Friday, April 3, 2009

Friday Photo Follies





And you thought there was a mob scene at TopShop yesterday....Down on Park Row.

"All of the Mets, Yankees and NYC resources could not duplicate what the Romans did 20 centuries ago"



A few excerpts from EV Grieve favorite Phil Mushnick's column in today's Post. The topic: The new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees:

The Mets' new billion-dollar, state-of-the-art, restaurant- and luxury-box-lined park has loads of obstructed-view seats -- same as the Yanks' new park. The Mets are pretending that theirs don't exist, while the Yanks are pretending that theirs were part of the plan, all along.

Who was the architect, George Costanza?

Not that anyone expected anyone to actually consider the sightlines from these seats. Those unwilling or unable to surrender their good senses to continue to attend Yankees and Mets games were deemed persona-get-outta from the start. The plans, after all, always called for fewer "cheaper" seats.

Who knew, three years ago, that such seats would be in demand among the freshly impoverished? Or that corporations, having supplanted real fans as sports' best customers, would be less solvent than both bleacher bums and bleach?


And!

Most remarkable, though, is that in the 21st century, all of the Mets, Yankees and NYC resources could not duplicate what the Romans did 20 centuries ago. The Roman Coliseum, now 2,000 years old, never had a bad seat.


And!

No worries, though. If Mayor Bloomberg and Yankee Vice Emperor Randy Levine are correct in their claim that new ballparks are good for the economy, we can build new ones every two years. Excelsior!

Spinning into DVD



"Spinning into Butter," a racial drama starring Sarah Jessica Parker, was released last Friday, showing locally at the Sunshine on Houston. The film had reportedly been sitting on the shelf for nearly four years and was unceremoniously dumped on the market. The marketing campaign consisted of putting up the Worst Movie Posters Ever on Houston and Avenue B and East Fifth Street near Cooper Union. And probably a few other places.

According to Variety, the film grossed $5,534 during the March 27-29 weekend. It played at four theaters in the country. That's good for a $1,384 per screen average. So let's see if my arithmetic is any good. It played six times a day at the Sunshine; 18 times then for the weekend, we assume. So divide the $1,384 by 18. That's roughly 77. So 77 people saw the movie over the weekend at the Sunshine. Tickets are $12.50 each. So, 77 divided by 12.50.... so that means, on average, six people saw each screening.

By the way, "Spinning into Butter" is no longer playing at the Sunshine.

The new scourge of our neighborhoods: Church chimes



These were spotted on St. Mark's between First Avenue and Avenue A.

The weather of late is causing problems for local businesses

For example!

On East Third Street near Avenue B...



And on St. Mark's Place...

Marilyn Monroe Stumps for the Sock Man

Have you seen these ads around for the Sock Man?






I thought for sure that the Sock Man would use Chloe Sevigny for the ad.

Beer and wine for May

The dismantling of the old Love Saves the Day location on Second Avenue and Seventh Street continues. Meanwhile, as Jeremiah reported, the space is becoming something called May Chan Ramen. On April 20, they'll be going before the CB3's SLA & DCA Licensing Committee for a beer and wine permit.

Please?



At Julius Klein/Art & Design on East First Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

Noted


"Sitting in new Yankee Stadium on the first day fans came to the $1.5 billion ballpark, managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner admitted some tickets might be overpriced given the recession but insisted the team read the market correctly for most of them." (ESPN)

(And that's Hal on the left of everyone's favorite all-star!)

I LOVE NEW YORK -- the real stuff, not that fake shit



We get press releases!

I LOVE NEW YORK TAKES STEPS TO RECAPTURE ICONIC BRAND
AND INCREASE REVENUE

OpSec Security and CMG Worldwide Selected to Launch Authentication Program

New York, NY- I LOVE NEW YORK, one of the world's most iconic brands, has launched a new authentication program to protect its brand and legitimate brand licensees from the onslaught of unlicensed and counterfeit I LOVE NEW YORK products in the marketplace. The protection program consists of accompanying officially licensed products with new hologram hang tags and labels, which serve as marks of integrity and control counterfeiting. OpSec Security, Inc., a global leader in anti-counterfeiting and brand protection solutions, and CMG Worldwide, a premier licensing company representing celebrity legends and prized brands, is partnering with I LOVE NEW YORK in the authentication program.

The I LOVE NEW YORK campaign and brand, managed by Empire State Development (ESD), were launched in 1977 to promote tourism and travel for New York State. In May 2008, ESD relaunched the I LOVE NEW YORK campaign to reinvigorate the premier travel brand, nationally and internationally, and further promote tourism in New York State. Today's announcement is the latest component of the brand relaunch.

ESD President and CEO Marisa Lago said, "The primacy of the I LOVE NEW YORK brand is in no small part due to the millions of visitors who purchase officially licensed merchandise that bears the campaign's iconic logo. As part of the relaunch, I LOVE NEW YORK began positioning the brand with contemporary products that go well beyond basic souvenirs. As a result of improving the quality and quantity of official I LOVE NEW YORK merchandise, licensing revenues increased by 70% in 2008-2009."

At its heart, the authentication program serves to further increase revenues and protect the brand as a valuable asset for New York State. Additional steps have been taken by I LOVE NEW YORK to protect the brand, such as the development of "brand guidelines" that aid partners in using the brand's logo in a consistent manner, thereby increasing awareness of and helping to cement an emotional connection with audiences.

"Over the years, I LOVE NEW YORK has become one of the most recognized tourism brands in the world and is widely popular with visitors to New York State. Like many respected brands, counterfeiters have exploited consumers looking for I LOVE NEW YORK souvenirs. We are proud to provide an anti-counterfeiting solution that enables consumers to easily identify genuine I LOVE NEW YORK merchandise from low quality fakes," said Jeffrey Unger, President, Brand Protection, OpSec Security.


Did you make it this far? And, Huh?

More signs from the recession


Thursday, April 2, 2009

Man, I loved him in "Getting Even with Dad!"

Filming for the new HBO series "Bored 2 Death" is happening around the neighborhood...



Right now they're holed up in Odessa on Avenue A.



The show stars Jason Schwartzman and Ted Danson. When I took the photo of the flier the other day, two guys in their mid-20s were looking at it. One said something about Ted Danson. His friend replied, seriously, "Yeah, he was in 'Becker.'"

For further reading:
My Stalk-a-thon (Slum Goddess)

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition



"It wasn’t long ago that one way the wealthy flashed their fortunes was by decking their dogs in Burberry collars and sending them for spa services. Now even the city’s wealthiest dog owners have cut their budgets and sometimes abandoned their dogs entirely." (City Room)

Two EV icons are on the mend, Biker Bill... and the Mosaic Man (Neither More Nor Less)

Coney Island Freak Show is on! (Gothamist)

Historic mailboxes disappear from Hotel Chelsea (Living with Legends)

Karate Boogaloo has details on the excellent-sounding "What I've Been Hoarding; An Accumulation of Rock and Literary Decadence: 1965 - 85" (Stupefaction)

Jeremiah walks on the East River and revisits 1992 East Village (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Shocker! Orchard Street Hell building shows signs of life (BoweryBoogie)

The link to the video people keep sending me (BrinkJunk)

Lady GaGa knocks out her backup dancer's front teeth (BuzzFeed)

Ridiculous help wanted ad (Gawker)

EV Grieve reader and EV resident Claudia Castillo (a currently unemployed TV producer) shot a nice segment on the Unemployment Olympics the other day. Watch it here. It was also posted to CNN's iReport page.

Cabin fever


Matt Harvey's "Bash Compactor" column in this week's NYPress looks at the not-so-secret, secret speakeasy on Avenue A... Before heading Down Below, he asks a fine question:

Last Saturday night on Avenue A, post-college boozers were spilling out onto the sidewalk from a jam-packed Niagara. Watching drunken couples falling over each other in an attempt to snag a cab, I wondered, if the recession is so deep, why aren’t these people on Greyhound buses back to Rochester?

The Lower Eastside Girls Club's "urban paradise" closer to reality -- groundbreaking set for this year

It has been a long time coming... This vacant lot on Avenue D between Seventh Street and Eighth Street...



...will some day be home to a new 12-story Lower Eastside Girls Club.... The Capital Campaign has been ongoing...



(Before going any further, the people depicted in these renderings really seem out of place... and not at all reflective of the diversity in the neighborhood...and what are those two in the bottom photo on the left doing? The guy on the right looks as if he's peeing against the wall.)

Anyway!

Now, according to an article yesterday at Inhabitat:

Though New York City’s real estate climate is anything but sunny, this year, the Lower East Side Girls Club (in partnership with the Dermot Company, a high-profile local developer) will break ground on a new 30,000–square foot, mixed-use arts and community center on the corner of 7th Street and Avenue D. It will be the first and only Girls Club facility in NYC (when boys and girls clubs nationwide joined in 1986, the Boys Club of New York, operating on the LES, opted out of the merger, leaving the neighborhood’s girls to develop their own organization).


And!

In addition to an expanded version of their Sweet Things Bake Shop, the LESGC’s signature social enterprise, the four-story center will contain open-air space for a farmers’ market, a fair trade bookstore and gift shop, a library for after-school tutoring and book club meetings, a full dome planetarium, a commercial kitchen and culinary training center, a leadership training site for career counseling, an amphitheater, and — if you can believe it—much, much more. The true heart of the project, though, is a science, health, and environmental center that will be available to all community youth.


According to a 2005 article in The Villager:

In 2002, the Economic Development Corporation gave the Girls Club control of six city-owned lots on Avenue D between 7th and 8th Sts. for the site of a new facility...

The Girls Club is not the only beneficiary of the project. About 13,000 square feet of space on the lot will be used for not-for-profit tenants, and 15,000 square feet of studio space will be leased to the Federation of East Village Artists, according to a mayoral press release. Rooftop antennas on the building will provide free high-speed Internet access to residents of two neighboring public housing developments.


As it has been reported, the top eight floors of the building will house 72 apartments.




Note: Just around the corner on East Seventh Street is the $10 million penthouse in the Flowerbox.

Two storefronts on Avenue D




While we're on the topic of Avenue D.

"Ode Fro Avenue D"


I've quoted Dave Crish, an editor at Not for Tourists, hereabouts in the past...Here's a piece he did for NFT from Jan. 20, 2007, titled, "Ode Fro Avenue D."

Began perambulation 'pon th'eponymous rue of yours true, D, fro corner at Second Ave, Biblioteca Fish. North to pole at pipestack, left at 12th to Tompkins Square. Vista clear, slightly bloodshot like 'em passing. Marinated of cheaply attained dose of cognac passant boutiques novel as Bertolt's idiom, Village East. O'er C to entrepot spirito plein of tattered clients at two o'clock. Mezzagiorno. Fro acquiring new slick to park loo and amidst chat of weathered Russians, two, coking, model damsel whispered past shadows dressed in denim torn, purple locks. Trans whiff to make mist of eerie mer, here -- terre trod of fading 'hemia beaux, though, not bent as once it were, however -- cracked as ever in relation the lamin' isle's elsewhere. Demarcated smoked Avenue D. Alphabet City's Z, la.

A "showcase" on East Seventh Street



The Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Anshe Ungarn East Seventh Street, described as "a Beaux Arts synagogue built in 1908 for a congregation of Hungarian Jews," was designated a historic landmark last March.

It was split into five residences in the 1980s. Today, the Times features the folks who live in the building's penthouse.

Notes the article, titled "Once Sacred, Now Their Showcase:"

Until pull-down shades were recently installed, neighbors in the tenement walkups and condominiums across East Seventh Street were afforded unobstructed glimpses of the couple’s king-size platform bed, egg-shaped bathtub and clear-glass shower. The blinds might be optional this summer, as the stands of black bamboo that ring the cedar-lined terrace reach full growth, blocking out any Peeping Toms.


[Photo: Michael Falco for The New York Times]

Noted

This Ain't the Summer of Love reports that Bronx native Ace Frehley will be among the guests christening the new Hard Rock at Yankee Stadium today.

Think he might play this one?

Manhattan home sales: Worse than the decline in the auto industry


"Manhattan co-op prices dropped the most since 1995 and transactions for all apartments plummeted 48 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier as the recession and Wall Street unemployment cut demand." (Bloomberg)

"The drop in sales was worse than the decline in the auto industry. In March, sales at General Motors were off 45 percent from March 2008." (The New York Times)

The Topshop truck as you've never seen it!



Without 150 undergrads huddled around trying to get free shit. Spotted on East 13th Street near Third Avenue. And why the grabby-grabby frenzy? What is this, 2006?

Former Downtown Music location now available



They moved earlier this year from the Bowery to Chinatown.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Downtown Music Gallery is leaving the Bowery

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

At age 98, Bob Sheppard announces his retirement

Whether or not you hate the Yankees, you have to appreciate the iconic Bob Sheppard, who has been the team's PA announcer since 1951. Now, at age 98, he's retiring. Yankee games will never be the same. (Via Gothamist)

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition



Signs of life at Ruby's (Kinetic Carnival)

East Houston to be a nightmare for the next, oh, three years or so (BoweryBoogie)

What's left of Etherea (Flaming Pablum)

Ghosts (East of Bowery)

Part two of the Panorama (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

On the campaign trail with Reverend Billy (Slum Goddess)

Stone Street ready for warmer weather (Esquared)

The early days of the Williamsburg Bridge (Ephemeral New York)

The inside scoop on the East Village outpost of Whiskey Dick's


A note from EV Grieve: Starting today, you'll notice a slight change in the editorial. Previously, I enjoyed chronicling every day life in the neighborhood and elsewhere...lamenting the changes that were occurring in the process. However, to be honest, there's no money in that. So we'll be doing a little more publicist-friendly posts that, I hope, will make this site more attractive for a corporate purchase a la Daily Candy. Anyway, I hope that you do give my new direction a chance. After all, I'm just a guy who lives in the neighborhood.

I have the scoop on a new bar opening "very soon" in the East Village. Can't say much for now, though I will provide some tantilizing clues to its whereabouts in this post!

As I pass my favorite strip of shops, Blockbuster, Subway and Dunkin' Donuts, I come face to face with the glorious plywood, the likes of which has served as a welcome sign of our (long overdue) revitalization of the East Village. Anywho, after shooing aside someone with a digital camera trying to sneak a peak behind the wood, I step inside and come face-to-face with a neon Sam Adams sign. Hello, beautiful! I knew that I had found my new home away from home!

Then I met "Ingrid," the proprietor of this soon-to-be glorious space. She is a longtime EV resident, having moved here in 2005 from her native South Florida where she was slinging drinks at the always popular Whiskey Dick's. She plans on bringing some of the madcap mayhem that marked so many Spring Breaks in SoFa to the East Village. Holla, bitches!

While telling me more about her plans (including a contest to find who can make the most noise on the sidewalk at closing time), she poured me a new Sam Adams Spring Fling Amber Bock. I reached in my pocket for a sawbuck, but she said it was on the house. (Then she gave me a knowing wink!) Dang, had I known this, I would not have had to use that icky-looking graffiti-filled ATM down the street!

Ingrid regaled me with stories from back in the day when NYC was really gritty -- 2000. Oh, what a glorious time that must have been here! Though I'm glad I wasn't here. Where would I have lived? Wait! I know what you're thinking: I said that she moved here in 2003. Guilty! Her cousin lived on Long Island and she paid her a visit a few times in 2000. She got a good feel of the place from Valley Stream.

In any event, she gave me the dish on what to expect: beer pong, hookah, frisbeer, keg stands, flip cup, drink-and-drown nights, college-kids-get-in-free nights. Not to mention her special nosh -- small plates of ramen. Delish! She's even arranging a deal with the city in which Mayor Bloomberg (pray that he's reelected!) renames the East River the East Ramen for her grand opening. (Other ideas for naming rights are Central Dick's or the Financial Dick-strict.)

Well, it's nice to finally find a bar that promises to be full of people who look as if they may actually have a job! (Or soon will have a job on Wall Street!) And, more important, people who don't smell and look old or artsy.

One word of caution: As I said, this place is near Houston. (Oopsy I slipped!) Whatever you do, don't walk east on Houston by Katz's to get here. Smelly! Like pickles! My North Face jacket had to be dry cleaned several times after I walked by just once. Gross.

More TK!

One more delicious reason to eat foie gras and not feel guilty at all!



Man, will Momofuku think of next! Hope they can open another shop soon! Anyway! See you in line!

Meet the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

In addition to exciting new bar openings, this site will feature the work of off-the-radar, up-and-coming indie bands that don't receive much attention in the mainstream media. To that end, here's the new single for the buzz-worthy New York trio called The Yeah Yeah Yeahs... led by the fashionable Karen Oh, whose father is Sadaharu Oh -- “The Japanese Babe Ruth.”

I expect big things from these kids!

A Delancey update (with special appearances by Jesus and Bloomy, or at least someone named Mike)

Back in August, BoweryBoogie broke the news that hotelier Sam Chang bought the parcel of buildings at 148-154 Delancey for $15.75 million. (Finally, the hotel this area so desperately needs!)

Haven't been down this stretch for a few months...So I was expecting the worst...though...it looks exactly like it did last summer...Which isn't great, but....







For how long, though...Meanwhile! Bloomy, we assume....?



And directly across the street...

Has Vinyl Market closed?



Vinyl Market appears to be closed. Perhaps just temporarily? The electronic/DJ specialty shop on East 10th Street just west of First Avenue is under construction. The space is split in two now. No sign of any records inside. DJ/owner Kaz Okura has closed before while he travels to various gigs. But he usually leaves a note on the door.

Another new convenience store for First Avenue

The former location of Wilfred's Tailors at 149 First Avenue near Ninth Street will soon be a convenient store.



This spot was vacant for some time since Wilfred's moved to 23rd Street. Well, uh, at least it's not another Momofuku?

Previously on EV Grieve:
A new convenience store for First Avenue

Hea thyself*

The folks behind Hea, which opened last September, must have spent a fortune renotvating the former bodega/nail salon housed next to the Toll Bros. tower on Third Avenue at 13th Street. Now, Hea is closed for "renovation."



* Man, that's one bad headline.

My own worst enemy


LES native Rosario Dawson, age 15 when she was asked to star in "Kids."

In 2006, you moved to L.A. Do you ever miss the Lower East Side?
Sometimes, but my old neighborhood has changed. When I visit, they probably think of me as yuppie scum. I think, Young urban professional — yes, that’s me. When did I become the enemy? (The New York Times Style Magazine)

Ideas for the next Unemployment Olympics


SportsByBrooks weighs in on yesterday's Unemployment Olympics:

While events like Bashing a Pinata are nice, they are hardly in the spirit of actual Olympic events. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a few suggestions for new events to add if the Unemployment Olympics come back in 2010:

--The 100-Meter Dashed Career Expectations
--The Long Jump From Being A Senior Vice President To Working At Kinko’s
--Synchronized Drowning In A Sea Of Unpaid Bills
--Bad-News-Minton
--The 110-Meter First Interview Hurdle
--Waiting Tables Tennis
--The Try-Supporting-A-Family-On-Unemployment-Athlon

The Unemployment Olympics: The Press Coverage



I'll sure they'll be more coverage to come...

Beware of the collapsing chair gag today



Be safe -- and smart -- this April 1.