Just a few scenes at the Loisaida Festival today

A few moments from the 25th anniversary of the Loisaida Festival today on Avenue C... via Jacob Anderson ... always one of the best street festivals around...

Ivy Irizarry-Rivera, right, of Ivy Jewel, was one of the few vendors based in the neighborhood... (Many of the other vendors were from the outer boroughs, according to festival officials...)

Above, Sixth Street resident David Joffe gives a demonstration of one of his trinkets for sale...

Avenue C gold rush

During the Loisaida Festival today... photo by Bobby Williams...

Reader report: Fire on Avenue C yesterday

We heard reports of a fire yesterday afternoon on Avenue C... a reader passed along these photos with some details...

Just before 4 p.m. yesterday, the FDNY responded to a report of a fire at 56 Avenue C near East Fourth Street ...Per the reader: "Smoke was pouring onto Avenue C for over an hour and a big crowd gathered. I feel badly for any building residents or neighbors who will return home wondering why their homes are water logged and/or smelling of smoke."

We haven't heard the official cause of the fire. A new cafe called Bikinis is slated to open in one of the retail spaces at 56 Avenue C, which is the former Nublu Records office.

Do you have any further information on what happened here? Let us know via the EV Grieve email

[Updated] In case you were going to go look at those baby tigers today...

[Photo by BB]

It's closed, via Matt LES_Miserable ... As Gothamist pointed out on Friday, two five-month-old female Bengals (Sonia and Tanya) were part of Norwegian artist Bjarn Melgaard's "Ideal Pole" exhibit at the Ramiken Crucible gallery on Grand Street.

[Katie Sokoler/Gothamist]

No word on why the exhibit is closed. Or if the tigers will be back. They were scheduled to be there until June 3. Gothamist wrote, "We've reached out to the Humane Society of the U.S. to find out what the rules are about this sort of thing, because that cage looks too small to us."

Updated 3:31 p.m.:

Gothamist received a statement from the Human Society of the United States. Part of the statement:

The baby tigers on display at the Ramiken Crucible gallery were prematurely removed from their mothers, transported to New York from a game farm in Ohio that has been cited for failing to meet minimum standards of the federal Animal Welfare Act, and are confined to a tiny barren cage inside an art gallery.

Week in Grieview

[Toys for sale on Avenue C today]

Water store opening on East 10th Street (Monday)

Searching for the loudest block in the East Village (Friday)

Development lot for sale on Avenue D (Monday)

No Astor Place is an island (Tuesday)

The smallest art gallery in the East Village? (Wednesday)

Iglesia Pentecostal Sarepta cut in half for now on East Sixth Street (Monday)

Union Market update (Wednesday)

A former bank branch is becoming a Duane Reade (Friday)

Bistro Cafe & Grill opens (Tuesday)

From farm to sidewalk (Saturday)

Why there's a dining room set in the middle of Avenue B

Crews arrived early this morning for a shoot on 10th Street and Avenue B... a crew member said it's a short film titled "1956" ...

The NYPD is redirecting traffic on Avenue B ... several motorists have been grumbling ... (Avenue C is closed between Sixth Street and 12th Street for the Loisaida Festival ... so apparently driving and parking is a bit of a hassle for the time being. More of a hassle than usual...)

Anyway! Here's the street set...

...and as is customary, someone needs to be passed out asleep on the film set...

Smile

The Penistrator strikes a Banana Republic ad on First Avenue near 12th Street...

25th anniversary of the Loisaida Festival is today

Starts at noon on Avenue C, between 12th Street and Sixth Street... The Festival website is here.


Find some previous EVG coverage of the Festival here.

Rain in the almost summertime

By Bobby Williams.

An almost summer day in Washington Square Park

OK, OK... it feels like summer...

By Bobby Williams.

Today in Tompkins Square Park

Photo by Bobby Williams.

The KISS Army expands

East First Street at Houston. Fleet Week.

5th annual Bike Noise show tomorrow in Tompkins Square Park

Via the EV Grieve inbox...

+ FREE + ALL AGES + PUNK + BIKES +
Sliding Scale Productions Presents

Swaggerin' Growlers
Wombat in Combat
The Will
Wood Spider
and
Team Spider

Show starts at 2.

And some Wombat in Combat from the Park in summer 2010 to warm you up...

Noted

Mayor Bloomberg owns 11 homes. (Capital NY)

Today in photos of a pile of raw chicken on Avenue B

From farm to sidewalk? Several readers have noted this at East Third Street. Via EVG reader Steven...

Given the temperature, the chicken should be ready to turn in about 15 minutes.

Cat found!

Nice to see a cat found instead of lost...

A youngster in the trees

Earlier today in Tompkins Square Park. Photos by Bobby Williams.

The next stop is...

Heaven 17 with "We Live So Fast" circa 1983...

Have fun whatever you're doing this weekend. We'll see you back in here in, oh, an hour or two.

Beer bard back with 'Light or Dark' at McSorley's

The Daily News has a feature today on Geoffrey Bartholomew, the poet bartender at McSorley's since 1972.

Bartholomew, who took writing classes at City College where his teachers included Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, just published his second collection of poems, titled "Light or Dark."

Here's a sampling via the News:

from “Restaurant Inspection”

They come in all shapes & sizes

both guys and gals

thermometers and test strips

eyeballing it all

protecting your health

The violation reads:

I did see 9/10 live flies

Well, effing bully for you

but at $100 a fly

that’s an even grand

On Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Bartholomew and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright will be give a reading at McSorley's.

You can find the McSorley's Poems website here.

The tattoo-piercings-smoking-accessories awning war is on!

Yesterday, workers installed a new awning/sign for Kulture on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue...

[Photo via EVG reader Anna C.]

And today...

Meanwhile, almost directly across the street...

Hmm. Tough call. Will have to see these at night to be a favorite.

Breaking: Former bank branch to become a Duane Reade on First Avenue

[February 2010]

The now-shuttered HSBC branch (the one that some residents tried to save) on First Avenue just north of 14th Street is getting a new tenant. Earlier in the week, pcvstBee pointed out that renovations had started on the space.

Now, a reader passes along this tip ... that the Duane Reade on 14th between First Avenue and Second Avenue will be moving into this former HSBC space (yes, right next to the CVS). A Duane Reade employee and the Fruit Stand Guy outside the former HSBC confirmed this to the reader. (Woo! Sourcing!)

So what's the loudest block in the East Village?

We did that post last week about a reader looking for a quiet block to live on (helpful, by the way!) ... asking if such a thing even existed these days. (This post.)

Following that, another reader thought it might be sorta therapeutic to prompt a discussion about the loudest block in the neighborhood. Bar noise. Traffic noise. Noise noise. The usual.

Sure. What the Hell.

So.

I've never lived on these blocks, but they seem as if they could be really loud at times.

• St. Mark's Place closer to Avenue A (apartments facing St. Mark's Place)

• Third Avenue (OK, maybe between 10th and 12th...)

• Near or around Avenue A and Houston

Anyone else?

[File photo outside Superdive back in the day]

East Ninth Street smells like manure this morning

Just between Avenue A and First. Did a manure spreader jack-knife here last night?

Shocking revelations: People like looking at photos of topless women on the Internet

Last Friday, we posted the item about the topless advocate who was walking around the neighborhood topless. (This post.)

Since then, we've received quite a few more photos (which we never posted) of the women, first identified by Racked as Moira Johnston.

Anyway, our post quickly became the most-viewed, uh, post in EV Grieve's five-year history, easily topping the former No. 1 — The East Village rolls out welcome wagon for new Starbucks.

Which begs the question: Will you start posting more photos of topless women?

Yes. And we will also include some peen for equal time.

Actually, that wasn't the question.

This is: What was the least-viewed EV Grieve post of all time?

Oh! So many to choose from.

Blogger doesn't keep track of such things. But if we had to guess. It was this one from July 9, 2008...

Per the post:

Drug store celebrity exit wars
Duade Reade has Mario Lopez gracing its exits (and disguising the store's security system). Not to be outdone, Rite Aid (at least the one on 14th Street between Avenues A and B) wants us to smell like David Beckham.

According to Google Analytics, no one even casually glimpsed at this post.

Benny is missing

Benny has been missing since last Friday. His owners are really worried ... all the info is on the above flyer...

Former Stuyvesant Grocery now open as Adam's Deli on East 14th Street

[May 7]

A few weeks ago, EV Grieve reader LvV passed along the good news that Stuyvesant Grocery, the deli on East 14th Street and Avenue A that a fire destroyed in May 2010, was reopening at the former locksmith shop ... just west on 14th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Now, our friends at pcvstBee report that the store — now called Adam's Deli — opened yesterday...

[right to left Adam, Nasser & Sal via pcvstBee]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Conspiracies: What next for 14th Street and Avenue A?

Renovations in order for Stuyvesant Grocery and Pete's-A-Place?

Today in Tompkins Square Park

The Free Store got rained out.

Photos by Bobby Williams.

[Updated] EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

[Photo by James Maher. Find more of his photos here]

21-year-old woman killed early this morning in a hit-and-run on Broadway and 14th Street (DNAinfo)

On putting together the new Joey Ramone record (NPR)

How the size of NYU's campus stacks up against other universities, such as Stanford (Off the Grid)

The Pen and Brush Club townhouse on East 10th Street has been sold (Curbed)

The move in New York State to ban anonymous online speech (Runnin' Scared)

A note for High Line tourists (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Downed tree closes part of Clinton Street for the moment (The Lo-Down)

East Village resident Jim Gaffigan does not like Subway (Grub Street)

Photographer Camilo José Vergara has been documenting Harlem for nearly four decades (New York Historical Society)

14 photos of a rainy & stormy NYC (Gothamist)

Lower Manhattan restaurants of the 1960s (Eater)

Beastie Boys in London circa 1986 (BoweryBoogie)

... and not a very good endorsement here on First Avenue and East Second Street... ("in-house thief alert")

[Via Marjorie Ingall]

Accusations on Avenue A

EVG reader Ron Z. spotted this on the M14 stop on Avenue A and 11th Street this morning... We're not sure how widespread this flyer campaign is. Have you seen these?

In any event. We blocked out the man's face ...