Artists feel inspired to create murals for the former Charas/El Bohio Community Center

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

A group of local artists continues to paint a series of murals on the Ninth Street side of the former Charas/El Bohio Community Center here between Avenue B and Avenue C. 

The artists include (above) Seth Tobocman ... Sabrina Jones...

...Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz...

... and Ariel Kleinberg ...

The work, which started on March 5, comes before the landmarked building heads to a foreclosure auction tomorrow, Wednesday, March 22, at the Hilton New York Midtown Fifth Avenue. (There is a Facebook invite to "Stop the Auction.")

Meanwhile, there's a petition in circulation titled, "Save Charas Community Center! Stop the Private Auction!" Per the petition, which states, "Demand Mayor Adams use eminent domain to return the center to the people!" You can find the petition here.

"We are operating on the assumption that we will get the community center back, and we are using permanent material that will last," Tobocman said. 

He was quick to note that the participating artists are not involved with the various political groups and their plans for tomorrow's auction. 

"We are just artists inspired to paint, inspired by the art that was painted on the other [10th Street] side," Tobocman said. "Sabrina Jones had a studio in the building before it was evicted. Some of us taught art classes to kids there back in the 80s. We have a Wednesday deadline due to the auction."

The property that developer Gregg Singer purchased during a city auction in 1998 for $3.15 million fell into foreclosure last year. Through the years, Singer wanted to turn the one-time P.S. 64 into a dorm (more here), though those plans never materialized. Some residents want to see the space used again as a community center, as it was during its time as Charas/El Bohio Community Center. Singer evicted the group on Dec. 27, 2001.  

Monday's parting shot

A little spring from 10th and A today... happy spring equinox.

Late-afternoon bendy thing moment on the Bowery

On the SW corner of the Bowery at Fourth Street... read all about it here.

Reconstruction work on the Tompkins Square Park field house starts soon

Photo by Stacie Joy

Updated 3/21: The work is now set to start on April 3, according to Community Board 3.

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The Tompkins Square Park field house reconstruction could begin as soon as today.

This past Thursday evening, Community Board 3's Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency Committee received a "Parks Manager Update." 

According to the unnamed manager who was not on camera during the virtual meeting, the work is expected to start today — tentatively, anyway. As the manager said: "We're not sure exactly, but that is the date given to us by Capital [Projects]." 

According to the manager, the field house and the space behind it — dubbed the Slocum area as it includes the Slocum Memorial Fountain — will be closed during this time, roughly 18 months. In addition, the Tompkins Square mini pool will be out of commission for two consecutive summers, he said. 

The Parks Department website lists a September 2024 competition date for the $5.6-million project (PDF here), which will:

• Upgrade existing restrooms to code

• Upgrade Parks and maintenance and operations space

• Add first aid and lifeguard locker room spaces in the building

• Reconstruct interiors

• Clean and partially repoint exterior brick

NOT mentioned during this briefing: temporary restrooms. Parks officials previously said that porta potties were not part of the contract "and cannot be supplied during construction." The city's relief solution was for parkgoers to walk five minutes (one way) to use the restrooms at the McKinley Playground on Fourth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue adjacent to P.S. 63/the Neighborhood School. 

However, in an email on Friday, CB3 District Manager Susan Stetzer told us there would be porta potties after all during the reconstruction, though they still needed a delivery date.

During Thursday evening's committee meeting, the manager also said they've added a second shift of four staff members and one supervisor to the district to hit "hot spots" from 1-9:30 p.m. That work will include extra garbage collection in the area that features Tompkins Square Park, Seward Park and Sara D. Roosevelt Park.

You can watch a playback of the meeting on YouTube. The Tompkins update starts at the 4:40 mark and lasts roughly four minutes.

One last item from this report: the pavement reconstruction of the multipurpose courts (seen below) along Avenue A and 10th Street will likely start in June (and not September, as the website states). 

The Parks Department will reconstruct the multipurpose courts, adding various amenities, including a two-lane seal-coated walking loop and new asphalt. Other additions: new benches, a kickball court, a high-low fountain that kids and adults can use simultaneously, and three new basketball backstops at the eastern end.

There are concerns — as covered here — among the skate faithful that the work will render the area useless for skateboarders.

McSorley's 'bringing all the energy back inside'

Photos by Steven

The COVID curbside-dining era in McSorley's long history has ended. 

Yesterday, workers removed the outdoor structures at the 169-year-old NYC institution, 15 E. Seventh St. between Second Avenue and Cooper Square. 

"They served their purpose. Now, back to normal and to bringing all the energy back inside the Old Ale House where it belongs and existed peacefully for ages," Gregory de la Haba, the co-owner and operator of McSorley's, told us via an Instagram message. "We're grateful to all our neighbors who tolerated the outdoor seating during COVID's mandates and restrictions." 

The saloon had two equal-sized structures where patrons could sit and drink mugs of light and dark ale or order a burger and fries or the cheese and raw onion plate.

The $1 cheese slice at 2 Bros. on St. Mark's Place is now $1.50

Early $1 slice joint Two Bros. Pizza has bumped the price to $1.50 at 32 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, its first NYC outpost.

The new signage went up on Friday, per EVG reader Tom. 

Toward the end of 2021, with prices surging on everything from flour to paper plates, many 99-cent/dollar slicerias citywide started increasing the cost by 50 cents ... 2 Bros. went to $1.50 at the Chelsea outpost, as the Post reported. Per the Times, 2 Bros. was still charging $1 at six of its nine locations.

Now, on St. Mark's, you can get two cheese slices and a can of soda for $3.99, up a buck from before. 

While most budget EV slice shops are charging $1.50 now, there is an outlier with the pending arrival of a new 99-cent joint on 14th Street.

For a time, 2 Bros. had two slice outposts on the block. The location with the upscale $1.50 SUPREME slice closed at 36 St. Mark's Place in 2015. 

Weekend's parting shot

Photo by Rainer Turim 

As seen yesterday along 10th Street and Tompkins Square Park... owner said that he'd been driving this for 30-plus years...

Week in Grieview

Posts this past week included (with a photo — "make your best offer" — from 14th Street by Daniel Efram) ... 

• A new home and name for Café Cortadito (Monday)

• 3rd & B'zaar's new market will feature the work of women-owned businesses (Wednesday) 

• May the farce be with you: 'The Empire Strips Back' is next up at the Orpheum Theatre (Thursday) 

• A new era for the old Bad Pussies wall on 3rd Street and Avenue B (Tuesday) 

• Fire jumping returns (Saturday) 

• Revisiting a transformative Sunday on Avenue A (Friday) 

• What's happening on this block of 5th Street? (Tuesday)

• CM Rivera addresses 'operations improvements' for Tompkins Square Park (Wednesday) 

• Openings: The York on Avenue B (Tuesday) 

• Corner spaces for lease along Houston at Elizabeth and the Bowery (Tuesday)

• Report: The Astor Place cube will be ready for a spin once more this summer (Friday) 

• Corner development battle: 360 Bowery takes commanding lead over 1 St. Mark's Place (Monday) 

• Ghost signage on 7th Street (Wednesday) 

• On the rental market: 118 St. Mark's Place (Wednesday) 

• March madness! Key Food continues to up its St. Patrick's Day game (Monday) 

• First sign of Raising Cane's on Astor Place (Thursday) 

• Gelato 1st and 10th (Monday) 

• Report: Angel's Share has a new home (and what of its old home?) (Monday) 

... and on First Avenue between Ninth Street and 10th Street, the short-lived Healthily Deli is now going as Top1 Convenience (thanks to Steven for the photo)...

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The eyes have it

Photos by Stacie Joy 

We spotted Jappy Agoncillo working on this new mural yesterday outside the Ridge Hotel on Houston at Eldridge...

... featuring Best Actress Michelle Yeoh in "Everything Everywhere All at Once." 

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's absurd multiverse comedy, which is still playing in several EV theaters, won seven Oscars. Kwan and Scheinert won the directing category and best original screenplay. 

By the way... Kwan's mother, June Kwan, is an owner of Spicy Moon, the vegan Szechuan restaurant at 328 E. Sixth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue (read more in this article at Vulture).

Saturday's parting shot

A reader shared this from Second Street between Avenue A and First Avenue... unfortunately, the toilet here is currently out of service...

Noted

From the Citizen app: "Report of Suspicious Box Spilling Pink Sand" on First Avenue and Fourth Street. 

A Citizen commenter suggested that this is simply fairy dust.

Fire, jump with me

Photos by Stacie Joy

Thursday evening saw the return of a fire-jumping event in an East Village community garden, the first since 2019. 

This year's edition, produced by More Gardens, took place at El Jardin del Paraiso on Fifth Street between Avenue C and Avenue D.

Here's some background:

More Gardens' Chaharshanbeh Suri NYC is a festival rooted in community, sharing, equity, and reverence for the earth through ritual fire jumping, art, music, food, and culture that began in the lands of West and Central Asia.

This fire celebration nourishes our spirits, strengthens our connection to each other, and affirms our belonging by embracing our diverse nationalities, languages, faiths, class, genders, races, and sexual identities. We make gathering joyful through art, music, food, culture, and intergenerational sharing. We hold each other to tend the flames of love, justice, solidarity, and goodness across the planet and right here in the community green spaces of NYC.

The fire team included Joules Magus ... with representatives from the FDNY present for safety. 

An estimated 200 people took part in the jumping ceremony. EVG contributor Stacie Joy was on hand for part of the festivities ...

EVG Etc.: Veselka expanding to Brooklyn, Boris & Horton too

• Starting April 1, enforcement of street vending in NYC will soon be handled by the sanitation department; enforcing vendor rules currently belongs to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (Gothamist) 

• NYC sheriff deputies question the legality of their pot shop busts (The City... previously on EVG) 

• Chinatown 3 years after the start of the pandemic (Eater) 

• 6 lessons from NYC's first nightlife mayor (The New York Times) 

• Veselka is planning to open an outpost in Williamsburg and a kiosk at Grand Central (The Post) 

• Boris & Horton on Avenue A expanding to Brooklyn (Greenpointers)

• An interview with Chris Spencer of the noise-rock trio Unsane, formed on the LES in the late 1980s (The Big Takeover)

• Hip-hop film classic "Wild Style" turns 40 (The Source) 

• ANOHNI discusses the new photo book on the EV art gang, "Blacklips: Her Life and Her Many, Many Deaths" (DAZED) 

• Check out some essential cinema from the archives of the Anthology Film Archives, including screenings for films by Robert Bresson over the next few days (Official site) 

• And a very strange commercial for German sink brand Schock starring Iggy Pop (The Drum)

Friday's parting shot

A St. Patrick's Day moment along St. Mark's Place today... photo by Derek Berg...

Sweet 'Sixteen'

 

Out now (as of March 10): Love As Projection, the latest solo album from New York-based singer-songwriter Frankie Rose ... formerly of Vivian Girls/Crystal Stilts/Dum Dum Girls. 

The video is for the track "Sixteen Ways."

Revisiting a transformative Sunday on Avenue A

Photos by Stacie Joy

Last weekend, Con Ed and its contractors — Bay Crane, Five Boroughs Flagging Corp. — closed off parts of Avenue A to install a new transformer at the substation between Fifth Street and Sixth Street.

It was an elaborate operation to hoist the 188,000-pound (!!!) transformer and its components, such as a radiator, from flatbeds on Avenue A and across the substation to its position in the back. EVG contributor Stacie Joy donned a hard hat to document the special delivery...

Here's a look at the newly in-place transformer in the alleyway/driveway behind the substation between Fifth Street and Sixth Street (which people always stare into while on a smoke break outside Sophie's) ...

No word yet when Con Ed will wrap up this work. Crews are still working behind the scene. In one development, one of the three porta potties was removed from the Fifth Street side (maybe drop it off at Tompkins?).

Meanwhile, there's word this process will happen all over again with another transformer delivery this fall. 

Report: The Astor Place cube will be ready for a spin once more this summer

The Astor Place cube (aka Alamo), out of commission with structural damage since late 2021 (first noted here), will reportedly by spin-worthy again by July 17.

According to The City, there's a proposal from the Department of Transportation in the works.

The plan, which is slated to go before the city's Public Design Commission on Monday for approval, would see the 1,800-pound cube temporarily removed next month and shipped to Bethany, Conn., for restoration by Versteeg Art Fabricators — a firm that also did restorative work to the cube in 2005.

Their proposal calls for fixing the spinning mechanism and reinforcing and repairing the base of the East Village piece by early July.

The barricades first arrived around the cube in December 2021, before the city removed them in late April 2022. At the time, we were told that the spinning mechanism for the cube, which manually rotates around a pole hidden in its center, was not working. A DOT spokesperson previously told us that they didn't have a timeline for repairing the spinning component.

Tony Rosenthal's sculpture first arrived here in November 1967. 

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Alamo returns to Astor Place this Halloween

Five years later, Astor Place apparently ready for its 2-year reconstruction project

This is what it might be like living inside the Alamo on Astor Place

RIP Tony Rosenthal, the sculptor who created the Astor Place cube

Friday's opening shot (so to speak)

Photo by Steven 

A look-in at McSorley's on Seventh Street around 8 a.m. on this St. Patrick's Day... we were told that some folks started lining up at 6 a.m.

Thursday's parting shot

No strings attached, as seen on Second Avenue today via Derek Berg...

May the farce be with you: 'The Empire Strips Back' is next up at the Orpheum Theatre

A burlesque version of "Star Wars" is next up for the Orpheum Theatre on Second Avenue — the first production to play here after the 29-year run of "Stomp." 

Starting on May 10, "The Empire Strips Back" begins a limited run at the theater between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place. 

Per the official description: "The classic 'Star Wars' characters are dropped into the world of burlesque. Comedy and striptease, loving detail and hilarious parody… Let us deliver you to the dark side."

Originally from Australia, this "Empire" has been touring around the globe since it first opened in 2011

Tickets go on sale Tuesday at noon. Sign up for info here.

"Stomp" ended its 29-year run at the Orpheum in early January. 

According to Cinema Treasures: "The site on which the Orpheum stands is alleged to have been a concert garden as early as the 1880s and, as such, to be one of the oldest continuously operating places of gathering for entertainment events in New York City." 

In the 1980s, the Orpheum was well-known for Off-Broadway productions such as "Little Shop of Horrors" in 1982, Sandra Bernhard's "Without You I'm Nothing" in 1988, Eric Bogosian's "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" in 1990, John Leguizamo's "Mambo Mouth" in 1991, and David Mamet's "Oleanna" in 1992.

Jabba pic via the "The Empire Strips Back" site