Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a reader-submitted photo from Avenue B and Fourth Street)...

• Here's how you can contribute to the East Village Community Cookbook (Tuesday) 

• Barnyard Cheese Shop will return with Barnyard Express on Avenue B (Wednesday) 

• 9th Street parking garage being offered for redevelopment (Monday) 

• Report: City temporarily halts demolition of 6-building parcel on 3rd Avenue (Tuesday) 

• The owners of Whim Golf on Avenue A are hoping to donate their putting green to a community garden, school or outdoor residential space (Thursday)

• Listing for 7th Street triplex reimagined "with Barbie’s (and Ken’s) signature style in mind" (Tuesday) 

• Stuyvesant Street storefronts return to view (Thursday) 

• Openings: Seasoned Vegan Real Quick on 2nd Avenue (Wednesday) 

• This is the last weekend for the East Village outpost of Pink Olive (Friday) 

• HBD Joe Strummer (Monday) 

• Reader report: K'ook has closed on 6th Street (Thursday)

• The LES Shake Shack debuts (Monday) 

• J Crew on the Bowery remains closed due to "technical difficulties" (Thursday) 

• The former Local 92 space is for rent (Thursday) ... as is the former Raíz Modern Mexican space on 1st Avenue (Monday) 

• This shop may not be long for this (Bong) world (Monday)

• Snack Stop shutters on St. Mark's Place (Wednesday) 

... and some rolldown gate drama yesterday on St. Mark's Place at Second Avenue... at the kiosks selling hats, sunglasses, etc. (top pic by Derek Berg) ...

... and Steven...

The gate was eventually repaired ... and the sales were able to continue...

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Noted

As seen on the east side of Second Avenue between Sixth Street and Seventh Street. (Thanks Eden for the photo!) 

"The Floraissance Has Begun!" (background here) ... with additional messages with pleas to help keep this tree alive here outside the fire-damaged Middle Collegiate Church...

Sunday's opening shot

Setting up for the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival this morning... happening from 3-7 today (they'll let people in the seats starting at 2) in Tompkins Square Park. Find the lineup here.

And this is a free show.

Saturday's parting shot

On 11th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C today... dozens of water balloons in the gutter for unknown reasons... (thanks to Erin Mumford for the photo!)

There's no place like 'News From Home'

Metrograph has several screenings of Chantal Akerman's 1976 time capsule "News From Home" coming up this afternoon and in the days ahead. 

Per the description: 

Akerman was 26 years old and living in New York City, away from her native Belgium and her mother, when she teamed with DP Babette Mangolte to film this diary/essay/poem in subway stations and on street corners, their images to eventually be paired with Akerman's recitals of her mother's fretful letters. Arguably this extraordinary filmmaker's most perfect and poignant nonfiction work, both one of the greatest portraits of a city ever put on film and a troubling, touching depiction of maternal love. 

Locations include scenes outside Veselka on Second Avenue. (You'll catch a glimpse of the St. Marks Cinema marquee too.) 

Viewings include today (Saturday) at 3 p.m. ... plus Monday and Thursday evening. Find ticket info here. 

Metrograph is at 7 Ludlow St. just north of Canal.

A manhole moment from 7th and A

EVG regular Felton Davis shared this from this morning around 8 from Avenue A and Seventh Street... 

... I had just stepped off the street. Sounded like a bomb going off. FDNY has it roped off, and Con Ed will come and try to fit [the manhole cover] back into its frame. It didn't lift more than a few inches into the air, but it's still scary as hell!

Saturday's opening shot

New Citi Bike docking station on the Bowery...

Friday's parting porta potty shots

Team coverage of the porta potties arriving in Tompkins Square Park ahead of the Charlie Parker Jazz Fesitval (Sunday!) starts now... (top photo by Derek Berg; below via Steven) ...

The 'Hole' truth

 

JessX, fresh off a great set in Tompkins Square Park on Aug. 12, released this video for "Hole" this week.

Find more of the local band's music here.

This is the last weekend for the East Village outpost of Pink Olive

As noted on Aug. 9, Pink Olive is closing its gift and stationery boutique at 439 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

And this is the last weekend for the shop that opened here in 2007. According to an Instagram post via owner Grace Kang, everything will be 40% off this weekend with "special $2, $5 and $10 deals."

Her outposts in the West Village and up in Cold Spring will remain in business.

You can read our Q&A with Kang from 2017 right here. 

Image via Instagram 

Reminders: The Charlie Park Jazz Festival comes to Tompkins Square Park on Sunday

The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival will be in Tompkins Square Park this Sunday, Aug. 27. 

Here's what to expect via the City Parks Foundation website... 

This bill of all-star musicians is led by alto saxophonist and bandleader Charles McPherson, who famously performed with Charles Mingus in the '60s and recorded ensemble renditions of Charlie Parker works for the soundtrack to the 1988 Parker biopic "Bird." He performs here with Terell Stafford, a veteran of his quintet and a gifted, versatile trumpet player with an adventurous expression of lyricism.

Vincent Herring's Septet, Something Else!, a new group that draws its name from Cannonball Adderley's 1958 classic Blue Note LP. The portfolio of music played by "Something Else" includes some of the most iconic toe-tapping Soul Jazz Songs ever created from the books of Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Timmons, Horace Silver, Bob James, Pee Wee Ellis, Quincy Jones and many more. 

Chelsea Baratz's HERA collective — named after the Olympian queen of the gods — is a unique group of groundbreaking female artists and bandleaders assembled to showcase original works. More than just an ensemble of talented players, each musician that performs with HERA has her own band, her own original music, and her own sound, like featured vocalist and Growing Up Jazz founder Andromeda Turre. 

Opener Michael Mayo, a student of jazz legends Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, wields a commanding and otherworldly voice that’s taken him around the world and back again.

And because someone will ask: The city will be bringing in porta potties for the expected crowds, as they've done in the past (and because the field house is closed for renovations).

The festival started in Tompkins Square Park in 1993 ... taking place near or on Parker's birthday on Aug. 29. Additional dates were added in Harlem in 2000. 

Parker, who died in 1955 at age 34, lived at 151 Avenue B from 1950-1954. That residential building between Ninth Street and 10th Street is landmarked.   

Block party extravaganza on 3rd Street tomorrow (Saturday!)

Third Street is the place to be tomorrow (Saturday!) for block parties.

From noon to 5 p.m. between Avenue B and Avenue C, you can find the 10th annual Nuyorican Poets Café Block Party ... featuring a variety of live performances and some kid-friendly activities.

And from noon to 6 p.m. between Avenue A and Avenue B (though closer to B)... several businesses on the block are taking part in an end-of-summer event... 3rd & B'zaar will have vintage, art, locally-designed clothing and more to shop inside and out on the sidewalk. 

Neighbors Jane's Exchange will have racks outside with "end-of-summer super sale items" while Book Club Bar will have an outdoor shelf of free books. More details about what to expect here.

kk

Noted

Photo by Steven

Well then! Signage went up yesterday at 32 St. Mark's Place for a new business called Qik N E Z Convenience here between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. 

Given the Weed Greens Color Scheme palette — North Texas Green (#059033), Dollar Bill (#93CB56), Palm Leaf (#7BAA47) and Mughal Green (#355A20) — we're going with a cannabis-related business for the storefront. 

Or maybe one that just sells smoking accessories and exotic snacks. 

Smoke shops pop up faster than they get busted or go out of business. (There are two other new smoke shops that we haven't even mentioned yet.) 

A new city law recently went into effect that holds commercial landlords responsible for renting storefronts to unlicensed cannabis shops. Introduction 1001-B, known as Local Law 107 of 2023, prohibits owners of commercial spaces from knowingly leasing to unlicensed sellers of marijuana or tobacco products, imposing fines of up to $10,000 on landlords for violations. 

This small storefront was most recently Suki Japanese Kitchen, which closed earlier in the summer.

Thursday's parting shot

Waiting at Lucy's, 135 Avenue A...

Stuyvesant Street storefronts return to view

Photo by Steven 

On Tuesday, workers removed the sidewalk bridge and remaining construction netting along 29 Third Ave. (home of the Bean) and the empty storefronts at 8-14 Stuyvesant St.

Asbestos abatement notices arrived back in April at the storefronts. Work permits at the DOB showed permits for "retail store white box interior renovation."

We're curious if for-lease signs are next.

As previously reported, Village Yokocho, Angel's Share and Panya closed in these spaces in April 2022. 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 leased 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.)

There haven't been any public statements on what the landlord, believed to be 29 Third Ave Corporation c/o Casabella Holdings, LLC, has in store for the spaces. A Cooper Union rep told us previously that no new building was planned on this site. Based on the reveal this week, it looks as if the storefronts were just receiving an interior-exterior renovation.

By the way, Angel's Share reopened in the West Village in June. 

Reader report: K'ook has closed on 6th Street

An EVG reader shared the news that K'ook has closed at 324 E. Sixth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

The reader called on Sunday to place an order and was told that the restaurant serving both traditional and modern fusion Korean food was permanently shuttered. 

While there isn't any official notice, K'ook is no longer on any of the delivery platforms... and someone removed all the signage from the space's exterior. 

"I'm devastated by the loss of traditional Korean cuisine in this neighborhood," the reader told us. 

Chef-partner Felicia Park who worked at Hanjoo on St. Mark's Place (her parents ran Hanjoo in Flushing) opened here in the spring of 2015. 

K'ook took over the address from the short-lived Jewel of India, another loss of the rapidly dwindling Little India at the time. 

The owners of Jewel of India were also behind Raj Mahal next door... and we can't recall the last time we saw that place open...

Malai Marke is now the last Indian restaurant on this block of Sixth Street.

Does anyone have a need fore a putting green?

The owners of Whim Golf on Avenue A are hoping to find a new home — a community garden, school or outdoor residential space — for its custom putting green. 

The green has been the centerpiece of the space at 66 Avenue A between Fourth Street and Fifth Street for the past few months. Co-founder Will Gisel explained that they only have the storefront for the summer and are hoping to find someplace to donate the kid-friendly amenity. 

If you're interested, then contact Gisel via email.

Founded in 2019, Whim Golf "is an American fashion brand on a mission to democratize golf."

J Crew on the Bowery remains closed due to 'technical difficulties'

Updated 9/2: The shop is back open.

This past Saturday we pointed out the handwritten sign stating that the J. Crew Men's Shop on the Bowery at Bleecker was "temporarily closed." 

There's a more formal sign on the storefront at 316 Bowery now... noting that the shop "is experiencing technical difficulties" ...

An EVG reader said he last noticed the shop open on Aug. 16.

Meanwhile, the J. Crew-Bowery Watch© continues.

This men's-concept outpost — complete with a coffee bar — debuted to much fanfare last September.

The former Local 92 space is for rent

Photos by Steven 

A follow-up to the Aug. 1 post about Local 92 closing... a for-rent sign arrived on the storefront on Second Avenue between Fifth Street and Sixth Street last week. 

According to the listing, the space — 1,600 square feet with another 1,000 in the basement — has an asking rent of $26,500. (No key money, though!) 

And earlier in the month (Aug. 9), workers tore down the curbside dining structure...

Local 92, which served a variety of Middle Eastern cuisine and was a popular brunch spot, first opened here in 2013.

Wednesday's parting shot

A view of the mackerel sky this morning just after 7 on First Avenue between Second Street and Third Street...