[Updated] Tompkins Square Park loses its great gnarly squirrel tree, here before the Civil War

[Photo via @NCintheNYC]

On Oct. 12, the great old gnarled Black Locust on the East Seventh Street side of Tompkins Square Park caught fire (rather suspiciously, too) ...

There was hope that the remaining part of the tree could stick, so to speak, around.

GammaBlog points out that this was one of the few trees left in the Park that pre-dates the Civil War:

I knew it would at least have to be trimmed to avoid branches falling on people, but hoped they would leave the main body of the tree as a habitat for the squirrels and as a historical relic.

Nope.

This morning, crews arrived, as GammaBlog reports.



All that's left is a fucking stump.


[Bobby Williams]

For further reading:
RIP Gnarly Squirrel Tree (GammaBlog)

A memorial for Lou Reed at Tompkins Square Park

A memorial for the late Lou Reed arrived this morning last night outside Tompkins Square Park at St. Mark's Place, as these photos by ace East Village photographer Michael Paul show...



Meanwhile, Laurie Anderson reflects on her 21 years with Reed in an essay published at Rolling Stone:

I have never seen an expression as full of wonder as Lou's as he died. His hands were doing the water-flowing 21-form of tai chi. His eyes were wide open. I was holding in my arms the person I loved the most in the world, and talking to him as he died. His heart stopped. He wasn't afraid. I had gotten to walk with him to the end of the world. Life – so beautiful, painful and dazzling – does not get better than that. And death? I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.

Today in free ads for Microsoft

Just a quick note from Midtown South, where this checkmark arrived early this morning at Astor Place...





The checkmark, plugging a new Office product, points (heh) out that "This is the intersection where oddball and original meet." Perhaps it should say met instead of meet?

Honors for one of the most unique shops in the East Village

The East Village Community Coalition recently honored The Source Unltd Copy Shop with its annual Outstanding Pigeon award for their continued service and commitment to the neighborhood.

Since 1982, the shop at 331 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue has been a go-to spot for copies, office supplies, cards and postcards created by local artists... and some good old-fashioned community spirit.

EVG correspondent Stacie Joy stopped by the cozy storefront to photograph proprietors Santo and Margaret Mollica.



"The East Village is still one of the few places where you can just be, and come across all kinds of people from all over the world," Santo said.

How do they feel about being honored for their 30-plus years in the neighborhood?

"When I was a kid, my old man sat me down and he said, 'Son (cause he used to forget my name sometimes), there are three things that can help you have a good life: One is to have faith in yourself as well as The Lord; two is to hope for the best but be prepared for the worst; and three is to be charitable toward others and they, in turn, would be charitable toward you," Santo said.

"And me and Marg have always tried to live and work by that code," he said. "So it's nice to have it recognized as working."


[Santo and Margaret with Curtis, who is named for Curtis Mayfield]

Don't mind the fake dead horse on the set of Steven Soderbergh's 'The Knick'

[Photo via The Lo-Down]

As you may have heard/read/seen/smelled yesterday, parts of Orchard Street and the Lower East Side were transformed into the early 1900s for "The Knick," a Steven Soderbergh-directed miniseries starring Clive Owen.

Perhaps our favorite photo from the shoot came via Reddit ...



You can find more photos at BoweryBoogie ... The Lo-Down ... Gothamist... and DNAinfo.

Filming continues today.

520 E. 11th St. is for sale

There's a new listing for the building between Avenue A and Avenue B. Not many details on that listing via Habitatman NYC:

Six Story Walk Up Apartment Building with 27 Residential units & 3 Stores. Plus Laundry Facilities in the basement.

No mention of "air rights" ... and there isn't any copy like "will make for a lovely single-family mansion once you toss out the pesky residents."

Asking price: $18 million.

[Image via Trulia]

SFW: This East Village apartment is 'sexy,' though we don't know why

Here's is a Craigslist ad for a pretty-average looking one-bedroom apartment. The headline describes the place as "sexy." Perhaps it is, though you wouldn't know it from the description:

New renovation

Perfect location near Whole Foods Trader [sic] and all transportation

Sun drenched with windows a [sic] plenty and Skylight

Queen sized Bedroom

Ample closets with Overhead stotage [sic]

Exposed Brick

And the unit is an unsexy $2,150. Any ideas why this is sexy? Or what, in general, makes an apartment sexy, aside from maybe the residents?

H/T @SerenaSpeaks

Tonight's sunset

Along Avenue B...

[Updated] Today's Empire Biscuit update

The new biscuitery at 198 Avenue A was back open this morning. Via Eater:

Co-owner Yonadav Tsuna says that they've bulked up their production, brought on a professional baker to streamline the biscuit-making, and smoothed out the service to get those biscuit sandwiches out as fast as possible.

Meanwhile, the Empire Biscuit Help Wanted ad remains on Craiglist, if you are qualified:

Empire Biscuit is hiring experienced line and prep cooks
We're looking for experienced line cooks and prep cooks. All shifts are available. You'll work with familiar and exotic, high quality, seasonal ingredients. You'll have the opportunity to smoke, pickle, and cure. You'll make sweet and savory jams and jellies. We're looking for precision, speed and cleanliness. Please see our menu at empirebiscuit.com. If you don't dig it, don't apply. We're a new restaurant. If you kick ass, you'll grow with us. Please send your resume. We hope to hear from you.

And no word just yet when they will remain open 24 hours a day.

Updated:
Gothamist has a feature on the shop today titled "Inside Empire Biscuit, Finally Ready To Meet East Villagers' Drunken Demand."

Per co-owner Yonadav Tsuna:

"We had some people here Saturday night crying outside," he said, when asked about the necessary closure late last week. Tsuna and his business partner Karl Wilder were inundated with so much early business that they were forced to lock up and hire additional staff in order to keep up with demand. "We're doing five times to ten times more than we thought we would," Tsuna said with a nervous grin.

On Broadway, Blatt Billiards building will be much taller with a glassy face

Catching up to an update about Blatt Billiards, a pool table manufacturer, who will be leaving its longtime home at 809 Broadway near East 12th Street.

The 126-year-old loft building sold for $24 million in May. And the new owners have big plans here, as The Real Deal reported, by nearly quadrupling the building's height with the addition of three apartments.

IDM Capital filed plans to boost the height of the 55-foot building at 809 Broadway to 199 feet, adding 10 stories to the five-story structure.

And!

The new building is expected to have about 22,000 square feet of commercial space, 10,400 square feet of residential space and a 167-square-foot wedge set aside for community facilities, the DOB filings showed.

It all goes as planned, the building will look like this:

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: Melissa Hotchkiss (and Jess)
Occupation: Poet and Marketing and Business Development
Location: 5th Street Between 1st and 2nd
Time: 5:45 on Saturday, Nov. 2

I’ve lived in the neighborhood for 24 years this coming January. I’m from Vermont. I’m not sure why I came here. I majored in art history and I wanted to get into gallery work. I had been working in a photography gallery in New Mexico and they had New York contacts, but I didn’t have a job when I came over here. I sort of landed here and then figured it out. I’ve worked for three art and photography dealers and I could not have ever gotten into writing poetry if I did not work with photography for a number of years in my 20s. It taught me a whole new way of seeing.

It was hard at first just landing here. I remember it like it was two minutes ago. I remember getting here, I had these black suede short boots and I was on the corner of 4th Street and 1st Avenue and I’m walking and I just loved it and then I stepped on a mouse that was mangled and dead. For some reason I remembered being so exhilarated by that. I mean, I didn’t kill it. It’s the daily benign craziness that I love.

I’m a poet. I’ve been writing poetry for 21 years. Technically I’m a poet with a stressful day job. My day job is business development at a large accounting firm, but in my off-time I do the editing work and my own poetry. I got a master's in creative writing. I love the East Village and I feel like capturing it. I take a lot of photographs as well, although I love to take one good picture a year. I’ve even done stand-up comedy. I’ve lived like this semi-bohemian life but not in the full way that I used to.

I have one book out called "Storm Damage" and I’m one of the editors for Barrow Street, which is a poetry journal started in 1998. We also create books. It’s almost been 15 years. Barrow Street is named after the street in the West Village where the Greenwhich House Music School is. Prior to that I ran a reading. I have a hard time describing my writing. Right now I’m doing short poems and I’m continually working on my second book. My poems are very spare and I have a lot of East Village poems.

I’m also in a poetry group workshop where we go and share our work, called the Urban Range. One of the elements within our group is the idea of urban poems. The whole sense of urban in the poem or the poets’ psyche. It’s not as if it’s some revolutionary idea, since many people live in urban areas, but that’s part of the group I’m in.

The stories I have are mostly about my apartment building, due to bad neighbors. I live above Downtown Bakery. I’ve been eating there for 24 years — mostly breakfast. I feel like I’m the old lady in the building but I’m not. I outlast almost everybody except for a few others that have been there a long time. It’s one of those buildings where 90 percent is turnover. There was the guy who didn’t understand why at 3 am, blasting his stereo wasn’t a problem. One time I asked him to turn it down and he said, ‘But I just got a new stereo.’

Lately, there was the couple who would fight a lot. At first I could only hear the women and never the guy but then I started to hear the guy. At least he was standing up for himself. I couldn’t escape it — white noise, earplugs. So one night at 2 or 3 am I wrote a note, “I’m sorry you fight so much but the next time that happens I’m calling the police.” I never heard them fight again.

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

Apartments in order for this haunted beauty on East 10th Street

104 E. 10th St. between Third Avenue and Second Avenue is one of the more intriguing buildings around. Possibly once haunted, the rather dilapidated building was part of reclusive real-estate baron William Gottlieb's portfolio. (Jeremiah Moss has a nice history of the space, where playwright, poet and performance artist Edgar Oliver most recently lived, here.)

It hit the market in March 2011 for $5.6 million... the listing disappeared then reemerged for $3.9 million. Per the original listing:

Built in 1879, this magnificent, sun-drenched residence is a restoration enthusiast's dream project.

The building offers an unparalleled opportunity to design the home you've always wanted. Its current features include four floors, eight fireplaces, skylight, original moldings, a quaint south-facing garden, an English basement with a separate street entrance, plus a basement below. With additional air rights, this building is primed for vertical expansion, offering opportunities for a roof deck, duplex unit, and more.

Anyway, somewhere along the line, the dream home idea apparently died. There is now a sign noting "apartments" out front. (There isn't a listing yet for the address on the Town website.)



For the outside, it appears the building still needs a good deal of work, though we wouldn't mind seeing it stay like this. (Well, maybe a coat of paint.)

Public records show that the building sold in February to an LLC for $3.5 million.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The charmingly shabby interiors of 104 E. 10th St

The new Westside Market on Third Avenue will have Wi-Fi

Last Monday, we posted the news that Westside Market NYC would open in the base of that monstrosity luxury rental building at 84 Third Avenue and East 12th Street.

Westside CEO George Zoitas, whose father John opened the first store in 1965, shared more details on the new space with The Commercial Observer.

Customers who visit the store will be able to connect to Wi-Fi from electronic devices including smartphones and tablets. In addition to installing Wi-Fi, the company is using technology to create faster checkout counters and an advanced security system.

Trader Joe's, take note.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Westside Market coming to the East Village, 15 comments

One way to kill a tree

[Via EVG reader Ann]

Several readers have noted this WTF situation on Avenue C near East Ninth Street in front of the Sunburnt Cow. In recents days someone basically smothered this tree well with about 500 pounds of cement...



... and people have taken notice, though it may be too late to save this 1-year-old tree...

The EVG Election Night Central Headquarters

[Photo yesterday at an East Village polling station by Grant Shaffer]

Hey, Bill De Blasio won. He takes office on Jan. 1 as the 109th NYC mayor.

Also elected: Letitia James for public advocate and Scott Stringer as comptroller. Rosie Mendez too.

Thank you all for your support! Excited to serve District 2 for four more years!

— Rosie Mendez (@RosieMendez) November 6, 2013

And, likely unrelated to Election Night, the Knicks lost.

Anyway, I just really wanted to post the above photo from Grant.

Jeremiah Moss has more on De Blasio's landslide victory and "20 years of living under the thumbs of the cops and the billionaires" at Vanishing New York.

Noted

From The New York Times today on the Citi Bikes bike-rental program:

As of Monday, though, after more than five months and five million trips, none of the program’s riders have been killed on the bikes. About two dozen injuries, most of them minor, have been reported.

Last year, according to the city’s Transportation Department, 18 cyclists were killed in car crashes from January through October, compared with 10 so far this year, though citywide, cyclist injuries have remained consistent. There was one cyclist death this year in the neighborhoods served by the bike-share program, in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, though the cyclist was not riding a Citi Bike. Over the same period last year, there were two bike deaths in these areas.

And while sidewalk cyclists, red-light-running cyclists and “salmoning” cyclists — those who ride against traffic — remain a daily scourge for many New York pedestrians, no one has been killed by a cyclist in the city since 2009.

Meanwhile at the polls...

From the EVG inbox...

Miss Kita the Wonder Dog of East 10th Street just after exercising her Dog given right to vote today. In addition to looking forward to a De Blasio administration, she’s hopeful a new Police Commissioner will back off just a bit on the leash laws at off hours at the East River Park. She’s getting a bit tired of the fines.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Meet Kita

The further adventures of Kita the Wonder Dog of East 10th Street

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

Kita the Wonder Dog of East 10th Street supports Bill De Blasio for Mayor

Construction watch: 401 E. Eighth St., now with rendering

Some progress to report since we last checked in at 397-401 E. Eighth St., a stalled development for nearly nine years. Approved plans are in place for a nine-story residential building with a penthouse.

There has been activity at this lot at Avenue D.



And the plywood sports a rendering of the new building. Brace! And behold...



Akeeb Shekoni of Queens-based Akson Architect is listed as the architect... and the building's owners are the vague 399 E8 Development LLC.

Also, in closing, they are asking nicely now, so... no graffiti!



Previously on EV Grieve:
Meanwhile, before we christen Avenue D the next Greenpoint...

Stalled development site on Eighth Street and Avenue D asking $5.2 million

Long-stalled East 8th Street lot coming back as 9-story residential building — with penthouse

Banjara moving soon to the Haveli space on Second Avenue

Word is that Banjara, the reliable Indian restaurant on First Avenue at East Sixth Street, will be moving this week... into the Haveli space on Second Avenue near East Sixth Street...



Haveli has been closed for the past month.



EVG reader @SeanCarlson dined at Banjara the other night ... and picked up a new business card...



One member of the staff explained, "business down, rent up."

An Italian restaurant called Figaro Bistro Grill was looking to take over the Banjara space, as we noted last month. The Figaro principals were on last month's CB3/SLA committee docket, but withdrew their application.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Banjara space yielding to Figaro Bistro Grill, 15 comments

A few more details on Momofuku Ko (aka, TBD) coming to Extra Place

Extra Place seems extra quiet these days... though likely not for too much longer. As The New York Times first reported, Momofuku Ko is planning to move its "counter-only tasting-menu restaurant" from First Avenue to Extra Place.

Of course, there's a big vacancy here since sister restaurants Extra Place and Heidi closed earlier in the fall at 6-8 Extra Place, the alleyway that runs behind the former CBGB space on the Bowery off of First Street.

Paperwork filed ahead of this month's CB3/SLA committee meeting for 4-8 Extra Place seems to have an air of Kremlin-like secrecy.



There's no mention of Momofuku or chef-founder David Chang on the documents on file at the CB3 website. Just TBD.

As for other details. There will be four tables seating four people each as well as a counter for 25 diners. The proposed hours are from noon to midnight Sunday through Wednesday; until 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. There will be 20 employees... and, uh, a sound system featuring an iPod with two small speakers, per the documents.

The Times reported that Momofuku Ko will possibly move by the end of the year.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Extra Place now officially a Dead End

Extra Place and Heidi currently 'closed for renovation' in Extra Place

Now will Extra Place become Extra special?

The wood for David Schwimmer's roof deck has arrived

[Photo yesterday by Michael Hirsch]

The wood arrived yesterday to presumably join the garden that was airlifted in back in the spring here on East Sixth Street...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Is David Schwimmer the 'Friends' star who now owns the demolished 331 E. Sixth St. townhouse?

Here is David Schwimmer's East Village home

Report: Golden Cadillac will pay homage to the Lenox Lounge and Odessa Cafe

The New York Times has more on Golden Cadillac, the new bar-restuarant opening Thursday at 5 p.m. on First Avenue and East First Street.

The space is going for a 1970s vibe.

“Images of discos come to mind,” said Giuseppe Gonzalez, a bartender whose past posts include the cocktail bars Clover Club, Dutch Kills and Painkiller. “We’re going to try to make people think differently about the ‘70s.”

Mr. Gonzalez’s vision of that decade is all about the New York he grew up with. “The birth of punk music, birth of hip-hop,” he said. “Keith Haring moved here in 1978. Martin Scorsese made four films set in New York in the ‘70s. That’s what I wanted.”

And!

The interior, designed by Jeannette Kaczorowski of Crow Hill Design Studio, along with Fieldlines Architecture, pays homage to two recently vanished New York landmarks: the Lenox Lounge in Harlem and the Odessa Cafe in the East Village. “Jeanette said there were lots of layers in those bars,” Mr. Boehm said. “You started with Art Deco, and then it was built upon. Lots of oranges, burgundies and browns.” Another inspiration was the fictional Volpe Bar in Mr. Scorsese’s film “Mean Streets.”

The space was previously home to Boca Chica since 1989.

As for the Odessa Cafe and Bar ... as we noted last week, the Odessa will serve drinks in a cozy ambiance similar to the former Cafe and Bar in the back of the restaurant Wednesday through Saturday nights starting at 8.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Here's Golden Cadillac, the '70s-nostalgic bar' opening at the former Boca Chica space

[Updated] Claim: Employees restyle 'No 7-Eleven' sign for new Avenue A storefront

We've heard from several readers who claim that an employee of the new, much-maligned 7-Eleven on Avenue A and East 11th Street was spotted removing a "Stop 7-Eleven" flyer from a storefront across the street... (the flyers are up in several businesses along Avenue A and East 11th Street and elsewhere.... courtesy of the No 7-Eleven blog.)

As you can see, someone then repurposed the flyer, which is now in the new 7-Eleven's front window...


[Image via @matteominasi]

And another photo courtesy of Anton van Dalen...



Updated 1 a.m.

Shawn Chittle notes that someone has ripped down the sign...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

[At Union Square Stadium 14 via Michael Sean Edwards]

Laurie Anderson's lovely tribute to Lou Reed (New York)

Owners of the Bowery's Whitehouse Hotel suing longtime tenant who always sues them (New York Post)

Family puts up rent-stablizied apartment in the East Village to make bail for gypsy (Daily News)

Remembering See/Hear on East Seventh Street (Flaming Pablum)

The extreme first release from Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label (Dangerous Minds)

Orchard Hell Building grows (BoweryBoogie)

"[A] vote for Bill de Blasio is a vote against Bloomberg's vision of the city" (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Night in Tompkins Square Park (Gog in NYC)

Luscious Jackson back after 14-year hiatus (Gothamist)

Construction watch: 100 Avenue A

[Bobby Williams]

Prep work for the demolition of 100 Avenue A is getting serious... the scaffolding has arrived... and workers put up the plywood along Avenue A...

The city OK'd a demolition permit in June for 98-100 Avenue A, which housed East Village Farms until Feb. 7, 2012.

Developer Ben Shaoul purchased the former theater turned market in May for $15.5 million, according to public records.

We don't know specifically what will be here... Shaoul's reps filed the plans in the hub self-service... and they will not be made public until the city approves them.

But a rendering on the plywood shows a building looking like this:



...six floors of residences above the retail component here between East Sixth Street and East Seventh Street.



A retail listing that we posted in May stated that the building will contain 40 residential units.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A little bit of Hollywood on Avenue A

East Village Farms is closing; renovations coming to 100 Avenue A

Inside the abandoned theater at East Village Farms on Avenue A

Reader reports: Village Farms closing Jan. 31; building will be demolished

Asbestos abatement continues at 98 Avenue A, Ben Shaoul's latest East Village trophy