EV Grieve

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The New East Village Colossus

Art and message via JDX.

Neighbors offer Sin Sin 'an authentic nyc FUHGETTABOUTIT'

Yesterday, word came via a rap music message board that Sin Sin was shutting for good at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, later yesterday, Grub Street reported that the people behind Sin Sin's long-running Soulgasm party at the bar/club on Second Avenue and Fifth Street had a different take. Per the Soulgasm e-mail:

After 5 years of welcoming us into their venue and allowing us to party with no dramatics, Sin Sin has decided to close, re-open and go a different route. Like many venues around the city they too have to keep up with the times and cost of operating here.

This statement has drawn a response from the East Fifth Street Block Association:

"Due to violence associated with the club, The East Fifth Street Block Association asked the ownership of Sin Sin to deal with the issue of programming at a public meeting way back on August 4th, They did not and three weeks later there was a murder on their front steps. Since then there have been other fights at the club warranting police presence. And, even then they did not address the issue. Now they think that, even with blood on their hands, they can simply reprogram one night a week (which is not effective immediately... but THREE WEEKS from now) and perhaps save their business? The East Fifth Street Block Association would like to offer them an authentic nyc FUHGETTABOUTIT. The fact is that they have developed so much ill-will in the community, with elected officials and at the SLA that their days are numbered."

Previously on EV Grieve:
'The neighborhood will not rest until you are gone and Sin Sin’s license is revoked'

NYPD hosting meeting between Sin Sin and neighbors tonight

East Village noise wars new battlefront: Sin Sin/Leopard Lounge

Why the president of the East Fifth Street Block Association carries a baseball bat

It has begun!

An EV Grieve reader notes that construction crews have starting their road work on the eastbound lanes on Houston below Essex this morning... No photographic evidence, though.... People! In any event, this roadway project should keep us in posts for the next, oh, 37 years.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Coming soon to East Houston: Construction, hell, rodent control stations

Long-threatened East Houston reconstruction starting this month

[EV Grieve file photo]

Celebrate Cafe moves out of the Bowery Poetry Club

[Via BoweryBoogie]

As the sign below shows, Celebrate Cafe has moved out of the Bowery Poetry Club....

The Cafe, operated by the Lower Eastside Girls Club, is an entrepreneurial and job training program that employs local youth and young adults. The Café held its grand opening in June. As BoweryBoogie noted at the time, "A nice symbiotic relationship on the Bowery." I said as much in an e-mail to Lyn Pentecost, executive director and co-founder of the Girls Club. I asked her for a comment. “It wasn’t as good a fit as it appeared to be. We look forward to seeing our friends again on Ave.C — same great coffee and cupcakes!”

Celebrate Cafe will be moving back to 136 Avenue C, site of their Sweet Things Bake Shop.

As for the Bowery Poetry Club, no word on potential new tenants. At the beginning of the year, the East Village Visitors Center & Cafe moved after some 10 months here. They teamed up with Fourth Arts Block and the Cooper Square Committee on East Fourth Street.

Rumors: Aces and Eights will now be called 34A

Per the Avenue A rumor mill... 34 is the address of the bar formerly known as Aces and Eights ... so that name makes sense... I like it, though as EV Grieve reader RyanAvenueA noted in the comments: "So between 2A and 7A, there will be 34A."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Renaming Aces and Eights: See you at Drink 'til U Stink!

Even MORE dessert now for St. Mark's Place?

Crews have been working behind the plywood here on St. Mark's Place at the former Andy's Chee-Pees...

An EV Grieve reader caught a look inside yesterday... and, from the look of things, expect more dessert.

"Inside right now are some contractors installing counters and an ice-cream freezer. Two stories — interior lofted balcony with tables/seating set up already."

Meanwhile, just a doorway or so away, they'll be dessert and coffee (and booze?) at Roastown Coffee. When will this block of St. Mark's Place crumble under the weight of desserts?

Tory Burch-endorsed Marco Polo Café cedes to mini burgers on St. Mark's Place

Marco Polo Café at 102 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue is changing concepts. The Asian-Italian eatery known for the Moo Goo Gai Panini (better than it sounds!) shuttered after the weekend... Already, a Mini Burger sign has good up over the papered windows...

The Marco Polo home page included the following:

Tory Burch, whom the LA Times has called the most influential fashion designer in America, loves the East Village’s Marco Polo Café. She visited the café to meet and interview the owner and chef Ms. Jiang and called Marco Polo Café an "amazing restaurant" and was so impressed at the delicious dishes Ms. Jiang turns out of the kitchen, that she invited Ms. Jiang to her home to cook a special Sunday dinner for her and her family...

I'm told the same owners are behind the new eatery.

Ghosts on the Bowery

Probably not the ghosts that Billy Leroy of Billy's Antiques was talking about...

Local blogger far too curious about the DBGB sidewalk cafe

On Monday, a local blogger blogged about the sidewalk cafe at DBGB on the Bowery. To date, the blogger had seen the outdoor cafe set up once.

Then! On Monday evening, the blogger noticed that the sidewalk cafe was UP and running; promptly causing the blogger to blog about that.

The blogger found it curious that Team DBGB would even bother putting out the sidewalk cafe on a typically slow evening — especially with hail-producing thunderstorms expected to pass over the city in the next few hours.

Then! Last night, on an evening the blogger described as "pleasant" to an acquaintance, there was no DBGB sidewalk cafe

To be continued, unfortunately....

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

C-4 is old, likely stolen

The Times has the latest on yesterday's big hey-we-found-a-bag-of-C-4 story:

The mysterious military-grade explosives that were found in an East Village cemetery over the weekend are more than a dozen years old and were most likely stolen from a military base, the police said Tuesday.

Bomb experts with the New York Police Department found that the eight bricks of C-4 explosive, totaling about 10 pounds, lacked identifying markers known as taggants, which manufacturers were required to include in the puttylike compound beginning in 1997, said Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman.

Meanwhile, EV Grieve readers are trying help the police solve the mystery here.

The M15 Select Bus Service: 'people just need to give it a chance'

More comments are coming in regarding the new M15 Select Bus Service. (Streetsblog had a nice feature on the subject — via The Lo-Down)

A reader sent along this note:

Had good experience with yesterday (light use), not so good today (heavy and buses backed up). Take from 14th to 42nd.

Think it will be fine/better in a week or so after people who haven't been paying attention realize how works.

You can transfer from select to local (although seems a bit of a pain), but don't know what local bus driver would do if just tried to get on with a receipt for express — should have encoded for that instead of the paper transfer noted at the link, maybe can do in future.

There are kinks in the system that should have been worked out in the Bronx test project, but on the whole seems like a good idea and people just need to give it a chance, and then the MTA needs to revise accordingly.

[Updated] Claim: Sin Sin is closing at the end of the month

That's the word, anyway, in a thread passed along by a tipster at rapmusic.com. Per chazraps:

SinSin is closing at the end of the month.
Just got the word at noon today. Freestyle Mondays, and the battle, will be moving to another location in NYC, as well as starting in Prague this month. SinSin itself, however, will be shutting down. The final Freestyle Mondays there will be October 25th.

The embattled club on Second Avenue and Fifth Street has been facing mounting criticism from residents in recent months. Then there was the tragic story of 37-year-old Devin Thompson, who was shot twice outside the club on Aug. 22. He died from his wounds on Aug. 31. According to reports, Thompson and the two men police believe are responsible for the shooting were inside the club earlier in the evening on Aug. 22.

Updated: Grub Street reports that Sin Sin “has decided to close, re-open and go a different route. Like many venues around the city they too have to keep up with the times and cost of operating here.”

Previously on EV Grieve:
'The neighborhood will not rest until you are gone and Sin Sin’s license is revoked'

NYPD hosting meeting between Sin Sin and neighbors tonight

East Village noise wars new battlefront: Sin Sin/Leopard Lounge

Why the president of the East Fifth Street Block Association carries a baseball bat

Hotel Toshi takes over 325 E. 10th St.

Last week, we asked, What is going on with 325 E. 10th St.?

At that time, a prospective tenant told us that he had been approved for an apartment in the front building here along this picturesque stretch that faces Tompkins Square Park. Per the tipster: "We were told the entire building was no longer going to be listed for rent. This was while we were in the process of cutting checks for lease signing. Something is up with this building."

And, thanks to another tipster, we know the answer: The front building is apparently now part of the Hotel Toshi empire, the short-term apartment rental network with 18 buildings — totaling some 50 apartments in downtown Manhattan and Williamsburg.

Per the tipster: "The front building at 325 E. 10th St. has been taken over entirely by Hotel Toshi. There is a resident directory in the lobby that confirms this. The rear apts. have individual names but the front building says 'Toshi, Inc., Toshi, Inc., Toshi, Inc' for every unit."

The rear building with the studios will remain residential....

The arrival of a Hotel Toshi in some neighborhoods hasn't always gone so well. In a May story from The Brooklyn Paper titled "Neighbors say Hotel Toshi is a horrorshow hostel":

A hipster hotel that occupies part of a converted loft building in Williamsburg has become such a crash pad that some renters are moving out.

Tenants of a six-story building on Driggs Avenue and S. Fifth Street are accusing the operators of Hotel Toshi of creating a nuisance by allowing their transient guests to throw rowdy late-night parties.

Tenant activism led to the departure of a Hotel Toshi back in June, as NYC the Blog reported.

Curbed has also been covering the various Hotel Toshi sagas through the years. You can read all that here. Perhaps 325 E. 10th St. will become another saga to follow...

So how did the C-4 end up in the cemetery?

Following up on yesterday's explosive discover at The New York City Marble Cemetery...From the Times:

Now the quaint old cemetery in the East Village is the site of another mystery, this one still unfolding, after a volunteer on Sunday discovered a decaying garbage bag filled with 10 pounds of military-grade C-4 explosives, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Monday.

Mr. Kelly said he did not believe the aging explosives were linked to a terrorism plot. No ignition devices or primers needed to detonate the C-4 were found. But how the explosives ended up interred near a 19th-century vault is still anybody’s guess.

Right! So! What is YOUR guess?

A reader report on the M15 Select Bus Service

EV Grieve reader Mike shared his experience from the new M15 Select Bus Service yesterday ...

Paid for my ticket at 2nd and 42nd. The crowd was minimal but grew quickly. We waited over 10 minutes for a bus. The MTA employee said they are supposed to come every five minutes.

After paying for my paper ticket with my unlimited monthly, the regular local bus came, but I couldn't use my metrocard there as I just used it to buy a select ticket.

When the bus finally arrived it was jam packed. It sat for a few minutes as people were standing in the doorways. Everyone was irritated and each stop was a nightmare due to the super crowded condition. Exiting and entering was difficult for all riders.

Attached is a picture of the crowded condition... the entire bus was this full.

"MTA can't get it right every time. I'm hoping this is an anomaly.. it can't get any worse!"

The Penistrator is ruining The Libs Project

Here on 13th Street and Fourth Avenue... you ask for some libs, you get some Penistrator — or a clever imitator....

Also....

On second thought...

On Sept. 7, I ran an item on Cafe St. Mark's taking over the defunct Red Mango space on St. Mark's Place... Well, that didn't last long... there are now "for lease" signs on the space...

I don't know if they ever even made it open here...