Friday's parting shot

This clown (Coco!) was entertaining motorists on Houston at Avenue A/Essex late this afternoon...

Booted in the bus lane — day 8

The Subaru with the missing plates enjoyed its eighth day booted in the bus lane here on Avenue A between Third Street and Second Street... (thanks to EVG reader Carl Bentsen for the pics!)...

And there is an addition of a windshield note today... with a phone number (not to the mayor's office!) for the Subaru owner to call if he/she can't afford to have the boot removed...

A reader said the city towed the car here from Third Street on Sept. 8 ahead of the milling.

Freaks to the front

 

Australian punks Amyl and the Sniffers released this live video clip this week from a recent show... a good preview of what to expect when they play Terminal 5 on West 56th Street next Friday night... in support of their most recent release, Comfort to Me.

City removes the outdoor dining structure from Pardon My French on Avenue B

This morning, workers from the Department of Sanitation and Department of Transportation swooped in on Pardon My French, and removed the restaurant's curbside dining structure on Avenue B between Sixth Street and Seventh Street. (The block was shut down to through traffic during this time.) 

An EVG reader shared these photos...

A resident who lives nearby told us that the structure had been used for storing chairs and tables for the sidewalk cafe. And we don't know if the city had fined the restaurant for the space or asked them to remove it.

The city recently began cracking down on abandoned curbside-dining structures through the Open Restaurants program. 

Per the city: 

Having removed the initial 24 abandoned sheds, the task force has begun identifying and removing additional sheds, investigating another 37 sheds identified as egregious violators of Open Restaurants program guidelines, and reviewing complaints and summons data to identify and remove other abandoned sheds throughout the five boroughs. Sheds reported to be abandoned will be verified as abandoned two separate times before receiving a termination letter, followed by removal and disposal of the shed. 

The task force will also review sheds that, while potentially active, are particularly egregious violators of Open Restaurants program guidelines. In these cases, sheds will be inspected three separate times before action is taken. 

After each of the first two failed inspections, DOT will issue notices instructing the restaurant owner to correct the outstanding issues; after the third visit, DOT will issue a termination letter and allow 48 hours before issuing a removal notice. DOT will then remove the structure and store it for 90 days — if the owner does not reclaim it in that period, DOT will dispose of the structure.

Recent East Village removals include Poco,  Dia, the Ainsworth and Baker's Pizza. Of those four, only Poco remains in business. 

Thank you to Concerned Citizen and Salim as well!

Flashback Friday: this morning's sunrise, last Saturday's harvest moonrise

Thanks to EVG reader Jeanne Krier for these photos...

City to unveil Adela Fargas Way this weekend in honor of Casa Adela's legendary founder

Tomorrow (Saturday, Sept. 17) at noon, the city unveils new street blades for Adela Fargas Way on Fifth Street and Avenue C. 

Fargas was the founder and namesake of the popular Puerto Rican restaurant Casa Adela on the block. Fargas, who ran Casa Adela here for decades, died in January 2018. She was 81.

As we reported in May, District Leader Aura Olavarria drafted the petition ... and worked with Adela's son Luis Rivera (pictured below) and other community members-groups. They collected hundreds of signatures and presented the petition to Community Board 3's Transportation, Public Safety, Sanitation & Environment Committee, who overwhelmingly approved the petition ... and the entire Board passed a resolution in support on May 24. 

On July 14, the New York City Council Committee passed Councilmember Carlina Rivera's bill for the co-naming.

Here's more about Fargas from the petition:

Adela Fargas was a working-class, Afro-Puerto Rican fixture in Loisaida and the owner and matriarch behind the iconic and authentic Puerto Rican restaurant Casa Adela. She was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, where she became a domestic worker who prepared frianbreras, or packed lunches, for factory workers. 

She moved to the United States at age 39, where her first job in the Lower East Side was at a restaurant on East 4th Street and Avenue D. When the restaurant closed, Adela found a way to provide for her family and feed those less fortunate through selling pasteles on street corners. In 1973, Adela opened her family-run restaurant, Casa Adela. 

Adela Fargas's impact goes far beyond a restaurant, which represented an important meeting place for the Puerto Rican community in New York City, in the diaspora, and worldwide. Outside the restaurant's walls, Adela was a center of Latino life on the Lower East Side and a tireless community advocate. Adela became the godmother to many on the Lower East Side, employing those who lived in the neighborhood and feeding anyone who came in hungry. 

Her soul food attracted a profound sense of community and this street co-naming will serve to honor her living legacy. Each year at the Loisaida Festival, Adela provided food for the community and organized dance and music for the festival as well.

Photo from May by Stacie Joy 

The annual 9th Street Block Party is back, and happening tomorrow (Saturday!)

For the first time since 2019, the 9th Street A-1 Block Association Block Party — one of the best around — is back in action... happening tomorrow (Saturday, Sept. 17) from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Both residents and merchants along the block — Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue — will have items for sale. Expect some live music too.

Thanks to Steven for the photo!

The annual Village View Tag Sale is tomorrow (Saturday!)

There's a tag sale at Village View tomorrow (Saturday, Sept. 17) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ... it's on the Fifth Street basketball court between Avenue A and First Avenue... as we've noted before: We've found (bought) some pretty good stuff here through the years.

Thursday's parting SERVE

Photo by Derek Berg 

Some folks from PingPod were at the ping-pong table in the center of Tompkins Square Park today... offering $10 for anyone who could return one of three serves from one of their table-tennis pros. 

The fellow in the above photo returned all three — AND WITH A GUITAR STRAPPED TO HIS BACK. 

Maybe the video will show up @pingpod.

Kembra Pfahler headlining fundraiser Sunday for the LGBTQ History Project

The LGBTQ History Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of LGBTQ activists and pioneers, is hosting its first fundraiser ... happening Sunday (4-8 p.m.) at Nowhere Bar, 322 E. 14th St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

Here are details via the EVG inbox

Since 2019, The LGBTQ History Project has documented the stories of countless people who were crucial to the advancement of civil rights. 

We will have a mega-LGBTQ-history-archive raffle, which includes original poster prints by Harvey Milk photographer Dan Nicoletta, a Cockette postcard series, and limited edition reissues of Vanguard magazine. 

As if that is not enough, Kembra Pfahler (The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black) will be performing, and we will be spinning the debut of Man Parish's new Klaus Nomi album, Dear Klaus Nomi, which includes completely new versions of Klaus' hits featuring his original vocals. (Read about this here.)

You can buy a ticket for the event here. Proof of COVID vaccination will be required for entry, per organizers. 

The pre-dawn Moon in Taurus

An early morning dispatch from Felton Davis of the Second Avenue Star Watchers ... the top photo of the waning Moon was taken from Third Street ... with another shot with some of the Moon's features...

Per Felton: "The waning moon is weird in the early morning, all flipped over from its usual early evening waxing position. Out in the country, the famous Pleiades cluster would be visible just a few degrees over from the moon, but at street level here in NYC they are not."

Green days: 6&B Garden program teaching East Village kids how to garden and cook

Images and text by Daniel Efram 

The 6&B Garden Kids Cooking Workshop series continued on Aug. 21 with Gallo Pinto Collard Green Wraps on the menu, a recipe shared by one of the community garden's members from Costa Rica. 

This program for kids (ages 5 and up!) has been running since the fall of 2016, with a break during the worst of the pandemic, and offers not only some tasty recipes but also resources about gardening and sustainability. 

"Our goals for the program are to share with kids from the neighborhood the experience of picking vegetables and herbs straight from the garden and cooking and eating them outdoors," explains 6&B's Michael Mangieri. "As a cook and chef, this has always been my greatest delight. It never gets old. I am happy to have a way to share with the next generation."

"We share our love for the growing and cooking of food with the young people in our community through a lens of food justice and cultural appreciation," 6&B's Briar Winters continues. "We donate produce from the kids' farm that our program participants have helped us grow to our local food pantry at Trinity Church on Avenue B. Most of our recipes are shared with us by our garden members or folks from the community, with a special emphasis on sharing cultural food traditions."

The garden for kids provides an authentic farm-to-table experience, solidifying that the vegetables can be grown, nurtured and harvested in their own space in the East Village. 

"This program is part of our community food justice program," says 6&B member Barbara Caporale. "Our garden hopes to shift the paradigm of how community gardens are viewed by some as private clubs, to being seen as a place that can help meet community food need, and our children are a part of that solution."

After being shown what the vegetables look like when ripe for picking, the trio instructed the kids on how to choose and care for each plant. After rinsing, the kids were shown how to prepare the collard greens, pressing and flattening them, then removing the stems. 

Next, the crew cut up tomatoes, avocado and crumbled cheese. Mangieri boiled the collard skins until they were bright green and tender and cooked down onion, garlic and peppers with coconut oil to get the sofrito in shape. He then added black beans and rice to the sofrito base for the kids to stir together.

Afterward, the participants could enjoy the wraps they had created.

The next 6&B Garden Kids Cooking Workshop is on Saturday (Sept. 17) at noon, featuring recipes to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. 

For more information, please please visit the garden's website or email sixbgarden@gmail.com.

The community garden is on the SW corner of Avenue B and Sixth Street.

Compilation Coffee debuts on St. Mark's Place

Compilation Coffee debuted last week at 102 St. Marks Place between Avenue A and First Avenue. (We first reported on this pending arrival in June.)

Industry vet Noah Jashinski, who has worked with brands like Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle and Stumptown, is the founder. 

The business is looking to set itself apart in its offerings — no fancy iced mocha frappé drinks — and support to the community with the following values statement: "We believe in inclusion, transparency, and service."

A rep shared more about what to expect:

Compilation Coffee is laser-focused on its customers and coffee, so there are no espresso machines or latte art competitions. Pairing a Poursteady with a back bar of 10 Baratza Fortés, customers can select daily from 10 different coffees, made to order by the cup (hot or iced) as a pour over. 

Any cup, be it black or Au Lait, cow's milk or alternative milk from NuMilk, is $5 for a 12 oz. cup. Customers can even purchase 4oz tubes of the entire bean menu, so they can mix and match, or even buy three different ones — their version of a flight.

According to the company: "We want to be involved in our community and to bring people together. That’s why we choose to support charities that help marginalized young people." Compilation's charity partners are The Trevor Project, the suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ young adults, and Covenant House, which provides services to unhoused youth. (Read more on the partnership here.)

Compilation Coffee is open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The previous tenant here, Baked Cravings, a bakery specializing in nut- and peanut-free desserts, went dark at the start of the year after a September 2020 debut. Dun-Well Doughnuts was here previously.

The state of this Stuyvesant Street retail space

We've talked with several readers/residents dismayed by the current state of 8-14 Stuyvesant St. ... the once-vibrant corridor with four popular businesses here between Third Avenue and Ninth Street. 

Today (photos from Tuesday), the storefronts sit empty and continue to attract graffiti and wheatpaste ads (and abandoned chairs!) ...

As previously reported, Village Yokocho, Angel's Share and Panya closed in these spaces in April. Another restaurant, Sharaku in the corner space at 14 Stuyvesant St., shuttered earlier in the pandemic. (Sunrise Mart in a separate building next door on the second floor also shut down.)

Cooper Union, which leases the buildings from their owners and had subleased them to the Yoshida Restaurant Group for more than 25 years, said it was the tenants' decision to move on. (This post has more background. Yoshida had not paid rent since 2020.)

No word on what the landlord, believed to be 29 Third Ave Corporation c/o Casabella Holdings, LLC, has in store for the spaces. We haven't spotted any retail listings for the address. (A Cooper Union rep told us previously that there isn't a new building planned on this site.)

So expect this strip to remain in this state for the foreseeable future. 

These cats need a home

These signs arrived yesterday on Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue ... where Ollie's Place needs to find homes for 12 cats ASAP.

According to the signs, the nonprofit that rescues cats and puts them up for adoption has lost its lease. We don't know any more than what's posted on the signs. 

You can stop by the shop at 430 E. Ninth St. or email cats@mightymutts.org for more details. 

Ollie's arrived here in 2011. 

Thanks to Kait for the photo... and to William Klayer for also sharing the news.

Remembering East Village artist M. Henry Jones

M. Henry Jones, a longtime East Village-based animator, filmmaker and 3D photographer, died this past June at age 65.

This Thursday evening at 7, his many friends and loved ones are coming together for a memorial at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery on Second Avenue at 10th Street. 

Here's more about him and his work via the Burchfield Penney Art Center: 

In 1975 he moved to New York City, where he attended the School of Visual Arts. He soon became one of many prominent figures in the East Village alternative art space, working with several artists and musicians, and founding Snake Monkey Studios, a concept based out of his apartment on Avenue A. 

Jones' films throughout the 1970s and 1980s transcended the boundaries between moving and stagnant imagery, employing a meticulous and carefully crafted process to give viewers a unique visual experience. His early works are also representative of some of the earliest interactions between music, and films intended to complement its structure; one of Jones' most widely recognized films, "Soul City," is a stroboscopic color film created in collaboration with The Fleshtones. The two-year production of the two-minute film required each individual frame of the group's performance footage to be precisely cut, tinted and rephotographed. 

The film made its debut on the music and art scenes in 1979 and was unlike anything that had ever been done before. "Soul City," along with Jones' other animations for musicians pioneered the music video artistic concept years before MTV and the rise of music videos as we know them today.

David Hershkovits shared this about him in a July post at Legsville: 

Visiting him in his studio or running into him in the East Village neighborhood where we both still lived was an adventure in its own right. My head would spin getting lost in the weeds of his enthusiasms, but I'd always walk away elevated by the conversation, inspired by his hands-on approach and dedication, in his words, "to make the world a better place." 

And from curator Marc H. Miller of Gallery 98: 

Fans of Jones often refer to him as a “technical genius” but he is probably better described as a forward-looking visionary blessed with stubborn perseverance. Because his first works date nearly a decade before the widespread use of computers and digitization, Jones was restricted to labor-intensive analog techniques to create effects that would soon be facilitated by digital programs like Photoshop. 

Today we marvel not only at the visual effects he produced but also at the arduous, time-consuming processes he needed to use to achieve them. In hindsight, it becomes clear that the technology itself was the true subject of Jones’ work, as well as its most important component.

What is the city planning for the multipurpose courts in Tompkins Square Park?

Updated 9/19: You can find a recap of the plans for the space here.

----

There are several items of potential interest on the docket tomorrow night (Sept. 15) for Community Board 3's Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency Committee virtual meeting. 

The fourth item of the agenda, "Proposed plan for renovation of the multi-purpose court in NW corner of Tompkins Square Park," has drawn much interest to date...

There isn't any official word yet on what this "proposed plan for renovation" entails.

As you may recall, from September 2019, the skateboarding community came together to show their support for keeping the multipurpose courts (aka TF) in the northwest corner of Tompkins Square Park free of synthetic turf. 

As we reported in July 2019, the city had plans — apparently only known to residents who may have attended a Community Board 3 committee meeting in May — to cover the courts with synthetic turf, rendering the space useless for skateboarders and street hockey players, among other groups. (People have been skating at this spot since the 1980s, and it has been called "the last great meet-up spot for skateboarders and their friends in New York.") 

However, less than 24 hours before a much-publicized rally was to take place, the city announced that it would no longer cover the space in turf, originally proposed to make up for the amenities lost during the years-long gutting of East River Park.

"Tompkins Square Park has served as the epicenter of NYC skateboard culture for decades. As such, we have decided to leave the area previously proposed for synthetic in the park as is and will not move forward with creating a synthetic turf area there," Parks Department spokesperson Crystal Howard said in a statement to Patch at the time. 

There have been plans in the works titled "Tompkins Square Park Pavement Reconstruction." This project would, as the name suggests, "reconstruct pavement surfaces at Tompkins Square Park." 

While areas of the Park could stand for some resurfacing, doing so on the site that skaters use could potentially render the TF useless. As one regular told us: "When they put new asphalt in, it can take years to set ... it's the smooth ground that's great to skate on that we love. Or they could fuck it up and ruin it as a skate spot." 

Another resident we talked with wishes the Parks Department would focus on other areas needing attention in the Park, such as the restrooms, which some people think are the worst in North America. (Relief is on the way there with the expected reconstruction of the Tompkins Square Park field house next year. Or so.)

According to the Parks Department website, the design for the "Pavement Reconstruction" phase is 30% finished, with an anticipated February 2023 completion date — just for the design. (The project is also still in the procurement phase.)  

Here is the link to the Zoom registration for tomorrow night's (Sept. 15) meeting... which starts at 6:30. 

Full reveal at 15 Avenue A

Workers removed the plywood from outside the gut-renovated and taller 15 Avenue A on Monday... revealing the building's entrance and retail space here between First Street and Second Street ... 

As previously reported, the currently vacant building received a vertical extension with two new floors, moving from four to six... with five residential units (likely condos) in the making.

The new retail tenant is expected to be a wine bar/restaurant from Bushwick-based pizzeria Roberta's. (First reported in September 2019.)

Community Board 3 approved a beer-wine location for the ground floor back in September. The minutes from that meeting show that Roberta's will have 12 tables and 44 seats with one 12-foot L-shaped bar with four seats. Hours of operation were listed as 11 a.m. to midnight, with "Italian food (pizza, pasta) prepared in a full kitchen, serving food during all hours of operation, no televisions, and ambient recorded background music."

The retail space at 15 Avenue A was previously the Family Dental Center, which moved down to Essex Street in 2017. The building changed hands in early 2018 for $4.3 million, per public records. Z+G Property Group is the landlord.

Tuesday's parting shot

Seen today in Tompkins Square Park... photo by Derek Berg...

Report of a 2-alarm fire at 11-13 Avenue D

A two-alarm fire damaged several businesses and displaced residents late last night at 11-13 Avenue D between Second Street and Third Street. 

The @FDNYalerts account first noted the fire at 12:41 a.m. ...

Manhattan 2-Alarm Box 0415, 13 AVE D, MULTIPLE DWELLING A, 1 FLR STORE

— FDNYalerts (@FDNYAlerts) September 13, 2022

... with the "under control" coming at 2 a.m. ...

Manhattan 2-Alarm Box 0415, 13 AVE D, MULTIPLE DWELLING A, 1 FLR STORE, Under Control

— FDNYalerts (@FDNYAlerts) September 13, 2022

Nearby residents reported seeing flames coming through the roof of the six-floor building. (H/T Bobby G.) 

Video taken from the scene shows extensive damage to the three ground-floor businesses: Joesph's Convenience Store, New Chinatown Restaurant and Royal Fried Chicken. (New Chinatown Restaurant was not open at the time, as firefighters had to cut through the gate to access the establishment.)

At this time, there isn't any official word of injuries, the origin of the fire or the extent of the damage to the residential units.

Updated 8:30 a.m. 

EVG reader Bobby G. shares this photo from this morning...

Screengrabs via video by THEMAJESTIRIUM1.