Wednesday's parting shot

On Seventh Street, we have the following discarded items: two Bush books and several boxes of fortune cookies. Photo by Derek Berg.

The 6th Annual Wendigo Holiday Group Art Show opens tomorrow night

The work of a few dozen local artists will be on display at the 6th Annual Wendigo Holiday Group Art Show, which opens tomorrow night (7-9) at Art on A Gallery.

The show will be up through Jan. 17 at the Gallery, 24 Avenue A near Second Street.

Check out this link for a list of artists.

Love is fleeting

Spotted on 11th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C ... photo (and headline!) via Steven...

Today in boxes of discarded VHS tapes on 1st Street

Spotted early this afternoon on First Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue... many boxes of VHS tapes — perfect for holiday binge watching!



Highlights include "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" ... the 1996 Academy Awards show... Davey Crockett ... some A's-Red Sox games from 1988 ... and some "Pooh" from 9.31.88.

The owner of these also decided to tape over "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and Peanuts New Year for Dracula. It was not immediately known which version of Dracula this is.

Holiday music from Howl! Happening

Over in Extra Place off First Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery ...Howl! Happening is presenting some "Cool Bowery 'Sounds" for the holidays.

Press play to hear Christmas songs by the Fleshtones, Stiv Bators, the Ramones and the Dickies, among others...

Affordable housing planned for city-owned buildings at 204 Avenue A and 535 E. 12th St.

[Reader-submitted photo of 204 Avenue A]

Plans are moving forward to demolish two long-vacant, city-owned properties — 204 Avenue A and 535 E. 12th St. — to erect new buildings for fixed-income housing.



CityLand, published by the Center for NYC Law, has a post with all the details.

Earlier this month, the City Planning Commission heard an application that would allow for the demolition of the existing buildings and the development of 10 co-operative units at 204 Avenue A between 12th Street and 13th Street, and 11 one-bedroom rental units at 535 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B. The proposal calls an additional three floors (from 4 to 7) at No. 204, and one additional floor (from 5 to 6) at No. 535.

Per CityLand:

To facilitate the proposed development, the applicant team requested approval for the disposition of the City-owned lots and designation and approval of the lots as an Urban Development Action Area Project. The application was brought by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), along with the selected developer for the project, Juan Barahona of SMJ Development.

Both buildings, part of the HPD’s Tenant Interim Lease Program, have been vacant (save for squatters on 12th Street) since 2008. "Due to deteriorating structural conditions," tenants from both buildings were relocated at that time.

The former tenants of each building will be able to purchase the co-op units in the newly constructed building at 204 Avenue A, which would include ground-floor retail. Meanwhile, the all-new 535 E. 12th St.'s one-bedroom rentals "will be a middle-income rental building with an income restriction at 130 percent AMI."

And details about all this via CityLand:

The project was proposed as an Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program (ANCP) project. ANCP is an HPD program where developers are selected to rehabilitate distressed City-owned properties managed by the Tenant Interim Lease Program, in order to create affordable cooperatives for low- and moderate-income households. Under the program, developers receive low interest loans in the form of City Capital subsidy, in addition to construction and permanent financing sources provided by private institutional lenders and New York State Affordable Housing Corporation programs.

As an Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program project, following the construction loan closing, the 204 Avenue A building will be conveyed to a Housing Development Fund Corporation cooperative with unit purchase requirements, income restrictions, and resale requirements. The projected maintenance for the cooperative is expected at 40 percent AMI.

In addition, although the entire building will be affordable, two of the units are going to be permanently affordable as required by the Inclusionary Housing Designated Area bonus, which gives an applicant a higher residential Floor Area Ratio in return for 20 percent of residential units being designated as permanently affordable.

CB3 and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer have already signed off on this project. The City Planning Commission will be next to vote on the application at a later date.

EVG readers spotted workers taking soil samples at both buildings this past February.

Gut renovations are currently taking place next door to 204 Avenue A, where a condoplex conversion will see 202 Avenue double in size.


[Photo of 202 Avenue on Nov. 26 by Steven]

Signs of new businesses on 3rd Avenue, and an H Mart update

[Dec. 7]

Workers have been refurbishing the space for storefront signage in the long-vacant shops along the base of NYU's Alumni Hall on Third Avenue between Ninth Street and 10th Street...



Not sure if this means some new businesses are in the works for this block. There is, however, one new merchant on the way. As we first reported in August, branding for H Mart, an Asian-American supermarket chain based in Lyndhurst, N.J., arrived in the front window of the former Birdbath bakery and Citi Habitats office next door.

H Mart reps said that they do not have a tentative opening date for the East Village at this time. This will be the third H Mart in Manhattan (the others are on West 32nd Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side). Overall H Mart has more than 70 outposts in the United States and Canada.

Previously on EV Grieve:
H Mart coming to 3rd Avenue in base of NYU's Alumni Hall

Korean food coming to the former Dinah Hookah Lounge space on 2nd Avenue

The Dinah Hookah Lounge has apparently called it a night on 166 Second Ave. between 10th Street and 11th Street... Steven spotted a sign on the Mediterranean lounge's storefront noting a new Korean restaurant was coming soon...



This space has randomly been some kind of hookah place in the past five-bus years, including Entrez Bar & Grill then Farfasha then Dinah. Prior to all this hookah, the address welcomed the pizzeria Pomodora... and until early 2010, we had the double D here...

Tuesday's parting Instagram post

This would have been a fine solution for the great Holland Tunnel decorations controversy...

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cool (@cool666_) on Dec 18, 2018 at 1:23pm PST

Previously

A GG Allin family affair on Showtime, and a trip back to 2B

In a respite this December from holiday fare, Showtime is airing four music documentaries this month... including "GG Allin: All in the Family," which premiered last Thursday. (Meant to mention it last week.) It's airing again tonight at 11:30. It's also available on-demand via Showtime if it's of interest. (Not really everyone's thing.)

As this film notes (and what has been well-documented), the last show for GG Allin & the Murder Junkies took place on June 23, 1993 at 2B (aka The Gas Station) on Avenue B at Second Street. (Now an apartment building with the Duane Reade.)

Here's a video made by Corey Shaff that has been in circulation about the gallery space...



... and an aerial view of 2B by LeoLondon from 1993...

You can donate a coat at this 3rd Avenue pop-up shop through Saturday

The 30th annual New York Cares Coat Drive is underway... and starting today (through Saturday), you can donate a new or gently used coat at a pop-up location at 111 Third Ave. between 13th Street and 14th Street...



The hours today through Saturday: 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Otherwise, local NYPD Precincts are also accepting the coat donations through Dec. 31.

For these 14th Street buildings, there's now renovations inside to match the noise outside

An EVG reader shared this notice from over at 426-430 E. 14th St., the three-building parcel between Avenue A and First Avenue...



Canvas Property Group announced that building-wide renovations were to start yesterday on vacant apartments, common areas and the retail spaces.

Five of the six storefronts are vacant (just Big Apple Barber Shop remains). The 14th St. Lotto & Magazine was the first to go, in February 2017. A clerk at the store said that they were moving uptown. He declined to say why they were leaving the neighborhood.

I don't know what happened to the other businesses — at least two relocated. This stretch of 14th Street has endured a lot of demolition/construction in recent years, starting with the take down of the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office branch and subsequent addition of the 8-floor luxury apartment building called EVE right next door. Not to mention that this block of 14th Street is the main staging area for the L-train reconstruction.



Back to the reader, who lives on the block — he said he felt badly for the remaining residents at 426-430 ... having endured the construction noise outside, and now inside.

The buildings were sold for $28 million in a transaction recorded in August, per public records.