Petition calls for an end to so many 'shitty' pizzerias opening up on the Lower East Side

Are you tired of all the $1 pizza places popping up around the neighborhood? Then you're not alone. There's a petition campaign underway directed toward Community Board 3 that calls for more food options… Here's the description of the petition via Change.org:

This is an effort to promote diversity in low to mid-priced food options for New York City's Lower East Side.

Are you sick and tired of pizzerias opening up all over the Lower East Side? With the closures of so many restaurants in the neighborhood, our low to mid-priced food options are dwindling. Pizzerias have over-saturated this part of Manhattan. Sign this petition and maybe Community Board 3 will take notice. *Enough of the L.E.S. pizzeria takeover!*

The petition was launched by No More L.E.S. Pizzerias. The person behind the campaign has lived on the LES for 18 years. We asked the petitioner a few questions via Facebook:

"Yeah, every time a restaurant shutters, it seems like a shitty pizza place is born. I'm sick of it."

What would you like to see an an alternative?

"Anything besides a chain or $1 pizza. More small local joints like Mimi & Coco's Japanese spot. It's just so hard for small places to cover the rent and expenses and still scrape a living wage together."

And without asking...

"And if you were wondering, Rosario's and Nonna's are my favorite pizzerias in the hood."

You may find the petition here.

Film crew recreates 'tent city' in Tompkins Square Park

As we mentioned yesterday, crews continued to film scenes for "Ten Thousand Saints," the coming-of-age drama set in the 1980s East Village.

Aside from turning part of First Avenue into Avenue D, the crew recreated part of tent city from the late 1980s in Tompkins Square Park …









Crew members passed some time by tossing a football…


[Photo by Derek Berg]

We also understand that the crews will recreate scenes from the Tompkins Square Park Riot of 1988 at some point this month.

The film is adapted from the Eleanor Henderson novel "Ten Thousand Saints." The husband-wife team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini direct. (They directed the 2003 Harvey Pekar film "American Splendor" with Paul Giamatti.) The cast includes Ethan Hawke.

Top four photos by Bobby Williams

New mural for East Houston Street building that no one seems to want to buy or rent

[Photo Tuesday by @joncheese]

Worked started on a new mural for 269 E. Houston St. at Suffolk on Tuesday... and as of late yesterday afternoon...



BoweryBoogie ID'd the artist as Queen Andrea, who created a mural advertisement for Converse.

The Local 269 closed here in September 2012. There have been a few potential suitors, though nothing ever came of the various proposals for the bar space. We spotted nine different for rent/sale signs on the business last summer ... The whole building remains on the market for $12 million.

On 2nd Avenue, Red Mango's sign remains on the sidewalk, blocking part of its neighbor's door

[Photo by Goggla]

Not really cool … even though Gelato Ti Amo here between East Fourth Street and East Third Street has not been open ... perhaps it's weather related. (A call to the shop goes unanswered.)

The Red Mango opened earlier this week.

[UPDATED] Reader report: Did Con Ed leave some exposed wires on Avenue B?

A concerned East Village resident sent the above photo and this note...

This is how Con Ed left the repair site directly inside the crosswalks of the Earth School/P.S. 64 on Avenue B and East 5th Street.

One would hope that there is no possibility that a current could exist in these wires. However, they are certainly secured with the shrink-wrap caps that is Con Ed's protocol for securing live cables.

This does not instill confidence. We don't have any way of knowing if the cables are dead or simply capped. Nor does it seem to be an exercise in good judgement to leave the appearance of exposed wires like this within the crosswalks of an elementary school.

And the snowfall that will fall tonight will quickly cover these up…

Updated 9:35 a.m.

Con Ed spokesperson Allan Drury left this comment: "This cable is not live and poses no danger. It previously provided temporary power. We will remove it as soon as weather permits."

[Updated] RIP Maggie Estep

[Photo from October 2013 by Marissa Molnar via Facebook]

Word is spreading that Maggie Estep, the writer-poet-performance artist and all-around cool person who came to some fame while living in the East Village in the early 1990s, has died. She was 50. (She described herself as a "Novelist, occasional poet, dog-lover, handstand enthusiast" on her Facebook page.)

According to friends, she suffered a massive heart attack on Monday.

She published seven novels and two spoken-word CDs. In 1993, she became a familiar presence on MTV, who featured her poetry as well as performances on the network's "Spoken Word Unplugged" program.

From a September 1994 profile in The New York Times:

Success for Ms. Estep hasn't necessarily translated into more material possessions. Her walk-up studio on East Fifth Street looks like the home of a starving artist. The furnishings are spartan. A bookcase crammed with cassettes and novels stands in one corner of the room; a wooden desk crowned with a laptop computer fills the opposite corner, where Ms. Estep spends many an afternoon wrestling with her muse. Other than a loft bed, a couple of beat-up chairs and an electric guitar lying in the middle of the floor, the room is empty.

"I've gotten paranoid now," she said, referring to her recent success. "I think, 'Oh my God, everybody hates me because I get too much attention.'"

She was currently living in Upstate New York and working on a new book.

Estep was born on March 20, 1963, in Summit, N.J.

Here she is in 1994 with "Hey Baby" ...



Updated 12:48 p.m.

Some reaction to news of her death...

RIP Maggie Estep, a brilliantly talented novelist, devoted yogi, and genuine Gen-X counterculture hero. I can't believe it.

— Neal Pollack (@nealpollack) February 12, 2014

When I first encountered Maggie Estep, I was so baffled. I truly appreciate that. It's hard to do something that defies categorization.

— Rumaan Alam (@Rumaan) February 12, 2014

God damn it. RIP Maggie Estep. Heartbreaking news.

— Benjamin Birdie (@BenjaminBirdie) February 12, 2014

Fuck.. Apparently Maggie Estep died today. Rest in peace, girl, you were great.

— angie (@vague_horizons) February 12, 2014

Maggie Estep died. I'm lucky I got to be a kid when they played her videos on MTV. I miss writing "I Love Everybody" on people's sneakers

— elizabeth barker (@elizafishbarker) February 12, 2014

Maggie wasn't just the first spoken word rock star, I'd argue she was the only one. RIP Maggie Estep

— Beth Lisick (@Blisick) February 12, 2014

Updated 2:40 p.m.
The A.V. Club has a nice essay on Estep this afternoon... some thoughts on her writing:

Estep was also a prolific novelist, writing blackly hilarious books full of screwed-up characters in seedy, smutty surroundings, like the dominatrix’s assistant in Diary Of An Emotional Idiot. She also wrote a trilogy of mystery novels (Hex, Gargantuan, and Flamethrower) centered on Ruby Murphy, a recovering alcoholic who gets inadvertently dragged into some of New York’s oddest crimes, usually involving horse racing.

Her most recent novel, 2009’s Alice Fantastic, also revolved around the racetrack, though there, too, it was just a setting for a much larger menagerie of animals, addicts, estranged lovers, lunatics, and others living on the fringe. She also said she had been working for years on The Angelmakers, a novel about female gangsters that she’d “written seven times and not yet gotten right.”

Updated 8:46 p.m.
The New York Times has filed a feature obituary on Estep here.

Here's a photo of Estep from Friday hugging writer Chloe Caldwell at a reading in Rhinebeck, N.Y.


[Via Facebook]

[Updated] First Avenue subbing for Avenue D today

[Feb. 4]

Last time that we checked in with filming for "Ten Thousand Saints," a straight-edge coming-of-age story set in the 1980s East Village, crews fashioned the exterior of 423 E. Sixth St. into "D-Squat."

So "D-Squat" subbed for C-Squat ... and this morning, as these photos from EVG reader Creature show, First Avenue at East Sixth Street is now... Avenue D (thank you EV Arrow!)



...there's also a very pre-Cemusa newsstand stand as a prop ...



Hopefully the camera won't catch Beckham's abs on the side of the tour bus to ruin that 1980s vibe...



The film is adapted from the Eleanor Henderson novel "Ten Thousand Saints." The husband-wife team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini direct. (They directed the 2003 Harvey Pekar film "American Splendor" with Paul Giamatti.) The cast includes Ethan Hawke.

Updated noon:

A reader note the first Ethan Hawke sighting of the day...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Film crew uses 'D Squat' and phone booths to recreate an 1980s East Village on 6th Street

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: Dawn Haberman
Occupation: Employee at Juicy Lucy
Location: Avenue A, Between 5th and 6th Street
Time: 12:30 pm on Monday, Feb 10.

I’m from Rhode Island. I moved here about 13 years ago, right after 9/11, into Ridge Street. A good friend of mine was a makeup artist who had moved here 4 years before and he convinced me to come. I loved it and I loved this neighborhood in particular. I loved the characters and people. It’s diverse and it has everything and everybody. I started working at Juicy Lucy pretty much as soon as I got here. I’m a juice queen, a juice princess.

Juicy Lucy opened a few years before I got here, in 1996 at the stand on 1st and 1st and this location opened in 2000. The stand goes back a long time, although I don’t know the exact year. It is one of the oldest freestanding stands in the city. It used to be a shoeshine stand and it used to be a flower shop. It’s grandfathered in because they don’t allow those structures to be in business anymore.

It’s an amazing spot in the summer. Everyone’s sitting out on the benches. It’s a fun gathering spot. Everybody loves that corner. You have the subway, and you get to people watch and everything. I’ve seen so many interesting outfits and costumes. Halloween is my favorite day here. You get all the little kids in costumes lined up to come in.

The owner is René Henrick. She’s a woman — a woman who has owned a business in New York City since 1996. She’s my hero and she’s a great teacher. We work really closely together now and I feel very much part of this place. She was working as a bartender at Boca Chica and decided that she wanted to do her own thing so she rented the stand on 1st and 1st. She started basically out of nothing. It was slow growing but she built a little niche for herself.

She knew a lot of people in the neighborhood and we still see some of the regular customers who were there from the beginning, the ones who haven’t moved. She’s Cuban so we’re Latin based, a Latin company with a Latin feeling and Latin music. We’re lucky we’re still around. It’s hard because there’s a lot of competition now. We try to stay at the point where we’re small and we want people to be able to have access to this stuff. This is juice for the people. We try to keep the prices low.

The original name was Live Juice. When this store opened we needed a new name and Juicy Lucy’s just stuck. Everyone took to it and it took over the Live Juice name. Everyone asks who Lucy is. All of us are Lucy. I say we’re all Lucy. There is a little older woman who always sees me and says, Lucy!

We’re also doing a lot of catering but our regular customers are our backbone. It’s a nice feeling to be part of the community and neighborhood. That’s our big thing. The community connects me to the place and it makes this place a little warmer. That’s why I’ve stayed so long. There’s not a lot of this left. Hopefully we can stay as long as they’ll have us.

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

Why Jerry's Newsstand will be closed for a few days

Been a pretty banner year so far for Jerry Delakas ... as the city gave him a new lease on the Astor Place newsstand that he has operated since 1987.

Unfortunately, as you can see in the above sign, there's a temporary setback. Jerry has bronchitis and won't be able to reopen the newsstand until he recovers.

Previously on EV Grieve:
City shutters Jerry's Newsstand on Astor Place for 'operating illegally'

How 1 resilient East Village resident helped save Jerry's Newsstand

And then there was one Joey Pepperoni's (within a few blocks of each other)

The Joey Pepperoni's location on IHOP Way East 14th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue has apparently closed, Eater first noted yesterday.

This JPP popped up quickly back in November 2012, turning over an AT&T Store in about two hours.

Meanwhile, the business next door made sure to capitalize on the new-found cheap-pizza void on this side of the street…



JPP fans can still visit the Joey Pepperoni's on First Avenue between East 13th Street and East 14th Street, a location that was alive and well last night along with the other nearby $1 pizza options.

JPP on East 14th Street likely won't be the last $1 pizza casualty. We don't want to speculate on who might be next, but you can!

Previously on EV Grieve:
First Avenue $1 Pizza Wars — now with draft beer

Checking in on the $1 pizza war on First Avenue

Latest weapon in the First Avenue $1 slice wars: Dancing Pizza Menu Woman

Space currently housing Teriyaki Express & Sushi is for lease on Third Avenue

There's a new retail listing for 96 Third Ave. … currently home to the three-year-old Teriyaki Express & Sushi. The listing at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank says that the space will be available in March. The rent for the 1,400-square-foot space is negotiable.

Other particulars: "NO COFFEE, NO CHINESE FOOD, NO BURGERS, NO FROZEN YOGURT." Which makes sense given these are things the adjacent businesses are selling.

This side of the block has seen plenty of changes of late… AAA Amici Pizza on Third Avenue at East 12th Street closed last July. The space will become home to a Funkiberry FroYo shop. Next door, Han Dynasty opened in the fall. Then there was the new Nevada Smiths that opened last spring … ditto for Feast. And just across East 13th Street on the northwest corner is the new bar-restaurant the Brazen Fox. (Finally, The Wayside Cafe and Bar opened at 139 E. 12th Street last July behind the former AAA Amici Pizza.)

Seems like a lot of new businesses for one block these past 12 months...

When Coyote Ugly advertises for new bartenders

Coyote Ugly over on First Avenue between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street is hiring. Here's the all-cap ad via Craigslist if you are interested:

THE WORLD FAMOUS ORIGINAL COYOTE UGLY SALOON IS HIRING FEMALE BARTENDERS WITH
A POSITIVE ATTITUDE AND OUTGOING PERSONALITY! (ALSO HIRING SECURITY WITH THE SAME ATTRIBUTES!)

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY, WE TRAIN THE RIGHT GIRLS!!!

OUR STAFF HAS OPPORTUNITIES TO BE ON TV, TRAVEL ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND MAKE GREAT CASH WITH A COMPANY THAT HAS A PROVEN TRACK RECORD OF SUCCESS FOR OVER 20 YEARS... COME WORK WITH THE BEST!!!

OPEN CALLS FOR BARTENDERS ARE TUESDAYS, WEDNESDAYS AND THURSDAYS FROM 8PM - COME IN EITHER OF THOSE NIGHTS FOR AN AUDITION AND TO FILL OUT AN APPLICATION!

IN MOST CASES WE WILL INTERVIEW ON THE SPOT, YOU MUST BE 21+!!!

DRESS TO IMPRESS AND WEAR YOUR COWBOY BOOTS!!! TO GET AN IDEA OF WHAT YOU SHOULD WEAR FOR THE AUDITION PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE

Or maybe watch the movie.

[Updated] Should we start worrying about the Subway Inn?

[EVG file photo]

Venturing away from the neighborhood for a moment... The well-worn Subway Inn, with that perfect neon sign, has been in business on East 60th Street between Third Avenue and Lexington since 1937 ... however, recent real-estate transactions along here put its longterm future in this space in doubt.

The Real Deal reported yesterday that development firm World-Wide Group bought another building on this block across the street from Bloomingdale's.

What's this mean?

The purchase ... gives World-Wide a total of about 300,000 square feet of development rights along East 60th Street, between Lexington and Third avenues, a source close to the deal said.

The firm had previously acquired 143 (home to the famous dive bar, Subway Inn), 145-147, 149, 151 and 153 East 60th Street. With the new purchase, the firm now owns 200 feet of frontage along East 60th Street.

Nothing is imminent along here... but you have to figure some new project is likely in the pipeline. As The Real Deal pointed out, World-Wide "is active in the city." Among the firm's projects, a 59-story residential tower at 250 E. 57th St. Unless the firm just wants a 77-year-old bar in its portfolio.

So maybe you want to visit the Subway Inn in the coming months. At the right times (like, not a Friday night), it's still a great place. As Jeremiah Moss once wrote, "The Subway Inn will remind you of other bars that have been lost."


[EVG file photo]

Updated 11:45
Gothamist spoke with the bar owner's son, who "seemed unperturbed by the news."

"We're probably going to end up moving somewhere else pretty close in the area. But right now it's not a concern, so we're not looking right now."

Your chance for an anti-Valentine's celebration at Ciao for Now

From the EVG inbox...

Ciao For Now Restaurant/Bakery is offering an unconventional gift idea for this upcoming Valentine’s Day. It is a unique twist on the traditional and much beloved Sweethearts® candies.

Give that special someone in your life a box of freshly baked Sweethearts® cakes with personalized messages. Each gift box is comprised of 4 mini, heart-shaped, layered, buttercream cakes including: Chocolate Ganache, Passion Fruit, Vanilla Raspberry Swirl with Chambord Buttercream, and Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Ciao For Now is also hosting an Anti-Valentine’s Day dinner celebration at their East 12th Street location on Friday, Feb. 14. Enjoy the many perks of singlehood alongside friends by indulging in a delicious Anti-Valentine’s Day themed dinner menu followed by complimentary chair massages, palm readings and broken-hearted cookies.

Ciao For Now is accepting Anti-Valentine’s Day dinner reservations at 212-677-2616.