An EV Grieve reader passed along a link to the
Flickr page of Michael Sean Edwards, who has a treasure trove of East Village photos from the late 1970s and early 1980s... which include the following shots...
Like this one of Ray's...

...the Gem Spa...

the East Village Fruit Exchange, Seventh Street and First Avenue circa 1979 ...

Avenue A and St. Mark's Place, circa 1979...

On St. Mark's Place...

On Avenue A near Fifth Street, 1979..

...and Leshko's on Avenue A at Seventh Street, from 1979.

And this one may be my favorite, simply marked "Lion, 5th Avenue 1985." Does the woman in the photo look familiar to you?