“I think the East Village does have a clear identity separate from the broader Lower East Side, but it clearly also has an identity as part of it, as well,” stated Berman. “It seems that of late there has been a revival of that thinking, and I find many people, especially neighborhood activists, are seeking to rejoin the East Village to the broader Lower East Side and re-identify with it. Interestingly, this may reflect the fact that today the East Village and the Lower East Side in many ways share more in common than they have since the 1960s when the ‘East Village’ identity was first created and the blocks north of Houston St. began to develop a distinct ‘bohemian’ character.”
Both areas are struggling equally with issues of overdevelopment, large-scale gentrification and the difficulty of longtime residents and businesses being able to afford to stay here.
“Not only are they once again very similar in character,” Berman said of the two areas, “but I think in many ways they are seeking to hearken back to the days before the big high-rises, frat bars and exorbitant rents swept over the neighborhood — and the name ‘Lower East Side,’ which is less associated with the gentrification process than ‘East Village,’ may be one way of doing that.”
I keep thinking: I'd love to see the park grow into Ave. A and Ave. B, even given the obvious work that would have to done to reroute traffic, etc. (Well, Union Sq. expanded into the street. And, the George Hecht Viewing Gardens grew up in the street. And, um, well, yes, it would require some doing. I know it's nuts. The Parks Dept. is more likely to, I dunno, turn the Temperance Fountain into a Shacklet and set up craft vendor stalls in the oval, at best, than get expansionist on our asses.)
The 12,366-square-foot edifice at 236 Second Avenue at 15th Street has seven floors, including a basement, sub-basement and mezzanine. It has nine classrooms, a gym, multi-purpose room, art room, library, offices and a courtyard.
In the latest example of “new Tribeca” beating out “old Tribeca,” the Bazzini grocery, cafe and nut shop on Greenwich St. will soon become a Sarabeth’s restaurant.
This won’t be the first time that a neighborhood fixture in Tribeca becomes a chichi food destination — but it could be one of the last, as some see Bazzini as the final holdout of Tribeca’s past.
Tishman Rent Rise in Manhattan Voided by New York’s Top Court
By Patricia Hurtado
Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Tishman Speyer Properties LP, owner of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, Manhattan’s largest apartment complex, lost a tenants’ lawsuit in New York state’s highest court accusing the company of improperly raising rents.
The New York Court of Appeals in Albany said today the rent increase on about 4,350 apartments in the massive complex on Manhattan’s east side violated the law because it was built with city assistance and the building’s owners received tax breaks.
The ruling upheld a decision by a lower appeals court in Manhattan. That court ruled in March that Tishman and the prior owner, MetLife Inc., wrongfully deregulated the apartments by raising the rents because of a sale of the property in 2006.
Today’s decision means the companies might have to pay millions of dollars in rent rebates to thousands of tenants. State law entitles tenants to triple damages for illegal rent increases, lawyers in the case said.
91 Avenue D is a 3 story mixed-use building that is available through an estate sale. There is one store and two residential units. The two apartments are currently vacant while the lease on the ground floor expires in June of 2011. The store is currently paying well below market rent. It is perfect for a user looking for a space to run their business and expand in the future.
This is a tremendous opportunity to buy an investment property with future development potential on a prime corner in the East Village. It is located in one of the most densely populated areas in Manhattan and benefits from the heavy pedestrian traffic.
The frenetic about-face that transformed Alphabet City from a drug-infested no man's land to the epicenter of downtown cool hasn't quite made it to Avenue D, and some predict it never will. Capped at the south by the bustle of Houston Street and at the north by the soaring smokestacks of Con Edison's East River generating station, the 12-block artery remains largely a relic of the neighborhood's pre-hip past.
There is nary a bar in sight. Not a single boutique. The handful of restaurants serve tostones and chicharones, not goat cheese tapas or tuna tartare. Tough-looking boys hold tough-looking pit bulls at the end of steel chains, mothers push shopping carts to coin laundries, and wrinkled old men in newsboy caps putter in front of the grocery store, keeping a cagey eye on the street.
Still, recent rumors about the fate of the two sprawling public housing projects on the avenue has fueled broader speculation about the avenue's future. Now that Avenue C has become what Avenue A was a decade ago, many residents of Avenue D wonder if their street will become the new Avenue C.
On a two-month cross-country trip, Sax hit all the major deli hubs: Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and, of course, New York, even working for an evening as a counterman at the legendary Katz's deli on Manhattan's Lower East Side. But he also fanned out across North America to Denver; Detroit; Scottsdale, Ariz.; St. Louis; Cleveland; Las Vegas; Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Montreal; Toronto; and a dozen other cities. He even made a trip across the Atlantic to visit delis in London, Brussels, Paris and Krakow, Poland, one of the birthplaces of the modern Jewish deli.
Where New York delis tend to be cramped and covered in an intangible layer of old world schmutz, Los Angeles delis are the height of midcentury, suburban modernity. If New York delis are as intimate and familiar as your bubbe's kitchen, then Los Angeles delis, with their spacious banquettes, polite wait staff and abundant parking, are like younger, sexier spokesmodels for the deli world.
While the elevator could fit up to 240 people, only a few are expected to occupy it at a time. It will move more at a rate of 50 feet per minute, rather than the more typical speed of 150, to allow time for people to admire the art inside.
[Th]e elevator will have the same polished concrete floors and white walls as the stationary galleries, and it will be possible to park it on one or another of the floors to extend its space.
Because the building will be sheathed in milled glass and the elevator exterior walls colored a shocking Ferrari red, the moving gallery will be visible from outside, a "dynamic element of the facade inside this translucent tube," Mr. Foster said.
[Gallery co-founder] Angela Westwater sees this feature as "like a beacon, like a lighthouse," she said.
Fresh off the beautiful disgrace of Champagne Tuesdays, the Alphabet City bandits are debuting a Wednesday night bash called Kegmaster's Select. A $20 cover gives you VIP access to every drop of booze and beer in the place, including hoppier samples from the favored brewery of the week. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, you might even venture down the stairs in back to explore the sketchy new basement space below, newly dubbed Maddog. It should be as far under the radar as you ever want to go.
-- Billa NYC (82 2nd Ave., in the former Mission space), Uncle Charlie’s (87 Ludlow), Spina (175 Ave B), Tenzin and Tenzin (306 E. 6th), Wo Hop (17 Mott), Agnes and Eva’s Tasty Goods (243 E. 13th) and St. Dymphna’s (118 St. Mark’s) were all approved in their respective categories. In almost all cases, the board stipulated that restaurants cut down their hours of operation.
-- Thailand Café and St. Mark’s Burger were denied sidewalk café licenses.
Cienfuegos restaurant (95 Ave. A) was the rare case of a new app within a resolution area receiving unanimous approval from the board. The restaurant’s team, which consists of Luis Gonzalez (ex-Mercer Kitchen) and Death & Co. and Bourgeois Pig operatives, knew exactly what they had to do to sway the board: they presented petitions with over 1,000 signatures, demonstrated the public benefit from having a straight-up Cuban restaurant in a city that doesn't have many of them, and stressed their nearly immaculate records.
UNDERGROUND comics legend R. Crumb is playing some of the devil's music in the Hamptons before hitting the road to promote his latest work about God's own creationary chops, "The Book of Genesis Illustrated." Crumb, a longtime blues lover who plays the mandolin, will be sitting in Saturday night with the East River String Band at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett. The artist is tight with East Village band members John Heneghan and Eden Brower, and even drew the cover of their upcoming CD, "Drunken Barrel House Blues," which rolls out on Halloween.
