Sunday's parting shots

Yesterday, workers removed most of the remaining sidewalk bridge on First Avenue between Fourth Street and Fifth Street along Village View...

Now just a small section on the interior property along the Fifth Street walkway between Avenue A and First Avenue remains... the extensive sidewalk bridges that weaved around the buildings on the Village View property arrived in April 2019. 

Thanks to Steven and Vinny & O for sharing photos this weekend...

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a photo Tuesday on Astor Place by Derek Berg)... 

• Hold it now: No porta potties for Tompkins Square Park during the 18-month field-house renovation (Tuesday ... Saturday) 

• Let's dance: The Joyce Theater is the new tenant for the former Boys' Club on 10th and A (Thursday) 

• Site cleanup needed before development can begin on this long-empty corner on 14th and C (Monday) 

• A Visit to the East Village NYC Book Club (Thursday) 

• An appearance on GMA leads to an attack at Unregular Pizza on 4th Avenue (Tuesday) 

• Opening night at O'Flaherty's (Friday) 

• 444 E. 13th St. is on the auction block (Wednesday) 

• Coming attractions: 'Make Me Famous' (Friday) 

• A Commodities post-mortem (Sunday) 

• East Village Buyers moving from 3rd Street to Avenue A (Wednesday) 

• Ashes to go this Ash Wednesday (Wednesday) 

• Fat Tuesday! (Tuesday) 

• Renovations at Prune (Tuesday)

• More details about Balkan StrEAT, opening this spring on 2nd Avenue (Wednesday) 

• Jewelry brand opening an outpost on 1st Avenue (Wednesday) 

• Downtown Bakery is closed for now (Friday) 

• Decision 2023: What screening of 'Cocaine Bear' are you attending? (Monday) 

• Signage alert: Gotham Burger Social Club on Essex Street (Thursday)

• Incoming 99-cent pizza shop now with 99-cent pizza signage (Tuesday) 

• Smoke shop (Thursday)

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Memories of Christo, Dora and Nora/Not-Dora in Tompkins Square Park

Photo this month by Steven

The Guardian this past week had a piece about Gacek, a plump black-and-white cat who is said to be the top tourist attraction in Szczecin, Poland. 

Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi wrote that "there's no better way to experience a new city than seeking out its Gacek-equivalent: the weird landmark that embodies the soul of a place far better than the more traditional sights." 

She then highlights our resident red-tailed hawks of Tompkins Square Park — at least the tawdry love triangle involving Christo, Dora and Nora/Not-Dora that made worldwide headlines in 2018. (You can read The Guardian article here.) 

Meanwhile, you may catch a glimpse of Christo and Amelia (on the scene since April 2018) in and around the Park... and it is officially mating season, as Goggla explains here.

Thanks to Derek Berg for sharing the Guardian article!

Saturday's parting shot

At the Village East by Angelika on Second Avenue at 12th Street ... previously ...

About the Art Show at Village Works

Village Works, the gallery space and book store specializing in NYC culture at 90 E. Third St. just west of First Avenue, is hosting a group art show tomorrow (Sunday!) evening from 5-11. 

The event is also serving as a fundraiser for the 2-year-old Village Works, which needs to secure a new space after the landlord "dramatically raised" the rent here.

More about 18 months without public restrooms in Tompkins Square Park

As we first reported this past Tuesday, the city will not be providing any portable toilets for public use when reconstruction of the Tompkins Square Park field house starts next month. 

The Post picked up our scoop, putting two reporters on the story... and noting in the lead: "Number 2 may soon be the number one problem for neighbors of Tompkins Square Park." The piece includes quotes from EV residents about the uptick in fecal matter spotted in and around the park since the restrooms closed in November. 

A Parks spokesperson told the paper ....

Judging by past experience, officials did not see portable toilets as a short-term solution, because they were "very difficult to clean and maintain, and have frequently been the targets of vandalism." 

(Are portable toilets more difficult to clean and maintain than a 10.5-acre park?)

The city's relief solution is for parkgoers to walk five minutes (one way) to use the restrooms at the McKinley Playground on Fourth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue adjacent to P.S. 63/the Neighborhood School. 

An EVG reader, who shared the Post link, said in an email: "The city and elected officials really don't give a shit, so to speak, about our park."

P.S. 

Looking forward to following these filed-under tags...

9th Precinct teams up to host a blood drive

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

The New York Blood Center's mobile unit was outside the 9th Precinct on Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue on Thursday afternoon... where community members and officers from the NYPD alike donated blood.

The law enforcement officials who donated told EVG correspondent Stacie Joy that they were doing so to help save lives...

You can visit the Blood Center's website for information about donating.

Saturday's opening shot

The colder temps have provided an icy cover for the reflective pool on Avenue A near Ninth Street ... meanwhile, snow showers are possible today with a few areas seeing a coating [of snow], per this tweet.

Some like it 'Hot'

 

Pure Adult, the Brooklyn-based duo of Jeremy Snyder and Bianca Abarca, is on a bill this March 12 for the New Colossus Festival grand finale at the Bowery Ballroom. (Tix here.) 

The video is for "Hot Crusade."

Ukraine, 1 year on

Photo last spring from 2nd Street and Avenue C

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine one year ago today.

Here's a look back at a few of the EVG posts highlighting the war's impact on the local community...as NYC is home to the largest Ukrainian population in the United States... 

• A visit to Arka, the 71-year-old Ukrainian gift shop on 2nd Street 

• Two Boots supporting Ukraine with 2 new pizzas, including the Mr. Ze 

• 9th Precinct collecting medical supplies for Ukraine humanitarian relief 

• One East Village family's protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine 

• Another visit to Streecha Ukrainian Kitchen 

• How Veselka is helping with Ukraine relief efforts 

 • A look at the just-finished mural 'Ukraine: A History in Solidarity' 

• New York magazine pays homage to the East Village with 'Tales From Little Ukraine' 

• Getting ready for the St. George Ukrainian Festival

Opening night at O'Flaherty's

Photos by Stacie Joy 

Feb. 16 saw the debut of O'Flaherty's, the new gallery-performance space at 44 Avenue A at Third Street. (We first reported on this here.)

And what an opening it was: An enthusiastic crowd packed into the theater space to take in the first performance in a series titled "O'Flaherty's gelitin O'Flattering" featuring the Vienna-based performance group gelitin. 

The four members, all in their 50s, painstakingly created a live sculpture based on the statue "Laocoön and His Sons."

Presiding over the festivities was artist, curator and owner Jamian Juliano-Villani ...

The group members, wearing flesh-colored stockings, smeared themselves with petroleum jelly before slathering their bodies in plaster ...

... throughout the spectacle, Juliano-Villani's friend and business associate Ruby Zarsky strummed a guitar from an elevated position in the back of the theater, the former UCBEast (and Pioneer)... 

Afterward, the crowd snapped up the merch...

O'Flaherty's is hosting three more performances by gelitin — all different, and on Feb. 25, March 2 and March 4 — and screening the U.S. premiere of the group's film, "Stinking Dawn." Go here for details and showtimes. 

As previously reported, O'Flaherty's had a year-long run at 55 Avenue C at Fourth Street (we covered the opening here), culminating with a GRAND finale late this past summer. 

Upright Citizens Brigade Theater closed UCBeast in February 2019. The comedy venue opened in September 2011, and UCB took over part of the expanded Two Boots empire — the video store on Avenue A and the Pioneer Theater around the corner on Third Street.

Coming attractions: 'Make Me Famous'

"Make Me Famous," a documentary on 1980s-era East Village-based painter Edward Brezinski, premiered last weekend in London... garnering some feature stories (The Guardian ... AnotherMag) in the process.

Here's a description of the film: 

Edward Brezinski worked alongside Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, and Jean-Michel Basquiat in the Lower East Side art scene, but never reached the same level of success as his contemporaries. "Make Me Famous" uncovers why such a well-connected yet peculiar painter never made it, despite being so maniacally focused in his quest for fame. 

What begins as an investigation into Brezinski's legacy and mysterious disappearance becomes a sharp, witty portrait of NYC's 1980s downtown art scene. Gallery owners and fellow artists dish on insider gossip, name drop, and contradict each other in telling the story, resulting in an irresistible snapshot of an unknown artist that captures the spirit of an iconic era. 

Check out the trailer...

 

You can catch a screening at the Museum of the City of New York on April 18. (Details here.)