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.)

'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.

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

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:

Images 2016

January

RIP David Bowie...


[First Park]

The great Blizzard of Jan. 23...


[East 10th Street via Peter Brownscombe]

... and the day after...


[East 1st Street near 1st Avenue]

The great snow, oh you know...


[Photo via ‏@sandispino]

DOUBLE RAINBOW...


[Photo by Caz Lulu via Facebook]

Panhandling evolution...


[Photo by Derek Berg]

February

Losing the war against the rats...


[Photo by Bobby Williams]

St. Mark's Bookshop closes...



Another cold, cold night...


[Photo by @georgygirlnyc]

March

One year later...


[Photo by Stacie Joy]

A new era begins...


[Photo by Steven]

April

Here's Johnny...


[Photo by Derek Berg]

You will be missed...



May

So long Yaffa Cafe mural...


[Photo by Allen Semanco]

Saving Air Shaft Rabbit...



At least Chris Christie isn't actually going to be Secretary of the Interior...


[Photo by Karts]

June

Tompkins Square Park's Prince-inspired piano...


[Photo by Steven]

At the annual Drag March...


[Photo by Stacie Joy]

ABC No Rio closes for now...


[Photo by Walter Wlodarczyk]

July

The kids learn to fly...


[Photo by Derek Berg]

A Sunday morning walk on St. Mark's Place...


[Photo by Derek Berg]

Campaigning in Tompkins Square Park...


[Photo by Steven]

Bagging a Rattata ...


[Reader-submitted photo]

August

A hotel in the works for 11th Street...


[Photo by Grant Shaffer]

A sign of progress in the ongoing Astor Place/Cooper Square Reconstruction project...


[Photo by Vinny & O]

September

A new space on Seventh Street for Abraço...


[Photo by Steven]

111 years later...



A fire at Caracas Arepa Bar...


[Photo by EVG reader Joaquin]

A new home for Comrade Lenin...


[Photo by Peter Marciano]

October

Fall in Tompkins Square Park...



A crowd in Tompkins Square Park for Choking Victim ...


[Photo by Goggla]

November

The cube returns to Astor Place at long last...


[Photo by @unitof]

A vote for the neighbor's best restaurant ...


[Photo by Peter Brownscombe]

Another March Against Trump...


[Photo by Steven]

After a brief closure at McSorley's...


[Photo by Steven]

December

The NYPD vs the Hells Angels...


[Photo by Event Photos NYC]

SantaConned again...


[Photo by Derek Berg]

At the 25th annual Tompkins Square Park tree lighting...


[Photo by Stacie Joy]

A look at the future?...


[Photo by Bobby Williams]

Week in Grieview

[@nyyankeedog out for a ride. Photo by Bobby Williams]

Permits filed to demolish 5 buildings on 11th Street to make way for new hotel (Monday) ... Preservationists say city ignored pitch to designate part of 11th Street as a historic district (Tuesday)

Report: Red Square has been sold for $100 million (Wednesday)

Target offers details about its flexible-format store opening summer 2018 on 14th and A (Friday)

Debate over commercial overlay for 255 E. Houston St. and surrounding blocks continues (Thursday)

Box Kite Coffee now looks to be reopening on St. Mark's Place (Thursday)

4 years of Out and About in the East Village (Wednesday)

Former Mercadito space on Avenue B will be home to Guac (Friday)

On 10th Street, Prime & Beyond has closed; popular Japanese steakhouse coming next (Monday)

Workers are putting in the foundation for the return of the Alamo (Wednesday)

The Quad Cinema reopening pushed back to the fall (Wednesday)

Reader report: M2M to move; Wagamama on the way (Wednesday)

Cafe-office space in the works for Cooper Square dorm retail space (Monday)

Roof fire at 190 Bowery (Monday)

Former Barbone space for rent on Avenue B (Monday)

Signs of life at Lanza's (Friday)

The VNYL will feature Long Island Iced Teas on tap, candied-bacon quinoa sushi (Thursday)

The Christodora House in print now, and soon, on TV (Tuesday)

The PokéSpot opens on Fourth Avenue (Friday)

Kotobuki back in action on Third Avenue (Thursday)

Double rainbow (Thursday)

... and last week someone put up this memorial flyer with a rose on St. Mark's Place where performance artist Klaus Nomi once lived ... he died on Aug. 6, 1983, at age 39...

EV Grieve Etc.: An explanation for an increase in panhandling in Tompkins Square Park

[The usual badminton match outside Cooper Union via Derek Berg]

Claim: An increase in panhandling in Tompkins Square Park is a sign of success with curbing the city's street homelessness population (DNAinfo)

Top health union official played early role in Rivington House deed flip (Politico New York)

Jim Power continues work on mosaic poles that will return to Astor Place (B+B)

Opinion: "The L-train shutdown could be the crisis we've always needed to transform our transit system" (Crain's New York)

Fans wait hours in line for the Drake pop-up shop on the Bowery (DNAinfo)

20th anniversary for the New York International Fringe Festival, starting on Aug. 12 (The Lo-Down)

Hawk sibling steals prized pigeon from brother/sister (Laura Goggin Photography)

"The French Connection" plays at midnight this weekend at the Sunshine (Official website)



When a hotel collapsed on Broadway near Bond (Off the Grid)

Cop Shoot Cop at CBGB (Flaming Pablum)

Diamond Corner now a Bank of America on the Bowery (BoweryBoogie)

Diversions: Interview with former Cramps bassist Fur Dixon (Dangerous Minds)

... and here are a few photos via Derek Berg from Tuesday night's National Night Out Against Crime outside the 9th Precinct on Fifth Street... where officers showed off their basketball and dance skills... (and where was the officer on stilts?)