Let the music play

Tompkins Square Park earlier today. Photos by Bobby Williams.

The Coen Brothers want to dress up East Ninth Street

The Coen Brothers are ready to film the 1960s period piece "Inside Llewyn Davis," and they need your help. As you can see from the flyers that the crew posted yesterday, the production would like to request permission "to temporarily dress several storefronts and buildings" to fit the period here on East Ninth Street.

Per On Locations: "The movie follows a protagonist loosely based on singer Dave Van Ronk, a friend of Bob Dylan’s. Oscar Isaac stars as the title character while Justin Timberlake co-stars as another folk musician, his wife will be played by Carey Mulligan, and John Goodman will play a jazz musician who takes a road trip with Davis."

The crew will film on Feb. 16 from 1 p.m. to 2 a.m. Expect the color-coded Justin Timberlake sighting-level system to be on Red all that day and night.

H/t @chriswytenus

Noted

Spotted outside a building along the Bowery...

Here's to Ben

As you may have read, Ben Gazzara, always a favorite here, died yesterday from pancreatic cancer. The acclaimed actor was 81.

Per the obit in the Times today:

He grew up in a building at 29th Street and First Avenue, where, he wrote in his autobiography, he slept on the fire escape in summer and occasionally heard screams from the patients at Bellevue psychiatric hospital.

Here's the trailer for "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie," the 1976 John Cassavetes mob drama.

The Ludlow getting the inevitable non-fast-food tenant

Well, this isn't really newsy ... BoweryBoogie pointed this out back in December... just kinda wanted it for the record... Anyway, four years after opening, The Ludlow has another retail tenant here on East Houston at Ludlow...

Nail salon! And that name! Petition!

We'll always have the L train

14th Street and First Avenue via the Long Lost Intern of EV Grieve (LLIOEVG).

Late this afternoon and early evening

Photos by Bobby Williams.

Restless minds

The Cramps singing "The Natives are Restless" at the Mudd Club, 1981.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[The quietest spot in Midtown today]

Urban etiquette signage: "By the turn of the century, the East Village was being taken over by assholes" (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Tahini says that they are NOT CLOSING on Third and St. Mark's to make way for another Michael "Bao" Huynh Baotery (Eater)

Check out the Lower East Side Heritage Film Series at Seward Park Library (The Lo-Down)

Godard films Jefferson Airplane atop a Midtown hotel in 1968 (This Ain't the Summer of Love)

Why does the East Village have so many NFL team bars? (The New York Times)

The Oak Room closing for good at the Algonquin Hotel (The New York Times)

Condos replacing parking garages in Manhattan (The Real Deal)

See The City Skyline Change, From 1876 To 2013 (Gothamist)

City preps new safety plan for Delancey (The Villager)

Full-length Renoir at the Frick starting Tuesday (Nonetheless)

The rat was outside Beth Israel on 16th and First Avenue yesterday...

[Crazy Eddie]

And today...

[Dave on 7th]

Max moving to Williamsburg; closing Avenue B space

[Yun Cee Ng for New York]

On Tuesday, Eater reported that Max, the 12-year-old Italian place on Avenue B near Fourth Street, was opening a new location in Williamsburg this spring. In a follow-up piece today, The Wall Street Journal reported that Max is actually closing its East Village location.

Luigi Iasilli, an owner, wrote in an email that he plans to close the East Village location as the neighborhood is getting "slow."

"I finally found what I believe I was looking for," he said of his Williamsburg site. "For me, [it is] going back to the roots, small space, $3,000 rent, a small yard, a mixed ethnic neighborhood with only a bodega across the street."

Slow?

Anyway, this departure will leave four empty storefronts on the east side of Avenue B between East Fourth and East Third Street. Just think — four new bars.

Let's take a walk along Avenue A in the East Village in 1997

This is the third and, sadly, last in the series of 1997 East Village streetscene shots by EV Grieve reader Dave Buchwald. (Read the back story about these photos here.) Today, we'll walk south down Avenue A, perhaps even zipping off the street for a moment...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Let's take a walk along First Avenue in the East Village in 1997

Let's take a walk along Second Avenue in the East Village in 1997