Upbeat happening

 

Brooklyn's Ribbon Stage is opening for the sold-out Bikini Kill show tonight at Pier 17. 

The video here is for the 75-second  "Rid Myself." As Pitchfork noted, the song "is over before you know it, but for a brief moment, it offers a much-needed dose of upbeat introspection." 

Getting down to 'Brass Tactics' once again

Another major production is slated to film on Avenue A and some side streets early next week. 

Film notices are up now for "Brass Tactics," codename for the new Apple+ series "City on Fire." (The series is based on the book of the same name by Garth Risk Hallberg.)

"Brass Tactics" has filmed around here several times, dating back to the spring. The cast includes John Cameron Mitchell and Jemima Kirke. "City on Fire" is written and executive produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, whose current credits include the "Gossip Girl" reboot.

Recent TV productions along Avenue A include the aforementioned GG ... "American Horror Story" ... and "Up Here."

Unarrested development: activity at the long-stalled corner of St. Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue

Top photo by @unitof

Yesterday saw the first sign of activity on the NE corner of St. Mark's Place and Third Avenue in nearly 10 months (aside from the daily additions of wheatpaste ads). 

Workers started erecting a new plywood fence and adding sidewalk barriers ...

The plywood signals a coming-soon restart of the foundation work on the (gulp) 9-story, 61,000-square-foot office building, officially 1 St. Mark's Place.

As reported last month, developer Real Estate Equities Corp. (REEC) received a $70-million loan to kickstart the project.

Last October, workers removed the barriers around the work site... allowing pedestrians to use the sidewalks again — for the first time since the barricades arrived in June 2020. (This after some legal drama involving allegations that REEC defaulted on a $48 million mortgage, per published reports.)

As you may recall, a 10-story office building had been in the works here. In October 2020, the City Council's Zoning Subcommittee voted down REEC's application to transfer air rights from the landmarked 4 St. Marks Place to the new building across the street.

With the air-rights transfer, REEC would have been allowed to build 8,386 square feet larger than the current zoning allows.

REEC picked up the 99-year leasehold for the corner properties for nearly $150 million in November 2017. The previous assemblage, which included retail tenants such as Korilla BBQ, the Continental and McDonald's, was demolished in 2019. 

The project includes nearly 7,700 square feet of retail space and is slated for a summer 2024 completion.

Thursday's parting shot

Midtown sunset view this evening...

City raises hourly wage for lifeguards to ease pool staff shortage

Photo Tuesday at Hamilton Fish Pool by Stacie Joy

NYC is raising the starting wages for all lifeguards to $19.46 per hour — a 22% pay raise — for the summer to help combat the lifeguard shortage that has limited city pool and beach availability. 

In addition, officials have developed a training program to fully staff the city's mini pools, such as the one in Tompkins Square Park, for ages 16 and under (and their guardians). 

"Every New Yorker deserves to safely enjoy our city's public pools and beaches this summer and my team has taken extraordinary measures to make that happen. Today we reached a deal with the lifeguard union to address the immediate needs of our pools," Mayor Adams said in a statement yesterday. 

As Gothamist pointed out: 

The temporary pay raise comes as city pools have struggled to open at full capacity or in some cases, at all. Many have criticized Adams for failing to raise the pay prior to the start of the season as problems of a national lifeguard shortage became apparent. 

Just how severe is the shortage? Per City & State: 

The agreement between the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and the union representing lifeguards, District Council 37, is the latest in a long-standing effort to adequately staff the city’s 53 pools and 14 miles of beaches. As of Tuesday, there are currently about 778 lifeguards, which is roughly half of the city’s parks department goal of 1,400 to 1,500 people each summer. 

This summer, the city was forced to cancel all swim programs, including lap and senior swim. Starting this past Friday, hours were split into five separate sessions at crowded pools to provide access to more patrons.

In an email from Tuesday, an EVG reader and longtime East Village resident shared his experiences at Dry Dock (above) on 10th Street at Avenue D with his family on the Fourth of July (he shared the letter with local elected officials as well): 

The pool service has been downgraded since last year when it was an absolute delight. 

Specifically the downgrades I noticed are: 

• Only half of the main pool was available to swimmers 
• The kiddie pool was closed 
• The games (corn hole, oversized connect four, etc) weren't out 
• The staff said there was an hour wait to get in on all previous days. 

According to the Parks Department's Twitter, there is a lifeguard shortage. But according to the staff that I spoke with, this lifeguard shortage is because NY state pays more, and so all lifeguards can take a job with the state instead of the city. 

However, there were no less than 2 police officers on duty at the pool at any time. I don't believe there were any officers at the pool last year. 

So... the city has money to pay overtime for NYPD officers to be at the pool but not enough to pay a competitive rate for lifeguards?

Plywood removal at the former P.S. 64

Reader photo above; the rest by Stacie Joy 

Workers last Thursday removed the sagging, wheatepaste-filled plywood from the Ninth Street side of the former P.S. 64 between Avenue B and Avenue C. 

We expected to see some replacement plywood go up in its place... but for now, as these photos this week by EVG contributor Stacie Joy show, you can still see into the old school (and, later, Charas/El Bohio Community Center)... only the doorways remain boarded up... 

According to a source on the block, there has been activity inside the long-empty (23 years) building... with an executive-type overseeing work, including window and door replacement. It's unknown who's in charge of work here or the scope of the renovations. 

As previously reported, ownership of the property is in transition. In January, Supreme Court Justice Melissa Crane ruled that Madison Realty Capital could move forward with a foreclosure against building landlord Gregg Singer after years of delay. 

Madison Realty Capital reportedly provided Singer with a $44 million loan on the property in 2016. Court records show that he failed to repay the balance by its maturity date in April 2016, and by that September, the lender filed to foreclose, as reported by The Real Deal.

Singer, who bought the property from the city during an auction in 1998 for $3.15 million, has wanted to turn the building into a dorm, though those plans never materialized. There has been a call to return the building for community use in years past. 

The plywood removal also uncovered an undated piece of art (the work is by Seth Tobocman, and we'll have more about the backstory in a separate post) ...

... that reads (thanks Jeremiah Moss for the inscription): 

"A 7-year-old drew this picture at a class here at Charas. The boy was upset because he and his family had found the body of a woman who had been decapitated on their doorstep. That was in the 1980's when they called the Lower East Side the warzone. Now all of N.Y.C. is a warzone. The world is a bad neighborhood. We need cultural centers like Charas more than ever to keep our sanity."

Meanwhile, a tent or two with unhoused residents remains under the sidewalk bridge (the site of multiple sweeps by the city) ... as well as a sitting-in-a-car detail from the Massachusetts-based Madison Security Group hired to keep people (TikTokers!) from getting inside the building. 

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• Questions, and concerns, remain over private security detail outside the former P.S. 64

Comings and goings on 10th Street: Montauk Salt Cave closes; and a new restaurant from 2 Momofuku vets

The EV outpost of Montauk Salt Cave has closed (without notice to patrons, per one reader) on the upper level at 90 E. 10th St. between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue.

The Montauk-based wellness sanctuary, which featured walls built with pink Himalayan salt rocks, opened here in August 2017. Per their website, salt therapy purportedly heals ailments related to respiratory disease, skin conditions and inflammatory symptoms.

Meanwhile, in No. 90's lower level... work continues on Claud ... a new restaurant opening soon via Momofuku Ko vets Josh Pinsky and Chase Sinzer ... 

You can sign up for updates via the Claud website... or follow the restaurant's Instagram account. 

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo by Stacie Joy 

Pastor Will of Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish with Joey today on Ninth Street and Avenue B. 

In the background, the Loisaida CommUnity Fridge and Pantry, which recently had its first anniversary ... and with a new design by Danielle Mastrion.

'Stories About Love' — a reading event at The Folio Club this Friday evening

Photo of 703 E. Sixth St. from 2019 by Stacie Joy 

Leonard Abrams, the publisher of the East Village Eye, shared this info about a reading on Friday evening...

Leonard Abrams and The Folio Club present selections from "Stories About Love," a new chapbook by Angela Sloan, on Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. 

The writers Carl Watson, Jill Rapaport and Katherine Sloan will also read. The event will take place at 703 E. Sixth St. on the 3rd floor (just east of Avenue C). 

• Leonard Abrams is a writer, an editor and sometimes a filmmaker. He organizes events and people for sport. The Folio Club, after the fictitious organization referenced by Edgar Allen Poe, is the name he uses for literary events. 

• Angela Sloan lives and writes in New York City. Her previous works have been published by Three Rooms Press, Genre: Urban Arts, East Village Eye, and A Gathering of the Tribes. Her chapbook, "Stories About Love," was published in 2021. 

• Carl Watson is a writer and occasional folk singer. He lives not far from here. But he’s not always there. 

• Jill Rapaport’s collection of prose titled "Duchamp et Moi and Other Stories" was published by Fly by Night, the book publishing arm of A Gathering of the Tribes, in 2014. She has been quasi paralyzed by ideas and considerable dread since then, but makes quantities of notes. 

• Katherine Sloan is a professional blogger who also writes and publishes her own fiction. She has published nonfiction political pieces for Overture Global and has written for Mutual Art and 25A magazines. She lives in New York City. 

The event will take place at a beautiful loft space above Hugh's motorcycle shop that we have had the good fortune to borrow for the occasion. 

Previously on EV Grieve:

• Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

Workers remove this elm in Tompkins Square Park

Workers today removed an elm tree said to be dead (or dying) in Tompkins Square Park... (first two photos by Steven)...

The tree is between the dog run and the entrance at Avenue B and Ninth Street, as this photo by Mark Cyr shows...

This is the second large tree that the Park has lost this year.

Steve Croman sells 8-building portfolio

115-117 Avenue A (photo source)

Steve Croman has sold eight buildings in the East Village/Lower East Side for a reported $61.7 million in a deal announced last week. 

According to @TradedNY, Croman's Centennial Properties sold 89 Clinton St., 115 and 117 Avenue A, 186, 188 and 222 Avenue B, 330 E. Sixth St. and 117 First Ave. The buyer: ABJ Properties. 

This was initially listed as a 14-building, $121 million portfolio, per broker Marcus & Millichap.

The Real Deal reported about this assemblage hitting the market this past December. As TRD noted: "Steve Croman is known for rarely — if ever — selling his apartment buildings."

However:

He's the latest in a group of old-line New York landlords who have moved to part ways with their properties in recent months as fallout from the state’s 2019 rent-regulation overhaul has combined with demand from investors eager to get in on the city’s recovery.

But unlike investments that were suddenly strained when state lawmakers limited landlords' ability to raise rents on regulated apartments, the properties Croman is offering are almost entirely free-market.

Croman was released from the Manhattan Correctional Facility in June 2018 after serving eight months of a one-year jail sentence and paid a $5 million tax settlement following separate criminal charges brought by the AG's office for fraudulent refinancing of loans and tax fraud. In a separate civil case, Croman agreed to pay $8 million to the tenants he was accused of bullying out of their rent-regulated apartments.

An independent management company is now reportedly overseeing Croman's residential properties — which, before this deal, included 47 buildings with 617 units in the East Village — for the next five years.

Openings: Murphy's on 9th Street

Murphy's debuted back on Saturday at 440 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. (Thanks to Steven for the top photo!)

The cafe is selling fresh-baked Jamaican patties, coco bread, coffee and lemonade...

Kyle, the owner who runs the Sneak Ez boutique next door, decided to revamp his previous concept here — Murphy's Door Cafe.