Friday, July 17, 2015
Call of the 'Wild'
After playing the 4Knots Festival last Saturday on Pier 84, New Jersey's Screaming Females hit the road for the remainder of the summer... Here's "Wild" from 2011.
EV Grieve Etc.: Looking at deregulated apartments; Going Beyond Cassavetes
[Photo outside Gem Spa by Derek Berg]
More than 50,000 NYC apartments have been deregulated in the last eight years, with heavy losses in the East Village and Lower East Side (Gothamist)
The Bowery Mission receives donation of 300 new luxury mattresses (DNAinfo)
Housing advocates stage sleep-in to push for more affordable accommodation (Daily News)
About the #crashnotaccident campaign (Gizmodo)
Happy 10th anniversary to Alex! (Flaming Pablum)
Scaffolding and a sidewalk bridge arrive at 190 Bowery (BoweryBoogie)
This weekend: "Beyond Cassavetes: Lost Legends of the New York Film World (1945-70)" (Anthology Film Archives)
2nd Floor on Clinton closing on July 29 (The Lo-Down)
Fire Escape Season (Gog in NYC)
So long to one of the city's last vintage, stand-alone diners (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)
The Papaya King story (Eater)
Boston subbing for NYC in "Ghostbusters" reboot (Runnin' Scared)
Commercial flashback: Phil Rizzuto pitches The Money Store (Ephemeral New York)
... and The New York Times has a feature on East Village resident and astronomy buff Felton Davis, who has been kind enough to share his stargazing photos from Second Avenue (and elsewhere) with us through the years...
Find the article, titled Strangers on the Street Find a Connection in the Stars, here.
Welcome back Ray!
[Photo yesterday by Peter Brownscombe]
Back on June 16, Ray Alvarez, the 82-year-old proprietor of Ray's Candy Store at 113 Avenue A, had heart valve replacement surgery.
Doctors discharged him on Wednesday evening from VillageCare Rehabilitation on West Houston Street with his new pacemaker.
[Photo Wednesday via Facebook]
Here's an update via the Ray's Candy Store Facebook page ... from Wednesday night:
Ray was released from his rehab facility today! His first stop, NATURALLY, was Ray's Candy Store, to get some oatmeal...and to try and help fix the air conditioner. A month after heart valve replacement surgery. Because, Ray.
The doctors and nurses FELL IN LOVE WITH RAY and were sad to see him go, but he's got a business to run and a neighborhood that needs him back where he belongs.
It may be a while before Ray is working the night shift again, but having him home means the world to us.
Yesterday, Ray was at work during the afternoon… taking it easy, but the same ol' Ray…
[PB]
[PB]
Previously on EV Grieve:
Get well soon, Ray!
Remembering East Village resident Mary Bellis
Via the EVG inbox...
Longtime East Village resident Mary Bellis aka CalmX was a filmmaker, artist and writer.
She received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and funding from the National Film Board of Canada to create her experimental works. Her 1984 independent film "Agent of Paradise" shot in the New York underground art scene starred numerous downtown performance artists, including John Kelly, The Unknown Comic, Philly McAninch as well as James Oseland star of Bravo TV’s "Top Chef Masters." "Agent of Paradise" premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and screened in art house theaters worldwide.
Mary worked as an independent video game developer, animator and journalist while continuing to make and exhibit her computer-generated art. She was the originator and author of the Inventors site for the web portal about.com.
Mary loved tending her garden at 6th Street and Avenue B and dancing at the Pyramid Club. Mary was a beautiful person and dear friend and will be greatly missed by all of those she touched.
Please join us in a celebration of life for our friend at the 6th Street and Ave B Community Garden on Sunday from 4-8 p.m.
Bellis died on March 28 following a short illness.
A change at 84 2nd Ave.
[Photo by Jill from 2009]
There has been some activity this week at 84 Second Ave. near East Fifth St. … a building that has intrigued many of us for years…
First, before any history … on Monday, workers started replacing the long-empty storefront's front windows…
[Photo by Paul Kostabi]
[PK]
The first thought among 84 watchers: The storefront is being put to use again as a… storefront… there's nothing on file with the DOB to offer any hints… for now the work has stopped…
[Photo Wednesday by Derek Berg]
As for history.
In February 2009, a man who said that he lived and worked nearby for years told Jill the following about the building:
It used to be a place that sold tuxedos and formal wear. The family had several children, but one of them, a daughter, was raped and murdered in the top floor, possibly in the 1940's [note: it was actually 1974].
The killer was never found. The children (or one of them and a spouse?) still live there and refuse to renovate or change anything. The top floor is exactly the way it was when the daughter was murdered and you can still see the powder where the cops dusted for fingerprints. This man had been inside once and was witness to its originality. He said they have no intention of selling or changing or even of renting out the storefront.
The name of the family is Sopolsky.
This is from The New York Times, dated Jan. 18, 1974:
The nude body of a 40-year-old woman propietor of a tailor shop that rents tuxedos on the Lower East Side was found bludgeoned to death. The victim was Helen Sopolsky of 84 Second Avenue, near fifth Street, whose shop is one flight up at that address. The motive of the attack was not determined immediately...."
Here's more history of 84 via Lost City from February 2012:
It was a temporary home for women in 1884, open to "self-supporting homeless young women, with or without a child." Morris Kosturk, 40, was found dead there in 1921. And Aaron Schneider, who lived here in 1964, was the victim of a hit and run driver.
For years (decades?), you could see a plastic-covered dinner jacket in the second-story window with the neon sign that reads "DRESS SUITS TO HIRE."
[Photo by Jeremiah Moss]
More recently there was an ad for Jamie's now-closed check-cashing shop around the corner … as well as for a walker for $60.
Here's Jeremiah Moss writing about the building in July 2011:
We're all a little nervous about #84. There are those of us who watch it and wait, anxiously, for the day when it will be sold, when a multi-millionaire will turn it into a grand mansion, or the ground floor will be converted into a trendy farm-to-table restaurant, and all the mystery will be sucked away.
Free production of 'The Taming of the Shrew' in La Plaza Cultural this weekend
Via the EVG inbox...
William Shakespeare
"The Taming of the Shrew"
July 18 and 19 at 6 pm
La Plaza Cultural, Avenue C at East Ninth Street
Tale Told Productions, a nonprofit theater company based in NYC, now in its 4th season, will be presenting "The Taming of the Shrew" as part of our 7-Day Shakespeare Series! With only seven days of rehearsal Tale Told Productions strives to present performances that are visceral and authentic, capturing the actor at their most raw and honest self while maintaining the truth and core of the plot.
Admission is FREE. For more information please visit the Tale Told website.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Mayor de Blasio visits Tompkins Square Park
EVG reader Sue Palchak spotted the Mayor just before noon talking to folks in Tompkins Square Park... this brief visit comes several days after the Post and the Observer reported an uptick in the number of homeless people in the Park...
Updated 10:56 p.m.
The Post has five reporters on this story...
Previously on EV Grieve:
The Post reports Tompkins Square Park 'has become a homeless haven' (105 comments)
Observer editors write, 'it's time to take back Tompkins Square Park'
Details on the financial assistance available to businesses affected by the 2nd Avenue explosion
Tim Laughlin, executive director of the LES Business Improvement District, sent use the following letter yesterday… via the EVG inbox...
I am writing to let you know that the LES BID (Lower East Side Business Improvement District), Community Board 3 and local elected officials have worked with public and private partners to help raise funds for local businesses impacted by the East Village gas explosion.
An application for financial assistance has been made available for eligible businesses, and the deadline to apply is Wednesday, July 22. We have been going door-to-door to notify businesses, in addition to reaching out by email and through community based partners. The application deadline has been extended to provide more businesses the opportunity to submit an application.
Following the close of the extended application period, applicants will be contacted individually to provide additional supporting information. Assistance grants are expected to be distributed at the end of the month.
Applicants can contact the LES BID at 212-226-9010 for more information or download an application at eastvillagerelief.nyc, the comprehensive community web portal established in March to share information about ongoing recovery efforts. Eligible businesses include establishments within the immediate impact zone.
Funds available for this grant program come from a variety of sources, mainly community-based donors as well as other public and institutional partners, and will be disbursed to eligible applicants who have submitted application materials based on need and availability of funding resources.
The NYC films of BAM's 'Indie 80s' series
[From "Blank Generation"]
BAMcinématek's sprawling "Indie 80s" program, co-presented with Cinema Conservancy, starts tomorrow (out in Brooklyn, yes)… and runs through Aug. 27.
In total, there are more than 60 films "spotlighting the independent films of the neglected decade between the golden age of 70s New Hollywood and the indie boom of the 90s."
Of particular interest are the dozen or so titles filmed in New York City, including in the East Village with "Alphabet City," "Blank Generation" and "Landlord Blues."
We asked David Reilly, who has been a programmer for BAMcinématek since 2011, a few questions about the "Indie 80s" program.
In terms of these various NYC features, what were you looking for to fit into the "Indie 80s" series?
We sought out fiercely independent, personal films that in some way reflect what we’ve described as “an aesthetic and political rebuke to the greed-is-good culture of bloated blockbusters and the trumped-up monoculture of Reagan-era America” – an attitude that’s on display in abundance in New York’s creative community of the era and certainly not limited to a specific community or “scene.”
You can see this in the incredible diversity of neighborhoods and cultures represented onscreen: from CBGB punks ("Blank Generation") to Bronx hip-hop pioneers ("Wild Style"), from the gay community at the height of the AIDS crisis ("Parting Glances") to the Puerto Rican community in pre-gentrification Williamsburg ("Los Sures"), from Upper West Side intellectuals ("My Dinner with Andre") to Fort Greene’s “Brooklyn Boheme” black arts scene ("She’s Gotta Have It"), and beyond. There’s an embarrassment of riches in New York indies during this period, and we’ve tried to capture at least a small slice of that pie.
Do you see any common themes emerge from the various films about New York City during this time period?
A recurring sense of struggling to get by and live outside the system during a violent, troubled moment in the City’s history. There’s a certain ominousness and anxiety embedded in the Ed Koch Era, and it seeps through these films in a variety of forms: sexual predators ("Ms. 45"), scumbag landlords ("Landlord Blues"), roving street gangs ("Vigilante" and "Alphabet City"), homelessness ("Sidewalk Stories"), and of course, the devastation of AIDS.
What kind of legacy do you think the NYC films in the series have … particularly on the 90s indie boom?
For New Yorkers, these films are a crucial document of a very different city that’s becoming more and more unrecognizable with each passing day, and a period of explosive creativity the likes of which we may never see again.
And it’s hard to imagine a phenomenon like "Kids" (1995) — a scrappy New York story made with a mostly non-professional cast getting a major distribution deal and grossing over $20 million — being possible without these 1980s predecessors paving the way for a larger cultural awareness of independent filmmaking.
---
And here are a few of the NYC/EV-based films on the docket…
Alphabet City (1984)
Directed by Amos Poe. With Vincent Spano, Michael Winslow, Kate Vernon.
Nineeteen-year-old Johnny (Spano) is an East Village drug kingpin with the white Pontiac Firebird to prove it. But when he decides to go straight, he finds that the mob that made him isn’t going to let him off that easily. Punk filmmaker Amos Poe crafts a luridly expressionistic gangster saga set amidst the neon- splashed mean streets of the Lower East Side. The echt-80s, synthpop soundtrack is by Chic’s Nile Rodgers.
Wed, Aug 26 at 9:30 pm
Blank Generation (1980)
Directed by Ulli Lommel. With Carole Bouquet, Richard Hell, Ulli Lommel.
Punk icon Richard Hell stars as a volatile rocker having an affair with a French journalist (Bouquet) in this grimy glimpse of New York’s punk underground. Capturing the raucous energy and seedy atmosphere of the 80s downtown scene, Blank Generation features Hell and his band the Voidoids performing classics like the title track and “Love Comes in Spurts” at CBGB, as well as an appearance by executive producer Andy Warhol. Digital.
Thu, Jul 30 at 7 pm
Landlord Blues (1986)
Directed by Jacob Burckhardt. With Mark Boone Junior, Richard Litt, Raye Dowell.
An East Village bicycle shop owner (Boone Junior) takes matters into his own hands when his scumbag landlord (Litt) tries to evict him. Set against the first wave of gentrification to sweep through downtown, this ultra-rare, shot-on-16mm tenant’s revenge tale features footage of the former East 13th St. squats as well as music and an appearance by Nona Hendryx. 16mm.
Mon, Aug 10 at 7pm; Q&A with Burckhardt
Ms. 45 (1981)
Directed by Abel Ferrara. With Zoë Lund.
The ne plus ultra of women’s revenge movies, Abel Ferrara’s exploitation classic takes place in the cesspool of 80s New York, where mute garment district worker Thana (Lund) is raped once, twice—and then snaps. Packing a pistol and clad in leather (and later a nun’s habit), Thana handily wastes a good chunk of Manhattan’s male population, while Ferrara, defying the grindhouse trappings, forges a feminist statement in extremis. DCP.
Sat, Aug 15 at 4:15, 9 pm
Parting Glances (1986)
Directed by Bill Sherwood. With Richard Ganoung, John Bolger, Steve Buscemi.
This marvelously witty, compassionate snapshot of Manhattan’s 1980s gay community was one of the first films ever to lend a human face to the HIV crisis. New York City couple Michael (Ganoung) and Robert (Bolger) grapple with the emotional fallout of their impending separation and the illness of a friend (Buscemi, memorable in his first major role) dying of AIDS.
Tue, Aug 4 at 7:30, 9:30 pm
Vigilante (1983)
Directed by William Lustig. With Robert Forster, Fred Williamson, Richard Bright.
Grindhouse auteur William Lustig (Maniac) serves up a crazily violent bloodbath in this twisted, pure-pulp thriller. When gang members attack his wife and kill his son, a Queens factory worker (Forster) joins up with an outlaw vigilante group and makes it his personal mission to clean up the streets. “Directed with classical, self-effacing skill” (Dave Kehr, The New York Times), Vigilante is a grim, grimy time capsule of 1980s New York City. 35mm print courtesy of the Cinema Conservancy Archive.
Thu, Jul 30 at 4:30, 9:30 pm Intro by William Lustig
Vortex (1982)
Directed by Beth B & Scott B. With James Russo, Lydia Lunch, Bill Rice.
Noir meets No Wave in this paranoid punk thriller from New York downtown agitators Beth and Scott B. Attitudinal underground musician Lydia Lunch (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks) stars as a no-BS, leather- clad detective investigating the murder of a politician in a futuristic dystopia of corporate corruption. The Bs make the most of a miniscule budget with stylish visuals, hardboiled dialogue, and an unsettling soundtrack. 16mm.
Mon, Aug 10 at 9:30 pm
Wild Style (1982)
Directed by Charlie Ahearn. With Lee Quiñones, Sandra Fabara, Patti Astor.
The original hip-hop movie, Wild Style was the first film to document the scene’s music, breaking, and street art at its inception. It follows a subway tagger named Zoro (played by graffiti legend Quiñones) through the vibrant street culture of the Bronx in the early 80s. Filmed with semidocumentary authenticity, Wild Style features appearances by seminal artists like Grandmaster Flash, Cold Crush Brothers, Lady Pink, Fab 5 Freddy, Busy Bee, and more.
Fri, Aug 21 at 7 pm
For the full program and tickets, go here.
[Updated] Russian Souvenirs is no more on East 14th Street
One of the more unique shops around has apparently closed. An EVG reader reported that the shop on East 14th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue was cleaned out on Monday.
EVG East 14th Street/IHOP Way correspondent Pinch confirmed that the shop now mostly sits empty.
Unfortunately, we have no idea why the store closed. Rent hike? A retirement? (The owner, the rather cantankerous Alex Bogatyr, is up in his years.) The market for Russian knickknacks waning?
The store has been around for years. Jeremiah Moss wrote about the shop back in 2009:
The walls are covered with paintings of dour-faced bearded men, sunsets, and lonely forests. In the back, there are racks and racks of clothing and fabrics. And all around, everywhere you look, the shelves are stacked high with tchochkes.
And!
If you do decide to shop here, be ready to bargain. Alex is a haggler, and he's a serious man. A professional who knows his wares, he will not give you service with a smile, nor with a sneer. This is old Leningrad on 14th Street, not Bed, Bath, & Beyond where the robotic staff are programmed to utter a monotoned hello to you every five seconds.
Updated 5:53 p.m.
From the comments… author Romy Ashby stopped by …
"I went in to visit with him yesterday at about 5 PM. He was having a sandwich and we talked. He said that a rent hike is the reason he's leaving. He had me write my name and number in a notebook full of names and numbers, and he said he will call if he finds another place."
Openings: T-swirl Crêpes on East 14th Street, KavasutrA on East 10th Street
A few recent openings...
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The T-swirl Crêpe shop has opened at 247 E. 14th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, reports EVG T-swirl Crêpe correspondent Pinch. Per their description: "T-swirl crêpe makes Japanese style sweet and salad crêpes by hand using our secret recipes and tasty fillings."
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The South Florida-based KavasutrA opened its kava bar Tuesday at 261 E. 10th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.
The bar is open 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. seven days a week, per the KavasutrA website.
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Sexyflow is now open at 205 Avenue A. The hair salon is in the retail space of Icon Realty's recently expanded residential building here between East 12th Street and East 13th Street.
Free tonight in Tompkins Square Park: 'The Pink Panther'
Tonight's free movie is "The Pink Panther" (the original from 1963) with Peter Sellers and David Niven...
Rockabilly artists Shiro & The Raw Dogs will play a set before the film. Gates open at 6 p.m., music starts at 7 p.m., and the movies starts at sundown. You can head to the Films in Tompkins Facebook page for any updates. Like rain.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Maybe renting that place on 3rd Avenue isn't such a bad idea after all
We picked this up from Curbed:
New data published in Science shows that if the planet warms by 2 degrees Celsius, sea levels will rise about 20 feet. It's pretty much a given that this will happen, it's just a matter of when — it could be by the end of the century.
And!
In New York, it means that entire neighborhoods would be wiped out and 1.8 million people would be displaced.
And if/when this happens, the water will wash over a good part of this neighborhood... west to First Avenue in spots... south to Avenue A around East Fourth Street...
[Click to go big]
If this helps...
Anyway, you can find the full report here at Science. And read more here at Gizmodo.
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