Friday, June 12, 2009

From the EV Grieve Reader Mailbox

Hey,
Hope you are doing well, am from Africa. i read your story about the ATM SKIMMER. am here looking for it with a wireless camera. i want to buy it. do you have it or can you link me to those people who can sell those gadgets to me?
Hope to hear from you soon.
Julius

Automated Thief Machine


From The Villager's Police Blotter this week:

An automated teller machine with an undetermined sum of money was discovered missing on Friday morning June 6 from in front of 602 E. 14th St. near Avenue B, police said. Police said they were investigating the theft but were unable to say how the A.T.M. was spirited away. On April 21, Valentine Garcia, of Queens was arrested in connection with the theft of several A.T.M.’s on the Lower East Side and elsewhere by knocking them down with a white van and driving off with them. Garcia was being held pending a July 28 court appearance.

Vanity Fee

Speaking of ATMs, have you checked out the vanity money dispenser in front of B&T hookah hotspot Layaly at 98 Avenue B near Sixth Street...?

FLicKeR

"FLicKeR" looks interesting...playing this weekend at the Anthology Film Archives.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Get it by the ounce: New FroYo joint now open for business on St. Mark's




In lieu of sarcastic comment, please scream. At the location of the former Spots Cafe. I now miss the dog.

(Oops...didn't see that Grub Street posted the news a little bit earlier today...)

Former Five Rose's space gutted

Our friend Hunter-Gatherer just snapped these photos of the former Five Rose's space on First Avenue between 10th Street and 11th Street....(He would have posted them himself, but he was a little pissed/depressed about all this...)





Ouch. Last rumor we heard: another pizza place was moving in... And has anyone heard from Krystyna?

For further reading:
Five Rose's Pizza (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)
Five Rose's Krystyna Says “I’ll Be Back” (Hunter-Gatherer)
The former Five Rose's is for rent; memories remain (EV Grieve)

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition



"And frankly, when I lived in a high-rise apartment in the Financial District, more of my shit got swiped by my rich young businessmen neighbors than ever got taken from me when I lived in the East Village in a basement. Yeah, I KNEW you were taking my stuff, Mr. Apartment 14C. YOU DIDN'T FOOL ME. YOU AREN'T SO SLICK. So yeah, rich people can suck it." (Fear and Loathing NY)

One day with John Lennon changed his life (BoingBoing)

We'll take Manhattan: NYU's plans for 2031 (Esquared)

Jeremiah sees digital Snickers bars (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

It's likely that you have swine flu (The New York Times)

Tagging Kleen-Stik (BoweryBoogie)

Another HBO show with a cupcakes storyline (Hunter-Gatherer)

Skipper needs a home (Washington Square Park)



Kurt Strahm at Restless regarding Cooper Union and the Cooper Square Hotel:

And though I see the hotel as a bookend to the New Museum further down Bowery — anchoring the conversion of yet another distinctive swath of NYC into something (Bloomberg and) the yacht club set can enjoy — I admire its fetishistic finish and space-age look, and the honesty of its arrogances. Where Donald Trump's erections hide amid the skyscraper grass of Midtown, the Cooper Square lords over the puny East Village like a mammoth alien sexual appliance shot from space — Battlestar Dildactica? — a monument to the penile enhancing power of unapologetic greed, and decadence that is an end in itself.

The Post keeps 'em coming



Previously. I just hope details don't emerge that call for a "Kung Poo" headline.

Tompkins Square Park playground completion now set for summer

Late last summer, the city began a $1.5 million upgrade on the main playground in Tompkins Square Park. The playground has been closed since late August.



As the sign just off Avenue A at Ninth Street notes (as of yesterday), the project is set for completion this spring.



However, according to the Parks Department Web site, the anticipated completion date is now this summer.



Uh-oh. Several annoyed parents and residents have already complained about a spring completion. As The Villager reported last October, the construction has "disrupted the rhythm of their lives."

“This was the main gathering area, not just for the kids, but also for the parents,” said Susan. “When you live in spaces as small as we do in the East Village, then these community gathering areas are really important. And, especially, like single parents — where do you go? You go to the playground and you can talk to other single parents. It’s an important resource.”

“They closed it and we lost like 20 friends maybe?” said Luis Castro, who was with his partner, Isabel Bigelow, and friend Jan Kuba Gontarczyk, all taking turns pushing their 2-year-old daughters on a tire swing in a smaller playground in the southeast corner of Tompkins Square Park. Parents they used to see every day now “go to different parks,” said Castro.


Meanwhile, a few random shots of the playground from recent months...



The stickers do not come off very easily



Previously.

Tempo's cheeky new ad



Here's the latest ad (seen on Third Avenue near 14th Street) for Tempo, the coming-soon condos at 23rd Street and Second Avenue. I'm curious if the Tempo spa will be co-ed. So, if I decided to buy a place here, then I can expect topless models in the spa? Topless models who'll stand there looking as if they'll drop that towel at the first sign of, say, a sweaty municipal bond trader?

Previously on EV Grieve:
Measuring Tempo

An afterschool special



On the side of the Tompkins Square Middle School on Avenue B near Fifth Street. I took this photo Tuesday night. By last night, the wall was graffiti free again.

In case you can't WAIT until tomorrow to watch "Step Up 3D" in action

Well, you're in luck — the Step Uppers are filming today around Baruch...

Woah is me?



On 11th Street near Avenue A.

All the Fulton Street Duane Reade news that's fit to post

The Big new Duane Reade opens at the former Staples site on Water Street and Fulton on Saturday...



...which means the old Duane Reade a few hundred feet away on Fulton is closing...



Meanwhile, someone artfully arranged these bricks on Water Street outside the new Duane Reade.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Butter Lane owner: "We are not turning into a bar!"



Maria Baugh, one of the owners of Butter Lane Cupcakes, sent me an e-mail late yesterday afternoon about my post titled, "Is Butter Lane turning into a bar?"

Here's what she had to say:

Hi E.V. Grieve,

My name is Maria Baugh and I’m one of the owners of Butter Lane. I wanted to introduce myself and try to address your questions/concerns about Butter Lane’s application for a liquor license.

We’re applying for a liquor license because we would like to occasionally offer champagne mostly for events or special promotions. We are also exploring the idea of offering wine pairings with cupcakes. We are not turning into a bar!

Also, just so there’s no confusion, we’ve been open until 11 pm on weeknights and midnight on Friday and Saturday (10 pm on Sunday) since we opened in November. Our hours have not changed.

Our main objective is to offer great-tasting, high-quality cupcakes to residents of the East Village and beyond. We love the neighborhood and our many customers who are also our Butter Lane neighbors.

St. Brigid's and Matt Dillon, together again?

Late yesterday afternoon, I took a stroll by St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street... Just to check in on her...see what was what with the scaffolding. Nothing going on with the church. Across the street, though, Matt Dillon was standing there, borderline incognito in aviator sunglasses. He was talking on a cell phone.

I wouldn't usually note a sighting like this... but, as you know, Dillon supports the church... Maybe he was there to see St. Brigid's? Couldn't tell you. I didn't linger. I ran home as fast as I could to write this post! (Kidding! I didn't run.)



Dillon attended some Save St. Brigid's rallies in the past. The Villager had a story on it back in June 2007:

"After the rally, Dillon lingered for nearly an hour as he waxed on about St. Brigid’s uniqueness and 'minimalist' beauty, at one point throwing his arm around a Channel 2 news cameraman to show him the best angle to capture the cathedral.

'There’s a kind of spiritual energy that’s attached with this church. Something that’s very soulful,' offered Dillon. 'It’s more than any church that I’ve been around. Every time I come here, I’m more impressed by just how beautiful it is,' explained the actor, who also filmed 'The Saint of Fort Washington' in a squat around the corner from St. Brigid’s.

'There’s nothing ostentatious about this church. But there’s something very elegant,' Dillon continued. 'It was designed by a famous architect. It reflects the poor immigrants who came here. They built it the best they could. It should be preserved to tell that history, just like Ellis Island.'"


[Photo by William Alatriste, New York City Council]

Your chance to nab a piece of junk from Le Souk

As Down by the Hipster noted May 22, Le Souk had its liquor license reinstated ... before that, though, there was talk the longtime bane of lower Avenue B (as Eater aptly described it) was relocating to Bleecker and LaGuardia...

Meanwhile, Le Souk must be doing a little late spring cleaning. Which may explain why someone at Le Souk left a bunch of crap on the sidewalk last night... I call dibs on the empty keg!





Steve Cuozzo digs DBGB, the Bowery


From his review in the Post today... which had more to do with the neighborhood than the restaurant:

Most people still perceive the boulevard in discrete sections: the gentrified blocks north of Houston Street; kitchen supply and electrical fixture-heaven below Houston; and Chinatown, south of Delancey.

But there's a cheerful, disheveled continuity here, an exotic ramble not yet homogenized by Duane Reades and bank branches.

Much of the Bowery still looks as it must have 100 years ago: a procession of low-rise, utilitarian structures, keepers of secrets known only to the weathered bricks and mortar. Thanks to the street's unusual width and mostly low-rise scale, it opens up like a time capsule, especially on sunny days.


[Image via Curbed]

Dumpster of the day



On Suffolk near Delancey. Hmmm, residual waste!



The dumpster was there alongside the space for lease signs at 128 Delancey that BoweryBoogie discussed yesterday....