Tuesday, November 8, 2022

7 years later, the sidewalk bridge is coming down on the NW corner of 3rd Avenue and 9th Street

Workers from the Department of Miracles were out today... starting to remove the longstanding sidewalk bridge from outside the St. Mark at 115 E. Ninth St. ...  which wrapped around the storefronts along Third Avenue up to 10th Street... (thanks to Bruce Tantum for the initial tip!)
A worker told EVG correspondent Steven that the bridge had been up for seven years, which seems about right. (A Google Street View shows the bridge in place in 2016 but not at the next increment back in 2014.)

In May 2016, a 10-by-10-foot section of the facade started to separate from the building on the 15th floor. (At this point, the bridge had been in place for seven months.) The city closed Third Avenue while the repairs were made. 

Election Day

Today (Nov. 8!), NYC will vote in a general election for federal and statewide offices including U.S. Congress, Governor, ballot proposals and more.

Polls are open on Election Day from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Find your poll site here. 

You can find more info about the candidates and issues via NYC Votes.

Olde Good Things is closing its Bowery outpost

The Olde Good Things outpost at 302 Bowery is closing here between Bleecker and Houston. 

A for-rent banner arrived above the storefront several weeks ago, providing a hint of closures to come. Most things are between 20-40% off, per the front-window signage...
This outpost of the architectural artifact dealer specializing in reclaimed building materials and antiques arrived here in 2013. 

Olde Good Things has two other NYC locations as well as one in Los Angeles and a warehouse in Scranton, Pa.

Compilation Coffee has closed for now on St. Mark's Place

After less than two months in business, Compilation Coffee has closed for now at 102 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Multiple EVG readers passed along updates that the pour-over coffee shop has not been opening in recent days, and there are packing containers inside the storefront.

Yelp reports that the business is temporarily closed, with a May 1, 2023, reopening, while Google lists Compilation Coffee as "permanently closed." The shop's website notes that Compilation Coffee Roasters 2.0 is coming soon...
Compilation Coffee has not yet responded to our messages about the situation here.

Industry vet Noah Jashinski, who has worked with brands like Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle and Stumptown, is behind Compilation Coffee, which just debuted in early September.

The business was 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." 

The shop also had a curbside space built for patrons last week ...
Bottom photo and screengrabs via Steven

Monday, November 7, 2022

Report: Police arrest suspect in the murder of Jaden Stokes at Campos Plaza

Photo from Oct. 29 

Police have arrested a suspect in the deadly shooting on Oct. 27 inside Campos Plaza, 635 E. 12th St. at Avenue C. 

According to published reports, Lindell Cox, 31, was charged with murder in the death of 21-year-old Jaden Stokes. 

Surveillance footage shows a man, who police have said is Cox, wearing a mask and firing multiple shots inside the NYCHA's building lobby while Stokes and a 24-year-old man were waiting for the elevator. The other man was wounded by a gunshot in the leg. A motive for the shooting wasn't revealed.

A GoFundMe established to help the Stokes family pay for funeral expenses states that Jaden had just started a new job as a School Youth Mentor. He received his first check on the day he was killed.

Basquiat's former loft space on Great Jones is available for lease

The building at 57 Great Jones St. between the Bowery and Lafayette is now on the rental market...
The two-level building was once owned by Andy Warhol ... and Jean-Michel Basquiat was living and working in the second-floor studio at the time of his death in 1988.

Here are some particulars via the listing at Meridan Capital Group

• Historic full-building restaurant opportunity
• Previously owned by Andy Warhol and art studio/home of Jean-Michel Basquiat 
• Fully equipped restaurant space with venting & gas in place 
• Massive skylight in ground floor dining room 
• The lower level consists of 2 walk-in boxes, dry storage and office space 
• The second floor consists of open loft space with high ceilings and multiple skylights 
• All uses considered 

The back of the ground-floor space had been home to Bohemian, an invite-only Japanese restaurant that provided some intrigue for food writers 10-plus years back. (As we understand, Bohemian's parent company, Play Earth Inc., owns the building.) 

In July 2016, Village Preservation, in partnership with Two Boots Pizza, unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark Basquiat's time here from 1983-1988.
The building's façade served as an ad-hoc memorial to Basquiat through the years. As we first reported back in February, workers painted over all the tributes... though, as the top photo on this post shows, the tags are making a comeback. 

You can read this post at Village Preservation for more history of the building, which once served as the HQ for Five Points Gang ringleader Paul Kelly.

Previously on EV Grieve:

Wegmans watch on Astor Place

As you likely noticed in the past few weeks, the landmarked 770 Broadway at Eighth Street/Lafayette is behind a layer of plywood...
...with a plywood rendering, which looks exactly like the current building...
Gut renovations continue inside the retail space on the NW corner of Eighth Street at Lafayette ... which will be the first Manhattan outpost of Wegmans. (The one in Brooklyn opened in 2019.) 

Wegmans will occupy space on both the street and lower levels of No. 770 for a total of roughly 82,000 square feet. The grocery is reportedly set to open in the second half of 2023. (Published reports state that Wegmans plans to employ more than 500 people at this store, including 200 full-time positions.) 

And a look through the blogger portals provides the current state of reconstruction affairs here ... 
As previously reported, Kmart closed in this space after 25 years in July 2021. Wegmans had agreed to buy out the fading retailer's lease to make this deal possible.

Motorino closed for renovations; return set for Nov. 18

Motorino is behind plywood at 349 E. 12th St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

The pizzeria will BRB...
This Motorino outpost closed on Oct. 18 for "equipment maintenance, a new sign and a fresh coat of paint." Their Instagram account says, "We'll be back on Nov. 18, ready for another 12 years in the East Village."

The locations on the UWS and the original in Williamsburg remain open.

Motorino arrived here in the fall of 2009. 

Thanks to Steven for the photos!

Sunday, November 6, 2022

Sunday's parting shot

A view of the moon from an East Village street...

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a random photo from St. Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue)... 

• At the last night of the Pyramid Club on Avenue A (Monday

• Citing a reorganization, Mikey Likes It Ice Cream closes Avenue A location (Thursday

• A very Avenue B Halloween (Tuesday)

• A fundraising raffle to help Lower East Side families this Thanksgiving (Tuesday

• Owners of Joyface debut HiLot on Avenue C (Tuesday)

• Key Food is back to 24/7 (Monday

• The 9th Precinct touts a big drug bust in Tompkins Square Park (Thursday)

• Just what the doctor ordered? MedRite Urgent Care debuts on 14th and 3rd (Friday)

• Check out the new single by Hello Mary (Friday

• A busy week for milling in the East Village (Monday

• Demolition complete on the Bowery for the New Museum annex (Wednesday

• Mug & Cup space is now in possession of the landlord on Avenue C (Thursday)

• Activity at the former Associated on 14th Street (Wednesday

• The former Nomad space is for rent on 2nd Avenue (Tuesday

• How long will this booted Dodge Durango sit here on 11th Street? (Friday

• SantaCon 2022 is now on the clock (Monday)

• Double-decker plywood report (Monday

... and a last look at Halloween courtesy of Derek Berg...
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The Dorothy Day takes to New York Harbor

On Friday, the city officially commissioned the newest member of the Staten Island Ferry fleet — the Dorothy Day

The $85 million state-of-the-art ferry is named for Day, the activist and journalist with ties to the Lower East Side, where she worked with the poor and founded The Catholic Worker. (The St. Joseph's House is on First Street and Maryhouse on Third Street.) 

City officials said that Day regularly rode the Staten Island Ferry to reach her cottage on Staten Island's South Shore and is buried in Pleasant Plains. According to officials, the ferry will serve passengers for the first time later this year. Meanwhile, here's a video of the launch and sea trial from September ...

   

The Church of the Nativity at 44 Second Ave. between Second Street and Third Street was Day's home parish. Several years ago, parishioners asked the Archdiocese of New York to build a shrine for Day within Nativity. 

The Archdiocese later sold the property to developers, who demolished the church and neighboring structures to make way for an 11-floor mixed-use building that will rise on the east side of the avenue ...
Top image via Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc./Nativity lot photo by Felton Davis

Sunday's opening shot

The season of giving thanks, from St. Mark's Place at First Avenue...

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Noted

As seen on Seventh Street near Avenue C... and there's a sudden urge to watch "Road House" tonight.

EVG Etc.: City Council approves redistricting; Anna Delvey launches dinner series

Fall at Albert's Garden on 2nd Street 

• Your Election Day questions answered (NY1

• Local City Councilmember Carlina Rivera and others speak out about the warehousing of rent-stabilized units (The City

• NYC migrant crisis highlights long standing homeless shelter issues (Gothamist

• City Council approves redistricting maps (City & State ... Village Preservation

• Sietsema checks out MayRee on First Street (Eater ... previously on EVG

• Pete Wells says that the French-influenced Claud on 10th Street "is one of the most impressive places to hit the East Village in several years" (The New York Times ... previously on EVG)

• The Thrillist guide to the East Village (Thrillist

• Under house arrest, Anna Delvey is launching a dinner series out of her East Village apartment (Eater)

• The "Meet Me in the Bathroom" doc is now playing at the IFC Center (Official site... previously on EVG

• UFOs on the big screen (Anthology Film Archives

• Glendalis is the protagonist of this 10-year photographic voyage on the Lower East Side (i-D

• Scarlett Johansson and David Yurman hosted a shopping soiree to benefit the Lower Eastside Girls Club (Vogue

• The noise and traffic are constant complaints from the neighbors near Clinton Street and Grand Street (PIX11

• Goggla captures the fall bird migration (Laura Goggin Photography

• Heidi Klum's Halloween worm costume at the new Moxy Hotel on the Bowery inspired some good memes (Hyperallergic)

Saturday's opening shot

Clocks go back one hour at 2 a.m. with Daylight Saving Time ... so if you're reading this post tomorrow, it will be 8:17 a.m. and not 9:17 a.m. 

And the new clocks at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery (above!) on 10th Street and Second Avenue arrived in September 2018

On Nov. 12, 1955, lightning struck the clock tower, which generated 1.21 gigawatts of power.

Friday, November 4, 2022

Hello again

Photo for EVG last year by Stacie Joy 

Big week for local band Hello Mary... the trio — bassist Mikaela Oppenheimer, guitarist Helena Straight and drummer Stella Wave — announced the release date for their debut LP — March 3, 2023. 

They were also profiled in Rolling Stone in a piece titled "Say Hello to the Next Great New York Rock Band." 

And then there is a brand-new single-video... this is "Spiral."

   

Previously on EV Grieve

About the 'First Mondays' reading series at Performance Space New York

Performance Space New York's series, "First Mondays: Readings of New Works in Progress," continues this fall. 

Here's more about what to expect from the series, organized by writer-historian Sarah Schulman, on Monday, Nov. 7, and Monday, Dec. 5: 
On Nov. 7, in an event Schulman dubbed "House Favorites," First Mondays features what Schulman describes as "a literary cornucopia of writers' writers, for readers who love writers." They include Lambda Literary Award and Arab American Book Award winner Rabih Alameddine ... poet and former director of the Asian-American Writers' Workshop Ken Chen ... and experimental poet, prose writer, and scholar of critical pedagogy and queer theory Sara Jane Stoner... 
And on Dec. 5... 
In an ongoing commitment to presenting alumni of Performance Space, First Mondays features an evening of new work-in-progress by Chris Cochrane — an innovator of improvisational new music and co-creator of THEM with Ishmael Houston-Jones and Dennis Cooper — with his collaborators Viv Corringham and Miguel Frasconi. 

The "First Mondays" readings start at 7 p.m. (a livestream option is also available). Events are free with RSVP ... which you can do here or here.

The readings take place at Open Room, Performance Space New York, 150 First Ave. (at Ninth Street), 4th floor.

How long will this booted Dodge Durango sit here on 11th Street?

An EVG reader shared this photo... of a new-model Dodge Durango — parked with a boot — on 11th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.

The boot arrived toward the end of September. The next day, the reader and a friend saw a young couple very thoroughly washing the vehicle inside and out. 
We assumed maybe they were killing time while waiting to have the boot removed. Hours later we came by again and the vehicle had been stripped clean of license plates, registration information, VIN, etc. 
The vehicle has sat here without plates and with deflated tires all of October.

Heading into November, the reader wonders how much longer the SUV will sit here. Perhaps it needs to be towed into the Avenue A bus lane to garner some city attention?

Just what the doctor ordered? MedRite Urgent Care debuts on 14th and 3rd

The MedRite Urgent Care is now open on the SE corner of Third Avenue and 14th Street. (Signage arrived in February.) 

The walk-in clinic has more than 20 locations around NYC and the metropolitan area. The hours here: Saturday-Sunday: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Monday-Friday: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

And the new outpost is about 60 steps away from the CityMD location on 14th Street. 

As for the new MedRite storefront, this space has been on the retail market since the Capital One® branch moved away in July 2016

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Thursday's parting shot

A black-and-white view this evening from Seventh Street and First Avenue...