Help Wanted sign of the day

Spotted outside m2m on Third Avenue at East 11th Street…

Keep an eye out for a 'homeless' Richard Gere today

Filming continues today for "Time Out of Mind," a drama in which a homeless man (Richard Gere) tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Dakota Fanning).

Crews will be around parts of First Avenue between East Sixth Street and East 10th Street… Oh, just look at the sign for the film boundaries…



And here is just one photo that the Daily Mail had of Mr. Gere from the shoot last week…

Doc Holliday's turning 20 this week

Wow… 20 years for the bar (with two Ls) at 141 Avenue A at East Ninth Street…

[File photo from 2010]

Zoltar caught moonlighting in Gettysburg, PA

EVG reader Dave - everywhere shared this photo from a recent trip to Gettysburg, PA. Despite the accusatory headline, this Zoltar is not the same as our Zoltar outside Gem Spa on Second Avenue. For starters, no tags! And his crystal ball wasn't smashed with a skateboard!

A good sign

At the Tompkins Square Park Greenmarket today. A good sign that maybe spring is here?

Via

Week in Grieview

[Photo by EVG contributor jdx]

RIP ‎Dennis Zentek (Monday)

Tompkins Square Park regular Spike struck and killed by SUV on Third Avenue (Thursday)

How about a Trader Joe's for Avenue A? (Tuesday, 85 comments)

Plans for new 9-floor building filed for Mobil station on Avenue C (Monday)

El Sombrero has closed (Sunday)

Out and About with Pamela Joy (Wednesday)

Virage closed for renovations (Monday)

M8 weekend service is returning (Friday)

Max Fish making an LES comeback (Thursday)

"Dirt dag" Urban Etiquette Sign! (Tuesday)

Plans revealed for 347 Bowery (Thursday)

The conclusion of "Dirty Old New York" (Wednesday)

Former Odessa Cafe & Bar is back on the market (Monday)

Ugh: 98-100 Avenue A lies in ruins (Tuesday)

Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (Tuesday)

First look at the all-new 50-62 Clinton St. (Wednesday)

Mod World the documentary (Friday)

Here's the new home for St. Mark's Bookshop (Thursday)

More about the future of the former 7A (Tuesday)

Rain man on 1st Avenue

This afternoon via EVG regular Grant Shaffer…

A few more tags and Zoltar will not be able to see the future

Outside Gem Spa on Second Avenue...

Call Harvey — and tell him someone broke the window

At the former laundromat at 44 Avenue B…

'Dial M for Motherfucker' 25 years later

To mark the 25th anniversary of Pussy Galore's "Dial M for Motherfucker," Nick Hutchings at The Quietus tracks down the band members (Jon Spencer, Julia Cafritz, Bob Bert, Neil Hagerty and Kurt Wolf) to discuss the making of the record.

An excerpt from Mr. Spencer:

Pussy Galore, while we were working on familiar tropes and recognisable forms and genres was very much sort of anti-music or reacting to, kicking against something.

I think that confrontation was a big part of Pussy Galore.

It was an honest to goodness rock & roll band as well. I don't think you'd be doing this interview if there weren't some cool rock songs in there, if there wasn't some meat. If it was just a conceptual affair and it was just confrontation full stop then we wouldn't have mattered as much to people.

According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, a song from the record, "Kicked Out," is played in an episode of the Fox show "House" titled "Games" ... "when Gregory House plays it to annoy Wilson and induce a seizure in a patient."

Heh.

Anyway, here's a live Pussy Galore performance from a few years earlier … 1987… if you want to annoy your neighbors… or just to enjoy!

For all your moving parts

Window shopping on East 14th Street… headline and photo courtesy of Andrew Adam Newman on Ave C.

Cat people

All the way from Syracuse, it's Perfect Pussy, who play at the Mercury Lounge on April 5.

Spring has sprung ... a leak

... at the Organic Grill on First Avenue... heh.

Photo via EVG contributor Derek Berg

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Tompkins Square Park the other morning]

Arrest made in shooting of Riis Houses teen (The Villager)

Celebrating 10-plus years of East Village Radio (The Village Voice)

Check out Charles Schick and Regina Bartkoff in "The Two-Character Play" at Bullet Space (292 Theatre)

Soaking up Ukrainian culture in the East Village (The New York Times)

Lucky's wants to stay on East Houston (BoweryBoogie)

Spell checking this street sign (The Lo-Down)

More about The Wash House on East First Street (Gothamist)

The first performance by the Ramones 40 years ago (Off the Grid)

Checking out the Predator on East 7th Street (Scouting NY)

Helping save a beloved shoe-repair business (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Tour Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles (Dangerous Minds)

... and tomorrow night at MoRUS on Avenue C via the EVG inbox...

Don't Waste People
Documentary Premiere with Director Julia Waterhous
Saturday, March 29
7 PM

In Honor of Women's History Month, MoRUS Opens its Doors for an Evening with Female Activist Filmmaker Julia Waterhous

"Don't Waste People" seeks to give voice to waste pickers in Delhi against dominant discourse that favors policies that exclude the poor. The film challenges assumptions, cultivates empathy, and encourages inclusivity.

The issues presented represent a global trend, and the secondary goal of "Don't Waste People" is to bring perspective to societies where wastefulness is encouraged by advertisements selling consumption under the guise of prosperity.

Find details here.

March 28

EVG reader Andrew spotted this beaut this morning on East Third Street between Avenue A and Avenue B...

While we mentioned the lack of any time stamp to prove that this is from today and not, say, Dec. 26 (is it? Please say no!)... we are allowing this one to stand, so to speak.

You see, under Evidence Rule 901, photographs are typically admitted as demonstrative evidence to illustrate discarded holiday/Christmas trees. When used purely as demonstrative evidence, legal issues regarding authentication are somewhat relaxed so long as a competent witness can testify that the photograph fairly and accurately depicts the tree about which he or she is submitting.

Former East Village boutique Mod World lives on in a new documentary

[Photo from 1997 by EVG reader Dave Buchwald]

You may recall Mod World, the offbeat boutique that had a 12-year-run (1994-2006) at 85 First Ave. near East Fifth St.

The store now lives on in a documentary of the same name. "Mod World" is the work of filmmaker-editor Jeff Turboff, an Upper East Side resident who lived for 11 years in the East Village.

"Mod World" made its debut on March 15 at the Producers Club on West 44th Street. Turboff is now hoping to screen the documentary at various film festivals. He answered a few questions for us via Facebook.

How did the documentary come to be? Did you start collecting footage at the time with a documentary in mind?

The first few years of the 2000s were a busy time for me on the independent filmmaking front. I was part of Quickflicks, a club where each member made a new short film each month. But I had also been on the lookout for something more ambitious than shorts. I was intrigued by the idea of making a documentary about artists, and at one point had started to make a film about Jonny Clockworks, the brilliant puppeteer, in his run-up to the year 2000 Henson Festival, but for various reasons the project was halted mid-production.

When I stumbled onto Mod World, a funky little East Village gift shop and art gallery; irreverent and snarky, but also upbeat and fun, I just thought I'd hang around for a few days, get people talking about their art, and maybe bang out a 5- or 10-minute docu short. But I really liked the people there, I got intrigued, and then I got patient.

What made Mod World a special place in your estimation?

My friend Laurie Turner in Texas, who I've known since I was a 14-year-old kid, owned some retail shops in Houston and then Austin, like Sheer Fantasy and Vertigo. I did a lot of hanging out in her stores, and she had cultivated that same kind of chaotic weird energy that eventually found its way to Mod World.

So when I stepped into Mod World, I think I must've felt a resonance there. Plus, Mod World had all this really cool, totally original, low-brow art. Modified Barbie Dolls, like Pinhead-from-Hellraiser Barbie, Giraffe-necked Barbie, stuff like that, and John Ross's really cool sculptures of cartoon characters in violent or adult situations… Ronald McDahmer, Drugs Bunny… I just thought, "This is so cool, I have to find out more about these people," and then it turned out that they were a really nice bunch. I immediately liked them and was intrigued.

The film's description includes this passage: "Lots of whacky East Village types pop into Mod World to share in the madness; the kind of people middle America might think of, if they were to think of the East Village." Do you think this East Village of just a few years ago still exists with the increased rents/upscale movement?

I think the East Village is changing. It has changed since then. But New York is a fluid place. Stuff comes and goes. Times Square ain't what it used to be. East Village ain't what it used to be. Everything loses its edge and adopts this sheen, slick with money and corporate infiltration, pushing out the cutting edge, until the cutting edge cuts back. I'm not talking about violent revolution, I'm talking about art and music.

Where the cradle for the next phase is, I don't know. It's not the East Village anymore, it won't be, probably, because the raw materials aren't there anymore. The raw materials are creatives with cheap rents. When the rents go up, the lifeblood of a creative community go with it… so "Mod World" the movie is a time capsule, yeah.

The film debuted on March 15. What is next for it?

What's next is, I'm rolling it out to festivals, if they'll have it, and interested in finding out if we can get it picked up for distribution. And if I have to do it D.I.Y.-style, I guess I'll find a way to do that. But I've got some faith that it's going to find legs, because the response so far has been fantastic. People love the characters, the music by Snuka, and John Ross's art, and it's a story that I think almost anyone can relate to, which is getting through hard times in the only way we know how; together, with love and a sense of humor.

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Check out the trailer here...


Modworld movie trailer 01 from Jeff Turboff on Vimeo.

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Postscript

One of the Mod World partners is behind It's A Mod Mod World, a bakery and gift stop retail store in Buffalo...

M8 weekend service resumes next Sunday

Some good news for people who need to travel from the East Village to the West Village (or the other way around!) on weekends. Starting next Sunday, the bus will once again operate on a weekend schedule. As you can see on the sign, the M8 will now run from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

It's part of something called NYC Transit's "2013-14 Service Enhancements Program."

Of course, the bad news is that the MTA has discontinued the M8's weekday service. KIDDING! KIDDING!

Here is the M8 route...



The weekend service was discontinued in June 2010 to help ease the MTA's $400 quintillion million financial shortfall.

Anyway! Welcome back!

Retail listing posted for former Blatt Billiards turning glassy 15-story building

Retail for lease signs are now up at the former home of Blatt Billiards at 809 Broadway between East 11th Street and East 12th Street... the pool table manufacturer left its home of 90 years at the beginning of 2014. (The manufacturing portion of the building moved to New Jersey; there's a new showroom on West 38th Street.)

The 126-year-old loft building is getting a big glassy addition. But more on that in a sec. As for the retail component of the new structure, there isn't much info per RKF. A few details:

• Landlord to install new floor-to-ceiling glass storefront
• Situated in the heart of the NYU campus
• Non-cooking food uses permitted

A little rendering action...



No. 809 sold for $24 million last May. The new owners have big plans here, as The Real Deal reported, by boosting the height of the 55-foot building to 199 feet — adding 10 stories to the five-story structure.

Here is a shot of the building last week, pre-retail-for-lease signs ...



And here are the latest renderings via Curbed on March 14 ... Brace!



Per Curbed: "The new building will host offices on floors two through eight and just three condos — a full-floor unit, a duplex, and a triplex — on the top floors."

Will the units feature pool tables from Blatt?

Previously.

Javelina Tex-Mex vying for prime corner space on Second Avenue and East 7th Street

Picnic, the restaurant serving comfort food at 117 Second Ave., abruptly closed back in January after just three months in business.

A restaurant called Javelina Tex-Mex looks to be taking over the space at East Seventh Street, according to the just-released April CB3/SLA licensing committee agenda.

There's an active website for a Javelina Tex-Mex, though there isn't any other information right now. Perhaps there's an interesting story here. The top of the site notes "Rellenos, Red Tape and Real Estate."



In any event, there will be plenty of Mexican choices right along this stretch of Second Avenue with Otto's Tacos and Taqueria Diana ... not to mention Dahlia's in the former Mary Ann's space on Second Avenue and East Fifth Street.

Previously 117 Second Ave. housed Song 7.2 and the Kiev.

Retail spaces still available at the IBM Watson building

Last June, we noted that three retail spaces were available at 51 Astor Place… Meanwhile, earlier this year, several readers noted that the listings ("flagship opportunity!") for the spaces were no longer active on the RKF site … leading some folks (like us!) to figure a retail announcement was imminent.

Apparently not! An EVG reader pointed out that new "retail space available" signs went up the other day at the IBM Watson building (aka, 51 Astor Place, the Death Star).



So while the building may be filling up with tenants, there aren't any takers yet for the retail portion… now being repped by SRS …



Here's part of their marketing materials…



Hey, they left off the Grassroots!

And to end … we'll recap a previous post…

EVG readers shared their thoughts last June on what kind of businesses they thought would lease these retail spaces. Popular answers included bank branch, bank and bank branch.

Previously on EV Grieve:
3 retail spaces available at 51 Astor Place (22 comments)