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Spotted on the plywood at Target on 14th Street and Avenue A this evening ... photo by Lola Sáenz...
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Gallery Watch: Crichoues Indignation at the Hole NYC; Vantage Points at GRIMM Gallery
Text by Clare Gemima
Crichoues Indignation by Caitlin Cherry
The Hole NYC, 312 Bowery: Showing through Nov. 15
The HOLE NYC honestly takes it up a notch with every artist they showcase.
Upon visiting this gallery, I was shocked to see that The HOLE had transformed entirely, with crisply painted walls, a huge amount of incredible new works and a fresh take on their whole space.
Transforming the gallery for Cherry after Cubed, their previous group show (14 international artists) that utilized the space in an entirely different means, allows viewers to understand just how important looking at art is right now, how passionate The HOLE is and how on board their team is with highlighting the current climate of technology and social media running rampantly hand-in-hand with civil unrest, the election and dismantling (or establishing) social hierarchy in 2020.
Cherry's oil on canvas works are engulfing in their larger than life scale, confronting the viewer in a familiar digital landscape with Black Femme figures at the foreground, her gazes highlighting the way social media appropriates this community's body image, sexuality and style without highlighting their skill set or expertise.
An image-run, surface level and vapid Instagram-esque landscape is expressed through Cherry’s undulating use of fluorescent colors, shapes and installation techniques. The artist’s hyper-sexualised characters are based on dancers, bartenders and Instagram models working at cabarets and as online influencers.
I would recommend seeing this show for an impressive take on its online origin (a misspelt tweet that Kanye West made) that expands into a gooey, delicious and psychedelic series of abstract paintings.
Cherry also includes a very large paintings vault, housing several canvases that gallery goers can engage with. The vault speaks to the value of archiving digital works (or lack their of) playing with online’s ubiquitous sugar-coating methods and the over-arching authenticity in the art world today.
PS. The HOLE also has a show on by Anders Oinonen
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Vantage Points by Letha Wilson, Sonia Almeida, Heidi Norton and Claudia Peña Salinas
GRIMM Gallery, 202 Bowery: Showing through Nov. 14
Although the gallery is dominated by a vast amount of captivating and rich work by a male painter, Tjebbe Beekman (Symbiosis), if you get to the middle of the gallery and turn to your left, you will see a small door leading to a descending staircase that you can go down for a refreshing take on (finally) an all women's show!
The work deals with the natural world, conceptually and physically, as the artists criss-cross and mingle with the use of plants, grass, fibre, wax, metal and paper presented in a range of autonomous sculptures, paintings and installations in their final form.
The work in this show is presented on the ground, wall, floor and even corners of the building, challenging conventional installation techniques that demonstrate how space can be manipulated by both delicate and less delicate forms. Nature versus structure, hard versus soft, digital versus organic, etc.
Wilson, Almeida, Norton and Salinas' work compliments each other as much as it highlights the differences in each piece. The most compelling work for me was Reverse timeline (2019) by Sonia Almeida, made out of printed fabric, screen print, fabric pen, cotton, polyester and wool hung from the ceiling, and The Museum Archive by Heidi Norton made out of five panels of glass, resin, plants, beam splitter glass, photo gels, photographic prints, film and an aluminum stand.
This is GRIMM Gallery’s final show before they move to Tribeca.
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Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com
East River Park updates: Construction pushed to 2021; protected bike lanes proposed for Avenue C and East Houston
Here are the latest updates about the $1.45 billion storm protection project for East River Park:
- The start of construction, which had been slated to commence this fall, will be delayed until the spring of 2021, according to a presentation the city made at a CB3 committee meeting last month. For further reading: BoweryBoogie and Bedford & Bowery.
- The DOT will propose permanent protected bike lanes on Avenue C and East Houston Street to offset the closure of the East River Park greenway once construction starts.
As Streetsblog first reported: "The lanes will run on Houston from Second Avenue to the waterfront and on Avenue C from Houston north to 20th Street, enabling cyclists traveling from below Houston on the existing bike lanes on Pike and Allen streets to connect with the bike network further north."
CB3's Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment Committee will hear the proposal on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. The Zoom info is here.
- The full CB3 last week voted to preserve the East River Park's Art Deco Track House and Tennis Center Comfort Station.
Via the EVG inbox:
Endorsing a proposal put forth by the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, CB3 voted to recommend that the buildings, adorned with unique maritime terra cotta decorations, be raised to the Park's new grade level and renovated rather than demolished, thereby protecting them from future rising tides.
The CB3 resolution calls for amending the plans of the City's controversial East Side Coastal Resiliency Project. Those plans call for the demolition of the two structures and their replacement with standardized modern structures of the kind planned for parks all over New York City.
Now the city just needs to buy into the plan.
Meanwhile, tomorrow afternoon at 4, you may may watch the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project Community Advisory Group's next public meeting about the project. Submit questions or comments in advance. Watch on the Pratt Center for Community Development’s Facebook page.
The hotly contested flood-protection plan will bury/elevate East River Park by eight feet as part of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project.
After Con Ed work, Cafe Himalaya and Prim Thai are reopening
After missing seven days of business thanks to Con Ed work, Cafe Himalaya returns to service today.
As noted last week, Con Ed had to make emergency repairs at 78 E. First St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, forcing the 18-year-old family owned Tibetan/Nepalese restaurant and new neighbor Prim Thai to close.
Cafe Himalaya is open Tuesday-Sunday from 1-10 p.m. Find their website here. Or call: 212.358.0160
Previously on EV Grieve:
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Report of a death outside the Orpheum Theatre
There was a large police presence here this morning around 8 (photo below by Derek Berg) ...
Sources later confirmed that one of the men who had been sleeping on the sidewalk had died. A friend said that the man had been sick, though he had refused to seek medical treatment.
People have been sleeping here in recent weeks... the group had previously been camped out on the northwest corner of Second Avenue at Seventh Street.
Thank you to Steven ... and 2ndAvenueSilverPanther for the top photo
Businesses along Broadway and the Bowery board up their windows ahead of Election Day
Businesses along Broadway near Astor Place and on the Bowery were among those putting up the plywood in the days before the election. Both corriders were vandalalized and looted in late May and early June at the beginning of the protests. (Here and here.)
Here's a plywood report from early last evening ... in many cases, the businesses were open...
... and on the Bowery...
... and along East Houston between Avenue A and Avenue B... where the vacant storefronts at 250 E. Houston St. got the plywood treatment...
... Steven shared these photos from Second Avenue at Ninth Street ... as landlords have boarded up two empty spaces... the former Starbucks and Otto's Tacos... this corridor was also hard hit in late May...
Updated 10 a.m.
Dave on 7th shared this from 14th Street and Avenue A...
H/T Lola Sáenz and Eden!
There's another community cleanup day in Tompkins Square Park this Saturday
As previously reported, given budget cuts, Johnathan Young, the head gardener in Tompkins Square Park, has been assigned to other locations ... "leaving Tompkins vulnerable to trash and weeds."
Unlike the cleanup day on Oct. 10, which attracted up to 50 volunteers, there is a 25-person maximum for this Saturday. RSVP to this email: dayshavegoneby23@gmail.com.
H/T Steven
Concern for Muzzarella Pizza
The pizzeria has not been open since the early days of the summer ... this after a brief reopening coming out of the PAUSE. There's nothing on the gate or the Muzzarella social media properties mentioning a closure — temporary or permanent. (The last Instagram post is from June 27.) The phone number sends callers to a voice mailbox that has not been set up...
Mozzarella, which serves a tasty meatball hero among other non-pizza items, opened in 1991.
4 years on, the Shepard Fairey mural is being chipped away on 1st Avenue and 11th Street
In an Instagram post, the L.I.S.A. Project, the public art charity responsible for this wall, said that "an aged building with a NW exposure and a bad pipe burst has taken its toll" on the mural these past four years.
The mural's goal was "to supply some brightness and positivity for the locals wandering below — especially the children coming and going from neighboring P.S. 19."
The L.I.S.A. Project is promising a new mural on this space.
Meanwhile, at least one reader figured the Michael Jackson mural on the other side of the Avenue might be removed first...
Monday, November 2, 2020
The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black in Tompkins Square Park
A Taste of the Tropics on Avenue C
Text and photos by Kenna Beban
On the corner of Ninth Street and Avenue C, a palm-size green fruit ripens and falls onto the soft earth below, resting in the shade just feet away from a sunny East Village sidewalk.
“It’s called a pawpaw fruit,” Ross Martin, director of La Plaza Cultural Community Garden, said as he bent over to pick it up. “And it’s native!”
A cross between a mango and a banana, the pawpaw fruit isn’t what one pictures when thinking of New York City. With custardy yellow flesh and large black seeds, it has a tropical flavor more reminiscent of a Caribbean island than a vacant city lot, and yet La Plaza’s small patch of trees have happily taken root in their few feet of soil.
“I’d never seen one growing in Manhattan,” Martin said with a chuckle, “so I thought it would be cool to be the only place that had one.”
“It’s called a pawpaw fruit,” Ross Martin, director of La Plaza Cultural Community Garden, said as he bent over to pick it up. “And it’s native!”
A cross between a mango and a banana, the pawpaw fruit isn’t what one pictures when thinking of New York City. With custardy yellow flesh and large black seeds, it has a tropical flavor more reminiscent of a Caribbean island than a vacant city lot, and yet La Plaza’s small patch of trees have happily taken root in their few feet of soil.
“I’d never seen one growing in Manhattan,” Martin said with a chuckle, “so I thought it would be cool to be the only place that had one.”
“People associate the neighborhood with gardens and gardens with the neighborhood,” Martin, who’s been with La Plaza for 25 years, said. According to him the “sort of spirit of creativity and ingenuity” that led to the gardens was “part and parcel of the neighborhood.”
With supple, velveteen skin and a delicate ripeness, pawpaw fruits feel like they might bruise if you hold them just a little too tightly. Plenty have been plucked from the trees since Martin, a landscape architect, planted the patch himself seven years ago in the wake of Hurricane Irene. The storm had knocked down a weeping willow that stood in the same place, a traumatic event for the garden’s members.
“People came to mourn the tree,” he said, describing the iconic 30-year-old giant that had once shaded the eastern portion of the land with its wispy pale branches. Only the stump remained in the storm’s aftermath.
“We used that as the base for our hugel mounds,” Martin said. Hugel mounds are a common strategy in urban gardens to protect their produce from pollutants by layering wood, mulch, and soil on top of the lead- and arsenic-contaminated lots where buildings once stood. The old willow stump serves as a base for the pawpaw patch and surrounding hazelnut trees now occupying that corner of the garden.
“They’re really thriving,” Martin said proudly. “The system really works.”
Hidden by wide, flat leaves, the oblong pawpaw fruits hang in clustered bunches, dropping with ease when the flesh inside turns sweet and spoonable. Picking a ripe one off the branch (which requires nothing more than a gentle twist) feels like saving it a bruising trip to the garden floor a few feet below.
“Basically anyone can come in and take anything they want,” Martin said about La Plaza Cultural. His goal is to maximize the garden’s potential as a food producer, a dream that, along with the pawpaw patch, could only take root recently.
“It wasn’t really until the storm came and knocked over the trees that we had light in the garden,” he said. “It’s a really special fruit.”
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Kenna Beban is a journalism student at NYU and freelance writer in the East Village. She enjoys exploring the bits of New York City that bring it to life and tries to get outside as much as she can.
Ducks Eatery will close this weekend after 8-plus years on 12th Street
Ducks Eatery will be shutting down after service on Saturday here on 12th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.
The owners, siblings Julie and Will Horowitz, made the announcement Friday on Instagram:
After a tough few months, we have made the very heavy decision to close our doors for good on Nov. 7. While this is not how we envisioned our time on 12th Street ending, we're choosing to focus on all of the extraordinary experiences that have come out of being part of your community for nearly nine years.
Thank you for sharing your sense of adventure, your stories and your warmth with us. We are humbled and so grateful.
After opening in August 2012, Ducks Eatery was known for a creative meat-centric menu ... that evolved into more sustainable, non-meat items (including that smoked watermelon a few years back).
The two also previously ran Harry & Ida’s Meat and Supply Co. on Avenue A until last November.
Harry & Ida's opened in June 2015, and immediately drew raves for their pastrami. The market, which specialized in preserved foods and smoked meats, was named for their great-grandparents Harry and Ida Zinn, Hungarian immigrants who had a store in Harlem.
Updated 4 p.m.
Eater has more on the closure:
Will Horowitz attributed the closure to the economic downturn from the coronavirus pandemic in a phone call with Eater on Monday. Though the restaurant’s longtime landlords ... attempted to negotiate a rent agreement, keeping the business afloat on takeout, delivery, and outdoor dining sales would have been “impossible,” he says....Horowitz says the restaurant’s indoor dining room could accommodate no more than 10 people at the state-mandated 25 percent capacity.
“It would have been a death wish going into winter,” he says
Image via Manhattan Sideways
Incoming office building makes first appearance above the plywood at 141 E. Houston
Steal beams, the first above-ground signs of the office building going up at 141 E. Houston St., are now visible from the construction site here between Eldridge and Forsyth...
From acclaimed architect Roger Ferris, the only new development of its type on the Lower East Side, 141 East Houston is a new frame for viewing the neighborhood. Column-free and unbounded by walls, it reinterprets the area through a bold geometric perimeter of cladding and glass. State-of- the-art workspaces and private terraces reframe expectations, while a well-connected location recasts perspectives.
With its glass frame and dynamic courtyard running the length of its eastern side, doubling as a second facade, 141 East Houston challenges the distinction between indoors and out.
East End Capital and K Property Group bought the property for $31.5 million in the spring of 2017.
Previously on EV Grieve:
• Sunshine Cinema-replacing office building moving forward; demolition watch back on
• Discarded theater seats and goodbyes at the Sunshine Cinema
• The 9-story boutique office building coming to the former Sunshine Cinema space
• A celebratory ad on the purchase of 139 E. Houston St., current home of the Sunshine Cinema
• The boutique office building replacing the Sunshine Cinema will be 'unbounded by walls' with an outdoor space called Houston Alley
• Sunshine Cinema-replacing office building moving forward; demolition watch back on
• Discarded theater seats and goodbyes at the Sunshine Cinema
• The 9-story boutique office building coming to the former Sunshine Cinema space
• A celebratory ad on the purchase of 139 E. Houston St., current home of the Sunshine Cinema
• The boutique office building replacing the Sunshine Cinema will be 'unbounded by walls' with an outdoor space called Houston Alley
The vacant corners on the west side of 3rd Avenue and 13th Street
As previously reported, Brazen Fox, the two-level sports bar, shut down in September after seven years in business. And the for rent signs arrived last week. (No word on the asking rent for this "high foot traffic area.")
From 2009-2012, the space had been the restaurants Hea ... and Friend House.
More recently, Bluemercury, the luxury beauty retailer, vacated the southwest corner.
Gothic Cabinet Craft shop closed in January 2016 after 47 years in business on this corner. A listing showed that the asking rent here at the time was nearly $30,000 a month.
Opening and/or coming soon: The Dolar Shop, Kyuramen
Meanwhile...
.... the coming soon signage recently arrived for Kyuramen, a Taiwan-based ramen chain with 120 locations worldwide, at 210 E. 14th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. (Previously) 
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