A sunrise shot from Avenue A and Seventh Street at Tompkins Square Park ... and last night's gentle downpour refreshed the restorative reflection pond along Avenue A...
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Saturday morning scenery
A sunrise shot from Avenue A and Seventh Street at Tompkins Square Park ... and last night's gentle downpour refreshed the restorative reflection pond along Avenue A...
Friday, March 15, 2019
Incoming
Incoming thunderstorms over #NYC.#fridaynight @evgrieve pic.twitter.com/dYHuBrtIRr
— Evan Kapitansky (@evan_kapitansky) March 16, 2019
Reptaliens: Resurrection
"Shuggie II" is the first single from Valis, the second record from Reptaliens that's out on April 26 via CapturedTracks.
You can also catch the psych-pop band on a bill at Brooklyn Steel on May 6.
The FDNY honors fire marshal Christopher T. Zanetis in plaque ceremony on 2nd Street
[Photo by Stacie Joy]
Today the FDNY and city honored Christopher "Tripp" Zanetis with a plaque dedication ceremony at Engine Company 28, Ladder 11 on Second Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.
[Photo by Stacie Joy]
Zanetis was a fire marshal and U.S. Air Force Major who was killed in a helicopter crash in Western Iraq one year ago today. He was 37. Zanetis was on leave from the department, where he had been a marshal in the Bureau of Fire Investigation.
After graduating from NYU, he was appointed as a firefighter in 2004, and was assigned to the station house on Second Street. He was promoted to fire marshal in 2013.
The way he lived his life will continue to inspire us all -#FDNY Chief of Department John Sudnik remembers FDNY Fire Marshal and @USAirForce Captain Christopher “Tripp” Zanetis pic.twitter.com/Q8Q2sYtXkA
— FDNY (@FDNY) March 15, 2019
[Via the FDNY]
H/T Salim!
Previously on EV Grieve:
The FDNY remembers fire marshal Christopher T. Zanetis on 2nd Street
A visit to Sixth Street Specials
Interview and photos by Stacie Joy
I’m crawling through a hole in the ground to meet Hugh Mackie, owner of Sixth Street Specials motorcycle repair shop. It’s the steep ramp underground where people bring their cycles to be diagnosed and repaired here at 703 E. Sixth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D.
Apparently there is an upstairs shop, a place that doesn’t require hunkering my way down through an unlighted tunnel beyond two wooden doors (all while wearing a lot of camera equipment) but I missed the memo.
Downstairs the space is huge — it runs a reported 100 feet back — and it’s filled with cycles, parts, neatly stacked organized tools and many empty or nearly empty cups of tea. Mackie drinks a lot of tea.
Upstairs the shop is filled with more bikes, parts and tools, as well as artwork (including a signed Salvador Dali and pieces from one of Mackie’s kids) and mementos of Mackie’s many years racing and of his friends, especially Indian Larry. The place is filled with memories and stories, and Mackie is an excellent storyteller.
He introduces me to mechanic Fumihisa Matsueda, who is busy at work crouched by an Italian Laverda, lit with a portable task work lamp and a small space heater.
Mackie answers some questions I had about photos of my grandfather’s custom bikes from the 1930s, and casually continues the interview even after being stabbed in the finger by an engine part. He calmly wraps the bleeding digit with some electrical tape and tells me a bit about his history on Sixth Street.
How long have you been here?
The shop opened here in 1986, and I moved into the building [Mackie lives upstairs with his wife] in 1998. This building used to be a nail factory back in the day.
What made you choose the East Village as your shop’s home?
I’ve lived in the neighborhood since 1981. The location was abandoned empty lots back then, and squats, and the rent was good. In SoHo, lofts were filling up and artists were looking to the East Village. Typical East Village history.
We were the first business on the block that wasn’t drugs or prostitution back then. Artist Charles Keller lived on the third floor of this building and my friend Edgar lived in a blue van outside. We used to run an electrical cord to him in the winter so he could keep warm.
Do you still have customers from the early days on Sixth Street? What’s your typical customer like these days?
Very few from the old days are left. Sadly, they don’t live here anymore. The customer base changed. Still there are folks who ride vintage bikes all over the East Coast. They send their bikes here to be repaired. We make rent servicing new Triumphs. The company closed in the 1980s and revamped in the 1990s and is making new Bonneville models.
In Manhattan, if you need to service a bike you can’t do it yourself and can’t do it on the street. There are no more bike shops! Very few automotive places left at all. We’re one of the last shops. We also service older bikes to make our bread and butter. Millennials are the ones buying these new bikes. Those old enough to have graduated college and afford a bike — that helps keep our doors open.
How have you been able to stay in that space for so long with rents being what they are and buildings being sold left and right?
We have a good relationship with the landlord. It used to be back here you don’t ask for anything and the landlord doesn’t provide anything, you fend for yourself. Things are different now. Rent has gone up in quantum leaps. The landlord’s sons have taken over.
This building used to have four tenants, one on each floor. Now one is an Airbnb: things are subdivided and sublet, people taking in more roommates. When a tenant leaves or is forced out, the new tenant has to pay much more and then brings in other people to share the burden of cost. The building is overwhelmed now. Too many people flushing Bounty down the toilet pipes. Landlord profiteers and rent goes up.
As the neighborhood gets more and more gentrified, more agencies issues tickets and fines for repairs that are needed. This building has no super and I am on the ground floor so I end up having to patch things and fix those citations.
Any concerns about the shop’s long-term future?
Yes, absolutely! The last 10 years have been possible only due to the economic downturn/financial crisis in 2008. We’ve received a stay of execution.
What are your thoughts on the East Village of 2019?
It’s unrelated to what it was historically. Actually, that’s not the truth. It was built for immigrants. New people occupying everything. My own kids can’t afford to live here now.
---
Sixth Street Specials doesn't have a website or social media. If you want to know more about the shop, as Mackie tells me, just pick up the phone and call. “It’s a business, I answer the phone all the time!”
Cold case: New information sought in the 23-year-old murder of Second Avenue Deli owner Abe Lebewohl
[Photo yesterday by Derek Berg]
There are new reward posters up on all four corners of Second Avenue and Fourth Street... the NYPD is seeking information about the murder of Abe Lebewohl on March 4, 1996.
On that morning, Lebewohl, owner of the Second Avenue Deli, was making a $10,000 bank drop — NatWest Bank at the time — on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Fourth Street.
Here's more via a March 2013 ABC 7 story:
"That morning he never had time to get out of his van. They got him right before he got out of his van," said retired NYPD homicide detective Jimmy Piccione.
Piccione responded to the crime scene, just a few blocks south of the eatery whose owner had become almost as famous as his steady stream of celebrity visitors.
"It was 8:30 in the morning, I remember thinking there is going to be a witness and it's going to be solved quickly, and 17 years later, here we are," said Piccione. "That morning Abe pulls up to that parking spot right there but before he gets out, he's accosted by one or more persons. He's taken to the back of the van and he's shot. Someone drives the van to First Avenue."
Abe, dying, manages to crawl out of the van onto the sidewalk.
"A passerby says, are you okay, and he says, "They got me."
The gun was found 2 days later in Central Park. It was later linked to 3 different shootings, but never to Abe Lebewohl's murder.
"We've been to Las Vegas, New Orleans, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina. We went wherever a lead would take us," said Piccione.
Piccione retired from the NYPD in 2011. In 2015, he joined his ex-NYPD partner, Jeff Salta, who had just retired and joined the Manhattan DA's office as an investigator.
As the Daily News reported this past March 4, the two remain determined to make an arrest in this case.
The Second Avenue Deli (Second Avenue at 10th Street) closed in 2006 thanks to a rent hike. There are two other locations now in the city, run by Abe's brother Jack Lebewohl with his sons.
Anyone with information that could help in the investigation is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). You may also submit tips online.
Report: MTA commits to a shorter work day for the 14th Street L-train rehab
[EVG file photo]
Residents along 14th Street between Avenue B and First Avenue may now have less evening L-train construction noise to endure.
As Town & Village reports, the MTA has agreed to reduce the hours of operation as it continues to prep for the L-train slowdown next month.
Per their report:
Neighbors have said work often ends at 11 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, although the MTA has said it tries to stop any noisy work by 10 p.m. But on Tuesday night, the MTA’s chief development officer overseeing the project, Janno Lieber, committed to stopping work by 7 p.m. at a meeting held by Community Board 3’s Transportation Committee.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to minimalize the impact of our work on neighbors, and they understandably have been asking for shorter hours,” Shams Tarek, a spokesperson for the MTA, told Town & Village.
Tarek added that the MTA wanted to first consult the contractor to make sure doing this wouldn’t lengthen the duration of the project, which includes the creation of an Avenue A entrance to the First Avenue L station. The new schedule of 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday to Friday, with possibly shorter hours on Saturday is effective immediately.
Other L-train details are still being decided, such as the possibility of exit-only stations at First and Third Avenues once the L-train slowdown officially starts later next month.
Meanwhile, on the topic of the L-train work along this corridor... a resident who lives adjacent to the construction zone, recently shared these videos from 8 p.m., showing that not everyone on the site may be all that busy after hours ...
In the first one, the operator of this diesel hydraulic excavator attempts to right a tipped rubber trash can...
...and here's the excavator trying to be a broom...
... and not sure what's happening here...
Previously on EV Grieve:
Nightmare scenario for residents who learn that 14th Street and Avenue A will be the main staging area for the L-train reconstruction
From bad to pretty bad: MTA releases more details on the new L-train rehab plan
Van Đa brings modern Vietnamese cuisine to 4th Street starting tonight
Van Đa makes it debut this evening over at 234 E. Fourth St. just west of Avenue B.
The project, from restaurateur Yen Ngo and Gramercy Tavern alum chef Hannah Wong, focuses on the food of Ho Chi Minh City, Hue and Hanoi.
Eater had a preview:
The duo is resisting traditional versions of pho or banh mi on the menu, with Ngo instead harking back to the food of her youth in Vietnam that she doesn’t often find here.
The menu is split into three sections of food from those three cities, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in south Vietnam; Hue, in the middle and which was once the royal capital of the country; and Hanoi up north. Ngo says that the food of central Vietnamese city Hue is very time-intensive and complex, though with gentle flavors, and she’s not seen many versions of it here. One example is shrimp and pork tapioca dumplings, which are made from tapioca flour and steamed in banana leaves. Dishes from other categories include stir-fried pho noodles and lemongrass beef tartare.
You can find their menu at this link.
The two-level space has been several restaurants in recent years, most notably The Cardinal, the Southern-style restaurant from chef-owner Curtis Brown.
Chinese Graffiti now open at 171 Avenue A
[Photos by Steven]
In other new openings, Chinese Graffiti debuted last Friday at 171 Avenue A between 10th Street and 11th Street.
The restaurant, described as an Asian-American gastropub, is open for now from 5-11 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; until midnight Thursday-Saturday.
Here's a look at the menu on display...
You can find some food shots on the Chinese Graffiti Instagram account here. No word at this moment who's behind this venture.
Recent restaurants here include Chao Chao, which closed without any notice to patrons in May 2017 after six months in business. Chao Chao evolved from Soothsayer, which opened in January 2016. Soothsayer, from the same operators, also closed without any notice to patrons at the end of September 2016.
And because someone will bring it up... No. 171 was once the onetime home of Rat Cage Records and 171A, the illegal club-turned-rehearsal studio that produced records by Bad Brains and the "Polly Wog Stew" EP by the Beastie Boys.
Previously on EV Grieve:
A quick look inside the new restaurant coming to 171 Avenue A
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Thursday's parting shot
Spring fever on 10th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue ... photo by Durk Snowden...
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