Week in Grieview

Posts this past holiday week included (with a photo on Seventh and A by Derek Berg)... 

• Steve Croman sells 8-building portfolio (Wednesday) 

• Thrift NYC sets up shop on 14th Street (Tuesday)

• Plywood removal at the former P.S. 64 (Thursday) 

• City raises hourly wage for lifeguards to ease pool staff shortage (Thursday) 

• Unarrested development: activity at the long-stalled corner of St. Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue (Friday ... Saturday) 

• Openings: A'more Caffè on 2nd Street at Avenue A (Tuesday) ... Murphy's on 9th Street (Wednesday)

• Giving Tuesday: the return of twice-a-week alternate side parking (Tuesday) 

• Report of a gas explosion at La Mia Pizza on 4th Avenue (Sunday)

• HAGS sets July 20 opening date on 1st Avenue (Tuesday) 

• Workers remove this elm in Tompkins Square Park (Wednesday) 

• Comings and goings on 10th Street: Montauk Salt Cave closes; and a new restaurant from 2 Momofuku vets (Thursday) 

• 4.5 years later: A tenant for the former Noho Star space on Bleecker and Lafayette (Tuesday) 

• Full reveal at El Churro on Houston and Allen (Wednesday) 

• Puff & Puff Convenience debuts on Avenue C (Tuesday) 

• The Ainsworth closes East Village location (Tuesday) 

... and speaking of the Ainsworth closing... a few readers asked (once again): Who's responsible for removing the curbside dining structure when a restaurant shuts down? The one outside the former Ainsworth on 11th Street at Third Avenue is one of the largest in the neighborhood...

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Saturday's parting shot

The dumpster furniture of Second Avenue today via Derek Berg...

Detour alert: The FDR will be closed overnight

In case a drive along the FDR was in your plans overnight and into tomorrow morning... both the northbound and southbound lanes of the FDR will be closed from midnight to 10 a.m. between Houston and Fulton so workers can remove the Corlears Hook Bridge as part of the ongoing East Side Coastal Resiliency Project.

On St. Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue, let the barrier games begin (again)!

As a follow-up to yesterday's post... workers have (apparently) finished up the plywooding and barricading on the NW corner of Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place. 

Once again this busy thoroughfare has been narrowed down to (eventually) make way for the construction of the 9-story office building slated for the corner lot...

This marks the return of the barriers after a 10-month reprieve. Last October, workers removed them from around the work site... allowing pedestrians to use the sidewalks again — for the first time since the barricades arrived in June 2020. And, to be honest, not much work actually took place in the pit that whole time. (There was some legal drama per published reports that the developer defaulted on a $48 million mortgage.)

The pedestrian passageway on the north side of St. Mark's Place at Third Avenue had been involved in an ongoing game of barrier accordion that saw the corridor shrink-expand anywhere from 18 inches to an inch. (Relive the memories here and here.)

We'll have a few years of this, as construction is (optimistically) expected to wrap up in the summer of 2024. 

A new reading series: Poetry and Prose at P&T Knitwear

Photo from May by Stacie Joy 

Longtime East Villager resident Wayne Kral, who co-produced a reading series from 1995-2015 beginning at the Telephone Bar, then Bar 82, dba and 2A, is launching a new series at the recently opened P&T Knitwear bookshop at 180 Orchard St. between Houston and Stanton. 

The first one is this Monday (July 11) from 6:30-7:30 p.m. He'll be doing this every two weeks at P&T. Here's info about the initial participants via the EVG inbox... 

• Phil Gammage is a New York-based fiction writer and musician best known for his eight solo album releases. Twisting from railroad cars, burlesque houses, endless roads, and the folklore of 20th century America, Phil's stories and songs draw inspiration from his life as a musician, historian, and fiction writer. "Beatniks, Broads, and Burlesque" is a reading from an ongoing short story collection Phil is writing. 

• Phillip Giambri aka "The Ancient Mariner" left home at 18 and never looked back. He's seen and done what others dream of or fear. That's how he lives and that's what he writes. His 2020 novelette The Amorous Adventures of Blondie and Boho is a story of love, survival, and gentrification in NYC's East Village. 

• Jonathan Berger used to read his little poems every Monday night at the Sidewalk Cafe until he couldn't anymore and then he read his little poems every Monday night at Gran Torino until he couldn't anymore and then he read his little poems at Bar Freda until he wouldn't anymore and now he's coming to this.

• Linda Kleinbub is the curator of Fahrenheit Open Mic, founder of Pen Pal Poets & editor of Pink Trees Press. Linda was one of six local poets invited to read at the Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2021. Some of her work is found in The Best American Poetry, Brooklyn Rail, The Observer, and Sensitive Skin Magazine. Her first full-length book of poetry COVER CHARGE is an Unbearables Title from Autonomedia. 

For information on reading contact Wayne at bopstreet@gmail.com

Friday's parting shot

A moment during the downpour this afternoon on Avenue A and Seventh Street (and featuring Downtown Yarns owner Leti Ruiz on the right) ... photo by Derek Berg...

Upbeat happening

 

Brooklyn's Ribbon Stage is opening for the sold-out Bikini Kill show tonight at Pier 17. 

The video here is for the 75-second  "Rid Myself." As Pitchfork noted, the song "is over before you know it, but for a brief moment, it offers a much-needed dose of upbeat introspection." 

Getting down to 'Brass Tactics' once again

Another major production is slated to film on Avenue A and some side streets early next week. 

Film notices are up now for "Brass Tactics," codename for the new Apple+ series "City on Fire." (The series is based on the book of the same name by Garth Risk Hallberg.)

"Brass Tactics" has filmed around here several times, dating back to the spring. The cast includes John Cameron Mitchell and Jemima Kirke. "City on Fire" is written and executive produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, whose current credits include the "Gossip Girl" reboot.

Recent TV productions along Avenue A include the aforementioned GG ... "American Horror Story" ... and "Up Here."

Unarrested development: activity at the long-stalled corner of St. Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue

Top photo by @unitof

Yesterday saw the first sign of activity on the NE corner of St. Mark's Place and Third Avenue in nearly 10 months (aside from the daily additions of wheatpaste ads). 

Workers started erecting a new plywood fence and adding sidewalk barriers ...

The plywood signals a coming-soon restart of the foundation work on the (gulp) 9-story, 61,000-square-foot office building, officially 1 St. Mark's Place.

As reported last month, developer Real Estate Equities Corp. (REEC) received a $70-million loan to kickstart the project.

Last October, workers removed the barriers around the work site... allowing pedestrians to use the sidewalks again — for the first time since the barricades arrived in June 2020. (This after some legal drama involving allegations that REEC defaulted on a $48 million mortgage, per published reports.)

As you may recall, a 10-story office building had been in the works here. In October 2020, the City Council's Zoning Subcommittee voted down REEC's application to transfer air rights from the landmarked 4 St. Marks Place to the new building across the street.

With the air-rights transfer, REEC would have been allowed to build 8,386 square feet larger than the current zoning allows.

REEC picked up the 99-year leasehold for the corner properties for nearly $150 million in November 2017. The previous assemblage, which included retail tenants such as Korilla BBQ, the Continental and McDonald's, was demolished in 2019. 

The project includes nearly 7,700 square feet of retail space and is slated for a summer 2024 completion.

Thursday's parting shot

Midtown sunset view this evening...