Avenue A, 4:15 a.m., May 23

The mysterious block of concrete at Second Street is now even seemingly more mysterious... Remember, if you see a large block of concrete, say something...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Here's your mystery block of concrete

Neither More Nor Less, June 2006-May 2010

Out of habit this morning, first thing, I went to look at Neither More Nor Less. I wanted to see what happened, if anything, last night. Because I knew that Bob Arihood would have the story. And the photos.

As you likely know, Bob decided to retire the site this past week. I'm not sure what else to say other than that I'll really miss his work... the neighborhood is better off with his reporting, because no one else does what he did....he captured the absurd, the ugly, the every day that makes the East Village unique....

The Times featured Bob's retirement ...

His style of reporting was of the old-fashioned shoe-leather sort and his main subjects were the itinerant travelers, street drinkers, punks, poets and sidewalk sleepers that once proliferated in the East Village but these days make up a vanishing tribe.

L.E.S. Jewels, Cowboy Stan, Drunkenstein, Bobby Apocalypse, Swami, the Groper, Outlaw, Loan Shark Bob, Barnacle Bill and the Mosaic Man, among others, all appeared in Mr. Arihood’s blog. Some of those subjects are now dead. Others are in jail. A few have survived and moved on.

[Photo of Avenue A and St. Mark's Place from Memorial Day 1991 by Bob Arihood via The Times]

Death becomes him

Hey now. Just catching up with the Times of New York from the other day... The newspaper reviews Shepard Fairey's Deitch Projects show. And what does the reviewer think?

"On the walls of an art gallery, his efforts look like death warmed over."

Avenue A, 9:18 p.m., May 22

Smurfs cast getting more annoying by the day

Stuyvesant Grocery's three signs

I was going through the photos that I didn't use from the last few months, and I came across this one...



I took this about four or five weeks ago... I liked seeing all three Stuyvesant Grocery signs... Jill captured a better shot of it back in March...

On this topic... in case you haven't read it yet... Eryn Loeb writes about Stuyvesant Grocery here at The Faster Times.

Here's your mystery block of concrete

Earlier today, EV Grieve reader Carl Bentsen mentioned a mysterious block of concrete that, uh, mysteriously appeared on Second Street and Avenue A... and he has now sent along a photo....



Any guesses?

Walk this way

From the inbox today: a giant square block of concrete on Avenue A; woman in bathrobe handcuffed on Houston

Do you have any idea why there is a giant square block of concrete sitting at Ave A and 2nd Street?


-------


Any word on what happened on Houston between A and 1st this morning around 830? I was walking to Essex st station and as I crossed Houston there were six cop cars on either side of the median. There was a woman who appeared to be handcuffed in a bathrobe, a loose dog, and dozens of onlookers. I figured it must be a big deal as cops were driving west on the east-bound side of Houston, which I rarely see.


Anyone?

And, as always, thank you for the tips, questions, etc.!

That "Lewd Loud Sound" for the Cooper Square Hotel

With the nice weather last night, apparently some Cooper Square Hotel guests got a little raucous.

Which, perhaps, inspired one of the greatest e-mails ever:

Lewd Loud Sound From [XXX] E 5th Street for balcony users at Cooper Square Hotel. Thought you'd be interested.

Yes I am!

For more reading:
Back to the Backside (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

The last days of Superdive?

A reader passed by Superdive last night... and it was open. Unusual, seeing as the signs out front say the bar is only open Friday and Saturday nights. Per the reader: "They had kind of a raucous crowd in there. Reminded me of a frat house enjoying its last days before shutdown."

And the best part? There was an ambulance out front. The reader said it had nothing to do with Superdive. But! "It made for a funny shot."



Hmm... Or maybe Superdive management hired the ambulance to park out front... to make it look extra chaotic! Kind of like the Chiefs did in "Slap Shot."

Wish you were here

Outside the Pickle Bar sign at Whole Foods on Houston and the Bowery.

But there is a 25-cent cover charge

A woman walks into Sophie's early one recent evening. She sits down and orders a drink. She pulls out her phone and calls a friend. "Do you want to come meet me? I'm in your neighborhood." But she doesn't know where she is exactly. She goes outside to find the name of the bar. "Sophie's" doesn't appear anywhere out front. The women studies all the signs in the window for a moment and comes back in.



She continues the conversation with her friend. "I'm at a place called Public Telephone."

Fifth Street and Avenue D for $918 a square foot

The other day we featured a countryish home on East Fifth Street... if that was a little too "Green Acres" for you, then consider this new listing on the market further to the east... all the way to Avenue D....

According to Corcoran:

The East Village with soaring 18 foot ceilings and monthly carrying cost below $600 (including real estate taxes). This two bedroom features four oversized southern facing windows with unobstructed open views to allow maximum sunlight all day long. The apartment features stainless steel appliances, including a Viking range there is also a dishwasher and washer dryer.

There are hardwood floors throughout the loft that compliment the marble counter tops and marble baths. The traditional stairs, including cast iron railings help to add unique features to this open layout. The addition of plenty of closest means storage is not a problem. All of these wonderful details are just three short flights up.

The building features a 421-a tax abatement. In addition to the tax abatement, there is a common roof deck only one flight up from this apartment. The building also features bike storage and close proximity to transportation. Get all the pluses of new construction without the additional closing costs.

(Um, that listing came written this way.)

So! Let's see what they mean by all that...







And it's $725,000 for 790 square feet ... for those of you into this kind of thing, that's $918 per square foot... which seems like a lot for a space adjacent to a 3.84 acre city housing project.

Icy, Icy Baby

As The Feed noted the other day, NYC Icy is making a return to the East Village ... after Avenue B between Second and Third Streets a few years back.... team Icy is opening up a temp space on Avenue A next to Black Market.... and, as this photo by EV Grieve reader Steven Matthews shows... NYC Icy opened yesterday...



And they have a chocolate-bacon flavor. Urp.

"Sex and the City 2" ads make empty building look better empty

At 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue a few months ago... when the dread first began (again)...











Now at the same spot ... much better...

Noted

Somewhere on St. Mark's Place... I think... I get mixed up with the 4,987 SATCII ads around...

Noted

An EV Grieve reader shared this with me the other day... it's a writeup on Avenue A's newest full liquor license...:

Take a date for upscale Mexican at Avenue A's dark and sultry Diablo Royale Este.

You'll feel like you've entered a Robert Rodriguez flick stocked with skinny girls in skinnier heels instead of vampires.

Blue vs. White on Avenue A

EV Grieve reader Shawn Chittle passed along this link earlier today... he has a good vantage point to see the dueling productions of "The Smurfs Movie" and "White Collar" ....

Smurfs, White Collar filming on Avenue A Alphabet City Lower East Side Manhattan from Shawn Chittle on Vimeo.

Avenue A by the numbers

While walking north on Avenue A starting at Houston, I counted the number of storefronts. I decided to break the storefronts down into five categories:

1) Restaurants/pizza places/coffee shops (including places that serve alcohol, but where food is usually thought of first)

2) Bars

3) Mom-and-pop shops (questionable usage of that term, for sure, but I'm couting these as dry cleaners, bodegas, liquor stores, tattoo shops, laundromats, psychic readers, etc.)

4) Empty storefronts

5) Regular old businesses (Key Food, Citibank, the more higher-end speciality shops)

And here's what I counted (numbers could be off by one or two...I got distracted a few times...but they're pretty accurate):

Mom-and-pop shops: 39
Bars: 31
Restaurants/pizza shops/coffee shops: 28
Empty storefronts: 18
Businesses: 16

Now, you can quibble with these categories and numbers. For instance, would you consider Sidewalk a bar or restaurant? Or both? I put it in the restaurant category. Ditto for Yerba Buena on Seventh and A. And many of the restaurants also serve at least beer or wine. I'm not sure about a few places, like Ost Cafe on 12th and A.

So, there are plenty of places to get a drink on Avenue A... and there would have at least been one more addition if El Camion had been approved Monday at the CB3/LA meeting.

And for some reason I took photos of 16 places that serve beer or wine above 10th Street on Avenue A ... several of which I like. (I wanted to be clear that this wasn't some sort of condemnation of bars.)

I included the empty space that El Camion wanted at 12th and A... plus the fish market/restaurant that will be opening some time next to Hi-Fi.














Anyway, if my shoddy math skills are working... Of the 132 storefronts on Avenue A:

30% are mom-and-pop shops
23% are bars
21% are restaurants/cafes/pizza shops
14% are empty
12% are businesses

Previously on EV Grieve:
There are 21 empty storefronts along Avenue A

Food OK now at the former Amato Opera

Not much has happened of late at the former Amato Opera, the historic opera house that closed last May after a 61-year run. As Curbed noted, the building sold for $3.7 million.

I had hope for this space after The Real Deal reported in January 2009 that the building's new owner wants another theater to occupy the ground floor.

Perhaps the building's owner changed his mind. Big "store for rent" signs are now up...



... and, as you can see, food is also OK here now ...


\

In more disturbing news, someone removed the commemorative plaque that was placed above the doorway last June.



This isn't a good sign.

As for rent, the address hasn't been listed yet at 9300 Realty.

For further reading:
Amato Opera (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Quick withdraw: HSBC name-change shocker!

As I exclusively reported with an exclusive back on April 27, the new HSBC branch at Second Avenue and Ninth Street showed off its new name... (and helpful warning that guns aren't allowed inside!)



The Stuyvesant Branch.

But now! The branch has changed its name!



Does this mean that the Stuyvesant HSBC branch on First Avenue just past 14th Street has been saved? Or did someone simply make a mistake? Or did millions in focus groups and rebranding just get tossed?

Maybe I should ask Mr. H.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Stuy Town neighbors rallying to save a bank branch