Dumpster of the day

Second Avenue near St. Mark's Place.

Niagara to "get a facelift"

Eater pointed us to an interview at NiteTalk with Jesse Malin, who owns Niagara, Cabin Down Below and Bowery Electric... Of particular interest...

Without playing favorites, what bar of yours would you be most likely to frequent on a night off? Which fits your sensibility the most? Black & White or Manitoba's because I don't own them, and that's truly a night off. Our spots are like our kids, I love 'em all. Niagara just turned 12 and it's about to get a facelift.

I do hope that the Joe Strummer mural remains safe here on Seventh Street and Avenue A ...



UPDATE: Eater reports that Niagara's former Tiki Room has been turned into a new bar called Lovers Of Today... complete with a separate entrance...

Report: Ex-con stabbed to death outside Lillian Wald Houses on Avenue D

According to the Daily News today, a man was stabbed to death outside the Lillian Wald Houses on Avenue D:

One ex-con stabbed another to death outside a Manhattan housing project Tuesday night after their feuding female companions crossed paths, police sources said.

Cops believe Louis Dawson, 34, chased down Luis Johnson, 29, outside a building in the Lillian Wald Houses on the lower East Side about 7:50 p.m. and plunged a knife into his neck, chest and heart, the sources said.

"He stabbed him again and again," said witness Mario Hernandez, 37, of Manhattan. "There was much blood."

According to the NYCHA: Lillian Wald Houses has 16 buildings 10, 11, 13 and 14-stories tall with 1,857 apartments housing an estimated 4,536 residents. Completed Oct. 14, 1949, the 16.46-acre complex is between F.D.R. Drive, Avenue D, East Sixth and East Houston Streets.

Listicles! New York is now a "new style coffee bar" town

In a piece titled New York Is Finally Taking Its Coffee Seriously, the Times looks at the "new style coffee bars" that have opened here the last two years. "At places like Bluebird Coffee Shop in the East Village, the espresso is so plush and bright that it tastes sweet on its own," the article notes. "At Abraço in the East Village, you can get drip coffee brewed by the cup, not drawn from an urn."

The article goes on in great detail about fresh roasted beans and all that. Then! A listicle of the 30 best coffee joints in Manhattan and Brooklyn... and several of them can be found right around here. To the EV list!

ABRAÇO "There’s barely room enough for six standing adults, never mind the dozen or more who can crowd in during prime time. And yet in this cramped space the baristas turn out some of the city’s best cappuccinos and drip coffee."

BLUEBIRD COFFEE SHOP "So pleasant, it’s disarming — tiny and flooded with sunlight, it’s easy to sit and linger over one of the pastries baked here daily. But the coffee is exceptional. Katie Duris, one of the country’s most respected baristas, sets a high standard: the espresso is bright and lush, the cortado a sublime balance of coffee and steamed milk."

EVERYMAN ESPRESSO It’s little more than a handful of tables and a coffee counter in the lobby of the Classic Stage Company, an Off Broadway theater, but its owner, Sam Penix, is much admired by espresso-heads.

NINTH STREET ESPRESSO Each Ninth Street Espresso feels different, and yet the harried shoppers at the Chelsea Market, the parents with strollers across from Tompkins Square Park and the laptop crowd at the original Ninth Street location all enjoy uniformly excellent coffee. Last spring, the owner, Ken Nye, did the next best thing to roasting his own beans by creating the Alphabet City Blend with Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea."

OST CAFE "Excellent coffee, including a fine cappuccino. Most people here seem to nurse their drinks, a tacit rent for the comfy chairs and WiFi."

(There's also an interactive map!)

Image via.

Avenue C is for .... Coco Chanel?

On Avenue C, a newish Coco Chanel ad on the Cemusa bus shelter near Sixth Street lights up the evening...



Across the Avenue sits the Lower East Side II Consolidation (NYCHA) development ...



Anyway, first time that I can recall a Chanel ad on Avenue C... and with such large buys, do the ad folks/Chanel marketing executives have any idea where these things are being placed? Or does someone think that Avenue C is a hot spot for Chanel fans out and about on a weekend night?

P.S.

On the flip side of Chanel ad, a little Kate Moss for M21-goers who may be tempted to buy a $1,000 bag...

Avenue C and Sixth Street in 1984

Here are two shots taken by Steve McCurry that can be found in the Magnum Photo archives...with their descriptions...



New York City. 1984. Avenue C between Sixth and Seventh Streets in the East Village (looking south).



New York City. 1984. Children playing on East Sixth Street at Avenue C in the East Village (looking north).

On St. Mark's: $1 beers at former Why Curry?; "new and improved" Bua reopens Friday

On St. Mark's near Avenue A... the former Why Curry? space became Lychee, a "home style Thai kitchen" several weeks ago... (even though a lot of the Why Curry? signage remains...)



... and they were enticing passersby with a $1 beer special last night...



...and next door, Bua has been closed all week for renovations.



According to the sign out front, "We look forward to welcoming you back to the new and improved Bua on Friday, March 12."

First sign of another possible Porchetta on Seventh Street

On March 1, we noted that Mingala Burmese Restaurant at 21 East Seventh St. (a few doors east of McSorley's) had closed. Then Eater brought word that the folks behind Porchetta just down the street applied for a liquor license (beer and wine) here for another venture...

And now the "attention residents" sign has gone up in one of the windows at 21 E. Seventh St.



One of the many locations up for a license during the CB3/SLA meeting Monday evening.

Seems like 2009 on Wall Street

Yesterday evening near the Stock Exchange.

What happened to DJ Lenny M?

A reader asked the other day whatever happened to DJ Lenny M's Music World, the mix-tape emporium on the corner of Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place... DJ Lenny M has been playing hip-hop and R&B and selling tapes and CDs out of that niche space for has long as I can remember — more than 20 years at least.

As the reader noted, "This has killed my daily Michael Jackson intake on my walk home."

Now that I think about it... I can't recall the last time that I even saw him there... One nearby shopkeeper said yesterday that Lenny closed up because there was "no business."

DJ Lenny M was busted in February 2009 for selling illegal CDs and operating without a license... (Down by the Hipster had the story here.) He reopened a short time later.

And now, a new vendor is in the space...



One that sells stuff that you can find anywhere else on the block...

DJ Lenny M makes an appearance in a November 1990 Times article...

A weekend in NoHo -- a sliver of a neighborhood whose spine is Broadway from Astor Place down to Houston Street -- has become an initiation rite of adolescence, as a weekend in Greenwich Village was for decades. The neighborhood, barely 10 years old, has become the spiritual and fashion adviser to the young of New York, whether from Ronkonkoma or around the corner.

Those merely clinging to hipness come, too, though they are not fooling anybody; black clothes are not enough. Antennas here are preternaturally tuned to the wrong sneaker or the wrong haircut. As the saleswoman at Alada, a clothing store, made clear, only yuppies buy "Die Yuppie Scum" T-shirts anymore.

Weekday afternoons can be lively, but the time to come, several recent visits suggested, is Saturday or Sunday, and not before 1 P.M. That is when residents take to the side streets and the faithful arrive, with saving the planet in their hearts and spending money on their minds.

They come looking for D.J. Lenny M. on the sidewalk, selling his homemade tapes of Reg Rockers, Club Rap and House Music.

Read the whole Times piece here.

Marble baths and plank hardwood floors await you on First Street

After a seemingly long time, renovations at 47 E. First St. near First Avenue are winding down...You can actually see the sidewalk again...




According to StreetEasy, there are eight units over five floors, with a storefront on the ground floor. Average rent is in the $3,500 ballpark.

Here's one of the listings from KVNY:

This is a NEWLY renovated 2 bedroom, 2 marble baths duplex. It has a balcony as well as a granite kitchen (with dishwasher) and also it's own washer/dryer unit. It is accented by wide plank hardwood floors & exposed brick. It even has individual climate control and video intercom for extra safety. Please call for access. (PICTURES TO COME. APARTMENT IS STILL BEING RENOVATED) We have numerous apartments all being renovated in this building available March 15

.

And you'll be that much closer to the brunch line at Prune.

Mug Lounge closed for a few weeks or so

An EV Grieve reader noted that Mug Lounge on 13th Street near Avenue A has been closed of late...



I found the following sign when I paid a visit...



I've actually never been here, or know anyone who has ever been here... So I went to their Web site for more information:

Mug Lounge is a cozy and intimate East Village lounge. There are tables to discuss a business deal, seats to drink at the bar, and corners to hide away in with someone you love.

The lounge was an art gallery when Keith Haring and Andy Warhol roamed the East Village. It was a beauty salon when fashion photographer David LaChapelle's studio was across the street.

Now it's Mug Lounge where you can have a drink, have a conversation and soak up the casually elegant East Village ambiance. You never know who you'll meet when you go to Mug Lounge.

Former Agnes and Eva's Cafe space for rent

After reporting last week that Agnes and Eva's Cafe had closed on 13th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, we heard that the owners were hoping to move to a new location...



According to a commenter: "There is/was a sign on the window indicating that they intend to reopen in a few months time 'somewhere else in the neighborhood.' I believe it stated outright that a rent increase was behind the (hopefully temporary) closure."

When we passed by the other day, there was no note indicating a possible move...and a new "for rent sign."



Previously on EV Grieve:
Agnes and Eva closes on 13th Street

Noted

Two Christmas trees in the trash... Avenue C and Fourth Street last night. And we beat last year's record of March 2.