Thursday, August 30, 2012

Little sea bass by the sea

Photo and text by East Village resident Edward Arrocha via Facebook
Fisher women on the East River... she and her husband were the nicest people... He Irish-American, She originally from uptown... they loved fishing and telling fising tales... she pulled little sea bass one after another and gently threw them back...

Reader report: Solas patrons turn sidewalk shed into after-hours hot spot


A few weeks ago, we received word that a woman was taken away in an ambulance from outside Solas, the bar/lounge on East 9th Street.

A reader now notes that some Solasgoers have turned the scaffolding at the nearby parking garage into an impromptu after-hours hot spot. Says the reader:

“When the Solas crowd outside congregates, the bouncer comes out and tells them to move along. They'll then form small groups on the stoops of the neighboring buildings and businesses.

Now they have descended upon the sidewalk shed next door where they continue to scream, fight with each other, block the traffic by getting in and out of taxis, and generally live up to every negative stereotype of the drunken 20-somethings who take over the East Village on the weekends. The group of about 50 people [pictured above] didn't leave the area until 5AM.”

Looking at the boring September CB3/SLA docket

Community Board 3 released its monthly meetings docket yesterday. Not too many blockbusters. Or any. Which is just fine. Many of the items are for bars-restaurants south of Houston... and a few familiar names are back on the agenda... we'll hopefully know more as CB3 releases the applications for the, uh, applicants.

And the SLA & DCA Licensing Committee meets on Sept. 10 at the usual place — JASA/Green Residence, 200 East 5th Street at Bowery.

Renewal with Complaint History
• Nublu, 62 Ave C (wb)

• L'azzo Pizza, 107 1st Ave (wb)

Applications within Resolution Areas

[EVG reader Kat]

• Vella Market Inc, 56-58 Ave B (wb)

This is the organic market that is taking over the former Kate's Joint space at East Fourth Street.

• 106 on the LES LLC, 106 Rivington St (op)

• Gallery Bar (MMS Group LLC), 120 Orchard St (op)

• Subject (PMMR LLC), 188 Suffolk St (op)

• Caffe Buon Gusto (Ave B Caffe Buon Gusto Inc), 545 E 5th St (aka 76 Ave B) (wb)

They've been featuring a bring your own bottle policy since opening...

Alterations
• Nom Wah Tea Parlor (Nom Wah Dim Sum Parlor Inc), 13 Doyers St (alt/wb/change of hours)

• The Bowery Diner (241 Bowery Corp), 241 Bowery (alt/op/extend hours)

New Liquor License Applications


• Lobster Joint (LJ East Houston LLC), 201 E Houston St (op)

It appears that the former Lina Frey space will be home to an outpost of the Williamsburg-based Lobster Joint.

• To be Determined, 266 Broome St (op)

• To be Determined (Silkstone), 22 Orchard St (wb)

• Jujomukti Tea Lounge (Jujomukti Inc), 211 E 4th St (wb)

• Hummus Place (Edo Food LLC), 109 St Marks Pl (op)

• Mario San Inc, 36 Ludlow St (wb)

• Congee Village Inc, 100 Allen St (op)

• To be Determined, 224 E 10th St (wb)

Was originally on the August agenda. This was the address for Merciel, the boutique that sold wedding dresses... they recently closed, and something booze-related hopes to take its place.

• Paulaner Brauhaus Restaurant LLC, 265-267 Bowery (op)

• Feast (Two Guize LLC), 102 3rd Ave (op)

Also a holdover from August: The New York Central Framing Annex has moved around the corner to East 12th Street... and a restaurant-bar is in the works for the old space...

• Nevada Smith (92 Nunswalk Inc), 100 3rd Ave (op)

• Souvlaki Gr LES (Uber Caffe LLC), 116 Stanton St (op)

• To be Determined, 127 4th Ave (op)

Current home of Forum, which often seems to need a new front door after the weekend.


Corporate Change (not heard at committee)
• The Cock (Red Rooster 29 LLC), 29 2nd Ave (op)

Rumors about the new name for the former Nice Guy Eddie's space

Renovations continue at the former Nice Guy Eddie's space on Avenue A at East Houston... currently home to Chico's KISS plywood. As previously disclosed, Darin Rubell, co-owner of GalleryBar and Ella, is one of the partners opening a new restaurant here.

According to the rumor mill, the space will be a gastropub called Boulton & Watt, named for the U.K.-based business partners who made many critical improvements to the steam engine in the late 1700s.

Reader report: EarthMatters closing next month


177 Ludlow hit the market for $6.25 million last September, as BoweryBoogie first noted. The 5-story, 15-unit building has been home to EarthMatters Organic Market and Restaurant since 2001.

Last month, The Lo-Down reported that 177 Ludlow was in contract.

The future looked bleak for the organic food market, especially with the listing that appeared for the ground-floor space the market occupies (asking rent is $25,000 a month).

Indeed.

EVG regular samo heard that, now that the building has been sold, the store is closing for good on Sept. 20. Management apparently told employees last evening.

No word on the plans for the building. As BoweryBoogie wrote, "the stout property is being pitched as a perfect opportunity for either a hotel or condo conversion. Two options this battered part of the neighborhood certainly does not need."

[Photo via the EarthMatters website]

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Squirrel, nuts

Two photos of the red-tailed hawk in Tompkins Square Park courtesy of EVG regular peter radley....



...and another angle via Bobby Williams, who notes that the squirrel got away...


[Updated] Meatball Factory becoming Bait & Hook


Workers are at East 14th Street and Second Avenue right now... putting up the canopies for what's taking over for the former Meatball Factory... it's called Bait & Hook, and a resident in the building says that it will be a seafood restaurant... which is likely better than a seafood factory...


Not sure at this moment if it's from the same owners ... or a new group of restauranteurs ...

Previously.

Updated:

Here's another view via @apartmentjeanie ... management is calling the new eatery a seafood shack...

And now, a 4-armed robot with a mohawk plays the drums to 'Blitzkrieg Bop'



In case you haven't seen this one making the rounds... via CBS News.

Ruination of the northwest corner of First Avenue and East 13th Street nearly complete

[Image via @NatashaDillon]

We've heard from several alarmed readers that the Starbucks signage is up at 219 First Ave. at East 13th Street, as we first noted in April.


By the way, does anyone have photos of the former tenant here, the Mee Noodle Shop, a favorite spot for Allen Ginsburg...?

Previously on EV Grieve:
Today in rumors of another Starbucks opening in the East Village

219 First Avenue ready for a chain store, probably

Starbucks confirmed for 219 First Ave., former home to Allen Ginsberg's favorite Chinese restaurant

What it costs to live in newly renovated apartments above a Starbucks in the East Village

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

[Tompkins Square Park yesterday. Bobby Williams]

On Broadway, part of poet Frank O'Hara's former home is becoming a fro-yo joint (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Revisiting the Sin Club on East Third Street (Flaming Pablum)

Q-and-A with CB3 member Ariel Palitz: 'I have nothing but love and compassion for my neighborhood...' (The Lo-Down)

Security watches while a vicious fight breaks out in Union Square (Gothamist)

What to eat at Masak on East 13th Street (Fork in the Road)

Read about NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan to overtake the Village (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

A great old clock near Astor Place (Ephemeral New York)

There will be a bar called Brews & Dogs on Allen Street (BoweryBoogie)

Perhaps a last visit to Colony Records (Tripping With Marty)

Random: Documentary on the Dude on whom 'the Dude' was based (BoingBoing)

...and a photo via EVG reader Ted Roden on Seventh Street and Avenue C... showing an addition to the stupid Cole Haan ad campaign...


At the Church of the Rummage Sales


Arguably one of the most intriguing churches in the neighborhood sits on East Fourth Street near Avenue D. It's currently the San Isidoro y San Leandro Western Orthodox Catholic Church of the Hispanic Mozarabic Rite.

I don't know much about the building. I've poked around here and there on the Internet for more details. From a post at Slavs of New York:

Few specifics are available about the building’s history, but it was built in 1895 as the first home of the Roman Catholic St. Elizabeth of Hungary parish. When that parish moved uptown to Yorkville, the building became the Russian — Greek Orthodox Chapel of the Holy Trinity serving the Russian and Greek embassies. Later, it became the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas, which eventually moved to East 97th Sreet.

Today, the building is part of the Western Orthodox Benedictine Friars of the Hispanic Mozarabic Rite, though it still bears the royal seal of the Russian Czars on its façade.

Anyway, it's one of those places that I worry about, as I like to do. There was a small fire at the church in February 2011. (A previous post about the church is here.)

There are no longer any services at the church, which mainly seems to be used for rummage sales. I've bought a few books and records here. A book and record will go for about 60 cents. (I overheard the priest say that they were raising money to start up services again. They will need to sell a lot of books and records... and they will also gladly accept donated clothes and stuff.)

Given all the new construction in the immediate area (here and here and here), you have to wonder how long the church can hold out before a developer comes along.

Which is why a photographer with better skills than mine should go document 117 years of history.




Let's look at the new rendering for the former Amato Opera building on the Bowery

On the Bowery, the Amato Opera building has sat vacant since the company closed on May 31, 2009. In January 2009, Anthony Amato, the company’s 88-year-old founder, announced that he had sold the building that the Opera has called home since 1964. (He and his wife Sally, who died 12 years ago, started Amato in 1948.)

Through these years, we've pointed out the various for rent signs that have adorned the building. We even pointed out the most recent rendering people (scalies!) that the broker was using...


Very realistic — particularly the texting zombie walking right into traffic on the Bowery.

But that dose of realism wasn't really working. We need to see... the future! Not to mention some hot rendering ass.


Seems about right.

For further reading:
Amato Opera (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Life after the Amato Opera

Costume drama on the Bowery as the Amato Opera empties out

Ruin of the Bowery nearly complete: Last season for the Amato Opera

Go inside the Amato Opera here.

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.


By James Maher

Name: Joey McGibbon
Occupation: Doorman, Retired
Location: 6th Street between Avenue A and B
Time: 1:52 on Sunday, Aug. 27

"I’ve lived in the neighborhood for 30 years. I was a doorman on the Upper East Side. The difference between the Upper East Side and here was like night and day. I worked for gazillionaires. What they paid for shoes and clothes, I could pay my rent for 3 months.

It was a different neighborhood 30 years ago. It was dangerous but I never felt really threatened. You just had to know your way about, where you were going, and what you were doing. Half this neighborhood was burnt out; every block had burnt out buildings. It was really empty. If you weren’t from around here people knew it because it was so depopulated.

I moved down here by accident. I was in love with this girl and we were in the throws of breaking up. I grew up in Queens. I had no intentions of moving down here, especially back then when this neighborhood was the way it was. But she moved here and I followed her. I thought maybe we’d get back together but it never happened and I ended up staying.

It was quite an accident and it changed my life. I met some wonderful people: artists, writers, and creative people. It’s always been a young neighborhood, but it wasn’t college students, it was young people on the fringe. It was quite some fun. You had the Robots; you had EPCs; you had the Limbo Lounge; Pizza a Go-Go; the Pyramid Club was in full swing. I got exposed to a lot of things I wouldn’t have been exposed to in Queens. There were some heartbreaking things too; I lost a lot of people to drugs and to the AIDS crisis.

They filmed 'The Godfather Part 2' on this block. All these buildings here still had the old fashioned storefronts. They were sealed up, but they all had the old-fashioned storefronts, so they fixed them up and created a barbershop and a candy store and put canopies on them. It’s the scene where that guy in the white suit [Don Fanucci] is going down the street, where he gets blown away by Robert DeNiro in the hallway. That’s where a lot of these trees came from, because the block association said, 'if you’re going to disrupt our lives we want some compensation', so they agreed to give them money for these trees."

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

64 Second Ave. on the block for $7.3 million


The building between East Third Street and East Fourth Street arrived on the market yesterday. Nothing immediately alarming in the Streeteasy listing, such as air rights or single-family mansion:

64 Second Avenue represents an excellent opportunity to purchase a unique mixed-use asset on the Avenue in an up and coming East Village neighborhood. This building has significant potential as a cash flow investment, Live plus income opportunity, or a retail user opportunity. The 5 story property contains one ground floor retail unit along with 3 apartments above, including an Owner’s Duplex with a rooftop garden.

... This must be the owner's duplex...Or at least the rooftop gadren portion.


This is what the Village Voice offices looked like on Aug. 25, 2012


This year, we'll post photos like this of various buildings, streetscenes, etc., to capture them as they looked at this time and place... The photos may not be the most telling now, but they likely will be one day...

For further reading:
The Voice is leaving Cooper Square (DNAinfo)

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

[Updated] Report: Medical Examiner rules Carlisle Brigham's death an accident

Yesterday morning, the body of 29-year-old Carlisle Brigham was discovered on the first floor landing at 191 Orchard St. Early reports indicated that foul play may have been involved.

However, DNAinfo reports that an autopsy today found that Brigham suffered "blunt impact injuries of the head and neck," per the Medical Examiner's Office.

According to the Post, this happened "possibly after tripping on her high heels following a night of drinking with college pals."

Updated 8-29:


As you can see, the Post reported today that Bingham's father "was scheduled to take his daughter to a rehab facility for alcohol and possible drug addiction, the sources said."

The Daily News reported today that Bingham had been living on Avenue B since the separation from her husband. Unnamed sources told the News that Bingham returned home late Sunday after she had attended a friend's wedding in Virginia ...and that Bingham "had partied so hard she had to be carried into the building" on Orchard Street where she spent the night Sunday.

However:

[A] longtime friend and neighbor of Brigham’s, who did not want to be named, did not believe she was drunk and said she only spent the night away from her sublet because she forgot her keys at the Virginia wedding. “She wasn’t a drinker,” said the friend. “She was building a career after a bad marriage. ... She was happy.”

Updated 8-29:
The New York Times has more on her life and death here. The paper notes that she was supposed to meet her father for lunch on Monday.

Per the article:

As he drove into the city from La Guardia Airport they talked by phone, first at 9:25 and then at 9:30, he said. Shortly afterward, her body was found by a 19-year-old neighbor, at the foot of the stairway. She was dressed entirely in white, with the contents of a large, clothing-stuffed weekend bag around her, according to interviews he gave NBC News and other outlets. Her father arrived just after the ambulance left the building.

“It’s just devastating, it’s so unspeakably difficult,” he said. “I’ve received 100 e-mails, and almost to a person everyone says I don’t know what to say. And I don’t either, in a way. It’s just devastating to lose such a beautiful creature.”

Trends: East Village is the leader in carts attached to things

Spotted along Second Avenue this afternoon...


Woot. That makes three. Officially a trend. Get me the Style section!

Flashback...

Thursday.


Friday.


All photos by Bobby Williams.

Earlier today in Tompkins Square Park

[Photo by @KiraSaltzman]

About the 'Robokid V. East Village' video



You may have seen this video yesterday of 7-year-old East Village resident Jakob Kraus making the rounds (viral, woot!) ... I first spotted it on AnimalNY.

Today, the Daily News talks to boy's father ...

"He's a completely self-taught kid who loves to dance," said Matthew Kraus, who pointed out that he and his wife never pushed their son to dance. The idea behind the videos — there are five — is all Jakob's, according to the News.

The further (often truly) amazing adventures of Kita the Wonder Dog of East 10th Street

Back in March, we introduced you to Kita the Wonder Dog of East 10th Street, whose owners recently brought her home from a shelter.

We haven't heard from Kita since May. How has Kita's summer been?

Kita's owner provided an update.


She's spent most of her summer in Tompkins Square Park chasing pigeons, avoiding aggressive terrier mix types (she's learned the hard way) and generally becoming part of the local cafe society. The photos here are of her favorite local haunts. (She'd rather not say precisely which establishments she frequents as she doesn't want the health department cracking down on her favorite places simply for having the temerity to serve a dog.)

She can report that she's not terribly fond of Mexican food (too spicy!) and loves, loves, loves, sautéed mushrooms. She's also exploring a run for a Community Board seat but isn't really prepared to talk about that just yet.


On the next episode: While searching for apartments, Kita learns that "two bedrooms" often just means two rooms.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The further adventures of Kita the Wonder Dog of East 10th Street