The bar, the sibling to the Las Vegas original, is now open from 4-11 p.m. under the current 50-percent capacity and other COVID protocols here between Second Street and Houston.
This post has a list of some other recent reopenings.
Friday, March 26, 2021
Reopenings: Double Down Saloon on A
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Thursday's parting shots
Donations for Ryo, who returned home after a months-long hospitalization to find an empty apartment with new locks
Sierra Zamarripa, the owner of Lovewild Design, 136 Avenue C between Eighth Street and Ninth Street, is collecting donations for a longtime resident who came home after being hospitalized with COVID-19 only to find new locks on the door to a now-empty apartment.
Here's more via Sierra:
I am reaching out in hopes of finding support for our neighbor Ryo.
A few months ago Ryo was taken away by ambulance ... some weeks after that a crew was in the hallway cleaning out his apartment and we thought he had died. In fact, a friend of his set up a memorial to him in front of his building at 133 Avenue D asking if anyone knew what had happened to him.
Yesterday Ryo returned home after hospitalization and months of COVID rehabilitation. He arrived to the building to find his locks changed and his apartment emptied out except for his piano and tortoise, who was left alone for months.
Ryo had worked throughout the pandemic as a restaurant worker. He has no shoes, no toothbrush, no documents or ID, no passport, no fridge or stove.
He needs assistance to get his life back and move forward.If you are able to contribute non-monetary donations, we'll be collecting donations at Lovewild Design. We’re open 12-6 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday.
He's medium build, wears men's 9.5/10 shoes wide, 38 waist and cannot take in perishable food yet until building management installs a fridge.
Here's a spreadsheet on what has been donated.
There's also a GoFundMe now at this link.
Ryo lives at 133 Avenue D between Ninth Street and 10th Street in a building said to partially owned by former Yankee Alex Rodriguez. Ryo did stay in the apartment last night thanks to a donated mattress. It's unclear at the moment if he will be able to stay there moving forward.
Updated 8:30 p.m.
Page Six has more on the story, including that Barbara Corcoran is also an owner of the building.
A rep for Corcoran defended their actions, saying they "made every effort to locate the Resident including calling local hospitals and contacting Adult Protective Services.""After APS was alerted to the situation, an APS caseworker was assigned to the Resident," the rep, Mitchell Kossoff, said. "Despite the effort of the APS caseworker and this office, the Resident could not be located and the apartment was cleaned by a company that specialized in bio clean-up services on Feb. 17, 2021. in conformity with all governing regulations."
Gothamist has a report here.
Grant Shaffer's NY See
Here's the latest NY See panel, East Village-based illustrator Grant Shaffer's observational sketch diary of things that he sees and hears around the neighborhood and NYC ...
A walk around inside the long-abandoned — and ghoulishly beautiful — P.S. 64
Photos by Stacie Joy
There have been reader reports lately of people inside the school, including on the roof. The FDNY responded to a fire here in December.
The other day, EVG contributor Stacie Joy, accompanied by a friend, walked through the wide-open gate to look around the former school and Charas/El Bohio Community Center. (The plywood has since been shored up, cutting off this entry.)
After seeing her photos, I asked Stacie for more about what she saw inside the school, which developer Gregg Singer bought in a city auction in 1998.
Why did you decide to enter the former P.S. 64?
It was kind of a whim. I’d heard reports of what was going on inside and I was, as a photojournalist and longtime East Village resident, curious…and the door was open.
I originally planned just to take some shots of the exterior but when I saw I could get inside the building I decided to document it for posterity. I have a history of getting into places and I felt it was important to see — and share — what was inside.
What did you first notice after entering the building?
The smell! It’s pretty unpleasant. A mix of urine and funk, with top notes of mold/mildew and, I think, animal death and decay. I also keyed into the sounds…there is a lot of dripping noise, echoes and scurrying and flapping from the animal inhabitants. Hundreds of pigeons live inside, plus the rats.
It’s almost pitch-black as you enter and there are shards of broken glass everywhere. There is evidence of other people bleeding from getting caught in the shattered glass or broken planks and exposed nails. I could also hear and feel the wind as it moved through the building. It was eerie and spooky and ghoulishly beautiful. It had a bit of a post-apocalyptic feel to it, at least until you made it up to the roof.
Based on your photos here featuring discarded cans of spray paint and fresh graffiti, it appears people have been inside recently. Did you see any evidence of anyone who may be living inside? Did you think anyone else may have been present while you were there — perhaps just hidden from view?
I did not see evidence of anyone living in there. I didn’t want to disturb anyone who may be living inside, and I wanted to be as respectful of the space as possible for an uninvited guest. There are, I think, six floors including the basement, plus the roof, but I only spied the wall art left behind, and evidence of parties: empty White Claw cans, condoms, teenage graffiti, love notes and messages, mostly centering around sex and drugs, plus some social justice themes.
What is your assessment of the building’s current condition?
It looks like at one point work might have begun — there were some supplies on the first floor ... but also evidence of a fire. The place is gutted down to the crumbling brick and studs, and there are hazardous holes in the floors and walls.
The space is soaring, empty and vast. I kept thinking about what it could be, and what a luxury it must be to have so much space to live or work in. The ceilings are so high! And there are so many windows, though most of them are busted out.
I was with a local artist who marveled at the graffiti and was covetous of the space, and what could be created there. We both felt changed and deeply affected by our time inside.
In years past several local elected officials, community activists and residents have asked for the return of the building for community use.
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Spring break
Gallery Watch: 'Black Femme: Sovereign of WAP and the Virtual Realm' at Canada
Text and photos by Clare Gemima
Black Femme: Sovereign of WAP and the Virtual Realm
Canada, 60 Lispenard St.
Unfortunately for me, the WAP had nothing to do with one of Cardi B’s best songs ever, but instead with something called Wireless Application Protocol, which the show’s description prefaces. Six female-identifying Black artists celebrate the Black Femme body through a post-internet art lens in the form of textile, paint, appliqué and video sequencing.
Through various mediums, a heavy-hitting and sensitive topic are embraced through color, figurative play and an undeniable boldness that permeates as soon as you walk into the gallery.
The work aims to dismantle and challenge the societal restrictions that are forced upon female Black bodies both offline and online, in virtual reality and AFK (away from keyboard).
This group show intends to initiate discourse around the politics of sexuality, gender and femininity.
The group show was curated by Christina Ine-Kimba Boyle and showcases the works of Caitlin Cherry, Delphine Desane, Emily Manwaring, Kenya (Robinson), Sydney Vernon and Qualeasha Wood.
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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com
The shirtwaist dress on the Bowery
Photos courtesy of E. Jay Sims
On Sunday, Bowery resident E. Jay Sims hung a large shirtwaist dress on the top-floor fire escape at 306 Bowery.
She mounted the dress, from a performance art piece that she did at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1984, here this week on the Bowery at First Street in honor of Women's History Month ... and in memory of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, whose 110th anniversary is tomorrow.
The fire killed 146 garment workers — mostly young women, many of whom lived on the Lower East Side.
Sims, a longtime visual arts teacher, also dedicated this memorial to her grandmother, Rose Kruger, a Hungarian immigrant/seamstress who arrived in New York in 1913 and used her sewing skills to raise her family in America.
Weather permitting, the dress will be up through the weekend...
A gardening get-together in Tompkins Square Park on Saturday
There's another volunteer day in Tompkins Square Park on Saturday morning... interested residents can meet at 10 a.m. outside the Park office (over by the ping-pong table and dog run) ... the Parks Department will supply work gloves and rakes to help spread mulch and clean up some garden beds.
As previously noted, given the city's budget cuts, Johnny Young, the head gardener in Tompkins Square Park, has often been assigned to work in other areas... "leaving Tompkins vulnerable to trash and weeds," as he put it.
The disappearing pay phones along Avenue A
So you still have a place to take a _____ or put down your bottle of ______ or roll a _____.
Anyway, all this was expected... in late February 2020, Gothamist reported that the Department of Information, Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) was going to uproot nearly 3,000 pay phones around NYC that are maintained by CityBridge. A few non-CityBridge phones are likely to remain. And expect to see some new LinkNYC kiosks in some of these spaces.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Tuesday's parting tweet
Someone took the door off the first stall in the ladies room at Tompkins. Look for it on eBay soon! pic.twitter.com/FRpCigjyde
— EdenBrower (@edenbrower) March 23, 2021
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