More on Chico's farewell to the LES

As you know, Chico is leaving NYC after 30 years of creating his spray-painted murals around the LES. Over at 12ozProphet, Martha Cooper was at his going-away party last week at China 1 on Avenue B. According to Cooper, the New York City Housing Authority presented him with a plaque that read “In recognition of dedicated and inspired service to the community in which he has lived and worked for more than 30 years this plaque is presented to Antonio “Chico” Garcia, Graffiti Artist Extraordinaire, with extreme gratitude and appreciation for decades of impressionistic and powerful messages, murals and paintings you have contributed to on Manhattan’s Lower East Side at the New York City Housing Authority. Job Well Done! 2009” As Cooper wrote: "That must be the first time a city agency has celebrated a graffiti artist!"

Cooper also has several early photos of Chico's work from 1982:

What you might expect possibly coming to the soon-to-be-former Virgin Megastore space at Union Square

A CVS for starters. (New York Post)

No record store for 66 Avenue A

Karate Boogaloo passes along the news that DJ Brion's efforts to take over the former Etherea Space at 66 Avenue A have fallen through. KB writes, "There will no longer be a record store in the storefront of 66 Avenue A. As for what will replace Etherea...only the landlord may know but somehow I doubt that. More will be revealed." Sounds ominous!

City fire boxes now more conducive to Baby Dino graffiti, Tall Black Girls fliers

Before the Storm of the Millennium, city workers slapped a fresh coat of red paint on fire boxes in the neighborhood...





Taking great care many times to actually getting some paint on the fire boxes.

New New York bands get glitzy package in the glossies

Picked up the most recent issues of Spin and Rolling Stone to help pass the time on a recent trip.

First, there was Spin, a magazine I've always liked...though I haven't looked at one in some time...There was the feature titled "The New New York Cool," which offered mini-profiles on Lissy Trullie, Crystal Stilts and School of Seven Bells.



Fine. I always prefered the old New York cool. But I'm willing to learn!
Next! Rolling Stone. Another publication I haven't looked at in eons. Hmm, forgot just why... Taylor Swift is on the cover? Oh, right. Now I remember!



Then there's this...the most important thing being, PHOTOS BY THEO WENNER. Ah, a hard-working young man finally gets a big break! Anyway! "The East Village rock scene gets a sleek makeover." The hottest 2009 looks! Which are? No shirt! White shirt! Black shirt! Red pants! Black pants!

Rock band looking for singer who is able to sing

Dunno how well you can read this blurry thing...Click on the image to enlarge...A few details: Must be 28 years old or younger (call HR! That's ageism!) and not prone to dramatics...Good luck.

At East Seventh Street and Cooper Square.

Things are falling at AIG HQ

Noted

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

All Dolled up again: New New York Dolls record coming in May (Hunter-Gatherer)

Free 40th anniversary Woodstock shows this summer...one small detail: there's no NY venue just yet (Brooklyn Vegan)

U2 Way in play; key to Earth next? (Gothamist)

Finding the elusive hybrid Civic taxi (NYC Taxi Photo)

Jeremiah catches a peep of old Times Square (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

The skinniest ad on First Avenue (Scouting NY)

"Watchmen" PR team needs viral marketers with better spelling skills (Flaming Pablum)

A Woody Allen brooch. Or maybe: A Woody Allen brooch? (BuzzFeed)

The hole at Houston and Mulberry (BoweryBoogie)

No more "Life on Mars"

Variety (via NY Mag's Vulture) has the news:

ABC has decided to end the show after a single year -- but in an unusual move, the net will keep the show on the air through the end of its full run.

That will give the series a rare opportunity to sign off with a proper finale, wrapping up the series' core mystery.

Network insiders said they were fans of the show and pleased with its creative chops -- but that the ratings ultimately didn't warrant a second season. The most recent seg of "Life on Mars" averaged just a 2.0 rating/5 share among adults 18-49, as well as 5.5 million viewers.

The show had been filmed, in part, around the neighborhood going back to last summer. We liked the premise -- time-traveling cop returns to 1970s NYC. And we championed the show until we actually watched it. Oh, it was fine. But I stopped watching after the second or third episode.

Here's our complete "LIfe on Mars" coverage.

The last American Virgins to close

You probably saw the news last Friday that the two Virgin Megastores in New York (Union Square, Times Square) will close in the coming months. (It was previously reported that just the Times Square location would shut.) Then late yesterday, Billboard reported that all of the remaining Virgin stores in the United States were being shuttered.

This has certainly been discussed somewhere...but! Are there any chain record stores left in NYC? I've lost track. The F.Y.E. on Sixth Avenue near Radio City is long gone, right? And I don't count those combo chains like Best Buy or Barnes & Noble that may sell music...or locals like J&R.

Anyway, I'm no fan of Virgin or any national chains...And Alex expressed exactly how I feel about all this in a post from this past January:

I don't honestly believe the Virgin Megastore is all that great. Sure, it's convenient, but it's ultimately just an arguably soulless chain store that caters to the lo.com.denom-addicted masses. That said, it's yet another place to buy music that is vanishing, and I find that rather sad.

So maybe this is a little good news for the remaining indie record shops around town? Otherwise, like everything else, it's a bad time for music...including Mondo Kim's, Etherea (a new record shop at this spot is in the works with a different vibe)...Strider Records maybe... Vinyl specialist Malachi Records quietly closed after just six months. They were in a rather obscure second-floor location at Fulton and Nassau in the Financial District....What else am I missing? Oh, and not to forget what's happening to Music Row.

Related:
In case you haven't seen Ben Sisario's "The death and life of great Manhattan record stores" piece from last April.

Speaking of record stores...

The former Bondy's on Park Row still sits vacant...it closed in early 2007, as I recall. (Love that they had "Walkmans" on their sign...)

What do Kermit the Frog and Lou Reed now have in common?

Meanwhile, Supreme unveiled its latest model last week....Here's Lou on some plywood on East Seventh Street near First Avenue.....




[Kermit photos via Allen AKA]

Related:
Supreme's Lou Reed Campaign Gets a Touch-Up (Gothamist)

Happy birthday, Lou Reed (Flaming Pablum)

Top that, Kermit

Plywood at St. Brigid's taken over by new (healthy!) fast-food restaurant posters

On the Avenue B side....


And on the Eighth Street side....

Today's time sucker: PadMapper

I was reading about PadMapper on LifeHacker...and started playing around with it for no good reason. (Oh, what's PadMapper? As Adam explained at LifeHacker: It "maps Craigslist's apartment listings on a Google Map for an at-a-glance look at available offerings.")

Anyway, I came across a "recession" discount sublet -- $125 for a room on Avenue A and 10th Street. Huh? Is that for a day? A week? I went to look at the actual listing on Craigslist...and it had been removed.

Two signs of the Christmas holiday even though it was actually March 2

J&R on Park Row...



At 10th Street and Avenue A...

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

Former LES resident Richard Boes, a regular in the early films of Jim Jarmusch, died on Feb. 21. In recent years he had self-published several acclaimed books. (DWX)

Let's not repeat the mistakes of Nassau Street (New York Post)

...but they do have that new free store (New York Post)

Manitoba's turns 10 -- and launches new Web site (This Ain't the Summer of Love)

The hand signals of the Stork Club (A Continuous Lean via Grub Street)

Rev. Billy's bid for mayor (Gothamist)

Remembering Music Row (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

A rundown on LES car services (BoweryBoogie)

Someone had the balls to eat a granola bar in the Pee Pee Phone (Slum Goddess)

New Yorkers cutting back on cable (Bits)

Exclusive: It snowed

Bar with no name opens in former Mo Pitkin's space

We were surprised to find the former Mo Pitkin's space reopened as a bar this past weekend. We knew something was in the works for the place. In any event, there was a "soft opening" -- as they say -- this past Friday in which a reliable EV Grieve operative reported that the place looked "sketchy" in sort of an Upper East Side way. There's no indication outside what the place is called. In any event, it's apparently run by the folks behind Aces & Eights, the fratty Yorkville saloon on First Avenue and 87th Street.

The former Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction bar/restaurant/performance space at 34 Avenue A closed in October 2007. It was owned in part by Two Boots honcho Phil Hartman. According to the Observer last November, the building was sold for $4 million.

We stopped by ourselves last night...but the place was closed...no word yet on what will become of the performance space upstairs. There is a rather rumpled-looking banner advertising loft space for rent hanging from the second level, though it looks like it's for LiveinNYC.net. (They have no listings for spaces on Avenue A.) It would be a shame if this becomes just another bar...losing the performance part of the space in the process.

A look inside Sunday night...

A REAL bad sign: The Jagerettes at the Holiday

1) I understand the fact that the beloved Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Mark's Place needs to make money to stay open...so why not attract the dreaded Saturday night crowd.

2) Stefan never would have gone for this.

PS
Well, it could have been worse, like the Jager dudes...

PSS
I've never actually seen the Jagerettes...here's a shot (so to speak) from another event that I found on the Internets...