Accusations on Avenue A

EVG reader Ron Z. spotted this on the M14 stop on Avenue A and 11th Street this morning... We're not sure how widespread this flyer campaign is. Have you seen these?

In any event. We blocked out the man's face ...

Here now, a documentary short about the intersection of 14th Street and First Avenue

Karen Loew, who lives near 14th Street and First Avenue, passed along the above video ... which explores the chaotic crossroads in "Intersection: Babel." It premiered last Thursday at the LABA Festival at the 14th Street Y.

The video includes interviews with people on the street as well as community leaders to explain what is unique (and not!) about 14th and First. Per the description, "'Intersection: Babel' is a documentary short looking at a place that's all about leaving it."

Among other things, the video explores the hazardous transportation environment here... from the crisscrossing M14s and M15s (and placement of the bus stops) ... the access road to Stuy Town at the northeast corner ... the tricky left turn for autos (and pedestrians) from eastbound 14th onto northbound First ... the L entrance/exit that's pretty much in the intersection on the southeast corner...

Monsignor Kevin J. Nelan of the Immaculate Conception Parish says it's like "a mini Times Square." City Councilmember Dan Garodnick says that there's "a lot of activity but not a lot of personality" here.

Agreed!

Directed and produced by Karen Loew.
Videography and editing by Cory Antiel.
Dance by Julie Gayer Kris.

This morning on St. Mark's Place

How much of a rent discount for not having gas for cooking?

A resident is looking for a little advice about the current situation in his or her East Seventh Street apartment building. (It's a different building than the one we wrote about here in March 2011.)

Some background.

On April 12, workers shut off the gas because tenants had been smelling a gassy odor in the building. The residents didn't have hot water or gas for cooking for nine days. The hot water returned on April 20 — but there still wasn't any gas for cooking.

According to the resident, the building's landlord, Koppelman Management, was difficult, if not impossible, to reach. When someone did get in touch with a building rep, they apparently blamed the matter on ConEd. On May 7, full gas service was restored to all but five of the apartments. To date, gas for cooking is still not available in the five apartments.

Tenants have called 311, though the resident described the exchanges as "ineffective." Meanwhile, the resident says management offered a 15-percent discount on the May rent for the gas outage from April 12-May 7. But the resident, who's in one of the five units still without gas for cooking, thinks that's a low-ball figure, considering people have spent more than 15 percent of the rent on food in the past five weeks.

So far, the resident hasn't paid the May rent, and won't until the issue is resolved.

"The entire building is pissed off but everyone is at a loss for rules/laws, etc. This building has never properly been taken care of and ... this has been a constant problem. [Residents have] had rent strikes in the past just to get regular maintenance done."

Any constructive input? Do you calculate what you think you spent on food and subtract that from the rent? Other options?

If you ever wanted to own a house and garden as seen in House & Garden

Over at 119 E. 10th St. (Central Village!), this home hit the market last week. Here's part of the Corcoran listing:

As featured in House & Garden: Uniquely special, garden level, 1 bedroom with office in a historic brownstone on the loveliest block in the East Village. Upon entering this very special apartment through your private gate, one is instantly transported to a retreat in the country.

... Continue through to the dining area complete with a wall of casement windows framing the view to the Old World, common garden behind and a Dutch door opening directly to this spectacularly private oasis.

Here are a few photos of Old World East Village...

Of course, the home doesn't come with an Old-World price: $1.7 million for one bedroom and 1.5 bathrooms.

Here are some Howl! Festival highlights

[Photo via ~ Joan]

From the EV Grieve inbox yesterday...

I am delighted to send you the updated Schedule of Events for HOWL! Festival 2012 (June 1–3) in Tompkins Square Park. The spirit of Allen Ginsberg comes alive as more than 350 artists, poets, and performers, including youthful new talent, light up the Main and Kid’s Stages and transform the Park into giant artwork infused with the creative energy, flamboyance, and countercultural panache that’s the hallmark of the East Village.

Named the Village Voice’s Best Outdoor Festival 2011, The HOWL! Festival, the quintessential East Village event, features:

· Opening Celebration: A Group Reading of Allen Ginsberg’s HOWL, led by poet Bob Holman, the Festival opens with a “Greek chorus” of poetic voices from Beat to Slam reading their work and culminating with the signature reading of Ginsberg’s Howl.

· The Great HOWL! OUT LOUD Kid’s Carnival offering games, miniature golf, clowns, and fairway attractions; tons of arts and crafts activities including the Kids Around the Park, mask-making, origami, face painting, and more; and continuous entertainment by and for kids including teen heartthrob and straight up rocker Jack Skuller (http://jackskuller.com), Tap City Youth Ensemble, Rosie’s Theater Kids, and the forty piece band, TriBattery Pops.

· CBGB favorites like Deans of Discipline, Bowerty Tones and Sic F*cs .

· Renowned Butoh company Vangeline Theater presenting The Raft of the Medusa, inspired by Gericault’s painting.

· Riki Colon hosts House of HOWL! extravaganza with legendary Voguers and theatrical drag.

· The Hot HOWL! Tea Dance, the Festival's poppin' Disco with DJ Johnny Dynell, and Hip Hop HOWL!

· BANDERA FEVER! "La Reina" Rhina Valentin hosts two days of live music, poetry, art, educational workshops and displays focused on Puerto Rican culture.

· Art Around the Park, a live-action, weekend-long event with more than 140 artists transforming a 900 foot long blank "canvas" in an explosion of color and artistic styles.

· LOW LIFE 6: EAST VILLAGE OTHERS: Jackie Factory’s, Chi Chi Valenti and Johnny Dynell stage a be-in of love and glitter. The Sunday evening climax to HOWL! celebrates the world-changing explosion of East Village culture from 1966-1972 and pays homage to movements and supernovas of the time like The Exploding Plastic Inevitable; Jack Smith; The Fugs; the Yippies; and the Bowery-raised Warhol Superstar, Jackie Curtis.

Find the Howl site with more specifics here.

This is what a fence on First Avenue looked like on May 20, 2012

This year, we'll post photos like this of various buildings, streetscenes, etc., to capture them as they looked at this time and place... The photos may not be the most telling now, but they likely will be one day...

[Updated] 4 photos of incoming East Village restaurants

Views yesterday of ... Michael White's pizzeria Nicoletta on Second Avenue at 10th Street...

... Iconic Hand Rolls on First Avenue at St. Mark's Place...

[Bobby Williams]

... Jim Power working on mosaics at the Bean on First Avenue at Ninth Street...

[Bobby Williams]

... and a menu meeting at Calliope on Second Avenue at East Fourth Street...

[EVG reader Pedro]

Updated 3:30 p.m. —
Thrillist has a Calliope preview here.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

[Dog swim in Tompkins Square Park 1-1:15. Photo by Bobby Williams]

450 years later: CB3 OKs Seward Park plan (The Lo-Down ... Curbed)

B & H, Stage and 10 other great NYC lunch counters (Eater)

Here's the CBGB festival lineup (The New York Times)

Hope for another Prime Burger, set to close this weekend after 47 years in Midtown (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Urban crabbing (BoweryBoogie)

A look at the Zum Schneider in Montauk (EastHamptonPatch)

Hello to Paul’s Daughter & Ruby’s Bar on the Coney Island Boardwalk (Amusing the Zillion)

AC Milan vs. Real Madrid at Yankee Stadium this August (Gothamist)

... and is someone tossing a street sign on East Fifth between Avenue A and Avenue B?

[Via Erin and Maile on 5th]

The Stand

In recent weeks you may have noticed the arrival of a Bruce Lee mural on the shed/storage space outside Wholesome Foods on Seventh Street and Avenue C...

The space is now home to the Stand, a gallery "presenting works by Street, Homeless and Unknown Artists."

There are limited hours — 8 p.m.-11 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

In an email to us, proprietor Lori Der Hagopian said that she plans to keep The Stand open indefinitely. You may know her from her Strange Bird Productions. In 2007, she exhibited work in a two-inch-square ad space in the art section of The Village Voice.

So something of this scale may not be such a surprise. Per an article from September 2007 in The Brooklyn Rail:

Rather than endlessly — often enviously — decry the market-driven arrivistes so overexposed in Chelsea, consultants minting bullion from gullibility, Strange Bird practices instead the lost art of invisibility, even a science of silence.

Here's some of the art she has featured on the Strange Bird Tumblr.

We plan to do more about The Stand. Just wanted to let you know about its existence in the the meantime.

[Top two photos by Dave on 7th]

The Mystery Lot gates are open!

A reader walking along the 13th Street side of the Mystery Lot last night noticed that the gates were open... and the gates remain open this morning... now is your chance to go inside one last time, maybe ...

Unverified reader tip: A fight broke out in the street and spilled into the Mystery Lot last evening. Any readers know what happened here...? (Please let us know via the EV Grieve email.)

The front door at St. Brigid's

Yesterday, from behind the plywood along Avenue B.

Mid-summer now at the earliest for Union Market on Avenue A and Houston

There are signs of progress on Avenue A at Houston, where, in recent weeks, the construction netting and sidewalk sheds have come down ... In any event, it has been slow going. On Feb. 4, 2011, we first reported that the Brooklyn-based Union Market was opening an outpost here... The official news release and signage pointed to a fall 2011 opening...

Some readers have been asking for an update. Per a Union Market tweet last Friday:

Construction issues have held us up for months. Mid-summer looks like the earliest now. Details soon on our website

Previously on EV Grieve:
About Union Market coming to Avenue A and Houston

How is your Houston Street Corridor Reconstruction going?

Speaking of East Houston... On Monday, we posted information from DNAinfo's report that the $60 million Houston Street Corridor Reconstruction project would not be completed until the summer of 2014. (One year later than planned.)

The DNA article focused on business owners (the Subway in the Red Square shops is reportedly hurting) and traffic ... We asked readers who live along here for any construction horror stories.

Here are a few of the responses:

RyanAvenueA said...
The intersection of A and Houston, where 1st st begins, is still a pedestrian nightmare. Drivers aren't sure where to go which slows down the intersection so that someone eventually ends up flooring it through a red light. A couple months ago I saw a big truck take out one of the construction barriers. As for Subway's decline, I have to imagine the fact that there's now 40 other Subways in walking distance means some of your customers probably live closer to the competing stores.

---

Anonymous said...
challenging to walk around. inevitable that some poor pedestrian will get hit by a passing car. i don't wish that to happen but i just have a sixth sense about disasters...

---

Anonymous said...
Cycling across Houston at A is a weird dash-now-and-hope-for-the-best exercise...mostly because cars don't know where to go most of the time, so bikers are left to dodge.

[Updated] A solidarity march for students in Montreal

Clayton Patterson shares these photos from last night... a group marched through part of the neighborhood in a show of support for the ongoing student protests in Montreal... (read the background here). ... the group (more than 100 strong by Clayton's estimation) arrived at Union Square at 10 p.m. ...

One reader said that the NYPD closed Tompkins Square Park early last night to prevent any groups from congregating there...

Updated 12:34 —
Colin Moynihan at the Times has a piece in the City Room this morning about the Park's early closure...

Updated 9:57 p.m. —

Here is an article from Animal titled "NYPD locks 100 people inside Tompkins Square Park to keep Occupy out." Here is the link.

Local resident wins national baking contest

Oh, I'm just running out of headlines to describe the ongoing brown-paint battle alongside Verizon on 13th Street at Second Avenue... how it's looking now...

Previously.

Today in photos of books that no one dug out of the trash on Avenue A

At East Fifth Street. Anyone?

Baoguette Cafe back open on St. Mark's Place

Last Wednesday, the DOH temporarily closed Baoguette Cafe on St. Mark's Place with 80 violation points... Anyway, just a quick note (post?) to say that they are back open... (The DOH website didn't have the Baoguette entry updated just yet...)

Photo by Bobby Williams.

[Updated] EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

[An empty Avenue A late last night. By Shawn Chittle]

CB3 votes on SPURA tonight (The Lo-Down)

A silent film set on Astor Place (Flaming Pablum)

Old photos of the LES (Curbed)

Nolita House closing on East Houston (Eater)

Jewel Bako alum opening sushi place on East 12th St. called Bugs (Grub Street)

The Public Theater getting high-end dining, drinking options (Gothamist)

Busting an illegal gambling ring on East Broadway (BoweryBoogie)

The death of a Ninth Avenue block (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

A cab ride will likely be more expensive (The New York Observer)

Joey Ramone's second posthumous album, "...ya know?," is out today... Here's the video for "Rock 'N Roll is the Answer" released on Record Store Day last month ...



...and a reader passed this along... Bareburger on Second Avenue at East Fifth Street has a comedy night... featuring Janeane Garofalo (and others!) tonight...

Sales pitch or warning?

Dave on 7th spotted this at King's Court Realty on St. Mark's Place the other day...