Reports of smashed car windows on East Village side streets

East Village residents woke up yesterday to find several cars vandalized overnight. 

Mammad Mahmoodi, co-founder and executive director of East Village Loves NYC, came to his car yesterday morning to find that someone smashed in his rear window and the passenger side window and door. 

The thief made off with some shoes Mahmoodi planned to donate yesterday at the Sixth Street Community Center, the home base for East Village Loves NYC. There were other reports of smash-and-grabs on Fifth Street and Avenue D and Sixth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B (and likely more).

Mahmoodi filed a report with the 9th Precinct, which apparently has turned this into a felony case.

Sunday's parting shot

This evening on St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue...

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a photo from Tompkins Square Park by Derek Berg)...

• Asylum seekers are no longer staying at the former St. Brigid School in the East Village (Monday) 

• The Tompkins Square Library branch reopens; a conversation with Lenny Kaye on deck (Monday) 

• The long-neglected 6 Avenue B is for sale (Thursday) 

• A Fresh new look for CTown on Avenue C (Wednesday) 

• Ayat signage alert on 7th and C (Monday) 

• After 2 bagel shops, Cuban cuisine is next for 238 E. 14th St. (Wednesday) 

• Openings: Salter House on 2nd Street (Thursday) 

• A new Indian restaurant for the former Little India on 6th Street (Friday)

• Someone Barbified Basquiat's former space on Great Jones (Monday)

• Dim sum joint looking closer to being a go (go) on 1st Avenue (Tuesday)

• 7 floors of steel for 1 St. Mark's Place (Wednesday) 

• The New Up & Up Laundromat has closed on Avenue A (Friday) 

• Plywood report: The Commodore at 14 Avenue C (Thursday) ... El Pulpo at 51 Avenue B (Thursday) 

• About the VIP portable toilet in Tompkins Square Park (Friday) 

• Tompkins Finest Deli & Grill is now the East Village Mini Market (Saturday) 

• Smoke shop comings and goings (Wednesday) 

• Bong World is officially cashed on 14th Street (Saturday)

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Neighbors come together to create a streetscape on 9th Street

We've been watching a communal mural project unfold this past week outside 418.5 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. (Top photo by Steven.)

Local resident and artist Javi Vecino Cintron led the project with the assistance of neighbors.

Here's how it started back on Tuesday (photos below by William Klayer)...

... and how it ended...

Not so pretty in pink at 57 Great Jones St.

Back on Monday, we noted that someone rolled over the exterior at 57 Great Jones St. between the Bowery and Lafayette with pink paint.

Several media outlets picked up the story (and credited and linked to EVG) ... so thank you...

• Artnet News 

• Curbed 

• Hyperallergic 

• Bollyinside (!!!)

Anyway, the pink painter (whose identity is known) also defaced the memorial plaque for one-time tenant Jean-Michel Basquiat, who lived and worked here from 1983 to the time of his death in 1988. 

The incident motivated EVG regular Lola Sáenz to spend an hour on Friday trying to clean up the plaque and make some progress, though it will need to be professionally buffed out ... (see the top photo)...

As for the address ... earlier this summer, Angelina Jolie announced a new venture, Atelier Jolie — "a creative collective for self-expression" — opening this fall inside the space. 

Sunday's opening shot

Hope everyone is enjoying the Labor Day Weekend...

Saturday's parting shot

A view of the in-progress 21-story 360 Bowery from Great Jones...

Tompkins Finest Deli & Grill is now the East Village Mini Market

Photos by Steven 

Tompkins Finest Deli & Grill abruptly closed this past week at 153 Avenue A near 10th Street... and just like that, the new business signage is up for the East Village Mini Market. 

A tipster said the new owners took over and fired the previous staff. The incoming market, we're told, will focus more on smoking-related products... gone are the sandwiches and deli case from TFDG's days ...

There was a similar abrupt switcheroo here in early 2012 when the Avenue A Mini Market abruptly closed to make way for Tompkins Finest Deli.

Bong World is officially cashed on 14th Street

Unfortunately, ownership of Bong World at 226 E. 14th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue could not resolve the back-rent issues with the landlord. 

An eviction notice arrived on Wednesday...

... and the interior of the shop is in the process of being packed up...

... a few items remain, including a topless and armless female mannequin in an orange camouflage hat...

Bong World debuted here to some fanfare in March 2022. 

Several readers have asked for recommendations for other local businesses that sell smoking accessories. 

Unfortunately, we're unaware of any other place in the immediate area that sells, say, rolling papers/trays, dab rigs, bubblers, or exotic Cheetos snack collections sourced from China, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and India.

Saturday's opening shot

New work up on the Bowery Mural Wall at Houston... wheatpaste panels by Tomokazu Matsuyama... with piano accompaniment this morning via Kristopher Hull. 

Not sure at the moment if this is an officially commissioned work (probably: updated confirmed YES) via Goldman Properties. 

After the art kept getting bombed in the spring of 2022, Jessica Goldman Srebnick, co-chair of Goldman Properties and curator of this wall, put the space on hiatus. And the street took over in the interim. 

H/T @catscoffeecreativity

Updated 9/3

 

Someone quickly tagged the collage of murals...

Let the 'Goodtime!' roll

 

After two buzzy records, the Nashville-based Be Your Own Pet called it quits in 2008. 

Here then, 15 years later, the band is back with Mommy, which shows BYOP staying true to their garage punk roots. 

The video here is for "Goodtime!"

The New Up & Up Laundromat has closed on Avenue A

Photos by Daniel Carlson 

Multiple EVG readers have shared the news that the New Up & Up Laundromat at 13 Avenue A between Houston/First and Second Street has closed. 

Starting yesterday, workers were spotted removing the equipment from the longtime business...

The space is for lease, though we haven't spotted any listing online just yet.

About the VIP portable toilet in Tompkins Square Park

Photos by Steven

Several readers have asked about the luxury portable trailer — VIP to Go! — that has been near the Seventh Street entrance between Avenue A and Avenue B this past week. 

Perhaps the city found some extra budget $$$ and is treating us to some upscale facilities while the field house is closed for renovation? 

Haha! No! 

The facilities remain here after the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on Sunday. These were brought in for the use of the musicians backstage. 

But, they remain... and are unlocked... as an intrepid EVG correspondent discovered... 

By the way, this model is the two-station Rolls Royce restroom trailer. Per the description: "Impresses everyone who sees it with its clean, simple white exterior that opens to a beautiful, warm wood interior and all the luxuries of home." 

Anyway, enjoy it while you can.

A new Indian restaurant for the former Little India on 6th Street

Photo by Goggla 

A coming soon sign for a restaurant serving Indian cuisine has arrived outside 324 E. Sixth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue... and next door to the shuttered Raj Mahal. 

And just last week, we noted that the block was down to one Indian restaurant, Malai Marke, when there were more than 25 at one point in its Little India heyday.

We don't know at the moment who's behind the new establishment.

Koo'k just closed at No. 324 after eight years in service.