Sunday, December 20, 2020
Week in Grieview
• The latest from the fire-damaged Middle Collegiate Church: the New York Liberty Bell survives (Monday)
• Lovewild Design debuts on Avenue C (Friday)
• Report of a small fire inside the empty P.S. 64 building on 9th Street (Thursday)
• NY AG: Madison Realty Capital to pay more than $1 million for victims of fraud and tenant harassment (Wednesday)
• Celebrating 41 years of the Pyramid Club (Tuesday)
• Gallery Watch: In the Woods by Sally Saul at Rachel Uffner Gallery (Wednesday)
• Theater in Quarantine presents a world premiere from an East Village closet (Monday)
• East Village bars and restaurants temporarily close down again (Tuesday)
• Restoring the Blondie mural on Bleecker and the Bowery (Monday)
• A new look (and name!) for the East Village Neighbors Fridge (Friday)
• Workers clear lot ahead of new-building construction on 6th Street and Avenue C (Wednesday)
• A visit to Stoned Gourmet Cannabis Pizza (Friday)
• New York Sal's Pizza bringing slices to 14th Street (Monday)
• This week's NY See panel (Thursday)
• Rapid COVID-19 testing center opening on the Bowery (Monday)
• Steel structure for new Houston Street office building continues ascent (Monday)
• Here then, the renovated 84 2nd Ave. (Tuesday)
• Sanitation worker spares snowman's life on 7th Street! (Thursday)
• Former Finnerty's space for rent on 2nd Avenue (Monday)
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Follow EVG on Instragram or Twitter for more frequent updates and pics.
O Christmas trees!
As noted yesterday morning, they only had 16 trees left... and they went quickly.
One Tree Rider said that they sold more trees in 2020 than in previous years... citing fewer tree stands this year and a demand for live trees from homebound residents who were celebrating the holiday sooner in such an awful year.
As Fortune reported earlier this month:
Christmas trees — along with wreaths, lights and other decor — are in high demand this year as many Americans embrace holiday festivity in the face of rising coronavirus cases and bleak predictions for the winter months.
Key Food on Avenue A at Fourth Street also sold out yesterday... ditto for the Bueno East Mart down the block at Third Street...
Saturday, December 19, 2020
EVG Etc.: Crowdfunding for B&H Dairy; Selling off Gem Spa
Photo by Derek Berg
• Two East Village businesses detail their retail struggles (ABC 7)
• Jacqueline Lewis, senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church, which was destroyed by fire on Dec. 5, talks about celebrating Christmas in 2020 (WNYC ... previously on EVG)
• B&H Dairy on Second Avenue is in danger of closing again (GoFundMe)
• The great Cozy Soup 'n' Burger on Broadway at Astor Place could use some business too (Official site)
• Gem Spa is auctioning off its sign, rolldown gate, etc. (Official site ... previously on EVG)
• Investigation: NYPD used excessive force during George Floyd protests (Gothamist)
• New York State doing its best to permanently shutter restaurants (NBC 4)
• Second-generation Chinese New Yorkers are trying to help businesses in Chinatown establish an online presence and adapt to the pandemic (Gothamist)
• The future of independent theater (B&B)
• A food vendor on 14th Street — in 1904 (Ephemeral New York)
• 10 punk Christmas songs (Alternative Press)
• Diversions: The Stooges and the legend of "Metallic KO" (Dangerous Minds)
• And I appreciate Alex keeping the blogging spirit alive in this era of Substack, etc. He always has interesting posts. Give him a visit. (Flaming Pablum)
A holiday market at Ace Bar today
Via the EVG inbox:
"We will be accepting food donations as well as pet food and pet supply donations! We will be selling at home drink kits (including @bleeckerstreetbarnyc award-winning Bloody Mary mix!).
Shop local artists and designers SAFELY for all your holiday gift giving needs! @priscillas_petals @stmarksmasks @kellyvirginia.jewelry @foundbyfetch and @displaybydelphine are a few of the artists/vendors we have ...
Ace Bar has a curbside space on Fifth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.
Spike
Friday, December 18, 2020
Friday's parting shot
Photo by Derek Berg
RIP Sam Jayne
Sam Jayne, the talented singer-songwriter of Love as Laughter and Lync, has died. He was 46.
According to his friends and multiple media outlets, he had been missing since Dec. 7. There was a frantic social-media-driven search for him. Police found him in his car on Tuesday. An NYPD spokesperson told Pitchfork that a preliminary investigation didn't show any "signs of criminality." (Update: His family created a website in his memory. According to his family, he died of an undiagnosed heart condition.)
Jayne had been bartending at Daddy's and Clem's in Williamsburg.
This Brooklyn Vegan post has tributes from his many peers in the music business.
The above video is for the Love as Laughter track "Coconut Flakes" from 2007.
A visit to Stoned Gourmet Cannabis Pizza
I’m meeting local artist/creator Sara Ann Rutherford and her boyfriend, Eastwood bartender Glenn Gallagher for their dinner date at Stoned Gourmet Cannabis Pizza, which is located "somewhere" in the East Village.
I'm there for the next-to-last night of indoor dining before the city shuts down once again, in hopes of slowing the second-wave spread of COVID, and the place is booked at its 25-percent max capacity, mostly with couples like Sara and Glenn for a date night, and small birthday celebrations. The patrons appear to be happy (even before the THC-laced food and drink are consumed) and relaxed, speaking of a difficult year and a desire to "let loose."
Everything felt somewhat illicit, probably due to the blacked-out windows, the "are you on the list" check-in, the illegal consumption of cannabis, and the fact that it's indoor dining on its last night for now. Plus, there's the small private smoking chamber, where people enjoyed prerolls and other smoking materials.
Chris is no stranger to controversy, being combatively arrested as recently as two weeks ago, and granting media access to Vice, as well as hosting parties for rap notables and Instagram influencers. Chris, a Bensonhurst native, mentions he's being profiled by New York magazine for an upcoming issue as he rolls a giant joint. He is seldom seen that night without one in hand.
I've arrived ahead of Sara and Glenn and am shown the restaurant's kitchen, food prep areas, cold storage, basement and the office, where delivery orders are being rung up at a startling clip.
Chris and his manager of operations Niko Santos introduce me to the staff and I ask about their comfort level in having me take pictures for local media coverage.
I am shown the garlic ganja knots, with 100mg of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) per order of six pieces, and sticky-icky wings, a chicken lollipop dish with 150 mg THC per order. The chef points out the entrees: vegan pizza, the medical margarita pie (vegetarian), as well as the wildly popular sativa sausage pie.
I watch as guests arrive and undergo COVID screening rituals — temperature checks, log-in of personal information for contact tracing, hand sanitizer being dispensed before people are led to their seats. Staffers are masked, and explain how the process works.
It's a two-hour unlimited or all-you-can-eat tasting menu, with appetizers, entrée and dessert and well as non-alcoholic beverages (including choices like Sour Sprite, Orange Kush, Canna Cola), all made with marijuana. Baseline cost is $100 per person, with add-ons available, like the popular birthday cakes that I see lined up ready for the night’s celebrations, or prerolls, tinctures, and cartridges.
The meal ends with a dessert platter, canna cannolis, Girl Scout cookies, and brownies, along with three flavors of gelato (flavors rotate daily). By this time, everyone appears very high, there is a lot of laughter, and folks do not seem to want the evening to end.
"The pandemic has been hard on people, everyone is stressed out, worried," one Harlem-based couple tells me. "This was a nice night out for us, before a grueling work week ahead."
Lovewild Design debuts on Avenue C
Yesterday, Sierra debuted Lovewild Design at 136 Avenue C between Eighth Street and Ninth Street.
The sustainable gift shop first opened in South Williamsburg in June 2017. However, her heart was always here. The Brooklyn outpost will close after Dec. 24.
In the early 1990s, her parents ran Wandering Dragon Trading Co., the antiques and oddities store on 10th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue ... it was an offbeat shop where some of the neighborhood's more eccentric characters could be found.
In the (now-retired) EVG feature Out and About in the East Village in June 2017, Sierra talked about the influence of the shop on her life ... and her aspirations for running her own business here:
My dream would have definitely been to open my shop up over here but that wasn't possible due to the rents. It just seemed like an inevitable path. I grew up as an entrepreneur, and my parents and my grandmother were entrepreneurs. I used to take things, just find random things outside or in the shop, and I would fix them up and sell them right outside the shop, and then I had a shoeshine business, and then I sold milkshakes, and this was all before the age of 6.Lovewild Design is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.-ish every day. Follow the shop on Instagram for updates.
Image via Instagram
A new look (and name!) for the East Village Neighbors Fridge
There's a new name for the endeavor — East Village Neighbors Fridge ... as well as a new logo, with colors selected to match those at S'MAC.
The fridge's motto is "take what you need, leave what you can," and is made possible by S’MAC, Change Food and East Village Neighbors.
The fridge and food pantry for dry goods is open 24 hours a day for anyone who needs a meal ... it is restocked as needed, which is often. Local businesses and residents continue to make donations...
If you’d like to donate homemade food, they ask that it be clearly labeled, dated, and individually wrapped. East Village Neighbors are also accepting donations via this link.
A holiday market this weekend at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space on Avenue C
Stacie Joy took these photos during a trip to MoRUS this past weekend...
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space is at 155 Avenue C between Ninth Street and 10th Street.
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Thursday's parting shots
Sanitation worker spares snowman's life on 7th Street!
This afternoon, Goggla spotted a city snow plow making its way along the block:
I watched the snow plow head down the block and fully expected it to wipe out the snowman and was prepared to witness its death. To my surprise, the plow swerved out of the way and you can hear the sanitation worker shout, "Gotta save the snowman, y'know!"
Watch for yourself...
Grant Shaffer's NY See
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 and NYC...
2 scenes from Winter Storm Gail in black and white
The top photo is looking south on Broadway at 14th Street, 2:24 a.m. Long exposure, low angle, shot from the street.
And below, the Alamo at Astor Place, 2:36 a.m. ... (click on the images to go big!)...
The snowpeople of 7th Street
A post-storm look at East Village curbside dining
In a snow alert situation, restaurants are required to secure their furniture, remove electric heaters from the road, and remove overhead coverings, if possible. Restaurants don’t, however, need to remove any structures or barriers this time around.It's possible that restaurants will be able to resume roadside dining this evening at the earliest.
The city recently imposed more guidelines on restaurants, such as requiring that streetside barriers being filled with 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of sand or soil.
And the structures, many of them quite elaborate, looked to have made it through Winter Storm Gale...
... and even some of the less-sturdy-looking structures along St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue seemed to fare OK...
The next question is whether NYC bars-restaurants will be able to survive winter with a ban on indoor dining, reluctance on behalf of patrons to eat outside in cold weather and other ever-changing restrictions that will make staying open extremely difficult, owners and operators have said.
Restaurant industry officials point to the state's own data showing that restaurants and bars made up 1.4 percent of COVID-19 cases in the last three months, compared to private gatherings, which constituted nearly 74 percent.
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