Sunday, June 12, 2016

Puke Island Part 6 is this afternoon in Tompkins Square Park



Here's the rundown of band's via Facebook...
2PM R.O.T.T.E.R.
2:45 PURPLE PAM AND THE FLESH EATERS
3:30 CHAOTIC MELTDOWN
4:15 THE DECEIVERS
5:00 WE ALL DIE

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Saturday evening clouds



Photo this evening from East 12th Street by Lola Sáenz

Hi, I'm a baby hawk

The first of the three Tompkins Square Park hawklets fledged on Thursday (by now, the other two may have as well)...

EVG regular peter radley shared these photos of the first fledger from yesterday afternoon... striking a pretty badass pose...





The first of Christo and Dora's eggs hatched in late April. So this one is roughly 8 weeks old. They grow so big with the daily rat tasting menus.

Updated 1:16 p.m.

Apparently the third hawklet just fledged...

Spellbound: Some love for Enchantments, the city's oldest witchcraft shop



The Guardian checks in with a feature on Enchantments, 424 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, which has been selling custom-carved candles, blended oils and various herbs and resins the past 34 years.

To some excerpts with owner Stacy Rapp:

The shop does not perform spells, Rapp tells me, after leading me to a quiet backroom away from the heady smell of the incense. The shop provides supplies that people use to perform a spell. Enchantments strictly sells supplies for good magic, Rapp explains, which is one reason to which she attributes its continuing success. The shop puts out positive energy, so positive energy comes back to it, she explains.

And...

Not everyone is charmed by the pink-haired witch of East 9th Street and her egalitarian spiritual musings. People have called the shop in the past to tell employees that they are going to hell and are in league with the devil, says Rapp. When an article on the shop ran alongside photos of Rapp years ago, men would call the shop proposing to marry her in order to save her soul.

Image via the Enchantments website

Enjoy 6 hours of peaceful green space on East 2nd Street today


[A scene from the cemetery in 1831 via Harper's Weekly]

The New York City Marble Cemetery on East Second Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue has its first Neighborhood Open Day of the season today...

An opportunity for our friends and neighbors to enjoy our peaceful green space.

Saturday, June 11
Sunday, July 10
Saturday, Aug. 13
Sunday, Sept. 10

11 am to 5 pm

In the top photo... former President James Monroe was briefly interred here in July 1831... he was transferred to his native Virginia in 1858. (The procession shut down Astor Place, which was in its first year of reconstruction.)

Friday, June 10, 2016

A little bit of 'Heaven'



Here's Brooklyn-based Japanese Breakfast with "In Heaven," some dream pop from the band's recently released record Psychopomp.

They'll be at the Bowery Ballroom on June 20 opening for Mitski... that show is sold out, though.

Fledge night

After several days of practice, the first of Christo and Dora's red-tailed hawklets fledged last evening in Tompkins Square Park...


[Photo by Goggla, reposted with permission]

A small crowd gathered to watch as the young one took off to the west (as far as to the Krishna tree anyway)... Goggla was there. Check out her play-by-play here.

The other two hawklets should fledge very soon... expect to see a little erratic flying in Tompkins Square Park this weekend...

The last exhibit at ABC No Rio before building demolition



As previously reported, ABC No Rio will be shutting down at the end of the month ... the cultural center on Rivington Street between Suffolk and Clinton will be demolished this fall to make way for a new "environmentally friendly" structure.

Before that, there's still one more exhibit, which starts tonight.

Via the EVG inbox...

"InFinite Futures" + "The Past Will Be Present"
June 10 — June 24

OPENING Friday June 10 at 7:00pm
VIEWING HOURS Sundays 1:00 - 5:00pm
Tues, Wed, Thurs 4:00 - 8:00pm

"InFinite Futures":
Kevin Caplicki with Alexander Drywall, Peter Cramer + Jack Waters, Barrie Cline with Paul Vance, Jody Culkin + Christy Rupp, Mike Estabrook, Fly,
Brian George + Kelly Savage, Julie Hair, Takashi Horisaki, Becky Howland, Vandana Jain, Mac McGill, Max Schumann, Noah Scalin, Amy Westpfahl, and Zero Boy.

"The Past Will Be Present"
Margarida Correia, Jade Doskow, Vikki Law and Chris Villafuerte

"InFinite Futures" and "The Past Will Be Present" are funded in part with support from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.

ABC No Rio's zine collection recently moved to the nearby Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center... while the Saturday matinee punk shows will move to various venues across the city.

You can read more about the new building and check out the renderings at the ABC No Rio website.

Previously

H/T EVG reader Bobby G.

Report: Steve Croman filed for alterations in 32% of his East Village properties

According to an analysis of Department of Buildings filings, there’s about one alteration application for every three East Village apartment units that Steve Croman owns, The Real Deal reports.

Croman of Croman Real Estate and 9300 Realty was arrested last month. In a lawsuit via New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, "Croman directs an illegal operation that wields harassment, coercion, and fraud to force rent-regulated tenants out of their apartments and convert their apartments into highly profitable market-rate units." In total, Croman was hit with 20 felony charges and faces 25 years in prison.

The Croman revelation was just one finding from The Real Deal's investigation of DOB permits dating to 2012 to determine which landlords filed the most permit applications relative to the number of units they own in the East Village.

Per TRD:

Other East Village landlords with a high alteration strike rate include Mark Scharfman’s Scharfman Organization, which owns about 4,000 units citywide ... The company filed 19 alteration permits at its 118 East Village units since 2012, a rate of about 16 percent.

Jared Kushner’s Kushner Companies, which has acquired a sizable portfolio in the neighborhood since 2012, also made the top five. It filed 77 alteration permit applications and owns at least 522 units in the neighborhood. Raphael Toledano’s Brookhill Properties, which owns about 400 units in the East Village, was fourth on the list and filed 53 alteration permit requests.

Per previous published reports, Kushner and Toledano have been accused of trying to force out tenants at East Village properties in the past. (Like here ... and here... and here...)

And what might all these filings mean?

Emily Goldstein, an organizer at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, an affordable housing advocacy group, believes any correlation between a high rate of renovations and harassment allegations may be more than coincidence.

“I think it raises a red flag,” she said. “I think absolutely an unusual rate of alt filings is cause for concern.”

However, reps for the landlords "emphatically rejected such characterizations of renovation work."

Find the the full Real Deal report here.

A snapshot of the East Village housing market

PropertyShark, a real-estate search engine and database, released a report this week titled "The Gist of the East Village Home Market."

A few takeaways from the report, starting with the median sale price for condos, co-ops and townhouses decreased 34 percent in April compared to April 2015 ... while the median rent just topped that of the Upper East Side.

Specifically:

• Home prices decreased by more than 30 percent year-over-year in March and April; the median price in April was $767,000

• The median rent in March and April reached $3,450, slightly more than on the Upper East Side

• 82 percent of all housing units built in the East Village are rentals, a higher percentage than the one for all of Manhattan (67 percent)

• The smallest home in the neighborhood spans only 250 square feet, yet sold for $500,000 back in 2006

• 34 is the median age of an East Village resident.

You can read the full post here.

And here are more factoids from a handy-dandy infographic via PropertyShark ...



The largest home mentioned in the chart might be this one at 210 E. Fifth St. (It was asking $25 million in 2012.)

Vintage clothing boutique D.L. Cerney returns to the East Village for the summer



The D.L. Cerney boutique is back again for part of the summer... setting up (a pop up) shop in the Umbrella Arts Gallery at 317 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

You can browse the hand-made, vintage-style clothes every day from noon to 8 p.m. through July. (D.L. Cerney is still selling clothes online.)

After 28 years in business, D.L. Cerney closed up shop on East Seventh Street at the end of 2012.

Tonight on Ludlow Street: Anton van Dalen's Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre



Longtime East Village resident Anton van Dalen is performing his Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre tonight.

Here are some details via the EVG inbox...

This time it will take place at ROMEO, 90 Ludlow Street, on the 5th floor by elevator. Doors open 6:30 pm, performance 7 pm.

My one-person exhibition there remains on view until Sunday June 19. Exhibition open Saturdays and Sundays 12 noon until 6 pm.

Second exhibition is at Sargent’s Daughters and closes coming Sunday June 12. Its location is 179 East Broadway, open Wednesday through Sunday. The hours are from 12 noon until 6 pm.

He first performed the Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre in 1995 at the University Settlement House on the Lower East Side. The performance has been shown at numerous institutions, including The Drawing Center, the Museum of Modern Art and The New York Historical Society. Read more about the performance and its history right here.