Cooper Square and St. Mark's Place this morning... (and there aren't actually any docking stations at LaGuardia. Closest you'll get is 21st Street and 41st Avenue in Long Island City...)
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Just picking up some breakfast before heading out to LaGuardia
Cooper Square and St. Mark's Place this morning... (and there aren't actually any docking stations at LaGuardia. Closest you'll get is 21st Street and 41st Avenue in Long Island City...)
Another smoke shop for Avenue A
Several readers have told us that a smoke shop is opening in the former D-Lish Pita space on Avenue A at East Sixth Street... we haven't been by when anyone has been working on the space... though the gate is partially open, revealing some of the items that will be for sale...
The store is next door to 99¢ Pizza, which opened in late December. As for smoke shops on Avenue A, Smoke & Beer opened between East 13th Street and East 14th Street earlier this month.
Anyway, it's nice that some new retail shops are opening ahead of the residential developments going up ... like this one... and this one.. and this one ... and this one.. and this one.
Friday, February 5, 2016
Pumpin' it up
Well, with Iggy Pop in the news of late with his Josh Homme collaboration... I went back to 1981 to dust this off from Iggy's sixth solo album, Party ("A bizarre train wreck of an album...") This is "Pumpin' for Jill."
An incentive to spend some time on East 9th Street this month
Several of the merchants on East Ninth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue are having a block-wide sale this month.
Here's info that we received: "From now until Feb 29, come and take advantage of some great bargains. Each participating merchant will have their own take on the 9.99% off sale theme. Shop the block, score some fab deals, meet the neighbors, and even better, support small, local businesses."
[Images via Clayworks Pottery]
H/T EVG contributor Steven
EV Grieve Etc.: New breakfast sandwiches on Avenue A; International Clash Day all day
[Photo this a.m. in Tompkins Square Park by @emwexler]
Harry & Ida's on Avenue A unveiling breakfast sandwiches (Eater)
It's International Clash Day – listen online all day (KEXP)
East Village oral history with Robert Zerelli of Veniero’s (Off the Grid)
Landmarks rejects renovation of 348 Lafayette St. (NY Yimby)
Check out Marcia Resnick's "Punks, Poets and Provocateurs: New York City Bad Boys 1977-1982" (Howl! Happening)
Investors refinance a six-building portfolio in the East Village (The Commercial Observer)
Christo and Dora at sunset (Gog in NYC)
C.O.W. Theatre on Clinton Street is closing (The Lo-Down)
The Spanish Delancey Seventh Day Adventist Church on Forsyth Street is seeking developers to purchase air rights from the organization (Curbed)
Plan now for the Totally 80s Movie Freak Out Part 2: Electric Boogaloo (Anthology Film Archives)
Kossar’s Bagels & Bialys back open today (The New York Times)
Tom Verlaine and Vesey Street (Flaming Pablum)
The Lower East Side BID is rebranding (BoweryBoogie)
Jesse Malin's punk appreciation (CBS News)
Attacker says "fuck you yuppies" and punches man on Delancey (Dnainfo)
Diversions: 27 years of MTV's "120 Minutes" now online (The AV Club)
And from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):
In the older buildings that provide more than three-quarters of the city’s one million rent-regulated apartments, whose owners are barred by law from raising rents, taxes are also due to rise. The average tax on these buildings will rise 8.5%, including an 11.3% increase for Brooklyn landlords, a Wall Street Journal analysis found.
1983 to 2016: An East Village blizzard then and now photo essay
[1st Avenue near 5th Street from 1983 by Raphael Lasar]
Two Fridays ago, we shared photos that EVG Facebook friend Raphael Lasar took of the Blizzard of 1983 (the Megalopolitan Blizzard). This storm produced some 22 inches of snow on Feb. 11-12 that year.
We posted these photos the day before the blizzard (Jonas, if you'd like) dumped nearly 27 inches here on Jan. 23.
Following this, Cassondra Bazelow, an art director who lives in the neighborhood, went out and took post-blizzard photos at the same locations that Raphael did.
Here then, one location, two blizzards, 33 years apart...
[1st Avenue near 5th Street]
[1st Avenue looking north toward 6th Street]
[1st Avenue at Sixth Street]
[1st Avenue at East 3rd Street]
[2nd Avenue between East 6th and East 7th streets]
[Astor Place]
[Astor Place]
[Astor Place and the Alamo]
[St. Mark's Place between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue]
Previously on EV Grieve:
When the Megalopolitan Blizzard hit the East Village (and NYC) in February 1983
Updated: Ballaro has closed on 2nd Avenue
[Photo from Tuesday night]
The all-day cafe at 77 Second Ave. between East Fourth Street and East Fifth Street has closed.
Several readers noted that the space was dark all week... and we received confirmation of the closure yesterday.
The low-key Ballaro, which served Italian coffee and pastries during the day, and beer, wine and small plates in the evening hours, opened here in May 2009. The owners also run Cacio e Pepe and Cacio e Vino nearby.
The owners also operated a short-lived bakery on East Fifth Street that, unfortunately, only lasted just four months.
As we first reported last August, the cafe made headlines after drunken Taylor Swift fans apparently terrorized the staff by demanding they play more of the pop star's music on the house stereo. (Not really a Taylor Swift kinda place, you know?)
Ballaro wrote about the incident on Facebook:
One of the women in the group took out her phone and said that she was going to make a viral video so no one would come to Ballaro anymore. Now this, more than anything, upsets me because Ballaro is a gathering place for neighbors, friends, lovers and strangers alike. We have a community that gathers in Ballaro and we all love and support each other and welcome anyone in our restaurant and bar. To possibly lose all that because of someone’s tainted point of view on social media, would be the worst thing.
My mission is to make everyone who enters through the front door feel like they are at home, because sometimes New York hardens even the best of us and we forget the true values in life: community and peace.
Updated:
The owners passed along this message to us:
We want thank all of our customers and staff for the support and hard work over the past 7 years. With rising cost of operating a small business in NYC and the changes in the neighborhood, we could not longer stay afloat. Feel free to drop by our other restaurant Cacio e Vino across the street from Ballaro. Thank you again to everyone who helped to make Ballaro a place that will truly be missed.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Why Taylor Swift fans treated the staff like shit at Ballaro on 2nd Avenue
A look at the new building coming to the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office property
[At the former Peter Stuyvesant PO on East 14th Street]
This week, we've looked at updated renderings for three new residential developments coming to (and near!) Avenue A. There's Douglas Steiner's 82-unit building at 438 E. 12th St. ... Thirteen East + West on East 13th Street ... and Ben Shaoul's 100 Avenue A.
However, there's one new development that we haven't heard much about of late — an 8-story retail-residential building featuring 114 units at 438 E. 14th St., site of the now-demolished former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office 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. Here's info from the Benenson Capital website:
Benenson and the Mack Real Estate Group have formed a joint venture to develop a mixed-use residential and ground floor retail property in New York City's East Village. The 80/20 property will provide both market and affordable housing units. The property is located less than a block from the L train and within blocks of Union Square, which is one of New York's busiest subway stations. Construction is expected to begin shortly and end in late 2016 or early 2017.
The listing, which features two retail spaces, includes a rendering — the first that we've seen — of the new building... this is on the East 13th Street side looking east toward Avenue A...
[Click to go big]
The residential entrance to the building will be on East 13th Street... while access to the storefronts will be on East 14th Street.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office slated to be demolished
The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office will yield to an 8-story residential building
New residential building at former 14th Street PO will feature a quiet lounge, private dining room
'Ramones and the Birth of Punk' coming to the Queens Museum in April
[Image via]
In case you didn't see this yesterday. As The New York Times first reported:
On April 10 the Queens Museum will present “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk,” a retrospective exhibition that will examine the group’s influence on both music and art, as part of a spate of spring programming under the museum’s new director, Laura Raicovich, that focuses on Queens as a Petri dish of global culture.
The Ramones show, organized with the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, where a second part of the exhibition will open on Sept. 16, will include more than 350 objects, from the band’s archives and those of Arturo Vega, who designed the band’s logo; from artists like Shepard Fairey and Yoshitomo Nara; and from Mad magazine and Punk magazine, to demonstrate, as the museum says, how the Ramones “served as both subject and inspiration for many visual artists, resulting in a large body of works.”
Here's the Museum's official news release on the exhibit.
And via "Too Tough to Die" from 1984 ...
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Report: Northern Spy closes for good on Feb. 17
Grub Street has this from co-owner Chris Ronis
We've had a great run and are very proud of what we accomplished in this space in the last six years, but 2015 was a tough year and we did not manage to pull the nose up to restore the flight altitude we once enjoyed. We're hanging it up while we still have the buttons on our pants. The upshot we have about two weeks left before it's lights-out for Northern Spy, with our final service being Wednesday, February 17th.
Eater has more here.
If you want to stop by for a last meal, then don't do it this evening...
2nd Avenue bar Ninth Ward is closing for good on Feb. 14; building rumored to be demolished
[EVG photo from 2010]
Ninth Ward, the New Orleans-themed bar at 180 Second Ave., is closing its doors for good after service on Feb. 14.
Here is their official message via Facebook:
Five years ago on Mardi Gras the Ninth Ward bar was born. After five wonderful years we are closing our doors. Please come by in the next two weeks and raise a glass to both Mardi Gras and Ninth ward!!
We will be closing on Sunday, February 14th - Valentine's Day. "It's not you, it's me"
According to a tipster, management informed staff on Tuesday night ... the rumor is the new (as of 2014) owners of the building between East 11th Street and East 12th Street have designs on a gut renovation that will eventually yield condos.
The ownership here is also behind two other Second Avenue bars — Kingston Hall and Shoolbred's. In November, Nic Ratner and Robert Morgan got the OK from CB3 for a beer-wine license to open a cajun-style restaurant in the former 10 Degrees Bistro space on Avenue A.
The Ninth Ward, which serves Abita beer, Sazeracs, absinthe and other cocktails. opened in June 2010. The opening announcement reportedly elicited a strong reaction from Louisiana native Cajun Boy, who tweeted:
A New Orleans-themed bar in NYC called Ninth Ward has opened. Maybe I'll open a NYC-themed bar in New Orleans and call it World Trade Center
The opening was also discussed in New Orleans. Per an item in the newspaper Gambit: "As you might imagine, naming a NYC bar 'Ninth Ward' is fraught with complications, starting with the fact the Ninth Ward has never exactly been known as a hotspot for creative cocktails."
The address was, until 2010, Thai on Two.
Take a look at the inside of Ben Shaoul's condos at 100 Avenue A
Rendering Reveal Week continues... as a new website for Ben Shaoul's condoplex at 100 Avenue A between East Sixth Street and East Seventh Street has been unleashed (h/t Curbed!).
As previously reported, the residences at the
Let's enter the lobby...
... and head on up to one of the residences...
Per the 100 Avenue A website:
100 Avenue A has 32 units, ranging from one to three Bedroom residences with four Penthouse units. Whichever you choose, your home will have stunning floor plans, light-filled layouts, and expansive windows for taking in the view outside. When your friends and family come over, they might even ask to move in.
• Bianco Dolimiti Honed Marble Bathroom Tile
• Waterworks Polished Nickel Bathroom Fixtures
• Kitchen Design by Effeti
• Sabia White Oak Herringbone Kitchen Floors
• Statuary White Marble Kitchen Countertops
• Calacatta Honed Marble Herringbone Backsplash
• Miele Refrigerator, Oven and Cooktop, Dishwasher, Washer/Dryer in all units
And what else can new residents expect in the building? Back to the website!
100 Avenue A has a private landscaped roof deck.
Things that it’s good for:
• Sunbathing and picnic-ing
• Looking up at the night sky
• Thinking happy thoughts about your apartment below
• Lounging and laughing with friends
Things that it’s not good for:
• Being inside
The building also has another roof garden on the second floor, so you can experience all these benefits twice over
And if you are still breathing, the newly launched site also offers insights into its naked-person marketing motif ...
When we began building 100 Avenue A, we wanted to create a place for people who strive to make their mark on the city. Working with the gifted architect Ramy Issac of Issac and Stern, we believe that we’ve realized that vision. The building stands proudly in the center of the East Village, a neighborhood with a storied past of iconoclasts.
Today, a new generation of residents are reanimating and updating the area’s transgressive traditions with their creativity and vitality. 100 Avenue A is the embodiment of the East Village’s ever-evolving identity. It’s for the brave and the bold: people who want the finest that New York has to offer, and who aren’t afraid to break conventions.
Developer Ben Shaoul bought the former theater-turned market at 100 Avenue A in the spring of 2013 for $15.5 million.
Previously on EV Grieve:
A little bit of Hollywood on Avenue A
Inside the abandoned theater at East Village Farms on Avenue A
New Facebook group is advocating for a Trader Joe's on Avenue A
Workers back demolishing what's left of 98-100 Avenue A
Rest assured, there isn't a fire in the hole at 98-100 Avenue A
Continued dewatering at Ben Shaoul's 98-100 Avenue A prompts visit by the FDNY
Ben Shaoul's 98-100 Avenue A emerging from the dewatering hole
Life next to 98-100 Avenue A
Condos at Ben Shaoul's 98-100 Avenue A will start at $1.3 million; high-end gym eyed for retail space
The retail space at Ben Shaoul's 100 Avenue A is available for $24.5 million; plus, naked model marketing clarification!
Trying to figure out what is going on at 98-100 Avenue A
Someone threw black paint bombs at the naked women condo ad along 100 Avenue A
332 E. 6th St. is for sale — air rights too
The six-story walk-up located on the south side of East Sixth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue is now on the market.
Here's the listing viaCushman & Wakefield:
The building consists of 12 residential units, of which 9 are vacant and 3 are rent-stabilized. There is upside in potentially adding an addition using the 2,950 SF of air rights, increasing the below market rents, and bringing the building to 100% occupancy. The property is located within two blocks of neighborhood hot spots such as Tompkins Square Park, Upstate, The Eddy, and Mayahuel.
In addition, the building is within walking distance to the 2nd Avenue F train stop and the Astor Place 6 train stop. This is a rare opportunity to acquire a prime multi-family asset with substantial upside in the heart of the East Village.
Price: $8 million
Image via Cushman & Wakefield
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)