A brief part of The New York Public bathhouse's history on East 11th Street

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Shawn Chittle for this great post on The New York Public bathhouse on East 11th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

As he notes, renowned photographer Eddie Adams bought the bricked up abandoned space in the 1980s and eventually was able to refurbish the building into his studio. Shawn also has a snippet from the DVD, "An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story." (Adams died in 2004.)

Read the whole post and watch the video about the bathhouse here.

Here's the trailer for the movie, which came out last year...



And the Bathhouse Studios is still in use today for various things...

One last thing... NYC Songlines notes that part of "Ragtime" was filmed here....

A hidden Chico mural features an owl and backpacking beaver

Thanks to EV Grieve reader evilsugar25~ for sharing this photo on Facebook... A little hidden piece of the East Village...



This Chico mural, dated 2000, is enclosed inside the backyards shared by the tenement buildings on Sixth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C...

"The creeping vine on the left has actually covered up my favorite part of the mural in recent years — a blue/purple owl in the upper left. My second favorite guy is the backpacking beaver," evilsugar25~ writes writes. "I get to see it every day, but I realized there are other Chico fans who would have no idea this was back here... and I wonder how many other 'private' murals decorate enclosed spaces around here."

Another pizza place for St. Mark's Place

Back in November, the Surf City smoothie shop shuttered on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.... and now, after a few delays, it's now a brick-oven pizza place called Totale Pizza....per the sign, looks like some kind of $5.75 deal going on...



Perhaps a less skateboard-friendly alternative to 2 Brothers a few doors to the west...

Good Vibrations? Lava Gina's name change on Avenue C

EV Grieve reader Dan points out that Lava Gina on Avenue C between Eighth Street and Seventh Street has become Vibrations Lounge. Workers painted the front over earlier last week, but the new name in the window just went up on Friday...

Introducing the For Rent District

After reading Thursday's post about Avenue A storefronts, a reader suggests that we call the strip of Avenue A between Second Street and Third Street (west side) the For Rent District from here on out... four of the spaces are available...


Previously on EV Grieve:
Avenue A by the numbers

Avenue A, 4:15 a.m., May 23

The mysterious block of concrete at Second Street is now even seemingly more mysterious... Remember, if you see a large block of concrete, say something...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Here's your mystery block of concrete

Neither More Nor Less, June 2006-May 2010

Out of habit this morning, first thing, I went to look at Neither More Nor Less. I wanted to see what happened, if anything, last night. Because I knew that Bob Arihood would have the story. And the photos.

As you likely know, Bob decided to retire the site this past week. I'm not sure what else to say other than that I'll really miss his work... the neighborhood is better off with his reporting, because no one else does what he did....he captured the absurd, the ugly, the every day that makes the East Village unique....

The Times featured Bob's retirement ...

His style of reporting was of the old-fashioned shoe-leather sort and his main subjects were the itinerant travelers, street drinkers, punks, poets and sidewalk sleepers that once proliferated in the East Village but these days make up a vanishing tribe.

L.E.S. Jewels, Cowboy Stan, Drunkenstein, Bobby Apocalypse, Swami, the Groper, Outlaw, Loan Shark Bob, Barnacle Bill and the Mosaic Man, among others, all appeared in Mr. Arihood’s blog. Some of those subjects are now dead. Others are in jail. A few have survived and moved on.

[Photo of Avenue A and St. Mark's Place from Memorial Day 1991 by Bob Arihood via The Times]

Death becomes him

Hey now. Just catching up with the Times of New York from the other day... The newspaper reviews Shepard Fairey's Deitch Projects show. And what does the reviewer think?

"On the walls of an art gallery, his efforts look like death warmed over."

Avenue A, 9:18 p.m., May 22

Smurfs cast getting more annoying by the day

Stuyvesant Grocery's three signs

I was going through the photos that I didn't use from the last few months, and I came across this one...



I took this about four or five weeks ago... I liked seeing all three Stuyvesant Grocery signs... Jill captured a better shot of it back in March...

On this topic... in case you haven't read it yet... Eryn Loeb writes about Stuyvesant Grocery here at The Faster Times.

Here's your mystery block of concrete

Earlier today, EV Grieve reader Carl Bentsen mentioned a mysterious block of concrete that, uh, mysteriously appeared on Second Street and Avenue A... and he has now sent along a photo....



Any guesses?

Walk this way

From the inbox today: a giant square block of concrete on Avenue A; woman in bathrobe handcuffed on Houston

Do you have any idea why there is a giant square block of concrete sitting at Ave A and 2nd Street?


-------


Any word on what happened on Houston between A and 1st this morning around 830? I was walking to Essex st station and as I crossed Houston there were six cop cars on either side of the median. There was a woman who appeared to be handcuffed in a bathrobe, a loose dog, and dozens of onlookers. I figured it must be a big deal as cops were driving west on the east-bound side of Houston, which I rarely see.


Anyone?

And, as always, thank you for the tips, questions, etc.!

That "Lewd Loud Sound" for the Cooper Square Hotel

With the nice weather last night, apparently some Cooper Square Hotel guests got a little raucous.

Which, perhaps, inspired one of the greatest e-mails ever:

Lewd Loud Sound From [XXX] E 5th Street for balcony users at Cooper Square Hotel. Thought you'd be interested.

Yes I am!

For more reading:
Back to the Backside (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

The last days of Superdive?

A reader passed by Superdive last night... and it was open. Unusual, seeing as the signs out front say the bar is only open Friday and Saturday nights. Per the reader: "They had kind of a raucous crowd in there. Reminded me of a frat house enjoying its last days before shutdown."

And the best part? There was an ambulance out front. The reader said it had nothing to do with Superdive. But! "It made for a funny shot."



Hmm... Or maybe Superdive management hired the ambulance to park out front... to make it look extra chaotic! Kind of like the Chiefs did in "Slap Shot."

Wish you were here

Outside the Pickle Bar sign at Whole Foods on Houston and the Bowery.

But there is a 25-cent cover charge

A woman walks into Sophie's early one recent evening. She sits down and orders a drink. She pulls out her phone and calls a friend. "Do you want to come meet me? I'm in your neighborhood." But she doesn't know where she is exactly. She goes outside to find the name of the bar. "Sophie's" doesn't appear anywhere out front. The women studies all the signs in the window for a moment and comes back in.



She continues the conversation with her friend. "I'm at a place called Public Telephone."

Fifth Street and Avenue D for $918 a square foot

The other day we featured a countryish home on East Fifth Street... if that was a little too "Green Acres" for you, then consider this new listing on the market further to the east... all the way to Avenue D....

According to Corcoran:

The East Village with soaring 18 foot ceilings and monthly carrying cost below $600 (including real estate taxes). This two bedroom features four oversized southern facing windows with unobstructed open views to allow maximum sunlight all day long. The apartment features stainless steel appliances, including a Viking range there is also a dishwasher and washer dryer.

There are hardwood floors throughout the loft that compliment the marble counter tops and marble baths. The traditional stairs, including cast iron railings help to add unique features to this open layout. The addition of plenty of closest means storage is not a problem. All of these wonderful details are just three short flights up.

The building features a 421-a tax abatement. In addition to the tax abatement, there is a common roof deck only one flight up from this apartment. The building also features bike storage and close proximity to transportation. Get all the pluses of new construction without the additional closing costs.

(Um, that listing came written this way.)

So! Let's see what they mean by all that...







And it's $725,000 for 790 square feet ... for those of you into this kind of thing, that's $918 per square foot... which seems like a lot for a space adjacent to a 3.84 acre city housing project.

Icy, Icy Baby

As The Feed noted the other day, NYC Icy is making a return to the East Village ... after Avenue B between Second and Third Streets a few years back.... team Icy is opening up a temp space on Avenue A next to Black Market.... and, as this photo by EV Grieve reader Steven Matthews shows... NYC Icy opened yesterday...



And they have a chocolate-bacon flavor. Urp.