On the ground and in the air today

Tompkins Square Park and the downtown skyline via Bobby Williams...



All in all a good day?

Week in Grieview

[Photo on Avenue A by Michael Sean Edwards]

RIP Taylor Mead (Thursday)

Students take the president's office at Cooper Union (Wednesday)

Landmarks Preservation Commission asks to see modified plans for the former PS 64 (Wednesday)

Papaya King opens on St. Mark's Place (Thursday)

The great Block Drugs adding vision care next door (Monday)

Looking at punk nostalgia (Tuesday)

Sigmund Pretzel Shop closing to reopen as a restaurant on Avenue B (Monday)

The Christodora House receives Cultural Medallion (Tuesday)

Small fire at incoming Pride and Joy BBQ (Wednesday)

Chopping down trees on Third Avenue ... and St. Mark's Place

Open-air shops closing on Broadway to make way for condos (Thursday)

Restoring the Mosaic Trail (Friday)

"I was kind of the blue-collar harm reduction superstar junkie" (Wednesday)

Local 269 space back on market (Tuesday)

A Little Free Library on Extra Place (Monday)

... and by far the most-viewed post of the week: Amanda Bynes enshrined in the East Village (Monday)

Which made worldwide news...


[In which EVG learns about SEO...]

For the Love of Taylor Mead (1924-2013)

Via the EV Grieve inbox...

For the Love of Taylor Mead (1924-2013)
Bowery Poetry, 308 Bowery
Monday, May 13, 6-9 p.m.

Come celebrate the oft-storied life and "brilliant downtown zen" poetry of this quintessential New York figure. Facebook event page is here.

Mead died Wednesday night after suffering a stroke. He was 88.

Photo of Taylor from 2012 by Hughbert Burckhardt.

Reader mailbag: Is it legal to park next to a docking station before the Citi Bikes arrive?

This weekend, several readers sent us photos of vehicles parked next to the new docking station on East Sixth Street at Avenue B...


[EVG reader Mark]


[Dave on 7th]


[EVG reader John]

The actual Citi Bikes will likely arrive on or just before the expected May 27 launch date... Once the bikes arrive, parking next to a docking station won't be possible. (Well, we'll see.)

Anyway, a reader, who wanted to be clear that he wasn't complaining about Citi Bikes, simply asked if it is legal to park next to an unoccupied docking station. Because he has a car, temporarily, and it can be tough to find a place to park around here. (And why would he have a car? To make it easier to visit his mother who's in a nursing home in a place not convenient to public transportation.)

There aren't street signs pointing to any offense by parking next to the docking station ... Along here, there's just the alternate side parking sign ...



Anyone know? Is this a parking offense that deserves a ticket?

Bending elm looks safe for now in Tompkins Square Park

Workers arrived and cordoned off the area surrounding the great bending elm in the center of Tompkins Square Park last Monday...


[Photo via MoRUS]

One of the tree's support cables came off during Sandy ... and the other cable was looking on the frayed side.

But! The tree is back open to the public (not sure about squirrels)...



As this photo by Bobby Williams shows, workers braced the tree with an additional cable...





GammaBlog has some nice Park shots from yesterday here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Concern for the bending elm in Tompkins Square Park

More support on the way for the bending elm in Tompkins Square Park?

This was 'his stuff'

On East Fourth Street near Avenue A today... via Bobby Williams.

Noted

peter radley spotted this next to the entrance of the Sidewalk Café on East Sixth Street at Avenue A...



Not sure what pub crawl this was part of...

Noted

East Fifth Street at Avenue C. Will it be a long hot summer for the docking stations?

Photo by Bobby Lebrini

Ah, the stories he could tell

Well, @EliJGay made this discovery today in Tompkins Square Park ... What do you think happened? (Aside from what actually happened.)

Previously on EV Grieve:
A brief history of humiliating Teddy bears in the East Village

[Updated] Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!

Yes indeedy! On Second Avenue today from East 14th Street down to the Delaware Water Gap.

Unfortunately, at the time of our walk through, vendors were waiting to set up..



... and we were in a bit of a Rain Delay...



A lot of sitting. These onions aren't going to chop themselves!



Later in the day!


[Bobby Williams]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!

Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!

Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!

Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!

Ready for Mother's Day

Or maybe it's another tribute to Amanda Bynes?

Second Avenue and East Fourth Street this morning ... via Dave on 7th.

Gimme shelter

Tompkins Square Park today ... via Bobby Williams

For mom

Fucked Up with "Queen of Hearts" from a few years back ... Happy Mother's Day weekend.

'Arborcide' — People are pissed that this tree was chopped down on St. Mark's Place

Ugh. This morning, EVG reader Ann was walking on St. Mark's between Second Avenue and Third Avenue when she spotted workers removing this beauty on the south side of the street.

Later, when there was nothing left but the stump, someone left this sign and flowers...


[Photo by Chloe Sweeney McGlade via Facebook]

It reads in part:

"You have killed the most poetic perfectly healthy beautiful ornamental Callery pear tree ... You are killing the historic character of this block..."

Tonight at 6: 'NYC Art Action' to keep Cooper Union Free

From the EV Grieve inbox... via Student Bloc NYC

*NYC ART ACTION to keep Cooper Union Free*
Tonight at 6, we're creating an "art-in" outside Cooper Union. Bring poetry, chalk, puppets, paints, pencils, easels, songs, tap dance routines.

Statement from Students at Cooper Union:

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.

WEAR red squares
BRING pots and pans
Let's make our solidarity seen & heard around the world!

Live updates here:
Twitter

Facebook

Ustream

Previously.

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...