Gonna be a long winter: The Penistrator strikes first snow

As I first reported, we had just a dusting of snow Monday night hereabouts — a dusting ... but that didn't stop you know who from making his or her first appearance of the young 2010-11 winter season...



Thanks to a tipster for this photo, taken on Bleecker and Jane Street in Marc JacobsVille. Uh-oh ... a little off the beaten path for this icy pork sword, don't you think? ... During the first snowfall of the 2009-10 season, the Snow Shaft Bandit stuck to his or her usual East Village confines. Now a migration to the West Village? Or — shudder — has the penistrator spawned copycats in other neighborhoods?

Oh, boy... it's gonna be a long winter with this "snowfitti" vandal on the loose... Eyes open, people. Eyes open.

Previously on EV Grieve:
An EV Grieve investigative report: In search of the Penistrator

A stunning development: Is Haley Joel Osment the Penistrator?

Snow is in the forecast tonight, which means....

Willow wood

Last Friday, a local East Village hyperlocal blogger became a bit hysterical, nearly causing his readers to storm city offices to demand why workers savagely hacked cut back the willow tree on East Eighth Street near Avenue C ...



Well! Since then, several readers have told me, er, the blogger, that — despite the appearances — this is actually just fine for the tree. So, in the sober light of day... Several readers passed along links to willow pruning forums and self-help groups... As one willow tree forum member said, "willows are very tolerant of massive pruning (you could cut it back to a stump and it will still re-sprout)."

Meanwhile, during the weekend, I took a walk by to see the tree for myself... there was a stack of firewood for the taking... (not to mention some random mail — oh look, Discover Card!)



...and workers hacked down the other tree on the lot...



We'll come back for a look in the spring

A Building sidewalk shed sits and waits

Late last summer, workers erected a sidewalk shed outside the World Famous A Building on 13th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue... Per the DOB, there's a permit for the shed "for emergency repair to balconies."

Can't be that much of an emergency... we have yet to see any work take place on the balconies... as a walk by the other morning suggests...



Previously.

Meanwhile, coming soon to a park near you

An EV Grieve reader shares an aerial view of sorts from last winter in Tompkins Square Park... And sources have told me there is a chance for snow flurries today....

LESBentley

Houston and Suffolk. Via @LSDiPalma.

When plastic chairs get caught in trees

Ev Grieve reader Bobby Williams noticed some police activity this afternoon around 4:30 on East Sixth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B... roughly in front of Joe's...





The word on the street: Somehow a plastic chair got stuck in tree. Maybe it fell off a nearby roof? The wind? Mysterious!



As you can see, the police eventually got their chair.

Rise of the Machines (SBS ticketing edition)

Ev Grieve reader Mike note the MTA working on additional Select Bus ticket machines coming to First Avenue and 14th Street... should help the crowds waking for tix during rush hours...




Any other requests for the MTA?

Tracing the origins of those weird angles off the Bowery

In preparation for a show at La Mama on East First Street in January, artist Jennifer Williams has been researching the footprint of the buildings around the gallery just off the Bowery... She found property maps via the NYPL digital archives dating back to 1853...

In looking at aerial views of the Bowery and Houston intersection, she noticed that some of the nearby buildings were erected at an odd angle.

As she writes on her blog, Bowery 2.0: "[I] learned that the weird angle actually relates to old farm property lines. I'm not entirely sure why the buildings from 1867 seem to follow the lines so closely, my guess is that the grid was still relatively new and the plots of land were being sold in parcels to individuals by the farm owners. I find the fact that even new buildings follow this footprint fascinating."




Click on image above a few times to compare the grids between First Avenue and the Bowery at different points from the past 150-plus years....

Visit the La Mama site for more on the show, featuring Williams and Wilfredo Ortega. Writes Williams about her portion of the show: "It's an amalgamation of memory, images, and research which will become a site specific collage construction (or deconstruction) of the Bowery’s present state.”

I'll have more from Williams on the exhibit later...

Meanwhile, Jeremiah has more today on the rapidly changing area around the Mars Bar. Read it here.

The last bastion

Since learning the Mars Bar will likely close, I've been trolling for Mars Bar photos ... here's a rather sad one on Flickr via.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal checks in with a story today titled Beloved Bars Take Dive. Nothing really new in the piece ... Here's the lead-in, which nicely sums it up:

Even the regulars at Mars Bar were surprised that their beloved hangout — a graffiti-encased dive of an East Village bar that had survived the recent arrivals of a Whole Foods market, luxury condo buildings and trendy restaurants from the likes of Keith McNally and Daniel Boulud — had managed to hang on.

"It's the last place left and now they're taking it away," said Joel Magee, who managed a rotating schedule of artists hired to paint the scrappy bar's murals. "It was inevitable, really. We're all thinking about where we're gonna go, what we're going to do. There is talk about it coming back, but nobody really thinks it can."

East Village resident ticketed for walking bike on sidewalk

An EV Grieve reader sends along a story from this past weekend... She had been at Russ and Daughters, and was walking her bike east along Houston.

Near Ludlow Street, a police car pulled over. The officers demanded to see her ID. She handed over her license, and was made to wait for nearly 30 minutes while the officers sat inside the car. (A detail worth noting — both officers were smoking cigars...)

Per the reader: "They issued me a court summons for riding my bike on the sidewalk, which I wasn't doing. [I never] put my feet to the pedals. The officers completely refused to offer any explanation whatsoever."

So, was this just one of the things... like the one person busted for hanging flyers on light poles full of flyers? Or has the NYPD been issuing tickets like this of late? Anyone else recently receive a rather frivolous ticket like this?

La Bonne Bouffe bows out of Avenue B

La Bonne Bouffe, a cafe-bakery-small-plates-type place, opened on the corner of Avenue B and Second Street in March 2009... The hours have seemingly been erratic of late... and the gate was down all weekend...



Sadly, it appears the eatery has closed. Yesterday morning, a reader noted that five-day demand for payment notice appeared on the front gate... The space is also on the market — $4,400 per monthly...

Anyway, always seemed like a tough sell — La Bonne was the third cafe-bakery-small-plates place to open since January 2009 on Avenue B between Second Street and Seventh Street... The Wall Street Journal also mentioned the eatery during its New Crowd Descends on East Third Street piece on Dec. 3...

On Avenue B, China 1 becomes Affaire

A reader sends along photos and the news that China 1 has apparently changed concepts on Avenue B near East Fourth Street...





Starting Friday, the space becomes Affaire, as the sign shows... Can't quite make out the menu in the photos, but it looks like small plates... Anyway, this place has a long short history...

I've heard a few noise-related complaints about the space, though none quite so pointed as the comment left at Down by the Hipster in March 2009:

This club is in the basement of my building, in which 25 families live, including young children and inform elderly. This club has been an absolute nightmare for we who "live upstairs." .... They seem to deliberatly not care that we cannot sleep at night, especially on the weekends, until after 4 a.m. because of the loud bass beat that literally throbs through the building and shakes the walls. I implore all to please DON'T PATRONIZE THIS CLUB! It is just a money-grubbing operation that doesn't care who it inconveniences as it just strives to rake in the cash. ... The new Obama era is here and it's time to stop being so self-centered, ya'll -- get with the program, grow up, and contribute to the quality of life in our community instead of destroying it in your own self-indulgence. AND LET US SLEEP!

Signed, "Sleepless in the EV"

Washed-up Carne Vale officially now a laundromat

Former Avenue B irritant Carne Vale between Forth Street and Third Street is now a laundromat...



Next door, China 1 is changing concepts... and across the street, Le Souk is gone (for the most part!)... Regardless, one longtime Avenue B resident told me that life along here is "100 percent" better since Le Souk shuttered in late October of 2009.

Seems like awhile since all the noise hoopla along here... As The Villager reported in December 2005:

Inundated by complaints about noise from raucous bargoers and taxi horn honking, police blitzed Avenue B with a full-scale “shock-and-awe” operation last Friday night.

Blanketing the avenue with 25 to 30 officers on foot, in patrol cars and vans — as well as on horseback to provide visual presence — police targeted quality-of-life and moving-vehicle violations from 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., issuing a total of 99 summonses, making two arrests and towing seven cars.

And a few photos by Bob Arihood taken outside Le Souk accompanied the article...



[Photos by Bob Arihood/The Villager]

What else we'd lose

We've focused all of our attention on the Mars Bar likely closing to make way for a big condo thing on Second Avenue at First Street... We haven't mentioned the likely loss of Joe's Locksmith just south of the Mars Bar... We've always liked the homemade signs with block letters...

Noted

A few minutes ago on First Avenue

Snow flurries. Woo?

Via Eventphotosnyc — photo by Jon Gurinsky

Patrons accuse the Continental of discrimination

Neighborhoodr reports on a demonstration that occurred Friday evening outside the Continental on Third Avenue near St. Mark's Place. According to Neighborhood, "Those present were protesting against what they claimed is discrimination on the part of the bar’s bouncers. One woman, an African-American, claimed she was allegedly told 'Your kind don’t know how to act' by a bouncer when she tried to enter the bar."

The group was organized by The ANSWER Coalition. There is also a Facebook group called Boycott Continental Bar in NYC.

The Local East Village interviews Trigger Smith, the Continental's owner, who said his club isn't doing anything improper. Per the Local EV:

Mr. Smith, who is white, said that patrons were not being turned away because of the color of their skin but because the bar has a policy against admitting patrons who do not adhere to its unwritten dress code.

“It just so happens that more people of a certain minority wear these things than others,” Mr. Smith said. “But I don’t want white trash either, or Jersey Shore boys.”

He went on to say that he doesn't want to admit "frat boy" patrons either.

[Photo via Neighborhoodr]

Pruning in the rain

A few people waiting for tables for Prune's brunch yesterday morning... For a moment, it seemed like some kind of spectator sport (the golf umbrella)... and a few people escaping the rain under the awning... with their faces pressed against the glass... Must have been one humorous sight from within the restaurant...

2 Cooper Square decides that its in the West Village now

OK, I was not awake when I posted the item earlier about someone tagging 2 Cooper Square ...

I didn't notice that the new Cooper Square sign notes that the entrance is on West Fourth Street...



As Stedman commented, "Are we the West Village now? I didn't get the memo."

Monk Thrift shop yielding to a Chase branch?

That's the rumor anyway here on Avenue C and 11th Street, where the Monk Thrift Shop has shuttered. (Just last week.) Someone please call Rev. Billy.

And tough times continue for thrift stores...

Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village vintage stores doomed?

Atomic Passion has closed