Paws life for a moment to have your pet blessed tomorrow (Saturday!)

Via the EVG inbox...

In celebration of the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the beloved patron saint of animals, The Church of the Immaculate Conception, located at 14th Street and First Avenue, will hold its annual Blessing of Pets in front of its main doors on Saturday Oct. 1, at one o’clock in the afternoon. We invite all to join us in this beautiful tradition of fur, feathers and family.

Carma East opens today on 6th Street

On Monday, we noted that Carma East was coming soon to 507 E. Sixth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.

Well, how soon is now — the dim sum bar opens today, per the sidewalk sign.

This is an EV outpost of Carma Asian Tapas, which specializes in dim sum, on Carmine Street in the West Village.

No announced hours (the West Village outpost is open for lunch and dinner) ... and we haven't seen a menu for this location just yet. Will update when this info becomes available.

Carma East will eventually have a new East neighbor — Out East at No. 509.

The previous restaurant here, Kin Asian Bistro, which took over from Purple Ginger, had been open for less than a year.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Purple Ginger out, Kin Asian Bistro is in on East 6th Street

The former Schnitz space is for rent

Shepard Fairey is wrapping up work on his mural on East 11th Street at First Avenue... above the space that housed Schnitz.

Several people said that they weren't aware that the sandwich specialists had closed.

We noted on Sept. 2 that the quick-serve restaurant hadn't been open in several weeks ... and that the storefront was listed for rent online.

The retail space for lease sign has been up for maybe two weeks now. According to the listing (PDF) at RKF, the asking rent is roughly $9,100 a month.

No one from Schnitz has responded about the closure via social media yet.

Schnitz, which served old-fashioned schnitzel sandwiches with unconventional toppings, opened here in March 2014. This was the first permanent retail space for Schnitz after gaining a following at Smorgasburg in Williamsburg and Dumbo.

Crossing East Houston

[Click to go big]

Although the East Houston Reconstruction project, already three years behind schedule, has been delayed again, there are some spots where work has mostly wrapped up... like at the East Houston/First Avenue/Allen Street intersection.

The markings are on the roadway for the crosswalks and bike lanes, as the above photo by Vinny & O shows.

The Department of Design and Construction has been replacing sewers, water mains, catch basins, fire hydrants, sidewalks, etc., etc., along East Houston Street, from the Bowery to the FDR Drive. This work phase started in June 2010. Spring 2017 is the new completion date. Do I hear summer 2017?

[Updated] On today's grill menu: First deputy mayor Tony Shorris

First deputy mayor Tony Shorris is testifying today at a City Council hearing about the controversial sale of Rivington House on the Lower East Side to condo developers.

As Politico New York noted, this "will mark the highest-profile public airing of the controversy surrounding the sale of Rivington House"

Back in July, Shorris answered questions during an often contentious 2.5-hour interview with an investigator working on behalf of City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Through a Freedom of Information Law request, Politico obtained the 114-page transcript of that session.

Here's an excerpt from Politico's coverage:

It also seems clear, although Shorris never says so directly, that he did not have a particularly robust or effective mode of communicating with Stacey Cumberbatch, who was commissioner of DCAS until January of this year.

Cumberbatch informed Shorris through a routine memo about the potential sale of Rivington House, which had been a city-owned building before being sold to a nonprofit running an AIDS residence in the 1990s.

Shorris explained that he did not read the memo and that some time during the latter portion of his first year on the job, he stopped reading these memos in their entirety because they were too time-consuming.

Instead, he expected commissioners to use their judgment and inform him in person or over the phone of priorities and problems. But that evolution in communication strategy was never made clear to Cumberbatch, Shorris acknowledged during questioning.

And here's how the Post covered the July 27 Shorris meeting with investigators:

First Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris suffered numerous memory lapses about the Rivington Street nursing-home fiasco, telling investigators more than two dozen times that he couldn’t recall incidents, ­emails or details, records show.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s right-hand man claimed he couldn’t remember a meeting with Stacey Cumberbatch, a city commissioner, or the content of any conversations they had about Rivington in 2014.

When investigators tried to press Shorris over the memory lapse, his lawyer, G. Michael Bellinger, repeatedly intervened, the Post notes.

In February 2015, the Allure Group paid $28 million for the property, promising that 45 Rivington — the former Rivington Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation — would remain a health facility. In November, a city agency lifted the the deed in exchange for the Allure Group's $16 million payment to the city.

Earlier this year, Allure then reportedly sold the property for $116 million to the the Slate Property Group, a condo developer who plans to create 100 luxury residences in the building that overlooks Sara S. Roosevelt Park.

Updated 9/30

Read more about what transpired during the six-hour hearing at DNAinfo... Daily News ... The New York Times...Politico... the Post...Village Voice ...

Meanwhile! As The Lo-Down reported, the de Blasio administration plans to create affordable senior housing on the Lower East Side to make up for the loss of Rivington House. The facility will be on Pike Street.

Clearing out the Edge

Workers quickly took down the Edge signage and cleared out the former bar space on Third Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

As this photo via an EVG reader shows, bar stools and other items were up for grabs on the curb.

After 29 years, The Edge closed for good after service on Saturday. "We'll just say [the landlord, Thermald Realty Associates] found an opportunity to sue us for a bunch of money that we can't pay," a bar rep told us last month.

We haven't heard just yet if there is anyone lined up for the storefront... or if the space will be put on the rental market.

Verdigreen vintage furnishings boutique leaves the East Village

The storefront that sold paint and DIY supplies at 122 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue is now empty.

The owners of Verdigreen — described on their website as "a vintage redesigned furnishings boutique and handmade haven" — decided to move back to their flagship store in Montclair, N.J.

Per their website:

[W]e have learned that our customers in the city prefer to order paint remotely and have it delivered, that most of NYC is unaware of the magic of Chalk Paint®, and that a storefront isn’t required to service those who are. We are offering next business day delivery for phone/online orders in order to continue to service our NYC customers.

We will miss the sense of community in the East Village and appreciate all of you who came to visit and patronize our small shop!

The shop opened here in the spring of 2015. This space was previously home to La Belle Crepe.

Tonkatsuya has apparently closed on 6th Street

Zerza isn't the only recent closure to note on East Sixth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

Tonkatsuya has been dark all month at No. 328. The Japanese restaurant's webite has been taken down and the phone number isn't in service.

The restaurant just opened in March... taking over the space from Sri Lankan specialists Banana Leaf, which also only lasted a few months.

Shepard Fairey creating a mural on 11th Street at 1st Avenue

[Photo by EVG reader Annabelle]

Shepard Fairey started work today on a mural above the former Schnitz space on 11th Street at First Avenue...


[Photo by Lola Sáenz]

The mural is his second collaboration with the L.I.S.A Project.

Back in the spring/summer of 2010, Fairey's May Day piece on the Bowery Mural wall was bombed and eventually destroyed.

The art of this 2nd Avenue plywood

EVG correspondent Steven checked out the recent arrival of some artwork on the plywood outside 136 Second Ave. between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street...



XORS finished up her work yesterday...





The other artists are Acool Inibab ... Anna Laurini ...Ethan Armen ... Phoebe New York ... and raemann1.

As we understand it, the folks next door at Fresco Gelateria commissioned this... As for No. 136, the former Bar 82, a French restaurant is apparently in the works.

Out and About in the East Village

In this ongoing 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: Boris Ryback
Occupation: Retired plumber
Location: First Avenue and Fifth Street
Time: 3 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 26

I’ve been here since the 1950s. I grew up here. These [Village View buildings] were all brownstones. This building came up in the 1960s. There was only one park, Tompkins Square Park and that was it.

I lived between Avenue B and C on 7th Street originally, and then we moved to 5th between Avenue A and B. When I grew up on Avenue C, everything was pushcarts. The only thing that did not come off a pushcart was the milk, which was sold in the store. Eggs and everything else came from a farm. There was a farmer who would come around and you would buy the eggs from him ... about once a week.

You stayed within your own neighborhood. You did not go out of your neighborhood. You had to belong in a group in your neighborhood – same ethnicity. Then you made alliances with other groups in order to move around. You had to stay within your own group or you’d get rearranged. I went to St. George’s. A lot of my friends went to St. Stan’s, and more went to St. Brigid’s. The only place we went to every once in awhile was over to 7th Street to McSorley’s. That’s about it. Nothing’s changed. It only got filthier.

I enjoyed it. There were no problems. You had more freedoms when you were a kid then you have now. There are more rules now. Then the yuppies moved in. When they moved in, the price of rent went up. My parents were living on 7th Street between Avenue B and C. They were paying for a cold-water flat, $35 a month rent. The toilet was out in the hallway. The bathtub was in the kitchen. The building had no heat. You had to generate your own heat. When you went to the bathroom, you went quickly.

It stayed the same [in the 1970s and 1980s]. The ones that were gonna die, died, and the ones that were not gonna die were not gonna die, no matter what you did. Most of my friends became cops. A lot of them became sanitation men. A lot of us became plumbers. You looked for a job that made the most money, other than having to shoot somebody. I was a plumber in New York for a long period of time, then I moved to New Jersey, and I stayed. [He was visiting family who lives in Village View.] I just retired out of Rutgers University after being there for 23 years as a plumber.

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

More details on the 14-story building coming to the long-empty lot on 14th and C

[Photo from last month]

There's finally some updates about 644 E. 14th St., the long-empty lot on the southwest corner of Avenue C.

The info came in the form of a news release via the EVG inbox yesterday...

Madison Realty Capital (MRC), an institutionally-backed real estate investment firm focused on real estate equity and debt investments in the middle markets, provided a $52.0 million first mortgage loan for the acquisition of a development site in the East Village and construction of an approved 76,259 square foot mixed use development on the site.

The plans for 644 East 14th Street include 50 residential units, 8,064 square feet of retail space with 200 feet of frontage on 14th Street and Avenue C, and 21,575 square feet of community facility space.

The property is located at the corner of 14th Street and Avenue C, along the Northern border of the East Village and directly across the street from Stuyvesant Town. Residential units will offer contemporary finishes and large balconies with East River views. The borrower is currently finalizing a lease with a major New York hospital to occupy the entire community facility portion of the new building.

The East Village is now attracting young professionals and families, in addition to the artists, musicians, and students that established the neighborhood's cultural identity. The area has retained its strong character and remains a dynamic hub of popular bars, restaurants, and shops, with East 14th Street being one of the liveliest commercial corridors.

As previously reported, there are approved permits for a 14-story building.

A rendering via Real Estate Weekly shows a building looking like...



As for the "major New York hospital" taking the entire community facility portion, perhaps that's Mount Sinai Beth Israel, who's shutting down its campus on First Avenue and 16th Street in the coming years.

This corner property next to Campos Plaza and across from the Con Ed plant previously housed the single-level R&S Strauss auto parts store, which closed in April 2009.

[EVG photo from 2009]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Development back in play for East 14th Street and Avenue C

More details on the sale of 644 E. 14th St.

Here comes a 15-story retail-residential complex for East 14th Street and Avenue C

Prepping the former R&S Strauss auto parts store for demolition on East 14th Street and Avenue C

City OKs 15-story mixed-use retail-residential building on 14th and C

14th and C now waiting for the Karl Fischer-designed 15-story retail-residential complex

14th and C still waiting for its Karl Fischer-designed retail-residential complex

Report: New owners for the empty lot at 14th Street and Avenue C