"Today our community's heart is breaking. My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this tragedy. I am working closely with emergency services, my colleagues in government and with community leaders to respond to this horrible event. I thank the people of New York for the outpouring of concern and support. We pray for the victims and their families."
Crazy explosion on 7 and 2nd east village #fire #explosion pic.twitter.com/U3Z4mx3Wut
— J K (@Jamie_S_Kennedy) March 26, 2015Just heard an explosion and my entire building shook!! #explosion #manhattan #eastvillage
— Tosha Ryan (@Tosha_Ryan) March 26, 2015There was just an explosion on 2nd avenue and 7th street east village pic.twitter.com/jvSbfdCSSe
— Jonathan (@jmeyers44) March 26, 2015
MAN 3-ALARM 125 2 AVE, MIXED OCCUPANCY MAJOR BUILDING COLLAPSE,
— FDNY (@FDNY) March 26, 2015
@evgrieve Building exploded. pic.twitter.com/ChTrXe2bRJ
— Liberation Iannillo (@liberationnyc) March 26, 2015123 Second Ave explosion. FDNY here. pic.twitter.com/fvpeeu6fhp
— Scott Westerfeld (@ScottWesterfeld) March 26, 2015Second Ave is closed to traffic from 9th Street all the way to Houston. Crowd control underway. No pedestrians allowed from 9th to 7th.
— Scott Westerfeld (@ScottWesterfeld) March 26, 2015U/D Manhattan: 125 2 Ave FDNY reporting 3 FireFighters missing. Search on the way 10-66 Transmitted. #FDNY #BREAKING pic.twitter.com/AftWTCRNCg
— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) March 26, 2015125 2 Ave FDNY reporting 3 FireFighters missing. Search on the way 10-66 Transmitted. #FDNY #BREAKING pic.twitter.com/OjmROq5CXk @evgrieve
— urban myths, legends (@urbanmyths) March 26, 2015Building partially collapsed on 7th St and 2nd av #eastvillage @evgrieve pic.twitter.com/ogvrXa20hl
— Hansley Yunez (@hyunez) March 26, 2015Unreal! Those poor people. @tinman_131: 123 2nd ave Fire @evgrieve #eastvillage #fire #FDNY #NYC pic.twitter.com/tzn5jezwMr
— Liberation Iannillo (@liberationnyc) March 26, 2015
The FDNY arrived on the scene to find a sushi restaurant on the lower level collapsed and smoke pluming throughout the building. Then flames began shooting through the roof and quickly spread to a neighboring building.
Firefighters were pouring water onto the flames, but they had to pull back due to the intensity, and fire officials expected one or both of the buildings would eventually fall.
In East Village, firefighters draw water from a block away. pic.twitter.com/InD683Exhh
— Stephen Nessen (@s_nessen) March 26, 2015LOOK: Aerial view of East Village explosion via @NYPDSpecialops; more coverage on @CBSNLive http://t.co/FRGD8IS3m1 pic.twitter.com/YtHXmSAEdx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 26, 2015#BREAKING: Aerial view of building collapse @NYPD9Pct. Numerous rescue units on scene #SOD #ESU #K9 #Aviation #FD pic.twitter.com/d9iX4GOBUd
— NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) March 26, 2015
@evgrieve from my roof now. pic.twitter.com/VN9hYYYh61
— EdenBrower (@edenbrower) March 26, 2015#RedCross is at the scene of the #EastVillage fire/collapse to support affected residents. #RCDAR
— NY Red Cross (@redcrossny) March 26, 2015#NYC get ready to help with clothes, etc and help the @RedCross as there were 20 apts.. People displaced, all is gone. Pray.
— Katie (@TalkerNewYorker) March 26, 2015A preliminary investigation indicated the fire and building collapse was due to a gas explosion, the official said.
The scene created chaos in the East Village, a neighborhood filled with apartment buildings, restaurants and bars. Perry Kroll, who lives a block away, said he felt his whole building shake, and all of his neighbors spilled out into the street.
“There’s an epic smoke column rising from the block,” he said. “I can see really big flames everywhere and chunks of ash falling from the sky. It looks like a building just blew out into the street. It’s just absolute chaos.”
Dear Families,
By now I am sure you've heard about the building collapse/fire in the Lower East Side. Our school will be used as a Red Cross Shelter for displaced families starting tonight. If you, or anyone you know needs any kind of assistance, please let me know.
Video shows East Village building collapsing after explosion and intense fire. (courtesy of Daniel Berkowitz.) Watch updates LIVE on NY1: http://bit.ly/1ACyxrg
Posted by NY1 on Thursday, March 26, 2015
Clarification from FDNY. blast inside 121 2nd ave. that five story building and 123 next door collapsed, damage to 119 and 125. #1010wins
— Al Jones (@aljoneswins) March 26, 2015A powerful explosion in the East Village on Thursday caused two buildings to collapse and ignited a large fire that quickly spread to neighboring buildings, leaving at least a dozen people injured, at least three of them critically.
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, speaking at a news conference at the scene, said that “preliminary evidence suggests a gas-related explosion” was caused by plumbing and gas work being done at 121 Second Avenue, near Seventh Street.
The explosion and ensuing fire destroyed that building and led to the collapse of an adjacent building, 123 Second Avenue.
Two other buildings were damaged, and one of those buildings was still in danger of collapse, officials said.
This is my street right now #EastVillage pic.twitter.com/FGjDWOTLUP
— Julia (@juliabackon) March 26, 2015
[EVG file photo]The probe includes a look at several decisions by Cooper Union’s past and present trustees, according to people familiar with the investigation. Among them: a $175 million loan, using the Chrysler building as collateral, to help finance more than $100 million in new Greenwich Village facilities, the people said.
Mr. Schneiderman’s office is also reviewing the terms of the school’s lease agreement at the Midtown skyscraper with real-estate company Tishman Speyer, a bonus that the board approved for former President George Campbell Jr. and potential inaccuracies about the board’s financial decisions on the school’s official website, the people said.
He's probably having some kind of celebration / party in his new space. People need to get lives and mind their business. Now the guy is getting written up on blogs?
Peter Brant is bringing much-needed class and sophistication to this neighborhood. If you want your squats back move to Detroit. Echoing the previous commenter: get lives just because you can't afford champagne!
This will be the FIRST "official" parish meeting regarding the merger since the announcement was made on November 2, 2014.
Every meeting and discussion we (the parishioners) have had so far has taken place outside of the church and in the social hall because we weren't allowed to have an open discussion inside our church.
This is an opportunity to ask important questions and let them know why our church should remain open. It’s imperative that we all attend so that we may be taken seriously.
Church of the Nativity. 44 Second Ave. between East Second Street and East Third Street
Wednesday, March 25, 7 p.m.
Name: Regina Bartkoff and Charles Schick
Occupation: Artists, Performers
Location: 292 E. 3rd Street between Avenue C and D
Time: 7 pm on Thursday, March 12
Picking up from part 1 last week, where Regina was talking about her job working with horses at the Aqueduct Racetrack in her native Queens...
Regina: I didn’t want to be at the track forever and I didn’t know what I was doing, so I left and took the A train to Manhattan and got a job at WABC Radio. I don’t know why I did that. The whole thing started again. I had no friends and they thought I was weird and I was so depressed. I missed being outside. I felt my soul shrinking.
And then one day this temp came in and she had this black hair and cowboy boots and I remember just looking at her. And at 3 she just put her feet up on the desk and said, ‘No human being can work past 3.’ I said, ‘Yeah but they’re paying us till 5.’ And she said, ‘I’m a director and I have acting classes.’ She asked me to join them. The class just blew my mind because everything she talked about method acting was just incredible to me. I just fell in love with it. I just stuck with it. I met a boyfriend in the class and life was starting to come together.
I did a play down here and I came down to the Lower East Side and the first thing I fell in love with was Leshko’s and Odessa. My friends at the time said, ‘Why do you like this? It’s dangerous.’ Tompkins Square Park at the time was called ‘dog shit park.’ There would be like a million dogs running around the park and you would not walk through it at night. My friend Al said, ‘I’m going to try it.’
He got held up about six times walking through the park. I came down here walking around Avenue D. It looked like there were a thousand people on the street. I said, ‘What are these people doing? They said, ‘Hey little girl get out of here if you don’t know what they’re doing.’ This whole drug sale was going on. I don’t know why, but nothing flipped me out. I didn’t care if it was dangerous — there was life here.
I had a job at Phebe’s and then at an all-night restaurant, where I met Charlie. I didn’t like him at first. I though he was real arrogant. By then I was not the same shy person anymore. I was just on the Lower East Side, this little punk girl, in love with art. It was like the Leonard Cohen song, there was music on Clinton Street all through the evening. I loved it even more.
I remember when Charlie took me down to see his apartment on the Lower East Side. We all went there and he didn’t have money for canvas and so he just used his walls — all totally painted, the ceilings too. I thought it was magic and I said, ‘I want to do that.’ And he said, ‘yeah just get some canvases, some paint, some brushes. You don’t have to go to school for it, take it from me.' And I did, I was in a little apartment on East Fourth Street and I went there and I started to paint. That was it.
Charlie: We really haven’t progressed since then. It’s sort of like, do your own thing and you’ll be king. We’ve had odd jobs, worked in restaurants. I work right now as a tour guide on top of the buses.
Regina: Then we moved in together. We just ran around New York. We loved the Lower East Side, we loved Coney Island and in 1984 we had a kid together, Hannah, and then it was the three of us. It was really hard. We were broke.
Charlie: When she was coming we had to borrow money for a cab. We were kind of unprepared. It worked out though. Our life with Hannah was the best thing that ever happened to us. She’s getting married on April 4. We couldn’t be more proud!
Regina: Hannah was about 4 years old and I needed a job. So I got a job at El Sombrero on Stanton and Ludlow. They almost went down for good two years ago and then this relative took it over and I got hired back, and I’m there again.
At that time, you could work one day, maybe two days a week and be OK. And that was great about being an artist too because I thought, ‘I’ll take that deal. I’ll take five days off from work.’ Some people would have their feelings hurt about being a waitress. I was like, ‘Are you kidding, my mind is free even when I’m there.’ It’s easy and it was good money; pockets full of money and then you’d have five days off.
I missed the horses daily. And by luck — or so I thought — I got a job grooming horses at one of the biggest Carriage Houses. I lasted only a few months. Conditions were terrible for the horses and it was hard to take. That's another long story and why I'm against them today.
Acting and the sheer raw stark beauty of the Lower East Side had taken over from the horses and won my heart. It was a sweet life and you could live simply. The neighborhood was wide open then ... and you just breathed in freedom. Tompkins Park was open 24/7, a little more safe and it was great to have when you're broke with a kid. After the Tompkins Square Park riots they smashed the bandshell, the heart, that took a piece out of me too and it closes now at midnight.
Charlie: Not to romanticize starving artists, but you had to be willing to do this. God knows what’s going to happen. It was a different time and a different mindset. But the main thing for us is that doing it is the great reward.
Recently we've been doing Tennessee William's later plays. "In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel" and last year's "The Two-Character Play." It was a play we had been obsessed with for quite some time. We transform the entire space [at at 292 Gallery, 292 E. Third St.] every time we do a play. In our tiny 20-seat house it's intimate and electric, you can feel the energy exchange from the audience right close up in your face.
Regina: Now we go between painting and theatre. We have to find plays that we can do together. So far the track record has been a play, painting show, a play, a painting show. Also because we’re performers, when we paint it’s almost a performance. I have to be really awake and in the moment. I started doing pastels because oil paints are a living thing to us. It’s very fluid. Charlie’s got about 50,000 images behind that [painting]. But with the chalk you can only go so far before the paper rips.
Charlie: The change is difficult for us because it felt like home in the early days. You’d walk down the street and know everybody. It had a soulfulness to it. Not to romanticize violence and other aspects that you had to put up with if you were willing to live here. There was something to the people, faces, characters, and energy, and every street felt different. I felt there was so much interesting stuff to see. You didn’t have to look very hard. It was alive and surprising. Some days you just get a glimpse of the old. Just on some fluke you’re riding the subway home, and it just brings it all back. It’s a different world, I guess everywhere, but one that we don’t quite fit in.
Regina: What made me not feel like I fit into suburban New York? I don’t know. It wasn’t like I was a punk when I was a kid. What was it that that I just didn’t like and what made me come down here and feel immediately accepted?