FABnyc's biannual recycling and repurposing event returns tomorrow (Saturday), from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 11 E. Third St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.
Started in 2010, FABnyc noticed that materials, props, costumes and the like were being thrown out after each theater shows load out. In response, we organized Load OUT! as a way to divert what would otherwise be sent to the waste stream, and instead, brought to the hands of other artists and the public to reuse and repurpose materials for their next project.
The Nuclear Family exhibition, featuring work by Marguerite Van Cook, James Romberger and ClockWork Cros continues through May 1 (Howl! Happening)
Lower East Side man arrested for having sex with his girlfriend’s pet Maltese (Daily News)
Will LinkNYC's new Wi-Fi system help police watch you? (The Atlantic)
Panel convened by Cuomo recommends creating a permit system for pre-noon sales of alcohol on Sundays (Eater)
Another rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments this year? (Curbed)
A look at "Rock and Rule" from 1983, an animated film with Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and Chris Stein and Debbie Harry of Blondie (Dangerous Minds)
The Metrograph Theater enjoying early success on Ludlow Street (IndieWire)
About Rolling Stone's Best Punk Records list (The Observer)
And today, Zachary Zamsky, 18, a student now at Boston University, makes his professional film debut as the lead in David Shane's short film "The Board," which is competing at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film follows a socially challenged high school kid who tests his ultimate system for making a successful first-time call to his crush.
Zamsky, who was born and bred on East Fifth Street, is the son of two former actors and active East Village residents. He has been acting since he was a kid, taking after-school classes at the former Children’s Aid Society on Sullivan Street. He attended the drama studio at the famed LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, graduating last June, and shot the movie over the summer and into the fall.
As we first reported, the BP station on East Houston and Lafayette was set to close yesterday to make way for a new office-retail building.
Workers were on the scene early this morning, as these photos via an EVG reader show, to start erecting a sidewalk bridge before the demolition. (The demo permits were filed in December 2014.)
A man was shot and killed last night in front of Pedro Albizu Campos Plaza I on East 12th Street near Avenue C, according to published reports.
As PIX 11 reported, police received a 911 call around 10:44 pm. Elliot Caldwell, 23, had been shot in the back, polices sources said. He died later at Bellevue.
A neighbor told the Daily Newsthat Caldwell grew up in Campos Plaza, and would return to visit.
Police haven't made any arrests and the investigation is ongoing, per PIX 11. CBS New York reported that a witness reported seeing a man in a red hoodie running from the scene.
Back in January, according to a report in the Post, an unnamed 23-year-old man had been shot in the left leg. Police said that the victim, who was trying to leave the scene in a cab, "was uncooperative and refused to give them a description of the suspect."
An NYPD patrol tower (SkyWatch) arrived on the scene shortly after the January shooting. The NYPD had recently removed the tower.
[EVG photo from February]
Updated 11:30 a.m. DNAinfo reports that Caldwell, who lived nearby on 12th Street, had a 3-year-old son. "He was a great father. He changed his life for his son. He just got caught up in a bad situation," his aunt told DANinfo.
After 24 years in business, Dempsey's Pub on Second Avenue between East Third Street and East Fourth Street is closing its doors for good on Sunday night.
Reps for Dempsey's issued a press announcement yesterday. Per the news release:
Opening in 1992 as Jack Dempsey’s Pub, [the bar] quickly became the go to spot for locals and NYU students alike. The sports bar transitioned to Dempsey’s Pub in 1998 after being acquired solely by Tom O’Byrne.
Ask any NYU student or neighborhood local and they will be sure to have had a fond memory at this East Village institution. Since opening their doors they have cultivated a crowd that has depended upon their various programming from sports nights, to showcasing local Celtic bands on Tuesday nights, to their famous Wednesday trivia nights.
These popular events will be moving just around the corner to their sister pub, Slainte, located on 304 Bowery.
O’Byrne also owns Cooper’s Craft and Kitchen on Second Avenue at East Fifth Street. He told Bedford + Bowery yesterday that Dempsey's "reached the end of its cycle."
He also added that the changing nature of the neighborhood had played a part in his decision to close up shop. "Obviously part of it is related to costs, and the demand for the type of place like Dempsey's is not there anymore in the way it was before."
According to the closing announcement, Dempey's will run happy hour specials "such as $5 beer, wine and well drinks" through the weekend, "ending on Sunday with can-bottle beer specials all night."
Wear your best springtime and garden themed costumes, bring posters, musical instruments, and join us in our parade through the gardens of the East Village
Parade starts at 1:30 p.m. at 6B Garden [West Side Ave B (E 5th & E 6th) making stops at:
• Tompkins Square Park [West side Ave B (E 7th & 10th)]
• Children’s Garden [West side Ave B (SW corner E 12th)]
• Campos Community Garden [South side E 12th (Aves B & C)]
• 9th Street Garden [NE Corner Ave C & 9th)]
• La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez [SW corner Ave C & E 9th]
• The Secret Garden [NW corner Ave C & E 4th]
• Parque de Tranquilidad [South side E 4th (Aves C & D)]
• Orchard Alley [South side E 4th St (Aves C & D)]
Ending at El Jardin around 3 p.m. [North side E 4th St (Aves C & D)]
From 3-5 pm at EL Jardin there will be:
• Seed Swap (get some seeds to grow stuff!)
• Garden Membership Drive
• Gardens Rising Walkabout (gardensrising.org)
• Bicycle Check Up
• Solar 1 Educational program
• LES Ready
• Poetry, Music, Food
On the topic of community gardens... the 6BC Community Garden (East Sixth Street between Avenue B and C) Orientation is Sunday ... details are on the flyer below are at the garden's website here.
After six years, Northern Spy's owners decided to call it quits this past February. However, the space at 511 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B will be put to use again this weekend.
Here are details via the EVG inbox...
Fleishers Craft Butchery is running a pop-up burger joint for one weekend ONLY, at the former Northern Spy Food Co. space today through Sunday. (Northern Spy Food Co. partner Christophe Hille is also CFO and an owner of Fleishers — hence the utilization of the NSFCo space for one last time.)
Menu
• Classic American Burger $12
Classic blend of NY State pasture-raised beef with American cheese, special sauce, red onion and lettuce
• 100% Grass-fed Burger $13
NY State grass-fed beef with lettuce, tomato and onion
• The Bacon Egg & Cheeseburger $15
Made from NY State pasture-raised beef & bacon blend, sunny fried egg, American cheese
• Beef Fat Fries $6
• Northern Spy's Famous Kale Salad $12
•Beer, Wine and Brunch Cocktails will be available
And, these burgers are for a good cause: for every burger Fleishers sells at the pop-up, it is donating 6 oz of NY State pasture-raised beef to Trinity Lower East Side's “Service and Food for the Homeless” kitchen on East Ninth Street and Avenue B.
An EVG reader notes that brown paper is up on the windows at DumplingGo, the quick-serve restaurant on Second Avenue at East 12th Street. There aren't any signs up noting "closed for renovations"... the phone goes unanswered ... and the DumplingGo website has a "Error establishing a database connection" message.
However, there is a freshly approved permit for a "minor renovation of the existing restaurant" on file with the city. In addition, DumplingGo is on CB3's SLA docket (PDF here) on Monday night for a beer-wine license. (This application will not be heard before the committee.)
Anyway, this is likely just a closed for renovations for real (even though there isn't a note for customers).
When we exchanged emails with filmmaker Michael Levine the other day, the East Village resident had just lugged 1,200 pounds of matzo-making machinery and 800 pounds of matzo to Avenue A from Rockland County.
Ahead of that, Art on A Gallery, 24 Avenue A between East Second Street and East Third Street, will feature an exhibit on Streit's starting tonight. (Levine shared the photos in this post while setting up the exhibit yesterday.)
"We'll have archival photos of the Rivington Street factory from the 1920s-1950s on display," Levine said. "We'll also have a photo series from 2015, just before the factory closed, by Joseph O. Holmes."
Other exhibit highlights include:
• Original machinery from the Streit's factory on display (Streit's saved seven tractor trailers of machinery from the factory — basically everything but the ovens — to rebuild at the new factory in Rockland County as a museum.)
• Work by Judi Harvest, an artist who has been creating gold-leafed matzo since 2000. She's creating a wall of special pink-gold matzos in honor of Streit's.
• Archival video projected on the rear wall of the gallery, shot at the Streit's factory in the 1940s.
"I had this idea when I thought about the fact that this would be the first Passover in a century without Streit's having some kind of physical presence in the neighborhood," Levine said. "There are so many people who would make their annual pilgrimage to the factory, and while I couldn't give them that, I wanted there to be some place for them to go and get in the holiday spirit, as it were. Streit's didn't sponsor any of this in any way — nor did they have any financial/editorial say in the film — but they're excited about the idea."
"The idea of those buildings coming down, and maybe even more so what will replace them, makes me sick to my stomach," he said, "but I suppose if it has to happen, maybe [the film and gallery show] might provide a little more perspective than usual on the significance of that loss." (As Alan M. Adler, a great-grandson of Aron Streit, the business’s founder, told the Times in January 2015: "[T]he reality is that operating a modern factory in four old buildings has finally caught up with us.')
The opening is tonight from 8-10. (The exhibit will be up through May 5.) Members of the Streit family as well as several of the factory workers will be at the gallery tonight.
The documentary plays the Film Forum April 20-26. You may find tickets here.