Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Something about the East Village of Des Moines seems strangely familar

First, to be honest, I was unaware there was an East Village in Des Moines, Iowa.



Anyway, this article from yesterday's Des Moines Register shows that we have something in common with their East Village:

Land in the East Village that currently houses a 1930s-era terra cotta gas station will be redeveloped into a paved parking lot next month.


Namely, stupid, rampant development...

And prices are being slashed



Spotted on Avenue B at Eighth Street. Dunno if the fliers were hung with the savings...or a passerby decided to reduce the price...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition



Key Food killer gets 20-to-life sentence (Daily News)

An interview with Philip Glass, who has lived in the East Village for 40 years (Gothamist)

Thirty years ago yesterday: Sid Vicious dies in NYC (Hunter-Gatherer)

New York in legos (New York Times)

Bespoke Chocolates to open tomorrow in Extra Place? (Grub Street)

A forlorn sight at the Cheyenne (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

More art galleries are closing (Bloomberg)

NYC loses another character: RIP Joe Ades (Esquared)

Cheeky!: "In the butt" stickers now terrorizing defenseless signs and other inanimate objects in NYC (Urban Pranksters, In the Butt)

Update on the Blarney Stone: Still closed

Following up on my earlier post on the Blarney Stone on Fulton Street. Uh-oh — it's still closed as of around noon today. Not a good sign. This is a good lunch space...and a better drinking spot. OK, and a good lunch spot to drink in. Anyway, it's one of the few bars remaining in the Financial District worth frequenting...



Looks as if a sign was taped up on the gate....But five measly pieces of tape in this wind? The sign is likely in Brooklyn Heights by now. I walked around to the back entrance on Ann Street and looked inside. Nothing amiss. Everything seems to be where it usually is. The phone just rings...no outgoing message.



So I'm sure this is just a temporary thing...Right?

Still, given the changes sweeping down Fulton Street, nothing would surprise me...

Another Anne Frank tag

I did a post this past Friday on an Anne Frank tag that I saw on a building on West 35th Street between Ninth Avenue and Eighth Avenue. It was not a tag that I had ever seen before...ditto for The Graffiti Friend of EV Grieve (GFEVG)...

Well, GFEVG noticed an Anne Frank tag in Nathan Kensinger's "Abandoned Brooklyn" exhibit from last month. Here's Nathan's photo:



Nathan told me in an e-mail: "It's a piece I included ... because it was such a strange find -- down at the dead end of a street in Sunset Park, surrounded by razor wire, in front of an abandoned Marine Terminal."

From tiki to minimalistic Marfa

It looks as if the former Waikiki Wally's space on Second Street is ready for action...It's Marfa, which is either taken from Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" or the town in Texas. Or, um, maybe it's just Marfa.



They have drink specials...



...and some food...(the sign says the full menu debuts Feb. 12...)





And why are these photos so blurry? It's as if I took them while jogging by or something. Anyway! It wasn't open when I walked by last night some time before 7. Pretty spare decor. Not one piece of Polynesian kitsch spotted. Not even a sliver of bamboo.

Why was the venerable Blarney Stone on Fulton Street closed last night?

They're an 8 a.m.-4 a.m. place.



No sign on the door...and no one answered their phone. This on the heels of getting a sterile new sign.

Phone-y art

On Houston near Allen.






Took these photos Sunday...wonder how long this will remain intact...

Ta-da: It's Tonda

Signage appears at the recently shuttered E.U. on East Fourth Street near Avenue B.



As Eater noted, Tonda will be an Italian trattoria and pizza place...and work appears to be going on behind the papered windows...

Love for sale

After Love Saves the Day closed for good on Jan. 18, I wondered how long it would take for the LSD signage to come down...





It was there Saturday...but was gone yesterday morning....





Unlucky dog?

As Alex noted Sunday, the pooch who kept watch over the now-shuttered Spots' Cafe and Good Dog on St. Mark's Place is no longer on his perch....





In the comments on Alex's post, Jill said that she saw the pup in Chinatown...but, without photographic evidence, can we be sure that it's the same one? I'm actually curious what happened to the big fellow...I've softened my stance on him/her. Maybe I will miss the thing...At first, the dog seemed to represent the continued Disneyfication/froyogurtization of St. Mark's...serving as a metaphor for what was wrong with the neighborhood: big and stupid...Now, given the state of things, I hope the poor thing finds a good home. He/she just wanted to be loved.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Not such a hot spot

[Missing pooch photo by Alex via Flaming Pablum. Head on dog photo via The Voice]

Monday, February 2, 2009

Noted

A new (yes, right?) Neighborhood News feature in New York magazine included the following...

Remembering the Jones Diner



I couldn't let my previous post on the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones pass without an appreciation of the former occupant of the southeast corner (the one with the new hotel) -- the Jones Diner. We lost this one in September 2002.

Here's a passage from a piece that Tom Robbins did for the Voice back in January 2002:

Jones Diner is in an area zoned for manufacturing because, when it was built, the big cast-iron and federal-style brick buildings along Lafayette, Great Jones, and neighboring Bond and East 4th streets were filled with woodworking and machine shops and small garment plants. At breakfast and lunch, workers swarmed through the diner's narrow door, plunking themselves on the green padded stools and into the brown booths. Most of those businesses are long since gone; however, their lofts are now occupied by well-heeled residents and swank high-tech offices.

But Jones Diner has endured. Its $3 breakfast specials (juice included) and the never changing plastic-lettered menus above the big gleaming coffee tureens, offering meat loaf sandwiches for $3.25 and pot roast for $4.50, still lure passing delivery workers as well as employees of the neighborhood's last industrial outposts, the lumber yard down the block and the muffler shop across the street. There is also a loyal cadre of local residents who, in a swath of urban landscape that boasts three Starbucks, an Au Bon Pain, a Wendy's, a McDonald's, and an ever expanding universe of mid- to high-end restaurants, still find the Jones the most comfortable dining place within walking distance for simple meals.


For further reading:
The Fate of a Fabled Greasy Spoon Raises Questions About Landmarking (New York Times)

Former site of the Great Jones Diner (Flaming Pablum)

Jones Diner - Lafayette St. (NYC.com)

[Image: Spencer Platt/Getty Images]

It's not your imagination



From the Times.

Another corner still primed to fall in NoHo

The Meineke Car Care Center on the southwest corner of Lafayette and Great Jones is still for sale. Haven't been by this corner for some time...I recall talk of either a condo, and later, a hotel, for this space back in the summer of 2007...I thought it was a done deal.




According to the Massey Knakal Web site:

The property has Landmark’s Approval for a 6-story steel and glass building for residential, commercial or hotel-use. The development opportunity at 372 Lafayette Street has tremendous potential. The location alone sets the site apart as there is tremendous demand for this type of development project. This property represents a truly exceptional opportunity to capitalize on the strong demand for a premier residential, commercial, or mixed-use development site within the trendiest retail corridor in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan.


The property is listed at $4.4 million. It could look something like this:



Meanwhile, here's what it looks like now...enjoy it while you can...




Meanwhile, across the street, work continues on the Great Jones Hotel. Which the sign says will be completed in February 2010.



Meanwhile, farther east on Great Jones...

Given the changes this area has seen of late, I wonder how much longer great little corner lots such as this one on Great Jones and the Bowery will be around...(I tend to worry about such things.)





And signs like this always give me pause...makes it seem as if Great Jones Cafe is up for grabs...



Faced with a lack of snow, the Penistrator uses a different canvas to showcase his work



On Avenue B near Sixth Street.

Seeing more of Seymour (er, Butcher Bay)

The plastic and plywood came down at the former Seymour Burton location -- now called Butcher Bay -- on 511 E. Fifth St. this past week.



Given the size and scope of the project, we thought they were renovating the Sistine Chapel inside or something.

Chipping away at Kim's

Workers continue to dismantle the former Mondo Kim's on St. Mark's...

Friday:


Saturday:


Sunday:


Wonder how much longer the cover art for the Noisettes and Goldfrapp will stay up there...

Looking at 131 E. Seventh St.

Last November, we did a post on the former Italian cafe Affettati at 131 E. Seventh St. ... which was to become the East Village Pie Lounge. A few weeks ago we noticed that the Pie Lounge-coming-soon sign was gone.

Now, there's this...

By the way, the Christmas tree is still on in Tompkins Square Park



Does it seem odd to anyone else that the Christmas tree was still lit up as of last night in Tompkins Square Park? Maybe someone just forgot about it...? And it will be lit through the summer maybe?

Previously on EV Grieve:
An EV Grieve editorial: Time to turn off the lights this season on the Tompkins Square Park holiday tree

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Noted


From the Post:

If you've ever made an exhibition of yourself by falling asleep on the job, we might have the perfect employer for you.

The New Museum of Contemporary Art is seeking women between the ages of 18 and 40 to sleep in a bed - a different participant every day - in an exhibition by Chinese contemporary artist Chu Yun who "creates a human sculpture by inducing sleep."

The women will get paid $10 an hour just for getting some ZZZs.

The museum, located at 235 Bowery, has posted ads, including one on the American Association of Museums' job board, seeking about 100 women "who are willing to come and sleep at the museum during its opening hours to the public."

In search of cheesy (ballsy?) Super Bowl promos

I understand that NBC has a big Bruce Springsteen informercial planned for this evening. To coincide with the release of his new record, the Super Bowl will also be played before and after a Springsteen mini-concert.

Meanwhile, for no good reason, I was amusing myself by trying to find the cheesiest Super Bowl party special...So far, the leading contender is...




And has anyone ever been to Whistlin' Dixie's Texas Tavern? (WARNING: If you click on their link, expect to hear some Kenny Rogers...) It's at West 51th Street and 11th Avenue. See you there!

Recession causing retail landlords to be sort of nice and humane


To the Times!

Back in the mid-1990s, when a stretch of Ludlow Street in Manhattan was dominated by boarded-up buildings and wholesale fruit and nut vendors, Terri Gillis’s boutique, TG-170, was one of the magnets that drew intrepid shoppers to the Lower East Side.

That area is now one of the city’s liveliest late-night strips, which made it particularly painful for Ms. Gillis to receive an eviction notice last month because she owed $13,556.26 in back real estate taxes. But in a sudden change of heart, her landlord recently offered to let Ms. Gillis stay for two more years, and even proposed paying part of her future real estate taxes — which retail tenants normally pay.

In this troubled economy, the building manager, Arwen Properties, decided it would rather hold onto a good tenant.

“We’re working with her and trying to compromise,” the lawyer for Arwen Properties, Joel Bernstein, said. “The landlord has got an incentive, naturally, to keep cash flowing.”

Many landlords he advises are coming to the same conclusion, Mr. Bernstein said. Just a year ago, the owners of New York’s most coveted retail and restaurant spaces held almost unassailable power to dictate the terms of their leases. But the recession is changing that equation, as rapidly rising vacancy rates and bankruptcies are making it hard to find new tenants.