El Diablito Taqueria opening this spring on East Third Street

Signs are up for a new taqueria on 60 E. Third St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue...

There is a Facebook page for the new eatery, though it doesn't have any further information just yet...

Previously, this was home to the wholly unique Hospital Productions, the specialty record store that closed late in 2011. ... not to mention reggae specialists Jammyland...

The barber of Tompkins Square Park

Photo today by Bobby Williams. Previously.

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man on East 12th Street

No fucking idea what's happening here. But I love the photo. East 12th Street near First Avenue. Photo by Shawn Chittle.

Sunday sales on Avenue A

Sure, the Mary Help of Christians flea market may have moved over to the Immaculate Conception Church on East 14th Street at First Avenue on Saturdays... but the sales returned today to Avenue A...

Photo by Bobby Williams.

Noted

A reader shares this on Suffolk Street today...

"I love this. SUV and car pull up seperately. Park on 'no parking' side of street. Both drivers reach down and put handicap placards in windshield. Both car empties of healthy mobile people and they all walk off ..."

Week in Grieview

7-Eleven is 'Pringle-lizing the East Village' (Thursday)

Christmas tree fire on East Third Street (Tuesday)

A discussion on the Annual No Pants Subway ride (Wednesday)

Morons ride the top of a party bus on First Avenue (Tuesday)

Opening report for Wafels & Dinges on Avenue B (Thursday)

That "great-looking" 51 Astor Place (Monday)

A 2 Bros. for First Avenue (Tuesday)

Kmart is prepped for St. Patrick's Day (Thursday)

Fire at Whole Foods Bowery (Sunday)

Don't shoot dice here (Tuesday)

Charlie Sheen at McSorley's (Tuesday)

Brooklyn is too expensive (Thursday)

Here comes Epic City Pub (Thursday)

Whatever happened to this really ugly hotel plans for the Bowery? (Tuesday)

Social Tees has a new home (Monday)

Smile Morrissey! (Monday)

Milo Printing Shop will become a gelato cafe (Friday)

The East Village is losing yet another bakery

On Friday, we reported that the 87-year-old 9th Street Bakery will be closing... in the ensuing comments (53 as of now), a reader mentioned that the nearly four-month-old Ballaro Bakery is also closing on East Fifth Street...

Sure enough. Signs are up.

They close for good tomorrow here between Second Avenue and First Avenue.

And they just opened in September, as noted here. The no-nonsense bakery, which made its bread on the premises, replaced the equally short-lived Porchetta.Hog.

And Ballaro Bakery is from the same folks behind the Ballarò Caffé Prosciutteria around the corner on Second Avenue.

Report: New York City is '7-Eleven's No. 1 priority'

[On Broadway near East 12th Street, via CP]

In case you missed it... there was a Marketplace Morning Report on Friday about 7-Eleven's plans to destroy humanity expand in Manhattan...

A few highlights from the report:

Lots of places sold those commodities and 7-Eleven couldn’t compete. The company closed its few Manhattan stores in the early 80s. But now, it wants to grow, and fast, and New York is 7-Eleven's number one priority.

“Where are we not where we could be the fastest and have the most number of stores?” Barnes says.

Within five years, 7-Eleven could be nearly as ubiquitous in Manhattan as Starbucks. The company plans to open at least 30 new stores a year.

And!

That’s bad news for shop owners like Kyung Chan Yu.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why they do that to me?” he says as he stands in the corner deli in Chelsea he’s owned for years.

After 7-Eleven opened next door recently, his sales are down 25 percent.

Here's the full report:



Thanks to EVG regular Andrew Adam Newman on Ave C for the link.

Previously on EV Grieve:
7-Eleven continues to feast on the East Village; next up, St. Mark's Place

[Updated] More from the anti-7-Eleven front on Avenue A and East 11th Street

Noted

Spotted on East 14th Street and First Avenue via EVG reader Raquel Shapira...

Discovering the The Lost City of the Pyramids on East Second Street

Spotted this morning. Wonder what the rent will be...

High fence act in Tompkins Square Park

This afternoon... via Bobby Williams...

Exclusively exclusive first look inside the new Duane Reade on First Avenue

As noted, yesterday marked the Grand Opening of the new Duane Reade on First Avenue just north of East 14th Street ... conveniently located inches from a CVS...

We went inside. All three Duane Readers working at the checkouts greeted us. Nearly in unison. Good morning! GOOD MORNING! Good MORNING!

There are three levels. Accessible via escalators.

...and despite the sign, there is more than one beauty magazine...

They still have MoneyGram. And the MoneyGram phone...

No sushi or smoothies or hair salons here like at 40 Wall Street, though...

Meanwhile. Outside. Duane Reade and CVS are already embroiled in an ugly battle of Who Can Out Cute the Other Chain Drug Store With Adorably Sad Valentine's Day Stuffed Animals in the Window™ ...

Gotta give it to CVS here in Round 1. Easter promises to be interesting.

...and the now-former Duane Reade around the corner has closed... though the shelves are still stocked...

Today's sign of the Apocalypse: 7-Eleven on St. Mark's Place now delivering

Not sure how long that sign has been up... didn't notice it earlier in the week... did not see a delivery sign on the 7-Eleven Bowery location... And what would you have delivered from a 7-Eleven?

Tonight, let it be East 14th Street...

Hmm, humming the old Löwenbräu jingle for some reason... East 14th Street tonight via Bobby Williams...

Suburban relapse

Savages with "City's Full" from last January. The London-based band plays at the Bowery Ballroom on March 18.

[Headline h/t]

Reader report: 9th St. Bakery is closing after 87 years

[May 2012]

Ugh. EVG reader Dave M. from 13th St. passes along this sad bit of news today: 9th St. Bakery, which has been around since 1926, will have to close. Oleg, who has owned the bakery with his wife Tetyana since the 1990s, said that the landlord is doubling his current rent. This, along with a barely-break-even summer, is forcing them to close.

[Via Manhattan Sideways]

There's not timetable yet for the closure — mostly likely in the next 2-4 months.

Per the bakery's website:

Max and Lena Wolkirmerski emigrated to the United States in 1913 from Zetel Belarus. They opened up a bakery on the corner of Allen and Stanton. Their children Joe, Harry and Helen moved the bakery to 9th and first ave where it still remains today.

Per Dave: "No more cheap, good pastries and bread. Such a shame."

And a tough time for the older bakeries. Aside from 9th St., Something Sweet on First Avenue and East 11th Street remains closed from last summer ... and Whole Earth Bakery on St. Mark's Place shuttered at the end of December.

Bendy thing sighting as 84 Third Ave. eclipses the AMC Loews Village 7

Over on Third Avenue at East 12th Street, Goggla passes along a photo of the always-popular Bendy Thing at work on 84 Third Ave., the 12-story apartment complex...

Meanwhile, EVG regular peter radley notes that the building is poised to pass the height of the AMC Loews Village 7...

Where it stops? Nobody knows!

Previously on EV Grieve:
Those persistent rumors about 74-76 Third Avenue and the future of Nevada Smiths

The East Village will lose a parking lot and gain an apartment building

Former Nevada Smiths down to its last floor; city OKs work for new building

Former Milo Printing space becoming a gelato shop on Avenue A

EVG regular dwg notes that signage for Casa Gusto, a gelato shop, is now up at 199 Avenue A near East 12th Street, site of the former Milo Printing.

Meanwhile, next door, the former Furry Land Pet Supplies space has been chopped in half. Taking one side: a hair salon.

Plans for a wine bar in the whole space were shot down this past summer.

Velvet Underground founding member John Cale recalls his Ludlow Street apartment

These days, John Cale, a founding member of the Velvet Underground, lives in Los Angeles.

However, in The Wall Street Journal today, Cale revisits 64 Ludlow St., where he lived starting in 1964 ... where the fifth-floor apartment became a rehearsal space of sorts for Cale, Lou Reed and company.

The apartment belonged to experimental filmmaker Tony Conrad. Cale moved in to split the $25 monthly rent. "The building was filled with single-minded artists then like poet Angus MacLise, filmmaker Piero Heliczer, director Jack Smith and actor Mario Montez," Cale said.

To an excerpt!

Our apartment was a railroad flat — a long room running from the windows in the front to a small bedroom and a bathroom in the back. I slept on a mattress, under the windowsill in the front overlooking Ludlow. We burned crates and furniture in the fireplace to keep warm. There was no heat in the winter other than the gas stove.

Tony and I lived on what we could afford — mostly canned stew and milkshakes. Across the street in the morning, you could hear kids from the nearby high school singing doo-wop in the doorway there. Other kids threw rocks at us because they thought we looked like the Beatles. A lot of guys around here didn't like them early on.

Read the whole article here.

And here's Cale on the roof of the building the other day...



And here's the video for his newish single...



John Cale and The Wordless Music Orchestra perform tomorrow night at the Howard Gilman Opera House at BAM...

[Top photo — Michael Ochs Archives / Redferns]

Scaffolding comes down on Avenue B side of the former Cabrini Center

A tipster let us know that workers had removed the scaffolding and construction netting from the former Cabrini Center on Avenue B and East Fifth Street yesterday afternoon ...

... currently being converted into apartments... not sure what the final color scheme will be. But for now...

There are currently two retail spaces available here... as well as some bad karma, as some neighbors put it.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Cabrini Center patients out by the end of today; closes for good June 30

Cleaning out the long-closed liquor store on Avenue B and East Houston

Our current fascination is the long-vacant building on the northwest corner of Avenue B and East Houston... We noted on Jan. 9 that workers have been cleaning out the space.

And in the retail space, the liquor store has been closed since the owner passed away in the fall of 2009. This week, though, a tipster told us that the workers were now cleaning out that space as well...

[Via an EVG tipster]

And, as you can see, it is mostly still fully stocked...

The tipster also said that the building is for sale. We didn't spot any listing for it. Yet. Have more details about the sale? Please let us know via the EV Grieve email.

So, for the time being, we'll continue to document the building as it is now... before it is likely refurbished and painted the Renovated Building Color of Choice — gray.

Previously on EVV Grieve:
Is something finally happening to the long-vacant, mysterious 6 Avenue B?

25 years of the 'Mosaic Man'

[Photo from last summer by Stephen Popkin]

I spotted this message on Facebook yesterday from Jim Power, aka the Mosaic Man, of course. Per the post, 2013 marks the 25th Anniversary of The Village Voice coining the name "Mosaic Man." I couldn't find that article from 1988 online, but the reference is mentioned in this Voice piece from 2010.

Watch a video about his Mosaic trail here. You can find more info here on Jim's website.

165 Avenue B has been sold, and 2 apartments are on the market

We last noticed that 165 Avenue B near East 10th Street was for sale back in June... the listing gave us pause:

This six unit apartment building has tremendous upside since the spaces can be used for residential, commercial and retail. Four of the units can be delivered vacant and the remaining two within one year. The building has a commercial overlay which allows the ground floor to be used as retail or commercial space ... 1,865 sq ft of air rights remain.

We figured another East Village penthouse was on the way... According to documents filed on Dec. 19, the building sold for $3.8 million. The buyer is the vague 165 Avenue B LLC, which has a Northbrook, Ill., mailing address. (Field Holdings LLC.)

Meanwhile, two of the apartments from No. 165 entered the market this week. There's a "true" three-bedroom unit for $4,300 and a two-bedroom unit for $3,995.

Here's the description for the larger space:

This renovated apartment features pre-war details, stainless steel appliances, a dishwasher and terrific sunlight. All bedrooms in this true three bedroom have wonderful light and good closet space. The third bedroom has flexibility if a dining and living room or office is the preferred layout. All of this in the heart of the East Village, one block from Tompkins Square Park, and surrounded by terrific restaurant and bars, but still pin drop quite in the apartment.

The Corcoran listings appear to use the same photos for both units... We're not sure if this is what the apartments actually look like now. Because they actually look like nice, comfortable apartments that haven't had every inch of character Cromanized carelessly stripped out and painted over...

However, there's no word on those "air rights" or retail space... And nothing on file with the DOB indicates any pending construction... Anyone know more about the situation here? Please let us know via the EV Grieve tip line.

Previously on EV Grieve:
165 Avenue B back on the market

EV Grieve Eatery Etc.: Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar has closed; Feast your eyes on this new sign

Well, we never noticed this one... EVG regular peter radley pointed out recently that Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar at 101 Second Ave. near East Sixth Street had quietly closed. Some time ago, too — at the end of November. Hmm. Not a place that was ever on our radar. The Times liked it when the place opened in 2003 on East Fifth Street. By 2007, after they moved to Second Avenue, Eater had Deathwatched it.

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We don't have too much info on the new Japanese restaurant opening at 130 St. Mark's Place ... next door to the dearly departed Whole Earth Bakery. The incoming restaurant will certainly fare better than the previous tenant — Tre Scalini, which we're almost positive closed after two weeks in July 2011.

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Hey! Another new restaurant we don't know too much about! (Just being honest!) Feast is opening at the former New York Central Framing Annex at 102 Third Ave. near East 13th Street. (The Annex moved around the corner to East 12th Street.)

Per the Feast application (PDF) when the principals went before CB3 back in September for a liquor license:

It will operate as a full‐service Continental restaurant with bakery, with a kitchen open and serving food during all hours of operation, 2) its hours of operation will be 7:00 A.M. to 1:00 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and 7:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Sundays,