No drinks with your Supper — for a little while, anyway

A note from a reader about Supper at 156 E. Second St.:

Supper (of Lil Frankie and Frank empire) did not put in the application for renewal for their liquor license in time. Normally when that happens an establishment can request a waiver from the Community Board to serve alcohol in the interim when the new license is in effect. However, due to the massive complaints they have received from community members for noise and blocking the sidewalk with their patrons waiting for tables, CB3 did not grant the waiver. This means that Supper does NOT have a liquor license currently and I believe they will not until mid August. ... Last night the police were called to be informed that they were serving alcohol without a license and the bar and at least one table from the sidewalk cafe was shut down. I'm not sure when they actually can start serving alcohol again.

Revisiting Punk Art

Back in May, we did an interview with Marc H. Miller, the founder and director of Ephemera Press. He had launched 98 Bowery: 1969-1989 — View From the Top Floor.

Marc recently wrote to me about a new section on the 98 Bowery site: Punk Art. As he notes at 98 Bowery:

As Bettie Ringma and I watched various musicians at CBGB successfully launched under the rubric of Punk Rock, it occurred to us that we might do the same for the visual artists who were part of the extended scene. It was partly tongue-in-cheek, partly hype, but secretly we actually believed we were presenting something new and important. The year was 1978 and the show we mounted with Alice Denney at the Washington Project for the Arts in Washington DC has gone down in history as the world's first Punk Art exhibition ... We repeated the Punk Art show twice: first as a one night, multimedia event at the School of Visual Arts in New York (November 1978) and then in a small exhibition at Art Something in Amsterdam, Holland (June 1979).

Miller has posted the long out-of-print Punk Art catalogue, which features new pictures and video. He also rewrote the introductions, adding stories connected to the exhibition, and updates on the artists.

My favorite section is on Punk Magazine. Or maybe the section on Alan Suicide and Art-Rite magazine. Or...

Here are the covers to the first three issues of Punk...





...and an ad featuring Debbie Harry (photographed by Chris Stein)



Anyway, you can go here and see it all for yourself.

Today's sign of apocalypse: Michael Jackson East Village pub crawl

Ohhh! A warning shot by Village Pourhouse reminding Superdive that they are, in fact, the tackiest bar in the neighborhood.

Starting tomorrow at 11 a.m.:

King of Pop Pub Crawl:
Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Moonwalk your way up 2nd and 3rd Ave of NYC in memory of the legendary Michael Jackson. We begin at Village Pourhouse at 11am where your free white glove awaits and we will start living life OFF THE WALL. Let your style SCREAM by dressing up as Michael and look as BAD as you can. Each bar will celebrate musical genius by showcasing our favorite MJ albums in order of release date.

You will feel like a SMOOTH CRIMINAL with a full day of drink specials. Toast Mikey with $1 Bud Lite Drafts, $2 Well Drinks, and 2 for 1 BLACK OR WHITE cocktails (Black and Tans)

You will truly BEAT IT with our final stop at SideBAR at 5pm with 2 for 1 Margarita “King of Pop-sicles.” It is here that we will pay a final tribute with an organized THRILLER dance scene with every Michael in attendance.

If this is too tacky for you, then there's always the Michael Jackson wine pairing.

Noted

"East Village nightlife needed something like Superdive to come along." (L Magazine)

Another new "eating/drinking establishment" for Avenue B

Cafe de Nova closed up back in March. And now that space on Avenue B near 11th Street is under wraps...



According to the work permit on the door: NEW EATING AND DRINKING ESTABLISHMENT AT EXISTING COMMERCIAL SPACE.



Dunno if there's a need for another restaurant here. Um, there are already five restaurants on this side of the block between 11th Street and 12th Street alone.

Love is in the Air tonight in Tompkins Square Park

It's the second year for Films on the Green, brought to us by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. They'll be at TSP the next three Fridays.

From the Web site... tonight!

"Love is in the Air"
Screening: around 8:30 p.m.

Genre: Comedy (2005) | French Title: Ma vie en l’air | Duration: 103 min | Director: Rémi Bezançon | Starring: Marion Cotillard and Vincent Elbaz

In French, with English subtitles, not rated

Yann Kerbec, an instructor for an airline company, is paradoxically afraid of flying. His panic, linked to his birth, stopped him from following the woman of his dreams to the end of the world. Later, he reflects upon his trauma and his love affairs. Yann has reached a crossroads: he must overcome his demons and accept that he must grow up.

Plus d'infos sur ce film

And will there be any illegal bag searches this summer...?

Upcoming French films in TSP:
July 17: "Works"
July 24: "Claire's Knee"

Day 3

Previously.

Grab your duvetyne! It's almost "Date Night"

As mentioned, "Date Night" is filming on Seventh Street/St. Mark's, uh, tonight. Meanwhile, the crew is relaxing and enjoying the catering. We're sure they have a permit for allowing open flames out on Seventh Street!

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

The entire Curbed network is live blogging from Superdive right now.

Marc Jacobs has designed two bags named after St. Mark's Place (Racked)

Inside the Yiddish Artists and Friends Actors Club on Seventh Street (The Villager)

The history of 46 E. Houston St. (Tenement Museum)

Jack White's Third Man Records opening a pop-up shop on Chrystie (Brooklyn Vegan)

Another movie in which NYC bites it (The Vulture)

New Yorkers talk loudly and are annoying (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Read about North Brother Island's tragic past (Ephemeral New York) and watch a program on the Island's bird sanctuary (13-PBS)

Natalie Wood in 1950s NYC (Esquared)

Remembering 1984 NYC and Simple Minds (Hunter-Gatherer)

Jason Lee tossed from Max Fish for fighting and being a jackass (Page Six)

Next stop, 500!: And the cargo shorts comment thread continues to grow (EV Grieve)

Looking at 167 Avenue A: Another Hennings-Giraldi production?

In recent weeks, there has been increased activity at the long-dormant 167 Avenue A between 10th Street and 11th Street, which has housed, in recent years, NoTell Motel and Starlite Lounge. A worker offered the vague "restaurant" when asked what was going into this spot.



The space has been gutted. Someone is putting a lot of money in here. So I checked out the liquor license for the address. According to the SLA:



Jason Hennings and Robert Giraldi? Hmmm... those names may be familiar to you...The vets were behind the now-defunct E.U. on East Fourth Street... and Hennings owns Black Iron Burger on Fifth Street... and Giraldi owns Tonda and Butcher Bay ... (and has done things such as direct Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video). And he went through some epic battles with CB3 in 2006 to try to obtain a liquor license for E.U. Anyway, this all promises to be interesting...

For further reading:
Gastropub is hungry for a beer and wine license (The Villager)

Remembering Babyland: "We all want to go back to the womb, and here we are"

Speaking of NoTell Motel... I was looking for some background on the bar and came across an article from the Times dated June 26, 1994, titled "Set 'Em Up in Crib No. 2, Captain Kangaroo." It was about NoTell owner Deb Parker's new (at the time) hipstery/rather insufferable Babyland on Avenue A near Fifth Street. Used to be a mom-and-pop infant shop called Ben's Babyland. Anyway, brought back a few memories (not all pleasant)...

To the article!

The boys in the white crib looked comfortable enough, sitting together on the edge of the mattress pad, separated by a huge, dirty pink teddy bear. One was sucking on a bottle (filled, incidentally, with a vodka tonic), and the other was silently mowing down an ice cream sundae.

The crib was surrounded by other big boys and girls, most of them in their 20's, who were sitting in undersized chairs and drinking cocktails or quietly reading "Danny the Dinosaur" or "Goodnight Moon."

And!

Babyland appears to be inspired by Roald Dahl, its walls covered with childhood record-album covers and every corner filled with old toys: stuffed animals, supposed-to-be-sweet-but-actually-spooky-looking clowns, the Playskool barn with the mooing door, plastic letter magnets and dog-eared books. Naked Barbie dolls spin out of control on top of a ventilator, and a plastic baby-doll face has been plastered on a blender.

And!

Bar owners in the East Village face the special challenge of courting coolness by offering a hip, novel theme while still remaining cheap...

Childhood nostalgia is indeed a fashion statement, and the summer streets are full of women in little-girl dresses and sneakers, or T-shirts with Josie and the Pussycats decals ironed on to the front. It makes sense that the East Village corners of cool would capitalize on childhood comfort zones: Limbo, a cafe on Avenue B, serves up nonalcoholic treats to the many who pour in to play board games. Babyland will soon offer Twister and pinball in the basement.

And!

"We are all really babies, so this theme is great," said Sonja Patillo, a production coordinator who dragged two friends from Texas to the bar on Tuesday night.
[A]s Jack Dawe, 25, pointed out: "We all want to go back to the womb, and here we are."

P.S.
There's another article on Parker in the Sept. 7, 1997, Times.

"Yes, I'll take the new Famous L. Renfroe 'Florine EP' and, uh, 'Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King' please"

This week's issue of The Villager looks at the local independent record-shop scene post Virgin Megastore. "Local stores have been closing almost as rapidly as global CD sales have been falling. But for the stores that remain, managers say they’ve noticed an influx of a younger crowd — the last vestiges of Virgin, come to find their Hannah Montanas, Dave Matthews Bands..."

Noted

In Tompkins Square Park.

Dueling rent signs now at former Robin Raj space

Prime space at 14th Street and Third Avenue. Your complete Robin Raj coverage is here.

New store for Red Square strip

Coming soon on Houston between Avenue A and Avenue B.

Noted

Spotted on Second Street near Avenue A. And let me know if you really want the Web address ... your path to becoming rich! rich! rich!

Australian Homemade shuttered and seized

The Australian Homemade ice cream/candy shop on St. Mark's Place near Avenue A abruptly closed down. It was open as of yesterday...and today:




According to the sign, the business was seized...



As you may recall, the St. Mark's shop was "temporarily closed for construction" back in January.

Perhaps it had something to do with this... on Jan. 22, Australian Homemade was inspected by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)...and promptly shut down. According to city records, nine violations were cited, resulting in 93 violation points. (Anything more than 27 violation points means they will conduct a follow-up inspection.) As the DOHMH noted, the violations included "expired milk," "not vermin proof," "personal cleanliness inadequate" and "evidence of mice or live mice present in facility's food and/or non-food areas."

The Australian Homemade at 33 E. Eighth St. remains open.

Day 2

Previously.

Confirmed: LES overrun by idiots at night

Matt Harvey delves into the horror show also known as the LES nightlife scene in this week's NYPress cover story. God help us.

In what was once the center of the gentrification goldrush — the section between the Bowery and Essex Streets north of Delancey — most of the businesses left from the boom are nightspots catering to less-sophisticated outer-borough and beyond patrons. Fat Baby, Mason-Dixon and R Bar, along with restaurants that serve over-priced drinks, like Stanton Social or Spitzer’s Corner, dominate. Residents recently suffered the final affront when Zagat ranked the Lower East Side the city’s “hottest nightlife neighborhood,” replacing its more upmarket rival, the Meatpacking District, already renowned for its annoying nightlife clientele.

Susan Stetzer, the district manager for Community Board 3 and a long-term resident of the Lower East Side, says that the area is now an “entertainment center” for the bridge-and tunnel set. “Residents have given up if they still live there,” says Stetzer. She and other residents complain that the streets, shorn of businesses, are empty during the day because the tenants couldn’t pay rents inflated by the influx of nightlife money. Then, at night, it’s wall-to-wall yokels from the suburbs, which, according to Stetzer, “is really depressing.” She’s an advocate of vanishing mom-and-pop shops and dive bars, and says no one who lives in the LES goes to the clubs and lounges. “If they do, they don’t tell me,” she says. Others claim it’s impossible to find a quiet place to have a conversation and a drink.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

A piece of Michael Jackson at Coney Island (Kinetic Carnival)

Developing story: Fire on the Manhattan Bridge (BoweryBoogie)

Markey Bena beaten in his sleep (Neither More Nor Less)

Join the Joe Jr. Facebook group (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

More love for Joe Junior on Third Avenue (Lost City; previously on EV Grieve)

Butcher Bay suing CB3 (Eater)

Squash Wall Streeters with your iPhone (BoingBoing)

Shockers: Some people don't like the new Duane Reade logo (New York Post)

And our old LES friend is featured in the German edition of FHM:



RTL II hat ein neues Gesicht: "it’s fun.“ Und da darf der aktuell heißeste US-Import, der internationale Superstar Lady GaGa natürlich nicht fehlen! Sie ist die frisch ernannte Fun-Botschafterin und ihr neuer Song "Love Game“ ist zugleich der offizielle Sound des Senders.