Storm damage on Avenue B

What a storm tonight. Many thanks to EV Grieve reader Sergei, who captured some of the aftermath, particularly the downed trees at Seventh Street and Avenue B.

First, though -- the rainbow.







Previously on EV Grieve:
More photos of last night's sky

Scouting NY's hidden gems of the city

Good feature in the Post today. Scouting NY's proprietor shares his 10 favorite finds in NYC -- "the places that remind you that the city has a lot to offer those who take the time to slow down and appreciate it."

And tops on his list?

1.) The East Village Beach House
First Avenue at First Street

"It's as if a tornado blew in from Cape Cod and deposited a beach house onto the East Village. Perched on the roof of a four-story brick apartment building is a shingled cottage, complete with bay windows and a weathervane-topped cupola. The owner calls it 'Up-Upon-It' (a joking reference to friends with cottages in Sagaponack), and rumors abound that it is surrounded with sand and lawn chairs."

Here we are again bro... Just you and me. Same kind of moon, same kind of jungle

Thanks to The Shadow, yesterday started out so well...another great show in Tompkins Square Park...Bob Arihood has the photos. (Uh, not the one below. All my photos are blurry. Are maybe I am.)



And then night began to fall...



And the predators begin to swarm, arriving en masse.




Soon. The neighborhood is infested. Again.

Bro. BRA. Bro. Is it still happy hour? Bro. BRA. Bro. Where's the Ace Bar? Bro. BRA. Bro. HEY, WE'RE IN THE EAST VILLAGE, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? He was like, so cute? Where's my purse? Bro. BRA. Bro. Gimme seven shots. Do you take credit cards? Bro. BRA. Bro. Bro. BRA. Bro. Is it still happy hour? Bro. BRA. Bro. Hey bitches! Bro. BRA. Bro. HEY, WE'RE IN THE EAST VILLAGE, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? He was like, so cute? Where's my purse? Bro. BRA. Bro. Gimme seven shots. Do you take credit cards? Bro. BRA. Bro. Bro. BRA. Bro. Is it still happy hour? Bro. BRA. Bro. Where's McSorley's? Bro. BRA. Bro. HEY, WE'RE IN THE EAST VILLAGE, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? He was like, so cute? Where's my purse? Hey bitches! Bro. BRA. Bro. Gimme seven shots. Do you take credit cards? Bro. BRA. Bro.

A bridal party. A scavenger hunt. Broken champagne glasses on Avenue B. Popped-collared types chugging booze from airline-size bottles and tossing the empties into the street. Bro. BRA. Bro.

Today in TSP: Old-school punk

Via:

July 25, 2009
The SHADOW's 80's PUNK SHOW
When: Saturday July 25, 2009, 2 pm - 6 pm
Where: Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan, East 7th Street + Avenue A

Legendary old-school punk with:
Reagan Youth
Urban Waste
Nihilistics
False Prophets
Sexual Suicide
Hammer Brain
Rapid Deployment Force

Thanks to The Shadow, as always.

Time Out gives the Mosaic Man some love (a few days later...)

A few of us were curious why Time Out's current cover story on places to eat and drink and go to DBGB and the Cooper Square Hotel and recapture cool and stuff in the East Village didn't include any credit or mention of Jim "the Mosaic Man" Power. A photo of one of his iconic works is on the cover. One commenter even encouraged people to write a letter to the TONY editor. Give Jim his due.

Anyway, for whatever reasons -- perhaps this was already planned! -- a feature on Jim popped up on the TONY Web site yesterday afternoon.



The feature begins:

You probably recognize the image on our cover and homepage this week — and that was the point.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Slum Goddess back from Europe -- with photos (Slum Goddess)

The coffee cups of New York (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

That darn cat (Curbed)

"East Village ambassadors Sonic Youth return to the Bay Area next week with a back catalog of songs that predicted new wave, indie, grunge, nu metal and possibly even Lady Gaga..." (San Francisco Chronicle)

A really long and interesting feature on fitness guru Charles Atlas: "Skinny and slope-shouldered, feeble and often ill, he was picked on by bullies in the Brooklyn neighborhood where his family had settled, and his own uncle beat him for getting into fights. He found little refuge at Coney Island Beach, where a hunky lifeguard kicked sand in his face and a girlfriend sighed when the 97-pound Atlas swore revenge." (Smithsonian)

The Times has a detailed piece on the death of Dash Snow, whose body was found July 13 at the Lafayette House on East Fourth near Bowery.

And thanks to Patrick Hedlund at The Villager for including me in his piece on the ATMs taking over the neighborhood (The Villager)

Do I really need a headline for this?

End of the line for the Rockettes?

Yes, very possibly. Thank Jim Dolan. CityFile has the story.

Noted

Also in CityFile!

Two of the four members of Coldplay now live in the East Village.

This is post is brought to you by Anderson's Martial Arts Academy

In keeping with our fight theme of late... Found this over at our friends at Downtowny...in the lobby at 63 Wall Street.



Here's the description of the video from YouTube:

Some crazy drunk guy attacked me on Wall Street late at night. He threw a punch at me so I punched him down to the ground in self defense. He followed me back to my building and attacked me again inside, which is caught on tape. I used BJJ to neutralize him until the police came. There are about 6 seconds missing due to the apartment building's crappy copying where I ground and pounded him. Very bloody, but you can't see it from the video. Big shout out to Anderson's Martial Arts Academy in NYC where I train! Compared to my training partners, this guy was easy pickins'. FYI, I'm 5'6'' 180 lbs and this guy was like 6 foot and 210 lbs. In addition to being an MMA enthusiast, I'm also an attorney. Bad luck for him.

Posts that I should probably never post, but a summer Friday afternoon seems like a good time to discuss such important things

What, exactly are Fresh Apple Fries? I'm not up on these things. Fried apple slices? Is something fried still considered fresh? And why does the one Brother Jonas boy have the Burger King logo over his crotch?

Oh, spotted at the Burger King on Delancey.

Your chance to get inside the New York Marble Cemetery

On Sunday, the New York Marble Cemetery (or Second Avenue Cemetery) is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. A little background in case you don't want to visit the Web site:

It is the oldest public non-sectarian cemetery in New York City. Most of the 2,070 interments took place between 1830 and 1870; the last was in 1937. All burials are in 156 below-ground vaults made of solid white Tuckahoe marble. Although there are no gravestones, the names of the original owners are on plaques in the surrounding walls. Their descendants may still be buried here.

The cemetery is only open on the fourth Sunday of the month, April through October. (It won't be open if it's raining.) It's on Second Avenue between Third Street and Second Street.

If you're lucky, you can get the caretaker to discuss the Bowery Hotel... (Spoiler: "a bunch of tourists who think they're slumming it on the Bowery in a $500 hotel room!")

Anyway, here's what you may see Sunday....the new and old of the neighborhood....

Party at Cooper Square Hotel

Jill left a comment yesterday about a party she attended at the Cooper Square Hotel. Thought you may enjoy it.

The party was in the 21st floor suite. As far as hotel suites go it was nothing, and let me tell you I've seen a lot of them in lots of cities. Except for the view it was pretty vanilla. They took out the furniture so maybe with furniture it might be better, but really... The giant wraparound deck had no cover from the sun/rain, nor was there furniture out there either (again, maybe for the party they took it out.)

De rigeur slidy wood floors, big windows, very plain "minimalist" I suppose but to me it looks forlorn. The one couch was so wide you coudn't sit back without putting all your legs on it, which is not a good look at a party. I was the only one sitting/perching.

Tiny elevators with a very very long wait. In fact, they mixed the guests in with the party goers so the people who were paying hotel guests couldn't get to their rooms in a reasonable amount of time.

An elevator load of party goers had an argument with one worker when we couldn't get to the 21st floor via elevator, and then they wouldn't let us up the stairs from the 20th floor. He accused us of wanting to sneak in - this to a group of fairly middle aged people in business clothes. Ha! He threatened to call security. I begged him to call security. A handiman we ran into fixed the elevator to bring us up.

When I was leaving there were a few young people hanging around the front desperately trying to get in, and the bouncer wouldn't let them through. There was absolutely nothing for them inside, but they sure thought they were missing something, only because they weren't allowed in.

Butter Lane will revisit liquor license application in the fall

As you may know, Butter Lane Cupcakes was looking to apply for a liquor license (beer and wine only). Maria Baugh, one of the shop's owners, discussed Butter Lane's intentions in an e-mail to me back in June. (For special events, promotions, wine pairings with cupcakes, etc.) Anyway, Butter Lane initially appeared on the CB3/SLA docket in June and July, but their name was later scratched.

I asked Maria for an update:

We are postponing the application until fall. We're expanding more quickly than we had anticipated in different areas -- wholesale and catering, for example -- and need to concentrate on those for the moment. But we will pursue in the fall.