A warm holiday greeting from EV Grieve

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a joyful holiday season to all!



Damn, anyway. I meant to do a better job of tracking the first signs of the December holidays. I forgot! This was at a Duane Reade yesterday. I'm sure stores have had holiday doodads up for much longer. Anyway, for me, it doesn't seem like the holidays until the trees go up at PC Richard & Son on 14th Street. Should be any day now!

Anyway, c'mon, let's get into the holiday spirit! Everyone! Even you traders!

A new (old) awning arrives at the Holiday

This morning, workers installed a new awning outside the former Holiday Cocktail Lounge at 75 St. Mark's Place.

And it's an exact replica of the previous awning...



Back in July, some dude on a skateboard came by and slashed the name off of it.

The new awning is the next step for the new venture here. As previously reported, Barbara Sibley, the owner of La Palapa next door, will help run a tavern-restaurant in this space.

First, though — the building had to undergo a top-to-bottom renovation. And it has taken awhile. Sibley has firsthand experience — she lives in the building. She talked to us about it back in January.

The building was in terrible condition ... It’s been such an exercise in zen and archaeology. As much as we’ve been trying to maintain it, you couldn’t keep everything. We were lucky on their closing night that we didn’t all fall through. Every time we look behind a wall it’s been a major repair. It’s been an endless process.

The Holiday 2.0 closed Jan. 28, 2012.

No word yet on an opening date... but the new place will go by the name the Holiday.

Let the holiday weekends begin

Our blogging friend Bryan Waterman passed along the details on dba's annual holiday fare on Saturdays this month (3-8 p.m.) featuring the work of some local artists...



Anyway, there's a lot of holiday things going on...and The Villager rounds up a lot of the activities right here. And La Superette will be down on Front Street in the South Street Seaport today and tomorrow.

And a little later this week, I'll have more information on the "Skits N Tits! One Year Anniversary Holiday Party" at the Bowery Poetry Club Wednesday night...the evening will mark the debut of CRAFTERMATH, formed by a group of women active in multi-disciplinary arts who love odd, original art, and cheap, anti-corporate gift-shopping in the spirit of comrades like Reverend Billy and La Superette.

Season's Supermarket Greetings

Photos by Stacie Joy 

While out and about this holiday season, EVG contributor Stacie Joy starting keeping tabs on the neighborhood's grocery stores (such as Associated on Avenue C above) to see how the markets were decorating for the season. 

Many places were on the bah-humbug-y side, perhaps with just a few cashier-area holiday tinsel-y ornaments. 

These were the groceries putting in the holiday décor effort, starting with Pioneer/Met Fresh on Avenue D between Eighth Street and Ninth Street ...

... Union Market on Houston and Avenue A...

... H-Mart on Third Avenue between Ninth Street and 10th Street ...

...New Yorkers Food Market on Second Avenue between Seventh Street and Sixth Street...

... Whole Foods Market® Bowery ...

... and the clear winner in the grocery holiday games — Key Food on Avenue A and Fourth Street,

Key was also the only shop with any Hanukkah signage and opting for the traditional Chanukah spelling...

Please note that Key closes at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve (tomorrow) and will be closed all day on Christmas. So plan ahead. (Sidenote: We finally found where they stock the mustard now — aisle 1, which doesn't make sense, after the Great Key Reorganization. Stayed tuned for the next investigative series on mustard presentation.)

The Beats will live again at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge (for one day, anyway)

So you know that the Holiday Cocktail Lounge closed on St. Mark's Place back on Jan. 29. Robert Ehrlich, the founder of Pirate Brands, and Barbara Sibley, the owner of La Palapa next door, will open a tavern-restaurant that serves staples such as fish-n-chips.

Allen Ginsberg, among many other literary luminaries, frequented the Holiday back in the day ... so it may not be so strange then that crews will film scenes for "Kill Your Darlings" at the Holiday on Monday.

IMDB simply puts the plot this way: "A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs." The crew has been shooting scenes around the city, including at Columbia, the last several weeks. (The Times has a lot of the backstory about the murder here; that the version of the story for this film can be found in "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks," the 1945 novel by Kerouac and Burroughs.)

Sibley told us that crew members will arrive today to transform the interior to look like the 1940s, which, given the bar's timeless look, likely won't take too much.

In the drama, Daniel Radcliffe plays a collegiate-age Ginsberg just as he's meeting Kerouac (Jack Huston) and Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan). Elizabeth Olsen is Kerouac's first wife, Edie Parker, and Ben Foster portrays William Burroughs. Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Cross and Kyra Sedgwick round out the cast.

[Lucien and Allen in the movies. Via]

As for the rest of the renovations, Sibley says they are coming along slowly. There's major work ahead, including with the sewer line.

Tompkins Square Park holiday tree lighting rescheduled for Sunday

Stupid rainstorm last Sunday led to the the postponement of the 18th annual holiday tree lighting...

Anyway, per the news release...

Tompkins Square Park Neighborhood Coalition
East Village Parks Conservancy & Third Street Music School Settlement present the 18th annual Tree Lighting at Tompkins Square

The 18th annual Holiday Tree Lighting at Tompkins Square, rescheduled due to rain, now takes place Sunday, December 20 from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. in Tompkins Square Park, near the southeast corner of the central lawn.

Over 30 caring people volunteer their efforts to make each year’s Tree Lighting our biggest and happiest celebration yet. The musicians of the Mandel & Lydon Trio, sponsored by Third Street Music School Settlement, join carolers from Theater for the New City, donating their time and talent to help lead everyone in songs of the season.

The carolers are outfitted in Victorian costumes provided by the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Public Theater. Notable East Village eateries, Veselka Restaurant and Life Cafe, provide hot chocolate, cider and other refreshments, free for all who attend.

A joyful crowd of neighborhood residents joins us as our audience, growing in size each year. The Tree Lighting has become a bright East Village tradition, touching more and more people every season.

The Tompkins Square Park Holiday tree is now lit (so to speak)

As we reported back on Friday, this year's annual Holiday Tree Lighting ceremony — featuring a choir and music — in Tompkins Square Park has been cancelled over COVID-19 concerns. 

However, the Parks Department still planned on putting the lights on the tree for the season (and I thought they were on year-round) ... 

Anyway, yesterday, workers started installing the lights and adding the electrical wiring ... Steven shared these top two photos...

... and Goggla passed this along later in the day...

And by last night, the lights were shining brightly...

We were originally told the lights would go on Thursday... but we'll take them a little early. Maybe they can stay on through the spring. (C'mon — we've done March before.)

As Stacie Joy reported on Friday...

Albert Fabozzi first planted the much-loved Christmas tree in Tompkins Square Park in 1992 to honor and memorialize his partner, Glenn Barnett, as well as others who died of AIDS. The tree was 8 feet tall when he planted it. Today, the tree is well over 50 feet.

This year would have marked the 29th annual tree lighting celebration. 

Previously on EV Grieve: 

The annual Holiday Tree Lighting in Tompkins Square Park is canceled due to COVID-19

Thanksgiving leftovers

Were you away for the holiday? If so, then welcome back. Anyway, we posted a bunch of stuff the last few days... In case you missed it the first time around...:

• Your CB3/SLA booze and bar agenda for December.

• Thanksgiving at the Blarney Cove

• More about Puddin' on St. Mark's Place

• Looking at the Robin Raj holiday window display

• People lined up really early for Black Friday at the Union Square Best Buy

• Lingerie-clad model in a lamp post photo shoot

• You may now buy Christmas holiday trees

• Chico creates a new ad mural on Houston and Avenue B

East Village Loves NYC prepares 1st holiday feast; tops more than 70,000 meals made for hungry New Yorkers in 2020

This past Sunday, East Village Loves NYC — the local volunteer group that formed in the spring to feed people in need during the pandemic — prepared its first holiday meal. 

At the Sixth Street Community Center between Avenue B and Avenue C, the East Village residents cooked and delivered 3,000 high-quality Mexican Halal meals to 17 organizations around the city.

The group is currently working with the crowdfunding platform ioby (an acronym for In Our Backyard) to raise money to feed low-income Black communities in Harlem and Queens that have been hit hard by the pandemic. (This project is eligible for up to $8,000 in match funding through ioby's NYC COVID-19 Just Recovery Match Fund. Find the crowdfunding page here.)

On Sunday, EVG contributor Stacie Joy documented the group's holiday food preparation ... as East Village Loves NYC has assembled more than 70,000 meals on the year...

This team of East Village volunteers formed in April (as Stacie documented in the links below). Early on, Ali Sahin, the owner of C&B Cafe on Seventh Street near Avenue B, donated his space on Mondays for the group to cook its meals ... while there, they were able to prepare up to 800 meals and 100 family-size pantry packs.

By June, they had outgrown the space, and started assembling deliveries at the Sixth Street Community Center. By the end of the summer, East Village Loves Queens expanded its operations and announced its new name — East Village Loves NYC. 

Find out more about the group and how to donate at this link. Follow them on Instagram here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
• These East Village residents are helping feed families in Queens during the COVID-19 crisis

• East Village volunteers expand their outreach to feed more neighbors in need

• East Village Loves Queens expands: Meet East Village Loves NYC

Holiday tree stands ready for action

Picking up from the earlier post today... holiday tree stands are up and ready at two other neighbor spots... First Avenue and East 14th Street...

...and Second Avenue at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery... looking forward to the arrival of the Holiday Hovel here... (cooler than the Creepy Camper...)

Our tree sources say that the, uh, trees will arrive tomorrow at the First Avenue/14th Street location...

Previously.

The Union Square Holiday Market is now open on Union Square this, uh, holiday season

The Union Square Holiday Market is back in action as of yesterday on the southern portion of Union Square at 14th Street. 

This winter season, the market, via Urbanspace, has 160 local and national vendors. Here's a link with the list of merchants. 

The kiosks will be up through Dec. 24. Hours: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving day. Rain or shine, etc.

Photo via @urbanspacenyc

Tompkins Square Park holiday tree starting to look more like a holiday tree

[Photo by @davidpiz]

Workers are putting the lights on the Tompkins Square Park holiday tree ... ahead of the tree lighting this Sunday from 4-5 p.m.

(And enjoy the lights while you can — they'll likely only be up through the middle of February.)

-----

From the archives ...


[Photo by Bobby Williams]

Holiday Fair at the Neighborhood School (plus, pix of cute kids!)

From the EV Grieve inbox...

The Neighborhood School’s Holiday Fair:
A FUN FAIR FOR A GREAT CAUSE!

The Neighborhood School’s beloved Holiday Fair is back! On Sunday, December 5, from 11 am to 5 pm, come out to support a local public school and have a blast. There’ll be carnival games, arts & crafts, face-painting, print-making, henna and temporary tattooing, a huge kid-built maze (made of deconstructed cardboard boxes — the Avenue A equivalent of a corn maze), a raffle and great food from neighborhood vendors including Ciao for Now, Solo Pizza and Mudspot.

And of course there’s the silent auction. A mere sampling of items up for bids this year: Gift certificates to terrific local shops, salons, spas, yoga studios and gyms; passes to the Landmark Sunshine; museum memberships; theater subscriptions; Knicks tickets; Doyle & Doyle jewelry; family portraits by professional artists and photographers; meals at fave neighborhood spots like Mama’s Food Shop, Esperanto, Il Buco, Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Café Mogador, Caracas Arepa Bar, Balthazar and many more! Bid online or in person. Neighborhood School dad and EV institution Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba and writer Zoe Hansen will host a live auction at 3pm. Bidding closes at 4pm.

Admission to the fair is free and open to the public. Wondering what a progressive public school in the East Village is like? Come check us out! This is a great (and cheap) way to have fun indoors with your kids on a chilly winter’s day; you can have a nosh and shop for some great items while your kids run around playing and art-making with their friends. Proceeds from the fair support the Neighborhood School PTA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization that pays for the school’s art and music education, field trips, classroom supplies, special programs and teacher support. The Neighborhood School is at 121 East 3rd Street between First Avenue and Avenue A

And a school parent passed along photos of some of the students... most of them were taken by the kids, some in an afterschool photography class (taught by a parent, since there is no more funding for afterschool programs) and some in school as part of the curriculum.

A Visit with Frank 'Frankie Christmas' Bianco

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

It’s hard not to get excited about Christmas when visiting Frank “Frankie Christmas” Bianco. 

The 52-year-old longtime East Village resident, who moved here from Brooklyn in 1980, welcomes me at the door of his fully decked out apartment on Avenue D, where he lives and works as the boutique building’s manager.

He’s painstakingly laid out more than 9,300 lights and six Christmas trees, ranging in height from 2 to more than 7 feet tall, and has a winter wonderland inside the one-bedroom space, complete with music, lights, pine scent, decals, garlands and ornaments.

Drinking a (perhaps) nontraditional beer, Frankie shows me around his space, pointing out special ornaments and his Christmas stockings, and his 30 snowflake tattoos, and custom Santa backpiece, which is truly amazing, in addition to flash pieces dedicated to the holiday elsewhere on his body.

We have a seat at his holiday-themed table to chat about Santa and Christmas and how his obsession with the holiday came to be.

 
When and how did your fascination with Christmas start?

My fascination with Christmas started with my mom who always made Christmas special. As a teenager I started helping my mom with decorations and then I always wanted to go bigger and better. 

Can you walk us through the process of decorating your apartment? When do you start/finish?

I start decorating in September, as it takes close to 100 hours to decorate. It’s more about laying things out and ordering what I need.

What’s Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like for you and your family?

My family is so spread out these days that I won’t know what I’m doing until a couple of days before Christmas. 

What do you friends, family and neighbors think of your decorations? 

Everyone loves it. My family and friends love it and they all know where to go to get into the Christmas spirit. Most of my neighbors stop by and bring their friends to see my apartment. 

Any other holidays pique your interest the way Christmas does?

I enjoy all the holidays throughout the year, but nothing even comes close to Christmas!

Have you ever decorated other locations — commercial, residential, or religious spaces?

I’ve never decorated anywhere else. 
 
Do you have any special plans for next Christmas?

I’m already thinking about how I’m gonna decorate next year…I want to do a tree with Swarovski crystal snowflakes.