Photo on Seventh Street today by Derek Berg...
Sunday, July 5, 2020
An Avenue A curtain call for Alphabets
A Week in Review-type item... as reported this past Monday, Alphabets has closed. Owner Linda Heidinger is moving the novelty-gift shop to Palm Springs, Calif. after a 35-year presence on Avenue A ... and Alphabets shared this parting shot from Avenue A via Instagram on Friday...
Week in Grieview
[Photo on 10th Street by Ed Yoo]
Posts from this past week included...
• Here is an updated map of what's open in the East Village right now (Friday)
• Alphabets has left the East Village (Monday)
• RIP Margaret Morton (Saturday)
• RIP Holly Lane (Thursday)
• Completion date for new office building at 3 St. Mark's Place is February 2022 (Monday)
• This week's NY See panel (Thursday)
• At B&H Dairy: "A Home for Everyone" (Wednesday)
• Essex Card Shop is now open in its new Avenue A home (Monday)
• Green Garden Buffet debuts on 9th Street (Friday)
• East Village Vintage Collective has reopened its doors; ditto for 9th St. Vintage and Spark Pretty (Wednesday)
• Lease termination notice at Third Rail Coffee; Future You Cafe has closed (Thursday)
• These 3 dry cleaners have closed (Wednesday)
• Reader report: East Village street-cleaning tickets back in full effect (Thursday)
• Nolita Pizza leaves 2nd Avenue (Tuesday)
• Another crazy stormy, then another double rainbow (Monday)
• A new surface for Extra Place (Monday)
• Former Haveli Banjara space is being converted into an apartment on 2nd Avenue (Tuesday)
• 2nd Street post the big sinkhole swallow (Wednesday)
• The PokéSpot has closed (Wednesday)
• GNC closing its remaining East Village outpost (Monday)
... and thanks to Laura Sewell for sharing this photo from First Avenue the other evening... the sprit in the sky...
... and a reader passed along this seasonal shot from last night along 10th Street ...
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Noted
From the EVG inbox ... Someone re-purposed one of the broken police barricades along Avenue B's Open Streets into this "Police Brutality" skateboard sign and attached it to a No Parking Anytime pole on 10th Street along Tompkins Square Park...
This has ben up for several weeks now.
Saturday, July 4, 2020
RIP Margaret Morton
[Photo via In Memory of Margaret Morton]
East Village resident Margaret Morton, a professor at Cooper Union and photographer who documented the city's homeless, died on June 27 in her apartment on East 10th Street. Her sister told The New York Times that Morton was being treated for a form of leukemia.
Through a series of books, including "Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives" (1993), "The Tunnel: The Underground Homeless of New York City" (1995) and "Glass House" (2004), Morton humanely captured the everyday lives of her subjects.
An excerpt from the Times:
From her apartment on East 10th Street ... Morton had a front row view of the homeless encampments that engulfed Tompkins Square Park in the late 1980s. As she walked to work at Cooper Union, where she was a professor, she began to photograph these improvised structures, showing the ways people were moved to make themselves at home even when they had so little.
When the city bulldozed the park in late 1989, scattering those who lived there, Ms. Morton followed them and spent the next 10 years documenting their world and that of others on the margins, not only telling their stories but also advocating for their welfare. The author Philip Lopate, who described her as "our modern-day Jacob Riis," said recently that "she pulled off a rare combination of socially engaged photography that was also formally exquisite."
"Glass House" documented the teen squatters living in an abandoned manufacturing plant on 10th Street and Avenue D.
She wrote this in 2004 — 10 years after the NYPD evicted the teens:
"Gentrification has transformed the East Village, erasing nearly every memory of its history as a refuge for ethnic groups and the radical fringe. Although I did not realize it at the time, the story of 'Glass House' marks the end of an era."
Friends and former students created a Facebook group in her honor. You can read tributes to her here.
You can find her website with samples of her work at this link.
The return of B-Side
B-Side, the neighborhood bar on Avenue B, closed back in March after 17 years here between 12th Street and 13th Street.
At the time, we were told that new owners were taking over the space.
However, those plans never further materialized and B-Side's ownership has announced that the bar reopens today with curbside seating. (They also unveiled B-Side t-shirts for sale.) Hours: 2-10 p.m.
In other reopening news nearby, 11th Street Bar between Avenue A and Avenue B returned yesterday, pouring its first pint of Guinness in 109 days. The bar is open from 2-10 p.m. for limited curbside seating and take-home drinks.
Updated:
A look at their curbside space...
Friday, July 3, 2020
Happy Fourth of July weekend!
But before we get to July 4, wishing all of you a Merry July Christmas ... Carol from East 5th Street spotted this pine-fresh beauty today on Fifth Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square... something to pair with your Hallmark Channel Christmas in July celebration.
Instant Cults classic
The local pop duo Cults have a new single out ... check out the video here for "Spit You Out," a nod to the mukbangers of YouTube.
Book Swap Saturday happening again tomorrow (Saturday!) on 10th Street
Book Swap Saturday is happening again tomorrow (Saturday!) outside the Tompkins Square Library branch on 10th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.
This will be the third Saturday for the free book swap, which is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (To be clear, the library isn't involved in this swap.)
Per the organizers: "Let's share our used books to help us get through this pandemic together. Leave some and take others."
And they'd like to see it expand to other NYPL branches until the libraries can safely reopen.
Thanks to Stacie Joy for the photos from last Saturday!
Local squirrel feeling just peachy
In the periodic squirrels being adorable series, Goggla spotted this scene in Tompkins
Some narrative: "He got a little too enthusiastic licking the cup and dropped it, only to go all the way down the tree, pick it up and carry it up to a higher spot...where he dropped it again."
Previously on EV Grieve:
• What other photos of squirrels eating things can we post?
• Meanwhile, a squirrel with a coconut drink this morning in Tompkins Square Park
• Today in photos of squirrels carb loading in Tompkins Square Park
Here is an updated map of what's open in the East Village right now
Back in the spring, we told you about the volunteer effort led by the East Village Community Coalition (EVCC) along with residents Perry Leung and Paul Gale, who created an interactive map of what's open in the neighborhood during the COVID-19 crisis. (The site was designed by Zhi He of BetaNYC.)
The group has completed a redesign of the site, which includes almost 650 establishments in the East Village.
What's new? Well! If a establishment has outdoor space, then that info can be found in the notes section of their entry.
Among the other new features:
• Results are now also displayed in list format
• Users can sort by Minority/Women-owned, Black-owned, and LGBT-owned businesses
• A bulletin section, which include links to local human-interest pieces, volunteer opportunities and profile pieces about businesses during the pandemic (many of those link to EVG features).
At the bottom of the map, there's a list of the four most recently updated locations, for users curious about the most latest activity on the site.
And here it is... you can also access the map at this link.
Green Garden Buffet debuts on 9th Street
Green Garden Buffet opened this week at 332 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue... EVG regular Lola Saénz shares these photos of owner Tamika Gabaroum (left) and her assistant (and best friend) Caroline ...
The buffet-style spot serves what's billed as healthy French food. (Another reader described it as Chadian, as Gabaroum is originally from Chad.) Here's a look at the menu ... a selection of these items are available for takeout via a buffet setup that is $7.99 a pound ...
Gabaroum is a former public health advocate with the Peace Corps who served in UN Peacekeeping Missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was an early recipient of a loan last summer as part of the East Village Revitalization Loan Fund for small business owners. (You can read more about the partnership with City Councilmember Carlina Rivera and community advocates here and here.)
Green Garden Buffet is open daily from 1 to 10 p.m.
Thursday, July 2, 2020
News of the world
A variation of the wear-a-mask signage written to the tune of Queen's "We Will Rock You" outside Veselka on Second Avenue and Ninth Street...
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