Your 'Lower Manhattan Theme Song 2011' (Woo Hoo!)

Chuckle Cakes NYC shared this video with us. Per the YouTube description:

This is a song that attempts to capture the current zeitgeist of the areas below 34th street in Manhattan (as well as certain areas in West Brooklyn and Manhattan above 96th street.) Anyone who has been here in the last few years will recognize the eclectic mix of people who draw their inspiration from an overlapping medley of 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s fashion, movies and music. These areas now see a a mix of clean-cut street looking kids of West Side Story and Buddy Holly-lookalikes; 90s/oughts Indie rockers; 70s handlebar-mustachioed porn-star types; Woodstock worshiping quasi-hippies and "folksters", endless variants of 80s "Wall Street" style people; rehashed grunge types; a plethora parade of would-be Lady Gagas; a voluminous number of "Gossip Girl" dreamers; "Jersey Shore" clones; curious tourists; and a smattering of everything else you care to name. One common thread, however, is their penchant for hard partying, and screaming "woohoo!" and "woo!" at all hours while stumbling around drunkenly.

It's a microcosm of the urban and suburban American culture of the naughts and oughts.

Manhattan, this is for you.

18th nail salon opening on Avenue A

OK, I'm kidding about that headline... this would be the fifth...

Anyway! RyanAvenueA points us to this sign for the coming-soon Joyful Nails arriving at the long-empty First House storefronts between Third Street and Second Street...

So, what do you think? Good news that it's a business that will be open during the day... and not related to nightlife? (Unless you go for a mani before that Bridesmaid or Bachelor Pub Craw...) Or do you think they're already enough nail salons around here...? Like the two on First Avenue between First Street and Third Street?

Yes, we walked the streets last night counting nail salons.

The elusive Tompkins Square Park white rat becoming less elusive

Yesterday, Bob Arihood had night-time photos of the elusive Tompkins Square Park white rat ... Apparently, the fame is going to the white rat's head, as he or she decided to frolic in the daytime yesterday near the playground at Ninth Street and Avenue A... as these photos by EV Grieve reader Judy show...

Someone get this thing a Twitter account already!

Tompkins Square Park, now with 'feed a pigeon, breed a rat' signs

Back on Friday, we mentioned the "feed a pigeon, breed a rat" signs that some other city parks have ... seeing as we have the likes of The Pigeon Lady hereabouts, we thought similar signs might be nice in Tompkins Square Park too...

Well! Look what workers out up in the last day or so ...

So when can we get the T-shirts, hats, buttons and iPhone cases?

Meanwhile, a few of the old trashcans have returned in the Park...

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

Noted

On East Sixth Street. The sign is a little confusing. Can you only use one of these items at a time? Or two of three?

And now, a closeup photo of the Subway BBQ pulled pork sandwich ad

With apologies in advance... I just gag every time I walk by a Subway with these signs... like this one on Second Avenue near Ninth Street...

Singaporean restaurant coming soon to East 13th Street

Several readers have asked about what's coming to the space east of Key Bar on East 13th Street... As Grub Street reported last week, it will be a Singaporean restaurant called Masak. Chef Larry Reutens told Grub Street that the food will involve his favorite dishes from around Singapore, "including some that reflect the city-state's Malay influence and others that harken to his mother's Cantonese heritage." No opening date just yet.

Today in Tompkins Square Park

Snow day on Great Jones Street

Our friend BaHa sent these photos along from some kind of ad shoot (Danier's 2012 line) this afternoon on Great Jones at Broadway...

Anyway! Woo! Snow! Woo! A model! Woo!

And the summer continues to slip away...

Aug. 14

In the midst of a driving rainstorm on Sunday, EV Grieve reader Chris stopped to document this find on Rivington at Ridge... where someone had bagged up a Christmas tree nearly, uh, eight months after Jesus' birthday...

Gruber MacDougal, spokesperson for the International Coalition of Tree Tossing in the Spring and Summer (ICTTSS), has been alerted of this discovery. However, he is currently attending an urban think tank at the St. Regis Bora Bora Resort.

Flea Market Cafe reopening later today

[Melanie Neichin]

Melanie at East Village Corner brings us the news that the Flea Market Cafe will reopen a little later today (this per an employee there) on Avenue A. She took the above photo there this afternoon. Looks like workers were able to clean up the place nicely. Meanwhile, sources say that yesterday's fire remains under investigation.

Flashback August 1996: A two-week tribute for Merlin

We posted the following item on Aug. 18, 2010 ... Every year since Merlin died in 1996, someone creates a memorial for him on Avenue A at Sixth Street where he lived for eight years on the sidewalk. Bob Arihood has a photo of this year's memorial here.

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I wanted to follow-up on the Merlin's Memorial post from yesterday...



Bob Arihood, who took the shot above, documented the scene on Avenue A and Sixth Street on Neither More Nor Less after Merlin passed away on Aug. 16, 1996...



As Bob wrote:

A wake and vigil of considerable moment, lasting for the better part of 2 weeks , was held in the neighborhood at Merlin's corner . Some nights the sidewalk and street around the memorial were so densely packed with people that it seemed that everyone in the neighborhood and the surrounding communities was attending , crowded together ,all kinds of folks , from all professions and callings , from high and low paying their respects to Merlin .

Here's Merlin on his corner as many people here remember him...



Per the Times from July 1996:

There are few certainties in this changeable city. But on Avenue A and Sixth Street, a place that has been convulsed by change in recent years, one thing has remained constant through the riots and real-estate booms: Merlin, a 41-year-old homeless man who uses only one name, has made the intersection's southeast corner his residence for eight years. Neither blizzards nor blistering heat have routed him from atop a set of wooden pallets in front of a Con Edison substation.

"People move in and out of the neighborhood, but I never budge," he said last week, lounging beneath a pair of tattered umbrellas, his only guard against the sting of the sun. A stroke has left him partly paralyzed, and frostbite cost him several toes three winters ago.

To strangers, he is but another intrusion on the East Village's gritty streetscape, a reason to avert their eyes. But to many local residents, he is a cherished asset: a timekeeper, a message center, a town crier and a source of good, solid conversation. "Merlin is a social hub," said Tatiana Bliss, 25, a local artist. "If you're looking for someone, Merlin probably knows where they are. If you want to leave something for a friend, he'll make sure they get it. He makes this crazy city feel like a small town."

Jeremiah also writes about Merlin today, asking the following: "Could such a memorial happen for a homeless man in the East Village today?"

Was the fire at Flea Market yesterday suspicious?

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

That's the gossip anyway surrounding yesterday afternoon's fire at Flea Market Cafe on Avenue A. A few readers noted that there were a lot of FDNY brass on the scene for a blaze that firefighters extinguished in 25 minutes or so. Bob Arihood notes that the NYPD Crime Scene unit stayed around until midnight or so. (Bob's first post on the fire is here.)

No word just yet when the restaurant will reopen.

51 Astor Place now with fewer trees

As we noted yesterday afternoon, workers removed six or so trees from 51 Astor Place in preparation for the building's demolition....

Anyway, the ugly building is pretty well prepped now for the end... The demolition truck staging will take place on Third Avenue at Astor... where that arrow is pointing...

As reps for the developers told residents back in June, there will be roughly 40 days of abatement, to rid the place of fun things like vermin and asbestos. (That started on July 1.)

Then. A round of inspections before workers will commence with a 50-day-long "surgical demolition." So the actual demolition portion should commence sometime soon. As we reported, workers will encase the site, and use small machines to methodically remove floor by floor...

Previously.

P.S.

Here are three of the trees that came down yesterday...