Come-to-the-Jesus-Lizard moment

The Jesus Lizard are back, touring for the first time in eight years. They'll be at the Irving Plaza on Dec. 10.

Meanwhile, enjoy "Gladiator" (above!) from 1992.

1st look at the new corporate partners of the birdbaths in Tompkins Square Park

The Robins seems to like the Fruit Loops anyway...



Photos by Steven

Time for the Harvest Festival at the 6th and B Community Garden

Tomorrow marks the 32nd annual Harvest Festival at the 6th and B Community Garden (on the corner of Sixth Street and Avenue B, if this is helpful).

There will be music, BBQ and a raffle during the festivities (2-7 p.m.).

You can find more details on Facebook here. Find a list of the raffle prizes (dinner for two at the Odessa!) here.

Openings: Ummburger, the Fern, Kokus, though just through Sunday

Ummburger opened this week at 99 First Avenue at Sixth Street.

As the name implies, this place sells a variety of burgers as well as salads. Here's a look at their menu from the Ummburger website...


[Click image to go big]

The drinks menu includes what they are calling "Ummazing Chalices," 38-ounce fish bowl cocktails on dry ice, including the Mari Juana, which pairs apple, pineapple, kiwi liquid smoke and vodka. ($25).

The previous tenant at this address, Mancora, moved across Sixth Street this past summer.

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The Fern is now open at 166 First Ave. near 10th Street. The bar-restuarant is from the same folks who run the Belfry on 14th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. Don't know anything else about the place at the moment. The Fern only has a placeholder website at this moment.

This address was previously, in fairly quick succession, North River and The Nite Owl, which closed in September 2015.

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And Kokus, billed as NYC's "first plant-based soft serve with organic cultured coconut cream and lightly sweetened with raw honey," is serving its wares through Sunday at the Bowery Market, 348 Bowery at Great Jones. (They started on Wednesday.)

Mayor and Mendez team up for Town Hall meeting next Thursday (Oct. 12)

Mayor de Blasio's Town Hall Tour 2017 comes to Council District 2 next Thursday (Oct. 12).

The Mayor is hosting the Q-and-A session in collaboration with District 2 City Council Member Rosie Mendez at PS 188, 442 E. Houston St. (at Baruch Drive). The Town Halling starts at 7 p.m.

If you want to attend, then you need to RSVP by 5 p.m. on Tuesday (the 10th). You can RSVP right here.

2 more weekends for Cafe Orlin

[Photo from Sunday]

News began circulating back on Sept. 8 that St. Mark's Place mainstay Cafe Orlin was closing after service on Oct. 15.

A rep for Cafe Orlin confirmed the closure in an email, as I posted on Sept. 8: "Yes — it's sad but true. The owner asked me to say that he's thankful to all who came to the cafe over the years. Cafe Orlin had a great run of 36 plus years, but he's ready for a change."

Grub Street reported that the Cafe Orlin owner is also the building's landlord, "and a new restaurant will open in its place."

I don't know much about the ownership. This is from a Village Voice feature on sister restaurant Cafe Mogador in September 2014:

Owner Rivka Orlin came to New York City from her home in Essaouira, Morocco, at the start of the 1980s, and helped her recently transplanted brother run Cafe Orlin, still in operation just down the street. Shortly after, the siblings heard the space at 101 St. Marks was becoming available, so they opened a second restaurant, using recipes from their mother in the kitchen and naming it after the small town in Essaouira where their Israeli-Moroccan family came from. Mogador is now run by Rivka’s nephew, Gal, and cousin, Ariela.

Anyway, you have two weekends left to visit Cafe Orlin at 41 St. Mark's Place between First Avenue and Second Avenue. It first opened in March 1981.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Cafe Orlin will close next month after 36 years in business (34 comments)

Crops for Girls closes on 9th Street

[EVG photo from yesterday]

An EVG reader writes in to say that Crops for Girls, the longtime hair salon at 437 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, has closed now. (There has been a for rent sign in the front window of late.)

In a Yelp post from last month, one longtime customer wrote about owner-stylist Michael D’Amico: "Sad to see him leave the biz because there is no one else who can cut consistently like he does."

Here's more on D’Amico from a New York Times piece in 2014:

Since 1992, Michael D’Amico has made a business out of chopping off women’s hair, dealing exclusively in above-the-shoulder styles. Bobs, pageboys, asymmetrical razor cuts — they are his specialty. If the salon had a motto, it might be “No men, no ponytails, no exceptions.”

Mr. D’Amico, 50, was a beauty school student in Manhattan in the 1980s. Women on the streets — this was the heyday of new wave and punk — didn’t look like the girls back in Jersey City, where he grew up. “I would see girls walking around with buzz cuts and other cropped, funky hair,” he recalled. Hoping to avoid a career giving ho-hum trims, he decided to narrow his focus. “There are only so many styles you can do with long hair, and I like the challenge of working with people who are making a big change,” he said.

There isn't any mention of a reason for the closure on the salon's website or Facebook page.

Dorian Grey, the other retail tenant at No. 437, closed in June 2016. The gallery owners were apparently unable to secure a new lease with the landlord, Benchmark Real Estate Group, who bought the building for $6 million in the spring of 2016.

Something for the kids at La Plaza this Halloween

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

The fun starts at 4 p.m. here on the southwest corner of Avenue C and Ninth Street on Halloween (Oct. 31!) ... find more details here.

[Updated] Curb work damages Yiddish Theatre Walk of Fame star

The sidewalk ramp improvement — under a city contract via the Department of Design and Construction — continues in the neighborhood, with workers on Second Avenue now.

Yesterday, while workers were on the southeast corner of Second Avenue and 10th Street, one of the fragile plaques from the Yiddish Theatre Walk of Fame, was damaged...





This plaque in question was already missing part of its border and looked to have been patched up previously.

This development was particularly upsetting to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, who has been working to have this Walk of Fame preserved and relocated. (You can read about their campaign here.)

In 1984, Abe Lebewohl, who owned the Second Avenue Deli in this corner location, installed this Yiddish Walk of Fame to commemorate when the area was a vibrant Yiddish theater community in the early 20th century. In recent years, many of the stars in the double row have become worn down or broken and are mostly illegible. Higher rents forced Second Avenue Deli to vacate the premises in 2006. A Chase branch is here now.

As we understand it, Community Board 3 District Manager Susan Stetzer was here yesterday and spoke with the owner of the contracting company. He said that his crew will fix the cracked piece and the remaining work will not have an impact on the other five-pointed gold stars.

"Moving forward, we will continue to work with a variety of stakeholders to ensure the long-term preservation of the Walk," said Harry Bubbins, East Village & Special Projects Director, at the GVSHP.

Updated 6:30 p.m.

The work crew patched up the star on the sidewalk...



Previously

Chelsea Thai coming to former Neptune space on 1st Avenue; Filipino fare for Avenue A

[Photo of 192-194 1st Avenue from June]

Two currently vacant East Village storefronts have new restaurant tenants.

According to a news release via Eastern Consolidated (H/T Real Estate Weekly), Chelsea Thai, which has operated a stall in the Chelsea Market for 19 years, has signed a 10-year-lease at 192-194 First Ave.

The space between 11th Street and 12th Street was previously home to the Neptune. The Polish-American restaurant closed last Dec. 4 after 15 years in business. According to one source, the asking rent doubled for the space.

While the Neptune arrived in 2001, the location had been home to a Polish-American diner, such as KK, for many years.


[Photo of 167 Avenue A from August 2016]

Meanwhile, at 167 Avenue A, Mama Fina's House of Filipino Sisig, an Elmwood Park, N.J.-based restaurant, is opening an outpost here between 10th Street and 11th Street.

The family-owned Filipino restaurant is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Elmwood Park, and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. (According to Yelp, they are cash only at their N.J. location.)

Moonstruck Eatery closed at No. 167 in July 2016 after one year of business. And several years earlier, the address was boats 'n hoes hotspot Diablo Royale Este, which closed at the end of August 2012.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Today is the last day in business for the Neptune

Poke N' Roll for 9th Street

Apparently the Great Poke Trend of 2015-2016 continues deeper into 2017.

As this photo via EVG contributor Steven shows, a sign arrived on the front door at the previously vacant 441 E. Ninth St. for Poke N' Roll...



As Eater has noted, restaurants serving the Hawaiian fish dish are a dime a dozen now, though with several standouts. So we'll see where Poke N' Roll will fall on the Poke Meter. Don't know anything else about this operation at the moment, such as if it's related to the Poke N Roll in Glendale, Calif. (Probably not.)

And this is one of the long-empty storefronts along East Ninth Street in the Icon Realty-owned building at Avenue A.

The women's boutique Cloak and Dagger was in this small storefront, before relocating to the next block of Ninth Street several years back.

The building on the northwest corner was eventually free of retail tenants after Icon's takeover. (Icon Realty bought the building at 145 Avenue A for $10.1 million in April 2014, according to public records.)

After sitting empty for 18 months, the spaces got its first new tenant with the flower shop Beetlebug back in February, then GelARTo in July.

Previously on EV Grieve:
On East 9th Street Dusty Buttons is closing after 125% rent hike: 'Saying goodbye will hurt like hell'

Tenants and local elected officials speak out against Icon Realty

Mount Sinai Union Square opens new urgent care center

[Eye room at Mount Sinai Downtown Union Square urgent care]

As you know, the Mount Sinai Health System is in the midst of its years-long project to rebuild Mount Sinai Beth Israel, transitioning to a network of smaller facilities throughout lower Manhattan.

One of those smaller facilities opened yesterday. Here's part of a media advisory via the EVG inbox yesterday...

Mount Sinai Health System today announced the opening, at the newly renovated Mount Sinai Union Square, of a state-of-the-art, full-service urgent care center, including pediatric care, which will feature daytime, evening, and weekend hours.

The renovation of the facility and creation of the urgent care center are part of Mount Sinai’s transformation of services south of 34th Street, which will include a new Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital with a highly advanced Emergency Department, expanded and renovated ambulatory and outpatient services, more than 35 operating and procedure rooms, and an extensive network of physician practices with more than 600 doctors.

The newly expanded and enhanced Mount Sinai Union Square now features modern procedure rooms and upgraded technology. Some of the upgrades include a fully integrated electronic health record system, secure in-room video conferencing for consultations with specialists and other medical consultants, and a secure online portal called “MyChart” through which patients can access their medical records.

For conditions that require an emergency room visit or hospital stay, patients will continue to be able to get care at Mount Sinai Beth Israel and its full-service emergency room, including award-winning cardiac and stroke services, which will remain open throughout this transformation.

The new Urgent Care Center is open Monday through Friday, 8 am – 8 pm, and 9 am – 5 pm on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.

Find more details on the facility here.

Mount Sinai's plans include opening an expanded facility, featuring a 70-bed hospital, on 14th Street and Second Avenue while closing its campus on First Avenue and 16th Street.