Last week a reader tipped us off to the fact that a flower shop was in bloom operating out of the former Mono + Mono space at 116 E. Fourth St.
A recap of what happened to the restaurant that specialized in Korean fried chicken (and with a collection of jazz records): In April 2013, a two-alarm fire swept through the single-level building. Through the years the owners provided multiple updates that they'd return to the space between First Avenue and Second Avenue. That never happened. And then when the signs arrived for the florist, it seemed as if the Mono + Mono return plans were kaput.
But! There is an amendment to the signage... that Mono + Mono is still in the works...
The last update of the M+M Facebook page is from October 2014 (and it's for the Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival). The M+M website site is currently down. The GoDaddy notice says it expired on July 15, and is "pending renewal or deletion." The M+M phone number is no longer in service.
Meanwhile, we have yet to see anyone inside the shop. And the number goes to a generic voice-mail box.
Workers prepped the southeast corner of 10th Street and Fourth Avenue late last week for demolition. (H/T to a reader for alerting us to this on Friday.) This comes about nine months after the permits were filed.
The parcel includes the four-story, turn-of-the-century townhouse at 82 E. 10th St.
Last Monday, the city OK'd the plans for a 10-story building here. The approved permit shows retail on the ground floor and 12 dwelling units above. The residential portion encompasses more than 24,000 square feet, so those units will presumably be condos. Floors 2-5 will each have two units while 6-8 will each have one unit while a two-level duplex to top things off.
The plans also show a rooftop "recreation space" ... with more outdoor space on the ground level. Residential perks include a media room, an exercise room and storage for seven bikes, according to the permits.
SBLM Architects are listed as the architects of record. We didn't spot a rendering at their website ... but there is this diagram on file with the DOB...
It has been a long time coming for this — or any — development here. The previous tenants, including the Green East deli and St. Marx Music (and previously the Atlas Barber School), were cleared out in early 2007. There were once plans to build a 13-story hotel, though the city never OK'd that proposal, Curbed reported in 2009.
The plans for the 10-story building were filed last summer, as New York Yimby first reported. The layout has been amended somewhat. The plans from last summer showed just eight residences. Folks living here will just have to make due with a little less space.
In the shadows of Steiner East Village, the renovations continue at the former Poppy's Gourmet Corner on Avenue A and 12th Street.
There are detailed plans on the plywood... helpfully pointing out where the various items will be inside the incoming deli/market...
Among other things, the plans show a counter, a back counter, coffee, ice cream, a fryer, grill and juice bar.
And now, courtesy of EVG regular Greg Masters, an exclusive look at the market's new refrigeration units...
Poppy's closed at the end of January. Owner Mike Attal told Poppy's regular Shawn Chittle that a rent increase made it too challenging (Kushnered) to stay in business.
Updated 8/2
The coming-soon sign is now up for NY Grill & Deli...
We have a signage reveal at 137 First Ave., where Drunken Dumpling is opening soon between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street...
The Drunken Dumpling proprietors are seeking a beer-wine license, and are on this month's CB3 SLA docket (that meeting notice has not been posted at the CB3 website as of this morning)...
Here's a scene from Tompkins Square Park this afternoon... as one of the red-tailed hawk youngsters apparently made its first solo pigeon strike... EVG reader Peter Shapiro shared these photos... as he noted, "freshly picked pigeon feathers were gently falling toward the crowd of onlookers."
... and a few hawk shots from earlier today via Bobby Williams...
A reader shares this from Third Street and Avenue B... where someone is clearly flouting the city's ban on household trash in street trash cans ... by dumping an entire household trash can ...
This Saturday marks the closing for Ludlow Street's art-concept-store Inutilious Retailer. (Word is the new building's owner at 151 Ludlow St. won't renew the lease.)
Opened last September by artist Adrian Miller, it has become a hub for local artists Cash4 SMELLS, Brandon Sines and Hek Tad to name a few. Over the course of the year, he has invited painters of all kinds to do work in his back yard in addition to featuring a different artist every week with on top of his basement stairs.
[The rooftop of Inutilious Retailer's building looking north]
[The backyard of Inutiliuos Retailer last week]
[Bike messenger Gary McKnight in front of Inutilious Retailer featuring a Frank Ape painting by Brandon Sine last March]
Thee Oh Sees are playing at the Bowery Ballroom on Nov. 11, and that show is already sold out. They're at the Warsaw then on Nov. 13. (Maybe they'll play a show somewhere here on the 12th.)
Anyway, here's the San Francisco-based band from 2013 with "Lupine Dominus" from the Putrifiers II LP. It's a different TOS lineup these days — only founder/singer John Dwyer remains. And they employ two drummers now.
Big-box retailer Target inked a deal to open a small-format store... Target signed a 30-year lease at 500 East 14th Street on the corner of Avenue A, according to a memorandum of lease that hit property records Friday. Terms of the lease include a 10-year option to extend the lease.
In an effort to increase market penetration (and comply with local zoning regs), the No. 2 discount chain is focusing on a smaller-footprint store format that can squeeze into strip malls and city streets where its gargantuan big-box flagships can’t.
Extell Development's has two, 7-floor retail-residential buildings coming: 500 E. 14th St. will have 106 residential units … while, further to the east, 524 E. 14th St. will house 44 residential units.
Proprietor Peter McCaffrey is relocating to Chelsea in collaboration with Pratzon Art Restoration, 122 W. 26th St. It is not a retail space, though.
Here's what McCaffrey told us earlier this month about the relocation.
"It has been difficult the last few years. Many of my old clientele have moved on and the influx of a more transitory population has affected my custom framing business. Selling art is another challenge, but I think the mindset of 'inexpensive and disposable' has become the norm as new residents come and go."
Anyway, this is the last weekend for the custom frame and fine art shop at 328 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. There are sales on prints and frames... and opportunities to offer best wishes to Peter on his move to Chelsea.
"Smithereens" starts a weeklong revival today at the Metrograph, the newish theater complex down on Ludlow Street.
The 1982 dark comedy, which marked Susan Seidelman's directorial debut, is set in the East Village (and other downtown locales). Wren (Susan Berman), a suburban New Jersey escapee, is eager for downtown fame, plastering "missing" posters of herself on the subway and elsewhere. She sees a meal ticket in Eric (Richard Hell), the hot guy with a short attention span in a band. And there's the too-nice Paul (Brad Rijn), who pursues the uninterested Wren. Hustling ensues.
Seidelman started filming in late 1979, and continued on and off for the next 18 months. (Production shut down when Berman broke a leg during rehearsal.) "Smithereens," made for $40,000, was the first American indie invited to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
She went on to make several female-focused comedies, including 1985's "Desperately Seeking Susan" with Rosanna Arquette and Madonna and 1989's "She-Devil" with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep, among others. (She also directed the pilot for "Sex and the City.")
I spoke with Seidelman about "Smithereens" and her follow-up, "Desperately Seeking Susan," also partly filmed in the East Village, during a phone call last week. Here's part of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.
On why she wanted to tell this story in "Smithereens":
I was living in the East Village and I was also at NYU. And at the time, NYU Film School, the graduate film school, was on Second Avenue — part of it was where the old Fillmore East used to be. So for three years, that area around Seventh Street and Second Avenue was my stomping grounds.
I started NYU in 1974, and I was there until 1977. So it was interesting to watch the transition from the older hippie generation and hippie-style shops and people as it started transitioning into the punk and new wave kind of subculture. I was a music person, so I frequented CBGB and Max’s Kansas City at that time. And so, that world was interesting to me, and telling a story set in that world about a young woman who’s not from that world, but wants to be part of it in some way, was both semi-personal and just of interest.
On production shutting down:
There were challenges throughout the shoot because I never had all the money. The budget ended up being about $40,000, but I probably only had about $20,000 at any given moment. I was borrowing and racking up bills. I wasn’t really thinking about how I was going to pay it. I figured I’d get to that when I needed to pay it.
Aside from those challenges, when Susan Berman fell off a fire escape and broke her leg during rehearsal, there was no getting around that. We had to quit filming. I kind of thought, oh, you know, fuck it — I’m not going to let this stop me. It made me actually more determined. I had the time to look at what was working and what wasn’t working, and I learned a lot of stuff. I started editing the footage. I could rewrite stuff and change the story a bit.
On casting Richard Hell:
That was when we redefined the character of Eric, who was originally not played by Richard Hell. It was played by somebody else who was not a rock-and-roller — he was more of a downtown painter/artsy type, not a musician — and was also played by a European actor.
By recasting and redefining that role with Richard Hell in mind, it shaped the tone of the movie and changed it, I think, in a good direction. I’m not going to give names, but the other actor — the other person is a working actor, as opposed to Richard Hell, who was acting in the movie, but was more of a presence and an iconic figure even at that time. So trying to make the character of Eric blend in with the real Richard Hell added a level of authenticity to the film.
On filming in the East Village:
In the scene when Wren is waiting out on the sidewalk and the landlady throws her clothing out the window and then splashes her with water, all the people and all the reactions in the background were from the people living on that block who had come out to watch.
At the time, New York was coming out the bankruptcy crisis. There weren’t a lot of police on the street, there wasn’t a lot of red tape and paperwork. These days to film on the street, you have to get a mayor’s permit — so many levels of bureaucracy. Back then, either it didn’t exist … but also I was naïve to what probably needed to be done.
We just showed up with cameras and we filmed. We had some people working on the crew who were friends and they told crowds lining in the street — just don’t look in the camera. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, but it was all very spontaneous.
That’s the advantage of doing a super low-budget movie — you can just go with the flow. For example, there’s a scene with a kid who’s doing a three-card Monte thing on the sidewalk. He was a kid we saw in Tompkins Square Park with his mother. We didn’t have to worry about SAG or unions or anything. I thought he was interesting and [we asked his mother] if they come to this address at this time and be in our movie.
On the lead characters:
My intention wasn’t to make likable characters. My intention was to make interesting characters and who had some element of ambiguity. There are things that I like about Wren; on the other hand, I think she’s obviously somebody who uses people and is incredibly narcissistic. I’m aware of that. But she’s also somebody who is determined to recreate herself and to live the kind of life that she wants to live, and redefine herself from her background, which you get a little hint at, this boring suburban New Jersey life she must have run away from.
On the independent film scene at the time:
The definition of an independent filmmaker has changed so radically. Nowadays, being an independent filmmaker could mean you’re making a $5 million movie that’s really financed by the Weinstein Company, or it could mean you're doing a cellphone movie like “Tangerine.”
But back then, there weren’t that many independent filmmakers. I know there were some people working out of Los Angeles who were doing stuff and a small pocket of people in New York City. So either you knew them or you were friends with them or you just knew what they were doing and had mutual friends. It was truly a small community. And within that community, there were also a definite relationship between people who were musicians, filmmakers or graffiti artists.
So everyone was borrowing people, trading information or sharing resources. Also, the world wasn’t as competitive as it is today. People were eager and willing to help somebody who was a filmmaker would act in somebody else’s film or tell them about a location or a musician. It was pretty simple, like — hey, let’s make a movie, without a lot of calculation.
On her follow-up film, "Desperately Seeking Susan:"
I didn’t have anything lined up after "Smithereens." I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I just finished the movie when it was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival.
But I did know that there were very few female film directors. And the one or two I had heard about who had made an interesting independent film ... I knew that your follow-up movie, especially if it was going to be financed by a studio, you needed to be smart about the choice. You had to make a movie that you could still be creatively in charge of, or else you could get lost in the shuffle.
For about a year and a half, I was reading scripts. And they were, for the most part, terrible. I just figured these couldn’t be my next movie. I have nothing to say about this kind of material.
So then I got this script. It was a little different than the way it ended up being, but it was called "Desperately Seeking Susan." I liked that the character, Susan, felt like she could be kind of related to Wren in "Smithereens." I thought I could bring something unique to that kind of a role. So I didn't feel like I was out of my element there.
And also, part of the film was set in the East Village, a neighborhood that I loved and knew. The other good thing was I was so familiar with the characters and able to add my own spin using a lot of people from the independent film community in small parts, like Rockets Redglare, John Lurie and Arto Lindsay. Richard Hell has a cameo.
On working with Madonna:
At the time, Madonna was not famous when we started out. We were just filming on the streets like she was a regular semi-unknown actress. So there wasn’t a lot of hoopla around the film.
And then, you know, so much of life is about being there with the right thing and the right timing. It just so happened that the movie came out at the moment that her "Like A Virgin" album was released and they coincided and she became a phenomenon. But since that wasn’t during the actual filming, there wasn’t the kind of pressure that one would normally feel if you were working with a big star or a a super-famous person.
On the legacy of "Smithereens":
I think I was trying to document what it felt like to live in that neighborhood in that part of the city at that time. I never really thought about it in terms of whether the film would pass the test of time or be a time capsule or anything.
But the fact that it ended up being pretty authentic to the environment, to the neighborhood, is maybe what enabled it to pass the test of time.
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The Metrograph is showing "Smithereens," which features a score by The Feelies, on a new 35-millimeter print courtesy of Shout Factory LLC. Seidelman will be attending tonight's 7 screening. Details here.
The Films on the Green series — the free outdoor French film festival produced since 2008 — continues its East Village run this evening with Eric Rohmer's comedy "Boyfriends and Girlfriends" (aka "L'Ami de mon amie") from 1987.
Thomas first opened the 60s-style vintage boutique featuring items from local artists and designers as a pop-up shop ... and decided to keep it going. The Deep End Club also hosted environmental workshops and impromptu concerts.
The shop's name came from her father, Pete Thomas, the longtime drummer for Elvis Costello & the Attractions.
"He had a thing called the Deep End Club when he was young and crazy," says the 29-year-old shop owner and drummer. On tour, in his younger years, her father would jump into hotel swimming pools fully clothed whenever someone declared "a Deep End Club meeting."
The man followed the 33-year-old victim into her apartment building at 13th Street and Avenue B at about 3 a.m., then told her he had a gun and demanded her property, police said.
The woman told police that she gave the man her smartphone, debit card, jewelry and $35 in cash.
Per DNAinfo:
Police have released surveillance footage of the suspect, who is described as a man between 30 and 40-years-old, 5-foot 10-inches tall and weighing 225 pounds.
Anyone with information that could help in the investigation is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). You may also submit tips online.
Empire Biscuit owner Jonathan Price told us that they would reopen in March after doing some maintenance work. That never happened. (The reopening — not sure about the maintenance.)
The storefront remains dormant... on July 1, a reader thought that the space had been emptied out...
...but it was a false alarm...
And now, a summons appeared on the front door yesterday (but dated from May) ... from the Civil Court of the City of New York ... looks as if the plaintiff, City Waste Services of New York, is looking to collect a debt...
