




Can we get that overhead seesaw thing back?
And head on over to the Museum's website for more photos... they are available for purchase as well as gawking...
Name: Sven Furberg
Occupation: Video Engineer
Location: 1st Street between 1st and A
Time: 4:20 on Sunday, Sept 8.
I came here from Sweden, from Stockholm in 1979 to listen to music and I ended up staying. I came here in 1979 the first time and moved here in 1980. I was 23.
My good friend had gotten an apartment on Ridge Street and it was $135 a month for a five-room apartment. From one window you could see the Chrysler Building. It was funky — very primitive. Those days are gone. So I arrived in a cab and there was so much going on on that block. We got below Houston and I asked him to take another circle around the block to see what was happening before I got off with my suitcases.
I had my first slice of pizza at Rosario’s Pizzeria on Houston Street. I remember they asked me if I wanted it to go or to eat there and I didn’t know what to say. They all laughed. I still eat there. It’s moved to Stanton.
My first thing for money, I found a couple of TVs on the street, fixed them up and sold them. I’ve always been a technical person. I was a bench tech for a while, doing video, doing shows, lights. There’s a similarity between electronics and music in some ways for me. I had that interest in electronics and so I applied it to my career. Now I’m a video engineer.
I play the Mandolin. I like to play music in the parks. I like this little community park on 5th Street. I came here to play music. I’ve played music all my life. There was a lot of interesting music going on when I came. And there still is, but it’s not quite the same. Talking Heads was one of my favorite bands to see. I saw everything. I loved to go see Latin music. There used to be a lot of music in the streets, just people playing. The first night I came to New York I went to CBGB to see DNA. DNA was an experimental avant-garde group at the time. The guitarist Arto Lindsday was in it.
So many people went away in the AIDS crisis. I had a lot of friends who died. That was the 80s. The whole club scene was much wilder and much different before all that. In 1979 when I got here it was crazy, it was so much wilder. Then in the 80s there was a big party scene. I remember clubs like 8BC on 8th between B and C.
I had a nice moment when that hotel went up on Rivington. Before they finished the penthouse it was a raw space and me and my friends, we just asked, ‘Can we go up?’ and they said, ‘Sure, no problem.’ So we went up and hung out there and had a party up there. And then we asked, ‘Well can we come back again?’ ‘Oh, sure.’ So we came back the next night with wine and cheese and everything and had a big party up there with a 360-degree view of the Lower East Side that you never saw before.
It’s been a rich life here. I don’t regret coming here. It’s a beautiful neighborhood but I kind of miss the way it was. There was a sense of a real edge. Back then you had to be much more street smart. It was tricky, funky, you had to be careful. There was a sense of reality. Now it’s not the same kind of reality. It feels unreal."
CB3 Public Hearing — Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Priorities
Monday, Sept. 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Board 3 Office, 59 E. 4th Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery.
This is an opportunity for organizations and residents to tell the Community Board their budget priorities.
What parks need reconstruction? What programs need funding? Help us assess the needs of our community.
Every year the Community Board submits a list of capital and expense budget priorities to city agencies. This hearing is your opportunity to have input into these district budget priorities. Tell us how money should be spent in Community Board 3.
Organizations, groups and individuals representing all segments of the community are encouraged to participate.
Partner Kamran Malekan and Executive Chef Nicholas Nostadt debut Picnic, offering a contemporary take on homespun classics inspired by Nostadt's Midwestern roots. The lofty, 70-seat restaurant is located on a sunny corner in the heart of the East Village, inviting nostalgia with a nod to picnic fare with a creative spin.
Chef Nostadt, formerly of Williamsburg's Berry Park, offers a menu of modern riffs on American classics, from small bites including the Cheese Ball with Roquefort, Bresaola, Dill, Braised Bosc Pear, Pickled Red Onions and Grilled Bread (cheese selections will rotate) and Mussels with Hard Cider, Apricot Nectar, Dijon Cream, Soft Herbs and Spices, to salads such as the Celery with Celery Leaves, Celery Root, Tarragon, New York State Apples, Capers, and Meyer Lemon Dressing. Sides and snacks include Scratch-Baked Beans, Boiled Peanuts and a riff on a Roll-Up made with Mortadella and Roquefort.
Entrees range from "Between the Bun" options such as the Pulled Pork Sandwich with Rootbeer BBQ and Roasted Corn & Cabbage Slaw, to a bucket of Fried Chicken with House-made Ranch Dressing, and a Whole Roasted Fish with Lemon, Garlic and Herbs. An assortment of house-made donuts, a rotating selection of pies and chef Nostadt's take on the beloved Midwestern Puppy Chow round out the menu. The beverage program consists of American beers on tap, bottled and canned brews, all-American wines and Counter Culture coffee.
Picnic is open seven days a week for dinner and late-night dining: Sunday through Thursday from 5 pm to 11 pm, and Friday and Saturday from 5 pm to 12 am.
The present, however, hasn’t always gone so smoothly. For an irresistible city, New York can be awfully ugly. Ghastly glass towers have laid waste to entire neighborhoods, and sharklike chain stores have swallowed small businesses. The once-derelict industrial zone along the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront metamorphosed into a new, high-density neighborhood, which would’ve been great, except that the change resulted in a phalanx of big ungainly buildings with a paltry, broken strip of greenery out front. The permissive rezoning of Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue, too, produced buildings of such slipshod “luxury” that the Wall Street Journal columnist Robbie Whelan called it a “canyon of mediocrity.”
Why did so much terrible stuff get built? The answer is that bad, overpriced buildings are the price of civic ambition. In lean times, most architecture is crap because only what is cheap gets built; in better times, most architecture is crap because developers can’t wait to start cashing in. Bloomberg made New York safe for high-quality design — and at the same time triggered a plague of prosperous awfulness. As long as the city remains attractive, there will always be money in ruining it.
Size
11,356 sf - Ground Floor
11,508 sf - Basement Possible
*Divisions possible
Asking Rent
Upon Request
Possession
4Q 2014
Currently
New Construction
Frontage
150’ on Avenue A
70’ on 11th Street
Notes & Highlights:
• New construction at the base of 140 unit market luxury rental building
• Steps from Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village with 30,000 residents
• Close proximity to Tompkins Square Park
• Located in the heart of the East Village and Alphabet City
Between 500 and 502 East 11th Street there is a narrow alley originally created to allow air circulation between the two buildings which were built sometime in the late 1800s/early 1900s. 7-Eleven has dug down into the alley and installed cement pillars and i-beams to hold three massive AC units which go off at 15 minute intervals.
Writes a neighbor:
“The units make a loud “WHOOSHING” noise every 15 minutes and since all the bedrooms are located off the alley, there has not been much sleeping going on in either building. The units are also blocking light and part of a window on the first floor of 502 East 11th Street.”