Butter Lane closed until Thursday -- for a folding table and chair violation

Butter Lane, the popular cupcake emporium on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue, will be closed for the next three days thanks to the city. Co-owner Maria Baugh told me it is "due to a permitting violation for having a folding table and chairs in front of the shop." A Butter Lane staffer will be posted outside during business hours to answer any questions and give out coupons. The shop reopens Thursday.

"Obviously we're not happy with the penalty, but we plan to make the most of the down time," Baugh says. "Since they can't get paid for their regular work, we're going to pay our staff to plant flowers and do other small clean up/fix up jobs on our block during the three days."

Work is getting real serious at St. Brigid's

The amount of scaffolding continues to increase at St. Brigid's, on Avenue B at Eighth Street...



Meanwhile, looking up from Eighth Street, it almost looks as if the entire northern side of the church has been removed...




That was the side with the enormous crack in the foundation...(previously!)

2 Cooper shows off its windows that open

A grizzly discovery on First Street

Who killed Teddy? In a dumpster on First Street near Second Avenue.

World Cup humor

Spotted outside the new sushi place on 13th Street and First Avenue.

East Village on Russell Brand alert

The 'Arthur' remake (a travesty that I won't even go into) is filming around Second Avenue and 11th Street tomorrow... The remake stars Russell Brand in the Dudley Moore role... co-starring Jennifer Garner and Nick Nolte....and maybe the old Batmobile.

Flea market today in Tompkins Square Park

Closing sale at Village Fabrics

As I noted this past Tuesday, Village Fabrics on First Avenue and 11th Street is on the way out... closing sales are going on now...





A lot of comments for Village Fabrics here. The store will be missed.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The East Village continues to lose retail diversity

240 Houston fire update

This morning on Houston and Avenue A... workers had boarded up the windows on the top floors...




Patrick Hedlund at DNAinfo has an update on the fire here...it's still under investigation...and tenants were allowed back in briefly yesterday to retrieve valuables, including pets. Two cats were found safe in a second-floor apartment.

Previous coverage here.

Discovery Wines back open

The four-alarm fire at 240 Houston on Thursday evening shuttered several businesses... One of them, Discovery Wines, reopened last night. EV Grieve reader BaHa said that there is a lot of ceiling damage, so the overhead lights are out. They are getting by with clip-on lights. However, the refrigeration is working...

Tim from Discovery Wines left this comment for us:

We feel so very lucky to have only water damage and smoke odor.

We must have dumped over 300 gallons of water between last night and this afternoon -- I've never been so happy about a leaking ceiling in all my life!

We've still got a lot of electrical work to straighten out, but we reopened at 5:30 tonight (Friday).

Best of luck to our displaced friends and neighbors and a big thank you to the firefighters who saved lives last night.

All fire coverage here.

No respect! Queen's historic speech interupted at the UN

Those Smurfs!

[Flashback to Wednesday.]

The other day on Seventh Street

Between Avenue B and Avenue C... quickly riding through the spray of an open fire hydrant to make a delivery...

'Love Songs' tonight in Tompkins Square Park

Previously.

Shepard Fairey mural gets boarded up, no trespassing signs

As Jeremiah first noted this morning, the Shepard Fairey vandalism magnet on Houston and the Bowery is getting covered up... this afternoon, a worker was also putting up "no trespassing" signs...





How long before that plywood is tagged?