Monday, September 18, 2017

[Updated] A look at tonight's CB3 agenda, which includes the return of The Honey Fitz



CB3's SLA committee meets tonight at the Public Hotel, 17th Floor, Sophia Room, 215 Chrystie St. between Houston and Stanton. The festivities start at 6:30.

Here's a look at a few of the applicants on the agenda:

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• 20 St Mark's Place — Applicants from Ichibantei, the 7-year-old "Japanese Soul Food & Drink" bar-restaurant on 13th Street near First Avenue, are looking to open a similar-sounding concept at 20 St. Mark's Place.

This space is above the Grassroots on the block between Second Avenue and Third Avenue that previously housed Sounds.

According to the application (PDF) at the CB3 website, this unnamed restaurant would seat 64 during their daily hours of 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.

The paperwork doesn't note if this would be a second location of Ichibantei or if they plan to move the business.

The fact that an applicant is looking to sell liquor in a space that wasn't previously licensed in a so-called Saturated Area has raised the ire of a few people on the block. While not named in the story, this application was the news hook in a St. Mark's Place Is Full-of-Bars piece in the Post yesterday.

Per the Post:

A proposal for yet another bar and restaurant at 20 St. Marks Place shows there are an astonishing 32 liquor licenses within 500 feet. And that’s before you count two more pending applications for watering holes, State Liquor Authority records show.

And...

“Stacking bars on top of bars is not a happy thought for me,” said Ian Fair who ran Sounds for many years and still lives in the building. He closed the shop in 2015 after the landlord tripled the rent.

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• 58 E. First St. — Applicants with experience at Casa Mizcal on Orchard Street and the Black Ant on Second Avenue are looking to open a restaurant called Boticarios in the space where Esperanto Fonda lasted nine months.

The application at the CB3 website (PDF) includes a sample menu.

While they haven't yet secured the liquor license, the owners have left a note for the neighboring residents about some renovations in the restaurant...



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• 210 Avenue A — Applicants for The Honey Fitz are making another run at Avenue A. The proprietors, James Morrissey and Ian Nolan (The Late Late on East Houston and The VNYL on Third Avenue), were looking to open in 2016 in the space that is now home to Starbucks on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place. However, they held off given the uncertainty at the time surrounding the lease at Nino's.

They are proposing a bar-restaurant with hours of 11 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily. (I don't know if the networking space for freelancers is part of this proposal as it was for the St. Mark's Place space.)

The application (PDF) has all sorts of details about the proposed venture, including the menu. No. 210 at 13th Street is currently home to Percy's Tavern, who presumably would close if all this is OK'd.

Updated 9/17

BoweryBoogie reports that CB3 denied the application for the Honey Fitz. Per BB:

[Residents] further alleged that bringing in Morrissey with a 4am liquor license, and who has a terrible track record with VYNL and The Late Late, would only exacerbate an already saturated area. Indeed, the latter operation is considered one of the worst offenders in the district, and carries a report card of more than thirty 311 complaints. Residents on East 1st Street regularly complain about noise, which first has to travel past a clamorous Houston Street and then through First Park.

Remember, of course, that the original intent of The Late Late was an Irish gathering space that would feature “Irish gourmet food” and small poetry readings. Talk about bait-and-switch. This could be why so many turned up to speak in opposition (i.e. more than a dozen).

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• 151 Avenue C — Studio 151, the three-year-old club from the owner of Nublu, is on the agenda for a new liquor license for the upstairs space here between Ninth Street and 10th Street.

I'm not sure what's going on with the space, which has been closed the past six months, per Studio 151's social media.
(You can find their CB3 application here.)

Neighbors have already been circulating flyers about this item...


[Photo by Steven]

The flyers cite Studio 151's "thirty year history of noise." To be fair, Studio 151 opened in July 2014. Speakeasy closed here in the spring of 2014.

Openings: Broken Coconut, Ladybird, the Lost Lady, the Hairy Lemon


[Healthy Coconut photo from Sept. 8]

Broken Coconut, the health-conscious restaurant from Butter/1Oak founder Scott Sartiano, opens today at 15 E. Fourth St. between Lafayette and Broadway, according to the Post.

The Post notes the menu will include a probiotic, protein-rich yogurt with a coconut base.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Checking in on the former Other Music space, soon to be a health-focused restaurant

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Ravi DeRossi's vegan bar-restaurant opened at 111 Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue on Sept. 5. Eater has more about the space, which counts musician/animal-rights activist Moby as an investor.

Find the Ladybird website here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Ravi DeRossi moving Ladybird to the East Village; taking residence at former Bourgeois Pig space

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The Lost Lady, from Robert Ceraso and Jason Mendenhall, the co-owners of The Wayland and Good Night Sonny, opened last Wednesday at 171 Avenue C between 10th Street and 11th Street. This marks their third attempt at opening another bar along Avenue C. Plans for both the former Duke's space and current Royale fell through.

The space was originally going to go by The Drift Inn.

"Somebody opened a bar called the Drift Inn in Brooklyn a couple of months after we started working on that space," Ceraso told me earlier this summer. "It actually makes more sense for the space now. Once we got in there and started getting a feel for the bones of the space, our design went a lot more old nautical feeling. The Lost Lady feels to us like it could be the name of an old ship or a story that a fisherman would tell you."

Grub Street has a preview of the Lost Lady here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Evelyn Drinkery has closed on Avenue C

Wayland team opening Drift Inn at former Evelyn Drinkery space on Avenue C

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[Image via Facebook]

The Hairy Lemon opened last Wednesday in the former Croxley Ales space, 28 Avenue B between Second Street and Third Street. The place serves traditional Irish pub fare and sports 20 TVs.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Croxley Ales-replacing bar on Avenue B is called the Hairy Lemon

The rent is due at the former DF Mavens



DF Mavens, the vegan ice cream shop and cafe on the northwest corner of Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place, closed in January 2016.

Apparently the owners are still are the books for the rent, which is past due, according to the notice "Demanding Payment of Rent" taped to the front door early last week...



The total due is $53,660.27, which includes the nearly $25k monthly rent for both August and September.

The document shows that the lease goes back to August 2013 — roughly 16 months before DF Mavens opened their first retail space here on Dec. 26, 2014.

To date, I have not seen any for rent signs for this space. Guess that there isn't any rush to lease the prime storefront as long as the former tenant is still paying rent.

Intermix has left the Bowery



Intermix, the multi-brand fashion retailer, packed up and left its Bowery storefront late last week.

The space between Bond and Great Jones had been on the market since last October. No word on either why Intermix left or who the next tenant might be.

Intermix is the latest business to leave this Bowery corridor, joining Environment Furniture, Tatyana Boutique, Patricia Field and DBGB, among others.

Also on this block, the former Subway (sandwich shop) at No. 342 was pegged for Poke Run, a restaurant operated by former Olympic athlete-turned-chef Michael Stember.

Apparently that isn't happening, at least not here, as the space is now for rent...





Intermix opened on the Bowery in May 2013.

The previous tenant was Steve's on the Bowery.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Steve's on the Bowery has closed, more 'glam fashionistas' on the way

Steve's on the Bowery is for lease

Pricing revealed at these 2 condoplexes


[Photo from Saturday]

Over at 32 E. First St. at Second Avenue ... Curbed has details on the 10-story, 33-unit condoplex (with ground-floor retail): "Prices here start at $1.175 million and climb as high as $8.7 million. Six of the condos are already in contract while another six, including a three-bedroom, three-bathroom penthouse are currently listed on the market."

This was the former BP station site, which closed in July 2014.

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And on 10th Street and Fourth Avenue... three of the 12 units here at the 10-floor condoplex arrived on the market last week.


[Photo from Saturday]

Per Curbed: "The development, called Eighty East Tenth, is designed by NAVA Companies and will offer a mix of one- through five-bedrooms, priced from $1.85 million. There’ll be no more than two apartments on each floor and range from around 925 square feet to over 5,000 square feet."

And here is the latest rendering...

Smoke Shop & Convenience Inc. slated for 14th Street



The coming-soon signage is up at 246 E. 14th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue ... announcing the ever-popular shops that sell smoking supplies, sodas, beers, etc.

I believe the previous tenant here was a discount place called Gift Mart. (Anyone?)

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Week in Grieview


[Photo Friday in Tompkins Square Park by Derek Berg]

Stories posted on EVG this past week included...

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

[Video] Nighttime along Avenue A on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12, 2001 (Monday)

Primary victory for Carlina Rivera in District 2 City Council race (Wednesday)

Ramones Ramp mural damaged in Queens (Tuesday)

The fake Christmas trees are now on display at the Astor Place Kmart (Wednesday)

Bali Kitchen now open on 4th Street (Tuesday)

A letter for new NYU students: 'think good thoughts about yourself and others' (Thursday)

Amid claims of being a rent-stablilized tenant, Raphael Toledano faces eviction from his home (Friday)


[At the Hurricane Harvey bake sale Wednesday at East Village Social via Derek Berg]

Mr. Bing will sell traditional Northern Chinese street crepes on St. Mark's Place (Wednesday)

The latest installment of I Am a Rent-Stabilized Tenant (Thursday)

So long Cher, the willow tree of La Plaza Cultural (Friday)

About Bodega, a start-up that aspires to be the new neighborhood market (Wednesday)

3rd Street development site on the market for $12 million (Monday)

48 Clinton St. for sale as development site (Tuesday)

The Urban Vision of Elaine Norman, an exhibit opening at City Lore on 1st Street (Wednesday)

Ummburger makes it official on 1st Avenue (Tuesday)

NYC's first Nutella Cafe coming to University and 13th Street (Thursday)

Post office-replacing residential building with a Trader Joe's nearing the top on 14th Street (Monday)

Dueling notes at the Miracle Garden on 3rd Street (Tuesday)

Schmaltz on full display in new-look exterior at Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse (Wednesday)

... and there's new art as of this past week outside the Second Avenue F stop... this work is by @magdaloveart and @sonni ...



... and on the four-year anniversary of his death last Thursday, AllSoulzNYC ("an interactive encounter with loss, witness & community on the streets of the city") placed this photo of the memorial for LES Jewels at the Ninth Street entrance to Tompkins Square Park...



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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

Saturday, September 16, 2017

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