"Bartender Wars"

"Bartender Wars" is filming somewhere on Avenue B or Third Street today....



And what is this? According to the casting call for this upcoming Fine Living Network program....

Great bartenders have to employ a variety of skills — from mixologist to psychologist — and now Fine Living Network wants bartenders in the New York metro area to put those skills to the test! We’re looking for bartenders in the New York/Tri-State area to feature on “Bartender Wars,” an upcoming FLN series where they are the stars of the show.

Participating bartenders will go head to head with each other and frequently enlist their patrons in a variety of bartending challenges, from the simple to the outlandish.

If you know a bartender — man or woman — who’s sexy, confident, with a great personality and who would be up for the challenge, be it competing for the biggest tips, flirting for the most phone numbers or playing matchmaker for customers, we want to hear about them.

It’s “Candid Camera” at your favorite watering hole with a lot of liquid courage thrown in!

Very curious what bar on Avenue B or nearby made the cut....

Crime stoppers

Last week, BoweryBoogie reported on the NYPD alerts telling of an increase in residential burglaries in the LES of late. I've noticed a few of these fliers myself closer to home...



One resident here along Second Street provided a helpful reminder to his/her neighbors....

At your keg service

Oh, Superdive has their keg menu online now.

And I was never good at math and stuff. So, how much is in a keg? Thankfully, the Superdive site does the converting for me to make planning easier!

15.5 Gal = 165 - 12oz beers | 50L = 140 - 12oz beers
30L = 84 - 12oz beers | 20L = 56 - 12oz beers

Rebranded P.S. 64 up for grabs: Please welcome University House at Tompkins Square Park to the neighborhood

I'm doing a little guest-blogging at Curbed this week. A version of this post appears there too.



Add another chapter to the long, complicated story of the old P.S. 64/CHARAS/El Bohio community center -- now known as University House at Tompkins Square Park. According to marketing materials (PDF) that HelmsleySpear is circulating, the landmarked space at 350 East 10th Street (and an aside, the rebranding includes not using the 605 E. Ninth St. address):

[I]s currently undergoing a complete renovation including new building systems, core and shell. The property is zoned R8-B. The property is ideal for schools, universities, museums, college dormitories, medical offices, hospital, foundations, nonprofit institutions and related facilities.



Ownership will consider all offers to lease or purchase the entire building. In addition, ownership will consider the creation of a “building-within-building” allowing for multiple entrances and uses within the property, including the possibility of leasing individual floors and selling portions of the building as a
commercial condominium.

No mention anywhere of Gregg Singer, the building's owner who unsuccessfully tried for years to get his megadorm project off the ground. This past spring, Singer told The Villager that he's still an investor, but he had moved "onto other stuff." Meanwhile, one longtime P.S. 64 watcher said many of these new plans for the site have been moving forward without the knowledge of the East Village power brokers.

For more on the efforts to save P.S. 64 and its history:
East Village Community Coaltion: Save our School

And a few photos of the old P.S. 64 from a few weeks back...

Popeye returns in September

Come to think of it, we haven't seen Popeye lately. More our fault. Haven't been by the Blarney Cove as much of late during the day. Guess he finally got that balky back fixed.

He'll be back behind the bar in September.



Lucy is gone until Sept. 10....now this.

Caracas Arepa Bar closed for "a major repair"

Just the take-out shop is closed. The restaurant is still open next door. On Seventh Street near First Avenue.

Noted

From Page Six:

IT'S casting time for "Sex and the City" extras. Producers of the sequel starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon are holding a "cattle call" Thursday at the soon-to-open restaurant Le Souk on LaGuardia Place. "They're looking for Middle Eastern people for a scene where the girls go to a club in a Middle Eastern neighborhood, so it's fitting they're holding it at a hookah lounge and restaurant," our spy said.

Bowery Place

The yunnie posturing that takes place Thursday through Sunday on the Bowery often seems like a cheesy melodrama worthy of the CW Televison Network....



...so might as well advertise the revamped "Melrose Place" here.

Gentlemen, this is a post about the Gentlemen, this is vodka ad

The one at Sixth Street at Avenue A. Gone!



And now we look back fondly at the most pretentious of ads that graced Avenue A... with a subtle juxtaposition next to the sanitation truck....




Previously on EV Grieve:
Gentlemen, this is a headline

What is wrong with this picture?

Transformer

For some reason I never noticed this Lou Reed street art on Attorney Street...

What will we do until Sept. 10?

Lucy told us that she'd be leaving for Poland for several weeks. Still. Anyway, here are a few shots -- drinking, playing with a camera -- to hold us over until Sept. 10. Avenue A between Ninth and 10th Street.

Iggy's is apparently open

There were balloons and people inside, according to a tipster. Maybe even free slices? And how was the pizza? "I wasn't hungry."

Anyone else try the pizza?

For further reading:
Five Rose's Pizza: Vanishing (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Five Roses’ Krystyna Says “I’ll Be Back” (Hunter-Gatherer)

Teneleven closed for remodeling: "Fret not ye lushes"

I've never written about Teneleven, 171 Avenue C between 10th Street and 11th Street. I like what they do here, using their space to showcase the work of local artists, photographers, musicians, etc. I hope that they do reopen soon, as promised.

A Cure for this location?

Cure closed up a few weeks back...And now, the space is being renovated....




...people working on the old Cure said this spot will become a coffee shop/small plates place...they're looking to open in the next six weeks. Perhaps they can break the cycle here — three places in quick succession.



Previously on EV Grieve:
No more Cure

Noted

Ciao Ballaro?

Ballaro, a "caffe prosciutteria" that opened in late April on Second Avenue between Fourth Street and Fifth Street, hasn't been open the last few days and nights. And no one answers the phone.

BBQ/TKettle closed

The Korean-based BBQ Chicken chain at 26 St. Mark's Place that shares space with TKettle....



...is temporarily closed....reliable sources said that they need to get their permits in order.

Stop work order at Upright Citizens Brigade space

Totes the fault of the cargo shorts!1!111!!! (Read the comments.)

Cafe DeVille closed for the rest of the month

And keeping this restaurant theme going...Cafe DeVille on Third Avenue at 13th Street is closed for a holiday the rest of the month.



Hmm, OK...it's one thing for a mom-and-pop shop to close for a few weeks, but a fairly large place like this that employs so many people...?

Are New Yorkers addicted to luxury?

The Post takes a look at the new David Barton gym on Astor Place.

Throughout the day, a Ramones- and Bowie-filled soundtrack supports Barton's notion that his swanky $5 million gym will reflect the East Village's trademark punk and glam-rock spirit.

Trend?!

Indeed, the whole city's suddenly a nightclub. Not to be outdone, a huge trilevel Crunch half a block south of Barton's new gym offers an ear-splitting Tuesday-night deejay party and has a counter serving protein shakes and $4-plus iced coffees. There's also a Midtown Equinox, housing a deli-style takeout kitchen, and Rockefeller Center's Sports Club/LA, which has a sit-down restaurant, a bar and a sidewalk café.

"The mainstream offering doesn't cut it for some people anymore," says Barton.

And it isn't just gyms. Local entrepreneurs are giving Manhattan what it wants -- and Manhattan apparently wants everything in one place.

Hmm.

So what's the deal with this town? Is it an addiction to luxury -- or just ADD? According to Barton, it's all about choices.

"There are a lot of different people around and different gyms to service them," he says. Locals who complained about the closing of the enormous Barnes & Noble formerly occupying this space might note: While a bookstore is very East Village in theory, a 700-plus-store national chain that displaces ma and pa bookstores is not.

"You don't even shop in stores anymore," says Barton, suggesting online retailers that are hurting bookstores have made gyms "the new town square."

The downside for old-school New Yorkers is that such things tend to come off a little more new Times Square. Perhaps those of us wishing to exercise to the beat of our own drum, or bowl with the lights on, should consider moving to Arkansas? Fat chance. The sushi there sucks -- and just try getting it delivered after midnight.

For further reading:
No pecs, no sex (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

"Once a building is gone, it is gone forever"

The Wall Street Journal excerpts David Freeland's book, "Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville," released Aug. 1 in paperback. And here's an excerpt of the excerpt.

Almost anyone who has written about New York has pointed out how it lives in a perpetual state of renewal: built, torn down, and rebuilt in an endless cycle. This is not a process exclusive to New York: it has occurred on the South Side of Chicago, in the area surrounding Memphis’s Beale Street, in Miami, and in other cities throughout the United States. But in New York — and particularly Manhattan — the rate of change seems intensified.

And...

Manhattanites have often seemed remorseful at having ignored their physical history, having treated it so callously. At the same time they have sought to accept change as an inescapable element of life in the metropolis. "In Downtown: My Manhattan" (2004), Pete Hamill writes poignantly of this experience:

The New York version of nostalgia is not simply about lost buildings or their presence in the youth of the individuals who lived with them. It involves an almost fatalistic acceptance of the permanent presence of loss. Nothing will ever stay the same . . . Irreversible change happens so often in New York that the experience affects character itself.

But we never make total peace with the destruction of architecture. As evidenced by the popularity of Web sites such as forgotten-ny.com and vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com, our anxiety has grown in recent years, as more and more of the city we know has been replaced with new construction. The elegiac posts on these sites indicate that the process of coming to terms with architectural loss occurs in stages: first shock that something beautiful could have been destroyed; then resignation; and, finally, determination to appreciate the treasures that remain. If, as Hamill suggests, we approach loss with a fatalistic perspective, it is because we understand the irreversibility of destruction. Once a building is gone, it is gone forever.

I'm in a time zone

I also posted this at a new site that I'm part of: The New York Nobody Sings.