Week in Grieview

Raising money for the family of Wen Hui Ruan (Tuesday)

Stories from the Cadillac with the Tiger in it (Tuesday)

East Village Radio signs off (Saturday)

Flood on East Houston! (Thursday)

Is the end near for the BP station on Second Avenue? (Thursday)

Feast and the Google Glass drama (Friday)

Video: Watch the baby hawks eat! (Thursday)

Mimi Cheng's dumplings replacing Viva Herbal Pizzeria (Thursday)

Details on the luxury rental The Nathaniel, complete with rooftop reflection pool (Friday)

Move-out trash at NYU (Wednesday)

Out and About with Yehuda Emmanuel Safran (Wednesday)

Details on what's taking over for Sapporo East, and RIP Mother Earth (Monday)

New coffee shop coming to East 10th Street (Wednesday)

Barcade looking at 6 St. Mark's Place for next outpost (Tuesday)

Miss Lily's opens (Sunday)

Former Tu Case Recording Studio space for lease on Avenue B (Wednesday)

East 14th Street demolition (Monday)

Renovations at the new home of St. Mark's Bookshop (Tuesday)

Dunkin's Donuts on the move on East 14th Street (Monday)

The Mediterranean Grill and the Efendi Hookah Lounge closes (Tuesday)

Quick-serve Indian and Pakistani food coming to Fourth Avenue (Monday)

Check out the $$$$ rebranded "Eleventh and Third" (Wednesday)

This summer rental "penthouse" comes with hammocks (Thursday)

Spice Cove is moving on East Sixth Street (Tuesday)

Movie night in Tompkins Square Park (Wednesday)

China Wok is back open! (Tuesday)

… and checking in on some EVG analytics or whatever for the week…

Crunch Bowery opens with a preemptive 'there goes the neighborhood'

Crunch Bowery opened for business yesterday … and they are apparently making a funny with the "there goes the neighborhood" line …



The Crunch around the corner on Lafayette will close soon … because! As BoweryBoogie reported on May 16, 708 Broadway/404 Lafayette is being converted into a — ding! ding! — hotel!

Previously on EV Grieve:
Crunch moving to the Bowery; CB3 OKs New York Sports Club on Avenue A

The Loisaida Festival street fair is TODAY; big chair photos await

Day Three of the Loisaida Festival begins soon (depending on when you are read this) … it's the street fair component of the festival … on Avenue C between East Sixth Street and East 12th Street …

There is some of the usual street festival stuff… but this one also has more unique vendors …





… and yes! Gag holiday cards on the way!



Here are more details on what to expect today noon till 5:

Kid Zone — anchored at La Plaza Cultural Community Garden 9th Street & Ave C
Children and/or Puppet Theater, Storytelling, Arts & Crafts Workshops, Capoeira demos and more.

Green Zone — a designated block featuring environmental and civic organization offering hands-on learning on topics of environmental literacy, food waste & composting, neighborhood storm surge resiliency.

Exhibitors and Vendors
Will feature local Loisaida artists and NYC based Latin American artists, creative arts & crafts, clothing, community, civic and cultural organizations, housing and health services, domino tournament, sampling of diverse Latin American foods and staple Latino restaurants from the neighborhood.

You may head over to the official website for a list of the performers today and other details.

East Houston back to its good ol' normal self

[Photo Thursday by @maraaltman]

On Thursday morning, a ruptured pipe dating to 1959 flooded East Houston Street with mucky water. Crews worked overnight Thursday to fill in the sinkhole that formed after the break between Orchard and Ludlow … here is how East Houston was looking earlier today… almost as good as its old self!



Holiday weekend or not, the arrows, pointing to the formerly broken roadway, have to work…



The DEP claims that the break was an anomaly, according to NBC News, and not related to the ongoing East Houston Reconstruction Project between the Bowery and the FDR that is set to wrap up long after we're all dead.

Summer begins with random bags of soil and a note from the East Fifth St. Tree Committee

The official start to the summer season is off to a fine start … especially with a note from the local folk heroes of the the East Fifth St. Tree Committee.

PandaCat passes along these photos from last night on East Fifth Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square … showing a few bags of soil … now with a note!



"Please don't put this soil into the tree pit because then the soil level will be too high. If the are bags are a gift for the tree committee let us know."

Reasonable!

Also, just a reminder: Please do not attach bikes or carts to the tree guards. Thank you!

Previously on EV Grieve:
The East Fifth St. Tree Committee back in action

The East Fifth St. Tree Committee is alive and well, and they do not mess around

And now, a word from the East Fifth St. Tree Committee

The East Fifth St. Tree Committee reveals its policy about carts

Today at the Loisaida Festival

From the EVG inbox...

2:00 pm-6:00 pm / New Loisaida Center, 710 E 9th Street (just east of Avenue C) / Admission free

The Production of Nabe:
Loisaida’s land-use and environmental activism, past and present

Screenings: 3 vintage documentaries about Loisaida’s sweat-equity, community garden and environmental initiatives since the 1970’s.

“The Heart of Loisaida” by Marcie Reaven & Beni Matais

“11th Street Movement” by Stuart Leigh

“Umbrella House” by Catalina Santamaria

• Real-time Oral Histories: Historians interview old-time activists/players from Loisaida’s urban appropriation movement.
• Talk/Presentation: Contemporary land use issues, recent development and its environmental impacts in the LES by GOLES
• Debut of “Memorias de Loisaida”, a theatrical piece by artists in residence Papel Machete.

Here's the Festival website with more info. You can find the street festival and live music tomorrow on Avenue C from East Sixth Street to East 12th Street.

East Village Radio says goodbye with Johnny Thunders

[Photo last night by @edenbrower]

East Village Radio wrapped up its 11-year run just before midnight last night by playing "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" by Johnny Thunders … an appropriate song from the former New York Doll, Heartbreaker, one-time East Village native and subject of a new documentary …



East Village Radio reached out to listeners via Facebook and Twitter for suggestions of the last song … that wrapped up a four-hour sign-off party from the station's tiny First Avenue studio.

EVG reader Double U asked this in the comments of our earlier post:

Anyone recorded the final EVR hour?
Anyone who wants to share this historic recording?

Meanwhile, according to the East Village Facebook page, the station WILL NOT host any audio links to archived programming from the EVR website after this weekend. As they say, "Please follow/like your favorite DJs/show hosts for information on their archived EVR shows."

With various licensing fees, East Village Radio could no longer break even. CEO Frank Prisinzano made the difficult decision to shut down the station earlier this month, as we first reported.

I would like to thank the #eastvillage for being a place where something like EVR could happily exist. #RIPEVR east village radio
— Frank Prisinzano (@TheUnknownChef) May 24, 2014

Updated 5-26

Animal NY has an account of the station's last minutes here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Exclusive: East Village Radio is signing off after 11 years; final day of broadcasting is May 23

On the phone with Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls

Today in stoop sales

Avenue B and East 8th Street … 10 am to 2 pm …

Strike 1 …

Wow… a photo looking to the south in the East Village this evening via James and Karla Murray …

Starting out in the evening

Before this rain earlier this evening… via Bobby Williams…

Have a Beachy holiday weekend

Here we have Veronica Falls from 2010 with "Beachy Head."

Anyway, go, have fun! We'll be fine here alone. No, really!

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

[2nd Ave. & E. 4th St. via Derek Berg]

Search on for skateboarder who robbed this East Village apartment (CBS 2)

Details on the LES Film Festival 2014 (The Lo-Down)

About that black rock in First Park (BoweryBoogie)

Checking out the food at Box Kite on St. Mark's Place (The New York Times)

A Jerry Lewis retrospective at the Anthology Film Archives this weekend (Anthology Film Archives)

A look at the new Dairy Queen on East 14th Street (Eater)

Bar-restaurant Suspenders, an "emotional haven" in the days that followed 9/11, getting pushed out by landlord (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Recalling a hotel collapse on Broadway (Off the Grid)

White Castle coming to Coney Island's Luna Park (Amusing the Zillion)

7-Eleven just killed whatever remained of hipsterism (The Wire)

... and EVG contributor James Maher ran into Out and About in the East Village alum Angel Eyedealism the other day...



... and finally, an instant request...

@evgrieve A suggestion for today's video band, perhaps? (@ 9th and 3rd) pic.twitter.com/MV8ThHO6Xq

— Pinhead (@evpinhead) May 23, 2014

Oops. He meant the White Stripes! Next time!

East Village Radio signs off for good at midnight

[Delphine Blue during her last show Wednesday. Photo by Damian Genuardi]

As we first reported on May 14, East Village Radio is signing off after today's programming.

CEO Frank Prisinzano could no longer afford the increasing licensing costs for the 11-year-old Internet radio station with the tiny storefront studio on First Avenue.

Prisinzano and Peter Ferraro, the general manager/head of programming, addressed the issue in a guest column at Billboard.com on Tuesday.

We had opportunities for investors, but we didn't think we'd be given the autonomy to continue on the path we were on. There was never any discussion of selling out. It was always: "Run it properly or shut it down."

We were giving the world access to one of the most important musical neighborhoods on the planet via our live DJs. When you know that, you don't sell it out. You nurture it.

Now the two are deciding what should be the final song as the clock strikes midnight tonight. The pair took to the station's Facebook and Twitter accounts for suggestions.

Here's The Wall Street Journal with a story about the last song ... and the station's end days:

The suggestions were as eclectic as the Internet radio station’s programming — ranging from "My Way," as performed by Sid Vicious, to LCD Soundsystem's "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

"It could be anything from the Ramones to the Dolls to the Clash. I have been thinking about all the usual suspects," Mr. Ferraro said while bouncing around First Avenue in a tight East Village Radio T-shirt with the energy of a Labrador puppy.

Mr. Prisinzano, calmly sipping on a mug of beer, added his two cents: "It could be a one-hour John Bonham drum solo," referring to the Led Zeppelin drummer.

"Hopefully, someone nails it," Mr. Ferraro said. "The fans really get us. They will tell us what we should play."

Tough call on a last song.

I'll put in for Richard Hell and the Voidoids with "Time" …



In any event, the East Village Radio sign-off party streams live tonight starting at 8.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Exclusive: East Village Radio is signing off after 11 years; final day of broadcasting is May 23

A Google Glass Feast

Here's a story coming from Feast, the one-plus-year-old restaurant on Third Avenue near East 13th Street.

Feast has enjoyed positive reviews, notching a solid 4 our of 5 stars in the Yelp and Open Table worlds. But last week management noticed 13 recent one-star reviews on Google, which comes up first when you search for Feast.

What happened for this many negative reviews to arrive at once?

Toward the end of last month, Feast said that they had a customer arrive as a walk-in for brunch. She was wearing Google Glass. A few months previously, they had another diner wearing a pair and the restaurant received several comments about privacy from other guests. Restaurant staff asked the person to remove them, and he quickly consented.

So when the other diner came in wearing Google Glass, management asked her to take them off before dining. She refused, and left the restaurant.

"We try to give everyone the best experience possible and she didn't get that," Feast management admitted to us.



On April 20, the diner wrote a post about what happened, which apparently angered some of her 3,000-plus Google+ followers.

Around this time the spate of reviews arrived on Google. Feast looked into this, and discovered that all of the one stars are from people who commented on the diner's original Google+ post. The negative reviews include lines such as: "Ignorant bigots and hateful. Perhaps being illegally discriminate too. The food is irrelevant as the service is less than poor." The reviewer lives in Phoenix.



The Google review of Feast is currently 3.1 out of 5 stars, up from 2.4 the previous week.

"When the first thing that comes up when you search Feast in Google is a 3.1, it can really hurt a restaurant like us. Then you have 13 people, which is about half the total reviews, who have never been to our restaurant let alone live in NYC, leave you one-star reviews … it's malicious and technically a violation of Google's own terms for leaving reviews," the Feast manager said. "Again I can understand her leaving the one-star based on her experience, but 12 others with no experience on who we are or what we do is unfair."

The Feast manager figures this will become an even bigger issue for the food-service industry as Google Glass hits the mainstream.

And for Feast, the restaurant doesn't have a final policy on the matter yet. "The fact is that the policy of asking Google Glass wearers to remove them is based off experience. It's not a policy set in stone so it could very well change."

The overnight work on the East Houston Street sinkhole

Crews worked around the clock to repair the sinkhole that formed after a ruptured pipe flooded East Houston Street with mucky water yesterday morning.

EVG reader Connor Sheets took these photos between 1:30-2 a.m. …





East Houston Street was closed between Allen and Essex after the 20-inch water main dating to 1959 broke.

"When that type of water starts rushing out of a pipe, it's gonna take everything with it," Jim Roberts, the city Department of Environmental Protection's deputy commissioner of water and sewer operations, told the Daily News.

This stretch of East Houston has seemingly been under construction since 1959 … however the DEP claims that the break is an anomaly, according to NBC News.

The DEP said they shut off the water to five adjacent businesses and eight residential buildings. Katz's, who sustained heavy losses after its basement flooded, was able to remain open for business during all this — the deli is connected to an adjacent main. Unfortunately, its neighbor, the Lobster Joint, didn't fare so well.

"We're out of business," general manager Alex Linomontes told The Wall Street Journal. "We still have bills to pay, and there are hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage."

In the basement, workers in industrial rubber boots waded through stagnant brown water, salvaging what they could. Mr. Linomontes said he lost refrigerators, boilers, and other equipment to flooding — along with tens of thousands of dollars worth of seafood.

East Houston was expected to be open to motorists later this morning.

This photo (via BoweryBoogie) by @ja0095 is the best shot that we've seen of the damage…

Upscale rentals and a rooftop reflection pool at The Nathaniel on 3rd Avenue

[Photo from May 10]

As far as we knew, the Karl Fischer-designed 9-story retail-residential complex on Third Avenue and East 12th Street … was going as 74-84 Third Ave. …

[From November 2011]

Anyway! That was only temporary! Say hello to The Nathaniel at 138 E. 12th St. …



We learned about The Nathaniel (who or what is this named for anyway?) via an article in the Post yesterday about new luxury rentals.

Luxury indeed!

According to the Post (we didn't spot this part online), studios start at $3,470; one-bedrooms start at $4,600; two-bedrooms start at $6,650; and three bedrooms at — !!!! — $11,500.

Here's a description of the place via Luxury Rentals Manhattan:

[T]he apartments for rent at the Nathaniel boast generous layouts, custom high-gloss cabinetry, white oak flooring, and oversized closet space. The kitchens feature caesar stone white countertops and each residence is fitted with a washer and dryer for your convenience. Select residences at 138 East 12th Street also offer private terraces. Luxury amenities at the Nathaniel include a 24-hour attended lobby, private gym, bicycle storage, club room, and rooftop sun lounge with reflection pool.

As pricy as this seems (IS), The Nathaniel is still more affordable than the incoming Eleventh and Third across the Avenue.

The corner parcel on Third Avenue and East 12th Street where The Nathaniel sits was previously home to Nevada Smiths, Yummy House and a parking lot.

[EVG file photo from November 2011]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Those persistent rumors about 74-76 Third Avenue and the future of Nevada Smiths

The East Village will lose a parking lot and gain an apartment building

Former Nevada Smiths down to its last floor; city OKs work for new building

Bendy thing sighting as 84 Third Ave. eclipses the AMC Loews Village 7

Westside Market coming to the East Village

Let there be LED light in the Northwest East Village!

[Photo via EVG reader Katja]

Several readers have pointed out the lights adorning the Jefferson, the incoming condos at 211 E. 13th St. near Third Avenue … aka, the Northwest East Village …


[Photo via EVG reader Uncle Pete]

Maybe it's some sort of lighting to bring this back home to the former Mystery Lot, where the Jefferson stands now?

Previously on EV Grieve:
About the 'Northwest East Village'

Here is your new East 9th Street bike lane!

Well last week a reader pointed out that the bike lanes hadn't returned yet on East 10th Street and East 9th Street after the recent pave job… well, the bike lane is back on East Ninth Street as of Wednesday. Kind of!

Not sure what is going on here between First Avenue and Second Avenue … maybe this is just for unicycles? OK, probably not done. Or did the city make some kind of mistake?









Thanks to EVG reader dbs for all the photos.

By the way, the bike lane on East Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue appears to be the right size...

This weekend in Lower East Side History Month

There's a lot going on this weekend connected with the first Lower East Side History Month … from the Tenant Rights Walking Tour to the 27th Annual Loisaida Festival (now with three days of activities).

There are too many events to mention here.

So!

Head on over to the History Month event calendar for all the listings.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Yesterday morning from 1st Avenue]

East Village resident dies in motorcycle crash on the Williamsburg Bridge (DNAinfo)

A look at the site "Now It's a Fucking FroYo Place" (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Demolishing the LES Pathmark (The Lo-Down)

Surveying the messy Astor Place redesign (BoweryBoogie)

A "secret fitness spot" on the Bowery (New York Post)

A new chef at Northern Spy on East 12th Street (Grub Street)

... and tonight at Ella Lounge at 9 Avenue A... keeping some punk spirit alive with the East Village-based Jiggers Is King...