Our next restaurant will be named Doomed

So how many different restaurants have tried 171 Avenue A and failed? I've honestly lost track.

Tourists will have to go online to buy their CBGB T-shirts

More from the Voice.

Meanwhile, I'm looking into renting the space. May try to open a frozen yorgurty place, Grieve Berry -- served with a side of despair.

Important decisions of our time

Walking on St. Mark's Place.




Very Berry? Or Pinkberry?

An Olsen twin hangs out at a nice new bar the New York Post considers a dive

Not sure why I'm bothering with this one. First, it's outside the geography of EV Grieve. Second, well... Let's just say this Page Six item today annoyed me for various reasons:

LOWER East Side pub crawlers, who tend to hop from bar to bar on skateboard, were a little surprised to see two black Escalades roll up to Orchard Street dive bar Sweet Paradise at 2 a.m. Sunday. Passing up standard hot spots, Mary-Kate Olsen and her posse slummed it up with some die-hard hipsters. Page Six overheard one bystander comment, "An Olsen just went in there." When asked which troll-sized twin it was, our witness replied, "I think it was the fat one."

The Post's definition of dive bar is different from mine. Sweet Paradise is just fine -- I have no problems with the place. (And I'm a fan of their other spot, Welcome to the Johnson's, though only when it's not full of yahoos.) But a bar that opened in the summer of 2006 isn't a dive bar. I don't care how much the owners recreated the physical characteristics of some old dump that serves a working-class demographic, one without trust funds and $200 haircuts.

"All of Manhattan has lost its soul to money lords"

That's Cheetah Chrome in today's New York Post discussing the new i-banker playground off the Bowery. "Extra Place," as it's being called, is in the former piss-filled alley behind CBGB. (See the Ramones photo above.) As the Post notes, that spot is "getting dragged into the 21st century with a makeover that would make Martha Stewart proud." Yes, because she could afford the kinds of things that are going into "Extra Place." (How not just call it "Extra Expensive"?)

Saint Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Easter 2008

Prefab Sprout -- Hey Manhattan!

Music video from 1988. Prefab Sprout, a Brit pop band from the 1980s...and I never told anyone that I actually liked them. But what a sunny little song, so gosh-darn happy about being in the city.

East 10th Street just off Second Avenue, 7:50 a.m., March 23

Too many bank branches? Too many Sarah Marshall movie ads? Too many small businesses like Fontana Shoes closing?

Sophie's will be big in London

From the UK Guardian:

New York magazine recently handed out its annual gongs for all that is good in the city - from burgers to dive bars. Former Gawker restaurant critic Joshua Stein offers his alternative awards

They say: Mars Bar (25 E 1st St, +212-473-9842).
We say: Sophie's (507 E 5th St, + 212-228-5680). I mean a dive bar is a dive bar is a dive bar. The appeal is the same: cheap booze, no pretension, hopefully a toilet seat with a lid. Sophie's has all three plus, it has picaresque East Village characters who seem to have walked out of the pages of Henry Roth's Call It Sleep; a truly wonderful jukebox (everything from The Pogues to Gang of Four); and a wickedly competitive pool table.

First day of spring looks and feels more like fall

An open house on East 12th Street

For no good reason this past Sunday, Mrs. Grieve and I decided to go to an open house on East 12th Street between A and B. I've watched this eight-story apartment building go up in recent months and was curious what it would look like inside. (I wish I could remember what was on this lot prior to this apartment building...) Plus, I saw the open house ad in the Times with the price range...$2,900 for studios to $4,900 for two-bedroom apartments (roughly 920 square feet) a month. More than anything, I guess, I wanted to know what nearly $5,000 -- an amount that seems criminal to me -- would get you in the East Village today. The short answer: Not as much as I'd like. By the way, this post isn't meant to rip this new building...everything was top of the line...and I'm really so tired of grumbling about the continued ridiculous rents being charged in this neighborhood...I'm sure I'll have to move away soon enough. But until then! Might as well have some fun.

Many of the larger apartments come with a small balcony that overlooks the back of the buildings on East 13th Street. I can only imagine the joy the folks on 13th Street will experience while watching you sit on a tiny balcony in an apartment that costs nearly $5,000.

There's also a lovely rooftop deck with panoramic views of the city. [Updated 3/20: To be fair, the rooftop deck was nice...I sounded sarcastic when I wrote "lovely" -- I often sound sarcastic even when I'm being serious!...the photo below mostly shows the adjacent building's roof...Regardless, a nice rooftop hardly makes up for the steep rents.]

The building opened on March 1...and I was told that it was nearly half full as of Sunday. For my money, I'd prefer to live in the building right next door....this is more my style.

You've been warned

AKA Amateur Hour.