Sunday, November 19, 2023
Sunday's late-morning opening shot
Giving thanks: Free turkey giveaway returns to the neighborhood for the 5th year
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
The fifth edition of this pre-Thanksgiving local turkey drive took place Friday afternoon on Fourth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B. (The giveaways in previous years took place at different locations around the neighborhood. Last year's event was at CLLCTV.NYC art space on Third Street.)
Dozens of turkeys were donated to area residents who might need a little extra help this holiday season.
As in the previous years, the sponsors included Joey Aponte and Dennis Aponte, owners of the Cabin NYC on Fourth Street, the NYPD Hispanic Society, Johnny Marines and local entrepreneur Freaky Frige... 
The volunteers distributed 150 turkeys, the ingredients for some side dishes as well as cooking supplies to help put it all together ...
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Saturday's parting crane shot
Photo by Derek Berg
As a follow-up to the earlier post today about crane work on the Bowery at Fourth Street...
'Here & Now' this weekend
There's live music this afternoon featuring Kate Reddy (of the band 108) and tomorrow (2-6 p.m.) brings a live-painting event.
You can access the free show via MoRUS, 155 Avenue C between Ninth Street and 10th Street.
Saturday at 360 Bowery
H/T Garth J.!
Saturday's opening shot
Friday, November 17, 2023
Hold the 'Phone'
[Updating] 19-year-old worker killed by father in construction accident on 1st Avenue and 7th Street
Photo by Daniel Carlson
Updates below; headline also updated as more information became available. There's a GoFundMe here to help the family pay for funeral expenses.
Reports are coming in this morning shortly before 9 that a male pedestrian was struck and killed by a mobile hydraulic lift on First Avenue at Seventh Street.
Police have the intersection closed off right now.
[Photo by Daniel Efram]
We'll update you when more information becomes available.
Updated 10:30 a.m.
ABC-7 reports that the victim, a 19-year-old man, was a construction worker who was directing the equipment operator through the intersection.
Updated 1:30 p.m.
Police have confirmed that the driver of the mobile hydraulic lift is the father of the victim.
According to witnesses and published reports, the son "was attempting to guide his father onto a flatbed truck through the busy intersection," per ABC-7. The victim had apparently moved to stop traffic and was run over by the machinery.
The victim, Ommatt Cruz, lived in the West Brighton neighborhood of Staten Island, according to the Staten Island Advance.
The unhoused residents living on 9th Street and 1st Avenue
Photos and interviews by Stacie Joy
In recent months, the NE corner of Ninth Street and First Avenue has been the focal point of ongoing sweeps by multiple city agencies, including members of the NYPD, the Department of Sanitation and the Department of Homeless Services.
I spoke with three of the regulars here (there are often others staying on the sidewalk as well) to learn more about them and why they continue to stay on this corner.
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So it’s bullshit that we paying taxes and we don’t get the support we need.
Before coming here I was in a relationship with my baby mother. So after that, we split. We had a problem and a situation in the relationship. She stayed with my son in the apartment, so I had to go.
So for a while, I was staying in a little car that I bought.
The solution is affordable housing. Like for everybody, you know. Me? I will ask for the same thing for the whole world. It’s gonna take time. But, if we start at least taking the homeless from the city — from Ninth Street, no, not just from Ninth Street — from all over, like Tompkins Square Park, we could start cleaning the city, not just putting it like the dust, the dirt, under the rock.
Because that’s what they’ve been doing for years. And we got the biggest problem. Oh no, we try to fix it? You’re not trying to fix nothing. They just throw us like we are garbage, like, under the rocks.
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It’s not really safe and I have no apartment to stay at, so I was wandering around and I would probably end up traveling, but I saw Eduardo and he told me what was going on, so I stuck around.
Before this, I was in Queens, like saying with friends. And family. I had traveled before that and then it was at this point, I was going to start traveling again. I was going to get on a Greyhound to Nevada. Or I was also looking at CSX schedules. And things like that as well. To kind of just like, find any way out of the city.
I really just don’t want people to get to keep getting hurt and disrespected. I want people’s human rights to be respected. I don’t want to be treated like livestock anymore.
And during a sweep? I’m not saying they should bring animal services and take my cat, but sometimes they don’t let us come back and forth for ourselves [during or after a sweep] and if I can’t immediately pick up my cat, what does that mean for my cat? It’s hurtful.
If I can’t pick up all my stuff, then they’re going to throw it out. They say they’re gonna voucher it, but a lot of the time it just gets lost in the system. I usually try to grab the cat first. But then everything else gets lost and I have no clothes. It’s just a rabbit hole.
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This is kind of the sequel to Anarchy Row last year [at Ninth Street between Avenue B and C] to what happened there. This camp was a little bigger, but some of its members got inside somewhere for a few days. You know, I don’t blame them.
People that are still here have been trying to fight for justice. Trying to force people into these shelters and safe havens that are dangerous and aren’t helping anybody, just hurting people more. They are designed to be like jails. You know, to have that jail feeling to it?
I have a studio of supportive living. There’s a caseworker in the building. I have some issues with it, but I don’t complain too much. I joke a bit that it’s the best shelter I’ve ever been in. And what I mean by that is that’s where they should have put me and everybody else right from the beginning.
There are a lot of people out here that should have been helped 10 years ago. They are in really bad shape mentally, physically — really bad.
The solution? Yeah, yeah, the solution is the hundreds of thousands of empty apartments. We make them available to the people who don’t have a place to live. And then to stop evicting people into homelessness from there.
There’s enough empty apartments to house all the homeless people in the city and that includes the people that society labels as “migrant people.” There’s enough empty apartments to do that three times over.
East Village resident pleads guilty to running a 'sophisticated ghost gun factory'
An East Village resident pleaded guilty on Tuesday "for running a sophisticated ghost gun factory" in his apartment and possessing firearms, ammunition, 3-D printers, and ghost gun parts, according to D.A. Bragg's office.
Cliffie Thompson, 36, pleaded guilty to six counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, among other charges.
Per the D.A.'s office, under the terms of the plea, Thompson will be sentenced to five years in state prison followed by three years of post-release supervision. He is expected to be sentenced on Jan. 8.
Thompson was arrested this past Jan. 15 for assaulting his girlfriend. According to his plea, "he contacted and directed a woman at his apartment to remove equipment from his home." (He reportedly lived with his mother in the Lillian Wald Houses on Avenue D.)
During a search of the apartment the following day, officers recovered five firearms and various types of ammunition, as well as a setup to manufacture ghost gun parts from scratch, including two 3-D printers. Police also found 36 blank forged credit cards containing other people's personal information.
As Gothamist noted, several lawmakers have proposed measures that would make it illegal to make a firearm with a 3-D printer or share instructions explaining how to do so.
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Thursday's parting shot
Photo by Steven
Squirrel caught in the act while trying to mess with Amelia, one of the resident red-tailed hawks in Tompkins Square Park today...
Noted
Photo by William Klayer
The Lime Tree Market — often first with the seasonal sale items — is prepping for the arrival of the Christmas trees here on the SE corner of First Avenue and Ninth Street...
Q&A with Colin Simpson, aka reggae artist Ras Redemption
Interview and photos by Stacie Joy
I recently talked with Colin Simpson, an aspiring reggae artist who goes by Ras Redemption. He lives and works on the Lower East Side, overseeing maintenance as a superintendent for a residential management company.
He told me about his recently released single, "Brethren," and how the neighborhood reminds him of his hometown in Guyana.
Tell us about your journey to the Lower East Side.
I was born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana, and moved to the United States in 2007, living first in Brooklyn. I moved to the Lower East Side in 2011 for work and have lived here ever since.
I have a video about my journey on YouTube if you want to check it out for more about me.
How do you describe your music?
My music is uplifting, redeeming, inspirational and universally friendly. Reggae is righteous music; it's about awakening and knowing yourself. It frees you from whatever tribulation is going on in life, and it's music to keep you grounded and focused.
So, my music and lyrics mirror that — it mentally takes you to a different place.
You live and work on the Lower East Side, whose locales appear in your music videos. How has the neighborhood influenced your work?
It has influenced me in a positive way. I come from a place where, from the moment you're awake to when you're out in the street, you greet everyone in a warm and friendly manner, and I get that same response from living in this neighborhood — it reminds me of home.
Living on the Lower East Side inspires me to write positive music, making me want to extend/show that same kind of warmth and gratitude to the world.
Where can people see and hear you perform?
I’m in the studio working on my first EP and some new singles. So, for now, if people want to hear more of my music, I’m on all digital platforms and social media.
You can find Colin's social media and videos at this link.
Demoliton of the fire-damaged Middle Church façade starts on Monday
Photo Tuesday by Steven
On Monday, workers will begin to remove the remains of Middle Collegiate Church's fire-damaged façade at 112 Second Ave. between Sixth Street and Seventh Street.
Earlier this month, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church, told us this is expected to be a two-to-three-month job. Lewis also explained that it's a combination demolition-salvage operation. Workers will sift through the remains of the building, initially completed in 1892, to save any of the limestone and ironwork for use in the new sanctuary that will eventually rise on the property.
As previously reported, church leaders said they must remove what remains on the property within the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District. According to a report commissioned by the church, the culmination of an 18-month review, there was too much damage to the existing structure to integrate it into Middle Collegiate's new home, that it wouldn't withstand a full-scale rebuild on the property.
On 3:30 Monday afternoon, church leaders and members of the Middle community "will gather to mourn the sanctuary it called home."
From an announcement about the start of the demoliton:
While this is a moment of communal grief, it will also clear the way for Middle to build a new sanctuary as the community continues to rise. The gathering will embody an ethos that has always defined New York: Resiliency that rebuilds from tragedy by reshaping the neighborhood in ways that honor the past but chart a bold new future.
The church structure was destroyed during a six-alarm fire early morning on Dec. 5, 2020. The fire reportedly started inside 48 E. Seventh St., the five-story residential building that once stood on this corner. FDNY officials blamed faulty wiring at the under-renovation No. 48 and said the fire had been deemed "non-suspicious."
By December 2024, officials hope to create a new worshiping space for up to 225 people in a two-story structure adjacent to the church and their property at 50 E. Seventh St.
Previously on EV Grieve:
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