Name: Siobhan Meow
Occupation: Anything I could get
Location: Avenue C and Second Street
Date: Friday, Oct 20
I’m from Brooklyn. Coming here was a matter of my becoming homeless. I was living in Avenue U in Brooklyn, and I used take the train into the city all the time.
I decided to live in the city, and when I got here I got an SRO, but I couldn’t afford the rent. I went through a period of unemployment, I ended up homeless, and I came down here in 1988 because I met some people at ABC No Rio. They let me sleep in the basement, and that’s how I met Geerta Franken because we were both modeling for drawing classes. We went to Seventh Street and met Michael Shanker, who is a wild pirate electrician who hooked us up, and I picked a building because it was around the corner from my best friend’s house.
We opened a squat called Umbrella House. It was an absolute ruin. There were holes in the roof, holes in the floors, all the way down to the first floor, except for the main hallway. The two storefronts were filled to within two feet of the ceiling with old appliances and rubble and stuff, and this is a 12-foot ceiling. We had to dig it out.
We called it Umbrella House because when it rained or snowed, and it was a six-story building, it would go all the way down to the first floor. It was not so dangerous, more like kind of fun. The three flights of stairs in the middle of the building were out so we had to use the fire escapes to go to the top floors.
And of course there was no heat. Winter we spent in a very small room in sleeping bags to stay warm until we hooked up a hot electrical wire that Con Ed didn’t turn off, and then we had minimal electric where we could run heat for free and also power tools. We actually went 17 years without heat, which fortunately for me I was into cat rescues, so I had cat heat. They kept me warm, and also a big Carharrt suit, which is like a sleeping bag you walk around in.
We had to put in our own sewer line. We weren’t legally allowed to do it even though we got a permit for it. We got the permit and we had a licensed plumber overseeing the job, but as soon as we started digging down into the sidewalk, somebody who didn’t like us called up the city and they shut it down.
Fortunately we had started this on a Friday and so we covered the hole with boards and made like we weren’t working on it, but we went into the basement and broke through the wall and literally tunneled under to the sewer main. We had to put boards up because every time a truck or bus went over it, it would cause rocks to fall. That was dangerous and we’re lucky no one got killed, because we did it 24 hours straight for like four days with a chain of people with buckets. Once we got that it was easy to hook up the water
In the first year they tried to evict us and the whole block was closed off with cops. We had a three-day siege, where we stood in the windows to prevent them from knocking our building down. The guy who was working the wrecking ball, he saw us in the window and he got out of the wrecker. He didn’t want to be responsible.
But the more we got things legal, the harder it became for them to evict us. We did most of the repair work by scrounging and pilfering construction sites because there was a lot of construction going on at the time. This was mostly for cement, old joists, and steel beams that they would throw out. And over a period of 20 years we brought it up to where it’s now a legal low-income co-op that we own shares in.
“Halpern’s motivation behind alleging these complaints is his self-interest against increased noise and crowds in his community,” the SLA says in court papers.
“Halpern substitutes his own personal judgement for that of the Authority. … Halpern’s remedy, simply put, cannot be found within the walls of this Courthouse.”
“There are too may people running around drinking all the time,” Halpern told The Real Deal. “It’s become more and more of a drinking culture here.”
Halpern’s argument is that bottomless brunches are prohibited by a provision against selling unlimited alcohol for a set time and a set price. The Liquor Authority’s legal counsel has previously taken the position that “brunch specials” are considered special events and exempted from the provision. The suit makes the case that weekly bottomless brunches should not be exempt.
Nightlife is part of the soul of our city. The Office of Nightlife will make sure it stays that way for generations of New Yorkers to come. pic.twitter.com/hUNIZOVBJv
— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) September 20, 2017
The new appointee will field complaints and mediate disputes between nightlife establishments and city and state agencies, as well as residents with complaints and concerns.
The administration is in the process of interviewing candidates for the job, which is expected to be filled by the end of the year.
Espinal said hundreds of people have applied for the job, including from community boards, the artist community, industry folks and business owners as well as artists who are flame throwers, dancers and musicians. He said he would prefer someone from outside city agencies and the administration.
He noted that the city has seen a 20 percent decrease in the number of music venues over the last 15 years and that that stems from city enforcement and displacement because of real estate.
Candidates include Bronx native Gerard McNamee, the former director of operations for East Village nightclub and concert venue Webster Hall before it was sold to Brooklyn Sports Entertainment in April; Brooklyn resident Brendan Sullivan, a DJ, producer and author; and Matthew Demar, who rapped in the 1990s under the moniker “Kid Panic” and a supporter of President Trump.
Sullivan, 35, who grew up in Connecticut, said his experience includes serving as bartender and head bartender at The Modern at the Museum of Modern Art and deejaying at the Beauty Bar in the East Village for five years. He also worked at Pianos NYC and deejayed at St. Jerome’s, where he met Lady GaGa and eventually became her DJ, touring with her and starring in her first music video.
Demar, 49, who grew up in Westchester, Manhattan and Long Island, has been in the nightclub and restaurant business for more than 30 years. He worked for his first nightclub, the Roxy — which was later renamed 1018 — at the age of 13 hosting high school teen nights, managed his first nightclub at 17 and brought one of the first foam machines to the city from Mexico. He ran clubs such as Coco’s and Mirage Glow.
In the 1990s, he toured the country with Boyz II Men, Big Daddy Kane and MC Lyte. He also developed a nightclub in Utica and owned the Hollyrock nightclubs in Herkimer, Utica and Sylvan Beach.
“I’m the only person — unless I’m wrong — but I think I’m really one of the only people that has entertainment, that has nightclub and hotel experience,” he said.
The mayor’s office said many people have applied for the position but that neither the names of candidates nor the number of applicants are public information yet and that the salary likely will be $130,000. Eligibility requirements include at least five years of experience working closely with the nightlife or music industry, with city government regulations governing the nighttime economy or health and public safety and understanding city politics and government structure.
This afternoon at 3, a handful of local elected officials will join Project Renewal at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new community garden outside the organization's Third Street Men's Shelter.
The ribbon-cutting will kick off Project Renewal's Halloween-themed block party on Third Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery for community residents, with costumes, a pumpkin patch, food, games and more.
Going forward, the garden will be a venue for horticultural therapy and other programming for clients of the Third Street Men’s Shelter which, in 1991, became the first homeless shelter contracted by the New York City Department of Homeless Services. Today, the shelter offers a wide range of health, recovery, and job training services to homeless men with substance use disorder histories.
Project Renewal started as the city’s first medical detox clinic on the Bowery in 1967, and has since expanded to serve over 16,000 men, women and children annually.
Inspired by Kenney’s travels around Mexico, Bar Verde recasts nachos, tamales and tacos for vegans, swapping queso with butternut squash queso, and crema with cashew crema. Other dishes will include wild mushroom-stuffed tamales and tacos filled with farro chorizo or avocado tempura.
The all-day restaurant, which has 56 indoor seats and 24 on an outdoor patio, features a bar that will showcase agave spirits, as well as sustainable beer and wine.
The device ranks how germy the surface of an item is, depending on the bacteria and biological material it finds. The lower the rating, the fewer germs it has. If something gets a rating of 50, it shouldn’t touch your food.
The title for the grossest public object in New York City goes to Citi Bikes. Turns out, the handlebars on these communal bikes are less hygienic than the hold bars on subway trains — 45 times germier to be exact.
Here are the results for the other objects Bean tested:
1. Citi Bike handlebar - 1,512
2. Starbucks door handle - 1,090
3. LinkNYC kiosk - 807
4. Taxi handle - 424
5. Grand Central door knob - 45
I've made prints of some of my NYC street photos from the past few years, and I plan to share them by hanging these prints in the exact spot where i took them. (or as close as i can get.) These prints can be yours by going there and taking it. The prints are 12x18...
"Initially, we expect to see a small number of sales in bitcoins. But over the next five or 10 years, I could see up to 25 percent of payments happening in bitcoin or a like digital currency.
"It's going to be the future," he continued, "and a lot of developers will start to adapt and offer the same option."
"Our buyer has evolved, they've moved from mom and pops to young people who want to pay with various forms of payment. Cryptocurrency is something that has been asked of us — 'Can you take cryptocurrency? Can we pay that way?' — and of course when somebody wants to pay you with a different form of payment, you're going to try to work with them and give them what they want, especially in a very busy real estate market."
Shaoul ... admits that there is currently a lot of inventory in the market, and therefore having an edge over his competitors is especially key. Bitcoin, he hopes, will be that edge.
"I think the demographic of the crypto user is a younger millennial, but, that being said, you have a lot of people come over from other countries, who are buyers from different places, who like to trade in different types of currency. Not everyone wants to trade in dollars or yen or euros," Shaoul said.
Since he announced that he’ll accept bitcoin for purchases in his East Village project a few days ago, Mr. Shaoul said he’s received dozens of emails and calls expressing interest from overseas buyers in China and other Asian countries.
