The East Village starts at the filth

EV Grieve reader Joe notes that crews just painted the bike lanes on Second Avenue north of 14th Street... and the new green paint inexplicably stops 10 feet south of 14th.

NYPD making sure traffic stays out of First Avenue bus lane

Good job, fellas!

'The neighborhood will not rest until you are gone and Sin Sin’s license is revoked'

In early August, residents met Sin Sin's management to voice concerns about ongoing issues with the club at Second Avenue and Fifth Street. The meeting didn't seem to go so well. Per a summary of the meeting provided by the East Fifth Street Block Association:

Sin Sin owner Philip [Quilter] seemed unable to muster any kind of serious commitment to dealing with these problems. He did say he would hire an additional bouncer, but only when pressed. His attitude waffled between saying that Sin Sin takes every reasonable measure to ensure quiet ... to denying that Sin Sin was even responsible for the behavior on the street.

He was promptly told that most everyone in the room has personally witnessed the mayhem emanate from Sin Sin. ... We left the ball in his court, asking him to write out his proposal to remediate the problem, asking him to specifically address security and patrons loitering on the street, and to look at his programming to see if changes could be made there.

Tragedy struck several weeks later when 37-year-old Devin Thompson was shot twice on Second Avenue outside the club on Aug. 22. He died from his wounds on Aug. 31. According to reports, Thompson and the two men police believe are responsible for the shooting were inside the club earlier in the evening on Aug. 22.

Relations between neighbors and the club may just be beyond repair now. In an e-mail to residents dated Aug. 25, Quilter wrote that some of the DJs that the club had hired to play weekend nights had been fired. He continued: "Since that meeting on the 4th, I have personally addressed your concerns and conveyed our ideas on how to better meet your requests with all the personnel at several staff meetings. Also, I have implemented and am enforcing a stricter door policy, I am personally monitoring all our patron's parties including bachelorette, birthdays, etc, at the location and as a result, I believe, the programming of the venue has improved dramatically in just a few short weeks." He also said that Sin Sin was cooperating with police in their investigation.

And how did this go over? Here is the response sent on Friday from Stuart Zamsky, president of the East Fifth Street Block Association:

Thank you for your response. We did, however ask that you give us specific information regarding former and present programmers, DJs or promoters responsible for the various nights at your club, which you refuse to present to us. And, though you would not give any detailed information, when pressed to respond you asked that we “believe you”, that the persons responsible for drawing the violent crowd to your club had been dismissed after our August 4th meeting. In the interim, your patrons have escalated the violence to murdering someone in our streets.

Sir, we do not believe you. Not a word that you say. And, as we said at the meeting on the 4th we have no desire to talk to you or to listen to your hollow promises. Do you think that we do not have eyes and ears? We see the same problematic clientele patronizing your club as before. We are looking for action, and until action is taken, and you begin to court a clientele who is not violent, you will continue to be viewed as a scourge on our otherwise peaceful neighborhood. And, the neighborhood will not rest until you are gone and Sin Sin’s license is revoked.

Meanwhile, next Tuesday, the Block Association is distributing flyers for the Ninth Precinct Community Counsel meeting.



Previously on EV Grieve:
NYPD hosting meeting between Sin Sin and neighbors tonight

East Village noise wars new battlefront: Sin Sin/Leopard Lounge

Why the president of the East Fifth Street Block Association carries a baseball bat

Starting rumors: Last days of Rite Aid on First Avenue?

So have you been in the Rite Aid on First Avenue at Fifth Street lately? I haven't, because a trip inside just doesn't ruin your day, it ruins your entire month, at times. Maybe it's the lone cashier talking on her cell phone while trying to check out the 37 people waiting in line, some of whom always seem to be jawing at each other for some unknown transgressions. (Like cutting in line! Oh, those residents with the carts! Watch out!)

Anyway, I just bravely entered the place. And it's so picked over! The shelves are pretty empty! No restocking after stockpiling for Earl?







Anyway, to the PURE speculation: So I'm curious if this store is closing. Rite Aid reported a $208.4 million loss for the fiscal quarter that ended on Feb. 27 — the 11th straight losing quarter. According to published reports, the chain is shuttering 80 stores this year. As you may recall, Rite Aid closed on Seventh Avenue south of 14th Street last year.

Given this valuable chunk of real estate for a one-level building.... Perhaps the plans for the fancy condo will be revived without the bothersome drug store next door....



Previously on EV Grieve:
Sagging plywood offers glimpse of stalled 14-story condo on First Avenue

Shocker: A Rite Aid is closing

Speaking of pharmacies....

A pharmacy is reportedly moving into the long-dormant space here on Third Street and Avenue A...




Patrick Hedlund at DNAinfo attended a CB3 Economic Development Committee meeting last Tuesday where representatives of the landlord of this rather empty stretch — the New York City Housing Authority — noted this pharmacy news...

Said Rob Stevenson, a broker for the Real Estate Group New York who’s lived in the neighborhood for the past 17 years: "[Average retailers] can't pay 6, $7,000 a month. That tells you what's going on down here."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Of the 147 storefronts on Avenue A, 70 of them are bars, restaurants or vacant

Whatever happened to the Two Boots Restaurant? Plus: NYCHA puts up two prime storefronts on Avenue A for rent

Sons & Daughters closing on Avenue A; new tenant for A and Third Street?

More dessert for St. Mark's Place?

Word on the street here at St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue... the former Pizzanini space will soon be home to an ice cream shop. "A good company," my source said.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Crucial corner of Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place now up for grabs, apparently

EV Heave's Super Barf Sunday!

With the start of the college and pro football season this past weekend, revelers/East Village tourists took to the binge drinking and wing eating almost as much as usual! And, alas, some distraught Lions or Raiders or Eagles fan may or may not have taken out his or her misery on the defenseless (except for the anti-skateboarding teeth!) Cooper Union Building...C'mon, they don't even have a football team!

Or! Maybe this is the work of the diabolical Cooper Union serial vomiter!

Anyway, EV Heave has more details, mostly just a photo and the copy above that he or she stole from me. WARNING: A large puddle of you know what awaits you at the end of this link.

The Cooper Square Serial Vomiter AND the Penistrator strike during the same weekend

Coincidence? In front of the Mars Bar on Second Avenue...

Historic East Fourth Street artists' collective soon to be condos

Back in March, we wrote about the side-by-side townhouses for sale on East Fourth Street near Avenue D....



There's a new listing for two townhouses at 326-328 E. Fourth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D... 12 bedrooms in the two homes... and both buildings are going for $4.6 million... According to the listing:

Extraordinary Opportunity. Two side by side townhouses that have 46 feet of street frontage and a 46 foot by 50 foot rear garden await your vision, dreams and renovation. Extensive original details throughout the townhouses. These properties will be delivered vacant, are currently over 7,000 square feet and come with an additional 10,000 square feet of air rights. Beautifully located across community gardens and on a charming block. This could also be a development site or for institutional use.

As the Times reports today, this is home to "an artists’ collective and burial society called the Uranian Phalanstery and First New York Gnostic Lyceum Temple, was started in the East Village in the late 1950s by the artists Richard Oviet Tyler and Dorothea Tyler."

Per their article by Colin Moynihan:

For decades, the East Village has been home to countless avant-garde organizations and collectives, drawn to the area by its cultural vitality and low cost of living.

Those days of affordability, however, appear to have largely vanished, and over the last decade or so many of the creative groups that once had a home in the East Village have moved or become defunct.

Faced with tax liens, the group is selling the two old brick buildings on East Fourth Street near Avenue D that it has owned since 1974. The group is also beginning the complicated process of cataloging the contents.

The Times also notes that the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) and the East Village Community Coalition are working to to get landmark status here. "In letters to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the groups said the houses dated to around 1840 and retained original cornices, molded stone sills, windows and ironwork, among other features. 'That these houses have remained virtually unchanged in the past 170 years is miraculous and noteworthy,' the preservation groups wrote. 'That they could be lost to irresponsible development would be nothing short of tragic.'"

Read more about it at the NYPress.

Speaking of development, the campaign is well under way to sell the buildings. Per Blumstein at Corcoran:

Deep in the Alphabet lies a potential Gem of an investment. Two buildings, old and in disrepair, are on the market as a set. Just recently the price was reduced from $4,300,000 to $3,950,000.

What makes them so special is the air rights that come with the buildings – 17,630 buildable square feet. At the current asking price, that is $224 per square foot to buy. Even with good quality construction you could put up condos at under $700 a square foot, and the lowest condo (a resale) is on the market in the Alphabet for $800 a square foot with the average at $1,051 and the highs around $1,700 per square foot (The Copper Building is selling at 215 Ave B with the remaining units averaging around $1,256 a square foot). Given the 2-3 years minimum before completion, the fact that it would be new development and a likely upturning real estate market, a buyer/developer could be poised for considerable returns.

Anyway, the GVSHP has documentation showing "the house’s original owner built the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean (nearby Avenue D was the East River’s edge, which in the early 19th century was full of working piers before shipping activity shifted to the wider and deeper Hudson); that in the late 19th century these houses were transformed from homes of successful merchants into tenements to house the waves of immigrants moving into the area; that in the early 20th century 326 and 328 East 4th Street were converted to house a Hungarian Synagogue."

Per the GVSHP:

YOU CAN HELP! Please write a letter to the city today urging the Commission to consider landmark designation for 326 and 328 East 4th Street right away, and to protect these remarkable survivors which capture so many important aspects of the evolving history of the East Village and New York — CLICK HERE for a sample letter and contact information.

Andrea Peyser takes it to the "fat, prematurely gray, 32-year-old sports nut and professional loser" on Avenue C

From an Andrea Peyser exclusive today in the Post:

An East Village Romeo who passed himself off as a globetrotting NFL exec is accused of ripping off a beautiful, love-struck divorcee to the tune of a quarter-million dollars.

As he allegedly fleeced her and at least one other woman while posing as an accomplished 40-year-old winner, accused con man John Egan was, in reality, a fat, prematurely gray, 32-year-old sports nut and professional loser who lived with his parents on Avenue C, compulsively trolling the Web.

Now, Egan is the subject of a Manhattan District Attorney's Office investigation. The DA plans to seat a grand jury early next month on grand-larceny charges, said a law-enforcement source.

For beautiful Thea Miller, it may be too late. The San Francisco divorcee claims she was financially ruined and emotionally devastated by the beguiling grifter she met online.

"I was naive," Thea admitted.

The photo there was in the Post, taken outside his parent's Stuy Town home. Wonder if he took advantage of the free wireless on the Oval?

Missing art from Art Around the Park

This painting, by Simon Scott, is missing. He believes it was stolen yesterday during the removal of all the paintings from Art Around the Park during the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park. We're told the removal of all the paintings yesterday was chaotic and wet... Friends are helping Simon locate it... any leads?

Renovations in order for Stuyvesant Grocery and Pete's-A-Place?

Plywood has gone up at 14th Street and Avenue A... where the stores were lost to a three-alarm fire in May...




The only work permit on file states: ALTERATION TYPE 3 - CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT - FENCE
ERECT AND DISMANTLE 8 FOOT HIGH WOOD CONSTRUCTION FENCE AS PER PLANS FILED HEREWITH.

The permit is issued to All City Remodeling in Long Island City....



Perhaps a good sign... Remodeling and not, say, Demolition. So maybe this prime real estate won't become a condo or dorm. In any event, we're still collecting information here on the status...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Conspiracies: What next for 14th Street and Avenue A?