A good sign at Veselka, which hopes to reopen for takeout and delivery soon

Several readers noted the new "reopening soon" sign up at Veselka on Ninth Street at Second Avenue.

Here's part of the Ukrainian diner's Instagram post from yesterday:

Stay tuned while we work out logistics because we’re ramping up for a VERY SAFE re-launch of takeout and delivery. We hope to be brewing the borscht by the end of this week...

The classic corner spot closed on March 18.

Thanks to Alexander De Luca for the photo!

Go visit the Merchant's House Museum — online

The Merchant's House on Fourth Street is currently closed to the public. However, you can stay pay a visit: The museum is now up and running virtually. Exhibitions, tours, talks, videos and programs are available online, including:

Virtual Tour: Matriarch of the family, Eliza Tredwell (as presented by Museum Historian Ann Haddad), is leading a room-by-room virtual tour of her home on social media each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

And!

Check out lectures and illustrated presentations on 19th century New York, as well as TV shows and specials starring the Merchant's House, including the popular episode of "Blueprint NYC" featured on PBS.

Find all the online content at this link.

The Merchant’s House, between the Bowery and Lafayette, is the only 19-century family home in New York City preserved intact on the inside and out.

More history: "Built in 1832 and home to a prosperous merchant family, the Tredwells, and their Irish servants for almost 100 years, it remains complete with the family’s original furnishings, household objects, clothing, and personal memorabilia."

Ding-A-Ling coming soon to Avenue C

And from the coming soon department, which we've been meaning to note this spring ... signage has been up dating to mid-March here at 116 Avenue C between Seventh Street and Eighth Street for a new venture called Ding-A-Ling...



A job posting for the space describes it this way: "Ding-A-Ling Cocktail Lounge will be a casual, music-driven neighborhood bar serving simple tasty cocktails and vegan junk food."

The owners are also behind Kind Regards NYC (rip Cake Shop), via brothers Nick and Andy Bodor.

The Third Man closed here earlier this year after seven-plus years of cocktail service.

Thanks to EVG readers Annabelle, Dave on 7th and Vinny & O for sharing tips/photos about this space.

World's greatest chair discarded

Tragically spotted on the sidewalk on 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue late today ... and in the rain...



Thanks to Christine Champagne for the photos!

Countdown to MulchFest 2021!

[Photo by Steven]

This weekend, someone dropped off a small Christmas tree at the site of the annual MulchFest in Tompkins Square Park.

Perhaps the resident wanted to make space in the apartment for the Halloween decorations.

By the way, NYC Parks recycled a record 48,230 trees during Mulchfest 2020. The previous record was 30,226 trees in 2014, per this news release. Well, here's one for 2021.

Week in Grieview

[Tompkins Square Park yesterday via Walter Wlodarczyk]

Posts from the past week included...

• RIP Giuseppi Logan (Monday)

• Updating: Here's a map of what's open in the East Village (Tuesday)

• Anton van Dalen, drawing in isolation (Friday)

• RIP Shirley Campbell (Thursday)

• Report: Housing facility for seniors on 12th Street is 'a ticking coronavirus time bomb' (Monday)

• Need something to read? Book Club now making local deliveries via bike messenger (Wednesday)

• Where residents can get a free meal during the week (Wednesday)

• Here's how to check out a new group show this weekend (Saturday)

• There are now plans for an 8-story residential building on this long-empty 10th Street lot (Thursday)

• A COVID-19 Urban Etiquette Sign (Saturday)

• This week's NY See (Thursday)

• There's now a Twitter account that will let you know about the lines outside Trader Joe's and Target on 14th Street (Thursday)

• The last night, for now, at Ben's Deli (Tuesday)

• New sculpture for the COVID-19 memorial on 10th Street and Avenue A (Monday)

• A hopeful sign of things to come at Lucy's (Monday)

• Despite what Google says, Tompkins Square Park is open (Thursday)

• Loews Village 7 appears safe for now (Wednesday)

• Travels of a cello (Tuesday)

• It might get loud: the 7 p.m. cheer as heard on Seventh Street (Monday)

And several restaurants-cafes reopened this past week...

• Café Social 68 now serving from their all-new to-go door (Saturday)

• Downtown Bakery returns (Friday)

• Elsewhere Espresso is back in action (Friday)

• Caracas Arepa Bar returns for takeout and delivery on 7th Street (Thursday)

• Two Boots Pizza returns today after a 17-day break (Wednesday)

• SMØR returns to service (Wednesday)

• Dual Specialty Store is back open (Wednesday)

... and Chipper Girl the cockatoo was making new friends in Tompkins Square Park yesterday ...




[Photos by Steven]

---

Follow EVG on Instragram or Twitter for more frequent updates and pics.

An appreciation: Gabrielle Hamilton's essay on Prune in The New York Times Magazine

There has been a lot of talk about Prune chef-owner Gabrielle Hamilton's compelling essay in The New York Times Magazine today (online earlier) titled "My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore?"

Not even sure where to start with excerpts on her honest assessment of reopening the First Street mainstay in a post-COVID-19 world.

She talks about the neighborhood... where even a seemingly successful restaurant struggles to stay in business...

The concerns before coronavirus are still universal: The restaurant as we know it is no longer viable on its own. You can’t have tipped employees making $45 an hour while line cooks make $15. You can’t buy a $3 can of cheap beer at a dive bar in the East Village if the “dive bar” is actually paying $18,000 a month in rent, $30,000 a month in payroll; it would have to cost $10. I can’t keep hosing down the sauté corner myself just to have enough money to repair the ripped awning.

Prune is in the East Village because I’ve lived in the East Village for more than 30 years. I moved here because it was where you could get an apartment for $450 a month. In 1999, when I opened Prune, I still woke each morning to roosters crowing from the rooftop of the tenement building down the block, which is now a steel-and-glass tower. A less-than-500-square-foot studio apartment rents for $3,810 a month...

Her honesty about the brunch mob was particularly interesting ...

And God, the brunch, the brunch. The phone hauled out for every single pancake and every single Bloody Mary to be photographed and Instagrammed. That guy who strolls in and won’t remove his sunglasses as he holds up two fingers at my hostess without saying a word: He wants a table for two. The purebred lap dogs now passed off as service animals to calm the anxieties that might arise from eating eggs Benedict on a Sunday afternoon. I want the girl who called the first day of our mandated shut down to call back, in however many months when restaurants are allowed to reopen, so I can tell her with delight and sincerity: No. We are not open for brunch. There is no more brunch.

Anyway, you can read it for yourself here.

Also, someone left a compliment about the article on Prune's gate yesterday...

Noted

As seen on 13th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B...

Village Farm Grocery returns for limited daytime hours

Village Farm Grocery is back open now on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Ninth Street with limited hours...



As the sign shows, they are open from noon to 6 p.m. A few people, wearing masks and gloves, can be inside the market at a time. And be "polite and courteous." (They're still offering deliveries too.)

Village Farm Grocery closed back on April 3, the first time that regulars could remember the shop ever shutting down — even after the blackout and Superstorm Sandy.

Thanks to Steven for the photos!

EVG Etc.: Recovering from COVID-19; taking aim at third-party delivery fees

[St. Mark's Place at 3rd Avenue]

• East Village resident Majorie Ingall on the recovery from COVID-19 (Tablet)

• Remembering downtown star — and East Village resident — Nashom Wooden (Popular Publicity ... previously on EVG)

• Jimmy Webb's love for NYC and tight pants (The New Yorker ... previously on EVG)

• The fruit cart returns to First Avenue just north of 14th Street (Town & Village)



• The Department of Transportation and the NYPD not into converting roadways into public space for coronavirus-crammed New Yorkers (Streetsblog)

• Thoughts on the shuttered Starbucks on First Avenue and Third Street and what the neighborhood might look like post pandemic (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

• Amelia and Christo, the red-tailed hawks of Tompkins Square Park, are well — AND PLEASE DON'T USE A DRONE TO TAKE PHOTOS OF THEIR NEST (Laura Goggin Photography)

• NYC rents remain high — for now (Curbed)

• New York state is facing a $13.3 billion budget shortfall (Gothamist)

• City Council is taking up a series of bills on April 29 that could introduce a stricter fee cap on third-party delivery services (Eater)

• Via the EVG inbox: Citywide music performance of "For Our Courageous Workers" planned April 29 at the 7 p.m. cheer for front-line workers (Tenth Intervention)

• Take a look around the 98 Bowery archives (Official site)

• The Hester Street Fair goes virtual (Vogue)

... and East Village-based artist-actor Robert Galinsky recently launched a 30-minute talk-variety show that streams live Monday through Friday at 10 p.m. on Facebook.com/RobertGalinsky. Upcoming guests include Tony winner Maryann Plunkett and documentarian Clayton Patterson.

Here's how to check out a new group show this weekend

The Half Gallery on Avenue B and Fourth Street debuted a new exhibition this past Thursday titled "Under Glass" ...




Per the gallery's Instagram account: "The entire exhibition is viewable from the street and each piece is mirrored on our website with a brief audio description. This show follows in the tradition of Ugo Rondinone’s window gallery on Great Jones Street and The Wrong Gallery in Chelsea. Not exactly public art, but art for all."







Find the audio tour here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Half Gallery debuts on 4th and B

Noted

A COVID-19 Urban Etiquette Sign spotted on the Bowery at Fourth Street.

It reads:

Dear Jogger,

Bicycle Douchebag,

Yuppie/Millennial,

Narcissist swine:

PUT ON A FUCKING MASK.

Please respect your community and the lives of others.

YOU DO NOT LIVE ALONE.

Love,

East Village

Thanks to EVG reader Tina Li for the photo! Also spotted the signs on Second Avenue.

Café Social 68 now serving from their all-new to-go door

Café Social 68 reopened yesterday for the first time since mid-March here at 68 Avenue A between Fourth Street and Fifth Street.

They set up a to-go counter at the front door where you can order coffee ...



... or one of their varieties of croissants and other café fare...



For now they plan to be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Van Da continues its weekend collaboration with Chef Hannah Wong

[Reader-submitted photo]

Van Da, the well-regarded Vietnamese restaurant on Fourth Street, is continuing its collaboration with chef Hannah Wong (of the incoming Brooklyn restaurant Haema), for a weekend takeout service. (Saturday and Sunday, or today and tomorrow.)

You can find the Haema-Van Da menu, which changes each weekend, and order in advance via this form. (If this is of interest, then consider putting in your order early: they've sold out the past two weekends on Sunday.)

You pick up the food at Van Da, 234 E. Fourth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B from noon to 8 p.m.

Friday's parting shot

A moment on 14th Street. Photo by Walter Wlodarczyk.

'Male' call

Here's a video for "Male Bonding," from the Dutch trio the Homesick's album titled The Big Exercise. (February 2020, SubPop). It would be on a top-10 list if we cared about those at the moment.

Anton van Dalen, drawing in isolation

[Photo by Jason van Dalen]

Anton van Dalen, the artist who has lived on Avenue A for decades, recently sent me an email with some new drawings.

Throughout March, he said that he worked to put his learning about COVID-19 on paper by pencil.

Here's more from his letter, which he invited me to share along with his work:

My thinking and drawing are intimately linked — it’s my means of coming to understanding.

I have always worked from the perspective of home, then street, neighborhood, city, world. So we learned that COVID-19 came to envelop every dimension of our private and public life.

Events rudely stirred up my still emotionally scarred childhood memories of World War II Holland. And as more and more military language has come to be used to halt the spread of the pandemic.

I wanted my visuals to center on the East Village, and began the drawings at my Avenue A home. But then family and friends, because of my age of 81, thought I should get out of the city.

Came to understand that I should listen to my children and retreat to the countryside of Long Island. Through their generosity I was able to turn my scribbles into accessible drawings.

Throughout my effort I worried about being appropriately thoughtful about this most serious matter. So I learned from family and friends, also daily news reports about the virus and its implications.

But then I also had to integrate mine and everyone’s frightened inner self into the drawings. Still I was concerned, not to be frivolous or satirical, rather keep the subject big, and myself small.

Downtown Bakery returns

From the EVG comments... inexpensive eats favorite Downtown Bakery reopened here on First Avenue near Fourth Street for takeout and delivery. You can also call ahead for pickup: (212) 254-1757. They created a new pickup window right inside the door and sealed off the space with Plexiglass. For now, they are open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, though those hours may change depending on the business.

For more help with what's open, check out the interactive map created by the East Village Community Coalition (EVCC) along with residents Perry Leung, Paul Gale and Zhi Keng He ... the EVG link is here ... the EVCC link is here.

Elsewhere Espresso is back in action tomorrow

You'll have another coffee choice again moving forward: Elsewhere Espresso is reopening tomorrow (Saturday!) at 335 E. Sixth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

Per the gate signage, they'll be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Photo via @eastvillagefoodfinds!

Old favorites

EVG contributor Susan Schiffman was cleaning out some drawers at home and came across menus for three old (and long-closed) favorites — La Foccacceria, Jade Mountain and Bamboo House...





Don't remember when they all closed — well, OK Bamboo House in November 2007 ... and Jade Mountain in the summer of 2007.

This would be a good PAUSE cleaning activity. Unfortunately, the EVG menu drawer went in 2011.