Sunday, February 3, 2019

Reactions to St. Mark's Comics closing


[Photo by Steven]

As first noted on Tuesday, St. Mark's Comics announced that it will close at the end of February after 36 years on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue.

"I have been working 90 hours a week for 36 years, and I no longer have the wherewithal to fight them — all of these various reasons," owner Mitch Cutler told me about all the different factors that led to his decision to close up shop. "It is challenging to have a storefront business in New York City for a number of reasons...it is challenging to keep and maintain a retail storefront and there are enough impediments now that—like I said, I'm exhausted and can't fight them anymore."

News of the closing was picked up by a variety of news sources (and thanks to Curbed and Gothamist for linking to my post!) ... there was a lot of reaction via Twitter. Here's a sampling...









And there was this from storyboard artist Sean Chen...


Meanwhile, the store is having a clearance sale, as you can see on the sign outside...


[Photo by Steven]
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Grant Shaffer's NY See



Here's this week's NY See, East Village-based illustrator Grant Shaffer's comic series — an observational sketch diary of things that he sees and hears around the neighborhood ... and NYC.
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Saturday, February 2, 2019

Saturday's parting shot



The sunset view downtown at 5:35 p.m. via Bobby Williams...
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Today in discarded Russian VHS tapes on 2nd Avenue



Derek Berg spotted these on Second Avenue near Fifth Street ... perhaps a marketing tie-in to the new Netflix series "Russian Doll"? (No, but...)
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EVG Etc.: African-American history in the East Village; an EV avenue on the Upper East Side


[Doggy bag on 7th Street earlier this week via Derek Berg]

Good Samaritan assaulted at the McDonald's on 14th Street near First Avenue (Town & Village)

Co-working network The Wing is moving its corporate headquarters to the former Stuyvesant Polyclinic building on Second Avenue between St. Mark's and Ninth Street (6sqft ... previously)

A guided tour of African-American history in the East Village (Off the Grid)

Our local City Council rep, Carlina Rivera, discusses the opposition to the new stormproofing plans for East River Park (WNYC ... previously)

Details on the NYCHA, HUD tentative deal (Curbed)

Get the lead out! Tests show lead levels 36x health standard in this Delshah Capital building on Ludlow Street (The Real Deal)

Avenue A — on the Upper East Side? (Ephemeral New York)

The Metrograph is screening Chantal Akerman's mesmerizing documentary "News From Home," featuring long takes of locations in New York City circa the mid-1970s (Official site)

An interview with writer Laurie Gwen Shapiro, a lifelong Lower East Side resident (Untapped Cities)

Another Ramone book to consider — Richie Ramone's "I Know Better Now" (LA Weekly)

15 things (maybe) you didn’t know about the East Village (6sqft ... previously)

The Posties declare winners and losers in the L-train shutdown switcheroo (The Post)

CB2 says no to Elizabeth Street Garden redevelopment (Curbed)

Is the Reported app is curbing bad taxi driving? (Streetsblog)

A look at the residents of Westbeth Artists Housing, the first and largest federally subsidized artists’ colony in the country when it opened in 1970 (Artsy)

... and here's Eden with this crime report (at Tarallucci e Vino?) ...

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Noted



One of the homemade street signs spotted along Avenue A. (There's one for No Parking on Avenue A at St. Mark's Place.) Be mindful of the cardboard tickets the city will issue.
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Friday, February 1, 2019

Friday's parting shot



Feb. 1 spring fever in Tompkins Square Park... photo today by Bobby Williams...
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'Drink' up



London's Snapped Ankles release their second full-length record on March 1. Ahead of that, here's the video for the single "Drink and Glide."
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RIP Brian Butterick/Hattie Hathaway


[Photo of Brian Butterick from 2009 by Stacie Joy]

Downtown nightlife legend Brian Butterick, who performed in drag as Hattie Hathaway, died on Wednesday. He was 62. According to a statement from Howl! Arts, Inc., where he served as a board member, Butterick had lung cancer.

Per Howl!:

His warmth, intelligence, wit and friendship, have sustained all of us throughout his many years as a fierce creative force in the community. Provocateur, satirist, and magnet for bringing together diverse individuals into his visionary process, he was an inspiration and a driving force in the Downtown arts world and in all our hearts. We will miss him.

Artforum had more on Butterick, who was born in the Bronx in 1956:

In addition to shaping the East Village’s queer nightlife as a producer and performer at venues such as the Mudd Club and Mother, Butterick was an early collaborator with and lover of artist David Wojnarowicz. He was also a member of Wojnarowicz’s New Wave band, 3 Teens Kill 4 (Butterick played the drum machine). In the late 1970s, Butterick posed for several of the artist’s iconic “Arthur Rimbaud in New York” photographs.

Around that same time, Butterick got a job doing security at the influential queer cabaret and nightclub Pyramid, eventually becoming its creative director. He also coauthored a history of the club titled "Secrets of the Great Pyramid: The Pyramid Cocktail Lounge as Cultural Laboratory" in 2015. It was there, in the early 1990s, that Butterick developed his Hattie Hathaway alter ego, named for his grandmother and Nancy Kulp’s Miss Jane Hathaway character on the CBS sitcom, "The Beverly Hillbillies."


[Photo of Hattie Hathaway from 2011 by Stacie Joy]

In this August 2016 interview with Michael Musto at Paper, Butterick recalled his first nightlife job:

I like to think it was late-night short order cook at the Empire Diner, which was in 1979. Then I was a busboy at Danceteria [a rock dance club at 37th Street], which was really, really long shifts from eight or nine until eight or nine in the morning. They had no liquor license and they advertised in the New York Times! Whatever you can do illegal, they did it. They were all such mobsters. They thought they could get away with it. We all went to jail. By the time they moved it to 21st Street, it was a different branch of the family. Meanwhile, the Mudd Club [a new wavey hangout in Tribeca] was open and Richard Boch was working at the door. After Danceteria closed, I worked at an after hours club called Berlin, which opened at three in the morning. Iolo Carew worked at Berlin and got me the job at Mudd, from 1980-'81.

In a Facebook post, Lady Bunny discussed Butterick's influence during his time at the Pyramid on Avenue A...



A memorial for Butterick is the works; details will be announced in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, people may leave tributes on his website.


[Image via Howl!]
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Looks like there's a Trader Joe's coming to 432-438 E. 14th St. after all



Last October, I asked a Trader Joe's media rep at the national office if they were opening a store at 432-438 E. 14th St. at Avenue A. The response: "Unfortunately, we do not have any current plans for a store at that location."

Perhaps those current plans weren't for October ... but it sure looks there are plans now here in mid-winter.

Yesterday morning, EVG reader Laura H. spotted this truck dropping off various equipment outside the new 8-story luxury rental called EVE... the work was happening in the under-construction retail space on the 14th Street side of the building...



... and there is a sign on the supplies...



... wait for it...



Some history. In May 2017, The Real Deal, citing anonymous sources, 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."

However, there wasn't much else mentioned about this possible new TJ's location (aside from some TJ clerk gossip that it wasn't happening) in the ensuing months. Finally, in a preview of EVE last August, City Realty noted: "To the delight of residents and neighbors, Trader Joe’s is the building’s retail tenant."

Still, a few months later, Trader Joe's said there weren't plans for this location.

A map on the EVE website shows a Trader Joe's here...



It's also now mentioned in the "East Village Life" section that lists nearby restaurants and stores. Per the EVE site: "Although with a Trader Joe’s in the building, you may not need to go too far."

Trader Joe's is reportedly tight-lipped about its operations ... which apparently includes information about new locations, and likes to have store buildout details worked out before announcing a target opening date, as the Lo-Down has noted.

From the look of it, the retail space at EVE has some work left before it's retail ready. It will be curious to see what impact this might have on the Associated directly across the street as well as the food-heavy Target a few hundred feet to the east.

Meanwhile, leasing continues at EVE, where the residential entrance is at 433 E. 13th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. This development is on the site of the onetime Peter Stuyvesant Post Office (1951-2014).

Previously on EV Grieve:
UPDATED: Did you hear the rumor about the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office branch closing?

Former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office slated to be demolished

The former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office will yield to an 8-story residential building

All about EVE, the Peter Stuyvesant Post Office-replacing rentals on 14th Street

Claim: A Trader Joe's won't be coming to new development at 14th and A after all

Trader Joe's: No current plans for grocery at 432-438 E. 14th St.
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Happy No. 20 to Lavagna!



Lavagna, the low-key Italian restaurant with an open kitchen at 545 E. Fifth St., celebrates its 20th anniversary today.

That's quite an achievement given how many buzzy restaurants come and go (have come and gone).

Here's a little bit of a review from over at The Infatuation:

The place has been in business since 1999, and it’s still busy every night. Chalk it up to an excellent and consistent menu of pastas and entrees that keep the regulars coming back, exceptional daily specials, and a really good wine list. It’s everything that you want a cozy Italian restaurant to be, and it’s not even all that expensive.

Lavagna, which is just west off of Avenue B, has remained one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants for these past 20 years. Congrats to Yorgos and the entire Lavagna family.
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Bubbleology Tea debuts tomorrow with an Instagram Boomerang photo booth



The London-based Bubbleology Tea chain opens its EV outpost tomorrow at 120 1/2 First Ave. between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place.

As the Times noted last spring, this outpost "will feature milk- and fruit-based bubble tea blends including Oreo Crush, along with alcoholic brews including Raspberry Mar-Tea-Ni." Not to mention concoctions like bubble waffles and gelato.

Here's what is in store for tomorrow...


The latest iteration of the International Bar closed in this now-sanitized space in November 2017. (Non-renewal of lease, via landlord Steve Croman.) The bar merged with its sister saloon, the Coal Yard, down the block.
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