Revisiting the 1980s videos of Nelson Sullivan

Though the years we've posted some of Nelson Sullivan's 1980s videos, including "The first nice Sunday of 1987 in the East Village" ...



... and "Walk with Tish Gervais in the East Village of the mid-1980s"...



A post showing a lot more of Sullivan's work yesterday at Gothamist reminded us of these. In total, Sullivan shot more than 1,900 hours of tape over a period of seven years. Head over to Gothamist for a lot more of his time capsules of downtown life.

His video archive was donated to NYU's Fales Library & Special Collections in 2012.

Sullivan died of a heart attack on July 4, 1989.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The East Village of Nelson Sullivan

The first nice Sunday of 1987 in the East Village

'The Fabulous Personalities of 1980s New York'

Raclette bringing French fare to 195 Avenue A

The sign is up for the new tenant coming to 195 Avenue A just north of East 12th Street.

The Raclette sign promises croques and tartines. We don't know anything else about the cafe at the moment.

However, on the April 2012 CB3/SLA committee docket there was a Raclette going for a wine and beer license in the former Jubb's Longevity space at 508 E. 12th St. Those plans never materialized. (And the same name and concept can't be a coincidence.)

The previous tenant here, Brooklyn Piggies, which sold pigs in a blanket, closed in late November.

About the condofication of the Congregation Mezritch Synagogue on East 6th Street

[Photo from April 2014 by Bobby Williams]

Renovations continue to convert the Congregation Mezritch Synagogue at 415 E. Sixth St. into luxury condos.

The landmarked building between Avenue A and First Avenue was in disrepair and the congregation's population had dwindled. Synagogue leaders signed a 99-year lease with East River Partners worth some $1.2 million. The renovations include a penthouse addition and an elevator. The synagogue will reportedly retain space on the ground floor for their use.

The Daily News offered up a few more details about the plans here. For starters, sales for the three units will commence this fall, though developer Jody Kriss of East River Partners declined to discuss pricing.

In addition, East River Partners are planning "to pay an annual maintenance fee to keep the shul running for 200 more years."

And what about the controversy regarding the condo conversion when the plans were first announced?

"Back when we started the construction, people would curse me out," Kriss added. "But when they found out that we were preserving the synagogue, and not demolishing it, they wanted to shake my hand, instead."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Plan to add condos to historic East Sixth Street synagogue back on

Play spot the potential penthouse atop the East Village synagogue

A final look inside the Anshei Meseritz synagogue on East Sixth Street

Stained-glass windows removed ahead of condo conversion at Congregation Mezritch Synagogue

M. White has officially closed on East 13th Street

We hadn't seen the lounge at 448 E. 13th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue open lately. For good reasons. According to a tipster, M. White called it quits about two weeks ago.

M. White, formerly known as Mug Lounge, was temporarily home to a post-Heathers venue.

Paul Kostabi on the gates at 12th and C

Earlier today, local musician-artist-locksmith Paul Kostabi created these new sprkl-infused murals for the gates outside the 12CGallery on Avenue C at East 12th Street...

PandaCat provided the photos...









... and here are two more shots via Robert Galinsky ...





Brooklyn-based illustrator/painter Tatyana Fazlalizadeh created a new mural last Saturday on the East 12th Street side.

(And because someone will bring it up: There were reports of gunshots at this intersection on Tuesday.)

Hey, the MTA upped the cost to ride subways and buses today

[EVG file photo]

From The Times:

The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted [today] to raise the base fare on subways and buses by a quarter, to $2.75, and the cost of a 30-day MetroCard by $4.50, to $116.50.

The new fares, which will take effect on March 22, were part of a package of increases approved for the system’s trains, buses, tunnels and bridges.

Read the whole article here.

Report: Jukebox-revenue dispute forces the Continental to file for bankruptcy

[Image via]

The Continental filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month, its second filing since 2009, Crain's reports.

At issue, a jukebox-revenue dispute that "eventually snowballed into a lawsuit that went on for about seven years." The lawsuit ended in arbitration with $49,762.96 awarded to PLK Vending, according to Crain's.

Owner Trigger Smith said that he will "do everything in [his] power to keep this bar going."

After 15 years as a live-music venue, the Continental at 25 Third Ave. near St. Mark's Place ditched the stage for a "classy dive bar" makeover in 2006. As Crain's notes, the jukebox at the center of the legal dispute replaced the bands.

Flashback to an article in The Villager in February 2006 about the venue discontinuing live music.

“It’s sad that places like this are closing, but times are changing,” said Justin Weiner, a 24-year-old real estate financial analyst, who read a newspaper while he waited for his friend’s band, Against the Wall, to play. Now a lot of people hear new music on MySpace.com, not in clubs, he said.

H/T Eater

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion just made the best-ever New York City music video

The new record from the Blues Explosion, titled "Freedom Tower - No Wave Dance Party 2015," drops March 24 on Mom+Pop Music.

Ahead of that, the band unveils a trailer for the single, "Do The Get Down."

Our friend Alex at Flaming Pablum thinks that it "just might be the most NYC video of all time" ... noting it's "a visual love letter to New York City's colorful cultural past."

Indeed, check it out... and tally up the pop-cultural references (Alex did here)...



And Allen Cordell was the editor who put all this together...

New residential building at former 14th Street PO will feature a quiet lounge, private dining room

The new eight-story residential building coming to the site of the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office will include exercise and rec rooms, a quiet lounge and private dining room.

The Post reported on more details on the mixed-use building for 432-438 E. 14th St. just west of Avenue A.

Benenson Capital Partners, whose company has owned the site since the 1940s, is teaming with Mack Real Estate Group on the project.

Per the article:

The 134,000-square-foot, mixed-use building is being planned to fit seamlessly into this Lower East Side neighborhood. “We are working to develop something timeless from a design perspective and contextual from a scale perspective,” said [CEO Richard] Mack of the low structure that will have plenty of light and air.

Its 114 apartments are being targeted toward millennials, while its 15,400 square feet of ground-floor retail is right across the street from the people-packed Stuyvesant Town.

Construction is expected to start this spring, according to the Post. Demolition permits were ordered in October to bring down the post office and the former Stuyvesant Stationery shop next door.

SLCE Architects are listed as the designer of record. (Any renderings floating around out there?) That firm's résumé includes such high-profile projects as the Bloomberg mothership on Lexington Avenue and the Blue building on the Lower East Side.

Meanwhile, earlier in the week, we saw that the post office doors were open … beckoning us inside, perhaps to wait in line one last time for that package that the worker probably isn't even looking for in the back room…



Previously on EV Grieve:
Today in rants: the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office

Meanwhile, at everyone's favorite local post office branch...

UPDATED: Did you hear the rumor about the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office branch closing?

Report: Closure of the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office is pretty much a done deal

First sign of more development on East 14th Street?

Asbestos abatement to begin at former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office

Davey drill arrives ahead of rumored development at former East 14th Street post office

Former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office slated to be demolished

The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office will yield to an 8-story residential building

Gena's Grill is back open, and that is a good thing

Gena's has reopened after workers renovated the small space here at 210 First Ave. near East 13th Street these past few weeks...

A steam table sits where the 6-seat lunch counter used to be...



Seems to speed up the to-go operation (not that it was slow previously) ... there are four tables...



... and the same inexpensive Latin fare as before...

Fat Sal's debuts neighborhood's first $2,400 pizza

EVG reader Dan Moran caught this pricing typo while ordering online from Fat Sal's on Avenue A…



Heh.

Per Dan: "Perhaps they fly to Italy for the Fresh Mozzarella?"

All-new 212 E. 14th St. seeks retail tenant

The gut renovating carries on over at 212 E. 14th St. near Third Avenue. Workers have added a sixth floor to the building nestled between the Jefferson's retail spaces (and Chickpea)...



New store for rent signs are up now on the sidewalk bridge … the listing isn't online, so if you are interested in the space, then you need to call…



The storefront was most recently the Super Saving Store, which closed in June 2011. Irving Klaw's Movie Star News, which specialized in celebrity stills and Hollywood pin-ups, had a store on the second floor at this address seemingly 1,000 years ago.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Residential, retail and an additional floor for 212 E. 14th St.

[Updated] Did the Pinkberry close on St. Mark's Place?

Slum Goddess noticed that the FroYo hotspot was closed last evening during business hours... and looking suspiciously closed for good.

The storefront at 24 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue remains closed today... the phone goes unanswered... and they seem to be off of Seamless...



Strange timing for a closure... just days before the 10th anniversary they've been touting on the front window ... (this sign is gone too...)


[Photo by Slum Goddess]

H/T Jordy Trachtenberg

Updated 4:58

A reader noted that the windows have been covered with paper…



Updated 1-22

BoweryBoogie reports that the Pinkberry on Spring Street has also closed.

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: Gala Darling
Occupation: Writer, Blogger, Teacher at galadarling.com
Location: 9th Street between B and C
Time: 2 pm on Thursday, Dec. 18

I lived in New Zealand till I was 23. I always wanted to live in New York City. When I was younger I could recite the dialogue from "Ghostbusters," and was always reading books that were set in NYC. I got really obsessed with the city. I remember when I was 12 sitting in the Wellington Public Library with a stack of New York travel guides and making lists of all the places I wanted to visit.

I always wanted to be a writer and when I was 13 or 14, my parents and teachers started to say things like, "You’ll never make any money doing that, so you should have a backup plan." My father wanted me to be a journalist or a lawyer and I just didn’t want to do that. I went to university when I was 16 because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I went to university and I was like, "This is shit, I don’t want to do this. I don’t really know what I want to do and I don’t want to waste my parents’ money fucking around trying to figure it out."

I left. I was still living with my parents, and they told me, "You have to get a job." I got a job at a bank, selling home loans over the phone. It was the most boring job ever but I was making quite good money for someone who had no expenses. I would spend all my money on plane tickets to Auckland and back. Then I held a succession of random jobs: I sold newspaper advertising over the phone; I was a fiction buyer at a university bookshop; I worked on the sales desk in ISP; I did administrative, call-center shit — horrible stuff. Really soul-murdering.

Then I moved to Melbourne, Australia. I went for a job interview at a clothing store and they didn’t employ me. I was mortified because I had been managing a Lush Cosmetics store, and retail was one thing I was good at. So I made a list of things that were creative and enjoyable and would also support me.

Starting a blog was the cheapest and easiest thing to do. I wanted to start a magazine but I had no money so I thought, "I’ll start a blog and I’ll see how it works and then maybe it’ll work and I’ll transition it to a magazine." And it’s been so good that I don’t want to transition it to a magazine.

I started galadarling.com in 2006 but I had been journaling online since 1997, which is basically when I got an Internet connection. I was sharing my angsty poetry and all that stuff because I was a sad teenager. I would build websites on Geocities and Tripod and I had a RocketMail account. I didn’t realize it but that was job training for what I do now. I was always an Internet obsessive, and would get in trouble at every job for spending too much time online!

I started writing about style and fashion, and six months into it, I got an email from the editor of Cosmopolitan Australia. It landed in my spam folder, which I’m so glad I checked. She said, "We would like to give you a column in our magazine, we’ll give you the whole back page every month." Holy shit. You’re going to pay me to do this? So I started to do that and my profile rose quickly because of it. People would start to yell my name on the street, or tweet that they had seen me in public, and it was really crazy.

A lot of what I am doing with my website is helping women deal with fear. Everyone’s afraid of doing something that’s too bold or too risky. Most people would rather be unhappy than uncomfortable. If they’re comfortable but unhappy they’re okay with it, because it’s the uncertainty that people don’t like. So what I’m trying to get people to do is take that first step. You only really feel anxiety when you’re not moving or taking action; when you’re stuck and not doing anything; when you’re overthinking things.

And so my goal is to start getting women to take those steps, whether it’s being grateful, or using affirmations, or ritual, or journaling. There are so many ways that you can get there. But once you start taking those little steps, it’s not so terrifying. Once you’re in it, you don’t really have room to be terrified. You have to keep moving forward.

In 2008, I came over to NYC with my boyfriend at the time. The city was just so alive and so much energy. I felt like everyone here had a purpose and that they were here for a reason. It inspired me, because I was looking to find my purpose. We stayed for a week or two and at the end he had to London for work and then back to Melbourne. I said, "You know what, there’s no rush to go back to Australia, I’m just going to stay here for awhile."

I thought I would be here for a month, but it ended up being three months, which was the length of my temporary visa. By the time that three months was over our relationship was finished. I flew to Australia, packed up all my stuff, shipped it to my parents’ house, and started working out how to get a visa so I could live here. I got an O-1 visa and moved here for good.

My first apartment was this sublet in the West Village. It was beautiful. The toilet was in the hallway, of course, and the shower was in the kitchen, but it was clean and minimal, and to me it was perfect. I remember just walking around the city in the summer, being so excited and practically buzzing with energy. There was a guy who would roll his piano into Father Demo Square and play it every night. My next sublet was on 13th between A and B. It was completely crooked, and there was a lot of taxidermy everywhere. Then I moved in with the guy I was dating, we got married, and we have been living in Alphabet City ever since.

My husband worked at MTV for 15 years and when he met me he was like, "You make money doing this?!" The thing I’m most happy about with my work is that I feel like I can evolve and that’s not just accepted, it’s encouraged. I can continue to change and be true to who I am and not have to fake it for people. Making it in a creative industry is hard — I think creatives are like cockroaches, we will always find a new way to persevere, to make it work — but the freedom is so incredible. I can’t ask for a more rewarding or amazing job than this.

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