EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

ATM card skimmers found in the East Village (Gizmodo)

Biker Bill is on the mend (Slum Goddess)

CBGB in the funny pages (This Ain't the Summer of Love)

Ruby's lives for another season (Kinetic Carnival)

Jeremiah continues his Crown Heights tour (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

One day it will please us to remember even this: The New York Dolls will play at John Varvatos (Flaming Pablum)

Beer bargains at Key (Hunter-Gatherer)

Tap city (Greenwich Village Daily Photo)

Stephen Merritt hitting Off-Broadway (Pitchfork)

A coffee shop closes, and the owner offers an honest reason why

Klatch, an artsy little coffee shop at 9 Maiden Lane just east of Broadway, is now closed....and the owner, Pam Chmiel, a former film editor, is open about what happened...

Lower rents mean more NYU students will soon be your neighbors

As the Washington Square News reports, "The cost to live in many NYU dorms will increase next year — and at the same time, rental prices around the city are dropping rapidly."

The article goes on to discuss the Real Estate Group’s Manhattan Rental Market Report. And what does all this mean...? Simple. Let's go back to the article.

Because of lowered prices, more students have begun to use the Off-Campus Housing Office’s housing registry to look for apartments or a roommate.

“Many students are doing more comparative shopping and are evaluating the benefits of off-campus housing versus on-campus housing,” said Jennifer Brown, assistant vice president of Housing and Strategic Planning. “Most notable in the outside market is the increase in availability of the smaller types of accommodations such as studios and one-bedroom apartments.”

Despite fees such as security deposits and utilities, many students still find it beneficial to move off campus.

“I’m going abroad, but when I get back, I’m moving off-campus, hopefully the East Village, because you can find comparable prices to NYU,” CAS junior Joe Haldeman said. “If you can get the same price for something you would have to share at NYU, why not?”

Why not? Hmm. We must start a list...

What's new around the Cooper Square Hotel: Sidewalk, lack of trees

After looking at E2E4 the other day, I swung by to check in on the progress of the Cooper Square Hotel. (I usually only go by for free ice.) Well! For starters, the sidewalk alongside the hotel's coming-soon garden (outdoor bar?) space on East Fifth Street is done....




...but not at the cost of a few trees.



And what is going on with this one?



Meanwhile, it's looking really glassy....





...and close to the neighbors.





Curbed had an update yesterday on the hotel and the ominous Wolverine claw....




P.S.
The hotel's VIP entrance still needs a little work...

LIRR discontinues service to Belmont Park

Going to the Belmont Park race track during the summer is one of my favorite things to do in the city. It's so simple. Just jump on the LIRR -- the Belmont Special or, as some people I know call it, the Pony Express -- at Penn Station for the 30-minute ride to the park in Elmont. It feels as if you're hundreds of miles from the city. It's a classic, old-school track. The track opened in 1905.

I can go on, but.... Acccording to the AP, as part of the state's budget cuts, the LIRR will discontinue service to the track at the end of this month, when racing resumes. However, the train will run on June 6 for the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown. The one day you don't won't to get stuck on a train (or anywhere) with 75,000 yahoos.

While cuts are necessary, it seems odd to target this route -- especially when the state is counting on more revenue from the park for its budget.

In any event, there are other public transporation options...

Q110 (MTA Bus):
Service provided every 20 minutes to and from Belmont during racing days. Buses are available at Parsons Blvd. and Hillside Avenue and from Parsons Blvd. & Archer Ave., and various locations eastbound on Jamaica Avenue and Hempstead Avenue in Queens. These buses pick up and discharge directly outside the admission booths at the west end of the track. Connections: Transfer from F Train at Parsons & Hillside; Transfer from E Train at Parsons & Archer.

Q2 (MTA Bus):
Originates at the Jamaica Bus Terminal (165th Street & 89th Ave.) and runs along Hillside Ave. to 187th Place to Hollis Ave. and ends at Hempstead Ave. and 225th Street adjacent to Belmont Park. Connections: Transfer from F Train at 169th Street or 179th Street stations.

Here's in part what the New York Racing Association had to say about the (at the time, proposed) cut in service:

While the New York Racing Association (NYRA) recognizes that the MTA needs to balance its budget, no other proposed service cut so directly affects one business, one employer, one industry as does the proposal to eliminate LIRR service to Belmont Park (except for Belmont Stakes day).

For more than a century, the railroad has brought fans to Belmont Park, a 445-acre landmark on the Queens-Nassau County line, bringing patrons from the most mass-transit dependent population in the nation to one of the best known sporting venues in the world.

And here are the old tokens the LIRR used for service to Belmont (circa 1972):



[Belmont Park photo via WallyG's Flickr account]

Unusual suspects

"The Unusuals" is one of the many TV shows to be filmed around the neighborhood in recent months. It debuts tonight on ABC in the former "Life on Marzzzzz" slot.



Looks interesting. Maybe. Here's Variety's take:

The quirkiness surrounding police work is hardly new, but that's the shaky foundation for "The Unusuals" -- a puzzling ABC series seemingly predicated on the notion that New York detectives are every bit as eccentric as the perps they take off the streets. The premiere represents an uneven introduction to the denizens of the second precinct, with -- to hark back to the "Blues," as in "Hill Street" and "NYPD" -- an ensemble heavily tilted toward Belkers and Medavoys. So while the show does qualify as slightly unusual, its ability to be consistently interesting is another matter.

Paint it black: Sympathy for the Kettle closes

The Sympathy for the Kettle tea salon at 109 St. Mark's Place, which, I admit, never visited, is now boarded up...and their phone has been disconnected. Another merchant on the street told me the shop closed last week.



A Yelp commenter said the owner was planning on opening another store in a new location.

Meanwhile, another cute shop looks to move

The Knit New York Shop on 14th Street at Second Avenue, another place I have never visited, is moving. No word yet on a new location.

The footage that GM and Segway doesn't want you to see

The story made the rounds today about General Motors teaming with Segway to build a new type of two-wheeled vehicle designed to move easily through congested urban streets and help Mother Earth, which we're all for. As Gothamist noted, the P.U.M.A. -- Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility -- was tested yesterday on the streets of New York. "Miraculously, no cabs or Hummers plowed into the thing, though the drivers presumably sustained some damage to their dignity."

However, what happened on the test drive later is being kept from the media. Apparently the P.U.M.A. was not well-received.

Here's the footage of the test drive that GM and Segway doesn't want you to see.*



* Reenactment.

Last time I stayed in a place where everyone could watch me go to the bathroom, I was in jail

"From the chic boutiques of London and Los Angeles to hot new hotels in more exotic locales like India and China, exposed bathrooms are a growing trend — whether in the form of transparent glass walls and shower stalls or bathtubs set in the middle of the bedroom like free-standing sculptures." (The New York Times)

[Photo of NYC's Standard hotel: Matthew Weinstein for The New York Times]

And why aren't there laws protecting innocent citizens from these types of quality-of-life violations?

Tap dancing to Maroon 5 covers in Union Square.



[Via Poppy Cedes]

Taking a look at 52E4, and where the Moby mobile may park

I've been trying to avoid the construction hell on the Bowery between Third Street and Fourth Street, the stretch that will soon be home to the new 52 East 4th Street -- feel free to refer to it as 52E4 here on out!




Now that the construction has quieted down a bit, it's time to revisit the spot and enjoy exactly what's going up in this luxurious 15-story condo. The promo photos, previously available on the 52E4 Web site, are up for the unwashed masses to see. Let's take a look!



You have your roof deck and pool and, as various commenters have pointed out, no Cooper Square Hotel blocking your Midtown views...



And whatever this is.



And this is the best: The parking spot, where soon-to-be-tenant Moby will keep it real and park his Moby mobile.



Not sure exactly where the parking spaces will be kept. I'm assuming on East Fourth Street then...?





Anyway, the 59R2ERW site has more details. And images.



For further reading:
Another Bowery tower (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Brick by brick

Every time I walk by the former Love Saves the Day store, something is different. Yesterday, the windows were inexplicably bricked up.




Oh, and while I was standing there, a cabbie got a ticket.

Mischief

One year ago today on EV Grieve: John Varvatos, preservationist

From the EV Grieve archives: April 7, 2008:





The New York Post has a piece today on the new John Varvatos boutique, which opened over the weekend at the site of the former CBGB on the Bowery.

According to the Post article, written by Serena French: "[P]unk preservationists will be glad to hear that the Bowery site -- which once hosted such pioneers as the Ramones and Blondie -- hasn't been sanitized beyond recognition.
The stage is gone, replaced by a tailoring shop, but it's encased with gold Alice Cooper records.
And those who remember the walls encrusted with posters and stickers will be relieved to find them intact and preserved behind glass."


Hmm. So Varvatos has reportedly made the shop equal parts museum and retail space. "I wanted to combine music, fashion, memorabilia and really make it like a cultural space," he told The Post. He's planning on holding monthly concerts there too.

What do some old-timers think?

"I like it. I'm relieved," Arturo Vega, creative director for the Ramones, who has lived around the corner from the club since 1973, told the Post. "We were expecting a drug store in the space," he said. "So when I found out it was Varvatos moving in, it was a relief."

Yesterday, in the Post's Page Six Magazine, Dana Kristal, son of CBGB founder Hilly Kristal, was asked whether he thought his father would approve of eight high-profile new ventures on the Bowery. Interestingly enough, he wasn't asked about this shop.

Into the danger zone

Not sure exactly what was happening yesterday at the 20 Pine condoplex in the Financial District...but it involved plastic...



...some scaffolding...




...and some DANGER signs!

Revisting March 7, 2009

Found a stack of paper's sitting down the street. Last month at this time... The Wall Street Journal from March 7, 2009. The unemployment rate was only 8.1 percent ... oh, and Bernie Madoff was still a free man.

When busloads of tourists take part in studies: The buzziest areas in NYC are around Lincoln and Rockefeller Centers

From the Times:

Apologies to residents of the Lower East Side; Williamsburg, Brooklyn; and other hipster-centric neighborhoods. You are not as cool as you think, at least according to a new study that seeks to measure what it calls “the geography of buzz.”
The research, presented in late March at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, locates hot spots based on the frequency and draw of cultural happenings: film and television screenings, concerts, fashion shows, gallery and theater openings. The buzziest areas in New York, it finds, are around Lincoln and Rockefeller Centers, and down Broadway from Times Square into SoHo.