At the 9th Street Block Party

[Photo by Steven]

The annual block party on Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue took place yesterday ... here are a few photos from the day via Derek Berg...























The people I talked with who attended the Block Party really enjoyed the festivities, which featured a good mix of businesses on the block, such as Love Gang, Enchantments, Tacos Morales, Superiority Burger and Confectionery (pictured below) ...


[Photo by Steven]

... outside vendors such as Ford Vintage ...


[Photo via @fordvintage]

... and residents selling their stuff on the stoops or street...


[Photo by Grant Shaffer]

Village View's semi-annual tag sale is today

The action is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Village View playground — enter at Fifth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Previously

A Jurassic Tompkins Square Park

I have no idea what this was about.

Photos by Bobby Williams...













Updated

And thanks to Grant Shaffer for a snippet of the action on Avenue A...

Clean around the fountain

From 4 to 5 p.m. today, local conceptual artist Kate Conroy created this project called "Clean Drinking Water" at the Temperance Fountain in Tompkins Square Park...(she had a permit to do this)... she spent the time cleaning the fountain...

Photos by Steven...

Celebrate Mexican Independence Day at Zaragoza tonight

[Image via Facebook]

Thanks to EVG reader Charles Hutchinson for this info on Zaragoza Mexican Deli & Grocery, the small food shop at 215 Avenue A between 13th Street and 14th Street.

Five years ago, Zaragoza Mexican Deli & Grocery, run by the ever-hospitable Martinez Family (Pompeyo, Maria and son Ruben), lost their license to sell beer.

This week, against all odds, they got it back. Please join them tonight when they celebrate Mexican Independence Day from 6 to 9 PM, with music by Mariachi Infante and singer Selene Muñoz, plus refreshments galore.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Making the case for Zaragoza Mexican Deli & Grocery to serve beer

1st LinkNYC kiosk arrives on St. Mark's Place

This blessed event happened yesterday just west of Second Avenue near the former 7-Eleven.

Previously

Major design flaw of the early Macintosh finally revealed

They do not fit into city trash cans...



Fifth Street at the Bowery this morning.

Also, can someone please ID this model?

Updated 10:20 am

Thank you Richard! (See comments.)

This is an Apple Multiple Scan 15AV CRT monitor from 1996.

Gorillas in the mist (on the Bowery)

... and making music at Second Street... photo by Lola Saenz...

The power of 'One'

Hüsker Dü from 1987 with "Could You Be the One?"

RIP Grant Hart.

So long Cher, the willow tree of La Plaza Cultural

Workers arrived this morning at La Plaza Cultural to remove the willow tree in the southwest corner of the community garden here on Avenue C and Ninth Street.

The tree, nicknamed Cher, was in bad shape, as this shot of the rotting trunk shows...



EVG correspondent Steven shared these photos...











... and later via Bobby Williams...



Previously on EV Grieve:
A wake for the last willow trees at La Plaza Cultural

At the Weeping Willow Wake

Jimmy Webb will make dreams come true with new rock 'n' roll boutique I Need More

[Photo of Jimmy Webb for EVG by Walter Wlodarczyk]

Jimmy Webb, a familiar figure in the East Village during his long tenure as the manager and buyer at Trash & Vaudeville, is opening a rock 'n'roll boutique next month on the Lower East Side at 75A Orchard St. between Broome and Grand. Webb gave me a quick overview about the shop, called I Need More, which opens on Oct. 13.

Why did you decide to return to the retail business?
What else would I do? In my heart I never really left.

I’ve never really looked as myself as a seller of anything or even as someone in the retail business. What I do is I make dreams come true and I love doing it! I simply find what’s inside people, I help bring it out, and then I help them dress it up! I guess that’s the retail business, but the word "business" sounds so disconnected from "dream maker," and I’d rather make "dreams come true!"

Why did you pick the Lower East Side for the shop?
I didn’t pick the Lower East Side, or any special place for I Need More. I was very open to where the rock 'n' roll angels were leading me when I finally decided to open a store. A certain group of friends, I call them angels, guided me to the clarity that I needed to open a brick-and-mortar store. Loving all of New York City I was very open to anywhere in Manhattan. My heart and spirit is in ALL of New York City.

Of course the Lower East Side is a HUGE part of my life since I ran away and arrived in the city in 1975. So I wasn’t the least bit surprised when that second batch of angels ended up leading me right to 75 Orchard Street — 75A in fact! How cool is that? I take that leap of faith and run away to New York City in 1975 as a 16-year-old boy. Decades later another leap of faith leaving everything I know and ending up at 75A Orchard Street.

What can people expect from I Need More?
It’s about the spirit of New York City — past, present and future, And also the spirit of what art, music, and everything else that colors the world! It will be about everything that is real, raw, energetic, welcoming, passionate, dirty, beautiful and most of all — honest!

I’m a firm believer in "we are the future.” That "no future” pessimism doesn’t cut it with me. Like Joey Ramone singing “What a Wonderful World” or Iggy singing every song that Iggy sings. I Need More aims to please with every heartbeat within it. It’s here to make dreams come true.

Thanks to Walter Wlodarczyk for the photo. Find more of his work here.

Block Party on, 9th Street

Time again (tomorrow!) for the annual block party on Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Here are details via the EVG inbox...

Annual 9th Street A-1 Block Association Block Party

Saturday, Sept. 1​6​, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. (no rain date)

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

MUSIC LINE UP:
Ginga Pura
EV-3
Sea Kelp (Originals)
Ron and his Personal Demons
BroadBand

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:

• Beetle Bug (florist), Enchantments, Flower Power (herbs), Love Gang (clothing), Mr. Throwback (vintage clothing and accessories), Ollie's Place (cat adoption), Pink Olive (gifts), Polytima (jewelry), Puppy Love Kitty Kat (pet supplies), Reason Outpost (clothing)

• Restaurants/Cafes: Cagen, Good Beer, Superiority Burger, Tacos Morales, Thursday Kitchen, Whitman's, Zucker Bakery

• Hair Salons/Barbers: Crops for Girls, Lovemore & Do, Maria Mok Salon, Neighborhood Barber, Tsumiki Salon

The Mount Sinai Health System wants to hear from you (in this survey anyway)

I heard yesterday from both the offices of Sen. Hoylman and City Council member Rosie Mendez ... Mount Sinai Beth Israel has extended its online survey through Sept 20.

You can find the 10-question survey here. (It's billed as a "Community Health Needs Assessment for Mount Sinai Downtown.") There's also more info on the landing page about Mount Sinai's plans.

As you know, the Mount Sinai Health System is in the midst of its years-long project to rebuild Mount Sinai Beth Israel, transitioning to a network of smaller facilities throughout lower Manhattan.

East Village Vintage Collective celebrates 2 years on 12th Street tonight with some 'terrible' offerings

[Image via Instagram]

Via the East Village Vintage Collective Instagram account:

Join us for our two-year anniversary party 🎉 featuring the fucking terrible art and video show, tarot card reading by @gaylestacher, free drinks, & 20 percent off store wide! Starts at 7 p.m. Thanks to our amazing customers who have helped a small business survive over these last two years!

The shop is at 545 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.



Previously on EV Grieve:
At the East Village Vintage Collective

Amid claims of being a rent-stabilized tenant, Raphael Toledano faces eviction from his home

[Photo outside Toledano's apartment building from May]

The Real Deal has the story:

Hyperkinetic landlord Raphael Toledano, whose alleged methods in evicting tenants from rent-stabilized apartments made him enemy number one of the New York City tenant movement, faces eviction at his $13,800 a month Upper West Side home, where he claims to be a rent-stabilized resident, court records show.

Some local reaction:

“This has got to be a joke, right?” said SaMi Chester, a tenant organizer at the Cooper Square Committee who actively works with tenants in Toledano’s buildings; they frequently claim they are being harassed by the 27-year-old landlord. “Here’s a guy who’s built his career on screwing over rent-stabilized tenants. Now he’s doing that?”

And some background:

Toledano, who recently filed for bankruptcy on a portfolio of multifamily buildings in the East Village amid claims he was overleveraged, essentially operated a real estate business whose model depended on vacancy deregulation to crank up rent rolls.

Read the whole Real Deal story here.

According to public records, Toledano is scheduled to appear in New York County Civil Court, 111 Centre St., Monday morning at 9:30. (The Court part is called F, Room 830.)

Previously on EV Grieve:
Foreclosure notice arrives on Raphael Toledano-owned building on 12th Street

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

Cleaning up 444 E. 13th St.

Report: State investigating East Village landlord Raphael Toledano

Health Department to inspect Raphael Toledano's East Village properties for toxic levels of lead dust

Foreclosure notice arrives on Raphael Toledano-owned building on 12th Street

Report: Raphael Toledano files for Chapter 11; $145 million deal for EV portfolio is off the table

Raphael Toledano tenants take to Midtown streets to speak out against their landlord and his lenders

East Village tenants pay landlord Raphael Toledano a visit at his Upper West Side home

Thursday's parting shot

Photo on Seventh Street today via Derek Berg. (Crews were out filming something called "Detective Chinatown 2.")

Noted

Noted... aka Citizen app crime report of day. (The app has had its share of controversy.)

P.S. Do not know how this ended.

H/T @Frosty_Bites

Tree down on 12th Street near Avenue A

EVG regular Greg Masters shares this... a 20-year-old tree on the north side of 12th Street just west of Avenue A was upended late this morning. No eyewitnesses but it apparently was uprooted by a truck backing into a parking space. Police were soon on the scene and the tree was later cut into pieces...