This morning's spectacular sunrise

The view from East Second Street… Photo by Caz Lulu via Facebook…

There's 1 more free concert this year in Tompkins Square Park

This afternoon...

Still crazy like a Fox...

Television is playing Sunday night at Irving Plaza... ahead of that, here's "Foxhole" from 1978...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Photo earlier this week on East 2nd Street by Bill Buchen]

A crime of passion from the 19th century that played out on East 13th Street and Avenue A (Ephemeral New York)

More details about DF Mavens, opening today on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place (DNAinfo)

The Manhattan Borough President's Office now accepting applications for Community Board membership (DNAinfo)

Still time to see Art & Ephemera from 98 Bowery, 1969-89 (The Lodge Gallery)

Update on the new Dirt Candy on Allen Street (Eater)

The end of Cafe Edison (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Please do not push your sofa out a 6th-floor window (BoweryBoogie)

… Animals, the Wayland's sandwich shop on Avenue C and East Ninth Street, has started local delivery — Monday-Friday from Noon-6 p.m.



… and noted…

overheard in an #eastvillage cafe, "and by tinkerbell i mean cocaine."

— jdx (@jdx) December 24, 2014

Pumpkins — not just for Halloween anymore

They also make for decorative additions to street lights, like seen here on Second Avenue and East Ninth Street … photo via John Coakley.

Matcha Cafe Wabi now open on East 4th Street

Matcha Cafe Wabi recently opened at 233 E. Fourth St. near Avenue B.

The cafe's owners offered up a sneak preview for neighbors back in October. EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by for a look ... and taste. Here's her report:

The open house was for the neighborhood to introduce them to the matcha and sencha tea drinks, the red-bean paste and green tea pastries (gluten free!), matcha tea lattes, and the Japanese roasted coffee drinks.

I tried the classic pour-over coffees from 95 RPM Coffee Roasters (co-owned by Hiroki Kobayashi and Osamu Igano), which I drank as suggested — straight up without milk or sugar. I also tried the soybean black-sesame drink, which thankfully had no caffeine and was sweet and delicious — and unusual to my admittedly uneducated palate.

Kimie Kobaya (pictured below), the shop’s enthusiastic and friendly manager, brought around trays of samples to the guests and patiently translated between the English-speaking and Japanese-speaking visitors.



We learned about Wabi-Sabi, the aesthetic of imperfection, which was a difficult concept to translate from Japanese. (Kimie suggested the Wikipedia page definition.) We enjoyed a (truncated) tea ceremony, courtesy of Yuji (pictured below), who showed us the usu-cha-style bamboo whisks used to blend the bitter green tea powder into tea, and how the bowls are prewarmed, and about the bubbles that mimic a lake and shore in the tea bowl.



The owners of the new shop are Hideaki Minamida and Ken Mitsui, who you might recognize from Pirka Salon next door. (Both shops share the address 233 E. Fourth St.) The tiny to-go spot’s green-tea colored walls and minimalist décor mimic the healthy and happy feelings you experience when ingesting the drinks.

What East Village bar has the oldest liquor license?

[Photo by James and Karla Murray]

OK, the photo gives it away, of course.

Anyway, some interesting research via I Quant NY, who examined the data on New York State's open data website.

A few things from the post:

The oldest recorded NYC license in the dataset belongs to the Harmonie Club on E 60th St in the Upper East Side, though you have to be a member to enjoy a drink there. It dates to 1933. The oldest beer license is for Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island, which dates back to 1934. And the oldest liquor store license is from 1941, and it belongs to North End Wine and Liquor in the Bronx.

And in the East Village, the oldest license belongs to Vazac's/7B/Horseshoe Bar, which dates to 1948.

But what about, say, McSorley's?

Per I Quant NY:

Note that this does not mean these are in fact the oldest bars or restaurants, but rather the oldest with a single continuous liquor license and a proper start date on record.

McSorley's has changed hands a few times, he explains, the last being in 1977, when the state issued a new license.

'Dear Lord' — A Christmas song from Suicide

The fine folks over at Dangerous Minds posted about a Christmas song by one of our favorite bands, the misanthropy* duo Suicide.

Here are details per Dangerous Minds:

In 1981, the great no-wave label ZE Records — home to the eardrum-hurty likes of Lydia Lunch and Arto Lindsay — decided that the label would release A Christmas Record, a compilation of original Christmas music by its deeply underground artists. It seems, and was, pretty ridiculous, but that album yielded an actual enduring holiday season classic in the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping.” Other artists who contributed were Material with Nona Hendryx, Cristina, and Was (Not Was). It was and remains deeply regrettable that Lydia Lunch contributed no Christmas song, but there was one by the equally malevolent Suicide, and another by that band’s singer Alan Vega.

Head over to Dangerous Minds for more, including the Vega track...

* misanthropy is Dangerous Mind's description. We like that.

The Year Without a Trailer Park Santa Claus

[Another holiday season]

Well, as you may have noticed, grubby ol' St. Nick never arrived this year at the tree stand on East 14th Street and First Avenue…

Instead, we were treated to some lame perky inflatables …



Waited until later to pass this along so as not to ruin the holiday.

Anyway, time to toss the tree and pick up your Easter Candy at Kmart…

Christmas Eve, Tompkins Square Park

Photos by EVG reader Mr. Baggs...

Christmas Eve, Astor Place

Jerry Delakas at Jerry's Newsstand, site of one of the more positive neighborhood stories this year.

Photo by Kelly King

Holiday movies: 'Blast of Silence'

Reposting this repost this from Dec. 23, 2011…

I know that I've written about "Blast of Silence," Alan Baron's New York (slightly hokey) indie noir from 1961.

Will repeat some of it now... the movie is about a contract killer in New York for a job during the Dec. 25 holiday season ... well, the trailer will tell you what you need to know...



Of interest hereabouts... the main character, "Baby Boy" Frankie Bono, stays at the Valencia on St. Mark's Place... which is the St. Mark's Hotel today, of course...

[Via]

In the background, you can see the former Saint Marks Russian and Turkish Baths ... which became the New St. Marks Baths ... and, eventually, Mondo Kim's ... and now the NYC Tofu House…

Some early xmas eve smoking manhole action on East 14th Street

Several readers told us about smoke billowing (or whatever) from a manhole on East 14th Street at Avenue B around 3 … and the FDNY was quickly called to the scene, EVG reader Greg Masters noted…

Cause for rethinking last-minute gift ideas as Key Master remains wrapped outside Gem Spa

On Monday, Derek Berg noted that the 15-month-old Key Master, a so-called "prize merchandising game" outside Gem Spa, was out of commission. Basically dead, wrapped in (Home Depot) plastic.

Two days later, not much has changed here on Second Avenue at St. Mark's Place.



So anyone looking to compete for, and win, prizes such as Macy's Gift Cards, iPods (????) and iPod Minis (????) will have to look elsewhere.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Gem Spa stunner: Zoltar now has Key Master competition; doomsday predicted

No. 7

[Never coming soon, courtesy of EVPinhead]

This website turned 7 on Sunday. (What turned out to be a non-event prompted the whole thing 7 years ago!)

So a sincere thank you, as always, to all of you for taking the time to read, comment, grumble, laugh, share, offer tips, provide feedback ... everything.

And thank you for helping me continue to feel connected to a place that is always seemingly changing.

'11 Minutes of Hell' on the Lower East Side

Via the EVG inbox ...

The LES Dwellers, a grassroots community group of residents of the Lower East Side, released videos [yesterday] that illustrate how bad the Lower East Side's Hell Square continues as late night bars and clubs continue to foster a SantaCon-style environment of binge drinking, public urination and vomiting, brawls and arrests every weekend.

The rampant party and hoards of drunks in the area drains police resources, forcing them to focus their time and attention to thousands of people who descend on the Lower East Side every weekend to party without regard to the local residents and businesses.

What is depicted in the videos is not outside the norm but is the norm. The bars, lounges and "restaurants" in this area over serve alcohol creating a dangerous environment.

The LES Dwellers called on Community Board 3 to address the issue immediately by working with the NYPD, the State Liquor Authority and local bar and business owners to resolve the recurring problems in Hell Square, which is the area bordered by Houston and Delancey, and Allen and Essex streets on the Lower East Side.

"This weekend was an outrage — ranking as one of the worst on record: It was SantaCon without the costumes," the group said in a statement. "Assaults and crime are up in our neighborhood due solely to the proliferation of late night liquor licenses in the neighborhood. And what's worse, on a day when NYPD lost two officers, the last thing the city needs is for the police to spend time and resources policing a man-made mess of debauchery. Police resources are wasted every weekend to babysit a bunch of drunks," the group said.

One video, filmed for a continuous 11 minute period at 3:30 am EST on Sunday, Dec. 21 on Ludlow and Stanton Streets, features a group of drunks stumbling north on Ludlow street and approaching Piano's Bar to enter. They're told that the bar is closing and they can't enter, so they leave the bar yelling obscenities and stumbling into the wall when the cops show up. Disregarding the police presence, the group gets into a knock-down brawl in the intersection of Stanton and Ludlow and police arrest 2 of the fighters. The video's hashtag is #11minsofhell.

Dozens of police arrived at the scene where the video captures a woman who has fallen and hurt her leg on the street and is struggling to get back up, followed by music blaring out of the front door of the Dark Room bar. Then, as the police continue to deal with the fight, a man is seen within 15 feet of the police urinating in a boutique clothing store's doorway and virtually falling asleep standing up.

And now for your viewing pleasure...



And!

Shakespeare & Company ultimately got kicked out for a Foot Locker

A big rent hike helped force Shakespeare & Company's to close its longtime home at 716 Broadway between Washington Place and Waverly Place.

The landlord reportedly hiked the rent to $50,000 a month.

Anyway, as it was previously reported, a Foot Locker is taking the space... and Dave on 7th noted that the signage recently arrived.

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

Shakespeare & Company space is for lease on Broadway

The Odessa in the early morning this holiday season

Looking fine before opening in the morning here at 119 Avenue A...

Happy holidays from the brown wall at Verizon!

Holiday greetings from one of our favorite brown walls .... outside the Verizon building on East 13th Street at Second Avenue...

Thanks to EVG regular LIBERATION for the photo...

Report: Avenue B's Back 40 closes after 7 years

Back 40, one of the first farm-to-table restaurants here, closed for good after service on Sunday.

Chef-owner Peter Hoffman told Eater, who first reported on this closure, that "a difficult landscape and lease uncertainty" led to the decision to shutter the 7-year-old restaurant at 190 Avenue B near East 12th Street.