Can we at least enjoy the damn trees first before thinking about mulching them?

Finally just bought the damn tree and now you have to think about mulching it.

Signs are up around Tompkins Square Park for the annual MulchFest … happening Jan. 11-12.

Maybe just drag the fucker over to the Park Christmas morning. Why wait!

-----

Also!

The lonley-looking tree left by itself outside St. Mark's Market has apparently been sold!

Yesterday!



Today!



Finally, in other holiday miracles… the Second Avenue Snowman has found a second wind…

Last day for FUNKtional Art Fair at La Plaza Cultural

Today is the last day for FUNKtional Art Fair at La Plaza Cultural...

Repeat from the EVG inbox...

Looking for a relaxed and joyful holiday shopping experience? Visit the East Village's very first FUNKtional Art Fair, a holiday fair of functional art for the funky at heart.

When:Sunday 12pm-9pm, December 22
Where: La Plaza Cultural Community Garden at the southwest corner of 9th St. & Avenue C.
What: A fair that features an amazing selection of seasonal gifts; Christmas wreaths & trees, holiday decorations, clothing, costumes, jewelry, housewares, leather goods, paper goods, custom millinery & children's items.

A portion of the money raised will go to La Plaza Cultural Community Garden

Find more info about the vendors here.

You'll also be able to find work from artists such as Peter Missing and others…



[Photos by Bobby Williams from last weekend at FUNKtional Art Fair…]

There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)

Tompkins Square Park today via Bobby Williams…

Why there'll be electric guitars on East Village streets this afternoon

As part of Make Music Winter .. the Tilted Axes Mobile Electric Guitar Procession will work its way through the East Village this afternoon from 3-5.



Here's more about it:

Composer and producer Patrick Grant creates and leads a procession with dozens of electric guitarists through the East Village, with a special stop at The Alamo, the iconic Astor Place sculpture commonly referred to as The Cube. In 2014, The Alamo will be moved from its current location to another part of the plaza. To observe this occurrence, Grant introduces new repertoire that evokes the iconic guitar music that has scored sub-genre Wild West cinema. The event will be a moving, polyphonic sound cloud layered in compelling, electric rhythms to honor the season’s axial tilt.

Here's a video from last year's Tilted Axes procession…

Oh, won't someone please buy this lonely Christmas tree?

At the St. Mark's Market, one lone tree remains for sale. It would look nice in any home! I'd buy it, but I already have 11 in the apartment…



Meanwhile! So there's one tree left here… Elsewhere! Forests of trees remain for sale!







And, well, please shield the eyes of the children now.

The troubled Frosty the Snowman inflatable on Second Avenue near East Houston is… just… Maybe it's the heat? (Let's remain positive.)


[I'll be back again some day. Thumpity, thump, thump]

First discarded Christmas tree of the season (aka FREE TREE)

Hurry now. Fourth Avenue between East 12th Street and East 13th Street. Still smells sorta piney.

Safe 'Harbor'?

Touché Amoré with "Harbor" … the band's record, "Is Survived By," made No. 2 on Andrew Sacher's Top 20 Albums of 2013 over at Brooklyn Vegan…

Take these old MTA benches off of LaMaMa's hands — or they'll be chainsawed!

An EVG reader passed along this Craigslist post…

We payed full price, $650 each — you can have them for free, you just have to pick them up. We will even help load them into your truck. They weigh ~500# each. We used them in a show and the show will be done. You MUST pick them up Sunday night or early Monday morning at LaMama theater. Otherwise they will be chainsawed...

FYI: they are 10' plus long, so you would need a box truck, not a cargo van.

Seriously, haven't you always wanted one of these in your back yard? Or you artist loft?

Today in red-tailed hawks eating a rat on a fire escape

EVG regular William Klayer caught the action on East 12th Street just east of First Avenue… Oh, that stare!

What has happened to East Village Shoe Repair?

That's the question the Confidential columnists at the Daily News are asking today. The sliver of a shoe-repair shop on St. Mark's Place at Third Avenue rather abruptly closed before Thanksgiving, as we first noted here.

And there is some fallout from this closure. To Confidential:

Model Francesca Vuillemin is one of several lower Manhattan tastemakers who recently popped into East Village Shoe Repair to pick up shoes. Hers were pairs by Balenciaga and Miu Miu that she’d left for repairs. She estimates the kicks were worth $700.

Vuillemin had been told by the store’s proprietors many times since September that the repairs were behind schedule and had been asked to come back another time.

An EVG reader heard from proprietor Boris Zuborev that they would reopen in the David's Shoe Repair storefront on East Seventh Street. (The for rent sign is off that space.) We haven't heard anything else about this.

The Daily News tried to contact Boris, but "two calls to a number registered to [him] resulted in a pair of angry hangups."

In which we turn 6! 6! 6!

[One day on Second Avenue]

The EV Grieve website/blog turns 6 tomorrow. Thought I'd mention it now, though.

The whole thing started because of this. (Ultimately a false alarm! Thanks Page Six!)

Anyway, on previous anniversaries, I talked about the secret formula for blogging (No. 4) and my dubious past as TV Grieve (No. 5).

Today, I'm here to talk about the future. Starting today, I'm launching a Kickstarter campaign without a business plan to raise $750,000 to create Grieve.You.Me, a new site powered by a proprietary algorithm that also generates positive Yelp reviews and...

Ahhh. OK, a sincere thank you to everyone who has been part of any of EVG these past six years… from taking the time to read the site… sharing the posts… commenting, complaining, commiserating, passing along tips, laughing, crying… you know. Your involvement and camaraderie makes it all worthwhile. (And a large thank you to everyone who contributes to the blog on a regular basis, including Bobby Williams, who sends me great photos every day, and James Maher, who presents a compelling portrait of our neighbors every week in Out and About in the East Village.)

Thank you.

As for the real future, I'm looking forward to continuing on… hope that you are too.


[East 5th Street between Avenue A and B]

Permits filed to demolish former Salvation Army residence on the Bowery

[EVG file photo]

The new owners of 347 Bowery filed permits yesterday to begin the interior demolition of the Salvation Army's former East Village Residence, according to documents at the Department of Buildings.

The permits show "interior demolition of non-load bearing partitions of existing vacant 3 story building including cellar," listed at a cost of more than $234,000. Frank J. Quatela is listed as the architect of record.

A little recent history.

The Salvation Army's East Village Residence closed here at the Bowery and East Third Street in August 2008. (Find some history of the space here.)

In January 2011, the Post reported that the France-based Louzon Group had bought the building for $7.6 million and were planning on opening the — for real — ugliest fucking hotel ever.

But, those plans, thank God, fell through.

The Lo-Down reported in July that "Glauco Lolli-Ghetti, the principal at Urban Muse, a privately held real estate firm that 'acquires, develops, repositions, operates and brands' both commercial and residential real estate," bought the space in a $16.3 $19 million deal.

No word on what those plans are just yet. But you can count on it being something, you know, pretty nice.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reactions to new Bowery hotel: 'It would be cheaper and more useful just to blow up the building and leave a 30-foot crater'

Why do the French hate us?

Whatever happened to that really ugly hotel planned for the Bowery?