Photo by Bobby Williams...
Friday, April 7, 2017
Remembering Glenn O'Brien
[Image via glenn.obrien.com]
There are many tributes today for Glenn O'Brien, the writer, editor and downtown personality, who died at age 70 following an illness.
Per ARTnews:
A dapper, instantly recognizable art world fixture with bright white hair and reliably impeccable jackets, O’Brien trained his dry, deadpan wit on art, music, and fashion as an editor and contributor for Rolling Stone, Oui, High Times, Allure, Esquire, and The New Yorker, among many other publications.
O’Brien was born in Cleveland. He spent his college years at Georgetown University, where he became friends with the art writer Bob Colacello. The pair went on to study film at Columbia University and become the editors of Interview in the early 1970s, when Andy Warhol was still publishing the magazine out of the Factory.
“They thought, ‘Let’s get some nice clean-cut college kids who aren’t amphetamine addicts and see if they can run the magazine,’ ” O’Brien told The New York Times in 2015.
In the 1980s, O’Brien effectively channeled the Factory for the Mudd Club crew with his public-access television show TV Party, a blend of live music, half-coherent interviews, zany skits, and idiosyncratic debauchery.
Per New York magazine:
O’Brien borrowed generously from the hipster affect of the Beats, but adapted that stance for the New Wave era. Zelig-like, he made an appearance, by his own account, as the underwear model on the Rolling Stones’ Warhol-designed Sticky Fingers album, helped mastermind the controversial CK Jeans ads denounced by Bill Clinton, and edited Madonna’s Sex book (not that many people were focused on the text). Even if you hadn’t read his work or seen his picture, you undoubtedly saw something he had created, and it shaped your consciousness in some way.
He lived nearby (Bond Street?) and in recent years invited cameras inside his home...
So Sad about us
The Jesus and Mary Chain recently released Damage and Joy, their first album in 18 years. The video here is for "Always Sad."
They'll be playing out at the all-new Brooklyn Steel on May 14.
The Macrobiotic Chewing Guild
Memories abound,
That single desk
in the window on 8th Street.
Dragon bowls
that would feed two.
Slightly yellow people,
Chewing and chewing,
Enquiring how fresh
the Tofu. How many
times do you chew?
The organic Sun sets.
Bread and spread no more.
Where will the masticators,
wander to re-fill,
the hungry and the ill.
•
peter radley
Marking the closing of Angelica Kitchen,
after 40 odd years in the East Village. April 7, 2017.
A refurbished Quad Cinema reopens next Friday (April 14!)
[Photo from Monday]
The countdown is on for the return of the Quad Cinema on 13th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue.
The Quad has announced an April 14 reopening date for the refurbished theater.
Here are some details on what to expect via a piece in Variety:
The updates to the facility include a new modern design; the capability to screen films in 35mm, 16mm, 4K digital and 3D formats; and a wine bar adjacent to the lobby.
In the overhaul, the venue’s seating capacity will downsize from 560 seats to 430, divided among four theaters meant to have the intimate feel of private screening rooms with improved sightlines and seats. The theater’s rebranding also includes a new logo.
And for what will be playing...
A retrospective of the work of Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmuller will coincide with the relaunch of the Quad, where inaugural first-run titles will include Terence Davies’ “A Quiet Passion,” Katell Quillevere’s “Heal the Living” and “Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back,” Maura Axelrod’s documentary about a conceptual artist.
Programmers also have on the docket a Bertrand Tavernier retrospective timed to the upcoming first-run engagement of the French filmmaker’s latest, “Journey Through French Cinema.” The repertory screen will also show titles that are featured in the documentary.
The Quad's Instagram account is posting some coming-soon highlights...
And there'll be double features...
Back in the summer of 2014, news broke that the Quad Cinema, family-owned and operated since 1972, was now the property of real-estate developer, film producer-distributor and movie buff Charles S. Cohen. He since hired C. Mason Wells, the IFC film programmer, and Gavin Smith, former Film Comment editor, to help with programming.
“Not only was the Quad New York’s first multi-screen cinema, it was also a true neighborhood theater, drawing Village audiences with its sophisticated art-house fare,” Cohen said in a statement announcing the April 14 reopening. "The new Quad will preserve both the welcoming, communal atmosphere and the cultural cachet of the original theater while updating — and upgrading — the moviegoing experience for contemporary cinephiles."
The Quad closed for the renovations in May 2015.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Now playing at the Quad Cinema: Closed for Renovations
The new Carmen Pabon Garden is now open to the public on weekends
Back in October, local elected officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the official opening of the Carmen Pabon Garden — named for the longtime LES activist and community gardner — on Avenue C between Eighth Street and Seventh Street. (Carmen died last fall at age 94.)
While it appeared that someone had been tending to the space ... there hadn't been any notice about the space being open to the public...
However, sometime last week, a sign arrived noted that the garden is now open Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. (weather permitting) ...
DNAinfo reported last fall that local architect Paul Castrucci designed the garden, which features Magnolia and Pink Dogwood trees, cherry laurel and holly shrubs.
Eastville Gardens, the apartment complex whose official address is 342 E. Eighth St., is on the site once occupied by El Jardin de la Esperanza. The 22-year-old garden was bulldozed in February 2000 to make way for the new development via Donald Capoccia of BFC Partners. (You can read more background here.)
[File photo via Dave on 7th]
Construction watch: 79 Avenue D
The first floors of the all-new 79 Avenue D are now visible above the plywood here between Sixth Street and Seventh Street.
[No. 79 construction pic by George Cohen]
As previously reported, L+M Development Partners are putting up a 12-story retail-residential building that will include 110 apartment units, 22 of which will be permanently affordable. Amenities will include a fitness center, landscaped roof deck and an outdoor terrace.
Gone are the one-level storefronts including Rite Aid, which relocated one block north to the ground floor of the Arabella 101 building. Rite Aid signed a lease to return to the retail space at No. 79.
The project is expected to be completed in 2018. It will look something like the rendering on the plywood...
Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: Space that houses Rite Aid on Avenue D hits market for $22.5 million
Report: New 12-story, mixed-use building in the works for Avenue D
Permit pre-filed for new 12-floor building at 79-89 Avenue D
Thursday, April 6, 2017
RIP David Peel
[Photo in Tompkins Square Park in 2010 by Shirley Dluginski]
Musician David Peel, a longtime East Village resident and fixture at marches and demonstrations the past five decades, died today. He was 73.
Last Friday, Peel suffered a massive heart attack and was in critical condition at the VA Hospital. He was expected to have bypass surgery this week.
He is best known for his seminal counter-culture albums, such as 1968's "Have a Marijuana" on Elektra Records, with his band the Lower East Side.
His 1972 record "The Pope Smokes Dope" on Apple was produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
He was born David Rosario on Aug. 1, 1943 in Brooklyn. He served for several years in the Army.
According to an obituary at Celebstoner:
With the '60s countercultural revolution beginning to take shape, Peel moved to San Francisco, where he dove into the new hippie scene. When Peel came back to New York, he picked up a guitar and started writing songs and leading singalongs in Washington Square Park.
Peel took the name because he was prone to smoking banana peels. "It looked like grass," he told High Times in 1977. "We kept it in vials and called it banana grass."
One day in 1968, Elektra Records A&R rep Danny Fields heard Peel and his gang of protestors singing in the park. In the 2015 documentary, "Danny Says," Peel recalled:
"I met Danny Fields in 1968, He brought me to Max's Kansas City and bought me a steak dinner. How could I say no to a steak dinner when I was used to eating pizza all my life on the street?"
Fields signed David Peel & the Lower East Side to a two-record contract.
An April 2012 feature in The New York Times noted how a new generation had discovered Peel.
He was a regular last fall at the Occupy Wall Street movement’s Zuccotti Park encampment, and now shows up in Union Square to jam with the Occupy protesters there.
Peel was also a regular during the summer concerts in Tompkins Square Park. He lived on Avenue B. He was unmarried and didn't have any known family members.
His friend Steve Bloom wrote for Celebstoner:
Wherever Peel was, with his loud voice and boisterous personality, you couldn't miss him ... Peel, who answered the phone, "Yo, yo, yo" and had a characteristic stutter, will be missed.
The Times article from 2012 noted that "he planned to continue to sing on the streets and in the parks downtown 'until the day I drop dead and go to rock ’n’ roll heaven.'"
Updated: Billboard published an obituary here.
Thank you David Peel. You made a difference to this Big Apple teenager.
— Jody Denberg (@JodyDenberg) April 6, 2017
I was proud to be a New York City Hippie!https://t.co/9Ya2ooR2Sl
Very sad to hear that #DavidPeel passed away today. RIP David, and may you #HaveAMarijuana where ever you land🙏 photo taken LES pic.twitter.com/xkTb944rDx
— dina regine (@dinaregine) April 6, 2017
A part of my childhood is gone. RIP #davidpeel
— EdenBrower (@edenbrower) April 6, 2017
Another Death Star
Spotted on Second Street at Second Avenue... Corporate Death Star by @crispstreetart ... there's a painted version outside Julie's Vintage on Second Street at First Street...
No word if there is a flaw in the super laser reactor of these Death Stars.
Paving the way on Avenue A
[Reader photo from last night]
After the milling action last week, crews returned last night to put down the new roadway on Avenue A...
Workers made it down to Sixth Street...
The new flyers taped up over the old flyers show that work will continue this evening...
And a look at how the freshly paved St. Mark's Place blends in with the freshly paved Avenue A...
Angelica Kitchen closes tomorrow; memorabilia sale this weekend
[Photos by Daniel]
As you may know, Angelica Kitchen closes out 40-plus years in business tomorrow.
Owner Leslie McEachern said that "making the numbers work week in and week out is just not viable for us anymore."
Since the announcement broke on March 24, the restaurant at 300 E. 12th St. near Second Avenue has been full of well-wishers turning out for a last of Angelica's vegetarian cuisine.
Eater's Robert Sietsema paid a final visit.
In addition to real estate woes — and the refusal to take any kind of plastic as payment — Angelica Kitchen’s problem may have been the food. It tended to be heavy and gluey and bland, true to the cuisine it came from. Yet that sort of vegetarian cooking can still excite reverence and nostalgia. I, for one, will be sad to see this vestige of the old East Village vanish.
And at The New Yorker, Jay Sacher, a former Angelica's employee, pens an essay under the headline "The East Village Loses Another Place for the Young, Hungry, and Weird." He writes about delivering food to Joey Ramone and recalls other celebrity encounters at the restaurant.
But, really, it’s the non-famous folks I remember most: Spencer, always walking into work with a purple plastic Kim’s Video bag in one hand, stuffed full of records—a man of obscure and eclectic musical tastes who was prone to saying things like, “The only good Beatles song is ‘Norwegian Wood.’"
And...
The East Village has been a walking graveyard for years now, sputtering along as a cover-band version of itself. For me, the loss of Angelica marks its true and complete ending. I know, of course, that such things are relative, and other New Yorks will exist for other younger waves of the young, hungry, and weird, but it does nothing to soften my lament for the passing of this one.
This weekend, the restaurant is hosting a memorabilia sale... selling off "chopsticks to food processors to sculpture."
The sale is 2-8 p.m. on Saturday... and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday...
Meanwhile, a group calling themselves Friends of Angelica Kitchen have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help pay off remaining expenses.
The restaurant started out on St. Mark's Place in 1976. It moved to 12th Street in 1987.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Angelica Kitchen closing on April 7; friends raising money to pay off expenses (61 comments)
Angelica Kitchen is latest East Village restaurant in danger of closing (35 comments)
More about Angelica Kitchen's uncertain future
Out and About in the East Village with Leslie McEachern
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