A reminder not to drive on Avenue A next weekend

You probably noticed the arrival of these yesterday at strategic points along Avenue A (and assorted side streets) … We were hopeful that they'd display some sort of welcome sign (use your creativity!)…



But they are a notice about a closure...



Next Saturday AND Sunday, Avenue A will be closed between East Fourth Street and East Seventh Street from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. So, "Use alternative route."

We heard something about Con Ed installing new transformers at the substation between Fifth Street and Sixth Street.

Reader report: 'my kids are in the car and I'm out of gas' scam guy arrested

You recall the "my kids are in the car and I'm out of gas" scam guy who has been made the rounds in the neighborhood, right?

A quick flashback to a reader report last month:

He's the white guy who approaches folks on the street and his M.O. is usually something about his wife and kids being locked out of their car. He says he'll give you his driver's license or car keys or cell phone (probably all stolen items) for you to hold as collateral to prove that he's honest and will pay you back. Then he asks for anywhere from $10 to $50 or more.

Anyway, we hear that the man was arrested last Friday at Penn Station. The story is that he was posing as "an Orthodox Jew and needed to get home before Sabbath" … and he was short on cash to accomplish this, of course…

Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village grifter alert: Beware the broken vodka-bottle scam!

East Village grifter alert: Beware the man with the sob story who offers you a wedding ring as collateral

Snowy afternoon grifter alert

Find PIECE tonight on the LES

From the EVG inbox...

Bridging the gap between works on the street and works on canvas, paper sketches are often relegated to dusty scrap books and old shoeboxes. PIECE will allow viewers into the minds of select New York City artists as they demonstrate how each piece is the creative product of an inspiration, vision, message or trial. Whether it is sketching, drawing, or working out ideas, a final piece starts here: on paper.

We are inviting a select group of artists to come hang and draw at the new shny space in the LES beginning Monday March 10. All works will be on display and for sale at the opening reception (Saturday March 15th 7 pm-10 pm). The work will be on view through the end of the March.

shny 116 Suffolk St. (between Rivington and Delancey)

The original info didn't include the name of the artists. Found this on Facebook:

Contributing Artists:

2esae, Abuse, Astrodub, Beau, Cern , ChrisRWK, Chuck Berrett, Col, Dave Ortiz, Donald Gajadhar, EKG, Elle StreetArt, Elton Leonard, Erasmo, Foxxfaces, Fresh, Greg Moncada, Ičy Stencils, Sot Stencils, Ivan-o-rama, Jacob Henderson, John Perry, Justin Carty, Marthalicia Matarrita, Justo, Jerry Rid, Kwote, Lady K Fever, Leah Weber, Leo Uzai, Lorenzo Masnah, Matt Siren, Matthew Denton Burrows, Michael DiNicola, Missy Caz, N. Carlos Jay, Nemo Librizzi, Nicole Salgar, OCMC, Phatbenetar, Phil, Rage Johnson, Rambo, Ricks, Rubin, Russell King, Choice Royce, Sam Woolley, See One, Set, Ski, Take7, Touch, Werds, Yuri Velez, Yves, Elton Leonard, John Paul O'Grodnick and more...

Curated By:

Robert Aloia, Hughbert Burckhardt, GiGi Campos, Frankie Cedeño, Jon Handel, Jonathan Neville and David Ziegler

Clash city rockers

From 1977, four songs by The Clash. Which is what you listen to when your site is down half the day.

Car on East 4th Street celebrates 84th year of violating alternate-side parking rules

Oh! EVG contributor Derek Berg spotted this 1930 Buick on East Fourth Street last night...







Not sure what might be filming now ... or maybe there's just a 1930 Buick parked here for no good reason. Anyone?

The Blarney Cove sign is down! The Blarney Cove sign is down!

[June 2013]

Just yesterday we pointed out that the sidewalk bridge arrived ahead of the demolition of the single-level buildings along East 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

We wondered what would/will become of the Blarney Cove sign... The neighborhood bar closed for good last June to make way for the new retail-residential complex.

And, OMG, here it is yesterday afternoon just lying there on the sidewalk, apparently discarded by construction workers ...



… and a short time later… Little Town Shoes sent along these photos…



…gutted and tagged!



But that's not how this story ends.

EVG regular Dave on 7th happened to be walking by yesterday afternoon… and he saw the sign still intact on the building. He asked the workers if they would take it down for him.

They did.

From there it wasn't easy to remove the two sides of the Barney Cove Bar sign from the frame. First, there were a million rusty screws. Then there was the matter of navigating two 7-foot by 2-foot (!) pieces of Blarney Cove sign home.

Along the way, someone offered Dave on 7th $200 for the signs. He declined.

Eventually, one of the signs split it two. But! As of this moment, the two signs (now in three pieces) are in good hands. Repeat, the two signs (now in three pieces) are in good hands.

"I wish I could have left the whole thing intact, but that just wasn't in the cards," said Dave on 7th, who has the signs in his building. "I started to wipe the dust off the back, and it turns out that's what made it white. Either super old paint or a fluorescent powder to make it glow brighter.

"Man, I worked my ass off taking it apart."

Now if we can only find the Blarney Cove cooling and refreshening system…


[Photo from May 2011 by the long-lost (sob) Intern of EV Grieve]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Here is the future of East 14th Street and Avenue A: 7 stories of residential and retail

City OKs permits to demolish the empty storefronts along this section of East 14th Street

The Blarney Cove closes for good after tomorrow night

Condo conversion one possibility for 61 4th Avenue, now on the market for $15.5 million

There's a new listing for 61 Fourth Ave. via Massey Knakal.

Let's take a look at the pitch:

Located on the east side of 4th Avenue between East 9th and East 10th Streets, this six story mixed-use building will be delivered vacant. This is an excellent condominium conversion opportunity or a live-investment given its centrally located between the East Village and Greenwich Village. Although the current C of O is a mix of office and art studio space, the building could be converted to residential as-of-right. The building is across the street from Facebook’s new office at 770 Broadway and one block from 51 Astor Place which will soon be the headquarters of IBM Watson and 1stdibs.

Asking price: $15.5 million.

And apparently the push continues to expand "Midtown South" into a neighborhood that already enjoys several names ... the accompanying marketing materials show that 61 Fourth Ave. is aka 61 Park Ave. South ...



Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village — the new Midtown?

Facebook is moving into the neighborhood; Midtown South expands its boundaries, apparently

Slowly but surely the exterior of the former Mary Ann's is becoming Dahlia's

[EVG file photo via Goggla]

At some point in the past, say, nine months, Mary Ann's began morphing into Dahlia's on Second Avenue and East Fifth Street. On Tuesday, workers finally painted over the Mary Ann's on the front of the building…



The sidewalk awning still says Mary Ann's … As far as I can tell, the menus with Mexican fare are almost identical? Can anyone confirm this? (And the Mary Ann's in Tribeca is now also Dahlia's? So many questions????)



And I realized that I hadn't been to Mary Ann's in about 18 years…

Schnitz happens starting tomorrow

The folks from Schnitz passed along word to us that they will be opening to the public starting tomorrow at 177 First Ave. at East 11th Street.

As we first reported last October, this is the first restaurant for Schnitz, which serves old-fashioned schnitzel sandwiches with unconventional toppings at Smorgasburg in Williamsburg and Dumbo.

Schnitz will serve sandwiches, soups and salads from its East Village location. (You can find their menu here.)

Previously on EV Grieve:
Smorgasburg favorites Schnitz planning restaurant at former Something Sweet on First Avenue

City temporary closes This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef

The city has temporarily closed the roast beef shop at 149 First Ave. "for operating without a permit," according to the two signs on the quick-serve restaurant near East Ninth Street…



The signs are dated Wednesday … no word on what the infraction might be for…

A celebration of Mike Bakaty's life tomorrow night at the Bowery Electric

Mike Bakaty, owner of the city's longest-running tattoo parlor, died on Jan. 29 after a battle with cancer. He was 77.

Tomorrow night from 6-9, his friends and family will hold a celebration of his life at the Bowery Electric, 327 Bowery.

Bakaty opened Fineline Tattoos on First Avenue near East Second Street in 1997 after the city lifted the 30-plus year ban on tattooing. He started his business during the tattoo prohibition from his Bowery loft in 1976.

Previously on EV Grieve:
RIP Mike Bakaty

Out and About in the East Village, Feb. 2013

H/T East Village Radio

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Tompkins Square Park the other day via Andrew Adam Newman on Ave C]

The Small-Business-Saving Squad of the East Village (Off the Grid)

Concerns of a fire hazard at Sweet Chick, opening in the former Max Fish space (BoweryBoogie)

Katz's suing 'Katz & Dogz' food truck (New York Post)

Remembering The Sin Club on 2nd and C (Flaming Pablum)

No 'Beastie Boys Square' for the LES (The Lo-Down)

Iggy and New Order do Joy Division (Dangerous Minds)

'7 Beautiful Things About New York City That Are Threatened by Gentrification' (PolicyMic)

History of the Mayfair billboard in Times Square (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Iconic Grand Central Oyster Bar reopens today after renovations (Gothamist)

The Stranglers on 40 years of fights, drugs, UFOs and 'doing all the wrong things' (The Guardian UK)

And while on the topic of The Stranglers... from 1982...

While you're waiting for the light to change...

East 12th Street and Avenue A this morning via M on Avenue B.

Maybe the wind blew it up there?

Sidewalk bridge arrives for start of demolition on East 14th Street; last chance for Blarney Cove sign

Workers began erecting the sidewalk shed along the doomed section of East 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B yesterday. Demolition of these one-level empty storefronts should commence soon enough.

As previously reported, eight parcels consisting of 222 Avenue A and 504 - 530 E. 14th St. (excluding No. 520) were leased for a retail-resident complex that might look like this ...


[500 E. 14th St.]

... and this...


[524 E. 14th St.]

Workers still need to finished putting up the sidewalk bridge to the east...



To date, we haven't spotted any plans on file with the city for the new buildings.

Meanwhile, it's really last call for that Blarney Cove sign...





[H/T @cgashcraft]

Previously on EV Grieve:
East 14th Street exodus continues

The disappearing storefronts of East 14th Street

[Updated with correction] 8-lot parcel of East 14th Street primed for new development

East 14th Street corridor now nearly business-free ahead of new development

Here is the future of East 14th Street and Avenue A: 7 stories of residential and retail

City OKs permits to demolish the empty storefronts along this section of East 14th Street

Here is the next new section of East 14th Street

More about the impending closure of Rainbow Music on First Avenue

As we first reported on Monday, Rainbow Music at 130 First Ave. will be closing later this year. The shop's eccentric owner, known only as the Birdman, is currently on a month-to-month lease … with plans to be out by the end of the year.

Filmmaker Jessie Auritt, who interviewed the Birdman for an engaging documentary short, stopped by the store yesterday. The Birdman said that he is on good terms with the landlord and is planning to stay open until at least September for now.

Which is almost enough time to sift through every stack in Rainbow Music.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Birdman of the East Village

Watch the Birdman of the East Village

Reader report: The fabulous Rainbow Music is closing this year in the East Village

'All uses considered' for current home of Jennifer Convertibles on Third Avenue

Apparently the days are number for Jennifer Convertibles at 111 Third Ave. near East 14th St. There's currently a retail listing for the retail space at the Ripco website.

According to the listing, possession of the furniture/sofa store is in July while the rent is upon request.

Other notes from the listing:

• Proximate location to Union Square – the city’s third largest transportation hub
• 361,000 employees and 151,500 households within one mile of Union Square
• Seven day a week market
• Surrounded by NYU and new luxury residential developments
• All uses considered

Local psychic sets local record for storefront renovation

[Photo via EVG reader Ruth]

In our worldwide exclusive from Tuesday, we noted that the longtime psychic at 199 Avenue A was closed for renovations.

But, by golly, the new sign and awning went up yesterday… and the place looks nearly ready to start telling your fortunes very, very soon.



Kinda digging the blue.

Con Ed talks stray voltage with concerned residents

[Stray voltage possibility on East 9th Street from Monday via Bobby Williams]

After a winter of numerous stray voltage reports in the neighborhood, Con Ed officials attended last night's CB3 Public Safety/Transportation meeting to hear concerns/answer questions, etc.

BoweryBoogie was there for the presentation. Read their account of it here.

As readers here have pointed out, Con Ed's new warning signs are just a little too small. And low.


[EVG file photo]

Per BB:

For one thing, the little flyers are affixed too low to the ground and with illegible print. Not to mention, the message is not stern enough. Chair David Crane posited alternative wording to the effect of, “Warning: possible electrical shock hazard.” Other suggestions included making the signage at eye level, introducing red lights, or getting pet owner warnings in the advanced weather advisories before storms.

One EVG reader who attended the meeting said Con Ed had plenty of graphs and charts, but too few concrete answers about the stray voltage problems.

Per BB: "Con Edison will take the feedback and allegedly make some improvements. When that will happen is anyone’s guess."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Con Ed unveils new signage to warn pedestrians and their pets of stray voltage

Resident shocked about ConEd's nonchalance over stray voltage

Looks like a May opening for the Halal Guys restaurant on East 14th Street

Food-cart favorites The Halal Guys expanded to the East Village last Sept. 19 with an outpost on the northwest corner of East 14th Street and Second Avenue...

Soon after, signage for a Halal Guys restaurant appeared at 307 E. 14th St. (immediately adjacent to the new cart).

Now that restaurant space has seemingly been dormant for months. What's up with that?

Blame the building's gas line, manager Khalid Ahmed told Serena Solomon at DNAinfo.

While building the store it became apparent the old gas lines at 307 E. 14th St. could not support both the Halal Guys' kitchen and the apartments in the building, Ahmed said.

Halal Guys has spent the last few months replacing the lines at their own expense and are now waiting on Con-Edison to connect the pipes to the main grid.

If all goes well, then the restaurant should be open in May.

Meanwhile, there is the cart right out the door.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Halal Guys are now open on East 14th Street and 2nd Avenue

The Halal Guys are apparently opening their first restaurant in the East Village

Out and About in the East Village, Part 2

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: Eric Danville
Occupation: Managing Editor, Penthouse Forum Magazine. Author of "The Complete Linda Lovelace"
Location: Sophie’s on 5th between A and B
Time: 6:45 on Thursday, February 27

Last week, Eric was discussing working for Al Goldstein at Screw magazine … where we pick up today.

Al had his good times and his bad times, but by the end of it, you couldn’t tell the guy no. He was his own worst enemy, which everyone knows. You couldn’t tell him, ‘No, you should not do that, because maybe buying a plasma TV for every one of your houses isn’t a good idea.’ Anytime he bought something he had to buy four of them because he had four houses and wanted each of his places to have one. There was somebody on staff whose job was looking through catalogues and buying shit for him and setting up VCRs that he didn’t know how to set up. That was this person’s job. It was crazy. He started Screw with $500 and a dream and that’s basically what he left it with, $500 and a dream.

For the last two years that I was working there I was Goldstein’s ghostwriter. Surprise, surprise, he didn’t write his own stuff. His editorials and any article that showed up in other places were written by someone else. One day Goldstein was in a foul mood and we were having an editorial meeting. I was in control of the editorial staff back then and he goes, ‘I’m tired of doing all this shit by myself.’ I knew it was a matter of time before I was going to be fired. Everyone before me had been fired and I was now at the top of the chopping block.

I wasn’t going to let that happen, so I gave him six weeks and I went back to work. I had an article due for Penthouse forum, so I called them and told them I just quit and they told me we’re looking for someone. I did the interview and got the job, where I’ve been for the past 15 years. I get to craft what the typical forum reader gets to experience, which is a bunch of dirty letters, some sex advice, some funny stuff. It’s helping people enjoy their bodies and their sexuality, which is quite endearing. I enjoy it and I also don’t have to worry about going to dungeons and strip bars — I mean there were times when I’d be going out to those places like five or six times a week to cover stuff for Screw, which was fun, but it takes a toll. It’s not easy doing that every day.

Some porn stars are exceedingly normal and some are just scary crazy. If you put 50 of them in a room, there are 50 different types of people, but they’re generally pretty fun to hang out with. They know how to drink. There was a fetish video place out in Brooklyn called Bizarre Video, and they had this big warehouse and they’d shoot maybe one week out of the month and bring porn talent in from LA.

When they’d have something going on, they’d invite us over and I’d do an on-set piece about it and we’d hang out afterwards. One time we were hanging out with this girl named Anna Mal, her husband Hank, Jeanna Fine, the owner of Bizarre, and a couple other people. We went uptown to American Trash in this limo and Hank is here and Anna’s here and all of a sudden Anna starts rubbing my leg. I’m like, ‘Ah fuck, that’s going on?’ She’s like, ‘Oh don’t sit so far away sweetheart,’ and then she goes, ‘You can do whatever you want with me, Hank doesn’t care.’ I was like, ‘ahh,’ cause I’m really very shy, actually. I just laughed and turned red and said, ‘ah shit.’ Anna scared me. She was just so open and into fucking anyone. That really scared me. But some porn actresses are real normal and they’ll talk about movies and TV when they’re not working. They’re normal people in the sense that they’re just like everyone else. There’s a whole range of them.

I just reissued "The Complete Linda Lovelace" [the former porn star of "Deep Throat"]. I had heard in 1996 that Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were trying to buy the rights to "Ordeal," which was her autobiography. I got Linda Lovelace’s phone number from a friend and I gave her a call. I figured I’d interview her for a straight magazine. I’ll do it for Vanity Fair. They’ll want it. I can be incredibly naïve sometimes. I’m endearingly naïve sometimes. So I called her up and she pretends to be her own secretary, because from the beginning I said, ‘I’m calling from New York; I work at Screw; I work in porn and I want to interview you.’ She was very polite, she listened to me for about 10 minutes, and then she said, ‘OK, well I’ll pass your message on to Linda… and do me a favor, don’t ever call this number again.’

Despite that, I figured out a way to do a book about her. I got about 300 newspaper and magazine articles about her and I put them all in chronological order. I picked up the ones that told her story best and I critiqued those figured out where people had things right and where they had them wrong. I thought I was inventing a new style of journalism but it’s actually called a bio-bibliography. I traced her career from the first review of "Deep Throat" until when, as luck would have it, I actually got her to pose for Leg Show Magazine and brought her back into the industry after such a long time. She was the biggest porn star in the world, then totally anti-porn, and then she came back for one last photo shoot. That ended the first chapter of my book. I managed to hash all that together and along the way I found all these books that mentioned her and all of her 8mm porn loops. The book covers her career, then the anti-porn and the pro-porn side, and the pop culture side.

Three years later I called her up and I said, ‘Look, I called you up three years ago and I asked you for an interview. You said no. I did a book about you and this book’s coming out anyway, so if you want to talk to me I’ll put this interview in as the last chapter. You can say whatever the fuck you want, you can trash porn, I don’t give a shit what you’re going to say, but if you want to talk to me, I’ll listen.’

So she says, ‘It sounds like you have a million dollar proposition there. Why don’t you fly out to Colorado and we’ll talk face to face? If I trust you and I get a good feeling from you, then I’ll talk to you.’

I went out there and met her and we really hit it off, really, really well. That afternoon, she goes,‘Okay, I’ll talk to you about it.’ I was also showing her ways to make money doing movie conventions and signing autographs and stuff, which she did for the next year. I had to convince her to sign things as Linda Lovelace again cause she would only sign things as Linda. I took her out to Chiller and she made like ten grand in one weekend. I’m counting the money up and I give it to her and she counts off 10 percent and gives it to me. I was like, ‘what’s this?’ She goes, well this is your management fee. I go, ‘Look, I’m not your manager; I’m your friend. I’m showing you how to do this.’

So instead she gave me a hat that she wore at the Ascot races in 1974, when she got thrown out for wearing a see through dress. That meant more to me than any amount of money. And a couple months later I got a package from her that was a bunch of articles that she had been collecting about herself in the 1970s, four of her baby pictures, and an envelope that had a lock of her hair from her first haircut. She must have really trusted me and liked me if she was giving me something this personal to her.

Then, almost a year to the day when the book came out, she died at 53. It was sad because we became good friends. I liked her a lot. She was unassuming and very down to earth. She was very malleable though. I could have gotten her to do basically anything that I could have convinced her would have been in her best interests, but because I’m a nice guy I didn’t do that. It was the first time that she had been treated nicely by somebody that she was working with.

When she started she was in a very physically abusive relationship with her husband, who is the guy who sort of turned her into prostitution and doing porn. The movie ["Lovelace," 2013] was supposed to be based on my book but Hollywood changes things sometimes. I wound up being a consultant for it, so I gave them advice and they didn’t take it.

I mean the fact that I worked in a business that Linda hated as much as she did. A couple times she’d say, ‘You’re such a nice guy, why do you work in that business?’ And I said, well, it’s not the same business that it was when she was in it. It’s a lot different and it’s better for the women and performers because of her.’ When people ask, what do you do, the first thing I say is, ‘I’m a pornographer. I make porn magazines.’

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

Previously on EV Grieve:
Out and About in the East Village, Part 1