Roni says 'Goodbye St. Mark's!'

Roni, the women's designer clothing boutique, has shuttered its location at 119 St. Mark's Place....



...Sunday was its last day... there are still three other Roni locations in Manhattan...



... on Prince Street, Broadway between Bond and Bleecker and Bleecker near Seventh Avenue... curious why management shuttered the East Village location...

Cynthia Nixon getting her 15 minutes of house fame with former Warhol residence?

This afternoon's Twitter rumor has SATC star Cynthia Nixon buying this East Sixth Street home between Second Avenue and First Avenue... home to Andy Warhol at one point...



We featured it back in June... It's going for $2.4 million. Per the listing:

Built originally as the historic St. Marks Lutheran Church, 321 East 6th Street is uniquely situated affording three exposures including oversized parlor floor windows. Many original details have been retained including the well-shaded high-stoop and second entrance below, wood-burning fireplaces, crown moldings, parquet and hardwood floors, and grandiose 13-foot ceilings. Use these two distinct and handsomely appointed floors as currently configured or join the two to create an expansive and gracious lower duplex. ... Of note, this property was once owned by Andy Warhol in the late 1960’s.

More thoughts on the M15 Select Bus Service

Thanks to a reader for these thoughts...

Still happy with the ride, not so happy with the ticketing process. Seems like too few machines per stop. Understand that two or three is probably fine during non-rush hours, but when there's a rush and people have to line up for the machines, they get frustrated.

This is exacerbated when (1) a machine is broken, (2) you're waiting for the ticket to print--altogether would say that the actual ticketing process from time you press button until when you get the receipt takes >3 times as long as sticking a card in bus Metrocard reader--(3) people get especially frustrated when the bus comes but they are still lined up to get a ticket--old habits die hard, and people feel like they should be able to just walk on the bus and use the reader, and (4) the bus closes its doors and leaves while you're waiting to get a ticket from the sidewalk machine--have only seen this happen when another bus is coming right up, but it sure feels bad.

MTA seems to be dealing with by running extra buses and/or placing empty buses where they can fill in gaps--e.g., if you see a bus at 14th and 1st SE corner with "Next Bus Please", it's probably an SBS bus waiting for a delay, and the dispatcher at 14th Street stop will occassionally call up (seems like they can also get called up to stops farther on the line).

Again, the ride is faster--and probably will get even better as there's more enforcement of the bus lane. But the above is frustrating, and although was once a believer in the sidewalk ticketing, a bit more of a skeptic now. Time will tell.

Afternoon at the Beekman

Near City Hall.

Breaking: It's Election Day!

Remember, if you don't like the results of today's elections, then you can also help develop a new political party... A reader sent along a shot of one of the detailed, tiny-type flyers that seem to be everywhere, such as this one on Houston and First Avenue...



The discussion is Thursday night at the Ukrainian Restaurant on Second Avenue...

[Updated] Destination Bar robbed

Via the bar's Twitter feed...



We just reached out to one of the owners of the bar here on Avenue A and 13th Street for more information.

[Updated] An owner to get back to us this morning... He wants to hold off on releasing any further details for the time being...

Howard O'Brien, 1954-2010

Several Sophie's regulars have passed along word that Howard O'Brien, a longtime bartender at the East Fifth Street bar, passed away early Saturday morning. Howard, who was 56, had been battling cancer. He had worked at Sophie's since 1986.

As one regular described him, he was "wonderfully reserved, incredibly erudite, peculiarly comic, full of bardic tradition and a straight talking, no nonsense scholar and gentleman in the right way." Indeed.

Meanwhile, there is a memorial service for Howard on Friday:

11 a.m. in the Lower Church of St. Francis of Assisi
135 W. 31st St. (between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue)
(212) 736-8500
Friends will be meeting at Sophie's afterwords, roughly around 12:30.

[Photo by Thomas Donal Ward via Facebook]

'Making or breaking dreams' at Community Board 3

Here are excerpts from today's Wall Street Journal article on Community Board 2 and 3....

The owner of a new tea lounge in the East Village wanted a liquor license. After her community board denied the request, she started crying, "shocked by the backlash," according to one board member.

Welcome to Community Board 3. The restaurant and night-life industry may be buzzing downtown, but some of the biggest fireworks take place in dreary meeting rooms where tempers flare, tears are shed and the back and forth can stretch on for up to eight hoTrs. Confrontations have gotten so bad that some businesses have just given up and withdrawn applications.

Now, a group of high-profile restaurateurs are trying to form a trade association. One of their main gripes: Community boards are unfair.

"In a way, we're making or breaking dreams," said Ariel Palitz, who has straddled two roles, as nightclub owner and member of Community Board 3's committee. She said she was speaking as an individual, not for the committee.

And!

Some restaurateurs say community boards can be the biggest obstacle to doing business in the city. "They should call them communist boards instead of community boards," said Keith Masco, whose application for a liquor license for a proposed seafood restaurant and market in the Lower East Side was denied several months ago. "What they're doing is really unfair."

And!

Community Board 3 District Manager Susan Stetzer says a real concern of residents in her district is having a diversity of businesses, not just bars and restaurants. "It's about having services for people who live here," she said.

This week in First Avenue bike lane hazards

ConEd is still working on First Avenue near Ninth Street after last week's little manhole mishap... St. Mark's was closed yesterday between Second Avenue and First Avenue...



First Avenue correspondent Blue Glass went by later last evening as work continued... the reflection makes it seem as if ConEd is working with a giant laser..



...and despite the noise, some folks are still choosing to rest here under the sidewalk shed on the Ninth Street corner...

Two signs, two eras

Second Avenue and Sixth Street.

In case you are waiting for someone coming down on the M15 Select Bus

As EV Grieve reader Mike notes at 42nd and Second, "Both of the machines were frozen on the post-transaction 'thank you' screen. One finally started working again but the second is still frozen. Big line to buy tickets."

Hotel project revived for 13th Street; will include 'exclusive rooftop lounge'

Curbed reports that the long zombified hotel project on 13th Street and Fourth Avenue has a new life via a Hyatt subsidiary...

Per the news release:

The other Hyatt-branded property announced today, slated to open Fall 2011, will be located at 13th Street and 4th Avenue, a block off Union Square, and near Washington Square Park. Union Square is adjacent to some of Manhattan’s preeminent residential and commercial neighborhoods including Chelsea, Gramercy Park, and the Flatiron District. Some of Manhattan’s most celebrated restaurants and popular nightlife spots surround the hotel. The area is extremely popular with residents and tourists alike, and is an activity hub for major hospitals, universities and retail centers. The hotel will offer stunning accommodations to its guests, including private terraces on the second floor, a well-appointed fitness center and an exclusive rooftop lounge. The historic façade and 23 foot ceilings in the lobby will create a grand space for the stylish lounge opening up to 13th Street and a restaurant concept inspired by the local and organic Greenmarket.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Is Sam Chang's Fourth Avenue hotel too tall?

Halloween night on St. Mark's Place: 'truly unheralded'

A reader comment that deserves its own post...

Living on St Marks place (b/t 2nd & 3rd no less) for 33 years is bound to have some effect on a person (me), but I have to say last night was something truly unheralded. As close as I can describe between 12-4, the street resembled nothing so much as Times Square on New Year's Eve. What was even more sobering (ha) was the arrival of cops who placidly navigated the drunk, screaming, traffic stopping, collectively shouting crowd without even attempting to clear the street or the sidewalk. Living on SMP for so long, one adjusts to the fact that inhabitants are deprived of certain civil rights — quiet, privacy, garbage pick up, but this was stunning. I have seen everything here — 70s speed freaks to 80s junkies to the riots in the park. I thought for sure, the same cops (and helicopters) who turned out for that event — or the Republican convention — would show. Nope. What up with that?

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Housing Authority board member Margarita Lopez pays $250 in rent on East 11th Street (New York Post)

Remember to vote tomorrow (The Lo-Down)

Looking at "New York the Way It Was: Greenwich Village" (Nonetheless)

A cupcake with skeletons (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

150 Bowery on the market (BoweryBoogie)

Another round of NYU vs. residents (Daily News)

Save the date: A Bowery Celebration at Dixon Place on Nov. 30 (Dixon Place)

More EV Halloween photos at Nadie Se Conoce ... Melanie's East Village Corner ... Slum Goddess ... and one cool costume at GammaBlog...

Halloween scenes (reader edition)

Many thanks to everyone who passed along some Halloween-related photos...

From Editrrix...







From Bobby Williams...




From Blue Glass...



From 68 Comeback... (and Batman has to wait in line!)



A favorite ... the blood drive truck in front of the vampire store on Avenue A... Via NYCETC



Fox and Hounds at Lakeside Lounge via Bonnie...



A morning-after walk home by a Cat Woman on Third Avenue via someone who didn't leave a name...



And two morning-after shots from readers showing two different takes on St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue...

At 6 a.m., showing a rather apocalyptic scene...



And a few hours later, where some zombies were on the prowl...

Weekend at Sin Sin

We first heard that Sin Sin was calling it quits last Thursday.



However! The beleaguered bar/club was open on Second Avenue and Fifth Street on Friday night...



and Saturday night...




...and yesterday morning, workers gutted the space....





Word is the owners will rebrand the bar as something else in the coming weeks....

"Lives" live at 98 Bowery

Marc H. Miller sends along word about the latest addition to the 98 Bowery site...

Lives: exhibition and catalogue organized by Jeffrey Deitch
The Fine Arts Building, 105 Hudson St., NYC
November 29 - December 20, 1975

Here's a little bit more about it....:

The "Lives" exhibition by Jeffrey Deitch that opened in November 1975 at the Fine Arts Building featured the experimental artists that I had admired and identified with in the early 1970s. The exhibition also marked the start of a brief period when the Fine Arts Building, a large, eleven-floor office building at 105 Hudson Street, was the center of an energetic art scene that helped rejuvenate the deserted neighborhood just south of Soho -- the now fashionable Tribeca. With its abundance of cheap live-in studios, offices and exhibition spaces, the building fostered the camaraderie and networking that helped nourish radical new directions in the 1980s. For those who were there it was a stimulating time that ended abruptly when the building went co-op in the late 1970s. The young artists and fledgling galleries that helped develop the building and neighborhood were priced out and had to seek new quarters. Most migrated to the East Village and the Lower East Side where a new phase in the evolution of the art of the period began.

[Flyer from 1978, via 98 Bowery]

Today, 105 Hudson is home to, among other things, Nobu....

For further reading on EV Grieve:
Life at 98 Bowery: 1969-1989

Revisiting Punk Art

Q-and-A with Curt Hoppe: Living on the Bowery, finding inspiration and shooting Mr. Softee

Voices from 98 Bowery's past

Halloween outside Diablo Royale Este

Outside the Halloween party at Diablo Royale Este on Avenue A Saturday night...








... featuring the new outdoor urinal...