Gov. Hochul makes a splash with funding for new in-ground swimming pool at Tompkins Square Park

Say so long to to Tompkins Square Park mini pool. (And yes, Tompkins Square Park has a mini pool.) 

On Wednesday, Gov. Hochul announced nearly $150 million in capital grants to fund 37 projects "as part of the New York Statewide Investment in More Swimming (NY SWIMS) initiative — New York's biggest investment in swimming since the New Deal." 

Here's more from Hochul's office: 

The program provides grants between $50,000 and $10 million to help municipalities design, construct, rehabilitate, or modernize public swimming facilities, focusing on supporting disadvantaged and underserved communities that lack access to safe swimming and outdoor recreation opportunities. Applications were evaluated on characteristics of project need, impact and viability. 

Tompkins Square Park will receive $6.1 million for the new pool project. Specifics: 

The NYC Department of Parks & Recreation will reconstruct and expand the mini pool at Tompkins Square Park by removing the existing above-ground mini pool and replacing it with an in-ground pool, doubling the current capacity. 

Additionally, they will replace the filtration system, expand the pool decks, replace the perimeter fencing and gates, and add outdoor pool showers and a new lifeguard chair. 

And nearby on Houston and Pitt, the Hamilton Fish Recreation Center Pool is getting $10 million: 

This project will reconstruct the recreation center, outdoor terraces, pool, and pool filter plant at Hamilton Fish Park. The architectural renovation will transform this historic site by bringing it up to today’s safety and accessibility standards for the benefit of the community. 

There is no word on the timing or timeline for the local pool projects. The Tompkins mini pool was closed for the second consecutive summer while the field house underwent renovations. 

If this project gets underway next year, the pool could be closed for a third summer. However, given the design and procurement phases, that's an ambitious timeline.

A lot of hoop-la for this high-tech basketball backboard in Tompkins Square Park

Photos by Derek Berg 

Tompkins Square Park is the temporary recipient of a "smart basketball hoop." 

A company called huupe is behind the technology that provides a lot of feedback on your game. 

NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue, huupe CEO Paul Anton, local elected officials, CB3 members, and several TV news crews were on hand yesterday to unveil the basketball courts along 10th Street near Avenue B. 

Here's more from the Parks Department: 

The new basketball hoop technology offers a range of advanced features designed to elevate the game. Its waterproof backboard functions as a video screen, delivering expert training content, live TV, and interactive elements to enrich the playing experience. 

Equipped with advanced sensors and an integrated webcam, the hoop provides real-time feedback on shot accuracy, trajectory, and court positioning, allowing players to refine their skills with precision. Additionally, huupe facilitates global gaming by enabling real-time shooting contests with players from around the world, boasting 99% accuracy in tracking remote competitions and fostering a competitive, international community. 

The concept for huupe originated from a remote game of 'PIG' played via Snapchat between lifelong friends Paul Anton and Lyth Saeed. Their experience highlighted a gap in remote sports interactions, sparking the creation of huupe ... Now, Anton and Saeed are dedicated to extending its benefits to underserved communities.

The hoop was installed on Tuesday and will be up until early October. (No word on whether the huupe has a built-in alarm to deter it from being stolen.)

If you want to recreate this at home, the Huupe Mini is $599, while the outdoor Huupe Pro costs $9,995.

We've come a long way from the bottomless milk crate. 

Earlier this summer, the courts were closed for several weeks to resurface, install new rims and backboards, and paint a new mural.

Thursday's parting shot

Photo by Stacie Joy 

Part of the doorways of 10th Street series...

Free screening tonight in Tompkins Square Park: 'Slums of Beverly Hills'

As a reminder... there's a free screening tonight of "Slums of Beverly Hills," writer-director Tamara Jenkins's feature debut from 1998 with Natasha Lyonne, Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Corrigan.

   

The screening will take place in the middle of the park (where the bands play), starting, per the flyer, at 7:30. There will also be some free pizza from Two Boots (while supplies last!).

Printed Matter/St. Marks is leaving St. Mark's Place

After six years in the front lobby of The Swiss Institute on the SE corner of St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue, the Printed Matter outpost will vacate the space this fall. 

 Here's more about the departure from an Instagram post yesterday: 

We are saddened to announce the closing of Printed Matter/St Marks... The last day the storefront will be open to the public is October 13, 2024. The bookstore came into existence in 2018 as the result of a rare and wonderful collaboration with the Swiss Institute, and we thank them for their incredible hospitality and partnership that made the storefront possible. 

The St Mark's space has been a remarkable site for experimentation, maintaining a specialty focus on the East Village neighborhood and its history as a home for avant-garde art and countercultural publications, offering a selection of independently published books by artists, zines, prints, and historical material. The location oversaw a full calendar of programs, window installations and workshops, including four editions of the East Village Zine Fair, a joyous and wildly successful outdoor zine fair organized in collaboration with 8-Ball Community. 

We are grateful to the many Printed Matter staff members who have contributed so much energy and talent to all that the space undertook! Stay tuned for future announcements, events, and special sales taking place at Printed Matter/St Marks in the weeks ahead. 

We always hate to hear about a bookstore closing, especially one hosting a favorite event — the annual zine fairs on St. Mark's Place. They will be missed!

A look inside Castellano Electric Motors on the Lower East Side

Photos and text by Stacie Joy

Castellano Electric Motors Inc. has long captured my attention. Nestled in a modest, single-level building at 147 Ridge St., between Houston and Stanton, it stands as a relic of a bygone era.

Established in the late 1950s and operating at this location for over 40 years, Castellano Electric Motors harkens back to a time when the area was home to more independent service providers like this  ... and before most single-level buildings were transformed into high-end housing.

Jimmy, the owner, shared that he has no intentions of selling the building that houses the electric motor repair service. He satisfied my enduring curiosity by allowing me to photograph the interior (from a distance, anyway) ...

At a 6th & B Garden Variety performance with Angela Di Carlo and Dirty Martini

Photo by Stacie Joy 

There was a full house on Tuesday evening in the 6th and B Garden for Angela Di Carlo's Attention Deficit Disorder Cabaret ... which is part of TWEED TheaterWorks ongoing Garden Variety series.

The evening included special guest star Dirty Martini...

Michael Musto was among those on hand for the performances...

The next Garden Variety event happens here at the SW corner of Avenue B and Sixth Street on Sept. 12 featuring Julian Fleisher. Find other free 6th & B Garden events at this link.

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo by Derek Berg 

A crosswalk moment on First Avenue and St. Mark's Place...

A quartet of murals for 2nd and A

Photo by Stacie Joy

This quartet of murals went up over the weekend on Second Street at Avenue A (NE corner)... a collaboration with (on the top) @outersource and @cramcept and, below, @scrambledeggsit and @ratchinyc ... a nice use for a blank wall that gets tagged after every fresh coat of paint.

A happy retirement to Jane and Billy, closing Katinka after 45 years in the East Village

Photo last week by Stacie Joy 

Time is running out to stop by one of the most unique shops in the East Village. 

As reported in late July, Katinka will close at the end of this month after 45 years in business. Jane Williams and Billy Lyles, partners in Katinka and in life, will be enjoying retirement very soon. 

The two opened their closet-sized shop in 1979 at 303 E. Ninth St. just east of Second Avenue... offering hand-made pieces — including shirts, vests, quilts and rugs — all made and imported from India. 

Jane told us that either tomorrow or Friday will be their closing day. (Hours: 5-8 p.m.) 

Despite the store closing, you'll see them in the neighborhood. 

"We live on Ninth Street, so we will be around," Jane said. "The East Village is our home."

A late summer refresh for Bin 141

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Bin 141, located at the NW corner of Avenue A and Third Street, is closed this week for a late-summer refresh. 

For starters, Gustavo Weissmann, who created the original Bin 141 awning, returned to give it a new color and design. (H/T EVG reader Newman!)

Meanwhile, we spotted co-owner Imen Bouzgarrou painting inside the low-key bistro ... she also created the new-look tables...

Imen and Rafik Bouzgarrou, who previously operated Angelina Cafe on Avenue A one block to the south, opened Bin 141 in the spring of 2019. 

They hope to wrap up the renovations soon and be back open this weekend. 

The Bin 141 website is here.

A signage setback at Ben's Deli

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

You may have noticed that the newish new sign at Ben's Deli (and now with a & Grill) disappeared this past week. 

Owner Sammy Ksem (pictured above) told us that the sign (see below) that went up in February at the under-renovation shop at 32 Avenue B was "too deep/too big." Aside from levying a $6,000 fine, the city made them remove it. 

So Sammy and company ordered a new one, which they hope will arrive within the next week. Sammy seemed philosophical about the fine but eager for the store to be approved and opened.

It has been slow going to date. The market between Second Street and Third Street temporarily closed this past September for renovations, including new shelving and lighting. Longtime owner (40-plus years!) and Avenue B legend Ben Gibran sold the business last year to his cousin Sammy.

Ben is still around ... and oversees the work and watches wildlife videos from his office van.

Painting it black on the TF in Tompkins Square Park

Here's a look at the multi-purpose courts (aka TF) in Tompkins Square Park after Day 2 of painting...

There are barrels of Acrylic Resurfacer 4200 around the perimeter as well...

This space along Avenue A and 10th Street has been a skating hotspot for decades and will reopen on Tuesday. The surface is looking a little slick at the moment. The asphalt was just getting broken in again after renovations from Oct. 16 to Dec. 1. Aside from new asphalt, Parks added benches, fountains and three basketball backstops.

The courts reopened without any markings — save for around the basketball area. 

As you may recall, the original reconstruction diagrams included a walking track marked by blue paint and painted lines for kickball. It's still unclear if the Parks Department will add those in the days ahead.

The space hadn't been redone since the early 1990s. And speaking of 1990...

 

Tuesday's parting shot

Photo by Derek Berg 

A moment from an early evening set by Fede/Claudi of Pinc Louds...

RIP Hettie Jones

Hettie Jones, an acclaimed poet, publisher, teacher, activist, and decades-long East Village resident, died on Aug. 13. She was 90.

A native New Yorker who grew up in Queens, Jones wrote 23 books, including three volumes of poetry and a memoir of the Beat Generation, as well as books for children and young adults, including "The Trees Stand Shining" and "Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music."

She was connected with the Beat poets, actively involved in social justice, and taught poetry and writing at New York University, The New School, Parsons School of Design, and other institutions.

PEN America, where Jones was a longtime member, shared details about her life: 

In the 1950s, she married the poet LeRoi Jones, who later changed his name to become the Black power nationalist Amiri Baraka. Hettie Jones spoke and wrote about the bigotry and antisemitism she faced at that time, both as a Jewish woman and a white woman married to a Black man. 

In 1957, the couple founded a literary magazine, Yugen, and the Totem Press, which published works by legendary Beat writers, including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Williams S. Burroughs.

Later divorced, they had two daughters: Kellie Jones, a professor of art, archaeology and African American studies at Columbia University, and Lisa Jones Brown, a writer on staff at The Village Voice for 15 years. 

The family had lived at 27 Cooper Square since the early 1960s and the heyday of the Beats. 

Village Preservation has more about her fight to save her longtime home between Fifth Street and Sixth Street, where she lived for nearly six decades:

In 2007, when a hotel developer announced plans to build the 22-story Cooper Square Hotel, it looked like the 1844 Greek Revival house at 27 Cooper Square would be demolished. The four-story building that currently stands on this lot is of unknown origins. However, clues from a tax assessment records and historic maps indicate it might have been constructed between 1843 and 1845, as two narrow houses with ground-floor shops.

Given Hettie's petite size, it would be easy to call her successful effort to save the structure a David-and-Goliath triumph, but that would diminish her accomplishment. Remarkably, her gentle but persuasive stress on the building's age and artistic heritage convinced the hotel's owners. They opted to spare the building and simply utilize the structure's lower two floors for corporate headquarters. Hettie also convinced the hotel to reinstall the vintage stained glass window above the entrance door, which had been removed long before.

You can read more about her extraordinary life at The Associated Press and The New York Times.

NYU buys dorm on Cooper Square that everyone already thought was an NYU dorm

According to published reports, NYU bought the dorm at 35 Cooper Square at Sixth Street for $69.2 million. 

Marymount Manhattan College (MMC) had occupied the 13-floor residence hall since August 2015. (The building includes retail tenants Librae Bakery and Meet Fresh bubble tea.)

Despite multiple reports about Marymount leasing the space dating back 10 years, some residents thought it belonged to NYU's East Village dorm empire. 

Well, it does now... as the NYU branding is already at the entrance...

The deal is joint venture between two Midtown-based real estate firms, Sherwood Equities and Bhatia Development, Crain's and PincusCo reported. 

MMC's lease was reportedly terminated last month. This seemed like a bit of a hike for students of the private liberal arts college, which has its main campus on the Upper East Side.

Upon the dorm's grand opening nine years ago, 199 MMC students moved in, per a school news release at the time. The additional 73 spots were contracted out to Cooper Union. 

The dorm sits on a lot previously occupied in part by 35 Cooper Square, the Federal-style building dating back to 1825. The closing of the Asian Pub in January 2011 at 35 Cooper Square set in motion a sequence of events that led to the demolition of the historic building in 2011, despite pleas from community activists and preservationists. 

Neighbors weren't so supportive of all this, leaving signs calling developer Arun Bhatia "a destroyer of East Village history." 

Crain's has more about NYU's real-estate empire: 

NYU is considered one of the city's largest and wealthiest landlords, and, like other private colleges, it benefits from tax exemptions on its real estate. Last year NYU acquired a Kips Bay apartment building​​ for $210 million — one of 2023's priciest transactions. And the total assessed value of NYU's holdings is about $1.8 billion, just below Columbia University's total, but NYU is taxed on just $120 million of that, thus enjoying nearly $1.7 billion in savings, according to a Crain's analysis in a piece from last fall headlined "City loses $788 million in property taxes as private colleges eat up 25M square feet of land."

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• 35 Cooper Square, 'this much-beloved little building,' dies at age 186

Renovating 82 2nd Ave. for the arrival of Kebabwala from the Unapologetic Foods team

Storefront renovations are underway at 82 Second Ave., where the Unapologetic Foods team is opening the fast-casual Indian kebab house Kebabwala between Fourth Street and Fifth Street. 

News of this arrival dates back three summers. However, Chintan Pandya and Roni Mazumdar have been plenty busy with the arrival of Rowdy Rooster on First Avenue and Naks a few blocks to the north. (The two are also opening a branch of their Adda Indian Canteen in the former Huertas space at 107 First Ave.) 

As for Kebabwala, Mazumdar told Eater the small space (10 indoor seats) is inspired by street grills around India and describes it as "a shot in the arm of a Delhi night market, with kebabs, bread, and the whole nine yards." 

No. 82 has been vacant for years and last housed restaurants including 7 Spices and Reyna Exotic Turkish Cuisine.

Monday's parting Instagram post

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Brad Heckman (@hecksign)

Artwork created by Brad Heckman based on this EVG photo from First Avenue and Ninth Street...

The Loisaida CommUnity Fridge on 9th and B needs a new home — here's why

Photo and reporting by Stacie Joy 

On the heels of our story that the 12th Street and First Avenue East Village Neighbors Community Fridge at S’MAC was being forced to close, we received word from Trinity Lutheran Parish that the Loisaida CommUnity Fridge and Pantry at Ninth Street and Avenue B also needs to shutter. 

I spoke to Pastor Will Kroeze from Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish about the situation. 

"Over the winter, we received violations from the Department of Health because of an increased number of rodents in and around our garden where the fridge is located, which jeopardizes our ability to fulfill our primary mission — to serve the community through our daily free lunch and food pantry," he said. "It is imperative that we maintain high standards of cleanliness and hygiene so that we can do this work, as we are regularly inspected by the Department of Health and have always been proud of the high marks we receive." 

He said that the church is now seeking a new location for the fridge "so that it can continue to be a resource for our community." 

"Given that the East Village Neighbors fridge on First Avenue is no longer operating, we feel particularly strongly now that the Loisaida Community Fridge must continue on; we are seeking the community’s support in securing a new location nearby."

The fridge arrived here in June 2021.

"It's been such an honor for Trinity to host the fridge since its inception. The fridge has been a natural extension of the work we've done for over 40 years to address food insecurity in our community, and we're proud of the many thousands of pounds of food that have gone directly into the hands of those who need it the most," Pastor Will said. "The success of the fridge is a testament to the dedication of the tremendous group of community leaders and volunteers who have poured their hearts into it in service to our neighbors." 

While the CommUnity structure remains in place for now, the East Village will soon be without any community fridges. The plant-based one outside Overthrow on Bleecker Street near the Bowery is currently MIA, with an Instagram post from last December stating a new fridge was on the way.

'24 comeback for Elvis on Great Jones

Elvis is set to return to 54 Great Jones St. this fall. 

A stenciled Elvis sign is now above the doorway here between the Bowery and Lafayette...

The new project, a café and wine bar, pairs the teams of Paradise Projects (Boulton & Watt, Wiggle Room, Mr. Paradise) ... and Golden Age Hospitality (Le Dive, the new Lucy's). 

We don't know too much else about this Elvis. During the longtime run of the Great Jones Cafe here, a bust of the King of Rock and Roll was in the window. (The exterior has also been painted a similar orange as that of the Great Jones Cafe.)

There's a placeholder website and Instagram account, which shows a fall opening...

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Golden Age Hospitality (@goldenagehospitality)

Elvis was also on hand for the previous two ventures at the address via Gabe Stulman — Jolene and The Jones. 

No. 54 was home to the creole-flavored Great Jones Cafe from 1983 to 2018. The popular yet low-key spot never reopened after Jim Moffett, the longtime owner, died in July 2018 at age 59.