In and around Tompkins Square Park today

Photos by Bobby Williams.

Cops looking for the two men who robbed the Metro PCS store on East 14th Street

[Via NYPD]

The local TV stations this morning had the news about two armed men who robbed the Metro PCS store on East 14th Street at First Avenue (just to the west of the Vitamin Shoppe) last Friday.

The NYPD is searching for the two men, who made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

NYI has the surveillance video here.

And the boilerplate: Anyone with information about the case is being asked to contact Crime Stoppers by calling 1-800-577-TIPS, by texting TIP577 to CRIMES, or by going to NYPDCrimeStoppers.com.

Report: City to slash funding for after-school programs because the East Village has become too wealthy

Julie Shapiro at DNAinfo has a disturbing report today.

Basically:

"The city is slashing funding to free after-school programs in the East Village because the neighborhood has grown too wealthy to receive the services."

A few quotes:

"There may be increasing affluence in the East Village, but there are also huge pockets of poverty," said Robin Bernstein, president and CEO of the Educational Alliance, which runs an after-school program at P.S. 64 at Avenue B and East Sixth Street.

And.

"It's really an all-out assault on working families and the working poor," said David Garza, executive director of Henry Street Settlement

[Updated] A call for Patti Smith to cancel her upcoming performance at the Hotel Chelsea

Patti Smith, of course, was one of the many famous residents at Stanley Bard's Hotel Chelsea through the years, living with Robert Mapplethorpe in the early 1970s, and returning later in the 1990s as well.

The Hotel Chelsea blog today posted — with "great sadness" — the above invitation ... Per the post:

Patti must not know that the person sponsoring her upcoming event, Joseph Chetrit, is the same developer who took Stanley Bard’s beloved Chelsea Hotel away from him and his family. And surely she is unaware that this is the same Joseph Chetrit whose demolition crews recently gutted over a hundred historic Chelsea Hotel rooms.

The blog notes that Chetrit is currently trying to evict some 30 Hotel residents.

The Hotel Chelsea Blog is calling on her to cancel the event.

Read the whole post here.

UPDATED:

So many developments on this. She did perform for the new developers taking over the Hotel on Wednesday night, but canceled the show for residents on Thursday night.

Read updates at:

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

Living With Legends

Gothamist

Per Gothamist:

Despite her insistence that she is not being remunerated for her involvement, we’re hard pressed to understand Smith’s motives. The resident we spoke to, who also happens to live on the same floor as Patti Smith’s old room (204, if you’re wondering), offered a theory: "Her room has remained completely intact, as a shrine to her career, while all the other rooms have been demolished."

Crime scene at First Avenue Finest Deli

EV Grieve reader Joe passes along these photos from outside the deli on First Avenue at East 10th Street this morning ... Police on the scene declined to discuss what happened. Joe said that there were "a bunch of cops inside."

Another parcel of East Village land ready for development

There's no stopping the rampant development here... Now, 321 E. Third St., just west of Avenue D, just hit the market. The lot is $6 million. Bring your own condo.

Here are the details via the Streeteasy listing:

For Sale or Joint Venture — Development Opportunity
Joint Venture — Develop A Multi-Family Building
23,080 Max Usable Floor Area

5,770 Sq Ft Lot
Lot Size 60’ x 96.17’
Zoned R8-b
FAR 4
Only $259x Foot

Phase Once Complete
(Soil Test & Survey)

Neighbors include:
Eickholt Gallery, Positively 3rd Street, Clinton St Baking Co, Dessert Truck

And here's what the lot looks like in the summer... A few trees will need to be removed ...

Looks as if people used the space as a community garden of sorts. There are picnic tables on the property.

Regardless, this should be a nice area of development hell in the future. A Karl Fischer-designed, 33-unit apartment building is coming directly across the street.

And, maybe one day on the corner of Houston and Avenue D — this.



So what becomes of the little neighborhood shops right here? The ones that sell mops and gently used coats and copies of The Fantasticks' book? These businesses are the direct neighbors...

That one guy in the Black Keys lives in the East Village, apparently

Several readers have now commented on the latest issue of Rolling Stone, which features the Black Keys on the cover.

The article begins like this:

Patrick Carney is pretty sure he knows what's ailing his chosen genre these days. "Rock & roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world," he says, blowing cigarette smoke out the window of his rented East Village loft a few days ­before the band heads to L.A.

Later!

He and his fiancee, Emily, moved from a Lower East Side walk-up to a house with a pool in Nashville in 2010, but they got restless there, so they rented this pied-à-terre, a fully furnished loft in a building with neighbors including Fabrizio Moretti, Bret Easton Ellis and, apparently, Tom Cruise (who may or may not live on the same floor).

One reader ask if we knew what building this was.

Sadly, we actually do know where Tom Cruise lives...



... a not-so-secret American Felt Building on East 13th Street between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue. (Difficult to miss the SUVs, photographers, catatonic wife, etc., when he's around...)

Anyway, now you know where to go to have Carney sign your limited edition 12-inch of "Lonely Boy."

'Yes, I'll have the Plymouth Gin with St. Germain Elderflower and Smoking Plutonium'

Somehow, drinking gets more gimmicky. As you you may have seen at Zagat yesterday, the former Milk Bar space attached to Momofuku Ssäm Bar on 13th Street at Second Avenue "will transform to a technology-heavy cocktail lounge."

Sooooooo, what does this involve? "[A] menu of 22 creations, made with the likes of liquid nitrogen and high-tech toys (a rotovap and centrifuge among them)," Zagat reported.

This is what Second Avenue and Houston looked like on Jan. 7, 2012

This year, we'll post photos like this of various buildings, streetscenes, etc., to capture them as they looked at this time and place... The photos may not be the most telling now, but they likely will be one day...

The remains of Furry Land are now in a dumpster on Avenue A

When we reported that the Marshal has seized Furry Land Pet Supplies on Avenue A the other day, several people hoped that this might just be a temporary setback for the store.

Apparently not. EV Grieve reader dwg pointed out yesterday afternoon that workers were clearing out the store and tossing things into the above dumpster.

Flavor of the west side of San Antonio coming to East Fifth Street, at least on Mondays

From the EV Grieve inbox ... an email/release from Julie E. Farias, the executive chef at Goat Town on East Fifth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B ...

I am quite excited to let you know that I am having M&I Mexican Mondays at Goat Town.

The M&I Mexican Monday menu will begin on the 16th of January and will be served in addition to our regular menu every Monday.

It is inspired by my Aunt Irma and Uncle Martin who have owned M&I Meat Market in the west side of San Antonio for over 20 years, along with my family’s history of owning grocery stores and meat markets since the 30’s, and all the foods I grew up with as a result of that experience.

After a trip back home to Texas, I realized that I would be proud to pay respect to my heritage, family history and the neighborhood I grew up in by creating a genuine Texas Mexican menu. The items on this menu are both common and unique in that they are specifically focused on the food I grew up with in the west side of San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country.

It would be impossible to bring every single detail of this specific experience to Goat Town but I am proud to serve the best and most authentic representation of Texas Mexican food from the west side of San Antonio.

And the menu...

[Release edited for length]

Live check-in from the CB3/SLA meeting: No beer and wine for BAD Burger

Several people attending tonight's CB3/SLA meeting sent along an update ... BAD Burger (Breakfast All Day), the 24-diner that opened in November at 171 Avenue A, was on the agenda for a beer and wine license. The restaurant's opening announcement noted that the restaurant would "eventually serve Craft Beer and a Sommelier-honed Wine List."

Owner Keith Masco, according to those in attendance, was looking for the OK to serve beer-wine until 4 a.m. seven days a week, including in BAD's backyard. For their part, committee members offered the alcohol until midnight, though not in the backyard.

Masco then reportedly said, "Just deny it, just deny it," and walked out of the meeting.

There's plenty of history between Masco and the CB3. You can read that here. In an email to us in October 2010, Masco called CB3 members "communists."

[Updated] Fix up your shitty apartment the 1950s way

Gothamist dug up a treasure on YouTube this evening... an unintentionally hilarious video from some time in the 1950s that follows a fictional couple (Jack and Jill!) as they try to make their "unpromising space" into a home on the Lower East Side...



Difficult to cite our favorite moment (so many!)

We did enjoy this woman's fleeting appearance...

And just look at just how small this apartment is! Just slightly larger than, say, a suite at the Pierre. Oh, those poor kids from the 1950s!

What do you think a space this size would run on the LES today? Actually, the landlord would have already chopped up any rental left in a building this old into about six different apartments...

UPDATED:
Thanks to Esquared for pointing out that BoweryBoogie had already posted this gem last summer. Right here.

The King (Gyro) is dead

EV Grieve reader Creature sends along these photos showing that King Gyro on First Avenue between Third Street and Fourth Street has closed...

They opened last April, and seemed to offer an awful lot of options.

Per Robert Sietsema at Fork in the Road last spring:

A gyro rotates in the depths of the kitchen, a couple of guys stand around behind the counter, desultorily stirring the curries, which make up a small proportion of the full menu. There are Middle Eastern specialties, too, and an array of kebabs, fish platters, bagels, breakfasts (including the weird-sounding beef cutlets with egg), pastries, samosas, meat patties, soups, lassis, Greek salads, and South Asian tandoori breads that get as arcane as gobi (cauliflower) paratha, plus fruit juices and smoothies. The king is spreading himself rather thin, don't you think?

Apparently.