Monday, August 22, 2022

A 'retail opportunity' at the former Whitehouse Hotel on the Bowery

An interesting development at 340 Bowery between Great Jones and Bond ... a "retail opportunity" banner now hangs by the front door of the former Whitehouse Hotel, the last of the flophouses on the Bowery...
Management is offering 2,000 square feet on the ground floor, with an "optional 500 SF cafe + courtyard."

There is a lot of history with the Whitehouse, a four-story building erected in 1916 that has served as a single-room occupancy hotel. A handful of residents remain here, and their presence has reportedly hindered any new building plans. 

We hadn't heard anything about the building since late 2018, when Alex Vadukul profiled the artist Sir Shadow, one of the six remaining residents of the Whitehouse, in a feature at The New York Times.

As Vadukul noted: "A few residents have died, and buyouts have lured away others. The men who remain in the flophouse have refused these deals. The Whitehouse Hotel's future appears to now hinge on a grim but simple waiting game."

At this point, there aren't any new permits for development. So perhaps retail is the solution for now to generate revenue for the property.

Some recent history: The building was spruced up in 2011 to appeal to the thrill-seeking backpacking set. (For $45, guests could stay in a tiny room where the walls don't go up to the ceiling... while the long-term residents remained on another floor.)

However, the Whitehouse stopped accepting reservations in September 2014. Plans were previously filed via Sam Chang in 2014 to "convert 4-story lodging house into a 9-story hotel,"
 according to DOB records. Those plans never materialized. The Renatus Group now owns the property

Dunkin' to make triumphant return to 250 E. Houston St.

Photo by Stacie Joy

Don't look now, but a Dunkin' is returning to 250 E. Houston St. 

Signage is now up in one of the recently remodeled storefronts here between Avenue A and Avenue B. 

The Dunkin'/Baskin-Robbins combo was a casualty late last summer when the storefronts on the eastern end of the retail strip were emptied ahead of demolition for a new residential building. (See those plans here.) 

Anyway, this looks to be a solo Dunkin' operation. No sign of Baskin-Robbins. So you'll have to settle for doughnuts/donuts.

Report: Trader Joe's closed the Union Square wine shop after learning of plans to unionize

According to published reports from this past week, workers at the Trader Joe's Wine Shop, which abruptly closed on June 11, were making plans to unionize. 

Workers at the Trader Joe’s Wine Shop ... spent the last four months laying the groundwork to unionize their store. A small organizing committee met regularly to discuss strategy around building support to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and they planned to go public with their effort the week of Aug. 15. 

But in the early morning hours of Aug. 11, Trader Joe’s abruptly informed them it was closing the popular wine shop, its only one in New York City. 
In a statement to Gothamist, a company spokesperson said that its decision to close the store had nothing to do with the unionizing efforts.

A spokesperson called the 15-year-old outpost on 14th Street at Irving Place an "underperforming wine shop." 

Meanwhile, the workers, whom Trader Joe's said they would pay through Aug. 28, have launched a petition demanding that the store reopen as it heads into the busy back-to-school season.
The petition reads in part: 
Like our customers, we were shocked and saddened by the abrupt closure of the Trader Joe’s Wine Shop in Union Square. Most of the staff has been with the company for over 5 years, some since the store opened 15 years ago, and we have loved being part of the neighborhood and our customers’ lives for so long. 

Trader Joe's is not being transparent about its motives for closing the shop. This sudden closure comes just days after our coworkers in Minneapolis, MN, and Hadley, MA, successfully voted to unionize. 

Management in our store knew we were having organizing conversations and were planning on signing union support cards. Closing our store is textbook union busting. This kind of retaliation is exactly why we want a union at the Wine Shop — to guarantee we have real job security, consistent schedules, and wages we can live on. 
Previously on EV Grieve
• Here's the midnight email that employees of the Trader Joe's Wine Shop received about the closing on Union Square (Aug. 12)

First sign of the new gallery opening in September at 313 Bowery

Temp signage is now up in the window at 313 Bowery for Spazio Amanita, which is opening a gallery next month here between First Street and Second Street...
We first reported about the gallery, founded by Caio Twombly, the son of sculptor Alessandro Twombly and grandson of the painter Cy Twombly, last month. You can revisit our post here for more details. 

This space last housed a Patagonia shop.... and the storefront adjacent to the one-time home of CBGB housed the CBGB Record Canteen and, later, the 313 Gallery.   

Sunday, August 21, 2022

At the Nuyorican Poets Café's annual block party

Photos by Stacie Joy 

The Nuyorican Poets Café held its annual (No. 9!) block party yesterday afternoon on Third Street between Avenue B and Avenue C... featuring poetry and music ... food and dancing ... face painting, games, BOUNCEY HOUSES...
EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos from the family-friendly (save for the table selling items like bondage dice and Gummy Pecker Rings) event...

Week in Grieview

Posts from this past week include (with a photo of Blondie at Pier 17 Thursday evening) ....

• VIDEO: Watch the Nissan Sentra drive through Tompkins Square Park on Sunday morning (Tuesday) ... Reader report: A chaotic scene as man drives car into Tompkins Square Park; no arrests (Sunday

• Another day, another car drives into Tompkins Square Park (Tuesday

• Report of a fire at 313 E. 6th St. (Wednesday

• Rake Wine debuts on 3rd Street adjacent to Urban Wine & Spirits (Thursday

• On 12th Street, Hi Noona says goodbye (Monday

• Residents come together to pick up trash around Tompkins Square Park (Friday

• The Gallery Watch Q&A: Tilde Thurium and Nicole Aptekar on 'Anaphoric Fractures' (Friday

• Love Thy Beast departing 5th Street for Brooklyn (Tuesday)

• Free fitness classes return to Avenue B (Wednesday

• Boot party: Why so many immobilized vehicles in the East Village? (Thursday)

• Masked garbage bandit spotted on 12th Street (OK, it's just a raccoon) (Thursday

• Days of wine and closures (Monday

• A new residential building for this block of 9th Street (Wednesday)

• Shinzo Omakase set to debut on 2nd Street (Wednesday

• A sticky situation this morning at the Keith Haring sculpture on Astor Place (Tuesday

• A smoke shop for this block of 4th Street (Monday)

... and also at Pier 17 before Blondie, the Damned's David Vanian looking cool in the high-80s temps...
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Follow EVG on Instagram or Twitter for more frequent updates and pics.

[Updated] Someone crashed this Hudson River Park golf cart at 5th Street and Avenue A

A buzzy morning on Avenue A as passersby came across this golf cart/maintenance vehicle from the Parks Department up on the curb with two smashed tires at Fifth Street. 

EVG reader Concerned Citizen shared these photos of the vehicle... apparently the victim of a joyride (we don't know that officially, but)...
... which is all the way from Hudson River Park ...
And we whipped up a map to show you where the 4-mile-long Park is (in case you don't know exactly) ...
At the moment, we don't know any of the particulars — the when, the who, or, importantly, the why. 

The NYPD and the Parks Enforcement Patrol were at the scene. 

Updated 12:30 p.m.

Derek Berg spotted the stricken vehicle on First Avenue and Seventh Street at about 11 a.m. heading back to the west side...

Sunday's opening shot (and HBD Joe Strummer!)

This morning's view of the Joe Strummer mural outside Niagara on Seventh Street and Avenue A... the co-founder of the Clash would have been 70 today.

Dr. Revolt and Zephyr created the original mural back in 2003... after Strummer's untimely death in December 2002.

And a new box set, Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years, is on the way.

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Reminders: Tompkins Square Park Cleanup Day tomorrow (Sunday)

As mentioned yesterday, Assemblymember Harvey Epstein has organized a volunteer cleanup day in Tompkins Square Park for tomorrow.  

 Details: 
  • What: Tompkins Square Park Cleanup Day
  • Who: Assemblymember Harvey Epstein and neighbors 
  • When: Sunday, Aug. 21 at 10 a.m. 
  • Where: Tompkins Square Park (Enter on Seventh Street and Avenue A) 
Epstein's office said they would supply everything needed for the cleanup.

Trash talk

Trash pickup in Tompkins Square Park has been a popular topic in recent days... 

So on this topic. Several readers have pointed out that someone used insulating spray foam to seal shut an easy-open trash bin in the middle of the Park. (Eden first pointed this out about two weeks ago.) 

The foam-goop-whatever has been cleared off enough to open the bin... though some Parkgoers choose not to...

An early 1960s look at the SW corner of 14th Street and Avenue A

OK, for starters: the above photo IS NOT an early 1960s look at the SW corner of 14th Street and Avenue A. It is an early morning Aug. 20 look at the SW corner of 14th Street and Avenue A. 

Anyway, yesterday, Bayou shared the photo of the ghost signage for "Appetizers" on what was most recently New Herbal World. 

As a follow-up, EVG regular Edmund John Dunn, who grew up nearby with his family, shared the following photo... of his brother (photoshopped to protect his privacy!) from the early 1960s... the photographer is looking to the east, with the corner of Avenue A visible in the background... as well as the ConEd plant in the distance ... 
Here's a blown-up look without getting too grainy...
On the corner is a Horn and Hardart retail store (not an automat) ... then a greeting cards store... then Mindy's luncheonette... then the deli/shop with the appetizing sign. 

The previous post on the ghost signage has a little more history about the place. 

Meanwhile, back to that top photo, workers dispensed with the ghost signage in combining the storefronts — New Herbal World and Lower East Side Coffee Shop for the next tenant: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.

Saturday's opening shot

The morning sky view from Third Avenue and 14th Street...

Friday, August 19, 2022

The grit and glamour of 1982's 'Smithereens' coming to Metrograph in the days ahead

"Smithereens," the dark comedy from 1982 filmed in part in the East Village, makes a return engagement this weekend (and next week) to the Metrograph, 7 Ludlow St. between Hester and Canal.

The film, which marked Susan Seidelman's directorial debut, is set in the East Village (and other downtown locales). Wren (Susan Berman), a suburban New Jersey native, is eager for downtown fame, plastering "missing" posters of herself on the subway and elsewhere. She sees a meal ticket in Eric (Richard Hell), the hot guy with a short attention span in a band. And there's the too-nice Paul (Brad Rijn), who pursues the uninterested Wren. Love!

Go here for showtimes. You can read the EVG interview with Seidelman from 2016 here.

And a making-of featurette for you with Seidelman and Berman ...

'Metal' as anything

 

West Coast-based surf-noir outfit La Luz will be at the Bowery Ballroom next Friday (Aug. 26). Ahead of that, here's a video for their single, "Metal Man." 

The Gallery Watch Q&A: Tilde Thurium and Nicole Aptekar on 'Anaphoric Fractures'

Interview by Clare Gemima 
Photos of the Artists: Shoshana Soleyn; all other photos courtesy of EVGallery 

There is absolutely ZERO way that any form of digital consumption of "Anaphoric Fractures" could compete with an in-person viewing experience. This intelligent and ambitious show at EVGallery on 11th Street showcases 10 multimedia sculptures created by Tilde Thurium (below) and Nicole Aptekar (second photo) — each with an infinitely captivating amount of intricacy and flare. 
I was lucky enough to meet and chat with the artists about their processes, collaborative relationship and greater visual arts practices. "Anaphoric Fractures" runs until Sept. 3, and I highly recommend making an appointment to visit the gallery NOW.

Clare Gemima
: First, congratulations to both of you for the success of "Anaphoric Fractures." I came to your opening, and it was packed right up until the sun had finally settled! How has the experience of watching your audience interact with your works been? Did you learn anything from opening night that you weren't expecting to? 

Tilde Thurium: The reception has been overwhelming. I am profoundly grateful. Everyone I've interacted with has been curious about the process of producing these works. It feels like the audience understands the feeling I intend to convey. 

Nicole Aptekar: It's been fantastic to see people's reactions to our work! I had a pretty good understanding of what it might be like, having shown at EV Gallery last October, but it was actually a somewhat different crowd than the previous show! 

Lately, I've found that the most commented-on pieces are never what I expect they'll be. Given that we're making abstract work, hearing how people connect and interpreting them for themselves is really powerful and heartwarming to experience. One of the main things I took away is that my process perspective can mask how people will see the final pieces. In a number of the works for this show, there are curved lines extruded and twisted through the pieces, and to me, this geometry is used like variations on a theme. Still, to most people at the opening, the results were so different that they didn't connect them as explorations of a similar technique. 

CG: How did you initially meet, and what attracted you to each other's unique visual lexicon?

TT: We met in 2011 at a vegan pizza place in San Francisco that has since ceased to exist. Nicole's work immerses the viewer in a geometric landscape; seeing her art, I felt an immediate resonance with my approach. Her style is more precise, and mine is more organic, but fundamentally we are both taking the audience on three-dimensional journeys. 

Knowing Nicole has pushed me to become a better artist than I otherwise would have. I felt like she profoundly got what I was trying to communicate visually. She is a prolific creator, and her practice has inspired my own for many years, even before we made our first collaborative piece in 2018. 

NA: We met way back in 2011! This was in San Francisco, just a few months before my first solo show, and I was working on an event with Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. I stopped at a tiny little vegan restaurant across the street on a break. 

Tilde had eye-catching tattoos, we got to talking, and I soon found out that they were a painter. We started hanging out and have been friends ever since. We've helped out on each other's projects back in San Francisco and have encouraged each other's art practice. Both of us work in abstract, but Tilde's always been so colorful, and I've historically been so scared of color in my work. I worked exclusively in white until like 2017 or so, and since then, I've moved to black and metals like gold or silver. 

I'm not entirely sure how we got the idea to blend our mediums together, but we started working towards a couple possible ways to do so in 2018. I've got some files from before we settled on the method we used in the show. I think initially, we were trying to experiment with etching construction lines into the wood, and having Tilde paint around them. I like our current process better. 

CG: Tilde, you work out of San Francisco, and Nicole — you’re based in Brooklyn. Can you shed some light on how your collaborative dynamic operates long distance? 

TT: When we first agreed to start working on Anaphoric Fractures, we talked through initial themes and colors we wanted to explore. We decided I would start the process and send the work to her as I finished. From there, I would send Nicole photos of works in progress. She would give suggestions from time to time, which were really helpful and pushed me to think about composition in a new way. 

When a painting was done, I would mail it off to Nicole. Then she would start designing, cutting, and assembling the sculpture, which is much more labor intensive. Over the course of Nicole's work, she would send me renders and snapshots of pieces in progress. I would offer suggestions. The whole process was a reciprocal dialogue, one of the dynamics that inspired the show’s name. 

NA: Well, the first piece we made didn't have the distance. I moved to Brooklyn in 2019! That said, I think working long distance actually works better for us. Tilde regularly sent over progress shots of the paintings as they came together, and we could discuss them at length and conceptualize how the paper sculpture might engage with the painted form long before it got completed. Then once it made its way over to me, I would do the same with iterations from my process. If I were local, I think that would probably just get saved for when we could meet up in person, rather than being a daily/weekly sort of thing. The final results would have been much more of a sequential handoff rather than a continuous collaboration. 

CG: Each sculpture is accompanied by a body of poetic, stimulating, but also cryptic text. They have also all been given verse-form titles. How important has writing become throughout your collaborative process, and how is it intended to aid your audience’s overall interpretation?

TT: The titles help the viewer place themselves within an imaginary world. Nicole and I are both evocative writers, but our tones and rhythms are markedly different. We each wrote the text for half of the pieces, as it felt important to make balanced contributions to the show's written and visual aspects. 

NA: The writing is a thing I've done since my earliest pieces. I used to be hugely embarrassed by it, but all of my sculptures have been 'inhabitable' in my head–they describe a scene in a world that's often fairly dark. 

When I finish a piece, I sit with it and explore where in that world it takes place. The writing you're referring to is the result of that process, the description of that moment in the world of the sculpture, and I extract the title from the writing. For many years, after pulling out the title, I'd delete the writing; it just felt too personal to me! Some friends eventually convinced me not to, and starting with my previous show, I included it in the show. The reception has been so surprising; people seem to appreciate the words, even with how strange they are. 

For this series, Tilde played along with my process and went through the exercise themself! We traded off who would write the longer moment of the piece and who extracted the title from it. It's remarkable to me how different our writing styles are for this process, but in the same way that the pieces feel natural and cohesive as one; the titles and texts all feel like they fit together. 

CG: Each of the 10 works appears to be an extreme labor of love. How long do these works take to create — from conception to installation, and what have you used to make them? 

TT: I'm a very slow painter. I spend about 1/3rd of my time on a given piece doing small touch-ups, trying to make it as perfect as possible. I estimate I spent at least 20 hours on each piece. 

NA: I'd say it's pretty variable on my end! There are pieces where the sculpting process goes really swiftly, with just a few variations and iterations, and ones where it's a lot more of a struggle to land on something I'm really happy with, with massive swings that engage with the painting in completely different ways or use totally different shapes. I'd say the longest time any one piece from this show took about three months. 

And the shortest — about a week. I design my sculptures in Rhino, which is architectural CAD software. I've written some software to aid in my process over the 11 or so years of making paper sculptures, which helps me produce the work in a more reasonable amount of time. 

Once the sculpture is designed, I use my own slicer software to get the 40 paper layers and then cut them one at a time with my laser cutter. If they have gold or silver embedded in the paper, that's an extremely manual process, so the cutting can take anywhere from a day to three or four if the adhesive and gold are uncooperative. Almost everything gets at least a once-over with an Exacto blade just for cleanup, and then the framing materials take me another two days on average. 

CG: What is the most nerve-wracking aspect of crafting these sculptures, and at what point in production does it take place? 

TT: On my end, a very procedural part: shipping the paintings off to New York in the mail! It's unlikely that they would get lost, but if they had, it could have been catastrophic. 

NA: For me, once the paper is cut, there's only so much handling it can take before it stops looking 'perfect,' and there are often many steps still to come! The edges and spindly lines are quite fragile, and the gold/silver is tricky to have it come clean. I'm a perfectionist, and through working with the gold, I've had to tone those tendencies way down, as it's never going to be computer-render perfect, and that slight organic edge turns out to be a lovely contrast. The nerves calm down once I've finished photographing the work and sealed it in its frame; at that point, it's safe from me! 

CG: What is the most rewarding part of being a visual artist exhibiting in New York City at the moment? 

TT: Seeing people's expressions as they react to the work. Having engaging conversations with other artists and viewers who are curious about the process and enthusiastic about the results. 

NA: It's been really meaningful to hear from folks that I'm helping bring back their experience, vision, and memory of a New York City filled with art and life after the truly rough first year of the pandemic. It's nice to have openings and see so much work in person again. I'm also really appreciative of how EVGallery engages with the street and neighborhood; the openings are as much outside as they are inside. It's just wonderful to interact with so many passers-by! 

CG: Some of the visual techniques in each sculpture can be read as dichotomous — fluorescent, acrylic paint, webbed inside the monochromatic, cut paper. Are these contrasting design choices deliberate or accidental? 

TT: The material contrast is one element that makes these pieces work. The intense colors highlight the sculptures' depths and provide a strong focal point. The paper adds dimensionality to the flat paintings and provides the contrast that gives the work balance. 

NA: I think that's one of the main forces that pushed us to work together. Our styles have some similarities but a lot of contrast, and it's satisfying to work to merge those differences together into a cohesive whole. It's a lot more challenging for me to work this way, but it's pushed me to experiment in ways I don't think I would have tried for years. 

CG: Based on your distinctive and individual practices, how do the works in Anaphoric Fractures differ from what you would usually make in your studio? 

TT: A few of these works are consistent with pieces I would produce in my solo practice. The rest diverge. Instead of abstract perspective blocks, I experimented with alternate geometric forms to give Nicole some liberty to layer over more of the paintings with sculpture. This experimentation has generated some themes and ideas I'm excited to incorporate into my solo work. 

NA: My own works have a lot less color! Until this show, I'd only worked with black, white and gold. In my head, I've been dancing around the notion of adding color for probably five years, and this has been a good way to slowly test the waters of what that might feel like emotionally. As I said before, I've also experimented with many new techniques in this series, as it seemed like a safer space to do so. My individual practice is more methodical and controlled, slowly layering in new geometric primitives over the course of years rather than months. After some of these pieces, I feel like I have a lot to explore on my own. 

CG: What are your thoughts regarding collaborations with each other in the future? Any exciting projects in the works? 

TT: For "Anaphoric Fractures," I began all of the works, and Nicole then designed sculptures around the paintings. In the future, I would love to try making some pieces in the opposite order, where Nicole would design a sculpture that I would then create a painting around. 

NA: I doubt that this is the end of us collaborating! I am excited to explore a few tangents I've been working on in parallel with this exhibit. After about a decade of hiatus, I've wanted to move back toward larger-scale installations again, and I'm hoping to find the right venue to make that happen. 

Also, back in 2020, I had a residency at NYU's ITP. I have been working on paper sculptures framed with robotic armatures surrounding them to produce an even more kinetic experience for an object hung on the wall.
EVGallery, 621 E, 11th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C, is open Saturdays from 1-5 p.m. and by appointment. Find contact info here.

~~~~~~

Clare Gemima is a visual artist and arts writer from New Zealand, now based in the East Village of New York. You can find her work here: claregemima.com.

Some appetizing ghost signage uncovered on 14th Street

Workers today uncovered ghost signage at 442 E. 14th St. at Avenue A... a sign for "Appetizers" on what was most recently New Herbal World. (Thanks to Bayou for sharing this photo!

Some time/day we'll dig into the NYPL Digital Collections to see what this business may have been. 

And the workers are — per some EVG reader reports — combining this space with the former Lower East Side Coffee Shop for a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.

Residents come together to pick up trash around Tompkins Square Park

Photos by Allie Ryan 

More than 30 residents (and one rat and one superhero) turned out late yesterday afternoon to help pick up litter around Tompkins Square Park.
As previously reportedJonothon Lyons, creator of Buddy the Rat, and NYC entrepreneur Michael Quinn launched a community litter clean initiative called "Buddy's Brigade: Litter Exterminators." 

Quinn reported that they picked up a few volunteers along the way. "Some were inspired to join after watching us parade around the park," he said. "A few children walked over from the playground to pitch in."

He added: "I never thought picking up litter could be so much fun."

EV resident Allie Ryan, who took part and shared these photos, noted in a tweet: "Now we need someone trained in needle pick up to come."
Assemblymember Harvey Epstein's office has a volunteer trash pickup planned for Sunday at 10 a.m. Interested residents can meet at Seventh Street and Avenue A. (We'll post updates when more info is available,)

East Village residents have said that essential maintenance of Tompkins Square Park has declined in recent years.

Thursday, August 18, 2022

Thursday's parting shots

Stencil-art legend Blek le Rat (@blekleratoriginal) created this tribute to his favorite artist, the "Shadow Man," Richard Hambleton, outside 50 Avenue A between Third Street and Fourth Street...
Blek has a new show starting tomorrow at West Chelsea Contemporary on 10th Avenue ... 

Masked garbage bandit spotted on 12th Street (OK, it's just a raccoon)

Caught in the act last night around 9 on 12th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B...
Thanks to Caroline Guercio for the photos!

Reminders: Volunteer litter cleanup this afternoon around Tompkins Square Park

ICYMI ... OK, just reposting from Monday morning... 
Jonothon Lyons, creator of Buddy the Rat, is launching a community litter clean initiative called "Buddy's Brigade: Litter Exterminators." 

Lyons and NYC entrepreneur Michael Quinn are hosting a series of volunteer community litter cleanups around New York City with material resource support from the Department of Sanitation.

The first cleanup will be around the perimeter of Tompkins Square Park this Thursday (Aug. 18) at 5 p.m. 

Volunteers can meet at the corner of Seventh Street and Avenue A on Thursday. You don't need to bring anything: Quinn said that the Department of Sanitation will be supplying all of the necessary resources and equipment. They will also be coming back to pick up the trash, he said.