Happy No. 139 to the Ottendorfer Library branch!

The Ottendorfer branch of the New York Public Library on Second Avenue is celebrating its 139th anniversary this week.

The library, 135 Second Ave. between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street, had an opening ceremony on Dec. 6, 1884, at 3:30 p.m. and then opened the following Monday, Dec. 8, 1884, for regular service. 

To mark the anniversary, the library is hosting a walking tour tomorrow (Saturday) from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Details!

We will celebrate the German heritage of the East Village that brought it to fruition. When the revolutions of 1848 throughout Europe failed, many young German-speaking revolutionaries fled to the East Village, which became the largest German-speaking community in the world after Berlin and Vienna. 

With the freedoms of the New World, Little Germany, or Kleindeutschland, as it became known, was a crucible for their energies and talents. On this tour, we will walk to places where Europe's failed revolutionaries made their mark and consider their legacy.

Find more info here. 

Branch manager Kristin Kuehl shared this trivia with us: Ottendorfer is the oldest NYC public library still operating in its original building.

Also! Half of the 8,000 original books were in German, with the other half in English. 

Below is an undated archival photo by J. Frederick Stein from the NYPL Digital Collections.

    

Get ready to Cookie Walk this way

Photo last month by Steven

The Cookie Walk, a favorite local holiday tradition featuring more than 60 varieties of homemade cookies and desserts, returns this weekend (as we've been noting) at St. Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church on Avenue A and 10th Street. 

The festive event in the church basement occurs tomorrow (Saturday!) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. ... and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. (or until they run out).

As the name suggests, you take one of the provided boxes (or two) and walk around cookie-filled tables (no pushing, please) to pick your faves. More details here.

This is the first Cookie Walk since 2019.

Thursday's parting shot

Thanks to Pinch for this early morning view today from 14th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue...

Noted

We received several photos today that attemtped to show today's flurries (#ItsSNOWING)... hard to tell in any of the photos, unfortunately, so... as far as we can recall, this does mark the first snowfall of a) today b) December 2023 and c) the 2023-24 winter season.

Proposed hotel next to the Merchant's House Museum returns to the Landmarks Preservation Commission

EVG file photo

A developer's decades-long effort to build a hotel next door to the landmarked Merchant's House Museum on Fourth Street between the Bowery and Lafayette is back in the news. 

Merchant's House officials learned yesterday that the Landmarks Preservation Commission will hold a public meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 12, to discuss — and possibly vote on — the proposed development for an 8-story hotel. (Find the meeting and registration info at this link. A PDF of the presentation is here. A livestream will be on the LPC YouTube page. Village Preservation has more details.)

Per the Merchant's House: 

At the last LPC hearing nearly three years ago, the LPC declined to vote on the proposed development. If the LPC now votes to approve the project, the Merchant's House will be forced to close to the public for at least two years to safeguard the house and the collection. Construction next door will cause significant structural damage to our landmark 1832 building. 

Shockingly, landmark status does not guarantee protection.

The development firm Kalodop II Park Corp. has been trying to build the hotel for nearly 12 years. 

In January 2019, the developers sued New York City, the City Council and Councilmember Carlina Rivera over the rejection of their Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) application for the project. (Not sure whatever happened to that suit.)

The developers have been seeking a spot rezoning to build an 8-story hotel on the site — higher than the current zoning allowed. The full City Council ultimately voted down the rezoning in September 2019. 

Preservationists, not to mention the leadership of Merchant's House, the circa-1832 building, were concerned that the construction could permanently damage the structure, one of only six residences in NYC that is both an exterior and an interior landmark. Local elected officials and Community Board 2 have all opposed the current application for the 8-story hotel. 

The developers have promised to take extensive measures to ensure that the neighboring structure would not be harmed during the hotel construction. 

This project dates to 2011.

The proposed site of the hotel, 27 E. Fourth St., currently houses Al-Amin Food Inc., which houses carts for street vendors. 

About the discounted tix to see Basquiat x Warhol at the Brant Foundation

EVG photos from last month

For the remaining month of the Basquiat x Warhol exhibit at the Brant Foundation, tickets are 50% off every Wednesday from 2-6 p.m. 

Some math: for East Village residents on Wednesdays between 2-6 p.m., the cost would be $7.50, $10 if you live outside the neighborhood. Find ticket info here. 

As previously noted about the show at 421 E. Sixth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue... 

On view from Nov. 1, 2023, through Jan. 7, 2024, this is the first time the collaboration has been the subject of a major New York exhibition since Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat at Gagosian Gallery in 1997. The exhibition is traveling from Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and has benefited from the collaboration between the two institutions.

The Brant Foundation's first show here in the spring of 2019 featured work by Basquiat — some 70 works collectively valued at $1 billion. A career-spanning Warhol collection was here back in the spring. 

A sign of the Sunflower (and brunch) on 2nd Avenue

Renovations continue inside 88 Second Ave. at Fifth Street. 

As we've been reporting, this will be a second outpost of Sunflower, the cafe serving breakfast-brunch on Third Avenue between 24th Street and 25th Street.

There's some Sunflower neon signage up in the back and this very visible "You had me at... Brunch!" sign...

We didn't spot any signs reading "It's Brunch O'Clock" or "Go Ahead, Mimosa My Day!" or "What Happens at Brunch Stays at Brunch."

Sunflower is owned and operated by the same folks as the previous tenant here, Eros, the Greek restaurant that quietly closed in August 2022 when a "temporarily closed" sign arrived on the front door and stayed for 16 months. Eros took over for their diner concept, The Kitchen Sink, in September 2021

Thanks to Eden and Steven for sharing photos from here!

A 'Centennial' celebration of Saul Leiter

10th Street and Third Avenue © Saul Leiter Foundation

Dec. 3 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of celebrated photographer Saul Leiter, who's now the subject of a new exhibition showcasing his work's range.

The Howard Greenberg Gallery is hosting "Centennial," which features more than 40 photographs, paintings and painted photographs, many of which have never been on public view in the United States. The exhibition, created in collaboration with the Saul Leiter Foundation, coincides with the recently released book, "Saul Leiter: The Centennial Retrospective."

Here's more about Leiter via the EVG inbox...

Saul Leiter photographed and painted nearly every day for over 60 years. He made an enormous and unique contribution to photography during a highly prolific period in New York City in the 1950s as an early pioneer of color. His abstracted forms and radically innovative compositions have a painterly quality that stands out from the work of his New York School contemporaries. 

Often, he found inspiration within a few blocks of his apartment in lower Manhattan, seeking beauty in the ordinary, and capturing intimate moments, both indoors and on the streets. 

The exhibition at Howard Greenberg Gallery will survey his black-and-white as well as his color photographs including portraiture and cityscapes from the 1940s-1960s, his paintings (on which he worked until the end of his life) including abstract watercolors and painted photographs, and his fashion photography from Harper's Bazaar circa 1960.

Leiter lived and worked at 111 E. 10th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue from 1952 to his death in 2013. The studio is now home to the Saul Leiter Foundation, which is cataloging his more than 80,000 works. 

The Howard Greenberg Gallery is at 41 E. 57th St. between Park and Madison. Gallery hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and  Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

A bad sign at Gaia Italian Café

Photos by Stacie Joy 

Updated: There's now an Instagram post about the situation: "Our location has been closed due to, again, malicious situations that jeopardized the business after we reopened with so much effort." The message states the business will continue online, including "the delivery of Christmas dinner for two."

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A notice from the Marshal on the front door at Gaia Italian Café on Third Street states that the landlord is now in legal possession of the storefront...

As we've seen from time to time in the past, the tenant and landlord have been able to work something out in this situation. Hopefully, that can be the case here. 

Chef-owner Gaia Bagnasacco opened at 226 E. Third St. between Avenue B and Avenue C in June 2022.

After nine years, Bagnasacco closed her popular business on July 26, 2020, at 251 E. Houston St. between Norfolk and Suffolk. 

Bagnasacco then created pasta, meal kits, and sauces that she sold via an online shop, all available for local delivery from a space on the Lower East Side.

Construction watch: 340 Bowery

Workers recently encased the front of 340 Bowery in plywood.

As we reported in late October, the four-story building — a former flophouse — is becoming a "boutique micro hotel" for solo travelers... with retail space on the ground floor, as seen on the plywood rendering...

The new venture will be an 182-key modern boutique micro-hotel inspired by European Luxury train sleeper cabins, per the marketing literature.

The four-story building has served as a single-room occupancy hotel dating to 1899. Our previous post has more history of the space.

The rendering shows a spring 2024 completion date.