Verizon Building getting back to normal

EV Grieve reader Kim is keeping tabs on the return of the tags to the Verizon Building on 13th Street as seen in her photo below...



I took a few shots myself...




As did Woodland Creature.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Brownout: Verizon building graffiti painted over

Graceland has closed

Graceland, the deli that has been at the corner of Avenue A and Second Street since 1991, closed for good tonight ... (thanks to BaHa for letting me know the official date...) The doors were locked some time around 6:30 tonight, a neighbor said... several people walked by and were surprised to see the familiar 24-hour bodega grocery closed...







Several readers said that the rent was being increased to $20,000 a month by the landlord... Another grocer is expected to take over the space... some of the crew here will go to work next door at Gracefully...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Graceland is closing in the next 10 days

Nicky's staying in the East Village; Graceland moving out?

Graceland addresses its customers

Live Chat Roulette in Tompkins Square Park

Two NYU students are currently in Tompkins Square Park looking for volunteers to play Live Chat Roulette.... It's for a class on human interactions or something, though I wasn't really paying attention when the students were talking to me...




And I hope that everyone who participates keeps it in their pants...unlike what happens on the Web some times (you pervs).

Updated: Shepard Fairey creating new mural for the Cooper Square Hotel

Following up on yesterday's post about the whitewashing of the mural on the Cooper Square Hotel... Just like that, a new mural is in progress...




We asked a Cooper employee for confirmation of the artist, but he said he didn't know... Uh-huh. Anyway, Shepard Fairey is creating this mural too.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Goodbye Homer Simpson: The Cooper Square Hotel has a white wall again

Why you shouldn't read pages 20-21 in the Post today

David's Bagels space becoming a Mexican restaurant

After 21 years in the business, David's Bagels closed on First Avenue near 14th Street in August 2008. The landlord asked for a big rent hike...



...and was rewarded with an empty storefront for about 20 months...Now, though, as EV Grieve reader Kim passed along, workers are gutting the old space...




A nearby shopkeeper says the space will become a Mexican restaurant. "Tacos, burritos -- that kind of shit."



For further reading:
David's Bagels (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

A sad day for bagels (Blah Blog Blah ... and Jill gets credit for that top photo)

Ten months later, David’s space still empty (East Village Idiot)

Goodbye Homer Simpson: The Cooper Square Hotel has a white wall again

As Curbed first pointed out yesterday... the ode to Homer on the side of the Cooper Square Hotel was being painted over by, uh, painters... And so I went by yesterday to see what was what and all at our favorite local eyesore (uh, the hotel, not the art)...



And Blake Lively?! (No.)




And those poor bushes were smashed/displaced again on Fifth Street...



And today...



At least the Coop put on the bush condoms for safe gardening...



Anyway, I'll always remember the first site of Homer...

Even the Pee Phone is more expensive now

Previously!


Now!



This is what happens when you become World Famous! Avenue A and Seventh Street, of course.

Meanwhile, for more fun under the sidewalk shelter here, I refer you to Bob Arihood and Melanie.

Previously on EV Grieve:
New prices for the world famous Pee Phone wiped away

Fourth Street, 9:12 a.m., April 24

Second Avenue, 7:39 p.m., April 23

Free popcorn at 10th Street...

Rocks off

From "The House of the Rising Punk."

Who's having the best week ever?

From the comments:

Between the Superdive death and the scathing piece on Ben Shaoul in The Real Deal, UPPER Avenue A residents are having the BEST WEEK EVER!!

Does this mean the Cooper Square Hotel no longer wants to fit in with the neighborhood?

Curbed has the news that the mural on the side of the Cooper Square Hotel is being painted over right now... And they produced the above evidence...

As you may recall, the Hotel hired four graffiti artists — Joyce Pensato, Nick 1, Vizie and Shinique Smith — to create the mural.

As you also may recall:

Klus Ortleib, the hotel's managing partner, wants the place to fit in with the edgy local art scene. "When I came up with the idea, people said I was crazy," he said.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Cooper Square Hotel's attempt to fit in with the neighborhood ready to be unveiled

New Avenue B bar won't be fratty or barfy, owner claims

Well! The other day we were understandbly horrified curious when we heard, via our friends at Grub Street, that a Speakeasy/Mardi Gras style bar is coming to 25 Avenue B. Hmmmm.....

Regardless! Grub Street's Daniel Maurer followed up with the new owner and learned that maybe we all shouldn't have the fear...:

We called the joint’s operator Kyle Radzyminski (also a partner in Thunder Jackson’s) and asked him whether East Village residents should invest in mops.

"We aren’t looking at ruining the neighborhood," Radzyminski told us. That's one thing people get frightened of. A couple of our guys have families and multiple kids. It's more of a place where you can watch sports, not a frat house." Radzyminski assured us that he’s looking to open "a place for almost anyone and everyone."

Goggla left this comment the other day: "Avenue B, the new Bourbon Street...hang on to your bead curtains." Heh. But can you imagine this place and Croxley's operating at the same time....?

[Photo via]

The "bad old days" are here again story of the day!

From the Post!

Gangs of wilding teens terrorized straphangers this week in a violent spate of daytime robberies and assaults on Manhattan subways -- another indicator the city could be sinking back to the bad old days that once gripped the Big Apple with fear.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Trend alert! The bad old days are here again!

Are the "bad old days" here again...again?

The Elephant: "We truly think we are good neighbors"

Last week, I reported that Thai eatery The Elephant on East First Street had been shut by the city for allegedly serving an auxiliary police officer who is a minor. (And they've had at least two other run-ins the past two years, as Eater reported.)

In that post, I mentioned the fiasco from last May in which a manager at The Elephant reportedly called the police while a group of teenage girls lined up to receive free prom dresses next door at the Lower Eastside Girls Club. For some residents, that episode left a lingering resentment toward the restaurant.

After last week's post, Adria Jover Sala, who said she manages The Elephant, contacted me.

For starters, she said that the manager who called the police last year was fired "after that tremendous mistake." She said there is a new staff. "We have people from Morocco, Senegal, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Spain, Mexico... most of [them] with sons and daughters.

"We are all trying to do our job the best we can. I understand if The Elephant, years ago, caused some trouble in the hood, though right now it is run by new management and we are committed to our beloved First Street. We truly think we are good neighbors. We care for our street, have friends all over the block on First Street. We take the UPS deliveries for our building. We let kids from the park use our restroom... we are been living here so many years and I think we deserve a bit of respect."

But did they serve a minor?

"We are sure the guy was over 35... though if we took the risk to go on trial for that and by any possibility the undercover [officer] was 18, as it says in the report, then the stipulation was to close us for two months and a fee of $15,000."

As part of the penalty, the city is shutting down The Elephant starting today for one week. The restaurant will also have to close for one week in May.

"The city is so incompetent with those rules ... they don't let you work and improve the place while you are closed. This is like kids, you do something bad and they send you against the wall for two hours... the only difference here, we are talking about a business with families, children, etc. who depend on them ... doesn't the city realize the impact?"



I asked Adria, who is originally from Barcelona and has lived in the East Village for 10 years, is she believes they are receiving unwarranted attention.

"We feel we are unfairly targeted by the city. Everybody knows where all minors go for drinks with their fake ID, why the police don't spend their resources with better efficiency than coming to a small restaurant to shut you down," she said. "At this point I'm quite desperate because [the city] believes that we are a club or something like that and we just are a small restaurant, which for the last two years everyone is out before 1 a.m... I just hope the neighbors could appreciate our commitment.

"The worst part is, I'm not sure if we are going to survive with this two-week agreement anyway."

[Image via; larger image via]

And this little piggy got painted over

Over on 192 Second Ave. at 12th Street... the scaffolding went up last week... Word is that the building will be painted... meaning the pigs are likely history...





Yesterday, a crew arrived on the scene...




The 12th Street Ale House is on the corner now ...Dick's Bar held this corner for many years, where the pigs first came to life ...

UPDATED: Thanks to EV Grieve reader Pinhead for tracking down an article from 2000 in the Times that discusses the mysterious appearance of the pigs here...

Anyway, this is another address in the neighborhood with so much history...

... Several bars earlier, the space was home to Slugger Ann's, where transgendered Warhol star Jackie Curtis tended bar and performed a cabaret act... (Jackie's grandmother owned the bar...)

Here's Leee Black Childers talking about Slugger Ann's in a scene from the documentary "Superstar in a Housedress."

Momofuku Milk Bar patrons getting loud?

A newish sign outside Momofuku Milk Bar on 13th Street near Second Avenue...



... are those cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookies making the masses noisy?

De La Vega calling for a boycott on Cafe Mogador, for some reason

Outside the De La Vega Museum on St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue...



...which, of course, is right across the street from Cafe Mogador...



We didn't really care enough to ask about the sign.

Day-glo lights in Christodora seen as 'something of a metaphor for neighborhood transformation'

I finally had time to sit down last night with the new issue of New York magazine... where there's a feature on this swanky loft in the Christodora ...



Per the article:

Architect Joel Sanders’s clients (a lawyer and an economic consultant) left New York for San Francisco a decade ago but knew they’d come back someday — preferably to an apartment below 14th Street that felt like a “well-designed hotel suite.” How about an East Village loft with LED fixtures that cast a Day-Glo aura on the walls? Perfect. After looking at more than 50 places, the couple found what would become their future retirement pad (and current pied-à-terre) — a one-bedroom in the Christodora ... The result: a 1,140-square-foot loft that — with the push of one of eight preset buttons — is bathed in pale neon pink, or warm gold, or lime green. Sanders sees the lighting design as something of a metaphor for neighborhood transformation. The Christodora, he points out, has had a tumultuous history, starting life as a twenties settlement house for low-income families before becoming an emblem of the East Village in the throes of gentrification. Two decades later, passions have cooled, but the neighborhood—and its dwellings — are still pretty colorful.

[Photograph by Peter Aaron/Esto]

Wonder if this explains those spooky red lights that I've seen in the past....?

Things that you can read at the new Film Academy Cafe

On Astor Place. And has anyone tried their coffee?

President's day at Cooper Union

So following up on our exclusive from earlier ... President Obama gave a speech today at Cooper Union in which he may or may not have offered his views on the first round of the NFL Draft taking place later tonight.

Anyway, many thanks to EV Grieve reader Ryan for passing along a few photos from today... such as the President in his limo...



...there's former Gov. Mario C!...



Cooper Union President George Campbell Jr. showing off the cufflinks Obama gave him...



...and a fight between a communist and an anarchist/activist...



Ryan also said that he saw Lloyd Blankfein (the nerve!) and Rev. Al Sharpton. "Someone thought they saw Steve Jobs, but I can't confirm that he was there." Oh! Hope that Steve didn't see these!