An idea for Tompkins Square Park circa 1879

Continuing along... via the Parks & Recreation website, here is a rendering from 1879 of a music pavilion for the Park.

And what the bandshell, built in 1966, looked like at the time of its demolition in 1991.


[Bandshell photos via Flickr]

And the Big Finish

Lastly, from Parks & Rec, a photo simply titled:

'The Finish, Tompkins Square Park' Manhattan, 1906 Annual Report

Were these motorcycles torched because of a parking-space dispute?

Yesterday morning, someone apparently torched the two motorcycles that are always parked along the 200 block of East Third Street...

EV Grieve reader Gregory Patrick notes that the owner of the bikes often shuffles the motorcycles around to ensure himself a permanently available parking spot in front of his house.

And according to Gregory, it "looks like someone did not approve of such greed in these times of increasingly difficult available parking."

This would not have happened on another block of East Third Street...

At 35 Cooper Square — that's all, folks

EV Grieve correspondent Bobby Williams took these yesterday afternoon. Mission accomplished!

Previously.

Your chance to hear about the demolition of 51 Astor Place on Monday nightt

On Monday night, you can hear about the demolition plans for 51 Astor Place — the former Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art building.

I haven't heard anyone upset by the demolition of what looks like some auxiliary college campus building circa 1973.

Meanwhile, you know what's coming next...

[Top image by Bobby Williams]

Cornerstone Cafe now open on Avenue B and Second Street

With an Italian flavor...

Previously home to La Bonne Bouffe.

Former East Village Burial Society Now a Hole in the Ground

I'm doing a little guestwriting over at Curbed today and tomorrow... I posted this earlier...

When we last checked in on 326 and 328 East Fourth Street in November, preservation groups were fighting a losing battle to landmark the former Uranian Phalanstery and First New York Gnostic Lyceum Temple, an artists’ collective and burial society.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission said the buildings didn’t merit landmarking status, giving developer Terrence Lowenberg and penthouse-making architect Ramy Issac the green light to add two stories to the top here between Avenue C and D.

The 170-year-old buildings have been undergoing a gut renovation in recent months. We caught a glimpse behind the plywood, and didn’t see much of the guts left.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Historic East Fourth Street artists' collective soon to be condos

Two side-by-side townhouses on East Fourth Street await your renovation

City doesn't give a shit about these historic East Village townhouses

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

More on the 'Dateline' clip and Bikes By George (The Villager)

How some Airbnb users are breaking the law (BetaBeat)

More of the Garment Center vanishes (City Room)

East River Ferry Service starting June 13 (Runnin' Scared)

About Cape Cod on Avenue A (Neither More Nor Less)

Elliott Pharmacy, circa 1898, closes in Gramercy Park (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

New Roma Pizza on Delancey closed for renovations (BoweryBoogie)

Details on the 2011 Brooklyn Film Festival (Nathan Kensinger Photography)

On Avenue C near Third Street, the local dry cleaner rather suddenly closed...

NYPD searching for suspect in several East Village robberies

Police are looking for this suspect who reportedly robbed several women in the East Village in mid-May. (DNAinfo)

Exit 9 exiting from Avenue A

After 16 years at 64 Avenue A, Exit 9 is moving. June 19 will be the last day here for the gifts-and-novelties shop. Per the sign on the front door, the store has outgrown its space.

No word yet on a new location...

Ping pong table 1, taggers 0

Over the weekend, we pointed out that someone had tagged the 2-month-old ping-pong table in Tompkins Square Park ... Well, those claims from the owner that this thing is indestructible are so far proving to be true... The table is tag-free again....

Previously.

Is this the beginning of an Avenue A food-truck invasion this summer?

We were having an email conversation with Dave on 7th last evening. He asked if we saw the Go Burger food truck on Avenue A near Ninth Street. Why, yes — we even took a photo...

Per Dave, "With all this talk about these new-fangled food trucks everywhere ... this is the first one I've seen east of Second Avenue except for the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck a couple of times. Could just be the beginning."

True. We can only really recall seeing Mister Softee on Avenues A-D.

Meanwhile, Bobby Williams took shots of the DessertTruck on A near Seventh Street on Tuesday evening...

In any event, I kind of thought that the food truck revolution had somehow bypassed this part of the East Village. But there doesn't seem to be any stopping the food truckers. Maybe just $5-a-gallon gas?

Bonus!
Photo of Luke's Lobster truck refilling on Seventh Street...

Joe Strummer mural on Seventh Street helping sell an apartment — on 11th Street

In an otherwise innocuous ad for an expensive apartment, one thing stands out...

The three-bedroom unit in question is on East 11th Street. Not exactly close to Seventh Street and Avenue A, where the Joe Strummer mural resides. Perhaps the realtor should have "The Magnificent Seven" playing on the site too.

Bowery Bar unveils new awning

If anything, it will provide a nice shelter for people waiting for the southbound M103 in the rain.

Noted

Urban Etiquette Sign spotted on East Second Street the other day.

On East Ninth Street, Olivia remains closed without air conditioning

The bistro here between Avenue A and First Avenue has remained closed since at least Saturday... the sign out front points to faulty AC.

Haven't heard much from here since that whole baby lamb post.

Welcome to the new Bowery

Above the Bowery near Fourth Street.

It was a tough day to be wearing a heavy black-and-white coat

Spotted by EV Grieve correspondent Bobby Williams on East Ninth Street near First Avenue.

June 1

East Village artist (and EV Grieve commenter) VH McKenzie came across this today on East 10th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A ...

A little thirsty looking... And how about some verification? She did have a Duane Reade receipt handy...

Gruber MacDougal, chief spokesperson for the International Coalition of Tree Tossing in the Spring (ICTTS), is at the opening of the new Relais & Châteaux hotel, Villa Clarisse, in Saint Martin de Ré and unavailable for comment.

Update on last night's Avenue B laundromat fire

Last night, the FDNY responded to a report of a fire on Avenue B between Third Street and Fourth. Several eyewitnesses put the fire at the Laundry & Dry Cleaners at 44 Avenue B. For passersby, the damage seemed minimal enough. We posted a photo of a burned-up laundry cart.

Building resident Stacie Joy sent us the above photo and a quick account of the damage inside:

The fire was from the laundromat on the ground floor. It traveled up the back of the building and hit the new construction (wood subflooring) in the apartments in the back. They evacuated us and we returned to find our places deep under water.

Some doors were busted, holes in roofs, windows opened by firefighters but everyone is alive and fine. The worst of it is all the thick acrid black smoke and the water damage.

Tompkins Square Park, June 1, 1967 — 'Hippie Heaven'

Original caption: "Hippie Heaven. New York: Hippie heaven is in Tompkins Square Park June 1 where a couple of the clan dance and play music in the sunshine, The park, which was the scene of a bloody melee late May 30 when 200 hippies refused police orders to stay away from the park's grassy sections, played host to the hippie's once again as the biggest outpouring of New York's dropout generation converged here to show police they cannot be intimidated."

IMAGE:
© Bettmann/CORBIS
DATE PHOTOGRAPHED
June 01, 1967

Continuing to question the BMW Guggenheim Lab's benefits to the local community

Work continues in the former rat-infested lot on East First Street near Second Avenue where, starting in August, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will open as "as an urban think tank and mobile laboratory."

As the news releases goes, "the BMW Guggenheim Lab will explore issues confronting contemporary cities and provide a public place and online forum for sharing ideas and practical solutions."

Meanwhile, more leaders on East First Street are continuing to question the Lab's benefits to the local community. For instance, according to one local restaurant owner, the Guggenheim selected Roberta's, a Brooklyn-based restaurant, to hold the food contract at the Lab's outdoor café. In turn, Guggenheim officials have asked what kinds of free programming East First Street businesses could provide to the Guggenheim.

While local leaders support the rat-reduction efforts in the long-empty lot, the insult to the dignity, sustainability and history of the community is bothersome. Here are more points from a letter to local leaders by Lyn Pentecost, executive director of The Lower Eastside Girls Club on East First Street. (This is a shorter version of the original letter.)

It takes great chutzpah for an uptown museum and a high-end car company to promote community sustainability at the expense of...well, community and sustainability!

As they say in their press release: "The theme for the inaugural BMW Guggenheim Lab will be Confronting Comfort: The City and You — how urban environments can be made more responsive to people's needs, how people can feel at ease in an urban environment, and how to find a balance between notions of modern comfort and the urgent need for environmental responsibility and sustainability."

And yet First Street was chosen as the location for this "urban experiment" precisely because we have addressed many of the problems the brains behind the Guggenheim/BMW lab have newly discovered. We already have a strong and viable community structure in place! One that residents have spent the past 30 years cultivating and nourishing. We have at least a dozen tenant-owned coops and homesteads, heavily used recreational facilities: handball court and playground, a wonderful community garden, the historic Catholic Worker house, and many mom-and-pop galleries, restaurants and small businesses. Was there really no need to 're-think' and study the critical problems of, say, urban Bushwick or any other community lacking the organization and amenities of the newly gentrified/touristified LES?

To add insult to injury, the main entrance to our new community center/think tank has been placed on Houston Street. Right across from Whole Foods, and will host a lovely outdoor café in the just finished Parks Department garden. It is highly unlikely that our small businesses and organizations will benefit from this expression of urban caring. The only impediment to the beauty of this scenario was the homeless bicycle repair man who has provided a valuable entrepreneurial service on the NE corner of 2nd Ave and Houston St. for a number of years. A few weeks ago, the Parks Department had his entire tool pushcart confiscated and dumped into a sanitation truck.

Forgive my outrage — but am I the only one who sees the irony/tragedy in both ruining a man’s livelihood and making it more difficult for bicyclers to bike the city. How sustainable is that? But why would BMW (or an art museum for that matter) care? They are a car company, and this is a huge PR opportunity for all involved!

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Guggenheim wants our rat-infested First Street lot

Residents pitching in to help refurbish First Street garden

Designs for urban life apparently don't include trees

Kenny Scharf's quick work on Delancey

EV Grieve reader IPinchU came across Kenny Scharf creating a quick mural on a rolldown gate next to the Bowery Ballroom last night...

Maybe Robert Tierney doesn't hate the East Village after all

A few people were beginning to wonder anyway in the aftermath of the failed attempts to get the the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission to protect 35 Cooper Square or 326-328 E. Fourth St.

As the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) noted yesterday, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has agreed to expand the boundaries of their proposed East Village/Lower East Side Historic District study area to include additional streets and buildings called for by GVSHP, the Historic Districts Council, the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, and the East Village Community Coalition.

The additions to the study areas include buildings along Avenue A, East Sixth Street, Second Avenue and East Second Street. Among the items of interest per the GVSHP: "101 Avenue A, an 1876 tenement of striking architecture which has housed everything from a German Social hall in the 19th century to a drag performance art space (the Pyramid) in the 1980s."

Read more from the GVSHP here.

Here is a letter from Tierney, chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, on the matter.

Previously.

SOS Chefs, high-end supplier to A-list restaurateurs, is closing on Avenue B

Here at 104 Avenue B near Seventh Street, SOS Chefs has been supplying chefs and foodies alike with with everything from almond syrup to truffle oil to Turkish figs. (New York magazine once noted that Momofuku’s David Chang and Prune’s Gabrielle Hamilton are fans.)

However, as the sign on the door to customers notes, SOS is closing up its shop.

Per the sign: "We are going to take some time to discover new things, and to see what the next steps may be in the evolution of SOS Chefs."

One reader who recently stopped in said that the owners wanted to spend more time with their family. No word on where the Guard Cat will relocate.

The amazing Spider-Man's amazing lighting

Shawn Chittle notes the late-night filming of "The Amazing Spider-Man" on the Williamsburg Bridge. Taken from Avenue A and 11th Street toward the southeast around 1:30 a.m.

Here are some shots by James and Karla Murray on Flickr.

On the town, and at the Mars Bar

Fleet Week and the Mars Bar. Photo taken last evening by a fond, wistful neighbor of the Mars Bar.