Friends and family searching for Brandyn Simmons, last seen in the East Village

Brandyn Simmons, who most recently was living in Williamsburg, was last seen Sunday evening leaving a friend's apartment on Third Avenue and East 12th Street...

Out and About in the East Village, Part 1

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: Arthur Nersesian
Occupation: Writer
Location: Angelina Café, Avenue A between 2nd and 3rd Street
Time: 1 pm on Wednesday, Nov. 19

I was born and raised in the city. My grandfather was born on 9th Street and Avenue B, behind St. Brigid’s in 1899, so I didn’t make it very far. My mother’s side is Irish and my father’s side is Armenian. I grew up in Midtown for my first 10 years of life, on 50th and 3rd, when it was still a low- to middle-income German-Irish neighborhood. Our entire block got evicted. We had lived in a 5-story tenement and we paid something like $50 a month for an entire month, rent controlled. Of course the whole block was evicted and now it’s a 75-story office building.

Throughout my life we’d come down to the Village. I had memories of coming to the East Village when my mother was getting her MSW at NYU. I have this indelible memory of seeing the Alamo, the black cube in Astor Place.

But through the early 1970s, Broadway was kind of the Rubicon that you didn’t pass. East of Broadway you were kind of asking for it. I remember in the early 1970s venturing down to the East River Park for the first time and just being amazed by how far east the city went down here.

A story that I always tell is when I lost my virginity. It was a girl who was living between A and B on 7th Street, in 1973 or 1974. I was about 16 years old. I remember, we had the sacred moment and then as I was walking home it was totally desolate and somebody was sort of throwing bottles and cursing at me. I just thought this is not worth losing your virginity for. I was convinced I was not going to make it. I was trying to make it to 3rd Avenue because cabs did not go East of 3rd. I thought, I am going to die here tonight and it wasn’t worth it. The moment that every young man craves, but all I remember is the terror. I don’t remember anything erotic about it. Am I going to make it out of the East Village? I’m never coming back here again.

As someone who was born and raised in the city, I remember seeing it steadily getting worse. I mean, everyone I knew back then kind of saw it as going the way of Detroit. I thought New York was going to go under. Everyone had an escape plan. Everyone had gotten mugged and burglarized. People don’t understand. You paid your rent with your guts and everybody had stories, if not a story. You just saw the city shrinking. I really thought I was going to have to find somewhere else to move to, after three generations.

If you had asked a 1979 Arthur Nersesian how New York would look in 2014, I would have said by this point Midtown would be part of the slum that stretched from Crown Heights and Brownsville and Bed-Stuy. The Lower East Side would have completely encompassed Midtown. You saw the city shrinking, spreading into this metastasized cancer of the city going under.

But I ended up moving into the East Village when I was 22. I had been hanging out here throughout the 1970s as it slowly got better and then in 1981 I moved to where I am now on First Avenue.

The 1980s was the hippie entrepreneur period and there was a lot of collective work. It was affordability, the notion of grabbing a storefront and turning it into an art gallery. You did feel this sense of possibility. I was part of the Lower East Side Literary Journal.

It’s amazing how this area had these wonderful artistic communities within this tight area, these music communities, the punks on up, to the artistic communities, the abstract expressionists on 10th Street, a theatre community, little theatre row, even a film community all packed into this one area with a certain level of overlap. And then you had these overlapping demographics, such as the local Latin community and some of the old time Italian and Jewish community people. They made for a really interesting stew. It was just a perfect balance of economy and artistry and sensibility and a kind of anarchy where you felt like you could do stuff. You felt like you could be left alone. It was just a really great place to grow up as an artist and to find your footing.

I did every kind of odd job you can imagine. Just in this neighborhood, I worked in the St. Marks Cinema on the corner of 2nd Avenue and St. Mark's Place at $3.35 an hour. It was rough. It was the hardest money you ever earned in your life. It’s always that way, the lowest pay and the hardest work. You had to deal with a lot of the locals, the tougher kids, and you had to deal with the alcoholics and addicts and so on. For $3.35 an hour to take a punch, that was a pretty hard way to make a living. After that I managed the Cinema Village over on 12th Street.

That was the invisible, x-factor here. It was kind of unwieldy, tough, and at the same time it kept things very real. Second Avenue from St. Mark's to 5th Street would be lined with people who basically just went through the garbage cans and found what they could and they would put it on a blanket. I’d get everything from clothes, to books, to you name it — old phones, antiques. I don’t know if any of them were actually stolen but they seemed to be recovered. There was this active grassroots economy of people who came here and unfolded their wares.

I always wrote. It took time to learn how to do it. Writing is a wonderful calling but it’s a bad profession. I always equate it to being a heroin addict without getting high. You spend your whole life struggling to do this thing, to set time aside so you can write. You beg, borrow and steal to be able to create the time to do all this work. And I’m regarded as this relative success. My 11th book came out and I’m still doing odd jobs. It’s a hell of a profession.

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

Next week: Arthur Nersesian learns that one of his novels is being made into a movie in Tompkins Square Park. "The PA stops me and says, 'I'm sorry we're shooting a film here you can't come in.’ So I said, 'Can I ask what's the name of the film you’re shooting?' And they said, 'My Dead Boyfriend, it's based on a novel by Arthur Nersesian called dogrun.' And I said, 'Oh shit, I’m Arthur Nersesian…"

A bar called Matty's in the works for Idle Hands on Avenue B

Idle Hands looks to be changing ownership.

The bar at 25 Avenue B near East Second Street is on this month's CB3/SLA committee docket.

According to the paperwork (PDF!) on file at the CB3 website, Idle Hands is scheduled for a corporate change… as you can see, seven partners (essentially everyone) are leaving the corporation, and three new ones are joining…



The new venture will be Matty's, whose owners ran a gay bar in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., called Matty's on the Drive.

Here's how the New Times Broward-Palm Beach described Matty's on the Drive:

Gather on the far end of the room and take on formidable opponents at Wii Sports, or just kick back and wait for the man of your choice to approach you with his best pickup line. Wild Wednesdays score you 75-cent drafts and well drinks at Matty's on the Drive. And don't forget to try the signature grape martinis.

Matty's closed in late 2012 following a year-long legal case.

There's no word yet on what kind of bar Matty's will be on Avenue B.

In October, Allan Mannarelli, an owner of The Cock, decided to withdraw his application for moving his bar from Second Avenue to the Idle Hands space when it became clear that the CB3/SLA committee was going to issue a denial.

The CB3/SLA committee meeting is Monday night at 6:30 in the CB3 offices, 59 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

However, according to the docket, this item will NOT be heard during the meeting. Strange, given that the space will be under new ownership, yet the corporate name remains the same.

Apocalypse now? Here comes the End of Avenue A Block Association

RyanAvenueA spotted the above flyer on his front door last evening… too late to attend the meeting the newly formed (and apocalyptically named) End of Avenue A Block Association had at Boulton & Watt.

At the meeting, reps from Boulton & Watt, The Library, Ella, 2A and Yerba Buena were expected to attend. Curiously enough, reps from bars (Double Down and Kelly's) on the east side of the Avenue were not listed.

The flyer also did not contain any contact information for prospective members or bloggers.

The Dee Dee Ramone Exhibition arrives at the Hotel Chelsea Storefront Gallery next week

Via the EVG inbox...

The Dee Dee Ramone Exhibition will be held in Dee Dee’s home turf of NYC for the first time ever at the Hotel Chelsea Storefront Gallery (222 West 23rd Street), from December 10th, 2014 – January 1st, 2015. The launch of this exhibit will offer a preview of the soon-to-be-released Fender Dee Dee Ramone Limited Edition Signature Precision Bass guitar, a tool used by the enigmatic Ramone to leave his indelible fingerprint on rock history for generations to come.

This historic exhibition sanctioned by the rock legends’ own estate, will celebrate all of the facets of Dee Dee’s long-lasting artistic legacy: a founding member of the Ramones, one of the most influential punk-rock bassists and primary, prolific songwriter of world famous group, as well as his work in the visual arts – proving that Dee Dee, who began painting more seriously in 1996, was an artist in every sense of the word. The breadth of Dee Dee’s art and achievements is so wide that one of his paintings, to be featured in the exhibit, was recently showcased in a question on America’s favorite quiz show Jeopardy.

In addition to featuring Dee Dee’s art, writings and fashions, the Dee Dee Ramone exhibition will also include iconic photographs by the likes of Bob Gruen, Mick Rock, Chris Stein (Blondie), Ed Perlstein, Stephanie Chernikowski, Keith Green and more.

Previous exhibits of Dee Dee’s work have been held at La Luz De Jesus and famed street artist Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects galleries in Los Angeles, and is now being presented in New York for the first time.

Holiday happenings at 7B

Early this morning, we spotted some of the holiday decorations arriving at 7B/Vazac's/Horseshoe Bar ... and since then, there has been plenty of progress in the annual trimming of the bar on Avenue B at East Seventh Street...

EVG regulars Riley McCormick and Riian Kant-McCormick share these photos...





No word if any bartenders were injured during the decorating festivities...



Previously on EV Grieve:
The 7B days of Christmas the holidays

Keith Haring sculpture arrives at 51 Astor Place

51 Astor Place, already sporting a Jeff Koons lobby rabbit, is home for now to this Keith Haring sculpture.

Workers this morning were preparing to install the "Self Portrait" from 1989.





No word at the moment if the sculpture (a replica?) is on loan or will be here permanently on Third Avenue at St. Mark's Place ...

City deems East Village Bed & Coffee an 'illegal hotel' on Avenue C

East Village Bed & Coffee has operated as a bed and caffeinated-beverage breakfast these past 16 years at 110 Avenue C near East Seventh Street.

No longer, though. A sign on the door explains…



The city issued a Partial Vacate Order on Nov. 24 … noting an "illegally converted 2 family house and business … into 11 class B rooming units."

DOB officials affixed this notice to the door last Monday.



As we understand it, East Village Bed & Coffee, despite its history, got caught up in the state's Airbnb crackdown … and its proprietor, longtime East Village resident Anne Edris, is beside herself.


[Photo by Laura Zelasnic]

Top photos by Dave on 7th

Does this 'Alphabet City' mural on Avenue C represent the community?

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

If you've been over on the southwest corner of Avenue C and East Sixth Street in the last week or so, then you've likely seen the new mural in progress on the (rather mysterious) RCN Cable building.

The mural, called "Alphabet City," is the work of Brooklyn-based artists The Yok and Sheryo who work for the Jersey City-based arts group Green Villain.


[Photo last week by Magic Brian]

All this has arrived with controversy, according to The Villager:

Is RCN whitewashing Loisaida culture and history? Celebrated street artist Antonio "Chico" Garcia and the community group Loisaida Inc. are crying foul after the company nixed their plan to create a mural celebrating L.E.S. “heroes” on the RCN cable building on Avenue C.

Apparently RCN officials are still pissed at Chico for his unauthorized Obama-McCain murals back in 2008. (RCN finally had them painted over in 2010.)


[EVG photo from 2008]

Elizabeth Colon, a founder of Loisaida Inc., told The Villager, "Is that what they think the community is, ‘A, B, C, D’? When we were talking about representing 50 or 60 years of Lower East Side history?"

You can read the rest of The Villager piece here.

And here was how the RCN wall was looking back in the summer…



Previously on EV Grieve:
RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

Holding up 95 Avenue A

Just looking at the structural repairs underway at 95 Avenue A at East Sixth Street.

Ravi DeRossi told Eater last month that the building housing his bars Cienfuegos, Amor y Amargo and Gin Palace is sinking into the ground.

Gin Palace closed on Nov. 6 and is expected to be out of commission for at least two months. (The other two bars remain open.)

Looks like a pretty serious operation...



The repair costs are estimated at $100,000.

From cleansing souls to cleansing clothes at 96 Avenue B

Workers are fitting 96 Avenue B – previously home to the Hare Krishnas — with a laundromat, EVG contributor Dave on 7th notes.

The Hare Krishnas moved out of their home here between East Sixth Street and East Seventh Street back in July 2011 ... The space has been vacant since then.

Previously, from 1990-1995, 96 Avenue B was home to Metropolis Vintage Apparel...

[1994, via Richard Colligan]

...which has been at 43 Third Ave. between Ninth Street and 10th Street since 1995.

Plans to add two floors to the existing two-floor building never materialized. East Yoga is housed on the second level.

Benefit show tomorrow for Food for Life at Tompkins Square Park

Via the EVG inbox this evening…

Our 4th annual tribute to "The Band" and their epic farewell show. Benefitting the great work done by Food for Life at Tompkins Square Park, and their 3x weekly program of serving hot, healthy meals to anyone in need.

Here's the Facebook event page with more details on the show tomorrow night at The Bitter End at 147 Bleecker.

Noted

@evgrieve Best thrown out bed ever. pic.twitter.com/F2h0y8TgRq

— EdenBrower (@edenbrower) December 1, 2014

Spotted this evening on First Avenue and East Fifth Street… maybe the rain just cleaned it and didn't ruin this treasure…

Oh fudge, Puddin' popped for incomplete paperwork

The City has temporarily closed Puddin', the small shop at 102 St. Mark's Place that sells pudding, pudding-filled cakes and Frozen Puddin' Pops.

The note on the door here between Avenue A and First Avenue explains: "Oh fudge! We forgot some paperwork. Be back soon!"