Work continues on the former Marion's Continental space on the Bowery... The Bowery institution closed in August 2008. (Their Web site is still up and running, and includes the history.)
As Fork in the Road first reported, the space is becoming the new home of Hecho en Dumbo. The Mexican eatery will seat 65 and include a 10-seat bar. (According to the Voice, the new owners had to go before the Community Board three times before winning approval...)
Hecho en Dumbo was originally slated to open just after Jan. 1. It is now set to open next month...
And, despite the move from Dumbo (that location closed last fall)... Dumbo will remain in the name. Per the Voice:
When the restaurant opens, their Dumbo customers will still be able to find the same staff and the same Brooklyn beers. And, of course, the same name. "We're not changing our name," Smith says. "We thought about it, calling it Hecho en Bowery or Hecho en Noho. But at the end of the day, I think the thrust has always been that we are Hecho en Dumbo. It comes from the Hecho en Mexico logo, and we always saw that as our little play on it, speaking to how authentic the cuisine is and also speaking to our roots in Brooklyn. I think when we move we'll still see ourselves as a Brooklyn-style restaurant."
According to a press release on the new location:
The new space, designed by Architect Laura Gonzalez Fierro in concert with Architect of Record Ralph M. Beiran, AIA of Urban Design Office, will be built almost solely from non-virgin and repurposed materials and will treat patrons to a sparse, rustic ambiance fusing aspects that are quintessentially "New York," such as exposed sun-baked brick, with architectural elements that showcase Mexico’s long-standing tradition of repurposing materials -- wood, metals, and concrete -- and fashioning them into sophisticated furniture and fixtures.
Meanwhile, perhaps this is a message on the old sign directed to the new tenants?
According to this week's issue of The Villager (not yet online), Tommy Hilfiger is the latest retailer to sniff around the carcass of Union Square South. There has been some talk of Tommy Boy taking over the Circuit City space or, perhaps, the soon-to-be-departed Virgin Megastore. As the paper notes, Tom has considered opening a "concept store" in one of these spots. Meanwhile! A few other items from the article...Filene's Basement may shutter its Union Square South location...and the Au Bon Painful on Fifth Avenue at 15th Street closed. Now where will I go for a decent sandwich in this city? (And if anyone thinks I'm serious about that last line...)
An EVG tipster shares the following from 14th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue:
"At the end of October, I noticed construction guys at 321 E. 14th St. It has always been a vacant storefront. (I think there was a statue of a Virgin Mary in the window for awhile.) Anyway, imagine my surprise and glee when I read a pizza place was coming!"
Indeed, the work permits do show a "pizza restaurant" in the making...
Furthermore, the tipster said that the space will house Artichoke Basille's Pizza, the growing pizzeria empire that opened its first location nearly directly across 14th Street in 2008. Per the tipster, there's a "rent-hike scenario" brewing at the original location.
Approved work permits list the name of Francis Garcia, who founded Artichoke with his cousin Sal Basille, as the owner. (Public records lists an LLC with a Flushing address as the owner.)
The permits, approved in September, show the estimated build-out cost for the pizzeria at $72,750.
There are currently nine Artichoke locations, eight in NYC and one in Berkeley, Calif.
"Smithereens" starts a weeklong revival today at the Metrograph, the newish theater complex down on Ludlow Street.
The 1982 dark comedy, which marked Susan Seidelman's directorial debut, is set in the East Village (and other downtown locales). Wren (Susan Berman), a suburban New Jersey escapee, is eager for downtown fame, plastering "missing" posters of herself on the subway and elsewhere. She sees a meal ticket in Eric (Richard Hell), the hot guy with a short attention span in a band. And there's the too-nice Paul (Brad Rijn), who pursues the uninterested Wren. Hustling ensues.
Seidelman started filming in late 1979, and continued on and off for the next 18 months. (Production shut down when Berman broke a leg during rehearsal.) "Smithereens," made for $40,000, was the first American indie invited to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
She went on to make several female-focused comedies, including 1985's "Desperately Seeking Susan" with Rosanna Arquette and Madonna and 1989's "She-Devil" with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep, among others. (She also directed the pilot for "Sex and the City.")
I spoke with Seidelman about "Smithereens" and her follow-up, "Desperately Seeking Susan," also partly filmed in the East Village, during a phone call last week. Here's part of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.
On why she wanted to tell this story in "Smithereens":
I was living in the East Village and I was also at NYU. And at the time, NYU Film School, the graduate film school, was on Second Avenue — part of it was where the old Fillmore East used to be. So for three years, that area around Seventh Street and Second Avenue was my stomping grounds.
I started NYU in 1974, and I was there until 1977. So it was interesting to watch the transition from the older hippie generation and hippie-style shops and people as it started transitioning into the punk and new wave kind of subculture. I was a music person, so I frequented CBGB and Max’s Kansas City at that time. And so, that world was interesting to me, and telling a story set in that world about a young woman who’s not from that world, but wants to be part of it in some way, was both semi-personal and just of interest.
On production shutting down:
There were challenges throughout the shoot because I never had all the money. The budget ended up being about $40,000, but I probably only had about $20,000 at any given moment. I was borrowing and racking up bills. I wasn’t really thinking about how I was going to pay it. I figured I’d get to that when I needed to pay it.
Aside from those challenges, when Susan Berman fell off a fire escape and broke her leg during rehearsal, there was no getting around that. We had to quit filming. I kind of thought, oh, you know, fuck it — I’m not going to let this stop me. It made me actually more determined. I had the time to look at what was working and what wasn’t working, and I learned a lot of stuff. I started editing the footage. I could rewrite stuff and change the story a bit.
On casting Richard Hell:
That was when we redefined the character of Eric, who was originally not played by Richard Hell. It was played by somebody else who was not a rock-and-roller — he was more of a downtown painter/artsy type, not a musician — and was also played by a European actor.
By recasting and redefining that role with Richard Hell in mind, it shaped the tone of the movie and changed it, I think, in a good direction. I’m not going to give names, but the other actor — the other person is a working actor, as opposed to Richard Hell, who was acting in the movie, but was more of a presence and an iconic figure even at that time. So trying to make the character of Eric blend in with the real Richard Hell added a level of authenticity to the film.
On filming in the East Village:
In the scene when Wren is waiting out on the sidewalk and the landlady throws her clothing out the window and then splashes her with water, all the people and all the reactions in the background were from the people living on that block who had come out to watch.
At the time, New York was coming out the bankruptcy crisis. There weren’t a lot of police on the street, there wasn’t a lot of red tape and paperwork. These days to film on the street, you have to get a mayor’s permit — so many levels of bureaucracy. Back then, either it didn’t exist … but also I was naïve to what probably needed to be done.
We just showed up with cameras and we filmed. We had some people working on the crew who were friends and they told crowds lining in the street — just don’t look in the camera. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, but it was all very spontaneous.
That’s the advantage of doing a super low-budget movie — you can just go with the flow. For example, there’s a scene with a kid who’s doing a three-card Monte thing on the sidewalk. He was a kid we saw in Tompkins Square Park with his mother. We didn’t have to worry about SAG or unions or anything. I thought he was interesting and [we asked his mother] if they come to this address at this time and be in our movie.
On the lead characters:
My intention wasn’t to make likable characters. My intention was to make interesting characters and who had some element of ambiguity. There are things that I like about Wren; on the other hand, I think she’s obviously somebody who uses people and is incredibly narcissistic. I’m aware of that. But she’s also somebody who is determined to recreate herself and to live the kind of life that she wants to live, and redefine herself from her background, which you get a little hint at, this boring suburban New Jersey life she must have run away from.
On the independent film scene at the time:
The definition of an independent filmmaker has changed so radically. Nowadays, being an independent filmmaker could mean you’re making a $5 million movie that’s really financed by the Weinstein Company, or it could mean you're doing a cellphone movie like “Tangerine.”
But back then, there weren’t that many independent filmmakers. I know there were some people working out of Los Angeles who were doing stuff and a small pocket of people in New York City. So either you knew them or you were friends with them or you just knew what they were doing and had mutual friends. It was truly a small community. And within that community, there were also a definite relationship between people who were musicians, filmmakers or graffiti artists.
So everyone was borrowing people, trading information or sharing resources. Also, the world wasn’t as competitive as it is today. People were eager and willing to help somebody who was a filmmaker would act in somebody else’s film or tell them about a location or a musician. It was pretty simple, like — hey, let’s make a movie, without a lot of calculation.
On her follow-up film, "Desperately Seeking Susan:"
I didn’t have anything lined up after "Smithereens." I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I just finished the movie when it was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival.
But I did know that there were very few female film directors. And the one or two I had heard about who had made an interesting independent film ... I knew that your follow-up movie, especially if it was going to be financed by a studio, you needed to be smart about the choice. You had to make a movie that you could still be creatively in charge of, or else you could get lost in the shuffle.
For about a year and a half, I was reading scripts. And they were, for the most part, terrible. I just figured these couldn’t be my next movie. I have nothing to say about this kind of material.
So then I got this script. It was a little different than the way it ended up being, but it was called "Desperately Seeking Susan." I liked that the character, Susan, felt like she could be kind of related to Wren in "Smithereens." I thought I could bring something unique to that kind of a role. So I didn't feel like I was out of my element there.
And also, part of the film was set in the East Village, a neighborhood that I loved and knew. The other good thing was I was so familiar with the characters and able to add my own spin using a lot of people from the independent film community in small parts, like Rockets Redglare, John Lurie and Arto Lindsay. Richard Hell has a cameo.
On working with Madonna:
At the time, Madonna was not famous when we started out. We were just filming on the streets like she was a regular semi-unknown actress. So there wasn’t a lot of hoopla around the film.
And then, you know, so much of life is about being there with the right thing and the right timing. It just so happened that the movie came out at the moment that her "Like A Virgin" album was released and they coincided and she became a phenomenon. But since that wasn’t during the actual filming, there wasn’t the kind of pressure that one would normally feel if you were working with a big star or a a super-famous person.
On the legacy of "Smithereens":
I think I was trying to document what it felt like to live in that neighborhood in that part of the city at that time. I never really thought about it in terms of whether the film would pass the test of time or be a time capsule or anything.
But the fact that it ended up being pretty authentic to the environment, to the neighborhood, is maybe what enabled it to pass the test of time.
-----
The Metrograph is showing "Smithereens," which features a score by The Feelies, on a new 35-millimeter print courtesy of Shout Factory LLC. Seidelman will be attending tonight's 7 screening. Details here.
Jill at Blah Blog Blah attended last night's CB3 meeting regarding the preservation of the Historic Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Martyr on East Second Street. In a comment, she reported:
[T]he two sides are really at odds, which is so strange because ultimately they want the same thing — to preserve the church they love.
The meeting ended with both sides agreeing to go to a mediator to try to work it out.
Apparently there is a group that helps with financing and all the red tape that the church is worried about. But the anger seemed to go beyond that. What I got from the speeches was that the church members feel like they felt like they are being invaded by strangers who want to proclaim landmark status on the building without engaging the occupants of the building. Like their opinion on the matter was an afterthought.
However, if this fight has been going on since before the rezoning (which is why they say they can't add an addition even if they want to), then the 8-story addition was probably a real threat, and the landmark status was meant to stop them, so engaging them wouldn't have made much sense then, as it was a strategy to stop them from proceeding with their plan.
I wonder if it is possible to could get landmark status in spite of what the church members want. It seems to me that if the EVCC et al are worried that the church, or their future congregants will try to change the building in any way (8 story addition not withstanding) then they are exactly who landmark status is meant to protect the building from.
In Queens, where Mr. Locón lived in a rented room decorated with images of his adopted city, the Guatemalan Consulate had arranged a funeral at the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which has connections to Guatemalans in Jamaica, as well as the wake in Brooklyn. It had been up to Mr. Locón’s three brothers and his cousin, far from their family in Guatemala, to take care of everything else.
“He was just working,” Mr. Locón’s cousin, Pablo Yac, 23, said during the wake. “I’m crying for him.”
Mr. Locón’s brother Alfredo, 30, stood off to one side, trying to organize things. He was the oldest, the one who had tried to take care of his brothers in New York. Asked if he knew that people had been donating to a fund for the family, created by a woman in the East Village, Alfredo nodded. “We’re thankful for everything that people have done for us,” he said, his voice breaking.
Hugo Ortega was the only one of Locón's Sushi Park co-workers to attend the wake.
“I’m always going to miss him. I love him. He was my best friend,” he said, distraught. “He was a very good person. Everyone loved him very much.”
For Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as well as other Latinos, Our Lady of Guadalupe is a powerful symbol of devotion, identity, and patriotism. Her image inspires artists, activists, feminists and the faithful.
EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos from the celebration...
Josephine Jansen, who has lived in the East Village since 1988, embarked on her culinary journey with the inception of Snack Dragon at Ben's Deli, 32 Avenue B, in 2004. Following a year of perfecting her recipes, she relocated just around the corner to 199 E. Third St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, where Kolkata Chai currently operates.
However, this chapter ended when the space closed its doors in 2015, thanks to a rent hike imposed by landlord Steve Croman (colloquially called "Cromanated").
Despite the setback, Jansen harbored ambitions of reintroducing Snack Dragon in a new format, this time housed within a camper van. However, regulatory challenges with the city thwarted her plans.
She shares the untold story behind these endeavors and the obstacles encountered here.
What is the history of Snack Dragon, and when did the Third Street space open/close?
The Snack Dragon concept came about when Ben's Deli had an empty juice kiosk. I told Ben he should sell soup out of there, and he said you should sell soup out of there.
I had been having taco parties back then, and my dog Loopy's nickname was Snack Dragon; thus, the concert was born. I operated out of there for a year and a half. Many stories to tell from that era and many sagas with Task Force One, the harebrained scheme to take restaurants to a new brand of hell by visiting them/me with all government agencies at once!
I can't speak for the neighborhood, but I can say so many of us miss Snack Dragon! Can you tell me your plans for the new mobile Snack Dragon van and how the idea came about?
Thank you. I miss it too! I miss my employees, the energy, the customers…I mean, it was a lot of work. The city is not easy to deal with, but yeah, after the demise of Third Street: Quadruple rent after 10 years, and also Orchard Street (tortious eviction) I was crushed. I didn’t really write it into my business plan that landlords didn’t give a fuck.
Just to be clear, the 1975 Dodge Diamond Class C Camper that I renovated was to be an indoor sit-down restaurant with a kitchen and was not a food truck per se with food going out a window, although that was an option. It was meant to be like a room where people would come in and order food and drink, etc. It had a dining room for eight and a kitchen, so I was going to bring it into the East Village to see how it would work. Turn on the music—and make food—and margaritas.
From the beginning, Snack Dragon was always kind of an art project that served food. It was an experiment that happily worked. After things fell apart in NYC, I opened a restaurant down in the Virgin Islands on St. John that, crazy as it sounds, was destroyed by Hurricane Irma. The whole island was crushed.
I returned to New York and tried to start all kinds of options, but I found this camper in Maine, where I was a chef. It had these wraparound windows in the back, and I just thought it would be so cool to have a communal dining room and a small, efficient kitchen.
I was also planning on having private dinner parties with high-end Mexican food. Most of the renovation occurred during the COVID lockdown; you couldn’t expect folk to cozy into a camper then, so I had to wait it out. It was ready to launch last May.
And what happened to the vehicle? Can you walk us through the timeline of what occurred?
On May 24, 2023, at 6 a.m., on the Valentino Pier in Red Hook, my 1975 Dodge
Diamond Camper was towed away by the Sanitation Department. It was supposedly destroyed within 24 hours. There were no stickers or tagging on the vehicle at all.
I had a friend who was staying in and watching my camper and who was there telling them who the owner was. The tow truck driver yelled out an address, which was written down incorrectly. My search for the camper ensued for three days until I finally reached the Sanitation Department and was told that it had been destroyed the previous day. They did not have my vehicle identification number (VIN) on record.
The VIN for a 1975 Class C camper is only eight digits long, so they argued that it wasn’t a valid number. Going by the description, a DSNY employee said that my camper was, in fact, destroyed. When I finally drove out to 803 Forbell St. [Department of Sanitation lot], I was again told it was destroyed, and they gave me a claim form and sent me on my way.
I was sobbing, and one of the workers laughed at me. My vehicle did not fit the protocol for destruction. It had no dents in it and was in remarkable shape. Also it had brand new signs saying do not trespass facing outwards. There was no evidence that it was abandoned or derelict.
Vehicles must be legally embellished with stickers and fluorescent crayon three days before towing.
Inside the camper were $3,000-plus value in tools and $2,000 worth of cooking and kitchen appliances, and at least $1,000 worth of camping equipment.
I personally remodeled every square inch of the inside of the camper while keeping the outside modest. As an artist, I am also a relational aesthetician. The camper was much more than just a food business.
Is there any hope for the truck? Do you have plans to create a new taco truck? What’s next? Any possibilities of opening a new Snack Dragon close by?
Right now, I am gearing up for a case in Federal Court, as my constitutional rights to due process were not only violated but also not even considered. My burden of proof lies in proving that, along with lost property and emotional distress, I need to prove a loss of income.
It will be difficult to prove since I have only had parties to test the camper's functionality. I have only my previous businesses and my fans to attest that this, indeed, would have been a success.
I hope the damages I receive will help me find a way for Snack Dragon to open again in the East Village.
I recently bought a Shasta 1972 Starflyte trailer camper, which is parked upstate. But the city doesn't take kindly to campers of any kind. So, I'm trying to work out what is viable.
Josephine is looking for photos of the old Snack Dragon space and asks that people reach out via Instagram. Camper photos courtesy of Josephine.
The DOT is currently prepping parts of East 10th Street tonight for repaving... signs said they'd be doing all this tonight and tomorrow... from Avenue D westward...
... workers seem to be randomly tossing down barrels to block off various streets and Avenues and bike lanes ...
...a little later...
[Bobby Williams]
And last Thursday and Friday, crews worked on East 11th Street... and it kinda seemed festive... (maybe not for the workers on a hot and humid night)...
Kenny from 11th St. reported that some neighbors decided to help out — because you never know when those extra chopsticks will come in handy to decorate the street ...
...and perhaps some repaving-related damage to this tree?
Hey, we're digging into the EVG archives for these next few summer Fridays... first posted on July 22, 2008, before I learned when a post was getting too fucking long... (and keep in mind that there is not a free screening of the movie tonight — this was four years ago...)
------------
There's a free screening tonight of 1985's Desperately Seeking Susanat McCarren Park Pool in Greenpoint. It's a silly movie (stolen ancient Egyptian earrings! amnesia! mistaken identities!) that I enjoy watching every summer. (In fact, I just watched it Sunday night.) As Brian J. Dillard writes in his review at allmovie.com, "A classic Hollywood screwball comedy transposed to modern-day Manhattan, Desperately Seeking Susan offered mid-'80s moviegoers a mall-friendly version of hip New York style, much like Madonna did throughout her early musical career."
I like it for a lot of reasons, such as seeing youngish John Turturro, Steven Wright and Giancarlo Esposito, among others, in small roles. And director Susan Seidelman rounded out the film with several downtown musicians/performers — Richard Edson, Rockets Redglare, Richard Hell, John Lurie, Arto Lindsay, Ann Magnuson. And, of course, you get to see some mid-1980s New York, including several scenes in the East Village. (Nice, too, that many of these places are still around some 23 years later, including Gem Spa, Trash & Vaudeville, B & H Dairy and Love Saves the Day.)
Wacky Neighbor had a post on Susan's production design in September 2004. As he notes, the players behind the look of the film were Woody Allen regulars at the time.
Meanwhile, here are a few screenshots from Desperately Seeking Susan.
On St. Mark's.
On Second Avenue.
In front of Love Saves the Day.
Ohhh! Don't mess with the guy with the bucket of the Colonel hanging around Second Avenue and 7th Street!
Scary clubgoers! Do all New Yorkers look like this?! Outside the Magic Club. (In the film, the club is said to be on Broadway. According to Wikipedia, some of the interiors and exteriors were filmed in Harlem.)
Now, some Desperately Seeking Susan trivia from Wikipedia, which means it may or may not be right:
* The filmakers had initially wanted Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn to play the roles of Roberta and Susan. But the director decided to cast newcomers Rosanna Arquette and Madonna instead.
* Bruce Willis was up for the role of Dez. Melanie Griffith was up for the part of Susan as well.
* Madonna barely beat out Ellen Barkin to the part of Susan. Barkin was the producers first choice for the part, but the director claimed Barkin had a lack of substance.
* The Statue of Liberty can be seen in the film when it is still covered in scaffolding during its two year renovation.
* The DVD commentary track for the film (recorded in 1996) noted that after Madonna's first screen test, the producers asked her to take four weeks of acting lessons and get screen-tested again. Although the second screen test wasn't much of an improvement, the director still wanted her for the role, as much for her presence and sense of style as for anything else.
* The 1964 sci-fi movie The Time Travelers is playing in scenes 6 and 23 (melts at the end of the movie).
* The movie was originally filmed in the summer of 1984, early in Madonna's rise to popularity, and was intended to be an R-rated feature. However, following the success of the singer's 1984-85 hits "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl," the film was trimmed in content by Orion Pictures in order to receive a PG-13 rating in order for Madonna's teenage fanbase to be able to see it
* The interior / exterior shots of The Magic Club were filmed in Harlem.
* Some of the scenes were filmed in Danceteria, a club that Madonna frequented and which gave her a start in the music business.
Yesterday, an EVG reader noted the arrival of three statues of the Virgin Mary in the previously empty spaces outside Most Holy Redeemer-Nativity Church on East Third Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.
EVG reader David sent these shots today...
Per David: "All three are the same — very worn-down-looking statues of Mary, but each has a very different surface. Is that supposed to look like marble? Quite surreal! I kind of like them..."
Feb. 24 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin's double studio album "Physical Graffiti."
And on Feb. 24, the band is releasing a remastered/expanded super-duper-deluxe version of the album.
Over at Dangerous Minds, Richard Metzger relays some facts about the "Physical Graffiti" cover — a heavily doctored photo of 96 and 98 St. Mark's Place…
Anyway, in case you are new to all this. Per Dangerous Minds:
The front cover is a daytime shot, while the back cover was taken at night. Amongst the tenants who can be seen through the die-cut windows are JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, astronaut Neil Armstrong, Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, King Kong, the Virgin Mary, Judy Garland and the main cast of The Wizard of Oz, members of Led Zeppelin in drag, their infamous manager Peter Grant, body builder Charles Atlas, the Queen and Laurel & Hardy.
Maybe I should walk on 14th Street near Union Square more often. Or not.
Noticed that a Baked By Melissa shop is coming to 14th Street just east of Fifth Avenue. She bakes tiny cupcakes.
You know that the Nordtrom Racked store is opening at the former Virgin Megastore location... Now a date has been set for the opening: May 11, 2010. (And will they actually make that date?)
And the city's 8,976th Subway is opening right along the Chipotle and Bravo Pizza in the Zeckendorf Towers on the northwest corner of Irving Place and 14th Street.
