KFC on 14th and Second now visible from outer space

Courtesy of a weekend paint job.

Living around: Tompkins Square Park

The Times real-estate section has a "Living Around — Tompkins Square Park" feature today titled Grit, Glam and Green, in One Vibrant Package. Here are a few passages:

Susan Stetzer, the district manager of Community Board 3 and an East Village resident since 1970, said the park had attained a state of relative quiet, aside from complaints about the handful of “very loud” concerts it hosts throughout the year.

“There’s no issues there,” Ms. Stetzer said. “We have a big playground that was renovated very, very recently. It’s very nice. The park is well used. We have a rat problem, but so does a lot of the rest of New York City.”

Speaking as a resident rather than as a district manager, she described something bittersweet about having witnessed the slow gentrification of the park. The playgrounds — there are actually three — are shinier and more colorful than when she used to take her son there in the late ’70s and early ’80s. But, she said, they loved the park then, too, and that era had its advantages.

“It was a much stronger, much closer community then,” Ms. Stetzer said. “Everyone knew everyone, and they weren’t necessarily people like you.”

November afternoon sun

From Sixth Street between Avenue C and Avenue B.

Cost newsbox is missing

On Tuesday, I posted photos from EV Grieve reader AWKWORD showing new street art created by graffiti legend Cost... The box on Second Avenue near Houston was part of the recent Showpaper exhibit...




I went to take some photos of it this weekend... and the newsbox is gone...



Stolen? Or confiscated by the city?

For more on the boxes, check out the NYPress cover story this week.

Three makes it a trends post!

Thanks to Tim for the tweet and photo...



Gizmodo refers to it as "the caffeinated alcoholic poison drink."

The seasoning makes it taste better

Ninth Street and Avenue A.

Second Avenue, 9:42 a.m., Nov. 21

About those tanks on Seventh Street and Avenue A

Remember those tanks that I mentioned earlier today on Seventh Street and Avenue A....?

Well, as these photos by EV Grieve reader Bobby Williams show.... they attracted a lot of attention this afternoon from the NYPD and FDNY.....

Things left on the street

Seventh Street and Avenue A this morning. I always enjoy walking around in the morning, looking for odd things left behind on the street.

What do you call this?

A catwalk! Thank you very much — I'll be here all weekend!

Avenue B and Second Street.

Nala is missing

Chasing the Dragons

Dee Dee Ramone and the Chinese Dragons, circa 1992 or so....

City doesn't give a shit about these historic East Village townhouses

On Tuesday, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) and other groups... not to mention various politicos ... rallied to help save the historic townhouses at 326 and 328 E. Fourth St. The GVSHP doesn't have good news to report:

Unfortunately, as we gathered in front of the houses on Tuesday to make this last appeal to the city to consider landmark designation, the city was issuing permits to the developer to allow the houses' destruction, effectively foreclosing the possibility of landmark designation.

Former Señor Swanky's will soon be a new 'local'

And over at Bleecker and LaGuardia, the former Señor Swanky's is shaping up... As Eater noted, it will become a gastropub aimed at a more "mature" audience. And, given the sign, maybe for local mature audiences? In this neighborhood? Good luck! [Thanks to Goggla for the tip on this...I attended the CB2 meeting last summer when the owners here made their pitch...]