Cost newsbox is missing

On Tuesday, I posted photos from EV Grieve reader AWKWORD showing new street art created by graffiti legend Cost... The box on Second Avenue near Houston was part of the recent Showpaper exhibit...




I went to take some photos of it this weekend... and the newsbox is gone...



Stolen? Or confiscated by the city?

For more on the boxes, check out the NYPress cover story this week.

Three makes it a trends post!

Thanks to Tim for the tweet and photo...



Gizmodo refers to it as "the caffeinated alcoholic poison drink."

The seasoning makes it taste better

Ninth Street and Avenue A.

Second Avenue, 9:42 a.m., Nov. 21

About those tanks on Seventh Street and Avenue A

Remember those tanks that I mentioned earlier today on Seventh Street and Avenue A....?

Well, as these photos by EV Grieve reader Bobby Williams show.... they attracted a lot of attention this afternoon from the NYPD and FDNY.....

Things left on the street

Seventh Street and Avenue A this morning. I always enjoy walking around in the morning, looking for odd things left behind on the street.

What do you call this?

A catwalk! Thank you very much — I'll be here all weekend!

Avenue B and Second Street.

Nala is missing

Chasing the Dragons

Dee Dee Ramone and the Chinese Dragons, circa 1992 or so....

City doesn't give a shit about these historic East Village townhouses

On Tuesday, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) and other groups... not to mention various politicos ... rallied to help save the historic townhouses at 326 and 328 E. Fourth St. The GVSHP doesn't have good news to report:

Unfortunately, as we gathered in front of the houses on Tuesday to make this last appeal to the city to consider landmark designation, the city was issuing permits to the developer to allow the houses' destruction, effectively foreclosing the possibility of landmark designation.

Former Señor Swanky's will soon be a new 'local'

And over at Bleecker and LaGuardia, the former Señor Swanky's is shaping up... As Eater noted, it will become a gastropub aimed at a more "mature" audience. And, given the sign, maybe for local mature audiences? In this neighborhood? Good luck! [Thanks to Goggla for the tip on this...I attended the CB2 meeting last summer when the owners here made their pitch...]

The back room at Otto's Shrunken Head reopens tonight

As you know, a fire severely damaged Otto's Shrunken Head on 14th Street on Oct. 24. While the front room reopened on Oct. 30 ... the back room needed a lot more attention. Otto's regular DJ Xerox passes along the good news that the back room reopens tonight with the Rebel Night Rockabilly dance party, and then the first bands take the stage tomorrow night.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Assessing the damage at Otto's Shrunken Head

Breaking: Early-morning fire at Otto's Shrunken Head

Bank robber looks familiar

Police have released the photo of a man they say robbed the Capitol One Bank at 21 University Place on Eighth Street, according to DNAinfo.



Despite the similarities in the photos, I suppose we can rule out one possible suspect....

A reader question

An EV Grieve reader sent this photo of an ad for the M15 Select Bus Service that just went up this week ... the reader wondered why the ad was in the N-Q-R stop on Broadway and 40th...

EV Lambo makes its national debut

[Thanks to @CaitlinDomke for the photo!]

This car needs a nickname

Several readers have noted the red Ferrari parked here on Avenue B near Tompkins Square Park earlier this week. What will EV Lambo have to say about this?

St. Brigid's in need of more divine intervention?

The renovation of St. Brigid’s is more extensive than expected, The Villager reports this week.

Lincoln Anderson reports that "a number of alarming rumors have been circulating in the neighborhood about the project, including that the $10 million restoration fund for the church has already been spent and that there is a significant cost overrun; that the church’s windows’ being removed in 2006 caused water damage that weakened the walls, requiring extra work to shore up the foundations; and that both the north and south walls need to be removed and totally rebuilt so that the eastern wall can be tied into a stable structure."

However, Joseph Zwilling, a spokesperson for the New York Catholic Archdiocese, said the rumors are untrue. He also denied that the church is seeking more donations to complete the renovations.

In addition, Zwilling didn't offer an anticipated completion date for the church.

Last summer, Edwin Torres, chairman of the Committee to Save St. Brigid's, told me the work was expected to be wrapped up in the summer of 2011. Looking at the church today, that time line doesn't seem very likely.



Previous EV Grieve St. Brigid's coverage here.

Lights, cameras: Rolf's unleashes its annual holiday extravaganza

So the holiday lights at Rolf's on Third Avenue at 22nd Street seem to be up a little bit earlier than usual...





Not sure what else to say on the matter. As EV Grieve wrote in November 2008:

It gets horribly crowded at Rolf's during the holidays, of course...Just grab a seat at the bar (if you can during off-peak hours)...the food is too heavy for my tastes (hmmm, suckling pig), unless I'm trying to spike the LDL level in my bloodstream. In any event, if Rolf's is mobbed, Paddy Macguire's down the street — between 19th and 20th — is a decent alternative for drinks during the holidays. They have some lights as well — and a much smaller carbon footprint.

Good advice!

Previously on EV Grieve):
'Tis the season for keeping ConEd in business: The holiday lights are up at Rolf's

Gramercy Park preps for Slurpees

And on the way home after visiting Rolf's...at Third Avenue and 20th Street...

A tweet from RCN

Yesterday, I sent out a tweet about the RCN-Chico post... and RCN responded ...



Previously on EV Grieve:
RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

Avenue C ATM deemed 'unauthorized'

The DOT has left notices here in front of 131 Avenue C between Eighth and Ninth Streets stating that this ATM is "encroaching onto the city sidewalk." The ATM sits between Babel, the hookah place, and Summit, the fancy drinks place. The letter is addressed to Babel's landlord...





I'm guessing this wasn't the only ATM cited... one of the other 47,891 ATMs near here likely encroach the city sidewalks as well...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Avenue ATM (aka, how many stupid ATMs does one block need?)

Scott Stringer: Enough with the ATMs!

About Superdive the other night

On Wednesday evening, we heard that Superdive, despite being closed and for sale, looked kinda open... We asked management for an explanation. "Sorry you missed Babydive, Momadive, and Papadive having our family dance party and contemplating the next move..."

Squirrel photo of the day

Courtesy of EV Grieve wildlife photographer Blue Glass outside the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.

Cooper 35 Asian Pub putting up a fight before being torn down

As I first reported two weeks ago, the building that houses the Cooper 35 Asian Pub is part of the recently signed development deal at Sixth Street and Cooper Square.

An employee at Cooper 35 confirms to Washington Square News that the bar will closed and be torn down in the coming months. The Bowery Alliance of Neighbors and Asian Pub are circulating petitions to landmark the building.

Jeremiah has a comprehensive history of 35 Cooper Square here.

(WSN link via BoweryBoogie)

RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

As Jeremiah reported on Monday, workers at the RCN Cable building on Avenue C and Sixth Street painted over the Obama-McCain election mural and others on the site last week....



Now...



Patrick Hedlund has a follow-up piece today at DNAinfo. He speaks with an anonymous RCN spokesperson who sounds a little huffy about Chico's mural, which graced the wall for two years.

"The bottom line is the building had illegal graffiti on it and we cleaned it up — period."

And!

But the RCN spokesman quickly dismissed the idea that Garcia might return to work on the wall.

"We're not interested in doing business with him again," he said.

Curious to see how long the building sits tag free.... this little doodle was quickly painted over....



Anyway, there were all sorts of Chico murals on this corner...



Are you telling me that RCN just figured out that there are murals here? (What about the illegal ads?) And it wasn't as if Chico just ran up here and tagged the wall in the middle of the night... this corner art took a long time to create... And this entire time RCN was unaware of the activity?

A side note, perhaps ... graffiti artist Jairo Pastoressa, accused of murdering Christopher Jusko, helped Chico create this mural ... His signature was in spray paint below Chico's name.


[Photo via DNAinfo]

Fake police set up real-looking command post on Astor Place

Look closely at this photo sent along by Bob Arihood. So the NYPD was camped out yesterday on Astor Place....or is it the Village Video News... ?



It's our understanding that if the NYPD sells old equipment, the new owner must remove all police markings. Also, this is a new truck. Now that the city is kinda broke, is the NYPD selling off some spare parts?

In any event, does this mean that I can toss the ticket I got for public urination from the guy at Village Video News?

Progress made in trash talk on East 12th Street

A group of residents on East 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue have had ongoing concerns about the trash piling up outside the buildings that house Ross Global Academy Charter School and East Side High School. With almost 800 kids, the school population between First and Avenue A is considerably larger than the three other schools on 12th Street and requires a greater number of trash pick-ups.

As one resident noted, the schools can dump on the sidewalk any time of the day or night while residents must comply with trash pick-up rules. "Every day we have to walk out of our building and look at bags of garbage and a running stream of sour chocolate milk in the gutter," one resident said. In addition, the fire hydrant on the south side of the street was often piled over with trash.








However, after a series of meetings with school officials, including the building engineer, as well as a flurry of e-mails and phone calls with Sanitation Department officials, there is progress to report. The residents are pleased to note a striking "culture change" in the past two weeks in the way that trash has been managed at the school facility.

In an e-mail, one neighbor noted "the initiative ... to establish an additional late Friday/early Saturday pick-up resulted in the elimination of a growing weekend trash heap which has caused tension between the school and the neighborhood. The constant, ever-heaping mountains of trash present not only an eyesore, but a a health hazard to the community, especially with bedbug outbreaks throughout the city."

On weekends, the sidewalks were trash free... and the fire hydrant has also been painted...



Said a resident: "This is a good start ... we will continue to monitor and review the situation and I look forward to continued collaboration and cooperation."