Look at 6 Avenue B now!

Photos by Stacie Joy

Oh! — 6 Avenue B no longer looks as if it has been abandoned for 20 years. 

Workers have removed the scaffolding and construction netting from the under-renovation building on the NW corner of Avenue B.

An LLC linked to Penn Capital South, whose portfolio includes multiple EV properties, bought the building in February... but they didn't decide to keep it long — it's back on the market.

The retail space is for lease, too... here's the listing.

Anyway, as we've noted (a lot!), this was one of the abandoned buildings owned by the estate of the mysterious team of Arthur and Abraham Blasof, both long deceased. However, No. 6 has been generating some income with the cell-phone towers on the roof. 

The liquor store in the retail space closed when the owner passed away in the fall of 2009 at age 89. (Chico created the tribute to her on the gate in February 2010. Will it stay?)

As we've pointed out (here and here), the building was in dismal shape and needed significant work to bring it up to code. Before the renovations, the DOB had cited No. 6 for emergency repairs several times in recent years.

Previously on EVG: 

• Because you've always wanted to know what the inside of the long-empty 6 Avenue B looks like 

• Let's take another look at the eerie remains of the long-abandoned 6 Avenue B 

• Time passages: Check out the interior of the long-empty Mom's Liquor Store on Avenue B

231 1st Ave. up to its 4th business in the past year

Photo by Pinch 

Signage is up now for Chick-N-Smash at 231 First Ave. 

And it will be the latest business for the storefront between 13th Street and 14th Street in the past 12 months.

Tony's Famous Pizza closed late last year ... then came signage for Deli Convenience in the spring... which turned into Dispensary ... before the same signage for Deli Convenience returned by late May. Their grand opening lasted a few months.

Vinny Vincenz had a solid run here for 18 years until the spring of 2021.

Spellbound! It's the return of Hitchcocktober

Somehow, it's Oct. 3 already... and we're late to note the return of Hitchcocktober to Village East by Angelika on Second Avenue at 12th Street. 

And here's this year's slate of Alfred Hitchcock films ... starting tomorrow (Wednesday!) night:

• Oct. 4 — "Rear Window"
• Oct. 11 — "To Catch a Thief"
• Oct. 18 — "Vertigo"
• Oct. 25 — "Shadow of a Doubt"
• Oct. 31 — "Psycho"

Find ticket info here. And be warned: Advance tickets sell quickly, especially the screenings in the large auditorium — the Jaffe Art Theatre. (The Halloween night screenings of "Psycho" are nearly sold out.)

Behold this amazing miniature of Mars Bar

EVG contributor Stacie Joy spotted Danny Cortes today on Third Street and Avenue B... carrying his amazing miniature of Mars Bar (RIP 2011, Second Avenue and First Street). 

Cortes was showing the work before shipping it off to its new home. (And we're not sure how realistic the restrooms were inside this model!) 

The Times recently profiled the miniature/diorama artist. Read the article here.

On 14th Street and Avenue A, Posse in Effect with the Beastie Boys

Photo by Edmund John Dunn

Here's a day 2 work-in-progress look at Posse in Effect featuring the Beastie Boys, a new mural going up on the SW corner of 14th Street and Avenue A (on the east-facing wall of 436 E. 14th St.).

Shepard Fairey, in collaboration with the Lisa Project NYC, is working on the wall... from a photo by East Village-based photographer Glen E. Friedman. The work is part of the ongoing celebration of 50 years of hip hop.

Fairey, the Lisa Project and Friedman last joined forces on the Bad Brains mural last December on Bleecker at the Bowery. 

Tenants crowdfund to aid East Village super critically injured in high-speed car collision

Past and present tenants of 305 E. 11th St. and 310 E. 12th St., adjacent multifamily residential buildings between First Avenue and Second Avenue, have come together to help their longtime super who was severely injured after being struck by a speeding car while visiting his native Albania.

According to a GoFundMe campaign, Haxhi Haxhaj, a super here for 30-plus years, was on his annual trip home last month when he was hit while crossing the street near the family house in Kosovo.

Per the campaign:

He ...  is currently in a medically induced coma, facing a long and difficult road to recovery. His wife, Sadete; children Gentiana and Elbasan (who grew up in our building); daughter-in-law and granddaughters are now with him. 

Haxhi is no ordinary super. Available night and day, he keeps our building spotless and can be seen every morning sprucing up our 12th Street sidewalk and beloved tenants' garden. 

A doting husband, father and, most recently, grandfather, nothing makes him happier than sharing a recent photo and story of his granddaughters. Please help us support this hard-working and devoted man with his extensive medical needs and his family with travel and living expenses abroad. 

According to organizers, he was taken by a medivac flight to a hospital in Istanbul, where he remains in a coma.

You can find the crowdfunding campaign at this link.

Here's the next business for the former Grassroots Tavern space on St. Mark's Place

There's finally a new tenant for the long-empty retail space at 20 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. 

A worker on the scene told EVG contributor Derek Berg that this lower-level storefront — the longtime home of the Grassroots Tavern — is becoming a doggy daycare center.

And that's all we have at the moment.

At least five brokers have tried to lease the space since the Grassroots Tavern closed here after New Year's Eve 2017 after 42 years (upstairs tenant Sounds shuttered in 2015).

At least two potential tenants have kicked No. 20's tires (including this pub concept that signed a lease), but nothing has materialized since January 2018.

As noted, No. 20, the Daniel LeRoy House, was built in 1832. It 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.

In case you felt like seeing this exhibit featuring a classic Lower East Side bagel shop

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Starting today, you can check out the latest immersive art show from U.K.-based artist Lucy Sparrow — a bagel shop where everything is hand-sewn out of felt. 

CLLCTV NYC on Third Street at Avenue B is home this month to Feltz Bagels, described as "an artistic homage to the city's legendary culinary delicacy and the neighborhood bagel joints of the Lower East Side." 

Here's a look at the exhibit, which debuted in August at TW Fine Art in Montauk. (You can read more about Sparrow in this WWD piece.)

Visitors can purchase the felt creations, including hand-sewn bagels in all varieties...

CLLCTV is at 209 E. Third St., just east of Avenue B. The space is open daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Oct. 31. 

P.S. 

Be sure to check out the backroom... decked out as a corner deli-smoke shop-liquor store...

... even with some felt contraband...

The saga continues...

Photo today in Tompkins Square Park by Steven ... (see this post for the background).

Why the benches were removed from across the street from the 9th Precinct

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Last Thursday, citing safety and quality-of-life issues, including an increase in unhoused residents, the 9th Precinct removed the park benches from across the station house on Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

Sources from the Precinct told us that they've fielded complaints and witnessed activities including drinking, drug use and sex work. (Sources said the benches were also serving as makeshift toilets.) All this despite the presence of dozens of NYPD vehicles parked in the vicinity.

The NYPD asked people to unlock their bikes from the benches and fence as well... the posted flyers describe this operation as a "cleanup."

The incidents occurred outside the playground for PS 751 Manhattan School for Career Development on Fourth Street. The benches are the school's property, and officials there were said to be in agreement with their removal.

Benny (below), a resident who lives in a building on Fifth Street adjacent to the benches, approved of the removal, stating that he has seen the drug activity here. Benny has two kids and said he's "scared to walk by sometimes."

Precinct sources said they'd consider introducing a limited number of chairs and tables here at some point in the future... though it remains to be seen where the funding for such additions might come from...