At Tabby Twitch's 'Prime'

Photos and text by Stacie Joy 

Since last summer, an unexpected performance has been taking place in a space better known for watching sports.

Tabby Twitch's live burlesque show "Prime" has found a home in the back room at the Gray Mare, the pub at 61 Second Ave. between Third Street and Fourth Street. (The next quarterly show happens on May 2 Thursday, April 4. See the end of the post for info.)

Twitch dubs herself the "friskiest feline in burlesque." Twitch, also known as actor Jane Cortney and a longtime local resident of Ninth Street, produces and performs in "Prime."

She describes it this way: a "racy romp set in an elegant East Village tavern, featuring a ravishing array of burlesque performers at the height of their powers. Not a canter, not a gallop, this show is a sultry yet invigorating trot featuring libidinous libations, the raffle of your dreams and more rhinestones than a room can hold." 

I attended the January show featuring Amanda Poise, Ella Blu, Maria Bartolotta and Queerly Femmetastic.

Here are a few scenes from the evening...

"Prime focuses on performers at the height of their powers because I came to burlesque later in life. I want to show what it means to be 'in your prime,' with all the richness and experience that entails," Cortney said. "Though I highlight burlesque performers, there is a salon feel to the evening. A vocalist performs, and I weave poetry throughout the night. My goal is for the audience to leave my show feeling relaxed and reinvigorated, in their prime regardless of their actual age."

The next "Prime" is this Thursday (April 4) at 8 p.m. now scheduled for May 2. Keep tabs on the shows here.

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a "Barbieheimer"-era photo from the Village East by Angelika on Second Avenue ... Or "Barbenheimer" if you prefer)...

• RIP Big Lee (Tuesday) 

 • When a young red-tailed hawk gets stuck in the airshaft outside your kitchen window (Friday) 

•  The Cube returns to Astor Place — and ready to spin again (Tuesday) ... When the Cube returned to Astor Place late Monday night (Wednesday) 

• At the last night of Ink on A (Sunday) 

• A visit to Ella Funt on 4th Street (Friday) 

• Details about some upcoming shows via the Knitting Factory at Baker Falls on Avenue A (Thursday) 

• Report: Metropolitan Playhouse is closing after 30-plus years of productions (Wednesday) 

• 'Star Wars' parody at the Orpheum is joining the dark side after Sunday (Thursday)

• The Avenue C Laundromat has a new owner (Tuesday) 

• Suki Japanese Kitchen hasn't been open lately on St. Mark's Place (Wednesday) 

• Panda Express debuts on 14th Street and 1st Avenue (Monday) 

• The 1st Manhattan outpost of Ayat shapes up on 7th Street and Avenue C (Wednesday) 

• On the CB3-SLA docket: A new home for the Boiler Room; a pizzeria for Avenue B (Monday)

• So what's next for this block of 2nd Avenue? (Monday)

• Avant Garden reopens in new Avenue A home (Tuesday) 

• Target makes it signage official on Union Square (Thursday) 

• Openings: Tacombi on 12th Street (Monday) 

• PSA: The original Russ & Daughters Appetizers is closed for a few weeks for renovations (Thursday) 

• Say high to the latest retail tenant at this 2nd Avenue storefront (Tuesday) 

• Full reveals: 650 E. 6th St. (Thursday) 

... and in concert news... U.K.-based singer-songwriter Declan McKenna played a sold-out show at Webster Hall on Friday night... and the line on 11th Street started early... (photos by Stacie Joy)...

Meanwhile, on Wednesday night, local EVG faves Hello Mary played a sold-out Bowery Ballroom as the trio continues to tour in support of headliner Blondshell this summer...

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Follow EVG on Instagram or Twitter for more frequent updates and pics.

A visit to Ella Funt on 4th Street

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

Ella Funt debuted in late May at 78-80 E. Fourth St., just west of Second Avenue.

The stylish restaurant takes its name from drag artist Ella Funt, back when the legendary Club 82 was the place to be seen in the basement of this address. (One of the performers from that era has been involved with planning the new cabaret — more on that in a moment.) 

On a recent evening, I met co-owner Harry Nicolaou, whose family operates the classic Cinema Village on 12th Street between University and Fifth Avenue...

The staff was prepping for this evening's dinner service...

Marcus Jahmal painted the mural along the western wall in the dining room...

The most popular entree has been the whole fish (here was Dorado, but subject to change) with green-curry reduction and greens ...

... another in-demand dish has been the raviolo with spinach and ricotta, garlic scapes and confit egg yolk ...

The well-appointed space filled up quickly with an upbeat crowd...

Management appreciates the space's history and is creating a cabaret-theater in the basement that pays homage to the original Club 82. (We hope to have images of the space and info on the plans later in the summer as it's still under construction downstairs.)

The cabaret will be a nice addition to this Fourth Street corridor, which includes La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, the Duo Multicultural Arts Center, the Kraine Theater and the New York Theatre Workshop. 

And from my personal collection... a postcard from the original Club 82...

Ella Funt is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Find more info here. And if you're on Instagram, you can follow their account here.

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Given that the owners are so keen on the history of the address... here's a little more about it...

In the early 1970s, Club 82 became a rock club featuring the New York Dolls, Teenage Lust, Suicide and Another Pretty Face.

The subsequent iterations of the space included a movie theater and an all-male strip club. Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones tried to make a go of it as a music club again in 1990 with Woody's. The basement space reopened as the Bijou Cinema around 1992, per Cinema Treasures, operating in different capacities until 2018. 

Stillwater Bar & Grill was a ground-floor tenant, shutting down in the spring of 2019 after 15 years in service.

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a photo on Avenue A by Derek Berg) ... 

• Big changes are coming to the iconic skate spot in Tompkins Square Park (Monday) 

• Community groups advocating for low-income housing on these 2 East Village sites (Tuesday) 

• Ella Funt & Club 82 looks to bring food, film and theater to storied 4th Street venue (Monday) 

• The [plant-baked] retail space is closing on 7th Street this Sunday (Friday) 

• The former Uncle Johnny grocery slated for demolition on Avenue D and 5th Street (Wednesday) 

• The great First Avenue Laundry Center is closing for renovations this fall (Thursday) 

• Good Beer has closed (Monday) 

• Crossroads Trading bringing the resale and vintage clothing to Second Avenue (Friday)

• Openings: Monsieur Vo on 2nd Avenue (Wednesday) 

• New York State is selling off the contents of Matthew Kenney's restaurant Sestina (Thursday) 

• Pretty much a full reveal at the incoming Empanada Mama (Wednesday)

• Former Tarallucci e Vino space for rent (Thursday) 

• Former Los Tacos space now a 787 Coffee training facility on 7th Street (Wednesday) 

• Longtime bar space at 68 2nd Ave. hits the rental market (Tuesday) 

• 1 guess on what is coming to this empty storefront on Avenue A and 13th Street (Monday) 

• Signage alert: Chomp Chomp Thai Kitchen on 1st Street (Friday) 

• New 6th Street psychic apparently didn't summon psychic powers before taking this space (Thursday)

• A Link5G tower for Avenue A (Tuesday) 

... and speaking of Link5G towers, on Friday, EVG contributor Stacie Joy spotted workers erecting one on Clinton Street between Houston and Stanton... 

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Follow EVG on Instagram or Twitter for more frequent updates and pics.

Ella Funt & Club 82 looks to bring food, film and theater to storied 4th Street venue

An ambitious project is in the works for 78-82 E. Fourth St. that would bring together a restaurant, movie theater and cabaret under one roof while reviving some East Village nightlife history. 

The operators behind Ella Funt & Club 82 are on tonight's CB3 SLA & DCA Licensing Committee docket for a liquor license for the two-level space between Second Avenue and the Bowery. 

There are several elements to this proposed establishment — a French restaurant, movie theater and performance space. The questionnaire on file at the CB3 website (PDF here) provides more detail and renderings of the 150-person-capacity theater space, which already exists in the basement (see below for more history of this address).

There's also a mention of "screenings of independent and old films five days a week," The management team includes Harry Nicolaou. His family operates several indie theaters, including Cinema Village on 12th Street between University and Fifth Avenue.

On paper, the concept sounds like a good fit for a block with destinations such as La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, the Duo Multicultural Arts Center, the Kraine Theater and the New York Theatre Workshop.

Tonight's meeting starts at 6:30. You can tune in via Zoom.

And now some history of the space...

Here's background via the New-York Historical Society: 

If you were an adventurous visitor to New York City in the 1950s or 1960s, you might have found your way to Club 82. A basement nightclub at 82 East Fourth Street, it wasn't much to look at from the outside... 

But once you made it there, you'd descend the steep stairs into an elegant, transporting nightclub decked out in the height of mid-century kitsch: mirrored columns, plastic palm fronds, elaborate banquettes, and white tablecloths. On the tables would be souvenir knockers, a small wooden ball on the end of a stick emblazoned with the club's name, which patrons would tap on the table when they were pleased with a performance or wanted to call a waiter. Knockers had one benefit over clapping: You didn’t have to put down your drink to use them. 

Club 82 was a trendy place to be. If you were lucky, celebrities like Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, or Salvador Dalí might be in attendance on any given night. A club photographer would circulate among the tables, snapping keepsake photos for a $1.50 or $2 fee for audience members, who were decked out in suits and cocktail dresses and would get an 8″ by 10″ print to take home at the end of the night. There wasn't a cover to get in, but there was a drink minimum and an extensive cocktail menu to hit your required mark. 

And of course, there was the stage, which was the main reason you would've come to Club 82 in the first place. The club was known for its elaborate live shows that ran three times a night into the wee hours of the morning. 

What made Club 82 unique was that it was an early bastion of drag and gender impersonation: Almost all of the performers in the floor show where men dressed as women, and most of the wait staff were women dressed as dashing young men in tuxedos. 

In the early 1970s, Club 82 became a rock club, featuring bands like the New York Dolls, Teenage Lust, Suicide and Another Pretty Face.

   

The subsequent iterations of the space included a movie theater and an all-male strip club. Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones tried to make a go of it as a music club again in 1990 with Woody's. The basement space reopened as the Bijou Cinema around 1992, per Cinema Treasures, operating off and on through the years in different capacities until 2018. 

Stillwater Bar & Grill was a ground-floor tenant, shutting down in the spring of 2019 after 15 years in service.

#Baonanas bringing their version of banana pudding to 7th Street

Photo by Steven

An outpost of #Baonanas — a company selling its take on banana pudding and other desserts — is opening at 93 E. Seventh St. just east of First Avenue. 

The shop had a sneak preview this past weekend... and is expected to be open at the end of the week. 

Real-life couple Trisha Villanueva and Lloyd Ortuoste started the business in Jersey City in 2014. Some background per the #Baonanas website:

[I]n April 2014, a close friend recommended that we sell our banana pudding to help fund a repair for Lloyd's car, Ella, a sonic yellow 2004 Subaru WRX Impreza STI, who was in a fender bender. So we started the hashtag #Baonanas on Instagram. We were amazed by the community's reaction to our silly little hashtag.

Here's more on their desserts via a 2020 feature on ABC 7: "Using Leche flan, the Filipino version of creme caramel, instead of regular boxed jello, Lloyd and ... Trisha ... have been able to develop innovative flavors and a fluffy mousse texture."

Find their menu of 30-plus flavors here. 

Aside from the Jersey City outpost, you can find #Baonanas at Smorgasburg in Prospect Park and Williamsburg in the fall. 

This spot has been vacant since the original location of Luke's Lobster closed here in 2019 ... after they had outgrown the space. As founders Luke Holden and Ben Conniff wrote back then: "It's time for 93 E. 7th Street to help launch someone else's dream, and we can't wait to visit and support it."

[Updated] 82-year-old woman found dead; great-grandson in custody for murder

An 82-year-old woman was found beaten to death and bound to a chair inside her apartment in the Lillian Wald Houses on East Fourth Street near the FDR, according to published reports. And now her great-grandson, identified as 23-year-old Gary Bias, is in custody facing second-degree murder and attempted murder charges.

The suspect’s 39-year-old mother was also tied up by her wrists and ankles, but she managed to free herself and call 911, the Daily News reports. When police arrived, they found the body of Ella Mae Bias. (Media reports have identified the family's last name as both Biaz and Bias. The updated reports use Bias.)

Police found Gary Bias in his car just over the Williamsburg Bridge.

amNewYork reports that a law enforcement source says it "appeared there was a family dispute that preceded the incident, however police are still investigating what the nature of the argument was."

Per the Daily News: "A neighbor said he would regularly hit up his great-grandmother for cash after her Social Security checks arrived on the first day of the month."

Updated Oct. 2

The Post reports that Gary Bias "told cops the women were conspiring to kill him." The Post also notes that he "is believed to be mentally ill."

Tompkins Square Park hosts the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on Sunday

[Photo of Ron Miles in the Park last year by Stacie Joy]

Info on the 23rd annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival via the EVG inbox...

City Parks Foundation is proud to announce the 2016 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. The festival is New York City's annual salute to the legendary saxophonist, featuring contemporaries of Charlie Parker as well as young jazz musicians that continue to shape and drive the art form.

In a world of modern music — not just jazz — few figures loom as large or cast as long a shadow as saxophonist Charlie Parker, best known as "Bird" (short for "Yardbird") to generations of musicians. He was born in 1920 and almost 60 years since his death in 1955, he is universally celebrated for single-handedly inventing bebop and bringing jazz into the modern era.

The festival is particularly significant this year given the upcoming centennial of the musical dawning of the term “jazz,” as well as what would have been the 100th birthdays of late jazz greats including Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Ella Fitzgerald.

On Sunday in Tompkins Square Park, audiences will be introduced to DeJohnette - Moran - Holland, the first-time collaboration of influential jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette, innovative pianist Jason Moran, and prolific double bassist Dave Holland.

Listeners will be delighted by performances from award-winning jazz vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Allan Harris and acclaimed saxophonist Donny McCaslin, who will perform his newest album accompanied by his group.

The complete Charlie Parker Jazz Festival schedule can be found on the City Parks Foundation website here.

The Festival is 3-7 p.m. here on Sunday. The Festival is in Marcus Garvey Park tonight and tomorrow afternoon.

Parker, who died in 1955 at age 34, lived at 151 Avenue B from 1950-54.

[Updated: Cancelled] Films in Tompkins return tomorrow night with 'Dog Day Afternoon'

The free films return to the Park for the month of July … and according to the organizers, this year's lineup was hand selected by Matthew Broderick, Christie Brinkley, Billy Joel and James Franco.

The series starts tomorrow night with "Dog Day Afternoon."



You may arrive at 6 for the free film, which starts at sundown. The band City of the Sun will play a set before the movie.

You can head to the Films in Tompkins Facebook page for any updates. The Films in Tompkins sponsors are TD Bank, Boulton & Watt and Drexler's, the new bar opening this summer in the former Ella space at 9 Avenue A.

Updated 7-9

Threat of rain cancels tonight's screening ...

Updates: A new beginning for Diane McLean and her 3 children

[Photo from April 10 by James Maher]

Diane McLean and her children Rose, James and Annabelle were among the East Village residents who found themselves without a home after the deadly gas explosion on March 26.

McLean, a child psychiatrist at Lincoln Medical Center, had lived at 119 Second Ave. since 1979. (No. 119, 121 and 123 were all destroyed in the aftermath of the explosion.)

We featured her in Out and About in the East Village on April 15.

I’m absolutely trying to take a positive attitude. I believe in the future and I’m a positive person. But that does not mean that we’re OK. People gave me everything I’m wearing besides my shoes and my jacket — the shirt, the pants, the socks. But I feel good about that. I’m walking around and I can say, ‘Oh yeah, Lori and Rachel gave me that,’ and my kids can get up in the morning and say, ‘I’m putting on Ella’s clothes, I’m putting on Zachary’s clothes.’ We’re wearing people’s care and that’s practically helpful, but now we have to get to the next step. I’m really overwhelmed on how we’re going to get there, and that’s what I don’t know.

At the time of the interview, she was looking for a place to live with her children.

This past Friday, the Huffington Post noted that Diane found a new place to live in Bushwick.

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Diane McLean
Occupation: Child Psychiatrist at Lincoln Medical Center
Location: East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Time: 10 am on Friday, April 10

I’m from New York, born on the Upper West Side. My father was from Baton Rouge, La., and my mother grew up on a farm in Canada and became a nurse. They met in Montreal and had never lived in New York, but they came, got married and loved the city. My brother and I were born here, grew up here. After college my father became ill and my mother ended up leaving the city.

I wanted to come back after college and build a home here because the city was my home. I had $300 in my pocket. I lived in the living room of my college roommate's apartment with her friends. I got a job. I was able to sublet and share an apartment. That was in January 1979 and by August two friends and I found an apartment. It didn’t have any ceilings. It didn’t have a bathroom. It didn’t have a fridge. It didn’t have a stove — anything. It only had two outlets in the whole apartment. But it had light, windows and high ceilings.

We wrote a contract with the landlord and we committed to building a home. It was my first adult, actually my only adult home. This has been it. We renovated it and created the apartment. The landlord then sold the building to the Hrynenkos. We ended up being in landlord tenant court for nine months because they decided not to put in a stove, fridge, bathroom or wire it for lights. So eventually they had to do that.

I took over the lease in the early 1980s. Love Saves the Day was in the retail space of my building [at 119 Second Avenue at East Seventh Street]. The people who owned it were friends. Tom Birchard and Sally Haddock, who owned Veselka, lived in my building.

When we were working on that apartment, I locked myself out and my two roommates were working late. I couldn’t get in, so I went to Veselka, but I had no money because I was a graduate student. I could only buy coffee and I sat at a table and the hours started to go by. The waitress came by and said, ‘Oh aren’t you going to get anything else’ and she kept coming back and finally I said, ‘You know, I don’t really have money and I’m just waiting for my friends.’ And then she came over and brought a huge plate of food, enough to feed three people and she said, ‘Eat, eat, you have to eat. You’re young, you need strength, you need meat on your bones.’ She fed me. And that for me was our neighborhood. People helped each other out in the East Village.

---

Affordability and light and air brought me to the neighborhood. Light and air were a priority for me, so it didn’t matter that the apartment had nothing. There was nothing I could afford anywhere else, and also, everything was open at night. I started a masters in public health at Columbia a month after we started that apartment. I was given the gift of my parents believing in education. I was fortunate to go to an amazing university, Harvard, and then to Columbia, and I always felt I could put that back into use. You use your skills to give people the best and I could do that.

I’ve always done public service. As a New Yorker, I felt I could put my education to use. I was first an epidemiologist. I have a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia and a Masters of Public Health. Epidemiology is a science to understand the causes of disease in people. Why do people get sick and what can we do to prevent it. I committed to trying to understand this.

In 1990, two surgeons at Harlem hospital published a paper saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute, people in our community of central Harlem are dying at earlier ages than men and women in Bangladesh, which has fewer resources. Why in the greatest city on Earth, are people dying from preventable illness before they’re 65 in central Harlem? So the CDC funded a network of research centers to understand that. In 1991, I became the first director of research of epidemiology at that center, based in Harlem Hospital, connected to Columbia. We were committed to doing participatory research, involving the community, in figuring out what was happening in the community. People were really dying of preventable illnesses.

At that time, I met doctors at Harlem Hospital who were amazing. They could have worked anywhere and they were committed to doing just that. Not just the research, but providing the best care to people in the community. I got inspired to go back to school and become a doctor. I went back to school at night. I took physics, biology, organic chemistry at night as a second job in addition to this. And I applied to medical school. I was incredibly fortunate that Cornell accepted me. I was their oldest student at 42. It’s a progressive medical school. It’s one of the most diverse in the country across social class, background and education.

Right now, I am incredibly fortunate to be a child psychiatrist, working in the Child Outpatient Clinic of Lincoln Hospital. We serve the South Bronx community, one of the most underserved in the country. We serve children and families. I have great colleagues and we’re a wonderful clinic. We do everything we can.

---

I’m a single mother with an 8 year old and two 5 year olds. I’m an alternative family. I’m an older mother, and I’m a single mother by choice. This is a diverse neighborhood, and that’s what I want my kids to know — that you can have every kind of family. Every kind of person lives in our neighborhood. That’s what I want them to in a sense take in by breathing by walking around. Our neighborhood is a little microcosm of New York.

[After the deadly explosion and fire of March 26], my challenge that keeps me from not sleeping is that my family has to find a home. We don’t have a home. Cooper Square Committee is inviting me for an interview, which I am so grateful for. They are the only ones to do that. They might possibly have a studio. I would be grateful for a roof over our head but four people in 375 square feet is very tough. People are looking but there’s nothing out there. So that’s our challenge — to somehow, somewhere find affordable housing where we can commute to the Children’s Workshop School.

I’m absolutely trying to take a positive attitude. I believe in the future and I’m a positive person. But that does not mean that we’re OK. People gave me everything I’m wearing besides my shoes and my jacket — the shirt, the pants, the socks. But I feel good about that. I’m walking around and I can say, ‘Oh yeah, Lori and Rachel gave me that,’ and my kids can get up in the morning and say, ‘I’m putting on Ella’s clothes, I’m putting on Zachary’s clothes.’ We’re wearing people’s care and that’s practically helpful, but now we have to get to the next step. I’m really overwhelmed on how we’re going to get there, and that’s what I don’t know.

I’m hoping we can find that and I’m hoping all of my neighbors can, especially my other neighbors who were rent-stabilized and rent-controlled. Every person was displaced. Every person lost their homes and every person lost everything. But we lost the ability to pay for housing. We lost the ability to create new housing. That is so far not what the city can offer. They can offer us shelter but they’re not offering anything else. And probably they have goodwill and maybe they can’t. You want to think the best.

We’re going back, definitely, for real. I know that corner from every possible angle, in every weather, in every season. I know everything about it. I can walk through every inch of that apartment in my memory; I can walk through every life stage of that apartment. I made it a home for my kids. It was my only home.

--

You may find more information on Diane's GoFundMe page here.

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James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Week in Grieview

[Friday morning on 7th and A]

Ricky hopes for a reunion with Pookie (Tuesday)

Local elected officials urge Mayor de Blasio to help return the former PS 64 to the community (Wednesday)

Open Pantry announces closure on Second Avenue (Thursday)

Those "incessantly ringing" wind chimes on East Seventh Street (Friday)

Out and About with Zachary Mack (Wednesday)

NYU neighbors Just Sweet and Everything Bagels close on Third Avenue (Monday, 30 comments)

It snowed a little bit (Friday)

Mexican food spot slated for former Native Bean space on Avenue A (Tuesday)

Moonstruck Diner reopens after another revamp (Friday)

The former Back Forty space is for rent (Thursday)

Ella Lounge closes on A (Thursday)

A skylight falls from St. Brigid's (Thursday)

East Village in images, 2014 (Part 2) (Sunday)

The life aquatic on East Fifth Street (Wednesday)

Let's take a look at the New York Sports Club on Avenue A without the sidewalk bridge (Monday)

Madman Espresso coming to University Place (Monday)

Whitehouse Hotel still occupied on the Bowery (Thursday)

The Streit’s Matzo Factory is closing on the Lower East Side (Tuesday)

Video: The "Mighty Manhattan" of 1949 (Monday)

Oyster City to replace Sliders on East 11th Street (Thursday)

Dial-a-Song by They Might Be Giants returns (Monday)

… and a faraway look at the film shoot in Tompkins Square Park last Tuesday night for the Untitled Christmas Eve project starring Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie.


[Photo by @roaddoggz via Instagram]

Ella Lounge has apparently closed for good on Avenue A

[Image via]

Ella Lounge, the duplex bar/lounge named for Ella Fitzgerald at 9 Avenue A, has apparently closed.

BoweryBoogie reported yesterday that Ella's last night was Jan. 3. While there isn't any mention of a closure on Ella's social media properties or website, the phone has been disconnected.

The retro space (previously Julep, Velvet and what else?) with live music and various acts opened in September 2008 with a news release that noted:

"Ella is our spin on Hollywood glamour and the roaring 20's. We want to capture the energy and flair of the time by bringing it back with our music, design and staff..."

And!

The 1700 square foot top floor of the space will have a combined feeling of the décor of Hampshire House, The Carlyle and Hollywood's Lake Arrowhead Springs Hotel as well.

Within a year, that old Hollywood glamour had apparently faded with hosted events such as...



We never made it to Ella. We were admittedly turned off from the get-go by ownership (The Gallery Bar) referring to this part of the neighborhood as the LEV — as in "Lower East Village." Then there was the requisite Thrillist writeup, which played up Ella's exclusivity: "reservations are referral only, and the door policy is doorman's discretion — so there's a decent chance you'll be stranded outside."

Thanks, but we'll stick to The Library next door.

More about the End of Avenue A Block Association

[Photo via RyanAvenueA]

Earlier in the week, we noted the arrival of a newly formed (and apocalyptically named) End of Avenue A Block Association.

At the time we thought this was the work of residents. Turns out it is a group of bar/restaurant owners on the block between East Second Street and East Houston.

Jaime Felber, an owner of Boulton & Watt, offered some background via email.

"I approached all the bars on our block to join us, and was happy that Yerba Buena, 2A, the Library and Ella chose to join in," Felber said. "While this was set up by the managers and owners of the bars on our block, we obviously welcome the inclusion of anyone within our community."

There was a small turnout for the meeting. (He said that Boulton & Watt had flyers promoting the meeting up in their windows in recent weeks. He promised to share meeting info with EVG in advance of the next meeting.)

"A few issues regarding sidewalk congestion, noise and consideration of garbage were brought to our attention, and we worked out a basic course of action to hopefully mitigate these problems as best we can."

Felber said that he and one of his Boulton & Watt partners within a few blocks of here.

"So we consider ourselves part of the neighborhood as residents as much as bar operators, and look forward to further conversations." (Residents can use this email for any correspondence with the group.)

Oh, and how about the name — the End of Avenue A Block Association?

"The rather ominous-sounding name we chose for our block association was also pointed out at [the] meeting," Felber said. "Of course we didn't have that intention, but now it's out there, it seems almost a shame to change it."

Apocalypse now? Here comes the End of Avenue A Block Association

RyanAvenueA spotted the above flyer on his front door last evening… too late to attend the meeting the newly formed (and apocalyptically named) End of Avenue A Block Association had at Boulton & Watt.

At the meeting, reps from Boulton & Watt, The Library, Ella, 2A and Yerba Buena were expected to attend. Curiously enough, reps from bars (Double Down and Kelly's) on the east side of the Avenue were not listed.

The flyer also did not contain any contact information for prospective members or bloggers.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[Yesterday morning from 1st Avenue]

East Village resident dies in motorcycle crash on the Williamsburg Bridge (DNAinfo)

A look at the site "Now It's a Fucking FroYo Place" (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Demolishing the LES Pathmark (The Lo-Down)

Surveying the messy Astor Place redesign (BoweryBoogie)

A "secret fitness spot" on the Bowery (New York Post)

A new chef at Northern Spy on East 12th Street (Grub Street)

... and tonight at Ella Lounge at 9 Avenue A... keeping some punk spirit alive with the East Village-based Jiggers Is King...

Boulton and Watt is open on Avenue A

Boulton & Watt, the new bar-restaurant concept from the people behind Ella and the Blind Barber, officially opened this week at the former Nice Guy Eddie's space.

BlackBook described the space this way:

[T]he prime spot has a steampunk twist with salvaged windows, an antique steam engine used to power the restaurants fan system, and a spattering of repurposed furniture.

[Via Facebook]

And the food? Chef David Rotter said it was "a revised take on rustic American comfort food." Zagat points out that Rotter "pays homage to [the industrial revolution] with twists on throwback dishes such as Scotch egg with béarnaise; and short rib and bone marrow toast in bordelaise. There’s also a 'pickling station' featuring an array of fruits and veggies, including figs, pineapple, radish, Brussels sprouts and beets."

We've heard from people that the food is good, though "pickling station" might make parody fodder for a TV show that has a poster near the restaurant...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors about the new name for the former Nice Guy Eddie's space

Last night at Nice Guy Eddie's

[Updated] Here's Boulton & Watt at the former Nice Guy Eddie's space

After a 16-year run on the prime corner space at Avenue A and East Houston, Nice Guy Eddie's closed for this past June 16.

Darin Rubell, co-owner of GalleryBar and Ella, is one of the partners opening a new restaurant here. As we first reported in August, the space will be a gastropub called Boulton & Watt, named for the U.K.-based business partners who made many critical improvements to the steam engine in the late 1700s.

And yesterday, workers removed the rest of Chico's KISS-themed plywood to revel the exterior... a tipster told us to expect an opening date soon...

Updated 1:20

Here's another shot via Matt_LES...