From McDonald's to MoMa

Last summer, workers started painting over the McDonald's ad on First Avenue just past Second Street...though nothing else ever replaced the ad...



This weekend, a crew started on the space for MoMa...





...for a new ad for a Marina Abramović exhibit starting this weekend...

Cheep's is cheap, but what else?

As we noted Friday afternoon (thanks to a photo from a reader), signs went up Cheep's, which took over the former Snacklicious Cinderella at Second Avenue near St. Mark's Place... By Friday evening, the place was open for business... With an open-air entryway, it seems pretty inviting...




But how is the food? EV Grieve reader Alessandra provided these thoughts Friday night:

Ate there this evening they had only been open for about 5 hrs and they were still trying to get it together. Other than that the prices were great but the Shawarma was at best average. I would probably wait another couple of weeks to venture back and give them a second try and maybe the vertical roaster will be better seasoned and all will be better!

Another First Street shop shutters

Mirari, a costum-made jewelery shop at 70 E. First St. near First Avenue is going out of business...



...joining Alpana Bawa next door in closing...

Chabela's closes on Avenue B

Last spring, Chabela's opened at 40 Avenue B between Third Street and Fourth Street... Now it appears to be closed. Yesterday, workers were removing fixtures from the Dominican eatery...



Before Chabela's, the address was home to Russo's, a pizzaria. What next?

Bank branch grows plywood

The new HSBC branch at Ninth Street and Second Avenue is taking shape...now with plywood.



Jeez, almost makes us miss Max Brenner...

[Top photo via Jeremiah's Vanishing NY]

Kids in Action in Tompkins Square Park

The following photos displayed here in Tompkins Square Park today were taken during March-May 2009 by children who live in Chunchi, the Andean town in Ecuador...








Learn more about the project here.

Ninth Street, 5:38 p.m., March 7

I'll be back again some day

Despite the warmish temperatures, a little bit of the Tompkins Square Park Igloo remains today...

Danny Meyer's future in politics

At the Post, Jennifer Gould Keil conducts a Q-and-A with restaurateur Danny Meyer... Blah, blah, blah... and he doesn't really answer this question ... that I'd love to honestly hear him answer...

Q: What happened in Nolita? You were going to build a Shake Shack in a parking lot and backed off when some neighbors complained. Why?

A: One of the good things about the experience is that there will not be an unlimited number of Shake Shacks in New York and life is too short. That's the bottom line. We are going to open our first Shake Shack in Miami in late spring, before it gets too hot. And there will be others opening on the Upper East Side and in the theater district soon. There's also one in Central Park, at the Delacorte Theater.

So life is too short is what happened? Or maybe it had something to do with this resident...

Avenue A, 10:34 a.m., March 6

Ray's in the Times

At the Times, Jim Dwyer checks in on the situation at Ray's. He talked with Bob Arihood... He also spoke with Arianna Gil, who helped organize the Saturday night delivery service. (Speaking of which, it's Saturday. If you need something delivered... 718-473-9636)

The headline: Not Your Banks’ Bailouts: Stores Too Loved to Fail

Anyway, here's a passage:

One recent blustery night, Maria Musial stood behind the counter at Ray’s, where she has worked since arriving from Elk, Poland, in the early 1980s.

“When I came, he was nearly the only store on the block,” Ms. Musial said. “The squat people was here. Now it’s young customers, new people.”

A friend, Bozenna, chimed in.

“They don’t like egg creams,” Bozenna said.

Read the whole article here.

[Photo by Michael Sean Edwards.]

Hello Europe!

Sonic Youth 1983, as the YouTube title says...

Cheep's eats for Second Avenue

Thanks to the EV Grieve tipster for passing along this signage shot of Cheep's, which is going in at the former Snacklicious Cinderella, Second Avenue near St. Mark's Place...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Fairytale new beginning for Snacklicious Cinderella?

A little while ago on lower Broadway

And the Daily News has a story on this today. Courtesy of the Local 78.

This is not a test: Cooper Union in imminent danger of "projectile vomiting"

A friendly tipster passed along the following from a Cooper Union student, who — wisely at first — thought the e-mail below was a hoax given all the upheaval there of late. But it is not.

From: bulkmail@cooper.edu
Date: March 3, 2010 2:37:35 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: A nasty stomach virus at Cooper

Cooper has been hit by a 48 hour stomach virus, characterized by projectile vomiting and high temperatures.
Wash your hands frequently with soap and water. This is the single most effective preventive step you can take.
Go back to using the Purell dispensers.
Try not to touch your eyes, nose, or mouth.
Avoid large gatherings.
If you get the virus, stay home! Drink lots of fluids.

Alan Wolf
Campus-wide Safety Coordinator


Our friends at EV Heave have been notified. He or she has made the necessary preparations for the weekend, and is already on the scene. See for yourself.

Benefit for Ray's: "I am thrilled to be part of this moment in our community of the East Village"

As a reminder... Bob Arihood and Slum Goddess have already made mentions of this....

Benefit for Ray's Candy Store
Monday, March 8
7:30 p.m. - 11 p.m.
Theater For The New City, 155 First Ave.
Between 9th and 10th streets.
Suggested donation of $15 — sliding scale from $5 to $15

Here's the official information from Facebook:

It promises to be a wonderful evening of giving love to a neighbor in need. Ray himself will be there with us! and some of our East Village activists. This will be an event from our beloved neighborhood to Ray, a men who has work hard and long and have give back, support, smiles, someone who has protect many of us! today we can give back to him and celebrate the spirit that still lives among us! the spirit that mayor Bloomberg and his politics want to finish, to eradicate ... We will fight against it! Lets get united to celebrate the very beautiful Ray!!! Lets have him for many more years! He'll be our strongest representation... right here in the heart of our little Villlage. please assist, collaborate, The whole East village will be there! So fun...

Show Schedule

7:30 — D.J. DiDi of the Brazilian Girls

7:45 — Ms. Marilyn singing her smash hit "My Man Ray!

8:00 — Rev. Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir

8:20 — Janine Otis

8:35 — Joff Wilson of the Bowery Boys

8:50 — Marni Rice

9:05 — Blind Boy Paxtion

9:20 set up

9:30 — East River String Band

9:55 set up

10:00 — The Bill Murray Experience

10:30 — D.J. Didi

11pm End of show!!

Francisco Valera is helping organize Monday's benefit... I asked him for his story.

Hello this is Francisco Valera. I am a former member of the Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir. I've lived in the East Village for the past 17 years, upstairs from Ray's Candy Store. Ray is a great friend and over the years I have come to love him as family. Ray and I share the same Landlord. I have been aware of his situation for a while now and we talk about it, as myself, up until a week or two ago was very late with my own rent, due to lack of work in the middle of such difficult times... does it sound familiar? I hear it all the time, from some many different kinds of people... Ray just became 77 years old recently, we had a very cute party in there, and he has been working at the little store for almost four decades, since i was a baby!


He is truly a sweet, sincere, funny, workaholic, knowledgeable, humble gentleman, a totally honorable man! He is an Icon, although nowadays that term is use so commonly... when it comes to Ray, it gains all its original meaning...

I am thrilled to be part of this moment in our community of the East Village a legendary one, with such an amazing Human Being Ray Alvarez, It can't get any better!

Meanwhile, Bob Arihood has the latest news on Ray's at Neither More Nor Less.

According to Nino's, we're still in a recession

Indeed we are. Still, as this newish sign says, pizza deals abound at Nino's on Avenue A at St. Mark's.



Meanwhile, after another slice of the artichoke pizza at Nino's...



By far a better slice than my last trip to Artichoke Basille's around the corner on 14th Street....(OK, only been there twice. Tried a few other times. I dislike the line...and a few of the people standing in it...)

Previously on EV Grieve:
Nino's vs. Artichoke

Lucy's will be back open on March 11

On Avenue A, Lucy is on a break... and I didn't realize this until I showed up for a drink...

Old laundromat becoming new laundromat

The long-dormant East Village Launderette on Avenue B near 10th Street is becoming another laundromat, or maybe a Launderette. A little competition again for Spin City.

Blast from the past

Speaking of Spin City... For some reason I never noticed this on the gate at Spin City on Avenue B at 11th Street....

Dreaming of opening your own teeth bleaching salon? Or gelato store?

Bond New York has a listing for an Internet cafe on 14th Street near Second Avenue. The 800-square-foot space holds many possibilities...

Prime retail space in high foot traffic location near Union Square. Currently occupied by an internet cafe. $150,000 buys out current tenants below market lease thru Sep 2016. This space is perfect for a gelato store, teeth bleaching salon, nail salon, jewelry store, small boutique or convenience store. Space has venting for a food business.

OK, what's the story with all the helicopters....

Been buzzing around for an hour...

Beer and loathing: Superdive eyes Las Vegas expansion

Eater has the first word...Aside from expansion news to Las Vegas (glitter gulp!) and a second NYC location, Eater notes:

"Also on their agenda, a 'SUPER backyard,' 'SUPER Frozen Drinks,' and 'SUPERNESIAN Bowl Drinks.'"

File under "urban legends."

A Building going to the dogs (and cats)

This tweet from Winick Realty just caught our attention: Winick Leases Retail Space at Upscale East Village Condo

Oh yeah? Finally!

According the subsequent (from Feb. 10!) link:

Winick’s Lori Shabtai and Michael Gleicher has brought Petopia, the dog boutique and pet store, to a 1,400 s/f retail store at the base of 420 East 14 Street, the newly-constructed luxury condominium located between First Avenue and Avenue A.

Good thing the A Building is pet friendly....

Previously on EV Grieve:
A Building retail space still on the market

East Villagers face busageddon

As you know, the MTA is like $400 quintillion over budget. And to shore up those budget gaps, the MTA will threaten propose to cut pretty much everything. Tonight at 6 you'll have the chance to let the MTA hear it during a meeting at the Fashion Institute of Technology (Seventh Avenue and 27th Street).

The Lo-Down made note of how these cuts will have an impact on everyone who depends on a bus in the East Village/Lower East Side ... CB3 passed a resolution last week strongly opposing these cuts. Specifically, here's how you might be left stranded, as reported by the Lo-Down:

-- The elimination of weekend and overnight service on the M22, a critical link into Chinatown.
-- The elimination of weekend and overnight service on the M8, which travels to and from the East Village and West Village.
-- The elimination of bus service on Avenue B by rerouting the M9 along Avenue C. Service from the LES to the World Financial Center would also be eliminated by rerouting the M9 beyond Chatham Square, terminating at City Hall.
-- The elimination of weekend service and the reduction of overnight service on the M21 (crosstown bus between Bellevue Hospital & the West Village).
-- The reduction of service on the M103 (to City Hall).

So that pretty much leaves... not much in the way of buses. Meanwhile, no word on any service disruption on the Rusty Knot Party Bus.

Which may explain why all those people on Flight 375 from Orlando were at the Mars Bar

A friend passed along an issue of Go, the AirTran in-flight magazine... Aside from being a pretty snazzy airline publication... its Go Guides in the back of the magazine included a listing for the Mars Bar...



And, rather randomly, the other NYC bars to make the Go Guide: Pegu Club, Terroir, Louis 649 and Pacha.

So, what's left of the city's "gritty past" has become something for tourists (or visitors!) to gawk at?

East Village condo sales stat of the day

According to BlockShopper.com, there have been 51 condo sales in the East Village in the past 12 months, with a median sales price of $875,000.

And at Streeteasy, there are currently 183 active sales listings, with a median price of $995,000.

Hecho en Dumbo opens Friday on the Bowery

As the Hecho en Dumbo Web site shows...



The former Dumbo hotspot is opening Friday at the site of the former Marion's Continental... Last evening, crews were prepping the space...





...and possibly tossing anything ever leftover from Marion's...



Previously on EV Grieve:
What's coming to the former Marion's Continental space on the Bowery

Michael Sean Edwards, Take Two

Three weeks ago we featured East Village photos that Michael Sean Edwards took from 1978-1985... His work has been very well received...

In a post on Flavorwire yesterday, Edwards provided a narrative to some of his photos (such as the ones below!)...He also gave insight into the technical side of his camera work...

"The film I used was Ektachrome Type B, which is balanced for artificial light, not daylight. I used an 85B filter to correct the color balance. It was a common thing in movie shooting in those days and I was a film editor for a living and had learned most of what I knew in film production."




Go here to see the Flavorwire gallery.

More on the NYU-NYT hyperlocal union

As you may have heard, NYU and The New York Times are teaming up to create a hyperlocal neighborhood news site called The Local: East Village (LEV).

Seth Lewis at Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab interviewed LEV mastermind Jay Rosen for a Q-and-A posted on Monday. Here's an excerpt: (Warning! It's pretty journalismish...)

So, are you suggesting that journalism schools could do well to focus on small, incremental steps toward local media partnerships? I mean, if I’m a journalism school director and I like what I see from this partnership, what’s the first step? What should I do?

This project began when I noticed what the Times was doing with The Local, and thought I glimpsed a need to experiment and learn. I mean, that was the logic of what they were doing. So, the first step is to get inside the head of the potential collaborator and start with a need or interest they have. The next step was to look at what we are doing at NYU and where we wanted to go with our program, and figure out where the two circles overlapped.

So, my Studio 20 concentration wants to work on innovation puzzles that matter in journalism in the broadest sense, but to do that through projects that can be completed in a semester. The Carter Institute at NYU teaches local reporting and needs a better way to do that. Put those things together and you get a version of The Local that Studio 20 can incubate, that the Reporting New York concentration at NYU can “own,” and that the Times can benefit from as a learning lab — and the community can gain from because it serves the East Village well. So it’s really four or five overlapping circles, because this is a community that NYU, the university at large, has a big stake in; it’s a big land owner and expects to own more land here.
Once I had the idea — East Village! The Local! — I just looked for ways to multiply the overlapping circles.

Oh, and one more thing: I tried to listen well to what the Times needed from such a project and understand it from their perspective as well as I did from ours.

Also, from here on out, perhaps we can shorten NYU-NYT to, say, NYUT.

Image via.