Humans of New York

Brandon Stanton is on a mission: He wants to find every interesting person in the city, and take their photograph.

And he's on his way. He currently has nearly 1,400 portraits on his website — Humans of New York.

Here's his mission statement:

Humans of New York is a multi-year project to construct a photographic census of the city of New York. The team consists of one man, who walks the streets several hours a day, looking for interesting people, and taking their photograph. Currently, the project is in the gathering phase. The goal is 10,000. Photos are uploaded as they are collected, and arranged by date. When a substantial body of portraits has been gathered, they will be grouped by neighborhood and displayed geographically. Upon completion, an interactive map will show every neighborhood in New York through the faces of its inhabitants.

So far, he has taken plenty of photos in the East Village, including:

The site also includes accompanying stories. Yesterday, he had photos of a traveler on St. Mark's Place named Rancid and her dog Riot. You can find her story here.

I asked Brandon about taking photos in the East Village compared to other parts of the city.

"Anywhere in the East Village is an easy day. The general rule is: 'Anyone who is out to be seen, is willing to be photographed.' Beautiful girls, fashionistas, artists — they love to be seen," he says. "The farther you get from the artistic and high-fashion crowd, the more resistance you run into. In the East Village, I probably get about 90 percent of the portraits I ask for. Somewhere like Bedford-Stuyvesant, that number drops below 50 percent.

"I do tend to value the portraits from rougher neighborhoods more, because they are harder to obtain, and rarer. But whenever I get rundown, its back to the East Village for a breather."

Find more at Humans of New York here.

[All photos by Brandon Stanton. Reprinted with permission]

65 Avenue D on the market — with or without ground-floor church

Massey Knakal has a new listing for 65 Avenue D. According to the listing:

A 19' wide, 4 story, mixed-use building. The building is approximately 3,136 square feet and has approximately 7,364 BSF of air rights remaining. Currently the ground floor and lower level are used as church facility space; the 3rd and 4th floors are floor through apartments which are renovated. The fourth floor is currently rented for $2,626/month until June 2012, but the entire building could potentially be delivered vacant.

Of course! The price: $2.1 million.

No more Junk on St. Mark's Place, so to speak

Back in September, as we first reported, a thrift store-boutique called Junk took over the former De La Vega Museum on St. Mark's Place. (And despite the name, this location had nothing to do with the Junk outlets in Williamsburg.)

In any event, Junk has quickly called it a day... the shop is now empty...

Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village vintage stores doomed?

More vintage doom: Beauty Crisis is closing

Other closings:

The song remains the same: Physical Graffiti latest thrift store to shutter

Atomic Passion has closed

Monk Thrift Shop on Avenue B

Atomic Passion on Ninth Street

O Mistress Mine on 11th Street

Andy's Chee-Pees on St. Mark's Place

Fab 208 is moving into a smaller space on Seventh Street

An early review of the new(ish) Avenue A taco cart

On Saturday night, our friends at the Late Adopter pointed out that a new(ish) taco cart had taken up residence on Second Street at Avenue A...

Well, the Late Adopter returned to test it out last night. And the verdict?

"An 'A' for enthusiasm and location but not sure we're on par with the Astoria trucks yet..."

Returning to the scene of last night's seizure/u-turn

A little bit ago I walked by the scene of last night's accident on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place.... in which police told Bob Arihood that a man had a seizure while making a u-turn...

[Photo by Bob Arihood]

Several people have noted how much potentially worse this would have been had it happened on the same time on Thursday, Friday or Saturday... and if the Sushi Lounge had been open at he time of the accident...

And we probably don't need an "Out of Order" sign for the pay phone....

Write this way

The Post picked up on our, uh, post from yesterday about the page of a novel appearing on Seventh Street and First Avenue.

Per the paper:

At the bottom of the page, the reader is directed to St. Marks Place between First and Second avenues to find Page 8.
The Post found Page 8 put up on a lamppost at the location as advertised, although it was unable to locate Pages 1 through 6.

Anyone care to look for pages 1-6?

Police: Seizure causes smash-up at St. Marks Place and Avenue A

A frightening scene last night on St. Mark's Place and Avenue A. This car hit the wall of the Sushi Lounge after taking out the pay phone on St. Mark's Place. Police on the scene told Bob Arihood, who took the top photo, that the driver had a seizure while making a U-turn. At this time we don't have any further information on the driver, who worked nearby, or of any injuries.

[Courtesy of EV Grieve reader Chase]

For your ugly East Village building consideration

Back in November, a reader suggested that 147 First Avenue was the ugliest building in the East Village... I don't agree ... In any event, the post prompted some e-mails from readers suggesting other ugly buildings... I had forgotten about it, to be honest... until yesterday's item on the new office building coming to 51 Astor Place... which isn't as ugly as much as out of place... [Pauses] OK, it's ugly.

Anyway! A few more candidates ... there are plenty of others... but for now....



(Regarding this one below on First Avenue... it's more the color scheme than anything...)



I'm happy to take other suggestions. And no fair saying everything built in the last, oh, 8 years on the Bowery.

Putting together the pieces of Grace Farrell's last days

We've been following the story of Grace Farrell, the woman who was found dead under the scaffolding at St. Brigid's on Feb. 20. Reports of her death in the media haven't quite been in sync what people have been talking about in the neighborhood. Bob Arihood has more details on Grace at Nadie Se Conoce, including the last night of her life... in which she quietly walked out of Cowboy Stanley's apartment without either the coats that she owned. Read Bob's post here.

Report: The East Village Union Market will be huge, have a beef-aging facility

As I first reported on Feb. 4, Union Market is taking over the northeast corner of Avenue A and Houston ... Yesterday, Racked reported the following:

We hear that the Houston location will be Union Market's largest endeavor, taking up 6,000 square feet of space and, similar to the Court Street outpost, offering an eco-friendly build, a beef aging facility and personal shopping services.

Previously.

Today in East Village wildlife shots

From EV Grieve Wildlife Correspondent Bobby Williams... At El Jardin del Paraiso community garden on East Fourth Street between Avenue C and D...

Previously.

Screw Los Angeles: Looking to rekindle NYC's rude side

A few weeks back, Travel + Leisure's annual Favorite Cities poll named Los Angeles as the least friendly city in the country... narrowly edging New York.

All this spawned a new Tumblr — RudeNYC. According to the site:

We need to use this website as our central point for evidence that NYC is the rudest place in America so we can send it to Travel + Leisure Magazine to secure the title belt in 2012.

The site is a collection of reader-submitted "rude happenings" witnessed throughout NYC. Like!

Woman is crocheting, taking up 2 seats on the 8:30am downtown 6 train on a Monday - train is packed and someone accidentally bumps into her bag of yarn on the ground she looks up and yells “What the fuck is wrong with you!”

I was curious about the site, and tracked down the blog's author. Turns out he is a graduate student at NYU. While it started as a class project, the author, who works in the city, will continue it after the semester ends.

"I think NYC residents being rude is one of the best things about living here — there is always something to laugh about, especially when I'm commuting to work each day," he said.

You can also find them Rude NYC here on Twitter. Perhaps an antidote to the Niceness Trend we've seen of late ...