The last record store on St. Mark's Place is closing

[EVG file photo]

Sounds is shutting down soon at 20 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. The final sale is on now.



There's not much left inside…


[Photo from Saturday by Jeff Stache]

The shop has been around longer than we expected. News of the impending closure first arrived in February 2014.

The second-level retail space remains on the market. There isn't any mention of the rent on the listing.

Sounds joins the ranks of other CD/record shops that have closed on (or near) St. Mark's Place in recent years ... Joe's CDs, 13 CDs, Venus Records, Mondo Kim's, Smash, Norman's, Rockit Scientist Records...

Updated 4 p.m. — You can read some history of Sounds via this HuffPost article from 2010.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Soon, there won't be any record stores on St. Mark's Place, and that sucks

You can check out the other record stores in the neighborhood, including Good Records NYC ... Turntable Lab ... A-1 Records ... Other Music ... Academy Records ... Rainbow Music (until Sept. 30)...

The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office continues slow march toward demolition

Workers erected the sidewalk bridge and scaffolding on the East 13th Street side of the the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office two weeks ago.

They did the same on the East 14th Street side on Friday and Saturday…





As previously noted, an 8-story retail-residential building — featuring 114 apartments — will eventually rise here.

The PO closed in February 2014, though some frustrated patrons wish it had been demolished sooner.

No word just yet what impact the sidewalk bridge will have on the building's western corner…



Previously on EV Grieve:
UPDATED: Did you hear the rumor about the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office branch closing?

Report: Closure of the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office is pretty much a done deal

First sign of more development on East 14th Street?

Asbestos abatement to begin at former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office

Davey drill arrives ahead of rumored development at former East 14th Street post office

Former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office slated to be demolished

The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office will yield to an 8-story residential building

New residential building at former 14th Street PO will feature a quiet lounge, private dining room

The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office closer to demolition

Construction watch: 356 E. Eighth St.

The townhouse at 356 E. Eighth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D had been on and off the market in recent years (here and here).

The listing pitched the space for "high-end apartments or a luxury home."

Now it appears the new owner — an LLC that shares the address with M Development in Queens — opted for the apartment route. Recently approved work permits show that the existing 4-level structure will receive two new floors and a mezzanine.

Here's the all-cap DOBese:

FILED HEREWITH PLANS AND APPLICATIONS TO ADD A SIX STORY HORIZONTAL REAR ENLARGEMENT AND A THREE STORY + MEZZANINE VERTICAL ENLARGEMENT WITH SIX FAMILIES TO AN EXISTING FOUR STORY, THREE FAMILY BUILDING.

And here's a look at the rendering on the plywood…

Condo conversion or single-family home among the possibilities for 35 E. 7th St.

The townhouse between Second Avenue and Cooper Square is new to the market.

Here's a look at the listing from Halstead:

...the location couldn't be better for an end-user, investor, or developer looking for an opportunity in the heart of one of the most sought-after parts of the city. Located just a half block east of charming Cooper Square and less than 400' from 2nd Ave, the property is a perfect centerpiece to the vibrant neighborhood. With turn-of-the-century details on a shady section of the street, you'd be hard pressed to find a more quintessential downtown Manhattan property with substantial upside.

The 25' wide property consists of 5 units, 4 of which are free market and 1 of which is rent controlled. Two of the free market tenants have no lease. With a max FAR of 4, the property offers approximately 2,000 additional buildable SF. Unlock substantial upside via increased rents and/or additional rentable square footage, take advantage of this prime condo conversion opportunity, or convert to an incredible single family home.

Price: $5.7 million

No. 35 is the second townhouse on this block to hit the market this past week, joining No. 25.

Juice Press is up to something on East 1st Street

There are some new messages on the windows of the empty boutique next to the flagship Juice Press … here on East First Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue…

The writing on the door reads…



"The East Village is the only hope I have left of being fucking cool. This store is the incubator for my next food concept. I hope I don't fail."

And!



Not sure what any of this is supposed to mean. Before opening the East First Street shop in 2010, JP founder Marcus Antebi put up signs announcing a Robot Daycare and NY Academy of Mime, among other things, coming soon.

Perhaps this space will serve as JP's test kitchen. They lost that space when JP closed the location on East 10th Street near Avenue A in the spring after the landlord — Steve Croman — apparently continued to drag out repairs in the building.

Raccoon sighting on Avenue A

The new marquee went up last week at 206 Avenue A, where a bar-cocktail lounge is opening in the former Common Ground space between East 12th Street and East 13th Street.

We haven't heard too much about the new establishment just yet. Last November, the proprietors of The Garret — a rather hidden cocktail lounge above a Five Guys on Bleecker Street — went before the CB3/SLA committee for a new liquor license for the address.

However, CB3 denied the application, citing concern from neighbors and the applicant's inexperience operating a business, among other reasons, according to the minutes (PDF!) of that month's meeting.

Apparently the owners were able to secure a license directly from the State Liquor Authority.

The Garret's menu on Bleecker Street includes a slate of draft beers (priced $7 to $9) and house cocktails with names like A What What and Missus Wheeler ($14-18). As for the raccoon in a bow tie on the sign, the Garret has a character named Rocco on its website.

Common Ground closed at the end of April after 10 years in the location.

At Village View's semi-annual flea market

EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by today's semi-annual sale at Village View … and met some of the residents taking part …

Week in Grieview

[Photo by Derek Berg]

RIP Adam Purple (Wednesday)

More about the Birdman closing Rainbow Music on First Avenue this month (Monday)

Woman dies after jumping from actor's East 3rd Street apartment (Tuesday)

It's diorama season at the Ninth Street Community Garden & Park (Wednesday)

Condos at Ben Shaoul's 98-100 Avenue A will start at $1.3 million; high-end gym eyed for retail space (Wednesday)

Silver Monuments Works packs up its tombstones for a move to Queens (Tuesday)

Raphael Toledano secures $124 million loan for 16-building East Village portfolio (Friday)

Construction underway at the Bea Arthur Residence for homeless LGBT youth on East 13th Street (Monday)

Where to get your shoes repaired around here (Monday)

The Marshal seizes Nevada Smiths on Third Avenue (Wednesday)

A memorial for LES Jewels, who died on Sept. 14, 2013 (Monday)

Avant Garden opens on East Seventh Street (Tuesday)

Looking at Futura's 'Concrete Jungle' on the Houston/Bowery Mural Wall (Monday)

Coffee Project New York opening soon on East Fifth Street (Thursday)

Veselka is free from its sidewalk bridge (Tuesday)

Thinking about the future (and past) of Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place (Thursday)

Party progress at Icon Realty's 205 Avenue A (Monday)

Planet Fitness muscling in on Essex Crossing (Tuesday)

Black Seed bagels about two weeks away from opening (Friday)

Kenneth Cole readies new storefront on the Bowery (Wednesday)

East Village Cheese, now with an East Village Cheese sign (Monday)

25 E. Seventh St. is for sale (Thursday)

… and here's a look at Hektad's new mural that went up last week on East 11th Street at First Avenue…

'Farm To Food Bank' Monday at Union Square

Via the EVG inbox...

Food Bank For New York City will host its first annual “Farm To Food Bank” Food Drive, in partnership with GrowNYC’s Union Square Greenmarket, to help support the 1.5 million New Yorkers who rely on Food Bank For New York City and its citywide network of charities.

Food Bank is asking New Yorkers who stop by Union Square Greenmarket to shop for their families, to buy a little extra and donate some fresh fruit and vegetables to Food Bank to help ensure that all New Yorkers have access to healthy nutritious meals.

Last year, Food Bank For New York City distributed 18 million pounds of fresh produce to New Yorker in need.

When: Monday, Sept. 21
9 A.M. – 6 P.M.

A splash of color for East 7th Street

This weekend on East Seventh Street at Avenue B, two muralists, GRIMACE and Pablo Ancona, are working on a collaborative piece ... which should be finished tomorrow...

Several readers wondered if this was something to distract people from those Theory ads (for the Gansevoort Street shop) that arrived in the window of Jillery this past week...



Photos by Bobby Williams

Promising sinkhole continues to be promising on East 7th Street

We'll continue to monitor this one on East Seventh Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue...

You'll notice the skid marks ...



We're currently analyzing the brake marks to see what the vehicle's speed was prior to being swallowed up by the sinkhole. Also, someone left behind their sinkhole measuring apparatus.

The Village View Flea Market/Tag Sale is tomorrow (aka Sunday)

Via the EVG inbox…

Village View's Semi-Annual Flea Market/Tag Sale will take place tomorrow (Sunday, Sept. 20) in the playground just behind 60 Avenue A at the corner of East 4th Street and Avenue A from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

No sign of life at Nevada Smiths

As we first reported on Tuesday, the Marshal has seized Nevada Smiths on Third Avenue between East 12th Street and East 13th Street.

We walked by this morning… a time when the place would normally be open showing various matches (Chelsea v. Arsenal???). There aren't any signs on the front doors noting the closure. The Marshal's notice remains. Oh, well there is an empty jug of ketchup and two signs for a band on the sidewalk...



We haven't heard any other updates on the situation here. This is the bar's official message:

Due to Circumstances Beyond our Control NS is temporarily closed. We are working to resolve the Situation and Hope to Re-open Soon.

— Nevada Smiths (@NevadaSmiths) September 15, 2015

In April, DNAinfo reported that a New Jersey bank filed suit against Nevada Smiths after the bar failed to make the last four payments on a $150,000 loan.

The football/soccer mainstay opened in their new home in April 2013.

How an East Village 2nd grader is helping the NYC homeless population

Here's a story about Maribella, who attends second grade in the East Village, via the Coalition for the Homeless:

Every day she and her mother, Michelle, walk through Tompkins Square Park, where they see more and more homeless men and women suffering on the streets. Maribella decided she couldn’t just walk past them again and do nothing. So she figured out something even a second-grader could do to help.

About a year ago, Maribella began collecting loose change she found on the sidewalk and under couch cushions, keeping the spare pennies, nickels and dimes in a special jar on her bedside table. She carefully kept track of what she collected in a journal. Now, a year later, her jar holds $25 dollars in change! She decided she wanted to give the money to one of the homeless people she sees everyday – along with a note of well wishes

And if you happen to be out in Ridgewood, Queens, tomorrow, Maribella and her mother are hosting a lemonade stand and stoop sale, with all the money going to the Coalition for the Homeless.

All summer long

Seattle surf-noir outfit La Luz played at the Bowery Ballroom a few weeks back... touring in support of the quartet's new record "Weirdo Shrine." Here's "You Disappear" from that release...

The 6th annual NYC Pizza Run is tomorrow in Tompkins Square Park

Well, you're out of luck if you want to participate in the actual run…

We're sold out! If you didn't make the cut, you can still cheer on participants or meet us @DoubleWideNYC for the after party at noon.

— NYC Pizza Run (@nycpizzarun) September 17, 2015

Anyway, if you're new to this, then here's an explanation via the Pizza Run website…

Starting at 11AM, participants will run four laps around the park, counterclockwise. The total distance of the race is two miles. After lap 1, lap 2, and lap 3, there will be a “pizza station” set up where participants must stop to eat a slice of pizza before they can continue with the next lap. The first person to complete the run will be crowned the NYC Pizza Run Champion!

Previously

Minus a floor (mostly), BSA to weigh in on Ben Shaoul's zoning variance today for 515 E. 5th St.

[EVG photo from Sept. 5]

Workers packed up their gear and sidewalk bridge a few weeks ago at 515 E. Fifth St., where they had been removing the illegal top-floor addition courtesy of landlord Ben Shaoul.

And the top level here between Avenue A and Avenue B has been hollowed out, with a couple of walls remaining ...


[Photo via an EVG reader]

515 Penthouse Removal Watchers say this configuration is now similar to the Shaoul-owned 514-516 Sixth St., where the formerly illegal space is apparently making for a cool party gazebo for residents.

To quickly recap seven-plus years of illegal addition history: The Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) ruled in 2008 that 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.

The BSA apparently gave Shaoul until the end of July to provide proof that the top floor had been taken down … then the BSA would reopen hearings on the variances that Shaoul and Co. are requesting.

According to a member of the 515 tenants association, the next hearing is today.

DNAinfo reported on Sept. 4 that four studio apartments on the sixth floor had been listed for rent even though the "floor does not have a certificate of occupancy and the building is technically noncompliant with local zoning regulations."

Shaoul told DNAinfo that he did not know how the listings came to appear on Streeteasy. (They are no longer on the site.)

Per DNAinfo:

“I’m not responsible,” he said before pinning the listings on brokers.

“Brokers are unauthorized. Brokers do that all the time. There’s nothing,” he said. “Brokers do whatever they want to do.”

A building source claims that one of the sixth-floor units has been occupied since late August.

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

Ben Shaoul now has until the end of July to demolish his illegal penthouse on East 5th Street

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

Actual demolition work happening at Ben Shaoul's illegal East 5th Street penthouse

The annual 9th Street Block Party is tomorrow (aka Saturday)

[Photo via Steven]

Via the EVG inbox...

Annual 9th Street A-1 Block Association Block Party

East 9th Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A

Saturday, Sept. 1​9​, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. (no rain date)

Live Music (from noon - 4 p.m.)

Resident artists, crafts people, and photographers will be showing and selling their work, and residents will be selling a la stoop sale — antiques, bric-a-brac, clothing, accessories, music, jewelry, etc.

Block businesses include:

• Dorian Grey Gallery, Enchantments, Flower Power (herbs), Mr. Throwback (vintage clothing and accessories), Ollie's Place (cat adoption), Pink Olive (gifts), Polytima (jewelry), Pork Pie Hatterie (hats), Puppy Love Kitty Kat (pet supplies), Reason Outpost (clothing), The Upper Rust (antiques)
• Restaurants/Cafes: Good Beer, Tacos Morales, Cagen, Whitman's, Zucker Bakery, Superiority Burger
• Hair Salons/Barbers: Crops for Girls, Lovemore & Do, Maria Mok Salon, Neighborhood Barber, Tsumiki Salon

Report: Raphael Toledano secures $124 million loan for 16-building East Village portfolio

Raphael Toledano's Brookhill Properties secured a $124 million loan for his purchase of a 16-building East Village portfolio, the Commercial Observer reported yesterday.

New York-based real estate investment firm Madison Realty Capital provided the loan for Brookhill, who closed on the $97 million deal with the Tabak family earlier this month.

These are the 16 properties, as previously reported:

• 27 St. Marks Place – 20 residential units; 2 commercial units
• 66 East 7th Street – 22 residential units; 2 commercial units
• 95 East 7th Street – 20 residential units
• 223 East 5th Street – 18 residential units
• 228 East 6th Street – 20 residential units; 2 commercial units
• 229 East 5th Street – 10 residential units
• 231 East 5th Street – 8 residential units; 2 commercial units
• 233 East 5th Street – 10 residential units
• 235 East 5th Street – 10 residential units
• 253 East 10th Street – 20 residential units; 1 commercial unit
• 323-325 East 12th Street – 37 residential units
• 327 East 12th Street – 22 residential units; 2 commercial units
• 329 East 12th Street – 24 residential units
• 334 East 9th Street – 20 residential units; 2 commercial units
• 510 East 12th Street – 20 residential units; 2 commercial units
• 514 East 12th Street – 20 residential units

Per the Commercial Observer:

Through the repositioning, Brookhill plans to upgrade the common areas in the buildings and renovate the residential units to maximize their square footage.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Claim: Landlord of 444 E. 13th St. threatened 'to drop dynamite on the building'

Reader report: Large portfolio of East Village buildings ready to change hands

Report: State investigating East Village landlord Raphael Toledano

Report: Uncle suing nephew broker Raphael Toledano over $100 million East Village deal

Report: Raphael Toledano completes purchase of 16-building East Village portfolio

Photo of 253 E. 10th St. and 27 St. Mark’s Place via The Real Deal

Black Seed bagels about 2 weeks away from opening

In its Fall Restaurant Preview earlier this month, the Times listed that Black Seed bagels would be opening its new location at 176 First Ave. on Sept. 17.

Based on that info, there were a few people expecting to find bagels being served from the former DeRobertis bakery location yesterday.

That wasn't the case.

Black Seed cleared up any confusion via Twitter…

@NameCantBe @evgrieve @nytimes Two more weeks. Hope to see you soon on 1st Ave!

— Black Seed Bagels (@BlackSeedBagels) September 17, 2015

H/T @NameCantBe

Previously