Modern American in the works for former Back Forty space on Avenue B

[EVG file photo]

A few more details have emerged about what's next for the former Back Forty space on Avenue B near East 12th Street.

According to materials on file (PDF!) at the CB3 website ahead of this month's SLA committee meeting, the address will house a still-unnamed restaurant serving "modern American" cuisine.

One of the applicants is Roxanne Spruance, who is also planning a new restaurant in Nolita called Kingsley. (According to her bio, she won "Chopped" on the Food Network in February 2013.)

The application shows 16-20 tables seating 48-52 people. The proposed hours are 11 a.m. to midnight Monday-Thursday; until 2 a.m. Friday-Saturday; and midnight on Sunday.

There are also plans to use the small garden area for dining similar to Back Forty.

Back Forty closed for good after service this past Dec. 21.

The SLA committee meeting is May 18 at the CB3 office (BYOB), 59 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

Out with the former Yaffa backyard dining area, in with a new garden

Workers yesterday began demolishing the backyard dining area that previously belonged to Yaffa Cafe at 97 St. Mark's Place.

The owners of St. Dymphna's down the block are opening a Portuguese restaurant called Taberna here between Avenue A and First Avenue.

As previously reported, the new owners will be turning the back space into a garden…





Co-owner Eric Baker told DNAinfo in March that "windows will be built into the back of the restaurant so customers can look at the landscaped area."

Last fall, the DOB issued a partial vacate order on the backyard space because it didn't have the proper fire exits and because it was zoned for residential use … Yaffa Cafe later decided to close for good after 32 years in the location.

Thanks to the EVG reader for the photos!

Previously on EV Grieve:
Yaffa Cafe is officially gone; back garden dismantled

More about Yaffa Cafe closing

St. Dymphna's owners look to take over the former Yaffa Cafe space on St. Mark's Place

More about Taberna, the Portuguese restaurant opening in the former Yaffa Cafe space

Ben Shaoul's East Luxe is all sold out

[EVG file photo of the FRONT of the building]

A news release about Ben Shaoul's new 20-unit rental building at 31-33 Second Ave. between East First Street and East Second Street via the EVG inbox…

Platinum Properties, a New York-based full-service brokerage firm has announced today that it has now rented 100% of The East Luxe, a 20-unit East Village boutique rental building at 31-33 Second Avenue, in just 16 weeks on the market.

To note: Platinum Properties rented 11 of the 17 originally available units directly and six via co-broking with outside agents. It took approximately three months—most of which were rented during the winter, a traditionally slow time — to completely rent out the two and three-bedroom units and one month to rent out the four bedroom apartments.

“In the East Village/Bowery area there is a lack of new construction or rehab projects of this nature. Just having an elevator building with extremely highend finishes in such a central location has made the building a stand out,” says Khashy Eyn, CEO, Platinum Properties.

As previously noted, a Petco is taking the building's retail space.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Ben Shaoul planning a 3-story addition at 31-33 Second Ave.

Bracing for 3 new floors at 31-33 Second Ave.

Checking in on the work in progress at 31-33 2nd Ave., where Ben Shaoul is adding 3 new floors

Ben Shaoul's bland new 2nd Avenue building is called The East Luxe

More about The East Luxe, Ben Shaoul's new 20-unit rental on 2nd Avenue

The night heron apparently comes out at night in Tompkins Square Park

[Photo last night by Guillermo Zubillaga]

For at least the past year there have been occasional sightings of a rather odd-looking bird (so to speak) lurking about the Park in the evening hours… now we've had two reader sightings these past few nights…

Any bird lovers experts in the house know what we're looking at here in the photos? Some kind of night heron????


[Photo from Monday night by Bayou]

Word is the bird stays in the abandoned Christodora House pool during the day.

Updated 5/7

EVG regular Grant Shaffer also spotted this elusive nighttime, uh, night bird last summer...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Rare bird

Reader report: Gunshots on Avenue D late last night; NYPD patrol tower today

[Photo via an EVG reader]

Several readers reported hearing gunshots last night …

Said one this morning: "Woke up to 5 loud gun shots last night outside my apartment on Ave D and 8th Street. Then a police siren about 5 minutes later."

Per another resident later today:

"Altercation around midnight on D between 8th Street and 9th Street among young males escalated and one party came back and fired shots. No one hit. Car on D took some shots and [the former] Joselito's took one in the window. Multiple 911 calls placed last night and half a dozen detectives plus a new surveillance tower van out there now."

Still life, with carbs

Early this evening on Avenue A via Michael Sean Edwards

1 way to respond when someone parks a motorcycle in the hallway

A reader shared this from a building on Avenue A.

And here's how a neighbor responded to this choice of parking spots with a straightforward, two-word Urban Etiquette Sign...

Free tomorrow night: A 30-year East Village photo tour with Daniel Root

[Images from 10th and B by Daniel Root]

From the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation ...as part of Lower East Side History Month...

In 1984, Dan Root took some photographs for a book that a friend of a friend was going to write about the changing East Village. For a couple of months he took pictures, when time and money allowed, of this changing neighborhood. The book was never written (of course?) and the photographs were put away.

Last year Dan revisited those locations and photographed them again. Most were vastly different than they were 30 years ago. He embarked upon a project of framing the original photos and placing them at these sites. Residents and visitors were able to see how much the East Village has changed, and a Tumbler page brought international attention to this photographic documentation.

East Village: 1984 and 2014
A photo journey with Daniel Root

Thursday, May 7
6:30 – 8:00 P.M.
Free; reservations required
Sixth Street Community Center
638 East 6th Street, between Avenue B and Avenue C
[This venue is wheelchair accessible.]

To register, please call (212) 475-9585 ext. 35 or email.

Check out our post from last August on Root's photos here.

Just 5-plus months until Halloween

Today in Tompkins Square Park... photo by Derek Berg

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: Philip Van Aver
Occupation: Artist
Location: 6th Street and Avenue B Community Garden
Time: 3 pm on Saturday, May 2

I first came to this neighborhood in 1966. I’m originally from Bellingham, Washington. I had been living in West Hollywood and I had an opportunity to come to New York for the summer in 1966 and I ended up staying.

I started coming to this neighborhood regularly, I think it was about 1968, and there was a bar called the Old Reliable. It was located on 3rd Street between B and C and it had plays in the back. It wasn’t strictly speaking a gay bar but a lot of gay people went there. I started going there and I met a lot of great people. Eventually one of my friends decided that he wanted to go to San Francisco and so he said, ‘Would you like to take over my apartment and keep my belongings for me?’ So that’s how I moved to East 6th Street. I moved in there February of 1969 and I’ve been living there ever since.

I was 29 years old and I was kind of ready to settle down. At the time, I was working at an art gallery where the IBM building now is on 57th Street. I wanted to live in a neighborhood, which wasn’t going to, as they say now, gentrify any time soon.

I started doing freelance illustration around 1970. I’ve had jobs and employment and freelance work, but I have been active as an artist in New York for many years. I do small works on paper. I work in a consistent style that’s hard for me to describe but it’s something that has sustained me all these years.

And I’ve been lucky to have a rent-regulated apartment. Those of us who stayed in our apartments were fortunate to make that decision. It could have been the wrong decision. Many of my friends going back to the 1970s and those who are still alive were able to sustain themselves and either have a small business or to be the artist because they had this stable housing situation. Rent-regulation is generally bashed by people but it is a good program. It’s a kind of a partnership with the tenant, the landlord and the city. All three of these entities have to work together to sustain this program.

What happened to this neighborhood, very, very suddenly in the early 1970s, was that it started to deteriorate. Places like the Old Reliable closed. This happened almost like somebody had flipped off a switch. There was a suddenness about it, but I stayed on. There were a lot of people leaving New York then. Most of my college friends left in the 1970s and went back to California.

I became politically active in the 1970s. There was a sense in the 1970s that nobody was really paying much attention positively to this part of the Lower East Side. I tend to avoid the term East Village. I’m the last of the dinosaurs. In 1975, it was the Abraham Beame administration and the New York Public Library wanted to close 18 branch libraries throughout the system. One of the ones they wanted to close was on 2nd Avenue, the Ottendorfer Library.

That was the beginning of it for me, because I signed a sheet – ‘Would you be willing to volunteer?’ I think I worked with them for seven years and we formed something called the Interbranch Library Association. We had meetings downtown with Deputy Mayor Zuccotti. Our neighborhood was politically savvy. The people whom I met, they weren’t like established leftists or anything like that; they didn’t have party affiliations, but they knew how to get things done.

I also worked with other groups like the Third Avenue Tenants Association, which was opposed to the zoning on 3rd Avenue. I eventually became a member of the executive committee of an organization called the Lower East Side Joint Planning Council, which was an umbrella organization for 36 independent groups. I was involved in the Friends of Tompkins Square Park, which succeeded in defeating the plan to create a policeable park in that area. So in addition to my personal life and my professional life, I was very involved in these activities.

I have been very lucky to have lived on the Lower East Side — the friendships, the atmosphere. I had a chance to be politically active, which probably wouldn’t haven’t happened if I had lived somewhere else, considering my politics and my point of view. I always found myself in sympathy with somebody. This neighborhood, as far as I’m concerned, there has been quite a lot of continuity. Of course people die, people move away, but I still have friends that go back to the 1970s. This neighborhood has a history of progressive politics and what that means, changes.

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

[Updated] Cafe Pick Me Up expected to close for good after May 31

Staff has been telling patrons that Cafe Pick Me Up will close for good at the end of this month.

The 20-year-old cafe on Avenue A at East Ninth Street has been rumored to be closing now for months. However, in March, DNAinfo reported that the owners would vacate the corner space and move into its smaller storefront they use for a dining room next door. However, as we're told, that's no longer happening.

Cafe manager Rossella Palazzo told DNAinfo in March that a rent hike from landlord Icon Realty is the reason for the closure.

“I don’t know who can afford that much rent,” she said, declining to say how much the landlord charged. “I know it’s a nice location on the corner but it’s way too much for what they’re asking.”

Icon is currently listing the storefront… asking $15,000 a month for the space, which includes 600 square feet on the ground floor and 724 square feet in the basement.



One tipster told us that the staff wanted to buy the space from the cafe's owners, though that never materialized.

Icon Realty bought the building at 145 Avenue A for $10.1 million in April 2014, according to public records.

Updated 9:23 p.m.

Earlier today, Gothamist heard from a Cafe Pick Me Up assistant manager that:

… the cafe will live on in some form down the street at Gnocco, an Italian eatery [on East 10th Street near Avenue B] owned by the same people. "We're moving June 3rd," Kristen told us. "We're still going to have our breakfast and some of our staff moved. They're usually just doing dinner, but now we're going to be serving breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner, cocktails. We're going to expand a little as well."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rent hike forcing Cafe Pick Me Up into its smaller space next door on Avenue A (59 comments)

Christo and Dora are parents! (Again!)

[Photo Monday by Bobby Williams]

Some time between Friday and Sunday, all three of Christo and Dora's hawk eggs hatched in the nest on the Ageloff Towers.

There's now a second nest cam from another angle here on Avenue A at East Third Street, so you can see the hawklets upclose right here…





Goggla has more details about all this and what the red-tailed hawk parents are up to. Goggla figures fledge time will be in mid-June.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Red-tailed hawks nest on the Christodora House

The hawks of Tompkins Square Park have laid an egg at the Christodora House

More eggsciting hawk news from the Christodora House

Breaking (heh) news: The hawks of Tompkins Square Park are officially parents

Hawk (and egg) watch continues on Avenue A, now with the help of a live webcam

Tonight on the LES: Punks, Losers, Screw-Ups & Goofballs

Via the EVG inbox...

To kick off Lower East Side History Month, we are pleased to present Punks, Losers, Screw-Ups & Goofballs, an exhibition of the LES Art of Cliff Mott. The opening reception will take place tonight from 6-10 with the prime LES cuts of DJ Joe McGinty, founder and director of the Loser’s Lounge.

Drawn by it’s Punk buzz, Mott spent many formative hours of his youth roaming the Lower East Side of the late 70s/early 8’s. This is where he came into contact with musicians who needed band flyers, promotional art, stickers, t-shirts & record sleeves. He has maintained many of these early relationships and continues to produce images for bands like the Fleshtones, Dictators and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

In the LES Mott met many fellow comics obsessives, which eventually led to his being named art director at Cracked magazine where he spent over a decade. This is also where he came into contact with countless artists, writers, and editors that led to work for the New York Post, Screw, Penthouse and Marvel Entertainment. The exhibition showcases Mott’s antic drawings and comics, each with its own maniacal story to tell.

The event is at the 174 Rivington Street Bar and Gallery, which is between Clinton and Ridge. The exhibit will be on display through June 17.

Noted

From The Real Deal today:

Out of a total of 4,580 condos projected to hit the Manhattan market by 2016, nearly 30 percent will be located below 14th Street, according to a new report from the Marketing Directors.

In 2016, the Marketing Directors projected 17 new condo buildings Downtown with a total of 823 units. In a twist, the location of the buildings will shift to the Lower East Side and East Village from Tribeca and the Financial District.

Black Seed bagel plywood report

Several readers noted the arrival today of the plywood outside 176 First Ave., the future home of Black Seed bagels… as the renovations continue here between East 10th Street and East 11th Street…

No word just yet on an official opening date.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Black Seed bringing bagels to the former DeRobertis space on 1st Avenue (43 comments)

A last look at De Robertis before its conversion to Black Seed bagels

There's a new MCA in town

On May 4, 2012, Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, died of cancer. He was 47.

On the anniversary of his death, @cramcept created a new mural on East Seventh Street just west of First Avenue ...

The mural replaces the one below that @cramcept created in May 2012...

Rumor: Vegetarian sandwich shop in the works for former Dirt Candy space

Last Tuesday we noted the fake menu for a restaurant called Chickens (Chicken Dip with Chicken Chips!) on the former Dirt Candy space on East Ninth Street.

Now a tipster passes along word what might really be coming here between Avenue A and First Avenue: A quick-serve vegetarian sandwich shop ... with a tentative June opening date.

Dirt Candy closed here at the end of last August to move to a larger space on Allen Street.

Dirt Candy chef Amanda Cohen confirmed to us last week that she had sold the small space that housed her vegetarian restaurant, but couldn't elaborate on the new venture.

Previously on EV Grieve:
What the cluck? Chickens in the works for former vegetarian hotspot Dirt Candy on East 9th Street

Veggie friendly Avant Garden in the works for former Gingersnap's space on East 7th Street

[EVG file photo]

Here's more information about what's being proposed for the former Gingersnap's Organic space at 130 E. Seventh St. just west of Avenue A.

According to materials on file (PDF!) at the CB3 website ahead of this month's SLA committee meeting, the space will house Avant Garden (an homage to Courtney Barnett's "Avant Gardener"?), a restaurant serving vegan cuisine.

Avant Garden is seeking to serve vegan wine and beer to "accompany the seasonal cuisine selections carefully selected by our in house sommelier." 

The proposed hours are 5 p.m. to midnight daily.

If approved, then this will be the latest East Village entry from Ravi DeRossi (the paperwork lists him as Ravi Lalchandani), who owns Death & Co., Cienfuegos and Proletariat, among several other bars/restaurants.

Here are the sample menus included with the CB3 materials…





CB3 watchers are curious about this application. Back in October 2012, "DeRossi and his surrogates got a civic lashing ... for converting the shuttered Jane's Sweet Buns pastry shop into the beer bar Proletariat without providing a 30-day notice to the board," according to Grub Street.

In the fall of 2011, CB3 OK'd a wine-beer license for Jane's Sweet Buns on St. Mark's Place. At the time, DeRossi assured the skeptics about the concept of a bakery serving alcohol. All just to pair wine with the buns and desserts.

"It was never intended to be a bar," he said of Jane's, according to coverage in The Local. "It's completely innocuous and an asset to the community."

Gingersnap's left this space back in January for a new West Village location.

The SLA committee meeting is May 18 at the CB3 office (BYOB), 59 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

Sidewalk bridge arrives at 515 E. 5th St., site of Ben Shaoul's illegal penthouse conversion

Workers arrived late yesterday afternoon to assemble a sidewalk bridge outside 515 E. Fifth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, where, perhaps, the long-contested penthouse will finally be removed.

A quickie recap of our previous recaps: The Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) had previously ruled in 2008 that landlord Ben Shaoul needed to remove the 6th and 7th floors. However, his attorneys had requested that the city grant a zoning variance to "permit the constructed enlargement, minus the penthouse, to remain" here.

Last September, the BSA gave Shaoul 60 days to complete demolition. Upon documentation of the removal, the BSA would then consider granting the assorted zoning variances to keep the 6th floor. The work permit to remove the penthouse was filed on Feb. 4 and approved on April 2, according to DOB documents.

According to the Tenants Association of 515 East Fifth Street, the hearing on the zoning and Multiple Dwelling Law variances is next Tuesday, May 12.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] 5 years later, another BSA hearing on illegal rooftop addition at 515 E. Fifth St.

Protest at 515 E. Fifth St. this morning, site of Ben Shaoul's illegal addition

The disappearing illegal penthouse of 514-516 E. 6th St.

Never-ending battle wages on over additional floors at 515 E. Fifth St.

Never-ending battle over additional floors at 515 E. Fifth St. promises to keep being never-ending

CB3 not into Ben Shaoul's zoning variance for 515 E. 5th St.

Another BSA hearing on Ben Shaoul's illegal rooftop addition; plus, rent 1 of the contested units!

BSA tells Ben Shaoul to remove the illegal penthouse on East 5th Street within 60 days

Virginia's is now open on East 11th Street

[Photo from Sunday]

Virginia's opened last evening at 647 E. 11th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C. (The space was formerly the short-lived Sliders.)

Parters in the new venture are Christian Ramos, former sous chef of Per Se, and Reed Adelson, formerly of Locanda Verde.

Here's some of the info that reps for the restaurant sent us yesterday via email:

The duo first met while working at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, and now years later have partnered to debut their first restaurant in NYC.

The cozy 38-seat space is named Virginia’s after their mothers’ coincidental shared name, and features a vibrant and accessible American menu rooted in chef Ramos’ classic training at Per Se and other fine dining establishments. Chef Ramos’ market-driven menu features dishes such as:

• Crispy Sweetbreads with apricot, pea Leaves, and charred lemon
• Seppia a la Plancha with asparagus, green garlic, and togarashi mayonnaise
• Roasted Duck Breast with fermented soybean, plum and breakfast radish
• Stuffed Suckling Pig with marinated fennel, strawberries and sherry vinegar
• Atlantic Striped Bass, saffron, Manila clams, and new crop potatoes

While desserts from sous chef Lauren Calhoun, formerly of Roberta’s and Charlie Trotter’s, include Chocolate Beet Cake with beet cream, shaved Oaxaca chocolate and amaretti; and Raw Honey Panna Cotta with rhubarb compote, pickled rhubarb and rye biscotti.

Here's the menu…

Virginia's

New York magazine has photos of some of the dishes here.

Virginia's is open for dinner from 6-11 p.m. Monday-Thursday, and 6-midnight on Friday-Saturday.