Wednesday, November 1, 2017

An early start on the holidays on St. Mark's Place



These went up yesterday (Halloween!) on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue...





These seems about three weeks earlier than usual...
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The horse head moved again, of course, of course

For those of you keeping track ... the concrete horse head bust has been on the move these past few days... from Avenue A and Seventh Street to Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue to Tompkins Square Park.

And now... it's on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue outside the Shape of Lies...


[Photo by Derek Berg]

One EVG commenter noted that the horse head's first appearance was actually here outside the art-jewelry shop.

Where will it end up next?
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Updating: Reports of a shooting on Astor Place


Unconfirmed reports that this happened at the CVS.

The Daily News has a brief report here.

Updating...



8:35 a.m.



8:40 a.m.



9:05 a.m.

Per the Daily Mail: "A woman has been shot in the stomach while parking her CitiBike in Manhattan before the gunman is believed to have then shot himself."

Also:

The woman ... was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries. The gunman was also rushed to hospital and his condition is also believed to be serious.

10:30 a.m.

DNAinfo reports that the police haven't provided further information about the circumstances or motive for the shooting just yet.

DNAinfo also reconstructs what happened via witness accounts:

"He didn't say a word. He shot her in the chest both times. It was point-blank range. Her feet went in the air and she hit the floor," [nearby office worker Jerry] Simo said.

The shooter, then kicked the woman's feet to make sure she was shot, witnesses said.

"Then he put the gun under his chin and finished himself," Simo added.

Cooper Union has issued a series of tweets...





10:45 a.m.

ABC 7 reports that the woman and the man were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. (The NYPD now says the man is still alive.)

The station reports that the 62-year-old man and the 56-year-old woman were a couple.

11:30 a.m.



11/2

The post continues here with details on the murder victim, Elizabeth Lee.

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1st Avenue fruit vendors pack up for the season


[EVG file photo]

Last night was the last call this season for the fruit-vegetable vendors here on First Avenue and Sixth Street outside Village View ... EVG reader Rainer Turim shared these photos from last night (there was word of a small going-away party) ...





The vendors returned for the season here back in April...
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RIP Richard Hambleton



Richard Hambleton, a street artist who came to prominence in the 1980s East Village, died on Sunday. He was 65. (A cause of death was not mentioned in published reports.)

Here's more from artnet News:

The enigmatic artist burst on the scene alongside a group of confidants and collaborators that included Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf. Hambleton soon became known for his signature “shadowman” motif, a splotched, black, leering figure that appeared on the walls of buildings in downtown Manhattan.

Just as Hambleton’s career took off he started using drugs, including heroin and crack. He relied on the drugs, particularly the heroin, to reach a mental state that he felt helped him depict the sublime. A long battle with addiction would plague him throughout his life.

Hambleton, who most recently was living in an East Village studio, had enjoyed a revival this year. "Shadowman," Oren Jacoby's documentary about his life and work, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival back in the spring.



Hambleton's work is also part of "Club 57: Film, Performance and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983," an exhibit that opened yesterday at MoMa.

"Right up to his death he was painting," Kristine Woodward of Woodward Gallery told artnet News. "We'd never known anybody who lived to paint the way Richard did, he was just such a dedicated artist, it's all he cared about, he was not a careerist, he just wanted to paint."

There were many tributes to Hambleton on Twitter...








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Happy No. 50 to the cube of Astor Place


[Photo from November 2016 by Peter Brownscombe]

The Alamo officially turns 50 today on Astor Place.

Some cube history via the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP):

On November 1, 1967, an 8′ x 8′ x 8′ 1,800-pound giant black cube was installed in Astor Place as one of 25 temporary public artworks by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. However, it was so popular that local residents petitioned the City to keep it, and except for its absences for restorations over the past few years, it has stood there ever since.

Bernard “Tony” Rosenthal’s sculpture was originally named “Sculpture and the Environment,” but was eventually renamed The Alamo by his wife, Cynthia Rosenthal, because its size and mass reminded her of the famous Alamo Mission in San Antonio.

GVSHP and the Village Alliance are hosting a birthday party today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can do things like make your own cube from origami, eat birthday cake and take part in 50 continuous minutes of spinning the cube in an attempt to break the record and raise money for the GO Project. Find more details here.

Signing off with one little piece of recent cube history — that time in October 2011 when Agata Olek yarn bombed the thing...


[Photo by EVG reader Anne]
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Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Tuesday's parting shots



Halloween at Ray's Candy Store on Avenue A... photos by Lola Sāenz ...



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Con Ed hosting public meeting to discuss cleanup plans for former Gas House District


[East 20th Street looking east toward 1st Avenue in 1938 via]

As you might know, the current home of Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village was once the Gas House District in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The area was named for the Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) stations and facilities that converted coal and oil into gas. Con Ed and its predecessors ran the stations. (Read more background here and here.)

Here's a map circa 1897 showing the area when Avenue A (yellow arrow) and Avenue B (blue arrow) crossed north of 14th Street. (Threw in a black arrow for Avenue C too.)


[Click for more detail]

As Ephemeral New York has posted, by the 1930s, most of the storage tanks were gone.

Soon, it was deemed the perfect place to put Met Life’s new middle-class housing developments, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

In 1945, 3,000 families were moved out of the Gas House District ...

Per reports in Town & Village (here), Con Ed has been testing and looking for contaminants in the ground, groundwater and air in recent years. (The State Department of Environmental Conservation and the State Department of Health are reportedly coordinating the testing.)

From Town & Village on Oct. 19:

According to the study’s findings from investigations in 2006 and 2008, contaminants were found, but located deep in the ground (at least five feet) with most even lower, and in groundwater beneath the site, though that water is not used for drinking. MGP residential levels tested in the air indoors were found to be typical. Outdoor air samples collected were also found to be normal for an urban area. Because of this, Con Ed said in an advisory this week that it’s unlikely people will come into contact with these contaminants, though air monitoring will continue.

Still, the company is now proposing a “remediation” (cleanup) plan for the site that involves, among other things, the placement of wells.


The Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association and Con Edison are holding a public meeting tomorrow night at 7 to discuss the cleanup plans. The meeting is at Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s Podell Auditorium in the Bernstein Building, 10 Perlman Place, one block west of First Avenue between 15th Street and 16th Street.

In addition, the State Department of Environmental Conservation is accepting public comments in writing Nov. 10. You may submit those to Douglas MacNeal, project manager at the DEC, at douglas.macneal@dec.ny.gov or 625 Broadway, Albany, NY, 12233.

Con Ed has more posted more documents and background here.
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The roving horse head continues to rove


[Photo from Oct. 21 by Derek Berg]

As noted on Sunday, the (quite heavy) concrete horse head bust outside Bonefade Barbers on Avenue A near Seventh Street was roaming around the neighborhood... having made it to Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue, where it remained yesterday...


[Photo by Steven]

... and today, the horse head is in Tompkins Square Park...


[Photo by Grant Shaffer]

Looks like we got a runner...
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HiFi’s last stand


[HiFi's Mike Stuto]

On Oct. 18, Mike Stuto, the co-owner of the HiFi on Avenue A between 10th Street and 11th Street, announced that the bar would close at the end of October after 15 years. HiFi closed after service on Sunday.

In a letter posted on his Facebook page, Stuto said that business had been off, noting that the weekend bar crowd was "mostly indifferent to the place." He also stressed that the closure had nothing to do with the landlord, a management company that he said has been "ideal ... in pretty much every sense of the word."

The bar opened in 2002, after a 13-year run as the rock club Brownies, where Stuto started booking shows in 1994.

-----

Text and photos by Dan Efram

After 23 years, the Mike Stuto-helmed bar HiFi (previously Brownies) has closed its doors for the last time. Stuto, who fostered community and literal harmony, set up one last hurrah this past Thursday with its popular series "Under Your Influence," a monthly live-music tribute. Thursday evening's show was titled "The Final Chapter: Tom Petty."

"Mike Stuto has always a strong advocate for bands/acts he likes," relays Dave Foster, who, along with Adam Rubenstein, John Brodeur and Mike Fornatale, co-produced this specific "Under Your Influence" show. "From back when it was Brownies he put my band Bubble on bills with acts I'm still friendly with… to HiFi where it’s been a musical home away from home for a lot of the NYC indie music folks. The quality was always top notch."

Some of the featured singers on the final tribute night included Gabrielle Sterbenz (Wheatus), Travis Morrison (of The Dismemberment Plan), Beth Wawerna (Bird of Youth), Matt Keating, John Brodeur (Bird Streets), Don Piper (A Don Piper Situation); Rembert Block, Erica Smith, Lizzie Edwards (Murderer’s Row); Steve Shiffman (The Land of No), Freedy Johnston, Dave Derby (Gramercy Arms), Graham Norwood, Tony Zajkowski (Lotion), Richie Birkenhead (Youth of Today, Into Another), and Adam Rubenstein, among many others.


[Adam Rubenstein, Jeff Litman, Gabrielle Sterbenz]


[Joanna Choy]


[Travis Morrison]


[Jeff Litman and Gabrielle Sterbenz]


[Matt Keating with Murderer's Row]




[Don Piper, singer, songwriter and longtime live sound engineer]



"Most of us have so many wonderful memories playing Brownies," says guitarist and original Under Your Influence instigator Adam Rubenstein. "Our shared fondness of that place and Stuto made every Under Your Influence feel like a reunion of old friends. I will miss it."



Previously on EV Grieve:
The HiFi Bar, home of NYC's best jukebox, is closing at the end of the month
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4 East Village restaurants earn Michelin stars


[Ko photo from August]

Michelin announced its 2018 Starred Selections for New York City restaurants yesterday ... for the 13th edition of the "Michelin Guide New York City."

Four East Village restaurants are on the list of selections:

Two Stars, "excellent cooking, worth a detour"
• Momofuku Ko, 8 Extra Place

One Star, "high quality cooking, worth a stop"
• Jewel Bako, 239 E. Fifth St. between Second Avenue and Cooper Square

• Kanoyama, 175 Second Ave. at 11th Street

• Kyo Ya, 94 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue

Eater reports that Cagen, 414 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, was dropped from the list.

In summation, the 2018 NYC selections include:
• 5 restaurants with three stars
• 11 restaurants with two stars
• 56 restaurants with one star
• 127 restaurants with a Bib Gourmand (13 East Village restaurants made this list)
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Hitchcocktober concludes tonight with 'Psycho'



Hitchcocktober comes to end this Halloween night at the Village East Cinema on Second Avenue and 12th Street with a screening of "Psycho" at 8.

A boy's best friend is his mother...



You can buy advance tickets here.
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