Do you have what it takes to be the coolest block in the neighborhood?

So, do you think your block is cool? Here's a chance to prove it.

This month, the Lower East Side Ecology Center is launching "The Coolest Block in the Lower East Side" (and NOT a Magnetic Fields song), billed as "an exciting new initiative designed to encourage community stewardship of street trees in the East Village, Lower East Side and Chinatown neighborhoods.''

OK! What else?

... this community-driven contest fosters environmental awareness, local engagement, and a healthy dose of competition, bringing together neighbors, schools, and organizations to transform their blocks into vibrant, green spaces. 

Residents, community groups, block associations, schools, and local organizations are invited to compete for the title of the Coolest Block in the Lower East Side. Participants will focus on key street tree care activities such as soil aeration, mulching, watering, and general cleanup, all while showcasing creativity and community spirit. 

Interested? Then, fill out this Interest Form.

There will also be a kick-off event on Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Sixth Street Community Center. For event information, click this link. 

Checking in on the Hamilton Fish Park Library renovations

Photos by Stacie Joy 

The Hamilton Fish Park Library, located at 415 E. Houston St. between Pitt and Columbia, has been closed since the end of 2023 for "building improvements." 

The library is expected to reopen at the end of 2026 following the $19-million gut renovation, which includes a new open concept with floor-to-ceiling windows for better lighting. 

Per a CB3 presentation on the renovations: 

This goal will be accomplished by replacing existing translucent glass brick masonry units with new fully transparent windows on the Houston Street façade. This strengthened visual connection between the library exterior and interior improves the space's quality and draws in more visitors. The surrounding community will benefit from a revitalized and modernized public space, which accommodates the needs of the library patrons and improves its overall functionality. 

Here's a look at the work in progress the other day...

During the closure, patrons have been using: 

• Tompkins Square Library 

• Ottendorfer Library 

• Seward Park Library 

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• Hamilton Fish Park Library closing for a 2-plus year renovation

Signage alert: Dumpling Xi on 4th Avenue

Photo by Jeanne Krier 

Signage for Dumpling Xi is now on the SE corner of Fourth Avenue at 10th Street.

The China-based company has 800 outposts. As far as we know, this is the first one here. There is one in Flushing as well, per a reader email.

Plenty of dumplings and dim sum around here, like at Bites of Xi'an a few storefronts away on 10th Street and Tim Ho Wan right across the street.

Several restaurants have come and gone in the retail space of the new-ish 10-story cantilevering condoplex. Most recently, Hou Hot Pot closed on Jan. 1.

Hey, the Heytea signage has arrived

Photo by Steven 

The Heytea signage arrived Monday at 128 Second Ave. between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place. 

As we noted in October, the brand started in China in 2012, and now there are 4,000-plus locations worldwide selling a variety of milk and fruit teas... including a handful in NYC. They are known for drinks topped with a layer of cream cheese foam.

No word on an opening date.

Wednesday's parting shot

Sir Paul McCartney in the window at Pop International at 195 Bowery this evening... around the corner from Night 2 of McCartney's surprise shows at the Bowery Ballroom.

School shuffle: La Salle Returning to 2nd Street as St. George seeks new tenants

Sharing some local school news. 

For starters, La Salle Academy is returning to its building on Second Street near Second Avenue for the 2025-26 school year after 15 years of leasing space from St. George Academy (above) at 615 E. Sixth St. near Cooper Square. 

That announcement was first made about a year ago. (More on that below.) 

Meanwhile, last week, a real-estate listing to lease three floors for office space at the current St. George Academy caught our attention. 

St. George Academy Principal Andrew Stasiw explained that with La Salle's move, they'll have extra space for use. He mentioned that they are in talks with several schools about leasing the space. (He also said he was unaware of the other listing, as the broker did not have an exclusive arrangement with the school.) 

Meanwhile, St. George — also known as St. George's Ukrainian Catholic School — will carry on as it has since 1946, when it was founded as a private Catholic college-preparatory high school. 

"[We] will continue to run our Academy on the bottom three floors, as well as our Saturday School program, and a host of other programs," Stasiw wrote in an email. 

To make way for the return of La Salle on Second Street, the Nord Anglia International School New York, which leased the building, is moving to Gramercy Park for the fall.

La Salle Academy, one of the oldest all-male Catholic high schools in New York City, will be moving back to Second Street for the fall... their home from 1856 through 2010 when they started to lease the building. 

La Salle sold its annex property on the SE corner of Second Avenue and Second Street in 2020 for $14.5 million. That building and two others were demolished to make way for a development that has yet to materialize.

According to a March 2024 release from Salvatore LaRocca, chairman of the Board of Trustees at La Salle Academy: 

" ... the renovated building on 2nd Street will allow us to expand and create new academic, athletic, and extracurricular programs to ensure that La Salle offers its students the best 21st century education possible. These improvements along with our continued commitment to providing a Catholic education in the Lasallian tradition will ensure that our graduates are prepared to succeed in a rapidly changing environment."

Bluestone Lane has closed on Astor Place

The Bluestone Lane outpost in the Death Star at 51 Astor Place has closed. 

An EVG reader shared these photos, with one showing an empty storefront.

There isn't any closing notice for patrons on the door of the Australian-inspired coffee shop. However, a Bluestone Lane rep confirmed the closing with EVG.

This Bluestone outpost (the eighth in NYC at the time) opened in April 2016.

We thought they might have seen an uptick in business after Starbucks closed on Astor Place last summer.

Still, many coffee choices are nearby, including two branches of the Bean, Astor Plate, the Madman Espresso airstream trailer outside the Uptown 6 stop, Hidden Grounds around the corner on Third Avenue, Think Coffee on Fourth Avenue, and Irving Farm New York on 10th Street. To name a few in the immediate area.

Wednesday's opening shot

Photo by Cecil Scheib 

A morning view of a snow-dusted (so to speak) Tompkins Square Park...

Tuesday's parting shot

It has begun (the snow flurries — an inch of so total overnight, per the Weather Channel)...

Willem Dafoe at the Anthology Film Archives

The Anthology Film Archives series devoted to Willem Dafoe continues through Feb. 26. 

This past Saturday, EVG regular Daniel Efram attended a screening of Abel Ferrara's "Siberia." Afterward, Dafoe, who lived in the East Village early in his career, was on hand for an interview.

Per Dan: 

Dafoe spent nearly 45 minutes discussing details of his acting choices and insights. A very generous conversation that was extremely humble and charming. At one point, after nearly 20 minutes into the Q&A, which a full house found fascinating, a person got up and started to leave the room, to which Dafoe commented for all to hear, "Thanks for coming!"

Photos by Daniel Efram

You can find more details and ticket info here. (Several of the screenings are already sold out.) 

The Anthology is on Second Avenue and Second Street.

New York Dolls co-founder David Johansen seeks support for cancer treatment

David Johansen, iconic frontman and sole surviving founding member of the New York Dolls, revealed that he is battling multiple health issues, including stage four cancer and a brain tumor. 

The Sweet Relief Musicians Fund has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help with the mounting medical expenses. 

His daughter Leah Hennessey shared this information: 

Five years ago at the beginning of the pandemic we discovered that David’s cancer had progressed and he had a brain tumor. There have been complications ever since. He's never made his diagnosis public, as he and my mother Mara are generally very private people, but we feel compelled to share this now, due to the increasingly severe financial burden our family is facing. 

To make matters worse, the day after Thanksgiving David fell down the stairs and broke his back in two places. ​

After a week in the hospital and a successful surgery David has been bedridden and incapacitated. Due to the trauma, David’s illness has progressed exponentially and my mother is caring for him around the clock. Our most immediate needs are full time nursing, physical therapy and funding for day to day vital living expenses. 

With professional specialized care, we are hopeful that David can regain some mobility and independence. 

You can read more about the crowdfunding here. 

Sweet Relief also offers a unique Johansen T-shirt, with all proceeds supporting his treatment.

Johansen, whose career includes his lounge singer persona Buster Poindexter, was the subject of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi's documentary "Personality Crisis: One Night Only" in 2022.

 

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Openings: Alison on St. Mark's Place

Alison recently debuted at 110 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

The full-service restaurant, which offers breakfast, lunch, dinner and brunch, is the sister restaurant to the Alison on Lexington Avenue in East Harlem. (They also operate Bar Vivant on the Upper East Side.) 

The menus with sandwiches, pasta, salads, etc., are similar in both outposts. Find the menus at this link. 

The posted hours are Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

David's Cafe closed last summer at No. 110 after nearly nine years in service.

Final cut: Hollywood Nail & Spa closes on 1st Street

Several EVG readers have noted that Hollywood Nail & Spa has closed at 114 E. 1st St., just steps away from Houston Street.

The gate was down during the announced business hours in the past week, and Google now lists the spot as permanently closed. 

The salon arrived in the spring of 2013 and endured several years of its storefront blocked by a hulking sidewalk bridge to construct a luxury building next door... as well as the never-ending East Houston Reconstruction Project that finally wrapped in 2018. 

Signage alert: Meama on 2nd Avenue

Photo by Steven 

The coming-soon signage for Meama Café & Restaurant, located at 78 Second Ave. between Fourth Street and Fifth Street, is up now.

Meama will be a full-service restaurant serving Georgian cuisine (find a sample menu in their CB3 questionnaire from last month). 

Nomad closed in this space in the fall of 2022 after 16 years in business.

Monday's parting shot

The New York Theatre Workshop, located at 79 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery, is dark tonight. The solo show "A Knock on the Roof" will be performed there eight more times starting tomorrow through Sunday. 

Also, NYTW recently named Maya Choldin as its new managing director.

RIP Walter Robinson

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A post shared by Artnet (@artnet)

Walter Robinson, the painter, writer, and editor and a decades-long presence on the New York art scene with deep ties to the East Village arts community, died yesterday. 

According to published reports, Robinson, whose roles included serving as art editor of the East Village Eye in the early 1980s, died of cancer. He was 74.

Tributes include:

• Artnet

• The Art Newspaper

• Whitehot Magazine

Church to condo conversion underway on 4th Street

Photos by EVG reader Kait 

The gutting of the former Iglesia Bautista Emmanuel is underway at 256 E. Fourth St. between Avenue B and Avenue C. 

Workers arrived last week for a church-to-condo conversion. According to DOB permits, the four-story structure will receive two additional floors to accommodate six residences, presumably condos, based on the square footage.

The plywood includes a rendering of the all-new residences ... StudioSC is listed as the architect of record.

The church had been on the market for several years and changed hands last fall for $2.95 million. 

The new owner is listed as an LLC, per public records. 

As for history, there's plenty of it here...

According to Daytonian in Manhattan, the property, dating to 1859, was once part of the estate of Petrus Stuyvesant. It later became known as the Lemberger Shul.

In 1925, the Lemberger Congregation purchased the buildings and hired architect James J. Millman to design a shul, or synagogue, on the site. The congregation took its name from its native city, Lemberg, at the time the center of the Lwów Voivodeship of Poland. The city is known today as Lviv, Ukraine. 

The new building was faced in red brick and trimmed in stone. Millman's understated design relied mostly on Gothic arches over the openings. Projecting brickwork between the second and third floors, and on either side of the central rondel above the entrance provided interest. There were two entrances, one above a short, centered stoop, and another to the right for the women worshipers. It is unclear whether the rondel was always bricked in, or if it originally contained a rose window. 

In either case, it almost certainly displayed a Magen David, or Star of David. Set within the parapet is a stone Decalogue, representing the tablets of Moses. 

In the early 1970s, the synagogue became home to the Spanish-language Iglesia Bautista Emmanuel. As Daytonian noted (and the post is definitely worth a read): 

Iglesia Bautista Emmanuel remains in the converted synagogue — the Christian cross in the rondel happily coexisting with the Jewish Decalogue above it.

Based on the rendering, neither of those elements will co-exist at the address any more. 

A quick look at the February CB3 SLA agenda

Here's a look at a few of the East Village addresses on tonight's CB3 SLA committee meeting agenda:

 

New Liquor License Applications 

• Andy's Burros LLC, 5 St Marks Pl, as seen above, (op) 

The owners of Taqueria St. Marks Place (and several other similar restaurants) between First Avenue and Second Avenue are behind Andy's Burros one block to the west. 

The application describes a Mexican restaurant selling burritos, burrito bowls, beer, and margaritas, with 11 tables for 34 guests, a few steps down from the sidewalk at 5 St. Mark's Place. 

You can find a PDF of their questionnaire, which includes a sample menu, here. 

• At Cave (At Cave LLC), 103 E 2nd St (op) 

This is a holdover from last month... an Asian-fusion restaurant, At Cave, is looking to take over a vacant retail space at 103 E. Second St., between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

A questionnaire can be found at this link. 

• 5's (Dunne Hospitality LLC), 179 Ave B (op) 

5's is the name of the proposed new restaurant for the long-empty retail space on the east side of Avenue B between 11th Street and 12th Street.

According to the questionnaire on the CB3 website, 5's will offer "a seasonal and produce-driven menu will be inspired by the flavors of Asia." Apparently, they will only serve five food items, five specialty cocktails, five draft beers, five canned beers, and five wines.

The layout will feature five communal bar tables seating up to 40 guests. 

Guac was the last tenant at No. 179, closing in the fall of 2019. 

Items not heard at Committee

• Conway Diner Inc, 80 2nd Ave (wb) 

Conway Diner, which received conditional approval for a beer-wine license, is now in soft-open mode between Fourth Street and Fifth Street. 

New owners have taken over the short-lived Sunday Dreamin, billing the business as an Asian American diner. Menu items include fish and chips, New York strip steak, fried calamari and spicy mussels. 

Per an Instagram post, they are offering 15% off all menu items through Feb. 15.

• Twilight Lounge Corp, 110 1st Ave (wb) 

Twilight Lounge will offer Asian cuisine, per its application for a beer-wine license for the former Sushi Dojo space between Sixth Street and Seventh Street.

Dining Out NYC - Not heard at Committee 

Under the city's new Dining Out NYC program, enclosed, year-round roadway dining structures are no longer permitted. The revised regulations stipulate that roadway cafes must now be open-air, easily portable, and simple to assemble and dismantle. 

Additionally, these establishments are restricted to operating only from April through November. (Sidewalk cafes are permitted year-round.) Restaurants had to apply for the license with the DOT, which apparently required a local community board sign-off. 

These establishments within the confines of Community Board 3 are on the February agenda... 

• Lil Frankie's Pizza (Just an Oven Corp), 19 1st Ave (Roadway Cafe) 

• Lil Frankie's Pizza (Just an Oven Corp), 19 1st Ave (Sidewalk Cafe) 

• A'more Caffe (Sumone Cafe Inc), 150 E 2nd St. (Roadway Cafe)

• Supper (Raguboy Corporation), 156 E 2nd St (Roadway Cafe) 

• The Immigrant NYC (The Immigrant Wine Bar LLC), 341 E 9th St (Roadway Cafe) 

• Penny Farthing Restaurant (East County Louth Inc), 103 3rd Ave (Roadway Cafe)

• Miss Lily's 7A (Seven A Cafe Inc), 109 Ave A (Roadway Cafe) 

• Miss Lily's 7A (Seven A Cafe Inc), 109 Ave A (Sidewalk Cafe)

• Horus Cafe (Elsayed III Corp), 293 E 10th St (Roadway Cafe)

• Horus Cafe (Elsayed III Corp), 293 E 10th St (Sidewalk Cafe) 

Tonight's meeting is at 6:30. The Zoom link is here. This is a hybrid meeting, and limited seating is available for the public — the first 15 people who show up at the Community Board 3 Office, 59 E. Fourth St., between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

Openings: Hatsu Omakase on 4th Street

Seemingly overnight, Hatsu Omakase arrived at 133 E. Fourth St., just west of First Avenue. (Wasn't this a functioning nail salon a few weeks ago?)

Anyway! Hatsu is open. Per Resy, they offer "an Omakase experience that doesn't break the bank. A meal here takes about 90 minutes and costs less than $100." And that is 13 courses.

Also this month, they are offering a 15% discount. 

Hours: Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10 p.m., Friday-Sunday 5-11 p.m.

Make a reservation at the Omakase bar or "DYI table" here.

Game, set, match: Thirty Love arrives on 3rd and 13th

Photo Saturday by EVG reader Seth Treiman 

The Memory Motel pop-up is now just a memory on the NW corner of Third Avenue and 13th Street.

Over the weekend, the two-story bar was transformed into Thirty Love Sports & Leisure, presumably another sports bar. 

This outpost of Montauk's Memory Motel arrived in the fall of 2023 as a pop-up bar running from Halloween to New Year’s Eve... before extending that stay by another year via a collaboration with "East Hamptons' party hot spot Common Ground." 

In an offer reminiscent of the old Continental a few blocks south on Third Avenue, MM offered five shots for $13 ("yes we're serious")...

The corner spot has been to various sports bars with animal names in the titles in previous years: the Brazen Fox, Ugly Duckling and blue bird. 

Our previous post provided more background on Montauk's Memory Motel and the Rolling Stones' role in its lore.