Friday, January 29, 2021
Phony Express debuts a birthday tribute to Ray at Ray's Candy Store
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Curbside dining space removed outside Lucy's on Avenue A
Yesterday, the Department of Homeless Services posted a notice stating that the city will clean up this space beginning today.
Well, not only did someone clean up the structure, they also just removed the entire thing, as Steven noted...
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 ...
Holidays on ice
They arrived back on Nov. 1 ... we've seen them stay up as late as Feb. 15 (happy Valentine's Day!).
A visit to Good Time Pilates
Being somewhat new to fitness, I’d only taken a mat Pilates class before but had always been curious about the reformer-machine–based classes.
So I was equal parts excited and nervous when I arrived at the newly created Good Time Pilates on lower Avenue C to meet owner Sam Miles (above right) and teacher Meg Broome (above left).
The studio is housed in Meg’s apartment and the sunny back room is all set up with the reformer machine, blocks, mats, a “squishy ball” and a sweet soundtrack. I am greeted by kitties Ringo and Mushu, who delicately approve of my presence before Sam initiates the now-standard COVID-19 protocols: Temperature check, hand sanitizer, masks, open windows, and an air filter machine humming softly.
I confess my beginner status as I look at the carriage and rack assembly of the machine, but Meg and Sam put me at ease discussing the mechanics of the practice.
“Movement can change how you feel on a daily basis, and Pilates can change your body’s relationship with gravity,” Meg tells me as she leaves Sam and I to begin our session.
After I have a basic understanding of the class, we talk about Pilates, opening and operating a fitness studio during a pandemic, and what drew them to the East Village, where they both live and work.
Can you speak a bit about Good Time Pilates’ history? How did you two meet, and what prompted you to open a fitness studio? What made you pick the East Village as your and its home?
Sam: Good Time Pilates was born at the beginning of the pandemic. Putting a pause on life, being locked inside, and the uncertainty about the future made me need to move my body.
I started teaching virtual classes pretty quickly. I would just post, “anyone want to move tonight at 6?” on my Instagram and I got tons of people who felt that same need. Good Time Pilates really blossomed from there. The name says it all, we want people to have a good time while they move.
Meg: Good Time Pilates is Sam’s brilliant brainchild. I craved a teammate, structure and inspiration, so I reached out to Sam. Since then, each day I have been on my mat has been a little brighter. Community, even virtual, shifts the experience in class drastically. Joining the Good Time Pilates team has been the highlight of my pandemic.
Sam: [We met when] I was working as a bartender, getting my certification during the day, and working the front desk at a Pilates studio to get free classes. Meg got hired as an instructor at that same studio and five years later, here we are.
We have spent endless hours building our first small studio and daydreaming about the possibilities of the future. Good Time Pilates has decided to take the pressure off this year. The goal is to embrace, accept, and learn about our bodies exactly as they are right now.
We want to modify our relationship to movement and exercise away from punishment and toward nourishment. We are creating a space that gives the power of physical knowledge a chance to shine past some of the darkness currently clouding our lives.
Meg: Five years ago, right around this time of year, I was hired at the same Pilates studio as Sam in downtown Manhattan. She was in the middle of her certification and I had just moved to New York from San Francisco. Our passion for Pilates is just one of many things that helps us vibe well together.
Sam: I lost my job immediately when quarantine started. My lease was up shortly after lockdown started, so I moved upstate to Kingston with my pup Birdie.
Prior to that, for the last seven years I had bounced around the boroughs. As Good Time grew, picking its forever home wasn’t easy. I am a California girl and I felt my roots calling me home.
However, the community and support I have here made it obvious that this is where I want to share my passions. I just signed my first solo lease for an apartment in the neighborhood that will also house Good Time’s administrative office.
Meg: I have lived in the East Village for the last four years, but have been deeply intrigued by it as a neighborhood since my early teens. Tall buildings sometimes make me anxious, so this part of Manhattan has always made me feel held and inspired. I got my first tattoo at 16, on St. Mark’s. I met the love of my life over the pool table at Parkside Lounge. I have danced many, many nights away at The Pyramid Club. The locals are what make this neighborhood buzz.
Is Pilates accessible to every person’s body? What would you say to beginners who haven’t had much if any experience with the practice or find the machines intimidating? [Ed. Note: Meg & Sam jointly answered the following questions.]
Yes, that's the real beauty of Pilates. It is designed for anyone with a body. Pilates focuses on building strength, developing coordination and balance, improving flexibility, and enhancing overall body alignment and posture.
What makes Pilates unique is its ability to adapt to accommodate any level. Whether you’re an athlete, someone who has never worked out, or even someone with an injury, Pilates is for you. One thing that can make Pilates inaccessible is the price.
Since the creation of Good Time, we have been dedicated to trying to fix that one step at a time. We offer classes at a variety of prices. Students have the opportunity to add a donation onto the price of class that goes directly into our scholarship fund. We offer all of our services at a reduced rate with the help of our students’ donations. The second thing that can make Pilates feel inaccessible is the way it is marketed.
We sometimes talk about Pilates feeling intimidating because its name doesn’t describe what is going to happen in the class. Spin, we get it. Boxing, we get it. Even yoga, there’s a broader general knowledge about.
If we renamed Pilates, “strength, balance, coordination, and flexibility” or something sassier like “a class to help with aging” I think some of the nerves would fall away.
As far as the machines go...yes, it does look like some crazy BDSM contraption. Yes, some things you experience will feel like torture. However, we find that after a single session people are more fascinated with the way they feel than how scary the machines may look.
What has the experience of working with and training people during the pandemic been like? What precautions do you observe when working in the studio?
It’s been tough but endlessly rewarding. Everyone lost their sense of routine and was all of the sudden working out in their homes. We started virtually to keep everyone safe and moving. We teach every class from our homes. Kittens and pups make appearances on the daily and our virtual community of furry friends grows weekly with all the new adoptions. The toughest part has been not being able to hug our students after class.
The small private studio we opened in September has been our safe space to be able to see bodies in person again. Our space is up to every safety standard as well. We have the windows open at all times, we have a room air filter that is on at all times, both instructor and student wear a mask at all times, etc. We sanitize everything and leave thirty minutes between students.
Can you speak about what teaching online classes has been like? What online platform(s) do you use, and how do you offer suggestions, corrections and adjustments when working with people remotely?
Teaching online has been an adjustment to say the least. Zoom and technology challenges are still giving us a run for our money. Pilates is usually a very tactile practice. Instructors use hands-on corrections to help heighten proprioception in the students. Touch usually helps the brain-to-muscle connection fire.
Clearly, the screens make that difficult. We try each day to deepen our cues to help students get the same experience through the screen. Teaching students to become more familiar with touching their own bodies. As well as sending and posting tips and tricks often for trying to help with the at-home experience.
People’s work/life balances have gone completely out the door. The other challenge has been creating a schedule that feels like it accommodates everyone. On top of our daily live classes through Zoom, we have one Instagram live class a week that is donation based, totally free to join, on-demand videos for rent on Vimeo, as well as a few completely free classes up on YouTube to get a feel for what we do!
What’s next for Good Time Pilates?
The plan is to keep chugging one day at a time, feeling our roots grow in the neighborhood: Introducing ourselves to the intramural sports teams that play at East River Park, reaching out to local bars and restaurants to build a band of badass service-industry humans, connecting with local youth and community organizations to get a sense of what accessible movement opportunities already exists and how we can help contribute to them.
As we feel the world is headed closer to some normalcy, we hope to open a larger space. We dream of a movement clubhouse. A place where all bodies are celebrated and your neighbors go with you to class.
The East Village is home to so much history and the communities that helped build this neighborhood deserve accessible movement education.
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ICYMI: Enz's is back in the East Village
We're long overdue with this welcome back post!
If you've been on Seventh Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue in recent weeks, then you've likely seen a familiar name on the block: Enz's.
The rockabilly and retro clothes shop opened at 76 E. Seventh St. in December.
Owner-designer Mariann Marlowe had previously operated the shop at 125 Second Ave. between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place for the past 18 years after relocating from St. Mark's Place. (The store dates to the 1970s on Grove Street.)
Marlowe decided to close up shop in late 2019, having grown tired of the hostile retail climate and the daily rigor of running the business (This post from the time has more details.)
Welcome back...
Tokio7 returns (online)
Tokio7, the longtime consignment shop on Seventh Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue, has opened an online shop.
They will also soon be taking consignment appointments Tuesday through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Follow them on Instagram for more.) There's hope among the T7 faithful that the store will reopen to the public in the weeks ahead.
The shop closed late this past August. Back in early June, Tokio7 was one of the many East Village businesses that was broken into and looted. (The 8-foot, 900-pound Predator statue out front was left untouched.)
Tokio7, which sells second-hand designer and vintage clothing, shoes and accessories, debuted on the other side of Seventh Street in 1996 ... before moving to this location in 2010.
Photo from Steven in August.
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Curbside eviction notice outside Lucy's
As Steven notes, the Department of Homeless Services has posted a notice here stating that the city will clean up this space beginning tomorrow... 
Meanwhile, Lucy's has not been open since Gov. Cuomo revoked indoor dining back in December. Several people have asked about her.
And so the person who runs Lucy's Instagram account posted this message yesterday in her Stories..
Another look at conditions in and around the Mariana Bracetti Plaza public housing complex
On Jan. 14, EVG contributor Stacie Joy reported on the crime and quality-of-life issues inside the Mariana Bracetti Plaza public housing development along Avenue C between Third Street and Fourth Street. (Read more from the interview with resident Kanielle Hernandez right here.)
We heard from another resident who lives in the complex.
"I grew up here, and when I say this building has become more dangerous than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, I am not kidding," said the resident, who shared a few photos to illustrate the squalid conditions ... such as in the blood-stained elevators and atop the trash-strewn sidewalk bridge, which lines the property and provides cover for some of the illegal acts that residents have reported without much success...
Have you seen the new Vision for Union Square?
As you may already have seen (The Wall Street Journal first had the scoop on Jan. 19), the Union Square Partnership's $100-million Vision Plan would result in a 33 percent increase in public space for the Union Square-14th Street neighborhood.
"Initiated as a response to the proposed L train shutdown, this Vision Plan evolved as COVID-19 upended our world, and with it, our relationship with public space," Jennifer Falk, executive director of the nonprofit Union Square Partnership, said in a statement. "More open space, safer pedestrian and cyclist travel, better transit, and more outdoor seating and greenery — all of these changes are called for in this plan and will benefit our community immeasurably as we chart the district’s next chapter."
The Vision Plan proposes five key improvements:
- Transform 14th Street into a world-class boulevard and transitway.
- Convert Union Square West into a seamless pedestrian plaza by extending the park all the way to the surrounding buildings.
- Create an expansive new open space at the park’s southeast corner.
- Build a Broadway Gateway at 17th Street as a permanent extension of the park.
- Develop a new Master Plan for Union Square Park.
The Vision Plan, two years in the making, must still undergo an extensive review process by the city and public, as the Journal pointed out.
And, importantly:
There is also the question of who will pay for it. Partnership officials said they are prepared to kick in millions of dollars through fundraising and a possible bond issue but added that it will be up to the city to fund a significant share and largely handle the construction.Partnership officials also noted that the project’s estimated $100 million cost will cover not just expansion of the park's footprint, but also other upgrades and improvements, including construction of a new accessible subway entrance with elevator and escalator.
The 25th anniversary of 'Rent'
This week marked the 25th anniversary of the very first performance of "Rent" ... the musical, which would later win the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, debuted on Jan. 25, 1996, at the New York Theatre Workshop on Fourth Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery.
NPR published a look back at "Rent" this week (find the article here), recounting how the performance almost never happened as creator Jonathan Larson died that morning of an aortic aneurysm.
On March 2, the New York Theatre Workshop is hosting a virtual fundraiser in honor of "Rent"'s anniversary.
Per the invite:
This virtual celebration of "Rent" and its impact on the collective cultural consciousness will feature a selection of iconic songs by some of today's most beloved recording and theatre artists, exclusive content uncovering how "Rent" came to life, and reflections on the driving force of Jonathan's legacy in the American theatre.
Scheduled performers include Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Billy Porter, Anthony Rapp and Daphne Rubin-Vega, among many others.
Tix for the fundraiser start at $25. Find more details about "25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love" at this link.
"Rent," which was based on Puccini's "La bohème," later made its Broadway debut on April 29, 1996. You can read more about the musical's East Village connections here.
And this year will mark the 10th anniversary of the closing of Life Cafe, where Jonathan Larson wrote "Rent" while hanging out in the early 1990s, on 10th Street and Avenue B.
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Tuesday's parting shot
Hopefully the for-rent sign wasnt going up outside the Park office. "Amenities include 10.5 acres of outdoor space, a basketball court, playgrounds, dog runs, a kiddie pool and 4.5 bathrooms."
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