Thursday, May 3, 2012

Hotel construction on 13th Street and Fourth Avenue — now in fifth year! — continues

Yesterday morning, EV Grieve reader John noted some progress at the incoming Hyatt Union Square on Fourth Avenue at East 13th Street... Indeed, workers were erecting scaffolding on the lower levels...


...and later... more scaffolding!


In any event, it seems as if the stalled/unstalled/too tall/view-blocking hotel project is dawdling along ... by our count, construction has entered its fifth year. Curbed's first post on it went up on July 18 2007.

It wasn't always a Hyatt property, of course... early on hotel developer Sam "McSam" Chang's group was behind the construction ... It became Hyatt's problem property in November 2010...

Early rendering!


Newer rendering with the hydroponic bamboo garden and halo!

[Image from Archpaper via Curbed]

Last official word on this via Hyatt was a fall 2011 opening.

Previously.

Let's take a quick look inside Michael White's new pizzeria on Second Avenue

We walked by that incoming Michael White pizzeria on Second Avenue at 10th Street yesterday ...


...the plywood is down on the side... (see the first comment — a commenter said there was never any plywood...)


...and the anti-blogger shield hasn't been activated...


Anyway, here's what one portion of the interior is looking like these days...


Per Diner's Journal, Nicoletta's pizzas "will be baked in a gas-fired brick oven but would be 'different, crisper' thanks to both his technique and a flour that is lower in protein."

Nicoletta is on this month's CB3/SLA docket for a sidewalk cafe...

Here's the bar behind Jane's Sweet Buns


Just following up on yesterday's item via UrbanDaddy about a new, sorta secret bar opening in the rear of Jane's Sweet Buns... A reader sent along the above photo from last evening... workers were still setting up the 10-seat bar, which is called Proletariat ... they will serve "hard-to-find brews from the Death + Company guys."

No official word on when the bar opens...

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] There's now a (sort of) secret beer bar behind Jane's Sweet Buns

Vandaag's weiner window opening this weekend


This weekend, over on Second Avenue, Vandaag will start serving sausages out of a takeout window on the restaurant's Sixth Street side, Eater reported yesterday.

As you might expect, the weiners are foodie friendly. Here's the menu, via Eater ...

Why you are in luck if you ever dreamed of having R.A. Dickey of the Mets watch you throw a Wiffle ball in Tompkins Square Park

Because it's happening this afternoon! We don't know many other details... other than that someone sent us this Facebook notice last night...


And record-long headline too!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Neighborhood School library spared for now; Standard East Village chips in $10,000 donation

[Photo by Bill Massey]

A few weeks ago, word spread that The Neighborhood School was in danger of losing its library. (You can read our post on it here.)

There's good news on the situation via The Wall Street Journal, who reports that parents raised funds to save the job of the librarian, Cheryl Wolf, and the library for at least another school year. As Ralph Gardner wrote:

The good news is that the heroic efforts on the part of the P.S. 363 community have underlined the value of librarians in the life of students — it's perhaps even more so today, when children have virtually unlimited computer access to information but need guidance putting it into context. The bad news is that the plight of the school puts into stark context just how dramatically the budget crisis has affected the city's public education system.

Read the whole article here.

The Journal notes that the "Save the Library" campaign was several hundred dollars short of its goal when The Standard East Village put in a $10,000 contribution. (We'll have more later on the other local businesses who were very supportive.)

Meanwhile, the fund shortage continues in other areas of the school... which you can read about at the school's website.

But for now... parents are savoring the moment...

Catch the rainbow


In Tompkins Square Park today with Hildegard Ford — AKA the Four-Leaf Clover Lady of the East Village...

Photo by Bobby Williams

You can read more about her in this feature from the Daily News from 2008.

[Updated] There's now a (sort of) secret beer bar behind Jane's Sweet Buns

Last October, Jane's Sweet Buns went before the CB3/SLA for a wine and beer license to pair with its desserts (the alcohol, not the license). Apparently the bakery that opened last July on St. Mark's Place in the former De La Vega Museum space is putting the license to good use.

According to an UrbanDaddy report this afternoon, Jane's back now includes a new 10-seat bar called Proletariat ... "a tiny enclave of hard-to-find brews from the Death + Company guys, now tucked innocently behind Jane’s Sweet Buns."

Per UrbanDaddy, "you’re going to walk in, give a wink and a nod, and just glide on through the door to the right of the counter" to access Proletariat.

UPDATED:
Several readers quickly noted that there was a lot of CB3 debate over this application... Someone else pointed us to CB3's final verdict:

VOTE: To deny the application for a beer wine license for DeRossi Chelsea LLC, doing business as Jane's Sweet Buns, for the premise located at 102 St. Marks Place, unless the applicant agrees before the SLA to make as conditions of its license the following signed notarized stipulation that 1) it will operate as a bakery and pastry shop, serving food during all hours of operation, 2) it will stop serving beer and wine at 12:00 A.M. Sundays through Thursdays and 2:00 A.M. Fridays and Saturdays, 3) it will play ambient background music only, consisting of recorded music. Community Board 3 is approving this beer wine application although this is a location in an area with numerous licensed premises because 1) this applicant and its employees have a significant collective experience in baking, 2) the approval of a beer wine license would give the applicant parity with adjacent licensed establishments, and 3) at less than four hundred (400) square feet in size, this location could not be detrimental to the community.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

["Dark Circles" opening soon? Spotted by peter radley at Sixth Street and First Avenue]

A mini Mars Bar (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

The Rent Guidelines Board vote for a hike (DNAinfo)

Parking punch retrial begins (New York Post)

An appreciation of Mink DeVille (Heave Media)

More scenes from the OWS/Wildcat protest at Sara D. Roosevelt Park yesterday (The Gog Log)

Cocktail Bodega for the LES? (BoweryBoogie)

A note from Cesare the dog


Spotted on the front door of an East 12th Street apartment building. Photo by Andrew Adam Newman on Avenue C.

The Cake Shop is open for now...

Grub Street has an update this morning on Cake Shop, the Ludlow Street cafe-bakery-bar-music-venue that was in danger of shutting down this week. (First reported by Brooklyn Vegan last Friday.)

Co-owner Nick Bodor told Grub Street's Jenny Miller that "several generous individuals" had chipped in with the $10,000 that the space needed to stay open.

However, as Grub Street points out:

Because of some real-estate taxes the landlord is passing on, plus fines and legal fees, Cake Shop needs to come up with almost $50K by June 20, or it could be curtains. "We're looking for an equity partner," Bodor said. "We want to sell a part of the company off to the right partner."

Q-and-A with Andrew Kotliar, festival director for Kinofest NYC

[A Soviet-era monument as seen in "The Other Chelsea"]

Kinofest NYC is a film festival that celebrates independent cinema from Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries. As the Kinofest website puts it, the festival "is organized by a grassroots group of East Villagers who have a passion for film, storytelling and the creative arts."

The third-annual festival starts tomorrow night and runs through Sunday, and will include four feature films, three of which are premiering in New York City, and 21 short films. This year's Kinofest NYC takes place at The Ukrainian Museum on East Sixth Street and Anthology Film Archives and Second Avenue at East Second Street. (Go here for schedule and ticket information.)

Festival director Andrew Kotlier answered a few questions for us via email on the eve of this year's Kinofest.

Did you foresee this becoming an annual event? How would you rate the success of the previous Kinofests?

Yes, the idea from the begining was to try to make it become an annual event, and to keep it based in the East Village, tapping into both the local arts scene and the Ukrainian community. The previous two Kinofests were quite successful, as we have been able to pull together high-quality diverse programs, involve various community sponsors and individual volunteers, and bring in a selection of qualified guest speakers. We've been seeing lots of interest and positive feedback from our audience, along with good dialogue along the way.

Do you consider this more a celebration of Ukrainian culture or independent cinema in general?

Kinofest is a celebration of independent cinema in general. Our program director [Damian Kolodiya], a Brooklyn-born East Village resident, has many contacts with filmmakers from Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union. We've been very fortunate to be able to tap into that network, and through our festival to provide a new generation of "post-Soviet" filmmakers a voice here in New York City.

[Shakhtar Donetsk fans as seen in "The Other Chelsea"]

Tell us a little about the opening film, "The Other Chelsea," which plays Friday night at 7:30.

"The Other Chelsea" is a revealing film that explores the links between sports, business, and politics in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. It is home to Shakhtar Donetsk, the winning Ukrainian football (soccer) team, home to Ukraine's weathliest billionaire and football supporter, Rinat Akhmetov, and home base for Ukraine's president, Viktor Yanukovych. The filmmaker Jakob Preuss illustrates the social and political decline that Ukraine's new elite have entrenched in their country, and in a humorous way tells the story of the discordant worlds of increasing wealth and poverty by following two ardent Shakhtar Donetsk fans – a coal miner and well-to-do politician.

Their worlds meet in the Donetsk football stadium where, despite their differences, they are united by their strong ties to the nostalgia of their Soviet past. Preuss, who lives in Berlin, will be in New York to present his film. He's flying to the United States to take part in Kinofest, and is in the States for a two-week roadshow of his film.

What do you hope that people take away from Kinofest?

We hope people will hear and learn about perspectives and narratives from a tough part of the world that has seen a lot of transition these past two decades. We are flying in four filmmakers from Kyiv, one of whom won top prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, so we also hope people will meet and mingle with our guests, and see what the new discussions and exchanges of ideas may lead to.

And now, let's start digging into the New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery

Last week, the Department of Records unleashed images from its database — 870,000 digital photos of New York City dating back to the 1850s... the culmination of a four-year photo-digitalization project by city archivists, as The Wall Street Journal put it.

But! The overwhelming demand crippled the website... and no one could access the photos...

However! I randomly checked late last night, as I've been doing every 90 seconds the last eight days. Or so. ... and everything was up and running. Woo!

So, for starters, this was a rather quick and random search ... I just grabbed stuff as if I was ransacking Key Food before a hurricane...

These photos of workers in Tompkins Square Park are dated May 1941... (and nice to see that workers stood around then too — kidding!)

...in the top photo, you can barely make out the Avenue A street sign in the upper right-hand corner...




This shot in the Park looking west toward East Ninth Street wasn't dated...


The caption: "Old men and women seated on bench. Women wear babushkas and hold canes."

And here is the north side of Delancey Street west of Clinton Street dated June 7, 1906 ... There are a lot of Delancey shots from this time period.


Here are two random tax photos, which were taken some time between 1980 and 1988... (There are a lot of tax photos, though the images are very small...)


And some tax photos on the Bowery... You may recognize a few spots ...



... such as the former 9-17 Second Avenue, where the Mars Bar was eventually on the corner...


...and the current home of Gemma and the Bowery Hotel...


...7-Eleven is the third storefront in... in the bowels base of the 52E4 condo...



And some tax photos on East Houston....



...current home of the Ludlow...




...the Sunshine...


OK, going back in for more... Meanwhile, you can search yourself right here.

[All photos courtesy NYC Municipal Archives]

Video from yesterday's Occupy Lower East Side

Participants from Occupy Wall Street/May Day gathered yesterday afternoon in Sara Roosevelt Park on East Houston at Chrystie... (The Lo-Down has a report on it here.)

There were some skirmishes with the NYPD... captured here on this video now making the rounds...

Fighting a 7-Eleven on the LES; waiting for one on East 14th Street

Down on Grand Street, Seward Park residents are fighting the arrival of the dreaded double whammy — a 7-Eleven and a Dunkin' Donuts. (You can read reports on this at BoweryBoogie and The Lo-Down.)

Part of the online petition:

We are concerned that corporately-owned chain stores in the Seward Park retail strip is inconsistent with the independent retail establishments that populate our properties.We are concerned that chain stores will have a chilling effect on property values as the establishments degrade the character and appeal of the neighborhood for both longtime and new residents.

Meanwhile, on IHOP Way, as we first reported, the incoming 7-Eleven is getting closer to arriving... workers recently removed the big blue Exquisite DVD Video store awning...

Previously!


Now!

Dixon Place unveils its new gallery space tonight


From the EV Grieve inbox...

Dixon Place is pleased to introduce its new in-house exhibition space, The Gallery at Dixon Place. The gallery’s inaugural show, HOTSHOTS, opens Wednesday, May 2, and features six photographers who journey where no lens is safe to bring you all of the blood, guts and glitter of live rock 'n' roll.

The group exhibition, curated by Jacquelyn Gallo, focuses on the theatrics and spectacle of live performance, and is presented in conjunction with Dixon Place’s show The Talking Band's: The Peripherals, a rock musical opening May 3.

"By converting our lounge area into an official gallery space, Dixon Place is proud to include visual arts in our myriad of programs," said Ellie Covan, the founder/artistic director of Dixon Place.

Learn more via the Dixon Place website here.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

May Day this afternoon at Union Square

Well, all sorts of various Occupy Wall Street May Day marches eventually filtered into Union Square this afternoon for a "permitted" rally and musical performances ... there are reports of arrests throughout the city ... Here is Tim Pool of TimCast with streaming live video ...

Meanwhile, The Lo-Down has a report here about Occupy Lower East Side, where the NYPD reportedly arrested several people.

The photos below are by Bobby Williams ...