RIP Walter Przedpelski

LA-based TV host/interior designer Mark Montano, who once had a boutique in the East Village, writes on his blog about a longtime friend and neighbor — Walter Przedpelski, who recently died at age 91.

Here's an excerpt from Montano's tribute, which includes several archival photos of Walter:

Walter was born IN the apartment on 9th St. between 1st Ave. and Ave. A, where he lived for almost 92 years. He first lived there with his mother and sister and then alone after his sister left and his mother passed. I believe that was sometime in the 1950s. I wish I had time to tell you all of the stories he shared with me over the years. Like how excited he was when they first got a toilet on each floor and didn't have to use an outhouse anymore. Or how he would take the tin milk bucket to the corner for fresh milk and swing it around on the way home without spilling. Or how he and his friends would play kickball in the street when there were no cars and only an occasional horse. ... I have a thousand stories but as I write this, all I can feel is a huge hole in my heart.

Image via Mark Montano

It's beginning to look a lot like [fill in name of holiday here] on East 9th Street

[Photo yesterday by Steven]

Crews have been busy the past two says putting up holiday lights on East Ninth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue…


[Photo today by MP]

And how do they look in action?




[Action photos via Steven]

As we understand it, Jason Corey, co-owner of The Immigrant, has helped organize getting the lights up the past few years along here…

Report: CB3 committee opposes de Blasio's proposed rezoning plans

CB3 is the latest Community Board to voice opposition to Mayor de Blasio's citywide housing proposals.

As DNAinfo reports, CB3's Land Use, Zoning, Public and Private Housing Committee drafted two resolutions against the city's Zoning for Quality and Affordability and Mandatory Inclusionary Housing amendments last night.

You can read Lisha Arino'a full report at DNAinfo here.

CB3 will formally take a position on the proposed text amendments on Tuesday night (6:30) at its full board meeting at P.S. 20 Anna Silver School, 166 Essex St.

The Post reported that, as of Monday, at least 22 of the city’s 59 community boards have voted against de Blasio's affordable-housing zoning plan.

Here's a summation of the plans via Capital New York:

The first of the two proposals would require that developers who build in an area rezoned by the city reserve 25 or 30 percent of their apartments in any given project for below-market rents. The second would allow an additional five feet be added to buildings in certain areas (as long as that extra height does not create a penthouse), would limit required parking for affordable housing in some places, and enable parking lots attached to affordable senior housing developments to be torn down to make way for more residential units (based on the notion that senior citizens are less likely to drive).

When asked for reaction about the Community Board opposition this week, de Blasio said, as reported by Capital New York:

"I am never surprised when a community board raises concerns and particularly local concerns. But we're going to keep moving full speed ahead to make these reforms, because we must create a vast amount of more affordable housing. We must preserve a huge amount affordable housing or else people will not be able to live in this city. It's as simple as that."

The plan requires advisory input from Community Boards and borough presidents as well as approval from the City Council.

Reader report: An assessment of the dangerous East Houston-Avenue B/Clinton Street intersection

[EVG photo from yesterday]

Early this past Sunday morning, an EVG reader who lives near East Houston and Avenue B/Clinton Street said that a young man was struck by a silver SUV in the right eastbound lane while he was trying to cross from the southeast corner of Houston and Clinton to the northeast corner of Houston and Avenue B.

Per the reader: "The SUV was badly damaged. The hood was bent into a V. I’m surprised the pedestrian survived."

It is the same intersection where East Village resident Meipui Chow Leon, 73, was struck and killed on Aug. 23, 2013, by a Whole Foods van while walking north in the crosswalk from Clinton Street to Avenue B.


[Photo from 2013]

The EVG reader lives nearby and has observed how dangerous the intersection can be. The reader offers an assessment and a partial solution. It starts with traffic exiting the Williamsburg Bridge and turning north on Clinton Street.

Drivers coming off the bridge are always trying to run that light to make a right on Houston, and get onto the FDR. Clinton Street backs up a half mile onto the bridge during rush hour. Only about 4-5 cars can make it through that light before it changes. There is a car accident or pedestrian strike at least once every three months at this intersection. If we had protected bike lanes, a curb extension or if they would reverse [the traffic flow on] Clinton, that intersection would be so much safer. Seems like all the pedestrian strikes happen going eastbound. Westbound is more fender benders. Drivers are still doing highway speeds coming off the FDR.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reports: 73-year-old East Village woman struck and killed by van while crossing East Houston

More accidents on East Houston Street

Ongoing construction at condoplex on Avenue A enters the swimming pool phase

An EVG reader yesterday noted the ongoing construction in the lot off Avenue A between East 11th Street and East 12th Street that was formerly home of Mary Help of Christians.

Upon closer inspection, you can spot the new building's swimming pool going in…





Early plans for the building mentioned a possible rooftop pool. It's difficult to tell at this point where the pool will fit in compared to the rest of the residential building.

A worker said that the pool only gets to 5 feet in the deep end. Not good for diving, of course.

But!

Through the magic of YouTube, we found one thrillseeker who successfully made the jump into a 5-foot-deep pool… (not that we recommend that the new residents of this building attempt this. But if you must, please film it and post it to YouTube.)

Jeff — you're on…



Anyway! In the works, of course, is a mixed-use building with ground-floor retail and 82 market-rate condos via developer Douglas Steiner.



Previously on EV Grieve:
New residential complex at former Mary Help of Christians lot may include rooftop swimming pool

Meet your new neighbor on Avenue A

Permits filed to demolish Mary Help of Christians church, school and rectory

Preservationists call for archeological review of former cemetery at Mary Help of Christians site

The 'senseless shocking self-destruction' of Mary Help of Christians

Report: Maison Kayser opening a large bakery on 13th and Broadway

Residents often say they wish there was another bakery around here. Not sure if this is what anyone had in mind.

In any event!

The Paris-based Maison Kayser is opening a 3,000-square-foot location on Broadway at East 13th Street, the Commercial Observer reports.

This will be the ninth location in the city when it opens in early 2016.

Here's some Maison Kayser background via the bakery's website:

Founded by Eric Kayser in Paris in 1996, Maison Kayser is an authentic artisanal French Boulangerie, meaning that bread and other baked goods are mixed and baked on-site all day long.

Recognized as one of the most talented artisan bakers of his generation, Eric Kayser has built his reputation on his passion for bread, the quality of his products and his incredible skill to combine authenticity and innovation in the world of French artisanal bakeries.

Born into a family of French bakers, dating back four generations, Eric Kayser started his baker apprenticeship at age 14. He was exposed very early on to the art of baking...

In 1996, he opened his first bakery, Rue Monge, in the heart of the Quartier Latin in Paris, France. It was an immediate success and as of today, Maison Kayser has over 100 shops in over 20 different countries!

The previous tenant on Broadway and 13th, COSI, closed back in the summer.

Photo by Nick Solares/Eater

This holiday season, Turkey Mac is back at S'MAC

As we were first to report, Thanksgiving is coming up on Dec. 3 next Thursday, Nov. 26.

We mentioned the Thanksgiving arepa at Arepa Factory the other day…

And now at S'MAC over on East 12th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue, you can, again, order the Thanksgiving Turkey MAC …



What is it? "Juicy turkey and swiss cheese topped off with herbed stuffing (our 'in-house' recipe!). Served with a side of homemade gravy and cranberry jelly." (It is available as gluten-free too…)

Find the details here.

Take a walk around the East Village on this June afternoon in 1986

Another video from the archives of Nelson Sullivan arrived on YouTube yesterday.

In this 13-minute video from June 1986, Sullivan crosses Third Avenue and heads east on St. Mark's Place ... turns south on Second Avenue ... and continues on East Seventh Street to Tompkins Square Park, where he spots Lady Bunny (out of drag) and DJ Dmitry... before hanging out on A and Seventh ...



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

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

H/T EVG reader Brian K.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Take a quick trip back to Avenue A and East 7th Street in 1986

The East Village of Nelson Sullivan

The first nice Sunday of 1987 in the East Village

'The Fabulous Personalities of 1980s New York'

[Updated] Nino's and Yoshi Sushi served with eviction notices on Avenue A

[EVG photo from last week]

Back on Oct. 21, signs arrived on the front door of Nino's on Avenue A at St. Mark's Place noting a closure due to a gas leak in a building next door. A similar sign arrived a storefront away at Yoshi Sushi, 131 Avenue A.

Now, the landlord of both businesses have served eviction notices.

Nino's has five days within service of this notice to respond… the legal documents taped to the door states that the October rent is due (with interest) for the sum of $22,549.93…



The situation appears more dire at Yoshi Sushi …



… where the legal documents state that the owners need to pay more than $42,000 in rent and penalties dating back to September…



Updated 5 p.m.

An EVG reader notes that at Nino's, someone has removed the eviction notice that arrived this morning… and there's a new sign noting that Nino's will reopen…

The annual New York Cares Coat Drive is underway

This morning at the Mission we kicked off the @NewYorkCares #CoatDrive! pic.twitter.com/GmxIWe5HgL

— The Bowery Mission (@BoweryMission) November 17, 2015

The goal is to collect 100,000 winter coats for New Yorkers in need this winter. Find out what you can do here.

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: Karen Platt
Occupation: Artist
Location: 4th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B
Time: 3:45 pm on Wednesday, Nov. 11

I was born and raised in New York — 333 E. 30th St. My mom and dad went to Cooper Union. They’re both artists. Growing up I was an arty kid. I went to the High School of Music & Art, when it was in Harlem, and P.S. 116 before that. I was doing music and all that kind of stuff. I did fine art and I worked for Billboard magazine doing graphic design for them.

I’ve been in my building on Fifth Street for 20 years now. It was very nice to be down here. There was respect — mutual respect between people. Just… you could be. It wasn’t overcrowded. There was actually breathing room. There were a lot more old people. There were just neighborhood people that you saw every day. We were friends with everybody and we all knew each other.

There were a lot of artists and there was always an art show to go see. There always plays and drag shows. I was like a club kid back in the day. We used to go to the Area Club. Pyramid used to do this this funny-as-hell soap opera on stage called "Sordid Lives." Black Lips was the other show they did. I’d faithfully go every week. The shows were amazing and the atmosphere was so intimate, like a small cabaret. You felt like you were part of something completely unique.

I used to work at the Yaffa Café for like 20 years. Antony of Antony of the Johnson’s waitered there. He used to perform as Fiona Blue at the Pyramid Club and he was amazing. I also worked for a jewelry designer who had a loft on Essex and Allen. She made a lot of Madonna-type rubber bracelets. I wound up buying her delta industrial drill press for $65. I make rave style jewelry from plastic and rubber tubing. I sold it at a store called Mod World on First Avenue between East Fifth and Sixth. I called myself Big Love Designs. I still have — and completely love — that drill press. It has done me good over the past 30 years.

When I was about 19 years old I worked at the Mars Bar. It was owned by Hank Penza, who recently passed away. Hank would gives loans to guys who lived on the Bowery, and every week they would line up outside the bar to pay him back. I had two day shifts that were filled with the interesting men from the Bowery. I’d sling $2 drinks. The drinks were simple to make and if you did not know how to make them, the customers would happily tell you how. There were so many colorful characters who came in that I could write a book about all of them. Mars Bar was probably the diviest bar around, but it had a realness and trueness, with people down on their luck, artists, sculptors and musicians. You were part of a community of creative people. I miss that feeling.

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

Construction watch: 321 E. 3rd St.

The 6-story residential building going up at 321 E. Third St. is looking decidedly less cinderblock-y now than the rendering on the plywood would have you believe…



Oh, the rendering…



The 30-unit building here between Avenue C and Avenue D comes courtesy of Queens-based Venetian Management LLC, who's listed as the owner on DOB records.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Another parcel of East Village land ready for development

Plywood arrives at East 3rd Street lot, site of incoming 6-floor apartment building

Handing out the litter summonses

A rep from a co-op on East Seventh Street wrote in … noting that the building had been hit with a "plague of litter summonses" of late… all of them citing "litter within 18 inches of the curb."

The question: Any other people/buildings in the neighborhood getting fined ($100 for the first offense) like this?

The residents feel as if their building has been singled out (they have received two within 11 days).

We looked at this PDF at the Department of Sanitation for an explanation on enforcement …

Residential Premise Enforcement Routing
Under the Enforcement Routing Program, enforcement agents patrol all areas including commercial, industrial, manufacturing and residential blocks at specified times focusing on violations for dirty sidewalks, dirty areas and failure to clean 18 inches into the street. During the enforcement routing time, when enforcement agents observe a dirty sidewalk, dirty area or an 18-inch violation in front of/adjacent to a residential premise, a notice of violation will be issued. Although enforcement agents will issue notices for dirty sidewalk, dirty area, or failure to clean 18 inches into the street violations only during the specified 2 one-hour daily routing time periods, they may issue notices for all other violations at any time.

Residential Premises
Residential routing times citywide have been set as follows:
8:00 AM to 8:59 AM and 6:00 PM to 6:59 PM

This issue of the Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary from May 2014 has a footnote-heavy article titled "Fighting Dirty Sidewalk Tickets in New York City."

[Updated] The upscale hotel bar with a pool named for the late environmentalist Adam Purple

Graffiti meets avant-garde in our favorite slice of #NYC. Check out Hotel Indigo Lower East Side NY - open today!

A photo posted by Hotel Indigo (@hotelindigo) on Nov 16, 2015 at 12:50pm PST

The 293-room Hotel Indigo at 171 Ludlow St. (and 180 Orchard St.!) opened its doors on Monday between East Houston and Stanton.

The property has been in the works for about 10 years now. (You can read more at The Lo-Down and BoweryBoogie.)

And the main attraction — for guests and non-guests alike — promises to be the 15th-floor bar with an outdoor pool. Here are details via WWD:

Mr. Purple is the first venture this far downtown for Gerber Group, which operates places such as Union Square’s Irvington and The Roof at Viceroy, along Central Park. Though there will be some adjustments for the group — “we’ll see a lot more tattoos on our staff” — the move to the Lower East Side sees Gerber maintaining their high-end approach. “We’re not the Lower East Side place that has $3 beers and $1 shots,” Gerber says; Mr. Purple’s house cocktails average around $14 to $15, and beers are $7.

And where did the name originate?

The bar name comes from the Lower East Side icon David Wilkie, who became known as “Mr. Purple” for his preferred shade of clothing. The street artist Lee Quiñones was working on a mural for the hotel, and one of the images he was doing was of Mr. Purple. “That’s really what inspired us,” Gerber says. Mr. Purple’s image is discreetly painted on the ceiling of the 14th floor lobby.

Purple, the environmentalist and activist, died on Sept. 14 at age 84. Considered by some to be the godfather of the urban gardening movement, Purple created a five-lot, 15,000-square-foot garden amid the nearby ruins of the Lower East Side in the mid-1980s.

And now his memory lives on at Mr. Purple with its purple bar seats and $15 house cocktails...

Purple Reign <3 New York meet Mr Purple's Spot @HotelindigoLES #pullup #Discoverles #Nyc pic.twitter.com/Dj27enTB7M

— Hotel Indigo L.E.S. (@HotelindigoLES) November 17, 2015

Updated 4:30 p.m.

Gothamist notes that Mr. Purple's reps seem "to be backtracking on this a bit." They quote a news release about Mr. Purple with this backstory:

A mysterious man, born and raised in the Lower East Side, the city was his muse. He was an unmistakable staple of the neighborhood and an unforgettable piece of its continuing character. His art, like his personality, was ephemeral with no known relics outlasting him. It has been said that to see him work was to have a glimpse into utopia. For now, Mr. Purple, and all that he represents, is up to your imagination to interpret.

Updated 11/24

The Gerber Group sent us the following statement this morning in regard to Mr. Purple:

The name of the bar and restaurant was established when the project was first conceptualized in 2014. It was indeed inspired by Lower East Side resident David Wilkie, who became known as "Mr. Purple." A gardener and activist, he was an iconic figure who dedicated his life to beautifying and improving the neighborhood. A mural was painted in his honor and can be seen on display in the lobby area of the hotel.

Also, in honoring Wilkie's dedication to the neighborhood, the restaurant is committed to supporting the Lower East Side community through several initiatives including partnerships with the Bowery Mission and local businesses such as Russ & Daughters, il laboratorio del gelato and Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery who are all featured on the restaurant's menu. Additionally, through the Lower East Side Employment Network (LESEN), 30 percent of jobs at the hotel have been allocated to local residents.

Updated 11/25

A representative from Russ & Daughters reached out to us with a statement:

Russ & Daughters doesn’t have a partnership with Mr. Purple or Hotel Indigo. That restaurant simply purchased smoked salmon at our shop one time. We never authorized them to use our name on their menus or in their promotional materials.

Previously on EV Grieve:
RIP Adam Purple