Jupiter 21 has a mini Jupiter in its lobby

[June 21]

Oh, over at the new Jupiter 21 residential building... a mini Jupiter hangs in in the lobby... serving as a ceiling lamp...



...which is probably better than, say, a mini Mars...

Revisiting 'Escape from New York'

John Carpenter's 1981 classic "Escape From New York" gets a one-week revival starting tonight at the IFC Center on Sixth Avenue... all your friends are back... Snake Plissken, Cabbie, The Duke, Hauk, Brain — all characters inside a derelict Manhattan that's serves as an unsupervised maximum-security prison. (It was actually filmed in St. Louis.)

The Wall Street Journal published a Q-and-A (subscription required) with Carpenter on Monday...

An excerpt:

Did the film reflect any of your real feelings about New York?

I'm a New Yorker at origin but I grew up in the South. New York was a wonderland for me when I was very young in the middle '50s and visited it for the first time because it had so many movie theaters. I just wanted to go to the movies there because I was in love with the movies at the time and still am. It's huge, it's immense, it's just unlike any other place and it has a vibe to it, especially when you don't live there. A strange vibe.

And now?

Well, the thing about "Escape From New York" is that none of it came true. They cleaned up New York. It's Disneyland now. It has nothing to do with a prison, there's almost no more drugs or X-rated movies in Times Square. It's just completely changed. I miss the old days, I really do. I kind of miss the violence and the scum.

Are you ready for some men's roller derby?

Free Public Roller Derby Exhibition! Tomorrow starting at 11 a.m., the New York Shock Exchange Men's Roller Derby league plays an exhibition in Tompkins Square Park. It's free, as it probably should be. I got $10 on Damage Squad. You?

Il Bagatto closing for summer break after Sunday

From the EVG inbox...



Closing for a summer break a little earlier than usual this summer... Meanwhile, we haven't heard any updates on their longtime future here... a listing for the Il Bagatto space (and that of its sister cafe next door, Il Posto Accanto) at 190-192 E. Second St. near Avenue B, showed up on the RKF site back in January ...

Sigmund Pretzel Shop (soft) reopens today

Back in early May, Sigmund Pretzel Shop on Avenue B closed for renovations... to transform from what they call a place for a "neighborhood snack" to more of a "neighborhood restaurant" ... they (soft) reopen today at 4 p.m. ...

Last night's moon

Meant to post these earlier...





By Bobby Williams.

A summer scene

East 13th Street and Avenue B

This elm is apparently coming down in Tompkins Square Park

After our earlier post today... we've heard from a handful of people who say that this entire Elm needs to be removed in the Park at the entrance on East Ninth Street and Avenue B...



...these photos by Bobby Williams show some hack marks at the base of the tree as well...




[EVG]

Mars Bar closed 2 years ago today

A reader just reminded me of that. Seems longer than two years... (Previously)

Reader report: Limbs coming down in Tompkins Square Park

Several readers have passed along word (and photos) that workers are removing limbs from the great Elm just off Avenue B on at the East Ninth Street entrance of the Park...





No word just yet on why the limbs are coming down... or how much more of the tree will need to be removed...

We'll check in with GammaBlog, who has created the Tompkins Square Park Tree Identification Map...

Q-and-A with Nick Zedd

[From Police State. Willoughby Sharpe, left, and Nick Zedd. Courtesy Nick Zedd]

Nick Zedd is in town from Mexico City for a short visit... he is part of a program tonight at the New Museum titled "Moving Image Artists’ Distribution Then & Now." (Find more details on this here.)

And tomorrow evening, The New Museum is showing a retrospective of his work. Per the program:

Nick Zedd’s commitment to DIY artists’ film distribution helped sustain the MWF Video Club project. He will present and speak about his film work with Michael Carter of MWF. The program will include: The Bogus Man (11 min); Thrust In Me (8 min); Police State (18 min); War Is Menstrual Envy (excerpt; 9 min); Why Do You Exist (11 min); Ecstasy In Entropy (15 min); and Tom Thumb (3 min).

Nick Zedd coined and spearheaded the Cinema of Transgression film movement, directing forty-four motion pictures since 1979 and editing The Underground Film Bulletin from 1984 to 1990. Nick Zedd currently resides in Mexico City where he paints, writes screenplays, shoots videos, and publishes Hatred of Capitalism magazine. He recently presented films and artworks at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, and received an Acker Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Avant-Garde.

Michael Carter is a poet, writer, performer, and cultural critic, living in New York City. From 1982–92, he was the editor and publisher of the quintessentially East Village literary and arts journal/zine redtape, and from 1988 to 2003 he was codirector of the MWF Video Club.

Ahead of his visit to the New Museum, we asked him a few questions about his feelings on New York these days (he resided in the East Village for years) as well as Mexico City, where he lives with Monica Cassanova and their son Zerak.

You had a retrospective in Brooklyn in January. Now this at the New Museum. How do you feel returning to NYC — even just for a few days?

I like returning to NYC to see how it's changed and meet old friends. I appreciate the energy of NYC and like to compare it to Mexico City which is so different. There's a sense of desperation in NYC that gives it an edge. I like to observe people. I'm appalled by the loud tourists and ugly humanoids everywhere. There are so many ugly people in NYC, it's incredible.

Yesterday I sat on a park bench in Union Square and watched lovers sit and talk to each other. A black teen with a doo-rag and a wife-beater t-shirt covered in tattoos was talking on a cell phone while his fat girlfriend in a striped dress had her legs draped over his. She waited while he talked to someone, then he embraced her like a small child and it really moved me. There was real love; fragile and fleeting. I'd witnessed something profound. He was beautiful. She was beautiful too. Their love made them beautiful. I wish I'd had a camera on me.

There's a treasure trove of culture in the museums and libraries in NYC and I like selling my art to collectors here. I lived most of my life in NYC so it's still a part of me.

Do you see any positives in Bloomberg's NYC?

The people, who exhibit the NYC strength and anger; the individuality of street people...I never tire of their quality of openness... working class people. They give the city a sense of conviction. A flavor. They're what make it interesting.

We did a Q-and-A with Lydia Lunch back in May. Her advice for emerging artists here: "Leave the country as soon as possible!" What is your advice?

The same. That's why I moved to Mexico. The U.S. is a dead zone for artists.

Do surroundings make a difference? Or do you think the creativity has to come from inside regardless of where you are?

It has to come from inside, but going somewhere unfamiliar can enable your creativity to mutate in ways you'd never expect.

How's life in Mexico City?

It's quieter and more peaceful. It has a magical quality that I'm still discovering.


[Poster courtesy of gallery.98bowery.com]

[Top photo via The New Museum]

Soap opera shocker: Klean & Kleaner reopening as a laundromat

Wow. Klean & Kleaner closed down on East Second Street this past weekend ... the laundromat here between Avenue A and Avenue B had been on the market for use as a bar-restaurant...

Word spread among readers yesterday that a laundromat is back. EVG Facebook friend Edward Arrocha passed along the following: "Klean & Kleaner will reopen as a laundromat. It was sold to a different owner and the washing machine doors were returned. I do not know if it will be Klean & Kleaner or if it will have a change of name."

Indeed, a handwritten sign on the door yesterday courtesy of RyanAvenueA notes the return of the laundromat. No word on how many of the Klean & Kleaner staff will catch on with jobs here.

As previously reported, the owners of the Living Room on Ludlow Street were hoping to take over this space, though the CB3/SLA committee turned down that proposal in May.

BoweryBoogie reported this from that CB3 meeting:

As it stands, this stretch of Second Street was grandfathered into a general residence district, and doesn’t allow for any performances with cover charges. There was reportedly contact with the DOB to settle this issue, but the Living Room hadn’t heard any news as of last night. And they didn’t have the luxury of laying over the application another month due to landlord/lease constraints, so a vote had to transpire.

Word is the landlord figured that the space would sit empty ... and found a new owner willing to pay higher rents to run a laundromat.

Karl Fischer's latest creation makes an appearance above the plywood on East 3rd Street

Back in March, we checked in on 316-318 E. Third St., where a Karl Fischer-designed, 33-unit apartment building is in the works ... replacing a circa-1835 single-family home. At that time, it appeared there were some flooding issues with the foundation...

Workers have found some solid ground ... as the structure has made an appearance from behind the plywood here between Avenue C and Avenue D...




...and here's a rendering of the space...


[Brody/Amirian]

Previously on EV Grieve:


Another parcel of East Village land ready for development

33-unit, Karl Fischer-designed building rising at former home of Community Board 3 member

Landmarks Preservation Commission rejects hearing for 316 E. Third St., paving way for 7-floor condo

Lovely townhouse with bucolic gardens on East Third Street ready for "creative expansion"

East Yoga still planning on finding a permanent East Village home

Fire caused extensive damage to the East Yoga space last November on East 13th Street and Avenue B...

There's now a "for rent" sign on their former space...



We asked Jen, the studio manager at East Yoga, for an update.

"We are definitely planning on finding a new location in the neighborhood, and have been working on that since the fire. We just don't have one yet," she said. "We do, however, have an abbreviated schedule of classes in a temporary location at ABC Sanctuary [on East Sixth Street] on the weekend, and are holding free yoga classes in Tompkins Square Park during the week."

She said that she was hopeful to have some good news about a new space in the coming weeks.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Fire at East Yoga on East 13th Street and Avenue B

Free tonight in Tompkins Square Park: brooding, driving, Ryan Gosling

Tonight's free film in Tompkins Square Park is "Drive" from 2011, featuring Ryan Gosling as the brooding wheelman who broods and hits on Carey Mulligan.



There's pre-film music courtesy of Brendan O'Hara.

Of course, all this is weather permitting... If it's a Thursday, then it will rain. Even though it isn't supposed to rain. Check the Films in Tompkins Facebook page for updates on tonight's screening. Four of the five films have been cancelled this summer due to rain or the threat of rain.

And upcoming...

July 25 — The Big Lebowski
Aug. 1 — Rocky Horror Picture Show
Aug. 8 — Chico + Rita
Aug. 15 — Romeo + Juliet
Aug. 22 — O Brother, Where Art Thou

Reader report: NYPD shuts down Adinah's Farm

[Photo by Grace Elizabeth Mangum via Facebook]

Several readers have passed along word that the NYPD has closed Adinah's Farm on Avenue C and East Second Street ... we don't exactly what transpired here... the sign on the corner deli's door notes "stolen property offenses."

A summer scene

The Dry Dock Playground on East 10th Street and Avenue D today. Photo by Bobby Williams.

Speaker of the Park

Apparently left behind after Saturday's concert in Tompkins Square Park. Not sure if it will fit in my Citi Bike basket.

Photo by Bobby Williams.

[Updated] About last night's CB3 Citi Bikes public meeting

As noted earlier, Community Board 3's Transportation Committee met last night to hear concerns about the Citi Bike program. We haven't heard about the meeting... or seen any write-ups about what might have transpired... Here's a tweet from Stephen Miller, a reporter from StreetsBlog...

CB 3 committee booked IS 131 auditorium to handle the big crowd for the #CitiBike gripe session. 25 people showed up. pic.twitter.com/feIYrhrAKU

— Stephen Miller (@miller_stephen) July 16, 2013

... and later...

All of the speakers so far have been very supportive of bike-share. One wanted to ensure station moved for construction is put back after.

— Stephen Miller (@miller_stephen) July 16, 2013

He tweeted that he didn't stay the whole time... so maybe the full-blown outrage came later...

Updated 3:40

Ah, The Lo-Down has just filed a report on the meeting... A passage:

Linda Martella said she, too “likes the idea” of the program– just not in front of her store. Martella, owner of Veniero’s Pastry on East 11th Street, said the street is already narrow, and the Citi Bikes across the street took over seven parking spaces and impedes the flow of traffic, especially when there are delivery trucks on the commercial street.

“We are especially concerned with the holiday time when [customers] come to pick up their orders,” Martella said. “We now have lost these parking spaces, making it difficult for the customers to carry these orders out.”

Read the post here.

BoweryBoogie also has a recap of the meeting here.

St. John's coming to 51 Astor Place?

St. John’s University is looking to lease space at 51 Astor Place, Lois Weiss at the Post reports today. As she notes, the building needs to rent about 50,000 square feet to a school to fulfill zoning requirements.

Not a done deal, though.

But sources said the cost for the Fumihiko Maki-designed space is roughly $90 a square foot, and is not sitting well with some of the school insiders, who have been mortified by financial scandals that rocked the school over the last year and feel the high tab is not in keeping with its Catholic roots.

The school is selling its campus location in Tribeca, Weiss reported.