Life behind IHOP: 'My apartment now smells like the kitchen of a cheap hotel after the breakfast rush'

Late Tuesday night, someone left a comment on three of our IHOP posts... (This one ... this one ... and this one...)

We thought that we'd share them with you all in one place...

1) IHOP is a neighborhood killer in more ways than one. The local owner of the 14th St location somehow persuaded the DOB to allow them to place the restaurant's heavy equipment and ventilation system on the "roof" of the 1-story extension behind the building, instead of on the building's actual roof; as a result, the (considerable) noise, and the smell of rancid bacon are channeled directly into the windows of homes up and down East 15th Street. My apartment now smells like the kitchen of a cheap hotel after the breakfast rush. All.The.Time. If any of your readers get wind (hah!) that their neighborhood is the next to be invaded by IHOP (I'm looking at you, Chelsea/Limelight area), tell them to sell. Sell now. Because if you wait until after the IHOP has opened, you'll be trapped.

2) Please God, let someone or something kill off this disgusting hellhole! IHOP's management somehow persuaded the DOB to allow it to place their heavy equipment and ventilation system on the "roof" of the 1-story extension behind this building on 14th Street. As a result, the noise and the horrible rancid bacon smell are channeled up and into the windows of 100+ apartments on 15th Street. This goes on 24/7. They have destroyed the quality of life for countless people. And Chelsea folks, they're coming for you next.

3) Glad the staff is nice. However, if you lived in one of the apartments behind this hellhole, you'd be praying for the day when the "Going Out Of Business" signs go up. The noise from the equipment never, never stops, and the smell! The SMELL!!!! My apartment stinks like a cheap hotel kitchen after the breakfast rush now. If you own an apartment in one of the neighborhoods slated to get their very own IHop (I'm looking at you, Limelight neighbors), sell now. Because once the doors open on the new grease palace, you'll be trapped. No one will buy your place once they see, hear and smell what's going on.

Bonus:

Punk rope flashmob outside IHOP...

EVG flashback: When 72 Avenue B was a luxurious 1,750-seat theater

On Monday, we reported that Ben Shaoul is the mystery buyer of the Cabrini Nursing Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on East Fifth Street at Avenue B, and according to one source, he has designs on converting the Center into condos when the lease expires in 2012... we'll have more on this later... Meanwhile, a flashback to an EVG post from Sept. 28, 2009...

You'll recognize Fifth Street and Avenue B here...



But until 1957, it was a Loew's theater...



According to Cinema Treasures:

Loew's Avenue B is part of one of the great rags-to-riches stories of showbiz history. Movie mogul Marcus Loew erected it on the very site of the tenement building where he was born. Needless to say, his birthplace was demolished to make way for the luxurious 1,750-seat theatre, which was designed by Thomas W. Lamb and first opened on January 8, 1913, with vaudeville as its main attraction and movies thrown in just as fillers.

The Avenue B was the top Loew's house on the Lower East Side until the mid-1920s, when the circuit took over the Commodore on Second Avenue, which was a much busier area for entertainment and shopping. The Avenue B was reduced to playing movies at the end of their Loew's circuit run, and remained so until its closure around 1957-58

.

As Cinema Treasures commenter Warren G. Harris noted:

The theatre cost $800,000 to build. In his opening night speech, Marcus Loew said "This is the most pretentious of the houses on our string, because my better judgment was over-balanced by my sentimentalism and my longing to do something better here than I ever did before." According to corporate histories, the Avenue B was never successful, but Loew's kept it running for decades as a memorial to its founder, who was born on the spot.

Top photo via.

7-Eleven aspires to be the brightest store on the Bowery, New York State

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] And the Bowery dies a little more: Here comes 7-Eleven

Exclusive first look inside the Bowery 7-Eleven

7-Eleven is now hiring on the Bowery

Rainy days and Tuesdays

Photos by Bobby Williams.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Little Poland on Second Avenue the other night]

Gas outage at the Smith Houses threatens Thanksgiving (DNAinfo)

The photography of Harvey Wang at the Tenement Museum Visitors Center (BoweryBoogie)

Signs of the big new Brick Curry House on Second Avenue (Eater)

Another look at the Delancey Underground proposal (The New York Times, via Curbed)

Where the city is storing Occupy Wall Street protesters' belongings (Runnin' Scared)

Lost neon and a bigger Duane Reade on Seventh Avenue (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

And Rodney Dangerfield would have been 90 today...

Why there's an Airstream trailer inside the new Lower Eastside Girls Club home

Several years back when we posted about the new Lower Eastside Girls Club HQ on Avenue D, we sort of recall hearing something about an Airstream recording studio ... one of the many amenities such as a fair trade bookstore and gift shop, a library for after-school tutoring and a commercial kitchen and culinary training center. But we didn't give it much more thought.

Now let's fast-forward to this past Friday on Avenue D.

Oh.

Say, isn't that a'58 Overlander?

Girls Club Executive Director Lyn Pentecost passed along these photos with an explanation.

"The radio lab/recording studio in our new building will be housed in a repurposed '58 Airstream — on the second floor," she said.

And on Friday, workers brought in the Airstream ... which had to be installed inside the building before they closed up the façade ...

[Aaron Lee Fineman]

[Aaron Lee Fineman]

[Aaron Lee Fineman]

"The recording studio will be used to run a local digital radio station, produce youth podcasts and long-form audio pieces, and for classes in DJing and audio mixing," Pentecost said.

The Airstream recording studio is the brainchild of Dave Pentecost, Lyn's husband, who has more than 25 years of experience in television production and editing.

The Pentecosts have a summer cabin in the Adirondacks. Dave had apparently spotted it for sale at an old gas station nearby. "Quite the bargain, although we did have to gut it, reinforce it and put the shine back on," she said. "And then get it from there to here."

Checking in on @Jakobson_fix_it: 'so basically she has shit water in her apartment'

[A Jakobson apartment on East Fifth Street]

Two weeks ago, we posted an item on an East Village resident's campaign against Jakobson Properties. Tired of ongoing issues in a residential building, the tenant asked other Jakobson renters to take to Twitter with the complaints by using @Jakobson_fix_it

We wanted to check in to see how things were going. In the first week, the tenant noted that "Jakobson was really on it. They seem to react a lot quicker to maintenance requests, most likely because of this campaign. So we've had a few successes. We'll see whether this persists."

We've been monitoring the Twitter account as well as the Tumblr. Several past and present residents have chimed in... Here's part of an anecdote a current Jakobson tenant shared:

About a week and a half ago I get a txt from my roommate who came home late to water dripping from our ceiling. He put a bucket under it and i called the next day to have the guy come around to see what the hell was going on. We found out that the apartment upstairs toilet had overflown and the maintenance guy was actually standing in my “kitchen” on a walkie talkie and said “so basically she has shit water in her apartment” I mean WHAT?! I know its true but seriously. Talk about that with your friends later. He said he was going to fix the upstairs apartment and then fix ours at 3 (this was at like 11am) I had to leave so I told my roommate the maintenance guy never came back. Saw him in the stairs the next day brought it up again and he said that they were having a lot of floods. still hasnt been fixed.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Taking to Twitter to complain about the landlord

'Don't you think that André Balazs knows what's going in at the empty lot next door?'

Well you probably know that André Balazs bought the Cooper Square Hotel and is turning the joint into The Standard East Village.

So we were having an email exchange with an EV Grieve regular who was trying to sound upbeat about the sale. Maybe it won't be so bad, he or she tried. They said it will be "a more mellow alternative" to the bumping-and-grinding off the High Line, right?

Of course, you have to say those kinds of things now to appease the Community Board, neighbors, etc.

Then the reader said, or wrote: Don't you think that André Balazs knows what's going in at the empty lot next door?

Now that's an interesting question. Earlier this year, despite an outpouring of support for 35 Cooper Square, developer Arun Bhatia had the historic structure demolished to make way for whatever he has planned for the lot adjacent to the hotel off Sixth Street.

Bhatia hasn't said what's coming to the space. Most people assume it will be some condo/hotel/dorm complex with chain-store retail on the ground-floor and some nonprofit or community facility for good (tax) measure.

Anyway, as The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in the fall, Balazs bought the Cooper Square Hotel for $90 million.

If you're putting out that much for the property, then you'll gonna want to know what your new neighbor will be.... some day.

Meanwhile, if André, "Stan" or anyone wants to send us a note to the tipline with any renderings or plans for the empty lot...

[Photo by Shawn Chittle.]

Blue Man Group and King Tut's Wah Wah Hut

Last Thursday, Off the Grid noted the Blue Man Group's 20th anniversary... on Nov. 17, 1991, Blue Man Group "Tubes" opened at the Astor Place Theatre.

Before taking up residency there, the group played out and about at a variety of venues... including King Tut's Wah Wah Hut on Avenue A at Seventh Street (where Niagara is now).

Came across this flyer while visiting the King Tut's Wah Wah Hut Facebook page.

Among the other photos on the King Tut Facebook page ... from March 1987...

...and the front entrance at Seventh Street and Avenue A...

Holiday road

Bobby Williams notes that workers yesterday put up the holiday lights on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. Or else Japadog is really going all out for its opening next month ...

Pet Rider

Second Avenue and First Street today by Bobby Williams.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Eighth Street and Avenue B yesterday by Bobby Williams]

Two pit bull attacks in the past two weeks in the East Village (DNAinfo)

Building security questioned after an assault on Ludlow Street (BoweryBoogie)

More on the future of the former PS 64 (The Local, previous EVG coverage here)

Pizza at Pie on Fourth Avenue (Marty After Dark)

Paul Auster reads at the Green-Wood Cemetery (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Even Campbell's Soup is getting artisanal (New York Daily News)

Weird Macy's Parade balloons (Ephemeral New York)

Souvenir shop next to Ruby's on the Coney Island boardwalk forced to close (Amusing the Zillion)

Today it the last day to vote for the second annual Village Voice Web Awards (Runnin' Scared) ... and, given our long history of receiving bribes and kickbacks, we're pleased to be one of the judges this year (Runnin' Scared)

Claim: Ben Shaoul is the new owner of Cabrini nursing home, will convert to condos

As you may have read in the Nov. 3 edition of The Villager, the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on East Fifth Street at Avenue B is in danger of closing.

The Villager's Lesley Sussman reported that the building's current owner is an unnamed family trust, which is in the process of selling the property.

During the weekend, an anonymous reader left a comment on our post about 515 E. Fifth St., the site of a recent protest about the illegal addition to the building. The property is owned by Ben Shaoul's Magnum Management.

Per the commenter:

We just learned that Ben has purchased the property where Cabrini Home is at 542 East 5th Street from another private owner to convert to condos. The home says their lease runs out in April 2012 and they are being forced to close. Can't anyone stop him? They want to stay but so far, no dice.

According to a neighborhood source monitoring the situation, until the deal closed this past week, no one at Cabrini knew the names of the buyer. The source said that Cabrini officials have made an offer to the previously unknown new owner to pay a substantial amount of money just to receive a lease extension — in addition to more rent.

Previously, local politicians — including Assemblymember Speaker Sheldon Silver, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, City Councilmember Rosie Mendez and members of the Community Board 3 — sent a letter to attorney Kenneth Fisher, who is representing the buyer, asking for an extension of the current lease, The Villager reported.

The nonprofit, 240-bed nursing home — sponsored by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — provides health care for low-income elderly residents in the East Village. The location at Fifth Street and Avenue B opened in 1993. This location serves 240 patients and employs nearly 300 employees.

As The Villager noted, Cabrini officials have been planning to relocate to a still-unspecified site owned by the Archdiocese of New York in the next five years. However, without a lease extension and ample opportunity to find a new home, the facility is at risk of losing its state-issued operating license.

Inside Tompkins Square Bagels

Bagels Return To The Lower East Side from Shawn Chittle on Vimeo.

Many thanks to Shawn Chittle for creating this video that takes us inside the coming soon Tompkins Square Bagels on Avenue A ... Among other things, owner Christopher Pugliese walks us through his unique bagel-making process...