EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Ray's Benefit recap: Evening nets $3K (The Villager) Some of the crowd (Slum Goddess) Monday night was the best of times for an appreciative Ray (Neither More Nor Less)

The story behind Belmont Island in the East River (Ephemeral New York)

Bowery Presents expands into....Boston! (BoweryBoogie)

How East Villagers spend their money every month (and read the comments) (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Man on roof at 185 Bowery, another lost building (The Gog Log)

Astor Place of yesteryear (Flaming Pablum)

King's Views of New York (This Ain't the Summer of Love)

Esquared always has interesting posts (Nonetheless)

What's going on with the Washington Square Park Task Force? (Washington Square Park)

There's a W Hotel in Hoboken? (The Washington Post)

And recently the old Starbucks on Astor Place started stumping for the NY Film Academy...

Scaffolding to cover Ray's, Yuca Bar

At Neighborhoodr, Matt Rosen brings the news that scaffolding will be going up on the building at Avenue A and Seventh Street...



This means that the already-struggling Ray's Candy Store will be under cover of scaffolding the next five months or so.

As Rosen writes: "While an aesthetic improvement to the exterior of one’s building might be welcome on most occasions, that the storefronts will now have to deal with scaffolding obstructing their entryways in the prime summer months in an already difficult environment for businesses in the area means they’re none too thrilled about the timing.

"It’s not just Ray’s store that is affected, as his building has a rather large footprint. I can’t imagine Yuca Bar is too happy —- might scaffolding preclude them from setting up outdoor seating? Again, not the best timing. Not the biggest nuisance, but it certainly can’t be good for business…which is the last thing Ray or his neighbors need right now."

And this past Sunday morning outside Yuca...



[Top photo via Neighborhoodr]

Price on "one of the most exceptional homes" in the EV drops $3 million in four years

Many people I know say that Seventh Street between Avenue C and Avenue D is their favorite block ... a lot of character here...



And given the many million-dollar homes on the block (the former synagogue, the Flowerbox) it's probably a favorite for real-estate agents too...maybe.

I've been keeping my eye on one property in particular: 243 E. Seventh St., a three-family townhouse. This week, the price was marked down 17 percent, from $3.5 million to $2.9 million.



According to the listing at Brown Harris Stevens:

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A LOT OF HOUSE! Spacious three family Townhouse delivered vacant, built on/about 1899. This four story, 25-foot by 44-foot (plus generous extensions) house sits on a 98-foot deep lot. Many original details are intact, like the sweeping staircase, entry foyer, beamed ceilings and fireplaces. The kitchen and baths have been renovated, down to heated marble bath floors! The feel of this house is very airy and open, loft like. The garden is extraordinarily private and serene a high fence enclosed the garden where a grand old tree presides.

The lower floor (with a separate entry under the stoop) has a laundry area, building mechanics, storage room, plus space for media room and gym. The double parlor main floor has high ceilings, renovated kitchen, dining room, garden access and a full windowed bath. The master bedroom floor above can be left grand or divided into whatever suits your needs. There is a large deck as well. The third floor is a terrific apartment unto itself with a kitchen if need. Otherwise would make an addition bedroom floor, there is a full bath as well.

This house is on one of the best and most beautiful blocks in the East Village, East 7th Street between Avenue C and D. Annual taxes are shy of $3,000.

Lovely, yes, right? But I'm curious how lovely. This house seems to have a long recent history. As Streeteasy notes, Corcoran listed the house at $5.9 million in April 2006. And Corcoran's listing was slightly different:

One of the most exceptional homes you'll see anywhere in the East Village, or in Manhattan for that matter. Built in 1899, 4 stories, 25' x 44' with a 22' extension on a 98' lot. Sunny & loft-like. Renovated with integrity, retaining original details and charm. Over 5,200 square feet. With a 32' planted country garden - a deck and hammock and giant Chinese Empress tree - the rear of the house feels like a bird sanctuary and resembles a large Italian villa. Walled buildings on either side guarantee privacy. The Firemen's Garden to the north insures an open view, perhaps forever. Huge double-parlor floor with dining room. On the lower level, a laundry room and enough space for work, storage, a playroom, gym or studio. Full-floor master bedroom suite with terrace, heated marble floors in the bath. More storage than you can imagine, fireplaces, exposed beams, high ceilings and an original stained glass and carved wood entry door. All this on one of the East Village's best blocks, beautiful homes surround. A rare opportunity! Yes, the East Village has arrived!

So let's check out the sales history here the last four years courtesy of Streeteasy:

4/13/2006
Listed by Corcoran at $5.9 million.

8/31/2006
Listing is no longer available.

9/13/2006
Re-listed by Corcoran.

11/14/2006
Listing is no longer available.

1/10/2007
Re-listed by Corcoran.

1/10/2007
Price decreased by 15 percent to $4.995 million.

4/23/2007
Price decreased by 20 percent to $3.995 million.

3/20/2008
Listing is no longer available.

5/15/2008
Listing entered contract.

8/27/2008
Listing sold.

1/7/2010
Currently Listed by Brown Harris Stevens at $3.5 million.

3/6/2010
Decreased by 17 percent to $2.9 million.

So the price has dropped $3 million in four years. Any takers?

Which reminds me that I haven't seen the documentary "7th Street" since it debuted back in 2003. The director, Josh Pais, moved on Seventh Street between Avenue C and D in 1967...

325 Bowery gets scrubbed and painted

Over at 325 Bowery at Second Street, which was most recently Kelley & Ping...the construction netting came down this week...



...revealing a freshly refurbished exterior...



Perhaps in anticipation of the yet-unnamed eatery by Freemans bros Taavo Somer and William Tigertt? A bilevel bar and eatery are in the works here...



From 1970-1975, as New York Songlines notes, this space was The Tin Palace, a noted jazz club .... it became a go-go joint in 1975. It reopened for a time as a jazz club in 1978, with critic Stanley Crouch doing the booking. Read more about The Tin Palace here at Perfect Sound Forever.

[Top photo by Robert Chin via. Tin Palace ad via ]

Caffe Buon Gusto's shelter

Last summer, after a seemingly lengthy renovation, Caffe Buon Gusto hoisted its signage at Fifth Street and Avenue B. Since then, things have not gone so well for the Italian eatery ... The space has turned into a graffiti hotspot... and its first pass at obtaining a liquor license last October didn't go so well... The Caffe Buon Gusto folks are back before the CB3/SLA board this Monday.

Meanwhile, in recent weeks, the space has provided shelter for a variety of people....

Balloons and St. Brigid

Dumpster of the day

Second Avenue near St. Mark's Place.

Niagara to "get a facelift"

Eater pointed us to an interview at NiteTalk with Jesse Malin, who owns Niagara, Cabin Down Below and Bowery Electric... Of particular interest...

Without playing favorites, what bar of yours would you be most likely to frequent on a night off? Which fits your sensibility the most? Black & White or Manitoba's because I don't own them, and that's truly a night off. Our spots are like our kids, I love 'em all. Niagara just turned 12 and it's about to get a facelift.

I do hope that the Joe Strummer mural remains safe here on Seventh Street and Avenue A ...



UPDATE: Eater reports that Niagara's former Tiki Room has been turned into a new bar called Lovers Of Today... complete with a separate entrance...

Report: Ex-con stabbed to death outside Lillian Wald Houses on Avenue D

According to the Daily News today, a man was stabbed to death outside the Lillian Wald Houses on Avenue D:

One ex-con stabbed another to death outside a Manhattan housing project Tuesday night after their feuding female companions crossed paths, police sources said.

Cops believe Louis Dawson, 34, chased down Luis Johnson, 29, outside a building in the Lillian Wald Houses on the lower East Side about 7:50 p.m. and plunged a knife into his neck, chest and heart, the sources said.

"He stabbed him again and again," said witness Mario Hernandez, 37, of Manhattan. "There was much blood."

According to the NYCHA: Lillian Wald Houses has 16 buildings 10, 11, 13 and 14-stories tall with 1,857 apartments housing an estimated 4,536 residents. Completed Oct. 14, 1949, the 16.46-acre complex is between F.D.R. Drive, Avenue D, East Sixth and East Houston Streets.

Listicles! New York is now a "new style coffee bar" town

In a piece titled New York Is Finally Taking Its Coffee Seriously, the Times looks at the "new style coffee bars" that have opened here the last two years. "At places like Bluebird Coffee Shop in the East Village, the espresso is so plush and bright that it tastes sweet on its own," the article notes. "At Abraço in the East Village, you can get drip coffee brewed by the cup, not drawn from an urn."

The article goes on in great detail about fresh roasted beans and all that. Then! A listicle of the 30 best coffee joints in Manhattan and Brooklyn... and several of them can be found right around here. To the EV list!

ABRAÇO "There’s barely room enough for six standing adults, never mind the dozen or more who can crowd in during prime time. And yet in this cramped space the baristas turn out some of the city’s best cappuccinos and drip coffee."

BLUEBIRD COFFEE SHOP "So pleasant, it’s disarming — tiny and flooded with sunlight, it’s easy to sit and linger over one of the pastries baked here daily. But the coffee is exceptional. Katie Duris, one of the country’s most respected baristas, sets a high standard: the espresso is bright and lush, the cortado a sublime balance of coffee and steamed milk."

EVERYMAN ESPRESSO It’s little more than a handful of tables and a coffee counter in the lobby of the Classic Stage Company, an Off Broadway theater, but its owner, Sam Penix, is much admired by espresso-heads.

NINTH STREET ESPRESSO Each Ninth Street Espresso feels different, and yet the harried shoppers at the Chelsea Market, the parents with strollers across from Tompkins Square Park and the laptop crowd at the original Ninth Street location all enjoy uniformly excellent coffee. Last spring, the owner, Ken Nye, did the next best thing to roasting his own beans by creating the Alphabet City Blend with Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea."

OST CAFE "Excellent coffee, including a fine cappuccino. Most people here seem to nurse their drinks, a tacit rent for the comfy chairs and WiFi."

(There's also an interactive map!)

Image via.

Avenue C is for .... Coco Chanel?

On Avenue C, a newish Coco Chanel ad on the Cemusa bus shelter near Sixth Street lights up the evening...



Across the Avenue sits the Lower East Side II Consolidation (NYCHA) development ...



Anyway, first time that I can recall a Chanel ad on Avenue C... and with such large buys, do the ad folks/Chanel marketing executives have any idea where these things are being placed? Or does someone think that Avenue C is a hot spot for Chanel fans out and about on a weekend night?

P.S.

On the flip side of Chanel ad, a little Kate Moss for M21-goers who may be tempted to buy a $1,000 bag...

Avenue C and Sixth Street in 1984

Here are two shots taken by Steve McCurry that can be found in the Magnum Photo archives...with their descriptions...



New York City. 1984. Avenue C between Sixth and Seventh Streets in the East Village (looking south).



New York City. 1984. Children playing on East Sixth Street at Avenue C in the East Village (looking north).

On St. Mark's: $1 beers at former Why Curry?; "new and improved" Bua reopens Friday

On St. Mark's near Avenue A... the former Why Curry? space became Lychee, a "home style Thai kitchen" several weeks ago... (even though a lot of the Why Curry? signage remains...)



... and they were enticing passersby with a $1 beer special last night...



...and next door, Bua has been closed all week for renovations.



According to the sign out front, "We look forward to welcoming you back to the new and improved Bua on Friday, March 12."

First sign of another possible Porchetta on Seventh Street

On March 1, we noted that Mingala Burmese Restaurant at 21 East Seventh St. (a few doors east of McSorley's) had closed. Then Eater brought word that the folks behind Porchetta just down the street applied for a liquor license (beer and wine) here for another venture...

And now the "attention residents" sign has gone up in one of the windows at 21 E. Seventh St.



One of the many locations up for a license during the CB3/SLA meeting Monday evening.

Seems like 2009 on Wall Street

Yesterday evening near the Stock Exchange.

What happened to DJ Lenny M?

A reader asked the other day whatever happened to DJ Lenny M's Music World, the mix-tape emporium on the corner of Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place... DJ Lenny M has been playing hip-hop and R&B and selling tapes and CDs out of that niche space for has long as I can remember — more than 20 years at least.

As the reader noted, "This has killed my daily Michael Jackson intake on my walk home."

Now that I think about it... I can't recall the last time that I even saw him there... One nearby shopkeeper said yesterday that Lenny closed up because there was "no business."

DJ Lenny M was busted in February 2009 for selling illegal CDs and operating without a license... (Down by the Hipster had the story here.) He reopened a short time later.

And now, a new vendor is in the space...



One that sells stuff that you can find anywhere else on the block...

DJ Lenny M makes an appearance in a November 1990 Times article...

A weekend in NoHo -- a sliver of a neighborhood whose spine is Broadway from Astor Place down to Houston Street -- has become an initiation rite of adolescence, as a weekend in Greenwich Village was for decades. The neighborhood, barely 10 years old, has become the spiritual and fashion adviser to the young of New York, whether from Ronkonkoma or around the corner.

Those merely clinging to hipness come, too, though they are not fooling anybody; black clothes are not enough. Antennas here are preternaturally tuned to the wrong sneaker or the wrong haircut. As the saleswoman at Alada, a clothing store, made clear, only yuppies buy "Die Yuppie Scum" T-shirts anymore.

Weekday afternoons can be lively, but the time to come, several recent visits suggested, is Saturday or Sunday, and not before 1 P.M. That is when residents take to the side streets and the faithful arrive, with saving the planet in their hearts and spending money on their minds.

They come looking for D.J. Lenny M. on the sidewalk, selling his homemade tapes of Reg Rockers, Club Rap and House Music.

Read the whole Times piece here.

Marble baths and plank hardwood floors await you on First Street

After a seemingly long time, renovations at 47 E. First St. near First Avenue are winding down...You can actually see the sidewalk again...




According to StreetEasy, there are eight units over five floors, with a storefront on the ground floor. Average rent is in the $3,500 ballpark.

Here's one of the listings from KVNY:

This is a NEWLY renovated 2 bedroom, 2 marble baths duplex. It has a balcony as well as a granite kitchen (with dishwasher) and also it's own washer/dryer unit. It is accented by wide plank hardwood floors & exposed brick. It even has individual climate control and video intercom for extra safety. Please call for access. (PICTURES TO COME. APARTMENT IS STILL BEING RENOVATED) We have numerous apartments all being renovated in this building available March 15

.

And you'll be that much closer to the brunch line at Prune.

Mug Lounge closed for a few weeks or so

An EV Grieve reader noted that Mug Lounge on 13th Street near Avenue A has been closed of late...



I found the following sign when I paid a visit...



I've actually never been here, or know anyone who has ever been here... So I went to their Web site for more information:

Mug Lounge is a cozy and intimate East Village lounge. There are tables to discuss a business deal, seats to drink at the bar, and corners to hide away in with someone you love.

The lounge was an art gallery when Keith Haring and Andy Warhol roamed the East Village. It was a beauty salon when fashion photographer David LaChapelle's studio was across the street.

Now it's Mug Lounge where you can have a drink, have a conversation and soak up the casually elegant East Village ambiance. You never know who you'll meet when you go to Mug Lounge.

Former Agnes and Eva's Cafe space for rent

After reporting last week that Agnes and Eva's Cafe had closed on 13th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, we heard that the owners were hoping to move to a new location...



According to a commenter: "There is/was a sign on the window indicating that they intend to reopen in a few months time 'somewhere else in the neighborhood.' I believe it stated outright that a rent increase was behind the (hopefully temporary) closure."

When we passed by the other day, there was no note indicating a possible move...and a new "for rent sign."



Previously on EV Grieve:
Agnes and Eva closes on 13th Street

Noted

Two Christmas trees in the trash... Avenue C and Fourth Street last night. And we beat last year's record of March 2.

Eyewitness: Shots fired on Avenue B and Second Street

From a reader:

Something big went down on avenue B around 5:15 this afternoon. i was walking down houston when at least a dozen cop cars and a few ambulances zoomed past and went up B. i overheard one guy saying shots had been fired. i lurked for a few minutes and saw the cops kind of fan out around the area of B and and 2nd street. overheard some other store owners and passersby that the shooter was "on the loose." decided to hightail it out of there and a few minutes later saw 2 helicopters hovering over the neighborhood. Sorry i don't have more details but it seemed quite serious.

Miracle igloo survives weekend heat

Well, what's left of the igloo. Previously.

The Save Ray's clothing and accessories line

East Village resident Conrad Oakey designed the Save Ray's logo for the flyers promoting tonight's Save Ray's benefit at the Theater For The New City on First Avenue... Oakey says the image is taken from a photo of Ray holding up the the cover of the Daily News in the days after Sept. 11, 2001...



"I got to know Ray first by becoming addicted to his frozen yogurt, then later by setting him up with Internet access," Oakey says. "I've never seen anyone take such joy in the access to the world the Web provides.

"When he told me about his troubles making rent, I started thinking about what how iconic he is ... and how having some T-shirts around to sell to his late night following would give him another revenue stream."

Now, in another fund-raising effort for Ray's, Oakey and Matt Rosen teamed up to incorporate the Save Ray's image and launch a line of Save Ray's clothing and accessories at Cafe Press. There are more than 80 items for sale. (Including the Save Ray's "classic thong.")





Rosen, who moderates the East Village Neighborhoodr blog, says Ray gets 100 percent of the "markup" on each item sold. (So, if a T-shirt has a wholesale/base cost of $8, and is sold for $12, Ray gets $4.) As Rosen notes, the benefit of using CafePress is that neither Ray or anybody else has to put up any money up front to purchase the inventory and then worry about selling it afterward. CafePress sends out checks once sales reach a certain amount.

"I'll just keep track and hand Ray the money as it comes in," Rosen says. "Hopefully this really takes off. Aside from the fund-raising aspects, it's a neat way for people to show their support."

There will be several of the clothing items available for purchase tonight at the benefit.



As for tonight, Rev. Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir will be one of the many groups performing. I asked Rev. Billy why Ray's is important to the East Village. He responded, via e-mail:

A healthy neighborhood feels good, it's funky, it's real and it's love! Our neighborhoods are not for sale: we must protect local shops like Ray's, which allow us to encounter each other and share and create stories with each other in a community!

The Best Actor at Sophie's

As we mentioned last month, American Songwriter Magazine did a photo shoot at Sophie's with Jeff Bridges for an upcoming feature... Bridges was in character as Bad Blake from his Oscar-winning role in "Crazy Heart."

Anyway! The issue of American Songwriter with the Bridges cover story is out now... haven't seen the issue myself, but it has been put to good use so far...



The article is online. The Web version of the story only includes one of the Sophie's photos... and there's no credit for the photographer. I wanted to mention his name because I really like the shot...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Jeff Bridges at Sophie's