Demolition work at East River Park is moving north.
Starting Tuesday, the East 10th Street pedestrian bridge will close, along with the adjacent playground, BBQ area, and basketball courts — marking the next phase of park shutdowns tied to the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) Project.
In addition, the northern esplanade with access to Stuyvesant Cove Park (through 18th Street) will be shut down. Officials offered no alternative route. (Photos below by Robert Miner.)
Here's the community advisory on these closures ...
Field 6 will remain open until July 1... and by the end of the summer, the track located off of the Sixth Street pedestrian bridge will shut down, at which point the complete north end of East River Park will be shuttered. When this takes place, East Village-based park-goers must head south to access any East River Park amenities.
However, with the closures, several refurbished East River Park areas around the Williamsburg Bridge will reopen on Memorial Day, including the south tennis courts.
The city has said it would maintain public access to at least 42% of the park throughout construction, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
The "phased work operations" in East River Park began in November 2021 in Project Area 1 between Montgomery Street and 15th Street. Workers have been burying the park under fill and cutting down hundreds of trees as part of the billion-dollar-plus ESCR. They are elevating the land 8 to 10 feet above sea level to protect the area from future storm surges.
The restaurant space on the NE corner of Second Avenue and Fifth Street is now on the rental market, ending a four-year run of sometimes-open concepts since the fall of 2021. The for-lease sign via Compass arrived yesterday. (We didn't spot the listing online.)
At 88 Second Ave, the diner Kitchen Sink went dark in the summer of 2021... and ownership later transformed the space into a Greek restaurant called Eros... which quietly closed in August 2022 ... to later emerge as Sunflower East Village, which closed for a "restructure" four months later. This sister cafe to the one on Third Avenue in Gramercy Park never reopened.
Now someone else will have a shot of making something work in this prime EV space...
The kiosk, which has been here since 1996, is open Thursday through Monday — "if the sun is shining." (Unfortunately, today's weather doesn't look so good.)
The outpost at 85 Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street is open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, with a 9 a.m. start on the weekend.
Andrea Gordillo is the latest City Council District 2 candidate to temporarily lease an East Village storefront to serve as a campaign headquarters.
In March, we noted that Sarah Batchu and Harvey Epstein rented spaces on Avenue B.
Gordillo is renting Lori McLean's former custom jewelry shop at 207 Avenue A between 12th Street and 13th Street while the landlord searches for a full-time tenant. (McLean decided to retire from running a storefront after two decades.)
I stopped by as Gordillo and her team opened the space to the public.
"This storefront will serve as more than just a headquarters — it'll be a community center and welcoming space for neighbors and visitors through Election Day," Gordillo said. "We're proud to root our organizing in the heart of the East Village."
Here are the Democratic candidates for the District 2 seat (Carlina Rivera has been term-limited) ... their names are linked to the candidate's campaign website:
LES residents worried about a bar opening in the large storefront on the SW corner of Orchard and Stanton can relax.
Coming-soon signage for a Sweetgreen outpost is up now at 167 Orchard St. in the heart of Hell Square. (Thanks to EVG reader Seth for the tip!)
The space below the Slipper Room last housed Smashed, the burger joint that shut down here a year ago.
As for Sweetgreen, this marks the third location of the fast-casual brand in the area... with one at the Bowery and Third Street and another on Astor Place.
The black comedy-crime thriller from Darren Aronofsky (based on Charlie Huston's novel) is set (in part) in the late 1990s East Village.
Austin Butler, playing an East Village bartender, stars alongside Bad Bunny, ZoĂ« Kravitz, Griffin Dunne, Matt Smith, Regina King, Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio, among others.
Check out the trailer below... (you'll catch a glimpse of the Kim's Video set)...
The official plot:
Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) was a high-school baseball phenom who can't play anymore, but everything else is going okay. He's got a great girl (Zoë Kravitz), tends bar at a New York dive, and his favorite team is making an underdog run at the pennant.
When his punk-rock neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to take care of his cat for a few days, Hank suddenly finds himself caught in the middle of a motley crew of threatening gangsters. They all want a piece of him; the problem is he has no idea why. As Hank attempts to evade their ever-tightening grip, he's got to use all his hustle to stay alive long enough to find out…
A few things about The Houston, the new 12-story mixed-use building at 280 E. Houston St. on the north side between Avenue A and Avenue B.
1) Yes, it seems enormous, given that the lot was previously a one-level strip of storefronts and a gas station decades before that... photo below from 2016...
2) Several readers pointed out that workers have removed most of the sidewalk bridge.
Households that earn $33,909 to $218,010 are eligible to apply for one of the units. The apartments are designated for New Yorkers earning between 40% and 130% of the area median income (AMI), which varies based on household size. Studio rents start at $989. One-bedroom and two-bedroom units are also available.
The Houston, with its sleek, clean lines, represents a new caliber of New York City living — crafted for residents seeking the best of both worlds: refined luxury paired with the authentic, eclectic spirit of the East Village.
Spanning 224,809 square feet, The Houston makes a bold architectural statement with its brick façade—an homage to the neighborhood's industrial past, reinterpreted through a contemporary lens. The building's thoughtfully designed eighth-floor setback creates an expansive outdoor amenity terrace, featuring a rooftop sky lounge complete with grilling stations, dining areas, a media lounge, sun deck, and refreshing misting showers.
Residents will also enjoy an impressive array of lifestyle amenities, including an indoor-outdoor fitness center with a dedicated yoga studio, a fully equipped pet spa, a coworking library lounge, and a private screening room.
Citi Bike crews yesterday swapped out the old docking station on the SW corner of First Avenue and 14th Street for a new electrified model.
The DOT announced earlier this month an expansion of electrified Citi Bike charging station networks, with plans to electrify 13 charging stations in existing station locations across Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Per the DOT:
Electric grid-connected stations allow Citi Bike e-bikes to charge on-site while docked, rather than requiring batteries to be manually swapped out by staff in vehicles. Based on experience deploying bikeshare charging stations in cities like Barcelona and Montreal, Lyft projects that a network of Citi Bike charging stations will both improve e-bike availability for riders and significantly reduce operational costs from manual battery swapping.
Lyft officials have said that electric Citi Bike ridership surpassed 29 million e-bike trips in 2024, some of them not even on First Avenue or Second Avenue in the East Village.
FYI: Citi Bike's fleet features 15,000 pedal-assist e-bikes and over 20,000 traditional pedal bikes.
An employee spotted at Taverna East Village stated that the Greek restaurant would reopen in a few weeks.
With the open gates this past week, this was the first activity we've noticed here in months.
Taverna has been closed since at least early December at 228 First Ave. between 13th Street and 14th Street.
According to a patron in December, the Greek restaurant was closed without any notice to the public until a sign later arrived noting the closure due to a "required Con Edison" inspection. The rolldown gates remained down.
Meanwhile, the restaurant's website still notes: "We are currently closed due to a Kitchen Renovation project. We are working very hard to reopen as soon as possible."
The outpost of Astoria's favorite Taverna Kyclades opened in the fall of 2013. However, ownership changed hands, and the name change to Taverna East Village was made public last June.
Ä‚njelly, a Vietnamese dessert shop, has apparently officially closed.
A for-rent sign now hangs above the storefront at 103 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue.
We noticed the gate had been down in recent weeks. Yelp lists it as closed while the shop's Instagram account is no longer on the platform.
Ä‚njelly went viral shortly after opening in the fall of 2023 for its jiggly dessert animal collection.
A curious flyer taped up outside Ben's Deli on Avenue B might look, at first glance, like a DIY attempt to identify a local thief — someone possibly swiping six-packs of White Claw or that Clarins you should of had delivered to the office.
But look closer, and it's clear this is something else entirely.
The flyer is some sort of guerilla marketing campaign for "Caught Stealing," an upcoming crime thriller from Darren Aronofsky. The film stars Austin Butler — shown in character on the flyer — alongside Bad Bunny, ZoĂ« Kravitz, Griffin Dunne, Matt Smith and Regina King.
The film is set to hit theaters on Aug. 29 — the same date stamped on the flyer.
As we previously reported, "Caught Stealing" was filmed extensively throughout the East Village last fall.
