The 38th annual Ukrainian Festival is this weekend

The annual event is, as always, on Seventh Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square.

And how is the weather looking for the festivities Friday through Sunday?

Here's the exclusive EVG forecast … Friday is not looking so swell at the moment…

Matiell Consignment Shop leaving the East Village

After five years here at 350 E. Ninth St., Matiell is leaving for the roomier confines of the Upper East Side at the end of the month... a sign on the door notes they will have triple the space at their new home on the corner of East 87th and Lex...



Good for Matiell for finding such spacious accommodations ... perhaps more bad retail news for this stretch of East Ninth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue ... where storefronts are yielding to real-estate offices.

Also, as previously reported, the owners of Archangel Antiques are retiring ... and the storefront at No. 334 a few doors to the west is closing on June 30.

The the Bhakti Center café returns today

[EVG file photo]

From the EVG inbox…

After much hard work, we are pleased to announce that the Bhakti Center café is reopening [today] as “Taste of Bhakti.” In tandem with the new Bhakti Boutique gift shop, Taste of Bhakti will occupy the first floor space, supporting the Bhakti Center with wonderful prasadam, a welcoming space for visitors, and a steady source of income for the Bhakti Center.

The café will open [today] in honor of the Bhakti Center’s celebration of the Appearance Day of Lord Nrsimhadev, serving light snacks and drinks from 11 AM with a free prasadam feast at 9 PM as part of the festival. The café will also serve a full meal (for sale) on Saturday, May 17 during the Six-Hour Kirtan. Otherwise, the café will continue hours of 11 AM – 5 PM with light snacks and drinks until the full opening on May 22nd with dinner hours of 5-10 PM Tuesday through Saturday and Sunday brunch 11 AM – 3 PM. The café is closed Mondays.

A few more highlights:
The café will served standard items every day of the week with rotating specials: Italian on Tuesdays, Indian on Wednesdays, Mediterranean on Fridays, and Thai on Sundays.

The gift shop has beads, books, clothing, jewelry, instruments, incense, music, temple worship items and home décor, and will be open Monday from 2 PM to 8 PM, Tuesday through Saturday 10 AM to 10 PM and Sunday from 10 AM to 3:30 PM.

The Bhakti Center is at 25 First Ave. between East First Street and East Second Street.

Report: St. Mark's Bookshop signs lease for East 3rd Street space

[EVG file photo of 136 E. Third St.]

St. Mark's Bookshop has signed the lease at 136 E. Third St. just west of Avenue A, The New York Times reports this evening.

The bookshop, which has struggled in recent years with the rents at its current Third Avenue home, expects to move this fall.

Details from the Times:

The new store will be half the size of the current one, but the rent of $6,000 is barely one-quarter of the $23,500 charged by their landlord on Third Avenue, the Cooper Union. The store has had support from writers and readers, and raised more than $40,000 on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo (the campaign continues through Friday). The new landlord is the city. The owners are exploring a transition to nonprofit status.

Back in November, Publishers Weekly reported that St. Mark's Bookshop had found a new retail space "in the East Village in a space near Avenue A and Third Street." We did a little guess-detective work and figured that the bookshop was moving to this space on East Third Street, where Landmark Bicycles was housed before moving to the northwest corner of East Third and Avenue A.

Jeremiah Moss was first to get confirmation of the move in March.

Finally some positive news amid all the closures.

[Updated] Report: Murder suspect's mother says her son was high on Molly at the time of attack

[Photo last night by Frank Franca]

The mother of Jamie Pugh, the 20-year-old suspect in the beating death of 68-year-old Ruan Wen Hui, told DNAinfo today that someone slipped the club-drug Molly into his drink last Friday evening while partying.

"He wasn't in his right state of mind," Charlotte Pugh-Douglas said before her son's arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court today.

Police arrested Pugh early yesterday morning. He has reportedly been charged with second-degree murder, robbery and assault.

Per the report in DNAinfo:

Pugh didn’t even know about the attack until one of his friends showed him the chilling surveillance footage over the weekend and said the attacker looked like him.

"When he saw the video, it killed him inside. It hurt him. He was crying all weekend. He knows it's him. He just didn't remember," Pugh-Douglas said.

Hui, a retired garment worker who lived on Avenue C and East Seventh Street with his wife, died from his injuries Saturday night. He had just dropped off his two granddaughters after a trip to a nearby playground when the attack occurred.

Police have said that it was an attempted robbery. Pugh has prior arrests for robbery and drugs, according to published reports.

Updated 9:06

CBS New York reports that a judge ordered Pugh to be held without bail.

Per CBS:

As the victim lay dying on the sidewalk, Pugh allegedly continued down the street and yelled, “This is my block,” police said.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: East Village resident dies from injuries sustained in brutal attack (25 comments)

[UPDATED] Reward for info on East 6th Street assault; plus video of the attack (34 comments)

[Updated] Family mourns Ruan Wen Hui as police hunt suspect in deadly assault on E. 6th St.

Exclusive: East Village Radio is signing off after 11 years; final day of broadcasting is May 23

[Image via]

East Village Radio, the 11-year-old Internet radio station with a tiny storefront studio on First Avenue, is shutting down operations next week.

"Every time we get a new listener, it costs us more money with licensing fees and Internet costs," East Village Radio CEO Frank Prisinzano said in a phone interview. "After doing some projections, we see that it is going to be very, very difficult for us to continue to break even."

The station ends live programming after Friday, May 23. The stable of eclectic DJs, with shows covering nearly every genre of music, will have the chance to broadcast a farewell show in the days ahead. (In addition, the station is releasing all of the archived shows to each DJ so that he or she can shop around for a new gig or syndication.)

Popularity hasn't been an issue with East Village Radio, who counted more than 1 million listeners worldwide a month (this after starting as a short-lived 10-watt FM radio station in April 2003). However, under the Congressional Digital Music Copyright Act of 1998, Internet broadcasters must pay a digital performance royalty for every listener.

"We pay a higher rate for royalties and licensing than Pandora pays. We live in a world where these behemouth music-streaming services keep going in for more capital," said Peter Ferraro, the general manager/head of programming at East Village Radio. "It's almost like we are being penalized for our growth.

"It's very difficult for an independent medium music company to survive in a world where Apple is paying $3.2 billion for Beats by Dre."

Still, East Village Radio was integral to the success of breaking new acts and giving airplay to musicians you might not have ever heard. The street-level studio was also a popular draw, bringing in celebrated music veterans such as Lou Reed (oops — he was a call-in), Richard Hell and John Lydon, among many others, through the years. You never knew who you might spot inside the studio at 19 First Ave. between East First Street and East Second Street.

[Duran Duran from 2010 via EVG]

While the programming is commercial free, East Village radio has survived by the advertising on its website and, most important, the funding from Prisinzano, the chef who owns neighborhood restaurants Frank, Lil Frankies, Supper and Sauce.

The radio operation was the proverbial labor of love, and a way to do something for the East Village.

"It has always been really pure to me. From the beginning I was thinking I had to give something back to this neighborhood," Prisinzano said. "I was worried about the music scene moving out to Brooklyn. It was important to represent the neighborhood."

So the thought of selling part of the station to secure the necessary funding to continue on with East Village Radio was never an option for Prisinzano and Ferraro.

"I don’t want to give up the integrity of the station. The only way that I really see it continuting is by bringing in another benefactor who would take over part of the station. I really don't want to do that. Pete and I understand the neighborhood. We want to run the station. I don’t want to sell it out," Prisinzano said.

Said Ferraro, "If another media or VC company came in, I don’t know if they would have understood the nuance of being local but global. There was a certain localness that we feel proud to be part of. But the mission has always been to amplify that out to the world, but to have it point back to the neighborhood."


[DJ Hannah Rad photographed last August by James Maher]

Prisinzano said that he isn't done with the East Village.

"I'm looking to come up with something else now. I have a lot of ideas. This particular model failed. We closed it down. I'll build up a little more capital and come up with a different idea," he said. "I'm really sad about the decision, but I think it has inspired people to do similar things all over the planet. We started out as a pirate radio station, and we decided to amplify it and design the local Internet radio model ourselves. The model is untenable. It just doesn't work. It's the system's fault. There isn't any legislation that will ever be written without someone lobbying for it. We can't afford lobbyists."

Prisinzano and Ferraro are still processing what the station's legacy might be.

"I hope that history proves to be kind to us," Ferraro said.

"This was a beautiful, amazing thing. I think something really positive will come out of this," Prisinzano said. "We took it to where we could take it. We are proud of what we did. Now it's time to stop. And that's OK."

Empire Biscuit has to be closed today on National Biscuit Day

Well, that sucks.

In a subsequent Facebook comment, the folks at Empire Biscuit say they will now have to do the cooking for volunteers of AIDS Walk New York from one of their apartments.

And later:

"As far as National Biscuit Day festivities, we'd planned to serve everything on the menu for $1 for 1 hour on Wednesday night. Party, right? (We'lll probably be having a cleaning party instead.) Maybe we'll go ahead with it one day next week, but for now we've got a lot of nonsense to deal with."

Empire Biscuit is at 198 Avenue A.


[Photo by Kristy Splendorio via Facebook]

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

Names: Alan and Beverly Lefkowitz
Occupations: Psychotherapists
Location: Tompkins Square Park
Time: 2 pm on Friday, May 9

Alan: I’m from 10th Street between A and B. I was born across the street. My grandmother bought this building about 100 years ago. Two siblings live in the building now. Five generations in the same building.

My grandparents came from Austria. We’re Jewish. They bought a building and had a grocery up the block but didn’t talk much about it. We’ve all gone to the same grammar school on 12th Street between B and C. My grandson goes there now.

What’s funny for me is seeing all the different stores. The corner store on Avenue B and 10th street used to be the candy store and the bookie. The architecture in the area is somewhat similar but the stores are completely different.

In the [family] building most of the people I grew up with are still there. It’s mostly the same. On one level the area is nicer but on another you can’t afford to live here. It’s hard to keep the building up with rent control. I hate what’s going on here, but when I grew up you wanted to get out of here.

I grew up with gangs. You couldn’t go in the Park at night and you couldn’t walk down the street. You were careful and had eyes in the back of your head. You couldn’t walk down certain blocks. I almost got killed a couple times by gangs. I got beat up and robbed. They had knives. There were a lot of drugs, especially on the corner of 7th Street and Avenue B, but the thing that saved this block was that it was the bus route, so there were no cars parked during the days. It was one of the few streets that you didn’t have drug dealing.

We’re both psychotherapists. I grew up in an Orthodox family and decided that I didn’t believe in God when I was 5, so I had a lot of conflict with my family. I left home when I was 16. I knew I was crazy. I think I read all of Freud when I was 12 or 13 trying to figure out what was wrong with me, which was really terrifying.

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

118 E. 1st St. arrives on the market with so many possibilities, and air rights

[Photo via Streeteasy]

There's a new listing for 118 E. First St. ... in that area where East First Street, Avenue A and East Houston all converge.

According to the listing at Streeteasy, the property has a total approximate square footage of 3,900 — with an additional 9,000 square feet of air-rights. The folks at Marcus & Millichap are peddling the building as either "a cash flowing asset, retail-user opportunity or a development site."

Let's have the listing break it down for us...

Cash Flow Opportunity: The property contains a total of three free market apartments and one retail space. The residential portion consists of one three-bedroom, one two-bedroom and one one-bedroom. All three apartments are on month to month leases and tenants are responsible for their own heat. All the residential units have been renovated, are in fantastic condition and offer great details such as exposed bricks and decorative fire places. The 1,300 square foot retail space on the ground floor is currently vacant, with a projected rent of $12,000 per month ($111 per square foot).

Retail User Opportunity: The 1,300 square foot retail space's ideal user would be for a restaurant/bar, with an approximate 800 square foot court yard/garden. The property features highly coveted East Houston frontage and is located directly across from the famed Katz's Delicatessen and steps away from Whole Foods.

Development Site: The property contains an approximate 9,000 square feet of additional air rights. Feasibility studies done over the past couple years have determined a new structure could be built with approximately 12,500 square feet. The property is subject to the "sliver law," however, in the past year there has been Zoning Reports from the city that have ruled 118 east 1st street as being on a "Wide Street," due to East Houston Frontage.

Price: $5.15 million.

In a different lifetime, 118 E. First St. was home to Darinka, the performance space that Gary Ray opened in 1983 (RIP — 1987). Darinka's many performers through the years included house band They Might Be Giants and cabaret nights hosted by Steve Buscemi and Mark Boone Junior.

We've been meaning to do a Darinka post, so we'll revisit this topic again soon.

The demolition gets serious on East 14th Street

Last Monday, workers began taking apart the single-level buildings on East 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

The crew has moved on from hand tools now, as the above photo by James and Karla Murray shows. (This looks to be the former ABC Animal Hospital.)

Workers are making room for two, 7-floor retail-residential buildings featuring 150 residential units.

Also, as EVG Facebook friend Michael Paul noted, Monday marked the 4-year anniversary of the fire on East 14th Street and Avenue A that wiped out Stuyvesant Grocery, Pete's-a-Place, Jackson Hewitt and the beauty shop ... an event that perhaps set this whole development in motion?

[Photo by EVG reader Sergey]

Previously on EV Grieve:
New 7-floor buildings for East 14th Street include 150 residential units

Black Ant opening in style tonight

Tonight marks the grand opening of Black Ant, the new Mexican restaurant from the owners of Ofrenda in the West Village.

Here's the menu for Black Ant, located at 60 Second Ave. near East Third Street.

And there are musical guests.

Very excited to announce legendary Mexican Artist DJ/Producer @NortecCollectiv will be performing live at our May 14th Grand Opening!!

— Black Ant NYC (@BlackAntNYC) May 9, 2014

Wake up!



Anyway, Black Ant takes over the space that previously housed Bona Fides.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Team behind Ofrenda bringing Black Ant to the East Village

Perp walk at the 9th Precinct for suspect charged in deadly beating of 68-year-old Ruan Wen Hui

Early this morning, police arrested 20-year-old Jamie Pugh in connection with the deadly beating of 68-year-old Ruan Wen Hui. Pugh has reportedly been charged with second-degree murder, robbery and assault.

Tonight, Pugh was led out of the the 9th Precinct on East Fifth Street in front of the assembled media…





Hui, a retired garment worker who lived on Avenue C and East Seventh Street with his wife, died from his injuries Saturday night. He had just dropped off his two granddaughters after a trip to a nearby playground when the attack occurred.

Police have said that it was an attempted robbery. Pugh has prior arrests for robbery and drugs, according to published reports.

Photos by Frank Franca.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: East Village resident dies from injuries sustained in brutal attack (25 comments)

[UPDATED] Reward for info on East 6th Street assault; plus video of the attack (34 comments)

[Updated] Family mourns Ruan Wen Hui as police hunt suspect in deadly assault on E. 6th St.

A look at Cope2's work on the Houston/Bowery Mural Wall

[Click on image for more detail]

From this afternoon … where veteran Bronx graffiti artist Cope2 has been working on the Houston/Bowery Mural Wall …

Read more about this at Gothamist … Complex … Animal NY … and BoweryBoogie.

Public hearing tomorrow night on making the M8 bus weekend service permanent

[Photo by Fallopia Tuba]

The M8 weekend service to and from the West Village returned on April 6 ... apparently it's not a permanent thing just yet. The M8 is one of the routes up for discussion tomorrow night.

Per the MTA:

MTA New York City Transit invites you to comment on the following proposed changes ...

M8 Weekend Service
To make permanent Saturday and Sunday service on the M8, operating between the West Village and East Village. Weekend service operates every 30 minutes between 7 am and 1 am on Saturdays and Sundays. This service was introduced on an experimental basis on April 6.

Meeting details:
Wednesday, May 14
Start Time: 5:30 p.m.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority Headquarters
347 Madison Avenue
Board Room, 5th Floor

So, you have two ways of speaking out about this. You may register online to speak at this hearing. Or, for those residents who are unable to attend, you may submit a comment online. Go HERE for more info on the meeting and to submit a comment.

Anyway, if the city would just widen these narrow side streets so that we can fit more cars on them, then we wouldn't need stupid buses. Right? Right??? (Heh.)

The weekend service was discontinued in June 2010 to help ease the MTA's $400 million financial shortfall. This route and others came back via NYC Transit's "2013-14 Service Enhancements Program."