Report: City Council set to vote on a permanent outdoor dining program

Updated 4:15 p.m.

Council reportedly passed the legislation ... and it is now awaiting the signature of Mayor Adams to become official. District 1 City Councilmember Christopher Marte voted no, as the Commercial Observer reported, "on the basis that it would allow bad actors to continue with outdoor dining for years at a time." 

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City Council is expected to vote today to make outdoor dining a permanent part of the NYC street landscape. 

Per Gothamist: 

The bill, sponsored by Council Member Marjorie Velázquez with vocal support from Mayor Eric Adams, has gone through multiple revisions since it was first introduced in February of last year, as the Adams administration and Council members have spent more than a year in negotiations for a permanent setup. 

In the latest version, roadway cafes will be allowed from April until the end of November. Sidewalk seating will be authorized for restaurants year-round with the proper permitting, which covers a four-year period. Curb-based roadway seating will require a separate permit spanning the same length of time, with each permit costing $1,050, according to the bill text.

As City & State previously noted, "The establishment of a permanent outdoor dining program has been held up in part by lawsuits, but also by disagreements between City Hall and the Council on what the program should look like."

The most recent lawsuit to end the pandemic-era Open Restaurants program was filed last month. As Streetsblog reported:

The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, makes many of the plaintiffs' previous arguments about the open restaurant program taking away parking, causing noise and congestion, and allegedly inviting rats to move in (though this has been debunked).

But central to the latest effort to undermine the restaurant industry is the claim that the city itself has deconstructed its own pandemic edicts and, as a result, should do the same with the restaurant program.

Meanwhile, if passed, there's still a lengthy approval process for a restaurant to receive streetside dining status. Take it away, Streetsblog:

Business owners will have to send their petitions for outdoor dining to DOT, the Council, the borough president, and the local community board, the latter of which will have 40 days to give recommendations on whether to approve the applications. 

If the business is in a historic district or adjacent to a landmark, it will also need to get approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. 

The Council can review petitions and hold a vote on whether to approve them.

And one question we've heard people ask: If City Council passes this legislation, what does that mean for the outdoor structures that restaurants and cafes set up during the temporary program? According to various published reports, those streeteries that don't comply with the new rules must come down by Nov. 1, 2024.  

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo and text by Stacie Joy 

Today marked the last day at C&B Cafe on Seventh Street near Avenue B for Bailey Anderes, the coffee shop's stylish barista/counterperson/general happy presence. 

Bailey is pursuing a dream career (blogging?) in another profession... and everyone who has been through the doors here will miss him!

Late morning mannequin break

Photo by Steven 

As seen on St. Mark's Place this morning between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

Well, this is not a boat accident! It wasn't any propeller! It wasn't any coral reef!

Report: The historic 137 2nd Ave. — the former Stuyvesant Polyclinic — has a new owner

One of the neighborhood's most unique properties has a new (mystery) owner. 

The landmarked three-story building at 137 Second Ave. between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street just changed hands for $18.95 million, the Post first reported. 

The unknown buyer was listed as 137 Second Avenue Holdings, LLC. No word on what the new tenant has planned for the space, which hit the market back in March. 

According to the listing, possible uses included "a future townhouse or residential redevelopment."

The neo-Italian Renaissance brick building is the former German Dispensary, which opened in 1884. (In 1905 it became the Stuyvesant Polyclinic.) 

Here's more about the building from a 2008 New York Times feature:

Like the branch library next door, the Second Avenue building of the German Dispensary was the gift of Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer, who ran the German newspaper New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung. That journal had great influence in Little Germany, on the Lower East Side around First and Second Avenues below 14th Street. The 1886 edition of Appleton's Dictionary of New York described an area in which "lager-beer shops are numerous, and nearly all the signs are of German names."

The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1976. Learn more about No. 137's history and architecture at Off the Grid here.

In 2019, the space became the headquarters of the female-focused co-working club The Wing. Per reports at the time, "the HQ is intended to riff off the building's original details, such as existing terracotta tile floors, decorative pillars, moldings and skylights."

According to Curbed, who first reported on this availability in March, "The Wing's furniture is still in the building and can be included in the sale."

Apparently, the new owner didn't want that furniture. On July 20, EVG contributor Derek Berg spotted workers trashing some pretty nice-looking office fixtures... not to mention some books...

Derek alerted the folks at Village Works around the corner on St. Mark's Place, who were able to salvage some of the books...

Butter Lane leaves 7th Street for a new home in the American Dream Mall

Photos by Steven

Butter Lane has closed its East Village outpost here at 123 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

The small bakery, which offered a variety of cupcakes, baking classes and catering, winded down operations this past weekend... ahead of a move to the American Dream Mall (located across from the Angry Bird Mini Golf ticket booth) in East Rutherford, N.J.

Butter Lane debuted here in late 2008 ... with new ownership taking over in 2014.

Signage alert: Anjelly on St. Mark's Place; Rice Bird NYC on 9th Street

Photos by Steven 

Signage went up yesterday for Anjelly at 103 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

We're told this will be an Asian dessert spot. 

The previous tenant, CJ Tattoo, relocated to 55 Avenue C in March. 

Meanwhile... signage arrived last week for Rice Bird NYC at 334 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue...

A worker said this would be a Chinese restaurant. 

This retail space has been vacant for years.

Midnight moon over 2nd Avenue

Felton Davis of the Second Avenue Star Watchers shared this dispatch from last night...

"After two months of haze and smoke, finally, an almost-full moon hovers over Second Avenue at midnight."

Expect a full moon tonight... and then there's a rare blue supermoon coming at the end of the month.

East Village Loves NYC aids asylum seekers in Midtown during Saturday's heatwave

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

On Saturday morning, a reporter covering the humanitarian crisis at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown asked me if anyone in the neighborhood did emergency aid crisis response. 

She mentioned witnessing hundreds of people on the sidewalk, with the heat index hovering around 100, without food or water while they waited for a spot to open up at the intake center. (All arriving asylum seekers are now processed through a centralized system, but they are no spaces available, so long lines have formed while people wait — up to several days — for a chance to get inside.) 

I contacted some mutual aid groups I'd worked with in the past, including East Village Loves NYC, and we set up a plan to provide 250 meals to people midday after being told they'd only had a "block of cheese" and a bottle of water the night before.

In less than four hours, the volunteers with EVLovesNYC prepared hundreds of meals (beef and vegan options) at their home base, the Sixth Street Community Center, and had them ready to go...

We arrived at the city's intake center at the hotel on East 45th Street. We received assistance from DocGo (the subcontractor managing the site) to hand out the halal meals, watermelon slices, chocolate croissants (courtesy of C&B Cafe on Seventh Street) and bottles of water. 

With so many people waiting (some transported to area hospitals), the city was scrambling for places to put them. The Mayor's office hoped to move people to the Port Authority while waiting for space to open up. MTA buses were brought in as emergency mobile cooling centers. 

The situation at the center was tense, and later that night, after we left, people tried to break the barrier to get inside. There isn't an end in sight, and the city repeatedly has stated they have no more room to house the influx. (City and state officials also continue to ask for assistance from the federal government.)

For information on volunteering with or donating to EVLovesNYC, visit this site.

Local 92 has closed on 2nd Avenue

Multiple readers have noted that Local 92 has gone dark here on Second Avenue between Fifth Street and Sixth Street.

There aren't any messages on the restaurant's website or social media about a closure... Google lists the Local 92 address as on Mulberry between Prince and Spring. No one answered the phone listed for this Mulberry address on Sunday or last evening.

Local 92, which served a variety of Middle Eastern cuisine and was a popular brunch spot, first opened here in 2013.

In 2021, three former employees claimed that Marcello Assante, the restaurateur behind Local 92 as well as the now-closed Bella Ciao in Little Italy, "refused to pay his employees overtime; ignored coronavirus health requirements issued by city and state officials; and referred to former employees as 'princesses' after they raised concerns about the alleged incidents," Eater reported. There were also allegations levied against Local 92 chef and co-owner Shai Zvibak. They denied the accusations. 

And Local 92 is the latest closure along this corridor in the past two years... other closings on Second Avenue between Fourth Street and Sixth Street include the Mermaid Inn, Eros, Mighty Quinn's BBQ, Wild Mirrors, Sauced Up!, Calexico and Sestina.

6 posts from July

A mini month in review... (with one more summer cloud pic)... 

• First look inside the Astor Place Wegmans, set to open on Oct. 18 at 9 a.m. (July 27) 

• When a young red-tailed hawk gets stuck in the airshaft outside your kitchen window (July 21) 

• RIP Big Lee (July 18)

• Late night at Key Food (July 14) 

• The last day for East Village mainstay Ink on Avenue A (July 9) 

• Angelina Jolie is creating a collaborative space for designers and artisans in Basquiat's former studio on Great Jones Street (July 8)

Noted

A little after 6 this evening, sanitation employees shut down Sixth Street between First Avenue and Avenue A...

... so that workers could powerwash off some street graffiti...

... oh...

... and as seen on Friday night...

Details about the NYPD's Night Out Against Crime

Photo by Stacie Joy

The NYPD is hosting its annual National Night Out Against Crime tomorrow (Tuesday, Aug. 1).

In the East Village, the community-building event takes place outside the 9th Precinct from 4-8 p.m. There's free food (BBQ!) and other treats for attendees... as well as some kid-friendly entertainment. It's also an opportunity to meet staff from the 9th Precinct.

The Precinct house is at 321 E. Fifth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

July 31

Photo by Steven

OK, so not a real tree... still, we can dream of a _ _ _ _ _ Christmas here on St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Something to frown about at Smileys

Photos by Steven

Smileys at 199 Avenue A is the latest unlicensed cannabis shop to get busted in a multi-agency sweep last week.

An array of legal notices are affixed to the storefront (and semi-obscured by the rolldown gate) here between 12th Street and 13th Street...

Smileys, which opened at the start of the year and describes itself as a "wellness shop," remained closed over the weekend. 

As we've seen, shops that have been raided-fined have eventually resumed operations, new shops have risen from the ashes of shuttered venues, or new businesses with increasingly cutesy names arrive down the block.

Meanwhile, to avoid detection, several readers have noted at least two shops have removed their signage and only open in the evenings when a coordinated raid is less likely.

With a new law in place late in the spring, New York State — via the Office of Cannabis Management and Department of Taxation and Finance — ramped up efforts to shut down businesses selling cannabis without a license. 

However, as NY1 pointed out on July 14, of "the 22 stores that were issued violations in the city, only six have closed down. Most reopened for business and continue to openly sell cannabis in violation of the law." Gothamist has more on the enforcement success here.

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The City recently published a piece titled, Your Guide to Legal Cannabis in New York City.