Max's Kansas City and CBGB live! Sort of!

So this explains why we always saw so many empty bottles on Extra Place...

Thanks to a post this morning at Eater... we now know about Extra Place by Max's Kansas City. Per the website:

Almost 30 years have passed since the cultural institution Max’s Kansas City closed its doors. Andy Warhol once stated that it was “the exact place where pop art met pop life,” while William S. Burroughs credited it as “the intersection of it all.” However, its legacy lives on as the focal point of art, music, and fashion. Inspired by this history, the Max's Kansas City Co. opened Extra Place in January of 2010 as a venue for live music and exclusive private events. Located beneath the former home of CBGB, with an entrance on the storied alley Extra Pl. (off of 1st Street between the Bowery and 2nd Avenue), Extra Place by the Max's Kansas City Company revives the debaucherous and creative history that made the location so legendary. The Max’s Kansas City company renews these hallowed grounds by establishing Extra Place, a venue for the industries of art, music, and fashion.

Papa John's unleashes its new delivery car for the East Village

Good news from Otto's Shrunken Head

Co-owner Nell Mellon dropped us a note last night with an update on the progress at Otto's Shrunken Head, the 14th Street mainstay that suffered a fire early on Oct. 24...

"Last week we worked really long days/nights to get the front open on Saturday (Oct 30). Lots of support and hard work from staff and regulars helped tremendously! We are back to normal operating hours in the front. And we are hustling in the back. We hope to have the backroom ready for the weekend November 19th. Keep your fingers crossed!"

Previously on EV Grieve:
Assessing the damage at Otto's Shrunken Head

Breaking: Early-morning fire at Otto's Shrunken Head

Now that the 'underground' grilled cheese guy has retired

The news came down yesterday that the "underground" grilled cheese guy had retired... heading off to the wilds of Midtown at an "American restaurant." (I still don't believe that this guy actually existed...)

In any event, this is all terribly subjective of course, but I'd still take a grilled cheese on Challah from Odessa any day...

A haunted house on 13th Street?

The Post had a "Haunted New York" feature on Halloween on well, haunted haunts around town... Per the article: "'We live in the 'most haunted city in America,' according to CUNY history professor and 'Ghosts of Manhattan' author Phil Schoenberg." Among the listed haunted locales: McSorley's and St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. All fine urban legends.

Meanwhile, speaking of haunted... a few months back a reader asked me what the deal was with 222 E. 13th Street... right across the street from the Mystery Lot... The reader mentioned that he or she heard the long-abandoned house was haunted. And if I knew anything about its history.



I don't know much about this address... the DOB lists "Esglad Housing Development Corp." as the owners. A complaint to the DOB dated May 1, 1989 notes that the "recent firebombing of building damaged front hallways and possibly first floor beams."



Anyway, I'm throwing this one open ... Anyone know more about this address? Seems as if it has sat empty for about 20 years...

The DBGB outdoor dining diary

A few weeks ago, I wondered why DBGB hadn't been putting out its sidewalk cafe on the Bowery since debuting it on Sept. 29.... while places like Pulino's and Gemma continued to draw crowds outside... on the evening of my post, the tables and chairs appeared outside!

So, for some reason, I started keeping tabs whenever I walked by DBGB in the early evening...

Oct. 22


Oct. 25


Oct. 26


Oct. 27


Oct. 28


Oct. 29


Nov. 1


Nov. 2


Nov. 3 — oops!

Now it seems as if the restaurant will keep the tables out no matter what the weather is like...

Nov. 4


And while the inside looks to have a healthy bar-dining room crowd, I only ever saw two people outside while walking by...

How Dunkin' Donuts could ruin your morning

Sausage pancake bites at Dunkin' Donuts, photographed on Sixth Street and First Avenue.

The Ninth Street Bread N Cake Bakery was great until they applied for a liquor license

Thanks to Goggla's comment the other day, we've all been spending far too much time looking at photos from the New York Public Library archives ... EV Grieve reader Pinhead came across this shot..

It's taken from the old Cooper Union building, looking at Stuyvesant Street to the east toward St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, 1856.



As Pinhead says: "Be sure to zoom the amazing detail, like the Ninth Street Bread N Cake Bakery at 172 E 9th (an address that doesn't exist anymore because of the NYU dorm)."

Reader report: Attempted ATM holdup on Avenue A doesn't go so well for would-be thief

A reader notes that there was an attempted robbery last evening (some time around 8:30 p.m. or so) at the Chase branch on Avenue A at Second Street. As the story goes, a woman, the intended victim, "beat the shit out of the guy and he left on a stretcher in handcuffs." There was also a very strong police response.

Anyone else have any information?

Speaking of Chase...

Goggla took this shot at the Chase branch on the Bowery and First Street.

Not sure just yet if he was:

1) going to a Halloween party
2) reporting to work at Chase
3 heading to Peels

New owner of the former Aces and Eights space speaks out; "the beer pong is gone"

There's an excellent piece this afternoon on The Lo-Down by Jennifer Strom that delves into the behind-the-scenes legal wrangling that eventually shuttered Aces and Eights at 34 Avenue A.

Here are two excerpts with her interview with owner Jevan Damadian:

After a career in his family’s successful chain of MRI centers, where he remains a regional director, Damadian came into some cash when the family sold its centers to a large health corporation. Seeing the stock market falling, he looked around for alternative investment opportunities. He lives on the Upper East Side, upstairs from the original Aces and Eights at First Avenue and East 87th Street, and had watched it grow into a successful bar under the leadership of owner Solomon Eljashev. The two men had become friendly, and eventually struck a deal for Eljashev to open the East Village branch with Damadian’s money.

And!

If he is able to reopen the bar, Damadian says, he would like to establish an upscale tapas lounge in the upstairs space, where business people can meet quietly. The downstairs space, which garnered a reputation as a rambunctious “frathole” during its tenure, is still home to a pool table, but Damadian would like the bar’s critics to know one thing: “The beer pong is gone,” he says.

Read the whole post here.

You can meet Jevan yourself on Wednesday night.

[Photo via The Lo-Down]

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

Sports bar to replace Ruby's on the Coney Island boardwalk (Amusing the Zillion)

No end to the influx of suburbia (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

A discussion on community preservation (Save the Lower East Side!)

Looking at the Payless ShoeSource LES collection (BoweryBoogie)

Union Square market offering booths from Momofuku Milk Bar, among others, this season (Eater)

No "Glory" on the subway for Han Solo (Stupefaction)

Apartment immoralized memorialized by NYU-hating, fruit-tossing Jude Law on the market (Curbed)

Something for EV Heave: The $3.99 Lobster Roll at Song 7.2 (Grub Street)

Opening reception tonight for the I Hate Hating exhibit at the Michael Mut Gallery on Avenue C near Seventh Street.

Cooper 35 Asian Pub part of development deal on Cooper Square

After seeing yesterday's news on the sale of the empty lot on Cooper Square at Sixth Street for $8.5 million ... I wondered if this meant the end of 35 Cooper Square too — currently the home of Cooper 35 Asian Pub. (Read the history of 35 Cooper here.) The parcel of land in question is 35-39 Cooper Square. I asked Massey Knakal if the sale included the space that houses the bar, which is adjacent to the Cooper Square Hotel. A Massey Knakal spokesperson confirmed that it does.

Here are a few details from the news release on the sale (PDF):

“We generated over 30 offers in under 45 days,” said First Vice President of Sales, Joe Sitt who exclusively handled this transaction with the assistance of Massey Knakal’s Special Asset Strategy Group. “The buyer is a known and respected developer who performed as expected on a two week T.O.E. close. It just goes to show there is always strong demand when locations are prime,” added Sitt.

[Photo via Massey Knakal]

Blue cheese?

The "underground," secret grilled-cheese delivery guy has retired:

Ronnie," the out-of-work Wall Street banker who last summer started grilling the sandwiches in his East Village apartment and selling them on street corners, parlayed the health-code-violating gig into a real restaurant job.
"It was nice being an outlaw for a while," the secretive cheeseslinger told The Post. "But starting Monday, I will be the manager of a high-end American restaurant in Midtown."

Outlaw? Maybe if he had been delivering another kind of cheese...