EV Grieve

Monday, December 3, 2012

A cat encounter on East 10th Street

Photo by Bobby Williams.

[Updated] Day of Action: Cooper Union students lock themselves inside foundation building

[Via Facebook]

Students at Cooper Union NYC have locked themselves into the top floor of the uni's main bldg.
— Elizabeth Coss (@ChangeThruArt) December 3, 2012

Occupy Cooper Union! - 12 students have seized the eighth floor to oppose tuition/fee hikes. fb.me/1MF23khHW
— OccupyColleges (@OccupyColleges) December 3, 2012

This letter explains the students' demands...

[Via @ChangeThruArt]

And via the EVG inbox...

One year ago, our current administration put tuition on the table for the first time in over 110 years. Students, alumni, and community members came together to organize, protest, and offer creative, viable, sustainable, solutions that avoided the implementation of tuition at our school.

One year later, undergraduate tuition is still on the table and the voting date is fast approaching. In response we are making a call to action! At 12 pm on Dec 3, 2012 join us at Cooper Union to let our administration know education is a right! We believe and are committed to the idea of free and sustainable education, not just for our institution but for all institutions!

12pm-6 pm: Join us outside the foundation building for a day of outdoors classes. Occupy Peter Cooper Park! ... We'll be picketing, handing out literature about student movements (including our own), making art, and making noise!

6-10 pm: Free and Open to the Public! Join us in Cooper's historic Great Hall for a public Community Summit on the state of higher education in NYC! Presentation on the current debt/tuition crisis, international student movements, and sustainable solutions. After presentations, speakers will sit on a panel for open question/answer segment.

Updated 3:54 p.m.:

The New York Times has more on the story here. Per Victoria Sobel, one of the students taking part in the lock-in, which started at noon in the Clocktower:

Soon afterward, she said, maintenance workers arrived and tried to force their way into the room.

“They were drilling and ramming the door,” she said. “It was very scary.”

The students pushed back, Ms. Sobel said, and yelled to the workers that their bodies were against the doors. After about 20 minutes, she said, the entry attempts ended.

Ms. Sobel said that the students had brought with them sleeping bags, blankets and food, including oatmeal and ramen noodles, and were planning to stay “as long as necessary” to get their message across to the administration.

Cooper Union officials said they were still formulating a response to the occupation of the Clocktower.

Is this the noise that you heard last night?

We heard from several readers last evening around 10-ish... asking what that mysterious buzzing noise was coming from somewhere around First Avenue and East Fourth Street... one reader figured the constant buzzing stopped around 11 p.m. or so.

The noise started up again this morning... and one reader found what he or she thinks is the culprit... leaf blowers coming from Village View...

A look at 6 new or restored East Village buildings

Just a quick photo update on projects that we've been following... Photos by Bobby Williams.

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New second floor for the Iglesia Pentecostal Sarepta
701 E. Sixth St.
More details here.

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Jupiter 21
21 E. First St.
More details here.

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Supportive housing for homeless young adults and young adults aging out of the foster-care system.
710 E. Ninth St.
More details here.

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St. Brigid's
Avenue B and East Eighth St.
More details here.

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51 Astor Place
More details here.

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84 Third Ave.
More details here.

Window washing at 51 Astor Place

Speaking of 51 Astor Place... we were watching someone with a handy-dandy extended window-washer thing the other day ...

... the yellow thingee...

And a quick video of the action... it's only an 11-second clip, but we could have watched for hours...

More details on Pride & Joy BBQ at the former Lucky Cheng's

Last Thursday, we noted that the first NYC outpost for renowed BBQ chef Myron Mixon was set to open at the former Lucky Cheng's space on First Avenue. (Read that post here.)

The group goes before the CB3/SLA licensing committee next Monday. And Pride & Joy officials have filed the necessary paperwork with CB3 (PDF), which provides a few more details on the venture (all just proposed):

• Hours: 11 a.m — 4 a.m. seven days a week
• 45 tables seating some 220 people
• 3 total bars in the space (one in the basement, one on First Avenue entrance and one in the East Second Street entrance where Bento Burger was)
• Approximately 30 employees
• Approximately 20 TV monitors

[Pride & Joy photo via Eater Miami]

Hope fades for a tidy tree house living room

Time to check in again on the tree house living room over here on First Avenue near East 14th Street ... An Urban Etiquette Sign recently appeared asking people to be respectful of the space and not leave trash around.

Flashback!

But the sign hasn't been effective.

And now? It's just getting uglier.

And someone even brought Bushwick into it!

Previously on EV Grieve:
Despite Urban Etiquette Sign, trash still piles up in tree house living room

Repaving East Houston

This past Friday morning, we had a conversation about the incoming bike lanes on East Houston... (read that post here).

Meantime, here's a great shot of the repaving from last week via EVG reader Eric Bryant ... looking east...

Sunday, December 2, 2012

A bike was stolen here yesterday afternoon on Avenue B

Avenue B between East Sixth Street and East Seventh Street...

Noted

You can hear things moving around inside a few of these trash bags in Tompkins Square Park. twitter.com/evgrieve/statu…
— evgrieve (@evgrieve) December 2, 2012

Week in Grieview

[Spotted last week on Avenue C]

East Village Thai is back open (Monday)

Tim Hortons now open on East Houston (Saturday)

Q-and-A with Anonymous (Friday)

Natori closes on St. Mark's Place (Tuesday)

"The winningest man in barbecue" taking over the Lucky Cheng's space (Thursday)

Daniel Craig in the East Village (Friday)

Dream Baby (Tuesday)

LaVie closed for now on East First Street (Thursday)

Anger over the construction noise at 185 Avenue B (Monday)

Out and About with Michael Feeney (Wednesday)

A Daryl Hall moment (Wednesday)

Koffeecake Corner rumors! (Thursday)

Soho Billiards space for rent on East Houston (Tuesday)

Stogo closes (Monday)

A Black Friday improv gag at the First Avenue 99-cent store (Monday)

Report: Prop gun lands 11 year old in handcuffs, suspension

An item from the Post today:

An East Village 11-year-old was handcuffed and taken into custody last month after strolling into MS 345 on the Lower East Side with a play pistol — a black plastic prop given to him by an after-school theater company.

Violeta Hernandez, 68, said her grandson, whose name is being withheld by The Post, was supposed to be a cowboy in a play at the Theater for the New City in the East Village.

Instead, the pint-size actor was suspended and shipped off to an “alternative-learning facility” in Harlem for two weeks and is still traumatized by the ordeal, she said.

Police and school officials say that the gun was dangerous, and classified as an "air pistol." The family is considering legal action. Read the whole article here.

'Winter's Tale' filming today around Cooper Square; Russell Crowe alert

So this is filming today...

'Winter's Tale' ... described by IMDB as: "A fantasy story set in 19th Century and present-day Manhattan and revolves around a thief, a dying girl, and a flying white horse" by Academy Award-winning writer Akiva Goldsman...

There's a big cast that includes Russell Crowe, Will Smith, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly, Colin Farrell, Eva Marie Saint and "Downton Abbey"'s Jessica Brown Findlay.... Not sure who will be filming around Cooper Union today...

Filming has also taken place in Sandy-ravaged Red Hook, where some residents have grumbled about the shoot delaying the clean-up process, per Page Six.