East Houston Street reconstruction won't include protected bike lanes

Bowery Boogie had the news last week about the reconstruction of East Houston from the Bowery to the FDR.




The project, which will be put out to bid this summer, calls for the widening of sidewalks, enlarging of medians, installation of new pavement markings and bicycle lanes from Second Avenue to FDR Drive; and creation of two new plaza areas.

StreetsBlog.org breaks it down for bicyclists. As they note, the project calls for bigger sidewalks but no protected bike zone. (StreetsBlog published this depection of East Houston; the existing street is shown in the inset)



As Streetsblog notes:

Currently, 70 percent of drivers on East Houston Street speed, according to studies conducted by Transportation Alternatives. "It's hard to imagine that paint will offer the kind of protection mainstream New Yorkers will need to feel safe biking on this crucial, yet dangerous corridor," said TA's Wiley Norvell. "The city has innovative physically-protected designs on hand, and to not use them on Houston would be a huge missed opportunity."

In response, DOT emphasized the project's pedestrian improvements. DOT considers protected bike paths less-than-ideal for typical two-way streets, and the agency expects the removal of two traffic lanes to reduce vehicle speeds.

Even if traffic calms somewhat, the buffered lane will invite the same double-parking that plagues other Class 2 lanes. People choose to bike based on their perceptions of safety, and a buffer can only shift perceptions so far.

"Houston is by no means a typical two way street," said Norvell. "It is exactly the type of wide arterial roadway that calls for a physically separated lane. This city's bike network will continue to remain unusable for the average New Yorker until streets like Houston are provided with the protected lanes they require to be safe."

Meanwhile, the project is expected to be completed in 2011. Which, if you're cynical, means 2013. Or so. And improvements aside, I can't help but wonder how much the reconstruction may change the character of the street.

Thanks for the memories

"The cleanup crew at Webster Hall was left with quite a mess on its hands after country crooner Keith Urban's performance last Wednesday. According to sources at the club, someone aboard a Verizon-sponsored Keith Urban tour bus emptied the vehicle's septic tank outside the East 11th Street club at 3 a.m., after the show. "There was about 150 square feet of gunk, a half an inch think, outside the main entrance," says one employee. "It was a literal [expletive] show." (Page Six)

Coming soon to Avenue B: The AlphaBet Cafe at the site of the former Dynasty Restaurant and Coffee Shop

The former Dynasty Restaurant & Coffee Shop on Avenue B and 14th Street is set to reopen...



...as the AlphaBet Cafe. A worker there told me they should be set to go in two weeks or less. I've heard various versions of this story...that the former owners Peter and Chris simply sold the place and moved on... or...the Health Department shut the place down late last fall...(the telltale yellow stickers are still visble on several of the windows in the bottom photo....) Based on the canopy and phone number -- the place kind of looks the same.



Well, the same as it looked the last few years. The place opened in 1955. Here's what it looked like in October 2002 before the remodeling:


[Photo via]

East Village finally gets the hookah bar it so desperately needed

And how many different restaurants has this spot been since it was the lighting supply store? At 107 Avenue A near East Seventh Street (next to 7A).

Speaking of hookah bars...

Here's the line to get into Horus Cafe at Avenue B and Sixth Street Saturday around 9 for the Belly Dancers Night....

Let's see what those $441 million in free agents look like!

The Yankees kick off their season today in Baltimore at 4. Maybe. Weather looks iffy. By the way, the Yankees spent $441 million in the offseason on free agents. The other 13 American League teams spent $176.28 million on free agents -- combined.

"A thousand crisscrossing fictions"

"Picture Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller 'North by Northwest' being hustled out of the hotel and into the back seat of a parked car by two goons, having been mistaken for another man. 'Don’t tell me where we’re going,' Grant quips. 'Surprise me.' The car peels away and we are swiftly sealed in another world, our familiar surroundings receding in the rear-view mirror.

"Standing at the same corner half a century later, it’s not hard to feel a curious dissonance between the two places. There’s the tangible New York of concrete and smog, and there’s what the film historian James Sanders has called the 'mythic New York,' the dreamy celluloid landscape of a thousand crisscrossing fictions."

(The New York Times)

Strangely enough, the study also concluded that patrons have the boorish manners of a Yalie

"An expensive coat check, 'Euro Night' on Fridays and a 1,300 percent markup on a bottle of vodka. These are just some of the ways Marquee has remained a popular, if not outrageously profitable, fixture of New York City night life. The rare peek into the business plan of a nightclub comes from the Harvard Business School, where associate professor Anita Elberse and MBA grads Ryan Barlow and Sheldon Wong conducted a detailed dissection of Marquee -- the 5-year-old Chelsea hot spot where celebs including Jay-Z, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan have partied." (New York Post)

And does it really take Harvard researchers to figure this out...?

Balducci's bows out

From the Post:

Balducci's, the storied high-end grocery chain that first opened in Greenwich Village 63 years ago, is closing its two Manhattan locations at the end of the month.

Balducci's is probably best remembered by New Yorkers for its store on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, which operated from 1972 to 2003.

After the Greenwich Village store shuttered, Balducci's only Manhattan location for a while was on West 66th Street near Lincoln Center.

That store will close, as will what is now Balducci's Manhattan flagship, a 17,000-square-foot store that opened in 2005 in a former bank at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street in Chelsea.

Be sure to check out the reader comments!

Secretariat loses the Wood

The Wood Memorial is today at the Aqueduct in South Ozone Park, Queens. The biggest racing day of the year there...and a Holy Day of Obligation for some. In his last big prep for the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat came in third at the 1973 Wood Memorial, finishing behind stablemate Angle Light and Sham. Secretariat would never lose another race. He won the Triple Crown that year.

To YouTube we go!:



Previously on EV Grieve:
Thanksgiving at the Aqueduct, Part 2

"Coney Island: Really Fun. Really Open"

From the Times today:

Last September, when the Astroland amusement park, a three-acre sliver of the area, was shut down in a battle with its landlord, erroneous reports went out around the world that all of Coney Island was a corpse. Overnight, it seemed, obituaries were composed. Carnie barkers were invited to their own wakes.

But the rumors of demise had been exaggerated greatly. All of Coney Island, from Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs to the world-renowned Cyclone, had not dropped off the Boardwalk into the sea.

“They’re all surprised when I tell them we’re still open,” said a frustrated Dennis Vourderis, whose family has run the Wonder Wheel for more than 40 years. “Unfortunately, the press did a great job announcing Astroland had closed, so now people think that Coney Island is closed.

“But they haven’t rolled the beach up yet,” he said. “It’s totally ridiculous.”

The premature announcement of their burial has been so widespread that several local merchants have pooled money in an existential media campaign. Beginning next month, there will be billboards on the highways, bus stop ads, commercials at the movies. The slogan: “Coney Island: Really Fun. Really Open.”

Meanwhile, I was also guilty of focusing on what was closed rather than what was open.

So...go!

Toothless children continue to be exploited by heartless orange juice company

You've likely seen Tropicana's new ads everywhere around the neighborhood in the last three months... the ones with the affluent, happy people snuggling. It makes me want to add more vodka to my orange juice.* The ads showed off Tropicana's new packaging. So how did the campaign go? As AdAge noted Thursday:

Tropicana's rebranding debacle did more than create a customer-relations fiasco. It hit the brand in the wallet. After its package redesign, sales of the Tropicana Pure Premium line plummeted 20% between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22, costing the brand tens of millions of dollars. On Feb. 23, the company announced it would bow to consumer demand and scrap the new packaging, designed by Peter Arnell. It had been on the market less than two months.

The ads, like the one up top spotted on Avenue C, remain around the neighborhood ... Enjoy them while you can! Remnants of a rebranding debacle from the recession. Or something.

* I haven't had a screwdriver since I was 18. Or 19.

See you

NYC-based A Place to Bury Strangers.

Reader comments

Many thanks to everyone who takes the time to visit this site... I especially appreciate the comments. I wanted to highlight two comments from this past week:

From the Cabin Fever post:

prodigal son said...
I've just returned to New York after a long hiatus, and I've noticed an improvement in terms of yunnie saturation. I can take walks now without constantly being stuck behind someone talking on a cellphone and meandering along the sidewalk. The subway cars seem a little less crowded. But I haven't hit the bars yet.

From the At the Unemployment Olympics post:

Anonymous said...
I've been living in the EV since 1977 - like Sheena I was a punk rocker. I used to tear my hair out about gentrification (like since 1990), but now I have a really different approach - actually a more punk rock approach. Fuck it, let it get destroyed. It's all interesting.

(I have had heartbreaking moments mostly when mom and pops go. There was a BUTTON store on 1st Ave in Momofuko country, can you imagine? Two little - like 5 feet tall, husband and wife - Jewish refugees from WW2. An entire store devoted to buttons. I always felt bad for the guy, he would go to help you and and after about 2 minutes his wife would roll her eyes and grab the button box out of his hands and help you. He couldn't do anything right, it was a chuckle every time.) I don't mourn for the EV scene anymore, because frankly, once we realized it was a scene it was already gone.

When I read this, Vanishing NY and Lost City, I think geez they're pissed off about how much less fun it is now, they'd be suicidal if they knew how really fun it was like 1980. But you guys do a great job.