Sunday, October 27, 2024

DOT adds new 2nd Avenue offset bus lane

This past week, the DOT started adding markings along the freshly paved Second Avenue. 

As previously reported, the new-look Second Avenue would include shifting the curbside bus lane to an offset bus lane to help speed up travel times...
From a DOT press release in June: 
Second Avenue serves the M15 local and SBS route—the city's busiest bus route with 57,000 daily riders. To improve bus service, NYC DOT will be moving the existing curbside bus lane on Second Avenue one lane over — known as an offset bus lane. This redesign will keep the bus lane clear while better accommodating deliveries on the corridor. 

The offset bus lane design will allow NYC DOT to upgrade bus lane operations to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing consistent, reliable, and dedicated space for buses to move quicker while reducing bus lane blocking. (The current operations of the curbside bus lane are weekdays from 7-10 a.m. and 2-7 p.m., originally put in place to accommodate commercial loading and overnight parking.) 
Upgrading curbside bus lanes to offset lanes has shown to improve safety for vulnerable road users in addition to improving bus service. 
According to Streetsblog in June, bus speeds in lower Manhattan "have cratered to under 7 miles per hour on 81 percent of buses that run during the afternoon rush."

First Avenue through the East Village also has an offset bus lane.

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Saturday's parting shot

As seen on Seventh Street between Avenue B and Avenue C... a fresh take on the end of "The Substance."

Night and day at Trash & Vaudeville

Photos by Stacie Joy 

We always like the Halloween-time windows at Trash & Vaudeville on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. 

We got the night-time shot above and returned to when the longtime clothing boutique (b 1975) was open to check out the seasonal pieces...  

EVG Etc.: Potential jurors in Daniel Penny trial face further questioning; election races to watch

Photo from Houston and the Bowery

• Jury selection continues in the manslaughter trial of Daniel Penny (Courthouse News ... Remembering Jordan Neely (ABC News

• The nonprofits that operate NYC's homeless shelters are engaged in widespread corruption, officials say (The New York Times... UPI

• The mayor's defense team is arguing that law enforcement agencies deliberately tried to tarnish his reputation (Gothamist

• Races to watch in NYC this election season (THE CITY

• Panhandler attacked a customer at Mee Noodle on First Avenue (PIX 11

• A look at the fourth annual FranCon gathering at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Mark's Place (Vogue

• New gallery exhibit on Second Street near Avenue A: Survivor-Girl, "women-identifying artists exploring the spectrum of womanhood and the survivor-body" (Ruby/Dakota ... previously on EVG)

• In praise of "Energies," a new exhibition at the Swiss Institute on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place (Cultured

• The man fighting to save the Elizabeth Street Garden (Interview)

• A fall-time look at Christo and Amelia, the resident red-tailed hawks of Tompkins Square Park (Laura Goggin Photography)

• A Taiwanese food crawl in the East Village (Gothamist

• A Sixth Street co-op "embodies East Village cool, all grown up" (6sqft

• Dirt Candy, which got its start on Ninth Street, turns 16 (Forbes

• The NYC restaurants going old-school with the return of the reservation book (Eater

• Two chances to see "All the President's Men" on the big screen, today and Wednesday (Metrograph

 ... and on Avenue B between Eighth Street and Ninth Street this afternoon...

Community events on 12th Street today

From the EVG inbox... 
Campos Community Garden invites the community to join us for our 14th annual celebration of Dia de Los Muertos on Saturday, Oct. 26, 3-6 p.m. As always, it’s a free event in remembrance of our loved ones. We will commemorate Dia de los Muertos with arts & crafts, Mexican hot chocolate & sweet breads, and ceremonial dancing by Cetiliztl Nauhcampa dancers (ceremony at 4 p.m.). 

Leave an offering at the altar if you wish. (You can also visit the altar on Sunday, Oct. 27, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. during public hours.) Garden: 640 E. 12th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C 
And next door... 
The Children's Workshop School will host Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 26, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. This seasonal favorite returns with fall-themed crafts & activities, games, food, and our first-ever pie-baking contest! Open to the greater community! 

It's also a wonderful chance to meet families if you're interested in applying for school next year, as well as supporting our public progressive school: 610 E. 12th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C.

Finding ghostwriters? Haunt the stacks at the Lower East Side Halloween Bookstore Crawl

Seven local shops are taking part in the Lower East Side Halloween Bookstore Crawl today (Saturday) from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

Participating stores will have various deals and spooky stuff: 

• Yu and Me

Saturday's opening shots

AKA, walking down the middle of 14th Street in the early morning. 

A view this a.m. on 14th Street looking to the east toward Avenue C...
... and the 24-floor residential buidling in progress (maybe up to 20?)...

Friday, October 25, 2024

Friday's parting shot

Photo by Cecil Scheib 

A view of tonight's spectacular sunset ... with a view of Tompkins Square Park...

You're in a mess

 

Local duo Beau — Heather Goldin and Emma Jenney — just saw the release of their third album, Girl Cried Wolf. 

The video here is for the track "Messy." 

The longtime friends and native New Yorkers started writing music together at age 13 in Washington Square Park. 

Per their bio: "If in some alternate universe there is a place where The Ronettes, Joanna Newsom, Thom Yorke and Karen O meet, then that is the birthplace of Beau." 

Beau knows!

This weekend in Tompkins Square Park

There are several shows this weekend in Tompkins Square Park. 

Tomorrow (Saturday) a slate of bands is on the bill for Mike Lewi's Psychobilly Halloween Extravaganza. 
 
East Village resident John Holmstrom, the co-founder, editor, and illustrator of PUNK Magazine, will also be on hand giving away copies of PUNK #23 and selling some PUNK Mag merch. 

The music is scheduled from 2-6 p.m. 

At 6:30, East Village resident Eric Drooker presents an illustrated history of Tompkins Square Park ...
Then, on Sunday, it's an afternoon of "Hot Metal and Punk" ... set for 2-6...
Organizers will also be collecting donated canned or sealed food for those in need...

Talking baseball

RIP to Fernando Valenzuela, the Los Angeles Dodgers great who won the NL Cy Young Award as a rookie in 1981. He died Tuesday at age 63. 

This mural of him capturing the heyday of "Fernandomania" has been outside Taqueria St Marks Place since the bar-restaurant opened at 79 St. Mark's Place west of First Avenue in March 2015

Taqueria St Marks Place remains a haven for L.A. Dodgers and Lakers fans. 

And as we first reported, the Dodgers and Yankees are facing each other in the World Series starting tonight. Being fans of the game, some big questions as the series gets underway: 

• Can the Jets do more on offense with an improved clean-pocket stat line for Aaron Rodgers? 
• Does Karl-Anthony Towns really give the Knicks a true stretch 5?
• Will the Rangers win the Metropolitan Division? 
• Will the Liberty resign Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot?

In any event... our call: Yankees in 8.

Office building on the former site of B Bar & Grill will be home to Chobani House — 'a new model for urban development'

Welcome to Chobani Town on the Bowery. 

The new 22-story office building on the SW corner of the Bowery and Fourth Street will be home to one tenant: The NYC-based Chobani, LLC, the food and beverage company initially known for its Greek yogurt.

Yesterday, the company announced more details about the late-2025 arrival of Chobani House at 360 Bowery, "a new model for urban development, combining business, community investment, and impact." (News of the lease was made last month.)

According to the announcement, "Chobani is embracing a new vision for how businesses can invest in and deliver sustained impact for their home community." 

Here's more: 
Chobani House will be home to its global business headquarters with employees working in office four days a week, a community kitchen preparing nutritious meals for those in need, an innovation center supporting Chobani's business and also bringing together global food scientists to advance solutions to help eradicate hunger, and an incubator lab for emerging NGOs and non-profits who are focused on social impact.
The over 120,000-square-foot building will include an "experiential retail space" and other organizations connected to Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani's founder and CEO. 

Tent Partnership for Refugees, started by Ulukaya, is "a network of over 400 companies committed to helping refugees across a dozen countries in the Americas and Europe access local labor markets by helping them become job-ready." Shepherd Futures, Ulukaya's family office, bought Anchor Brewing in San Francisco this past spring. 

As previously reported, CB Developers paid $59.5 million for a stake in 358-360 Bowery, a gas station, before converting the lot into B Bar & Grill. That one-time hot spot (circa the mid-1990s) was expected to close in August 2020. However, the place never reopened after the PAUSE in March 2020

Foundation work started on the new building in the summer of 2022.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

RIP Gary Indiana


Gary Indiana, the novelist, playwright and critic, has died at age 74 after a reported long battle with cancer. 

Some headlines on his life and work: 

• Writer Gary Indiana, Dark Prince of the 1980s East Village Art Scene, Is Dead at 74 (artnet

• Remembering Gary Indiana (1950–2024) (The Paris Review

• Gary Indiana's The Village Voice Art Columns (ArtReview)

Op-Ed: The back of our ballot in NYC


Op-Ed by Pat Arnow 

Even the most informed NYC voters might overlook key proposals tucked on the back of this year's ballot. These measures are significant, so don't forget to flip your ballot and make your voice heard. 

Here’s what's up as early voting begins on Saturday: 

Proposal 1 

VOTE YES on the State Equal Rights Amendment to the state Constitution.

Equality for all under the law seems like it would be straightforward and popular, but big money is being spent to defeat it. 

Opponents warn that "the law would undermine 'parents' rights' and allow transgender kids to participate in girls' sports teams. The nonpartisan 
New York City Bar Association 
says those claims are false," according to Gothamist.   

Proposals 2-6

VOTE NO on NYC Charter proposals. 

"Mayor Adams rushed revisions to change NYC's charter (our constitution) to give the current and future mayors more unchecked power, weaken checks-and-balances, and make it harder for city government to deliver for New Yorkers. The proposals came out of the most rushed and undemocratic charter revision process of the past 20 years and should never have been fast-tracked to our ballots." (from the Grand Street Democrats

Here's the text of Proposal 1, the ERA to the NY State Constitution: § 11. a. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof. No person shall, because of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed [or], religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy, be subjected to any discrimination in [his or her] their civil rights by any other person or by any firm, corporation, or institution, or by the state or any agency or subdivision of the state, pursuant to law

Proposals 2-6: They sound innocuous, even beneficial, but they're destructive and a power grab by the mayor. 

Proposal 2: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to expand and clarify the Department of Sanitation's power to clean streets and other City property and require disposal of waste in containers." One of the several problems with this initiative, according to The City, is increased ticketing (harassment) of street vendors and small businesses. 

Proposal 3: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to require fiscal analysis from the Council before hearings and votes on laws, authorize fiscal analysis from the Mayor, and update budget deadlines."

According to The City, "Opponents of Prop 3 say that requiring the executive branch to submit a budget estimate before a public hearing on a bill is held will just delay lawmaking processes that already take years...Jason Otaño, general counsel for the City Council, testified at one of the Charter Revision Commission hearings that Prop 3 would give the mayor's office a 'de facto veto' of proposed legislation…"

Proposal 4: This proposal would require additional public notice and time before the City Council votes on laws respecting the public safety operations of the Police, Correction, or Fire Departments.

According to The City, "City and State reported that opponents felt that the Adams administration was pushing this proposal in direct response to two specific laws passed by City Council earlier this year: one that requires the NYPD to report on lower-level encounters with residents and another which bans solitary confinement. Adams vetoed both those laws, and the City Council then overrode him."

Proposal 5: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to require more detail in the annual assessment of City facilities, mandate that facility needs inform capital planning, and update capital planning deadlines." 

From No Power Grab NY: "The mayor's charter commission claimed that Proposal 5 was based on a recommendation from the city’s Comptroller (the city’s top financial executive)." 

Comptroller Brad Lander’s statement reads in part: "Requiring the Citywide Statement of Needs to include additional detail on facility condition is meaningless for capital budget planning purposes — since these are in fact the projects that the City has already decided need to be improved and to invest funds to do so…"

Proposal  6: "This proposal would amend the City Charter to establish the Chief Business Diversity Officer (CBDO), authorize the mayor to designate the office that issues film permits, and combine archive boards." 

From No Power Grab NY: "Proposition 6 is a collection of three totally unrelated items. It claims to support Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs), but really only renames and largely restates the role of a mayoral office. This gives the illusion of change without additional concrete support for MWBEs." 

For more on what these proposals will do and objections to them, here are several resources and published reports cited above:

• A Guide to the Six Ballot Questions New Yorkers Will Vote on in 2024 (The City

• Why New Yorkers Should Vote 'No' on Proposals 2 Through 6 (NYCLU)

• 2024 NYC General Election Ballot Proposals (New York City Council

• VOTE NO on Props 2-6 — What You Need to Know (No Power Grab NYC, PDF)

So be sure when you vote to flip your ballot and vote on these propositions! 

------

Pat Arnow is a Lower East Side resident, park advocate and founder of East River Park Action.

Curtain falls on Connelly Theater: Archdiocese takes center stage in script scrutiny drama

EVG photo from January 

Under increased scrutiny of its productions by the building landlord, the Archdiocese of New York, the Connelly Theater has gone dark on Fourth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B. 

As The New York Times first reported
Josh Luxenberg, who has been the theater’s general manager for the past decade, submitted his resignation late Friday. And early Tuesday, the Catholic school that is the intermediary between the theater and the archdiocese said it was "suspending all operations of its theater." 

Producers who have rented from the Connelly say they were aware that it was owned by the archdiocese, and that there was always a clause in their contract allowing the Roman Catholic Church to bar anything it deemed obscene, pornographic or detrimental to the church's reputation.

But only recently, they said, did the archdiocese seek to rigorously scrutinize scripts before approving rentals. New York Theater Workshop said it was told by a bishop this month that it could not stage "Becoming Eve," which is adapted from a memoir about a rabbi who comes out as a transgender woman, at the Connelly early next year. It is now looking for another venue.
SheNYC Arts, which has been producing theater by women, trans, and nonbinary writers at the Connelly Theater for eight years, is now looking for a new home for its underrepresented work. 

In a statement, SheNYC said that new leadership at the Archdiocese of New York "has directed the theater to deny the space to any shows or companies that would be seen as inappropriate by the Catholic Church." 
This includes shows about reproductive rights, trans characters, and gender issues, SheNYC Arts has been told. The priest in charge of the jurisdiction is personally screening scripts to ensure they fit within strictly Catholic doctrines. 

"The Archdiocese has specifically called out our past shows at the Connelly Theater, calling them 'inappropriate' for discussing issues like reproductive rights and gender and making it clear to us that shows like that will not be allowed in the future," said Danielle DeMatteo, Artistic Director of SheNYC Arts. "Especially just a few weeks before our election that could determine the future of our rights, this is a truly shocking development." 
The vital Off-Broadway venue, which recently staged the future Broadway production "Job," is housed within the Cornelia Connelly Center, a Catholic school for girls from fourth to eighth grade.

We are shocked and disappointed that the Catholic Church has shuttered one of downtown’s most beloved theatres. Simply put, "Job" would not be on Broadway without the Connelly Theater. 
Great theatre is an exchange of ideas — an opportunity for audiences to develop empathy and understanding. The Church undermines that quest for shared humanity with its decision. 

We call on the Archdiocese to reopen the Connelly so artists and audiences can once again gather and experience the transcendence of live theatre. And in the meantime, we invite Cardinal Dolan to come to the Hayes Theater to see Job on Broadway. He can experience first-hand the powerful theatre he is now turning his back on.
New York Archdiocese spokesperson Joseph Zwilling told the National Catholic Register: "It is the standard practice of the archdiocese that nothing should take place on Church-owned property that is contrary to the teaching of the Church." 

When asked if the Archdiocese mandated the theater's closure, Zwilling said, "We did not order it to be closed." 

"We had seen a range of really provocative, amazing, inspiriting, artistically rigorous shows there, so I was surprised this would be rejected," Patricia McGregor, the artistic director of New York Theater Workshop on Fourth Street, told the Times. "And if in the East Village of New York City we are meeting this kind of resistance, where else might this be happening?" 

The signage was removed outside the Connelly Theater yesterday, and the doors were freshly painted.
Meanwhile, Google lists the theater as "permanently closed."

And now, your Budget Mart signage on Avenue A

Photos by Stacie Joy 

On Tuesday, we noted that the under-renovation (and long-empty) retail space at 33 Avenue A between Second Street and Third Street will be a "Family Dollar-style store," per the workers on the job. 

Yesterday, the Budget Mart signage arrived... the awning shows items such as linen, home goods, toys, furniture and appliance (just one?)...
We lost Kmart but have gained a Budget Mart.

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo by Rainer Turim 

Hanging around at Saifee Hardware on Seventh Street and First Avenue...

Fall classic

Late afternoon in Tompkins Square Park...

About Sofaclub, a licensed cannabis shop opening this fall on Avenue B

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

Sofaclub Cannabis is set to open this fall at 229 Avenue B near 14th Street. 

Ownership has secured a CAURD adult recreational use license from the state for the retail establishment. This marks the furthest east into the East Village for a licensed operation. (Downtown spots include Gotham at 3 E. Third St. near the Bowery and Housing Works on Broadway at Eighth Street.) 

Co-owner Max Tsiring previously founded Artifact New York, an exclusive designer archive. (He also plays in the band Kitten.)
This new cannabis shop will be "design-oriented, classy, minimalist and stylish," Tsiring said. "I'm so excited to be part of a neighborhood I've hung out in and loved my whole life."

Tsiring and his business partner are hoping for a Nov. 1 debut. 

The storefront was previously Everytable.

A look at Walter Salas-Humara's 'Guardians and Realms' at 14BC Gallery

Photos by Stacie Joy 

Paintings by longtime East Village resident Walter Salas-Humara are on view through Saturday at 14BC Gallery

Here's more about the show, "Guardians and Realms" ... 
Horses have long been seen as mystical creatures, embodying a deep connection to the spirit world. In many cultures, they are regarded as guides between realms, their power and grace representing freedom, intuition, and strength. Horses are believed to carry messages from ancestors and spirits, acting as symbols of transformation and healing. Their wild, untamed energy mirrors the vast mysteries of the unseen world, making them both guardians and companions on spiritual journeys, helping souls traverse the boundaries of the physical and ethereal planes.
You can read more about the art and music of Salas-Humara, perhaps best known for his work in the rock band The Silos, here

"Guardians and Realms" is open for viewing tomorrow through Saturday from 3-7 p.m. at the gallery, 626 E. 14th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C.