Some future new bars to maybe not like

I haven't even written about all the action from the last CB3/SLA meeting... and the CB3/SLA released the docket for the July meeting... and this one has a few summer blockbusters... (Eater and Fork in the Road noted a few of these last Friday afternoon...)

The big one: The historic Amato Opera on the Bowery is destined to become a bar.



Of course! I recently noted the new for rent sign on the building, which said that food was OK here... So, the owners of V Bar, a West Village beer-and-wine cafe, are taking the challenge... which might be why someone removed the commemorative plaque that was placed above the Amato Opera doorway last June.

[Update: Thanks to EV Grieve Mimi reader for pointing out there's a V Bar on First Avenue and St. Mark's Place too, at the former Tribe space. Same owners at the West Village location.]

Also! There are takers for the Butcher Bar space on East Fifth Street and Lilly Coogan's on First Avenue...

A few more highlights....

Sidewalk Cafe Applications
-- The Penny Farthing, 103 3rd Ave
-- The 13th Step, 149 2nd Ave

Alterations/Transfers/Upgrades
-- Mama Bar LLC, 34 Ave B (alt/op/expand to basement space)

New Liquor License Applications
-- Justified LLC, 102 1st Ave (op) (Lilly Coogan's)
-- Teany (Teany Cafe LLC), 90 Rivington St (rw)
-- Tin Lizard LLC, 511 E 5th St (rw) (Butcher Bay)
-- La Isla (MJDD Enterprises Inc), 542 E 14th St (rw)
-- Vbar Amato (Vbar2 LLC), 319 Bowery (op)

The meeting is July 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the JASA/Green Residence - 200 E. Fifth St. at the Bowery. Bring a date!

Drink your hangover away at DTs and rock!

On the post here Monday titled, Whatever happened to simple bar names... and concepts?, several of you left some suggestions for other potential future bar names/concepts hereabouts to sit alongside the real new bars coming like the 13th Step and SRO:

-- Shit Faced (Curt Hoppe)

-- I'm opening up a bar called "Generation O" -- a themed bar with huge shopping bags plastered on the wall and stiletto heels hanging from the ceiling, where the patrons can only view the bar drinks and menu through their ipads, itouch, and iphone, and the orders must either be tweeted or texted to the bartenders and waitresses... (Esquared)

-- Tornado of Death (Glamma)

-- I was thinking of opening a Bowery bar called "the needle exchange". People can only come in if they're are wearing something from Mugatu's Derelicte collection. See you all there. Free condoms for all! (Vazco)

-- Maybe going with the suburbanization concept, a bar called Lawnboy. It's covered in plastic grass, comes with ride-on mower rides, sprinklers for running through, badminton. And the drink special? The Mulch. Kind of like a Mudslide, but with chunks of artisanal chocolate bark floating in it. (Jeremiah Moss)

-- I used to joke about opening a bar called Urban Asshole...now the idea doesn't seem so funny. (Goggla)

-- I must confess I am very close to opening a mini-chain of my own theme bars. The first one will be called "DTs" as an homage to delirium tremens. The second will have Indian tapas and beers. The servers will all wear dark sunglasses at all times. I'll have as many Indian liquors as possible and my mixologists are working on perfecting some exclusive drinks. Fogcutter, Blindsider, Carbide Cocktail, HK (for Helen Keller) are all in the running. I'm going to call it "Bhopal". This place will STEAM! Trust me. (Upstate Johnny G)

-- Wouldn't the ultimate ironic downtown bar name be something like "Douchebag's" and how long before that comes to pass. (Anonynmous)

Meanwhile, please don't blame me when, say, a place called The Needle Exchange shows up on the CB3/SLA docket this fall...

[Image via]

Noted

Spotted on Avenue A...



The addition makes it...

Black Market back from fishing trip

The gates were down all weekend at Black Market on Avenue A near Seventh Street... Perhaps not enough bold-face names for them to bother to open?

Early last evening, though, the gates were up...revealing a "gone fishing" sign... with a note saying they'd reopen last night...



Good to their sign...they were open again last night...



Previously on EV Grieve:
So Bono, Michael Stipe, Natalie Portman, Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Spike Jonze and the Olsen twins walk into a bar on Avenue A...

Locked up

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Steve for this shot of an interesting-looking lock spotted on Second Street...

Tom & Jerry's makeshift boundary

Last month I pointed out a sign spotted outside Tom & Jerry's on Elizabeth Street...



Now the bar has set up a makeshift boundary to keep people away from the front of the door and the adjacent apartment entrance...

Summer crime season off to a credible start

Cat woman strikes! Footage from the robbery at the Arch shoe store on Astor Place. (Via the Post)

Every day, a little bit more of Shepard Fairey chips away...

The damage to the Shepard Fairey mural on Houston and the Bowery continues... a bit more advanced this evening than Sunday morning...





Meanwhile, our friend Bryan Waterman weighs in on this mural today at Patell and Waterman’s History of New York. In short: "It’s hard not to see this as the public demanding something better on that corner."

A look at the East Village noise wars

There's a nice, comprehensive piece by Sarah Laskow in Capital, a new online publication run by some former Observer editors.... The piece is titled Is the East Village getting noisier or just grumpier?

An excerpt!

Data from the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.) show that the number of active liquor licenses in the area has stayed relatively stable. In 2006, in the zip code 10009, an area stretching east from 1st Ave between Houston and 20th St., the S.L.A. documented 222 active liquor licenses for on-premise consumption — the types of licenses that restaurants, bars, and clubs use. Over the next two years, that number dipped to 216, but by 2009, there were 231 active liquor licenses in that area. The aggregate increase was nine licenses.

But there has been plenty of turnover. Of the 231 licenses in 2009, only 153 have been consistently active since 2006. That means that about a third of the licensed establishments in the East Village have opened in their current incarnation only within the past four years.

Read the whole thing here.

Happy Birthday Superdive!

Oh lordy! A reader reminded me that I did absolutely nothing to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Superdive! Wow. Has it been a year already?

Yes! June 25, in fact.

Relive a reader's brave opening night here.

We try to figure out the bar situation. Confusing. It looks like there is no bar and patrons are just doing whatever, but really there is a bar. It's just surrounded by patrons. We eventually get drinks. My mixed drink is quite strong. This is good, as it took an eternity to get it. It was served by a bartender wearing legwarmers on her arms. As we're trying to secure drinks, we're hit by a blast of flatulence. Did I mention this place is fratty?

And, uh.... a lousy hidden-camera video from Superdive, apparently....



Feel free to sing along. It may be better if you played a few hours of beer pong first.

Talking away
I don't know what I'm to say
I'll say it anyway
today's another day to find you
Shying away
I'll be coming for you love O.K.

Take on me
Take me on
I'll be gone
in a day or two

So needless to say I'm odds and ends
But that's me, stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is O.K.
Say after me
It's no better to be safe than sorry.

Take on me
Take me on
I'll be gone
in a day or two.

The things that you say
Is it live or just to play
My worries away
You're all the things I've got to remember
You shying away
I'll be coming for you anyway

Take on me
Take me on
I'll be gone
in a day or two

Thanks for the 4,793 posts this last year guys!

Roy in the morning

Goggla has the sad news that Roy passed away two weeks ago after a short illness.

For years Roy opened up the Mars Bar in the morning. He refilled the liquor bottles and what not to prepare the bar for a new day. His eyesight was bad, which may be why the gin could have tasted like vodka that one time, and vice versa.

I don't know much about Roy. I understand that he used to be a desk clerk at the St. Mark's Hotel, where he continued to live.

Seeing Roy outside the Mars Bar every morning -- reading the paper, doing the crossword puzzle -- inspired Goggla to start her photo site, The Gog Log. She writes: "I took it for granted that he'd be there every morning, thinking as long as Mars Bar stood, he'd be there, too."

For more photos of Roy, visit The Gog Log.

NYPD working hard to close up budget gap

A reader sent along a link to the blog, Lori E. Seid… And How Was Your Day? This post is from last Monday, the first day of summer in Tompkins Square Park:

"This morning at 7:05, 2 Police SUV’s and a Van pulled over to us sitting on the ground with our dogs, by the benches behind the tree. The window of one rolled down & a voice questioned why our dogs were off the leash. Our ID’s were demanded and we were told to wait as the window rolled up and 2 other cops came out of their vehicles & joined the one to discuss our situation. 3 vehicals – 3 cops – 15 minutes of attention for aprox 11 lbs worth of unleashed dogs sitting on their owners lap, in a park, early in the morning."



"The summons both Charlie & I received were for criminal court appearances (mandatory or a warrant for our arrests’ will be issued) and cost $200 each. The photo above is of the lawbreakers waiting, as instructed by the officer, while our ID’s were check for outstanding warrants or acts of terrorism or whatever these little critters could cook up. I do feel safer now, don’t you?"

If you depend on the bus around here, then you're kinda screwed now

Well, we're in Day 3 of the MTA's Screw The Passenger campaign Service Changes due to the agency's $800-million deficit in their operating budget.



So! There was a little confusion on Sunday, as you might expect. Like why was this guy waiting for an M9 on Avenue B when service has been rerouted to Avenue C?



Why was the 14D running on Avenue B? And how did that guy figure that out?



Why hasn't the MTA posted the new route times? For instance, the new M9 stops on Avenue C still list the times for the M21.



Anyway, it's a little confusing. You have to read the fine print.




Here are the changes via the MTA.



Changes:

The M8 weekend and overnight service has been discontinued.

The M21 weekend service has been discontinued; the late-night service will end earlier. Ditto for the early-morning service.

The M9 service has been rerouted from Avenue B to Avenue C to replace the M21 and will terminate at the VA Hospital on East 23rd Street.

The M9 service has been discontinued along Water Street and in Battery Park City and was extended along Park Row to City Hall to replace the M15.

Which means the M15 service to City Hall via Park Row was discontinued and replaced by the M9.

M21 service was discontinued north of Houston along Avenue C and extended along Houston and the FDR to Grand Street.

Got all that?

Your chance to own a stalled project lot on East 13th Street

By golly it was just about one year ago that we took a look at 536 E. 13th Street near Avenue B... the onetime future home of a six-story apartment building ... However, there were issues with Stop Work orders (something pesky about the excavation here causing a huge crack in the building next door...) Now, the site can be yours...the owner has put the lot on the block...




Previously on EV Grieve:
A dormant construction site on East 13th Street