Sunday, July 13, 2025
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• Home cook heads to PBS to share her family's recipes — and her love of the East Village (Wednesday, July 9) ... East Village home cook Anika Chowdhury serves up Episode 1's best dish on PBS's 'The Great American Recipe' (Saturday, July 12)
• Cleanup proposed for contaminated Avenue D site, future home of affordable housing (Tuesday, July 8)
• DOT proposes Avenue B makeover, looks to residents for guidance (Monday, July 7)
• FDNY firefighter brings artistic touch to Engine 28, Ladder 11 on 2nd Street (Thursday, July 10)
• Suburban Speed at Baker Falls (Tuesday, July 8)
• Andy Boay's new record inspired by and crafted in the East Village (Thursday, July 10)
• At the big cumgirl8 sale on 2nd Street (Sunday, July 13)
• Farewell to the old East 10th Street pedestrian bridge (Friday, July 11)
• The Lower East Side Lidl opens on Aug. 1 (Tuesday, July 8)
• The Art of Unease: ABC No Rio’s 'PEST' continues on at The Clemente (Wednesday, July 9)
• Signage alert: Kebabishq on 2nd Avenue (Monday, June 8)
• The killjoy of 2nd Street (Friday, July 11)
• 'Caught Stealing' catches eyes with new poster (Wednesday, July 9)
• Openings: Ops on 2nd Avenue (Thursday, July 10) ... Andrea's Pizza on 2nd Avenue (Monday, July 8)
• 76 Avenue B is for rent (Monday, July 8)
• Cabin on 9th under new ownership (Wednesday, July 9)
... and now on duty (when not napping) at the smoke shop at 42 Avenue A and Third Street: Rhaenyra, the Dragon Queen Kitty (photo by Stacie Joy)...
At the big cumgirl8 sale on 2nd Street
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
One of our favorite bands, the neon punk cumgirl8, is hosting a sale this weekend (and Monday) at 51 E. Second St., just east of Second Avenue.
We stopped by yesterday for day one of the sale in the band's design studio, located in the basement space, where they create merchandise, clothing and other designs. (They’re moving out at the end of the month to a new spot on the Bowery.)
The band is offering records, test pressings, cumgirl8 collectibles, shoes, clothing, accessories, one-of-a-kind merch, and musical equipment.
Here's a look around ...
Band members Veronika Vilim (left) and Lida Fox were on hand (as well as Veronika's boyfriend Jon)...
The sale continues today and tomorrow from noon to 7 p.m. They will be back for the same hours on July 25-27.
Here's a flyer for this weekend...
The pounce
One of the young hawks intently watched a pigeon on the ground below.
"Suddenly, it leaped and pounced upon the pigeon. RIP pigeon."
The young hawks are growing quickly, and now seem able to hunt and capture their own meals without help from their parents, Amelia and M2 (also known as Charlie, in honor of Charlie Parker, who lived at 151 Avenue B).
I shared one of the photos with Goggla, who has been documenting the local urban wildlife for years.
"They really are growing up. I saw one catch a pigeon right in front of me, and I was so stunned," Goggla said in an email. "I thought the hawk was too young for that. In past years, they have gone for rats, maybe because Christo preferred rats. Both Amelia and Dad are experts at catching pigeons, so it's interesting to see how their offspring learn."
Check out Goggla's site for more hawk updates.
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Saturday's parting shot
Photo by Stacie Joy
Saturday night with Stella and Ray at Ray's Candy Store, 113 Avenue A at Seventh Street...
East Village home cook Anika Chowdhury serves up Episode 1's best dish on PBS's 'The Great American Recipe'
Photos by Stacie Joy
Last night marked the season 4 premiere of "The Great American Recipe" on PBS.
As we reported on Wednesday, East Village resident Anika Chowdhury is a contestant in the cooking competition that celebrates home cooks from across the country.
Chowdhury and her friends and family gathered at The Onion Tree Pizza Co. on the SE corner of First Avenue and 13th Street to watch the episode...
Chowdhury's phukhka with an NYC-style egg cream won the top dish of the round. (Screengrab via PBS.)
You can watch the episode here.
The season concludes on Aug. 15. It airs from 9 to 10 p.m. on PBS.
About tomorrow's free show in Tompkins Square Park
On the bill:
• Tilt
• Jasno
Saturday's opening shot
Those morning clouds will give way to some breaks of sunshine this afternoon with a high of 82, but humid with that dew point hitting an uncomfortable 70°F.
Friday, July 11, 2025
Friday's parting shot
Photo by Stacie Joy
Chef, cooking chicken and corn on the grill today on Avenue B at the Vamos Sembrar Garden near 12th Street ...
Some good 'Shit'
Dead Tooth is part of the free afternoon of music in Tompkins Square Park on Sunday via Show Brain.
The local band will release its debut record next Friday, July 18.
Check out the above video for "You Never Do Shit" and see them live this weekend.
The killjoy of 2nd Street
This sunflower brought joy to the whole neighborhood.A selfish person decided they wanted to steal that joy.
Farewell to the old East 10th Street pedestrian bridge
According to community notices, the work begins at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. (Late Saturday night!)
Per the notices:
Activities related to the removal of the East 10th Street Bridge will necessitate overnight work. This operation can be disruptive and loud. Because this work includes full and partial FDR Drive closures, we are required to perform it at night to minimize traffic disruptions. Noise, vibration, and air quality monitors are in place. We apologize for the disturbance and thank you for your patience as we make these critical upgrades.
Here's a view of the now tree-less area, taken from the still-open section off of the Sixth Street pedestrian bridge.
The Sixth Street section, which includes the running track and a stretch of the walkway along the river, is expected to close at the end of the summer.
Several refurbished East River Park areas around the Williamsburg Bridge reopened on Memorial Day, including the south tennis courts. By the start of fall, East Village-based park-goers must head south to access any East River Park amenities.
The city has stated that it will maintain public access to at least 42% of the park throughout construction, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
The "phased work operations" in East River Park commenced in November 2021, in Project Area 1, located between Montgomery Street and 15th Street. Workers have been burying the park under fill and cutting down hundreds of trees as part of the billion-dollar-plus ESCR. They are elevating the land 8 to 10 feet above sea level to protect the area from future storm surges
Thursday, July 10, 2025
FDNY firefighter brings artistic touch to Engine 28, Ladder 11 on 2nd Street
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
If you've seen Engine 28 or Ladder 11 rolling through the East Village lately, you might have noticed their sharp new mudflaps.
That's thanks to Michael "Mikey" Borriello — an FDNY firefighter who is also the resident artist at Engine 28, Ladder 11 on Second Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.
Borriello has been with the company since 2015, and when two brand-new trucks arrived this past December, their blank mudflaps looked a little too plain.
"There are companies you can pay to do it,” he says, "but I've always been artistically inclined, and I do it for fun, as a hobby."
So he recently got to work, painting Ladder 11's flap with its "Lucky 11" nickname and Engine 28's with a bold "Alphabet City."
Why Alphabet City? "Our slogan, 'Los Bomberos Primero,' didn’t fit," he says.
Borriello did it all freehand, layering on eight coats of marine-grade paint designed to flex and handle tough conditions — crucial since the mudflaps bend whenever the trucks pull in and out of the station.
He stuck with a traditional Old English style, matching the original lettering for 28/11.
He's also responsible for the striking Maltese Crosses inside the firehouse, which are repainted every four years to represent the current crop of firefighters.
Next up? Borriello plans to paint a quote across the beam at the firehouse entrance: "Let no man's ghost come back to say my training let me down."
Andy Boay's new record inspired by and crafted in the East Village
Photo by Valerie Kamen
East Village-based musician Andy White, who performs under the name Andy Boay, is set to release a new LP tomorrow (July 11).
White crafted the avant-pop record — titled You Took That Walk for the Two of Us — over the past two years in a small office space he rents inside the New York Center for Creativity and Dance (NYCCD) on the NW corner of Avenue A and 10th Street (the former Boys Club), a multi-use rehearsal and studio building operated by the Joyce Theater Foundation.
"The album was born over the time that I came to call the East Village my beloved neighborhood," he told EVG. "I will always associate these recordings with late nights at the NYCCD studio building, and listening to demos while walking around Tompkins at dusk."
The one-sheet for the new releases suggests the following RIYL: Arthur Russell, Spacemen 3 and Roy Montgomery. You can hear for yourself.
He also filmed a video inside the NYCCD. Check out "One & One" below.
White's music career began as a teenager in Orlando, Fla. He played in the duo Tonstartssbandht with his brother Edwin and also spent six years playing guitar in the touring band for Mac DeMarco.
He plays an album release show at Union Pool in Brooklyn tomorrow evening.
Openings: Ops on 2nd Avenue
Ops introduced its leavened sourdough pies in Bushwick back in 2016 and became "a real-deal pizza destination." (Ownership is also behind the pizzeria Leo in Williamsburg.)
According to Resy, Numero 28, the previous tenant here, left behind its built-in wood-fire oven, which is being put to good use. Specials here include a square-cut tavern-style pizza. (Grub Street had a feature on the business last month.)
Ops, a full-service restaurant with a 60-seat dining room (plus a bar), is open Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 5 to midnight.
Thanks to the EVG reader for the pic!
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
'Caught Stealing' catches eyes with new poster
Poster courtesy of Sony
After 347 posts on the filming of "Caught Stealing," we thought you might like to see the new poster. ⬆️
The black comedy-crime thriller from Darren Aronofsky (based on Charlie Huston's novel) is set (in part) in the late 1990s East Village.
Austin Butler, playing an East Village bartender, stars alongside Bad Bunny, Zoë Kravitz, Griffin Dunne, Matt Smith, Regina King, Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio, among others.
"Caught Stealing," set to hit theaters on Aug. 29, was filmed throughout the neighborhood this past fall.
No word yet if the film will have its own specialty popcorn bucket.
Home cook heads to PBS to share her family's recipes — and her love of the East Village
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Longtime East Village resident Anika Chowdhury is bringing a taste of her neighborhood — and her heritage — to national television this summer.
Starting on Friday, she is serving as a contestant on the fourth season of the PBS series "The Great American Recipe," a cooking competition that celebrates home cooks from across the country.
Born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Chowdhury grew up in a home where food was an expression of love, care and celebration. Her parents often hosted dinners built around fresh, seasonal dishes, sparking her passion for cooking and her belief that food can bring people together.
Now in the East Village, she balances her career as a director of project management with an active life exploring global cuisines, hosting and sharing recipes on her blog, Kitchen Gatherings.
She has lived in the East Village for 17 years (and first called it home nearly three decades ago), where she has grown Bangladeshi vegetables in her local community garden and often cooks for her siblings and friends.
"I'll be representing both my heritage — Bangladesh — and my home, New York," she told me.
When we recently caught up with her, she was gathering herbs in the 6 & B Garden — a turtle in tow — before heading to Duals on First Avenue for ingredients (the turtle still in tow).
On "The Great American Recipe," Chowdhury proudly represents both her Bengali roots and her NYC home, talking about the East Village and its community gardens on the show.
Season four of "The Great American Recipe" premieres on Friday, July 11, and runs through Aug. 15, 9-10 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS app.
The Art of Unease: ABC No Rio’s 'PEST' continues on at The Clemente
Here's more about the group exhibit:
The ABC No Rio Visual Arts Collective presents "PEST." An exhibition that examines what unnerves us most, what makes us uncomfortable, irked, annoyed, eerie, or just creeps us out. We endure pests and we fight them, yet they never seem to quite go away. "PEST" explores notions of pests, how we feel about pests, our interactions, and our relationships to them.
And the featured artists:
Mike Estabrook, David B. Frye, Robert Goldkind, Vandana Jain, Katarina Jerinic, Mark Power, David Colosi, Jordan Segal, Fly, and Fernando Pintado.
The fourth-floor gallery hours are the same as the Clemente hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
The Clemente is at 107 Suffolk St. between Rivington and Delancey on the Lower East Side.
Meanwhile, less than a block away, construction is progressing at ABC No Rio's new building, located on the site of its former headquarters at 156 Rivington St.
The environmentally friendly new structure, designed by architect Paul Castrucci, will include a computer lab, print shop, and a zine library, among other amenities. (Find more details here.) The city is contributing $21 million to the project through the Department of Cultural Affairs.
ABC No Rio's previous four-story building on the lot, which was reportedly in disrepair, was demolished in the spring of 2017, forcing its programming to relocate to other arts organizations around the city.
Cabin on 9th under new ownership
However, according to an Instagram message, new owners have taken over the space between First Avenue and Second Avenue and will reopen soon.
The previous owners, recent college graduates who opened Sippy Café in Greenpoint and Brooklyn Heights in 2021, debuted Cabin on 9th in July 2023.
H/T Steven
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