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Here's this week's NY See, East Village-based illustrator Grant Shaffer's comic series — an observational sketch diary of things that he sees and hears around the neighborhood.
"After several years of peaks and valleys in business there were just too many valleys. Companies now sell direct to consumers and once they started offering free shipping it was all over. This is happening everywhere, not just locally.
The landlord wanted us to stay. She offered us a fair price and she's been great. We just couldn't make it."
This extensive film series — inspired by David E. James’s extraordinary book, “Rock ‘N’ Film” — ranges from major and minor studio productions to independent documentaries and avant-garde projects. Borrowing its structure from the successive chapters of “Rock ‘N’ Film,” this series functions as a kind of illustrated edition of James’s definitive book, and demonstrates how intertwined the cinema and popular music have been since the inception of rock ‘n’ roll.
The #NYPD is asking your assistance in identifying these two individuals in regards to a burglary that occurred on Saturday July 21 inside of 44 Avenue B.
— NYPD 9th Precinct (@NYPD9Pct) August 1, 2018
If you have any info we ask you to call #800577TIPS #EastVillage #NYC pic.twitter.com/AxUbWnw58q
The New York Public Library's oldest branch, the Ottendorfer Library, will close temporarily on August 6 to install a new fire alarm and life safety system. The 8,000-square-foot Ottendorfer Library opened in 1884 as New York City's first free public library.
The upgrades at Ottendorfer Library will strengthen the well-being of a historic New York City building as well as further support nearly 135 years of library service to the Lower East Side community.
Due to the building's age and landmark status, the project is expected to take six months. The branch ... will reopen in early 2019. While Ottendorfer Library is closed, patrons are advised to use the Tompkins Square Library at 331 East 10th Street.
On June 27, tenants from East 1st Street rallied alongside affordable housing activists and elected officials to celebrate the completion of a community mural project, which called attention to the high concentration and negative effects of commercially operated, short-term apartment rentals facilitated by platforms like VRBO and Airbnb. These amateur muralists were shocked, but not surprised, to find that their project had been vandalized for the second time since they had begun work on the mural in early May.
On both occasions their mural was the only artwork in the First Street Green Art Park to be hit by the vandal, and the muralists allege that their messaging about the negative impact of short-term rentals on the community, as well as information on what tenants can do if they believe an illegal hotel is being operated in their building, were intentionally obscured.
A report issued in May 2018 by City Comptroller Scott Stringer notes that Chinatown and the Lower East Side are home to a high concentration of short-term rentals. Tenants living in buildings where illegal hotel operations are common allege that illegal hotels reduce affordable housing options and compromise tenant safety and quality of life — the lucrative prices that short-term rentals fetch contribute to displacement pressure on long-term tenants, and tenants' lives are often grossly disrupted by the influx of tourists and strangers who are able to access their building.
Residents in buildings where these operations are common claim they are routinely woken up in the middle of the night by confused guests ringing their buzzers and travelers carrying luggage up and down their stairs at all hours of the night. Others have woken up to find vomit in building common areas.
The tenants who worked on the mural are currently planning their response, and are looking for support from members of the community who are also concerned about illegal hotels' detrimental effects on the community.
This Starbucks is always full and the tables and chairs are always taken and theirs always a line to use the bathroom although that is next to the subway station entrance and across from a department store, this location needs lots of improvements and make the place more cozy for people.
First, it's desperately in need of a renovation: 1) All the tables are scratched and worn. The chairs are the same, plus most of them are ready to fall apart. 2) The roof leaks when it rains. 3) The bathrooms look like they run a cockfighting ring out of them.
The Astor Place Starbuck's has floor-to-ceiling windows and a vaulted ceiling. "We've been looking at opening stores that are a larger format, using the architecture of the site to its fullest potential," said Kat Spellman, a company spokeswoman. It is the 11th Starbuck's Coffee in Manhattan; several more are planned in the next year.
Originally built in the early 1800s this townhouse now consists of 4 high-end residential apartments, all of which are free market, and thus the building is positioned for an easy conversion to a single family home. The garden floor (a few steps down) and 2nd floor consist of a beautiful and spacious duplex apartment that has 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 laundry rooms and an 800SF rear yard/garden. The 3rd, 4th and 5th floors consist of 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartments.
As a bonus, the basement has a large open finished storage space (approx. 700SF) with rear yard access. From 2014-2016, the property underwent a high-end gut renovation, including steel superstructure, high efficiency heating/cooling, full insulated hurricane windows (eliminating the need for security gates), all LED lighting, complete closed cell urethane insulation, soundproofing, steel superstructure with foundation footings/grade beams, silicone integrated roof coating on top of new EDPM roof system, separately metered utilities/systems are new from the street throughout the building, all exterior walls are protected with brick ties/rods.
The result is one of the best built, most energy efficient, sound-proofed properties in NY. This property is ideal for an investor to operate the building as a 4 family (plus bonus space) and utilize the air rights down the road, or for an owner/user who can occupy all or a portion of this gut renovated gem.
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"Thunder and Lightning" is a really special song to me. There are times when inspiration strikes, and it feels otherworldly — this is one of those rare times for me. I was struggling to cope with the loss of my older brother, sitting in the room he was born — where we grew up together in my small East Village apartment — and I wrote the lyrics to this song. It was about a year ago, right before my album was going to come out, and I took a phrase from the first line of the song and titled my album Little Thunder as a precursor to this track.
I knew I wanted everything about this recording to be significant and special to me. I had come to Memphis for the first time on tour and met Boo Mitchell (a Grammy award-winning producer) outside of the venue I played at, by chance. A few months later I came back to Memphis to record with him at Royal Studios, where his father recorded all of Al Green’s records.
[T]his is so gut wrenching. I've put all my efforts and energy into trying to fix the selfishness and ignorance of the human race. This beautiful young soul will never sore high up in the clouds bringing the caring people joy and happiness of watching his magnificence. He never got the chance to live his life. Instead he suffered a horrible death. How hard is it to clean up after yourselves and take pride in our planet and all that live in it???
Secondary poisoning happens when one animal (like a rat) eats poison, then the predator who eats the prey animal dies from the poison. Our hawk likely ingested rodenticide from a poisoned rat or mouse that was brought into the park by its parents. Tompkins Square Park does not use rodenticide, but the surrounding area is full of it.
Some residents blame the growing rat infestation at the lot at Avenue B and East 13th Street on an adjacent trash-compactor area that serves neighboring buildings and NYCHA’s nearby Campos Plaza II housing development.
The trash compactor is privately managed, NYCHA spokesman Chester Soria said.
As a result, the sidewalk there has become a dumping ground for garbage, residents said Friday.
Making matters worse, another maintenance worker, who takes care of trash from two buildings on the block for C&C Management, said the city picks up garbage only “once every five days.”
Department of Sanitation spokeswoman Dina Montes said that “at a minimum” the agency “empties the compact container at this location three times a week.”
“The city? They don’t do nothing,” added Juan Rivera, 57, who lives at the nearby Tanya Towers. “The rats are so big, like cats. I’m scared. Everybody is scared.”