Big Gay Ice Cream founders say goodbye to their very first shop

Big Gay Ice Cream co-founders Doug Quint (above left) and Bryan Petroff (above right) shared this message with us yesterday about the closure of their Seventh Street shop, as reported yesterday ...

With great sadness but with no regrets, Bryan and I decided that the time came for Big Gay Ice Cream to close our East Village location. 

125 East Seventh Street is where Big Gay Ice Cream became more than just our overblown hobby. Big Gay Ice Cream Truck a grew into a legitimate hit and in 2011 we decided that it was supposed to be what we did with our lives. 

We signed the lease, quit our day jobs, and built ourselves a perfectly imperfect hole-in-the-wall soft serve joint. I would work a late night in the ice cream truck, staying out long enough to be able to afford a prep sink the next day so in a way every Big Gay Ice Cream Truck customer helped build that place.

For a decade the shop hummed along and put tens of thousands of Salty Pimps in the hands of folks from Tierra Del Fuego to Lapland. It made many people, including us, very happy. 

We always knew that if we ever opened a shop it would be in the East Village. It had to be. In its heyday that section of East Seventh was one of the hottest food blocks in the city — even The New York Times singled it out. We wanted to be right there with Caracas, Luke’s Lobster, Porchetta, Butter Lane and Pylos. Damn, that block had energy and we loved it.  

The batteries have gone a bit dim on that street. The empty storefronts (kept vacant by landlords working tax breaks) that plague the city have settled in. It ain’t what it was. 

We decided that even if the shop managed to make it through “the COVID thing” it would never truly recover. We need to be able to jam customers in during the summer to make enough money to get us through the off season. That won’t work anymore. Knowing that the usual fall semester student rush won’t be coming this year we have decided to call it. 

Thank you all for making wonderful memories at our first shop and thank you to the East Village for having us. We’re going to “keep on keeping on” at our other locations and hope to open another East Village or Lower East Side location before too long. 

Goodbye East Seventh. So long and thanks for all the calories.

Photo from 2011

Bush Tetras, live on livestream tomorrow night at Le Poisson Rouge

Local legends Bush Tetras, the post-punk no-wave band with roots in the East Village, will be perfoming live tomorrow (Saturday!) night from the stage at Le Poisson Rouge (LPR) ... you can find the livestream info at this link. 

The band will also be introducing new bassist RB Korbet. 

Photo of founding members Pat Place and Cynthia Sley by Stacie Joy from February 2020

Phony Express returns with 'Laurie Anderson'

 

Phony Express, the pandemic-era band started by some local artists, writers and musicians, have released a new single — "Laurie Anderson." 

To refresh your memory... here's info from our post on the anonymous band from last week:

"Phony Express is what happens when artists, writers and musicians, who'd normally be making shows live at La MaMa and in our neighborhood watering holes, decide to use our own devices. We've formed an anonymous band inspired by EV Grieve — anonymous, so that listeners may focus on the music itself, not what they find online about the persons performing it; local, sparked by our neighborhood's unique legacy, free and fun ... Our plan is to collaborate by phone, making music quickly (Phony Express) and upload to Phony Express's YouTube channel."

Previously on EV Grieve: 

The debut of Phony Express, a local pandemic-era band who collaborates by phone

Grant Shaffer's NY See

Here's the latest NY See panel, East Village-based illustrator Grant Shaffer's observational sketch diary of things that he sees and hears around NYC ... as well as political observations on current events...

The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop will not be reopening on 7th Street

A lot of people have pointed this out in recent days: The for-rent sign in the front window of the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Co-founder Doug Quint confirmed the closure, though didn't offer any other immediate comment. [Updated: Read their farewell-to-Seventh-Street message here.]

This outpost had been closed since the PAUSE went into effect last March ... the Big Gay locations in the West Village and UWS did reopen.

The popular shop opened in September 2011 with a memorable array of entertainment, including an all-bassoon band, Bea Arthur lookalikes and Anthony Bourdain dressed as a priest blessing the shop. 

This was the very first location for the business that started with an ice cream truck. Since then, Quint and co-founder Bryan Petroff authored a cookbook on frozen treats and launched a pint-sized product line in grocery stores. 

Photo by Steven

A show of Local Artists this weekend at 3rd & B’Zaar

3rd & B’Zaar, the mixed-vendor market and event space at 191 E. Third St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, is hosting an art show this weekend with an array of local artists.

The opening reception is tomorrow (Friday!) evening from 6-9. The show will then run this weekend — 1-6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

And coming soon: the space will become the Sex, Love & Vintage Market from Feb. 1-Feb. 28. Stay tuned for more details on that.

3rd & B’Zaar debuted late last year as a group of local merchants, artists and designers hosted a month-long Holiday Market.

Noted

As seen this afternoon on the Bowery at Bleecker... photo by Robert Miner...

Gallery Watch: Paige Beeber’s Farbe at Freight and Volume Gallery

Text and photos by Clare Gemima  

Paige Beeber’s Farbe

Freight + Volume Gallery, 97 Allen St.

Freight + Volume Gallery is a space I regularly walk past, but it wasn’t until seeing Paige Beeber’s large scale paintings that I had wanted to ring their doorbell for a tour. 

I had initially thought these were oversized textiles. Crazy in composition and almost panicked in their abstraction, as I drew closer to Beeber’s mixed-media canvases, a clear and painterly dialogue seeped through her strategically applied pallet of wet media, paint and found objects instead.

Ink splotted, cross-hatched and heavily patterned, what I enjoyed most about this show was how reminiscent of a studio scene these works exuded. It was almost as if all the paintings had kicked up a fuss about being transported to the gallery. It is immediately clear from their proud experimentalism that every work has a life of its own. Farbe (German for color ) felt like it was incredibly fun to put together and is an evocative showcasing of Beeber’s vibrancy and growing talent.

Beeber’s works operate as frames of time, snapshots of external and internal circumstances articulated and crafted by the artist. She has investigated ideas like order and chaos, which can be seen on her canvases through controlled, more orderly mark-making amongst the more frenzied and fluid gestures. The draw to these works is found within their multitudinous layers. Countless mark-making techniques that have managed to survive within the constraints of a canvas —how she has not run out of room I do not quite understand. 

What Beeber’s work does successfully is a call for contemplation from her viewer, as there is simply too much to comprehend from one glance. 

The scale of these works aid in this as well. As each work in the gallery towers over you, they demand some kind of attention and calculation — are they puzzles? A game of snakes and ladders? Painted knitting swatches? It is definitely not a case of what you see is what you get. 

Aside from the brilliant choice in showcasing Beeber’s paintings, I learned that Freight and Volume publish beautifully designed catalogs for each of their exhibitions. For a gallery that is dedicated to providing opportunities for emerging visual artists, an incredibly unique resource such as this — so kindly extended to their artists — is rare enough to be highlighted. 

Paige Beeber’s Farbe at Freight + Volume Gallery will be on view until Feb. 21.

 

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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com 

When it snowed for a few minutes this morning

In case you missed the snow flurries this morning around 7:30... here are two scenes from along Avenue A... inlcuding a shot of Key Food's new awning that workers installed yesterday...

2021 development watch: 38-46 2nd Ave.

In the weeks-months ahead, workers will demolish three buildings (No. 38, No. 42-44 and No. 46-48) on the east side of Second Avenue between Second Street and Third Street...

And soon enough we'll likely have the first look at the 11-story mixed-use building that Gemini Rosemont Development has planned for this space... another development to watch in 2021.

As reported back in August,  there are work permits awaiting approval by the city... plans call for an 11-story building (120-feet tall) filled with 87 residences (condos?) and 10,014 square feet of retail. In addition, there will be a 1,884-square-foot office (likely medical) on the first and second floors. 

Last year, Gemini Rosemont bought the former La Salle annex at 38 Second Ave. and Second Street. The $14.5 million purchase of the four-story building was the third of three contiguous parcels acquired by the firm this year for development. Gemini Rosemont closed on 42-44 Second Ave. and 46-48 Second Ave. (the former Church of the Nativity) in March 2020 for $40 million.

Demolition permits have already been filed for three buildings.

The Church of the Nativity closed after a service on July 31, 2015, merging with Most Holy Redeemer on Third Street.

As previously reported, the Cooper Square Community Land Trust had explored buying the former Church of the Nativity to use as low-income housing.

Previously on EV Grieve:
• Educator: Turning the former Church of the Nativity into luxury housing would be a 'sordid use' of the property

• The fight to keep Church of the Nativity from becoming luxury housing