Subway looking for ways to make you fatter, jumpier

So on Monday, the Subway here on the Bowery started advertising some new items... Coffee! And! Pizza(?).

And why are there still grand opening signs up? This location opened at the end of 2009.

And just so you'd have to notice, the Subwayers hung the notices from the sidewalk shed outside the Whitehouse next door...

Not sure if other participating Subway shops are offering these items.

To be honest, I did walk into the new Subway on Avenue B over the weekend. For jolleys. And, the weirdest thing — one foot off Avenue B and it felt as if I'd been transported to the basement of Penn Station. I swear I even heard someone mention Ronkonkoma. I quickly left.

Previously on EV Grieve:
And this pretty much sums it up: City's 45,679th Subway taking over former Downtown Music space on the Bowery

Tonight at the BMW Guggenheim Lab: free screening of 'Blank City'

As you might know, the documentary provides an oral history of the No Wave Cinema and Cinema of Transgression movements in the Lower East Side in the late 1970s into the mid-1980s via interviews with Jim Jarmusch, Nick Zedd, John Waters, Deborah Harry, Fab 5 Freddy, Richard Kern, among many others.

And the film is playing this evening for free. Seating at 6; screening starts at 6:15. All this is followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Bette Gordon and James Nares.

"Blank City" director Céline Danhier answered some questions for me back in April when the film played at the IFC Center.

Bonus excerpt:

Do you think a creative movement such as No Wave Cinema is possible again in the East Village?

Of course the East Village is a very different place now and there is a lot more money here, but still I would have to say yes. I think art movements are very cyclical and I do think that a lot of that same raw energy and creative frequency is here. It is still what brought me to New York in the first place. Perhaps now that same youthful creative explosion is happening more in Brooklyn than the East Village, but the City is always in flux. As Jim Jarmusch notes in "Blank City," New York was initially a trading post and then a city grew around it and it is always constantly changing. There are new people coming in and out of the city and the East Village daily from all over the world and I think you can’t help but find inspiration from that sort of environment. All the ingredients are there for something new to happen in the future.

Read the whole interview here.

[1978 on the Bowery © GODLIS Used with permission.]

First look at the opening night party for the BMW Guggenheim Lab thing

So, here we are at the Opening Night Party ... I wasn't invited... but jdx was there, and he shared these photos...

It opens tomorrow to the public. At 1 p.m.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Guggenheim wants our rat-infested First Street lot

Residents pitching in to help refurbish First Street garden

Designs for urban life apparently don't include trees

NYPD unveils latest weapons to combat Lower East Side nightlife

OK, OK... it's the National Night Out, an annual crime and drug prevention event... Bobby Williams took these shots at the Campos Plaza off Avenue C...

And a reader sends these along from Stanton and Attorney ...

The reader notes how nice it was to see a lot of people enjoying themselves. BMW Guggenheim Lab — your move.

Second Avenue sinkhole still in play, though now without pesky trash can protecting your tires, teeth

Last evening!

This evening!

Noted

July 31

So. For starters, EV Grieve reader Grant sent this photo along knowing that, perhaps, this tree might not be eligible because a) It's artificial and on Greene Street at Waverly Place (maybe beyond EV Grieve's boundaries?) ... and b) well, there is no b. Regardless, there is the Sunday Times for verification.

It's not up to us to decide these things. So we sent the information to Gruber MacDougal, spokesperson for the International Coalition of Tree Tossing in the Spring and Summer (ICTTSS). Unfortunately, he is at the Anantara Hua Hin Resort & Spa in Thailand for an elephant polo tournament and unavailable for comment.

Finding the right 'street-smart attire' for tonight's BMW Guggenheim Lab opening party

As we pointed out last month, The BMW Guggenheim Lab Team is hosting an opening reception of the BMW Guggenheim Lab tonight. Including! An evening of music curated by Thurston Moore, long-lost footage from TV Party (1978–1982) presented by Glenn O'Brien, and summer fare by the Brooklyn-based Roberta’s.

Fine. All fine! However! This part of the invite is quite perplexing:

Street-smart attire

What is street-smart attire? Given the context of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, it means Urban Think Tank meets The Barney's Warehouse Sale ÷ Vincent Spano in "Alphabet City" + the Coreys. We've consulted with several in-the-know people, who recommend a combination of these looks:

Let us know how it goes over!

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

A fine Sunday in Tompkins Square Park (Neither More Nor Less)

Friday afternoon with Hank Penza outside the Mars Bar (The Gog Log)

CB3 making it easier for local companies to hire LES residents (The Lo-Down)

Remembering downtown's independent record stores (Ephemeral New York)

The New York of "American Psycho" (Scouting New York)

Last night at the Chelsea Hotel (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

The photography of Arlene Gottfried (Runnin' Scared)

Burkina NYC moving from Houston to First Avenue and Fourth Street (BoweryBoogie)

Lunch at the Brindle Room (East Village Eats)

When the 2nd Avenue Deli will open its UES location (Eater)

And as EVGrieve reader Atron noted, a Jim Joe tag made a guest appearance on the most recent episode of FX's "Louie" ...

About the short life of the 'Walk Man' in Tompkins Square Park

Late yesterday morning or early afternoon, some one or some thing rammed the 3-day-old "Walk Man" sculpture in Tompkins Square Park, as first reported by Patrick Hedlund at DNAinfo.

Our own Bobby Williams was on the scene... and captured the aftermath...

Figuring that this might become an ongoing art-vs.vandal battle, artist Scott Taylor decided to remove the sculpture and take it home...

Now all that's left of "Walk Man" — a few holes in the ground.

Based on anecdotal research, the reaction to this (roughly!) falls into four groups:

• Now this is the East Village that I remember!

• It's too bad that we can't have anything nice here.

• Fucking crusties.

• I don't really care.

A sampling of the comments from the 17 left on our post yesterday:

Oh boo, what goddamn lowlife had to knock it over? I liked that thing; a spot of pure white amidst the greenery and dirt of the park.

IT WAS THE RATS. THE RATS, I SAY!

I like to see art in the park, but this sculpture is beyond wack. It's just so corporate and inoffensive and unimaginative and BLAH.

The sweater livelied it up ... the ramming was probs rude, yes, but my god -- toughen up Walk Man! You are the symbol of walking in NYC traffic and you wee-wee-wee all the way home at the first sign of hostility? Where is your street cred, man? The old "WALK/DONT WALK" letters would never put up with this shit! If they got rammed they'd fucking stand up the next day, battered and ready to brawl!

I'm sure there's some nice office building in Midtown where you can rest peacefully next to the security desk. I can't promise that security folks won't also find you super lame, art-wise, but at least you'll be safe. From sweaters.

You have another 10 months left to discuss the Flaming Cactus at Astor Place

[Photo by JCN. Find more here]

Speaking of art, the zip-tie installation — Flaming Cactus — that went up over the weekend prompted more comments here than I expected. (Read the post here.)

Meanwhile, someone connected with the projected left this comment:

Hello all. I was part of the installation. I just wanted to chime in to assure readers that WE, the group that installed them, are responsible for the removal of the zip ties once the installation has run its course. ANIMUS was commissioned by the DOT to install Flaming Cactus at Astor Place after seeing it on Governors Island during FIGMENT. Flaming Cactus doesn't aim to be highbrow; the underlying goal is just to demonstrate that everyday objects can be transformed into something interesting just by combining them in unusual ways. It's art on a shoestring budget. Those of you that like the piece - enjoy. Those of you that don't — suck it up, we'll be back to take it down in June 2012.

123 Third Ave. is already cracking up

Here at the home of million-dollar condos at 14th Street and Third Avenue. There's a nice crack along this section on 14th Street where the Capital One Bank will reside one day...

Mysteries: Why was there a Sizzler balloon outside 35 Cooper Square?

So we spotted this yesterday wedged under the fence at the former 35 Cooper Square — a balloon for Sizzler! The nearest Sizzler is in Forest Hills.

Perhaps developer Arun Bhatia had Sizzler officials here to sell them on anchoring the ground-floor space of whatever goes up here. Or! More seriously! It's just a random balloon that ended up here. Still.

Mediterranean-style bakery opening on East Ninth Street

Yesterday morning, Dave on 7th passed along word that a new bakery is opening on East Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. (433 E. Ninth St. to be exact.) Looks like the name will be Zucker.

Meanwhile, DNAinfo checks in with a story... turns out the space will be a "Mediterranean-style bakery serving up gourmet cookies" run by Zohar Zohar.

According to DNAinfo, "Zohar attributes her style of cooking to her grandparents — Polish and Czechoslovakian Jews who brought a European sensibility to their cuisine when arriving in to Israel." Her friend Johnny Iuzzini, the head pastry chef at Jean Georges, is serving as an adviser.