Crews will be in the neighborhood for the next two days, as we mentioned in this post.
Monday, August 11, 2025
Monday's parting shot
Video: Fight spills onto the tracks at 1st Avenue L stop
The cause of the fight is unknown, but both men were lucky a train wasn't coming.
One of the men is able to get back to the platform by himself... the other needs help from a fellow rider.
The arguing continues on the platform, with one man tossing the other's belongings onto the tracks.
Although the video was posted at 6:22 this evening, it isn't clear when the fight actually happened. It looks a bit sparse for that time of day.#NYShitty🗽💩; Drunken Brawl at #NYC’s #FirstAve Station Spills Onto Rails — Good Samaritan Rescues Man, Rival Tosses Belongings Back Onto Tracks pic.twitter.com/JE9zb4aHLE
— New York Shitty (@NyShittyNews) August 11, 2025
H/T Kent
RIP Michael Lydon
Photo by Steven
Michael Lydon, a longtime East Village resident, musician, author and rock journalist, died on July 30. He was 82.
According to The New York Times, he passed away from complications of Parkinson's disease.
Residents are probably familiar with him from recent years, as he and his longtime wife, Ellen Mandel, were active in the local community, performing as Lydon & Mandel at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Third Street Music School Settlement, the Tompkins Square Park tree lighting, and various block parties.
However, for many generations of music fans, he was known for his writing about the top music events of the day and bands such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and the Rolling Stones.
He was an early top editor at Rolling Stone and wrote some 20 books, including "The Rolling Stones Discover America," "Ray Charles: Man and Music," and "Rock Folk: Portraits From the Rock 'n' Roll Pantheon."
It's no surprise he chose a life surrounded by music. As he wrote on his website:
I love music. We had a piano in my big Boston Irish family; my mother sang Handel, my father loved John McCormack. An aunt gave us the Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall LPs — I flipped for "Sing Sing Sing." In high school, I wore out my Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington records, but convinced I'd never learn to play jazz, I became a writer instead.
Here's an excerpt about his early career and a college-era pan of the Beatles ... via the Times:
As a young Newsweek correspondent fresh from Yale University, he arrived in London in the mid-1960s — a time when the postwar generation, with its taste for avant-garde fashion and rafter-rattling rock, was aiming to blast the bowler hats from the heads of the country's traditionalists.It was there that he met the Beatles, whom he had derided as "poor foreign imitations" of the American rock 'n' roll originals in a 1964 article for The Yale Daily News.
"Whenever the first strains of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ begin to twitch my stirrup bones,” Mr. Lydon wrote, "I send out silent screams for help to Chuck Berry, Elvis" and others "who have long defended the American way of rock."His view changed after the Beatles' landmark 1965 album, Rubber Soul, with its nuanced and introspective songwriting. The album seemed to change the Beatles' view of themselves, too. "You don't know us now if you don't know 'Rubber Soul,'" John Lennon told Mr. Lydon in a 1966 interview. "All our ideas are different now."
Read more about his life at the Times here.
Previously on EV Grieve:
At look at the coming-soon Corner Bistro
Photos by Stacie Joy
In late July, someone wrote "Corner Bistro Coming Soon" in green paint on the windows at the currently vacant 94-96 Avenue A at Sixth Street. This likely was not the official coming soon signage the business had planned.
Anyway, the West Village burger institute is opening an outpost in the East Village, as we first noted here.
We've been waiting to get more information on timing, etc. However, we haven't heard back from ownership or the attorney who represented Corner Bistro during the May Community Board 3 meeting. CB3 signed off on the liquor license application in May.
There is also a public notice on the door for a 500-foot hearing with the State Liquor Authority (SLA) dated Aug. 1.
According to the SLA website, the license remains pending...
To date, we haven't seen much activity from the storefronts, which housed the sports bar Offside Tavern until late last year. Before that, August Laura had a brief run beginning in October 2019 but faced a stop-start schedule during the pandemic and finally closed in December 2021.
The address is best known as the longtime home of Sidewalk — the restaurant, bar, and live music venue (and host of the Antifolk Festival) that closed in February 2019 after a 34-year run.
Corner Bistro opened in 1961 on West Fourth Street in the West Village. Elizabeth McGrath — daughter of Corner Bistro's original owners, Bill and Lorraine O'Donnell — took over the business in 2015.
This wouldn't be the burger institution's first time branching out. Corner Bistro opened a location in Long Island City in 2012, which shuttered in 2020 due to pandemic-related pressures. An outpost at the Gotham West Market food hall in Hell's Kitchen also closed in 2020.
Taggers target white-box storefronts on Avenue B
The other night, multiple people tagged the storefronts...
... including the interior of the space to the north...
There wasn't any sign of forced entry, so some people think the door was left unlocked.
The northern storefront was previously Anwar/Akter Grocery, which sold a wide range of items, including sodas, snacks, religious amulets, sombreros, school supplies, and hardcore adult DVDs with titles like "Anal Pleasures."
The grocery suffered an unceremonious ending in July 2022.
In the photos below from the spring by Stacie Joy, you can see the extent of the interior gutting...
This week in Dodging film crews
You can find some paparazzi shots of the cast in and around Tompkins here. Not really our thing, unless it is Keanu Reeves.
Openings: Baos & Bowls on 13th Street
Baos & Bowls recently debuted at 401 E. 13th St. just east of First Avenue. (H/T Ryan!)
Daily hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The space had been vacant since Ichibantei relocated to Third Avenue in 2023.
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Week in Grieview
Posts this past week included (with an early morning look at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery).
Get the Week in Review via email every Sunday. Details.
• At the opening of Lidl on the Lower East Side (Monday, Aug. 4)
• Report: 1 of the young hawks from Tompkins Square Park has died (Thursday, Aug. 7)
• See some free live music this weekend in Tompkins Square Park at the Show Brain Festival (Thursday, Aug. 7) … More portraits of bands playing the Show Brain stage in Tompkins Square Park (Friday, Aug. 8)
• Openings: KEBABISHQ on 2nd Avenue (Wednesday, July 6) … The Re:Shop on 12th Street (Wednesday, Aug. 6) … Stashed Goods on Houston (Thursday, Aug. 7)
• A tree grows on 1st Avenue (Thursday, Aug. 7)
• Quitter tosses Christmas tree (Tuesday, Aug. 5)
EVG Etc.: New safety measures for Canal and the Bowery
• Subway rider expected to survive after being stabbed twice during an altercation last night on the Second Avenue F platform (The Post)
• NYC finally makes long-sought safety upgrades on Canal Street and the Bowery off the Manhattan Bridge (Gothamist ... previously on EVG)
• About The Flowery, a new cannabis dispensary on 10th Street and Third Avenue (amNY ... previously on EVG)
• Fake deliveryman robs Wald House resident of $20 on Fourth Street at the FDR (1010 WINS)
• Smithereens on Ninth Street finds its sea legs (Grub Street)
• The Jeff Buckley doc is playing now at the Angelika on Houston (Official site)
• Cinema Village on 12th Street between University and Fifth Avenue, one of the city's oldest operating movie theaters, "is facing tough headwinds, including strife between employees and management" (The City)
• Arlene Gottfried's portraits of New Yorkers in the 1970s-80s (Flashbak)
The lineup for Day 2 of the Show Brain Festival today in Tompkins Square Park
Chain reaction: Dion Lunadon yesterday in Tompkins
Day 2 of Show Brain's free all-ages show takes place this afternoon in Tompkins Square Park.
The lineup with approximate set times:
• The Mystery Lights (5:20-6)
• Native Sun (4:20-4:55)
• Pons (3:30-4:05)
• Figure of Fun (2:40-3:15)
• Fine Mess (1:55-2:25)
You can follow Show Brain on Instagram for updates.
Saturday, August 9, 2025
Saturday's parting shot
Photo by Derek Berg
The Thing today during Day 1 of the Show Brain Festival in Tompkins Square Park.
There's another afternoon of free shows in the park tomorrow. Details here.
A glimpse of last night's almost-full Moon
Can't believe we dragged the telescope out at 9:30 pm, when the almost-full Moon rose up very low on the horizon. It disappeared behind the trees within minutes of rising and was not visible until much later, going down over the Public Hotel.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Friday, August 8, 2025
Friday's parting shot
Thanks to the volunteers from Tile Bar and elsewhere for maintaining this space... (and please don't pick the sunflowers).
A 'Rough' patch
95 Bulls are first up tomorrow afternoon for Day 1 of the free Show Brain Festival in Tompkins Square Park.
The above video is for "It Was Rough."
More portraits of bands playing the Show Brain stage in Tompkins Square Park
Photos by Stacie Joy
This summer, we've been taking portraits of some of the bands playing the free Show Brain-sponsored shows in Tompkins Square Park (here, here, and here).
Going back to July 26 for this show... featuring Avishag Cohen Rodrigues ...
... and Two Man Giant Squid...
... and one of the most cinematic bands we've seen in the park — P.H.0. ...
Thanks to Show Brain's Ozzie (on the right) for organizing so many free, all-ages shows... including the Show Brain Festival this weekend.
Friday's opening shot
Thursday, August 7, 2025
A tree grows on 1st Avenue
Report: 1 of the young hawks from Tompkins Square Park has died
Photo from June by Steven
Goggla has the sad confirmation of a rumor that circulated toward the end of July: One of the red-tailed hawk fledglings has died.
The young hawk was found dead on a fire escape along Avenue C on July 27.
Per Goggla:
It's not known exactly what happened, but the situation looked a lot like one we saw in 2022 when a fledgling had to be rescued from a fire escape after displaying obvious signs of illness. In that case, the theory was it had been weakened by rodenticide poisoning and died just a few hours after being rescued.
The Department of Environmental Conservation has the deceased hawk, and hopefully, they can determine the cause of death.
In more positive news, the other two 2025 offspring of Amelia and Charlie remain active in the park this week, Goggla reports (even nabbing their own meals!).
This marked Amelia's eighth season raising chicks in Tompkins.
See some free live music this weekend in Tompkins Square Park at the Show Brain Festival
Here's how the show is shaping up now (more bands are being added to the bill for Sunday):
Saturday
• 95 Bulls
Sunday
• The Mystery Lights (5:20-6)
• Native Sun (4:20-4:55)
• Pons (3:30-4:05)
• Figure of Fun (2:40-3:15)
• Fine Mess (1:55-2:25)
You can follow Show Brain on Instagram for band updates and set times.
Openings: Stashed Goods on Houston
Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Stashed Goods recently debuted at 305 E. Houston St.
The shop, between Clinton and Attorney, specializes in new and used luxury goods and streetwear, with a buy/sell/trade counter and authenticator. They have a buy-outright policy for cash or store credit, no consignment.
East Village resident Angel Ramirez, who previously ran Angels on A, teamed up with (below) Tashi Fu and Donny Walter for the business...
Ramirez's sister, Nicole Cosme, is the store manager...
On a recent visit, the shop had a well-stocked selection of sneakers...
... and streetwear brands...
Hours: Monday-Saturday from noon to 8 p.m. You can follow the shop on Instagram here.
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