This Saturday: The 9th Street Block Party

From the EV Grieve inbox...

Please join our 9th Street A-1 Block Association Block Party!

9th Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A
Saturday, September 17th, 11 am – 5 pm (no rain date)
Live Music (from noon - 4 pm) featuring:

• Cracked Latin – hybrid psychedelic latin salsa band
• Serena Jean Southam – country rock singer-songwriter
• Star '69 – Grateful Dead Tribute Band
• Primativa in Hi-Fi – (DJs) – Electrolounge, Bossa Nova, Nova Bossa and similarly sultry soundtracks
• Bird Love – Indie / Post Punk / Rock
with more bands to come!

Resident artists, crafts people, and photographers will be showing and selling their work, and residents will be selling a la "stoop sale" — antiques, bric-a-brac, clothing, accessories, music, jewelry, etc.

Raffles for gifts, discounts, or coupons from block businesses
Block businesses include:

• Autumn Skateboards, Bridal Veil Falls, Cloak & Dagger boutique, Dorian Grey Gallery, Dusty Buttons vintage boutique, Enchantments, Flower Power (herbs), M Sonii (boutique), Ollie's Place (cat adoption), Pink Olive (gifts), Polytima (jewelry), Pork Pie Hatterie, Puppy Love Kitty Kat (pet supplies), Tae with Jane (boutique), The Upper Rust (antiques)
• Restaurants: Dirt Candy, Good Beer, I Coppi, Itzocan, Kajitsu, Whitman's, Zucker Bakery
• Hair Salons/Barbers: Lovemore & Do, Maria Mok Salon, Neighborhood Barber, Ueno Salon

Last chance tomorrow for historic 135 Bowery

From the EV Grieve inbox via the East Village Community Coalition...

Dear neighbor,

135 Bowery, between Grand and Broome, needs your help. In June, this 1817 Federal-era rowhouse was designated an individual landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) but the future of the building is still uncertain. The next step in the process is tomorrow's City Council vote.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Call Councilmember Margaret Chin's office and tell her to support landmark designation. The community wants it and the City has deemed the building a landmark!

Councilmember Margaret Chin
212-587-3159

Please attend the hearing tomorrow, September 15, at 11 AM, 250 Broadway, Committee Room, 16th Floor. Be sure to bring valid ID.

If you're attending the meeting, please let me know. If you're unavailable, please pick up the phone and call Councilmember Chin's office right away.

Sincerely,

Kurt Cavanaugh
Managing Director
director.evccnyc@gmail.com

Read more background here ... and here...

East Fifth Street transformed into Bedford Avenue another era

Dave on 7th checks back in on the filming this afternoon of "Greetings From Tim Buckley" on East Fifth Street, where Sophie's is subbing for 1960s-era Night Owl Cafe

We'll now have the carcass of 51 Astor Place to enjoy a little longer

Developer Edward Minskoff told Real Estate Weekly that crews will demolish 51 Astor Place "by the end of the year." As we reported back on June 8, Minskoff's reps told residents that the actual demolition would start in mid-August. Should give them time to chop down any remaining trees.

Meanwhile, plans still call for the Fumihiko Maki-designed 430,000-square-foot Death Star here.

[Via Curbed]

Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village — the new Midtown?

51 Astor Place demolition begins July 1; 17 months to build new black-glass tower

What kind of neighbor will Cooper Union be after today?

As you likely know, the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop will meet today with Theresa C. Westcott, Cooper Union's Vice President of Finance, Adminstration, and Treasury, to negotiate a rent reduction, as Runnin' Scared noted on Monday. Co-owner Bob Contant is aiming for a $5,000/month reduction, but says the new administration has not been "particularly sympathetic." They have struggled to pay the market rate that Cooper Union set at $20,000.

There's plenty of commentary on the matter. Jeremiah Moss writes an Open Letter to Cooper Union today at Vanishing New York. He outlines how Cooper Union has helped usher in "a tsunami of hyper-gentrification," from the Bowery Bar to the glassy hell of 1 Astor Place to the destruction of 35 Cooper Square.

Per Jeremiah:

If St. Mark's Books is forced to close due to unyielding rent, whatever business moves into their space at 31 Third Avenue will be boycotted and protested by the thousands of people who read this blog and all the blogs connected to it. Nothing will thrive there--no bank, no cupcake shop, no kitten adoption center.

Meanwhile, Rob at Save the Lower East Side has more pointed commentary.

Peter Cooper himself was all about giving back to the community. Peter must have long ago tired of spinning in his grave over what has become of his life's dream, free higher education for the working class. How many ways can Cooper Union spell "betrayal"?

He goes on to wonder if the neighborhood even deserves the bookshop.

The NYU students have their own bookstore, filled with all the books they need and more than they can handle. As for the rest of the neighborhood, this place is a youth destination for children of means, not an intellectual or countercultural destination anymore. It's heart is commerce now, not anarchy. Freedom must be purchased, and it exacts many prices.

And you know about the petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop. It's here.

Meanwhile, there was a robust discussion on the topic on the last EVG post here.

[Photo via John Roca the Daily News. Read their article here.]

Night Owl Cafe lives again at Sophie's — but just for today

Crews are on East Fifth Street today to film scenes for "Greetings from Tim Buckley." ("Gossip Girl" star Penn Badgley is Jeff Buckley in this film.)

The Jeff Buckley-Tim Buckley biopic is using Sophie's as a backdrop (both inside and outside the bar). Dave on 7th was on the scene this morning...

Sophie's is subbing for the Greenwich Village 1960s mainstay Night Owl Cafe, where Tim Buckley played his first NYC gig in 1966 (and the Lovin' Spoonful came to fame). Read more about the club here. This address on West Third Street has been home to Bleecker Bob's since 1983.

...and a new rival for the Pee Phone?

Today's sign of the apocalypse: Starbucks taking over The Bean's space on First Avenue and Third Street

[This morning at The Bean]

Well, a lot to absorb here... so.

Jim Dwyer at The New York Times reports that Starbucks will be taking over The Bean's flagship cafe at First Avenue and Third Street.

Once more for effect: Starbucks will be taking over The Bean's flagship cafe at First Avenue and Third Street.

Dwyer puts it into really fucking depressing perspective for us:

The city sheds its skin every day; Mom & Pop are always getting the boot. Manhattan now has 186 Starbucks, which is eight per square mile. There are more Starbuckses than subway stations. You might think that 186 stores on one small island is the functional equivalent of everywhere, but it turns out not to be, in Starbuckian terms, enough: outlet No. 187 is opening Friday in Times Square, and sometime early next year, No. 188 — or so — will be hanging its shingle on Third Street, right down the block from the world headquarters of the Hell’s Angels

Well, The Bean is showing them. Ike Escava, a Bean partner, now plans to open a location on First Avenue at the southeast corner of Second Street, where that pizza/hookah place was. (Or was supposed to be.)

Meanwhile, as you know, The Bean will open new locations on Third Street and Second Avenue and Ninth Street and First Avenue... Despite the expansion, the Bean people originally said that they would keep their flagship store. However, they have been on a month-to-month lease, and the landlord gave them a 30-day notice to leave late in August, the Times noted.

Back to Dwyer's article:

Starbucks has a public relations firm in New York City that issues statements on behalf of the company, but does so anonymously, a peculiarly disembodied form of human communication.

Asked about the plans for Third Street, the company issued this statement: "In many of the markets that we have entered, we found that the local coffee culture is greatly enriched and invigorated by our arrival."

For the time being, though, there won't be any coffee on this corner after this month...

Is this a large random pile of coffee grinds ... or art?

That's the question passersby were asking yesterday here on First Avenue at Fourth Street... One person told our Bobby Williams that a man has been creating these coffee piles for awhile now...

Which might explain why the rats are up all night at Village View. (Sorry — too easy.)

[EVG flashback] These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr

Yesterday, Curbed noted that 64 Perry Street is now on the market... For worse, this 1866 West Village rowhouse serves as the stand-in for Carrie Bradshaw's home on "Sex and the City." This item reminded me that! For some reason, I left the neighborhood to do this post, which first appeared on June 2, 2008...

Part of the Sex and the City tours includes a stop at this Perry Street townhouse in the West Village. Yes, this is the stoop that the Carrie Bradshaw character sits on in the show. (Actually, five different stoops were used; this one most frequently, I'm told by someone who really likes and knows the show.)

According to Forbes: The show, which made a fifth character out of New York City, attracts fans to the Big Apple in droves, and locals cash in. Location Tours offers a three-hour bus tour that stops at shops and bars that have appeared on the show. The tour costs $40 a head, and its owners say it attracts as many as 1,000 people a week. Destination on Location Travel offers "set-jetting" weekends in New York, where groups of up to twelve women are shuttled around town and given the fantasy that they're one of the four Sex characters. The price: a hefty $15,000 per person.

Incoming Mediterranean-style bakery needs barista on East Ninth Street

On occasion, as a bit of a community service, we'll run postings of local businesses that are hiring... we'll see how it goes...

Zucker, the new bakery opening at 433 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, is hiring as the sign above shows. Read more about the place here.

Noted

From an article by Sheila McClear in the Post today about passionate or, perhaps, snobby baristas...

It was after the third “act of violence” at Ninth Street Espresso in the East Village that owner Ken Nye held a staff meeting. The strict policies of the coffee shop — including the refusal to sell espresso to go — had so enraged one customer that he threw a tip jar across the store in protest.

Now, the to-go espresso “is not a die-hard rule — it’s just a very strong suggestion,” says Nye

Restaurant named after horses gets its sign on The Bowery

Double Crown, that big place on the corner of Bleecker and the Bowery, served its last meal on Aug. 20. The owners decided to revamp the place, as Diner's Journal first reported.

And for signage fans, workers put up the new sign yesterday...

Contrary to popular belief, the restaurant is not named after a law firm and bail bondsmen ... but rather a pair of New York racehorses that attracted national attention about 140 years ago, Diner's Journal noted. Saxon won the 1874 Belmont Stakes. Parole won the 1877 and 1878 Saratoga Cup.

RIP Nelson Perez

Spotted these flyers on Avenue C and Avenue D today.

Today in photos of rat traps on East 10th Street

[Bobby Williams]

The fast and the furious

Per EV Grieve reader Blaine this morning: "Here is a busted-up police cruiser on Sixth Street near [Cooper Union]. The airbags are deflated, and there are bits of headlights strewn on the ground. An officer in another (fully intact) car was taking notes."

Anyone?

Breaking: Yarn cart found de-yarned on the Lower East Side!

EV Grieve reader Lulu made the grisly discovery this morning at Rivington and Norfolk...

Looks to be a different yarn-covered cart — an Agata Olek original — that has been seen in the company of a local man of late.

[Bobby Wiliams]

An East Village pep talk

Here's a recent email from a longtime resident who may be losing the East Village faith:

"The neighborhood has really been getting me down lately and I was wondering if you would ever post a pep talk, pointing out its good points. I'm not enjoying much about the East Village lately, but I can't leave because my apartment is rent-stabilized. Three high rises have been built within 50 feet of me within the last dozen years and God forbid I have to walk my dog on a Friday or Saturday night. The sidewalks are so clogged with drunken frat guys I can barely get through. I've also been mugged in the last few years so I don't necessarily think it's safer, either."

Thought we might make this a group exercise. Given what has closed of late, and what might be closing... Anyway, we sometimes talk about the stuff around here that we don't like ... how about sharing the things that you do like? Things that make the neighborhood the special place that it is.

And we're not approving any comments in which someone attacks a person's choice for things that they like. Unless it concerns Frogurt. Or cargo shorts.

A Building finally ready for balcony repairs

Thirteen months ago, workers erected a sidewalk shed outside the world-famous, pool-party palace on East 13th Street...

And yesterday! Workers started putting up the scaffolding...

There were a handful of complaints on file with the DOB:

FAILURE TO MAINTAIN BALCONIES THROUGH-OUT BUILDING

And!

FACADE - DEFECTIVE/CRACKING

According to a new DOB permit, workers will be doing "balcony repairs."

As The Real Deal reported in April 2010:

Beneath the two-year-old building's reputation for hosting raucous rooftop pool parties lies a reality worse than the most killer hangover — flooding, crumbling balconies, alleged mismanagement of the condo board's funds and two unresponsive developers who have left owners banging their heads against mold-ridden walls, claim several residents who forwarded dozens of documents detailing these issues to The Real Deal.

Why the wait? Perhaps to give the A Buildingers another summer of fun?