A masked ball: At the start of the 2020 Drag March in Tompkins Square Park

The 26th annual Drag March took place last evening ... starting, as always, in Tompkins Square Park before participants made their way over along Ninth Street to Sheridan Square and then the Stonewall Inn... marking the start of Pride Weekend.

It was a much smaller, and more organic gathering this summer... there was social distancing and outfits incorporating face coverings (including a gas mask or two) as well plenty of support for Black Lives Matter ... EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos...

LinkNYC kiosks continue to transform

😬

Third Avenue at Ninth Street.

What a beautiful feeling

Mia Berrin of Pom Pom Squad released this cover of "Crimson and Clover" last Friday on Juneteenth ... with proceeds going to For The Gworls Medical Fund. (The Bandcamp sales went to the NAACP legal fund.)

Here's what she had to say about the track via Instagram:

This marks the first song we’ve released that I produced all by myself (!!!) and both the song and video were made completely in quarantine. This year would have been my first Pride as an ‘out’ person. It took me a long time to come to terms with my identity in a true and honest way, but I am proud to meet myself where I am now. This year, the idea of walking down a street proudly, in my queerness and in my brown skin, feels particularly difficult for a multitude of obvious reasons, but this song is my small celebration of the scary, complicated, empowering process of owning my black, queer identity. Hope you love it.

Another reader report of a fireworks-related roof fire on Avenue C

The FDNY responded to a report of a fire last night around 9:45 on the southwest corner of Fifth Street and Avenue C... a nearby resident shared these photos...



The cause of the fire is unknown, though the resident suspects it was related to the ongoing illegal firework displays nearby... the reader points out the remains of fireworks in the lights of the fire truck in the photo below...



There wasn't any word of damage to the building, which houses 69 Avenue C Laundromat...



Last Saturday night, people setting off fireworks along Avenue C and neighboring buildings caused a fire on a building rooftop on Fourth Street.

Fireworks-related complaints to 311 and 911 topped 20,000 in 2020, "an unprecedented increase over previous years," Gothamist reported.

The NYPD has started making arrests...

These fireworks won't be set off in your neighborhood thanks to the Intelligence Bureau. Their precise work has led to several arrests and the confiscation of these fireworks.

Not only is this a quality of life issue, fireworks are illegal. pic.twitter.com/iaJpDEA6DC

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) June 26, 2020

East Village-based activist curates BLM art displays in Brooklyn

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

East Village artist/activist Holli Porreca and the team at J&M Special Effects collaborated with NYC-based black artists to project their work onto public spaces, including, recently, the Washington Square Arch.


[Holli Porreca]


[J&M special effects team]

This action, the one I am documenting, is projecting onto two spaces in DUMBO — the walls of St. Ann’s Warehouse and the side of a building near Old Fulton Street and Everit.

Artists selected for this installation are street photographer Kobie Proctor, whose images include several shots from recent Union Square and Astor Place-based peaceful protests. His slideshow is shown on the St. Ann’s Warehouse walls, with permission from the performance space.


[Kobie Proctor]













A few blocks away, the collage work of Patrick Dougher and graphic illustrations of Kiriakos "Yako 440" Prodis are shown...













The team expects to do more site-based Black Lives Matter installations in the days and weeks to come.

Checking in on Blanche’s Lucy’s Tavern

Blanche’s Lucy’s Tavern — aka Lucy’s — reopened back on May 30 for take-home drinks here at 135 Avenue A between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street. However, she went on a short hiatus this past week, and returns today at 4.

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

“What’s behind this door?” I ask Ludwika “Lucy” Mickevicius and her bartender Gary Johnson. “The basement,” I am told, “it used to be part of an ice cream shop. Do you want to take a look?”

Do I ever! It’s Friday night, and I’m inside Blanche’s Lucy’s Tavern — colloquially known as Lucy’s — to take a few photos of Lucy and her bartender/helpers as well as the space, most of which is dark and empty due to the COVID-19-related closures.

Lucy’s is selling drinks to go from a flower- and American-flag-decorated table in the doorway, and a sign detailing the beer varieties available, including Polish brew Żywiec.



We climb down the steps to explore the basement, with Gary pointing out the taps and wiring as well as specialty bottles and supplies. I’m fascinated with the space and we both remark on the lack of any broken glass. We squeeze our way upstairs through the stockroom (no easy feat as it’s piled high with beer!) and out into the bar pausing to look at the covered-up pool tables and darkened jukebox.













I’m not a drinker, so it’s with a bit of shame-faced embarrassment I ask for some water, but Lucy hospitably mentions she doesn’t drink either and we enjoy some coconut water, sitting so far apart from one another it’s hard to communicate or hear one another from under our masks.

We chat for a bit about the future of bars in NYC, and what socially distant pool games might look like. Lucy’s concerned about paying the rent, and about safely attracting clientele during the pandemic. She rings up my icy coconut water order on an old-fashioned cash register, and I step outside to see if anyone has purchased any beer from Walter Zoeller, a retired firefighter, and today, Lucy’s assistant.

It had the feel of a summer’s day when I stepped into Lucy’s, humid and hot, swampy behind my mask, but while I was inside a brief rainstorm had occurred and when I left the sun was shining but the temperature had dropped and so had the humidity. The four of us looked to the skies in search of a rainbow, which I am sure is some sort of metaphor.

Lucy’s is open from 4 to 10 p.m.

About Book Swap Saturday on 10th Street

While the Tompkins Square Library branch on 10th Street may be temporarily closed, you still have a chance to fetch some books from the sidewalk outside.

Some East Village residents started a free book swap last Saturday outside the branch between Avenue A and Avenue B. They plan on doing it again tomorrow (Saturday!) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (To be clear, the library isn't involved in this swap.)

Via the EVG inbox:

Let's share our used books to help us get through this pandemic together. Leave some and take others.

Thanks for making the last one such a wonderful success. There were so many donations that East Villagers were still browsing books into the next day — late Sunday afternoon!

Nomad, the great restaurant on 2nd Avenue that has everything but the interest of food writers

[Photo Tuesday by Stacie Joy]

Back on Monday, we noted that owner Mehenni Zebentout is now offering menu items from the now-closed Cucina di Pesce at Nomad, his restaurant at 78 Second Ave. between Fourth Street and Fifth Street.

On Tuesday, journalist Richard Morgan filed a long read on Nomad for Heated titled "This Algerian Restaurant Has Everything Diners Want."

Nomad is a highly visible yet under-appreciated gem along Second Avenue. Per Morgan:

Nomad is indeed a joyful dining paradox, offering the platonic ideal of a great night out to a city that refuses to acknowledge its existence in one of Manhattan’s most-trafficked neighborhoods. It is not just everything diners say they want — affordable, authentic, delicious, unique, romantic, and generally a resonant moment of redemptive gastrodiplomacy — but also everything food writers and editors say they know like the backs of their hands.

As Morgan points out, the restaurant has barely even registered among the city's food writers and restaurant blogs.

Even in the shadows of the glutterati’s attention, Nomad radiates a defiant truth: It is the coolest, tastiest, truest restaurant that New York’s galloping gourmands have no interest in letting anyone know about (if they themselves even know about it at all).

So what gives?

“I tell clients that what I can do is get people to have one meal at your place,” said a longtime restaurant publicist who requested anonymity in exchange for candor. “Even if Pete Wells writes about it — that Albanian place in the Bronx, that Sichuan place in Flushing — how busy are those places today? More than ever, restaurants have maybe six months from opening — operating on all cylinders, all the bells and whistles — to establish themselves in the conversation. Other than that — or even if they do accomplish that — they slip into the void of the forgotten. Nobody wants to eat in Siberia and that’s what these great restaurants end up serving: Siberian cuisine.”

You can read the full piece right here.

For those who survived remote learning

After three-plus months of remote learning, an East Village family decided to celebrate — and to raise money for local PTAs.

East Village parent Viktoria Krane, who has a 6 and 8 year old, launched Project PTA, offering "I Survived Remote Learning Class of 2020" T-shirts and mugs.

Per the Project PTA site:

This is our side project with an ambitious objective to learn about entrepreneurship, community engagement and applied math. And of course, have fun!

For every purchase, $10 of the sales goes to the buyer's PTA of choice.

You can find Project PTA at this link.

Thursday's parting shot

First Avenue and Seventh Street today via Derek Berg...

Grant Shaffer's NY See

Here's the latest NY See panel, East Village-based illustrator Grant Shaffer's observational sketch diary of things that he sees and hears around — and above! — the neighborhood.