Thursday, June 28, 2012

51 Astor Place wants the skyline to itself

Our friend Pinhead sent along these before and after renderings of the Death Star 51 Astor Place...

The older one!



The newer one on the 51 Astor website now...



Notice anything different? Or missing?

Let's go the the Grievestrator...





As you'll notice, the new rendering does away with that pesky 19-story white-brick Saint Mark apartments ... (Joey Ramone lived there!) ... If 51 Astor Place wants to do away with some buildings around here, then we have some suggestions...

Tonight, 'Taxi Driver,' plus more about 'Films in Tompkins' this summer


A few weeks, Scoopy at The Villager had the scoop on the free summer movie series in Tompkins Square Park... We received the news release on Tuesday... a quick note before the cut-n-paste job below. The lineup looks to have changed by one film ... "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is off the list that Scoopy had ... "Donnie Darko" moved slots to cover that night ... and "Goldfinger" is the new addition to the lineup, which definitely sets us up for a Pussy Galore reference.

From the EV Grieve inbox...

Free. Gates Open at 6 p.m. Music Starts ½ Hour before the Start of the Film (sundown)

June 28 — Taxi Driver, Music by Mr. Reed

July 5 — Exit Trough The Gift Shop, Music by Church of Betty

July 12 — Fantastic Mr. Fox, Music by Dandy Wellington And His Band

July 19 — Summer of Sam, Music by The Debonairs and Brendan O’Hara

July 26 — Goldfinger, Music by The Luddites

Aug. 2 — Donnie Darko, Music by The Rad Trads
A Two Boots 25th Anniversary Event with Free Pizza!

Aug. 9 — The Big Lebowski, Music by Main Squeeze Orchestra
A Two Boots 25th Anniversary Event with Free Pizza!

Aug. 16 — Poltergeist, Music by Timbila

Dates subject to Rain Delays.

Films In Tompkins is sponsored by Ella, The Blind Barber, Two Boots, Grolsch, GalleryBar, Tower Brokerage and NYC& Company.

Tonight through Sunday: 'Spring Pictures of the Floating World'

From the EV Grieve inbox...

[Click image to enlarge]

And here's more information from the news release...

Peculiar Works Project announces a new site-specific sextravaganza: Spring Pictures of the Floating World (and Art of the Bedchamber), a two-part performance art installation, reimagining 17th Century Japanese Shunga — pillow books — and their 5,000-year-old Chinese inspiration.

This unique hybrid event features multiple, immersive installations that will integrate live, multi-disciplinary performance in an exhibition context.

For four nights only — Thursday (7-11pm), Friday (7-11pm), Saturday (4-11pm) and Sunday (4-8pm) — more than 50 installation artists, designers, directors, composers, choreographers, puppeteers and performers will transform the abandoned basement of 66 East 4th Street between Bowery and Second Avenue into a grand pleasure palace.

Audiences can come and go throughout the exhibition hours, but due to its sexual nature this is an ADULTS ONLY event (NC17).


Visit the Peculiar Works Project website for more details and ticket info.

About the Millennium Film Workshop

In our previous post, we noted the interesting performance exhibition happening at 66-68 E. Fourth St. tonight through Sunday ... it's taking place in part of the space that belonged to Millennium Film Workshop inside the La MaMa Annex Theater...

Back in January, Steven Thrasher at Runnin' Scared reported that the Millennium Film Workshop faced eviction from its longtime home on East Fourth Street after falling behind on rent with La MaMa ... he followed up the next day with a piece on La MaMa leaders saying that they believe in and support the Workshop's mission.

And that was the last we heard about the situation.

Anyway, as we learned, the Workshop is still in the basement under the LaMama Annex Theater, but they reconfigured their space. We understand that La Mama plans to rent the half that the Workshop vacated to someone else. One person with knowledge of the negotiations between the Workshop and La MaMa described it as a "positive" transition.

Iconic Hand Rolls opens tonight on First Avenue


Iconic Hand Rolls opens this evening at 6 here on First Avenue near St. Mark's Place (in the space that previously housed Cotan, who took over the space after Shiki Kitchen closed...)

Hiroko Shimbo is the consulting executive chef of this quick-serve sushi restaurant ... and here's an Iconic employee with one of Shimbo's creations ...

[via Hiroko's Kitchen]

You can find the menu here.

Tyra Banks goes up on Avenue D


On Avenue D yesterday, workers put up the sign for the Tyra Banks TZONE, which will be housed at the new Lower Eastside Girls Club Center for Community on Avenue D... Per the TZONE website:

The Tyra Banks TZONE at the Lower Eastside Girls Club will be a leadership development center within the Girls Club. Through a rich mix of career development workshops, mentoring, experiential learning opportunities, financial literacy initiatives and community-wide events, hundreds of preteens and teens will build self-esteem, achieve greatness in their lives, and prepare for life as entrepreneurs and change-makers in the world.

The New York Times wrote about Banks and the TZONE back on June 13.

"What I don't want to be is Tyra, the 'celebrity girl,' coming here and the girls being excited when they see me," she told the Times. "I want them to be numb to me. I can do normal work here and they can see me, to know that this is what a business is."

TZONE launched in 1999 as a series of summer camps to build self-esteem among young girls with the Lower Eastside Girls Club, the article noted.

Photo by Bobby Williams.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Here are photos of Schmidty, the missing parrot

Last night, we posted that missing bird flyer on Avenue B ... and here are photos of Schmidty, who went missing late yesterday afternoon...



If you find him... the info is in the previous post here. (And there is a reward...)

At yesterday's hearing for the proposed East Village/Lower East Side Historic District

By most accounts, yesterday afternoon's public hearing about a proposed East Village/Lower East Side Historic District was spirited, if anything. DNAinfo referred to it as "contentious and packed," drawing both critics and supporters of the plan. (Read Serena Solomon's report here. The Lo-Down has coverage here.)

An article from The New York Times back in January titled Preservation Push in Bohemian Home Stirs Fear of Hardship reported on the opposition to the landmark protection. Much of the concerns were repeated yesterday by several neighborhood religious leaders.

As Curbed's Arabella Watters summarized: "Basically, no matter what the LPC decides, someone in the East Village will be pretty angry."

Today in Union Square


Highjinks.

Photo by Stephen Popkin.

Brian Rose: 'Even my photographs from 2010 are beginning to look like artifacts of a time gone by'

[The Jefferson Theatre on 14th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue (now the Mystery Lot.) By Brian Rose]

Brian Rose moved to East Fourth Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery in 1977 to attend Cooper Union. A few years later, Rose, in collaboration with fellow Cooper Union graduate Ed Fausty, set out with a 4 x 5 camera to document Lower East Side neighborhoods.

After the completing and exhibiting the photo project in 1981, Rose stored the photos in his archives, not to be seen again for nearly 30 years. And Rose moved on, working on various projects while living in Amsterdam for 15 years.

Rose revisited the streets of the Lower East Side with his camera some three decades later. And you can see the results in "Time and Space on the Lower East Side," a self-published book contrasting the Lower East Side in 1980 with 2010. (He is quick to point out that the book is not meant to be a trip down memory lane.)

As you may have seen, he released the book several weeks ago. In a feature on the book, Cool Hunting noted that "'Time and Space' breaks from the before-and-after mold by rejecting strict side-by-sides of the changed landscape ... Part of Rose's talent is his ability to look past nostalgia to find character in the neighborhood then and now."



We caught up with Rose via email to see how things were going...

How would you describe the general reaction to the book so far?
"Time and Space" has gotten a very positive response from people here in New York, though interestingly enough, I've gotten more sales online from out-of-towners than locals — a number of them from overseas.

Living here, one forgets sometimes the fascination that New York holds for people around the world. The Lower East Side as the historical entry point for immigrants, and its role as cultural incubator, is integral to the overall image of New York as a world city. As New Yorkers we often take a parochial view of our city and this neighborhood in particular. We may be justified in our sense of ownership, but the reality is, New York and the Lower East Side belongs to something much bigger than ourselves.

It could take a while to sell the book — this may not be the ideal time for an expensive photo book — but I have no doubt that the interest is there, and that in the long run, people will value this 30 year encapsulation of a key period in the history of the Lower East Side.

[On East Fifth Street between C and D. Rose was standing near Fourth Street]

You have said that the book isn't any kind of sentimental journey. Any nostalgia looking at the 1980 shots?
Part of my anti-sentimental position has to do with a photographic stance. Personally, I have lots of emotional attachment to the neighborhood. I was once the chairman of a housing organization in the East Village, and I met my wife on East 4th Street almost exactly where the cover photograph of the book was taken.

Like many, I shed a tear or two when the Mars Bar closed a while ago, though I was only in there once or twice. But I try to maintain an objective eye as almost a moral imperative. Suzanne Vega in the foreword to "Time and Space" relates the story of how she wrote her song "Tom's Diner" through my eyes, as one who saw the world through a pane of glass. She saw it as a kind of romantic alienation, and perhaps, it was to some extent. But I believe that some of us are tasked, by choice or by inclination, to be cold blooded witnesses to the environment we have created and inhabit.

Do I feel nostalgia for the 1980 Lower East Side, the place where I first made my stand in New York? Absolutely. But I don't see "Time and Space" as a trip down memory lane. It's as much about the present as the past.

[On the Bowery looking north toward East Fifth Street — now JASA/Cooper Square Senior Housing and the Standard East Village]

You had been living abroad for several years. What compelled you to return to NYC?
I lived in Amsterdam for about 15 years, but I never completely left New York. I kept my apartment on Stanton Street, continued to work for my best clients, and flew back and forth way too much.

I was in Amsterdam on 9/11, watched the towers fall on TV, and felt that my whole world had shattered. I was back in the city a week after to connect with friends. One of my best friends, the songwriter Jack Hardy, who passed away last year, had lost his brother in one of the towers. I walked around like a zombie for weeks not really knowing what to do, and decided I needed to creatively re-engage with the city, to do something that addressed what had happened. Eventually I arrived at the idea of re-photographing the Lower East Side as a way of taking measure, a way of examining both change and continuity in the part of the city I knew best.

How do you feel about the Lower East Side as a neighborhood today?
The Lower East Side once felt like a separate world to me, but it feels much more integrated into the overall ebb and flow of the city now. All of lower Manhattan has dramatically changed, not just the LES. There are so many more people here than before. So much more money. So much more commerce of every kind. The changes have been wrenching for many, the results not always happy. There have been tragic losses of historic buildings, not to mention the dislocation of people. But the Lower East Side has not been this dynamic since, perhaps, the early 20th century when immigration was at its peak.

People don't understand that in 1980 the LES was hanging on by a thread, every night the sirens wailed as one more building was torched, one more life was snuffed out by drugs or murder. Yes, we saw ourselves as heroic artists scratching out songs and paintings against a backdrop of urban apocalypse — you can see it in the pictures — but that time is gone forever, for better or worse. As I write in "Time and Space," the future is rushing in, reoccupying the old tenements, and transforming a place known more for the slow resonance of its history. Even my photographs from 2010 are beginning to look like artifacts of a time gone by.

Details:
Brian Rose Photography

This is the book's official website.

Forget about the rumor that Nice Guy Eddie's is becoming a new Life Cafe


Last week, a tipster told us that Kathy Kirkpatrick was retiring and closing the Life Cafe branch in Bushwick at the end of this month... which, as we learned Tuesday via a news release, was correct...

Now, a moment for a little background ... Last spring, Kirkpatrick brought in Gallery Bar owner Darin Rubell, who is part of the team taking over the Nice Guy Eddie's space on Avenue A, to help revitalize Life Cafe on East 10th Street and Avenue B. (There is more on this at the Life Cafe blog.)

Meanwhile, there were rumors that Rubell would eventually buy the Life space. However, the 30-year-old restaurant closed last September following a long-simmering battle with dueling landlords.

So back to our tipster, who figured if Rubell bought the Nice Guy Eddie's space and is turning it into a restaurant serving "American comfort food" (which he used to describe Life Cafe's fare) ... then "it wouldn't surprise me if Nice Guy Eddie's turns out to be a new outpost for the Kathy-less Life Cafe."

ONLY speculation. But the pieces possibly appeared to be adding up to this ... especially since the Life Cafe trademark was for sale.

I asked Kirkpatrick about this possible scenario...

"Darin Rubell did not buy the trademark and therefore it's impossible for him to open a venue called Life Cafe at the former Nice Guy Eddie's space," she said via email yesterday morning.

However, she said that Rubell is one of the partners who has taken on a new lease at the soon-to-be-former Life space on 983 Flushing Ave. in Bushwick.

"The landlord expressly stated, for his own reasons, that he did not want Life Cafe in his property any longer," Kirkpatrick said of the Brooklyn location. "However, the new lease holders expressed their wish to keep the spirit of Life alive. They did not to acquire the trademark. It will not be called Life Cafe. That is, he acquired a new lease and the assets of the cafe only, not the name or concept or menu."

Ben Shaoul planning a 3-story addition at 31-33 Second Ave.

[Photo from 2009 by LuciaM via Panoramio]

We've been watching and waiting for something to happen here at 31-33 Second Ave. since early this year ... we heard rumors, but nothing substantial.

The storefront at 33 Second Ave. is currently empty. If we recall correctly, Urge moved from this space next door to 31 after DTox closed.

According to the DOB, there were eight complaints about work occurring at 31/33 without proper permits between Feb. 17 and Feb. 22. The city subsequently served a full stop-work order on Feb. 23. The issue was later resolved.

[33 with stop-work order in February]


[Photo from April 2 by Bobby Williams]

Now, there are new permits pending for the following:



"Remodel existing commercial space at first floor. Remodel existing apartment at 2nd and 3rd floors. Add three (3) stories on top of existing building. New certificate of occupancy will be obtained."

Each floor will contain two apartments. Per the application, estimated total cost is $468,480 ... the city assigned the plan to an examiner on Monday.

The permits show that developer Ben Shaoul is the owner of the property.

From Kingston with love



We've been keeping an eye on the former Holy Basil space on Second Avenue near East Ninth Street... Last fall, the DOH hit the Thai eatery with 110 violation points, and they never reopened.

In December, an entity named "Honey Rider LLC" went before the CB3/SLA committee... and the owners of Shoolbred's and the Ninth Ward on Second Avenue were behind the new venture (named for Ursula Andress as Honey Rider in "Dr. No"?).

Anyway, Grub Street had more details yesterday on the new venture... it will be called Kingston Hall. One of the owners said that "the theme is Jamaica in 1962: The country has just become independent and the vibe is still 'British colonial, but with a sixties feel ... not Bob Marley, more Ian Fleming.'"

(Which explains the James Bond reference... and our stupid headline. Wait till we try to work in Pussy Galore.)

And they expect to open Friday night... the photo above shows how the exterior (above The 13th Step sign) was looking this past weekend.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Holy Basil closed, space for rent

Holy Basil remains closed for 'technical difficulties'

This is what a pawn shop on East 10th Street looked like on June 15, 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...

The Last Hurrah: Teneleven is closing after this Saturday night


As we first reported on June 5, Teneleven, a favorite neighborhood bar on Avenue C, is closing Saturday.

And here are the plans for the final night, via Teneleven's Facebook page:

Come celebrate the final night at Teneleven Bar! Let's drink and reminisce about all the good times, debaucherous nights, amazing bands, nasty performances and crazy parties! Come celebrate all the great memories that has created our Teneleven family over the years.

A new venture called Evelyn's Drinkery will be taking over the space in August.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Have you seen this bird?



A reader spotted a couple looking for the bird tonight along Avenue B... sign spotted here at East 10th Street.

Noted



Not sure where the driver is... late this afternoon in Tompkins Square Park. By Bobby Williams.

New 7-Eleven signage almost makes IHOP less noticeable on East 14th Street





Hey now. Workers put up the 7-Eleven signs today on East 14th Street.... How do you think it all looks together now?

Previously.

Another way to help the St. Mark's Bookshop — with a $250,000 grant


An email via the Cooper Square Committee...

Last fall you rallied and signed the petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop. Now we're asking for your support once more, by casting your vote to help us qualify for a $250,000 small business grant from Chase and Living Social. Just visit the Mission: Small Business website and click "Log In & Support" where you can access the site using your Facebook account. Enter "St. Mark's Bookshop" in the business search box and cast your vote. If you wish, you'll be able to share your vote and help spread the word. A few clicks can make all the difference. Thank you again for your loyalty to St. Mark's Bookshop — long live writers and readers!

[h/t Shawn Chittle]

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition


[Plywood on Avenue C by Andrew Adam Newman on Ave C]

Looking at the new ABC No Rio (Curbed)

A new CBGB in the works (WCBS)

A 'no restaurant' policy on Avenue A (DNAinfo)

Watching the stars (in the sky) on Second Avenue Saturday night (BoweryBoogie)

Making cycling safer (Felix Salmon, Reuters)

Department of Transportation responds to bike-share criticism (Runnin' Scared)

Documentary captures spirit of Caffe Capri, a longtime coffee shop in Williamsburg (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

And there's a documentary capturing the remaining few leather merchants on Orchard Street (The Lo-Down)

Motorcycle crackdown in Stuy Town (DNAinfo)

Famed mural damaged in Waverly Inn blaze (Eater)