Union Square tonight

Thousands of protestors have taken to NYC streets again tonight to protest yesterday's grand jury decision not to indict the NYPD officer involved in the Eric Garner chokehold case.

A march to 1 Police Plaza started at 5 p.m. from Union Square.

Photos by James and Karla Murray.

Meanwhile...

@ChristRobbins at Gothamist is among the many reporters providing live updates.

Among many tweets…

#EricGarner protests continue in force. Follow @joejackson, @bkesling, @ZushaElinson on streets coast to coast. http://t.co/Xxg8YtMuS2

— Pervaiz Shallwani (@Pervaizistan) December 5, 2014

And the livestream…

NYPD arrives full force ahead of tonight's Eric Garner rally on Union Square

The NYPD arrived en masse this afternoon along Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue (where they have been camped out the past 10 or so days) between East 10th Street and East 14th Street...













Another night of protests are expected around the city in the wake of yesterday's grand jury decision not to indict the NYPD officer involved in the Eric Garner chokehold case.

One rally begins at the north side of Union Square at 5 ... with a march down to 1 Police Plaza.

Photos via EVG reader Robert F.

A new (old) awning arrives at the Holiday

This morning, workers installed a new awning outside the former Holiday Cocktail Lounge at 75 St. Mark's Place.

And it's an exact replica of the previous awning...



Back in July, some dude on a skateboard came by and slashed the name off of it.

The new awning is the next step for the new venture here. As previously reported, Barbara Sibley, the owner of La Palapa next door, will help run a tavern-restaurant in this space.

First, though — the building had to undergo a top-to-bottom renovation. And it has taken awhile. Sibley has firsthand experience — she lives in the building. She talked to us about it back in January.

The building was in terrible condition ... It’s been such an exercise in zen and archaeology. As much as we’ve been trying to maintain it, you couldn’t keep everything. We were lucky on their closing night that we didn’t all fall through. Every time we look behind a wall it’s been a major repair. It’s been an endless process.

The Holiday 2.0 closed Jan. 28, 2012.

No word yet on an opening date... but the new place will go by the name the Holiday.

Tough times for desserts on 2nd Avenue

Several readers noted that the Red Mango on Second Avenue just below East Fourth Street had been closed in recent weeks. Winter hiatus?

The ownership confirmed to us that this location has permanently closed.

Red Mango just opened here in February, which may not have been the best time to open a FroYo shop…

A Red Mango also came and went pretty quickly on St. Mark's Place back in 2008.

Meanwhile, directly next door, Gelato Ti Amo, which was part of an international Tuscany-based chain, has also permanently closed. Workers were cleaning out the 2-year-old space last night.



Perhaps there are enough dessert choices in the neighborhood?

Previously on EV Grieve:
Uh-huh: Red Mango returning to the East Village (19 comments)

Movement underway to reoccupy the Yippie Museum

Several EVG Facebook friends shared this campaign with us... Yippie activist Dana Beal has launched a crowdfunding effort to take back the group's longtime home at 9 Bleecker St.

Here's some of the info via GoFundMe:

For over four decades, #9 Bleecker Street has been the headquarters of American and even international counterculture. It is the official home of the Yippies, (Youth International Party) a group of late 60's activist pranksters initiated by the legendary Abbie Hoffman working to create positive social change by mocking and subverting the establishment.

In 2006, the space was converted into The Yippie! Museum and Cafe. a space devoted to preserving the history of American activism and providing a location where young activists can mobilize – such as the Occupy Wall Street movement who used it to stage meetings and hold fundraisers.

In late 2013, the Yippie! Museum was snatched away by unscrupulous real estate developers who specialize in gentrification. They used deceptive and outright illegal tactics to take possession of the space and shut it down, robbing the national activist community and the world of a vital one-of-a-kind resource and historic location.

We are asking for ALL who read this message to join our crusade to Re-Occupy The Yippie! Museum by making a donation!

As of last night, there were two donations for $38 ... with a $50,000 goal. The money would go to pay "legal bills, maintain the museum's objets d' art, artifacts and documents — including irreplaceable Yippie! archives."

The three-story brick building at No. 9 has been the centerpiece in a long-running foreclosure battle. (Read this story in the Times from January for all the legal wrangling.)

As the Times reported in June 2013, Steven L. Einig, a lawyer for Centech, which holds the building's mortgage, "stated that Yippie Holdings, which bought Number 9 along with a nonprofit called the National AIDS Brigade, had failed for more than five years to make payments on the $1.4 million mortgage."

For their part, a lawyer for Yippie Holdings, said that the group was "compelled into foreclosure with payments being rejected" by Centech as part of a scheme or plan to take over the building.

The Yippies had to be out this past Jan. 17 for new tenants while the fight continued about No. 9's ownership.

The new tenant, Overthrow, named for one of the countercultural newspapers that the Yippies published here, is a boxing gym/training facility/party spot.

In an interview published Nov. 18 at Bedford + Bowery, Beal said, "We’re still fighting the case. We're trying to get a group of people together to pay off a foreclosure, and then we'll have the building – we’ll have the title. And then I'll be renting to [Overthrow]."

Beal also said that he was glad that the space was being rented to some "Yippie-flavored people" who appreciate No. 9's counterculture history.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Yippie Museum Cafe is in financial trouble

The Yippie Museum Cafe will reopen next Wednesday

A bad sign at the Yippie Museum

Last day for the Yippies at No. 9 — for now

Fights of a different kind coming to 9 Bleecker St., longtime home of the Yippies

About Overthrow NYC, the boxing gym coming to the former home of the Yippies at 9 Bleecker St.

Report: Debris falls from long-vacant 6 Avenue B, breaking the foot of a passerby

On Tuesday evening, debris from atop the corner building on Avenue B at East Houston fell, apparently breaking the foot of a 57-year-old man passing by on the sidewalk, the Lo-Down reported.

The FDNY promptly ordered a structural stability inspection and logged a complaint with the Department of Buildings.

As for the rest of the building here at 6 Avenue B, the liquor store has been closed since the owner passed away in the fall of 2009.

And as previously noted, this is one of the abandoned buildings owned by the mysterious team of Arthur and Abraham Blasof, now both deceased.

BoweryBoogie has some photos from the scene here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Cleaning out the long-closed liquor store on Avenue B and East Houston

Is something finally happening to the long-vacant, mysterious 6 Avenue B?

d.b.a is temporarily closed for renovations

We walked by d.b.a. last night and noticed that the gates were down at the bar at 41 First Ave. We didn't spot any signs offering an explanation.

However, there is a message on d.b.a.'s Facebook page dated Monday:

Dear Customers!!! d.b.a is temporarily closed for renovations. Stay tuned for reopening date - and Yes! new loos!!!

As previously noted, David McWater is the bar's new owner. On Nov. 17, CB3's SLA committee approved a new liquor-license for the 20-year-old bar. As BoweryBoogie reported: "Nothing about the bar is changing; it’s the same name, same method of operation, and same staff."

Ray Deter and Dennis Zentek opened d.b.a. in 1994. Deter died in July 2011 from the injuries he suffered in a bicycling accident. Zentek died on March 23 from head injuries he sustained in a fall down a flight of stairs.

The d.b.a. in Williamsburg closed for good after service this past Sunday.

Parlor turns 20

Parlor, the hair salon at 102 Avenue B near East Seventh Street, is celebrating its 20th anniversary tonight from 7:30 to 10:30.

Proprietor Gwenn LeMoine told us that they'll be pizza from her neighbors at Gruppo as well as cocktails, makeup artist Rudy Miles … and music via Hannah Thiem.

"We would love all of our neighbors to come to celebrate to thank them for a wonderful 20 years," LeMoine said.

S & P Liquor & Wine back in business on East 5th Street for real

OK, back in October we pointed out that S & P Liquor & Wine at 300 E. Fifth St. just east of Second Avenue had reopened after the city closed the business for a structural issue in one of the apartments in the building above…

Unfortunately, they had to close again for further repairs in October.

But! EVG readers Steven and Moe both told us that S & P reopened last Friday … in total, they missed about four months of income due to the city-mandated closure.

While this is good news for S & P, Jamie the check-chasing guy next door is still operating from the van outside while waiting for repairs to be completed in his storefront.

Previously on EV Grieve:
3 small businesses temporarily closed due to structural issues at 300 E. 5th St.

Friends and family searching for Brandyn Simmons, last seen in the East Village

Brandyn Simmons, who most recently was living in Williamsburg, was last seen Sunday evening leaving a friend's apartment on Third Avenue and East 12th Street...

Out and About in the East Village, Part 1

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: Arthur Nersesian
Occupation: Writer
Location: Angelina Café, Avenue A between 2nd and 3rd Street
Time: 1 pm on Wednesday, Nov. 19

I was born and raised in the city. My grandfather was born on 9th Street and Avenue B, behind St. Brigid’s in 1899, so I didn’t make it very far. My mother’s side is Irish and my father’s side is Armenian. I grew up in Midtown for my first 10 years of life, on 50th and 3rd, when it was still a low- to middle-income German-Irish neighborhood. Our entire block got evicted. We had lived in a 5-story tenement and we paid something like $50 a month for an entire month, rent controlled. Of course the whole block was evicted and now it’s a 75-story office building.

Throughout my life we’d come down to the Village. I had memories of coming to the East Village when my mother was getting her MSW at NYU. I have this indelible memory of seeing the Alamo, the black cube in Astor Place.

But through the early 1970s, Broadway was kind of the Rubicon that you didn’t pass. East of Broadway you were kind of asking for it. I remember in the early 1970s venturing down to the East River Park for the first time and just being amazed by how far east the city went down here.

A story that I always tell is when I lost my virginity. It was a girl who was living between A and B on 7th Street, in 1973 or 1974. I was about 16 years old. I remember, we had the sacred moment and then as I was walking home it was totally desolate and somebody was sort of throwing bottles and cursing at me. I just thought this is not worth losing your virginity for. I was convinced I was not going to make it. I was trying to make it to 3rd Avenue because cabs did not go East of 3rd. I thought, I am going to die here tonight and it wasn’t worth it. The moment that every young man craves, but all I remember is the terror. I don’t remember anything erotic about it. Am I going to make it out of the East Village? I’m never coming back here again.

As someone who was born and raised in the city, I remember seeing it steadily getting worse. I mean, everyone I knew back then kind of saw it as going the way of Detroit. I thought New York was going to go under. Everyone had an escape plan. Everyone had gotten mugged and burglarized. People don’t understand. You paid your rent with your guts and everybody had stories, if not a story. You just saw the city shrinking. I really thought I was going to have to find somewhere else to move to, after three generations.

If you had asked a 1979 Arthur Nersesian how New York would look in 2014, I would have said by this point Midtown would be part of the slum that stretched from Crown Heights and Brownsville and Bed-Stuy. The Lower East Side would have completely encompassed Midtown. You saw the city shrinking, spreading into this metastasized cancer of the city going under.

But I ended up moving into the East Village when I was 22. I had been hanging out here throughout the 1970s as it slowly got better and then in 1981 I moved to where I am now on First Avenue.

The 1980s was the hippie entrepreneur period and there was a lot of collective work. It was affordability, the notion of grabbing a storefront and turning it into an art gallery. You did feel this sense of possibility. I was part of the Lower East Side Literary Journal.

It’s amazing how this area had these wonderful artistic communities within this tight area, these music communities, the punks on up, to the artistic communities, the abstract expressionists on 10th Street, a theatre community, little theatre row, even a film community all packed into this one area with a certain level of overlap. And then you had these overlapping demographics, such as the local Latin community and some of the old time Italian and Jewish community people. They made for a really interesting stew. It was just a perfect balance of economy and artistry and sensibility and a kind of anarchy where you felt like you could do stuff. You felt like you could be left alone. It was just a really great place to grow up as an artist and to find your footing.

I did every kind of odd job you can imagine. Just in this neighborhood, I worked in the St. Marks Cinema on the corner of 2nd Avenue and St. Mark's Place at $3.35 an hour. It was rough. It was the hardest money you ever earned in your life. It’s always that way, the lowest pay and the hardest work. You had to deal with a lot of the locals, the tougher kids, and you had to deal with the alcoholics and addicts and so on. For $3.35 an hour to take a punch, that was a pretty hard way to make a living. After that I managed the Cinema Village over on 12th Street.

That was the invisible, x-factor here. It was kind of unwieldy, tough, and at the same time it kept things very real. Second Avenue from St. Mark's to 5th Street would be lined with people who basically just went through the garbage cans and found what they could and they would put it on a blanket. I’d get everything from clothes, to books, to you name it — old phones, antiques. I don’t know if any of them were actually stolen but they seemed to be recovered. There was this active grassroots economy of people who came here and unfolded their wares.

I always wrote. It took time to learn how to do it. Writing is a wonderful calling but it’s a bad profession. I always equate it to being a heroin addict without getting high. You spend your whole life struggling to do this thing, to set time aside so you can write. You beg, borrow and steal to be able to create the time to do all this work. And I’m regarded as this relative success. My 11th book came out and I’m still doing odd jobs. It’s a hell of a profession.

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

Next week: Arthur Nersesian learns that one of his novels is being made into a movie in Tompkins Square Park. "The PA stops me and says, 'I'm sorry we're shooting a film here you can't come in.’ So I said, 'Can I ask what's the name of the film you’re shooting?' And they said, 'My Dead Boyfriend, it's based on a novel by Arthur Nersesian called dogrun.' And I said, 'Oh shit, I’m Arthur Nersesian…"

A bar called Matty's in the works for Idle Hands on Avenue B

Idle Hands looks to be changing ownership.

The bar at 25 Avenue B near East Second Street is on this month's CB3/SLA committee docket.

According to the paperwork (PDF!) on file at the CB3 website, Idle Hands is scheduled for a corporate change… as you can see, seven partners (essentially everyone) are leaving the corporation, and three new ones are joining…



The new venture will be Matty's, whose owners ran a gay bar in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., called Matty's on the Drive.

Here's how the New Times Broward-Palm Beach described Matty's on the Drive:

Gather on the far end of the room and take on formidable opponents at Wii Sports, or just kick back and wait for the man of your choice to approach you with his best pickup line. Wild Wednesdays score you 75-cent drafts and well drinks at Matty's on the Drive. And don't forget to try the signature grape martinis.

Matty's closed in late 2012 following a year-long legal case.

There's no word yet on what kind of bar Matty's will be on Avenue B.

In October, Allan Mannarelli, an owner of The Cock, decided to withdraw his application for moving his bar from Second Avenue to the Idle Hands space when it became clear that the CB3/SLA committee was going to issue a denial.

The CB3/SLA committee meeting is Monday night at 6:30 in the CB3 offices, 59 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

However, according to the docket, this item will NOT be heard during the meeting. Strange, given that the space will be under new ownership, yet the corporate name remains the same.

Apocalypse now? Here comes the End of Avenue A Block Association

RyanAvenueA spotted the above flyer on his front door last evening… too late to attend the meeting the newly formed (and apocalyptically named) End of Avenue A Block Association had at Boulton & Watt.

At the meeting, reps from Boulton & Watt, The Library, Ella, 2A and Yerba Buena were expected to attend. Curiously enough, reps from bars (Double Down and Kelly's) on the east side of the Avenue were not listed.

The flyer also did not contain any contact information for prospective members or bloggers.

The Dee Dee Ramone Exhibition arrives at the Hotel Chelsea Storefront Gallery next week

Via the EVG inbox...

The Dee Dee Ramone Exhibition will be held in Dee Dee’s home turf of NYC for the first time ever at the Hotel Chelsea Storefront Gallery (222 West 23rd Street), from December 10th, 2014 – January 1st, 2015. The launch of this exhibit will offer a preview of the soon-to-be-released Fender Dee Dee Ramone Limited Edition Signature Precision Bass guitar, a tool used by the enigmatic Ramone to leave his indelible fingerprint on rock history for generations to come.

This historic exhibition sanctioned by the rock legends’ own estate, will celebrate all of the facets of Dee Dee’s long-lasting artistic legacy: a founding member of the Ramones, one of the most influential punk-rock bassists and primary, prolific songwriter of world famous group, as well as his work in the visual arts – proving that Dee Dee, who began painting more seriously in 1996, was an artist in every sense of the word. The breadth of Dee Dee’s art and achievements is so wide that one of his paintings, to be featured in the exhibit, was recently showcased in a question on America’s favorite quiz show Jeopardy.

In addition to featuring Dee Dee’s art, writings and fashions, the Dee Dee Ramone exhibition will also include iconic photographs by the likes of Bob Gruen, Mick Rock, Chris Stein (Blondie), Ed Perlstein, Stephanie Chernikowski, Keith Green and more.

Previous exhibits of Dee Dee’s work have been held at La Luz De Jesus and famed street artist Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects galleries in Los Angeles, and is now being presented in New York for the first time.

Holiday happenings at 7B

Early this morning, we spotted some of the holiday decorations arriving at 7B/Vazac's/Horseshoe Bar ... and since then, there has been plenty of progress in the annual trimming of the bar on Avenue B at East Seventh Street...

EVG regulars Riley McCormick and Riian Kant-McCormick share these photos...





No word if any bartenders were injured during the decorating festivities...



Previously on EV Grieve:
The 7B days of Christmas the holidays

Keith Haring sculpture arrives at 51 Astor Place

51 Astor Place, already sporting a Jeff Koons lobby rabbit, is home for now to this Keith Haring sculpture.

Workers this morning were preparing to install the "Self Portrait" from 1989.





No word at the moment if the sculpture (a replica?) is on loan or will be here permanently on Third Avenue at St. Mark's Place ...

City deems East Village Bed & Coffee an 'illegal hotel' on Avenue C

East Village Bed & Coffee has operated as a bed and caffeinated-beverage breakfast these past 16 years at 110 Avenue C near East Seventh Street.

No longer, though. A sign on the door explains…



The city issued a Partial Vacate Order on Nov. 24 … noting an "illegally converted 2 family house and business … into 11 class B rooming units."

DOB officials affixed this notice to the door last Monday.



As we understand it, East Village Bed & Coffee, despite its history, got caught up in the state's Airbnb crackdown … and its proprietor, longtime East Village resident Anne Edris, is beside herself.


[Photo by Laura Zelasnic]

Top photos by Dave on 7th

Does this 'Alphabet City' mural on Avenue C represent the community?

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

If you've been over on the southwest corner of Avenue C and East Sixth Street in the last week or so, then you've likely seen the new mural in progress on the (rather mysterious) RCN Cable building.

The mural, called "Alphabet City," is the work of Brooklyn-based artists The Yok and Sheryo who work for the Jersey City-based arts group Green Villain.


[Photo last week by Magic Brian]

All this has arrived with controversy, according to The Villager:

Is RCN whitewashing Loisaida culture and history? Celebrated street artist Antonio "Chico" Garcia and the community group Loisaida Inc. are crying foul after the company nixed their plan to create a mural celebrating L.E.S. “heroes” on the RCN cable building on Avenue C.

Apparently RCN officials are still pissed at Chico for his unauthorized Obama-McCain murals back in 2008. (RCN finally had them painted over in 2010.)


[EVG photo from 2008]

Elizabeth Colon, a founder of Loisaida Inc., told The Villager, "Is that what they think the community is, ‘A, B, C, D’? When we were talking about representing 50 or 60 years of Lower East Side history?"

You can read the rest of The Villager piece here.

And here was how the RCN wall was looking back in the summer…



Previously on EV Grieve:
RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

Holding up 95 Avenue A

Just looking at the structural repairs underway at 95 Avenue A at East Sixth Street.

Ravi DeRossi told Eater last month that the building housing his bars Cienfuegos, Amor y Amargo and Gin Palace is sinking into the ground.

Gin Palace closed on Nov. 6 and is expected to be out of commission for at least two months. (The other two bars remain open.)

Looks like a pretty serious operation...



The repair costs are estimated at $100,000.

From cleansing souls to cleansing clothes at 96 Avenue B

Workers are fitting 96 Avenue B – previously home to the Hare Krishnas — with a laundromat, EVG contributor Dave on 7th notes.

The Hare Krishnas moved out of their home here between East Sixth Street and East Seventh Street back in July 2011 ... The space has been vacant since then.

Previously, from 1990-1995, 96 Avenue B was home to Metropolis Vintage Apparel...

[1994, via Richard Colligan]

...which has been at 43 Third Ave. between Ninth Street and 10th Street since 1995.

Plans to add two floors to the existing two-floor building never materialized. East Yoga is housed on the second level.