EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Timeless, from yesterday by Bobby Williams]

Remembering Paul Caruso and Francine Morin, two longtime East Village residents who recently died (The Villager)

Inside the Cooper Union sit-in (Runnin' Scared)

60-year-old Joe's Dairy closes for good tomorrow on Sullivan Street (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Philadelphia-based Sichuan master Han Chiang is bringing his hit restaurant Han Dynasty to 90 Third Ave. (Eater)

A crowdfunding campaign for the Campos Plaza Community Center (BoweryBoogie)

Why 'Game of Thrones' fans may want to go to Percy's (DNAinfo)

Photos from inside Jupiter 21 (Gothamist)

Park plans for Pier 42 (The Lo-Down)

Photos of a doomed Times Square in the 1990s (Curbed)

The many failures of the Met's "Punk: Chaos to Couture" exhibit (The New Yorker)

...and EVG reader John sends this photo from Chelsea showing One World Center, where workers added the silver spire this morning to make the building an official 1,776 feet.



...and from the EVG inbox ... this sounds very cool...

This Saturday, May 11 at 8 pm at Millennium Film, check out the super 8 films of Katrina del Mar and Stephanie Gray. Gray will include a film of Magic Shoes before it closed and del Mar will screen not to be missed outtakes of her Girl Gang 2000 super 8 cult fave film with images of late 1990s East Village and LES in all its glory. de Mar will choose the outtakes at random and we hear there are old shots of Ray's Candy Store (not sure which will be shown!)
At: Millennium Film Workshop, 66 E 4th St (bet Bowery & 2nd Ave). Find the Facebook invite here.

Remembering Taylor Mead

[Photo from 1979, © Deborah Feingold/Corbis]

The New York Times files its feature obituary on Taylor Mead, who died Wednesday night after suffering a massive stroke.

Mr. Mead was the quintessential Downtown figure. He read his poems in a Bowery bar, walked as many as 80 blocks a day and fed stray cats in a cemetery, usually after midnight. His last years were consumed by a classic Gotham battle against a landlord, which ended in his agreeing to leave his tenement apartment in return for money. At his death, he had been intending to return to New York after visiting a niece in Colorado.

---

The film critic J. Hoberman called Mr. Mead “the first underground movie star.” The film historian P. Adams Sitney called one of Mr. Mead’s earliest films, “The Flower Thief” (1960), “the purest expression of the Beat sensibility in cinema.”

Read the whole feature here.

Here's a video from 1996 featuring Mead and Quentin Crisp at the Cooper Square Diner on Second Avenue...



BoweryBoogie compiled several other videos featuring Taylor. Find those here.

Bike share launches May 27; CB3 asks residents to take wait-and-see approach

City officials announced yesterday that the Citi Bikes program will officially launch on May 27. However, the first week of service is only for the 8,000 or so people who bought the annual membership. For all you car-loving, tourist-hating residents everyone else, weekly and daily passes go on sale June 2.

Here's part of the official message:

New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and NYC Bike Share today announced that Citi Bike will launch for annual members on Monday, May 27, as the 6,000-bike, 330-station system brings New York’s newest and most affordable transportation option to parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Annual members who sign up by May 17 will receive their Citi Bike electronic keys in time to enjoy exclusive use of the system starting Memorial Day before the system opens to daily and weekly members on June 2. The initial service area includes Manhattan below 59th Street and the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and parts of Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Citi Bike operates without City subsidy and the $95 annual membership equals about 25 cents a day for the kind of unlimited short trips that bike share is designed for.

“Now’s the time for New Yorkers to sign up for their own keys to the city,” said Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “More than eight thousand annual members have already signed up to get a head start on the newest way to get around, and the excitement continues to build as we count down the days to launch.”

Annual memberships providing unlimited rides of 45 minutes or less are available at citibikenyc.com. Bike share will extend the reach of the city’s transportation network, providing easier, faster access to destinations farther from transit stops. Starting June 2, daily memberships will be available for $9.95 a day or $25 a week, granting those members unlimited rides of 30 minutes or less at no additional cost for the duration of their membership period.

Meanwhile, yesterday, in anticipation of all this... we received the following message from the folks at Community Board 3:

Bike Share will launch May 27. Issues that must be dealt with immediately, such as a blocked driveway or loading zone, should be emailed to the community board office (info@cb3manhattan.org) and we will work with DOT to have these sites inspected immediately.

There are other concerns regarding placement of installations or size of installations, or the number of installations in close proximity to each other. We are asking people to wait until bike share is in operation for a month to see what works and what doesn’t. What installations are not being used to capacity? What installations do not accommodate the number of bikes needed?

The Community Board 3 Transportation Committee will meet on Tuesday, July 16 to hear concerns. DOT will attend the meeting to note these concerns and address or inspect and follow up. Please check the CB 3 website for the meeting location or sign up to receive monthly agendas (join cb 3’s mail list on website).

And as a refresher. Here is the official information on pricing ... and here are FAQs.

Lula's Sweet Apothecary is currently closed for a 'reorganization'

A reader who lives above Lula's Sweet Apothecary on East Sixth Street noted that the popular vegan ice cream shop was not open this past weekend. (They are currently in winter hours — Thursday through Sunday.) Lula's was also closed last evening.

There's no message on their website or social media sites. Per their last tweet on May 2:

We are unable to open today -- our apologies for the inconvenience.

— Lula's (@lulasweet) May 2, 2013

However, there is an outgoing phone message, which states:

We are "currently closed as we undergo a reorganization. We hope this matter is resolved quickly so that we can reopen soon."

In January, the Post reported on the apparently bitter divorce between Derek Hackett and Blythe Boyd, the couple who opened Lula's in 2008. They were divorced last year.

Per the article:

[E]arlier this month, Hackett filed papers in Manhattan Supreme Court demanding the business be dissolved because Boyd is hoarding the profits for herself.

Hackett claims that his ex-wife has completely frozen him out of the business despite their equal ownership and that profits are tanking, court papers show.

“Boyd has substantially cut the hours of the retail location during the busiest season, the late spring and summer months, and as such continues to operate to the detriment of the shareholders.”

However, Boyd told the Post "that she did all the work — and that Hackett just reaped the profits and used them to pay his rent."

Previously. (29 comments)

A new location for Ba on East 14th Street

Last month, Ray's East Side 99-cent store on East 14th Street closed following a large rent hike. However, Ray had already secured a new location, moving around the corner where he set up shop in the base of the Copper Building last fall.

Unfortunately, there wasn't room at the new location for Ba, the nice fellow who ran a sliver of a shop in part of the East Side 99¢ space. Ba, a Senegal native, who sold socks, gloves, batteries and phone chargers, among other items, was in limbo.

However, EVG reader Mike notes that Ba has a new space...



...just up the block on East 14th Street ... where he selling his wares from outside the shoe repair shop by the post office between Avenue A and First Avenue...

Avenue C is the place to be

On Monday, someone (or something!) mysteriously moved this haul to the east side of Avenue C near East 10th Street...


[Bobby Williams]


[BW]

... where it remains ... and, as Brett Pants notes, it has become a bit of popular spot for hanging out...



...just don't tell anyone about it...

RIP Taylor Mead

[Being crowned King of the Mardi Gras at a Lower Eastside Girls Club benefit last year. Photo by Greg Masters]

Lower East Side icon Taylor Mead has died after suffering a massive stroke last night in Colorado. He was 88.

In a brief farewell ahead of a full-length obituary, the Times refers to him as "the Warhol 'superstar,' Beat poet, stray-cat feeder and sweet face and voice of an era."


[Andy Warhol and Mead in 1975]

Here's a passage from a profile on Mead published last summer in The Paris Review:

When Taylor drifted to New York, after a stint in the poetry clubs of San Francisco in the late fifties, he found himself in the midst of a vibrant scene. “McDougal Street is where everything was,” he remembered. He fondly recalled night after night spent at the Gaslight, a basement café that no longer exists. Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso would read there often. Bill Cosby was a regular. “The police wanted to close the place because of Allen's and my language. The owner would sit there with a shotgun. This was the early days of New York. He sat down there with a shotgun! New York was so wild.”

Mead was a familiar figure in the neighborhood, whether performing at the Bowery Poetry Club or eating at his favorite restaurant, Lucien on First Avenue. He lived in the same apartment on Ludlow Street the past 34 years. Mead continued to live in his rent-stabilized apartment while the rest of the building that Ben Shaoul purchased last summer was converted to market-rate homes. (You can read more about that here.)

Mead eventually accepted a buyout in April and moved to be with his niece in Colorado, as BoweryBoogie noted.

Back to The Paris Review piece, which discussed how Mead found his home at Max's Kansas City in 1965.

After Max’s closed, things weren’t the same. Taylor spent some time at the Mudd Club, where he filmed a public-access television show and continued to read poetry and perform in theatrical productions at La MaMa Theatre; later, he spent time at Max Fish, before, as he claims, he was insulted by the bartender and forced to take his business elsewhere. The Mudd Club closed in 1983; La MaMa is a shell of its former self; Max Fish will, it’s being said, close in the next year due to escalating rents. People and places are gone for good, and during our conversation the East Village begins to sound more and more like a ghost town. Taylor is the last resident, the final holdout.

Papaya King is NOW OPEN on St. Mark's Place

As noted yesterday... at 3 St. Mark's Place...

Who is going to be The King's first customer in the East Village? Doors open at 10am. #thekingisreadytorock #eastvillage #puredeliciousness
— Papaya King (@Papaya_King) May 9, 2013

We thought Paul Kostabi was first in line as of last night. Or he was just waiting for the M8.


[Via Twitter by @nranra]

Retail plans revealed for 12-floor condo building replacing open-air market on Broadway

Time is running out on the open-air shops on Broadway near East Fourth Street... One vendor told a reader that he'd be shutting down very soon.

Curbed has been reporting on the 12-story terracotta and brick-faced condo building in the works for 688 Broadway. The Landmarks Preservation Commission reportedly raved about the new building last October. (Read that here. Read more about the luxury condos here.)

And now there's a new listing for the retail portion of the building at RKF:



The rendering shows a store called "Premium Goods." And the listing notes possession in the first quarter of 2015.

A quick look at DOB records show plans have yet to be approved at 688 Broadway. (The records show that the plans were disapproved in December 2009. Karl Fischer is listed as the architect of record on this application.)



As for the long-running, ragtag flea market that the condo building is replacing...



... back to the reader and the vendor.

I asked him where he would go. He said, "Nowhere. There's no place to go."

[Updated] Proposal to place a 'silhouette of a community member' in Tompkins Square Park

Here's an interesting item on tonight's CB3 Parks, Recreation, Cultural Affairs, Landmarks, & Waterfront Committee docket:

• Proposed silhouette of a Tompkins Square Park community member to be located along a pathway on the east side of Tompkins Square Park from June to November 2013

There's a PDF with the following image...



There's no other information currently available ... we have the usual questions, such as who and why.

Anyway, we looking forward to hearing more about the proposal.

Hopefully it will last longer than the last installation in Tompkins Square Park...

[July 2011]

Walk Man lasted three days. Artist Scott Taylor removed the sculpture after someone (or thing!) rammed it and knocked it over, as DNAinfo reported.

The committee meeting tonight is at 6:30 — BRC Senior Services Center, 30 Delancey St. between Chrystie and Forsyth.

Updated 2:30

Serena Solomon at DNAinfo has more about this project, which is in honor of Christopher Gamble, who was homeless for 28 years.

A life-sized sculpture of his silhouette is currently being created by French artist Fanny Allié to be installed at Tompkins Square Park, a place where Gamble spent many days and nights.

And!

The sculpture will consist of a metal outline of Gamble, according to Allié.

"I like it because it has some hope. It's a positive," the artist said, of the silhouette's open stance with arms outstretch to the sky, like “he is about to fly."

Gamble now lives in an apartment run by the Bowery Residents' Committee.

Read the whole article here.

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