Duke's is gone

After our post on Monday about Duke's on Avenue C ... several readers confirmed that the neighborhood bar near East Eight Street closed at the beginning of the year. A walk by yesterday confirms this: The signs had been removed; and workers have started taking down the bar...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Has Duke's closed?

Former Vampire Freaks space on the market

Shawn Chittle brings word that the former home of Vampire Freaks, which closed on Avenue A near 12th Street at the start of the year, is now for rent. No signs up (yet) ... but the landlord, Mr. Desider Weinberg, is asking $8,000 a month, including basement — good for 1,400 square feet.

And you may even get to keep this as it is ...

And you can you can still order the Vampire Freaks apparel online here.

Awnings for 5 Napkin Burger — and its sidewalk cafe

East Village resident Rob took this photo on the way to work yesterday ... not sure if the awnings at the incoming hamburger joint on 14th Street at Third Avenue will be big enough to cover their sidewalk cafe.

On Monday night, the CB3/SLA committee OK'd a sidewalk cafe for 5 Napkin, as Eater reported.

Previously, we questioned whether there was even enough room for a sidewalk cafe here. We took the following photos in the morning during the holidays. Just wait until, say, 7 p.m. some nice spring night.

Guess we'll find out.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Will there be enough room for a sidewalk cafe outside the new 5 Napkin Burger on 14th and Third?

When the Palladium came down

Speaking of 14th Street and Third Avenue... James and Karla Murray passed along the above shot that they came across in their archives — a mural revealed during the Palladium demolition... the view is looking east on 14th Street ... The Palladium closed in 1999 and was later torn down to make way for the NYU dorm of the same name...

Looking at an elementary school that costs $31,900 annually on East Second Street

[Rooftop rendering via the World Class website]

Back in July 2010, we had a post about the World Class Learning Academy taking over the LaSalle Academy space on Second Street and Second Avenue. As we learned, tuition for the U.K.-based independent school (for ages 3 to 11) could go as high as $32,000.

Anyway, the school opened back in September ... yesterday afternoon, Business Insider dropped a feature about the school. Abby Rogers reported how the older kids are learning about chocolate. They have a tasting day. The students will also visit a local chocolate maker and learn about chocolate-related issues, such as fair trade.

"That's what really sets us apart from everybody else," Headmaster John Taylor said when discussing the school's unique take on learning.

As Business Insider noted, students in kindergarten through fifth grade pay $31,900 in tuition annually. There's also a $50 application fee and a one-time $2,000 "new student" fee.

Anyway, in case you want a look inside the school, there's a slideshow here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Blimey!: World Class Learning Academy takes over La Salle Academy space on Second Street

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...