Breaking mews (sorry, you'll realize how corny this headline is when you read the post...)

At the Anthology Film Archives tonight and tomorrow night: The Cat Art Film Festival. Includes a screening of the original "Pink Panther."

V.A. Musetto, taking a break from interviewing Asian film starlets, has a feature on the festival in the Post.

"Active demolition" this morning at the former P.S. 64

Over at the former P.S. 64/CHARAS/El Bohio community center on Ninth Street/10th Street:

An EV Grieve reader notes this morning that "active demolition going on ... dumpsters being loaded into trucks..."

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

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

Lower East Side vs. the East Village

The Villager revisits the topic this week. So, if you live within the geographical boundaries of 14th Street to Houston, Fourth Avenue/Bowery to the East River, then is it the Lower East Side or the East Village? Opinions vary! Tempers flare!

Among the people weighing in on LES vs. EV is Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation:

“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.”

Nuts? One plan to expand Tompkins Square Park

Last Friday, we ran the post on Yelp's reviews of Tompkins Square Park. And a commenter floated this idea:

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 expansion would present logistical nightmares galore. (And what to do with the Farmer's Market? Move it to Seventh or 10th Street?). And what purpose would this additional space really provide?

Still, using our sub-remedial Photoshop skills.... dare we dream?

Former Gateway School building still on the block

Last Oct. 23, the Real Deal reported that the former Gateway School building on Second Avenue between 14th Street and 15th Street had hit the market.

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.

Cool! I'll take it!

Anyway, no price was set.

Said a Massey Knakal partner: "We're asking for offers. We want to see how the market responds to it."

So far, the market hasn't responded at all — one year later, I noticed that the building is still for sale. And no one has tagged the lion.

Posts that I never got around to posting: New fence at St. Brigid's

Before!



Now!



That should keep out those squatters...

Previously on EV Grieve:
We hope the Archdiocese didn't spend any of the $10 million on the new "no parking" sign for St. Brigid's

Posts that I never got around to posting: Mad hatters

Outside China 1 on Avenue B near Fourth Street.

Ugh: Bazzini — "final holdout of Tribeca's past" — to become fancy eatery

Downtown Express has the bad news:

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.

Bazzini opened 119 years ago. The current owners said the new Whole Foods down the street was cutting into their business.

The Tribeca Tribune had the story earlier this week. And apologies to Eater: I missed their piece on this news last week. The story is here.

Tishman Speyer Properties lose

From the Bloomberg wire:

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.

Will Avenue D finally turn into Avenue C?

The three-story building that houses the bodega on the southeast [OOPS! SouthWEST] corner of Seventh Street and Avenue D is now for sale for $1.4 million...



According to the listing:

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.

This is interesting for many reasons. For starters, the new home of the Lower Eastside Girls Club will be built on Avenue D between Seventh Street and Eighth Street. (This 12-story building -- a new development that will actually give something back to the neighborhood -- will include a community center and 72 apartments.)



And, just around the corner on Seventh, you'll find the Flowerbox Building, where the record-breaking $10 million penthouse recently closed for $5.2 million.



Perhaps some enterprising foodie type will nab this corner spot at Seventh and D for some signature-drinks outpost... and be ahead of the pack for the day when the condofication reaches the eastern edge of the neighborhood. Or maybe some luxury housing.

Could this finally be the start of Avenue D turning into the new Avenue C?

Of course, this speculation has been going on for years... As the Times noted in March 2005:

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.

[Flowerbox photo: Elizabeth Felicella for The New York Times]

Chico's new anti-violence mural on Houston and Avenue B

As we mentioned on Monday, the Lower Eastside Girls Club was bringing Chico back from Florida to paint a few murals. Yesterday, Chico and the POP (Power of Peace) Youth Anti-Violence Coalition finished work on a new mural on Houston at Avenue B.




The Lo-Down stopped by to catch the work in progress yesterday.

Mr. C's, we hardly knew ye

Well, this was one of the quicker open-and-shut eateries that we can recall...



Mr. C's, the Italian Trattoria that opened back in May on Avenue C near Seventh Street, certainly appears to be closed. It has been dark the past few times that we've walked by... and there's not much inside to indicate the place has seen any life of late.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Mr. C's on C now open
Ayyy: It's Mr. C's on Avenue C

Costumes on a budget

Out front of the deli on Second Avenue and Third Street. I dig the Village People look.

Cafe 81 is still on vacation

They were due back Oct. 1. On Seventh Street near First Avenue.




Previously.

Claim: LA's delis are better than NYC's delis

In his new book "Save the Deli," Brooklyn resident David Sax says the country's best delis are in....Los Angeles.

And he didn't come to this decision overnight. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

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.

Now for some comparisons!

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.

Here's a book excerpt from the JewishJournal.com.

Looking at the Michelle Obama Halloween mask at Duane Reade

Only $9.99, though it's on sale now for $7.99 with your Duane Reade Dollar Reward Card. From the "Fright Factory" collection. Doesn't this just seem -- wrong?



And Duane Reade really needs fitting rooms to try on masks and stuff ... instead, shoppers are forced to quickly put things on in the middle of the store.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Decision 2008

The milled glass and "shocking Ferrari red" walls coming to the Bowery; "like a beacon"

There's plenty of activity at 257 Bowery, just a wee south of Houston, these days. The Times checks in today on this future home of the Sperone Westwater gallery. The world-renowned Norman Foster is designing the eight-story "sliver of a building," as the Times notes.

Sliver, eh? So "Foster’s solution was a giant elevator, measuring 12 by 20 feet, that would not only transport art and visitors from floor to floor but serve as an exhibition space as well." And they talk to the man himself.

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.

And the Times had the following photos:





For further reading on 257 Bowery:
Jeremiah's Vanishing NY (A look back at what used to be here...)
Curbed
BoweryBoogie
The Observer

Superdive is adding another all-you-can-drink night

As you may have heard... per UrbanDaddy:

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.

And a belated thanks to the perhaps anonymous reader who submitted the photo...

Other CB3/SLA highlights:

Thanks to an EV Grieve reader, we got a nice rundown on what happened at the CB3/SLA meeting Monday night. Given that the reader had plans for Thanksgiving, he or she couldn't stay for the entire meeting. (OK -- terrible joke.)

Eater's Gabe Ulla was able to stay for the five-hour mini-series. Here are a few more highlights from the night:

-- 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.

The Lo-Down was also at the meeting and captured the spirited debate over Le Souk.

The future of 95 Avenue A

Just confirming one thing from Monday night's CB3/SLA meeting. Our reader in attendance thought that the people behind Cien Fueguos -- coming to 95 Avenue A at Sixth Street -- also had something to do with Death & Co. and Bourgeois Pig.

Indeed, that's the case, as Eater's Gabe Ulla reported:

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.

I'm all for "a straight-up Cuban restaurant," but, given the pedigree of the owners here, is the neighborhood in for, say, $26 mojitos?