a beer-wine license at 186 Avenue A, which previously housed Kamui Den near East 12th Street.

According to paperwork (PDF) filed ahead of the meeting at the CB3 website, the proprietor is Demetrios Klidonas, who has been in the restaurant business in Manhattan and Queens for three decades ... most notably Isadora's Cafe on East 52nd Street, which he ran from 1990 until 2008 when he sold his interests in the business. (Isadora's is still in operation.)

Plans show 16 two-seat tables ... and a bar seating 10 people. Proposed hours are 11 a.m. - midnight Sunday through Thursday; until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

In May, an applicant withdrew plans for a ramen joint at 186 Avenue A.

The meeting is Monday night at the University Settlement Neighborhood Center, 189 Allen St. between Houston & Stanton.

An Evening with John Strausbaugh

Via the EV Grieve inbox...

An Evening with John Strausbaugh

The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) will host author and cultural commentator John Strausbaugh as he reads from his latest book, "The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues" (Ecco 2013) on Thursday, June 13. The reading will begin at 7 p.m. with a Q&A session with Strausbaugh to follow. MoRUS is located at 155 Avenue C between 9th and 10th Streets. $5 - $10 suggested donation.

The Village is a collection of profiles and stories from events and personalities going as far back as 1640 that shaped and colored the cultural landscape of New York City below 14th Street.

Ada Calhoun writes in the May 31 issue of The New York Times Book Review: How rare and refreshing it is to find a chronicler who can remain dry-eyed and funny while describing the Village’s transformation from laboratory for change to “Sex and the City” tour stop.

Meanwhile, the folks at MoRUS conducted a Q-and-A with Strausbaugh, whose credits include serving as an editor of New York Press.

An excerpt:

MoRUS: Do you believe that the increasing gap between the rich and poor is effecting radical, progressive thinking in New York City? If so, in what ways?

JS: I suspect this is a very low point for radical, progressive thinking in NYC. Again, I’m speaking from what I know of the history. New York City was, for so many decades and in too many ways to enumerate here, a hotbed of forward thinking, not only in traditional political terms but in social and cultural movements as well. All the reprogramming and refashioning of the city over the last quarter-century or so to create the affluent, suburbanized, generic, tourist-friendly New New York has had, I think, a severe dampening effect on the city as a place that nurtures radical or progressive thinking on any front — political, social, or cultural. New York used to be a fantastically creative place on all those fronts. Now it’s being repurposed as a place of recreation, not creation.

Read the rest of the interview here.