Breaking: Fire getting under control at 14th Street and Avenue A

Per Sergey on the scene: "I think it's going to be over soon. There is less black smoke coming out."

Breaking: Firefighters battling to keep fire under control at 14th Street and Avenue A

More up-to-the-minutes photos from Sergey.

Breaking: Fire on 14th Street and Avenue A

Many thanks to EV Grieve reader Sergey for these on-the-scene photos of a fire that appears to have started near Stuyvesant Market on Avenue A and 14th Street. More to come.

Butta late than never: Avenue C coffee shop finally opens

After a long saga ... including past due rent and a seizure... EV Grieve reader DianeB sends along the photo with word that Bread and Butta on Avenue C near 11th Street is finally opening this morning...



P.S.
With apologies to BaHa for that headline.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Bread and Butta is hiring

Community center and supportive housing coming to East Ninth Street

During the CB3 Zoning Committee meeting Monday night, board members received an update on the community center and supportive housing that's coming to 710 E. Ninth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D... to the Henry Street Settlement Day Care #3 building...



The project includes a community facility space on the ground floor and in the basement... the upper levels will house 46 units (28 studios and 12 one-bedroom apartments). According to the community presenters, the housing will serve homeless young adults and young adults aging out of the foster care system. An additional 12 units will be set aside for young single adults with a child.

The project is a joint venture among Phipps Houses ... University Settlement/The Door ... and Loisaida, Inc. SLCE Architects created the plans...

No word yet on a start date for renovation of the building, which was erected in 1876. Currently across the street, work continues on the Dona Petra Santiago Apartments. Plans call for an eight-story, 57-unit facility for seniors.

"All uses considered" at former Graceland

Thanks to EV Grieve reader BaHa for these photos from yesterday afternoon outside the former Graceland on Avenue A and Second Street... workers removed all of the former Graceland canopy...




and new "for rent" signs are up...



Workers told Graceland regulars before closing that another grocery was taking the place here... that doesn't necessarily appear to be the case... here's the listing... it's going for $115 a square foot... anyone have high hopes that something good for the neighborhood will take this place...?



Yeah, me neither.

Your chance to "escape from the world" on East 12th Street

Over here at 407 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, there's a new listing for a condo penthouse for the terrace lover in you. (And you.) Sure, I could talk it up, but let's have the listing do that...

CONDO PENTHOUSE WITH 2 TERRACES
This very special triplex home with 2 private terraces includes a large planted roof terrace and is an oasis in the heart of the East Village. Enter into a large living room/dining room combination with a modern galley kitchen and a powder room. A dramatic staircase with double height ceilings leads you to the second floor Master that contains a separate sitting room, private bath and the first terrace. Continue on to the third level to the second bedroom with an additional loft suitable for storage or sleeping, and another full bath. From here you can enter your very private roof deck with electricity and water, a wonderful space for entertaining or as an escape from the world. The apartment has a north/west exposure with wonderful light and skyline views and a top of the line full size washer and dryer.

And here it is...







Two terraces equals two raging keggers at a time! But the price is a little more on the champagne side: $1.299 million.

NYU's "secondary displacement" effect on the East Village

Patrick Hedlund at DNAinfo also covered Monday night's CB3 Zoning Committee meeting in which NYU present their Invasion Expansion 2031 plan...

These points from the meeting are worth noting from his coverage:

The number of students living in the East Village, whether in NYU dormitories or rental apartments, has proved to be the most contentious aspect of the college's increased presence in the neighborhood.

Furthermore, committee members explained, the waves of upperclassmen that often choose to rent apartments in the East Village lead to the "secondary displacement" of longtime area tenants.

Previously on EV Grieve:
NYU's expansion plan for the East Village

Lights on for the new B&H sign

The other day, we noticed workers tinkering around with the new B&H sign on Second Avenue...



...turns out they were just installing new lights on the sign...



And the green is growing on me (so to speak).

Previously on EV Grieve:
An unscientific survey! What you had to say about the B&H sign

Previously.

4,000

The number of new luxury condos sitting vacant in the city (Crain's)

A fence comes down on East 10th Street, raising questions...

EV Grieve reader cyclosity sent along the following photo from 10th Street just east of Avenue B... where workers are on the scene, having just removed the fence here... As we can remember, this fence has been up around this space/community garden across from the former PS 64 for the past four or five years...



Anyone know what's in store for this space?

The Bowery's last gasp fairly audible

I've been waiting to write the obituary for the White House (or Whitehouse to some), the last of the neighborhood's SROs at 338 Bowery. There's a long history at this four-story building erected in 1916 that's now serving as a hostel as well as a permanent home for a handful of low-income residents... The building’s owner, Metro Sixteen, is affiliated with the hotel developer Sam Chang. Their plans: demolish the White House and replace it with a nine-story hotel.

And this item at Curbed today makes me think the end will be here sooner rather than later:

A Curbed tipster notes, housing court hearings for remaining residents — many of whom are in pretty rough shape — are something of a regular occurrence.

Previously on EV Grieve:
White House blues

[Photo via Curbed]

NYU's expansion plan for the East Village

The NYU 2031 Expansion Plan World Tour made a stop last night at CB3's Zoning Committee meeting.

NYU Vice President for Government Relations and Community Engagement Alicia D. Hurley provided a rundown of the school's ambitious plans, which, of course, includes building up their Washington Square Park core area... harvesting Governors Island... and trading the College of Dentistry on First Avenue to New Jersey for two future fifth-round draft choices. (OK, kidding on the last one you know.)

Fine, fine... we've read this before... But what about the East Village?

Before going any further, I actually thought a few protesters might show up... like at NYU's first Open House on April 14. Nope, it was all civil... No pitchforks, no agitated NIMBYs...no one really. GVHSP Executive Director Andrew Berman was there and repeated his concerns about the whole expansion, particularly in the core area.

Hurley gave her presentation, as she has been doing a lot lately around town ... and the Zoning Committee asked a few questions. A few people in the small audience of 30 or so asked some questions. From a Board member: "There's still a blank page when it comes to this part of town."

Earlier, Hurley had said: "A lot of our growth won't be taking place in this area."

And, she admitted, "We understand that we have over saturated that Third Avenue corridor."

As NYU has already stated, the school wants to expand by 6 million square feet... roughly 3 million square feet will be taken up in downtown Brooklyn and Governors Island, as previously reported... and another 1.5 million to 2 million square feet or so will come from their Washington Square Park core area (the so-called superblocks...).

And NYU bought the Forbes Building on Fifth Avenue and 730 Broadway, the former (Nobody Beats) the Wiz store...those spaces provide the school with another 300,000 square feet... so still 700,000-plus square feet to go...somewhere in the larger neighborhood that Hurley showed as being between Canal and 18th Streets to the south and north... and Eighth Avenue and First Avenue to the west and east... As The Villager noted last week, "exactly where these locations would be is currently unknown, and would depend on what real estate becomes available."

With the new expansion plans, a board member asked if they'd be a need for NYU to come east of Third Avenue; another member said east of First Avenue... Hurley responded by shrugging her shoulders. She finally allowed, "We'll always be open to opportunities."

She said this meeting was about hearing from the board. This was all about having an open-minded conversation, that the board just couldn't "say no to NYU." Period. Does that mean no dorms? No administrative offices? What is the EV community willing to allow, if anything? She thought this approach worked better than NYU showing up with, say, four sites already in mind to use for expansion in the East Village.



Hurley also said that the NYU student growth rate was slowing considerably, to about .5 percent a year...which means about 3,000 more NYU students in the next 25 years.

And there were more numbers and what-ifs... She discussed the scale of dorm sites: 300 students were a minimum for a dorm, and that 175,000 square feet was necessary to accommodate that amount (roughly the size of the 12th Street dorm) ... However, a dorm that tall is improbable now courtesy of the East Village/LES rezoning. Board member David McWater figured such a space would require six typical lots put together...

Board member Barden Prisant is the CB3 representative who sits on the city's task force on NYU development that Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer formed to help avoid the neighborhood anger stemming from past growth. He suggested that the board brainstorm some talking points to arm him with for future NYU-related meetings. He suggested showing a unified front on the issue... so it appeared he wasn't merely expressing his opinion, rather that of the entire board.

So far, the East Village has been spared of any public expansion talk. Still, as Save the Lower East Side! noted last month: "Scarier still is their silence on the East Village. Looking at the fantasies-afar, you know it's going to pop up here, but they don't give a clue as to where."

More to come...

[Second photo is from the April 14 Open House via the GVSHP site]

The Blue and Gold puts a sign up to help prevent future FREAK OUTS

We were all a little shaken yesterday with Fork in the Road's news that the Blue and Gold on Seventh Street was closed for gut renovations... thankfully the B&G management left a comment on the post saying they were merely putting in soundproofing in the ceiling...

And, while walking by last night, I spotted a helpful sign in the window...

Two signs coming down quickly on Avenue A

Yesterday, EV Grieve reader Ryan on Avenue A sent along some photos of workers removing the Graceland canopy/sign on Avenue A and Second Street......revealing the former tenant...



I went by later to catch a look at the sign...




Unfortunately, I was too late to see the sign on the Second Street side... workers had already ripped it off...




Previously on EV Grieve:
Graceland sign removal reveals previous tenant on Avenue A

Shepard Fairey in Someone to watch over me

I spotted someone cleaning up some graffiti late yesterday on Shephard Fairey's mural on Houston and the Bowery...




Meanwhile, over the weekend, an EV Grieve reader said that he or she went to the Williamsburg Hall of Music ... at the venue, there's a display of Shepard Fairey's work to coincide with his current show.

Per the reader: "Get this: the venue has a separate security guard watching over them to make sure no one fucks with them. It was bizarre."

And last night, EV Grieve reader E passed along another new addition to the mural:

Kathy's Jewelry is moving on First Avenue

A reader passed along word that Kathy's Jewelry was closing on First Avenue near 14th Street... Her shop sits next to the long-shuttered David's Bagels....



However, the store is merely moving down First Avenue a few storefronts... the Tats Cru-painted gate likely won't make the trip, though.



Previously on EV Grieve:
David's Bagel space becoming a Mexican restaurant

Dumpsters of the day

A daily double with a couch! On East 10th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

Why it's very possible that Pommes Frites got a new deep fryer

Because one of the old fryers was on the Second Avenue sidewalk out front last night.




Think this will make for a nice decorative planter?

Terror and relief in 60 minutes: The really bad then good news about the Blue and Gold

The EV Grieve inbox recently exploded with the news from Fork in the Road that the Blue and Gold Tavern on Seventh Street was going through a gut renovation.... yet another beloved spot RIP.... Noted a reader: "Makes you realize how precarious it all is, it can be snatched away in an instant, and you think, 'i should have gone there more often.'"

BUT! The B&G management chimed in on the Fork post:

The Blue and Gold is soundproofing the ceiling - and will reopen by Thursday - May 13. To do a proper soundproofing job the old ceiling needs to be removed. The rest of the bar is not being gutted. Heavy duty plastic is protecting the walls, bar and pool table.

Given the loss of the former Verchovyna Tavern aka George's Bar aka Bar 81 a few doors down... it's understandable that we're all a little touchy about this... By the way, "East Fifth Bliss" filmed scenes at the Blue and Gold the other week... In the novel, the lead character drinks at the Homestead (called the Homeplate) on First Avenue, which, of course, closed years back...so another bar had to stand in for the Homestead...



[Photo via the Voice]

Graceland sign removal reveals previous tenant on Avenue A

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Ryan on Avenue A for the following shots... Workers just removed the Graceland canopy/sign on Avenue A and Second Street...



...revealing the sign of the former tenant...




Previously on EV Grieve:
Graceland has closed

Appreciating Graceland's graffiti