Saturday, May 5, 2012

Was that a UFO over the East Village yesterday?



From reader Brian B. ... this incident occurred yesterday.

I was walking west on 10th Street between Ave A & B at 5pm today, I looked up and spotted a small red dot floating stationary way up in the clouds.

At first I assumed the red dot was a a child's "toy" balloon that had floated up out Tompkins Square Park. For most of the sixty seconds it took me to travel the block, I watched the red "ballon" remain in a stationary position (against the edge of the buildings in the distance).

When I got to the corner of 10th & A, I watched the "balloon" for a few more seconds, then turned my attention to the pedestrian traffic in front of me as turned right and began walking north on Avenue A.

While I was waiting for light at 12 Street, I looked up and noticed that the "red ballon" that had been floating stationary back over 10th Street was now traveling in a straight line across the horizon acting very much UNLIKE a balloon.

I took out my camera and shot this video. (Canon PowerShot ELPH 300HS 13X optical zoom)

The sun was still pretty bright at 5pm and I my camera's display was too dim for me to see if I was capturing the tiny dot that was hardly visible to my eye. I figured that with the camera zoomed in all the way, the footage would be too shaky to show much.

For most of the footage, the object looks dark, but during the last few seconds of the footage, you'll notice the red coloring I saw when I first mistook it for a balloon.

I don't think it's an alien space craft or anything, but it was definitely a UFO in the sense that it was flying and I couldn't identify it. I'm postive it wasn't a plane or a helicopter. Some kind of surveillance drone? Anyone have any idea what this could be?

I'm totally going with alien spacecraft. But I'm a realist.

You? Your thoughts on what this was. (Aside from Lady Gaga or Lana Del Rey, of course.)

And keep in mind: This isn't the first time for something like this happened around here. Remember this. Or this.

Breaking: World's largest pink stretch Hummer spotted on Avenue B


At East Ninth Street. Woo! x 2.

Howl! Festival set for June 1-3


Several readers pointed us to the Howl! Festival's Facebook page... where we found the following announcement posted this morning:

HOWL! Festival 2012 arrives June 1, 2, and 3 in Tompkins Square Park. Non-stop fun and nonsense for kids of all ages~

Check the Howl! website here for more details.

Our previous coverage is here.

Bear crawl ends predictably enough on Avenue A


Avenue A at Second Street.

Same shit every weekend. The SB&T (stuffed bear and taxidermy) crowd invades the neighborhood... and we have to see this kind of thing the next morning. Spent an hour cleaning the stuffed white cotton off my front stoop.

Snakes on an Avenue

[Photo by Marjorie Ingall]

You may have seen this last evening... above, on Seventh Street... and, later, a show on St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue... via EV Grieve reader Rob



Times like these we turn to the Hollywood classics, such as Ice Cube in "Anaconda" — "They got snakes this big?"

3 church/school flea markets today

Multiple flea markets today...

At the St. Brigid School on Avenue B and Seventh Street...


...at Trinity on Avenue B at Ninth Street...


A reader also said that there are tables with clothes set up outside the Graffiti Church on Seventh Street between Avenue B and Avenue C...

Someone stole this bike from outside Table 12 on Avenue A yesterday morning

[Click to enlarge]

Spotted on Avenue A and 10th Street...

Shooting the moon

Bobby Williams took these last night...



If you look closely enough at the detail of this last photo, you can see the moon's new 7-Eleven...


And tonight – SUPERMOON!

Friday, May 4, 2012

10:08 p.m., 171 Avenue A, May 4


Previously.

Photo by Shawn Chittle

Dogs day afternoon


Today in Tompkins Square Park via EV Grieve reader Caiti....

Voices



Ultravox with "The Voice" circa 1982. And an admirably cheesy video.

Remembering Adam Yauch in the East Village


As you likely have heard by now, Adam Yauch, aka MCA of the Beastie Boys, died today after a battle with cancer. He was 47.

Shawn Chittle points us to 171 Avenue A, former home of 171A — the studio used by the Beastie Boys to record "Polly Wog Stew" in 1982.


Per Brooklyn Vegan:

In September of 1980, Jerry Williams would begin renovating the interior of 171A. Previously the place had been a glass shop, but after moving in their PA equipment Williams went on to build a stage at the front and an audio booth in the back. By November the 171A Studio was a venue used to house after hours parties where downtown bands like the Cooties would perform [but] with a huge New Year's Eve show coming up, the New York Fire Dept. stepped in and stopped further shows from proceeding...

By now though 171A had gained a lot of name recognition around town, so instead of shutting it down completely Williams decided to change it into a rehearsal studio. At the time, most of the available rehearsal spots in New York City were tiny little rooms, but 171A offered much more. Jerry described it as being like "...a full sized room with 15 foot ceilings and a floor space 60 feet long and provided recording artists with a quality PA system suspended from the ceiling. It was a cut above other rehearsal studios and since it was about half the size of CBGB's it produced a very similar sound."

Williams, aka Jay Dublee, died in September 2010.

Bad Brains and Reagan Youth were among the other bands to record here... We hear that a few Beastie Boys fans plan to put out candles in front of 171 this evening right now.