Now they're getting serious

Friday evening, the rameners put up plywood around the former Loves Saves the Day space on Second Avenue at Seventh Street. Perhaps to keep snoopy bloggers from seeing what's going on inside...or perhaps to curtail the warm neighborhood greetings...




And here's how it looked early Saturday morning,






P.S.
"Drag Me to Hell."

Meanwhile, the Love Saves the Day van makes an appearance

On Second Avenue near Ninth Street.

Things that got laid this past weekend: The sidewalk outside the new Cooper Union building

Meanwhile, the plywood along Seventh Street is gone. And you can get a much better look at what's what.





And I don't recall having seen this sign there...



And on the plywood that remains...

Do the tenants care if Buffalo Exchange has sprung a leak?

On 11th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. The leak started two weeks ago? How long has the sign been posted? Have the tenants, um, touched base with the BE people?

Something actually kind of useful opens on Ninth Street

A dry cleaner in the new Ninth Street storefront carved out of a space in the building behind Doc Hollidays ... Not sure about the "organic" part...

The NYSAT project now has an interactive map

The Wooster Collective points us to the following interactive Google map that documents all the different spots around town that were part of last month's New York Street Advertising Takeover (NYSAT) project.



Visit the Public Ad Campaign site for more.

Inside DBGB: "You’ll get kids in trucker hats and they’re never going to eat food and you’re going to turn into a bar before you know it"

The Times published one loooooooooong article on the meticulous planning that's going into Daniel Boulud's new place on the Bowery -- DBGB.

Despite the name, which nods to CBGB, the famous punk rock club a block to the north, the restaurant’s design pays tribute to the area’s history as the restaurant supply center of New York. The walls will be lined with shelves and stocked with glasses and plates as well as pots and pans donated by great chefs from around the world. The kitchen is on the other side of the shelves, giving diners a semi-obstructed view of the cooking.

And!

Mr. Lawrence has also taken the lead in choosing background music for DBGB, which he’s doing with Ear Networks, a company run out of the Hell’s Kitchen apartment-home office of Robert Drake, a sound engineer. The two have been fine-tuning the playlist for weeks, choosing from 45,000 songs in Mr. Drake’s library.

A few days after the mustard-caddy discussion, Mr. Lawrence invited a reporter along for a visit to Ear Networks, where he and Mr. Drake would designate tracks as “lunch,” “dinner” or “late night.” Generally speaking, the quiet stuff is lunch music — because nobody has been drinking — with livelier songs at dinner, and becoming more boisterous as the night wears on.

Mr. Drake clicked his mouse, and “Cowgirl in the Sand” by Neil Young blasted from the speakers.

“Late night or dinner?” Mr. Lawrence asked, shouting over the song.

“You tell me,” Mr. Drake said. “I was going to put it for dinner.”

“Yeah, it’s dinner, you’re right.”

In the end, DBGB will have a library of 4,000 songs and a sound system that can control the volume in different sections of the room.

And!

For restaurants, music is one way to influence who shows up, or at least who comes back. You can aim at a demographic group by playing music that was beloved by its members when they were about 15 years old — the age when fandom typically leaves its most vivid tattoo. By that logic, DBGB is not exactly laying a welcome mat for the just-out-of-college set. There is little in the playlist that was recorded in the last 10 years.

That is no accident.

“It’s hard to get a liquor license around here, as you may know,” Mr. Traussi says, “and one of the things I heard when I canvassed people who live here is, ‘You’ll get kids in trucker hats and they’re never going to eat food and you’re going to turn into a bar before you know it.’ I think that’s an important concern. We’re not looking for that kid, right out of school who is 22 or 23. I think music is an important way to run a food-centric restaurant rather than a bar-centric restaurant.”

Trashquake

Something called "Fashion Now! Youthquake" camped out on Avenue A between Seventh Street and Sixth Street today. There were two buses and a truck or two. Not much was going on the times that I passed by...



After the group left, though, the remnants from their catering ended up on the sidewalk and street.



Also, thanks to RatherBeBiking in the comments...As he noted: "Well, not only was the … ‘quake… responsible for a load of trash, their VIPs TLC hires blocked up the bike lane, one of them taking up part of the pedestrian crosswalk, bike box, AND bike lane on Avenue a for more than a few minutes."

The New York Post discovers the East Village, squats

The Post has an exclusive cover story today about the city turning over the rights to the former LES squat Bullet Space to its residents.

It's difficult to tell how the paper feels about this.

The article begins:

Sometimes crime does pay.

The exclusive two-page spread includes an opinion piece by Henry Stern, the former city parks commissioner who is president of the nonprofit group New York Civic.

His take?

[G]ving away buildings in lower Manhattan to people who break into them and declare themselves owners should not be considered the new public policy of the city of New York.

Over the years, squatting, like graffiti, has been romanticized as an expression of popular will and an assault on the establishment. That may be true -- but it is not the best way to allocate scarce housing among a large and deserving population.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Bullet Space is the first of the former LES squats to take over ownership of building from city

Reader reaction to the New York Post piece on Bullet Space

The best parts of today's exclusive in the Post? The reader comments!

Among them:

pfflyer312@aol.com wrote:
They should have been tear gassed out years ago. These people have stolen from
all of us. While the rest of us pay through our noses, they get off scott free...
5/17/2009 11:15 AM EDT

CJC wrote:
On top of it all, the city gives them a 40 year break from having to pay taxes ...this is nothing short of legalized theft. Gee, I wonder why taxes are so absurd in NY State and City ?
5/17/2009 10:58 AM EDT

gigii wrote:
DISGUSTING - these people are no different than Bernie Madoff - they are stealing that which is not theirs and why would you even print it. They should hang their heads in shame for stealing.
5/17/2009 10:32 AM EDT

ARM wrote:
THERE IS JUST NO REAL JUSTICE IN AMERICA TODAY. I,M SURE IF ANYONE I KNOW WAS TO TRY SQUATTING IN AN ABANDON BUILDING THEY'D BE RUN OFF OUT OF THERE IN A MATTER OF DAYS. IF THE BUILDING WAS IN SUCH DIRE STRAIGHTS, WHY DIDN'T THE CITY DO IT'S JOB BACK IN THE 80'S AND RUN THEM OFF, CONDEMN AND TEAR DOWN THE BUILDING THEN? OH, I REMEMBER NOW, WE WERE IN YET ANOTHER FINANCIAL CRISIS THEN, TOO. GREENWICH VILLAGE, THIS IS PRIME REAL ESTATE, HOW NICE FOR THESE BUMS; AND YES THE LAW BIDING TAX PAYING MIDDLE CLASS PERSON GETS SCREWED YET AGAIN.
5/17/2009 10:18 AM EDT

Davis Rose wrote:
cant bloomy think of a way to kick these losers out
5/17/2009 8:57 AM EDT

And Aaron "The Pie Man" Kay checks in:

pieman420 wrote:
i do support my friends the squatters in keeping the gentrifiers from forcing more poor people into "avenue e"-the east river as a way to make the east village into millionaires row!!!never!!!!the east village has ahistory based on disent, immigration and free speech!! let it still be a liberated zomne!!! yippie!!
5/17/2009 9:42 AM EDT

In case you missed the two street fairs last weekend, or will be away for the five street fairs next weekend, or the weekend after that...

Starts at Third Avenue and 14th Street...runs up to???? Inwood? Westchester? Maine?

Day 3

Noted

Holy rollers

"During the peak of the real estate boom, one of New York’s largest landowners unloaded more than $100 million worth of property — and might have sold more if not for the parishioners who clung to their churches and blocked the bulldozers. The seller was the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which closed more than two dozen houses of worship and schools between 2003 and 2008." (The New York Times)

Dance Parade 2009 in Tompkins Square Park

I'd upload more photos from the event, but I have Dance Fever. Slum Goddess has photos...so does Melanie...and Runnin' Scared.

More photos from the Dance Parade 2009

I may also have my files mixes up.

Day Two

Details.

The recession's hot sellers: running shoes, Spam, Dinty Moore, tanning products

Another recession-related trends story. (AP)

If our Lord wasn't testing us, how would you account for the proliferation ... of this obscene dance music, with its gospel of ... relaxed morality?

Heh. Anyway, the Dance Parade Web site seems to be on the fritz at the moment... So to other sources for this reminder:

DANCE PARADE presents New York City's Third Annual Dance Parade!

All are invited to join us in a historic event demonstrating that dance truly is an expressive form of art. The third annual New York City Dance Parade will attract nearly 7,000 dancers and twice as many supporters to the streets of Manhattan on Saturday, May 16th in celebration of culture, community and the art of movement.

Performances by dance companies and individual dancers will range from Ballet to Breakdance, the Hustle to Club. Colorful floats, live bands and DJs will waltz, tango and pirouette down Broadway from 32nd Street, past Union Square, across Saint Marks Place and end at Tompkins Square Park with a dance festival finale in the park through sunset.

The parade will run from 1pm - 3pm and the festival from 3pm - 7pm. This is a free event.

Meanwhile, the streets are prepped... What are the cops expecting?

Gabba Gabba Goofs

"One of the publicists coordinating press for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex event honoring Joey Ramone the other day needs a remedial course in rock history. 'An assistant at a well-known p.r. agency e-mailed the event publicist to ask if Joey Ramone was going to be available for interviews,' said one insider." (Page Six)

Related:
Gabba Gabba Goof! Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Finally Honors the Late Joey Ramone (The New York Observer)

Noted

"Despite a commanding lead in the polls, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has already spent $18.7 million on his re-election campaign, nearly twice as much as he had spent at this point in the 2005 race." (The New York Times)

"Richard knew how to look at something and then manage to pass it on"

The Praise Day for Richard Leck (pictured above in a photo from the 1960s) was held last Saturday at the Bowery Poetry Club. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it. However, his publisher, Karen Lillis, who organized the tribute, did a recap on her MySpace page.

Here's part of her review:

Bowery Poetry Club proprietor and poetry guru, Bob Holman wrapped up the afternoon for us with some words about Richard, followed by a reading of both poems and prose. "I didn't know Richard, but of course, we all know him now," Bob began. "The readings today have been exquisite because the writing is exquisite, because Richard knew how to look at something and then manage to pass it on."

Just Cause