Tuesday, August 26, 2014

More about Empellón al Pastor, opening this fall on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place



Work continues at the former Sushi Lounge space, where Alex (Empellón Cocina, Empellón Taqueria) Stupak is opening a restaurant this fall here on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place.

New York magazine has a preview of the new place:

Empellón al Pastor [is] Stupak’s most casual place to date (he calls it a bar and tortilleria), hard by the western entrance of Tompkins Square Park and situated in the corner space that once housed the punk-rock dive Alcatraz. It’s a lot of firsts for Stupak: open kitchen, no reservations, paper plates, disposable cutlery, five micheladas (including one devised by Wylie Dufresne), and no desserts. The idea is to strip everything down to the bare minimum, both to keep costs low and to remove all potential obstacles between taco and customer.



Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Chef Alex Stupak vying for former Sushi Lounge space on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place

As the for rent signs turn on Avenue A

Here are a few scant details about chef Alex Stupak's new venture on St. Mark's Place

CB3 OKs liquor license for Alex Stupak's new restaurant on St. Mark's Place

New sidewalk bridge for 309 E. 8th St. as tenants face landlord Steve Croman in court


[309 E. Eighth St. file photo]

As The Real Deal reported, five tenants of 309 E. Eighth St have filed suit seeking a halt to construction at the building owned by Steve Croman of 9300 Realty.

This is on top of the lawsuit some residents filed against Croman here claiming that he has has engaged in a "campaign of harassment, abuse and neglect" since taking over the property between Avenue B and Avenue C in December 2012.

According to The Real Deal, Croman will face the tenants today in New York City Housing Court.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, we noticed a truck parked in a rather dangerous fashion on Avenue B at East Eighth Street. Workers were unloaded pieces for a scaffolding.



Turns out that it was for a new sidewalk bridge outside 309 E. Eighth St.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: Steve Croman facing another lawsuit from East 8th Street residents

Report: East 8th Street residents sue landlord Steve Croman, allege intimidation, harassment

Watch a lot of people speak out against Steve Croman and 9300 Realty

Report: State Attorney General launches Steve Croman investigation

Noted



An EVG reader spotted the above flyer on East Sixth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C ...

For "no charge," the the videographer will "help you make a short video to relay your message." Examples listed include "You need to level with your parents about something. You need to tell your buddy his breath stinks. Maybe you've loved someone for a long time in secret?"

Also, helpfully — "This is not a joke."

Openings: Be Juice and Snowdays Shavery



Be Juice is up and running now adjacent to the new Basics Plus at 91 Third Ave. between East 12th Street and East 13th Street. (Previously)



Snowdays Shavery, serving snow cream, opened Friday at 241 E. 10th St. at First Avenue. (Previously)

Phebe's closed 'for a little facelift' on the Bowery


Phebe's Tavern & Grill on the Bowery at East Fourth Street closed after business Sunday ... the signs posted to the front windows explain...


The Phebe's website points people to their sister bars up on Third Avenue — The Penny Farthing and Linen Hall.

As for the renovations, the place looks pretty gutted. We saw bar sinks where tables used to be.

Maybe it will look like this again when the work is done...

Monday, August 25, 2014

Untitled Queen on East 5th Street


Untitled Queen photographed by Derek Berg today on East Fifth Street at Second Avenue.

Checkers headed to 1st Avenue


[EVG photo from July]

Higher rents forced longtime tenant Gabay's Outlet to leave First Avenue for a new home at 195 Avenue A earlier this summer.

Work permits at the old storefront at 225 First Ave. between East 13th Street and East 14th Street reveal the new tenant — a Checkers.



In April 2013, Crain's reported that the fast-food chain was going to add another 22 restaurants in NYC by 2015.

A Checkers opened in Tribeca in 2009. There's also a location in Hamilton Heights.

Here's the official Checkers story via the company website:

Checkers & Rally's restaurants were born out of the idea that a bland and flavorless burger was downright bad and that Americans everywhere deserved a better tasting burger — one that was unexpectedly bold, made-to-order and priced at a value that was hard to beat. Founded by experienced foodies with a renegade spirit, both the Checkers & Rally's unique double drive-thru concept, with its over-the-top checkerboard squares, chrome styling, red neon signs and of course the food, was an instant hit. These two new burger experiences were hot, fresh and served with a smile. People were hooked, and the world of cookie cutter corporate burger establishments was about to change.

Arlene Spiegel, a restaurant consultant, said this to Crain's about Checkers:

"I see them filling the space between quick-service-restaurants like McDonald's and gourmet burger concepts," said Ms. Spiegel. But she cautioned that it may be difficult for a suburban drive-thru concept to adapt to an urban market.

Previously on EV Grieve:
After 45 years on 1st Avenue, Gabay's Outlet is on the move

On the end of Kim's



Editor's note: The last of the Kim's closes for good today at 124 First Ave.

By Kelly Sebastian

As any job-hunting 19-year-old in New York City might, I became a bike messenger. Yes, one of those. On a soggy summer day, fate threw me a delivery in the Empire State Building. It felt cool to have this job; that said, it also felt completely fucked up when I walked out of the building to find my bike … missing. Through a crackly-sounding payphone my delivery dispatcher told me to take the rest of the day off. I was sad. I was unemployed.

With my head hung low I began an aimless walk away from Midtown hell, eventually ending up on St. Mark's Place in the East Village. After passing the Astor Place cube and crossing over Third Avenue I spotted that unforgettable purple and yellow sign with it's aggressively playful font. Kim's. I needed a dose of salvation from my shitty day and, as I was beginning my flirt with filmmaking, I decided to get lost in something I loved. In that beauty … film. On the third floor of 6 St. Mark's, the video rental floor — as I was reading VHS sleeve after VHS sleeve, getting lost in the cover art and other people's stories — a clerk from behind the counter asked if I needed help. I told him about my stolen bike, he told me he was a vegan and the next day I started a job a Kim's. If you loved film, you knew Kim's. One word: KIM'S. It was THE place.

-----

I realize now how lucky I was to have been a part of the experience of Kim's, the Kim's culture and the Kim's community. Kim's stores were an anomaly in the cluster of chain-store clutter with a curated collection of film (and music) way beyond the underground. I worked at a destination. A spot people went to discover films, to talk about films (with clerks or other customers). A place where travelers who had heard of the legendary stock, would pop in for a look, as if they were admiring a piece of high art in a gallery.

Working there on occasion I would chance a glance of the mastermind himself standing at the other end of our video rentals floor, beyond the maze of his meticulously categorized collection. I would see Yongman Kim, buttoned up, well-dressed in a suit with arms folded and his smiling eyes observing from a distance — watching his masterpiece perform. I always wondered if he did this at all his store locations. Mr. Kim was passionate about the art of film and the art of business with the spirit of a risk taker having wild ideas from first renting movies out of his original laundry cleaning store to that very brief third floor Smoke Cafe. It's hard to explain Kim's to the plugged-in youth or non-film'centric folks, you just had to have been there.

Kim's was my film school and I know many others could claim this same core-curriculum. The breakdown of cinema history — organized by genre, by sub-genres, by niche and Country, by decade and Director — was any cinephile's dream. Sure, we carried mainstream flicks, but the majority of Kim's customers would be waiting for the newest Herzog film to be released. I would come to understand any given Director's journey by working my way through their catalog. From Godard to Lee, Varda to Linklater. Our organization style could often receive heated friction from our customers. Some loved to complain that True Romance should be excluded from Tarantino's section because he only wrote the screenplay. My out? The sale of that script gave us Reservoir Dogs. We all had our tiffs. I was forever annoyed that Bigelow didn't have her own section yet and that Hitchcock was shelved with American Directors. I wonder who among the contemporary crop of Directors, film movements and episodics would have enough titles and thunder to secure their own tag. The Dardenne Brothers, both Anderson(s), Lisa Cholodenko - surely. Mumblecore and "Peep Show" would have end caps. Orange is the New Black would be in Cult filed under "Women in Prison" alongside Caged Heat.


[Image via]

Being a video store clerk in the East Village was the most interesting public-facing job I would ever make a buck from. Through a customer's rental selection, us clerks got to know our clientele. We got to know your taste in film and what your girlfriend hated. Your Saturday night suggestions came from me, a person, not an algorithm or paid suggestion. A place in time before the Internet had touched and tagged every spec of existence. There was no IMDB — just a clerk who, when you attempted to rent Almost Famous, asked if you'd seen Crudup in Grind or Without Limits.

Soon enough you'd be tossed down a rabbit hole that took you from Crudup to Prefontaine to Leto to Requim for a Dream to Aronofsky to Connelly, which led you back to Crudup, who she shared the screen with in a beautiful movie called Waking the Dead. Remember the times you dashed to Kim's right after work on a Friday night to grab that new release but shit, all the copies were already rented. You instead ended up with the obvious double-feature of La Jette and 12 Monkeys. Or how about that time you realized it was a cinema verite night with Kopple after all. It was a time when the Criterion Collection was just becoming the original viral video everyone wanted to see with, GASP — a commentary track (a groundbreaking idea at the time). Also, a place in a time where you got a same-day porn rental for a dollar and would return the tape warm.

Our daily crowd resembled the poster art for Rock 'n Roll High School. From behind that melamine purple counter four clerks faced a line of genuinely nice folks, sarcastic pot-heads, painfully shy people, everyday assholes, hardcore film nerds and cinema elitists alike. We served established directors, actors and all the pivotal crew members who made film, and really any art, come to life. Oh, and of course those aspiring filmmakers too. We served the ever-changing street kids staying in the rehab facility across the street and the die-hards who came back week after week checking to see if our copy of Two Lane Blacktop had been repaired. At Kim's your celebrity status didn't matter, it was more about if you were renting Van Sant's Ma La Noche.

Of all the eclectic renters there was only one customer who could get me to place any title on hold for him, and he was the mightiest of film aficionados — a guy named Dukkor. Standing high at 6'4", skinny as a beanpole, tucked in a trench coat with his shoulder length, and always wet, jet black hair. Dukkor. An older, ageless man drenched in a cologne called tobacco. Dukkor gave me Dogme 95. When he learned that I was binge watching Von Trier titles he said "Kelly, you MUST watch The Celebration tonight. Not tomorrow but tonight, so that we can discuss Dogme 95 tomorrow." Dukkor, a man with a double-digit membership number, The Duke of all film knowledge, deeper that any Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide.

Our third floor staff was also a cast of characters. There was Matt, Mike (the vegan), Maria, Mike B., Mike P., Sam, Fred, Jeff and other floor employees like Aurelio on the music floor, Igor on the sales floor and Kenny in security. If you knew Mondo Kim's in the late 90s to the early oughts then you know these people. They influenced you and you influenced us. Sure the rumors of rude clerks is true. Do you know how many rude customers we had to deal with? It's fine, we learned to laugh it off and I hope you have too. Maybe I recommended Rosemary's Baby to a pregnant woman; perhaps I ushered a student to the Nick Zedd section when they asked for Citizen Kane in order to fulfill a homework assignment; and yeah, I totally refused to stop watching Poor Cow on our in-store television so a customer could rent it.

Matt, my first manager at Kim's, once told me that our rental floor at Mondo was the East Village's own "Town Hall." So true. Before neighborhood blogs, word on the street, like the lineup of hardcore bands playing at Matinee Sundays at CBGB's, the shuttering of Coney Island High, and Dojo's Soy Burger seventy-five-cent increase, traveled via Kim's. Neighborhood people would come and go. Some never to be seen again. That guy Daniel, for example, was in some band called Interpol who hit the ground running. Oh, and that really nice dude Zoriah, who worked across the street at Joe's CDs, left the city to pursue war photography. The news came through Mondo Kim's doors and echoed from there forward, out into the world. Or at least through the East Village.

I quit my gig at Kim's twice. First, to start working in production and to make more films and projects of my own. The second time I left was for good — a bittersweet exit to again work deeper in the film industry while also taking a job building and curating a new video shop in that triangle below canal — Tribeca Video. I left to apply all my Kim's knowledge and education elsewhere. Over the years I'd stop in to various Kim's locations, an alumni of sorts, to say hi to whoever was still working there and hello to the new round of clerks. I would dig through the genres, see what was new and check on that copy of Two Lane Blacktop.

-----

Now with the heartbreaking news of the final location closing today, I felt it time to share my little slice of the legend that is Kim's. There are endless rumors about the various Kim's locations closing one by one. Was it the skyscraper high rent hikes or was it another case of the Internet slamming it's tsunami of instant gratification down on the slower, organic avenues? Perhaps the Feds were circling back to make another bust on suspected bootlegs. When Mondo Kim's closed the complete rental collection flew off to Sicily after a deal was struck to keep the collection available to all Kim's members. But how do we access that portal? What came of that deal? Could there be a grand dream allowing access of the complete collection online?

Kim's is a cherished experience. One that is shared by all who knew it. When I look inside my memory files I see Mondo's third floor, its physical layout of black wire racks crammed with boxes, precisely labeled - the big purple and yellow genre signs — the maze in all its curated splendor. A place and a time I sadly miss. My years spent at Kim's deeply influenced the person I am today and anyone that new Kim's surely has this personal sentiment as well. Kim's gave us a lot of things, including a neighborhood go-to, a cultural phenomenon, and a film school education for the taking. Thanks, Mr. Kim.

Kelly Sebastian is a former video store clerk at Mondo Kim's (@kel_sebastian)

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] A really bad sign outside Kim's Video & Music on First Avenue (31 comments)

'Rat Castle' condos now on the market



Spotted this banner headed to Katz's yesterday.

Hey, condo sales are underway at 179 Ludlow St., the looooong-stalled (2006!) mixed-use building that earned the nickname "The Rat Castle" from the Voice back in 2008. (The then-abandoned project attracted rats galore at the time.)



The banner promises a 179 Ludlow website, though it doesn't appear to be active yet. (The link goes to an Elliman broker's site.)



We'll stop back there later.

For further reading on 179 Ludlow's history, visit BoweryBoogie ... Curbed ... and The Lo-Down ...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Notorious 'Rat Castle' being pitched as 'Swank' on Ludlow Street

37 St. Mark's Place is cleaner, still for rent


[Photo via EVG reader Patrick Reynolds]

We recently noticed workers cleaning up the empty retail spaces at 37 St. Mark's Place at Second Avenue. Workers even removed the "for lease" signs.

Perhaps there was a new retail tenant for the storefronts that previously housed a 7-Eleven, among other businesses.

Apparently a false alarm. The signs returned on Friday. The now spiffed-up space is still for lease.



The clean look didn't last long. Overnight Friday, someone left a tribute to LES Jewels outside the former 7-Eleven…



Meanwhile, work continues on the corner space… soon to be home to DF Mavens, a dairy-free ice cream shop



Previously on EV Grieve:

[Updated] Reader report: The 7-Eleven on St. Mark's Place has closed (48 comments)

A few more details about renting the former 7-Eleven space on St. Mark's Place

Today in posts about terra cotta steel panels on Lafayette Street



The two incoming luxury buildings on the west side of Lafayette between Great Jones and Bond continue to show up the rest of the developments around here with their speedy construction pace …

In particular, the 7-floor 10 Bond Street is getting all glassy…



… and workers have attached the first of the building's wavy terra cotta steel panels on the facade …



Terra cotta panels aren't the only interesting feature for these condo homes. As Curbed noted, the building's windows will have exterior, automated sun shields. No word on what becomes of the unwanted glare.

Previously on EV Grieve:
New skyline for Lafayette Street?

Another corner still primed to fall on NoHo

Demolition starts on former garage and lot; new developments coming for Lafayette Street

Looking at the future luxurious corners of Lafayette Street

Looking for the deeper meaning about renting the former 99-Cent Discount Center on East 14th Street



News that the former 99-Cent Discount Center at 440 E. 14th St. is now for lease is not such big news.

However, the one-level storefront is adjacent to two other empty properties — the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office and the Stuyvesant Stationery shop. There has been some speculation that these spaces will yield to a new retail-residential mixed-use building.

Adding to this development theory: Asbestos abatement signs recently went up outside the post office at 438 E. 14th St. near Avenue A.

But the fact that the 99-cent store property at 440 E. 14th St. is for lease makes this space unlikely for the future development. (For now anyway!) The post office and stationery shop apparently have the same landlord.

OK! Got all that? This will be on the midterm.

Previously on EV Grieve:
First sign of more development on East 14th Street?

Asbestos abatement to begin at former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Chloë Sevigny on the East Village today: 'It’s like a frat house everywhere'



Former East Village resident Chloë Sevigny on the neighborhood today in The Daily Beast:

"Walking around the East Village, I just want to cry at the state of it. There are so many fuckin’ jocks everywhere! It’s like a frat house everywhere. I don’t know if it’s a sign of the times, but where are the real weirdos? The real outcasts? They’re a vanishing breed here. Maybe New York isn’t drawing that anymore because it’s too expensive."

Week in Grieview



City approves dorm conversion plans for the former PS 64 on East 9th Street (Monday, 53 comments)

Legendary LES street photographer Rebecca Lepkoff dies (Wednesday)

Rally for Mike Brown winds through the East Village (Wednesday, Thursday)

Rizzo's on Clinton Street is quitting Seamless, GrubHub, etc. (Thursday, 41 comments)

Winter the Siberian Husky gets his head stuck under a fence in Tompkins Square Park (Monday)

Out and About with Jack Sal (Wednesday)

Esperanto opens a juice bar (Monday)

CC Cyclery and Company now open on East 13th Street (Thursday)

More juice for the East Village (Monday)

Rooftop noise at 84 E. 10th St. (Monday)

Golden Cadillac will reopen as Boilermaker next month (Tuesday)

Random tree pruning (Tuesday)

Closing dates for Kim's and Shakespeare & Company (Friday)

People complain about dog poop here (Wednesday)

A street dance studio coming to Second Avenue (Tuesday)

A Ricky's Halloween shop for Red Square (Wednesday)

Yonekichi opens (Tuesday) with bright lights (Thursday)

The renovations at 58 E. Third St. (Thursday)

Gutting the former Silver Spurs space (Tuesday)

New kiosk instructions for Citi Bikes (Wednesday)

#TrashTara leaving no butts behind



EVG reader Andrew spotted #TrashTara (aka socio-ecological artist Colleen Flanigan) picking up every cigarette butt along Avenue B this afternoon…

Street trends: Empty golf bags



We spotted these two empty (and unattended) golf bags yesterday morning outside the new Cooper Union building… they weren't for the taking though…



Meanwhile, this afternoon on Second Avenue and East Ninth Street, Slum Goddess spotted this one



Three is a trend. Paging Sunday Styles!

East 7th Street inspiration



Dave on 7th spotted this between Avenue A and Avenue B…

Either these didn't work or the person is sharing the wisdom…

I trust my intuition.

I believe in my sensations.

I trust my visions.

I believe in myself and my higher presence.

Maybe drop this off for Zoltar?

The stage is set for the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival today; port-a-potties too



The stage went up yesterday for the 22nd annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival … today at 3 in Tompkins Square Park. It is free. Find the artist info here.

Meanwhile, the port-a-potties arrived Friday afternoon. We forgot to post these under the headline "Exclusive First Look at the Jazz Festival Port-A-Potties." Next year OK?





Photos via Bobby Williams

3rd Avenue, 8:34 a.m., Aug. 24



Move-In Day at NYU.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Tomorrow is Opening Day at the NYU Dorms



Just FYI you know. In case your plans were taking you anywhere near Third Avenue, East 14th Street, Bed, Bath & Beyond, etc.

Have a good weekend!