Monday, July 18, 2011

Your guide to changes coming to 14th Street between Second and Third Avenue

1) Plywood is up at the former fast-food triplex on the corner of Second Avenue. We're awaiting word on what's coming into this space.


2) As Eater reported, Eddie Huang is opening his second Baohaus location... coming to the Thai Me Up space. Having seen the gutted interior, July 25 seems like an optimistic opening date.


3) Plywood is up now at the coming-soon IHOP.


4) The Exquisite DVD store is open, though the space is for lease...


5) The new awning is up at the relocated Xoom. We expect to hear about an opening date very soon.


6) The Super Saving Store is closing near Third Avenue...


7) The Mystery Lot now features a Happy Hour...

Biking on lower Bowery and the Manhattan Bridge promises to be messy for the next few months

Longtime lower Bowery resident Curt Hoppe passes along this photo of the new bike lane on the street...


As Gothamist has reported, this is all part of the Manhattan Bridge rehabilitation work that starts today. It's a little confusing, these plans. But have a look.

[Via Gothamist]

So Manhattan-bound cyclists will exit the bridge on the Bowery and bike north to Prince Street... along the pre-existing path...



Per John Del Signore at Gothamist: "The change is annoying because on the Brooklyn side, cyclists will now have to dismount and carry their bikes up and down the stairs to get to the path. And they'd better get used to it, because this is the way it's going to be through January 2012. WHY GOD?!"

Meanwhile, Hoppe is curious how the Fung Wah Bus company will deal with this. Their buses typically idle exactly where the new bike lane is painted in on the Bowery.

Said Hoppe, "What a mess this is going to be."

The Bean's new home on Broadway

On Friday, we reported that the Bean is expanding its operation from its Third Street/First Avenue home... We're just confirming the second location on Broadway at 12th Street across from the Strand...


...at the former home of Quiznos and its toasty bullets.

Part of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America HQ is for lease

At 203 Second Ave., for lease signs are now up... the first and second floors are available ...


This is the national headquarters for The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America. (The Ukrainian Museum moved to its new home on East Sixth Street in April 2005.)


Last August, a fire in the stairwell of the upper floors damaged part of the offices. The renovated offices were dedicated this past June 11.

Related reading on EV Grieve:
Ukrainian Sports Club ready to go retail on Second Avenue

The Marshal seizes the shuttered Bowery Wine Company

Last weekend, as we reported, the Bowery Wine Company called it quits on East First Street... On Friday, the Marshal served the now-vacant restaurant with a seizure notice.


As we've noted, August Cardona, owner of dell'Anima, L'Artusi and Anfora, will take over the space ... and expanding into the empty storefronts to the east.

Pulino's enters Bowery sidewalk cafe garden party; DBGB put on notice

Three months after DBGB installed a garden oasis on the Bowery, corner mate Pulino's has retaliated with its own urban greenery...



Check mate, Boulud!

Extra Place is still Extra Place, for now



Previously.

A sidewalk shed for Something Sweet

Blue Glass notes the arrival of a sidewalk shed outside Something Sweet, the homespun bakery on the corner of First Avenue and East 11th Street...


Per the DOB: Workers will replace the "joists, window lintels and stucco."

As long as no one gets any funny ideas about painting over the Russo's mural on the 11th Street side...


[2nd Russo's image via]

Sunday, July 17, 2011

A red-tailed hawk, back in Tompkins Square Park




...and with a rat dinner...


Photos by Bobby Williams.

Next time


Seventh Street and Avenue B. Photo by Bobby Williams.

I have no idea if this had anything to do with the women's World Cup final today... but it was a helluva game...

Week in Grieview

[Photo by James Maher. See more of his work here]

RIP Dominic Philbert (Monday)

A Second Line march for Ray Deter (Monday)

A lot of photos of the double rainbow (Wednesday)

No sleepwalking in this loft for sale on the Bowery (Thursday)

Fu Sushi reopened (Tuesday)

Rent the old Le Souk space for 25K (Wednesday)

The willow tree of Eighth Street is looking good again (Wednesday)

Grabbing health by the nuts, and other ad slogans (Friday)

Changes in the works for Banjo Jim's (Thursday)

Santa Monica-based Euphoria Loves Rawvolution opening an outpost on East 12th Street (Monday)

And no one commented on this post about water interruption! (Tuesday)

CNN will report live from Zum Schneider during the women's World Cup final


Doors opened at 1 for the championship game at 2:45 between the United States and Japan. A CNN truck in parked out front... to bring live reports during the game...

And if the U.S. team wins, then we're taking the fire truck!

From the EV Grieve archives: Looking at 1980s New York via network television

Originally posted on July 17, 2008....

Rolando at Urbanite brought back a memory for me with a post on The Equalizer from 1985. As he notes, The Equalizer shows Times Square in all its pre-Giuliani glory. (Via Jeremiah)

Here's a clip I found from the show's opening (New York looks so SCARY!):



And where was the Olde Garden, which you see at the 21-second spot?

Oh, and all this makes me think of Cagney & Lacey from 1982 (and what happened to Meg Foster?):


Still, I prefer the gritty realism of other shows. (ACID RAIN in MANHATTAN! @ the 2:26 spot)

Love is in the air in Tompkins Square Park, and stuff

Earlier today...


Which reminds me... Bobby Williams noted this couple getting married in the Park last week...

This afternoon in the 6th and B Garden


Per the 6th and B Garden website:

The Vagabond Velonators
Long time Local Musician, John Campo, has concentrated on writing music, lyrics, and arrangements that are centered around methods long lost in music, that can live again in his post Bop R&B Triplet Feel. Currently playing with Tom Ryan, rhythm guitarist, they will play arrangements, and sound that falls somewhere in between New Orleans and Harlem traditions, and more.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A few scenes from Tompkins Square Park today




Photos by Bobby Williams.

And now, your IHOP plywood on East 14th Street


Previously on EV Grieve:
And the hits keep on coming! IHOP opening on East 14th Street

8 days left for Joe's Locksmith on Second Avenue

As we first reported back on June 13, Joe's Locksmith in the doomed 9-11 Second Ave. address would close for good on June 30.

However, Joe Filini Jr. was able to squeeze out a few more days of business here before the space is demolished for a 12-story luxury high rise with 65 units. He has eight days left here now.


As the sign shows, he is not moving the business. (There were reports that he was relocating to Brooklyn.)

Meanwhile, speculate all you want about what this means for any nearby businesses...


The Times has a lengthy piece today about the residents and history of the buildings here. Best passage:

The building’s impending fall was roundly lamented. “It’s going to be suburban people with babies and a Banana Republic and a Gap and one of those candle stores on street level,” grumbled the set designer and performer Machine Dazzle, who was wearing a homemade sheath and towered over other partygoers in Lucite heels that pushed him to 6 feet 8 inches.

In any event, Jeremiah covered a lot of the history already in posts from last month. There are links to all his work on the subject at the bottom of this post.

'Good morning sunshine'


Those were the words of a chipper EMT upon coming across an unresponsive L.E.S. Jewels on the corner of Avenue A and East Fourth Street. As multiple readers noted, Engine Company 28 and two ambulances arrived on the scene around 11 a.m.


The EMTs told onlookers that LES Jewels was fine. "He's OK, he's OK," one said.


Afterwards, Jewels' corner companion urinated on the sidewalk.

Happy Hour at the Mystery Lot!


And all night long! Woo!