Avenue A finally getting some more retail

Work continues at 41 Avenue A on the corner of East Third Street.... where the Coffee Pot once lived...



As DNAinfo noted in September, a pharmacy is taking over this space... this rather empty stretch of A — on the west side of the Avenue between Third and Second — may soon get some company. According to the website of the landlord, the New York City Housing Authority, there are applications in place for 35 Avenue A and 37 Avenue A.



37 Avenue A was once the Two Boots Restaurant. 35 Avenue A was last the Sons & Daughters high-end kids shop.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Of the 147 storefronts on Avenue A, 70 of them are bars, restaurants or vacant

Whatever happened to the Two Boots Restaurant? Plus: NYCHA puts up two prime storefronts on Avenue A for rent

Sons & Daughters closing on Avenue A; new tenant for A and Third Street?

Meanwhile, 24 Avenue A remains empty

Well, while on the topic of Avenue A retail... I recently noticed new(ish?) plans in the window of the former Graceland space at Second Street... (And it seems longer than six months that Graceland has been gone...)

Anyway the space can be chopped up into one, two or three storefronts... (Here's the listing.)



The one storefront might be best suited for the threatened 7-Eleven. And what do you think life would be like here had the CB3 approved Frank's plan for fast-food Italian (Raguboy) back in June?

Meanwhile, the FDR cheap pizza place behind the space on Second Street is ready for action... as you can see from the canopy, you can get 99-cent pizza, Indian snacks, tea...



Previously on EV Grieve:
"All uses considered" at former Graceland

More here.

Grade inflation at Ray's?

Thanks to an EV Grieve reader for this photo outside Ray's... a little marker mischief provides a boost to the Health Department's A, B or C ratings...

DBGB's decorative planters finally receive a warm welcome to the neighborhood

A tin ceiling and Vermont veal meatballs for Goat Town

The Times had an update last week on Goat Town, the new restaurant taking over the former Seymour Burton-Butcher Bay space (Le Tableau closed in December 2007) on East Fifth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B:

The restaurant will hew to the current shoestring restaurant formula of repurposed materials, including a weathered copper bar and a tin ceiling, and ingredients that are often local, perhaps even grown in the restaurant’s own garden, and pickled on the premises. The menu is fairly straightforward American, with a raw bar, and dishes like Vermont veal meatballs, seared Block Island swordfish, and braised Flying Pigs Farm pork shoulder.

Nicholas Morgenstern, late of General Greene in Fort Greene, and Joel Hough, a former chef de cuisine at Cookshop, are behind this venture.

I caught a look inside the other day...



Goat Town opens Thursday.

Yes, yes, yes — Christmas is coming, we get it

We'll always have the MTA

From today's Post:

An MTA bus bully slapped a $100 summons on a Manhattan woman deemed too slow to show her ticket for the new express M15 Select Bus -- a service that has increasingly become a cash cow for the money-strapped agency.

Since 2008, NYC Transit cops have handed out more than $1 million in summonses on the two Select Bus lines, the M15 and the Bx12, whose riders buy tickets from a sidewalk machine rather than pay on board.

The machines are supposed to speed the passengers' trips, but some straphangers gripe that the speediest thing about the Select Bus service is how quickly officers ticket customers.

Celebrate the Bowery on Tuesday evening

From the EV Grieve inbox...

BOWERY HISTORY: A CELEBRATION
A lively evening of talk and entertainment honoring the cradle of American popular culture. Birthplace of tap dance, vaudeville, and punk rock, the Bowery is being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. Hosted by Bowery Alliance of Neighbors & Two Bridges Neighborhood Council

Tuesday, November 30, 2010
@ Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street (Btwn. Rivington & Delancey)
SUBWAYS: F to 2nd Ave., 6 to Spring, B/D to Grand, J to Bowery

6 - Happy Hour (Cash Bar), featuring vintage Bowery cocktails
7 - Showtime

HOSTED BY:
Kent Barwick,
President Emeritus, Municipal Art Society

PERFORMERS:
Poor Baby Bree, Chanteuse (w/Frankllin Bruno, piano)
Bob Holman, Poet, Bowery Poetry Club

SPEAKERS:
City Council Member Margaret Chin
Kerri Culhane, Architectural Historian
Peter Quinn, Novelist, BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE
Eric Ferrara, L.E.S. History Project, author of upcoming book on the Bowery
Anthony Tung, Author, PRESERVING THE WORLD'S GREAT CITIES
Trav S.D., Vaudeville Historian and impresario

FILM:
THIS IS THE BOWERY (rare film from the 1940s); fascinating footage of
the Bowery Mission, street life, etc. In many ways anticipates Lionel
Rogosin's classic 1956 documentary ON THE BOWERY.

TICKETS:
$20 - General Admission
$15 - Student/Seniors
$50 - Sponsors (Priority Seating)

Via here or 866-811-4111

Another day, another Deitch Wall update

Previously. GammaBlog has more here.

Santa baby

At the Morrison Hotel Gallery on the Bowery .....A Mick Rock photo.

Angelina Jolie up close

Ad on the M14 Cemusa shelter on Avenue A in front of Lucy's.

Chilly scenes of winter

Somewhere on East Ninth Street.

Your daily Deitch Wall update

Kenny Scharf continues his mural here on Houston and the Bowery. Check out some great photos of Scharf at work on GammaBlog.

Christmas is coming, still

Christmas trees arriving at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Second Avenue and 10th Street...






...and there are even trees that will fit inside apartments...