Belse Restaurant makes it sign official on the Bowery

Belse Restaurant, self-described as "high-end plant cuisine at its finest," is opening an outpost on the Bowery just south of Houston... the coming-soon signage is now up here at the former home of Paulaner Bräuhaus...

Reps for Belse will appear before CB3's SLA committee on Monday night for a liquor license for the space. You can find their questionnaire online here. 

The restaurant comes via the owners of the plant-based Little Pine in Los Angeles, which Moby launched in 2015. (The restaurant reopened last year without Moby's involvement. As Eater reported, the Grammy-nominated musician "was accused by multiple former employees of not doing enough to protect staff during the shutdown." He later apologized to the staff.)

There's a Belse outpost in Dallas. You can find a Belse menu here.

On the Bowery, they look to be open for lunch during the week and brunch on weekends.

The storefront has sat empty since Paulaner shuttered in early 2018 after four years in service. 

Openings: Broken Coconut, Ladybird, the Lost Lady, the Hairy Lemon

[Healthy Coconut photo from Sept. 8]

Broken Coconut, the health-conscious restaurant from Butter/1Oak founder Scott Sartiano, opens today at 15 E. Fourth St. between Lafayette and Broadway, according to the Post.

The Post notes the menu will include a probiotic, protein-rich yogurt with a coconut base.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Checking in on the former Other Music space, soon to be a health-focused restaurant

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Ravi DeRossi's vegan bar-restaurant opened at 111 Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue on Sept. 5. Eater has more about the space, which counts musician/animal-rights activist Moby as an investor.

Find the Ladybird website here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Ravi DeRossi moving Ladybird to the East Village; taking residence at former Bourgeois Pig space

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The Lost Lady, from Robert Ceraso and Jason Mendenhall, the co-owners of The Wayland and Good Night Sonny, opened last Wednesday at 171 Avenue C between 10th Street and 11th Street. This marks their third attempt at opening another bar along Avenue C. Plans for both the former Duke's space and current Royale fell through.

The space was originally going to go by The Drift Inn.

"Somebody opened a bar called the Drift Inn in Brooklyn a couple of months after we started working on that space," Ceraso told me earlier this summer. "It actually makes more sense for the space now. Once we got in there and started getting a feel for the bones of the space, our design went a lot more old nautical feeling. The Lost Lady feels to us like it could be the name of an old ship or a story that a fisherman would tell you."

Grub Street has a preview of the Lost Lady here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Evelyn Drinkery has closed on Avenue C

Wayland team opening Drift Inn at former Evelyn Drinkery space on Avenue C

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[Image via Facebook]

The Hairy Lemon opened last Wednesday in the former Croxley Ales space, 28 Avenue B between Second Street and Third Street. The place serves traditional Irish pub fare and sports 20 TVs.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Croxley Ales-replacing bar on Avenue B is called the Hairy Lemon

EV Grieve Etc.: Manitoba on Manitoba's; love for Love Gang

[Photo on 2nd Avenue by Derek Berg]

Talking with Handsome Dick Manitoba at Manitoba's (The New York Times)

Meeting the the proprietors of "rocker babe emporium" Love Gang on East Ninth Street (The Village Voice)

Where to find bikers, drugs and rock-&-roll onscreen (Anthology Film Archives)

Hawk interlopers in Tompkins Square Park (Gog in NYC)

A new chef for Avant Garden on East Seventh Street (Eater)

Crazy amenities alert: Extell is giving buyers in Asia dibs on luxury apartments in the new 80-story tower on the Lower East Side (The Lo-Down)

The alleged tenant harassment continues at 135-137 Eldridge St. (BoweryBoogie)

Perfect Pussy singer Meredith Graves now has a weekly column featuring recipes and record reviews (The Village Voice)

A review of Garth Risk Hallberg’s sprawling new novel, "City on Fire," set in 1970s NYC (The New Yorker)

A look at Ben Shaoul's rental-to-condo conversion on First Avenue and East 23rd Street (NY Yimby)

The great La Taza de Oro is gone for good in Chelsea (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

That time someone thought it might be a good idea to fill in the Hudson River (Ephemeral New York)

Uncovering the documentary about an all Ace Frehley cover band (Dangerous Minds)

Moby trades the Lower East Side for Los Angeles for his new vegan restaurant venture, Little Pine (Well + Good)

The disappearing Hogs & Heifers (DNAinfo)

Diversions: The Swedish punk Peanuts (BoingBoing)

From the EVG inbox...

Bayside! The Musical! will makes its return to NYC and run alongside the hit show Full House! The Musical! at Theater 80 (80 St Marks & First Avenue) from Jan. 7 through Feb. 26. (Details here.)

And tomorrow at the Lower Eastside Girls Club...



And, lastly, EVG contributor Grant Shaffer finds that people can be sooo plastic on the L train...

The CBGB movie has a distributor, release date

XLrator Media will be distributing the CBGB biopic in the United States, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie, which stars Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal, will be released during the CBGB Musical Festival this October.

Said Barry Gordon, XLrator Media CEO, in a statement: "CBGB is the rare film that will resonate with teens, millennials and legacy fans alike. The whole family can jump in the mosh pit together for this one!"

Other titles from XLrator Media include: "Dragon Wasps" and "Age of the Dragons," billed as "a re-imagining of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick in which Captain Ahab searches for the White Dragon that slaughtered his family and left him scarred when he was young."

When you could see the Grateful Dead on Second Avenue for $2

Following my recent post about the Hells Angels, a reader sent along the following photo ...

...when the Angels were presenting shows at the Anderson Theatre at 66 Second Avenue.

The reader also included a link to the site It's All the Streets you Crossed Not So Long Ago... there, the author lays out a fairly exhaustive history of 66 Second Avenue, which is between Fourth Street and Third Street... You can read the whole history there...

A few highlights though... The theatre likely began its life as a Yiddish Playhouse in the late 1800s-early 1900s... in the late 1960s and '70s, it functioned as a rock venue where everyone from Moby Grape, Procol Harum and the Yardbirds played.

Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company had their New York debut there on February 17, 1968 — look who else was on the bill: B.B. King.

Her post on the Anderson has a gazillion links and photos (some of which I reposted here) ... Far too many to try to mention here... find it all here.

Oh, one last thing. Hilly Kristal ran the CBGB Theater here from late 1977 to early 1978, she notes. The Talking Heads christened the CBGB Theater, followed by shows featuring the Dictators, the Dead Boys and Patti Smith. Here's one description of the CBGB Theater: "The place was disgusting. It made the CBGB club look like the Rainbow Room. We were talking about eighty years' worth of dirt. I mean there was popcorn left over from the last performance of the Yiddish theater in 1925...They did manage to clean up the entryway, and made it look like a subway station."

Anyway, find this and a whole lot more interesting posts on NYC's former rock & roll landmarks at It's All the Streets you Crossed Not So Long Ago.

And 66 Second Avenue today.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Loew's Commodore Theatre

In case John Legend locks himself out

There's always a locksmith around when you need one.... On the gated driveway at 52E4, the 15 stories of condo on Fourth Street... where the Legend, Moby and others may or may not live...

The problem with private driveways in the East Village

No one pays attention to the "no parking" signs....



Yeah, it's funny until John Legend has your ass towed ... Well, unless this is the LegendMobile.... outside 52E4, the 15 stories of condo on Fourth Street... where the Legend, Moby and others live...




Perhaps a trend...Previously, as seen at 238 E. Fourth St. in front of the Novogratz-designed penthouse home....

What to do with the Vegan Bowery Burger

A friend recently made me aware of the existence of the Vegan Bowery Burger at Whole Foods. (I realize these things aren't new...just new to me.) So, for the sake of investigative journalism, I went over to Whole Foods on Houston and Bowery to check them out. (And are these just specific to this location? Are there, say, Union Square Burgers at the 14th Street location.) To my good fortune, they were in stock at the deli counter. They go for $7.99 a pound. I've never ordered veggie burgers by the pound. So I asked for three. To my amazement, they came to $7.99. (So next time someone asks me how much a pound weighs...)



I'm not much of a foodie. The burgers tasted pretty good (couldn't even detect the mustard powder), though I recommend that you eat them with heaping piles of cheese and bacon.

Now! To more important matters. How to market the Vegan Bowery Burger!

First! We need some 1970s-style Bowery street cred... Gabba gabba yum!



...some hotties in Bowery wear... Let me see that fake beef!



We have your Vegan Bowery Burger bitches!



And a celebrity spokesperson....

Beep, beep! Delivery for Mr. Moby!



Then we'll raise the price to $17.99 a pound. See you at DBGB, suckers!

First signs of life at E2E4: Newspapers in the driveway!

As you can barely see in the top photo, no one is living yet in the 15-story tower of condo on the Bowery...



Regardless, future tenants (Moby? John Legend?) are already having their newspapers delivered to E2E4's gated driveway....




...or maybe this is just a way for newspapers to pad their sluggish circulation figures...



Previously.

Scarano's gated community continues to get gated and secure on the Bowery

We continue to keep watch on Scarano's E2E4 tower on the Bowery...



The gated driveway for the likes of Moby and John Legend looks nearly finished...



And the video/keypad security thingee is now up and running...



"Yes, we have the meat lover's pizza for Mr. Moby..."



Previous E2E4 coverage on EV Grieve here.

Moby and John Legend now have something in common

Yeah, well, anyway they both have bought condos at 52E4....(Can't wait for the pool party invite from these guys!) As The Wall Street Journal Reports:

Singer John Legend has signed a contract for an apartment listed at $2.3 million, in New York’s East Village neighborhood.

“I didn’t want a cookie-cutter place,” says the 30-year-old singer, who decided to buy the one-bedroom, two-bath apartment before a tour that began in June. The floor-through Lower Manhattan apartment of more than 1,300 square feet, in a new glass-and-steel residential tower on the Bowery and East Fourth Street, has 14-foot-ceilings and views in every direction. The price Mr. Legend agreed to pay couldn’t be learned. A similarly sized unit in the building sold for $2.59 million last month and another for $2.5 million in June. The 15-story tower, completed this year, has a doorman, an outdoor pool and indoor parking.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Taking a look at 52E4, and where the Moby mobile may park

52E4 gets some stairs

Whoa, look up in the sky! Atop the 15-floor condo on the Bowery between Third Street and Fourth Street...what will be 52 East Fourth Street (home to Moby!) some day...




Stairs! That lead where?

David Lynch directs a Moby video

Shot In The Back Of The Head from Moby on Vimeo.

Hmm.

(Via BuzzFeed)

Taking a look at 52E4, and where the Moby mobile may park

I've been trying to avoid the construction hell on the Bowery between Third Street and Fourth Street, the stretch that will soon be home to the new 52 East 4th Street -- feel free to refer to it as 52E4 here on out!




Now that the construction has quieted down a bit, it's time to revisit the spot and enjoy exactly what's going up in this luxurious 15-story condo. The promo photos, previously available on the 52E4 Web site, are up for the unwashed masses to see. Let's take a look!



You have your roof deck and pool and, as various commenters have pointed out, no Cooper Square Hotel blocking your Midtown views...



And whatever this is.



And this is the best: The parking spot, where soon-to-be-tenant Moby will keep it real and park his Moby mobile.



Not sure exactly where the parking spaces will be kept. I'm assuming on East Fourth Street then...?





Anyway, the 59R2ERW site has more details. And images.



For further reading:
Another Bowery tower (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

"In the late 80s and the early 90s everybody could afford to live in the East Village"

From a Q-and-A with Moby in Black Book:

People say they miss the old New York. Do you like it better now?

Only the things that I miss. it was cheaper. When you went out you never expected to spend a lot of money, so this whole bottle service, when someone goes out and has to spend $1,000 for a good night out, that’s just absurd. In the late 80s and the early 90s everybody could afford to live in the East Village, so everybody lived and worked and went out in the same neighborhood, and it just made everything a lot much nicer. So now, its almost like the NYC diaspora has happened where some people live in Bushwick, some people live in Redhook, some people live in Jersey City, some people live in Inwood, so the good old days where everybody lives on top of each other, those are gone. New York is always going to be big enough to accommodate anyone who wants to live here. There’s always going to be some new derelict neighborhood where 20-year-old artists are going to move to. That’s what Soho was, that’s what the East Village was, that’s what Tribeca was, and that’s certainly what the Lower East Side was.

A Fucked Up cover

Fucked Up and, urp, Moby cover the Ramones...part of Fucked Up's 12-hour show at Rogan on Bowery and Bond Tuesday.



[Via Stereogum]

East Village soon to exceed maximum capacity for dessert places

We've been far too curious about the fate of 159 Second Ave., the hallowed ground that was home for 27 years to the beloved A. Fontana Shoe Repair. There has been lots of activity there in recent weeks. Anyway, we started (sarcastically) speculating about the future tenant. Based on the above photo, there was one undeniable conclusion: high-end dessert place!

Well, guess what?

An unimpeachable source -- an anonymous tipster, who, for the purposes of this post, we'll call Jeremiah Moss -- passed along the following news on the location late yesterday:

I went by today and a worker told me it's going to be "a vegan ice cream shop." I saw soft-serve machines in the background. Should be open in 2-3 weeks. Could it be another Lula's Sweet Apothecary? Or competition?

Time will tell! Anyway, there's going to be an all-out dessert war in this area now (as if there wasn't one already)...FroYo vs. Vegan Ice Cream vs. TheLiteChoice vs. Chocolate By the Bald Man Who Kind of Looks like Moby vs. the M&M's we can buy at the corner bodega vs. ChikaLicious vs. Dunkin' Donuts vs. Cold Stone Creamery vs...(Meanwhile, we'll just be at Ray's.)

Oh, here's what the space looked like in August...



Let the "bald man" jokes begin!

[Jeremiah has a thoughtful post on what used to be in this space, A. Fontana Shoes.]

Looking at the signs and window displays along Fulton and Nassau Streets

I began my walk on Nassau Street in front of the Tiny Towel Spa. (Or is it The Towels Were in the Dryer Too Long and Shrunk Spa?)


The sign for Samuel's Hats on the other side of Nassau has an air of high society about it. According to their Web site, "If you are planning to attend the Kentucky Derby or you need a hat for any special occasion please take a look at our new arrivals by the greatest American and European designers. " I just don't see too many women wearing these kinds of hats these days.

The sign remains, the store is no longer in business. This is now the new home of Hat Corner.

There are several discount stores along Fulton Street (I should just call it Fulton -- there isn't much Street left with all the construction) and Nassau Street. The area reminds me a little bit of 14th Street between Third and First Avenue several years ago, when there seemed to be 99-cent shops every few storefronts. With all the fancy condos and hotels cropping up in the Financial District, I'm afraid there won't be much need for mom-and-pop stores selling, say, plastic backscratchers, Spanish-language greeting cards and off-brand detergent.

Ralph's has been here for nearly 35 years, I'm told. By the way, the door to the right of Ralph's is marked 82 Nassau Street. According to New York Songlines, "This was the address of the South Baptist Church; Herman Melville may have written "Moby-Dick" in a building in the church's courtyard, reports Literary New York. Later, in March 1878, the first telephone exchange was opened here by the Bell Company."

Been curious what this building was on Nassau Street before someone slapped the NATALIE on it.

Love the jazzy, roaring-20s look of the Wendy's sign. Adds a touch of class! Now, must order a Triple Stack with cheese.

There may be a Sophie's under here somewhere.

An exercise studio for nuns? Or mimes?

Yes, I know Dress Barn is a national chain with affordable clothing for women. That name, though. Sounds like the place to shop for the Sadie Hawkins dance.

Always like the 1-2 punch of a fried chicken chain and fitness center side by side.

More random storefronts along Nassau Street selling affordable shoes and clothing. How long will they last with the neighborhood becoming more and more affluent?