The view today from atop the 122 Community Arts Center on First Avenue and Ninth Street ... photo by Grant Shaffer.
Friday, February 2, 2018
Friday's parting shot
The view today from atop the 122 Community Arts Center on First Avenue and Ninth Street ... photo by Grant Shaffer.
Office space
The latest record from No Age, "Snares Like a Haircut," is out this week on Drag City. The video is for the first single, "Send Me."
The duo will be playing at Brooklyn Bazaar in May.
3rd Street collateral damage
Several readers mentioned a small fire that started late Wednesday night on Third Street at Avenue B... one reader said some kids (youth!) were lighting a box of saturn missiles (celebrating the last day of January?)... that ignited the garbage bags on the curb... and this Nissan Altima was the collateral damage. The FDNY quickly put out the flames. The car, now without license plates, remains on Third Street...
H/T Salim for the photos!
I Am a Rent-Stabilized Tenant
East Village resident Susan Schiffman has been photographing the apartments of rent-stabilized tenants living in the East Village for her Instagram account, I Am a Rent Stabilized Tenant. She will share some of the photos here for this ongoing EVG feature.
Photos and text by Susan Schiffman
Tenant: Alison, since 1981
Why did you move to the East Village?
I moved to the East Village because I was turning 21 and my flying rights as the child of an airline pilot were about to run out. I was living in Berkeley, Calif. I had to make a decision. I was born and raised primarily on the East Coast. When I was 18 or 19 I moved to California because my parents and sister were living there. I went with some schoolmates and lived there for about two-and-a-half years. It drove me crazy. I love California. The Bay Area is beautiful, but there are no seasons. I really like it when everything dies and comes back to life.
I was living across the street from a University of California at Berkeley garden and nothing ever died. It was green all the time. People said, “Yeah, it’s winter, it’s raining, you can tell.” Yeah, OK, but it’s still super green. That made me nutty. I was involved here with someone who lived on First Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. I moved here on my 21st birthday in 1981. At the time, if you were the child of a pilot, you could fly for just the tax. It cost like $8 to fly from California to New York. You would fly standby but you would end up in first class a lot.
How did you find your apartment?
I was staying in Brooklyn where I lived with another friend from school who grew up with the guy I was fooling around with on First Street. He got a call one day, and I answered the phone. It was the woman who was living in this apartment. She said “I heard Sam is looking for a place to live.” I said, “no, he’s not, but I am.” And she said, “well, come on over.”
I had been looking around. You would go into a vacant apartment with a pack of people and there would be this huge scrum about who was going to fill out the paperwork and hand over a check. I came here and talked to her and she said “OK, it’s yours.” You just have to come up with key money. It was something like $500. She wasn’t the landlord. She was the tenant of this apartment. She said we’ll meet with the landlord. We met with him, here in the apartment. We sat at a table, while he dictated the lease. She was a calligrapher. She hand wrote the lease. It was beautiful! I still have a copy of it somewhere. It was crazy. It was a one-page lease. He said things like, “there’s no dancing on the roof in high heels, because you’ll break the roof. No men.” He was old-fashioned.
He was born and raised in the building. His name was Lucio. I signed the lease. I moved in in April. The guy on First Street committed suicide a few months later because he was a paranoid schizophrenic. It was really sad. I did not look for another apartment. It did not occur to me to look for another apartment, ever, until a few years later. Things started changing in the neighborhood.
It became apparent to me and the other current unrenovated apartment dweller in the building, that we should get leases — real leases. There are only two unrenovated apartments in the building now. Because the leases we had, the handwritten leases, were not exactly official. We tried to organize the building to get everyone to be involved. Nobody wanted to go to court to get leases. They were all longterm tenants ... and didn’t want to rock the boat with Lucio. I can appreciate that. We took him to court and got leases. My rent did not go up between 1981 and 1986. Lucio never raised the rent.
In 1986, everyone in the building got rent-stabilized leases. A number of years later, Lucio died. He sold the building right before he died to landlord #2. He came in and started pushing people out. He did everything by the book. He did it legally. The guy who lived next door was a musician who was on the road six months out of the year. By law you have to be in your apartment six months of the year, six months and a day and you’re out.
He twinned that apartment. He made a single apartment into two apartments. That was the first twinned apartment in the building. He put in skylights. He put in a bell and buzzer. Pretty much for 15-20 years I threw the key off the roof. There’s a leak in the roof that has always been there. The roof has been re-tarred a number of times but the leak has always been there.
At some point the roof started sagging ominously and the hole got bigger. I had buckets specifically for the rain. With the help of GOLES [Good Old Lower East Side, a tenants organization] I finally I got the Department of Buildings in here. They made the landlord fix it. The whole apartment is sagging toward the middle of the building. My bed is up on bricks so it’s level. The building is super slanty. Somebody was staying here who wanted to stretch some canvasses and she said she couldn’t find one right angle.
What do you love about your apartment?
I love that it gets so much light. It used to get more before they built the new building for the Theater for the New City. It was the first tall building in the neighborhood and I saw it go up from my window. I like this apartment because it’s my home and I grew up here.
I try to imagine living other places. I can’t really imagine it. I have a real push-pull with this neighborhood. Me and the other woman who lives here who got the leases with me, we’re the two oldest tenants in the building. I’m 57 and she’s around the same age. Everybody else in this building is in their 20s and 30s. They’re in and out in a year or two. I don’t know most of the tenants in this building. Landlord #2 tried to buy me out. He offered me $10,000. Then Landlord #3 offered to buy me out, also for $10,000. As far as I’m concerned, I have to walk away with $500,000, minimum. I know two people from Ninth Street who got $300,000 from Icon Realty.
My sister is always trying to get me to move up the river. She thinks I hate it here. I don’t hate it, but it’s hard to see everything you loved in the area disappear. I’m still miffed by the renovation at the Veselka, when they did away with the backroom. I loved the screen door in there.
If you're interested in inviting Susan in to photograph your apartment for an upcoming post, then you may contact her via this email.
Photos and text by Susan Schiffman
Tenant: Alison, since 1981
Why did you move to the East Village?
I moved to the East Village because I was turning 21 and my flying rights as the child of an airline pilot were about to run out. I was living in Berkeley, Calif. I had to make a decision. I was born and raised primarily on the East Coast. When I was 18 or 19 I moved to California because my parents and sister were living there. I went with some schoolmates and lived there for about two-and-a-half years. It drove me crazy. I love California. The Bay Area is beautiful, but there are no seasons. I really like it when everything dies and comes back to life.
I was living across the street from a University of California at Berkeley garden and nothing ever died. It was green all the time. People said, “Yeah, it’s winter, it’s raining, you can tell.” Yeah, OK, but it’s still super green. That made me nutty. I was involved here with someone who lived on First Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. I moved here on my 21st birthday in 1981. At the time, if you were the child of a pilot, you could fly for just the tax. It cost like $8 to fly from California to New York. You would fly standby but you would end up in first class a lot.
How did you find your apartment?
I was staying in Brooklyn where I lived with another friend from school who grew up with the guy I was fooling around with on First Street. He got a call one day, and I answered the phone. It was the woman who was living in this apartment. She said “I heard Sam is looking for a place to live.” I said, “no, he’s not, but I am.” And she said, “well, come on over.”
I had been looking around. You would go into a vacant apartment with a pack of people and there would be this huge scrum about who was going to fill out the paperwork and hand over a check. I came here and talked to her and she said “OK, it’s yours.” You just have to come up with key money. It was something like $500. She wasn’t the landlord. She was the tenant of this apartment. She said we’ll meet with the landlord. We met with him, here in the apartment. We sat at a table, while he dictated the lease. She was a calligrapher. She hand wrote the lease. It was beautiful! I still have a copy of it somewhere. It was crazy. It was a one-page lease. He said things like, “there’s no dancing on the roof in high heels, because you’ll break the roof. No men.” He was old-fashioned.
He was born and raised in the building. His name was Lucio. I signed the lease. I moved in in April. The guy on First Street committed suicide a few months later because he was a paranoid schizophrenic. It was really sad. I did not look for another apartment. It did not occur to me to look for another apartment, ever, until a few years later. Things started changing in the neighborhood.
It became apparent to me and the other current unrenovated apartment dweller in the building, that we should get leases — real leases. There are only two unrenovated apartments in the building now. Because the leases we had, the handwritten leases, were not exactly official. We tried to organize the building to get everyone to be involved. Nobody wanted to go to court to get leases. They were all longterm tenants ... and didn’t want to rock the boat with Lucio. I can appreciate that. We took him to court and got leases. My rent did not go up between 1981 and 1986. Lucio never raised the rent.
In 1986, everyone in the building got rent-stabilized leases. A number of years later, Lucio died. He sold the building right before he died to landlord #2. He came in and started pushing people out. He did everything by the book. He did it legally. The guy who lived next door was a musician who was on the road six months out of the year. By law you have to be in your apartment six months of the year, six months and a day and you’re out.
He twinned that apartment. He made a single apartment into two apartments. That was the first twinned apartment in the building. He put in skylights. He put in a bell and buzzer. Pretty much for 15-20 years I threw the key off the roof. There’s a leak in the roof that has always been there. The roof has been re-tarred a number of times but the leak has always been there.
At some point the roof started sagging ominously and the hole got bigger. I had buckets specifically for the rain. With the help of GOLES [Good Old Lower East Side, a tenants organization] I finally I got the Department of Buildings in here. They made the landlord fix it. The whole apartment is sagging toward the middle of the building. My bed is up on bricks so it’s level. The building is super slanty. Somebody was staying here who wanted to stretch some canvasses and she said she couldn’t find one right angle.
What do you love about your apartment?
I love that it gets so much light. It used to get more before they built the new building for the Theater for the New City. It was the first tall building in the neighborhood and I saw it go up from my window. I like this apartment because it’s my home and I grew up here.
I try to imagine living other places. I can’t really imagine it. I have a real push-pull with this neighborhood. Me and the other woman who lives here who got the leases with me, we’re the two oldest tenants in the building. I’m 57 and she’s around the same age. Everybody else in this building is in their 20s and 30s. They’re in and out in a year or two. I don’t know most of the tenants in this building. Landlord #2 tried to buy me out. He offered me $10,000. Then Landlord #3 offered to buy me out, also for $10,000. As far as I’m concerned, I have to walk away with $500,000, minimum. I know two people from Ninth Street who got $300,000 from Icon Realty.
My sister is always trying to get me to move up the river. She thinks I hate it here. I don’t hate it, but it’s hard to see everything you loved in the area disappear. I’m still miffed by the renovation at the Veselka, when they did away with the backroom. I loved the screen door in there.
If you're interested in inviting Susan in to photograph your apartment for an upcoming post, then you may contact her via this email.
That dog-friendly cafe opens today on Avenue A
After much hoopla these past few months, Boris & Horton, the dog-friendly cafe, opens this morning at 7 on Avenue A and 12th Street ... (H/T Greg Masters for the photos!)
As previously reported, with the approval of the Department of Health, daughter-father co-owners Logan Mikhly and Coppy Holzman created three separate areas in the cafe, including an indoor seating area where dogs can go but food cannot be ordered, and a cafe separated by plexiglass where dogs are forbidden.
The cafe, named after the owners' dogs, is serving City of Saints coffee and Balthazar pastries, among other items. (They were OK'd for a beer-wine license.) The space will also host the occasional dog-adoption events.
Boris & Horton's hours are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Find their website here with more details.
Meanwhile, let us know in the comments if you stopped by the space...
Previously on EV Grieve:
On tonight's CB3-SLA docket: Boris & Horton, New York's first dog friendly coffee shop
886, next-level Taiwanese food, in the works for 26 St. Mark's Place
[Photo from Jan. 23]
Last week we noted that a new Taiwanese restaurant is in the works for 26 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.
There was an undated Community Board notice in the window noting that Tasty Taiwan LLC plans to open a restaurant with a beer-wine license...
The questionnaire for the new venture is now online (PDF here). According to the paperwork on file, the new venture is called 886 (or Eight Eighty Six, Taiwan’s country code), a full-service Taiwanese restaurant open daily from noon to midnight. The space, from operators with experience at The Tang on First Avenue, will accommodate 12 tables seating 20 diners.
Co-owner and chef Eric Sze told this to Eater: "I’m really happy to see Taiwanese food popping up everywhere, but the introductory stuff — beef noodle soup, boba, and fried chicken — has been done. There’s a lot more to offer, and we want to take it to the next level."
This item will NOT be heard during CB3's SLA meeting on Feb. 12. The meeting is in the Perseverance House Community Room, 535 E. Fifth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.
The previous tenant at No. 26, TK Kitchen, which served bubble tea and various Taiwanese street food, closed in December.
Construction watch: 79-89 Avenue D
Checking in on 79-89 Avenue D, the 12-story retail-residential building nearing completion here between Seventh Street and Sixth Street.
As previously reported, the project by L+M Development Partners will include 110 apartment units (rentals!), 22 of which will be permanently affordable. Amenities will include a fitness center, landscaped roof deck and an outdoor terrace.
The address was previously one-level storefronts that included a Rite Aid, which relocated one block north to the ground floor of the Arabella 101 building. Rite Aid signed a lease to return to the retail space at No. 79.
...and here's a look at the Sixth Street side...
Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: Space that houses Rite Aid on Avenue D hits market for $22.5 million
Report: New 12-story, mixed-use building in the works for Avenue D
Permit pre-filed for new 12-floor building at 79-89 Avenue D
Thursday, February 1, 2018
EV Grieve Etc.: City upgrading NYCHA heating systems; New Beer Distributors closing on the LES
[The end of The Goldfinch shoot on 7th Street via Derek Berg]
City to spend $200 million to finally upgrade heating systems in NYCHA buildings (CBS New York)
Bad landlords will foot temporary tenant relocation costs under proposed legislation via Margaret Chin (Curbed)
Photo essay of the newly renovated 122 Community Arts Center on First Avenue and Ninth Street (Field Condition ... previously)
Post reporter cited for arguing with an NYPD Traffic Enforcement Agent on Second Street (Daily News)
Feb. series highlights the documentary achievements of directors more widely known for their fiction films (Anthology Film Archives)
Richard Hell's No. 1 fan? (The New Yorker)
The Lo-Down has op-eds on the mayor's proposed tech hub — pro (here) and con (here)
A visit to the Double Down Saloon on Avenue A (The New Yorker)
New Beer Distributors closing on Chrystie (BoweryBoogie)
Al Pacino retrospective coming to the Quad in March (EW)
When Keith Haring body painted Grace Jones (Dangerous Minds)
"Cowboys & Aliens" reunion? Daniel Craig and Sam Rockwell spotted at Dan & John's Wings on First Avenue (Page Six)
And via the EVG inbox... the annual fundraiser at the Earth School on Avenue B featuring the Great Cardone and friends... details about tomorrow evening's program on the flyer below...
Dora is on the mend, but she may not be back in Tompkins Square Park anytime soon
Back late November, Dora, the female red-tailed hawk of Tompkins Square Park, injured her wing. (It's not known how she did this.)
During these past two months, she has been in the care of Wildlife in Need of Rescue and Rehabilitation (WINORR).
The Park's hawk watchers were hopeful that Dora would be able to return soon. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case via this Facebook update from WINORR:
The injured female hawk from Tompkins Square Park is not where we hoped she'd be by now. Although the x-rays were negative, she had a serious bone infection requiring medicating and rest. Her still-drooping wing may be permanent from either tendon, ligament and/or nerve damage.
Those concerned about her possible return to her mate Christo for the upcoming breeding season — that is not possible at the stage she's at. We are not giving up on her ... it may take months of exercise to regain her full flight. So for now she must stay put and hopefully make great improvement. The red mark on her wrist we applied for ID purposes — it is not blood or an injury.
As Googla recently observed, Christo "has been acting sullen and surly since she's been away." And there has been the whole confusing Not-Dora/Nora situation.
Head over to Goggla's site for some of her favorite photos of Dora these past few years.
Images via the WINORR Facebook page.
Claim: A Trader Joe's won't be coming to new development at 14th and A after all
[Photo of 432-438 E.14th St. from Saturday]
An EVG reader was recently at the Trader Joe's on 14th Street at Irving Place. A store employee told the reader that Trader Joe's is no longer opening an outpost at 432-438 E. 14th St. — the new development in the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office.
In May 2017, The Real Deal, citing anonymous sources, first reported that Trader Joe's "quietly signed a lease about two months ago with Mack Real Estate and Benenson Capital Partners ... for 8,531 square on the ground floor and 14,170 square feet on the lower level."
Since then, there haven't been any further updates about TJ's arrival here in the base of the 8-story, 114-unit rental at Avenue A.
According to the 14th Street employee, Trader Joe's is opening locations on the Upper West Side and Soho in 2018, and will look for a spot on the Lower East Side. The Trader Joe's newsroom lists the UWS and Soho openings for later this year. There isn't any mention of a second 14th Street outpost. (There's also no mention of the TJ's outpost reported to be coming to Essex Crossing.)
Will update if/when we hear anything more on what's coming to the retail space at 432-438 E. 14th St.
Meanwhile, one block to the east, work continues at the incoming small-format Target store, which will sell, among other things, an assortment of so-called grab-and-go sandwiches, salads and beverages.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Looking at the future home of 14th Street's 2nd Trader Joe's (27 comments)
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