EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Photo of the Mosaic Man by Bobby Williams]

Woman in coma after parking-space attack on East 14th Street (The Post)

About cell-phone use at registers (The Grumbler)

Check out this interview featuring Eden and John's East River String Band and Robert Crumb (Down Home Radio)

A shackled LES Jewels takes a spill in an ambulance (Nadie Se Conoce)

#AskMike (as in Bloomberg) on Twitter (Runnin' Scared)

A meal at Hinsch's in Brooklyn (Eater)

Another season of "Oddities" at Obscura Antiques on East 10th Street (BoweryBoogie)

Activists get primed for projects at ‘Land Use 101’ (The Villager)

The famous Macy's "holdout" building (Ephemeral New York)

Beware the MTA police on the M15 SBS (NYC the Blog)

Cute kitties! (New York Shitty)

And EV Grieve reader Samo notes a woman with a bloodied nose awaiting medical attention on Houston near the Bowery...

When people stop being polite... and start getting drunk

Outside Destination on Avenue A and 13th Street.

We have a feeling that we'll hear more from Flint-native Shawn Chittle on this matter. (And Shawn took the pic.)

'30 Rock' setting up to shoot inside Lucky Cheng's

That's the word from a reader just now on First Avenue... Photos anyone?

Phil Hartman bringing a 'performance venue' back to former Mo Pitkin's space

This (kind of!) confirms the rumors that we had been hearing... and mentioned back on Feb. 23: Phil Hartman is going to make another go at 34 Avenue A, which was most recently Aces and Eights.

Hartman and his brother Jesse opened Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction — the two-level restaurant/bar/performance space — in 2005.

It closed two years later. As New York put it: "[Mo Pitkin's] was the promised land for the busty neo-burlesque stars, pseudo-sane performance artists, and guitar-playing trapeze acrobats rendered homeless by the closing of Fez (and Surf Reality and Collective Unconscious and every other small, anything-goes downtown venue)."

The landlord sold the building a year later, Aces and Eights arrived in March 2009 ... So enough history...

Phil Hartman's name is listed as the contact on the just-posted CB3 flyer outside 34 Avenue A...

We reached out to Hartman last night to learn more about his plans. We haven't heard back yet.

Deal apparently in place for former Croxley Ales beer garden

Back in November 2009, we noted that the former beer garden at Croxley Ales was on the market...



A quick recap:

East Village Development Site/Retail Space opportunity. The subject property is currently a vacant lot with 24 feet of frontage on Avenue B. My client is looking to sell the property which has approximately 7,680 buildable square feet, or sign a long term triple net lease for a retail tenant. The retail space can be built out to approximately 3,840 square feet of commercial space not including the basement.

And now an EV Grieve tipster notes that someone has removed the sign ... (not to mention the tree) ...

...and it appears some work has started on the space...

We contacted David W. Seid, president of DSR New York, who had the listing for the space — known as 26 Avenue B. Via an e-mail, he said: "I can't officially comment yet on what's going on Avenue B until it's finalized. If you would like to check back in with me at the end of March I should be able to give you more details."

Meanwhile, there aren't any filings just yet with the DOB. (On Tuesday, one resident called the DOB to complain about "illegal demolition." The city didn't spot any at the time of its inspection.)

Until we know more, we might as well wildly speculate! Anyone?

Previously on EV Grieve:
Former Croxley Ales beer garden ready for development

Things that I didn't notice before: The beer garden at Croxley Ales has closed

The Boozerists

"Boozerists" (n) 1. A weekend non-resident visitor to the East Village or Lower East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan who booze, e.g. drink heavily, binge drink; 2. Persons who yell "woo hoo!" during early hours of the morning; 3. Any person seeking an all you-can-drink brunch.

Definition courtesy of Shawn Chittle.

Predator spotted on Seventh Street

EV Grieve Technologically Advanced Form of Extraterrestrial Life Correspondent Bobby Williams spotted this outside Tokio 7 on Seventh Street... from the greatest film ever made, of course — "Predator."

And in the immortal words of Dutch: "We move. Five meter spread. No sound."

A mural grows on East Third Street

EV Grieve reader Aaron passes along these photos, noting the progress yesterday on the wall adjacent to the Project Renewal facility on Third Street east of the Bowery...

We stopped by ourselves to take a look ... a Project Renewal employee was unsure what the final mural will be ... and wouldn't let us onto the property to ask the man painting the mural...

Reader reports: Big fire at 202 Mott St.

[Photos via @jbeltowska]

@jbeltowska reports that the fire is on the on 3rd or 4th floor of an apartment building on this intersection in Nolita. "Burning debris has been falling out the windows."

[Photos by @elucidateamy]

BoweryBoogie is on the scene at 202 Mott St. As he noted, the fire started in a building across the street from Lombardi's.

[Updated]

Just before 10, we heard the FDNY had the fire under control... and no injuries have been reported. DNAinfo reports that a 75-year-old woman suffered first-degree burns on her head.

$71 million later, the Cooper Square Hotel has a new owner

The Real Deal reported today that the Cooper Square Hotel handed the keys over to Westport Capital Partners as part of a $71 million debt restructuring deal. As the story notes, the original hotel owners quickly ran into financial trouble after opening in 2008.

Meanwhile! Managing partner Klaus Ortlieb said that "March room rates are averaging around $300 per night with 85 percent occupancy, with rates expected to rise into the mid-$300 range over the summer and $400s in the fall."

Sex, drag and rock-n-roll: The New York Dolls on the 1970s...

Vanity Fair has an interview with David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain, the sole surviving members of the New York Dolls, who have a new record coming out... Here's an excerpt from the Q-and-A:

Let’s talk about New York during the 70s. Stories from that era tend to be romantically gritty and over the top. It’s always something like, “So I was living in an apartment over a peep booth theater run by a midget, and one day these mobsters showed up with a meat truck filled with uncut cocaine...”

SS: That’s usually it. There’s a lot of nostalgic exaggeration about that time. But it was also much more dangerous than people remember. Back then, we got our asses kicked constantly. We had our first loft in SoHo, and some of our first musical experiences were there. But you took your life in your hand just walking through the neighborhood after 5 o’clock. If you were in Greenwich Village and you crossed Houston into SoHo, kids would come right up to you and beat the hell out of you, just because you had long hair or you were walking with a black guy or something. People say to me all the time, “Wasn’t it great back then?” No, it was not!

Alex has more over at Flaming Pablum about who the Dolls will tour with this summer (Mötley Crüe and Poison!) ...

And, why not...

Death & Co. will be closed for one more night

That's the word from owner David Kaplan to us via e-mail: "Looks like [the State Liquor Authority is] taking their time — it will be one more day. Closed tonight and they say we'll be open tomorrow." Death & Co. on East Sixth Street is just awaiting their liquor license renewal...

Previously.

Golden globe

At this time of the late afternoon, it appears newly crowned Best Actress Natalie Portman has a golden dome on the Bowery...

Tag sale at Rite Aid?

First Avenue and Fifth Street via EV Grieve contributor Bobby Williams.

You'll feel like a total frickin' rock star from Mars

Heh.

Via @elvainadine

Work more prominent now at the Economakis Mansion

It just occurred to us that we haven't checked in on the Economakis Dream Mansion on East Third Street since last May... On Jan. 5, Curbed made a return visit, noting a new cornice and new windows ... Still, hasn't really seemed like much is happening... until now... Workers recently put up construction netting and a sidewalk shed...

A look at the DOB permits issued a few weeks back don't reveal too much... However, there is the permit approved on Jan. 11 ... according to the DOB, workers will be installing a new curb cut. The DOB originally disapproved the curb cut, as Curbed noted on Jan. 5 ... Now it seems to be OK. As Curbed noted: "Maybe the old storefronts are being eyed for a private garage?"

Previously on EV Grieve:
And Economakis gets the whole building for his dream mansion

The 47 E. 3rd St. protest in video

At the 47 E. 3rd St. protest

Conspiracies: Where are all the fliers?

Death & Co. temporarily closed while waiting for liquor license renewal

We noticed that Death & Co. on East Sixth Street wasn't open last evening around 9 or so ... they usually open at 6... What's going on?

Owner David Kaplan told me there's a delay with the liquor license renewal. "Just the now regular SLA renewal process being slow," he said last night via e-mail about the temporary closure. They will be back open tonight.

Rumors: Juice Press opening a second East Village location

Several readers have noted that the Juice Press, the popular cold-pressed juice joint on East First Street near First Avenue, will open a second East Village location in a few months... one tipster even put the new storefront in this space on East 10th Street just west of Avenue A...



We asked founder Marcus Antebi if the Juice Press was opening a second location. He responded via e-mail: "Could be. I might do a laundromat instead. More quarters."

That came with an "LOL" ... they've been kind of funny all along... as you may recall, the storefront featured an array of goofy signs — Robot Daycare/Missing Sock/Mime Academy — before opening last May.

Season's greetings from the Moonstruck Diner

So you probably saw the trucks lined up on parts of First Avenue and Second Avenue yesterday ... crews were there to film scenes for "Damages" ...

[Photo via Pedro]

At the Moonstruck Diner on Second Avenue and Fifth Street, crews decked out for the diner as if it was the December holidays....

[Top two photos via Bobby Williams]

While we personally didn't spot any of the cast members, Pedro reports seeing lead Glenn Close in the window of Moonstruck, typing away on her laptop (not a Mac person!). We can't confirm whether the Moonstruck staff served her boiled bunny rabbit ...

And in the evening...

At the Cooper Square Hotel, V is for....?

Just looking at the new art near the front of the Cooper Square Hotel...

Looks similar to the hotel's new restaurant/bar mascot at the Trilby... except for having normal-sized hands...

[Image via Eater]

(And is this Nick Walker's work? I left before taking a closer look at the signature...)