Week in Grieview

[Houston and Avenue C by Michael Sean Edwards]

RIP Mike Bakaty (Friday)

NYU student jumps to his death from Third North Dorm (Monday)

Ben Shaoul's Bloom 62 may fetch upwards of $70 million (Thursday)

Happy 81st birthday Ray! (Tuesday)

So long 7A (Monday)

beQu opens on East Ninth Street (Monday)

New menu for Sidewalk (Monday)

Out and About with Alex Harsley (Wednesday)

What's next for 7A and Odessa Cafe and Bar (Thursday)

Lock your apartment door, mmmkay? (Tuesday, 39 comments)

A look at 170 E. Second St. before the renovations (Tuesday)

What's next for the Peels space (Tuesday)

Brooklyn Piggies now open on A (Friday)

A rough month for East Village restaurants (Friday)

How 7-Eleven wants to be a good neighbor (Tuesday)

100 years before 7A (Monday)

Filming "Ten Thousand Saints" in the East Village (Wednesday)

Renovations for this unique East Fourth Street tenement (Friday)

Watson's first tag

Well, not much of a tag, to be honest… here at the IBM Watson building (aka 51 Astor Place). And what, exactly, is this temporary sign thingy out front? Looks like some shop class project… while a $50-million Jeff Koons rabbit sculpture sits inside the lobby.

Anyway!

… next frame, a bit of an upskirt moment…



Photos by Derek Berg

Car alarm causing some residents to lose their shit, and leave Urban Etiquette Signs

A reader who lives in the 500 block of East 13th Street (between A and B) shares this …

"The car in the enclosed pictures is now infamous for keeping many of my neighbors, wide awake, sleepless and angry for the past three nights. What’s hilarious and makes the car a symbol of the gentrified EV, are the protest fliers plastered all over it’s front and side window."





…the photo is slightly cut off… but the note is signed "your very MEAN angry neighbor." But there is a ♥

There is a Boycott 7-Eleven rally tomorrow

[Photo from the No 7-Eleven blog]

Via the EVG inbox…

Please join us for our weekly ‘Boycott 7-Eleven’ rally tomorrow, February 2nd, from 1-2PM at the corner of Avenue A and 11th Street.

In other 7-Eleven related news, the No 7-Eleven Blog had an update this past week about the fines that 7-Eleven and Westminster Management have incurred at 500 E. 11th St. regarding the store's illegally placed AC and refrigeration units — more than $17,000 to date. Workers installed the units back in September.

Granted $17,000 isn't anything for Westminster Management, a division of Kushner Companies, or 7-Eleven. (That's dinner at Masa for the gang!) But not doing anything about the situation seems to be going against 7-Eleven's "aim to win over the tough crowd."

Previously on EV Grieve:
3 new AC units at incoming 7-Eleven prompts Partial Stop Work Order

A Stop Work order at Avenue A's incoming 7-Eleven

Report: Another Stop Work Order for incoming 7-Eleven on Avenue A

A WHOOSHING AC unit update: 'We are roundly being ignored by 7-Eleven and Westminster NYC'

Mid-morning reflections on Avenue A

Photo by Grant Shaffer

With Valentine's Day approaching, secret admirer makes feelings known for Zoltar

Ah! Love is in the air! At least here outside Gem Spa… where a secret admirer has been showing his or her affection on the glass…



If we must…



Is it the flute oh-so casually tucked in the vest…? Or that voice?

Sigh. Guess we won't bother giving him these now…

Hawk shenanigans in Tompkins Square Park today

Per Goggla today, a hawk was pulling these kinds of fly-by stunts… "Hey, did you just feel a breeze?"



Meanwhile, the Hawkman always rings twice…



Check out many more of Goggla's photos here.

Some great 'Reward'

The Teardrop Explodes with "Reward" circa 1981.

Brooklyn Piggies now open on Avenue A

Smorgasburg vendors Brooklyn Piggies, which only peddles hand-rolled pigs in a blanket, opened its first permanent (brick-and-mortar?) storefront yesterday ... at 195 Avenue A near East 12th Street. (Someone at Oprah likes them.)

Their hours:

Tue - Wed: 11 am to 11 pm
Thu - Sat: 11 am to 4 am (They have a late-night to-go window)
Sun: 11 am to 9 pm

Per the Times:

The company makes about 10,000 pigs a week to sell online and frozen, and for Madison Square Garden’s skyboxes. They are available in original, spicy or chicken. Coming soon: a vegetarian style and potato puffs: about $20 for a box of 14.

Biscuits on one side of Avenue A ... and pigs in a blanket on the other. Who will win this single-food late-night throwdown?

RIP Mike Bakaty

[Photo by James Maher]

Mike Bakaty, owner of the city's longest-running tattoo parlor, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer. He was 77.

Bakaty opened Fineline Tattoos on First Avenue near East Second Street in 1997 after the city lifted the 30-plus year ban on tattooing. He started his business during the tattoo prohibition from his Bowery loft in 1976.

We featured Bakaty in Out and About in the East Village last Feb. 13.

I grew up in Miami. I moved to Houston and Bowery in 1970 to try it out for a year or two. I was 34 when I got here and I’m 39 now. I was the same handsome, charming young man that I am now.

Fame and fortune brought me here, like everybody else. Why the hell else? If I wanted fun in the sun, I’d have stayed in Miami.

Dave on 7th first told us the news.

"Mike was a total original. He was no doubt one of only a handful of people who were able to break into and keep alive the art of tattooing in New York — if not the country — during its long prohibition. He was a fine artist as well as a tattoo artist.

"He will be sorely missed by everyone who has had the privilege and pleasure to know him."

Here's a video interview with Bakaty (and his son Mehai) from January 2009...

2 new floors, gut renovation in store for empty tenement that last housed a Hanksy art show

324 E. Fourth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D is one of the last unique-looking buildings left in the area... not for long, though. There are plans on file with the city to gut-renovate the empty tenement and add two floors. Under this proposal, the number of apartments would increase from four to 11.

We're unsure how long the building has been vacant. At least one person had keys. The street artist Hanksy hosted a kinda secret show here called "Surplus Candy" on Jan. 10...









Hanksy also hosted another event here here in December. Hanksy probably has time to do a few more here before the permits are OK'd and the renovations begin.

The renovated building may match up nicely with the neutered 326-328 E. Fourth St. ... the former artists' collective and burial society called the Uranian Phalanstery and First New York Gnostic Lyceum Temple that Icon Realty turned into expensive dorms.

9 photos showing the East Village of the 1970s

Earlier this month, our blogging friend Alex at Flaming Pablum alerted us to the Museum of the City of New York's website ... where they just unveiled more than 1,000 digitized photos by Edmund V. Gillon, who chronicled NYC in the 1970s and 1980s.

Some two weeks later, we finally looked at every single photo. We pulled a few from this neighborhood with their accompanying captions for you... (But you should really go here and see them all for yourself.)


[East 8th Street and Avenue B, 1975]


[Christodora House, 1978]


[Second Avenue looking at East 12th Street, 1975]


[Cylindrical fire escape on the façade of 62 East 4th Street, 1977]


[Phebe's on the Bowery 1975]


[107-113 East 14th Street, 1976]


[Fresh Jersey Eggs, Open Thursday Only at 72 East 7th Street, 1978]


[Varieties Theatre, 110-112 Third Avenue, 1979. Demolished in 2005.]


[Broadway and 14th 1977]

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A word about the new collection from the Museum's website:

These photographs by Edmund V. Gillon (1929-2008) are a recent addition to the Museum's Photography collection. Gillon is best known for more than a dozen books on New York City for the Dover Publishing Company. The bulk of the collection is architectural in nature, portraying the city’s historic districts, landmarks, architectural ornamentation, and civic sculpture. His photographs bring to life not only the countless readily apparent changes that have taken place in the city’s urban landscape over the past several decades, but also the many subtle changes that transformed neighborhoods such as SoHo, Tribeca, and Dumbo as they transitioned, building by building, from gritty wastelands into the vibrant urban oases they have become.

Things we were unaware of: Village Farm Grocery now delivers kegs

The other morning we walked by Village Farm Grocery on Second Avenue and East Ninth Street ... and noticed a lot of kegs out front... Forgot to follow-up on that one (after all, it was like -2 degrees out).

Anyway! We saw on Facebook yesterday that the market is now delivering kegs... right to your apartment, dorm room, etc. Here's a list of what they have on tap, so to speak.

Perhaps some other corner markets have the same service? Dunno! Why would anyone want so much beer delivered to his or her home? [Don't really answer that.]

[Updated] A rough month for East Village restaurants

January is winding to a close... and the list of restaurants that closed this month is fairly lengthy ...

• Sapporo East
• Shima
• Wacky Wok
• Coyi Cafe
• 7A
• Viva Herbal Pizzeria
• Maria's Cafe
• Picnic
• Arcane

...and high-end ventures on the Bowery weren't immune from closures either... Peels is done... (Pulino's closed Dec. 29 ... Keith McNally is turning it into a French restaurant called Cherche Midi.)

Also, certainly worth noting nearby ... we had the sudden closures of Milady's on Prince Street and Gray's Papaya on Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue ...

Any closures in the neighborhood from this month that I'm missing? Which of these hurts the most for you?