Stephen Rex Brown Good morning, East Village.
Above, another newspaper box in peril. We spotted this one with a laundry bag stuffed into it on East Sixth Street. No wonder some people consider these things an eyesore.
Over at Blackbook, nightlife insider Steve Lewis is doubtful that a revived CBGBs will be the same without its original owner. “CBGB’s without Hilly is like Casablanca’s Rick’s Café American without Humphrey Bogart’s Rick.” Closing thought: “I can’t see neighborhoods in Manhattan relishing this type of venue near their bedrooms and suspect Greenpoint or Williamsburg will provide the answers. Manhattan and certainly the Bowery are not the creative cauldrons that fed the CB’s scene. Brooklyn can provide that.”
Gothamist combs the newly digitized NYC Municipal Archives for “21 photos of the Lower East Side before you were born.”
Off the Grid recounts the history of the Tompkins Square Library, noting that “the Tompkins Square Branch was the ninth Carnegie Library built in the city and was designed in a restrained Classical Revival style by Charles McKim of the well-known firm of McKim, Mead, & White.” The site reprints some old “Learn English” flyers aimed at serving the area’s German, Jewish, and Polish populations.
Some East Village spots make Business Insider’s list of bars and restaurants where techies hang: Peels, The Smile, La Colombe, The Wren, and Bowery Hotel.
Gary Gillis, the owner of Standings Bar, tells WTOP Sports that he expects the bar to be 80 percent D.C. Capitals fans when the team takes on the Rangers on Saturday. Apparently the bar is quite the Caps hangout.
The Times notes that Steven Bernstein, “a ruggedly resourceful trumpeter-arranger-composer,” has a Monday-night residency at The Stone through June.
The paper also notes that longstanding dance duo The Crystal Method is making an appearance at Webster Hall’s “trendier-than-thou” Friday night.
Music-News.com reports that Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were spotted at another trendier-than-thou spot, Cabin Down Below.
