You can find always Valentino selling shaved ice on East 14th Street and Avenue A … photo from this past week courtesy of James and Karla Murray…
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Valentino
You can find always Valentino selling shaved ice on East 14th Street and Avenue A … photo from this past week courtesy of James and Karla Murray…
Crab Shack soft opens this weekend on St. Mark's Place
As we first noted back in April, a new restaurant called Crab Shack was taking over the former Japadog space at 30 St. Mark's Place.
And the Red & Gold Crab Shack had its soft opening on Friday… there's a limited menu for now… (beer and wine is TK)
Thanks to Jordy Trachtenberg for the tip on Friday and EVG reader John H. for the photos!
Previously on EV Grieve:
Breaking: Japadog is closing for good after tonight on St. Mark's Place
Reader report: Crab Shack in the works for former Japadog space on St. Mark's Place
Here is your Red & Gold Crab Shack! signage on St. Mark's Place
Report: Mono + Mono plans fall reopening
[EVG file photo from April]
Nearly 16 months after a fire ripped through 116 E. Fourth St., there's news about the tenant, Mono + Mono.
DNAinfo reports that repairs are underway at the restaurant that served Korean fried chicken and was known for playing a collection of upwards of 30,000 classic jazz albums.
Per DNAinfo's Lisha Arino:
[T]the owner hopes to reopen in about three weeks, said Sung Chung, manager and event coordinator.
Before the April 2013 fire, Mono+Mono was only open for dinner, serving its signature twice-fried chicken with soy garlic sauce, alongside traditional pan-fried Korean pancakes. Now, it will be open during the day as well, with a slightly different concept, Chung said. He declined to give additional details.
The city approved the renovation work back on Aug. 8, per DOB records. However, a full vacate order remains on the space between First Avenue and Second Avenue.
[April 21, 2013 via EVG reader kke7st]
Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Early-morning fire at 116 E. Fourth St., home of Mono + Mono
(Kind of) An update on Mono + Mono
What is happening with the Mono + Mono space?
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Somebody Put Something in My Pledge
Thank you to Dangerous Minds for unearthing this video... The Ramones playing on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in September 1989.
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Ah! And YOU thought it was going to be just another dreary Labor Day Weekend hereabouts! Not SO. The action will be here on Fourth Avenue between 14th Street and like Astor Place.
And for real — doesn't seem as if there were not as many street fairs as in previous summers? By our count, this is No. 5 since May. We could have missed one. Though did we ever leave town this summer?
Previously on EV Grieve:
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Street fair! Street fair! Street fair!
Friday, August 29, 2014
Are you Gruesome tonight?
The UK-based Joanna Gruesome plays the final Seaport Music Festival of the summer tonight ... they are on at 8 ... Brooklyn's Big Ups open at 7. It's a free show. (Oh, and the stage is at Water and Fulton.)
Brooklyn Vegan refers to Joanna Gruesome's music as "twee/punk-inspired." That description works for us.
The East Village will be testing ground for a 'rat reservoir pilot'
[EVG file photo]
From NPR:
When Caroline Bragdon, a rat expert with the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, walks through the East Village, she's not looking at the people or the storefronts. Her eyes point down, at the place where the sidewalk meets the buildings and the street. "If you look really carefully, you can even see their hairs," Bragdon says, pointing to a little hole in the sidewalk next to a sewer grate. "When we see something like this, what we say to each other is, 'This catch basin is hot.' You know, 'This is ratty.' "
By that measure, this is one of the hottest neighborhoods in New York City. And it's one of the testing grounds for the city's new "rat reservoir pilot" — an initiative to try to reduce the rat population in neighborhoods with chronic infestations. Part of the plan is to hire extra exterminators and to seal up holes in sidewalks, parks and other public infrastructure. Rats can squeeze through the tiniest opening "in doors, in windows, in sidewalk curbs, in any building infrastructure," says Bragdon. "Rats only need a hole or a gap the size of a quarter to enter."
Woo! Maybe we can think of some other 'reservoir pilots' for the neighborhood!
Read/listen to the full report here.
H/T EVG reader Andréa
115 Second Ave. storefront for lease
[EVG file photo]
An EVG reader who is looking for retail space found a listing for 115 Second Ave. (The PDF is here.)
[Click on image for more details]
The address is currently home to Moishe's Kosher Bake Shop. (The Moishe's website says it has been here since 1978; other sources date the bakery to 1972.)
The listing via Jud Leasing, and last updated on Monday, notes that this is a "great location for restaurant, fast food venting in place." The occupancy for a new tenant is "arranged."
In September 2012, The Local reported that Moishe's was going to renovate the ground-floor space, dividing the bake shop into three sections that would include a café. The floors above Moishe's, which previously had been for lease, were also set for a renovation.
However, there were never any work permits filed for the building, according to DOB records.
BBQ with a view for $12k a month
Starting Nov. 1, you can rent this three-bedroom penthouse at 110 Third Ave. near East 14th Street.
Here are more details from the listing, which arrived on Streeteasy at the beginning of the month:
The open Chefs kitchen features Volcanic Basaltina counter tops and Subzero and Bosch appliances, including dishwasher and washer/dryer. The master bedroom features an on-suite bathroom with his and her sinks and an 8’ Mr. Steam full body spray showers and sound system. This condominium is a phenomenal residence for anyone looking to live at the top of a prestigious New York City luxury building with a full time concierge and doorman. In addition, this luxury building has a fully equipped fitness center, illuminated contemplation garden, and cold storage for Fresh Direct.
Going rate for the great BBQ views and Mr. Steam — $12,000 a month.
Expect to see a lot of the Ramones in the future
Jeff Jampol, who co-manages the estate of the Ramones, told the following to Billboard:
“The 40th anniversary of the Ramones is coming up in 2016, that’s when the first album came out. So we have a lot of projects leading up to that. We’re looking at a documentary on the Ramones, we just secured a ton of footage, much of which has never been seen before,” he says. “It came from the Ramones on the road over the years in the Seventies and a little bit in the Eighties, from a gentleman who had shot them, his name is George Seminara.”
The documentary is just one of several projects in the works. Among the others are a theatrical play, a book and a film, which already has Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese attached.
Billboard also reported that Linda Ramone, who controlled Johnny's half of the band's estate, and Joey's brother Mickey Leigh, who oversaw Joey's half, are now cooperating as a happy family after years of behind-the-scenes feuding.
Read the rest of the Billboard article here.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Mickey Leigh on his brother Joey Ramone's 'New York City' video
The Sunshine Hotel is shrinking on the Bowery
Catching up to this item from The Commercial Observer on Monday.
Owner Roseann Carone is downsizing the Sunshine Hotel space, converting the second and third floors of the SRO at 241 Bowery into commercial lofts. The space is adjacent to the New Museum and above Mathieu Palombino's Bowery Diner/Chez Jef on the ground-floor.
The Sunshine Hotel residents, which now number 30 to 40, occupy the complex's neighboring building at 239 Bowery near Stanton Street.
According to the Observer, the three-story 241 Bowery had 34 beds on the second floor and 52 beds on the third floor. The residents apparently had not been using the space that workers will be converting into office space. The Sunshine Hotel is one of the remaining Skid Row Bowery holdouts that has been on deathwatch the past 10 years.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Q-and-A with Michael Dominic, director of 'Sunshine Hotel'
Repost: Q-and-A with Michael Dominic, director of 'Sunshine Hotel'
Given the recent news about the Sunshine Hotel downsizing its space to make way for commercial office tenants … we thought we'd replay this post that first appeared here on July 19, 2012.
------
In 1999, filmmaker-photojournalist Michael Dominic set out to document the residents at the Sunshine Hotel, one of the few remaining flophouses on the Bowery. He wanted to know more about the men who had been living there, in four-by-six-foot cubicles topped by a ceiling made of chicken wire, with no particular place to go.
Dominic's ensuing documentary, "Sunshine Hotel," released in 2001, received a slew of festival awards and played on the Sundance Channel. The independently funded film was recently released on DVD for the first time. On this occasion, Dominic answered a few questions via email for us.
Have you been back to the hotel in recent years? Have you received any updates about the people who you featured in the film?
I pass by the hotel all the time but haven't been inside since 2002. But I have kept track of the changes to the hotel and the area. As far as I know, none of the residents that I knew are still living there. Many I know for a fact have died. The owners have stopped allowing new tenants and there are only a handful living in one section of the building now. [Updated: Dominic has learned that two of the men in the film, Bruce Davis and Tyrone, are still living at the hotel.]
The sister of one of my subjects in the film named Vic contacted me recently. He died in 2006, but she only found him again after nearly 50 years through my film. She and her brothers were able to gain some sort of closure after a very long time of believing he was a missing person. It was a moving experience.
For you, what are the most profound changes of the Bowery during which the film is set and the Bowery of today?
The Bowery is ever changing. Now it's on an upswing. On the ground floor of the Sunshine Hotel there is a new restaurant and an art gallery. It looks like they're planning another restaurant as well on the corner. As soon as the last of the tenants leave the Sunshine, I'm sure that they will convert the buildings into luxury housing.
When I shot Sunshine Hotel back in 1999, the Bowery was already what I thought of as gentrified. But now, looking back, that wasn't anything. Certain parts have been completely rebuilt and there's really nothing left of the old strip as far as the goings on. There are expensive restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings — and there isn't a single actual flophouse on the Bowery anymore.
Is that a bad thing? Times change and probably a long strip of drunken homeless men running through the center of the Lower East Side isn't the best idea. Still, when I look at the Whole Foods on the corner of Bowery and Houston, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
The DVD release allows a new audience to experience the film. What would you like people to take away from "The Sunshine Hotel"?
People should remember what NYC was. They should remember it as something unique and beautiful, albeit seedy. We as a city have overdone it on clean-up. We have lost character. I hope that my film caught a little of the last of that era of New York, "when the Bowery was the Bowery."
[Nathan Smith, the hotel's manager]
Some 13 years later, what has stayed with you about making this film?
Nathan [Smith — the hotel's manager]. His friendship. He died 10 years ago, but rarely a day goes by that I don't think about him.
[Yesterday outside the Sunshine... photo by Bobby Williams]
You can buy the DVD here ... it's also available on Amazon. Dominic is now working on a documentary titled "Clean Hands," which chronicles the residents of La Chureca — Nicaragua’s largest, most dangerous garbage dump.
------
In 1999, filmmaker-photojournalist Michael Dominic set out to document the residents at the Sunshine Hotel, one of the few remaining flophouses on the Bowery. He wanted to know more about the men who had been living there, in four-by-six-foot cubicles topped by a ceiling made of chicken wire, with no particular place to go.
Dominic's ensuing documentary, "Sunshine Hotel," released in 2001, received a slew of festival awards and played on the Sundance Channel. The independently funded film was recently released on DVD for the first time. On this occasion, Dominic answered a few questions via email for us.
Have you been back to the hotel in recent years? Have you received any updates about the people who you featured in the film?
I pass by the hotel all the time but haven't been inside since 2002. But I have kept track of the changes to the hotel and the area. As far as I know, none of the residents that I knew are still living there. Many I know for a fact have died. The owners have stopped allowing new tenants and there are only a handful living in one section of the building now. [Updated: Dominic has learned that two of the men in the film, Bruce Davis and Tyrone, are still living at the hotel.]
The sister of one of my subjects in the film named Vic contacted me recently. He died in 2006, but she only found him again after nearly 50 years through my film. She and her brothers were able to gain some sort of closure after a very long time of believing he was a missing person. It was a moving experience.
For you, what are the most profound changes of the Bowery during which the film is set and the Bowery of today?
The Bowery is ever changing. Now it's on an upswing. On the ground floor of the Sunshine Hotel there is a new restaurant and an art gallery. It looks like they're planning another restaurant as well on the corner. As soon as the last of the tenants leave the Sunshine, I'm sure that they will convert the buildings into luxury housing.
When I shot Sunshine Hotel back in 1999, the Bowery was already what I thought of as gentrified. But now, looking back, that wasn't anything. Certain parts have been completely rebuilt and there's really nothing left of the old strip as far as the goings on. There are expensive restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings — and there isn't a single actual flophouse on the Bowery anymore.
Is that a bad thing? Times change and probably a long strip of drunken homeless men running through the center of the Lower East Side isn't the best idea. Still, when I look at the Whole Foods on the corner of Bowery and Houston, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
The DVD release allows a new audience to experience the film. What would you like people to take away from "The Sunshine Hotel"?
People should remember what NYC was. They should remember it as something unique and beautiful, albeit seedy. We as a city have overdone it on clean-up. We have lost character. I hope that my film caught a little of the last of that era of New York, "when the Bowery was the Bowery."
Some 13 years later, what has stayed with you about making this film?
Nathan [Smith — the hotel's manager]. His friendship. He died 10 years ago, but rarely a day goes by that I don't think about him.
You can buy the DVD here ... it's also available on Amazon. Dominic is now working on a documentary titled "Clean Hands," which chronicles the residents of La Chureca — Nicaragua’s largest, most dangerous garbage dump.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Today in photos of 2 Lamborghinis posing on 2nd Avenue
Captured today by Bobby Williams.
Just makes us miss @EVLambo all that much more, though not really.
How the Bowery will soon be 'wholly unrecognizable'
[Photo by Nathan Kensinger]
Today over at Curbed, photo journalist Nathan Kensinger takes a look at the ever-changing Bowery ... providing 20 updates on current or upcoming developments.
Despite the luxurification the past 10-plus years, "this 'land rush' is only now reaching its peak, and in the next few years, the already altered landscape of this once scrappy, iconic boulevard will become wholly unrecognizable."
The post includes a quote from EVG as well as Jeremiah Moss.
An East Village then-and-now photo project featuring 1984
[222 E. Third St. then and now]
Earlier this week, East Village resident Daniel Root shared a new photo project with us, a Tumblr titled EV NY: 30 yrs and now.
The site is pretty straightforward. Per its description:
Photographer Daniel Root documented the East Village in 1984. Today, he revisits the locations and documents their current state.
In addition to the then-and-now shots, Root added a photo of the contrasting scenes at the sites.
[119 Avenue C]
How did all this come about?
"I have been living here since the summer of 1984," Root told us via email on Tuesday. "At the time a friend of a friend wanted to write a book about the changing East Village and she wanted some photographs to pitch the book. The book was never written. Last year it occurred to me that those photographs were about to be 30 years old and I thought to hang them approximately where they were shot. The Tumblr site was a relatively recent addition prompted by a friend."
[174 Avenue A]
[141 Avenue A]
[307 E. 8th St.]
"I think what struck me the most while looking at the 'then vs now' shots is how much cleaner, neater and orderly things looks now," Root said. "On the other hand, a number of places don't look that different. For example, the Pyramid and the southwest corner of Tompkins Square Park."
Find more of his then-and-now shots here.
What it will cost to live behind Katz's
[EVG photo from Sunday]
As we pointed out on Monday, the long-delayed condo project is ready for sales action at 179 Ludlow St. (In 2008, the Voice dubbed the long-stalled building "The Rat Castle" thanks to its rodent infestation at the time.)
The Real Deal got the scoop on what to expect:
The building will contain six floor-through condos above the ground-level retail space. Each of the units on the second through fifth floors is nearly 1,100 square feet with balconies at the front and rear and loft-style elevator access. The second-floor unit also has access to a private garden. Prices start at $1.65 million.
Hopefully the aroma of Katz's pickles won't bother these folks.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Notorious 'Rat Castle' being pitched as 'Swank' on Ludlow Street
'Rat Castle' condos now on the market
Neighbors can now remember what this East 10th Street townhouse looks like
The one at 110 E. 10th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue… the one that has been enveloped in scaffolding and a sidewalk bridge for what, four years? (We saw an application for a sidewalk bridge date to 2010.)
The Italianate townhouse, built in 1867, is getting a gut rehab … converting the building into two residences.
Meanwhile, 110's sister townhouse at 106 remains wrapped in its construction gear… the building is undergoing a similar gut renovation…
Some neighbors have long been annoyed by the never-ending site of the sidewalk bridges, stalled construction and temporary campers here…
From Cafe Rakka to Dojo Izakaya on Avenue B
Workers continue to transform the former Cafe Rakka space at 38 Avenue B into Dojo Izakaya, which the Post described as "a Japanese gastropub."
It will be the latest restaurant from chef David Bouhadana, who opened Sushi Dojo in June 2013 at the former Polonia on First Avenue.
The inexpensive long-timer Cafe Rakka got Cromanated last November here near East Third Street.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Chef David Bouhadana looking to open Dojo Izakaya in former Cafe Rakka space on Avenue B
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Tweet of the day
Spotted in the East Village: a guy riding a @CitibikeNYC on 10th btwn B & C with no hands so he could spark his one-hitter. @evgrieve
— DP (@davidpiz) August 27, 2014
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