Veteran restaurateur Sushil Malhotra opening Old Monk in former Babu Ji space on Avenue B

Sushil Malhotra, founder of Curry in a Hurry, Akbar Dawat and Café Spice, among others, is opening Old Monk at the former Babu Ji space on Avenue B at 11th Street.

Malhotra confirmed the news in an email. He described it as an "exciting Indian concept coming up soon." In a follow-up phone call, he said that "it's definitely going to be a fun place." He said they were still working out details on decor and pricing, and wasn't quite ready to share more details.

Malhotra and his team, which includes chef Navjot Arora (a partner and executive chef at the well-regarded Chutney Masala Indian Bistro in Westchester County), are on this month's CB3 SLA committee docket for a beer-wine license for 175 Avenue B. (This item will not be heard during the committee meeting on May 15.)

The listed hours for Old Monk are 5-10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 1-11 p.m. on Saturday, and noon-10 p.m. on Sunday.

Westchester Magazine had a profile on Malhotra from 2012. Per the article:

The last time you had a yen for Indian cuisine, Sushil Malhotra probably satisfied your craving, albeit indirectly. Have you ever had a fantastic meal at Chutney Masala in Irvington or taken clients to dinner at Dawat in Manhattan? Maybe you’ve picked up lunch at the Café Spice booth in Grand Central’s Dining Concourse. And if you frequent Whole Foods Market, you may have savored the Indian food from its hot bar.

You can thank Malhotra for all of those culinary delights. The Irvington resident also can be given major credit for bringing upscale Indian food to the United States. In fact, the food from Malhotra’s empire, Café Spice, is now so popular that he can hardly keep up with the demand.

Malhotra grew up in India and moved to NYC in 1966 at age 17. Per the article: "He and his father opened a small spice business that supplied South Asian spices, chutneys, and crispy breads to New York City’s curry houses. The Malhotras stored their spices in their Jackson Heights garage, and Sushil used his weekends to join his father in dropping off chutney and spices to Indian restaurants in Manhattan and Queens." In 1976, he quit engineering to become a restaurateur.

Old Monk's arrival also marks the end of Babu Ji, which went dark in early March. A sign, since removed, at the door noted that they were "taking a break."



The closure followed a report by Eater's Ryan Sutton outlining details of a second wage-theft and overtime lawsuit against owners Jessi and Jennifer Singh.

Babu Ji opened in June 2015.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: Babu Ji on Avenue B hit with another wage lawsuit

A quick look at Fiaschetteria Pistoia on 11th Street

[EVG photo from March]

Been meaning to note the arrival (in early February!) of Fiaschetteria Pistoia, which serves Tuscan cuisine at 647 E. 11th St. near Avenue C.

Now seems like a good time. Yesterday, Eater critic Robert Sietsema gave it very positive notices. As he notes, "this improbably located spot was founded by Emanuele Bugiani, whose family owns Fiaschetteria La Pace in Pistoia, a trattoria 30 kilometers northwest of Florence."

A few excerpts:

The most purely Tuscan pasta is a broad noodle here called by its generic name of maccheroni in a chunky wild-boar sauce. All are quite fantastic...

And!

The décor at this restaurant might be termed East Village rustic, including the usual rickety tables, tin ceilings, and crumbling walls, forming the local equivalent, I suppose, of a rural osteria in the Tuscan countryside. Posters of canned food products dating from the 60s adorn the walls, perhaps the work of some Italian Andy Warhol. In the back corner is a pasta-making machine, and one of the cooks frequently steps out of the kitchen to tend it, making pastas that, if not all Tuscan, are uniformly delicious.

You can never go wrong with a classic Tuscan dish: Spaghetti Chitarra with Pomarola. #FiaschetteriaPistoia

A post shared by FIASCHETTERIA "Pistoia" (@fiaschetteriapistoia) on Feb 9, 2017 at 12:00pm PST

The restaurant is open Tuesday-Sunday from 6-11 p.m.

This space was previously home to Matilda then I Coppi Di Matilda.

Reading report: Knife-wielding man arrested on 9th Street

A reader shared this from this evening on Ninth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue: "Million cops came out of nowhere and arrested a guy. Crazy scene."

Police at the scene said that the suspect, who appeared to be a minor, was threatening to stab people on St. Mark's Place. Witnesses said that police found "a huge knife" on the suspect following the arrest.

H/T EVG reader Ryan

Today in photo shoots on 7th Street and Avenue A

I do not know what this is for ... or if that guy in the background is part of the shoot...



Meanwhile, inside Tompkins Square Park...



Photos by Bobby Williams

EV Grieve Etc.: Christo & Dora's latest offspring; history of urban squatting

[Photo on 10th Street via Derek Berg]

Longtime LES resident John “DJ Apache” Mercado dies (The Lo-Down)

Another kid for Christo and Dora in Tompkins Square Park (Laura Goggin Photography)

Oxford University professor Alexander Vasudevan on "The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting" (Curbed)

East Village landlord Jared Kushner didn't disclose various business ties or that he owes $1 billion in loans (Business Insider)

A look at Out East on Sixth Street (Eater ... Grub Street)

Multilevel Mexican Clubstaurant vying for former Preserve 24 space on East Houston at Allen (BoweryBoogie)

Some visitors to the bubble tea pop-up shop on the Bowery are disappointed by the experience (Gothamist)

How Target ended up at Essex Crossing (The Lo-Down)

Someone stole rose bushes from First Park (The Post)

The 13th annual New York Polish Film Festival runs tomorrow through Sunday at the Anthology (Official site)

A trip to Phil's Stationery on East 47th Street (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Coming this summer: "New York in the '70s" series (Film Forum)

Out and About in the East Village

In this ongoing 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: This longtime resident wanted to share his story but asked to remain anonymous
Occupation: Retired
Location: St. Mark's Place between First Avenue and Avenue A
Date: Monday, May 1 at 3:45 p.m.

I’m from Europe. I immigrated here from Greece when I was 5. I came to the Lower East Side, about less than a mile from here. There were a lot of Greek immigrants at that time. It was OK – a lot of people in the neighborhood knew each other, and there was a big Greek community up until about the 1970s. A lot of the old timers started dying and moving out and Chinatown started expanding. There are only a handful of families left now. I’ve lived on the Lower East Side my whole life.

My father had a merchandize business on the Lower East Side, selling housewares, glasswares, cookware. A friend of mine knew the super of a building. He controlled who was going in and out, so I spoke to him and he said, ‘I can keep an apartment aside for you.’ They were much more available then.I started out at $225 a month – it was more than amazing.

I moved in around 1979. I was just glad for a place to stay that I could afford. I lucked out and soon after I moved in, the super friend of mine, I told him, ‘I think I’m thinking of moving out,’ and he said, ‘You know what? Don’t you dare move out. The rents are going to be much higher and you’re going to regret it.’ So I figured, let me listen to the voice of experience, because somehow he had an inkling of what was to happen, and it turned out exactly right. I’m glad I listened to him. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be around here.

When I was in my 20s, and my father’s business was still open, friends from the neighborhood used to go to a place called Adam and Eve. It was on Waverly Place, right near NYU — a big hangout place for students and people in that age group. We used to go there and just drink pitchers of beer and get smashed there, but the difference was that we weren’t out to cause any trouble or be annoying or anything. We used to just sort of hang around with each other. We didn’t get involved with anybody else there.

After I closed my father’s business, I went to work in Century 21 in Brooklyn, and later in the wholesale jewelry business in Chinatown. I stayed there quite some time, 18 years, and then around 2001, the business started going down so I got laid off and I went to work in Midtown in the big jewelry district on 47th Street. I went to work for another wholesale place but much bigger, much busier. The boss and the manager realized right away that I had more experience than most of the people working in there. He grabbed me right away. It’s hard to find somebody to do that kind of work. They had a big mail-order all over the country. Crazy boss, very strict, very paranoid and stuff but I learned how to deal with it.

There were a whole bunch of drug dealers right on that corner where the bar Good Night Sonny is. It used to be a cleaners and they used to congregate and sell that stuff on the corner. They put the guy right out of business because his customers were too afraid to drop stuff off and pick stuff up. I would avoid that side of the street – it was horrible. When Giuliani became mayor, he started cleaning up a lot of the street traffic – one of the few good things that he did. That improved the situation a lot. Didn’t solve it because they just packed up and moved to another neighborhood.

The neighborhood was like the Haight-Ashbury of the 1960s in a way. The East Village became like that and is still like that to an extent. Everything goes, total freedom, and a mixture of people. A lot of freedom just in the sense that you could be whatever you wanted and nobody would look down on you.

A lot of the old-timers have died or moved out or whatever and the yuppies started moving in. You can’t blame them for doing it, but since they’re willing to pay more ... the landlords just took advantage of it and started charging higher rents.

I would prefer it if the rents weren’t up so high but there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s unfair — it’s pushing out the working-class people and the poor people, and the students come in and they’re not thinking of long term. They just stay a year or two until they finish school. Landlords love that because then you can increase the rent by law, so the rents just keep on going up. It’s going to reach another housing bubble I think. I see a lot more signs around, apartments for rent, than I saw the year before.

The high rents have also been pushing out small business. It’s been very hard for any little business to survive. Along this block there’s a high turnover, especially further down. Some of the stores don’t even last a year, and then they’ve got to get out. That’s a horrible situation, because it can’t be that they’re all doing something wrong. It’s just that they can’t make enough. Nobody wants to work for the landlord.

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

A map to track the city's 280 miles of sidewalk bridges

[A fine sidewalk bridge on St. Mark's Place]

The New York Times takes a look at the 280 (!) miles of sidewalk bridges or sidewalk sheds that line the five boroughs.

Though intended to protect passers-by from falling debris, these eyesores known as sidewalk sheds have often become a blight, drawing a barrage of complaints from residents and businesses that they block light and views, attract crime and litter and impede foot traffic along congested sidewalks.

On the positive side, sidewalk bridges make for handy places to drape paintings of naked women with 100 Avenue A written on their bodies to help sell condos...



Anyway, while City Council is considering some legislation targeting scaffolding that stays too long, the DOB has unveiled an online tool to track the city's sidewalk bridges/sheds...

It has taken stock of scaffolding and created an online system to better track the structures at a time when there are more of them than ever as older buildings need work and a construction boom produces more towers. In a sweep last year, building inspectors checked every piece of scaffolding and while most needed to remain for safety, about 150 were ordered dismantled because work had been finished.

The new map marks every building with scaffolding with a color-coded dot showing why the structures went up: red for buildings deemed unsafe, light blue for repairs, dark blue for new construction and green for maintenance work. Clicking on a dot reveals more details, including the date a permit was first approved. The older the scaffolding, the larger the dot.

You can play with the map here.

This is just a screengrab...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Now, for real, final pieces of 6-year-old sidewalk bridge come down on St. Mark's Place

90s Forever on 9th Street this month

[Photo by Steven]

Stylist and vintage-thrift enthusiast, Amanda Dolan (pictured above), founder of Spark Pretty, is opening a 1990s-inspired pop-up shop at 333 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. The shop opens tomorrow (Thursday!) through May 30.

New MoRUS exhibit features LES posters and flyers from the 1980s and 1990s

Via the EVG inbox...

Taking it to the Streets!
The Art + Design of Posters and Flyers on the Lower East Side in the 80s + 90s

Before Twitter and Facebook people had to use the streets to organize, their messages wheatpaste postered right on a pole. It was the era of 'xeroxcracy' and the streets were the gallery walls. These political posters and fliers raised awareness and helped organize community for grassroots political change. The posters range in subject from defending the squats and community gardens, taking on gentrification and the rich, police brutality, gender equality, environmentalism and anti-nuclear war activism. The floors of the museum will be stenciled to resemble the sidewalks of the past.

OPENING: Thursday, May 4 at 7-9 p.m.
HOURS: Tuesday, Thursday-Sunday 12-7 p.m.
Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space
155 Avenue C, between Ninth Street and 10th Street
Show runs until Thursday, June 29

Stenciling the floor for the upcoming poster and stencil show eighties and nineties Lower East Side at the Museum of reclaimed Urban space opening on May 4th

A post shared by Museum of Reclaimed UrbanSpace (@morusnyc) on Apr 30, 2017 at 8:35pm PDT

Find more details here.

Tuesday's parting shot

Photo by Bobby Williams

Reader report: Man with knife takes backpack from guest in building on 13th Street and 1st Avenue

An EVG reader who lives near 13th Street and First Avenue shared this via email...

I know you've recently been covering a string of thefts around the area. Not sure if this fits the MO but a friend was robbed in my building as he was leaving my apartment. I live on the ground floor and the perp ran down the stairs to hold up my friend for his backpack ... meaning the perp was let into the building somehow.

[P]eople should not let anyone in unless they are expecting someone. My apartment has been buzzed a lot recently by people we weren't expecting — likely trying to get in the building for a variety of reasons.

The robbery occurred last night at 7:30. The suspect said that he had a knife before pulling one out of his pocket. The reader's friend immediately called the police immediately after the suspect left.

Karen Finley bringing her 'Expanded Unicorn Gratitude Mystery' to LaMama

Via the EVG inbox...

La MaMa presents
"The Expanded Unicorn Gratitude Mystery"
Written and Performed by Karen Finley

May 5 - May 14

Karen Finley brings her rave reviewed solo performance to La MaMa.

"The Expanded Unicorn Gratitude Mystery" explores the recent heightened U.S. political presidential landscape that takes on citizenship, gender disparity and abuse of power. The individual price of public relationships at the price of privacy becomes divisive with searing psychosexual dynamics of wit and seething revelation. The performance explores magical beings, aggressive thankfulness, and collective intimacy through Shakespearean family nation dramatic traumatics. This is an experimental nonlinear poetic text that creates a jolt of intuition, analysis and unnatural disaster of the human kind.

Only 6 performances: May 5 - 14, 2017

The Club @ La MaMa
74A East 4th Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors

Click here for tickets and info.

Anna has left the East Village after 22 years

Anna has packed up and left 11th Street between First Avenue and Second Store.

The womenswear boutique has moved to Christopher Street in the West Village...



Per the Anna Facebook page: "We're thrilled to share that on May 1st we will be merging with our dream store, Fairlight, at 13 Christopher Street in the West Village. Looking forward to seeing you all in our new space!"

Designer Kathy Kemp first opened Anna in 1995 on Third Street near Avenue A. Anna relocated to 11th Street in 2012. (Read more about Anna and Kemp in this Out and About feature from 2014.)

With Anna's departure, there are now three of four consecutive storefronts sitting empty on this block of 11th Street... Odin and Pas de Deux closed earlier this year...

Construction watch: 287 E. Houston St.

These photos are from Sunday. By now, there's likely another few floors.

Work has been zipping right along here at 287 E. Houston St. between Clinton and Suffolk... site of a planned 11 stories of condos...



The 120-foot-tall luxury building will feature 28 apartments. The development will have two to four apartments on each story, including two duplexes on the first and second floors and a penthouse duplex on the top two floors.

The condoplex's website shows seven available units, starting at $1.18 million for a 624-square-foot unit... and $2.95 million for the 1,100-square foot penthouse with an additional 140-square-feet of outdoor space.

AA Studio is the architect while HOGG Holdings and Vinci U.S. Real Estate are the developers. (Corcoran Group Marketing is heading up sales. And marketing.)

And as for the final product, we'll just drop this in...



The lot here previously housed a tax-preparation business; a landscaping business also shared part of the property.


[Via Google Street View]

Previously on EV Grieve:
11 stories of condos to join the growing East Houston residential corridor

About the Taste of 7th Street 2017

The now-annual Taste of 7th Street begins Thursday and ends Sunday... A $30 ticket gets you an item from 10 different Seventh Street food shops.

The ticket sales end tonight (Tuesday!) at midnight. Find all the details on tickets and participating vendors here.

Updated: Steve Croman's next Criminal Court date is tomorrow morning

Steve Croman, who is charged with 20 felonies and a civil suit accusing him of forcing tenants from their rent-controlled apartments, is due back in court tomorrow morning (Tuesday, May 2).

Croman tenants are holding a rally outside Manhattan Criminal Court at 100 Centre St. at 8:45 a.m. Afterwards, tenants are going to room 1333 on the 13th floor for the legal proceedings.

It has been nearly one year since State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the charges against Croman. His criminal case has been adjourned and bail continued five times now, according to the Croman Tenants Alliance. (His civil court date is June 5.)



The criminal charges stem from false documents Croman submitted listing rent-regulated units as market-rate apartments and inflating his commercial rental rates to obtain better refinancing. His debt broker, Barry Swartz, was charged with 15 felonies. Croman and Schwartz pleaded not guilty in state Supreme Court last May.

Croman's real-estate empire includes 47 buildings with 617 units in the East Village. As previously noted, Croman owns more buildings in the East Village than any other landlord.

Updated 11:30 a.m.

Richard Johnson at the Post this morning reported that Croman was going to cop a plea that will have him serve eight months behind bars and pay a fine of $5 million to $10 million.

Croman is said to be thrilled he will get off so lightly, and so is his wife, Harriet, who is part of a wealthy clique of Upper East Side moms.

Croman faced up to 25 years in prison on charges of harassing rent-stabilized tenants so he could lease their units at market rates and inflating his rental receipts in order to fraudulently secure $45 million in bank loans.

Vogue Magazine held a pre-Met Gala party on 6th Street Saturday night

Tonight is the annual Met Gala, aka the Costume Institute Gala aka the Met Ball, the fundraising gala for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. (This evening's honoree is Rei Kawakubo.)

On Saturday night, Vogue Magazine held its annual pre-Met gala at 6BC Botanical Garden and Grape and Grain on Sixth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.

As we understand it, Vogue "made a very generous gift" to the garden and "promised to be respectful of the space."

Here's the recap via Vogue:

[There was] a “Midsummer Night’s Anime” dress code. All around, guests decked out in their finest mingled amid glowing flowers. For dinner, attendees meandered over to Grape and Grain, an adjacent wine bar, for custom bento boxes from David Bouley’s Brushstroke. Afterward, revelers returned to the garden for a dessert of Taiyaki fish cones topped with matcha green tea ice cream. Trays of Minamoto Kitchoan mochi and cookies were passed, along with glasses of Moët & Chandon Champagne and cups of Heavensake sake.

EVG regular Shawn Chittle shared the photos on this post...

[Updated] A message in Tompkins Square Park

EVG correspondent Steven spotted this earlier today in Tompkins Square Park... someone left an anti-war recording on a tree using three plastic cups as a holder as well an amplifier for the sound...



The device remains in place as of this afternoon, though the recording has stopped...

Updated 6:30

Steven spotted a second homemade speaker... this one is no longer working either...

May is Lower East Side History Month

Via the EVG inbox...

Lower East Side History Month is an annual celebration of the rich and diverse history of the Lower East Side. Each year in May, Lower East Side cultural and community groups, small businesses and residents create a variety of public events, exhibits, tours, and learning opportunities. All events take place in the historical boundaries of the Lower East Side, which includes the East Village, Chinatown, Two Bridges and Loisaida.

The activities officially commence on Wednesday evening with the opening reception for an exhibit titled "A Photographic Journey Through the East Village." The photos will be on display all month at ILevel, an installation gallery, at 37 E. Seventh St. between Second Avenue and Cooper Square. Details here. Find the full calendar of events here.

A proposal to co-name part of 2nd Avenue and 7th Street after the victims of the 2015 gas explosion

Members of CB3's Transportation & Public Safety/Environment Committee will hear a proposal this month to co-name Second Avenue between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place after the two men who died in the gas explosion here on March 26, 2015.

Authorities have said that siphoned gas at 121 Second Ave. was to blame for the explosion, which killed Moises Ismael Locón Yac and Nicholas Figueroa, and injured two dozen other people.

Figueroa, 23, a recent graduate of SUNY Buffalo State, was at Sushi Park with a co-worker. Locón, an employee at Sushi Park, was 27. Locón sent most of his paycheck back to his family in Guatemala, where he worked as a school teacher before moving to the United States in 2008.

Here's more information about the street co-naming proposal via a petition:

In memory of these young men, we ask that our community honor their lives and demonstrate to their families who their loss was also our loss and that we share in their sorrow by co-naming these blocks.

The petition must be signed by a minimum 75 percent of the total number of residential units and 75 percent of the total number of businesses on these blocks. (We appreciate the support, but do not need signatures from elsewhere in the neighborhood. The petitions will be available at neighboring businesses.)

If approved, then City Council will vote on this in May or June. If passed in the City Council, we will set a date with the Department of Transportation for a street blade installation and have a street co-naming event.

Here's a document (PDF) with more information on CB3's guidelines for co-naming a street. (If you have any questions or want to get more involved, then please email nicholasandmoises [at] gmail [dot] com.)

The committee meeting is May 9 at 6:45 p.m. at Downtown Art, 1st Floor Theater, 70 E. Fourth St. between the Bowery and Second Avenue.

The committee is also expected to hear a request to co-name Second Street between Avenue A and Avenue B for Mary Spink.

Spink, a local business owner and member of CB3, was a community activist and later served as executive director of Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association. She died in January 2012 at age 64.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Updated: 2nd Ave. explosion — landlord, 3 others charged with 2nd degree manslaughter; showed 'a blatant and callous disregard for human life'

Memorial for Mary Spink tomorrow

RIP Nicholas Figueroa

RIP Moises Ismael Locón Yac