EV Grieve

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Just a few scenes at the Loisaida Festival today

A few moments from the 25th anniversary of the Loisaida Festival today on Avenue C... via Jacob Anderson ... always one of the best street festivals around...

Ivy Irizarry-Rivera, right, of Ivy Jewel, was one of the few vendors based in the neighborhood... (Many of the other vendors were from the outer boroughs, according to festival officials...)

Above, Sixth Street resident David Joffe gives a demonstration of one of his trinkets for sale...

Avenue C gold rush

During the Loisaida Festival today... photo by Bobby Williams...

Reader report: Fire on Avenue C yesterday

We heard reports of a fire yesterday afternoon on Avenue C... a reader passed along these photos with some details...

Just before 4 p.m. yesterday, the FDNY responded to a report of a fire at 56 Avenue C near East Fourth Street ...Per the reader: "Smoke was pouring onto Avenue C for over an hour and a big crowd gathered. I feel badly for any building residents or neighbors who will return home wondering why their homes are water logged and/or smelling of smoke."

We haven't heard the official cause of the fire. A new cafe called Bikinis is slated to open in one of the retail spaces at 56 Avenue C, which is the former Nublu Records office.

Do you have any further information on what happened here? Let us know via the EV Grieve email

[Updated] In case you were going to go look at those baby tigers today...

[Photo by BB]

It's closed, via Matt LES_Miserable ... As Gothamist pointed out on Friday, two five-month-old female Bengals (Sonia and Tanya) were part of Norwegian artist Bjarn Melgaard's "Ideal Pole" exhibit at the Ramiken Crucible gallery on Grand Street.

[Katie Sokoler/Gothamist]

No word on why the exhibit is closed. Or if the tigers will be back. They were scheduled to be there until June 3. Gothamist wrote, "We've reached out to the Humane Society of the U.S. to find out what the rules are about this sort of thing, because that cage looks too small to us."

Updated 3:31 p.m.:

Gothamist received a statement from the Human Society of the United States. Part of the statement:

The baby tigers on display at the Ramiken Crucible gallery were prematurely removed from their mothers, transported to New York from a game farm in Ohio that has been cited for failing to meet minimum standards of the federal Animal Welfare Act, and are confined to a tiny barren cage inside an art gallery.

Week in Grieview

[Toys for sale on Avenue C today]

Water store opening on East 10th Street (Monday)

Searching for the loudest block in the East Village (Friday)

Development lot for sale on Avenue D (Monday)

No Astor Place is an island (Tuesday)

The smallest art gallery in the East Village? (Wednesday)

Iglesia Pentecostal Sarepta cut in half for now on East Sixth Street (Monday)

Union Market update (Wednesday)

A former bank branch is becoming a Duane Reade (Friday)

Bistro Cafe & Grill opens (Tuesday)

From farm to sidewalk (Saturday)

Why there's a dining room set in the middle of Avenue B

Crews arrived early this morning for a shoot on 10th Street and Avenue B... a crew member said it's a short film titled "1956" ...

The NYPD is redirecting traffic on Avenue B ... several motorists have been grumbling ... (Avenue C is closed between Sixth Street and 12th Street for the Loisaida Festival ... so apparently driving and parking is a bit of a hassle for the time being. More of a hassle than usual...)

Anyway! Here's the street set...