RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

As Jeremiah reported on Monday, workers at the RCN Cable building on Avenue C and Sixth Street painted over the Obama-McCain election mural and others on the site last week....



Now...



Patrick Hedlund has a follow-up piece today at DNAinfo. He speaks with an anonymous RCN spokesperson who sounds a little huffy about Chico's mural, which graced the wall for two years.

"The bottom line is the building had illegal graffiti on it and we cleaned it up — period."

And!

But the RCN spokesman quickly dismissed the idea that Garcia might return to work on the wall.

"We're not interested in doing business with him again," he said.

Curious to see how long the building sits tag free.... this little doodle was quickly painted over....



Anyway, there were all sorts of Chico murals on this corner...



Are you telling me that RCN just figured out that there are murals here? (What about the illegal ads?) And it wasn't as if Chico just ran up here and tagged the wall in the middle of the night... this corner art took a long time to create... And this entire time RCN was unaware of the activity?

A side note, perhaps ... graffiti artist Jairo Pastoressa, accused of murdering Christopher Jusko, helped Chico create this mural ... His signature was in spray paint below Chico's name.


[Photo via DNAinfo]

Fake police set up real-looking command post on Astor Place

Look closely at this photo sent along by Bob Arihood. So the NYPD was camped out yesterday on Astor Place....or is it the Village Video News... ?



It's our understanding that if the NYPD sells old equipment, the new owner must remove all police markings. Also, this is a new truck. Now that the city is kinda broke, is the NYPD selling off some spare parts?

In any event, does this mean that I can toss the ticket I got for public urination from the guy at Village Video News?

Progress made in trash talk on East 12th Street

A group of residents on East 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue have had ongoing concerns about the trash piling up outside the buildings that house Ross Global Academy Charter School and East Side High School. With almost 800 kids, the school population between First and Avenue A is considerably larger than the three other schools on 12th Street and requires a greater number of trash pick-ups.

As one resident noted, the schools can dump on the sidewalk any time of the day or night while residents must comply with trash pick-up rules. "Every day we have to walk out of our building and look at bags of garbage and a running stream of sour chocolate milk in the gutter," one resident said. In addition, the fire hydrant on the south side of the street was often piled over with trash.








However, after a series of meetings with school officials, including the building engineer, as well as a flurry of e-mails and phone calls with Sanitation Department officials, there is progress to report. The residents are pleased to note a striking "culture change" in the past two weeks in the way that trash has been managed at the school facility.

In an e-mail, one neighbor noted "the initiative ... to establish an additional late Friday/early Saturday pick-up resulted in the elimination of a growing weekend trash heap which has caused tension between the school and the neighborhood. The constant, ever-heaping mountains of trash present not only an eyesore, but a a health hazard to the community, especially with bedbug outbreaks throughout the city."

On weekends, the sidewalks were trash free... and the fire hydrant has also been painted...



Said a resident: "This is a good start ... we will continue to monitor and review the situation and I look forward to continued collaboration and cooperation."

At the Copper Building, your luxury East Village penthouse awaits you — still

The Copper Building is nearly all sold out... only two units remain on the market, according to StreetEasy, including the pièce de résistance — the penthouse. The unit hit the market at $1.65 million, and recently the Coppertoners knocked 9 percent off to bring it down to a more manageable $1.5 million.

As the listing subtly points out:

This is the penthouse of your dreams. The 22 foot high floor-to-ceiling windows provide absolutely breathtaking vistas the moment you enter the home. Following the beautiful wide oak wood stairs brings you to the master suite and full bath fit for the king (or queen) of New York. The apartment also features a 650 square foot private terrace. Your luxury East Village penthouse awaits you.

In case you can't make it by for the open house on Sunday afternoon (2-4:30), then check out some of the scenery via the PH pics...

Noted

Breaking: Superdive is open?!

As Goggla sent along tonight: "I thought they were finally closed?! Despite 'closed' and 'for rent' signs, Supderdive appears to be open."

An investigative team will be dispatched, if he feels like getting off the couch.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Ray's now sells veggie burgers and hot apple cider (Slum Goddess)

The great fire of 1956 at Wanamakers (EV Transitions)

Bedbug City (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

CB3 unleashes a draft plan for SPURA (The Lo-Down)

A nighttime game of chess in the rain at Tompkins Square Park (Nadie Se Conoce)

Rag & Bone selects its new mural (BoweryBoogie)

And the latest from The City Concealed series... "Tucked away on the corner of Broome and Allen Street on the Lower East Side, a relatively hidden historical treasure makes its home. The last Greek synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, Kehila Kedosha Janina" (Thirteen.org)

The subways are slower this year (NY Post)

Get your Thanksgiving pies at the Lower Eastside Girls Club...

Imagining the Bowery in 2033

I recently stood on the Bowery watching workers put up a new billboard above the B Bar...




... I came back later to see the final product...ah, the ol' "No. 1 vodka of 2033" campaign...



Then! As I dodged town cars and well-heeled crowds on the Bowery streets and sidewalks (the town cars stayed on the streets) ... I wondered what the Bowery would look like in 2033... Just think how much it has changed in, say, the last 10 years ...what Jeremiah has dubbed "the Bowery tsunami."

I'm not sure what it will be like in less than 23 years... but you figure, given recent activity, several places will no longer be here...

... like 35 Cooper Square...



...the Sunshine Hotel....



... the White House...



...Downtown Tire & Auto Center ...



I get depressed thinking about it... (and I wish I could have gone to the Bowery "Past, Present and Future" lecture at the Tenement Museum last night...)

Perhaps this shot sums it up...a few of the historic buildings will remain alongside the new luxury... and the old buildings will seem more like trophies than part of everyday life...


[Deer photo by AWKWORD]

The willow trees of Loisaida

After my post Friday about a possibly endangered willow tree on 11th Street... I decided to photograph a few of the other willows near Avenue C...






Enjoy them while you can... you never know when one will be removed...

Previously on EV Grieve:
11th Street condo owners want to chop down this willow tree

Waiting for the catch

Thanks to a reader for this Craigslist ad...

$780 Female Roommate Wanted - Your own bedroom in 2 1/2 Bedroom apartment (East Village)
Date: 2010-11-16, 8:44PM EST

Furnished bedroom available in spacious 2 1/2 bedroom apartment. Doorman, high floor, city and sunset views, sunny, etc. Washer, dryer and dishwasher in the apartment. The apartment has good heat, is quiet for sleeping, has good air-conditioning, high speed internet and a spare computer for the roommate's use. It's an elevator building and there is a health club in the building. The room is about 200 sq. ft., has a double bed, dresser, desk, walk in closet and a window with a nice view. I'm looking for a female roommate who will occasionally not wear clothes when I ask in exchange for free rent. No sex whatsoever required. Otherwise the rent is $780/month, everything included.

East Village eatery etc.: Mosaic Cafe opens; nutcrackers arrive

A reader sent along this photo noting that Mosaic Cafe recently opened here on Avenue C near 10th Street at the former Rico space...



As Eater reported yesterday, wd~50 pastry chef Alex Stupak received the OK from the CB3/SLA for Empellon, "a fine-dining Mexican restaurant," at 105 First Ave. ... Which must mean current 105 First Ave. tenant, the vegan eatery Counter, will be calling it a day soon....



Mary Ann's has quietly reopened on Second Avenue at Fifth Street...



A reader brings word that Wasan, a seasonal Japanese restaurant, has just opened at the former Knife + Fork space on Fourth Street.



...and the Nutcrackers are out in Little Italy...

Noted

A reader recently noted the sign outside the new deli on Avenue B and Fourth Street. However appealing...



Might be less work and a better deal to opt for the sandwich... a reader notes another sign at the location ...

At the rally to save 326 and 328 E. Fourth St.

Today at noon, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), the East Village Community Coalition (EVCC), Councilmember Rosie Mendez, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, the Historic Districts Council, and the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy held a rally and press conference ... You can check out more photos at the GVSHP Flickr page...

Per the GVSHP:

These houses were the first and only structures ever built on these sites and retain a remarkable level of original architectural detail. Having evolved from shipbuilding merchant’s homes to multi-family tenements to a synagogue to the home of an anarchist utopian arts collective, 326 & 328 East 4th Street capture New York and especially the East Village’s evolution over more than a century and a half. With all-too-few buildings in the East Village enjoying much-needed landmark protections, we must save 326 & 328 East 4th Street before it is too late!

You can read more about the ongoing conservation battle here.

And, um, any word on this from the Landmarks Preservation Commission?

Cost Away!

EV Grieve reader AWKWORD sends along some photos of new street art created by graffiti legend Cost... The box on Second Avenue near Houston was part of the recent Showpaper exhibit... Enjoy before the city removes it or some jackass steals it...

More on last night's CB3/SLA meeting

Here's my recap of last night's sometimes contentious CB3/SLA meeting right here.

You can read more coverage at:

The Lo-Down

Eater

The Local EV

Noted

As the readers who sent along this shot said, "Not weird, but still can't spell." And, as the copy reads, he won't streal any of your shit.

A lot of history for your rent at the Hamilton-Holly House

There's a new listing for a two-bedroom apartment at 4 St. Mark's Place... above Trash and Vaudeville in the The Hamilton-Holly House... it's a bare-bones listing with some blurry interior photos...all for $4,200...



Thankfully, there's plenty of history on this building over at the Lower East Side History Project... here's an excerpt:

The Hamilton-Holly House is an 1831 landmarked, Federalist style building which has housed the clothing store Trash And Vaudeville since 1971 (and has sold spandex to famous and not so famous rock and rollers ever since.)

This building is most notably characterized by its unusual 26-foot width and 3-1/2-story height, long parlor floor windows, unique vermiculated, rounded entranceway, molded pediment lintels, peaked roof, and double segmental dormers.

The high-stoop and peaked roof also makes this a unique Federal-era construct.

This house, along with the entire block, was developed by Thomas E. Davis, who sold 4 St. Marks place to US Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton's Son in 1833, and lived here with his widowed mom and their immediate families for nearly a decade. (Alexander Hamilton was killed in a pistol duel with Arron Burr a few years prior.)

The Van Wyck family owned 4 St. Marks in 1855 when a classified ad appeared in The New York Times reading, ''Respectable middle-aged Scotch or German Protestant woman wanted to do the general work of a small family; apply immediately at No. 4 St. Marks Place.''

By 1870, the neighborhood was much less fashionable, and a census record shows the building was used as a boarding or lodging house.

It has been widely rumored that Last of the Mohicans author, James Fenimore Cooper lived here in the 1830s, but little evidence shows this is the case. At least not during this time period. (There were already two families of Hamiltons and Hollys occupying the space, among other discrepancies and lack of evidence.)

In the 1950's and 60's, this building hosted a variety of cutting-edge performance art spaces which ended up challenging the limits of the First Amendment in Vietnam War-era America.

The Tempo Playhouse and the New Bowery Theater were two notables, but The Bridge Theater really “pushed the limits” of freedom of speech and was eventually shut down.

The Bridge Theater was a Fluxus art house, and hosted the likes of Yoko Ono, The Fugs, and the Bread and Puppet Theater. Fluxus art is based on the work and philosophy of artist Allan Kaprow; and is mainly comprised of group-based, improvised, interactive, mixed-media performance art.

You can read the rest here.

Get your $3 Trash and Vaudeville T-shirts

Speaking of Trash and Vaudeville.... here's a store ad from March 1980...



Via Ephemeral New York.