The crew was out apparently doing a shoot for Vogue ... photo on Avenue A by Grant Shaffer... then in Tompkins Square Park via Derek Berg...
Previously on EV Grieve:
Breaking: Models invade Key Food, hold melons
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Fashion session alert on Avenue A, in Tompkins Square Park
The crew was out apparently doing a shoot for Vogue ... photo on Avenue A by Grant Shaffer... then in Tompkins Square Park via Derek Berg...
Previously on EV Grieve:
Breaking: Models invade Key Food, hold melons
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 or Lower East Side.
By James Maher
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
By James Maher
Name: Ronald Rayford
Occupation: Actor, Writer
Location: 4th Street and Avenue A
Time: Monday, Nov. 13
I’m from Buffalo. I was living in Chicago when I was 23. I didn’t like it right then, so I said, hey, I’m looking for a job, I can find a job in New York. I started out in Brooklyn, around Nostrand Avenue, but I knew somebody in the neighborhood, and eventually I got an apartment on Avenue C and 10th Street. That was about 1967.
I got a job at a haberdashery, a tailor shop on 125th Street. I worked for him for awhile and I was going back and forth from there to the Lower East Side, down to Orchard Street to pick up the fabric. It was bigger then, much more stuff was going on back then.
There were some good spots and some bad spots, but as I look back on it there were a lot of bad spots. The area on Seventh Street was kind of rundown but so was 10th Street. My friend who encouraged me to come to New York died on 10th Street. Aww man, it was a bad scene.
Truth be told, I got into some drug situations for a time back then — I’ve got to tell the truth. Eventually I got busted with some drugs on me. I was in the Tombs — they were overcrowded. They were putting so many people in there. There was a riot while I was in there in 1969. They were rioting against the way they were treated. I was in there for about 90 days but then I got sentenced and they sent me up to Dannemora from there.
After that I got out. My mind was clear of the drugs. I started acting with Woodie King down here at the Henry Street Settlement, and they gave me a little money too. That was part of some program in the neighborhood.
Then I had a woman that I knew, she came down here to be with me and we had a child. From there, I started acting seriously in plays and stuff like that. I got into a play that Woodie and Joe Papp produced at Lincoln Center, so I got a break there. It was called "What the Wine-Sellers Buy." Then another break came in "Saturday Night Live," and I was on there for a little while. I was studying with the Strasberg institute, studying acting
Then I broke up with the wife and I went back to the drug thing like a fool. I stayed in that drug thing for a couple of decades. Then from there I had another son and that cleared my mind up even more. Since then, I’ve been pretty much on the straight and narrow.
People get a bad deal with the issue on drugs. In Norway, Denmark, and other countries, they stopped their war on drugs because war on drugs translates to a war on Black folks. Because of this war on drugs, people are incarcerated at a massive rate — it’s incredible. They are not helping the people at all, but now seeing that it’s moved into other communities other than this particular community, now it ain’t just junkies, dope dealers – they are opiate addicted. They put a whole new name on it, you dig? They knew that in the 1970s, Oliver North and others were bringing that stuff into communities all over this country, and they incarcerated all these people. How they could not see this stuff is insane? This is not a policy to help the people. It’s a genocidal policy on the people.
And now with the aid of Mr. Sessions and Mr. Trump, they want to reinstitute this policy that the previous president had tried to break down a little bit. It’s just another name for slavery, because it’s free labor, and it goes deeper than that, because with unpaid internships, that’s another form of slavery. Anytime you’re talking about free labor, you’re talking about slavery. It’s basically because the working class has collapsed, so something’s got to change.
These days I’m doing very little acting. I would like to do it when I can. I did a few things, something I started over at the Theatre for New City. And I’m doing a little writing now too. But now I would say my focus is on activism. I met some very interesting people, Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Amy Goodman, Van Jones, and Jacqui Lewis, who is head pastor of the Middle Collegiate Church on Seventh Street and Second Avenue.
Right now, what I’m doing is I am part of this group in the church called the Butterflies. They carry the food, and sometimes I help them make the food, put them in sandwich bags and lunch bags, and take them out to Tompkins Square Park and to Sara Roosevelt Park. That’s activism.
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
RIP Kenny Kendra
[Photo via Facebook]
Kenny Kendra (aka Kendra Zimmerman), a familiar figure in this neighborhood before moving to California several years ago, died on Saturday. Friends said that she suffered a stroke. She was 47.
Through the years in the East Village she had worked at Trash and Vaudeville, Enz's and Religious Sex, among other places. She moved to Long Beach, Calif., and was the owner of a food truck called The Head Hunter.
"She was punk rock with a heart of gold," her friend Cheyenne said in an email. "The stray cats always found her and she would always take them in and take good care of them. They knew a good soul when they found her."
Her NYC friends are gathering tomorrow evening at 6 at Otto's Shrunken Head on East 14th Street to celebrate "the Life and Times of Kenny Kendra."
Le Village is closed for now on 7th Street
An EVG reader brought it to my attention. The restaurant's website is down and its telephone is disconnected ... Yelp also states that Le Village is permanently closed.
Perhaps owner Didier Pawlicki has another change in concepts coming. In late 2013, he converted the vegetarian-friendly Table Verte into Le Village.
H/T Diana!
More about 29B, a new teahouse at 29 Avenue B
29B opened in late October at 29 Avenue B between Second Street and Third Street.
Grub Street had a feature on the cafe-restaurant-retail space yesterday.
Some excerpts:
29B has an impressively diverse menu spanning categories of tea rarely seen in New York. There are Korean green teas, less bitter than Japanese styles with deceptively nuanced sweetness; a range of single-estate Darjeelings that offer opportunity for comparative tastings; and almost a dozen caffeine-free tisanes that involve infusions of mistletoe, mulberry leaf, and orchidlike white lotus.
Co-owner Stefen Ramirez has been running Tea Dealers, a tea importing business, as an online venture as well as a pop-up shop in Williamsburg. Tea Dealers is also located in this space.
Says Ramirez:
“You need something social besides a bar or club with loud music. Here you can drink whatever you want, with or without caffeine or alcohol, and an air of sobriety. But it’s not a library. We want an energy that’s refreshing and fun.”
29B is open Monday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday-Saturday 11 a.m. to midnight, and Sunday noon to 6 p.m. Find their website here.
The storefront was previously home for seven years to Sigmund Pretzel Shop, which closed last fall.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Haveli Banjara Indian Restaurant said to be closing and relocating early next year
In recent weeks, the staff at Haveli Banjara Indian Restaurant at 100 Second Ave. has been telling patrons that they will be closing sometime early next year... with the hopes of finding another location nearby.
The MaĆ®tre d’ confirmed the closure/move to me during a recent dinner. (Haveli is asking customers for their email addresses so they can provide an update after hopefully securing a new space.) He said they'd likely close in January or February, and encouraged regulars to come back for another visit here between Fifth Street and Sixth Street.
One source said that the previous landlord died. The building has been on the market since September. The asking price is $8.6 million. The restaurant, with the intentionally shattered windowpane (crackle glass?), will be delivered vacant, per the listing.
Haveli opened in 1987. Banjara moved in here in November 2013.
[Image via Facebook]
I always liked the restaurant's interior, which, according to its website, "is patterned after an Indian haveli, a residential mansion with a partially elevated second floor and an interior courtyard."
Haveli Retaurant’s uptairs suspended dining areas permit the patron to observe the entertainment below, wheather it’s dancing or the Indian cooking processes. The wooden gallery windows in these “hanging havelis” are jalis (screens), which allow the viewing enjoyment of reenacted Indian street activitie and decorations. The theatricality of Indian culture complements this country’s traditional food in an urban setting.
Construction watch: 619 E. 6th St.
There's finally some noticeable progress at 619 E. Sixth St., where a 6-story residential building is rising...
To recap, here's what's TK, via DXA Studio Architecture, the architects of record:
The facade is clad in a Danish handmade brick and includes a full width mural along a sidewall that links the building in character with its East Village neighbors where street art abounds. The five residential units, from a small studio up to a dramatic three bedroom with office and double height duplex on the top floors, incorporate a simple and timeless palette of materials throughout.
[DXA]
I first heard about this project in January 2016. It has seemingly taken a long time to knock down the previous one-level structure and get to this point.
Here are photos of the site from early September...
At that time, an EVG reader who lived nearby wrote in to say:
Any inside info into the hole in the ground at 619 E. 6th St., whose progress seems to be quite stalled? Needless to say we could all do without the permanent obstruction there, including the daily dumps taken inside the walkaround created by the plastic dividers. What a (literal) shitshow.
Previously on EV Grieve:
6-story condoplex, complete with Danish handmade brick, coming to East 6th Street
Lizzie Fortunato for the holidays on 7th Street
Lizzie Fortunato, an accessories line designed by Elizabeth Fortunato and operated by her twin sister, Kathryn, recently opened a holiday shop at 110 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue ...
The shop will be open until January.
The address was last home to Salon Seven ... and Porchetta next door. Ho Foods, which specializes in Taiwan beef noodle soup, is opening in that spot.
Kellogg’s NYC, will be slinging cereal at an all-day breakfast cafĆ© on Union Square next month
In case you missed this announcement the other day (Thursday!) ... Kellogg's NYC CafƩ is opening its "immersive new brick-and-mortar cereal cafƩ and experience" on Dec. 7 near the Barnes & Noble on Union Square.
A few details from the news release:
Anchored by an open-concept kitchen where guests can watch as cereal creations are being made, visitors will be able to select items off the menu or create their unique flavorful combos – including a DIY cereal creation station with ingredients fresh from the Union Square farmer's market.
Aside from bowls of cereal with a choice of milk, the menu includes milkshakes, Pop Tarts and ice cream sundaes.
The Commercial Observer reported that the CafƩ will span 5,000 square feet on the second floor (above the AT&T store) at 31 E. 17th St.
Kellogg's previously operated a pop-up cafe from July 2016 to this past August in Times Square, as the Observer noted.
Monday, November 13, 2017
Bowery Social Justice Short Film Festival starts tomorrow night
Here's info via the EVG inbox on the Bowery Social Justice Short Film Festival, which starts tomorrow evening...
Three-day short fiction and documentary film festival centered around issues of human rights and social justice. Q-& A-after the screening. FREE.
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Parish Hall, 131 E. 10th St., entrance via 11th Street doors
• Tuesday, Nov. 14, 7-8:30 pm
“Losing Home” — Whether by political, social, environmental, or personal reasons, these films explore what it means to lose home.
• Tuesday, Nov. 28, 7-8:30 pm
“The Other” — What does it mean to be "other" in contemporary America?
Tuesday, Dec. 5, 7-8:30 pm
TBD
Find more info on the program here.
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