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Photo on Second Avenue late this afternoon by Derek Berg...
"At the end of October, I noticed construction guys at 321 E. 14th St. It has always been a vacant storefront. (I think there was a statue of a Virgin Mary in the window for awhile.) Anyway, imagine my surprise and glee when I read a pizza place was coming!"
The South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF) is the largest film premiere destination for South Asian/Indian filmmakers in the United States. SAIFF was founded in New York City due to the lack of support for many emerging filmmakers and the overall underrepresentation of Indian cinema in a capital that is recognized by the world as the birthplace of independent filmmaking! The Festival is committed to exhibiting films from South Asia (i.e India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal) and within the Indian Diaspora.
The footage ... shows the assailant run up from out of the frame as the patron sits and stares at a fireplace. The attacker throws one haymaker after another until several others rush to help the victim.
The 29-year-old victim, who asked not to be identified because the attacker is still on the loose, told NBC 4 New York that his head still hurts several days after the attack.
The victim said there was no warning that he was about to be attacked and that he didn't remember saying anything to the man beforehand. He said over the weekend that he thought he may have been targeted because he was gay.
The fate of the rowhouse is now in the hands of its owner, Elaine Hsu, the president of GlobalServ Property One, with offices on Lexington Avenue.
Barbara Sloan, the operations manager at Manhattan Renovations, a general contractor representing GlobalServ, said the owner was planning an information session for neighbors “to discuss details surrounding potential asbestos abatement and demolition.” She declined to comment on what might replace the building.
“We recognize that people feel very passionate about their neighborhoods,” said Sarah Carroll, the executive director of Landmarks. But “in some cases, Landmarks designation is not actually the right tool.”
As residents of the Dry Dock District gained power and ran for office, the houses acquired a new distinction: “Political Row.”
Political Row “has furnished many office-holders, and there were more office-holders and patriots who are willing to serve the city and county, the State or the country at large, living on that thoroughfare now than on any similar stretch of highway in New York,” stated the Evening World in 1892.
The beginning of Political Row’s end came at the turn of the century, when many of the original houses went down and tenements built in their place.
Newspapers wrote descriptive eulogies, mourning a neighborhood that was “an American District” now colonized by a second wave of immigrants.
"Please think about the darkness you are going to create with your development."
The name Southern Cross Coffee is in honor of the Southern Cross constellation, which is visible primarily in the southern hemisphere and sometimes as far up as 20 degrees north latitude. Our founders were both born in the southern hemisphere, where the constellation is very much a part of our cultures.
Grab a great cup of locally roasted coffee and quick bite at Southern Cross Coffee. Natural foods and espresso made the traditional Italian way.
Come early Saturday for the best selection of cookies. Please understand that WE CAN SELL OUT and close before the Sunday times listed above. Please check here for Sunday opening updates! (if at all possible, try to come on Saturday)
"We are sad to see a long standing tenant close its doors, but unfortunately the business has been unable to consistently pay its rent in the last 12 months. We have made several attempts to strike a deal to settle the debt however given there has been no effort to make payment on the more than $78,000 that is owed, we were forced to part ways with our tenant."
Name: Eric Paulin
Occupation: Musician
Location: Tompkins Square Park
Time: Thursday, Nov. 3 at 6:30 p.m.
In part 1, Paulin, a native New Yorker, discussed coming to the East Village starting in the summer of 1968 to see shows at the Fillmore East.
I’ve been in my building since May of 1979, so I’m coming up on 38 years. I’ve had some bad experiences with a couple of bad landlords in this neighborhood who owned my building. When I moved in, there was a great and extremely interesting person who owned the building named Kent Cooper. He was an East Village hero in my opinion. He was a writer, and he owned a small record company. They recorded jazz, blues, avant-garde jazz and blues-rock. He ran the record company out of his apartment.
Everybody on the block respected Kent. He did a lot of people favors. Kent bought the building for an extremely good price in the early 1970s, and he was actually struggling at the time. It was a lot of money for him; he had to take out a bank loan, and he worked tooth and nail to keep that building going. He would do repairs himself, and he did whatever he could.
If tenants were late on rent, he would give them a break. He would let me work off rent sometimes by doing superintendent duties, or by helping him and a couple contractors do work. He had a big heart, especially for creative people who were struggling or having a hard time — who weren’t using drugs, weren’t drinking ... who were just basically trying to fight the good fight with their creative pursuits.
Unfortunately, Kent sold the building in February 1987 to an extremely bad landlord. They started a renovation process in the building that should have taken six months or less. It was basically a gut renovation of 10 units and there was myself and another older gentlemen in the building. The renovation ended up taking 13 or 14 months, and the owners and contractors put myself and the older tenant through a living hell.
I was in housing court with them from mid-summer of 1988 until late fall of 1991. Because I was a freelance musician, I would do a gig, get home sometimes at 2 or 3 in the morning, sleep for a few hours, and then put on a shirt and tie and go to housing court with my documents, my HPD reports and my photographs. I was very organized. The whole thing was an excruciating process.
We were able to withhold our rent and put it in an escrow account, which the judge approved. In the end, I ended up winning the case, and I got what they called a landmark decision against my landlord, which was a decision in a court of law where that combination of elements had never come together to form that kind of case, therefore getting a certain decision on that case. Because it was a pretty cut-and-dry matter, it should have been solved in a few months, but because the landlord was dragging out and was not showing up to court and was constantly lying and trying to deceive the court and even their own lawyer about what happened.
In the spring of 1991, the building went into receivership because they weren’t paying the bank. So they weren’t paying their bank; they weren’t paying their lawyer; and they also weren’t paying their contractors who worked in the building.
So I won my court case, but about a year and a half later, I was in court with the next landlord, who actually turned out to be a very decent landlord, and a much better landlord than some others. We resolved that case out of mutual consent, and we were able to work it out between us without any problems. They offered me money to leave. It seemed like a lot of money at the time, and it especially would have been to a lot of lower income or struggling people, who might have taken the buyout. But I didn’t do it, because I thought to myself, I love New York, and if I leave, there’s no way I’ll be able to come back and be able to afford to live here.
My first experiences playing music in Tompkins Square Park go back to 1981. The park was dangerous and there was a lot of crime. I would walk through here because I knew how to handle myself in the neighborhood, and because people knew me, but the drug dealers were using a lot of homeless people to help them sell drugs or whatever. We used to play different places in the park, me and three or four of my jazz buddies. I think people appreciate that there’s jazz in Tompkins Square Park, where all these great jazz musicians lived in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
In those days, we actually used to do very well busking. We used to busk in Washington Square Park in the late 1970s with a jazz quartet and jazz quintet. We were one of the first groups to do it. In those days, I could just go on forever busking, and you could actually make very decent money busking in the late 1970s and early 1980s, because you didn’t have a lot of laws.
Today, we have a permit with the MTA, the Music Under New York Program, and when we don’t have a gig, we can been seen playing in the subway once or twice a week, where I also play with my jazz quartet. We play usually either on Friday or Saturday night, usually at 34th Street and 6th Avenue or Times Square.
My wife is also in the group, which is named The Meetles. We started from a meet-up group where we would talk about the Beatles. We specialize in classic rock ... and it’s nice to bring that to the East Village, because a lot of that was born and developed because of the Fillmore East and all of these great clubs all up and down St. Mark's Place.
In the end, I hope that the East Village and all neighborhoods like the East Village retain their original character and identity. I love walking up and down the streets in New York and seeing the old buildings that have been up for 120 years. I love Tompkins Square Park. I love the old architecture. I love the old timers who have interesting stories to tell. I love the creative people and the interesting people.
During its 137th annual Thanksgiving Week celebration, The Bowery Mission will serve more than 11,000 meals — 7,000 on Thanksgiving Day alone — to men, women and children in all five boroughs of New York City and in Newark, N.J.
On Thanksgiving day at the Mission’s flagship location (227 Bowery between Prince and Rivington Streets), more than 650 volunteers will prepare traditional turkey dinners and serve 1,800 guests in the Mission’s century-old chapel filled with music and festive decorations for the holiday.
Meals will be served at 227 Bowery every hour on the hour from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. In addition to a turkey dinner, each guest will receive a brand new coat and a “blessing bag” including socks, a winter hat, gloves, and hygiene items.
The food and gifts, as well as financial support, have been donated over several weeks by a diverse array of generous donors. We appreciate the support from the following partners:
• Major Partner: The Hain Celestial Group, Inc
• Partners: Bombas, Buzzfeed
• Supporters: Bloomberg, Con Edison, Deutsche Bank, Kenneth Cole Productions, Warner Bros. Entertainment
Now eight of the tenants are fighting Raphael Toledano in court for an order to restore the gas — one that his lawyers are vehemently resisting. While Mr. Toledano and his agents are likely enjoying warm and cozy kitchens filled with the aroma of holiday cooking, the kitchens of 325 East 12th Street will be cold & empty… except, perhaps, for the echo of Mr. Toledano, spouting empty promises of gas restoration and better relations with his tenants. Mr. Toledano has refused to meet face to face with tenants and elected officials on two occasions and opted to send his legal team (Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman, LLP) instead.
"The Toledano Tenant Coalition believes that Mr. Toledano continues to harass tenants by unreasonable non-renewal of leases and through slow, poorly managed building construction designed to make tenant’s homes unlivable. The coalition also asserts that Mr. Toledano has irresponsibly forced both stabilized and market rate tenants to live for months without cooking gas in buildings overrun with vermin. The coalition remains committed to ending what they see as Mr. Toledano’s campaign against the tenants that call his buildings home."
Tenants at 325 E 12th St won't have cooked meals this #Thanksgiving because landlord has denied them gas for 7 mos. This is unacceptable! pic.twitter.com/fVfKABxg8z
— Senator Brad Hoylman (@bradhoylman) November 22, 2016