Wednesday, June 26, 2013
July CB3/SLA highlights: Holiday Lounge, Brick Lane Curry and more tacos
The July CB3/SLA docket is now out... We'll look at the whole thing later... but a few quick highlights... (The meeting is July 15.)
Applications within Saturated Areas
• 117 Ave A Food & Drink LLC, 117 Ave A (op)
The mystery applicant looking to take over the Odessa Cafe and Bar on Avenue A is back on the agenda.
Sidewalk Cafe Application (unenclosed)
• Mighty Quinn's Barbeque (CMH BBQ Holdings LLC), 103 2nd Ave
• Brazen Fox Kitchen and Bar (106 3rd Ave NYC Inc), 106 3rd Ave
The folks from the White Plains-based bar The Brazen Fox are opening a bar-restaurant in the former Friend House space at East 13th Street ... the space is still under construction and they are already seeking a license for a sidewalk cafe. Very Brazen!
• Boulton & Watt (Downtown Dining LLC), 5 Ave A
New Liquor License Applications
• Holiday Lounge (75 St Marks Place LLC), 75 St Marks Pl (op)
Barbara Sibley, the owner of La Palapa next door here on St. Mark's Place, will be opening a bar-restaurant in the former Holiday Cocktail Lounge space... we're looking forward to the end results of the work... She told Grub Street last year that "We're going to try to preserve as much of the history as possible."
• Otto's Taco LLC, 141 2nd Ave (b)
Ah! Last week, contractors told EVG regular William Klayer that a "taco place" was opening at the former Good Guys, the burger-fries-salad-wraps-waffles-smoothie eatery that replaced a Subway on Second Avenue. Good Guys closed a few weeks ago.
• Bricklane Curry House (BLCH I LLC), 99 2nd Ave (op)
Looks as if there's finally activity here ... most recently home to Sea Salt, the upscale fish eatery that closed in early 2008 after a seven-month stint... Brick Lane announced in April 2011 that they'd be taking over the space ...
Old Porch receives new awning for Apartment 13
New awnings arrived this morning at the former location of The Porch on Avenue C between East Seventh and East Eighth Street... Apartment 13 is the new restaurant from Paul Seres, the former president of the New York Nightlife Association and a partner in The DL on Delancey and Ludlow... You can read more about plans for this space here.
In summary:
All entrees at Apt 13 will be market driven and will be served in the same style as Korean barbeque. Every dish will be served with side dishes, appetizers, condiments, sauces, salads, and garnitures. Seasonally and locally driven. Family styled dinners. Meant to feel reminiscent of an intimate sit down dinner in our apartment.
Thanks to EVG reader Jared for the photo.
EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition
[Whip Man in Tompkins Square Park via Bobby Williams]
There used to be A LOT of bars on the Lower East Side (DNAinfo)
The latest NYC landmarks (Curbed)
Remembering The Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally from 1970 (Dangerous Minds)
About the new sushi place that took the address of the beloved Polonia on First Avenue (Fork in the Road)
A new tenant for the soon-to-be-departed Motor City Bar? (BoweryBoogie)
"Untitled" (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat fetches $29 million (Bloomberg News)
Weiner is the new Democratic frontrunner for mayor (Runnin' Scared)
CB3 approves Danny Chen Street co-naming (The Lo-Down)
Looking at the now-shuttered Whitestone multiplex cinema
...and because we like the Empire State Building (mostly!) ... that new video released Monday from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs that 5,000 sites have already posted this week... first band to film atop the Building...
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
To be continued... next week...
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
By James Maher
Name: Phillip Giambri
Occupation: Storyteller, Submariner, Actor, Theatre Sound Tech, OTB Announcer, Computer Systems / Network Administrator.
Location: St. Marks between 1st and 2nd Avenues.
Time: 1:00pm on Monday June 17th
I’ve been here a long time. I’m from Philadelphia originally. I was in the military when I was 18 and I got out at 22. I was down in a submarine. It’s a strange life. Then I went back to Philly and I went to a drama school for 3 years. Then I moved to New York for Summer Stock [Theatre]. I was passing through New York on my way to California and was taking some acting classes with Stella Adler and I kind of got sidetracked.
The first job I got was on 4th Street between 2nd and the Bowery. It was a good theater block. Cafe La MaMa was there and the Playwrights Horizons and the Fortune Theatre. There was a lot going on in that little neighborhood. So the first job I got was as an assistant stage manager, a sound man, and an understudy for Michael Douglas for the very first play he was ever in in New York, called 'City Scenes.' Dominic Chianese, the Uncle from 'The Sopranos' was in it as well as Raúl Juliá.
I got to move down here by way of the West Village. I moved in with a lady on Washington Place for awhile and when that ended I had nowhere to live. I was going to the School of Visual Arts for awhile and I slept in my instructors loft until he got tired of me, so I moved in with acting friends from Summer Stock on East 9th Street for a couple months. It was really awkward because there were four of us living in a tiny apartment. We had to smoke a lot of dope to stay sane.
So they helped me get the apartment on St. Mark's Place across from the Electric Circus — building number 26. In the ‘60s and early 70s, the Electric Circus was like the Studio 54. It was like a happening place. You would take acid or mescaline or mushrooms or something and go in there and the whole place was designed to make you go bizarro.
I only wanted to be an actor and at the time I erroneously thought that if I worked in the theater rather than doing some regular menial task that at least I would get to know people. Just the opposite happened. Over 3 or 4 years, I gained such a reputation as a competent technical person, who were hard to find outside the union, that it was all the jobs I was getting. I would audition for a part for a Broadway producer, who would know me cause I did his sound work and he would say, ‘C’mon Phil, actors are a dime-a-dozen. We need a stage manager.’
I wound up managing a recording studio that worked with the theater for several years, while I was still looking for acting work. I was the manager, but every summer I laid myself off because we did only theater recordings mostly, and rented sound equipment to theaters and there was no work in the summer. So we’d sit out front on the stoop and smoke dope and drink wine all summer. I did that for like 4 or 5 years in the early ‘70s. It was kind of like a four-year party. People were in and out all the time, crashing, the building was very liberal in terms of sexuality and drugs and stuff. That was around ‘70 to ‘75 or ‘76.
I started to grow up a little when I met my wife. We went on our first date to the midnight movie show at the St. Marks Theatre to see 'Reefer Madness.' It cost $1 and you could bring your own food in and your own weed in and you could sit there all night and nobody would ever hassle you.
In ’74, we formed a St. Marks block association. There was a very influential guy in the neighborhood, Jim Rose, who ran the The Eastside Book Store. He became the head of the block association and we were just overwhelmed with crime in the neighborhood. Once the hippie thing wore off, all that were left were drug addicts and opportunists. It turned from the Summer of Love in ‘67 and ’68 and started really getting dark around ‘73. We realized there were 17 Methadone clinics in the neighborhood and there were all these junkies going there regularly and supporting their habits by beating us up and taking our money. We had the men’s shelter on 3rd street where every crazy person in New York State that got out of a mental hospital or prison was sent to, who were going around killing people and beating people up. We had several cops shot in the neighborhood. It was getting ugly.
I was the police department representative of the block association, so I would get all the crime statistics every month and what a wake up call that was, when you’re actually getting the numbers. We also had fundraising street fairs to try and improve the neighborhood. We got gates and window boxes put in front of the ground floor apartments.
We succeeded in getting the police commander changed in the Precinct. I used to go to all the police meetings and this new guy came in named Gunderson, back in ’75, and he changed everything down there. The 9th Precinct had the reputation, if you got out of the Police Academy you had to learn to be a bag man, and they sent you to 5th Street to learn that. It was a very crooked place. That was part of our problem — the cops had their own thing going on and they couldn’t give a shit about what we did. So with a little muscle and a little politicking, we got rid of the commander down there and they brought this guy Gunderson from Staten Island. He was a hard case who didn’t smile. Nobody liked him over there. We loved the guy. He cleaned the whole Precinct up.
At the time, all the cops kept their windows rolled up and just drove by everywhere and didn’t get out of the car. So we fought to get a permanent foot-beat cop, which they never did in those days. Gunderson said he couldn’t justify one permanent person there since they were so shorthanded in cops, so a friend of mine and I went around at night and took pictures of all the cops, what they used to call cooping, when they’re sleeping on duty in their car and they’re supposed to be patrolling. We had a picture of about 25 cops cooping and we brought them in and said we either get a beat cop or somebody uptown is gonna see this.
So we got a beat cop named George and he lasted here almost 10 years. He was a really sweet guy who used to go to everybody’s birthday parties, christenings, Bar Mitzvahs, and that was at a time when everybody hated the cops. He was like a part of the neighborhood and I don’t think he ever drew a gun in his life.
To be continued... next week...
James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.
This morning outside the Blarney Cove
Wasn't sure what to expect walking by after last night's Grand Closing send off... The bar is still standing — at least from the outside.
Someone did remove the Blarney Cove sign that was attached above the door...
Anyone go for the last night?
Many businesses on East 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B are either relocating or closing to make way for some yet-unspecified development.
Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated with correction] 8-lot parcel of East 14th Street primed for new development
The Blarney Cove will close for good at the end of June
New Tompkins Square Park sculpture will return
[Bobby Williams]
We noted on Monday that the life-sized sculpture of Christopher Gamble's silhouette arrived in Tompkins Square Park this past weekend. French artist Fanny Allié created this in honor of Gamble, who was homeless for nearly 28 years... he spent a lot of time in the Park.
However, later in the day on Monday, we noticed that the sculpture was gone...
[BW]
We contacted Allié, who the Parks Department commissioned to create the art, to see what was happening...
"I removed the sculpture temporarily ... in a few days it will be at the exact same location but behind the fence and under the tree (that's why I left the plaque there)," she wrote in an email. The sculpture is slated to remain in the Park
She expects the sculpture, named Serendipity, to (hopefully) be re-installed on Friday evening.
Allié also shared photos from Sunday... where she unveiled the sculpture ... Gamble, who now lives in an apartment run by the Bowery Residents' Committee, was on hand and posed with the silhouette...
...and Gamble and Allié...
Serena Solomon at DNAinfo interviewed Gamble and Allié about the sculpture last month.
"I thought it would be good. Why not?" said the 67-year-old Gamble, on why he agreed to pose for the sculpture. "It's exciting for a person that doesn't really mean anything to anyone."
Read more about the background here.
Halfway home at Alphabet Plaza
A milestone, of sorts, to note on the incoming Alphabet Plaza, the 12-story mixed-used apartment building at East Houston and East Second Street/Avenue D ... As far as we can tell from the picture by EVG reader Ray, it appears the building is now at the 6th floor mark and climbing... on its way to...
[Via The Real Deal]
Will this thing be as enormous as it looks?
Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: 12th-story 'Alphabet Plaza' in the works for Second Street and Avenue D
Alphabet Plaza ready to rise on Avenue D
Alphabet Plaza is rising on East Houston and Avenue D
Easy as...: Alphabet Plaza makes first appearance above ground
Alphabet Plaza starts to apply sun block
Report: Whynot Coffee expanding into the East Village
Each of the locations has a theme ... the 40-seat shop at 14 Christopher St., which opened last month, is inspired by 1960s and 1970s Paris, with murals of Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin and Brigitte Bardot...
Per the article:
The East Village coffee house will be based on “tattoo culture” and the Chelsea shop will be a “coffee island in the midst of an art gallery displaying work from upcoming artists,” a spokesperson said.
We reached out to the Whynot folks to learn where the East Village location might be... will let you know if we hear back... Are you familiar with Whynot? We're not... they serve La Colombe Coffee ...
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Noted... and, Noted
East 10th Street near First Avenue... and Tompkins Square Park this afternoon...
Photos by Bobby Williams.
52 new security cameras arrive at Campos Plaza
News release from the EV Grieve inbox...
New York City Council Member Rosie Méndez, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Chairman John B. Rhea, and Campos Plaza Resident Association President Dereese Huff formally announced the completed installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in targeted areas of NYCHA’s Campos Plaza I and II. The cameras should greatly enhance security and reduce the likelihood and incidence of crime at the development. NYCHA is only able to provide this additional security because of discretionary funding provided by elected officials such as Council Member Méndez.
“The safety and security of our residents is of great importance to NYCHA, and installing CCTV cameras deters crime and enhances the quality of life of our residents,” said NYCHA Chairman John B. Rhea. “Through our roadmap for providing safe and secure housing for our residents, Plan NYCHA, we have been actively working with all public housing community stakeholders, including the NYPD, to ensure that issues of safety and security are addressed through a more collaborative approach.”
The City Council capital funding at Campos Plaza provided for 52 new cameras located in all 4 buildings and the infrastructure to connect all the cameras to a Security Operations Center, where all cameras can be viewed in one place. NYCHA, the NYPD, and Resident Association leaders worked together to determine camera locations at each building. The CCTV security systems are strategically placed to monitor key areas such as building entrances, street corners, elevators, and equipment rooms. The NYPD can access footage in cases of reported criminal activity.
Serena Solomon at DNAinfo covered the event today at Campos Plaza between East 12th Street and East 13th Street off of Avenue C. You can read her report here.
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