Not many signs of life at The Toucan and the Lion

We can't recall the last time that we saw the well-regarded Toucan and the Lion open for business over on East Sixth Street near First Avenue.

This may not be a big surprise: New operators were aiming to take over the nearly two-year-old self-described "Asian gastropub" during this month's CB3/SLA committee meeting. (Read about that here.)

There isn't a sign noting a closure on the front gates … or any messages on their voice-mail, website or social media properties. (Their last Facebook update is from Sept. 17.) And the restaurant is no longer available for reservations on OpenTable. ("We're sorry, but the restaurant you requested could not be found.")

Prior to the Toucan and the Lion, which opened in January 2012, the address was home to Mara's Homemade.

Someone/Something broke a big window at the 1st Avenue McDonald's

From last night. Over here on First Avenue at the McDonald's next to the Subway… the big window is smashed. Seems pretty recent. (Pretty sure we walked by here Wednesday night and didn't see a smashed window.)

Anyway, take a look at the hole...



Oh wait.





Seems almost too perfect too be manmade. So we're going with alien. Like, an alien laser. Anyone else care to guess what happened here?

C'mon, you guys. This is important.

The Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins combo is (almost) alive and well on East Houston

Things had been grim (grim I tell you!) the last two weeks here in the Shoppes at Red Square on East Houston between Avenue A and Avenue B … the Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins combo had been "closed for renovations," looking suspiciously on the gutted side.

But!

On Wednesday night, an EVG reader got a look inside, and reported actual renovations taking place… and last night? New bright signage action.



The place looks close to being operational again. So put away those teary farewell signs!

Tomorrow: The 9th annual d.b.a. holiday fair

Via the EVG inbox...

At Jerry's Newsstand today

East Village resident Kelly King and a handful of other folks handed out flyers today outside Jerry's Newsstand on Astor Place… they were hoping to raise awareness about the stand that Jerry Delakas has operated since 1987. (The Department of Consumer Affairs shuttered the stand for "operating illegally" following an ongoing legal battle. He has a little more than a week to appeal the ruling that he fork over $37,000 or vacate.)

Delakas was there as well, and spoke to a reporter from the Daily News, who stayed on the scene a good hour… East Village-based photographer Michael Paul shared these photos...





There was also a reporter there from Fox 5, though she was filming a segment about Starbucks.

Get Crafty tomorrow at The Children's Workshop School

From the EVG inbox...



The Children's Workshop School is at 610 E. 12th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C. The event is during school hours in the building's front lobby.

[Updated] Report: LIRR will ban booze during SantaCon, though not before it

The Long Island Rail Road has instituted a 24-hour booze ban from noon Saturday through noon Sunday that overlaps with SantaCon, DNAinfo reports.

"We do it based on experience, based on when we've had difficulties….when we're going to be inundated with a lot of people under 21, or maybe just over 21, where they've created problems in the past," LIRR spokesman Salvatore Arena told DNAinfo.

Of course, this year, SantaCon starts at 10 a.m. in Tompkins Square Park... meaning SantaConners arriving via LIRR in the early morning won't be impacted by the ban. So there can be booze business as usual. No word about New Jersey Transit or Metro North.

Metro North and New Jersey Transit have also issued a temporary ban on alcohol this weekend, per Business Insider.

MTA police officers will be patrolling Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station, and other stations, it said. They will confiscate illegal liquor, and those caught drinking can face fines up to $50 or 30 days imprisonment.

The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space is celebrating its 1st anniversary, and you're invited

After a Superstorm Sandy setback… the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) officially opened at 155 Avenue C on Dec. 8, 2012. And in the past year, MoRUS has hosted an array of compelling events, including the Direct Action Fashion Show, the Save Charas Community Center Pop-Up Exhibit and the First Annual MoRUS Film Fest, among many other workshops and readings.

Tomorrow night, MoRUS commemorates its first year. Here are details about the event:

To celebrate a year of achievement and to set the stage for the 2014 slate, the nonprofit, all volunteer-run and staffed history museum will host its 1st Birthday Bash & Benefit on Friday at MoRUS, 155 Avenue C between 9th and 10th Streets, 7-11 pm. (Admission: $8)

To kick-off the evening, Brooklyn Culture Jammers’ Daniel Kinch will perform an excerpt from his play "A CLOWN, A HAMMER, A BOMB, AND GOD," which is based on the true story of Father Carl Kabat who dressed in a clown suit, broke into a Minuteman III Missile base in North Dakota and disabled a missile by hammering the silo door shut. There's also live music from cowpunk band Effing Al Fresco as well as an appearance by Reverend Billy.

Further into the evening will be a panel discussion, WE KNOW SQUAT! AN ORAL HISTORY SLIDESHOW featuring participants in the Lower East Side squatters’ movement such as Fly, Frank Morales and Peter Spagnuolo. A silent auction featuring the art of such neighborhood visual artists as Darryl Lavare, Harvey Wang and Eric Drooker and a raffle of goods and services donated by such retail neighbors as Two Boots Pizza, ABC Beer and Edi & The Wolf will help raise funds for the museum’s 2014 programming.

About MoRUS:
The mission of the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space is to preserve history and promote scholarship of grassroots urban space activism by researching and archiving efforts to create community spaces. We will also exhibit materials that document these actions, to educate people on the political implications of reclaimed space. MoRUS is a volunteer-run nonprofit organization.

Find more information on the MoRUS website and Facebook page.

East Village resident holding rally this morning in support of Jerry's Newsstand on Astor Place

Late yesterday afternoon, East Village resident Kelly King put up these signs on the currently shuttered newsstand that Jerry Delakas has operated since 1987 next to the downtown 6 at Astor Place.

As we first reported on Tuesday, the Department of Consumer Affairs shuttered the stand for "operating illegally" following an ongoing legal battle. He has a little more than a week to appeal the ruling that he fork over $37,000 or vacate.

Delakas was unaware that the city was going to seize his stand, as Jeremiah Moss learned. As Jeremiah noted, Delakas saw the broken padlock, and initially thought that he had been robbed.

So King is taking it upon herself to hold a rally this morning at 11 outside the newsstand. (She says that Delakas will be there as well.)

"He is not a fancy type to have the deep legal education to fight corruption off — he is a newsstand man. He is a villager. He is one of our own," King told me via Facebook. "I am going to stand up for him. I am going to give what I have to give."

And she hopes that some other residents will also be able to to stop by to show support for Delakas today...



EVG reader dbs shared these photos from last night...

The takedown of 100 Avenue A continues

[Bobby Williams]

Demolition work continues at 100 Avenue A… workers are gutting the former theater/grocery to make way for Ben Shaoul's 7-story retail-residential complex between East Sixth Street and East Seventh Street.

There seems to be a lot of interest among residents in this project, given its heart-of-the-East-Village location. These aerial views via EVG reader Paul Dougherty provide a look at what's left up top…




Previously on EV Grieve:
A little bit of Hollywood on Avenue A

East Village Farms is closing; renovations coming to 100 Avenue A

Reader mailbag: Has the city cited you for having gas meters in the hallway?

A member of an East Seventh Street co-op board writes:

We got cited recently by the NYC Environmental Control Board for having some of our gas meters in the common hallways ... contrary to a code augmentation memo dating from 1975. We are trying to argue that we are grandfathered to get around the big expenses of moving meters into apartments or the basement ... we've also heard a rumor that many other buildings in the neighborhood are getting hit. This violation is currently causing us grief in renewing our insurance, and could cost us many thousands to cure, so we want to try and band together if there are others in our situation.

So… Any other co-op members have information to share? Have you been cited by the ECB? Have you successfully navigated moving the meters?

-------------

We often get reader queries ... asking for help with, say, donating clothes or books ... or finding an East Village-based caterer... If you have a question for the masses, then try the EV Grieve email...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reader mailbag: Places to eat that have that old East Village vibe (45 comments)

Reader mailbag: What do I do about my new neighbors who smoke pot all the time? (52 comments)

Reader mailbag: Where is a good place to get a cup of coffee in the East Village before 6 a.m.? (25 comments)

Reader mailbag: Do you have any suggestions for East Village-related holiday gifts? (22 comments)

Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins combo remains closed for renovations on East Houston

The Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins combo located in the Shoppes at Red Square on East Houston between Avenue A and Avenue B remains closed for renovations. The doughnut/ice cream dispensary has been closed since Dec. 2. (BoweryBoogie noted this on Monday.) Signs on the door point to a reopening yesterday.

However, as these photos by an EVG reader from last evening show, work remains on the space, which looks suspiciously gutted…





While it wouldn't be the first time a Dunkin' Donuts closed around here, the reader who spotted the above work yesterday noted that it looked more like an upgrade than a demolition….

Rooftop Santa baby

Avenue C and East Sixth Street via Bobby Williams...

Afternoon video break: 'Online Mating'

Hila Perry, aka "HiLa tHe KiLLa", who is behind such EVG favorites as "White Girl Wasted" and "NYU Film Rap," returns with a new video... "Online Mating," in which she teams up with Ethan Kaplan for... this.

Ev Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[East 4th Street yesterday via Derek Berg]

Manhattan rents drop again, though don't get too excited (Curbed)

Watchmaker on the Bowery calls it quits after 65 years on the job (The New York Times)

The best in LES food (The Lo-Down)

Slush/snow images from Tompkins Square Park yesterday (GammaBlog)

Hookah Bar Temple of Ankh relocating to East 2nd Street (BoweryBoogie)

The "East River Bridge" (aka Williamsburg) in 1912 (Ephemeral New York)

Dinner at the Stage (Gog in NYC)

Rally against privatization at Washington Square Park (Washington Square Park blog)



The Wall Street Journal is the latest media outlet to write about Empire Biscuit (The Wall Street Journal, subscription required)

Alex gets faked out at Sounds (Flaming Pablum)

The death of a block (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

GoldieBlox vs. Beastie Boys redux (Gothamist)

...and tomorrow... via the EVG inbox...



Starts at 11 a.m. at the Third Street Music School Settlement, 235 E. 11th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue...

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: Santo Mollica
Occupation: Owner, The Source Unlimited Copy Shop, Musician
Location: 9th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave
Time: 11 am on Monday, December 9

I’m from the South Bronx, born and raised on Morris Avenue. It was a working-class neighborhood with tenements. I lived in the Bronx until I was 17 and then I came here. I was going to Hunter College and I met a lady and moved in with her up on 11th street. I lived above Russo’s Cheese Market.

I met my wife at Hunter College and then we got this place. It’s a mixed-use space. We’ve been here since 1979 and we opened the shop in ’82. In the mid to late 1970s there weren’t too many stores on the street. Most of the stores were live-ins. There wasn’t much in the area except for the drugs, which was the big industry down here at the time.

When the store first opened up there wasn’t too much happening in terms of the store itself. I was playing a lot of music in different clubs and came out with a few albums. I was doing the musician thing and working a lot of odd jobs. I was delivering tip sheets for this guy who used to handicap race horses for Belmont. In the morning I would deliver them to different newsstands for him. He would crank them out in his apartment and I would deliver them and then come here and open the store. I mean, you could live down here cheap. There was a lot of energy going on and it wasn’t all focused on making money because you didn’t have to make a lot to live here.

I was also doing layouts for people and then I would go to places to get them printed. At that time, the copy business wasn’t really an industry yet. The industry itself was more for printing than for copying. Once I had the space I figured I’d try it myself and then it took a life of its own. I advertised in the Voice and would do freelance work. We just kept it going and things took off.

The copy business is interesting because you always see different people. It’s the same but different all the time because of what’s involved. People are always coming in with something, where you’re like, I don’t even know what this is? Nowadays we get more students. The focus when we started was mostly for the two of us to have a job because I was giving the music a shot. I had some good notoriety with some of my albums, charted on college stations, some light touring. Mostly at that time I was doing guitar, vocals, some percussion and then I shifted over to percussion. Now I back people up as a percussionist. I do some jazz, some folk-rock, whatever the call is really. That’s where it’s at for me.

I used to play a lot of these, I guess they were squats. People would have shows there. These were places where they’d give you a bucket to go into the bathroom and you’d have to pour the water in, or the lights were coming in from the lampposts. They would string electricity from the lampposts. They were co-ops in the purest sense. It was guerilla construction. They made it livable and habitable. It was them who made the neighborhood what it is now because they started living here. It wasn’t just a drug block anymore. It became a viable and livable place.

Around the early to mid 1980s a lot of the art galleries started coming in and the area became more commercial, for better or for worse. There were always the cafe society people and the artists and writers but more people started coming around when more stores started opening up. The galleries took some of the danger out since there were more people coming around. That was when things started changing and the landlords started getting wise to the fact that they could get more money. Before that they were like, ‘Please, take my place.’ Or they were just abandoning them. The values started rising and people started to realize the value but there was also no residual effect in the neighborhood from the galleries. You would see the limos pull up, you’d see the people get out, go to the gallery, do whatever they were doing, get back in the limo, and then they were gone.

The same thing happened in Williamsburg and in Bushwick. We kind of wrote the book on that and everybody followed it after that. Get the artists in here and get them in here cheap. You think one thing is happening and it’s not. I remember Red Square on Houston Street. When that came in everybody was like, 'this is bad news.' It was one of the first luxury places but before they got the Blockbuster and Fedex in there they just had the buildings up and they wanted some notoriety, so they’d have art shows, where the Sleepy’s is. It was like we did in the squats. We played there at an art gallery opening and it was all cinder blocks and it was cold. I didn’t realize at the time what was going on.

I’m old school and have been through the battles. There ain’t too many people left that can say that. But we’re here now and we’re doing stuff and trying to keep it going forward. We’re trying to retain a little bit of the old school but meanwhile be conscious of now and not be living back then. I’m not big on the way things were and that kind of stuff, because things were a certain way before I got here. I was the new guy so I can’t begrudge other new guys.

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

Previously on EV Grieve:
Honors for one of the most unique shops in the East Village

Oh, thank God — the new phone books have finally arrived

Actually they arrived maybe a week ago on my block. (Shocker: They are still sitting in front of my building, unopened.) But I noticed a few hundred thousand of them were waiting on stoops this morning along East Seventh Street...



Seriously — will anyone actually use one? (And not to, say, prop up a table, build a bookshelf or burn.)

It's OK if you do use one — just curious.

Early reaction...

@evgrieve Wasteful! When I need a phone number I just log on to AOL with my 2400 baud modem.

— Pinhead (@EVPinhead) December 11, 2013

Report: Hells Angels in legal fight for rights to their East 3rd Street clubhouse

[EVG file photo]

Members of the Hells Angels are reportedly locked in a battle over the rights to their longtime NYC clubhouse on East Third Street, according to the New York Post.

The story dates back to 1983, when then-New York Chapter president Sandy Alexander changed the building's deed to name himself and his family as rent-free tenants. Members of the Hells Angels are now suing Alexander's remaining heirs to prevent them from possibly taking over the building. (Alexander died in 2007.)

Per The Post:

A source told The Post that the members have no immediate plans to sell 77 E. 3rd St. — which is on the periphery of New York University's $6 billion expansion plan and in a once-crime ridden neighborhood where one-bedrooms now rent for $3,500 a month — but they wanted to clear up the "cloudy deed."

The decades-old agreement, obtained by the Post, says that Sandy's heirs 'shall receive half of the proceeds" from the sale of the six-story building that has around 10 apartments on the top five floors.

The U.S. government unsuccessfully tried to seize the building starting with a drug bust in 1985. The feds charged that the clubhouse was used to make drug deals. However, a jury ruled against the forfeiture in February 1994, per The New York Times.

The Hells Angels have lived in this building since 1969.

NYPD's Interactive Map lets you track crimes block by block

In case you haven't seen the interactive map that the NYPD released this past weekend…

As Gizmodo noted:

The map sticks to the major New York State felonies: Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter, Rape, Robbery, Felonious Assault, Burglary, Grand Larceny and Grand Larceny Motor Vehicle. Though the site uses data available on the NYPD website, it was developed by Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

You can check out the map here for overall trends in crime by Precinct … and by address…

Here's a snapshot of our own 9th Precinct from January through October of this year…



The map also has a zoom-in to see where, roughly, each crime was committed…



Overall, according to 9th Precinct statistics, crime is down in the major categories by 76 percent from 1990 to 2012. (Find that PDF of the stats here.)

[H/T to EVG readers Creature and RyanAvenueA]

Holiday benefit for Trinity's Services and Food for the Homeless

Via the EV Grieve inbox...

The annual Cool Yule raises funds to support SAFH (Trinity's Services and Food for the Homeless) which operates a soup kitchen, community pantry and referral center that serves the homeless population of lower Manhattan.

Your $40 donation includes admission, a terrific open bar and gourmet hors d'oeuvres.

SAFH, located on East Ninth Street and Avenue B, "is a separate non-profit 501(c)3 organization with its own budget and board established to provide emergency food and services to the homeless and low-income residents of New York City. In 2012 we served nearly 200,000 meals.

Find ticket info here.