Was it real or part of the filming?

I have no idea what was going on here...First, there was more filming yesterday for the low-budget feature “The Imperialists Are Still Alive!” (or "The Impearlist" as the sign notes) around Tompkins Square Park. (They had also set up camp on Avenue B from 10th Street to Seventh Street one day last week.)



For some reason I stopped to watch for a few minutes yesterday. Everyone on the crew seemed to be looking south on Avenue A toward Ninth Street.





A scooter was lying in the Avenue. No one seemed to be hurt. Several people standing watching thought this was part of the film.



Didn't seem worth standing around for any longer...

New Yorkers really like the new Cemusa bus shelters and newsstands, survey by Cemusa says

We get news releases!:

New Yorkers Show Overwhelming Support for City's New Bus Shelters and Newsstands

93% feel structures improve city's appearance

NEW YORK, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Survey results released today by Cemusa, Inc. indicate that a vast majority of New Yorkers are pleased with the new bus shelters and newsstands installed throughout New York City. Ninety-three percent of respondents feel that the new design of newsstands and bus shelters improve the city's appearance and 88 percent like the new designs. Furthermore, of the respondents that indicated the new design influenced their opinion of New York City Government, 89 percent said the change was positive.

"We are very pleased by the overwhelming response to our street furniture installations in New York City, and that our work has contributed to an improved opinion of our partner, the City of New York, as well," said Susan Baron, chief executive officer, Cemusa North America. "Our new bus shelters, newsstands and automatic public toilets were designed exclusively for the city and the people of New York, which makes it all the more rewarding that they have been so well received."

Cemusa's coordinated street furniture program for the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) is part of a 20 year contract that began in 2006. The contract calls for 3,300 new bus stop shelters, 20 new automatic public toilets (APT) and the replacement of 330 newsstands. To date, 1,586 shelters, 130 newsstands and two APTs have been installed. Additionally, Cemusa has fulfilled its payments to the City through 2010.

Newsstand and Bus Shelter Results
When asked about the city's new newsstands, New Yorkers surveyed responded that the upgraded newsstands sometimes result in higher purchase levels. Twelve percent of the respondents said that they purchase more from the new newsstands than they used to, citing greater appeal and cleanliness among reasons for increased purchases.

Survey results also indicated a majority of NYC pedestrians and commuters feel the new bus shelters are cleaner (62 percent) and more pleasant (61 percent) than the old shelters. Additionally, 47 percent described the shelters as better lit and 35 percent feel they are safer.

Advertisement Results
The survey results also reinforced that advertisers who appear on Cemusa bus shelters and newsstands in NYC can expect a significant return on that investment, with 65 percent of respondents indicating that they notice the advertising on newsstands/bus shelters. More than half (52 percent) of those individuals responded that the advertisements at newsstands and bus shelters make them want to buy the products they see.

[Cemusa image via BoweryBoogie]

Aces & Eights signage up at former Mo Pitkin's space

As I mentioned last Monday, a new bar has opened in the former Mo Pitkin's space at 34 Avenue A. I was told that the building was purchased by the folks behind the fratty Yorkville saloon Aces & Eights. Now, rather temporary-looking signage is up...




No indication yet how the performance space upstairs will be utilized. (Beer pong tourneys?) Something tells me that you won't be seeing, say, Kiki & Herb or Murray Hill headlining anytime soon...The 2-for-1 happy hour is in keeping with the four other bars on the next block -- Double Down, Kelly's, Nice Guy Eddie's and The Library -- that have the same deal.

Meanwhile, add futurist to the skills of former Mo's regular Ben Lerman. The ukulele-playing comedian had this to say to New York magazine in September 2007 upon hearing the news that Mo's was for sale:

“Like Brownies, Fez, Sin-é, Tonic, and many others before, Mo’s will be just another arts venue replaced by yet another bland, chic meat-market with delicious mojitos. The people moving into the town don’t want live entertainment. They just want to get hammered and drag someone home to their luxury condo. Which, when you put it that way, actually doesn’t sound so bad.”

Looking at some of the (temporary?) restaurant closings in the East Village

Tahini on Third Avenue at St. Mark's Place was closed for a few days...




Grub Street noted last week that the Bamn! Automat on St. Mark's was closed...the sign on the door simply reads "closed today." It was still shuttered as of yesterday...



Ryan's is still closed on Second Avenue...



And there is a "temporarily closed for remodeling" sign up at Ray's on Avenue A between 12th Street and 13th Street...(As I recall, this space was previously Papa D's Pizza. Never tried their pizza...)



Meanwhile!

Coming soon to Second Avenue between 11th Street and 12th Street...



Finally, Table 12, the bistro at 12th Street and Avenue A that Jill mentioned last Wednesday, is now open...

Muni Meters bring out the worst in people

Spotted on Avenue A near Sixth Street...




Meanwhile...Spotted on St. Mark's Place near First Avenue...

"Couple looking to by coop or condo" without need for a mortgage flier of the day

Spotted on Avenue A and Second Street.

When popular places on East Seventh Street run out of things

At Porchetta yesterday...(and why this is so popular...I don't get...)



And at Abraço on Feb. 22...

In case you missed the 5,000 (or so) "Rock of Love Girls" posters someone plastered all over Avenue A

Looking forward to the graffiti on these.

Noted

"The modern version of the Rat Pack burned rubber through the city streets Friday as Leonardo DiCaprio and buddies Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire and Kevin Dillon toured the East Village on bicycles." (New York Post)

Goodbye to all that

Or maybe one last (rather pathetic) attempt to enjoy a winter sport? On Second Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

The Times looks at Webster Hall's past and present (and future)

The $3 million, yearlong renovation at Webster Hall is done. And the Times takes a look at the 11th Street club's history....

Charles Goldstein, a cigarmaker, built Webster Hall in 1886 for $75,000, with a design by Charles Rentz Jr., an architect and beer vendor, for “balls, receptions, Hebrew weddings and sociables,” according to a December 1886 article in The New York Times.

But it soon came to be known for rowdy parties, many of which featured live music, like the fund-raiser for General Grant’s memorial in September 1887, or the fete for the French Revolution centennial in May 1889.

In the early 1900s, Webster Hall’s guest lists featured artists of all sorts, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Around the same time, Greenwich Village became a center of gay and lesbian life, and the club was frequently a gathering place.

And some of its music history...

It was back in 1953, when RCA Victor set up a studio in the Grand Ballroom of Webster Hall in Manhattan to achieve a level of reverberation that would help the label compete with Columbia Records. Perry Como recorded his “Como Swings” there in 1959, which displayed Como in slacks and a blue shirt on a golf course.

As the world changed, and music with it, so did the acts the venue attracted: in 1967, Jefferson Airplane staged its first concert in New York inside. On Dec. 6, 1980, U2ushered in the post-punk era here — it was called the Ritz at the time — when it pounded out “I Will Follow” in its first gig in the United States. And on Feb. 2, 1988, Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, standing on the same stage, before screeching “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” inflated a condom like a balloon.

No mention of K-Fed's show there, though...

At the Fillmore East, Jan. 1, 1970

And check out the shot of Ratner's at the 18-second mark....

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

News and tributes related to the death of blogger Bob Guskind (Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn)

A look at "Manhattan's mole people" (New York Post)

EV cabaret cops take a bow (The Villager)

Babs Corcoran turns 60...which can only mean: Pajama party! (Page Six)

Full coverage of the StuyTown illegal rent case (Stuyvesant Town's Lux Living)

How low will NYC real estate go? (New York Times, via Curbed)

Watchmen's 1985 NYC landscape vs. the real thing (Gawker)

Ludlow's SVA running up a big electric bill (BoweryBoogie)

Visiting two lesser-known halls at the American Museum of Natural History (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Eight-tracks next?: Vinyl is making a comeback (amNew York)

Looking at the new Minetta Tavern (Greenwich Village Daily Photo)

The passenger who barfed (NYC Taxi Photo)

A Red Tailed hawk in action at TSP (Neither More Nor Less)

Karate Boogaloo has some more rock ephemera (Stupefaction)

The members of U2 finally make themselves useful in NYC (The Superficial)

The Bronx is burning money

A few passages from The Wall Street Journal article today on the wretched excess found at the soon-to-open Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. (And the place where the Dallas Cowboys will play.) As the headline goes, "Three of the most expensive sports arenas in history are about to open, and the timing couldn't be worse."

When the New York Yankees throw open the doors to their new home on April 3, fans will walk into a $1.5 billion stadium filled with all the hallmarks of 21st-century sports extravagance: a steak house, a glass-enclosed sports bar and high-definition video screens in every direction.

Luxury suite-holders can access a separate deal-room for conducting business. In the sleek, exclusive "Legends Club," the high-definition screens are so ubiquitous they're even set into the lavatory mirrors. For spectators in the premium section's teak-armed seats, waiters will bring brick-oven pizza to anyone able to shell out $2,500 a ticket to watch a ballgame in the midst of the worst recession in a generation.

Well, at least we can get a cheap hot dog...Uh, right?

Citi Field will have a reservation-only restaurant and a wine bar, plus gourmet snack food -- barbecue, burgers and Belgian-style french fries -- by top New York restaurateur Danny Meyer. The Yankees and Cowboys decided no existing concessions company was good enough for their new stadiums, so they teamed up with Goldman Sachs to create their own company, Legends Hospitality Management, which will focus on high-end, locally themed food. Yankee Stadium promises food cooked up by celebrity chefs from the Food Network, while a sample menu for a Cowboys luxury suite features New Zealand baby lamb chops, Kobe beef with a cognac demi-glace and truffled macaroni and cheese.

Well, at least we can sit in the bleacher seats.

Fans can still get bleacher seats in Yankee Stadium for $5, though their view of the field is partially blocked by a glass-enclosed sports bar. Bleacher seats with unobstructed views will go for $12.

A new mural for Houston and Avenue B

Yesterday, I noted that Chico and Tats Cru were working on a mural on the northwest corner of Houston and Avenue B.... Here's the final product:

At 2 Gold Street: They're just not that into poo

Are residents of 2 Gold Street forgetting to clean up after their dogs? Officials at the Sovereign Bank branch, which has a ground-floor location at the FiDi residence on Gold Street and Maiden Lane in the Financial District, decided that several "curb your dogs" signs were necessary for their front windows...




Of course, the signs aren't always effective.

Goldfish in the Flowerbox

The Times has a Home & Garden feature on a young family's home in the Flowerbox building on East Seventh Street between Avenue C and Avenue D.

The feature is titled "A modernist temple."

The photo below includes the caption: "The couple were drawn to the condo's indoor-outdoor feel. A wall of ivy was planted along the interior balcony that overlooks the living area. Directly below the garden is a shallow, 12-foot-long reflecting pool, where goldfish dart just below the surface."



Speaking of this building...in 2007, the triplex penthouse apartment here at 259 E. Seventh St. sold for about $10 million — a neighborhood record.

As the New York Sun reported at the time:

The luxury building, around the corner from Avenue D, is attracting big dollars to a street that most New Yorkers a decade ago would not have considered even for a stroll.

"This is Perry Street, this is 77th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus," the lead broker for Flowerbox, Larry Carty of Warburg Marketing, said. Eight loft units in his building, which started at $1.495 million, sold out in three months. The gigantic Lillian Wald and Jacob Riis housing projects down the block are hardly a liability, according to the broker. "So what? You pay 800 bucks a night at the Maritime Hotel, and you're looking out your window at projects," he said.

"Buyers weren't worried about Avenue D," Mr. Carty said. "If anything, they were saying, ‘Where exactly is that?'"

[Photo: Elizabeth Felicella for The New York Times]

An anniversary and a four corners update

Blogger and faithful EV Grieve reader/commenter Jill celebrated her three-year-and-one-day anniversary over at Blah Blog Blah this week. Here's to another three years and one day! On this occassion, we all chipped in to get her a gift certificate to Kool Blue! Meanwhile, she has an update on the four corners at 12th Street and Avenue A -- specifically, the southwest corner where a diner-y looking place called Table 12 has revealed its signage.

Noted

Per The Wall Street Journal: Eliot Spitzer is returning to Washington, D.C., but this time as an investor in the commercial real-estate market.

Worried about image of city, Mayor Bloomberg announces $50 million plan to make four-day-old snow look nicer

Sorry. Shouldn't give him any ideas...

The Villager: No steeples for renovated St. Brigid's

Lincoln Anderson at The Villager has the details on the plans for the $10 million renovation of St. Brigid's at Avenue B and Eighth Street. The headline: "St. Brigid’s will have elevator and new A/C, but no steeples."

Chico's last LES hurrah

Before heading to Florida, Chico apparently has one mural left to do. As a reader pointed out last night, there was an open space marked "Reserved for Tats Cru/Chico" on the northwest corner of Houston and Avenue B.

This afternoon, Chico and company were at work...

Looking at the LES: "Those bridge-and-tunnel places are what made this area better"

A few passages from the real-estate section in the Post today, specifically the cover story titled "More or LES."

The neighborhood, one of the city's largest — spanning from the Bowery east, from Houston to Canal streets — offers Manhattan's least expensive two- and three-bedroom rentals, averaging $3,023 and $4,095 a month, respectively, according to Citi Habitats' January data. (Compare that to $4,311 and $5,450 in Chelsea, and $5,086 and $7,169 in SoHo/TriBeCa.)

What about that kinda weird-looking Blue condo thing?

[T]he glass 16-story, 32-unit Blue condo, out of place among its five- and six-story neighbors, is a different story. It averaged $1,140 per square foot when it sold out, says Corcoran Group broker Barrie Mandel.

"The people who bought [at Blue] were people who 10 years ago would have bought in the Village and five years ago would have bought in SoHo and two years ago would have bought in NoLIta," Mandel says. "The majority of people have traditional work that they do all day long, they dress in a suit and tie, a dress and proper heels and come home at night and lead a different life, go to the clubs or the lounges."

What other changes have there been on the LES?

Since Anne Hugard moved to the Lower East Side in 2001, she has seen a dramatic transformation.

"There were no stores, and it was Chinatown to the south and very Puerto Rican to the east; that's what we liked about it," she says. "It got gentrified, which is good and bad. We enjoy the convenience of stores, but the drawback is that the population gets to be all the same."

Hmm, still. Is it safe?

"I've watched this area go from street fights to kids puking in the streets," says Chris Scott, co-owner of Fat Hippo, a newish restaurant on Clinton Street. "Those bridge-and-tunnel places are what made this area better."

Wal-Mart passes on Virgin Megastore space at Union Square, though are "still interested" in cracking the Big Apple

From the Post today:

Manhattan's retail rent rollback is causing Wal-Mart to give the city another look.

The giant discount chain has shopped for space in Union Square and among the big-box stores along Sixth Avenue in Chelsea, The Post has learned.

Wal-Mart recently passed on a proposal by Related Companies for a two-level store of about 57,000 feet in Union Square where Virgin Megastores and Circuit City are closing, sources said.

The company's real-estate scouts have also been roaming the area around 620 Sixth Ave., said the sources.

Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo said the Union Square sites "were never under consideration." But he said the company is "still interested" in opening stores in New York, despite strong political and union opposition.

Revisiting Fulton Street...and say hello to Fultonhaus!

Fulton Street, down in the Financial District, is as dreary as ever. The street is still torn up. And there's that large, unnecessary money pit in the Earth on Fulton and Broadway where the Fulton Street Transit Center will open in 4783. (At the east end of the street at Water and the South Street Seaport, the storefront that housed the Staples remains vacant.) Still, though, despite all this...the street is functional enough for the working folks in the neighborhood. You have your Radio Shack, your Subway, Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, CVS, etc. Your basic chain hell with a few mom-and-pop shops in the mix. (With some affordable work space on the upper levels.)



Despite the economy, more change is inevitable along this corridor. For instance, on the north side of the street, between Nassau and Williams Street, there are four properties for rent. (Here's info on 119 Fulton St.)






As humdrum as the street level looks, big things have happened up above...check out the upper left-hand side of this photo...



That's the 14-story loft residence (a SHVO exclusive!) known as Fultonhaus at 199 Fulton St., just a few doors east of the Crisis Intervention Program at the Coalition for the Homeless. Dunno what the occupancy rate is at Fultonhaus. For what it's worth, there is some furniture out on a few of the terraces, though not too many brave souls are taking advantage of the Fultonhaus rooftop right now. [Update: Thanks to the commenter for setting me straight: The roof deck is part of District next door to Fultonhaus.]



Oh, one thing worth mentioning on the Fultonhaus site...the "nightlife" section...not exactly an area renowned for it. Anyway, the wonderfully seedy Pussycat Lounge gets namechecked!


No love, though, for the Blarney Stone? Which is right next to the Fultonhaus. And they're having a nice sandwich/side order combo deal. Just don't ask for separate containers, OK?