EV Grieve

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Three stars for Superdive

Let's see what they have to say:

Rowdy frat bars don’t usually pique our interest. But Superdive so perfectly replicates the Alpha Beta experience that, fine, we’ll do a reluctant keg stand. But just one.

And!

It’s like a fictional frat house, with a lack of decor so striking — a couple of couches, a long ugly bar, a few tables hosting beer pong — it could’ve been achieved only by drunk dudes who slept through the campus-center poster sale. The crowd appears to have stumbled out of an Abercrombie catalog and on most nights packs the place full. In fact, on weekends you’ll want a reservation — an absurd requirement for a place that postures as the ultimate dive bar.

And!

Like it or not, Superdive’s management has achieved what they presumably set out to do: bring pledge week debauchery to a Manhattan bar. A bartender summed it up best: “If someone pukes, we probably won’t kick them out.” We’re intrigued and horrified at the same time.

As food truck wars heat up, vendors start offering more options

"Yes, I'll have a falafel and something in 42L." Somewhere on Park Avenue South.

What celebrity lives here?

Here's a "celebrity offering" at the Albert, 23 E. 10th St. (between University and Broadway). And look, there's even a margarita machine!

(And I hope the celebrity doesn't mind his/her address was included on the video!)

P.S.
According to the YouTube description, this "can be combined with Apt 811 to create duplex. Offered at $1,599,000."

Preservation of the Provincetown Playhouse not going so well so far

"The preservation of the original Provincetown Playhouse within a new building that New York University is constructing at the MacDougal St. site was put on hold on Aug. 18 after neighbors discovered that part of the historic playhouse wall that was to have been preserved had been removed." An outraged Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, said: "What’s unfortunate and clear is that N.Y.U. has yet again been caught in a lie, the lie that they would preserve the walls of the theater in their entirety." For its part, an NYU official apologized and said that work will cease until a report can be made to the community. (The Villager)

Previous Provincetown Playhouse coverage from The Villager. Washington Square Park has been all over the story as well. And BoweryBoogie, photo via BB too.

From Hysteria to... suburbia?

The long-vacated Waldorf Hysteria space at 165 Avenue B between 10th Street and 11th Street...

...got the plywood treatment earlier this summer. The proprietor of the dry cleaners next door told me that offices were being created on the ground floor.

Well, here's what it looks like now...

Hmm, well, seems about right. Something with a little character is replaced by something very sterile looking...

[Waldorf image via]

Rockrose around the clock

The dorm-to-luxury-rental conversion continues at 200 Water Street. So far, we've seen the Rockrose brass introduce all sorts of amenities: VIP pizza treatment! Rooftop waterfall showers! Fine, all fine. But it's the return to glory of a 200 Water staple that's welcome news: The weird, giant clock is working once again! Welcome news for people who like weird, giant clocks anyway. (Oh, and not to nitpick, but how do we know if it's am or pm?)

And how does it work?

Previously.

For further reading:
Rooftop cabanas, barbecue, outdoor shower -- such is the life of a renter (The Real Deal)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Good morning from Ninth Street (and 10th Street!), where you'll wake to the sound of power tools and demolition

A resident writes in this morning to note the noise coming from the former P.S. 64/CHARAS/El Bohio community center on Ninth Street. "Sound of power tools, chute (pictured) and dumpster — is Gregg Singer gutting the place?"

Yes, it appears the work continues to turn the school into University House at Tompkins Square Park.

According to marketing materials for the building: [It's] "currently undergoing a complete renovation including new building systems, core and shell. The property is zoned R8-B. The property is ideal for schools, universities, museums, college dormitories, medical offices, hospital, foundations, nonprofit institutions and related facilities."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rebranded P.S. 64 up for grabs: Please welcome University House at Tompkins Square Park to the neighborhood

New skyline for Lafayette Street?

The Meineke Car Care Center on the southwest corner of Lafayette and Great Jones has been on the market for several years... I took the photo below for a post back in February.

As I noted in February... According to the Massey Knakal Web site: The property has Landmark’s Approval for a 6-story steel and glass building for residential, commercial or hotel-use. The property is listed at $4.4 million. It could look something like this:

Anyway, the "for sale" signs have been removed...

Perhaps a buyer has been found? The property is still listed at Massey Knakal.

Meanwhile, next door...Massey Knakal is arranging for the sale 8 Bond Street and 358-364 Lafayette. According to the listing:

This exciting and rare site can be delivered vacant which allows for immediate development to meet the ever increasing hotel/commercial office demand in New York City. Alternatively, a developer could obtain a special permit for residential use from the city, a precedent that has been set by a variety of projects in the immediate area. Currently, the site is generating approximately $333,000 annually. All of the current leases are cancellable on either 30 or 90-day notice.

And what might this space look like...?

No price listed...the owner is requesting proposals because..."This property represents a truly rare opportunity to capitalize on the strong demand for a premier residential, commercial, or hotel development site on one of the most sought after streets not only in NoHo, but in all of Manhattan."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Another corner still primed to fall on NoHo

What's next for the "stocky, brooding" 37 Great Jones?

While I'm in the neighborhood... Dunno how long 37 Great Jones has been on the market...

As the Times noted in March 2008: "An unusual addition to the street was the stocky, brooding building at 37 Great Jones, designed in 1917 by Lewis Patton and used as a warehouse in the 1930s by the Philco Radio and Television Corporation."

Here's how it looked in 1936 (via):

The building is on the block for $8.8 million. As the listing (PDF) notes, "This property represents a unique opportunity for an investor or end user (such as a single family or restaurant), in an area teaming with new development. This building abuts Ian Schrager's 40 Bond, and numerous other new projects."

Single family?

Seventh Street tumor watch: Now for lease!

We've been waiting, waiting and waiting (since May 2008!) to see what will appear at the former tumor at Seventh Street just west of First Avenue...

...a construction worker at the scene in the spring said it will be "a restaurant or another bar." Hmmm.

Well, maybe some day. It appears that all that work gone into carving out the space and creating the tumor was just to prep it for lease.

According to the listing, the joint has 2,000 square feet, plus another 1,000 square feet in the basement. And: "Many busy cafes in the vicinity."

Feel free to leave your guess in the comments...smart money would have to be on some sort of ramen/noodle/yogurt place. (Or, if BaHa can do it, FroRam!)

For further reading:
7th Street Tumor (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)
*Everyday Chatter (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Bounce Deuce now sporting plywood

And I hope they get that Stop Work Order cleared up from 1995.

Previously.

Whole Earth Bakery and Kitchen still closed for renovations

Whole Earth Bakery and Kitchen, which has operated at 130 St. Mark's Place since 1991, closed last Friday for renovations. The shop was expected to reopen yesterday. However, a walk by yesterday afternoon revealed that the renovations continue...

Please reopen soon...

Whole Earth Bakery and Kitchen got its start in 1978 on Spring Street.

Things that we found on the street

On 13th Street near Avenue B. And where is disc 1?

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Rush Week in the EV? (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Karate Boogaloo reviews the new Arthur Kane book (Stupefaction)

An EL of a good time (This Ain't the Summer of Love)

TGIF to Union Square fallout. Per an Eater commenter: "I am going to run a $1 shuttle bus between TGI Friday's and Superdive starting at 8pm on Thursdays and Fridays" (Eater)

There will be none of that "discharge of fecal matter" business in this pool! (Curbed)

Jack Shafer debunks the summer's big "trends" stories. Like beer guts on hipsters! "Usually when something is called hip, a top hipster can be found embracing it. But Trebay names no leader of potbelly hipness and uncovers no evidence of hip potbellies in the cinema, the stage, the concert hall, the night club, or elsewhere. It's just these random guts strolling around New York. You might as well say argyle socks are hip." (Slate)

StuyTown thong update (StuyTown Lux Living)

Phil Mushnick: "Every time I hear/read a team or MLB exec rationalize ticket prices as in-line with Broadway show tickets I want to retch. How many Broadway shows have two-hour rain delays? How many matinees are switched to Sunday nights? On Broadway a losing streak closes the show. How many shows would survive if the cast were shut out, 12-0, the script re-written every day and the stars intentionally walked?" (New York Post)

And over at the New York Nobody Sings, Cheetah Chrome gives a guitar lesson:

The last house on the block

On this block in East Harlem, one house remains on the east side of Lexington Avenue between 117th and 118th Streets. I noticed it earlier this summer on a day that I was tooling around town in a rental car.

A search on Google Maps shows that two houses were still standing as of one year ago.

Now, only 1889 Lexington Ave. remains. And there's construction going on behind it and next to it.

Next door, there are 29 residential units -- with a community space on the ground floor -- under construction. It's sponsored by the Bluestone Organization and Hope Community, Inc.

Meanwhile, the lone house remains. I'm curious about its fate. And its history. (I did find the Certificate of Occupancy dating Nov. 12, 1953.)

Rooms are available for rent.

Related:
Activists Arrested After Occupying East Harlem Lot (The New York Times)

Cops Stop Occupation of JPMorgan Chase's Vacant Lot, Arrest 9 or More (The Village Voice)

Developer Bows Out of East Harlem Megaproject (Curbed)

Looking at The New Yorker's Bloomy extravaganza

Ben McGrath profiles King Bloomberg in this week's New Yorker.

It's epic. Here's how it starts:

Michael Bloomberg has never been the sort of public speaker who makes people faint in his presence. He talks too quickly, mispronounces words, and has a weakness for self-referential jokes, at which he smirks readily, like a boy who knows that his mother approves.

McGrath's piece is roughly 10,000 words, so.... here are just a few interesting passages.

Bloomberg took office during a recession, and quickly established himself as a bold and decisive fiscal manager, ultimately demonstrating, as his friend Mitchell Moss, an urban-planning professor at N.Y.U., says, that New York was “open for business after 9/11.” As the economy recovered, Bloomberg set about trying to transform the city, on a scale not seen since the days of Robert Moses. “I think if you look, we’ve done more in the last seven years than — I don’t know if it’s fair to say more than Moses did, but I hope history will show the things we did made a lot more sense,” Bloomberg told me. “You know, Moses did some things that turned out not to be great: cutting us off from the waterfront, putting roads all along the water.” The Bloomberg model, under the direction of Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and Amanda Burden, the City Planning Commissioner, was based to a large extent on undoing the Moses legacy: rezoning for commercial and residential use large tracts of waterfront property that had once been the province of industry.

Later on, a City Hall reporter offers: