Select films by Nick Zedd will screen in Tompkins Square Park this Sunday evening

On Sunday evening, you can check a selection of films by the late Nick Zedd in Tompkins Square Park.

The screening will be presented by special guest and film provider — Amanita Funaro, Zedd's stepdaughter. 

Here's more via the EVG inbox... 

Nick Zedd is an artist from the New York City underground punk scene, who passed away earlier this year. Although mainly known for his films, he was also a painter and author. Nick spearheaded the movement known as Cinema of Transgression — kitschy, violent, sexy, shocking, and featuring a filming style that goes beyond description. 

Nick Zedd always felt there was no good way to describe his films other than to just watch and experience them yourself. Tompkins has been known for decades as a park where artists, punks and other creatives come together in different ways. 

Back in the 1980s-90s Nick Zedd was always pasting his art around and sharing his zines in Tompkins and the surrounding neighborhood. Which is part of what makes screening Nick Zedd's films here so special.

The lineup, which will last roughly two hours, features:

• Police State (1987) 

• War is Menstrual Envy excerpt (1992) 

• Geek Maggot Bingo (1983) 

• Attack of the Particle Disruptors (2016) 

The program is presented by The Shadow and Cine Movil.

Earlier on this Sunday afternoon starting at 1 ... the second annual gathering of Infernites in Tompkins Square Park takes place. Fans of the circus punk cabaret collective The World/Inferno Friendship Society will gather to celebrate the life of their departed lead singer, Jack Terricloth. We'll share more information about this in a separate post. 

A look at Thayer, a new cafe-bookstore opening soon on Avenue B

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

Updated 11/2: Thayer is now open!

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Thayer, an independent press, is moving closer to opening day for its bookstore-cafe at 99 Avenue B between Sixth Street and Seventh Street. (First reported here.) 

Founder Matt Lally, an East Village resident, plans to have a soft opening early next month. The two-level space will feature coffee drinks by Irving Farm New York and pastries by Balthazar. There will be grab-n-go soft drinks too. Beer and wine will be available in the evening.

Thayer will host various literary events and offer a curated selection of books and magazines for sale. There will be tables and chairs for drinks and books.

Daily hours: 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the week, with a 9 p.m. close on weekends.

Village Grannies is closing on 9th Street

Village Grannies is closing up shop at 346 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

Vered Behr and Zviah Eldar, aka the "Village Grannies," opened the storefront in November 2016... far ahead of the current smoke-shop-on-every-corner trend. 

The shop sells stylish smoking accessories ... much more unique offerings than the mall-like goods seen more frequently today.

For now, all items in the store are 50% off... We didn't hear an official reason for the closure... the shop's fans who reached out to us with the news hope that the Village Grannies can relocate.

Photo by Steven

Kōbo by Nai watch on Avenue A

As you may have noticed in recent months... the small plaque for Kōbo by Nai outside 202 Avenue A between 12th Street and 13th Street...

This will be the latest EV establishment for Chef Ruben Rodriguez ... the restaurant's website notes that Kōbo by Nai will be "a contemporary pasta bar featuring Mediterranean fare."

Rodriguez told us in a recent message that he hopes to be up and running here later this fall. 

Rodriguez is also behind Nai Tapas Bar on Second Avenue, Amigo by Nai on Second Avenue and the recently opened Emilia by Nai on First Avenue.

This marks the first retail tenant for No. 202, which underwent a gut renovation and expansion ... the custom stereo shop Bright Audio was the previous business in the old 202 storefront.  

Wednesday's parting shot

The Wednesday evening Hitchcocktober screenings wrapped up tonight at Village East by Angelika with the spy thriller "Saboteur." 

Coming Halloween night: "Psycho." The 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. showings are either sold out or close to it... so the theater added screenings at 6 and 7 p.m. (There's also one at 4:30 p.m.) You can find ticket info here. 

The Village East by Angelika is on Second Avenue at 12th Street.

A Haunted Halloween party for the Little Missionary's Day Nursery

There aren't any shortages of Halloween-related activities in the neighborhood.

Here's another to consider... the Little Missionary's Day Nursery (above!) on St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue is hosting a Haunted Halloween party on Saturday that will also serve as a fundraiser for the school... 

Neighborhood kids and their parents/guardians are invited to participate Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at La Plaza Cultural on the SW corner of Avenue C and Ninth Street. They'll be some seasonal food and games. 

Top photo by Steven

RIP Peter Schjeldahl

My father, Peter Schjeldahl, passed away today peacefully of lung cancer. He will be buried privately. In March there will be a memorial service honoring his life and work. My mother and I are grateful for all the messages and will be in touch when we can. pic.twitter.com/RVyrIkblWs

— Ada Calhoun (@adacalhoun) October 21, 2022

Peter Schjeldahl, a longtime resident of St. Mark's Place and "a half-century-long prose stylist of New York City's art scene," died on Friday of lung cancer, his daughter Ada Calhoun announced. He was 80. 

You can read more about his life and wife in this feature obituary at the Times. 

Schjeldahl and his wife, actress Brooke Alderson, moved to St. Mark's Place in 1973. (They bought a place upstate in the 1980s.) In 2015, Ada published "St. Marks Is Dead." The dedication reads: "To my parents, who looked at the apocalyptic 1970s East Village and thought, 'What a great place to raise a kid.'"

Schjeldahl worked as an art critic at The Village Voice before joining The New Yorker as a staff writer in 1998. New Yorker Editor David Remnick wrote a remembrance, which you can read here: 

Peter was a man of well-developed opinions, on art and much else. He was someone who, after being lost for a time, knew some things about survival. We met more than twenty years ago. I was looking to hire a full-time art critic. I’d read him for years in the Village Voice. And a voice is what he always had: distinct, clear, funny. A poet’s voice — epigrammatic, nothing wasted. 

We got together at the office on a Saturday in late summer. Someone had shut off the building’s air-conditioning. Peter was pale, rivulets of sweat running down his face. I asked about an empty interval of time on his résumé. "Well, I was a falling-down drunk back then. Then I fixed that." He was harder on himself than he would be on any artist. 

 Don’t misunderstand: in the many years of his writing for The New Yorker, Peter was perfectly willing to give a bad show a bad review, and there were some artists he was just never going to love — Turner and Bacon among them — but he was openhearted, he knew how to praise critically, and, to the end, he was receptive to new things, new artists. ... He took his work seriously — despite the cascades of self-deprecation, there were times when I think he knew how good he was — but he was never self-serious. He once won a grant to write a memoir. He used the money to buy a tractor. 

In June, Ada celebrated the release of her latest memoir, "Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me," in the garden at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. A proud father was on-hand.

Schjeldahl read a poem. Ada shared an excerpt from the book about the time her father, on his wife's encouragement, decided to buy something for his daughter. He returned from the Strand with two books, one by W. H. Auden and the other a copy of "Lunch Poems" by Frank O'Hara. She was 9 at the time. 

Back to David Remnick's essay: 

When Peter got the news of his cancer — a cancer that he and his doctors kept at bay for longer than anyone imagined possible — Ada asked him if he wanted to revisit Rome or Paris. "Nah," he said. "Maybe a ballgame." And Ada arranged it, Peter wrote, "with family and friends: Mets versus Braves, at Citi Field. Glorious. Grandson Oliver caught a T-shirt from the mid-game T-shirt cannon. Odds of that: several thousand to one."

Photos from June by Stacie Joy

Looking at the past, present and future of curbside dining

ICYMI... this week's New York magazine cover story addresses a popular topic around here: curbside dining... specifically curbside dining structures. 

An overview via the magazine's press folks: 

In New York's latest issue, features writer Simon van Zuylen-Wood examines one of New York City’s remaining vestiges of COVID-19: the outdoor dining shed. From shabby wooden structures to fabulous cabins with white tablecloths, their mass constructions “probably represent the speediest reshaping of the built environment in the city’s history,” van Zuylen-Wood writes. The streeteries were initially part of a program started by former mayor Bill de Blasio as a solution to help sustain restaurants during the height of the pandemic and meant to be temporary. 

However, in year three of the pandemic, the city is looking to make these structures permanent, even as we still grapple with how they’ve transformed the streetscape. Van Zuylen-Wood looks ahead to the future of streeteries while the seething ideological fight between shed-haters and lovers unfolds. 

You can read the piece here. 

Meanwhile, in recent weeks, several East Village restaurants removed their outdoor dining structures, including Sabor A Mexico Taqueria on First Avenue and Bowery Meat Company on First Street. (BMC's structure was still in use and looked like one of the nicer ones around. And somehow graffiti-free.) The abandoned structure outside Momofuku on First Avenue is also no more.

The DOT has also placed notices at several now-closed restaurants, including Nomad on Second Avenue...

... and Kindred at Sixth Street at First Avenue...

The Kindred notice, dated Oct. 15, states the restaurant had 24 hours to remove the roadway setup. It was still up as of last evening, Oct. 25. 

In other outdoor dining news, the DOT released a report yesterday analyzing the impact of the Open Streets program. The report includes claims that restaurants and bars along these thoroughfares did better than those on regular commercial streets, and some even did better than they were doing before the pandemic. The Times has the story here.

Openings: Sushi Mumi on St. Mark's Place

Sushi Mumi, featuring a 10-seat counter, recently debuted at 130 St. Mark's Place just west of Avenue A. 

The Instagram description: An upscale Omakase restaurant serving authentic Edomae-style sushi by Executive Chef and co-founder Marco Lin, a veteran of Bryant Park's Michelin-starred Sushi Ginza Onodera. 

Reservations are available via Resy, which notes to "expect a $250 tasting." 

Sushi Mumi takes over for Kura, which closed back in the summer after nine years in service.

H/T Steven

About Brix Wine Bar, coming soon to Clinton Street

Signage is now up at 19-21 Clinton St. for Brix, a wine bar here between Stanton and Houston. (Thanks to EVG reader Fiona for the tip!)

At first glance, we thought it might be a new venture for the folks who own Brix Wine Shop on Avenue B. However, owner Beatriz Gutierrez told EVG contributor Stacie Joy that she was not behind this Brix.

Turns out this wine-coffee bar is via George Mercado, who received the OK in August via CB3 for a beer-wine license here...

He previously operated Barbarrio (2017-2019) on Lexington Avenue in East Harlem. 

Brix takes the space from Oh La La Cafe, which closed this past summer... and, previously, Cocoa Bar.