EV Grieve

Monday, November 2, 2009

Broadway cab crash leaves six injured

Just saw this on WCBS:

A pair of taxicabs collided in the East Village Sunday night, careening into a sidewalk scaffolding and leaving six people injured.

The two cabs crashed and, in the process, brought down the scaffolding, and were left under the mangled mess hours after the accident.

A witness tells CBS 2 that one of the cabs tried to overtake the other before the two collided and careened across Broadway at the corner of E. 8th Street, jumping the curb and coming to rest on the sidewalk under the scaffolding.

Gothamist has more photos. Looks like the Gap was taken out in the accident.

And this was the second crash involving cabs in the neighborhood yesterday.

Butcher Bay deep-sixed?

Yet another strange chapter in the short history of fish-shack eatery Butcher Bay, which opened back in February on Fifth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B... after the owners gutted the space from the short-lived Seymour Burton... there have been menu changes, new chefs and CB3 lawsuits...and now, the restaurant is closed...the windows are papered over...with the following note:

"...closed temporarily to write our memoirs..."

Village Green sheds the sidewalk shed

Some day soon, Village Green, the "eco-indulgent" new condo on 11th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue, will look like this...

...where residents enjoy "serenity in the city" while cars roar up the street at 100 mph...

...and we've been eagerly awaiting what this will really look like...

And now, the sidewalk sheds have been removed...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Village Green opening its houses this weekend

Le Souk has really closed

On Friday, we heard that troubled hookah hotspot Le Souk had, indeed, closed after losing its liquor license.

I was curious if that was permanent. This sign now greets potential Le Soukers.

I asked Stacie, a resident who has lived nearby for a lot longer than the eight years that Le Souk has been around, for her take:

Yep -- it's closed. No dining, no drinking, no dancing, no parties. No bouncers, no crowds, no fights. No honking, no puking, no throbbing (music), no nothing.

With Le Souk's departure and the closure of Layaly, only one Hookah bar, the Horus Cafe, remains along the Avenue B corridor...

Habib's Place abruptly closes

Habib's Place on Avenue A near Sixth Street has abruptly closed. Really closed. (And you can now see the name of one of the former occupants...)

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Creature for the tip and photo. According to Creature: "I swear this was a fully functioning restaurant [Saturday]. I caught a look inside, before the gate was closed, and the place was gutted. Including the name blacked out."

This was Habib's third location in the East Village since 1992.

New Cooper Union building gets its first (temporary) storefront tenant

That retail space for rent in the new Cooper Union building is now occupied...

It's serving as the information center for Performa 09, which runs through Nov. 22

Absinthe absent on First Avenue (and Elvie's now for lease)

Jeremiah has written about the ongoing noise problems at Absinthe wine bar at 111 First Ave. near Seventh Street. It opened last December.

Anyway, I'm not certain when the place closed or changed concepts or names or whatever, but a new canopy is up at the address...

Meanwhile, up First Avenue near 12th Street...We noted a few weeks ago that Elvie's Turo-Turo, the Philippine eatery, was seized by the marshals...the "for lease" signs went up last week.

Squat the condos

Looking for delivery bikes outside the Moonstruck Diner

On Friday, some fliers appeared calling for a boycott of the Moonstruck Diner on Second Avenue and Fifth Street...

According to the signs, a blind man cut his hand on one of the diner's "7-9 commercial bikes that are always blocking the East 5th Street sidewalk." And the Moonstruck Diner "refuses to move those obstacles."

I walked by the Moonstruck several times over the weekend to see how many bikes were around... or if the owners responded...

Here's what I saw...an abandoned ATM...and a few bikes...not 7-9, though, at least when I was around.

And there weren't any bikes around Saturday morning.

Mini Bar getting ready to open on Seventh Street (just a block away from Big Bar)

The new small plates-type place is coming along on Seventh Street near Avenue A...(will this cause confusion with Big Bar goers?)... Signs are up, with a "coming in November" notice.