Do you have what it takes to take this free Team Hot Wheels backpack?

Spotted on East Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue earlier today... with a sign "This backpack comes with immense responsibility."

Possibly the work of the East Fifth Street Tree Committee?

Photo by Derek Berg

Who wants an egg cream?

Morning milk delivery today at Ray's Candy Store, 113 Avenue A...Photo by Peter Brownscombe

Spring

[St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery by Allen Semanco]


[Tompkins Square Park by Derek Berg]


[TSP via DB]


[Over Avenue A via Grant Shaffer]


[Christo rooftop sunbathing on Avenue B by Bobby Williams]

Report: Settlement reached with family of man stabbed to death at Barrier Free Living

The operators of Barrier Free Living at 270 E. Second St. agreed to settle with the family of Ronal Garcia, who was fatally stabbed by another resident inside the facility between Avenue C and Avenue D in December 2009, the Daily News reports.

The $1.2 million settlement came toward the end of a month-long trial. The family of Garcia, who was 24, sued Barrier Free Living, arguing the city-contracted nonprofit for people with disabilities failed to protect the victim. Felipe Rivera-Cruz, who, like Garcia, uses a wheelchair, is currently serving a 25-years-to-life prison sentence.

Before the fatal encounter, the two men got into a fistfight after Garcia made a comment about Rivera-Cruz’s manhood, authorities said. They knocked each other out of their wheelchairs and on the floor during the melee before staff broke it up. The men were then separated and cops were called.

At the trial, Barrier Free Living officials claimed they lost incident reports filled out by staff during the attack. And they couldn’t find the portion of a video showing Rivera-Cruz ride past the security guard on the main floor.

Image via Google Street View

There's a Vietnamese restaurant proposed for the former Luca Bar on St. Mark's Place

[EVG photo from Tuesday]

The former Luca Bar space at 119 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue looks to have another suitor.

A comprehensive questionnaire (a 30-page PDF) is on file for public inspection at the CB3 website ahead of the April SLA committee meeting.

According to the paperwork, the proposed Vietnamese restaurant (no name yet) would have 15 tables seating 42 as well as a bar with 12 seats. In addition, the proposed hours are 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday-Wednesday; until 2 a.m. Thursday-Sunday. The applicants are applying for a full liquor license.

While the three principals have never been licensed before, they have had experience managing-operating restaurants, per the documents. Two of the proprietors have worked for Stephen Starr's Starr Restaurants, whose NYC establishments include Upland, El Vez, The Clocktower, Morimoto and Buddakan.

Here's a sample menu that accompanied the CB3 materials...


[Click to go big]

Previously, the owners of Sweethaus Cupcake Cafe — with locations in Charlottesville, Va., and Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Virginia) — were looking to open a cafe at No. 119. However, those plans never materialized.

Luca Bar closed in April 2015.

The CB3 SLA committee meeting is April 18 at 6:30 p.m. in the CB3 office, 59 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

Report: Landlord Jared Kushner 'treats both rent-stabilized and market-rate tenants badly'

[Reader photo at 118 E. 4th St. from March 6]

Gothamist checks in with a long look on life in a property owned by Jared Kushner/Westminster Management. And there haven't been any shortage of tenant horror stories since Kushner started buying up properties here in 2013, as we've noted at EVG through the years. (According to the Cooper Square Committee, Kushner is the neighborhood's second-largest landlord after Steve Croman.)

As we noted earlier this month, tenants at 118 E. Fourth St. went to Manhattan Housing Court on March 3 as part of ongoing litigation against Kushner. Tenants there had been without gas for cooking since October. There are other issues too, such as collapsed ceilings, overflowing trash and sporadic heat. (Tenants got the gas restored afterwards.)

In defense of Kushner/Westminster, a spokesperson responds: "Unfortunately, like many other old buildings in New York City, repair issues arise periodically and we inherited problems when we purchased this building. We are grateful that our residents have voiced their concerns. We value their tenancy and we are committed to a mutually beneficial long term building management-tenant relationship."

Brandon Kielbasa at the Cooper Square Committee tells Gothamist that Kushner "treats both rent-stabilized and market-rate tenants badly, and seems to feel that he can get away with not maintaining buildings because the housing market is so tight he can keep them full anyway."

And one outcome of all this in Kushner-owned properties, per Gothamist:

The economic differences between the old and new residents paying three times as much have also created a culture clash. Some longtime East Villagers, nurses and artists and filmmakers loyal to the neighborhood, resent the transient, party-animal culture of affluent students and out-of-towners in their first New York apartment who will be gone when their lease expires.

“We used to have a community in this building,” laments one man. Before ... Kushner, says Kim Stetz, “we didn’t have SantaCon in our building. We didn’t have raging parties with people throwing up out their windows.”

Previously on EV Grieve:
Inside a classic East Village tenement before the whole building is renovated

Jared Kushner not done buying every walk-up in the East Village

Tenants claim: Kushner and Westminster want to destroy this building's beautiful garden

Reports outline how Kushner Companies is aggressively trying to empty 170-174 E. 2nd St.

Local politicos join residents of 2 Jared Kushner-owned buildings to speak out about poor living conditions, alleged harassment

Jared Kushner's residents at 118 E. 4th St. would like gas for cooking and some heat

Another local Equinox is on the way

[196 Orchard photoshopping]

The Equinox that will be part of Ben Shaoul's incoming development on East Houston and Orchard will have some company in the area.

Per a media announcement via the EVG inbox yesterday...

Equinox continues to make history in Manhattan with three new locations on Bond Street, Gramercy and East 92nd Street. The opening of locations in Dumbo and Williamsburg celebrates Brooklyn’s growing popularity as the new epicenter for culture, business and lifestyle.

The closest of these to this neighborhood is at 670 Broadway (entrance on Bond), which opens this fall. Here's more from the Equinox Bond Street website:

Perched on the corner of a trendsetting lower Manhattan intersection, Equinox Bond Street is an icon in the making. With quintessential New York attitude, the club infuses historic urban architecture with a boundary-pushing downtown vibe.

Housed in a former manufacturing building, Equinox Bond Street creates a true fitness temple with a soaring 18-foot ceiling, exposed brick, arches, and Corinthian columns. The club’s awe-inspiring span showcases four heroically-scaled studios, one of our most expansive fitness floors ever, a spacious home for our luxury amenities, and energizing street views alive with the pulse from Noho’s streets.

Evening rush

Waiting for the F at Second Avenue via Derek Berg

Updated: There's a reward for this external hard drive

An EVG reader shared this... A memory drive lost in the vicinity of East Second Street and First Avenue today around 4 p.m.



Updated 4-3

Apparently it has been found and returned to the owner...

Brown and out on East 13th Street

An EVG reader, with perhaps a hint of disappoint in his email, noted that we hadn't, uh, noted the ongoing graffiti v. brown-paint battle along Verizon's wall on East 13th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue in a really long time.

Sure enough, it has been nearly 15 months.

OK! So the wall still attracts various tags...



... and images...



...and whatever this was...

Still living the dream on the Lower East Side

The Times checks in with a piece for the paper's real estate section titled The Lower East Side, Where Gritty Meets Trendy.

Aside from details on the schools and the commute, the Times provides some average pricing for rentals and condos.

Despite the higher prices for everything, people still come here to live the dream. (Oh, that's what dreams are made of.)

“This used to be a place for a new beginning, people living the dream in a tenement apartment,” said Ariel Tirosh, an associate broker with Douglas Elliman who is the sales agent for several luxury condos, including 100 Norfolk and 179 Ludlow. “Now they live the dream in a new condo.”

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: Jon R. Jewett
Occupation: Photographer and Writer
Location: 7th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A
Time: 5:30 pm on Monday, March 28

I’m coming from the East Village Cheese shop. It’s heaven. And they have the discount section. Tonight I don’t feel like cooking, so I have some cheese, some pâté, a good loaf of bread, and fruit… and certainly a vodka rocks before hand.

I grew up in Maine, between Camden and Bar Harbor — one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. It’s stunning. I go up there for the summers. All my summer friends lived here in New York. I have been coming to New York forever and ever, and there was a time about 20 years ago that I decided that the Maine winters were too much. I got out. That’s what brought me here. Certainly the friends, and what New York has to offer drew me here. I like the arts and good food and I had a way to move here, and so I did.

When I first came, I lived over on Midtown West — Hell's Kitchen. And I then became a personal assistant to a writer and critic friend of mine, who was getting older and I worked for her for 10 years.

New York is the best place in the world to live alone. It really is. I miss the bookstores all over the place. That was a big draw. If you take pictures, there’s always something to go out for a walk for. Every walk is different, because you’re looking at it through the lens.

Cheaper rent brought me to this neighborhood, even though rents are getting high here. I came here about three years ago in February. Something about the East Village that I adore is the light and the lack of density. You don’t really have a tourist attraction down here, so we don’t get that. I work at the community garden, 6BC. I volunteer there. That gives me a private park directly across the street. It’s the best. I go there and knit and read. I use it a lot. It’s a good group of people. It’s where I’ve met a lot of my friends. I walk to Chinatown to shop for food. It’s about half the price and it’s fun, but you have to have a certain edge to do it.

I like shops like [East Village Cheese]. I try to do business with stores that only have one cash register. I want it to be sort of a mom and pop, where they may live upstairs or something like that, because you make friends with the people in the store.

I go in spurts ... I do a million and one things, and then for a month I just lay low. I call it, home enough so I can’t wait to go out, and out enough so I can’t wait to stay home. That’s the balance I like to keep. There are the galleries, museums. Sometimes I can never plan and all of a sudden it’s just time to go to the Met for a day. You can be spontaneous here. I keep a to-do list.

There’s the European influence. I shop for food every night. I do the errands and at the end of the errands pick up three or four newspapers, some food, and then I have these very pleasant evenings at home. I’m strange. I’m a little homebody in New York, but I think there are more of those that we think. Home life in New York can be so pleasant.

And Maine is such a tight in together state. All of my Maine friends, who are all over the country, we keep the fire going, like all winter, thinking about what’s coming up in the summer. I have to give Maine a lot of credit. I go there for about three or four months in the summertime to work, and then I come back to process my work here. I think that makes me overlook a lot of the negatives of city living.

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