Please don't feed the rats in Tompkins Square Park

In the last few days, it seemed as if the Tompkins Square Park rat population had been thinning out a bit... We've outlined all the steps park workers are taking to combat the problem.

A reader sent this shot along the other day... with a note "I think the problem is subsiding."

Then yesterday. Walking through the park... just missed someone dropping off the breadwagon right near the playground at Ninth and Avenue A. Within moments, rats started darting out from various holes ... soon there was a frenzy...(though we didn't get good shots of the 8-9 rats on the bread pile...)

LUNGS aims to promote and preserve Lower East Side gardens

LUNGS — Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens — is a new group to, as the flyer shows, "work to promote, protect and preserve gardening and greening on the Lower East Side." First meeting: Saturday afternoon at 1 in the garden at 311 E. Eighth St.

Making the case to 'save' Heathers

We haven't heard much about Heathers — for or against — since the CB3/SLA committee voted not to renew the East 13th Street bar's liquor license on Monday. Members of the 13th Block Association and other residents brought "No renewal for Heathers" signs to the meeting. Residents speaking out against the bar talked about the Heather's crowd smoking pot, urinating in doorways and what not. (The Times highlighted the ongoing noise issues in a lengthy article in January 2007.)

Owner Heather Millstone reminded everyone how surveillance tapes that she provided helped lead to the arrest of former NYPD officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin L. Mata.

According to the State Liquor Authority, the license for Heathers expires on Oct. 31.

As you know, the State Liquor Authority has the final say in these matters. This doesn't mean that Heathers will close. As we mentioned earlier, the CB3/SLA committee voted to deny TenEleven's license renewal in July, though the SLA later approved it.

Meanwhile, Keith Wagstaff, a writer for The L Magazine, checked in yesterday with a post titled "Save Heathers! Beloved E Village Bar Under Attack From NIMBYs." He writes:

This simply shall not stand. Heathers has been in the neighborhood since 2005; it is a bastion for a diverse mix of gay and straight creatives who are looking for a drink in an increasingly frat-like East Village bar scene.

2005? Well, OK. Also...

The main problems, as a person who has been going to Heathers consistently for years, is a) the bar is on a side street instead of a main avenue b) it's just too damn popular. The East Village bar scene is basically becoming divided into fancy, $13 cocktail places and beer pong douche-a-ramas. ... There are very few bars in the East Village with an artistic bent and affordable drinks, and if Heathers goes, there will be one less reason to leave Brooklyn.

You can read the entire post here.

[Updated] Discovery Wines opens today on Avenue B

Back in the late spring, Discovery Wine moved away from its home on Avenue A ... one of the businesses displaced with the arrival of Union Market... Discovery didn't travel too far — just to the southwest corner of Avenue B and Second Street.

According to the Discovery Wines site, the store will open today. (Updated, per a Discovery tweet — they'll open at 5.)

And this closes the chapter on 16 Avenue B...Previously, two different restaurant-club hybrids had tried to open a club restaurant at 14-16 Avenue B since the corner deli closed a few years ago. (As you may recall, one venture called for a 3,000 square foot Italian restaurant, catering company and lounge "with an occasional D.J.")

The stores displaced by Union Market now have new homes ... in addition to Discovery Wines, the Houston Deli & Grocery is opening on Second and A ... and Joyful Nail on Avenue A...

More on 14-16 Avenue B here.

More on Union Market here.

Tompkins Square Park wildlife, dead or alive

Photos today by Bobby Williams.

If you look directly into the light...

A red-tailed hawk will appear... A little after 6 this evening in Tompkins Square Park via EV Grieve reader Mish...

Another bakery for St. Mark's Place?

Heh. Noticed this out at the curb this morning near First Avenue... Called ConEd about getting the gas turned on. Should have it on in a few months.

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

[Third Avenue at East 10th Street circa 1970, Courtesy LaGurdia & Wagner Archives NYC Housing Authority Collection]

10th Street and Third Avenue through the years (Off the Grid)

From the archives on this block: Klein's Fat Men's Shop (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

No more Edgar Oliver on East 10th Street (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Another worry in Tompkins Square Park: leptospirosis (The Villager)

LES Jewels and Jennifer Blowdryer at Theatre 80 on St. Mark's Sunday night (Neither More Nor Less)

A lot more additions to the EV Grieve animated GIF tribute site (EVGif)

Q-and-A with the bellhops of the Bowery Hotel (Runnin' Scared)

East River String Band in Washington Square Park (Slum Goddess)

Suggestions for a tour of Chelsea galleries (The Gog Log)

And the new LES-branded trash cans...

[Photo via @nackman]

More details emerge about attack on East Eighth Street Saturday morning

As reported Saturday morning, several residents said that a man had attacked a woman on East Eighth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.

On Monday, Patrick Hedlund at DNAInfo had more details about the assault, which occurred around 8:20 a.m. Saturday. The man, listed as Neil Essex, "allegedly threw the woman to the ground and began punching her in the face ... The complaint claimed that Essex then removed the woman’s pants and raped her while choking her so viciously that she lost consciousness."

Hedlund had a follow-up story last evening. Police sources said that Essex did not know his victim, "claiming that he pounced on her suddenly on the street in broad daylight."

According to the Post today: "Essex was arrested for allegedly killing his mother in 1984; the status of that case wasn’t immediately available."

One source said that Essex had been staying at a halfway house on East Sixth Street.

No 7-Eleven for former Graceland; and the return of Houston Deli & Grocery

In June 2010, EV Italian eatery guru Frank Prisinzano said during a CB3/SLA committee meeting that the landlord of the former Graceland space on Avenue A and Second Street had four prospective tenants: Frank's fast-food Italian joint, a bank, a 7-Eleven and a bank.

Which caused us to play with PhotoShop.



Anyway, on June 22, 2010, the full Community Board 3 denied Prisinzano's application to open a fast-food style Italian restaurant here.

And the space has sat empty ever since... However, workers have been splitting up the space. There are now three different storefronts.

Anyway, remember that The Houston Deli & Grocery on Avenue A and Houston had to close in the spring to make room for the new fancy Union Market...?

EV Grieve reader Josh saw one of the fellows inside the corner space at the old Graceland. Per Josh: "The really nice guy who ran the corner market on Houston and A ... is opening up on the corner of 2nd and A at the old Graceland space. Says by the end of the month. Glad to see he'll be back in the neighborhood."

Not sure if they'll actually still be called Houston Deli & Grocery seeing as they're a block to the north... Still, we'll take it.

And no word yet on the tenants of the other two storefronts...

Today's sign of the apocalypse: IHOP will have a bouncer

As you're painfully aware, IHOP opened yesterday on East 14th Street. And, according to the Post today:

IHOP is so convinced its new East Village location is going to be an after-hours hipster hot spot that it has hired a bouncer.

An off-duty cop will stand guard outside the East 14th franchise each night from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. in order to keep the bar crowd at bay, manager Michael Carlos said, explaining, “When people have a few drinks, they can get rowdy.”

Hipster hot spot? Uh-huh.

Anyway, let's give it up to Niall Gibbons for this quote:

“IHOP is bland and belongs in Times Square — it doesn’t make sense in the East Village. The neighborhood has lots of character, but the character fades when something like this comes along.”

Rumors: Ground floor at 147 First Avenue will include the Bean AND a bar

As we first reported, The Bean is opening an outpost at the former home of Anjelica's Herbs on First Avenue and Ninth Street...

And, now, that persistent rumor: The ground floor will also house a bar. Per an EVG reader:

"I heard from someone who talked to the workmen that a BAR is going to take half the former herb store on the ground floor. The Bean will have half, and a bar will have the other half. I dunno, seems like very small spaces for two establishments. And dear God, ANOTHER bar???"

Yes! The always reliable construction worker! Sure, it's possible. But we've been wrong here before... remember the motel? Or the full demolition? (Hey, we're one out of three so far!)

Meanwhile! Looks like the painting is continuing... and we see some charcoal gray creeping up...

The upper floors are still set for luxury apartments... still looking like what a reader described as something that blew in from the Hamptons...