
Such as peeling off notices from the NYPD?
And TMZ checks in...
My friend and I used to eat at Mambo from time to time a few years ago, but we stopped for a couple of reasons. First of all, the pizza wasn't great. Probably not even good. But what really turned was off was the dough-tossing incident, which still makes us laugh when we talk about it. The last time we went there, two little boys (they were kids of someone who worked there because they kept going into the back of the pizza shop) were running around playing with the pizza dough, literally throwing it around like it was a football as we sat there wondering if they had gotten their hands on the dough that our pizza had been made with... It was funny but a little scary!
Luz has followed Madonna from London to New York, appeared on her arm at the Met Gala and dive bars in the East Village of Manhattan.
"Um, is Madonna really hanging out in East Village 'dive bars?'"
When emo-troubadour Pete Wentz opened Angels and Kings, a bar in the East Village, our douche canary in our douche mineshaft keeled over and died. First of all, Pete Wentz is going to be there. As he tells Page Six: "Yeah, I'm just gonna be local and drink umbrella drinks." So this isn't your normal dive. According to one of his business partners, this is a dive where "anyone can go and have sex in the bathroom and not get in trouble." So it's located in international waters?
When Myron Surmach moved from shopkeeping to beekeeping in the 1950s, he turned the store over to his son, Myron Jr., who had a fine run as impresario of Ukrainian dances and parties and outfitting the flower children of the 1960s. Peasant blouses were in demand. Janis Joplin and Joan Baez and members of the Mamas and the Papas shopped in Surma Books & Music.
The grandson, Markina Surmach, whose first language was Ukrainian, lived above the store until he was 6. He left Little Ukraine and New York behind in 1991. “You want to define yourself, apart from the mold,” he said. “I chose to run away.” He started a Web-development business in Denver.
Surmach the beekeeper and store founder died in 1991, not quite 99 years old. His son died in 2003, at age 71. Markina has a sister, who was busy raising her children.
“If I didn’t come back, the store was going to close,” he said.
No place stays the same for 15 years, certainly not in Manhattan. With a few exceptions, Ukrainians have long since drained from the Lower East Side. So have the artists living cheaply. “The homogenization of city life is not unique to New York, or this country,” Mr. Surmach said. “It’s all over the world.”
Thank you for the kind comments, from past audience members and a former tenant. We dearly loved all the tenants who rented from us, including the Pearl. Be assured that the Otway family still owns and runs Theater 80. My mother is well and sends her dearest regards to all.
When we came to Saint Marks Place in 1964, there was not a tree on the block. My father planted the first three trees on this now tree lined promenade. At the age of eleven, I dug out the auditorium with my father and helped pour the concrete. We are not going anywhere. We helped to build this neighborhood one business at a time, and it can be lost one building at a time. We have held out against times when those who are tearing down the neighborhood seem to be winning. But, like many others, we intend to keep the East Village a vibrant arts community.
I am at a loss to understand the quote from Shepard Sobel that he is “… disappointed the East Village is losing a theatrical venue to commercial enterprise..." Theatre 80 has been the jewel of the off-broadway theaters since my father built it, and we opened in the mid 1960s.
Our theater saw the opening of "You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown", was the home of the Manhattan Festival Ballet, and was the first full time film revival house. For many years Noche Flamenca has performed to sold out audiences.
I have no idea the meaning or source of this information. As managing agent for the Otway family, owners of Theatre 80, I state categorically, we intend to remain a theater. We have turned down offers for other uses of this theater which would destroy the auditorium.
Please be assured that we welcome offers from theater companies to lease this theater.
The Guggenheim will increase its appeal to those below 35: "the psycho-sexual center of youth is in the Lower East Side," not near the Guggenheim, "so you have to figure out a way that it's not a stretch for people to get up there." They don't take taxis, he notes, and the Guggenheim in "not close" to the subway.