A new boutique for kids and families on East 9th Street

As you can see from the above flyer, an.mé — a boutique for kids and families — has its grand opening today at 328 E. Ninth St between First Avenue and Second Avenue from noon to 7 p.m.

Business partners Melissa Scott and Annie Ju opened the shop several weeks ago ...

"We are really excited to be able to open a store in the East Village," Scott said. "We have lived her for almost 15 years and wouldn't want to be in business anywhere else."

And the store has extended a special discount to readers for 10% off their entire purchase when they mention EV Grieve today through Sunday.

A Taylor Swift, 'Welcome to New York' mash-up courtesy of Clayton Patterson

Longtime LES documentarian Clayton Patterson has re-imagined/re-edited Taylor Swift's much-maligned "Welcome to New York" video … with archival footage from his archives circa the 1980s and early 1990s, including the Tompkins Square riots… there's also some footage of GG Allin writhing around on Avenue B for good measure.



Per Clayton's message via email:

Are there no NYC songwriters or musicians who could write a song and be a face representing the city? There is no talent in NYC? What is the message to struggling or successful artists? Where are our politicians on this corporate insult to NYC talent? Where are the agencies that represent NYC talent? What is the message to struggling or successful artists? What is the message to the average NY'er? Tell me DeBlasio is different from Bloomberg. It is one thing to make NYC into a corporate mall filled with cookie cutter corporate businesses, but now we have an individual with almost no relationship to NYC as the face and voice representing the city. It is like we have lost our mind?

Love is in the air this Halloween season

On East First Street via @Speakman

November CB3/SLA highlights: The return of Lucky Cheng's

CB3 released its November calendar of meetings yesterday ... including the two nights of fun for the SLA licensing committee. Lots of items on the agenda this month, including a new home for Lucky Cheng's on Ludlow Street.

Here's a look at some of the applicants over the two nights. We'll pass along more info once it becomes available.

Monday, Nov. 17 at 6:30 pm
Community Board 3 Office, 59 E. Fourth St. (between Second Avenue and The Bowery)

Renewal with Complaint

• Percy's Tavern, 210 Ave A (op)

Applications within Saturated Areas

• Vintage B Inc, 56-58 Ave B (aka 235-237 E 4th St) (wb)

This is the former Vella Market (and Kate's Joint) space at East Fourth Street.

• To be Determined, 137 Ave C (op)

This is the new bar/restaurant going into the Sunburnt Cow quarters. The building is currently getting a head-to-toe renovation.

• To be Determined, 206 Ave A (op)

• To be Determined, 137 Ave A (op)

We went through this last month. It was a mistake then.

• Table 12 (188 Ave A Take Out Food Corp), 188 Ave A (upgrade to op)

Alterations

• Cornerstone Cafe (AO Cafe & Restaurant LLC), 17 Ave B (aka 241 E 2nd St) (alt/op/convert service counter to patron bar with 5 seats)

New Liquor License Applications

• Parmys Kabob and Grill Inc, 124-127 1st Ave (upgrade to op)

We noted this change a few weeks back.

• 41 1st Avenue Rest Corp, 41 1st Ave (op)

This is the address of d.b.a. Dennis Zentek, who opened d.b.a. in 1994 with friend Ray Deter, died on March 23 from injuries he suffered in a fall. Deter died in July 2011 from the injuries he suffered in a bicycling accident.

• To be Determined, 188 2nd Ave (wb)

Looks like there's a taker for the former Shima space at East 12th Street. We noticed that the for rent signs were down the other day.

Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 6:30 pm
University Settlement at Houston Street Center, 273 Bowery

Applications within Saturated Areas

• Lucky Cheng's (Red Room Hospitality LLC), 154 Ludlow St (op)

Lucky Cheng's, which closed its Midtown location last summer after the death of owner Hayne Suthon, looks to be making the move back downtown permanent. (They had been operating out of the DL on Delancey Street.)

The Living Room was the most recent tenant at 154 Ludlow St.

New Liquor License Applications

• Lucille (Little Rebel Inc), 134 1st Ave (op)

Hmm, this is the address of Simone Martini Bar.

Items not heard at Committee (meaning neighbors don't have any say in these items)

• The Bean (147 First Ave Bean LLC), 147 1st Ave (wb)

• G & Nishi Inc, 54-56 Third Avenue (wb)

• 4T USA Inc, 127 4th Ave (wb)

• Zund New York Inc, 84 E 10th St (wb)

b=beer only | wb=wine & beer only | op=liquor, wine, & beer | alt=alterations

When the jet ski arrived on East 5th Street

EVG regular Jose Garcia shares this...

It showed up about two weeks ago on East Fifth Street near Avenue C. It's not attached to the car in front of it.

It was the subject of a hive of activity when it first arrived. Mechanical repairs, etc.

And now it has become a seemingly permanent fixture on the street. Carefully and tenderly moved according to alternate side parking schedules.

Passersby can't seem to resist sitting on it. I guess I'm having aquatic fantasies. I think the jet ski itself might be sentient.

Veselka celebrating its 60th anniversary with FREE FOOD on Monday night

Veselka has been celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Back in the summer, the restaurant at 144 Second Ave. (at East Ninth Street) turned prices on some items back to 1954. (Surprise! There were lines!)

Now on Monday night from 6 to 11, Veselka is getting rid of its tables and serving free food. Per the invite: "Mirth and Mingling Strongly Encouraged!"

As the Veselka anniversary invite notes, in 1954, a house cost $10,000, rent was $85 and a movie ticket was 70 cents. And Wolodymyr Darmochawal and his wife Olha opened a small newsstand, candy shop and lunchonette that they named after the Ukrainian word for "rainbow."

Hitchcocktober ends tonight with 'Strangers on a Train'

Hitchcocktober wraps its month-long stay tonight at the Village East Cinema on Second Avenue and East 12th Street with "Strangers on a Train."



The films start at 8 p.m. Head to the Village East Cinema website for more info and tickets.

383 Lafayette wrapped ahead of NYU expansion

Workers have erected the sidewalk bridge and plywood around NYU's Academic Support Center (the former Tower video space) at 383 Lafayette St. at East Fourth Street.



As Curbed noted this past summer, NYU plans to expand the building, adding four new floors on the land that previously housed the Plantworks garden center these past 40 years.


[Rendering photo by Evan Bindelglass via Curbed]

Meanwhile, in other NYU expansion news on Lafayette Street, the school paid $157 million for 402-408 Lafayette Street (AKA 708 Broadway) to use as a short-term stand-in for the Coles Sports and Recreation Center. (Crunch used to be on the ground-floor before moving over to 2 Cooper Square.) NYU will use the upper floors for classrooms.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: Growing soon in the former Plantworks garden center — an NYU building

Oct. 29

Yay I win! Sure, there isn't any authentication or whatever on this lush beauty spotted on Lafayette near Astor Place.

But we can discuss when I return from the Grand Prize Trip!

The great pretender

There will never be another EV Lambo, plain and simple.

Still, others try.

East Fifth Street and Second Avenue today via Derek Berg.

Abandoned piano remains abandoned on Avenue A

[7 a.m.]

Slum Goddess spotted the piano last night on Avenue A at St. Mark's Place... and people were stopping to hit the keys throughout the night (neighbors loved that!)

Still there this morning... waiting.



Maybe someone calls George?



Bottom 2 photos by Derek Berg

Out and About in the East Village,

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Gigi Watson
Occupation: Writer, Artist, Cartoonist, Former Club Worker and Owner
Location: 3rd Street between 1st and A.
Time: 1:30 pm on Friday, Oct. 24.

I’m a native New Yorker. I grew up in Ridgewood, on the border between Brooklyn and Queens, which now they can’t decide whether it’s Brooklyn or Queens. It was basically a German, Italian and Jewish neighborhood. The first thing you asked when you met another kid was what was your nationality.

There were places that we didn’t go. Bed Stuy and Red Hook, these were not places to go. In Red Hook, they used to find a dead body every single day. My train was the L, which used to be a horrible, horrible train. The L train connected with the G train, which was murder central. If someone paid me a million dollars in cash and said, ‘Here, get on the G train’, I’d say, ‘No thank you.’

My first apartment in Manhattan was a sublet on Christopher Street in the West Village. I moved in 1979. I then moved to the East Village in 1982, on 2nd Street between A and B. You had to have two or three jobs at the same time just to survive. That’s being a real New Yorker. My rent was so expensive. If I didn’t have two jobs, there would be no way I could cut that rent.

The first club I worked at was Bonds International Casino on Broadway and 45th Street. I was working behind the scenes in the office with guest lists, counting money. We had Blondie, The Clash, Blue Oyster Cult, Motley Crue, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who sucked. We had all kinds of punk rock bands. That’s where I developed a fear of crowds because the owner, John Addison, sold double the amount of tickets. We had 2,500-seat capacity and he sold 5,000 tickets per performance, and everybody showed up and was hammering on the door, ‘We want the show, we want the show.’ That place was fabulous.

[After Bonds] I worked at an after hours, where I worked the door. Cocaine was fantastic in the 1980s. That went right along with being at the front door. ‘Here, thanks a lot for letting me in,’ and I’d get a gram in my hand. That meant thank you. The stars I met — Nick Nolte, Grace Jones, Robin Williams, Paul McCartney. The list goes on and goes. Cause they would want to party late too.

I first worked in the cashier booth in Crisco [Disco], which is a famous haunt. We must have taken in at least between $8,000 and $10,000 on a Saturday night. It was a lucrative place.

After that I worked at Page 6. I was working the VIP room one month. Liza Minnelli was there snorting her brains out. Rick James comes in and puts a pile of coke on the table. All of a sudden you hear, ‘Freeze.’ So Rick James gets up, ‘Oh, I ain’t going to be arrested, I gotta get out of here, how do I get out?’ I said, ‘Mr. James there’s only one way out and that’s the way you came in.’ He walked out without a problem. It was the people that worked there that got busted because they didn’t have a liquor license.

After that I opened up my club, Trash. I was working at the time at Club 82, which was another after hours on 4th, and the manager there, John Matos said said to me, ‘Gi, why don’t you start your own club? How much do you need?’ We went shopping for furniture and I got all the stuff. I wanted neat 1960s furniture that was gaudy and cool looking. I wanted to do all the murals inside the club. I made the VIP room. I painted a big huge spider web so when you walked in, it was spinning. They would look up and sway from side to side. It was a cool place to be.

But that didn’t last very long because all the people who were great to look at had no money. Punk rockers do not have any money. Nobody had fucking money. Nobody had money for rent, forget about anything else.

Then one day a Hells Angel — this big Angel came in and went up to somebody at the bar and said, ‘Hey faggot’ and pushed him on the shoulder. The guy was a really cool looking punk rock guy and he was intimidated. Once the Angels come in, then it’s their club, and then it’s no longer my club or Trash. One brought many. Nobody would go there anymore. They were too afraid to go through the door. So that’s how Trash ended. That was about the time that punk rock itself was sort of waning.

Punk rock to me means anti-establishment. Punks saw that people conformed all over the place. It’s somebody with real talent to be unique and wild and out there. People used to come and sketch what I was wearing. The more beat up it is the better. They now have distressed leather. What fucking distressed? If you keep it on long enough, believe me it’ll become distressed. I always wanted to look different. I don’t want to look like anybody else. I want to look like me.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.