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Thursday, September 27, 2018

Help plan a park at the DEP shaft site on 4th Street

That long-vacant lot on Fourth Street between 2 Cooper Square and the Merchant's House Museum has always been a bit of a mystery ... seems like prime space just waiting for a, say, hotel!

Since the 1990s, the Department of Environmental Preservation (DEP) has used this city-owned space to work on shafts connected to the underground network of tunnels that supply the city's drinking water.

Now, as promised some years ago, this lot will be turned into a city park — or rather "passive recreation space."

On Monday night, reps from the city will host a meeting to discuss usage for the site...

Per the invite:

Please join us to discuss creating a passive recreation space at the DEP shaft site on East Fourth Street

Monday, Oct. 1:

6:30 p.m. — Meet first to see the DEP shaft site

7 p.m. — Scope meeting at JASA Green Residence, 200 E. Fifth St. at the Bowery

This project was funded by Mayor de Blasio and former Council Member Rosie Mendez, and is supported by Council Member Carlina Rivera.

NYC Parks is starting the design process for this project by holding a scope meeting, in which local residents and stakeholders to learn about the opportunities at the site and provide feedback. With this input, we will develop a design to be presented to Community Board 2 for public review.

The park space here will measure 9,750 square feet. This DNAinfo article from 2016 has more background.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Illegal hotel row mural defaced again in First Street Green Art Park

Someone has twice vandalized the illegal hotel row mural since its arrival in First Street Green Art Park back in May.

The folks at the Cooper Square Committee shared this with me on Monday:

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.

Here's a video about the mural project...

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[Photo from late June]

Friday, June 15, 2018

EVG Etc.: Gabrielle Hamilton's controversial decision; Seward Park's air-rights vote

[Life of the party the other morning on Cooper Square]

A look at Prune owner-chef Gabrielle Hamilton's controversial decision to team up with Ken Friedman, who has been accused of sexually assaulting and harassing dozens of women, at the Spotted Pig. Eater has an interview with Hamilton's partner and co-chef, Ashley Merriman, here. And Grub Street has a post titled "Gabrielle Hamilton’s Great Betrayal."

Seward Park co-op votes down $54 million air rights offer from developer (The Lo-Down)

What does the future hold for the leaderless Landmarks Preservation Commission? (ArchPaper)

Xi'an Famous Foods, with a location on St. Mark's Place, raised more than $73K last Friday for suicide prevention to honor Anthony Bourdain (Eater)

James and Karla Murray are hoping to raise some additional funds via Kickstarter for their upcoming mom-and-pop storefront art installation inside Seward Park — "Mom-and-Pops of the L.E.S." They will begin their installation in late June and plan on having an opening celebration in July. (Kickstarter ... previously)

The Institute for the Development of Human Arts is hosting a day of community, art, music and spoken word tomorrow at 242 E. Second St. (Facebook)

Investigators seize NYCHA records in office raid (The Post)

When the feminist skaters of the art collective Brujas took over Performance Space NY on First Avenue this spring (Artsy)

On Fifth Street, Degustation is now a chef’s counter called Restaurant Ukiyo (Eater)

NYC is implementing a ban on Styrofoam starting Jan. 1, 2019 (Gothamist)

Photo essay of the old Essex Market (Curbed)

Crime story of the week: Someone is leaving rotten food at this Stuy Town resident's front door (Town & Village)

World Cup viewing guide in NYC (The Times)

Singer-songwriter Fiona Silver, an East Village resident, plays the Mercury Lounge on June 29 (Official site)

More on one man's quest to correct an error on the sleeve of the Clash’s London Calling (Flaming Pablum)

Hedda Lettuce hosting "Mommie Dearest" on June 20 at City Cinemas Village East (Official site)

New owners for the Indigo Hotel on Ludlow (The Real Deal)

A look at the penthouse Keith Richards recently sold at One Fifth Avenue (Guest of a Guest)

The IFC Center on Sixth Avenue revamps its expansion proposal (Curbed)

Lincoln Plaza Cinema's reboot (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

...and Derek Berg shared these photos from Fourth Street, where crews for the 1970s period piece "The Kitchen" were filming scenes...

Looks like the 1973 Plymouth Fury??? And fake snow!)

... and earlier...

The drama, set in Hell's Kitchen, follows the wives of Irish mobsters (Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss) who team up to take over running the business after their husbands are sent to prison.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

About the bar-restaurant proposed for 2 St. Mark's Place

Looks like Bull McCabe's may have some bar company on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. (RIP Grassroots.)

Applicants are on this month's CB3-SLA committee docket for a new liquor license for 2 St. Mark's Place at Third Avenue/Cooper Square.

The questionnaire on file at the CB3 website (PDF here) shows that the applicants are involved with Draught 55 Bar & Kitchen on East 55th Street, a six-year-old establishment offering more than 40 craft beers.

The applicants describe the menu for the new space as a "spin on classic pub food with contemporary American offerings." The proposed hours are 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday-Wednesday; until 4 a.m. Thursday-Saturday. The seating chart shows 19 tables for 65 guests (that includes a bar with 10 stools).

No word yet on the name of the bar-restaurant for 2 St. Mark's Place.

The CB3-SLA meeting is next Monday at 6:30 p.m. The location: the Public Hotel, 17th Floor, Sophia Room, 215 Chrystie St. between Houston and Stanton.

2 St. Mark's Place was most recently Ayios Greek Rotisserie, which closed at the end of 2017 after 16 months in business. Previously, the address was the St. Mark's Ale House, which had a 21-year run until July 2016. (And once upon a time it was the second location of the Five Spot Cafe.)

Saturday, January 20, 2018

'Ring Your Rep' from the Standard East Village

An EVG reader pointed out the recent arrival of a Ring Your Rep phone outside the Standard East Village on Cooper Square...

This is a variation of the customized phone booths that the hotel debuted last August at its other properties. The phone dials directly to the U.S. Capitol Switchboard. (Not sure if that switchboard is open today.)

Per the Standard website:

Simply lift the receiver, and you'll be connected. Punch in your zipcode, choose the rep to whom you wish to speak, and leave your message.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Pourt has closed on Cooper Square

Pourt, the cafe-work space combo at 35 Cooper Square, shut down after service on Friday.

There's a message on the bottom of the Pourt website noting that they "are unfortunately no longer operating. Thank you to all of our customers."

It seemed like a good idea on paper: a mixture of coffeehouse and workspace. People could rent a desk with speedy fiber optics by the hour ($7) and order bottomless coffee ($2.99). There was also access to printers, phone chargers, Skype facilities, etc., as well as a larger conference room for small groups.

The New York Business Journal wrote about the space back in March:

Pourt is striving to create a new hybrid, a mixture of coffeehouse and workspace, emphasizing short-term stays. Whether there are enough freelancers and small businesses that can pay those fees is yet to be determined.

It‘s located on Cooper Square, strategically situated near Cooper Union, NYU, Manhattan Marymount College dorms and the Standard Hotel in the bustling East Village. The combined space measures 2,000 square feet.

Founders Matt Tervooren, 28, and 27-year-old Mike Kruszewski, lived in the East Village (Tervooren recently moved to Williamsburg) and met as economics majors at the University of Michigan. When they freelanced, they were “consistently frustrated by the lack of good Wifi, lack of available seating, or having the barista frowning at you if you don’t order more food,” Tervooren noted.

Pourt, he said, “combines the two concepts, a coffee shop with a comfortable work space.” And what differentiates Pourt from other co-working spaces such as WeWork and Regus is customers “don’t have to make long-term commitments. If you’re looking for a permanent office, we’re not right,” he admitted.

So what happened? One local who frequented the space offered this analysis:

Their rent was very high and they had a lot of square footage. They took so much space because they originally thought they could have space in the back where people would pay to work during the day. Their rent required that the work space generate substantial revenue. But nobody wanted to pay $10+/hour to work in the back when there are so many other options nearby. So they tried a bunch of other business models over the past year, trying to figure out how to generate enough revenue to pay crazy East Village rents on a large space that a coffee shop model alone couldn’t support. They were nice guys and worked hard ... it’s a shame.

Pourt opened back in January in the base of the Marymount Manhattan College dormitory here at Sixth Street.

The owners were unsuccessful in their bid for a full liquor license in July.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Pourt softly opens on Cooper Square

Pourt signage arrives at Cooper Square dorm retail space

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Recognizing 27 Cooper Square's role in local history

When developers of the Cooper Square Hotel (now the Standard East Village) were buying up properties to demolish to make way for their 21-floor building, two residents of 27 Cooper Square declined to leave their longtime home (the two had secured artists' loft status in the 1980s, and weren't legally required to move) ... and so the circa-1845 tenement became fused together with the new structure.

Today, No. 27 houses part of the hotel, including administrative offices and the front desk. (The residences remain upstairs.)

And tonight at 6, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is unveiling a plaque at the building between Fifth Street and Sixth Street to note its importance in neighborhood history.

Via the EVG inbox...

GVSHP and the Two Boots Foundation will commemorate the role of 27 Cooper Square as an important nexus for artistic and cultural movements that continue to reverberate today with the unveiling of a historic plaque.

In the 1960s, this 1845 former rooming house became a laboratory for artistic, literary and political currents. Writers LeRoi and Hettie Jones, their Yugen magazine and Totem Press, musician Archie Shepp and painter Elizabeth Murray all had homes here. The vacant building was transformed into a vital hub of cultural life, attracting leading figures including those from the Beats and the world of jazz. It was also the childhood home of a second generation of East Village artists and thinkers.

GVSHP and Two Boots Foundation will install a plaque on the building at 27 Cooper Square to mark the significance of the site in the artistic legacy of the East Village. Speakers will include, Accra Shepp, photographer and son of world-renowned saxophonist Archie Shepp who lived in the building beginning in the 1960s, and writer and poet Hettie Jones, who still lives at 27 Cooper Square will speak about the importance of this building as a hub of creativity.

Unfortunately, neighboring 35 Cooper Square didn't fare as well in subsequent years.

Updated: