Report: May Day march through East Village leads to several arrests

[Via EVG friend Heidi on Facebook]

May Day began around 9 a.m. ... as the NYPD arrived at Tompkins Square Park... ahead of the march to Union Square that was to commemorate International Worker's Day.

By 1 p.m., per those in Tompkins Square Park, about 100-125 people had peacefully gathered for the rally...



According to accounts in The New York Times and on Gothamist, the group started walking north on Avenue A around 2 p.m. ... when we received these photos from a tipster showing people heading east down East 11th Street...





Per Colin Moynihan at the Times:

At 11th Street, the marchers suddenly turned east and began running in the roadway, some of them brandishing red and black flags. The police gave chase. At Avenue C and 12th Street, an officer tried to grab a black banner with the words “Never Work” from a man, who scrambled away.

Several people taking part in the rally were reportedly arrested here.

The group reassembled and continued to East 14th Street, where they turned to keep going toward Union Square...

At Second Avenue, the crowd turned north and a moment later a police commander wearing a white shirt began moving briskly toward a young man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and walking on the sidewalk.

Then more than a dozen other officers, some uniformed and others in plain clothes, plunged into the crowd of marchers, grabbing and arresting at least three additional protesters, shoving others against a wall and pushing news photographers.

Gothamist captured part of this scene on video:



According to Gothamist, the group, "followed by at least 100 NYPD officers on scooters, in vans, and on foot, then marched to Union Square without incident."

Read the Gothamist story here. Find the Times article here.

Depending on the source, either five or six people were arrested.

Throughout the rest of the day, many people noted the presence of helicopters buzzing about the neighborhood...

Noted

Croxley Ales on Avenue B remains closed ... until the city gives the OK for the bar and the residents upstairs to return to the building apparently damaged by construction next door.

Meanwhile, someone from Mama's Bar set up the chalkboard sign out front noting that they are showing the Knicks-Celtics game down on the corner...

Eastside Bakery has closed

A tipster passes along word that workers have cleaned out Eastside Bakery (.net?) on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place... the place is now empty. No note.



This whole northwest corner here is up for grabs. Cohen's Fashion Optical moved out about two months ago... Michael "Bao" Huynh's Baoguette Cafe around on St. Mark's Place closed last fall... and Timi's Gelateria Classica™ closed in December 2011.

Hey, the space is all empty for the Gap to return!

Previously on EV Grieve:
Roastown Coffee coming to Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place

Citi Bikes docking station now alongside Tompkins Square Park on East 10th Street

[Photo via @TYJK]

Oops. Sorry. I originally wrote that this was inside the Park. Nevermind!

Seems like this is better spot for a docking station... alongside the Park on East 10th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B? And for people upset about these things taking up parking spots... not really an issue here.

An East Village view of what will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere

Bobby Williams took this photo from his perch in the East Village... showing the glass nearing the top of One World Trade Center ... Still waiting for that last piece of the spire and a steel beacon to cap the building at 1,776 feet.

Per The Atlantic, "it will officially become the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the third-tallest building in the world, behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Abraj Al Bait Clock Tower in Mecca."

And did you see the views from inside the 100th-Floor Observation Deck from last month?

Here's another Citi Bikes docking station for St. Mark's Place

This morning, Shawn Chittle spotted workers installing the Citi Bikes docking station on the north side of St. Mark's Place ... just east of Second Avenue...







Early Monday morning, workers installed the docking stations on the same side of St. Mark's closer to First Avenue.

Per Citi Bikes:

• North side of St. Mark's Place near Second Avenue
This station will have 39 docks and is located in a no-parking area of the street.

• North side of St. Mark's Place near First Avenue
This station will have 31 docks and is located in a no-parking area of the street.

So 70 docks total for the block. (Perhaps we can now call this stretch Citi Bikes Place?)

And if the FDNY seemed annoyed by one docking station on this block... wait until they see this...

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: Terry
Occupation: Factory Worker
Location: 6th Street and 2nd Avenue
Time: 12:15 on Monday, April 29

I’m coming from Social Tees [Animal Rescue]. I know the owner since it’s where I take my other four cats. Right now I have an apartment in Crown Heights and I heard [the kitten] crying there for three days. I thought he was a bird and I couldn’t find him at first.

He’s a baby. The mother left him. His eye was shut so I took him upstairs and flushed it with hot water and then I gave him some Amoxicillin. I don’t know why but something told me to give him that for the infection. And then I gave him some stuff for his eye.

My family is Basque. They come from the Pyrenees mountain from Spain and France. I'm from 7th Street and Avenue B. I’m 60 years old. This is where I’m from. I’ve been all around the Lower East Side. I‘ve lived in other places but this has always been home.

I mostly worked in factories. I put together costume jewelry. It was no big thing. I worked in publishing. I write and I used to write a lot of poetry. I even tried acting school.

My whole family was down here. They never left. This was my real family, but when I was young I was given to foster parents in the Bronx and I got raped and beat up and all of that by them. I’ve suffered.

I’ve been in the streets most of my life. I had my friends and my family around here, but I didn’t go to my family. I don’t know how I survived. I hardly ate. I wouldn’t ask anybody for anything. I was too traumatized. People would come and bring my food and I would shake in my boots because I didn’t want anybody to touch me. And I didn’t know how to ask for help.

So I started hanging out with gay people. They were accepting. But I was never gay. They just assumed I was. I was always very quiet or sad. I was never talkative. I don’t know how to tell you how I went through all that trauma and survived it.

I think it has a lot to do with being Basque. Our history is very interesting. When I say I’m Basque to somebody that knows what it is they go, “What?” We’re cavemen — all the way from the caves.

I tried drugs in my 30s. I started late. Before that I was just trying to get through my own trauma. I was lucky I started late or I would’ve been dead. I’ve never seen so many weird people in my life. I’ve seen rock stars; I’ve seen movie stars come here — all that stuff. I remember the lines around the block for drugs. People just didn’t care I guess. It was wild; it was a wild town.

The cat is fine. He’s fighting. If I let him walk, he’ll walk all over me, but I can’t yet because I don’t want him to get sick. I know what it’s like to suffer and that’s why I like to rescue things. It’s to be human.

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

Reader report: Citi Bikes to arrive at the end of the month

[Photo on East 4th Street by @LinzaPinz]

As you may have noticed, Citi Bikes docking stations have been arriving here fastly and furiously the last 72 hours... during the docking station installation on East 13th Street yesterday, a supervisor type handing out flyers told EVG reader Gary the following (paraphrased):

He said that bikes will be in the end of May ... and that it is a 1-year pilot program for Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. If it is successful, then it will roll out in the rest of the city.

Meanwhile, check out the Citi Bike site for how it all works here ... and their FAQs.

Residents shuttle from the Mars Bar building to Jupiter 21

[July 2011]

Catching up with this feature yesterday in The Wall Street Journal... which provides an update on Jupiter 21, the residential building at the former site of Mars Bar and the buildings at Second Avenue and East First Street...



Several of the residents of the former buildings will be moving into co-ops here at the promised rate of $10. (You can read the article for all the background on how this deal transpired.)

In an unusual blend of old and new New York, nine long-term tenants of two small buildings on Second Avenue struck deals to buy cooperative units in a new 12-story building, where they will share hallways with 51 mostly young renters — many new to New York and unfamiliar with the neighborhood's history.

The bulky new building will be known as Jupiter 21, and will feature a model of the planet Jupiter hanging in the lobby.

Rents for the rest of the new residents will range from $3,000 to $10,000 a month.

And returning residents such as Andrea Legge, an artist who lived in the previous building for decades, won't be subjected to Jupiter 21's leftovers.

"I am grateful they didn't give us lowlifes apartments in the back," she said. "I feel hugely entitled to this luxury apartment, but I feel completely unworthy of it at the same time."

The longtime residents also discussed how the block looked in the 1980s.

"There was nothing romantic about it," Ms. Legge said. "There were needle junkies in the basements. It stunk and it was all so over."

[Image via Gothamist, reposted with permission]

Now will the Mars Bar return as well?

Previously.

51 Astor Place sidewalk bridge is coming down...

Via Twitter yesterday afternoon, @kxd8053 let us know that workers were starting to remove the remaining section of the sidewalk bridge around 51 Astor Place... which provides a slightly less obstructed view of...
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And a few commenters here and on Facebook have said that they are starting to come around a bit to the building...

Cafe, tapas bar proposed for former Avenue B pet shop

Zee's Pet Shop closed up here on Avenue B just south of East 10th Street last spring. Now there's an applicant with designs on opening a 30-seat cafe-tapas bar with a retail component. The applicants will appear before the CB3/SLA committee this month.

Reps for Donostia (EV Cafe LLC), 155 Avenue B, filed an application on the CB3 website for a beer-wine license. Here's what we know from looking at the document online (PDF):

• The proposed hours are 10 a.m. to midnight.

• Listed food: "Spanish tapas, sandwiches, salads, meats, cheeses, etc."

• "The principal has worked as an employee a several fine dining establishments including Craft, db Bistro Moderne, Estiatorio Milos."

And a reminder about the meeting info:

SLA & DCA Licensing Committee
Monday, May 20 at 6:30pm — University Settlement Neighborhood Center
189 Allen Street (btwn Houston & Stanton Sts) (north of main entrance)

Amex shoot takes over Avenue A skid row for the afternoon

A crew was on Avenue A at East Seventh Street today filming some sort of commercial involving, well – all this...



... along the site that usually looks like this of late...





Perhaps becoming the edgy go-to spot now for shoots.

Photos today by Bobby Williams.

[Updated] And here is the Citi Bikes docking station on East 13th Street at Avenue A

On the south side of the street just east of the Avenue... photos via EVG reader Gary.





Now just 49,764 Citi Bikes post remain for the week...

Updated 3:03

Final product, via @danielleintheev ...

Citi Bikes docking station arrives on East Seventh Street at Avenue A

Happening this afternoon...





At some point we'll recap how many have been dropped off. Find the map here showing the bike share locations.

And these photos are courtesy of Michael Sullivan, who along with his business partner Aaron Thorp, recently opened WINESHOP at 438 E. Ninth St. (Previously the brief home of Cigkoftem, the Turkish vegetarian fast-food chain...)

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...and another reader submitted shot from the corner... via Craig S.