Scaffolding finally comes down at Third Avenue and 13th Street

This scaffolding was up for at least two years.





Last spring, Cafe Deville and Cosmic Cantina were named two of the worst outdoor tables at Eater. (Be sure to read comment No. 11.)

(Bottom photo via Eater)

Previously on EV Grieve:
But of course!

Sleepless in Stuy Town: Welcome to "Noise Town"

The good people behind stuyvesant town's lux living made note of the flier (to the right) at First Avenue and 20th Street. Sounds like a nightmare, not to be corny.

A note on the women's room at Milano's

On Houston near Mulberry.

Open to interpretation

On the Bowery. Near Fourth Street.

That scene from "Revolutionary Road" filmed in the East Village

I finally got around to watching the (cough) promo copy of "Revolutionary Road" that a friend passed along...(Been also meaning to read the book by Richard Yates)...I was curious about the film, which is up for three Academy Awards tonight.

As you may recall, a scene for the movie was filmed inside 295 E. Eighth St. at Avenue B back in June 2007. The production hogged up good chunks of Avenue B between Sixth Street and 10th Street. Plus the north side of Seventh Street between Avenue A and Avenue C. Anyway, I wrote about all this here.



The scene they filmed in the neighborhood is in the very beginning...the exterior shot is of another building in the neighborhood, not 295 E. Eighth Street...



The scene is where Kate and Leo first meet...




Oh, and for the record, I didn't care much for the film.

Looking at "The French Connection"

"The French Connection" won five Academy Awards, including for Best Picture and Best Actor (Gene Hackman). In honor of the 1971 classic's Blu-ray release on Tuesday, the Post spoke to director William Friedkin about making the movie on the sly in NYC. The Post included a chart showing some of the locations...(click the image to enlarge)



The bowery boys had some nice observations on this classic when it played during the summer of 2007 at the Film Forum.

"I wouldn't be able to do any of these things without the bus"

The Daily News has a brief on the M8 protest yesterday. Anyone go to the event?

More than 100 bus riders urged the MTA Saturday to keep the crosstown M8 rolling, calling it the "lifeline" of Greenwich Village.

"I take it to my senior center, I take it to go shopping, I take it to the theater," said Teresa Hommel, a 64-year-old East Villager who has trouble walking. "I wouldn't be able to do any of these things without the bus."

The MTA plans to scrap service on the M8 and several other bus routes in order to help plug a $1.2 billion budget deficit. It links the East Village to the West Village.

What's doing in San Francisco?

This Page 1 article in the San Francisco Chronicle today caught my attention...:

It's one of the seediest stretches in San Francisco, filled with homeless people slumped against vacant storefronts, the stench of urine, graffiti, drugs and crime. Many maps and travel books explicitly warn tourists to stay away.

But the three blocks of Taylor Street just north of Market Street would become an arts district -- some say akin to New York City's SoHo, which became an area of cheap artists' lofts and studios in the 1960s and '70s -- under a plan being cobbled together by city officials, landlords, artists and Tenderloin-area nonprofit workers.

The transformation gets under way today with the groundbreaking of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, which is taking over a vacant 4,000-square-foot building that once was a porn theater. The old marquee on the building reads "Art Theatres," apparently a euphemism that also foreshadowed its future use.

And later:

The North of Market Neighborhood Improvement Corp. is one of the nonprofits involved with remaking Taylor Street. With city funds, it hired a new director, Elvin Padilla, who has 20 years of experience infusing the arts into low-income communities.

He said artists moving into a neighborhood can scare low-income residents who fear gentrification. But if done right, he said, the improvement can make a neighborhood safer without driving out residents.

"The arts can be an effective way to address tension and conflicts and empower neighborhoods that are going through stress," he said. "The arts can be a common denominator for many different people in terms of race, class, socioeconomics, the whole thing."

For further reading:
The Lower East Side: There goes the neighborhood

[Photo of the liquor store by Brant Ward/Chronicle...the store is being replaced by a cafe]

Wall Street afterlife: "Because even sad clowns are a hoot at a birthday party"

From the Times today:

This week’s news that the city plans to spend $45 million to retrain jobless Wall Street executives may, understandably, have been met with less than sobs of gratitude in that demographic. After all, as the happily divorced like to say, stick a fork in a toaster once, it’s an accident. But a second time?

We're with you. And so writer Michael Wilson suggests some heh-heh suggestions for former Wall Street executives. Such as!

-- Lead walking tours amid the ruins of your past life

-- Become a butler

-- Sell cigars

-- Shred documents

-- Entertain small children

Because even sad clowns are a hoot at a birthday party, said Gary Pincus, owner of the Send In the Clowns Entertainment Corporation, which plans parties in the metropolitan region.

“We get a lot of calls from Wall Street guys who are looking to work with us,” he said. “They want to change their careers. I told them to call me when our season gets going in March.”

The party racket is more than just balloon animals and squirting flowers. “Selling parties, running parties, everything that goes with the party,” he said. “A Wall Street guy could come over and do magic shows for the kids, play musical games with the kids, do face painting with the kids.” There are positions for disc jockeys, stilt-walkers and mechanical bull servicemen. And, of course, the marquee job.

“We’ll hire clowns from Wall Street,” he said. “No problem.”

All this and more

Happy birthday, Cheetah Chrome. The Dead Boys.

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

M8 rally tomorrow (Colonnade Row)

Last chance weekend at Etherea (Stupefaction)

Tenants at 47 E. Third St. have until Aug. 31 to vacate (The Villager)

The cons are on (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Butts, billboards and Beyond (BoweryBoogie)

50/50 for Ruby's reopening (Grub Street)

Happy (sort of belated) birthday Cheetah Chrome (Punk Turns 30)

"Disappearing Manhattan" and opium chitchat with the Bourdainster (and is the Brooklyn Bridge going to disappear?)

The Anthony Bourdain/"No Reservations"/Travel Channel site posted more information on their "Disappearing Manhattan" episode that debuts Monday at 10 p.m. Based on the publicity still above, should we assume that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to disappear? What does he know!

Also, after poking around the Travel Channel site, I discovered that the Bourdainsters had already posted a snippet of the interview that Bourdain did with Nick Tosches at Sophie's. According to the description of the two-minute clip that was shot last November, "Anthony Bourdain sits down and grabs a beer with author Nick Tosches, to chat about Southeast Asia and Tosches' new book, 'The Last Opium Den.'"

Presumably there's more of this interview (maybe not so publicist friendly?) with Tosches during the "Disappearing Manhattan" segment. Meanwhile, Daniel Maurer at Grub Street had more information on the episode...

Previously on EV Grieve:
"No Reservations" at Sophie's