Details on the 'Save Our Community Center MARCH AND RALLY' happening next Wednesday

[November 2011]

From the EV Grieve inbox...

Save Our Community Center MARCH AND RALLY
Wednesday, May 15
March starts at CHARAS/El Bohio, 605 E. 9th Street @ 5:00
Cooper Union rally starts @ 6:00

Join us for a march and rally to return old P.S. 64, formerly CHARAS/El Bohio Community & Cultural Center, to our community! Meet at the former site of CHARAS/El Bohio for the march at 5:00 and Cooper Union for the rally at 6:00.

With speakers: CHARAS co-founder Chino Garcia, Council member Rosie Mendez, Assembly member Brian Kavanagh, Senator Brad Hoylman, Students For a Free Cooper Union, & music by members of Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Tiny Band and others.

Developer Gregg Singer, who purchased old P.S. 64, formerly CHARAS / El Bohio Community & Cultural Center at 605 East 9th Street, at public auction in 1999, has once again filed plans to convert our former school and community center into a 500 bed dormitory & youth hostel. In plans filed recently with the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Buildings, Singer claims to have a signed lease with Cooper Union for 200 of the proposed 500 bed facility, though no lease has been submitted. In addition, Singer must submit proof that all beds have been leased by an educational institution for a ten-year period.

It is time to ask the City to return the building to the community!

Join us on May 15, & spread the word! Meet at the former site of CHARAS/El Bohio for the march at 5:00 and Cooper Union for the rally at 6:00.

Find the Facebook events page here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rebranded P.S. 64 up for grabs: Please welcome University House at Tompkins Square Park to the neighborhood

Deed for 'community facility use only' at the former P.S. 64 now on the market

Efforts continue to fight the dorm planned for the former PS 64 on East 9th Street

Testimony Of Councilmember Rosie Mendez regarding the former PS 64

El Diablito Taqueria is now open on East 3rd Street

Several readers have told us that El Diablito Taqueria opened yesterday on East Third Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

We didn't grab a menu just yet. Two readers have already tried it ... and gave the place high marks. Per one neighbor: "So far so good. I had the chicken burrito for lunch. Looking forward to trying their breakfast menu (breakfast burrito) since they open early."

They are opening every day from 10:30 a.m. to midnight.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A few more details on El Diablito Taqueria, opening this spring on East Third Street

(Kind of) An update on Mono + Mono

[Via jdx]

Mono + Mono at 116 E. Fourth St. remains closed since a two-alarm fire swept through the restaurant during the early-morning hours of April 21.

Difficult to tell the extent of the damage from outside. And we haven't seen much activity walking by every day...





Here's a look at the damage the next day via Occupy East 4th Street...



We understand that several apartments next door at No. 114 remain uninhabitable.

As for Mono, this sign remains on the front window...



Yesterday, they provided an update via Facebook:

Fans of @MonoMonoNYC, here's the latest update.

Due to the recent fire, we're now renovating the restaurant.
We're committed to reopening in a few weeks as your favorite East Village destination for 30,000 jazz albums, Korean fried chicken and soju cocktails.

Thanks for your support. We'll be back stronger than ever!

Cheers,
MONO+MONO Team

Of course, not everyone is excited about a return...


[Photo via Occupy East 4th Street]

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Early-morning fire at 116 E. Fourth St., home of Mono + Mono

First Citi Bikes docking station casualty*

An EVG reader noted early last evening that someone (or something) broke/smashed (accidentally or otherwise) the glass on the Citi Bikes docking station that arrived a day earlier on East Sixth Street at Avenue B...



A worker in an unmarked van was on the scene replacing what needed to be, uh, replaced, per the reader.

---

* As far as we know. We heard that a truck ran into a docking station on East 11th Street, but never saw any photographic evidence to support this claim.

Workers remove tree that survived 51 Astor Place construction

Along Third Avenue between East Ninth Street and Astor Place, one tree remain throughout construction of 51 Astor Place... Having survived all that, a worker was spotted yesterday...




[Stephen Popkin]

...removing the tree...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Workers chopping down trees at 51 Astor Place

Good evening

This evening by Bobby Williams.

May 8

Our very own Bobby Williams spotted this beauty late this afternoon near East Houston and Second Avenue... the quick-thinking photographer also calmly found a Daily News for authentication purposes.

And there's a happy ending: the tree was just mulched and mashed into Vegan Bowery Burgers at Whole Foods.

Here's video of Cooper Union students entering the president's office this morning

As you may have heard, some 50 students, faculty and staff at Cooper Union started a sit-in inside the office of school president Jamshed Bharucha this morning.

While the video isn't exactly action-packed, you get the idea of their commitment to the cause at hand ...

Live updates here:
Twitter

Facebook

Ustream

Noted

Anyone see/hear what happened here on East Sixth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue? Photo by Chelsea "Flower Child" Hill.

Papaya King opening TOMORROW on St. Mark's Place

[April 25]

The King just made it official on Twitter:



They are also on this month's CB3/SLA docket for a beer-wine license.

Here's Ralph Gardner Jr. talking about them a few years back at The Wall Street Journal:

I almost feel foolish describing Papaya King and its franks, so familiar I assume it is to just about anybody who has landed in New York more than 15 minutes ago. But for the record, it serves an arguably unimprovable hot dog. Slightly spicy and garlicky, its casing explodes in your mouth to release its mouth-watering contents.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Papaya King coming to St. Mark's Place

Developing: Students take the president's office at Cooper Union

From the EV Grieve inbox...

For Immediate Release:

50+ students, faculty, and staff are maintaining a ‘sit-in’ inside Jamshed Bharucha’s office on the 7th floor of the Foundation Building of the Cooper Union. As students we have reclaimed the President’s office in response to the Administration and the Board of Trustees announcing the implementation of tuition for the incoming class of 2014 — desecrating a 154 year old tradition of meritocracy and free education. We stand together with the extended Cooper community in opposition to this decision; we reaffirm all of the previous and future actions of our fellow students and allies.

Safety Statement/Statement of Purpose:

“This is a non-violent direct action, you are not being held in this room, you are free to exit when you please. Jamshed Bharucha, we are here today to deliver you a statement of No Confidence from the School of Art, we no longer recognize your presidency at Cooper as legitimate and in so doing we commit to re-claim this office in the interim until a suitable administrative alternative is secured.

Live updates here:
Twitter

Facebook

Ustream

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Jeff Underwood
Occupation: Owner, Continuum Cycles and Bike Shop, Continuum Coffee.
Location: Avenue B, between 12th and 13th.
Time: 4:30 on Friday, May 3.

I moved here from North Carolina in 1999. I’ve ridden bikes my whole life but more seriously since I moved to New York. I raced BMX when I was a kid and rode mountain bikes in North Carolina.

I worked in social work in harm reduction. I helped start the first syringe exchange in harm reduction in the state of North Carolina in 1993. Harm reduction is based on meeting people where they’re at as drug users. Instead of telling people they have to get clean, it’s more about telling them, “you know what, today you are going to use a little less, or you’re going to actually clean yourself before you inject and you’re going to use a clean, new syringe.” Any positive change.

You meet them where they’re at and eventually work to make themselves better and healthier. The concept is weird for people but it works if you do it right. I had my own problems with drugs and ended up addicted to heroin and cocaine and living on the streets for a few years. I lost everything. This was a year after I got here. I lost my girlfriend, I lost my dog, I lost my job. I was in a new city with no family and I relapsed and lost everything.

I had to figure out a way to make a living so I got a job as a bike messenger and I also had a book stand on Avenue A between 5th and 6th. Bike messengers are people from all walks of life. It’s terrible money and it’s a very dangerous job. And people treat messengers like shit. Everyone does. But I was used to that so the job seemed okay.

Working at the book stand, a lot of people would bring me books and stuff and one day someone brought me a bike and said, “See if you can sell this, I’m going back to my hometown.” I fixed the flats on it, cleaned it up a little bit and made $100 on it immediately. So I made business cards and started putting them on the beat up bikes lying around with my pager number from the messenger service, to page me if they wanted the bike fixed or to sell it. That’s how I started. Then I went to a flea market and started working at a shop.

I then got a job in my field again doing homeless outreach. Actually, I was homeless, sleeping by the river, going to a drop-in center, getting showered, cleaned up, putting on my Bowery Residence Community shirt, and running around in vans picking up homeless people at night. They had no idea I was homeless.

I started seeing the positive parts of not using. And it’s interesting because my girlfriend, now of almost 10 years, was working as the coordinator of the Lower East Side syringe exchange. We applied for the same job and she got it. She was Columbia University educated, knows everybody in the field, harm reduction superstar. I was kind of the blue-collar harm reduction superstar junkie. Then she ended up being my boss because I was working as a stipend worker there and we used to come to Tompkins Square Park together to do outreach and that’s where we started hanging out and fell in love.

We broke up for like 6 months, which is when I opened up the store. She called me and I was like, “What? Here I was thinking that you were freezing on the streets. I’m crying at night thinking you were a junkie on the streets and here you are opening a store.”

For me, when you say how did I get clean or off drugs, basically everyone just told me to go fuck myself and I couldn’t deal with the rejection anymore. That was the worst thing in the world. No trust. And now everyone trusts me. The difference is insane. And it’s in the same neighborhood, which is even crazier. Usually people have to leave.

We sell bikes all over the world. We’re not just a bike shop. Continuum Cycles is a bicycle company, Continuum, a Bicycle Shop is the space that you see, I fix bikes, we sell new and used bikes, and then Continuum Coffee is our coffee shop.

I opened the coffee shop a week before the hurricane. We lost a lot, that’s all I have to say. But it’s Spring, we’re here. We have a lot of locals, families, kids. It was funny because no one came in the first few months. They were just walking by not even knowing that we had a cafe here. So I put up the sign for an after-school special for dollar hot chocolate and boom. It was crazy.

I think [a bike share program] is a great idea. Obviously, I do — I own a bike shop, I love to bike, I tell people they should sell their car and buy a bicycle. I also don’t understand the makings of this program enough. So I’m kind of ignorant when I’m complaining.

My first question was, why did it have to be such a huge corporation, and then they told me, “Because the city was not going to pay for it.” Okay, so why couldn’t they say, “New York Bike, sponsored by Citibike,” and not with all big blue letters.

Who knows ... after one year of people riding these heavy bikes they might think, “I want my own bike.” It might help us. I hope that it’s successful. The only thing we can do is sit and wait and see what happens.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Fire reported at incoming Pride and Joy BBQ on East Second Street

[This morning around 7]

There were reports of an early-morning fire on East Second Street... from the official FDNY Twitter feed...

MAN ALL HANDS 99 E 2 ST, MULTIPLE DWELLING FIRE ON ROOF, UNDER CONTROL
— FDNY (@FDNY) May 8, 2013

The address is part of the incoming Pride and Joy BBQ, where workers continue to renovate the space. The fire apparently started in the East Second Street side part of the complex (most recently home to Bento Burger) where Pride and Joy will operate a take-out/lunchtime cafe during the day and bar at night.

Hayne Suthon, who owns the building, is out of town at the moment. A neighbor told her that she spotted "flames on the roof and tons of trucks. There were at least 15 firefighters on the roof at one point."

The FDNY quickly extinguished the blaze. No word at the moment on injuries or extent of the fire.

Suthon told us via Facebook: "I don't think there's a lot of damage."

Updated 7:20 a.m.

This blurry photo represents the only sign of a fire from the outside ...

Landmarks Preservation Commission asks to see modified plans for former PS 64

[Photo via MoRUS]

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) heard public comments yesterday regarding the former PS 64 and CHARAS/El Bohio community center on East Ninth Street. Developer Gregg Singer will need approvals from the LPC in order to make changes to the exterior of the landmarked building for his proposed 500-bed dormitory. (Those changes include adding a raised courtyard space.)

Several people testified against the proposal, including City Councilmember Rosie Mendez and representatives from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and the East Village Community Coalition, who want a better plan for the space — one that serves the community.

One person in attendance said that the commissioners responded positively to the architect's plans for renovation. The commissioners did not vote on the proposal and made suggestions to the applicant to modify the plans... the next step will be a public meeting where the amended plans will be presented. (The public can attend this next meeting, but not speak for or against the plans. Date to be determined.)

The former PS 64 is also on the agenda for tonight's CB3 Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing Committee meeting, which is at 6:30 — Seward Park Extension, 56 Essex St. (between Grand and Broome Streets).

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rebranded P.S. 64 up for grabs: Please welcome University House at Tompkins Square Park to the neighborhood

Deed for 'community facility use only' at the former P.S. 64 now on the market

Efforts continue to fight the dorm planned for the former PS 64 on East 9th Street

Testimony Of Councilmember Rosie Mendez regarding the former PS 64

Alphabet Plaza starts to apply sun block

Just about a month ago, the incoming Alphabet Plaza, the 12-story mixed-used apartment building at East Houston and East Second Street/Avenue D, made its first appearance above ground.

Here, EVG reader Ray shares a different perspective... the first shot is about the same time one month ago..



... and now as of yesterday...



As you can see, residents living in 11-13 Avenue D are slowly losing their southern views.

The Real Deal had a rendering of the new building back in November...



As The Real Deal first reported:

The owner is Kahen Properties, which purchased six lots on the corner of Avenue D and East 2nd Street for $21 million in December [2011] ... Kahen is planning to spend another $30 million on the project, where apartments will rent in the $2,500 to $3,600 range. The building will also include some affordable units, along with a rooftop terrace, gym and doorman.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Will Avenue D finally turn into Avenue C?

Listing appears for Houston and Avenue D development

Report: 12th-story 'Alphabet Plaza' in the works for Second Street and Avenue D

Alphabet Plaza ready to rise on Avenue D

Alphabet Plaza is rising on East Houston and Avenue D

Easy as...: Alphabet Plaza makes first appearance above ground

Katz's ready to celebrate its 125th birthday

[Welcome to Katz's]

Katz's is turning 125 this year... and among the celebrations: On June 2, there's an all-day party at the restaurant on East Houston and Ludlow that will include a pastrami-eating contest, as Zagat reported yesterday. What do you get a deli on its 125th birthday anyway?

Noted

EVG reader Steven Matthews shares this photo taken yesterday on East Eighth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.

"I don't think I've ever seen where a graffiti'er corrected an error."

A scene from Tompkins Square Park this afternoon

No word if they were mimes.

Photos by Bobby Williams.

An afternoon view, featuring Most Holy Redeemer Church

Photo by Ex Vacuo ... taken from East Seventh Street...

Testimony Of Councilmember Rosie Mendez regarding the former PS 64

This afternoon, the Landmarks Preservation Commission is listening to public comment regarding the former PS 64 and CHARAS/El Bohio community center on East Ninth Street... developer Gregg Singer will need approvals from the LPC to make changes to the exterior of the building for his proposed 500-bed dormitory. What follows is the testimony given by Councilmember Rosie Mendez...

Good afternoon, my name is Rosie Mendez — and I am the City Council Member who proudly represents District 2 — including the entirety of 605 East 9th Street which is the subject matter of this Public Hearing on application 14-2418 concerning the appropriateness of proposed alternations at the underlying site. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify here today on this most important matter.

In 2006, after years of concentrated community effort, the LPC designated the old PS 64/CHARAS El Bohio Cultural and Community Center as an Individual Landmark, citing many
singular facets of its design and century-long role as a publicly accessible community resource. In fact, the beautifully written designation report narrates at length about the rare architectural and community significance of this beloved building. I would go a step further and call the CHARAS building an absolute community treasure that universally symbolizes our shared history, collective struggles and our united path forward.

While the LPC is not specifically empowered to consider use — the history, architecture, cultural and community significance of this building is inexorably intertwined with the role it has played in the lives of successive generations on the Lower East Side. This building embodies a unique composition of remarkable and unequaled architectural features paired with a longstanding community-driven mission that dates back to 1904. Today, I urge the LPC to protect both of the unparalleled features of this building.

With respect to the plans submitted by the applicant, I have very serious concerns about the alterations proposed to the exterior of the building. My specific concerns include, without limitation:

• The proposed work on the roof — including installation of metal screen railings, mechanical equipment, an ATS room, boiler room and four stair bulkheads — will substantially detract from the distinctive roofline profile of the CHARAS building. These alterations may very well compromise the remarkable and striking architectural features of the building — including the mansard roof and pedimented dormer windows that are specifically cited — for their uniqueness and distinction — in the designation report. These dormers are, of course, the very same that were systematically destroyed, removed, and relocated in 2006, leaving nothing but a tarp flapping in the wind for the last seven years.

• I am very concerned that the proposed removal work in the elevated courtyards will undermine the hallmark concept and original design of this unique H-Plan building. The elimination and privatization of floor space on the 9th Street side of the building stands in stark contrast to the preserved vision, as articulated in the designation report which states, “The open space provided by the courtyards, the large groups of windows and the elegant decorative ornament were generous gestures and made this building stand out in this neighborhood of plain, rundown, and overcrowded tenements”... as these courtyards provided… “the luxury of open space in densely packed neighborhoods.”

Many things have changed since 1904, but the need for shared open space that is a source of community pride has not.

Conclusively, I strongly recommend that the LPC refrain from approving this proposal and require the developer to amend the current plans in a manner that entirely preserves the exclusive and remarkable characteristics of the CHARAS building — including the distinctive and landmarked roof, dormers and courtyards — consistent with the original design and designation report.

At this hearing, the LPC will officially vote to approve or deny the application... the Commission may also ask the applicant to return to a future hearing with revisions. We'll keep you posted as to what transpired this afternoon...

Meeting photos via MoRUS...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Will old PS 64 get a theater for nonprofit groups?

Rebranded P.S. 64 up for grabs: Please welcome University House at Tompkins Square Park to the neighborhood

Deed for 'community facility use only' at the former P.S. 64 now on the market

2 new sidewalk bridges arrive as city disapproves latest plan for P.S. 64

Efforts continue to fight the dorm planned for the former PS 64 on East 9th Street