Thursday, October 31, 2013

Scenes of Halloween on Avenue B



Thanks to EVG contributor Stacie Joy for these photos from trick-or-treating late this afternoon on Avenue B...























Halloween at La Plaza Cultural


East Ninth Street and Avenue C... Rest in Pieces... Photo by Bobby Williams

Sewage of the Dead



Here is Spike Polite and his bandmates in Sewage with a timely new video that seems appropriate to play this evening...

Director Christopher J. Ryan said that he spent $139 for the entire shoot ... the only paid person was the make-up artist, who got $30 an hour for each band member... with some leftover zombie garb from the Zombie Crawl two weeks back.

Best retro Halloween costume so far today



Via EVG regular William Klayer spotted this on the corner of East Seventh Street and Avenue A just now. With records inside! On my way.

Cool ghoul



First Avenue at East Fourth Street.

'Tis the season...

Just in to the EVG inbox...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition


[East 7th Street]

Jack Bistro priced out of University Place (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Australian model Elyse Taylor selling her East 2nd Street home (New York Post)

The spirits of the former Amato Opera House on the Bowery (BoweryBoogie)

And more haunted spirits at the Merchant House Museum (Ephemeral New York)

Seward Park shuns Con Ed (The Lo-Down)

Thoughts on Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" (Dangerous Minds)

... and the other night, activists with Right of Way created a stencil depicting the assault of SUV driver Alexian Lien on a scaffold above the West 178 Street site of the incident... They call this work #Cranksy.



And, given the popularity of anything Banksy-related these days... someone stole the fake Banksy, as Gothamist pointed out yesterday.

[Updated] The 7-Eleven signage is up, and someone has already spit on the front window



On Avenue A and East 11th Street, the plywood is down and the sign is up... And a tipster noted that a cyclist zipped by, slowing down long enough to spit on the front window.



Last we heard this location will open tomorrow...

Updated 3:26 p.m.

Anton van Dalen shared a few more photos from the ceremonial 7-Eleven signage unveiling today...


Previously on EV Grieve:
Someone egged the new Starbucks on First Avenue last night

Let's look at 15 new East Village residential buildings



We got a look yesterday at the new residential complex (above, duh) coming to the former Mary Help of Christians lot on Avenue A between East 11th Street and East 12th Street... in the comments, bowboy asked about putting together a post showing renderings of all the new buildings going up now in the neighborhood.

An instant request.

Per bowboy:

Seems like they all look the same — boxy, two-tone red & grey, overlapping setbacks of squares. 50 years from now will the all neighborhood look like this? And will preservationists be screaming to save these tetris models? Did architectural creativity die this decade?

Well, let's take a look... Here are several developments still under construction (or, in the case of Jupiter 21, recently completed). A few things. These are residential only (sorry 51 Astor Place) ... and new buildings (no conversions of former nursing homes like Bloom 62 or rooftop additions like 205 Avenue A). Also, we have yet to see any renderings for 185 Avenue B at East 12th Street.

And here we go...

Jupiter 21 on Second Avenue...



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84 Third Ave.



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The Jefferson, 211 E. 13th St.



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Alphabet Plaza, East Second Street and Avenue D



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98-100 Avenue A (conceptual rendering)



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500 E. 14th St. at Avenue A (conceptual rendering)



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316-318 E. Third St.



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427 E. 12th St.



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227 E. Seventh St.



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331 E. Houston St. at Ridge



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154 Second Ave.


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327 E. Ninth St.


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41 Fourth Ave. at East 10th Street (conceptual rendering)



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277 E. Seventh St. at Avenue D



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Phew. Thoughts? Winners? Losers? Oh. And Happy Halloween.

[Updated] 7-Eleven signage arrives on Avenue A



A truck toting signage for the new 7-Eleven on Avenue A and East 11th Street arrived on the scene at 6:30 this morning, Shawn Chittle happened to notice. Crews have been hard at work late at night prepping the store for its Grand Opening... one crew member said they'd open today... while another member of the set-up crew said that the opening had been pushed to tomorrow.

The No 7-Eleven blog spotted an employee taste-testing the Slurpee machines...



Meanwhile, the Blue Plywood remains up around the store... the one with the active Partial Stop Work Order on it.

Updated 7:31 a.m.

EVG reader John shares these from the ground. Or Avenue A.





Updated 8:21 a.m.

Shawn Chittle notes that workers are removing the plywood from around the store's perimeter...






... and where will they place the work permits and Partial Work Order?




And there is video too...



Updated 9:08 a.m.

Via EVG reader Lauren...


180 Second Ave. is for sale



There's a new listing for 180 Second Ave., the 5-story building between East 11th Street and East 12th Street that houses the New Orleans-themed bar the Ninth Ward on the ground floor.

Details from Massey Knakal:

[T]his 5 story mixed-use property is currently configured with a restaurant/bar on the ground floor, leased until 2020 and offices above. The retail tenant’s space features a solarium that is used for outdoor seating. Their rent is under market on an Avenue that commands rents upwards of $135/SF. The property also benefits from additional air rights. This is a prime investment or user opportunity.
As for those air rights: 2,784 square feet are available. Building price (air rights included!): $7.65 million.

Village Joker turns itself into Augurs Well on St. Mark's Place


[Via Instagram]

Since opening two years ago, the bar-restaurant at 115 St. Mark's Place has gone through several identify changes ... from the Burger Shop ... to the Village Joker. And now the bar has transformed itself into Augurs Well.

We asked Queens native Gregory Nardello, who opened the space with his father, about the change.

"I just decided to switch up the name. We have been zoning in more and more on the craft beer side of things," he said. "[There are] also a couple of small interior makeovers, and I'm working hard on some new menu ideas. Hopefully everything works out for the best."

The Beagle closes for good Saturday on Avenue A

[EVG file photo]

The Beagle, the craft cocktail bar at 162 Avenue A, closes for service after Saturday, according to a letter the owners sent to friends and customers. (We saw the news over at Eater.)

Here's part of the letter that the owners sent:

It is with a mixture of sadness and excitement that we announce that the Beagle will be closing. We have immensely enjoyed our time serving you all and getting to know this great neighborhood.

This was a difficult choice to make, but we believe it was the right choice. We do not feel that the physical space we currently occupy is well suited to the full time cocktail bar we have become.

Although our search for a new space continues, we accepted an offer to sell the Beagle's current home. We think this is fortuitous.

We are very excited about this opportunity to start anew, with a focus on cocktails, which are the heart and soul of what we do. The Beagle was a wonderful little place and we'll always be proud of what we accomplished there, and remain grateful for its many enthusiasts.

The new owners were on last month's CB3/SLA docket to open a "modern Australian" bar and restaurant.

The Beagle debuted here in the former Orologio space between 10th Street and 11th Street in May 2011. The Beagle's initial "pairing boards" included items such as Pressed Pig Head and Rum, Lamb Neck and Rye, and Scallop and Mezcal. The Beagle closed for part of last summer to rework their menu and cocktails.

There was some friction during the CB3/SLA meeting about this transfer back in February 2011. Per Eater's report at the time:

There was a lot of back and forth on this one. The representative mentioned the price points being reasonable, and community members responded that they saw a sample menu, where entrees were between $26-31. The representative said that was an old menu, and of the 31 items on the menu, 20 are $12 or under. The community members complained about pigs head, foie gras and animal rights.

I never went The Beagle. And I never met anyone who did go here. Anyone want to share their thoughts on the place?

Beyond Vape opening on St. Mark's Place


A Beyond Vape store is opening on St. Mark's Place... up where that Supercuts was, you know, by the Chipotle.

Anyway, Beyond Vape has three California shops... this will be the first location on the East Coast... for all your vaping (inhaling nicotine vapor) needs, such as tubes, cartridges, batteries, atomizers and the water-based liquid that contains the nicotine. (No word if you will be available to vape on the premises here... like in the California shops...)

Now! Is vamping safe? Or, safer than cigarettes?

Dunno! Here's what the Journal of Fun, aka, Bloomberg News, had to say about it in a piece titled "Vaping May Be Hazardous to Your Health:"

U.S. consumers will spend $1 billion on battery-powered smokes this year, 10 times more than they did four years ago. Are e-cigarettes, which come in such flavors as chocolate and butter rum, a benign device to help people stop smoking? Or are they just a new way to feed an old addiction? How safe, compared with tobacco smoke, is the vapor they create?

No one knows. The small studies that have been done so far hint at both pros and cons; one found that smokers cut back on real cigarettes after trying the electronic kind, while another found particles of metal and silicates in e-cigarette vapor that could cause breathing problems. That there are more than 200 brands containing varying levels of nicotine and other substances only makes it harder to assess their safety.

Can't be any worse for you than a haircut at Supercuts!