Otto's Tacos (soft) opens today

Otto's Tacos has its soft opening today at 141 Second Ave. between St. Mark's Place and East Ninth Street.

Per the Otto's website:

Otto's Tacos is an LA inspired grab and go taqueria focusing on freshly prepared tacos. We make all of our tortillas, salsas and marinades from scratch every day.

(Otto Cedeno told us more about his first restaurant back on Aug. 21.)

You can find Otto's menu here.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Otto's Tacos, opening this fall on Second Avenue

[Photos via Facebook/Otto's Tacos]

Identity has closed on East 6h Street

Identity Bar and Lounge closed after service last Thursday night. The bar on East Sixth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B had a bit of a strip-mall vibe until former bartenders from Bar 82 took over the space for the owner back in the spring.

However, despite helping create a better neighbor ambiance, we understand that the owner was still in arrears ... and could not pull himself out of the financial hole that he was in before the Bar 82 folks came aboard. No word on what's next here.

Former AAA Amici Pizza space for lease on 3rd Avenue; no coffee, Chinese food, sushi or burgers

AAA Amici Pizza on Third Avenue at East 12th Street closed last July. At the time, EVG regular Muzz talked to the owner, who said that the pizzeria was rent-hiked out of there.

The Newmark Grubb Knight Frank listing has the asking rent at $21,000 per month for the 1,600 square feet of space.

Description
Vented Corner for Lease. HOT NYU / UNION SQUARE AREA.

NO COFFEE. NO CHINESE FOOD. NO SUSHI. NO BURGERS.

And dreams of a coffee-Chinese food-Burger-sushi bar are squashed.

A Slice of Naples now open on the Bowery

The space at Forcella on the Bowery between Bond and Great Jones has been cut in half... proprietor Giulio Adriani is now offering up slices at the appropriately named A Slice of Naples next door ...



Time Out previewed A Slice of Naples:

The rolled-thin specialty is built atop rectangular, meter-long crust and slow-cooked in an imported electric oven. The Naples native turns out five varieties, including the Stracchino-cheese-and-prosciutto Ripiena and a Caprese topped with hand-pulled mozzarella, tomatoes and pesto, plus a rotating pie of the day.

Find their menu here.

The former Sushi Lounge is for rent

As we first reported this past Friday, Sushi Lounge has closed on the corner of St. Mark's Place and Avenue A... a "for rent" sign quickly went up...



We didn't call Mr. Josh at Gibraltar Management Co. to inquirer about the asking rent... a Sushi Lounge manager told a reader that their rent was $27,000 ... So, any thoughts on what will take this space with rents at that level?

Previously on EV Grieve:
Sushi Lounge has closed (17 comments)

The T.G.I. Friday's space is for lease on Union Square

[Currently]


[The possibilities]

Sad news to report for fans of T.G.I. Friday's Sesame Jack™ Chicken Strips, Jack Daniel's® Chicken & Shrimp, and Bacon Mac & Cheese Bites ... the national chain's Union Square location is for lease... the space has been on the market for several months, apparently... the rent is currently "negotiable."

Per the listing:

Retail/Restaurant space available at 34 Union Square East. Located on the Southeast corner of 16th Street. Frontage is 140 ft wraparound. Ground and second floors can be leased seperately. Can create ground floor entrance on 16th Street and combine with the second floor. Currently TGI Friday's.

Located on the southeast corner of 16th Street in Union Square. Neighbors include, Union Square Greenmarket, Nordstrom Rack, Whole Foods, W Hotel, Barnes & Noble, Diesel, Sephora, Babies R Us

The restaurant remains open for now. And this is just the latest T.G.I. Friday's to likely close in the city. The location on Eighth Avenue — one of like 23 TGIFs in Midtown — is expected to close early next year.

The Standard East Village unveils its new sidewalk cafe

[Friday]

The plywood came down Friday to unveil the Standard East Village's new sidewalk cafe concept on Cooper Square...


[Saturday]

... and a more final look from yesterday...





...complete with Christmas trees...



The Cafe at The Standard Café Standard is expected to open today, according to Eater, who has more Standard-related restaurant news here.

We first reported on the changes here back in April 2012.

Updated 9:48 a.m.

EVG reader Robert Miner notes the pace this morning... ready for action...



The Café Standard is open 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday-Wednesday and until 4 a.m. Thursday-Saturday.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Big changes in the works for the Standard East Village lobby, outdoor space; Café on the Bowery anyone?

Dusk, 1 hour earlier

Tompkins Square Park this evening via Bobby Williams...

At the Boycott 7-Eleven Rally today

Twenty-plus people came out today to hand out flyers in support of the Boycott 7-Eleven Rally ... the group handed out more than 200 flyers on Avenue A and East 11th Street ... find more photos at the No 7-Eleven blog here... You may also sign the petition here for amendments to zoning laws to prevent a chain store infiltration of the East Village.



Photos by Shawn Chittle

Week in Grieview

[This week's lost and found]

What's coming to the former Mary Help of Christians lot (Wednesday)

Out and About with 85-year-old Jerry (Wednesday)

Longtime counterman at Stromboli Pizza killed in cycling accident (Friday)

Did Mel Gibson save St. Brigid's? (Monday)

Westside Market opening on Third Avenue (Monday)

Scenes of fall in the East Village (Tuesday)

Enjoy this video of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black from Halloween (Friday)

Kids on costumes on Avenue B (Thursday)

Sushi Lounge closes (Friday)

The Beagle has closed on Avenue A (Thursday)

New building for East 13th Street (Monday)

Biscuit Empire opens (Wednesday, 64 comments) and runs out of stuff (Friday)

Lets go vaping on St. Mark's! (Thursday)

Wigstock lives for a day (Wednesday)

Schnitz planned for former Something Sweet space (Wednesday)

Good news for fans of the Odessa Cafe and Bar (Wednesday)

Village Joker now Augers Well on St. Mark's (Thursday)

East 5th Street Tree Committee as badass as ever (Monday)

Burglar falls 5 floors making a getaway (Sunday)

Batmobile! (Wednesday)

New 7-Eleven christened in the East Village

[Via @jimnobu]

Over at the new 7-Eleven that opened Friday on Avenue A and East 11th Street.

As EVG reader Cartknocker said, "Not sure what it means, but we can imagine."



...and via VH McKenzie...



Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] The 7-Eleven signage is up, and someone has already spit on the front window (42 comments)

And how was your Saturday morning?

An East Village couple awoke yesterday morning to reportedly find a drunken man peeing in their bathroom sink.

To the New York Post!

It turned out the man was staying in another apartment in the building at First Avenue and East 13th Street. He was too inebriated to find the right apartment when he got home.

The couple whose apartment the man invaded called 911. But after cops showed up, they thought better of pressing charges.

The Post referred to the sink pee-er as "the drunken hipster."

[Bathroom sink file photo; not involved in actual incident]

There is a boycott 7-Eleven rally today

Via the EVG inbox...

Now that 7-Eleven has opened their East Village location, the community will be out in full force protesting 7-Eleven’s presence!

BOYCOTT 7-ELEVEN RALLY
THIS SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1-2PM
CORNER OF 11TH STREET / AVENUE A
Why Boycott NYC 7-Elevens? The No 7-Eleven blog lays out the reasons here.

Image via the No 7-Eleven blog

[Updated] Billy Leroy's Banksy

Just about two weeks since Banksy dropped his Grim Reaper Bumper Car on the former Billy's Antiques on East Houston ... Billy Leroy reports the following discovery earlier today at The ANNEX flea market on West 25th Street...

"The guy I bought it from found it late Friday night on East 4th Street and 2nd Avenue on the sidewalk. He is a professional dumpster diver and every week he puts out all his finds at the flea market ... needless to say he sold it to me for a very low price...it's just such a coincidence that after all the bad mouthing I did on Banksy last week and here I am tooling around the flea market and, voilà, a Banksy appears ... Crazy."

Updated 11/3

Here's video testimony from the man who sold Billy the painting...

Sunrise and sunset today

Looking downtown from the East Village via Bobby Williams...

We can't top taking photos of East 10th Street

Take a Walken on the wild side

Just noting the recent arrival of "Christopher Walken Rex," the 16-foot creation in First Park... it's the work of some local teens. They have a blog, which you can find here. BoweryBoogie wrote about this back on Tuesday and has more details on how this all came to be.

The sculpture will be making the rounds in local parks around the city... so catch it here while you can...

[Sorry about that headline too. Been listening to a lot of Lou Reed this past week]

These adorable cats and kittens need homes

[Benny]

The folks at Social Tees Animal Rescue on East Fifth Street shared some news of new arrivals...

We rescued 10 kittens and cats from the euthanasia list (at Animal Care & Control) a few nights ago, and half of them arrived Thursday night! More are set to arrive. THESE KITTIES NEED HOMES!!! We are also pretty desperate for foster homes for cats and kittens. Fostering lasts a week or two, and for every animal we place in a foster home we can take another out of the kill shelter.

325 East 5th Street
5-7 pm weekdays; 12-4 pm weekends

And Social Tees is doing an adoption event today with cats/kittens at the Petco in Union Square from noon to 4 p.m.

Among the new arrivals...


[Harmony]


[Julie, Jazmine and Jackie]

8 a.m. or so, Avenue A, Nov. 2

An autumn afternoon

Photos in Tompkins Square Park today by Bobby Williams

My little Pony Time

Kind of Halloweeny... Pony Time with "Lori & Judy" from 2012.

Reader mailbag: What was that rooftop concert about last night on East 13th Street?

We've heard now from a few readers who want to know:

Any intel on what that concert was last night around 11:30? I'm on 13th between A and B and it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. Louder than anything I typically hear from Tompkins Square.

Another resident said that it was a band playing atop a building on East 13th Street.

"Heard blaring music start at like 1130ish and on for easily 20-30 mins. I heard several other people from other buildings yelling shit at them but the band played on...

Not that it was all bad.

"Good music but I was super surprised the cops didn't show up...or if they did it took em a while."

Anyone know what this was all about?

No biscuits from Empire Biscuit until Sunday

Empire Biscuit opened for business Wednesday. And business was apparently good.

A sign on the door yesterday noted that they'd be back at it today.



But! There's a new sign noting that they won't return until Sunday...


[Via Facebook]

Per the sign, they'll need these extra days "to hire and train additional staff and ramp up production." The 24-hour schedule will then go into effect Tuesday.

Eater has more on the opening here ...and as Eater said about this: "Apparently owners Yonadav Tsuna and Jonathan Price were just not prepared for the white hot frenzy that biscuits can incur."

Mid-afternoon Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black break

Kembra Pfahler and The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black perform "Alaska," live at The Bowery Electric, for Halloween 2013.

Video by Walter Wlodarczyk. Find photos from the night here. (Slightly NSFW)

Take a load out tomorrow

Via the EVG inbox...

Tomorrow (November 2, 2013) Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc) will host its seventh Load OUT! — a twice yearly "riot" of repurposing and recycling activities. FABnyc will gather gently used materials from arts organizations and other donors throughout the East Village/Lower East Side for this one-of-a-kind extravaganza, taking place at 11 East 3rd Street from 12-3PM.

Load OUT! is specially designed to showcase creative thinking about sustainability and the arts. Artists and art students are welcome to take home any of the costumes, props, and furniture they need for their artistic endeavors, free of charge.

Community members and non-artists can also attend Load OUT! for a small entrance fee of $5 and may take away materials free of charge. Everything remaining will be repurposed or recycled responsibly by GrowNYC, Wearable Collections, The Lower East Side Ecology Center, Film Biz Recycling, and the NYC Department of Sanitation.

Additionally, Load OUT! includes clothing, textile, and e-waste community collections — open and free for everyone 12-3PM. FABnyc will collect e-waste, and GrowNYC
will collect clothing and textiles. A list of accepted donations is available here.

Load OUT! will also feature "Latch/Attach," a growing hook-rug project that turns old t-shirts into yarn, producing a colorful, patchwork made from these up-cycled materials. This activity is designed to engage individuals of all ages in a shared conversation about consumption while creatively making art from recycled materials.

FREE admission for artists/art students
$5 admission for the general public
FREE drop off for e-waste & textile collection by GrowNYC & The Lower East Side Ecology Center
Location: 11 East 3rd Street, between Bowery & 2nd Avenue

Image via FABnyc

Banksy's Nazi-doctored landscape raises big bucks for Housing Works

As you may have seen, Banksy donated a thrift-store-style painting to the Housing Works store on East 23rd Street ... it was a painting that he apparently purchased earlier for $50. But he added the Nazi solider sitting on the bench ... and titled it "The banality of the banality of evil" (an homage to the writer/philosopher Hannah Arendt).

For their part, Housing Works, which has operated scatter-site housing, harm reduction services and a supportive residence and primary care clinic for homeless NYers with HIV/AIDS since 1991, put the work up for auction.

The auction ended last night. The winning bid? $615,000.

"100 percent of the proceeds will go to provide housing, health care and other life saving services to homeless NYers living with HIV/AIDS," East Village resident Andrew Coamey, senior vice president for Housing Development and Chief Financial Officer at Housing Works, told me.

Meanwhile, Banksy Month in NYC is over. The Vulture ranks all his work during his street residency.

Noted

Mrs Claus says: pull out the ole' sled & lets do it all over again on Dec 14! http://t.co/TWEBlkROLL http://t.co/9RSNY5AcVZ Happy Halloween

— santacon (@santacon) October 31, 2013

In case you missed the announcement this week... your favorite day of the year is now scheduled!

On Oct. 1, DNAinfo reported that a group of concerned Hell's Kitchen residents reached out to the event's anonymous organizers asking them to avoid their neighborhood ... and the SantaConners responded: "As far as us coming to Hell's Kitchen this year, you don't have anything to worry about."

Meanwhile, on Oct. 17, State Sen. Brad Hoylman sent the following letter to SantaCon organizers:

I am writing to express my concerns regarding SantaCon and the effects it has on the communities it visits. Each year local elected officials, community boards and local precincts are besieged by complaints as SantaCon passes through their neighborhoods.

While SantaCon may be a short-term boon to a select group of local businesses, the many adverse impacts it wreaks, such as vomiting in the streets, public urination, vandalism and littering, disrupt community members’ quality of life. I recognize that at any large event, a few bad actors may disrupt an otherwise orderly affair, but at previous SantaCons bad actors have hardly been the exception. As such, significantly more must be done to combat the neighborhood scourge SantaCon has become.

Further, no matter the behavior of the participants, the event has grown large enough to completely overwhelm sidewalks and public spaces, creating a public safety hazard for all.

I strongly urge you to work with the New York City Police Department in order to come up with a strong and effective plan to combat public intoxication and to ensure all participants are respectful of the neighborhoods they visit, as well as handling the overwhelming crowds associated with an event this size. In addition, I urge you make this plan available to the affected local Community Boards well in advance of your event so that they have time to comment and help shape it.

Sincerely, Brad Hoylman

CC: Community Boards 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 Precincts 1, 6, 9, 10, 13, 17, 20, Midtown South, and Midtown North

Word out of Community Board 3 is that no one from this neighborhood called 311 to complain about SantaCon. Hard to believe.

Previously on EV Grieve:
How was your SantaCon?

A few scenes from SantaCon 2012: Scourge of the city or good time had by all?

Sushi Lounge has closed

Workers cleared out the Sushi Lounge space on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place yesterday afternoon... a manager told EVG regular @salim that the space was "too expensive."

No word on what might be next for this prime piece of East Village real estate. (Bring back Alcatraz?)

Collection continues for Stromboli Pizza worker killed in a cycling accident

[Photo by EVG reader Aizaz]

As we reported on Wednesday, Cesar, a long time employee of Stromboli Pizza on First Avenue and St. Mark's Place, died from injuries he suffered bicycling home from work on Oct. 21.

A resident who has lived near Stromboli since 1985 has set up a crowdfunding campaign, which we added to the post later. So in case you missed that:

Cesar was always a smiling, sunny face behind the counter at Stromboli's Pizza, where he worked for 17 years. While biking home to Brooklyn after a shift on Oct. 21, he was struck by a delivery truck and sustained multiple injuries. He lapsed into a coma at Bellevue hospital and succumbed to his injuries on Oct. 30. This fund is to help with hospital expenses and funeral costs. Cesar was 34 years old and leaves behind a wife and three small children. Stromboli's owner, Joezef, will accompany the body back to Mexico for burial.

Find the GiveForward link here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Updated: Stromboli Pizza worker killed cycling home from work

Tonight at MoRUS: Conversations on creating change with East Village resident Maggie Wrigley

Via the EVG inbox... another cool program at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space...

MUSEUM OF RECLAIMED URBAN SPACE to celebrate release of: THE ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGE: BUILDING A BETTER WORLD

"The Architecture of Change: Building a Better World" is a collection of essays and photos demonstrating how people from all walks of life and every socioeconomic level can create real change in their communities and beyond. These are people who refused to accept that things couldn’t change, who saw the possibility of making something better, and didn’t hesitate to act.

Bullet Space, a housing and art collective founded in the East Village in 1986, has blossomed into a “battlefield of ideas” for the global arts and activist communities. The building, its history and residents are among real-world examples found in the newly released book, which addresses issues of innovative housing, neighborhood reclamation, community empowerment, racism, aging, gentrification, displacement, and the power of social networks.

Maggie Wrigley, an East Village resident who contributed the essay and photos on Bullet Space, also serves as co-editor along with Jerilou Hammett, editor and co-founder, with Kingsley Hammett, of DESIGNER/builder: A Journal of The Human Environment, an independent and nontraditional journal that brought issues of social justice and equity to the debate over the built and human environment.

Wrigley, a familiar face on the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space’s (MoRUS) weekend walking tours, will celebrate the release of the book at MoRUS with a slide show and reading tonight at 7.

Refreshments will be served and admission is free, but a $5 suggested donation is always appreciated. MoRUS is located at 155 Avenue C between 9th and 10th Streets

.

There is apparently only 1 amenity worth mentioning for this E. 7th St. studio

Here's a fine looking studio now for rent ($1,750) at 17 E. Seventh St. Close to Cooper Union. The Astor Place subway entrance. McSorley's. And there are likely things about the studio to tout. Freshly buffed floors? But per the listing... there's only one thing apparently worth noting...

Immaculate studio in the heart of Greenwich Village. 2 Blocks from Astor Place and subway. CitiBike station right across the street. Available for Dec. 1st but an earlier move in can be accommodated. $50 application fee. 15% broker fee.

But "in the heart of Greenwich Village"? Haha! Fools! Everyone knows that this is Midtown South!

A skateboard shop for East 4th Street?

The rumor on East Fourth Street between Avenue C and Avenue D is that the long-defunct Brazilian tea shop will soon house a skateboard shop ... run by the tea shop owner's son.

H/T Steven Matthews