Full reveal at 340 Bowery, the new home of micro hotel Now Now NoHo

Workers removed the plywood from outside the under-renovation 340 Bowery between Bond and Great Jones this past week. 

And it looks the same on the outside anyway...

As previously reported, this is the new home of Now Now NoHo, a micro-boutique hotel for solo travelers. According to the Now Now website, the tiny rooms "combine the nostalgia of European train cars with the ingenuity of Japanese capsule hotels." Rooms will be available starting on April 1. 

The blade signage also went up on Thursday... if you can read that...

No. 340 was The Whitehouse, a single-room hotel/flophouse for decades. Our last post has more about the new hotel and some history of the address. 

A cafe concept is expected in the retail space. We are confirming a few details about that. 

Thanks to the EVG readers who shared photos this past week.

Partial window signage reveal for the new home of Soda Club on Avenue A

Interior renovations continue at 95 Avenue A at Sixth Street. Window signage is now up for the next tenant, Soda Club, which is relocating here from 155 Avenue B near 10th Street. 

As we reported on Jan. 30, the Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded vegan wine and pasta bar is taking over the space that Amor y Amargo occupied until it relocated to its original home next door early this year.

"It's a super busy restaurant," Overthrow Hospitality's Ravi DeRossi previously said of Soda Club, "and we're turning away a lot of people in the small space that we currently have on Avenue B." 

There is no word yet on an exact opening date for Soda Club. 

Overthrow is keeping the lease at 155 Avenue B for a new concept.

Sunday's parting shots

Photos by Derek Berg 

Who's a good robot dog? Tompkins Square Park today...

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a crescent moon watch from 2nd Avenue)... 

• Q&A with Steven Matrick, co-founder of the New Colossus Festival, taking place this week at East Village and Lower East Side music venues (Tuesday) 

• The return of Lucy's (Monday)

• Tompkins Square Park field house refurbished, reopening nears after final inspections (Tuesday) 

• RIP Hal Hirshorn (Wednesday) 

• A group of runners is hoping the city will add lighting to the new East River Park track (Thursday) 

• At Night Club 101 with Hello Mary (Monday) 

• Meet the new owner of Boris & Horton (Monday) 

• Ashes to ashes: A to-go twist on Ash Wednesday (Wednesday) 

• One-time studio home of Joey Ramone is for sale at the St. Mark (Monday) 

• Coming this spring to 9th Street: Irving Green (Thursday) 

• Openings: Bateman's on 6th Street (Thursday) 

• On 7th Street, the Instant Noodle Factory is closing; noodle liquidation sale commences (Monday) 

• Interesting new business opens on the Bowery and Houston (Wednesday)

• From pizza to politics: Eleven B serves up a new campaign HQ on Avenue B (Wednesday)

• Signage alert: Butter Smashburgers on St. Mark's Place (Wednesday) 

... and EVG reader Bryan K. shared this Christmas tree discard with us from Second Street between Avenue B and Avenue C... Per Bryan, "Trying to camouflage the shame by dropping it among some old tree branches!"

About Robert Sietsema's New York

Longtime food writer-critic Robert Sietsema (The Village Voice, Eater, The New York Times) recently launched a Substack newsletter that offers an array of reviews, openings, neighborhood explorations, think pieces, etc. 

He'll also "focus on value and good food around New York City." 

This piece he did a few weeks ago caught our eye: "All the Soups at B&H Dairy, Ranked." 

You can read more about the newsletter and sign up for a subscription here. 

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• These are longtime food writer Robert Sietsema's 10 favorite East Village meals

Sunday's opening shot

A photo from Third Street featuring a clock as a reminder of Daylight Saving Time... aka, Spring Forward where we lost an hour of sleep (at least until Nov. 2).

Saturday's parting shots

Photos by Steven 

As seen on Second Street today... don't forget to tip!

'Art Handlers' at Bullet Space

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"Art Handlers" is the new group show at Bullet Space ... with an opening tomorrow (Sunday!) evening from 6-9. 

The urban artist collab is at 292 E. Third St. between Avenue C and Avenue D.

Noted

The Enron parody continues, with flyers around the neighborhood advertising a job fair in Washington Square Park on Thursday for interns to join the fake-revived company.

This Enron has been pushing The Egg, a (fake) at-home nuclear reactor. 

Per CNET: 

The Egg appears to be part parody and part art project, but there may be something else stirring under the surface. Connor Gaydos is listed as Enron's CEO in the company's articles of incorporation in Delaware... Gaydos is the co-author of a book about Birds Aren't Real, a movement designed as a parody of conspiracy theories. Birds Aren't Real pushes the idea that birds are government spy drones. 

The scandal-plagued Enron, mired in accounting fraud, filed for bankruptcy in December 2001. According to Britannica, the collapse of Enron, which held more than $60 billion in assets, involved one of the biggest bankruptcy filings in U.S. history.

Damn Damn Damn

 

RIP Brian James, the guitarist and co-founding member of the Damned. He died this week at age 70.

In October 1976, the Damned released their debut single, "New Rose," written by James. The Damned was the first UK punk band to release an official song. It appreared on the Damned Damned Damned record. 

He also played with the Lords of the New Church and Iggy Pop, among others.

   

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• The Damned's Captain Sensible on the return of drummer Rat Scabies, the importance of the Ramones and the legend of CBGB

An info session for community and faith leaders on protecting immigrant New Yorkers

Via the EVG inbox... 

Join New York Immigration Coalition and the Lower East Side Community Care Coalition to learn how your organization can be an ally in the fight to protect our neighbors. Attendees will be taught how to identify valid vs invalid warrants and the rights your organization has in an encounter with federal authorities. 

March 8 2-4 p.m. 

St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery 

131 E. 10th St. at Second Avenue 

Sign up at this link.

Women-fronted bands take over the Parkside Lounge stage for International Women’s Day

On International Women's Day this Saturday, the Parkside Lounge will come alive with seven hours of music as 10 women-fronted indie rock bands take the stage to celebrate women in music.

"This year's show features 10 women-fronted bands, with a mix of talented female and male musicians," said Val Kinzler, founder of We The She, a NYC nonprofit whose mission is to reinforce gender equity and healing through the arts by creating interactive workshops and community-supportive events. 

The lineup includes East Village singer/songwriter Patti Rothberg, who will perform her 1996 debut album, Between the 1 and the 9, in its entirety with her new band, The Patti Rothberg Coincidence.

Most performers are the NYC downtown rock scene veterans; others are up-and-coming talents. 

Here's a rundown (note that Rome 56 had to drop out)

• 6 p.m.: The Ruminators (Jill GE & Patti Rothberg) 

• 6:35 p.m.: Violizzy & Friends 

• 7:20 p.m.: QueenPins (featuring Rigel Mary Sarjoo) 

• 7:45 p.m.: Sue Lashley

• 8:15 p.m.: Rew Starr 

• 9 p.m.: Exit 99 

• 9:50 p.m.: Val Kinzler Band 

• 10:45 p.m.: • The Miss J Experience 

• 11:30 p.m.: The Patti Rothberg Coincidence 

• 12:20 a.m.: The Record Players NYC 

 

Parkside Lounge is 317 E. Houston St. at Attorney. 

Tickets are $5.

A group of runners is hoping the city will add lighting to the new East River Park track

A group of runners who use East River Park are advocating for the city to add lights to the new track when it's rebuilt as part of the ongoing East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) Project. 

Per the petition:

The East River Park Track will soon close through at least 2026 and undergo a complete reconstruction ... The designs for the new track do not include sports lighting. Now is the time for our community to organize and petition our city to incorporate lighting into this fully funded reconstruction project, ensuring the rebuilt track meets the needs of the community now and in the future.

The volunteers state: 

• The track in its current and future planned form has inadequate lighting, which creates risks of personal harm and athletic injuries after dark

• Many of New Yorker City's 8+ million residents rely on evening hours to exercise due to work or school schedules. Lighting ensures the track remains open and usable year-round. 

• Maximize Public Investment: Adding lighting during the ESCR project reconstruction is far more cost-effective than retrofitting later. This ensures the track reaches its full potential as a safe, accessible, and well-used public space. 

And The East River Park Track is one of only two regulation tracks open to the public in Manhattan and the only one located south of 135th Street (the other regulation track is located at Riverbank State Park on the Upper West Side). It is a vital community resource that deserves to be ready to meet the community’s needs for safe all-year-round use after its reconstruction.

The group's effort received a boost last week when Community Board 3 passed a resolution in favor of the lighting, writing:

 ... Community Board 3 supports the efforts of community advocates in ensuring that the track remains a safe, accessible, and well-lit public resource year-round while also addressing environmental concerns related to lighting. 

Find the petition here.

Coming this spring to 9th Street: Irving Green

Photos by Steven

Renovations are underway inside 321 E. Ninth St., between First Avenue and Second Avenue, where Irving Green will open this spring.

Per its Instagram account, this is an "East Village destination for curated homeware and gifts with a touch of Irish charm." 

The shop takes over for the March Hare, which closed at the end of January. Read about that here.

Openings: Bateman's on 6th Street

Photo via Bateman's 

Two East Village residents are behind Bateman's, a new cocktail bar on Sixth Street. The bar's name and concept are based on Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, a black comedy horror novel from 1991 (and a 2000 film starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman). 

The lounge, via husband-wife duo Carlo Olcese and Natasha Van Duser, with baroque-style paintings and Tiffany chandeliers, features a 10-seat bar and a 20-seat dining area for the small-plates-style menu. 

Bateman's, 308 E. Sixth St., between First Avenue and Second Avenue, is open daily from 5 p.m. to midnight and closes at 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. 

If you're on Instagram, you can check out pics of the drinks here.

No word if there's any Huey Lewis & the News on the bar's soundtrack.

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo by Stacie Joy 

This year's New Colossus Festival is underway at East Village and Lower East Side music venues. It will feature more than 200 bands and various industry panels. 

At Baker Falls, 192 Allen St., between Houston and Stanton, there was an afternoon slate of conversations ranging from independent release and distribution strategies to creating music videos. 

The live music continues through Sunday. Check out the slate here.

Previously on EV Grieve:

• Q&A with Steven Matrick, co-founder of the New Colossus Festival, taking place this week at East Village and Lower East Side music venues

Ashes to ashes: A to-go twist on Ash Wednesday

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

This morning, on this Ash Wednesday, Pastor Will Kroeze and retired Pastor Barbara Beale offered "ashes to go" from the corner of Ninth Street and Avenue B outside Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish.

Those who received the ashes arrived on foot, by bicycle and car.

At least one dog took part as well...

Pastor Will also prepared to-go bags of ashes — made from burned palms from Palm Sunday and holy oil — for a colleague to administer to a hospital-bound parishioner and during at-home visits.

And yes, someone couldn’t resist making a dime-bag joke...

RIP Hal Hirshorn

Photo for EVG from 2016 by James Maher

Several EVG readers shared the sad news that Hal Hirshorn, an artist well-known in the downtown community, passed away on Feb. 4. 

Little had been made public about his death until a feature at The New York Times yesterday. His sister, Harriet Hirshorn, told the paper that the cause of death was coronary artery disease. He was 60. 

Per the Times: 

While other artists of his generation rode the art-market boom of the last three decades, he remained aloof, rarely putting his work up for sale at galleries. His spare website features a few of his paintings and photographs, but no contact information or personal details. 

His work was absolutely analog. Mr. Hirshorn made his own paints using traditional ingredients, and he scoured the Chelsea flea market for antique camera parts, the older and more obscure the better. 

His landscapes drew on a color palette of dirty greens and autumnal browns. They were Turner-esque in their near abstraction, with swirls of misty clouds obscuring craggy cliffs and stormy seas. 

His photographs likewise seemed to exist out of time. He made them by applying a solution of salt and silver to drawing paper, layering it with a negative and exposing it to light to capture an image — a technique developed in England in the mid-19th century that eventually fell out of favor because it required very long exposures that made it hard to keep an image in focus. 

He arrived here in the late 1980s. During an interview with EVG's James Maher in August 2016, Hirshorn lamented the changing neighborhood. 

Basically within a five-minute walk [today] most of the East Village that I’ve known over the course of 25, almost 30 years is gone, just gone, not like in bits and pieces, shifting here and there — just one fell swoop. Just to see everything radically redeveloped is what’s so stunning, because it used to happen in bits and pieces as the real estate went up. Now they’re doing blocks instead of buildings. 

An EVG reader emailed us to say, "He was a wonderfully sweet, quirky man and a brilliant painter and photographer. I'm glad to have called him a friend."

 

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From pizza to politics: Eleven B serves up a new campaign HQ on Avenue B

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

In recent months, we've received several inquiries about the status of Eleven B, the pizzeria owned by Vincent Sgarlato and his family on the southwest corner of 11th Street and Avenue B. 

A large for-lease banner arrived on the 11th Street side in the fall, though it remained in business.

Now, though, Sarah Batchu, a Democratic candidate for the open City Council District 2 seat, has debuted a campaign office inside the restaurant. This is a temporary, four-month lease agreement with Eleven B for the corner space. The restaurant and bar will (physically) remain the same, pending possible reopening once the campaign office lease is up.

"We are holding the space for him, happy to help," says Batchu of Sgarlato. 

Batchu says she will host community events here, including constituent services.

In the interim, the Express slice shop remains in service on the 11th Street side, offering slices and whole pies.

Meanwhile, one block away, we ran into local Assembly Member Harvey Epstein, another Democratic District 2 Council candidate. He has opened a campaign office on 12th Street and Avenue B.

The other candidates for this District 2 seat (Carlina Rivera has been term-limited) are:

• Andrea Gordillo (Democrat)

• Jason Murillo (Republican)

• Allie Ryan (Democrat)

• Gail Schargel (Democrat)

• Anthony Weiner (Democrat)

The primaries take place on June 24.

Signage alert: Butter Smashburgers on St. Mark's Place

Signage is up now at 17 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue for Butter Smashburgers. 

This will be the second outpost for the burger joint that opened last summer on Macdougal Street.

Butter offers five menu items (not counting tea, soda, and water): the house cheeseburger (single or double), a fried chicken sandwich, a veggie burger, fries, and an ice cream sundae. It also offers a monthly burger or chicken sandwich special.

Find the menu here. 

St. Mark's Burgers & Dogs recently opened down the block at 34 St. Mark's Place ... and because someone will bring this up: An outpost of Smashed is coming soon to 94 Third Ave. between 12th Street and 13th Street.