After closing 12 years ago, dodging demolition, and undergoing a $15 million renovation St. Brigid’s church reopened on Sunday with a ceremony that drew Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and his predecessor, Cardinal Edward M. Egan. As previously reported, the parish, having merged with St. Emeric’s, will now be known as St. Brigid’s, St. Emeric’s Church.
Last week, days before the reopening, Michael Doyle, the architect who led the restoration over the course of nearly four and a half years, gave The Local a tour of the revitalized structure on Avenue B.
There can never be too much ice at a seafood spot with a popular raw bar. Danny Abrams, owner of The Mermaid Inn, estimates that every day his restaurant at 96 Second Avenue goes through significantly more than the 1,500 pounds his two ice machine hold collectively. “I can’t keep up,” he told The Local. “It’s never enough, especially on the busy nights and during happy hour.” Come March 23 the Mermaid will need quite a bit of ice: as previously mentioned, it’s celebrating its ten-year anniversary and the launch of weekend lunch. To find out how the restaurant has made it a decade, we chilled with its owner.
Q.
How many oysters do you sell a year roughly?
A.
We sold probably $350,000 in just the East Village location in 2012. (There are Mermaid Inns also in the West Village and Upper West Side.) Read more…
Guess someone hasn’t seen those “Shopping 7-11? Shame on You!” stickers.
According to the police, the man shown here used a credit card stolen from Pianos to make a purchase at the 7-Eleven at 142 Delancey Street. The unidentified individual is wanted for grand larceny.
The incident, which occurred Nov. 30, is part of a continued rise in thefts at bars and restaurants. During one weekend last month, there were three incidents at the Bowery Electric and Phebe’s. In October, arrests were made for bag boosting at Bowery Electric.
Let’s douse some more cold water on those ridiculous rumors that Mermaid Inn is taking over the Candela Candela space, shall we? Turns out, the owners of the Cuban-Italian restaurant are remodeling it and turning into an organic Italian eatery.
Candela Candela officially closed its doors last Sunday, said owner Shai Zvibak. Mr. Zyibak, who also owns Hummus Shop in the Lower East Side, and his partner Marchello Assante will open a new spot, Organika. There, the pizza will be made from all organic ingredients, including dough made with white flour, kamut and favao.
“We are going to buy lots of the ingredients from farmers in upstate New York,” Mr. Zyibak said.
The eatery will have a full-sized bar offering organic wine and juices. Even the décor will be “green,” consisting of recycled wood and other items. The tables will be made from old bowling lanes.
“We are considering the ecologic situation of planet earth,” said Mr. Zvibak.
Organika is set to open in the next three weeks and hours of operation will be Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to midnight, and weekends 10 a.m. to 1 or 2 a.m.
Benjamin Shaoul is selling off a slew of his East Fourth Street apartment buildings.
195, 199, 201 and 203 East Fourth Street are on the market as a package deal for $32 million, a listing posted by Massey Knakal Realty indicates. The buildings include 46 residential units and one store, according to the listing.
Just a few blocks west, another two apartment buildings are for sale, said John Cirallo, Vice Chairman of Massey Knakal. 118 and 120-122 East Fourth Street are being sold as a package for $23 million, a recent drop from $25 million. They include 69 residential units.
Rent-stabilized tenants of those two buildings are responsible for Occupy East 4th Street, a blog dedicated to “maintaining East 4th Street as the diverse and mixed-income block it’s always been” in the face of what the site says is Mr. Shaoul’s plan to “empty our buildings of tenants, many of whom are rent-stabilized and senior citizens, do a cheap renovation and raise rents beyond market rate.” In July, eight rent-stabilized tenants of the buildings spoke about their landlord with The Times. “They recalled not learning who owned their buildings for months, lost rent checks, eviction notices, heat and hot water turned off with little notice, scant communication from the management company, a menacing property manager and intense construction that lasted well over a year,” The Times wrote. Read more…
Want to buy a four-story luxury townhouse from a media power couple? Congrats, the one that Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig are said to have checked out just got $1 million cheaper!
The price of the 5,840 square-foot townhouse at 238 East Fourth Street dropped to $7.5 million last week. The cut might have occurred because the penthouse unit above the townhouse has gone into contract, a representative of Town Real Estate told The Local.
Sue Hostetler, editor-in-chief of Art Basel Miami Beach Magazine, and her husband, media executive Jon Diamond, put the townhouse, between Avenues A and B, on the market in April. In September, the two-story, three-bedroom penthouse was also put on the market, priced at $3,895,000. Its owners, Oscar Proust and Colleen Goujjane, are the duo behind One If By Land, Two If By Sea, a romantic dining destination in the West Village.
The entire building, townhouse plus penthouse, was available for $12.4 million, the Wall Street Journal reported in September. But now that the penthouse apartment is in contract, the listing’s suggestion that the townhouse “can be combined with the duplex above for a spectacular 11,000 sq ft mansion” might soon cease to be true. Read more…
If you often jump on the L to check out Williamsburg’s increasingly exciting dining scene, you can cross one off your to-try list: Bellwether, the restaurant that Josh Cohen opened in the former Royal Oak space a little over a year ago, has quietly closed – at least, for the moment.
Mr. Cohen, the budding impresario behind Anella and Calyer in Greenpoint, is no longer involved in the project, according to Matt Zalla, the designer who gave the space its sleek mid-century modern look. Mr. Zalla said that he’s currently in talks with a new partner who could help relaunch the restaurant, in some form, around mid-February.
“There was a need for somebody with a little bit more of an active role at the helm,” Mr. Zalla said of parting ways with Mr. Cohen. “He has a few other restaurants and we figured – he among us – that we needed to bring someone in with some more energy – and more money, frankly – to continue to fund the operation.”
Once the potential new partner is on board (Mr. Zalla declined to give a name because negotiations are ongoing, but revealed it was “somebody who’s well known”), the new team will likely open the dining room up to the street by installing new doors and windows. Read more…
The storefront at 141 First Avenue that held the original location of Ramen Setagaya and then its replacement, Ramen Kuidouraku, and then yet another noodle joint, Ichiraku Ramen, is set to become (you guessed it!) another ramen joint.
This one, called Ippin, will be the first for owner Ejin Zen, who said the in-the-works menu would include ramen, tapas, beer and wine. The interior was being renovated earlier today: expect a massive shiny white bar-top and funky light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.
The otherwise tight-lipped Mr Zen said the restaurant is expected to open by the end of this month and hours of operation will be Monday to Sunday, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Ichiraku Ramen closed here in April. “Business was bad,” owner Daniel Song told The Local.
Mermaid Inn’s TwitterYo, rumormongers: get a clue!
Last week the Mermaid Inn tweeted that it had some “pretty exciting news to share about the East Village” soon.
Of course, it wasn’t long before the neighborhood rumor mill kicked into high gear, as several readers told EV Grieve that the restaurant was expanding next-door. That blog’s post soon got picked up by food blogs, etc.
Now a representative of the restaurant tells us the good news “does not involve expansion — The Mermaid Inn East Village is set to launch its ‘Happiest Two Hours,’ an expansion on the current ‘Happy Hour and a Half.” So: starting Jan. 28, you can get $1 oysters from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Plus, the restaurant, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary, is adding weekend lunch service, from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., with a one-hour “sunset menu” between lunch and dinner.
Speaking of changes in service, another fine spot for oysters, Calliope, announced on Facebook yesterday that it was launching breakfast as of 8 a.m. today. Great news if you’re a fan of La Colombe coffee and Shuna Lydon’s pastries (you’ll remember them from her recent days at Peels).
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library.
Emily Armstrong
In 1980, Ronald Reagan ushered in a long cold winter of conservatism in America. But a little bit of heat was generating on the Lower East Side. Over on the Bowery, the Ballistic Kisses were in their loft, practicing. With a sound that combined post-punk and politics, they brought something new to the downtown club scene.
Michael Shore, rock critic for The Soho Weekly News recalls, “In those days we did not even have a name for electropop, synth or what they were doing. And their lead singer, Mike Parker was very intense. They were the first NYC band with genuine, serious political thought, but with an interesting difference from the Sex Pistols — they seemed to be more street level. The Ballistic Kisses had an honest, urgent, sincere political thing going on.”
The band also had an interesting back story. Parker was an established poet and an elected judge in the bohemian mining town of Ward, Colorado. He came east with his friend and fellow martial artist, Jeff Freund. When Parker moved into a Bowery loft with musician Michael Hrynyk, things started to happen. Drummer Rich McClusky remembers,“Hrynyk would stay in bed all day and play music on his synthesizer and Michael Parker would read his poetry real loud. They figured, why don’t we put some of this to music? Jeff started playing bass and they wanted someone to do percussion instead of a drum box, so I joined them.” Read more…
Daniel MaurerA moving van outside of the P.S. 60 building today.
Nearly four months after evacuating their building due to structural issues, students and staff at East Side Community High School and Girls Prep Middle School are set to return Wednesday morning.
Today’s classes will be the last in East Side’s makeshift classrooms at Norman Thomas High School and P.S. 1. Middle and high school students will enjoy a long weekend while teachers move back into the building on East 12th Street.
East Side parents have been signing up through the school’s website to help clean classrooms, move boxes and unpack materials. “We got too many responses,” said Mark Federman, principal at East Side. “We had to tell them we’re full. Our parents have just been great.”
Students haven’t returned to the space since a wall was found to have separated from the structure in late September. Construction started soon after the evacuation, and according to a Department of Education statement, all interior work is now complete, a month ahead of schedule. Read more…
Yet another retail chain is set to open its doors tomorrow morning on Houston Street.
Civilianaire, a clothing store with multiple locations in and around Los Angeles, will open its very first New York outpost in the former La Cocina Deli space.
“We love the neighborhood,” said retail director Erik Schnakenberg, in town to assist in the opening of the store at 53-55 Houston Street, on the corner of Mott Street. The brand, launched by the founders of Lucky Brand Jeans, opened its first store in 2011 and specializes in “American-made Japanese selvage denim, military pants, woven shirting and a range of classic utilitarian work-wear staples with a focus on quality and simplicity,” according to its Website. Prices range from $46 to $235.
Mr. Schnakenberg expected the store to have a soft opening tomorrow morning, with something more formal in a few weeks. Store hours will be Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Civilianaire isn’t the only retailer to take over a deli space in the “Nolita/Bowery” area, as it’s called on the brand’s Website. The former Steve’s on the Bowery was dismantled in November. Betty Paige opened nearby that same month and Patagonia, Anthropologie, and Intermix are expected to follow.
A couple of collectors of vintage clothing, shoes, handbags and accessories have moved into an itsy-bitsy storefront on East Sixth Street (right next to the new Mosaic Lamps store).
Katie McDonnell is used to sharing space with others: she has sold vintage apparel at places like the old Chelsea Flea Market and the Antiques Garage, also in Chelsea. Now her business, Nomad Vintage, is sharing a considerably more intimate space with David Brockman, a longtime friend and East Village resident who previously owned Honeymoon Vintage, with locations in the East Village and the Lower East Side.
The collectors have similar styles, so the clothes blend well, said Ms. McDonnell: “We both like a lot of print, a lot of interesting shapes. We do like a lot of ’20s and ’30s, ’60s and ’70s style.” Read more…
The original location of Rai Rai Ken, which recently moved down two doors, will soon become Hi Collar, a Japanese café and bar.
Bon Yagi, the owner of Rai Rai Ken, said the ramen joint’s replacement would offer “unique” Japanese-style coffee and espresso drinks — some of them brewed with soy beans and siphon coffee makers.
“This type of coffee is more personalized,” said the neighborhood’s “ambassador for Japanese cuisine” (Mr. Yagi also owns Cha-An, Curry Ya, Decibel, Hasaki, Otafuku, Shabu-Tatsu, Sobaya, and Robataya).
A small food menu will offer Japanese-style sandwiches during the day and tapas that go well with drinks at night.
The narrow space at 214 East 10th Street, between First and Second Avenues, will be decorated to evoke Japan’s “taisho” period in the 1920s, an era of increased westernization similar to our own flapper movement.
Mr. Yagi expects Hi Collar to be open in about a month and a half, seven days a week from noon to midnight.
Mark your calendars: Richard Hell’s long anticipated autobiography, “I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp,” comes out March 12. The punk-rock pioneer best known for his work with Television, the Voidoids, and the Heartbreakers is reading at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square two days later, on March 14, and he’ll appear at Bookmarc, in the West Village, March 19.
The memoir of his life up to age 34 (or the year 1983) was five years in the making when Ecco Press acquired it in 2011 and issued a press release describing the book thusly: “From his early days as a struggling writer to the opening of CBGB’s and his subsequent endless nights with the club’s denizens, such as The Ramones, Patti Smith Group, Blondie, and The New York Dolls, to Hell’s encounters with literary luminaries like Susan Sontag and his relationship with high school friend and Television co-founder Tom Verlaine, to a long procession of vividly evoked girlfriends, to the heroin addiction that threatened to derail him completely, ‘I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp’ is an acutely rendered, lyrical portrait of a life as lived in a particular city and era and the people who defined them.”
You can get more of a feel for the memoir’s content by reading Hell’s personal timeline, which starts with the young Kentuckian escaping school and hitchhiking with his buddy and future Television bandmate Tom Verlaine. It wasn’t the first time Hell ran away from home; an account of an earlier incident appeared in his autobiographical collection “Hot and Cold,” and can be read online.
As it turns out, Hell (who, by the way, recently made a cameo in Tom Tom Club’s ode to the CBGBs crowd, “Downtown Rockers”) isn’t the only endlessly influential musician who has penned a tell-all. Read more…
Hatem Farsakh has been charged with beating a man nearly to death on MacDougal Street, but he denies it. “I was eating a falafel sandwich at Mamoun’s — you guys know Mamoun’s? Great sandwich.” [NY Daily News]
“The police released surveillance video of a man who allegedly sexually assaulted and robbed a woman at the Lorimer L train station on Sunday morning.” [Gothamist]
St. Mark’s Church will host a concert in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Sunday. [Off the Grid] Read more…
Daniel MaurerUnique Collection’s new location on the left, old one on the right.
Speaking of very easy moves, the gem store at 3 St. Marks Place has completed its move to a smaller space next door, at 3-A St. Marks Place.
You’ll recall that the Village Dream smoke shop moved around the corner to Second Avenue, leaving its neighbor Unique Collection to take over its space. As you can see from the above photo, Village Dream’s trippy 60s-style signage is gone, and the funky 70s-style signage at Unique Collection’s old spot is sure to follow.
Now the question is: who will take over the vacant space at 3 St. Marks Place? Let the rumors fly!
Want to live in the East Village? Get a roommate! Yes, even if you’re a retail store. At 309 East Ninth Street, Musu’s handmade soaps, candles and hats now line one side of the narrow space and Marjory Warren’s clothing and jewelry graces the other.
Why did the former neighbors move in with each other? Allow us to explain.
When Musu’s lease at 305 East Ninth Street was up last year, owner Maima Sonii was forced to seek a new home for her girly gift shop. She found it just a couple doors over, in the space that — funnily enough — used to house her defunct clothing shop, Miss Sonii.
Marjory Warren, the boutique that replaced Miss Sonii at 309 East Ninth Street about a year and a half ago, happened to have some room to spare, and sharing it with the space’s former tenant seemed like a good idea. “Economically, it’s been slow, and then Sandy hit,” said Christine Warren, co-owner of Marjory Warren. “I don’t want to speak for everyone else but it was like someone pulling a rug from underneath your feet.”
Earlier this month, after a false wall came down, Ms. Sonii finished moving Musu into the elongated store, where she now gets half of its space and pays half of its rent. The store’s front sign hasn’t yet changed, but the arrangement already seems to be working. Read more…
The gym on 14th Street that was once Dolphin Fitness and then Citi Fitness and then Pure Fitness has reopened as Synergy Fitness. The chain has locations around the city, but the supervisor at this one, between Second and Third Avenues, knows the East Village intimately. He was born in the neighborhood. Now he’s working on a block that his parents forbade him from going down as a child.
“I remember when it was really shabby,” said David Palau, 45. “They sold drugs and there were hookers, even in the daytime.” Mr. Palau, who now lives in Bensonhurst, grew up taking swimming lessons at the 14th Street Y (a block from his current workplace), playing softball in Tompkins Square Park, playing hockey across from Pier 63, and bowling at Bowlmor Lanes. (He remembers Bowlmor “before it was pretty,” when “two guys from Avenue B” robbed an employee by dropping a bowling ball on his head.)
These days, Mr. Palau’s brand of recreation is a bit different: after Synergy refurbished from top to bottom, it will offer classes in yoga, zumba, and pilates. The upstairs space (formerly an aerobics area) is currently being remodeled to accommodate boxing lessons and cardio equipment, and the basement “pit” will eventually host Olympic-style weightlifting lessons and competitions.
But first, the carpets need to be ripped out. “I don’t know what the hell these guys were thinking, carpeting a gym,” said Mr. Palau. “I don’t know where their heads were. I guess that’s why they didn’t make no money.” Read more…
The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »
