Deck the walls!: Santa and his reindeer visit the Mystery Lot

Hey! Look who showed up at the Mystery Lot this holiday season...

Festive, yes?

All together now!

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to the Mystery Lot

Thanks to EVG reader Katja for the photo...

More bike corrals on the way for East Village businesses

CB3 has OK'd bike corrals (CityRacks!) for two East Village businesses — the 4th Street Food Co-op and Continuum Cycles on Avenue B.

These will be similar to the ones that the DOT installed in front of Mudspot on East Ninth Street back in April ...

[Photo via EVG reader Robert]

Jill Woodward wrote this last week at the The 4th Street Food Co-op blog:

We need the parking because so many of our members and shoppers arrive by bike, and it can be difficult to find a parking place near the store.

[Outside the 4th Street Co-op last night, via EVG]

The tradeoff is 1-2 fewer spaces for automobiles in exchange for up to 20 spots for cycles. That calculation can result in more business for the neighborhood, according to a recent report by TA.

We also understand that Mudspot and Bluestockings on Allen Street have the go-ahead to expand their current bike corrals... No timelines on when the DOT will install any of these bike racks ... word is early 2013.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Here's your new East Ninth Street bike rack (18 comments)

Good Guys now open on Second Avenue

Subway-replacement Good Guys opened yesterday on Second Avenue near East Ninth Street, per Blue Glass... they are open 24/7, and feature an extensive number of menu items, like wraps, burgers, salads, etc.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Second Avenue Subway now a Good Guys Burger

Another East Village Subway closes

New York Healthy Choice opens today on Avenue C

Several of us have been curious about what to expect from New York Healthy Choice, the new market opening on Avenue C at East 11th Street. Bobby Williams notes that the store opens this morning at 7.

Per an EVG commenter on last week's Healthy Choice post:

The owner of this is the same person/people who own Yankee Deli and the incoming Yankee Pizza across the street.

I spoke with a couple of people at Yankee Deli a few months ago about it and it is essentially going to be a fancier grocery store for the neighborhood with a — their words — "HUUUGEEE butcher counter". So, yay!, good meat.

Was only a week or so from opening at the time of Sandy, but obviously that timeline had to be changed.

The last tenant, the Monk Thrift Shop, closed in December 2010. At the time, neighbors heard that a bank branch would open here.

EV Grieve's last-minute holiday gift ideas

Spotted in the window at Brickman & Sons on First Avenue...

You know how it is sometimes. You're at the bar with your friends, and everyone seems to be talking at once! You need to cut through the clutter and make your point! Then look no further than the Mega-Sound Megaphone, which will slip easily into one of the three or four bags that you're carrying. It's also good for tracking down your friends who may have stranded you on a quiet side street at 3 a.m.

Perhaps you can think of other uses for it. Regardless, it's $9.99.

* Requires four C batteries

A gift idea for the Mama's Food Shop lover in your life

And now a more serious gift idea... Yesterday we heard from Jeremiah Clancy, the former owner of Mama's Food Shop, which closed after 15 years in July...

We are selling a Mama's commemorative tee for any one that misses the old Shop on East 3rd Street. They are $35 and can be ordered by contacting the Mama's email through Jan. 1. The shirts are unisex and are light gray – they come in XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL.

His friend Alexia Stamatiou designed the shirts.

On the horizon

A view downtown from the East Village ... via Bobby Williams...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[St. Mark's Place via Bobby Williams]

Nuyorican Poets Cafe will hold a benefit tomorrow to raise money to replace its heating system (The Lo-Down ... NY1)

SantaCon's citywide reign of terror and stupidity (DNAinfo)

Relive the Hell of SantaCon — in video! (Slum Goddess)

Wisdom from "While We Were Sleeping: NYU and the Destruction of New York" (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Just how loud is The DL on Delancey? (BoweryBoogie)

Union Square parking garage will be converted into condos (Curbed)

Another MTA fare hike (Gothamist)

City wants seasonal indoor trapeze program at the Hamilton Fish Park Recreation Center (DNAinfo)

Holiday lights at One World Trade (The Gog Log)

...and the Mighty Quinn opened this morning at Second Avenue and East Sixth Street...

We are proud to announce that we'll be opening the doors of our East Village restaurant tomorrow @ 11am.Come join us! yfrog.com/oc1rgwpbj

— Mighty Quinn's BBQ (@MightyQuinnsBBQ) December 18, 2012

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.

By James Maher

Name: Ben Treuhaft (and Zsofi)
Occupation: Piano Tuner
Location: 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd Ave.
Time: 12:15 on Saturday, Dec. 17

I’ve lived in the neighborhood since 1998. I’m from Oakland. I’m a piano tuner and I had my piano shop in Berkeley for about 25 years. And then I got sick to death of the Bay Area. I was 50 years old and 50 years was enough, so I rented a Ryder truck and drove my whole piano shop out this way.

When I arrived I didn’t have any customers, although I was the big fish in Berkeley. My background was with the Steinway Concert Department and I had no trouble getting a gigantic clientele over there. I worked with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music even though I didn’t wear shoes until I was 35 years old. I was barefoot. I was a hippie, you know. Everybody put their shoes back on but I didn’t. I just went around with no shoes on because I figured it was so much more comfortable. It became almost a religion with me. I would go to the Conservatory of Music and I would pat around with no shoes. Then, I figured when I was 35 years old that I could make a little bit more money if I put shoes on. So I sold out and wore shoes after that.

I also started an idea called Send a Piana to Havana. I named it after Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army. It was an enema for Clinton’s blocked up Cuba policy. It was great for awhile. We got famous. We were all over the news. We were famous in Cuba too and everybody loved us.

Then everybody got bored with us. We started a piano tuning school there that was accredited. I was getting these big huge piano tuners to come in and do these annual brigades in Cuba. And it turns out that the Cuban authorities were pissed off rather than enjoying it because they stopped helping us. We now think that they think that we were corrupt, which is really weird. We’re finding this out now. We don’t know the end of the story yet. We still get thanked all around the world in concert.

Let me tell you the best thing about moving out here. When I got here, even though I didn’t have any customers, the few I had were jaw-droppingly better than the ones I had in Berkeley. The people are much more interesting here than my cohorts in the Bay Area. It took me four years before I got any clientele, and then it blossomed from there. I have a little piano shop on the Lower East Side, on Essex and Rivington. It’s a little rat hole. I’m going to keep it even though we’re moving to Edinburgh [this week], to Scotland. We’re having a garage sale now of our furniture and seven pianos.

My wife is a scientist and she got a job at The University of Edinburgh. We’re moving there for a few years at least. She moved to the neighborhood the year before I did. She was from Hungary. I'm Hungarian also, and in 1999, I was in Moishe’s around the corner and my wife-to-be was working there ... I said, “Hey listen, I like you Olga ... come and work in my piano shop.” And she said okay and we worked together until she said, “You know, my dream is to be a biologist.” I told her to pursue that and six years later she’s written nature articles, she’s like a big Ph.D., and she’s got post-doc offers in Japan and Scotland. She’s amazing.

Paul’s "Da Burger Joint" — that is one of my favorite places in the world. Also, I like McSorley's but it’s only good in the afternoon. And one last favorite thing, Colin Huggins — the Crazy Piano Guy. He plays under the arch in Washington Square Park and he’s one of my absolute favorite customers. You tune the piano outside with everybody around and it’s so nice and when I’m done he lets me sit under the piano and lie there for awhile and listen to the music. He’s a very good pianist. Under the piano, under a grand piano, is the best place to listen to music. That’s my other favorite place in New York, under his piano.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Iris Bakery Cafe replacing Rockit Scientist Records on St. Mark's Place

The sign is up here now ... and as you can see, they are hiring... Not sure what kind of bakery this will be ... we heard in the fall that it will be a bubble tea shop... Or perhaps it will be one that sells bread. Or it will be more like Eastside Bakery.net a few storefronts away. Or a bakery that will become a bar after they receive a liquor license just to pair with their croissants.

Rockit Scientist owner John Kioussis decided not to renew his lease here, as Jeremiah Moss first reported.

2 retail spaces available at the former Cabrini Center on Avenue B and East Fifth Street

Here are two photos from this week showing the progress of the former Cabrini Center's conversion to an 80-unit residential building on Avenue B and East Fifth Street...

[Bobby Williams]

[Dave on 7th]

Meanwhile, here's more information about the two retail spaces that will be available in the former nursing home...

There are two spaces of comparable size available (listing is here — PDF) ...

There isn't any mention of rent. A few details per the listing:

Comments:
• New retail space being redeveloped at the base of an 80-unit residential building.
• Rising income levels.
• Growing residential population.
• All quality uses considered.

A lot of things rising and growing around here ...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Cabrini Center patients out by the end of today; closes for good June 30

Q-and-A with Patricia Krasnausky, president and CEO of Cabrini Eldercare

What John Legend got for his home off the Bowery

Well, we might as well bring this story to some closure... brokers listed John Legend's condo at 52E4 — the 15 stories of condo on the Bowery and East Fourth Street — back in September 2011. The price for the Grammy winner's two-bedroom home started at $2.95 million — but two markdowns (5 percent total!) brought it to $2.795 million.

According to public records filed on Dec. 11, the final selling price was $2.675 million. (The buyer is apparently a CFO with a global innovation firm. Unless it's a different person with the same name as the buyer...)

Per the records, Legend paid $1.9 million for the place in November 2009. But! Per Curbed, he hired Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics to make some adjustments to the place, fancy additions that apparently added some value. Legend has since moved his Grammys to Broome Street, where there isn't a 7-Eleven on the ground level.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Because you wanted to see John Legend's half-naked model girlfriend in her Bowery home

[Image via Streeteasy]

Here is the new awning at Doc Holliday's on Avenue A

Last Tuesday, workers removed the well-worn awning outside the saloon here at East Ninth Street...

And one week later... the new-look awning went up ...

[Top photos by Bobby Williams]

...and the old one via Google... pretty similar, though the word "restaurant" no longer appears... didn't recall that they even served food...

Hetal Convenience Store has apparently closed on First Avenue

The Hetal Convenience Store on First Avenue just south of East Seventh Street has been closed of late. Earlier this week, EV resident Bill the libertarian anarchist noticed the gate slightly open. He looked inside and saw that workers had cleared out the storefront. (Another reader said that she spotted workers standing in a now-empty space last night.)

The store, which, among other things, featured an array of Polish-language magazines, has been around since at least the early 1980s. Has anyone heard why the store may have closed?

DNAinfo included owner Gary Patel in an August 2010 feature about the city's new bike lanes:

Other merchants that rely on taxi traffic said that despite the negative impact on business, the city is safer overall with the new bike lanes.

"I don't have any problems. The city is better," said Patel, owner of the Hetal Convenience Store on First Avenue near East Seventh Street, noting he's fine with the fact that he has lost about 10 cabdriver patrons a day due to the new lanes.