Monday, February 1, 2021
Monday's parting shots
Noted
Happy No. 22 to Lavagna
Taking a break from posts about snow to wish Lavagna, the low-key Italian restaurant at 545 E. Fifth St., a happy 22nd anniversary.
In a time when far too many restaurants are closing, I'm happy to see that Lavagna has been able to continue to make it work during the pandemic.
Will quote this review from over at The Infatuation from a few years back:
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, is open for some sidewalk and curbside seating and takeout and delivery from 5-10 p.m. daily. (Ordering from their website is simple.)
Congratulations to Yorgos and the entire Lavagna family.
Afternoon view
Mid-morning snow break (Still Snowing Edition)
Nor'easter news
The nor'easter that people have been taking/tweeting about is apparently upon us. Here's the latest from the National Weather Service (with a photo above from Seventh and A this morning around 7)...
...WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST
TUESDAY...
* WHAT...Heavy snow. Snow may change to a light wintry mix
tonight. Additional snow accumulations of 14 to 18 inches and
ice accumulations of a light glaze. Winds gusting as high as 45
mph.
* WHERE...Portions of northeast New Jersey and southeast New
York.
* WHEN...Until 6 AM EST Tuesday.
* IMPACTS...Travel will be very difficult to impossible. The
hazardous conditions will impact the morning and evening
commute. Gusty winds could bring down tree branches.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Blizzard like conditions possible this
morning into this evening.
ABC7 meteorologist Jeff Smith called this "a rare snowstorm — the likes of which we see every five to 10 years."
The city is restricting non-essential travel...
... and the CitiBike network is offline...TRAVEL UPDATE: Starting at 6 AM Monday morning, non-essential travel is restricted in New York City. We’re expecting heavy snowfall and high winds, so stay off the roads if you can. It will keep them clear for emergency vehicles. pic.twitter.com/MxmKb2j6zl
— City of New York (@nycgov) February 1, 2021
... and there's no line at Key Food this morning...🚨 Service Alert🚨We will temporarily close the Citi Bike system starting tomorrow morning at 7am. Bikes that are in use can be returned to any station with an available dock. Please plan accordingly and stay tuned for updates.
— Citi Bike (@CitiBikeNYC) February 1, 2021
Get your Sex, Love & Vintage this month at 3rd and B'zaar on 3rd Street
February kicks off with a new seasonal pop-up shop at the 3rd and B'zaar space at 191 E. Third St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.
Sex, Love & Vintage, featuring the work of 30 local vendors and artists, is on tap for this Valentine's Day season.
"At Sex, Love & Vintage, shoppers can expect everything from fancy jock straps to beautiful floral bouquets to art," said 3rd and B'zaar co-founder Maegan Hayward, who also owns East Village Vintage Collective on 12th Street. "There will be gifts for your Valentine, Galentine or for yourself because February should be all about celebrating you."
This mixed vendor market and event space debuted this past November with a holiday market with more than 30 artists and merchants.
For now, Hayward and company have the space through April, though they would like to extend the lease to host a spring market in May. They also hope to host more art shows, such as the one the weekend of Jan. 22.
"The plan for the 3rd & B’zaar, in general, is to have more art shows and events in between markets," she said. "And the hope is that we can keep the space and keep with that method of markets every few months that are specialized and small events in-between. But even if we don't stay in that space we hope to be able to travel and do the same thing in other spaces as a pop up."
Sex, Love & Vintage will be open all this week from 1-6 p.m. For the rest of the month, their hours are Wednesday-Sunday 1-6 p.m. You can follow the 3rd and B'zaar Instagram account or Facebook page for details on vendors and updated hours.
With Gino Sorbillo bowing out, there's another pizzeria slated for 334 Bowery
It didn't seem likely that the first U.S. pizzeria from "the Neapolitan celebrity super-chef" Gino Sorbillo was going to reopen amid the pandemic. At the time, there wasn't any message about a closure on the pizzeria's social media... and their website was offline ... and the phone went to a random voice mailbox.
Turns out applicants, named as William Fung and Steve Fung, appeared before Community Board 2 last fall for a new liquor license for the space and sidewalk cafe.
There's now an SLA notice on the front window...
The application, found here, notes that this will be a "artisanal neighborhood pizzeria" with hours of noon to midnight.
This hyped Gino Sorbillo outpost arrived here in November 2017.
The address was previously a carousel of pizza-tapas concepts between November 2014 and June 2015 ... this is when the address was divided into two spaces, where we had Forcella, Espoleta, Gia Trattoria, Slice of Naples, SRO and Bowery Pizza over the six-month period.
Sunday, January 31, 2021
6 posts from January
• Big Gay Ice Cream founders say goodbye to their very first shop (Jan. 22)
• Residents say dangerous safety conditions at Mariana Bracetti Plaza lead to illegal and hazardous activities (Jan. 14)
• NYPD looking for suspects in brutal daytime mugging on 3rd Street at 1st Avenue (Jan. 14)
• A 21-story office building planned for the former B Bar & Grill on the Bowery (Jan. 8)
• Hope for Little Poland in 2021? (Jan. 5)
• A new era for Via Della Pace on 4th Street (Jan. 4)
Storm prep
EVG reader Doug shared the top photo from Third Avenue, where the line went around block for the Trader Joe's at Union Square.
There were also reports of lines at Key Food on Avenue A ... Gothamist posted this shot...
Week in Grieview
Posts from this past week included ... (with an uptown view this morning from First Avenue and St. Mark's Place) ...
• Longtime resident revisits the neighborhood for 'A Walk Around the Block' (Monday)
• The East Village establishments taking part in NYC Restaurant Week To Go (Tuesday)
• Gov. Cuomo to allow indoor dining — at 25% — again starting on Valentine's Day (Friday)
• Have you seen the new Vision for Union Square? (Wednesday)
• Batteries not included: Food and drinks options on this block of 7th Street (Monday)
• A visit to Good Time Pilates (Thursday)
• This week's Gallery Watch goes to Ki Smith Gallery (Friday)
• Mask envy in this week's NY See panel (Thursday)
• ICYMI: Enz's is back in the East Village (Thursday)
• Phony Express debuts a birthday tribute to Ray at Ray's Candy Store (Friday)
• Resident talks up privatization at Village View (Tuesday)
• Tamam is now open on 14th Street (Monday)
• Tokio7 returns (online) (Thursday)
• 99 Favor Taste looks to have closed (again) on St. Mark's Place (Tuesday)
• The 25th anniversary of 'Rent' (Wednesday)
• A message for Short Stories (Monday)
---
Follow EVG on Instragram or Twitter for more frequent updates and pics.
NYC Restaurant Week To Go is now a full month through February
NYC Restaurant Week To Go, set to end today, has been extended now through Feb. 28.
As you may know, this is the deal, via NYCgo:
What: A takeout- and delivery-only version of NYC Restaurant Week, offering lunch or dinner for a set price of $20.21. The offer includes a prix-fixe entrée and at least one side. Plus, if you purchase your meal with your registered Mastercard®, you’ll get $10 back.
As Eater reported, NYC & Company, the city's tourism office and host of Restaurant Week, "has re-opened signups for new restaurants that would like to participate in the program for the weeks of February 8, 15, and 22."
Restaurants have until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to register to take part. Given the pandemic, they've waived the participation fees.
MF BERN
Report: The first major snowstorm of Feb. 1, 2021, on its way
...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM EST TUESDAY...* WHAT...Heavy snow expected. Total snow accumulations of 14 to 18 inches. Winds gusting as high as 45 mph.* WHERE...Portions of northeast New Jersey and southeast New York.* WHEN...From 7 PM this evening to 6 AM EST Tuesday.* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult to impossible. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning and evening commute. Gusty winds could bring down tree branches.* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Blizzard like conditions possible Monday and Monday evening.
WHICH MEANS... we'll likely post dozens of snow photos (and provide other pertinent information) during the next 48 hours.
Dipping into the archives here ... the photos in this post are from the blizzard of Dec. 27, 2010, when the run-up to the storm was so severe, the only thing left at the Blockbuster on East Houston was "Army Wives: Complete Fourth Season."
... on Avenue A...
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Your Book Swap Sunday reminder for Sunday
Per the organizers:
Let's share our used books to help us get through this pandemic together. Leave some and take others... Thanks for making these such a wonderful success! And you don't have to donate. Taking is sharing also.
Photo by Kevin Farley
EVG Etc.: Real-time maps of construction sites for cyclists; Permanent Open Streets for all
Photo by Derek Berg
• Police searching for thief who stole wallet from stricken shopper at Target on 14th and A (1010 WINS)
• Local City Councilmember Carlina Rivera wants the city to create a real-time map of construction sites and other obstructions so cyclists know the danger spots (Daily News)
• Details on the mayor's "State of the City" speech from Thursday; highlights include permanent Open Streets like on Avenue B (Streetsblog)
• NYC residents behind in getting access to COVID-19 vaccines (The City)
• What's left of Kleindeustchland, or Little Germany, in the neighborhood (Untapped New York)
• RIP Jerry Brandt, founder of the Ritz (now Webster Hall) and music industry veteran (The New York Times)
• The candidates for Manhattan Borough President (Gothamist)
• The Philadelphia location of Big Gay Ice Cream closes (The Philadelphia Inquirer ... previously on EVG)
Friday, January 29, 2021
8 is enough
Local synth-pop group Hennessey released a new single today ... check out "8 Men" in the above video...
Gov. Cuomo to allow indoor dining — at 25% — again starting on Valentine's Day
Cuomo originally ended indoor dining in the city after two-plus months ahead of an expected holiday-related spike in COVID-19 positivity rates.
Perhaps some of the East Village restaurants who went on hiatus back in December will decide to return to service — indoors and out — starting on Feb. 14.Update on indoor dining in NYC:
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 29, 2021
If positivity rates hold we will reopen indoor dining at 25% capacity on Valentine's Day - February 14.
In addition to reduced capacity, mandatory safety guidelines will be in place.
As Eater and other outlets have noted, the state's own data reported that 1.4 percent of COVID-19 cases came from restaurants and bars compared to nearly 74 percent for private indoor gatherings during the fall.
And per Gothamist:
[R]estaurant owners and industry advocates have argued that indoor dining should resume in the name of regional fairness. In Westchester, Long Island and New Jersey, restaurants have been allowed to operate indoors at up to 50-percent capacity, despite those areas sometimes having higher COVID-19 infection rates than the five boroughs.
Top photo of Pangea on Second Avenue from October by Stacie Joy
Gallery Watch: First Draft at Ki Smith Gallery
Text and photos by Clare Gemima
First Draft, Caslon Bevington, Sei Smith and Dylan Reitz
Ki Smith Gallery, 197 E. Fourth St.
What strikes first about this space is its small fish/big pond boldness — you can see certain works before you walk in and in most cases see all works at once when you are inside. The interior to me is experimental, testing and quite obviously full of potential.
I had the pleasure of being taken around the work of install_1, the first of three parts in First Draft by its curator Sei Smith (pictured in the middle above, and brother of Ki Smith). Speaking to the works of art and about the show as an art form in and of itself, Sei’s confidence and strong sense of adaptability between both artist and curator presented me with a wealth of knowledge and, naturally, a long list of questions.
I didn’t want to leave, but since when has a gallery show been something dying for certainty or resolution? I had accessed more information about how each artist and curator worked with materials, while maintaining my curiosity around why Sei had curated his share of the show the way he had.
What did he want his audience to take away from hanging Bevington’s referentially digital painting next to Reitz’s recycled paper sculpture? Why were pieces hung at jarringly different heights? What time of the day could you watch certain works change in color? What would the show look like next if all of the same work would be in the same room? How does it feel for a viewer to engage with the artworks in such an intimate setting?
“The synchronicity lies not in the aesthetics of the art objects, but in the artists’ treatment of material as subject to create subversive “paintings” that embody the inescapable harmony of minimalism.” (Read the press release here.)
Harmonizing Ki Smith Gallery until Valentine’s Day, three young artists who were supposed to show at Art Toronto found themselves in conversation about how their practices ebb and flow, fit with and depart from each other’s.
After being hit with a pandemic and needing to exhaust different resources, Caslon, Dylan and Sei dug into finding meaning in solitary art making for the benefit of collaborative showcasing.
This show is fantastic in the sense that all three artists who hold reputable qualifications had the decency to deliberately exclude theoretical and institutionalized guidelines from their curatorial processes. Instead, they have relied on the work itself, their tastes, instincts, and respect for their fellow artists. This show is real and makes the work so much more raw. East Village… can we have more of this please?
The artists and revolving group of curators include Bevington, who works with resin, concrete, acetate and polyurethane. Her work bridges between hypothetical and physical through the use of paint, pixels, words and fabric. My favorite of hers was the acrylic on panel Photograph of Orange Rose, 2020.
Another stand out work for me was Rills, 2020. Made from handmade paper by Reitz who has a background in stock animation film. He is currently studying Integrated Digital Media and has seamlessly married an organic analogue material with a mechanically digital format.
Both his animation and in-real-life works are memorable purely because you’ve probably never seen something recycled both physically and digitally quite like this. Extremely impressive.
And of course, the curator of the first installation of First Draft, Smith studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has shown his work both locally and internationally. I personally felt an instant draw to Sei’s work because of its reflective surfaces, fluorescent, iridescent and transient in their formal finish.
His work in First Draft grapples with the substantiality and appearance of wet paint, dry paint, adhered surfaces and deliberate mistakes in the process of layering various materials. His work changes each time you walk into the space, creating differing sensations for each viewer. Made from acrylic and iridescent film on panel, his best work for me was Half Iridescent_Paint Subjects, 2020.
You can find all work from First Draft and many other works from Caslon Bevington, Sei Smith and Dylan Reitz on the Ki Smith Gallery website.
First Draft will be travelling through two more iterations, curated by Reitz (install No. 2 ending on Sunday) and Bevington (install No. 3 from Feb. 3-14) at Ki Smith Gallery, 197 E. Fourth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.
And a special thanks to Sei Smith for showing me around the space.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Clare Gemima is a visual artist from New Zealand. New-ish to the East Village, she spends her time as an artist assistant and gallery go-er, hungry to explore what's happening in her local art world. You can find her work here: claregemima.com
Flashback Friday: The EVG 'A visit to...' archives
• Russo’s Mozzarella & Pasta
• Hello Banana Vintage
• Paradise Alley at Duane Park
• Paradise Alley at Duane Park
• Don Juan’s Barber Shop
• ANNA
• Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery
• Metropolis Vintage
• The TF in Tompkins Square Park
• East River Park
• Desi Galli
• ANNA
• Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery
• Metropolis Vintage
• The TF in Tompkins Square Park
• East River Park
• Desi Galli
• The Interfaith Community Services Food For Life
• St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
• City Fun
• The Bhakti Center
• Peter Jarema Funeral Home
• Sixth Street Specials
• Dumpling Man
• CAVAglass
• St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
• City Fun
• The Bhakti Center
• Peter Jarema Funeral Home
• Sixth Street Specials
• Dumpling Man
• CAVAglass
• FlyeLyfe
• East Side Ink
• Il Posto Accanto
• Streecha Ukrainian Kitchen
[The staff at Lancelotti]
• Lancelotti Housewares
• Il Posto Accanto
• Streecha Ukrainian Kitchen
[The staff at Lancelotti]
• Lancelotti Housewares
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 ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)