“I want to remind people how great the neighborhood can be and reinvigorate it,” said Ted Riederer, the director of the gallery, which opened last year at a medium-size storefront at 6 East First Street, not far from the former CBGB, Sounds record shop and other departed East Village landmarks.
Exhibits rotate about once every three weeks, with openings that sometimes bring together the area’s cantankerous stalwarts.
An opening last October celebrated the Pyramid, the Avenue A club that was a hub of the downtown drag, music and art scene for much of the 1980s. At one point that night, the crowd cheered as the burlesque performer Paula Now flung her wig, which got stuck on the chandelier.
“Old-timers will say, ‘The East Village is nothing like it used to be,’ and I say: ‘Oh, really? Well, tonight we have performances with drag queens on the bar,’” Mr. Riederer said. “We’re still doing it.”
The residents of 37 Avenue B HDFC are calling on the Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union to pay their fair share or move out. Their building is broke because the Lower East Side Peoples Federal Credit Union, which occupies the 5,000 square foot commercial space rewrote their own lease in 1996 to skip paying future mortgage payments, and real estate tax increases.
They saved $350,000 due under the original lease and the HDFC building is FLAT BROKE
We have to borrow money to pay the real estate taxes or lose the building. The building needs at least $400,000 in necessary capital improvements but there is no money even for basic repairs.
TO WHOEVER STOLE THIS POSTER FROM THEATRE 80 You have taken something with no economic value, but caused immeasurable pain to members of the Otway family. There is no other copy of this poster. You have taken a token of memories few other people share...
We have had to remove from the lobby valuable historic pieces, which we shared with the public, and which have been enjoyed by people from around the world.
This is an amazing opportunity to be just North of Houston Street in a location where the East Village meets the Lower East Side. Any tenant can easily capitalize on being en route to the only subway station in the neighborhood which is located at the Whole Foods anchored intersection of Houston & 2nd Avenue.
Coffee bar, quick serve café, retail or full service restaurant would all do well to operate in such a fantastic location. Potential to lease the 2nd floor along with the ground for a total of over 2,800 sf of space with double height frontage. Current tenant has a full liquor license in safe keeping and will cooperate on a transfer.
Eastern Consolidated’s Retail Leasing Division has arranged a 10-year, 500-square-foot lease at 36 Third Avenue in the East Village for OJ Gallery, a 35-year-old family-owned business. The gallery is relocating from 462 Avenue of the Americas where it has thrived for the last 10 years.
Ravi Idnani, a Director in Eastern Consolidated’s Retail Leasing Division, and Kendall Novak, Associate Director, represented OJ Gallery. Walker Malloy’s Rafe Evans and Gary Schwartzman exclusively represented the owner.
“The space at 36 Third Avenue between 9 and 10th Streets was an ideal location for OJ Gallery,” Novak said. “After running a successful business at 462 Avenue of the Americas for so many years, OJ Gallery wanted a new location nearby in order to serve its long-time customers.”
It has been a decade since former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decided to ramp up New York City’s efforts to attract more tourists, and city officials say there is no end to the influx on the horizon.
In Berlin on Wednesday, Fred Dixon, the chief executive of New York’s tourism-marketing agency, NYC & Company, plans to announce a forecast of 59.7 million visitors this year. That would exceed last year’s record of 58.3 million visitors by 2.4 percent and keep the city on pace for a goal of drawing 67 million annual visitors by 2021
Tourism officials are hoping to persuade out-of-towners that “the cool thing to do is to get out of Manhattan,” Ms. Glen said. “You’re sort of a loser if you come to New York and just go to Times Square.”
Name: Parker Dulany
Occupation: Musician, Singer in Certain General, Painter
Location: St. Mark's Place at Avenue A
Time: 4:15 p.m. on Monday, March 7
I moved to the city right after school to be a painter, and I ended up being in a band. I moved right here. It was pretty exciting and pretty scary. I came in 1979. I’ve lived right here, appropriately enough in the building [that has] the hot dog that says Eat Me.
I had an art opening almost immediately, about a week or two after I got here. I was lucky enough to be given a chance to show with Club 57, which is that little church [at 57] St. Mark's Place. Ann Magnuson ran it. She gave me my first chance. I didn’t know it, but I had landed… it was sort of like the elite downtown people, with Keith Haring and Jean Michel-Basquiat. I just happened to be one of the people in the show.
I didn’t really know how good my fortune was. That led to being in a lot of openings all over the place. My work is pretty expressionistic. It kind of didn’t fit at all with what they were doing. I mean, they liked it and everything like that. They kind of looked at my stuff and they didn’t know what to make of it.
Then about a year later, I ended up being in a band called Certain General. I had never sang before the band, and now we’ve been around for 30-something years. We made it quite big in Europe, and so we’re going over in about a month.
My ex-girlfriend used to live ... on Avenue B. So in 1981, we would all go and walk across the roofs on Avenue B and climb into the abandoned building, which is now the luxury Christodora House. We would climb the rubble to the roof and nude sunbathe above the apocalypse, with the bridges, World Trade Center, Tompkins Square and the Empire State Building at our naked feet, sort of "Bonfire of the Vanities" shit, listen to the Clash or Spandau Ballet on a beatbox. It was very decadent.
The safest street in the East Village was Seventh between Avenue B and C, because that was heroin strip and there were lookouts everywhere. Anyone came down that street, they were on you. The dealers didn't want any trouble. We didn't do dope, but we rehearsed at Tu Casa, a legendary studio that was on B and 6th.
One time, my guitarist [in Certain General] ran into the studio and said he had been mugged, and both of his guitars had been taken. Everyone fanned out, alerted the locals and ran around the neighborhood. We eventually found the culprits. The guitars were so heavy that the [thieves] couldn't run fast enough to get away and were pooped and sat down. They weren't strong enough, because they were — two teenage girls. I think one of the girls had a knife, but Jesus — teenage girls! Oh my God, it was fucking funny. We give the guitarist shit to this day. We didn't even call the cops it was so embarrassing.
I was just walking through the Park to listen to those kids singing and it was reminding me. I played in Tompkins Square, with the biggest concert ever. It was in 1981 maybe, and it was called Avenue B - the Place to Be, and it was us and the Bush Tetras, and a bunch of other bands. There used to be a bandshell over there. It was a more formal stage. I really liked that. It was a big crowd. It’s on video. It was pretty cool, I have to admit.
I think I’ve always been about just making something. I just can’t be bored, and I’d rather make something than buy something. It was the whole DIY, do it yourself — everything was do it yourself. We just wanted to make something, that’s all.
