[Updated] Waiting for POTUS on Astor Place

[Photo by EVG White House correspondent Steven]

President Obama is in town this afternoon and evening for two fundraising events. He also taped a segment for "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon."

Anyway, in case you were wondering about the massive NYPD presence and barricades on Astor Place, Lafayette, East Houston, etc.

Updated 6:15 p.m.

Another photo via Steven...



Those new Cadillacs are pretty nice!

... and another via Steven...



If you missed the President just now, you can also see him during a pop-up visit at Webster Hall at 2 a.m.

Updated 6:40 p.m.

Here's the Presidential motorcade passing Avenue A at East Houston a little earlier... via EVG reader Ronnie... (highlight at the 19- to 24-second mark...)



Previously on EV Grieve:
East 12th Street and Avenue A tonight: Waiting for the President to pass by

Today in Hōkūleʻa sightings on the East River

EVG Hōkūleʻa correspondent Dave on 7th spotted the legendary voyaging canoe on the East River earlier today...



The craft arrived in New York Harbor on Sunday...

The canoe is taking part in a variety events this week, including World Oceans Day today.

You can read more about the Hōkūleʻa and its historic East Coast voyage right here.

Report: Mount Sinai Beth Israel ready to sell its 1st Avenue campus

[Photo from May]

The Mount Sinai Health System, as previously reported, plans to replace its existing First Avenue facility by opening a smaller hospital on 14th Street and Second Avenue in the years ahead.

Now officials have reportedly put up its First Avenue properties, which are expected to close in the next four years, on the market.

Lois Weiss at the Post had the scoop:

Real estate sources say the sale, which is expected to include that full block bordered by First and Second avenues and East 16th to East 17th streets, will also include other First Avenue properties.

Weiss reported that Douglas Harmon of Eastdil Secured, who brokered the $5.45 billion Stuy Town/Peter Cooper deal with Blackstone, is talking to interested investors.

While it lies opposite Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village ... the campus is also opposite the leafy and elegant Stuyvesant Square Park, making residential options enticing, especially as Stuy Town’s new owner, Blackstone, has plenty of air rights toward seeking landing strip.

There's no word yet what this prime chunk of real estate might fetch. The Real Deal noted that "hospitals make an attractive target for developers. For example, in 2014, Fortis Property Group paid $240 million for the Long Island College Hospital in Cobble Hill, where it plans to build residential towers."

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: Joe
Occupation: Retired, Teacher
Location: Village View, First Avenue
Time: 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 21

I grew up in Little Italy. I was born on Mott Street and went to school in St. Patricks', the old cathedral, which is down the block from where I lived. The neighborhood there was mostly broken up in parts, like on Mulberry Street there were mostly Neapolitan people. Half of Mott Street was half Neapolitan and half Sicilian. On Elizabeth Street were all Sicilian people; there were all different dialects of Sicilian people.

There was a lot of street activity. You’d play baseball in the street. Kids used to take a pair of ball-bearing skates, take them apart and get a piece of 2x4 wood ... they used to nail a milk box or a soda box on the top, and that was a scooter to ride around on. It was crazy, but this is how we did it in those days.

We never had crime in that neighborhood. As far as racism or anything, we didn’t even know what racism was about. I didn’t know anything about segregation until I went to school. When I was in the neighborhood, you either conformed or you didn’t, and if you didn’t they made you conform or you moved out.

Most of that area was controlled by the Mob. So if you had any problems the Mob knew and they’d settle it up before you’d have any problems. The neighborhood was very safe. You could have went out to a dinner or a dance when you were a teenager, come home at 2 in the morning and you didn’t have to worry, because those guys were out 24 hours. They were out all hours of the night. As soon as they saw the wrong person coming, they used to go after them. They were protective because they didn’t want the police in the area. You never had crime there.

You got spoiled because a lot of the things in Little Italy were fresh made: fresh pasta, fresh meat, fresh sausage, fresh everything. You got spoiled. There were a lot of good places to eat. Every block had a restaurant or an outlet where you ate. A lot of them were like cafes. People used to go in there and hang out. A lot of those stores used to have pastries, but it was almost like a come-on. It wasn’t like that was their main product to sell. They had a pool room and these guys used to hang out in there. They used to gamble and what not. A lot of the fellas used that as a place to meet. Then the ownership turned over and the pastry became the main part.

In those days, a lot of people went to public school and then when they got married they moved out of the neighborhood. Eventually there was no more Little Italy. Most of the owners now either own the building or their family was there for many years and they still have the business. But other than that, they’re all gone. They [began] moving out in the 1960s. That’s when everything started to change. Most of the people moved to Jersey, Staten Island, Long Island and Brooklyn.

Mostly years ago all these sections were split up [by ethnicity]. Like Orchard Street was all Jewish. If you were there and you weren’t Jewish and you wanted to rent a store, they wouldn’t rent it to you. They were clannish because they had to be. When you passed the Bowery and went west, there were all Italians there. They never had wars; they never had fights, because they got along.

Second Avenue was like Broadway to the Jewish people. On Saturday night, if you didn’t have a fur coat, you couldn’t go there. People used to come down to see the plays. There was the National Theatre, the Yiddish Theatre. There were all Jewish movie theatres down here.

The best places here were the famous dairy restaurants on Second Avenue. My family owned a building on Second Avenue, and we had a dairy restaurant in there called Steinberg’s Dairy Restaurant. Then you had the Moskowitz and Lupowitz, which was a Romanian restaurant. They sold very good food. Then there was Ratner’s. So when people came out of the theatres on Saturday, all those restaurants were booming. They made a ton of money and the food was out of this world.

You passed there as a kid and you looked in the window and you’d see these big cheesecakes. Your mouth used to water but you couldn’t afford it in those days. This was the 1950s and 1960s. It was a different way of living

Next week, Joe talks about moving into Village View in 1964 and working for NYU.

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

Tompkins Square Park getting a Prince-inspired piano for the next 10 days

The Sing for Hope piano arrived in Tompkins Square Park yesterday... where it will be officially unveiled tomorrow for public use through June 19.

Here's more via the Sing for Hope website:

As NYC’s largest annual public art project, The Sing for Hope Pianos impacts an estimated 1 million New Yorkers and visitors each year. For two weeks each summer, we bring 50 unique, artist-created Sing for Hope Pianos to the parks and public spaces of all five boroughs for anyone and everyone to enjoy.

This year, we are thrilled to announce that, following public installation, all of The 2016 Sing for Hope Pianos will be placed in permanent homes in NYC public schools, bringing the power of the arts to an estimated 15,000 New York City schoolchildren.

Brooklyn-based artist Eric Inkala designed the piano for Tompkins Square Park...it is titled "Dearly Beloved," and is dedicated to Prince.

Here's a look at the piano after workers unwrapped it...


[Photo by Bobby Williams]

This is the first pop-up piano for the Park since 2013. (There was a piano on Astor Place last year.)

Thanks to William Klayer for the top two photos

Hi, Ben Shaoul would like to buy your building

Slightly amused/mostly horrified residents of a co-op on East 11th Street passed along the following unsolicited email from a rep for developer Ben Shaoul... addressed to a Maria, even though there isn't anyone by that name living in the building...

On East Houston, empty lot awaits million-dollar condos

A crew made pretty quick work of demolishing the two-level structure at 287 E. Houston St. near Clinton Street...as these photos from Saturday show...



As previously noted, there are plans for an 11-story building with 28 luxury residences (top price will reach $5 million). The city has yet to approve the necessary permits for the development.

The space previously housed a tax preparation service and a landscaping business.

Previously on EV Grieve:
11 stories of condos to join the growing East Houston residential corridor

Ready to join the flight club

Christo and Dora's red-tailed hawk offspring continue to practice flapping their wings in Tompkins Square Park...



Goggla, who has more hawklet photos here, figures the trio will be ready to fledge any moment now...

Photos today by Bobby Williams

Chico's tribute to Muhammad Ali on Avenue B

Between Second Street and Houston.

The last tribute mural that we recall longtime LES graffiti artist Antonio "Chico" Garcia creating was for Robin Williams on East 13th Street in August 2014.

End days for Surma Books & Music

As you may have read, Surma Books & Music is closing this month at 11 E. Seventh St. near Cooper Square after 98 years in business.

The New York Times has reaction from the Ukrainian specialty store's longtime patrons ... as well as third-generation owner Markian Surmach.

A sampling:

“You can trace the whole history of our community through this store,” said William M. Dubetz, 79, a security guard from the Bronx who has stopped by Surma for 61 years to pick up his weekly Ukrainian newspaper. “I don’t know what will happen to that culture once it closes.”

And...

Despite the gentrification of Little Ukraine (and its corresponding rent increases), Markian Surmach was not exactly forced out of his store. He owns the building, which his grandfather bought for $15,000. Its sale now is likely to fetch millions — a sum surely never envisioned by the young Myron Sr., whose mother sold a cow so he could afford to leave Ukraine. Although many customers bemoaned his decision, Mr. Surmach explained that sales have slumped since the 1990s, when the fall of the Soviet Union and the proliferation of cheap specialty goods online made Surma’s once scarce wares more readily available.

“Even if we own the building, the property taxes and upkeep are very expensive and have drowned out profits to the point where we’re barely floating,” Mr. Surmach, 54, said. “If we didn’t own the place, we’d have been out of business decades ago.”