EV Grieve

Monday, June 1, 2015

Today in photos of discarded Bill Murray throw pillows

[Photo by Mike Wolf]

Spotted in the trash on East 10th Street and Avenue B… a $20 value!

Tompkins Square Pool nearly ready to open

Just another few feet to go.

Park photo today via Bobby Williams.

As for the actual Tompkins Square Pool, it re-opens for the season on June 27.

Rumors: Red Square has been sold

A tipster tells us the following:

Red Square has been sold! From what I hear, the ink isn't quite dry. But I think the price was $135 million. The more frightening part of this rumor is that the storefronts may not be long for the world — the new owner will be seeking to build higher on that site.

This is the second time in recent weeks that we heard that the residential complex at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B has been sold. (Our other tipster's source was a Red Square employee.)

To date, there's nothing in public records documenting a sale of the 12-floor building that includes 130 rental units and 23,000 square feet of retail space.

Adding to the speculation: None of the empty storefronts along the Shoppes at Red Square are listed for rent. Amona Deli & Grocery closed back in February. The space has sat empty since then. Last week, its next-door neighbor moved away...

One of the other long-empty retail spaces has served as a Halloween pop-up shop in recent years.

The building, the creation of Michael Rosen, opened in June 1989. Here's more from a Daily News article from September 2008:

Red Square occupies land that served as an automobile service station for more than 25 years. Rosen's wife's family bought the property in the 1960s, and, he points out, no homes were destroyed and no businesses were displaced.

Red Square was designed by graphic artist legend Tibor Kalman, a Hungarian immigrant. Its quirky feel has come to symbolize the avant-garde, rebellious East Village spirit.

Rosen has actually apologized for Red Square. (We heard him do so at a Community Board 3 meeting several years ago.) Last we read, he was a nonvoting shareholder in the building and without any involvement in the day-to-day operations.

And it should be noted that there was speculation of an addition atop the existing stores as for back as the summer of 2008, according to this article in the Voice.

In announcing the opening of Red Square in the spring of 1989, the Times reported that the building "includes studios that will rent for $975 a month, one-bedroom apartments for $1,350 and two-bedroom units at $1,900. Mr. Rosen shrugged off the possibility that the rents might be a bit steep for the proletariat, forecasting that interest will stem from young professionals and college students who will share apartments."

Avenue A storefront shuffle

Back in February, Galleria J. Antonio announced that the crafts and custom jewelry shop would be closing in the months ahead at 47 Avenue A.

As we understood it, the proprietors were retiring from the business that has been here between East Third Street and East Fourth Street since 2000. (The shop opened on Madison and 68th Street in 1970 before relocating to Christopher Street … before the move to A some years later.)

However, it turned out to be a short-lived retirement. Galleria J. Antonio is downsizing and moving into the former eyeglass shop a storefront away.

Galleria J. Antonio curator Jesse Gee told us this in a Facebook message: "The eyeglass store will be my retirement store. Isn't that a stitch? I can't stop working because I love what I do and STILL NEED A JOB, but — I must slow down and work fewer days and hours."

Meanwhile, from the rumor mill comes word that the Essex Card Shop at 39 Avenue A is going to open a second outpost in the former Galleria J. Antonio space … the person who passed along the tip used the words "Avenue A department store." We shall see.

The B Bar's Urban Etiquette Sign about their neighbor's trash

A rather amused EVG reader on the Bowery points us to this sign on the building next door to the B Bar.

To the tenants of this building
Please only put your garbage out on the days it is scheduled to be picked up. Do not put your garbage out over the weekend … The garbage on the street is unsightly and unsanitary.

Stern, but a reasonable enough request! Maybe!

The reader then pointed out the B Bar's own unsightly mound of garbage bags yesterday morning near East Fourth Street waiting for private pickup…

New Steve Croman warning flyer makes the scene

Last week, an EVG reader noted a lone flyer on East 11th Street at Avenue B warning potential residents of living in a property owned by Steve Croman, aka 9300 Realty, named one of the top-10 worst landlords in NYC last year by The Village Voice.

This past weekend another flyer arrived … affixed to a city trash can on Second Avenue and East Fifth Street…

In this flyer, Croman is pictured with his wife Harriet … and the flyer's creator points out that Croman "is now the subject of an investigation into potentially illegal tactics used to force rent-stabilized tenants out of their apartments, the Daily News has learned."

That Daily News piece is from last July.

Photos by Derek Berg