Immaculate Conception School is closing

Photo by Steven

The Archdiocese of New York announced this week that 12 Catholic schools will cease operations at the end of the 2022-23 academic year, including Immaculate Conception on 13th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

This is the last Catholic grade school (serving students K-8) in the East Village.

Per NY1:

There was a shift in demographics and lower enrollment at the schools that are closing, according to officials. This was made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Archdiocese reported spending between $500 million and $700 million to support the schools closing, which they say is unsustainable.

The school dates to 1864 (find a PDF with history here), part of the Immaculate Conception church when it was at 505 E. 14th St. The church, on the north side of 14th, was demolished in the 1940s to make way for Stuy Town. 

The school's current building was completed in 1945. Per Wikipedia: 

In 1943 the parish took over the chapel and hospital buildings now known as Church of the Immaculate Conception and Clergy Houses, completed in 1896 to designs by Barney and Chapman and formerly owned by Grace Church. This existing facility was expanded with a four-story brick convent and parochial school at 415-419 E. 13th St. and 414-416 E. 14th St. ... and completed in 1945.

The archdiocese shut down St. Brigid School, founded in 1856, at the end of the 2018-2019 school year.  The St. Brigid School building remains on the corner of Seventh Street and Avenue B. In 2022, a handful of NYC public school teachers who received medical or religious exemptions to the city's COVID-19 vaccine mandate were working remotely from the school. 

Asbestos abatement for the long-abandoned 6 Avenue B

Photos yesterday by Stacie Joy 

The first steps in the gut renovation of 6 Avenue B are underway. Workers have started the asbestos abatement here on the NW corner of Avenue B and Houston ...

Contractors here confirmed they will renovate the building — not tearing it down, as a few readers suspected.

Last Friday, we had the scoop about the new owner of the long empty/abandoned building.

The owner is an LLC linked to Penn Capital South, whose portfolio includes multiple EV properties.

According to public records, the building changed hands for just $1.05 million. However, the new owners also had to pay $4.2 million in real property transfer and real estate transfer taxes.

As we've pointed out (here and here), the building is in dismal shape and will need significant work to bring it up to code. (The DOB has cited No. 6 for emergency repairs several times in recent years.)

This was one of the abandoned buildings owned by the estate of the mysterious team of Arthur and Abraham Blasof, both long deceased. However, No. 6 has been generating some income with the cell-phone towers on the roof.  

Stay tuned for more news about the building next week...

A for-rent sign arrives at the former Café Cortadito as the curbside dining structure exits

Photos by Stacie Joy 

Workers yesterday removed the remains of the curbside dining structure from the now-closed Café Cortadito at 210 E. Third St., just east of Avenue B. 

The Cuban restaurant closed at the end of January after 18 years in business following a rent increase from $8,000 to $15,000 per month. 

Ricardo Arias and Patricia Valencia, the husband-and-wife owners, said they would be dismantling the curbside dining structure. Before workers hauled off the remains of the structure, the owners had donated some salvageable parts to the nearby community garden and given away remnants to patrons who requested a souvenir from the restaurant.

Meanwhile, a for-rent banner arrived on the gate... (perhaps cooling the rumors that next-door neighbor Poco would take over the space)...

The broker is also repping the other available storefront in the building — the former Solo Pizza, which closed last fall on the Avenue B side for unspecified reasons. (Allegedly a rent hike, per sources.) 

As for Café Cortadito, Arias and Valencia hope to relocate nearby.

Thursday's parting shot

Photo by Steven 

Multiple readers have mentioned this barricaded chair on the NE corner of Fifth Street and Second Avenue... we are on it. #FreeTheChair

East River Greenway now closed along the Con Ed power plant

Multiple EVG readers shared the news that, as of Monday, the East River Greenway is closed for "construction activities" between 20th Street and 14th Street, including the narrow passage along the FDR and Con Edison power plant. (Thanks to Laurie Schulwolf for the photo!)

The notice states the work would begin starting the week of Feb. 6, though it turned out to be Feb. 13.

Per the notice:

Current access to the Ferry will not be impacted. All cyclists should follow the Greenway detour below and posted signage. The Greenway north of E 20th Street will remain open to the community. Access East River Park at the E 10th Street pedestrian bridge or the Houston Street overpass.

A worker at the scene said this passage would be closed for two months. 

This is part of the $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project in East River Park. Workers are burying the 57.5-acre park under fill, cutting down 1,000 trees and elevating the land by 8-to-10 feet above sea level to protect the area from future storm surges. The city has said they will maintain public access to a minimum of 42 percent of the park throughout construction, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2026. 

In June 2021, then-Mayor de Blasio announced new city funding to add more amenities to the ESCR project, including a $129 million flyover bridge to elevate the Greenway over this notorious pinch point along the East River.

Per the city's press release at the time:

 • $129 million, in a separate capital project, to the Department of Transportation to fully fund a future flyover bridge that will improve bike and pedestrian access through this critical part of the Greenway. The bridge will span the pinch point area of the Manhattan Greenway as it passes 14th Street along the East River, where the Greenway narrows to just a few feet wide to fit between the river, the FDR Drive and adjacent Con Edison facilities. The bridge construction will be coordinated with ESCR.

We have yet to see a timeline for this bridge work. 

A petition and more cinder blocks for the former P.S. 64/Charas/El Bohio Community Center

We thought the construction team sealing up the former P.S. 64/Charas/El Bohio Community Center had wrapped up their emergency work.

However, yesterday, a reader noted a worker putting cinder blocks over an entrance on the 10th Street side of the building... and over a mural of LES activist, actor, and playwright Bimbo Rivas. (Last month, workers told EVG contributor Stacie Joy that they've actually "preserved" the artwork here, claiming that there is an inch or two between the masonry and the painting.)

The workers, who arrived on Dec. 20, told Stacie that they were sealing up some remaining windows and putting down 2x4s to shore up the ground-floor banisters and flooring on the building's Ninth Street and 10th Street sides here between Avenue B and Avenue C. 

The former school and community center had been easy to access in recent years, attracting a variety of urban thrillseekers and partygoers. The broken windows and poorly secured doors also exposed the building to the elements — not to mention pigeons.

According to workers, they've actually "preserved" the artwork here (two murals were mostly covered), saying that there is an inch or two between the masonry and the painting, so it is not being disturbed and that no mortar abuts the work.

Meanwhile, as reported late last month, the landmarked building is headed to a foreclosure auction in March. 

According to The Real Deal, a court-appointed referee set an auction for the property at the Hilton New York Midtown Fifth Avenue on March 22. (As previously noted, the 135,000-square-foot building is zoned for "community facility use." Any conversion to a condoplex or residential housing would require a zoning variance.)

There's now a petition in circulation titled, "Save Charas Community Center! Stop the Private Auction!"

Per the petition, which states, "Demand Mayor Adams use eminent domain to return the center to the people!"

For 22 years, from 1979 to 2001, 605 E. Ninth St. served as the home to the Charas/El Bohio Community & Cultural Center. Each year, thousands of people attended programs there. Charas hosted community meetings, children’s programming, art exhibits, music concerts, film screenings, plays, dance recitals, bicycle recycling, construction and youth jobs training, substance abuse treatment, and political organizing. 

In 1998, Rudy Giuliani sold Charas to a campaign contributor [Gregg Singer] for a paltry $3.15 million, and in December of 2001, Charas was evicted from the space, and the center was shuttered.

You can find the petition here.

And our previous post has more background. 

Report: A roadblock for the relocation of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and sale of its land

Mount Sinai Beth Israel's plan to merge New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NYEEI) within its system and then sell the prime real-estate facilities in the East Village has hit a "snag," the Post reports. 

A New York State Department of Health committee declined the hospital system's merger proposal.

The DOH panel, known as the New York Public Health and Health Planning Council, voted 11-6 to approve the merger, but it was three votes short of the number needed under the panel's rules. Those who voted no said that, among other issues, Mount Sinai had kept the community in the dark about its plans and dodged questions from the DOH itself. 

The committee's vote is not the final word, as it must be affirmed by DOH Acting Commissioner James V. McDonald, who was named to the post on Jan. 1. A source said it was "rare" for a commissioner to overrule the planning council. 

The Infirmary owns two buildings here — 14th Street and Second Avenue and 13th Street and Second Avenue — and the vacant lot on 13th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

Sources told the Post that the parcel "could fetch up to $70 million if sold for apartment-building construction."

Dr. Howard Berliner, a DOH panel member who voted against the merger ... alluded at the hearing to concerns that Mount Sinai aimed to dismantle NYEEI so that it could cash in on a property sale. 

"If I was a real estate developer, I would be drooling at the prospect of getting the [NYEEI] site in the East Village, probably one of the hottest markets in New York City," Berliner said.

Earlier this month, local elected officials wrote to Mount Sinai CEO Kenneth Davis and urged him to pause its proposal.

Last spring, Village Preservation made an appeal to have 218 Second Ave. at 13th Street landmarked.

Previously

The renovations happening inside the all-new Bleecker Street Bar on Broadway

It doesn't appear that much is happening behind the blank storefront at 648 Broadway between Bleecker and Bond. 

However, behind the closed doors and papered windows... the new home of the Bleecker Street Bar is coming together. 

Management has been sharing updates on the bar's Instagram account... recent additions include a pool table... high-top tables ... and dart boards ... all elements of the previous incarnation... 

The bar's Instagram account lists an early 2023 opening date.

As previously reported, the neighborhood bar's 30-year tenure on the corner of Bleecker and Crosby ended in August 2020. Per the owners at the time: "All of our efforts to negotiate a reasonable lease extension with our landlord have failed." (The storefront is now home to the New York flagship store for Sabah, which offers high-end leather Turkish slippers and other accessories.) 

BSB fans were pleased that management could line up this new space just around the corner on Broadway. 

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo by Daniel Efram 

The late Tom Verlaine's solo debut album from 1979 as seen in the window of Academy Records on 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue...

Tompkins Square Post Office leaving us hanging!

Photo by Stacie Joy 

As seen on the door at the Tompkins Square Post Office on Third Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.

Sorry we do not supply tape at the.

Building out O'Flaherty's

Photos by Stacie Joy 

As we've been reporting (here and here), O'Flaherty's is opening its new art gallery here on 44 Avenue A at Third Street. 

The space debuts tomorrow evening (Feb. 16) with a performance series titled "O’Flaherty's gelitin O'Flattering," which will also include the U.S. premiere of "Stinking Dawn," a full-length feature film by Liam Gillick and gelitin. (Find more details and the schedule here.)

EVG contributor Stacie Joy was with artist-curator Jamian Juliano-Villani when she first received the keys to the space on Jan. 2... and began renovations.

This space has been empty since Upright Citizens Brigade Theater closed UCBeast amid financial challenges in February 2019. The comedy venue opened in September 2011, and UCB took over part of the expanded Two Boots empire — the video store on Avenue A and the Pioneer Theater around the corner on Third Street.

O'Flaherty's did keep the small theater for screenings...

Stacie stopped by again on Jan. 18 for a progress check ...

Juliano-Villani's friend and business associate Ruby Zarsky (one-half of Sateen) was also on hand... 

The awning arrived on Jan. 27...

Juliano-Villani moved her gallery into this space after a year at 55 Avenue C at Fourth Street (we covered the opening here, culminating with a barn burner of a show late this past summer).

You can read more about the gallery here. And follow them on Instagram for updates and creative uses of EVG comments.

Just 17 floors to go at the all-new 360 Bowery

Work has really picked up since our last look at the SW corner of Fourth Street and the Bowery — aka 360 Bowery. 

Work on the 21-story, 110,000-square-foot office building is up to the fourth level, and it already looks quite large with 17 floors left to go... (and how much longer before the billboard is obscured?)...

Eric Goode's new development replaces his B Bar & Grill (1994-2020) on property that was previously a gas station.

Find more details in our previous post.

The vacant storefront on this corner of 10th and 1st will be...

Photo by Dan Scheffey

In recent weeks, workers have been gut-renovating the vacant storefront on the SE corner of First Avenue and 10th Street.

And now, as if anyone will be surprised, it turns out that the new business will be a cannabis/CBD shop, another in the many that have popped up in the past year... and that is not legal.

Last week, Mayor Adams and DA Bragg started cracking down on illegal storefront operations by targeting the landlords. 

The city's third legal cannabis shop — aka Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary — opened on Monday at 62 E. 13th St. just west of Broadway. 

The previous tenant on this corner, the E. 10th St. Finest Deli, closed in December 2020. 

H/T Steven and Steven Walker, who also shared photos from this corner

Tuesday's parting shot

Valentine's Day evening on St. Mark's Place... photo by Derek Berg...

RIP Travis 'Grim' Durkin

Photos and text by Stacie Joy 

Updated 2/19: The Daily News has a follow-up on Travis' death here.

In a follow-up email with Stacie Joy, his sister Chloe said that she is particularly upset that the police told media outlets how much Travis shoplifted to the penny but couldn't tell the hospital how long he was unconscious following the arrest. "That was just intolerable," she said.

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A familiar face in Tompkins Square Park, Travis "Grim" Durkin, died this past week while in the custody of the 6th Precinct in a hospice setting at Weill Cornell hospital. He was 47. 

Travis' family doesn't have a lot of answers and is left with questions after being notified that he was found unconscious in his cell after an arrest for shoplifting on Jan. 18. There was speculation that he suffered a cardiac event and was placed in a medically induced coma. 

After weeks of deteriorating condition, he was transferred to hospice care, and his life-saving support was removed. He died a few days later, on Feb. 9. 

An autopsy is pending, as is a local memorial event. The family plans on Saturday, March 4, at 2 p.m., in Tompkins Square Park. Travis especially loved the New York hardcore scene, concerts in the park and dancing, so it's a fitting spot to pay respects.

"Being a good friend was important to Travis, as well as capturing the imagination of the person he was engaging in conversation with," his sister Chloe told me. "He liked to entertain people and cheer them up. And he wanted to be loved." 

He is survived by his father and stepmother, Michael Durkin and Judy Durkin, two sisters, Chloe and Erin Durkin, and his daughter Rhiannon Jamison. His mother died giving birth to him. 

The family requests that instead of assistance, please donate to Washington Square Park Mutual Aid or your favorite police reform cause.

[Updated] The archives of The East Village Eye now at the New York Public Library

The archives of the East Village Eye, the legendary magazine published from 1979 to 1987 that covered the arts, politics and social currents of the neighborhood at the time, have a new home at the New York Public Library. 

From the Eye's website: 

After numerous discussions and negotiations with the world's leading research institutions, we are thrilled to announce that the East Village Eye archive, consisting of documents, manuscripts, artworks, videos, ephemera and a complete run of the original printed publication, has been acquired by the New York Public Library.

And via editor-publisher Leonard Abrams: 

NYPL's acquisition of the East Village Eye archive is the perfect outcome of our years-long search for the best home for these materials. I can't think of another institution with the breadth and depth of interest, the institutional strength and the dedication to the common good that compares to the New York Public Library – not to mention where it lives. New York deserves to keep this essential trove of materials. It covers a time when it wasn't always easy to love New York City, but we always knew how important it was to bring these voices to the public and to preserve them, even if it meant dragging them from one storage space to another for some 35 years. 

There's a detailed piece about all this at The New Yorker, via writer Hannah Gold ... here's a passage with NYPL curator Julie Golia: 

Golia explained to us what would happen next: when the library acquires a collection, it is inspected for pests and water damage. When necessary, materials are isolated and treated in the Disaster Recovery room. Once they've been cleared, the collection moves into the archival-processing queue and the items are rehoused in acid-free folders and boxes. 

The library's staff begins to make the finding aid, essentially an index of the collection. This inventorying can be time-consuming, depending on the scale of the collection, which can vary widely — the Eye archive arrived in fewer than twenty containers, which is relatively small. The library's New Yorker archive, on the other hand, is stored in more than two thousand containers. 

Golia says the East Village Eye archives will arrive at the basement stacks in about a year. The finding aid will go live on the N.Y.P.L.'s Web site, and researchers will officially be able to view the materials. 

As Golia explained the process, Abrams was visibly moved, yet characteristically irreverent. "I don't care what order they’re in!" he insisted, when Golia told us it was library policy to preserve the way donors had grouped their own collections. "Leonard organized them in a certain way, because that's the way his mind worked, and part of what we're trying to preserve is the way his mind works." Abrams waved his hands dismissively, the journalist both flattered and uncomfortable with attention turned his way. Before we left the library's processing center, he had a question: Would they let him throw a party? 

Updated 3/13 ... the party has been rescheduled for March 23... there's a celebration of this union coming up on March 2 with The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black at Bowery Electric and other guests...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Leonard Abrams, publisher of the East Village Eye

The squash court at Hamilton Fish Park has been demolished

Photos by Stacie Joy

A reader tipped us off to the current state of the public squash court at Hamilton Fish Park along Pitt and East Houston.

The court, located on one of Hamilton Fish Park's handball courts, is now an assortment of barricades surrounding a pile of supports that once kept the glass in place here.

The court arrived to great fanfare in the spring of 2018, a debut that garnered plenty of press attention, such as in Vogue. 

We're bringing squash outdoors! Check out the @Public_Squash Court at Hamilton Fish Park, the first of its kind in the world! It's FREE to use and now open to the public. https://t.co/cIohG6a9eu pic.twitter.com/5qHPanCa5H

— NYC Parks (@NYCParks) April 17, 2018

This was the initiative of the Public Squash Foundation, which aims to offer free access to squash in public places. 

Per press materials at the time: "The inaugural all-glass court, manufactured by ASB Squash, is modeled on the type used at Professional Squash Association World Tour events, as well as the World Squash Federation World Championships and the Commonwealth Games. However, it has been modified for outdoor usage. The new court, at Hamilton Fish Park on the Lower East Side, was officially opened by New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver."

By spring 2019, someone had vandalized the court, shattering a glass section. There were efforts to raise money for repairs...

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Public Squash (@public_squash)

By the spring of 2021, the court was still out of commission...

This is the outdoor squash court at Hamilton Fish Park, Manhattan, New York
It is currently closed for repairs, and they are looking for donations.https://t.co/k8IXzYp382

No. 29 in my beautiful squash courts series.⁠

⁠#Squash⁠#BeautifulSquashCourt pic.twitter.com/T6dRiO1zna

— Phillip Marlowe: BetterSquash (@bettersquash) April 4, 2021

And nearly four years of "closed for repairs" status, we're told that Parks employees recently removed the remaining glass walls... and that the squash court will not be replaced.

Village Happy House Convenience coming to Second Avenue

Photo by Steven 

Signage went up last evening for Village Happy House Convenience at 127 Second Ave. between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place. 

At this point, we're not sure what type of convenience Happy House will offer — the usual sodas, snacks, smokes, etc., or an illegal cannabis-CBD establishment. 

Himalayan Vision closed here last March after 23 years in business. The owners told us that there was not a rent increase ... though the landlord was also not going to negotiate a lower rate.

Monday's parting shot

The latest addition to the Bowery Mural Wall on Houston... "Love Is," corrugated letters by @imkman00 ... @emergence.arts ... and @the_mr.man ...

 H/T @catscoffeecreativity

Updated: Sunny's is open after all!

Updated 2/14: Multiple readers said that, despite the sign, Sunny's is open! 

Apparently, the eye doctor gave her the OK to work today... photos by Lola Sáenz ...

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One of the city's best destinations for flowers will be closed this Valentine's Day. (Thanks to EVG reader roflo for the photo.)

Signage at Sunny's Florist on the SE corner of Second Avenue and Sixth Street points to an "eye medical condition" that shuttered the sliver of a storefront today ... and again for tomorrow, Feb. 14...

Sunny's had just reopened after a winter break... And, as you'd expect, Valentine's Day always sees long lines here. (Except for last year.)

Meanwhile, for Valentine's Day tomorrow, Book Club is once again hosting the East Village-based Bloom Bloom floral design studio in store. 

Starting at 11 a.m. to whenever the flowers are gone, Bloom Bloom is selling grab-and-go wrapped bouquets and custom floral arrangements. 

Book Club is at 197 E. Third St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.