Scott LynchGood morning, East Village.
Huffington Post picked up our story about the sale of CBGB and asked its readers whether the rock club should reopen. At time of posting, 59.87% said yes, and 40.13% said no.
EV Grieve finds a liquor license application indicating that Robert Ehrlich, a Sea Cliff, N.Y. cafe owner and the founder of Pirate Brands (makers of Pirate’s Booty snacks), is planning to bring a “local regional menu” to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge space.
The Voice sits down with Philip Glass. The composer sings the familiar refrain of “the rent is too high,” but also admits that the East Village has changed for the better in some ways: “The Bowery used to be synonymous with people who lived on the street and were alcoholics,” he says. “In the ’80s, if you wandered over to Avenue B . . . there would be people walking in the middle of the street hawking drugs! Just announcing what they had for sale! It was that open… I am not sorry to see that part of the East Village disappearing. It was a very grungy part, you know?”
Obscura Antiques & Oddities has closed at its current location. EV Grieve notices a Facebook post explaining that it will reopen near the end of February, “in a space about twice the size of our former store…and the place used to be a Funeral Home.”
Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine tells Q magazine that she “accidentally set fire to the Bowery Hotel because I’d left a cinnamon tea light burning.” Oops.
Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York assures that the Gem Spa “remains its usual self, open for business, overflowing with magazines and mixing up egg creams.”
L magazine reviews “The Blank Generation,” playing at Anthology Film Archives Feb. 3 and 5. It’s “essentially a home movie from the CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City crowd. The bulk of the film, and the obvious and enduring draw, is the performance footage, but there’s also sketched-out street vignettes and rehearsal-space mugging (say, by Debbie Harry in leather pants, surrounded by her identically attired, posing harem of bandmates).”
Footage of Manitoba’s Jan. 26 performance at Bowery Electric has hit YouTube.
The Times reviews Masak: “After a tranquil start, the bright open kitchen, helmed by the Singapore-born chef and owner, Larry Reutens, has become a source of excitement.”
