Saturday, October 26, 2024
Saturday's parting shot
Night and day at Trash & Vaudeville
Photos by Stacie Joy
We always like the Halloween-time windows at Trash & Vaudeville on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.
We got the night-time shot above and returned to when the longtime clothing boutique (b 1975) was open to check out the seasonal pieces... 
EVG Etc.: Potential jurors in Daniel Penny trial face further questioning; election races to watch
Photo from Houston and the Bowery
• Jury selection continues in the manslaughter trial of Daniel Penny (Courthouse News ... Remembering Jordan Neely (ABC News)
• The nonprofits that operate NYC's homeless shelters are engaged in widespread corruption, officials say (The New York Times... UPI)
• The mayor's defense team is arguing that law enforcement agencies deliberately tried to tarnish his reputation (Gothamist)
• Races to watch in NYC this election season (THE CITY)
• Panhandler attacked a customer at Mee Noodle on First Avenue (PIX 11)
• A look at the fourth annual FranCon gathering at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Mark's Place (Vogue)
• New gallery exhibit on Second Street near Avenue A: Survivor-Girl, "women-identifying artists exploring the spectrum of womanhood and the survivor-body" (Ruby/Dakota ... previously on EVG)
• In praise of "Energies," a new exhibition at the Swiss Institute on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place (Cultured)
• The man fighting to save the Elizabeth Street Garden (Interview)
• A fall-time look at Christo and Amelia, the resident red-tailed hawks of Tompkins Square Park (Laura Goggin Photography)
• A Taiwanese food crawl in the East Village (Gothamist)
• A Sixth Street co-op "embodies East Village cool, all grown up" (6sqft)
• Dirt Candy, which got its start on Ninth Street, turns 16 (Forbes)
• The NYC restaurants going old-school with the return of the reservation book (Eater)
• Two chances to see "All the President's Men" on the big screen, today and Wednesday (Metrograph)
... and on Avenue B between Eighth Street and Ninth Street this afternoon...
Community events on 12th Street today
Campos Community Garden invites the community to join us for our 14th annual celebration of Dia de Los Muertos on Saturday, Oct. 26, 3-6 p.m. As always, it’s a free event in remembrance of our loved ones. We will commemorate Dia de los Muertos with arts & crafts, Mexican hot chocolate & sweet breads, and ceremonial dancing by Cetiliztl Nauhcampa dancers (ceremony at 4 p.m.).Leave an offering at the altar if you wish. (You can also visit the altar on Sunday, Oct. 27, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. during public hours.) Garden: 640 E. 12th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C
And next door...
The Children's Workshop School will host Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 26, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. This seasonal favorite returns with fall-themed crafts & activities, games, food, and our first-ever pie-baking contest! Open to the greater community!It's also a wonderful chance to meet families if you're interested in applying for school next year, as well as supporting our public progressive school: 610 E. 12th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C.
Finding ghostwriters? Haunt the stacks at the Lower East Side Halloween Bookstore Crawl
Participating stores will have various deals and spooky stuff:
Saturday's opening shots
A view this a.m. on 14th Street looking to the east toward Avenue C...
... and the 24-floor residential buidling in progress (maybe up to 20?)...
Friday, October 25, 2024
Friday's parting shot
Photo by Cecil Scheib
A view of tonight's spectacular sunset ... with a view of Tompkins Square Park...
You're in a mess
Local duo Beau — Heather Goldin and Emma Jenney — just saw the release of their third album, Girl Cried Wolf.
The video here is for the track "Messy."
The longtime friends and native New Yorkers started writing music together at age 13 in Washington Square Park.
Per their bio: "If in some alternate universe there is a place where The Ronettes, Joanna Newsom, Thom Yorke and Karen O meet, then that is the birthplace of Beau."
Beau knows!
This weekend in Tompkins Square Park
Tomorrow (Saturday) a slate of bands is on the bill for Mike Lewi's Psychobilly Halloween Extravaganza.
East Village resident John Holmstrom, the co-founder, editor, and illustrator of PUNK Magazine, will also be on hand giving away copies of PUNK #23 and selling some PUNK Mag merch.
The music is scheduled from 2-6 p.m.
At 6:30, East Village resident Eric Drooker presents an illustrated history of Tompkins Square Park ...
Talking baseball
This mural of him capturing the heyday of "Fernandomania" has been outside Taqueria St Marks Place since the bar-restaurant opened at 79 St. Mark's Place west of First Avenue in March 2015.
Taqueria St Marks Place remains a haven for L.A. Dodgers and Lakers fans.
And as we first reported, the Dodgers and Yankees are facing each other in the World Series starting tonight. Being fans of the game, some big questions as the series gets underway:
• Can the Jets do more on offense with an improved clean-pocket stat line for Aaron Rodgers?
• Does Karl-Anthony Towns really give the Knicks a true stretch 5?
• Will the Rangers win the Metropolitan Division?
• Will the Liberty resign Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot?
In any event... our call: Yankees in 8.
Office building on the former site of B Bar & Grill will be home to Chobani House — 'a new model for urban development'
The new 22-story office building on the SW corner of the Bowery and Fourth Street will be home to one tenant: The NYC-based Chobani, LLC, the food and beverage company initially known for its Greek yogurt.
Yesterday, the company announced more details about the late-2025 arrival of Chobani House at 360 Bowery, "a new model for urban development, combining business, community investment, and impact." (News of the lease was made last month.)
According to the announcement, "Chobani is embracing a new vision for how businesses can invest in and deliver sustained impact for their home community."
Here's more:
Chobani House will be home to its global business headquarters with employees working in office four days a week, a community kitchen preparing nutritious meals for those in need, an innovation center supporting Chobani's business and also bringing together global food scientists to advance solutions to help eradicate hunger, and an incubator lab for emerging NGOs and non-profits who are focused on social impact.
The over 120,000-square-foot building will include an "experiential retail space" and other organizations connected to Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani's founder and CEO.
Tent Partnership for Refugees, started by Ulukaya, is "a network of over 400 companies committed to helping refugees across a dozen countries in the Americas and Europe access local labor markets by helping them become job-ready." Shepherd Futures, Ulukaya's family office, bought Anchor Brewing in San Francisco this past spring.
As previously reported, CB Developers paid $59.5 million for a stake in 358-360 Bowery, a gas station, before converting the lot into B Bar & Grill. That one-time hot spot (circa the mid-1990s) was expected to close in August 2020. However, the place never reopened after the PAUSE in March 2020.
Foundation work started on the new building in the summer of 2022.
Thursday, October 24, 2024
RIP Gary Indiana
Some headlines on his life and work:
• Writer Gary Indiana, Dark Prince of the 1980s East Village Art Scene, Is Dead at 74 (artnet)
• Remembering Gary Indiana (1950–2024) (The Paris Review)
• Gary Indiana's The Village Voice Art Columns (ArtReview)
Op-Ed: The back of our ballot in NYC
Op-Ed by Pat Arnow
Even the most informed NYC voters might overlook key proposals tucked on the back of this year's ballot. These measures are significant, so don't forget to flip your ballot and make your voice heard.
Here’s what's up as early voting begins on Saturday:
Proposal 1
VOTE YES on the State Equal Rights Amendment to the state Constitution.
Equality for all under the law seems like it would be straightforward and popular, but big money is being spent to defeat it.
Proposals 2-6
VOTE NO on NYC Charter proposals.
"Mayor Adams rushed revisions to change NYC's charter (our constitution) to give the current and future mayors more unchecked power, weaken checks-and-balances, and make it harder for city government to deliver for New Yorkers. The proposals came out of the most rushed and undemocratic charter revision process of the past 20 years and should never have been fast-tracked to our ballots." (from the Grand Street Democrats)
Here's the text of Proposal 1, the ERA to the NY State Constitution:
§ 11. a. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof. No person shall, because of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed [or], religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy, be subjected to any discrimination in [his or her] their civil rights by any other person or by any firm, corporation, or institution, or by the state or any agency or subdivision of the state, pursuant to law.
Proposals 2-6: They sound innocuous, even beneficial, but they're destructive and a power grab by the mayor.
Proposal 2: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to expand and clarify the Department of Sanitation's power to clean streets and other City property and require disposal of waste in containers." One of the several problems with this initiative, according to The City, is increased ticketing (harassment) of street vendors and small businesses.
Proposal 3: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to require fiscal analysis from the Council before hearings and votes on laws, authorize fiscal analysis from the Mayor, and update budget deadlines."
According to The City, "Opponents of Prop 3 say that requiring the executive branch to submit a budget estimate before a public hearing on a bill is held will just delay lawmaking processes that already take years...Jason Otaño, general counsel for the City Council, testified at one of the Charter Revision Commission hearings that Prop 3 would give the mayor's office a 'de facto veto' of proposed legislation…"
Proposal 4: This proposal would require additional public notice and time before the City Council votes on laws respecting the public safety operations of the Police, Correction, or Fire Departments.
According to The City, "City and State reported that opponents felt that the Adams administration was pushing this proposal in direct response to two specific laws passed by City Council earlier this year: one that requires the NYPD to report on lower-level encounters with residents and another which bans solitary confinement. Adams vetoed both those laws, and the City Council then overrode him."
Proposal 5: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to require more detail in the annual assessment of City facilities, mandate that facility needs inform capital planning, and update capital planning deadlines."
From No Power Grab NY: "The mayor's charter commission claimed that Proposal 5 was based on a recommendation from the city’s Comptroller (the city’s top financial executive)."
Comptroller Brad Lander’s statement reads in part: "Requiring the Citywide Statement of Needs to include additional detail on facility condition is meaningless for capital budget planning purposes — since these are in fact the projects that the City has already decided need to be improved and to invest funds to do so…"
Proposal 6: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to establish the Chief Business Diversity Officer (CBDO), authorize the mayor to designate the office that issues film permits, and combine archive boards."
From No Power Grab NY: "Proposition 6 is a collection of three totally unrelated items. It claims to support Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs), but really only renames and largely restates the role of a mayoral office. This gives the illusion of change without additional concrete support for MWBEs."
For more on what these proposals will do and objections to them, here are several resources and published reports cited above:
• A Guide to the Six Ballot Questions New Yorkers Will Vote on in 2024 (The City)
• Why New Yorkers Should Vote 'No' on Proposals 2 Through 6 (NYCLU)
• 2024 NYC General Election Ballot Proposals (New York City Council)
• VOTE NO on Props 2-6 — What You Need to Know (No Power Grab NYC, PDF)
So be sure when you vote to flip your ballot and vote on these propositions!
------
Pat Arnow is a Lower East Side resident, park advocate and founder of East River Park Action.
Curtain falls on Connelly Theater: Archdiocese takes center stage in script scrutiny drama
EVG photo from January
Under increased scrutiny of its productions by the building landlord, the Archdiocese of New York, the Connelly Theater has gone dark on Fourth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.
As The New York Times first reported:
Josh Luxenberg, who has been the theater’s general manager for the past decade, submitted his resignation late Friday. And early Tuesday, the Catholic school that is the intermediary between the theater and the archdiocese said it was "suspending all operations of its theater."Producers who have rented from the Connelly say they were aware that it was owned by the archdiocese, and that there was always a clause in their contract allowing the Roman Catholic Church to bar anything it deemed obscene, pornographic or detrimental to the church's reputation.But only recently, they said, did the archdiocese seek to rigorously scrutinize scripts before approving rentals. New York Theater Workshop said it was told by a bishop this month that it could not stage "Becoming Eve," which is adapted from a memoir about a rabbi who comes out as a transgender woman, at the Connelly early next year. It is now looking for another venue.
SheNYC Arts, which has been producing theater by women, trans, and nonbinary writers at the Connelly Theater for eight years, is now looking for a new home for its underrepresented work.
In a statement, SheNYC said that new leadership at the Archdiocese of New York "has directed the theater to deny the space to any shows or companies that would be seen as inappropriate by the Catholic Church."
This includes shows about reproductive rights, trans characters, and gender issues, SheNYC Arts has been told. The priest in charge of the jurisdiction is personally screening scripts to ensure they fit within strictly Catholic doctrines."The Archdiocese has specifically called out our past shows at the Connelly Theater, calling them 'inappropriate' for discussing issues like reproductive rights and gender and making it clear to us that shows like that will not be allowed in the future," said Danielle DeMatteo, Artistic Director of SheNYC Arts. "Especially just a few weeks before our election that could determine the future of our rights, this is a truly shocking development."
The vital Off-Broadway venue, which recently staged the future Broadway production "Job," is housed within the Cornelia Connelly Center, a Catholic school for girls from fourth to eighth grade.
The producers of "Job" released a statement on Instagram that read:
We are shocked and disappointed that the Catholic Church has shuttered one of downtown’s most beloved theatres. Simply put, "Job" would not be on Broadway without the Connelly Theater.
Great theatre is an exchange of ideas — an opportunity for audiences to develop empathy and understanding. The Church undermines that quest for shared humanity with its decision.We call on the Archdiocese to reopen the Connelly so artists and audiences can once again gather and experience the transcendence of live theatre. And in the meantime, we invite Cardinal Dolan to come to the Hayes Theater to see Job on Broadway. He can experience first-hand the powerful theatre he is now turning his back on.
New York Archdiocese spokesperson Joseph Zwilling told the National Catholic Register: "It is the standard practice of the archdiocese that nothing should take place on Church-owned property that is contrary to the teaching of the Church."
When asked if the Archdiocese mandated the theater's closure, Zwilling said, "We did not order it to be closed."
"We had seen a range of really provocative, amazing, inspiriting, artistically rigorous shows there, so I was surprised this would be rejected," Patricia McGregor, the artistic director of New York Theater Workshop on Fourth Street, told the Times. "And if in the East Village of New York City we are meeting this kind of resistance, where else might this be happening?"
The signage was removed outside the Connelly Theater yesterday, and the doors were freshly painted.
Meanwhile, Google lists the theater as "permanently closed."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)