There are still good record stores around here

[A1 Records via the EVG files]

Despite a few (OK, a lot of) record store closings in recent years ... there are still several excellent places to buy music around here... Gothamist dropped their "12 best" yesterday ... and the East Village was well represented...

• Other Music, 15 E. Fourth St. between Lafayette and Broadway

• Turntable Lab, 120 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue

• Academy Records, 2 W. 18th St. between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue ... not to mention their sort of (right?) affiliated location at 415 E. 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue

• A1 Records, 439 E. Sixth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue

As Gothamist noted, "Every record store in this city deserves a shoutout for surviving this long."

Indeed, so here's also a shoutout to Good Records NYC at 218 E. Fifth St. between Second Avenue and Cooper Square.

Closing times for Shakespeare and Company and Kim's

By now you are likely painfully aware that Shakespeare & Company, 716 Broadway, and Kim's Video & Music, 124 First Ave., are closing soon.



There have been several closing dates in circulation about the book shop that opened here in 1987.

According to a report at NY1, the store shutters for good after Sept. 6.

Per NY1:

It's a familiar refrain among small retailers in the East Village: "The rent has gone up," says Margot Liddell, general manager of Shakespeare and Company Books.

"I've had calls from kids, from California, from all over the place that say, 'We've heard you're going out of business and its horrible and this was our home,' you know, so...'" Liddell says.

When Shakespeare closes, many people expect a national chain store to move into the space, fitting in with this stretch of Broadway.

Items are currently 30 to 50 percent off... we haven't been inside since earlier this summer, so we can't speak of any specific deals ...



Kim's closes for good after the business day on Monday. New releases are now 50 percent off and everything else is 75 percent off.

We'll likely go back one more time, as depressing as the store kinda is now. Maybe pick up that (yet another) "Daydream Nation" reissue (we own it on cassette!) ... we might stare at that reissue of Ciccone Youth's "The Whitey Album," even though we sold it back once in like 1990. And there were a few other things too.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reader report: Shakespeare & Company loses lease on Broadway

Shakespeare & Company space is for lease on Broadway

[Updated] A really bad sign outside Kim's Video & Music on First Avenue (31 comments)

Listing for Kim's Video says space is 'ideal for Bank, 711, Starbucks'

So long Emma's Dilemma

OK, so:

• This is a little outside the usual EVG coverage zone at Park Avenue South and East 22nd Street.
• I have no idea when they closed this summer.
• Probably not the greatest loss in the grand scheme of things.

But!

• They were always really nice to me whenever I was there.
• I always liked the name — Emma's Dilemma Cafe.
• I can only imagine what chain or first NYC branch of a healthy fast-food operation that specializes in, say, collard-green wraps for $23 will open here.

The RKF listing for the space includes a rendering that just dazzles the imagination …

More about last night's #HandsUp march and the arrest on East 10th Street

[Photo on East 10th Street via Bobby Williams]

The Daily News has a report on last night's rally for Michael Brown … where participants marched through parts of the East Village to Union Square.

According to reports, the NYPD arrested a man on East 10th Street between Avenue C and Avenue D. To the News:

NYPD cops beat a man Wednesday night during a solidarity protest for Michael Brown, a video shows, although the circumstances surrounding the attack remained unclear early Thursday.

When asked for a comment on the video, police said the man was taken into custody on E. 10th St. near Ave. D, issued a C-summons for disorderly conduct and then released. They described his actions before the violent encounter as "tumultuous behavior."

The Daily News has the full 46-second video here.

Updated 12:04 p.m.

OK, here's the video the Daily News has via Facebook…

Post by Aminah Mae.

Previously on EV Grieve:
#HandsUp #TurnUp rally winding through the East Village; report of one arrest

I removed the Vine clip during the update…

Checking in on 58 E. Third St.

More than a year has passed since we last looked at "East Village3" aka "The #EV3" ... aka 50-58 E. Third St. where many longtime tenants lost their leases when new owners (GRJ, a fund co-founded and co-managed by brothers Graham and Gregory Jones) bought the walk-up building for $23.5 million in the spring of 2012.

We looked at units ranging in price from $4,900 to $5,150 for a post in March 2013.

EVG reader Yenta Laureate, who took the above photo, has been keeping tabs on the buildings between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

Yenta notes that the first and biggest of the downstairs duplex apartments at No. 58 rented for $11K a month earlier this summer. Aside from six bedrooms and four bathrooms, the unit features a private courtyard.

And how about the renovations in the buildings?

"The quality of the work and materials is quite good. All bricks have been properly re-pointed and mortared. Marble steps were replaced. I'd call the attention to detail unusually painstaking and quality oriented," Yenta said. "One cornice still needs doing but they seem to be seriously researching how to do that best. In some ways it is both a preservationist and luxury project about a type of comfortable authenticity."

"Which in no way justifies the misery they cause the few existing tenants who remain or abates their overall impact on the neighborhood."

By comparison, Jared Kushner's 170 E. Second St. is a "newer building with far better bones, but he is not doing this type of quality work."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reader report: Three apartment buildings sold on East Third Street

Advocate for East Third Street buildings moving to Washington Heights

More about the lease renewals at 50, 54 and 58 E. Third St.

Tenants at 50, 54 and 58 E. Third St. banding to together in face of building sale

More drama at 50-58 E. Third St.; 'heavy construction' awaits tenants who stay

And now the renovations really begin at 50-58 E. Third St.

The 'East Village3' is ready for you; for that 'Industrial Chic feel'

That post about Rizzo's

We posted this item about Rizzo's on Clinton Street no longer taking orders via Seamless, GrubHub, etc.

It prompted a lot of comments. Then, seriously, the post just vanished. We didn't remove it … we couldn't even find it in the Blogger drafts.

Um, anyway, we have the original photo … and the 41 comments. Maybe we'll just got back to bed now.

Reader report: Blinded by the Yonekichi light

[Monday night]

Yonekichi opened Monday at 236 E. Ninth St. And with the exception of some Daily News readers, people seem to like their specialty, rice burgers, at this sliver of a take-out spot between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.

So far, at least one neighbor is unhappy about their arrival. To the EVG inbox.

Starting Monday night their new storefront lit up our apartment like a UFO on an abduction hunt. They have 16 exterior lights hanging above their store in addition to their interior lights. They are so bright. To put it in perspective, there's a film crew shooting down the block and their lights don't even come close.

Some blackout curtains may be in order for the evening business hours.

Still, there's one bright side, so to speak.

"Thank God they kill the lights at 10."

CC Cyclery and Company now open on East 13th Street

CC Cyclery and Company opened last week at 530 E. 13th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B (closer to B) … it's the new bike shop from Jeff Underwood, who previously ran Continuum over on Avenue B.

EVG regular Crazy Eddie stopped by to say hello to Jeff…

Getting to know the family behind Westside Market, opening this fall on 3rd Avenue

The Times checks in with a feature on Ioannis (aka Big John) Zoitas and his wife, Maria, who opened Westside Market on Broadway near 110th Street-Cathedral Parkway in 1977.

Since then, the family has expanded, with store No. 6 opening this fall on Third Avenue at East 12th Street. The Zoitases' son, George, and his brother-in-law, Jimmy Beleses, will run the new store.

To the Times:

George has lived near the new market since June 2013 to learn about the neighborhood’s food mores. He shopped at markets, visited coffee shops and wine bars, and talked to residents about what they wanted in a community market.

Most of the Westside Markets operate around the clock, seven days a week. The inside of each store is designed by Big John with pencils, paper, a ruler and a few erasers.

As for the prepared foods, every dish is either made by Mrs. Zoitas, 57, or made with her recipes...

The Times does note that the new location is "something of a gamble: It will be less convenient to a subway entrance than the other stores, said the Zoitases’ son, George, and it will be going up against two nearby giants, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's."

Not to mention M2M on the southeast corner of Third Avenue and East 11th Street ... and there is Heavenly Market opening later this year on the northeast corner of Third Avenue and East 11th Street.

The market watch is on...


[Westside interior shot from Tuesday]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Westside Market coming to the East Village

The new Westside Market on Third Avenue will have Wi-Fi

#HandsUp #TurnUp rally winding through the East Village; report of one arrest

[Photo by jdx]

All sorts of reports coming in regarding the #HandsUp #TurnUp rally that started earlier this evening at Sarah D Roosevelt Park. The march is in remembrance of Mike Brown.


[Photo on 2nd Avenue via @alexisperrotta]

We're still sorting out everything… so far, there is a report of an arrest on Avenue A.

5-7 cops just piled on top protester in east village and arrested him in #NYC protest for #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/ZaZeY9eQ0k

— palina prasasouk (@visiitor) August 21, 2014

Protest outside my window @visiitor: 5-7 cops just piled on top protester in #eastvillage and arrested him in protest 4 #Ferguson...

— Claudia Lucio (@RecruitingGeek) August 21, 2014

One resident figures there were 100-plus people "yelling 'no justice,' 'no peace' on East 6th Street. At least 40 NYPD with zip tie handcuffs too."

Here's video from East Sixth Street and Avenue B…



Here's another snippet of video via Grant Shaffer…



More to come…

Updated 10:32 p.m.

More photos… via EVG regular jdx …











Updated 10:49 p.m.

The rally has moved to Union Square …


[Photo via @PeterKimFrank]

There's an update here.

Missing the light

EVG contributor Derek Berg came across this minor collision early this afternoon on Second Avenue at East Fourth Street ... the NYPD was on the scene to sort out who did what ...

RIP Rebecca Lepkoff

Acclaimed street photographer Rebecca Lepkoff died Sunday in Vermont. She was 98.

She split time between NYC and Southern Vermont the past six decades.

Lepkoff was born on Aug. 4, 1916, in a Hester Street tenement on the Lower East Side, "the neighborhood that would become her photographic muse," according to her obituary in The Commons, a local Vermont publication.

Her husband of more than 70 years, Eugene, survives her. "She lived a long and incredible life," said Jesse Lepkoff, her son. "She was an amazing artist, mother and person."

The Lo-Down interviewed her in October 2011.

Lepkoff purchased her first camera, a Voigtlander, with money she scraped together from working as a dancer at the 1939 World’s Fair and turned her ravenous eye to street photography. Her photographs capture the bustle of the LES in the 1940s and 50s, depicting loiterers, butchers, shoemakers, mothers and especially, kids. As a modern dancer who took classes with Martha Graham, Lepkoff must have identified with the frenetic energy of the streets — a different kind of contemporary ballet.

"I went outside and at that time, people lived in the streets — everything happened in the streets," Lepkoff recalls. "People would go out and sit with baby carriages. They sat on the stoops."

As she told the authors of "Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950" ...

"People ask me — how did you know what to take? I didn’t even have to think. I just went outside, and there were the streets of my mother, of me, and whatnot. Very alive, full of activity, with people."

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: Jack Sal
Occupation: Artist
Location: New York Public Library, 10th between A and B
Date: 5:45 pm Thursday July 31

I’m from Connecticut. I moved to the city about two years after graduate school. I lived in SoHo from around ’81 to ’83. People would go to the local bars like Puffy’s in Tribeca or Fanelli’s – Fanelli’s only if you were a figurative painter. I remember at Puffy’s the idea was that you’d learn how to drink whiskey, smoke Camels and show your slides. There was only one local place where you would get food, and if you didn’t make it by 6 p.m., that was it — you’d have to walk all the way to Chinatown. There were a lot of artists but it was a mix of people. There were the wives and husbands of the artists and there were still factories.

I got bought out. I was a SoHo refugee. Someone bought the building and I had to leave and then I ended up buying a building in the neighborhood. It was affordable.

On 6th Street, when I moved in, all the storefronts used to be small shops, like aluminum, metalworkers or upholsterers of furniture. You used to be able to go to Canal Street and buy surplus equipment, surplus materials, and now you can’t find a local metal cutter or welder. Then the galleries happened. Literally it was like mushrooms. People were using storefronts. The galleries went with the boom and bust of the late ‘80s.

It got pretty rough down here with crack and all of that. When I was renovating the building with my partners, two of whom were photographers, William Wegman and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. We would renovate and at night they’d come and steal the tools and you’d go back on the street in the morning and buy them off a blanket and get back to work. We had the lot line windows bricked up because they would just break through all the time. I remember if you left a pencil on your dashboard you’d find your window smashed. I had a friend who would leave his car open because he said it was easier to get a guy who was sleeping in it out than it was to buy a new window or lock, although after awhile I wouldn’t drive in his car because it was smelly.

I’m an artist. I do conceptual, installation. I began as a photographer tied up with The ICP. I’m one of the founders of the education department in the ‘80s. I often do work where I do research about the place and use that within the context of the work. I often use photographic materials or materials that change with time.

We’re actually leaving now. It has more to do with personal and building situations. I mean, there are still very interesting restaurants and places here, but it just doesn’t feel the same. Not that I’m not being nostalgic for finding crack vials, but you used to be able to discover a place, a restaurant or a store, and it would be interesting because someone was trying something, but now it feels like someone is just trying to find a formula.

New York is no longer the source place that it used to be. It’s essential to be here but it’s not essential to live here. I thought I’d never say that about New York. Now it’s very different. It’s very expensive. I don’t know how someone without a significant income, or who is not accumulating significant debt, can stay here. Anyone.

I have in the past rented some of my spaces out and there are young people who come and they work I don’t know how many hours a week and then they sort of blow off steam and then they go on vacation. That seems to be the cycle. I mean, everyone for their own, but it doesn’t seem very self-nurturing or self-generating. It’s not like a moral view but why now are brunches advertised as all you can drink? I don’t drink myself but I can imagine having one or two Bloody Mary’s at lunch, but the idea that you’d go out to get drunk on Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon is indicative of this culture of numbness.

Now there’s a bar next door to me that makes $23 dollar drinks. They have created this self-illusion of selectivity by not letting people in. They call you when they’re ready, so you feel even more like, ‘Oh I got in.’ It’s always full other than Monday night. There’s always a crowd outside waiting. As my girlfriend is saying, ‘What are these young people going to be like after years of drinking.’ What kind of effect physically and mentally is it going to have and also in terms of what their expectations are going to be, because if you’ve been numbing yourself for a long while, when you stop it’s not necessarily going to get better.

It says a lot about America. New York is and always has been a kind of experiment for the United States because unlike the rest of the country, by default it’s been a kind of forced mixed, immigrant, old, established, rich, poor, it has all the defects of American culture with all the benefits as well. So you get this kind of hotbed of both the triumph of what’s good and the hell and horror of what’s bad. You get people who are buying $1.3 million apartments in what used to be a $300 rent-stabilized place. That extreme is not healthy.

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

Reader mailbag: Where can I get my Mac fixed now?

From the EVG reader mailbag:

My MacBook Air is on its last legs and needs repair. Any sense where our neighbors are taking their machines in for repair now that Digital Society on East 10th Street has left us? They were so awesome. The folks at Tekserve can be obnoxious — a bit too much testosterone. And I'd rather take sandpaper to my [redacted] than go to an Apple store.

Sandpaper! Anyone with Mac-repair advice?

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

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: What has happened to the Cooper Station Post Office? (41 comments)

Reader mailbag: Can the landlord 'drill' the lock to gain access to my apartment for simple repairs? (15 comments)

Reader mailbag: Should we receive a rent abatement for having sporadic heat and hot water?

Reader mailbag: How often does your mail get delivered?

Citi Bike makes its kiosks easier to understand, probably

Citi Bike stations around the city are getting a new, user-friendly design.



This past winter, Citi Bike served as a client for first-year SVA students in MFA Interaction Design. Their challenge: "come up with ways to make Citi Bike more user-friendly for its hundreds of thousands of new and casual riders."

As the Citi Bike Tumblr explains, the proposals were so impressive that they decided to work with two of the students "to bring their work out of the classroom and into the streets."

We spotted the revamped visuals at several East Village docking stations last evening, like this one on East Second Street and Avenue C...

How does the East Village stack up in the city's dog poop wars?

[EVG file photo from East 12th Street]

Pretty well, thanks!

DNAinfo has unleashed a handy interactive map that shows dog poop complaints by zip code in the five boroughs.

Around here, zip 10009 logged 30 complaints to 311 while 10003 tallied 10 complaints in the past two years. You have to head up to Hamilton Heights in zip 10031 to find any comparable numbers in Manhattan.

Still, the number here are dwarfed by several neighborhoods in the Bronx — Norwood, West Farms and Soundview — which led the five boroughs in complaints to the city's 311 system with 135 or more.

Not picking up after your dog is a violation of the "Pooper Scooper" law, introduced in 1978, which carries a $250 fine. But, as DNAinfo notes, a sanitation officer must witness a violation in order to issue a ticket, according to the Department of Sanitation.

H/T @Urbanmyths

[Updated] Ricky's coming to former Blockbuster space on East Houston Street

As the signage shows here along the Shoppes of Red Square, another Ricky's is on the way. (The Lo-Down noted this first yesterday.)

The space at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B had its last full-time retailer here in March 2012 when the Blockbuster closed. (Soho Billiards contemplated a move here, though those plans never materialized.)

As for Ricky's, this will be the third location in the East Village … there are 22 Ricky's in Manhattan alone. Soon to be 23 places in Manhattan to buy the Pub Crawl Santa suit.

Anyway, guess this means the Halloween City pop-up shop won't be back…

Updated 6:29 a.m.

Ah! BoweryBoogie notes that this location will only serve as a Halloween pop-up shop. He has an interior shot … which looks to have a temporary grab-and-go (but pay first!) set up… Anyway! NEVER too early to start planning your Halloween costume! Will do a post on that as soon as I buy my xmas decorations…

Let's not make the Bendy Tree any easier to climb!

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

Hmm. This ladder arrived the other day at the Bendy Tree, the elm next to the the Hare Krishna Tree in the center of Tompkins Square Park.

No need to give anyone an incentive to climb aboard ...


[Photo from April by Bobby Williams]

Park workers have been keeping an eye on this great tree... not that we have much confidence now when it comes to tree maintenance in the city.

2 doors down

Up for grabs early this evening outside 233 E. 10th St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue…

Surprise! Police Commissioner not a big fan of 'celebrating graffiti'

[East 6th Street at 1st Avenue]

Police Commissioner William Bratton responded to the Museum of the City of New York's graffiti-art exhibit "City as Canvas."

"I find it outrageous that one of the city's museums is currently celebrating graffiti and what a great impact it had on the city," Bratton said Monday during a meeting with Wall Street Journal editors.

And later...

Mr. Bratton further objected to "having New York City school kids at the impressionable age of 12 years old walking through looking at this stuff and having it advertised as 'Isn't this great?'"

And the museum's response?

Susan Henshaw Jones, City Museum's director, said the show is intended to show how graffiti became an art form, not to glorify vandalism. "We are not in the business of trying to encourage children, teenagers, grown-ups or elders to do graffiti," she said.

Read the article here. (Subscription required)