Up in smoke

Second Avenue and East 13th Street … photo by Grant Shaffer. (Steam courtesy of Con Ed.)

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[The old Mars Bar space via Goggla]

How hipsters ruined the Bowery (Gizmodo)

At the William Barnacle Tavern on St. Mark's Place: "It feels both experimental and trapped in time" (The New Yorker)

The Mexican First Lady and a Jewish Anarcho-Feminist Walk Into An East Village Tenement… (Off the Grid)

Local chef's favorite EV food spots include Sunny & Annie's, Ray's Candy Store and Zaragoza (Serious Eats)

More about the hawks nesting at the Christodora House (DNAinfo)

Work by members of Murphy's Law now on display at the Art on A Gallery (NY1)

The East Village of "200 Cigarettes" (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

24 people applied to be on Community Board 3 (The Lo-Down)

Citi Bike may raise its rates (Gothamist)

Want to take a Tom Waits-themed vacation? (Dangerous Minds)

… and important tweets from the morning…

While standing in front of Gem Spa, a man passed by & said Zoltar was a liar! Slander!

— evgrieve (@evgrieve) March 8, 2014

… also, it's really nice outside.

A new design for Citi Bikes?

EVG reader Mark Smith spotted this today at the Citi Bike docking station on East Fifth Street at Avenue C … a new spring-look for the bikes? A rogue Citi Bike artist? What is going on…?

The Citi Bike blog has the answer:

For the first time, a handful of Citi Bikes will shed their iconic blue for a springtime hue. In celebration of Armory Arts Week, ten Citi Bikes will don artwork created by The Armory Show‘s 2014 commissioned artist, Xu Zhen. While eight of the special bikes circulate in the Citi Bike system, two will be on display at The Armory Show, at Pier 94, through Sunday, March 9.

The 'Show' must go on

Here's Built to Spill at Irving Plaza with "Stop the Show" from 1999. The band will be at the Bowery Ballroom on May 21. Tix went on sale today at noon.

A view of the East Village (and more) from atop the World Trade Center in 1978

Earlier this morning, we posted the photo (via Time magazine) of the neighborhood from atop of the One World Trade Center ...



East Village resident Felton Davis just shared this ... a scan from one of several hundred Kodachome slides from the World Trade Center Observation Deck from the 1970s (this particular shot is circa 1978)... showing the neighborhood (and more) from a similar angle...



Also, as a bonus, here's a photo at sunset showing the shadow of the Twin Towers extending all the way across the East River and into Williamsburg...

Report: Building housing TD Bank and SVA dorms on 3rd Ave. and E. 10th St. hits the market

The 5-story building that houses a TD bank on Third Avenue and East 10th Street is for sale for $28 million, The Real Deal reports this morning.

The building "has 28 one-and-two bedroom apartments and will be delivered vacant." (Actually, isn't this a dorm for SVA students?)

Also, there are "an additional 7,802 square feet of as-of-right air rights," per The Real Deal. Perhaps NYU will take another crack at this property? The school originally wanted the site, according to The Villager.

Prior to construction of this new building, the address housed Bendiner & Schlesinger blood labs. The place was demolished in 2005... there was a plaque on the East 10th Street side commemorating Peter Stuyvesant, whose family once owned the buildings.

At Kossar's Bialys

Photos and story by EVG contributor Stacie Joy

I had my first bialy at age 17 when I moved to New York City. And I was hooked. Immediately.

Through the years, I’d had bialys from many locations, but my go-to was Kossar’s Bialys at 367 Grand Street. It’s a straight line downtown from my Avenue B apartment. There were seemingly always open and had delicious oniony bialys (as well as bagels).



I quickly developed a breakfast habit: bialy, sliced across, toasted with butter, smattering of sea salt. And a strong cup of coffee.

So when I heard that Kossar’s was being sold, like many regulars, I panicked.

When Marc Halprin (president), Evan Giniger (co-owner), and David Zablocki (director of operations) took over last September, they managed to improve the quality of the bialy without losing any of the things that made Kossar’s so famous and reliable. Bialys were fresh-baked every day, and end-of-day leftovers given to Food Bank for NYC as well as local houses of worship.


[David Zablocki]

David and Marc were kind enough to grant me a tour of the bakery (which, by the way, is available if you call ahead and request one!) and allow me to shoot some photos and pester them with bialy based questions. (Hey! Being a bialy ambassador is about bringing bialy knowledge to the people.)



Bialys are made up of only four ingredients (not including the onion or garlic findings that go in the center dent): Water, flour, yeast and salt. Skimp on the quality of any of them and the final product suffers. Bakers start at midnight mixing the ingredients, shaping, resting and proofing the dough (called kuchen). It’s a 3-hour process from start to finish, not including the eating portion. A small piece of every batch is set aside to be blessed by Rabbi Fishelis, and so the bakery can continue to receive its Parve rating.



And no, you do not have to be Jewish or Polish to enjoy a bialy. “All humans can enjoy bialys,” David says.

According to Marc, the best way to eat a bialy is to toast first, then slice. If you must. David admits to putting a pat of butter in the center of a hot bialy and just chowing down. Since Kossar’s is a bakery, not a restaurant, they cannot add a schmear but you can buy a tub of cream cheese at the shop’s fridge and do it yourself at the counter.



One hundred years ago there were bialys everywhere on the Lower East Side. It’s nice to see tradition being carried into the modern day. David told me that old-world food is his heritage and passion and that the bialy hasn’t changed much since Kossar’s started selling it in 1936. In fact, it hasn’t changed much from its Bialystok, Poland, origins.

Anyone who wants to can head down to the bakery early (really early) in the morning to watch the bialys, pletzels, and bagels being baked. The goods will last about three days if kept wrapped in plastic, or will keep if frozen.

What can YOU see?

You made have seen this feature yesterday when it was making the rounds... Time magazine has this mind-boggling (depending on when you are looking at it) photograph from the top of the One World Trade Center.

Gothamist had some info from the news release about how Time got this panoramic shot:

[T]he magazine worked with Gigapan "to build a rotating camera that could withstand the conditions atop the tower. An eight-month process of design and construction resulted in a 13- foot-long aluminum jib that would attach to the base of the spire, and serve as a rotating arm for the camera. Over five hours of shooting, the camera produced nearly 600 images that were then stitched together digitally into a single massive ­image of everything the eye can see in all directions. Users can zoom in and out of the panoramic photo to take in the entire city."

EVG friend Pinhead zoomed toward our part of the city ...



Per Pinhead: "Shades of the old Shorpy's Con Ed pic."

Indeed!

From 1913...

[Click on image to enlarge]

Speaking of views...

[Click image to enlarge]

The latest photo from EVG contributor jdx ... looking north along Avenue A... with the trees of Tompkins Square Park on the right... and with Midtown disappearing in the distance.

Sarge's Deli is back in action on Third Avenue

[Photo by Nick Solares via Eater]

Given the number of old-time NYC restaurants going down… we're pleased to see EVG favorite Sarge's Deli reopen yesterday after a devastating fire wiped them out of business in November 2012.

Per Fork in the Road:

This 50-year-old neighborhood institution has less name recognition than Katz's and Second Avenue Deli, but insiders know the pastrami here is just as moist — and the wait times are half as long.

Eater's Nick Solares paid a visit yesterday… fourth-generation owner Andrew Wengrover promised that things were the same (however maybe shinier)…

Despite the fire, they were apparently able to keep some of their Wall of Fame intact (Larry Storch!)


[Photo by Nick Solares via Eater]

The 24-hour Jewish deli opened in 1963 at 548 Third Ave. between East 36th Street and East 37th Street…


[Photo via EVG]

Hawk bait

Earlier this evening in Tompkins Square Park… headline and photo by Goggla...

[Updated] Was this a 'knockout' attack on the Bowery?

Police are looking for this suspect who sucker punched a 23-year-old man from Rockville Station on the Bowery near Stanton Street early this morning.

The victim was knocked unconscious and taken to Bellevue Hospital with a broken jaw.

There's some speculation that this was part of a Knockout Game attack.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477).

Updated 12:38 p.m.

The Daily News has a few more details on the attack (including photos of the victim) ... the victim had been at Sweet & Vicious on Spring Street and was walking to another bar around 2:30 a.m. when the punch occurred ... The Daily News described the punch as "a hellacious haymaker."

Just a dog and his dowsing rod

Or maybe it's just a big stick.

Tompkins Square Park today via Bobby Williams.

[Headline h/t]

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[East 3rd Street, randomly]

Is Astor Place doomed? (The Village Voice)

Read Jeremiah's essay on hyper-gentrification (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

A look at Stairs, the newish gay bar on East 2nd Street (The New York Times)

Salvation Army building on the Bowery will become … an Ace Hotel (BoweryBoogie)

Open Mic Mondays at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (HuffPost)

The 13 best 'dive bars' in NYC (Gothamist)

A wonderful photo essay of Alex Musical Instruments (Gudrun Georges)

Richard Hell reads and answers questions at the the Powerhouse Arena bookstore in Dumbo (CMJ)

The tenement and alley cats of old New York (Ephemeral New York)

A story about the first-ever Ramones concert in Las Vegas (Las Vegas Weekly)

Revisiting "I'll Take New York" by Tom Waits from 1987 (Flaming Pablum)

... and check out some photos of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black from Bowery Electric Sunday night via Walter Wlodarczyk ...

About Red Room Projects, a new art and performance space on East 4th Street

In January 2013, the news hit that the Red Room, the 32-seat performance space/black-box theater on East Fourth Street, would close in March. The Horse Trade Theater Company had operated the space located upstairs from the Kraine Theatre and KGB Bar.

The building's landlord reportedly wanted to repurpose the space.

So here we our one year later… and there's a new Red Room — the Red Room Projects. Here's more about the space from the new operator's website:

After a complete makeover which pays homage to the history of the building it has called home, as well as the block and the neighborhood, the Red Room will soon open again: as a performance space, an art salon, a meeting room for artists, poets, authors, playwrights, philosophers and friends – to share their work, hold seminars, meetings and art classes; as a catering hall; and as a low key lounge for friends to meet with friends. The room itself has been a meeting hall, its purpose, its designation, since before 1922.

The space quietly debuted late last month… Ongoing shows now include a residency featuring Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra, a Jazz-Age dance orchestra on Thursday evenings. (Ticket info here.)



The Red Room Projects is also featuring the drawings of Christian Johnson.



In addition, as the Red Room Projects website points out, the Kraine Gallery, established at the address in 1983, will finally have a more viable exhibition space than the hallway corridor to the women's bathroom.

The building went up in 1838 … and, in its history, served as the headquarters for the Woman's Aid Society and The Ukrainian Labor Home.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Report: The Red Room to close on East 4th Street

7A 2.0 looks to keep the sidewalk cafe

[Photo by Crazy Eddie]

We don't know many, if any, details about the new version of 7A, the Avenue A mainstay now sitting empty since it closed on on Jan. 26.

CB3 documents show that Paul Salmon, one of the restaurateurs behind Miss Lily's, the Jamaican bar and restaurant on West Houston, and Joe's Pub, will be overseeing the new restaurant's day-to-day operations.

Here's one thing we know, though: New management plans to keep the sidewalk cafe. There's a notice about a public hearing to continue with it next Wednesday...



Not sure who'd oppose this. Maybe residents living in the pricy new penthouses upstairs?

Previously on EV Grieve:
Some part of 7A will stay in the new 7A's name

Details emerge about what's next for former the 7A, Odessa Cafe & Bar spaces

[Updated] Reader report: 7A will close at the end of the month

This East 10th Street home comes with the tiniest roof deck — and lawn

A fine-looking apartment arrived yesterday on Streeteasy … for a one-bedroom unit with a private roof deck on East 10th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Here's part of the listing via City Connections:

Can be furnished, partially furnished or unfurnished. This renovated apartment has a marble bath, exposed brick, hardwood floors and granite kitchen with stainless steel appliances and a dishwasher as well as a washer/dryer!

Check out the roofdeck... with that plot of green ...



The putting green/Astroturf/lawn appears to extend into the bedroom as well...



The not so tiny price: $2,890 a month.

Oh, that laundro-cafe concept really happened on East 1st Street

Dang, been meaning to point this out... remember the laundro-cafe concept for 44 E. First St. between Second Avenue and First Avenue that we first wrote about in February 2013?

CB3 wasn't crazy about the idea, and... well, long story — but The Wash House is a reality.

Lady Grand first reported that the space opened for business last Thursday. She filed a report for BoweryBoogie here, who noted: "you can drop your shit in the back, and they clean it with '100% organic detergent,' all while you sip suds."


[Photo by Lady Grand]

Here is their official About via Facebook:

Grab a glass of beer or wine or even a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich while hanging out with friends and getting your laundry done...

So... anyone try out The Wash House yet?

Previously on EV Grieve:
A 'laundry bistro' in the works for East First Street

Black Hound New York closing Sunday after 26 years in the East Village

This is the official word this afternoon from the dessert/bake shop's Facebook page:

After 26 years, our East Village store will close this Sunday, March 9. But you can still enjoy your favorite Black Hound New York treats. For our NYC-based customers, you can order for pick-up by appointment at our Greenpoint bakery and for local messenger delivery. We’ll still be shipping with UPS throughout the continental USA. We hope to open another retail shop in NYC in the near future. We’ll continue connecting with you through Facebook, emails, friends@blackhoundny.com, 800.344.4417, and www.blackhoundny.com. Thanks to our loyal customers and friends for your support!

The shop is located at 170 Second Ave. near East 11th St.

Ashes to go on Astor Place

[Photo by Roger Jack Walters via Facebook]

In honor of Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent today, folks from the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery are offering ashes to go on Astor Place... it's the first year that they've offered this to-go service...