At the O'Flaherty's Café, come for the art, stay for the chicken fingers

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

There's something new cooking at O'Flaherty's, the gallery-performance space at 44 Avenue A and Third Street.

Starting this evening, you can partake in the new café (The Café) concept from artist, curator and owner Jamian Juliano-Villani (below right)...

... with a menu that features comfort food (nachos! mac & cheese!), salads (loaded iceberg!), and small bites (chicken fingers!)...

... and some new artwork from seven featured artists to coincide with the food...

At the moment, we're not sure if the exhibit is part of the Café or the other way around. In any event, it should be interesting and crowded, given the previous shows here. 

The opening is tonight from 7-10...

And hereafter... Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 2-7 p.m. Cafe Hours: Thursday-Saturday 5-10 p.m.

A pre-dawn collab with the Moon and the Seven Sisters

Felton Davis of the Second Avenue Star Watchers shared this dispatch early this morning...

Waning crescent Moon and very close by, the Pleiades in the constellation Taurus, high over East Third Street at 4 a.m. on Wednesday. 

All Seven Sisters could clearly be seen, especially if you blocked the glare from the Moon, but only three of them showed up in the photos.

Laundry day at Village View?

Photo by Stacie Joy 

As seen on Fourth Street and Avenue A...

These are longtime food writer Robert Sietsema's 10 favorite East Village meals

Food writer-critic Robert Sietsema, in partial disguise, at the 6th & B Community Garden 

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

I met longtime food writer Robert Sietsema at the 6th & B Community Garden earlier this summer.

While enjoying a simit from C&B Café, Robert tells me about moving to the area. He lived for 13 years on 14th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C starting in 1977 when he paid $150 monthly for a four-room railroad apartment with a toilet in a closet. (It was rumored that Sylvester Stallone may have lived in the tenement building, now a co-op.)

"NYC was aflame when I arrived,"  said Sietsema, originally from Dallas. 

Sietsema was a rock star — or, as he says, a micro-celebrity — for 14 years playing (bass, guitar, keyboards) in Mofungo. 

"If you weren't carrying a guitar around the East Village, there was something wrong with you," he says of the time. 

He also started a rock star food fanzine called Down the Hatch, which focused on under-the-radar spots. 

The Village Voice took note of the zine and offered him a job as a part-time food critic, which soon turned into a full-time gig. 

Sietsema, who currently works at Eater on the NYC beat, considers himself a consumer-focused reality-based food photographer and, in the past, had to pay cash mostly to avoid detection when on the job.

He says he can now use his credit card, as he believes no one cares as much about the reviewer's role, which has been entirely eclipsed by the social media influencer.

An adventurous food consumer, Sietsema admits that he will eat anything, though he doesn't care for brains (although he happily tries other organ meats). 

As we debate where the official borders of the East Village are, I ask him for some of his favorite local dishes: 

• Mushroom barley soup with buttered challah bread from B&H Dairy Kosher, 127 Second Ave.

• Pork katsu don from Beron Beron, 164 First Ave.

• Egg and chorizo sandwich from C&B Café, 178 E. Seventh St. 

• Three mezze with a glass of wine from Café Mogador, 101 St. Mark's Place

• The spicy redneck from Crif Dogs, 113 St. Mark's Place

 • Falafel sandwich from Mamoun’s Falafel, 30 St. Mark's Place

• A bowl of pho from Sao Mai, 203 First Ave.

• Pierogi with sauteed onions from Streecha Ukrainian Kitchen, 33 E. Seventh St.

• The slightly sweet cheese slice at Stromboli, 83 St. Mark's Place

• Potato-filled flautas with salsa verde at Zaragoza Mexican Deli & Grocery, 215 Avenue A 

Sietsema says the East Village is one of the best food neighborhoods in the city and across all socioeconomic levels. 

What’s missing from the local food scene? A good masala dosa. 

You can keep up with Robert on X (formerly Twitter)

Pink Olive is closing its East Village outpost

After 16 years in the East Village, Pink Olive is closing its gift and stationery boutique on Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

Founder Grace Kang, who opened her first shop here in 2007, made the announcement via an email to its patrons (as well as on Instagram).

Over the years, we have weathered countless challenges together, and it is these shared experiences that make this decision even more difficult. However, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Various factors have led me to this decision, and while it fills me with sadness, I am also eager to embrace the new possibilities that lie ahead. 

Our final days of operation will be filled with mixed emotions. Thank you to the East Village community and the amazing team that started it all. I'm so grateful to you! 

The East Village shop will be open until Aug. 29, "or until we sell out." Her outposts in the West Village and up in Cold Spring will remain in business.

You can read our Q&A with Kang from 2017 right here. 

Image via Instagram 

The Tompkins Square Library branch now has a late August reopening date

Photos by Steven 

Renovations at the Tompkins Square Library are taking longer than expected, and the branch on 10th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B will now be closed until the end of the month...

The library has been closed since April 24. They were initially expected to return in early July. 

As previously reported, the closure will "facilitate improvements to the building, including preliminary work on a new Teen Center at the library, as well as replacing the branch's flooring and a fresh coat of paint."

 Patrons can still visit these nearby branches: 

• Ottendorfer Library, 135 Second Ave. 

• Hamilton Fish Park Library, 415 E. Houston St. 

• Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Ave. 

Cooper Union's Foundation Building (almost) returns to full view

Photos by Steven 

Workers continue to remove the elaborate sidewalk bridge (the Urban Umbrella!) from outside the Foundation Building here on Cooper Square between Astor Place and Seventh Street...

The sidewalk structure arrived in April 2021... work permits pointed to a "renovation on the fourth floor."

The Urban Umbrella, made of recycled steel and translucent plastic panel, made its first NYC appearance in the fall of 2017.

The Italianate brownstone building designed by architect Fred A. Petersen was completed in 1859.

Daylight saving time: Why the lights were off 3 nights in a row in Tompkins Square Park

Photo and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Let's shed some light on what happened in Tompkins Square Park the past few nights. 

As we reported yesterday, the lights were out overnight in the park from Thursday through Saturday, with a return on Sunday night. 

Meanwhile, some parkgoers noted that the lights were on during the day. 

Here's what happened. According to Parks employees, the timer on the lights was set incorrectly. They were supposed to come on at 7 p.m.; instead, they switched on at 7 a.m. and off at 7 p.m.

And no one apparently noticed.

Parks workers adjusted them to being on 24/7, but hope to have them switched to the correct timer cycle by later today.

Please do not urinate on the former Grassroots Tavern on St. Mark's Place

20 St. Mark's Place remains on the rental market — now in its sixth year! (So many brokers.) And apparently, people have been using the space between Second Avenue and Third Avenue as a toilet.

As the Post reported the other day, ownership here had a megaphone installed alongside a monitored-24/7 surveillance camera "to ward off a growing number of vagrants and drunks attempting to relieve themselves on the vacant building."

Apparently, this setup has been in place for a year. We never really noticed (or heard) it. Then again, we've never urinated on the building — however tempting! 

Anyway, per the Post: 

Whenever a loiterer even steps foot on the stoop of the three-story landmarked building, a booming voice explodes out of the sound system, admonishing the violator to "stop!" or "move on!" 

The "jarring, obnoxious" clarion call can be heard up and down the block at all hours, according to residents. 

The Brooklyn-based security company Live Lion is behind the system.

As noted, No. 20, known as the Daniel LeRoy House, was built in 1832. Per the Wikipedia: "LeRoy was an in-law of Peter Stuyvesant, and a South Street merchant, who lived in the house with his wife Elizabeth Fish, of the eminent Fish family."

No 20. received landmark status in 1971 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Past lives of this subterranean space — info via Daytonian in Manhattan — include a theater-saloon called Paul Falk's Tivoli Garden in the 1870s... in the 1930s, the Hungarian Cafe and Restaurant resided here before becoming a temperance saloon called the Growler.

The Grassroots Tavern closed here on New Year's Eve 2017 after 42 years (upstairs tenant Sounds shuttered in 2015)

Speaking of the Grassroots, the other day, EVG contributor Steven went to pee on the building noticed the front door open, and looked at the white-box status of the former great bar...
 

Updated! 

Since this video came up in the comments... An instant request! From 1986, here is Billy Joel's "A Matter of Trust" filmed on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue ...

 

The Wren is temporarily closed for renovations on the Bowery

The Wren temporarily closed operations at the end of July for renovations here at 344 Bowery at Great Jones. 

According to the bar's Instagram account: "We’ll be closing for a couple of weeks to give The Wren a little love." (There's a similar message on The Wren website.)

The front windows are currently papered over... and there are new work permits for renovations...
 

The Wren, which opened here in late 2011, is part of the Sleeping Giant family, whose portfolio includes Bua on St. Mark's Place and Wilfie & Nell on West Fourth Street.