Cooper Square Hotel finishes building fence that looks just as out of place as the hotel

As I noted yesterday, workers were fencing in the garden spot along East Fifth Street outside the Cooper Square Hotel... How many Popsicle sticks were used to make this?




However, as you can see, the Coopsters left a slot in the Popsicle sticks for any fancy car parties they may have this summer...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Residents discuss the problems created by the Cooper Square Hotel: Meanwhile, across the street, a party for a sports car

One brief moment outside the Crazy Landlord Building

Monday afternoon, I spotted someone hanging something or another on the Crazy Landlord Building at Third Street and Second Avenue...



Less than 24 hours later, the sign (I think it was a stenciled Arizona Immigration piece) had been removed by Crazy Landlord Street Art Cleaners...



Previously on EV Grieve:
"Crazy Landlord" cleans up his corner: Here comes a "sexier Balthazar"

Cafe Colonial says goodbye

BoweryBoogie brought the sad news that Cafe Colonial on Houston at Elizabeth was closing for good last evening... I stopped by just after 6 p.m. to see what was what... Cafe Colonial owner Luciane Gilan left a message behind on the mural...



...while the inside was already cleared out...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Cafe Colonial owner says Pulino's opening helped triple her rent

Future of 276 Elizabeth apparently doesn't include the Cafe Colonial

Shepard Fairey's mural tagged and cleaned and tagged again ... again

I can't even keep track of this anymore... the tags are cleaned off, only to return bigger and better...

Read the previous Shep coverage here.

Charlotte Ronson filming something on the Bowery today

Spotted just north of Houston.

The agony and the Ecstasy: A report from the EV Grieve Eau Claire Bureau

A story from May 13... though relevant given "The Smurfs Movie" is filming here now... and, well...

A 16-year-old boy was charged Wednesday in adult court in Clark County with four drug-related felonies, including selling Ecstasy in tablet form of cartoon characters Papa Smurf and Homer Simpson.

(Source: Eau Claire Leader-Telegram)

NYPD impounds President Hoover's car collection

At First Avenue and Seventh Street... For a film shoot, of course... but which one?

Mystery lot singing the blues?

All sorts of new developments here in the vacant lot (or mystery lot, as Curbed calls this space) between 14th Street and 13th Street east of Third Avenue... Aside from some colorful new tags, there's a mysterious blue tarp hanging on the 14th Street fence...





Your guesses are welcome as to what the blue tarp is for...

Previously on EV Grieve:
An appreciation: That empty lot on 13th Street

Another view of the Mystery Lot

Westville East still looking to add a sidewalk care; calls out "mean-spirited neighbors"

Last week, the CB3/SLA committee denied Westville East's request to add a sidewalk cafe... As The Lo-Down reported, the sidewalk cafe license was rejected "on the grounds that Avenue A is already overburdened with bars and late night crowds."

Tonight, the full CB3 will apparently hear their case...signs up in the window at Westville on Avenue A and 11th Street explain what's what... they also call out some "mean-spirited neighbors..."

Graceland's graffiti is going, going...

I mentioned this a few weeks ago... better check out the remaining tags at the former Graceland space on Avenue A and Second Street sooner rather than later ... workers were starting to scrub down down the building yesterday afternoon...




Previously on EV Grieve:
Appreciating Graceland's graffiti

Ghost signage at former Telephone Bar and Grill?

The exterior work on the former Telephone Bar continues on Second Avenue near Ninth Street... EV Grieve reader Miranda sent this shot along from last Friday morning, when the work was really getting started outside...



Made easier, of course, without those pesky old red telephone booths... and work continued yesterday... So... What I can't recall... is that Bar & Grill sign part of the old Telephone signage from a few years back?




It just doesn't look like signage for what is coming to this address, the lovingly named 13th Step...

Previously on EV Grieve:
The 13th Step sure to be big with the AA crowd

Jurassic Pipes on East 10th Street

Yesterday, I was walking down that nice stretch on East 10th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue...on the way to drop off the CB3 application forms for my friend Chloe*...



...when I came upon these workers and these...these... pieces of something...



At first, I thought it was some sort of... of ... steampunk exhibit... I finally asked the worker. He said that they were removing the old boiler. Good lord... I think this is an Benjamin Maugham original!

--------

* not really

The Sex and the City II economy tour

From Gadling.com yesterday... some NYC specials based on "Sex and the City II" ... and this is just... depressing...

New York City's Pod Hotel, a budget-minded property on East 51st Street, has put together one of these anti-SATC packages.

Starting at $139 per night, the "Don't Get Carried Away" package includes one night in a bunk-bed room at the Pod, two cupcakes from Buttercup Bake Shop, a Brooklyn cocktail at East Side Social Club, and a knock-off designer handbag from Canal Street.

This package is a refreshing alternative to other SATC-themed packages, which typically have heftier price tags (can you say luxurious suites, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, Cosmopolitan cocktails, and designer brands?)

And I just can't tell if this is supposed to be funny or not.

East Village food cart scenes from yesterday

10th Street and Avenue A...



10th Street and Second Avenue...

Your vehicle may be towed tonight to make way for a Smurf or two

So as you likely know, "The Smurfs Movie" is back tomorrow ... setting up for 39 hours for that 13-second scene ... Anyway, will any bosses be getting a call like this tomorrow, "Yeah, I'm going to be a little late today. I need to pick up my car at the impound lot. It was towed for The Smurfs Movie. Yes, Smurfs..."

St. Mark's Place, 5:55 p.m., May 24

Cooper Square Hotel fencing in its garden

Oh, and those poor shrubs are getting uprooted again...



Suppose this will help keep out snoopy neighbors (and bloggers!) ... and inspire some local graffiti artists...




Previously on EV Grieve:
New shrubs for the Cooper Square Hotel

Pirates of the Yunnibbean

After years of living adjacent to Tompkins Square Plaza at 190 E. Seventh St. near Avenue B for years... a reader has had enough...

First, the reader wants to know why there's always a pirate flag flying on the rooftop deck of this luxury 124-apartment unit... is it supposed to be rebellious? Ironic?






And it's not the rooftop blowouts that the resident finds annoying. It's just that one voice at the party, that one voice that is audible even over the shitty music: A woman's voice continually yelling.

"I just don't get the 'Woooo! Woooo!'"

By the way, the building went up in 1999... the site was vacant, though, as the Times noted, PS 71 used to be on this lot years back... Paul Stallings is one of the developers.

Saturday night outside the Mars Bar

Slum Goddess posted some photos of the newish art inside Mars Bar the other day... I was poking around Flickr (search: Mars Bar!) when I found the above shot taken, apparently, Saturday night...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Looking at the new art outside the Mars Bar

A brief part of The New York Public bathhouse's history on East 11th Street

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Shawn Chittle for this great post on The New York Public bathhouse on East 11th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

As he notes, renowned photographer Eddie Adams bought the bricked up abandoned space in the 1980s and eventually was able to refurbish the building into his studio. Shawn also has a snippet from the DVD, "An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story." (Adams died in 2004.)

Read the whole post and watch the video about the bathhouse here.

Here's the trailer for the movie, which came out last year...



And the Bathhouse Studios is still in use today for various things...

One last thing... NYC Songlines notes that part of "Ragtime" was filmed here....

A hidden Chico mural features an owl and backpacking beaver

Thanks to EV Grieve reader evilsugar25~ for sharing this photo on Facebook... A little hidden piece of the East Village...



This Chico mural, dated 2000, is enclosed inside the backyards shared by the tenement buildings on Sixth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C...

"The creeping vine on the left has actually covered up my favorite part of the mural in recent years — a blue/purple owl in the upper left. My second favorite guy is the backpacking beaver," evilsugar25~ writes writes. "I get to see it every day, but I realized there are other Chico fans who would have no idea this was back here... and I wonder how many other 'private' murals decorate enclosed spaces around here."

Another pizza place for St. Mark's Place

Back in November, the Surf City smoothie shop shuttered on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.... and now, after a few delays, it's now a brick-oven pizza place called Totale Pizza....per the sign, looks like some kind of $5.75 deal going on...



Perhaps a less skateboard-friendly alternative to 2 Brothers a few doors to the west...

Good Vibrations? Lava Gina's name change on Avenue C

EV Grieve reader Dan points out that Lava Gina on Avenue C between Eighth Street and Seventh Street has become Vibrations Lounge. Workers painted the front over earlier last week, but the new name in the window just went up on Friday...

Introducing the For Rent District

After reading Thursday's post about Avenue A storefronts, a reader suggests that we call the strip of Avenue A between Second Street and Third Street (west side) the For Rent District from here on out... four of the spaces are available...


Previously on EV Grieve:
Avenue A by the numbers

Avenue A, 4:15 a.m., May 23

The mysterious block of concrete at Second Street is now even seemingly more mysterious... Remember, if you see a large block of concrete, say something...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Here's your mystery block of concrete

Neither More Nor Less, June 2006-May 2010

Out of habit this morning, first thing, I went to look at Neither More Nor Less. I wanted to see what happened, if anything, last night. Because I knew that Bob Arihood would have the story. And the photos.

As you likely know, Bob decided to retire the site this past week. I'm not sure what else to say other than that I'll really miss his work... the neighborhood is better off with his reporting, because no one else does what he did....he captured the absurd, the ugly, the every day that makes the East Village unique....

The Times featured Bob's retirement ...

His style of reporting was of the old-fashioned shoe-leather sort and his main subjects were the itinerant travelers, street drinkers, punks, poets and sidewalk sleepers that once proliferated in the East Village but these days make up a vanishing tribe.

L.E.S. Jewels, Cowboy Stan, Drunkenstein, Bobby Apocalypse, Swami, the Groper, Outlaw, Loan Shark Bob, Barnacle Bill and the Mosaic Man, among others, all appeared in Mr. Arihood’s blog. Some of those subjects are now dead. Others are in jail. A few have survived and moved on.

[Photo of Avenue A and St. Mark's Place from Memorial Day 1991 by Bob Arihood via The Times]

Death becomes him

Hey now. Just catching up with the Times of New York from the other day... The newspaper reviews Shepard Fairey's Deitch Projects show. And what does the reviewer think?

"On the walls of an art gallery, his efforts look like death warmed over."

Avenue A, 9:18 p.m., May 22

Smurfs cast getting more annoying by the day

Stuyvesant Grocery's three signs

I was going through the photos that I didn't use from the last few months, and I came across this one...



I took this about four or five weeks ago... I liked seeing all three Stuyvesant Grocery signs... Jill captured a better shot of it back in March...

On this topic... in case you haven't read it yet... Eryn Loeb writes about Stuyvesant Grocery here at The Faster Times.

Here's your mystery block of concrete

Earlier today, EV Grieve reader Carl Bentsen mentioned a mysterious block of concrete that, uh, mysteriously appeared on Second Street and Avenue A... and he has now sent along a photo....



Any guesses?