Meanwhile, the toilet tippers were out early...
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query street fairs. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query street fairs. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, July 31, 2022
Today in street fairs
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
EVG Etc.: East Village Queer Film Festival in progress; Café Tabac in memoriam
[Early today on Broadway near Astor Place via Vinny & O]
• The East Village Queer Film Festival continues through Sunday at the Wild Project on 3rd Street (Official site ... feature at B+B)
• The failure of de Blasio's Vision Zero (Jalopnik ... H/T Streetsblog)
• A feature on SSHH, the design studio and creative event space on Sixth Street — "bringing back the weird in a city ruined by wealth" (AIGO Eye on Design ... previously on EVG)
• The fight over the 14th Street busway could determine NYC’s transit future (Curbed ... previously on EVG)
• The Post drops an editorial on the garbage trucks parked on 10th Street. "It’s yet another case of the city failing to do its basic job, while Mayor Bill de Blasio is off playing carnival games at state fairs and giving 'speeches' to near-empty rooms in his fantasy bid for the White House." (The Post ... previously on EVG)
• The oldest home in the East Village (Ephemeral New York)
• "Fashion’s so corporate these days, 'Desperately Seeking Susan' reminds us that clothing is a personal signifier of identity connected to place and time." (Vogue)
• Fong Inn Too makes a comeback in Chinatown (The Lo-Down)
• An oral history of Café Tabac (1992-1997) on 9th Street between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue (The Face)
• A recent evening with Christo (Laura Goggin Photography)
• In celebration of the 500th anniversary of Havana, the Anthology Film Archives joins forces with the Cuban Cultural Center of New York to offer a wide-ranging film series inspired by the city's history and culture (Official site)
• The sad state of Dean & DeLuca’s flagship shop on Broadway and Prince (Eater)
... and if you haven't seen it... Flye Lyfe — formerly a subway vendor — opened late last month at 434 E. 11th St. just west of Avenue A ... and selling T-shirts, hoodies, prints, etc. ...
And in Hump Day freebies, you can find the Nutmobile handing out "free food made with delicious Cheez Balls powder" today on Astor Place... Lola Sáenz spotted the Nutmobile en route ...
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
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: Tony Feher
Occupation: Artist
Location: Avenue A between East 3rd and East 4th
Time: 4:30 pm on Friday, Dec. 4
I moved here from Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1981 because I wanted to have a life, which I was not going to have in Corpus Christi. I moved into my apartment on East 2nd Street in 1984. I worked in SoHo. The art galleries were there and I was kind of between places and somebody let me sleep in their basement on some crates full of art. Then I moved over here because it was cheap. I’ve lived here for 31 years.
I’m an artist. When I first came here I was working in galleries or for another artist in the contemporary art world. I now support myself with my own work. I do sculpture for a lack of a better word, but really the breakthrough for me came when [started using] found objects and common ordinary things that we just overlook but I found interest in them and kind of created a unique genre of the moment.
It was a good neighborhood for found objects because there was so much debris and so much stuff everywhere. Like milk crates — nobody ever paid attention to them, but when you see them scattered around the neighborhood in green and red and blue and pink… I thought, ‘Wow these are like shells on the beach.’ It’s landscape, but it’s an urban landscape and they used to just be dotted around. Now you can’t find anything.
It was vibrant. It was tough, but [I was] young and looking for adventure and so that was cool. But I had to walk five blocks to the laundry, and if you turned your back, somebody would steal your clothes. There weren’t any markets around. The Koreans showed up after awhile and they changed the neighborhood completely because they had fresh food. Now they’ve all been kicked out. There’s not a single Korean market left. Grace from Gracefully had three or four places in the neighborhood and they’re all gone. And she, to her credit, when the deli workers, green market workers went on strike, she was the first one to settle with them, pay them more money, and get back to work. So I give Grace a lot of credit.
Two-thirds of the buildings on my street were abandoned and burned out. There was like a Kmart for heroin across the street in this vacant lot. For an artist it was great but I think it’s difficult to romanticize the ghetto, especially if you’re not from the ghetto. And that was not my background. A city can’t survive with huge sections burned out. It’s just the greed of real-estate development that destroys the integrity of a neighborhood and forces people out. I was too poor to move to Brooklyn when all my friends moved to Brooklyn and they’ve all now moved like five times. They keep getting pushed out. I worked in my apartment as my studio for 20 years and kind of woke up one day and all my friends were gone.
Westminster apparently bought [nearly 30] buildings in the neighborhood in the last year or two. The building was built in, say 1890, or something like that and had marble wainscoting four feet high up the stairway and all the way up. It’s a beautiful building. The first thing that they did with my building, which was really sad since it was the only building on the block that survived intact through the dark ages, was smash out the interior and turn it into a ruin for the look of the exposed brick interior. They made it look like it had been a burned-out hole, which they think appeals to the young suburban NYU kids. But it could have been a landmark interior. It was spectacularly beautiful. It needed to be cleaned; it didn’t need to be smashed. And the dust it created… people got sick. It’s just so vulgar, the way that they approach the whole thing.
I have a curator friend who has lived on Clinton Street for longer than I’ve been here and he predicted that the galleries would move to the Lower East Side, and I was like, ‘are you nuts?’ It’s interesting that the artists have been replaced with the galleries. The artists can’t afford to live there and the galleries are paying these big rents. That’s the thing in the city — there’s no place else to go.
When everybody moved to Chelsea, that was still an open territory for galleries. That’s full now and the High Line has turned that into a luxury neighborhood. There are a lot of substantial galleries that are having trouble, because the art market has changed so dramatically with the art fairs. It’s insane with the billionaires who come in and the speculation. I’m going to be left on the street but there’s going to be five or six mega-galleries and if you’re not involved with them, then you’re not involved.
Where is the art world going to go? I don’t know. It proved that Brooklyn doesn’t hold up because the people with money don’t want to go over there. For a little while Williamsburg was okay, but they ain’t taking the L Train and traffic is traffic. That’s when the Lower East Side bloomed. I mean, there’s stuff going on over in Brooklyn of course, and a lot of young artists are there. But it’s the same story — if a gallery over there gets successful, they move over here as quick as they can.
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
By James Maher
Name: Tony Feher
Occupation: Artist
Location: Avenue A between East 3rd and East 4th
Time: 4:30 pm on Friday, Dec. 4
I moved here from Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1981 because I wanted to have a life, which I was not going to have in Corpus Christi. I moved into my apartment on East 2nd Street in 1984. I worked in SoHo. The art galleries were there and I was kind of between places and somebody let me sleep in their basement on some crates full of art. Then I moved over here because it was cheap. I’ve lived here for 31 years.
I’m an artist. When I first came here I was working in galleries or for another artist in the contemporary art world. I now support myself with my own work. I do sculpture for a lack of a better word, but really the breakthrough for me came when [started using] found objects and common ordinary things that we just overlook but I found interest in them and kind of created a unique genre of the moment.
It was a good neighborhood for found objects because there was so much debris and so much stuff everywhere. Like milk crates — nobody ever paid attention to them, but when you see them scattered around the neighborhood in green and red and blue and pink… I thought, ‘Wow these are like shells on the beach.’ It’s landscape, but it’s an urban landscape and they used to just be dotted around. Now you can’t find anything.
It was vibrant. It was tough, but [I was] young and looking for adventure and so that was cool. But I had to walk five blocks to the laundry, and if you turned your back, somebody would steal your clothes. There weren’t any markets around. The Koreans showed up after awhile and they changed the neighborhood completely because they had fresh food. Now they’ve all been kicked out. There’s not a single Korean market left. Grace from Gracefully had three or four places in the neighborhood and they’re all gone. And she, to her credit, when the deli workers, green market workers went on strike, she was the first one to settle with them, pay them more money, and get back to work. So I give Grace a lot of credit.
Two-thirds of the buildings on my street were abandoned and burned out. There was like a Kmart for heroin across the street in this vacant lot. For an artist it was great but I think it’s difficult to romanticize the ghetto, especially if you’re not from the ghetto. And that was not my background. A city can’t survive with huge sections burned out. It’s just the greed of real-estate development that destroys the integrity of a neighborhood and forces people out. I was too poor to move to Brooklyn when all my friends moved to Brooklyn and they’ve all now moved like five times. They keep getting pushed out. I worked in my apartment as my studio for 20 years and kind of woke up one day and all my friends were gone.
Westminster apparently bought [nearly 30] buildings in the neighborhood in the last year or two. The building was built in, say 1890, or something like that and had marble wainscoting four feet high up the stairway and all the way up. It’s a beautiful building. The first thing that they did with my building, which was really sad since it was the only building on the block that survived intact through the dark ages, was smash out the interior and turn it into a ruin for the look of the exposed brick interior. They made it look like it had been a burned-out hole, which they think appeals to the young suburban NYU kids. But it could have been a landmark interior. It was spectacularly beautiful. It needed to be cleaned; it didn’t need to be smashed. And the dust it created… people got sick. It’s just so vulgar, the way that they approach the whole thing.
I have a curator friend who has lived on Clinton Street for longer than I’ve been here and he predicted that the galleries would move to the Lower East Side, and I was like, ‘are you nuts?’ It’s interesting that the artists have been replaced with the galleries. The artists can’t afford to live there and the galleries are paying these big rents. That’s the thing in the city — there’s no place else to go.
When everybody moved to Chelsea, that was still an open territory for galleries. That’s full now and the High Line has turned that into a luxury neighborhood. There are a lot of substantial galleries that are having trouble, because the art market has changed so dramatically with the art fairs. It’s insane with the billionaires who come in and the speculation. I’m going to be left on the street but there’s going to be five or six mega-galleries and if you’re not involved with them, then you’re not involved.
Where is the art world going to go? I don’t know. It proved that Brooklyn doesn’t hold up because the people with money don’t want to go over there. For a little while Williamsburg was okay, but they ain’t taking the L Train and traffic is traffic. That’s when the Lower East Side bloomed. I mean, there’s stuff going on over in Brooklyn of course, and a lot of young artists are there. But it’s the same story — if a gallery over there gets successful, they move over here as quick as they can.
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Out and About in the East Village
In this ongoing feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village or Lower East Side.
By James Maher
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
By James Maher
Name: Miss Joan Marie Moossy
Occupation: Performer
Location: Clinton Street
Date: Monday, June 12 at noon
Read part 1 of this interview here.
I’ve had a lot of jobs in New York. I worked at the Limelight in the art department. I worked at the Puck building as a party manager. I worked as a casting assistant. I worked for Stripe First Generators, working on a generator on movie sets and street fairs. I’ve had a lot of interesting jobs here. I’ve been lucky in terms of hitting jobs where it was at the high point of the place. I used to do a show on WBAI and then MNN called "Let Them Talk" with a boyfriend Paul DeRienzo. I’m also now doing a detective series set on the Lower East Side on YouTube called "Miss Moossy's Neighborhood Mysteries."
I worked at the Limelight in its heyday. I was there from 1984 to 1988. And at that time I had a boyfriend who worked at the Pyramid as the lighting guy, so we had the club scene down. In the beginning, we did major installations, like every day at the Limelight. We had a big budget, and the Pyramid was more low budget. The Limelight had the celebrity scene. The Pyramid had the experimental, avant-garde scene. I knew all these people who worked at the Pyramid, so I danced on the bar sometimes. And that’s how I met Ethyl Eichelberger, who was a playwright and performer, and I worked for him for the last four years of his life. He died in 1990.
I started as his stage manager, and then he wrote parts for me in his plays. He showed me I could talk on stage, because when you dance you don’t really say anything. I sang in his plays — things I thought I could never do, but he pushed me and I did it, and it was life changing, really.
He committed suicide in 1990. He had AIDS, and I think he feared the loss of intellect, because he was a very bright individual. I’ve been working on perpetuating his legacy. And it’s not just me, it’s definitely a group effort, and we’ve been successful at it — he certainly deserves it. Twenty-seven years later his legacy is still going, and I’m proud of that because it’s a commitment of gratitude for me. He did so much for me and taught me so much. You know, I had been a dancer, which in the 1970s was not quite the same thing as being a dancer now – we were kind of scumbags. I don’t know how else to put it. We were not considered respectable members of society.
New York’s a tough town. You can’t really get around that for all the joy and inspiration it provides to people — it can be difficult. My life has the balance, and I’m incredibly grateful to have the youth I had here in this neighborhood, but yeah there were hard times. There were the things that really impacted, I don’t think just me, I think I’m talking for a generation of people. There were things that happened that deeply affected all of us, that colored our lives.
AIDS decimated this neighborhood, and it decimated my friends. It caused a portion of our youth to be spent nursing people to their death, which is a unique experience for young people. I mean unless there’s a war, most young people go through life without a lot of deaths. There’s always going to be death, but death in that magnitude and concentration, that happened here too. When you have multiple friends sick, and you’re running from apartment to apartment trying to help, this is your life. It’s a big part of it. It certainly wasn’t just me. It was a lot of people.
I never imagined I’d get old and it would be like this. When you’re young, you don’t realize, you think it’s all going to stay the same forever, you’re never going to get old. But here you are this many years later. I didn’t think I’d live, because when you watch all your friends die, you think, ‘Well, I’m going to die too.’ I’ve been taking care of these guys, they’ve thrown up on me, everything’s happened that would put you at risk, so you figure, yeah, I’ll die too. So I never envisioned myself in my 60s.
Those were the things on the hard side, and obviously on the pleasant side I’m a happy person by nature. I loved it and I still love it — I adore New York. There are a lot of things that I like about living here. I love to walk around the neighborhood. Freedom is one of my highest ideals — the freedom to be who you are and do what you want to do. There is a certain amount of anonymity compared to a smaller arena, where everybody watches everybody. You know, for a weird person it’s nice to just be able to walk the streets and people aren’t judging everything.
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
Monday, May 25, 2009
A few more photos from the Loisaida Festival yesterday
I've noticed the trash overflow at every street fair I've walked through this year... Perhaps the city considers bringing in additional trash receptacles for all street fairs...?
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Pass the Tums: First of 458 spring/summer street fairs kicks off today on Second Avenue
Runs from 14th Street all the way down to, oh, Georgia.
There's at least one new addition to the usual array of sausages, bags of socks, four T-shirts for $10 kookiness...a local merchant... Chocolate Bald Men have a stand/booth
Saturday, December 14, 2019
This weekend in holiday fairs and fundraisers
Apologies for the late notice on this... you can still take part in day two, though, over at the Sirovich Center on 12th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue... (h/t elvis666!)
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[Photo by Steven]
The 9th Precinct's annual Santa party is this morning from 9 to noon on Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.
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Via the EVG inbox...
Today is the Lower Eastside Girls Club's holiday fundraiser — Coquito for Puerto Rico!
When: Saturday, Dec. 14 from 4 - 7 p.m.
Where: 402 E. Eighth St. at Avenue D
Join us for homemade Coquito (traditional Puerto Rican egg nog), Latin noshes (rice and beans and empanadas) and your own take-home tin of cookies and jar of Sofrito!
Your $35 donation will support our upcoming trip this Spring to visit women-run farms and learn about food sustainability practices in Puerto Rico.
AND...get out your dancing shoes: we have Loisaida Legend Pepe Flores spinning vinyl all evening!
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Via the EVG inbox...
The Neighborhood School’s Holiday Fair returns on Sunday, Dec. 15 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Join us to support a local public school and have a blast. Bring friends and family. There will be arts & crafts, face-painting, henna tattooing, a huge kid-built cardboard maze, and great food from neighborhood vendors.
And check out the Artisan Fest where vendors will sell jewerly, artwork, clothes and more. This is a great (and cheap) way to have fun indoors with your kids on a chilly winter’s day. Admission to the Holiday Fair is free, activities are low-cost, and it is open to the public.
All proceeds from the Holiday 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 located at 121 E. Third St. between First Avenue and Avenue A.
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Also Sunday... over at the Double Down Saloon, 14 Avenue A...
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Love Shine is closing shop on 6th Street and moving online
[Image via Facebook]
After 20 years at 543 E. Sixth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, Love Shine is closing up shop at the end of March, moving to an online-only operation.
Owner Mark Seamon, a visual artist and former chef, officially launched his business in 1996. He opened the storefront and studio the next year to sell his line of handmade bags, accessories and gifts.
We reached out to Seamon for more on the upcoming closure.
"Our lease is expiring at the end of March. The best deal we could negotiate with our landlord was a 25-percent increase with additional yearly increases," he said via email. "While we absolutely love our location, and live right down the block, the foot traffic isn't really the best for a retail store. We couldn't afford to move to an avenue and now we can't afford to stay here."
He continued: "When we first opened in 1997 it was possible to open a mom-and-pop shop in the East Village because the overhead was low and the neighborhood was filled with creative people, artists and designers. There was a large availability of affordable spaces to rent. I really think the development of the neighborhood, change in demographics, along with the enormous rents and the rise in online shopping, have made it really difficult to sustain a small retail shop."
Despite the changes, he doesn't have any plans to move away.
"The positive news is the East Village has always been our home," he said. "Our studio/workshop will be in the hood. We have our own unique line of bags and designs, and while we continue to invest in our online shop, we hope to be able to maintain a presence here at local craft fairs and markets and possible some other local stores."
You can follow Love Shine on Pinterest ... Facebook ... and Instagram.
Friday, October 19, 2012
When St. Brigid's dared to have a picnic
I was doing some research about St. Brigid's on Avenue B and found this post on McNamara's Blog ... with a repost of an article from The New York Times circa July 22, 1869 BW (Before Woo)...
I know, I know. If you don't like picnics, then move back to...
It is well known that the Roman Catholic Church in this country has forbidden picnics. The ordinance against them was issued last year, and this was the first season for putting it into practice. The origin of the prohibition was the great number of abuses which were found to prevail at these festive gatherings.
With one exception, no Church picnic has taken place this year — at least in connection with the Roman Catholic denomination. The clergy of that faith have exerted themselves vigorously in enforcement of their Church ordinance. They have denounced fairs and picnics from the altar, interdicted them by special mandate, and used all their influence in their several parishes for their suppression. And very effectually so far, with one exception, as has been said.
The people have, in general, yielded with docility to the voices of their clergy in the matter, and at some sacrifice of enjoyment have quietly foregone the annual festivity which was customary. The exception alluded to was the picnic held yesterday by the Total Abstinence Benefit organization in connection with the Roman Catholic Church of St. Bridget, Avenue B and Eighth Street.
Father Mooney is the pastor of said church, and when he heard of the contemplated picnic immediately denounced it and assailed its promoters. It was even announced in some of the papers that it would not take place, in consequence of being forbidden by the priest. But it did take place yesterday in Jones’ Wood, and, considering the ecclesiastical opposition it encountered, was a very successful thing its way.
The Brotherhood marched to the ground in the forenoon, and all day streams of people continued to flow in through the gates, even though the price of admission was fifty cents a head. The picnic was a quiet and orderly affair, held by temperance men and conducted on temperance principles. There was good music and much dancing, and by 8 o’clock in the evening all had departed for their homes. It would scarcely have been worth distinguishing from similar affairs of its class but for the collision between clergy and laity that took place in connection with it.
I know, I know. If you don't like picnics, then move back to...
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