At the opening of Linus Coraggio's 'Ramifications'

On Thursday night, Howl! Happening opened its fall season featuring the work — sculpture, painting and mixed media — of local artist Linus Coraggio.

The exhibit, titled "Ramifications," drew a large crowd on Thursday, including alum from the Rivington School sculptors group.



Here's more via Howl! about the artist and exhibit:

Linus Coraggio is a central figure in downtown New York’s early period of explosive art experimentation and cross-pollination of cultural ideas. Street artist and New York City native, Coraggio is best known for his abstract metal sculpture.

The current exhibition surveys Coraggio’s entire body of work, including paintings in expressionist and graffiti style, mobiles, furniture, neon, sculpture, mixed-media collage, and both classic and 3-D graffiti. The exhibition will also include recent collaborations with well-known downtown artists, and an installation of his painted and “sculpturalized” car that has become a recognized cultural fixture on the streets of New York City over the last 10 years.

EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by the opening and shared these photos...


[Linus Coraggio]















... and a survey of the work...









You can see the rest of his work at Howl! Happening, 6 E. First St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

According to the Howl! website: "The exhibition runs through October 10, with a special closing event on October 12."

Reminders: Cash mob at Gem Spa today

[Photo by Jeremiah Moss]

From noon to 2 p.m. today (Sept. 14!), the folks at #SaveNYC are hosting a Cash Mob at Gem Spa — currently adorned as a "Schitibank" branch — on Second Avenue at St. Mark's Place to help support the longtime business. Per the official invite:

Come prepared to spend some money — egg creams, pretzels, t-shirts, toothpaste! — and take your photo with a surprise work of guerrilla street art, as an acclaimed group of cultural activists and designers radically transform Gem Spa into a dystopian vision for the new St. Mark’s Place.

Maybe order an egg cream...


[Photo by Stacie Joy]

This is the latest act of kindness that neighbors have shown for the shop, which Parul Patel has been running for her ailing father Ray, the owner since 1986.

As we've been reporting in recent months, Gem Spa has been struggling of late, in part due to its temporary ban on selling cigarettes and lottery tickets as well as various landlord issues. (The ban ends in November.)

Previously on EV Grieve:
• A cash mob Saturday at Gem Spa (Sept. 10)

• Get your Gem Spa t-shirts or photos of Madonna — at Gem Spa! (Aug. 16)

• Will you buy a Gem Spa T-shirt? (June 28)

• The Gem Spa Zoltar is alive and well and telling fortunes an L-train ride away in Bushwick (June 19)

• "Gem Spa is open!" (June 18)

• What is happening at Gem Spa? (June 11)

• A visit to Gem Spa (May 10)

When Via Della Pace on 7th Street became Hobart & Blackwell for 'The Goldfinch'

[Derek Berg photo from February 2018]

"The Goldfinch" is in theaters this weekend. The adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, featuring Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Sarah Paulson and Finn Wolfhard, has mostly been trashed by critics for being dull and disjointed. Rotten Tomatoes shows a dismal composite score of 24 percent.

As you may recall, "Goldfinch" crews were here in February 2018 ... and again for reported reshoots in October 2018. They transformed the Italian restaurant Via Della Pace on Seventh Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue into an antiques shop for the film. Derek Berg documented part of the shoot in these photos.





... and how the storefront — Hobart & Blackwell antiques and restoration shop run by Jeffrey Wright's character — looks in the trailer...


[YouTube screengrab]

And the actual trailer...

Friday's parting shot

Tompkins Square Park today... see the ball, be the ball.

Thanks to Steven for the photo...

Today in discarded mattresses

Eden spotted this today on 10th Street at Second Avenue...

You were rubbish in bed too!

Wicked Leaks

Here are The Waikiki Leaks, an Italian band (circa 2019) playing Hawaiian music.

Big bellies up

Dave on 7th shares this photo from East River Park... where he spotted this stack of the mayor's rat-friendly, solar-powered Big Belly trash cans.

Not sure why they're here (don't recall seeing any along the East River Park in the past). The Daily News previously reported that each can costs $7,000.

Previously on EV Grieve:
March and rally for East River Park on Sept. 21; another public hearing set

A visit to Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery

For her latest "A visit to" post, EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by a local business that doesn't need much introduction — Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery.

The business, which Yonah Schimmel, a Romanian immigrant, started as a knish pushcart in Coney Island sometime in the 1890s, has been at 137 E. Houston St. at Forsyth since 1910. And the knishery has retained much of its charm — there's the tin ceiling, red flooring, operating dumbwaiter and overall time-warp vibe.

Ellen Anistratov runs Yonah Schimmel with her two sons, David (in yellow baseball cap) and Joseph (in the white cap). Ellen Anistratov, a fourth-generation relative of Yonah Schimmel, recently told NY1's Roger Clark that they hope to be here for another 100 years... take a look around...




























--

Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can find them on Instagram here.

The annual 9th Street Block Party is tomorrow (Saturday — on 9th Street)

The annual 9th Street A-1 Block Association Block Party — one of the best around — is coming up tomorrow (Sept. 14).

Both residents and merchants along the block — Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue — will have items for sale. Expect some live music too.

In addition, look for the return of Clayworks Pottery for the day. Helaine Sorgen will have items left from her Ninth Street shop, which closed after 44 years in 2017 thanks to Raphael Toledano.

Find all this — and more! — from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. There isn't a rain date — so don't let it rain!

Thursday's parting shot

Say hi to Simeon. Photo in Tompkins Square Park by Derek Berg ...

Grant Shaffer's NYC

Here's the latest NY See panel, East Village-based illustrator Grant Shaffer's observational sketch diary of things that he sees and hears around the neighborhood.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Parks officials say they will NOT be putting down a synthetic turf in Tompkins Square Park; skateboarders rejoice

Gem Spa is now a 'Schitibank'

The down-but-not-out Gem Spa on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place has been transformed into a "Schitibank" — "A New concept bank, in New York's bohemian East Village," per the new signage. (Thanks to the EVG reader for the photo!)

A nice touch ahead of the #SaveNYC cash mob here Saturday (Sept. 14) from noon to 2 p.m.

There have been rumors that the landlord here is interested in a Citibank for this venerable corner. More background in the links below...

Updated 8:30 a.m.

Ah! Jeremiah Moss has much more on this "vivid dystopian vision of the new St. Mark's Place."

The Schitibank project features bohemian East Villagers — Jean-Michel Basquiat and Patti Smith (on Schitibikes), Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Ted Berrigan, the New York Dolls, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Gem Spa's own Candy the Cat (smoking weed).

[Photo by J. Moss]

Previously on EV Grieve:
• A cash mob Saturday at Gem Spa (Sept. 10)

• Get your Gem Spa t-shirts or photos of Madonna — at Gem Spa! (Aug. 16)

• Will you buy a Gem Spa T-shirt? (June 28)

• The Gem Spa Zoltar is alive and well and telling fortunes an L-train ride away in Bushwick (June 19)

• "Gem Spa is open!" (June 18)

• What is happening at Gem Spa? (June 11)

• A visit to Gem Spa (May 10)

8th annual LUNGS Harvest Arts Festival begins on Saturday

More than 100 events are scheduled in the neighborhood's community gardens starting Saturday (Sept. 14!) as part of the LUNGS Harvest Arts Festival.

This year's Festival now spans nine days in 50-plus gardens, each featuring a variety of performances, concerts, workshops and other related events.

Check the LUNGS website here for the garden-by-garden schedule.

Remembering Robert Frank

As you likely heard, legendary photogapher Robert Frank died on Monday. He was 94.

According to published reports, he was in Inverness, on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. He split his time between there and his home at 7 Bleecker Street just west of the Bowery.

EVG regular Dan Efram shares these photos of people leaving flowers and tributes outside his building on Bleecker Street, where he was often spotted sitting outside.















Here's more on Frank via The Associated Press:

The Swiss-born Frank influenced countless photographers and was likened to Alexis de Tocqueville for so vividly capturing the United States through the eyes of a foreigner. Besides his still photography, Frank was a prolific filmmaker, creating more than 30 movies and videos, including a cult favorite about the Beats and a graphic, censored documentary of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 tour. Black-and-white Super 8 pictures by Frank were featured on the cover of the Stones’ “Exile On Main Street,” one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most acclaimed albums.

Meanwhile, have been many tributes to Frank on social media... here's a small sampling...

View this post on Instagram

Robert Frank, gone from us - but his extraordinary vision, his films, & the details of daily life he captured with a little camera in his hands will continue to resonate through our shared consciousness. Long live Robert Frank, one of the greatest artists ever. & thank you Robert for the gifts you’ve given us all. (photo: Allen Ginsberg)

A post shared by Jim Jarmusch (@jim.jarmusch) on Sep 10, 2019 at 7:36am PDT

View this post on Instagram

I think I’ll always walk by his building hoping to see him sitting in his chair. RIP Robert Frank #robertfrank

A post shared by Michelle Rick (@villagegirl) on Sep 10, 2019 at 9:33am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Rest In Peace - Robert Frank. Thank you for all you’ve left us. This photo was from a chance encounter downtown in 1980 at a Larry Clark exhibition. The second shot was outside on Lafayette after my friend got a laugh out of him. Robert Frank, 1980. 📷@GODLIS

A post shared by Godlis (@godlis) on Sep 10, 2019 at 4:12pm PDT