Monday, January 4, 2010

Boutiques on Bowery replacing the Bowery Bazaar (plus, Brazilian coffee!)

First, there was the Bowery Bazaar in the retail space in 52E4, the 15 stories of condo on the Bowery near Fourth Street...



Perhaps that was only seasonal, given the Feb. 1. debut of Boutiques on Bowery, which sort of seems like the same idea but with a new graphic: A woman in a rather short dress standing in some leaves during a windstorm with a python/cat/scarf wrapped around her neck.




According to the Boutiques on Bowery Web site:

The Boutiques on Bowery are an assembly of 36 hip new designer and artisans displaying women's clothing, dresses, sweaters, mens suites, hats, scarves, vintage and new Jewelry.

B on B will also be home to O-Cafe coffee bar reflecting the very essence of Brazil. O-Cafe will be serving the finest coffees, cappuccino, espresso, macchiato, cortado, teas, pastries and much more.

Just steps from the stylish Bowery Hotel, B on B aims to bring a sense of authenticity back to a part of Manhattan that's been transformed from a central throughway, to a gritty nabe and back again. A community collaboration, B on B is ever seeking new talent.

$3 million penthouse sale at 52E4



According to the real estate section in the Post this week, a $3 million penthouse was sold at 52E4, the 15 stories of condo at Fourth Street and the Bowery...

Manhattan
EAST VILLAGE $3,000,000
52 E. Fourth St.

Two-bedroom, two-bath penthouse condo, 1,317 square feet, with 13-foot ceilings, marble baths and washer/dryer; building features doorman, garage, pool and roof deck. Common charges $1,811, taxes $225. Asking price $3,250,000, on market 82 weeks. Brokers: Frances Katzen, Prudential Douglas Elliman and John B. Gomes and Fredrik Eklund, Core


According to StreetEasy, there have been 15 sales here...with three units currently on the market...


Previously.

And, I promise, the last post of the day on 52E4



(Maybe.)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Things that people are throwing away

On 10th Street near Avenue C...



...a Mr. Potato head.



At Doc Hollidays on Avenue A and Ninth Street...



...a Jägermeister machine...



There has to be a connection...

A mighty wind

Winds were gusting up to 50 mph over night, at least according to my friends at the Weather Channel.

Still, however gusty, that probably doesn't explain how this Villager box moved from the west to east side of Avenue B near Eighth Street during the night...

10th Street, 11:15 a.m., Jan. 2

Silence of the Limbs



This great LES streetscene is from Logically Impossible via Neighborhoodr.

Reminds me of a scene from Stanley Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss."

Saturday, January 2, 2010

What has been lost during Bloomy's reign (so far...)



Our friend Nathan Kensinger has an in-depth photo essay on how Bloomyberg's tenure has changed the skyline of NYC... here's an excerpt...:

With the loss of small businesses, the commercial landscape of New York re-oriented towards chain stores - with cookie-cutter exteriors - that could afford to pay exorbitant rents. By mid-decade, New York's commercial streetscape had become dominated by redundancy. A multitude of sterile bank branches opened, while chains like Duane Reade and Starbucks placed multiple store locations within a few blocks of each other, to monopolize neighborhoods. For the first time, big-box-stores were allowed to enter the city, like Home Depot in 2004 and Ikea in 2008, further endangering small businesses.


Read the whole thing here.

[Photo by Nathan Kensinger]

At Port 41: Putting "the salty in 'salt of the earth'



Over at the Times, Cara Buckley does a round up of things to do around Port Authority, including a trip to EV Grieve favorite Port 41. A few of her observations:

"[A] bona fide dive bar with a life-size hippopotamus head — missing one eye and sporting a hard hat — that adorns one wall. Other perks: the bartenders wear bikinis, sometimes accessorized with fishnet stockings, and the regulars — working stiffs, construction crews and, one recent afternoon, a guy passed out by the pool table in the back room — put the salty in "salt of the earth.".


And!

For those women who like to disappear to the bathroom in pairs, the restroom is one stall with two toilets, side by side, separated by nothing.


Previously on EV Grieve:
Drinking near the Port Authority: All is well at Port 41 and the Holland, but here comes Heartland Brewery

Friday, January 1, 2010

PETA gets involved in falling moose/caribou head circus



More developments in the story of the moose head (which was actually a caribou) that fell on a diner at LES hotspot White Slab Palace. PETA has issued a statement!

PETA sent a letter to Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, urging her to encourage members who still have animal heads mounted on the walls of their establishments to take them down and send them to PETA. PETA plans to offer fun, puffy faux animal heads in return. The letter comes on the heels of reports that a 150-pound moose head at the White Slab Palace restaurant on Manhattan's Lower East Side came crashing down onto a diner, leaving her with a concussion. The woman is suing the restaurant for damages.

"Perhaps it was bad karma--the departed moose's way of taking revenge on restaurant owners who are disrespectful enough to display their remains," writes PETA cofounder and President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "For the new year, we want to help restaurants ditch dead decor and go friendly faux."

In the letter, PETA points out that a growing number of Americans oppose the cruel blood sport of hunting and are repulsed by the idea of using a dead animal's head as decor. PETA has offered to provide a free faux head for every real head that the association sends to the group. Options range from a teeth-baring T-rex to an inflatable, easy-to-clean moose head to an attractive handcrafted faux deer head.


Hmm, and some of my favorite bars have dead animals on the wall: Joe's and Port 41... Will Port 41 replace its hippo head with something plastic....?



Meanwhile, what this saga needs is a theme song...

And now, signs that I'm probably reading into...

Let's start the New Year off with something stupid. Or stupider.

Couldn't they pick another fruit to name a tour company?



Hmm -- hot beer...



This weed sucked...and I don't have a receipt...



A trend to watch? People abandoning their noses...



Get what?



What happens when Baskin-Robbins uses the same ad agency as Toys in Babeland.



Pretty brazen to advertise this...



A kind-of stoned white model? Shouldn't be a problem...



Coned employees?



Screw parking!



There's a Mel Brooks joke here...



These buns are annoyed?



Watching tourists cross the street is an agonizingly slow process...



The men working above are dangerous?



No style...

Sunny and Annie's giving away cute puppy 2010 calendars

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Year-end self serve

There were nearly 2,500 posts on EV Grieve this year. Here are a few of them... And none of these would have really worked without your comments...thanks for being part of this site...



LeSouk has really closed (Nov. 2)



Mars Bar regulars get in the way of a Drew Barrymore photo shoot (Oct. 19)

The Times goes to the Mars Bar with one of those guys who's in "Gossip Girl" (Oct. 17)



Reading reviews of Tompkins Square Park on Yelp (Oct. 15)



Updated! Mysterious, low-flying helicopter returns... (Oct. 12)



The summer of pink shirts (Sept. 23)



Page Six Magazine says the Bowery calls to mind "an L.A. vibe" (Sept. 11)



East 12th Street now home to "THE ONLY REAL FRAT HOUSE AT NYU!" (Sept. 9)



A note for the people on the terrace tossing sandals and doing things that "should be done in private" (Aug. 17)



Observations from last night's noisy bars meeting (Aug. 13)



Aces & Eight GM offers some clarification on previous posts, comments (Aug. 4)



Uh-oh (July 22)



Work on Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre begins at former Two Boots space (July 2)



At Superdive (June 26)

CB3 didn't approve a liquor license for Superdive; "a nice neighborhood Internet café-bookstore" becomes a bar with keg service at tables (June 24)

East Village, please meet your new nightmare (June 18)



The Hells Angels kindly request that hotel guests please refrain from sitting on their bench (June 16)



Residents discuss the problems created by the Cooper Square Hotel: Meanwhile, across the street, a party for a sports car (June 3)



So this guy walks into the Mars Bar in a green shirt with a pink sweater around his shoulders... (May 29)



Pearl Theatre relocating; what's next for 80 St. Mark's Place? (May 28)

Bar threatens to call cops on a Thursday afternoon because some girls were standing in line to get free prom dresses next door (May 21)

Looking at the LES: "Those bridge-and-tunnel places are what made this area better" (March 5)



Why people move away (Feb. 4)

The Chocolate Wars (well, not at all, but we needed something that sounds CONTROVERSIAL) (Jan. 23)



An EV Grieve investigative report: In search of the Penistrator (Jan. 20)