For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Plantworks.
Shira Levine
It ain’t easy being green. Neil Mendeloff, a onetime Parks Department employee, and his wife Verna, a terrarium and bonsai specialist, opened Plantworks on Mercer Street some 38 years ago; it moved to Waverly Place two years later and eventually put down roots at 28 East Fourth Street, where for the past 28 years it has helped beautify many a Manhattan home, university, restaurant, government building and hotel. But now, Mr. Mendeloff says, his rent may double. Unless his landlord extends an olive branch, his lush wonderland of Florida palm trees, Japanese maples, and Oregon pines could end up buried six feet under. We asked him how he’s managed to make it this far.
Q.
You have a lot of space in the heart of some high-traffic blocks. What are you working with size- and price-wise?
A.
I’ve got about 3,600 square feet here and started out paying about $2,800 a month. We’ve been up to about $15,000 a month recently. There have been slight reductions during recessionary times though. I also have the yard next door and have a separate landlord for that which is an additional cost. It’s an additional $6,000 a month. Read more…
Name: Ed Mortimer Age: 56 Originally from: Connecticut Current residence: Full-time occupier. Couch surfing. Occasionally sleeping on street. Current job: Volunteer street medic Looking for work? No. Dedicated to work with Occupy: “I’ve never worked so hard in my whole life.” Read more…
The Local got a look inside the eerily abandoned Mary Help of Christians school when we visited the set of “Girl on the Train” last night. The school was closed in 2006 – a victim of Archdiocese of New York’s citywide restructuring – and its building is currently on the market along with the connected church, which closed in 2007 (though it still hosts Sunday masses).
Some of the old gymnasium’s floorboards have been uprooted and the paint is peeling off the walls, but remnants of the building’s former incarnation remain: a discarded pencil sharpener here, a school desk there, a handwritten sign on a closed door reading “Teacher’s Only!” Most haunting are the messages that linger on chalkboards: “Te amo Jesus, por favor habre nuestra iglesia” reads one (“I love you Jesus, please open our church”).
Have a glimpse inside, via our slideshow. (There’s just something about abandoned school buildings.) You’ll see some graffiti and equipment from the film shoot, but you’ll also see gloriously untouched murals, starting with one by Chico. It reads: “Mary Help of Christians Welcomes You.”
Last night, Mary Help of Christians Church was ethereally illuminated as writer-director Larry Brand filmed scenes from “Girl on the Train,” a neo-noir thriller starring Henry Ian Cusick as a documentary filmmaker, Stephen Lang as a detective, and Nicki Aycox as the titular femme fatale.
Rebecca Reynolds, a producer, said that the corner of East 12th Street and Avenue A will feature prominently in the indie flick: scenes were shot at Table 12, the deli across the street, and inside of the vacant school building behind Mary Help of Christians, as well as in Brooklyn, Queens, Riverdale, and on the Metro-North train. “This location can just be so many things,” she said, nodding toward the church’s rectory. “We were able to use it as Lexi’s childhood-home kitchen, we did an after-hours club in here, we did an abandoned tenement room, plus they have a dining hall where we fed and catered the crew.” Read more…
After pouring into the lobby of the bank’s branch at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, the protesters – many of whom were residents of low-income and public housing buildings in the East Village and Lower East Side – chanted “banks got bailed out, we got sold out,” and “Bank of America, bad for America” as security guards and police officers told them to disperse. Read more…
Name: John Eustor Age: 46 Originally from: Queens Current residence: Was a full time occupier at Zuccotti Park, currently staying in New Jersey. Current job: Unemployed computer programmer Looking for work? “I’ve been looking for work, yeah, but I’m looking for work that is not in that corporate mindset. I worked in pharmaceuticals, banking. I worked on Wall Street for seven years. I worked for all these different kind of industries and they’re all the same.” Read more…
N.Y.U. announced today that, after negotiations with Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, it had agreed to reduce its ambitious expansion plans on two blocks south of Washington Square Park by nearly a fifth.
The revised plan includes significant changes for all four proposed buildings and the elimination of 377,000 square feet in the project, which originally called for 2,474,000 square feet of new space.
The new plan “strikes a balance between a great university’s need to grow and the importance of preserving Greenwich Village’s distinctive, historic character,” Mr. Stringer said in a press release. “There was nothing easy about this: Everyone had to give up something. No one got everything they wanted.”
The project, dubbed N.Y.U. 2031, will now go before the City Planning Commission and then the City Council. Community Board 2 voted unanimously to oppose the plan in February. Read more…
With its former home at First Street and Second Avenue now a hole in the ground, a couple of Mars Bar’s neighbors are paying tribute to it in the next days.
Tonight from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (to the dismay of some bloggers) upscale boutique Blue & Cream will launch an exhibition of photos that Debby Hymowitz took at the old dive in 2010 (you can see some of them online). And tomorrow, Jonas Mekas’s love letter to the watering hole, “My Mars Bar Movie,” opens at Anthology Film Archives. It’ll be its first screening since an underattended premiere at the Greenpoint Film Festival in October.
From the film’s first five minutes (excerpted exclusively above), it’s clear this isn’t a traditional documentary. The director said as much yesterday afternoon, nursing a beer and a double shot of vodka at Anyway Café. Read more…
As soon as The Local noticed yesterday that 7-Eleven decals had been affixed to the windows of the former Jas Mart, we dispatched news vans to the heart of St. Marks Place. They’ve been stationed there ever since, awaiting the new store’s moment of christening. Readers, that moment came mere minutes ago, and our cameras were rolling as workers hoisted the universal Slurpee sign in place.
Okay, so in all honesty, we just happened to see this on our lunch break, but don’t let that detract from the drama. A 7-Eleven rep previously told The Local that the store at 35 St. Marks Place, along with another one on 14th Street, would open by the end of July. Looks like it could be even sooner.
Update: A representative says the store should open by the end of this month.
Entwined StudioThe author, second from right, with friends on the stoop of 50 East Third Street.
A few weeks ago I had a night so magical it only could have happened in New York City: rooftop skyline, cocktails, killer jams. We were giddy. It was one of those nights that makes you want to dig out your old “I heart NY” t-shirt and wear it to bed.
The next morning, I got a buzz from the mailman. It was a registered letter from the landlord: we were getting evicted from our home at 50 East Third Street.
Our building sold and the new landlord had no interest in renewing our lease, so we were given 60 days to pack up our lives and vacate our apartments by May 14. Around 20 other people in our building and two neighboring ones at 54 and 58 East Third Street received the same notice. I was told that the sale of the building hinged upon the vacancy of our apartments. Our lives were used as a bartering chip.
The rug was literally being pulled from underneath us. Read more…
Natalie RinnSusan Stetzer points at documents as S.L.A.
committee chair Alexandra Militano leafs through them.
Before finalizing a controversial set of stipulations that would ease Community Board 3’s stance against new beer-and-wine licenses in nightlife-heavy areas – so long as applicants agree to close shop early – a task force decided last night to seek counsel from a higher power: the State Liquor Authority.
During a meeting at C.B. 3’s offices last night, District Manager Susan Stetzer said that the board should repair a feeling that it is particularly unbending, shared by applicants and the S.L.A. alike. “We have become infamous,” she said, explaining that applicants’ lawyers approach the S.L.A. and say, “C.B. 3 has a moratorium [on new licenses in resolutions areas], and it’s illegal” – a sentiment with which S.L.A. chair Dennis Rosen agrees, according to Ms. Stetzer. “We are losing respect and clout,” she said. Read more…
The Times reports that N.Y.U. has agreed to scale back its proposed expansion on two blocks south of Washington Square Park by roughly 16 percent after negotiations with the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer. The original plan called for 2,275,000 square feet of construction; the revised one reduces that number by 370,000 square feet. According to The Times, a 14-story building planned for the southern block will now be seven stories. The two buildings on the northern block will be “slimmed and shortened,” and the Zipper building will be further set back from Mercer Street. The plan must still be approved by the City Planning Commission and the City Council.
Want to sport Michelle Obama sneakers while sipping Barack-branded coffee? Here’s the place to go: Hip-Hop U.S.A, a Harlem-based company that puts on sneaker-art competitions, has opened a pop-up shop at 343 Lafayette Street, between Bleecker and Bond Streets. The Local stopped into the store’s opening to check out sneakers painted by graffiti artists in the style of their train murals from the 1970s and 80s. Seems subway artists are making a comeback.
Who are the men and women seeking to occupy Union Square Park? Yesterday we met Fathema Shadida and Tim “Chyno” Chin. Today, meet two more of your new neighbors.
Jared Malsin
Name: Karin Hofmann Age: 69 Originally from: Germany. Emigrated to the Bronx at age 12. Current residence: East 12th Street Current job: Retired Ideology: “Definitely a Liberal, and I say it proudly.” Read more…
“The west side has the High Line, Hudson River Park, Chelsea Piers,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer at the first community-wide planning meeting for the East River Blueway. “Now it’s time for the East Side to have an iconic outdoor space.”
In its planning stages since September 2011, the Blueway aims to make the East River more accessible, with beautified walkways, from the Brooklyn Bridge to East 38th Street. Yesterday’s meeting brought together residents, politicians, and members of Community Board 6 as well as the project’s design team to share ideas regarding water access, biking routes, and improved water quality for swimming, kayaking and fishing.
Crossing the FDR is currently a major obstacle to accessing the river. According to Adam Lubinsky, Managing Principal of WXY Architecture + Urban Design, the East Side has only half the number of street crossings – including underpasses, overpasses and street level pathways – as the West Side. “How can we engage with a river that we’ve been separated from for so long?” asked Mr. Lubinsky. Read more…
Some 200 protesters gathered in Union Square yesterday evening to demand justice for Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida in February.
City Council Member Letitia James, of Brooklyn, was among those who participated in the rally. Referring to the hooded sweatshirt worn by the 17-year-old the day he died, she told The Local, “Today, all of us are Trayvon Martin, and today this powerful article of clothing is going to be transformed into an instrument for change, and for justice for this young man.”
Since members of the Occupy Wall Street movement launched their attempted occupation of Union Square three weeks ago, the protesters have engaged in a nightly tug-o-war with police. The occupiers have responded to the nightly closure of Union Square Park and arrests with rap battles, sleep-ins and dangling donuts on strings.
But who are the men and women seeking to occupy the square? In hopes of learning more about our new neighbors (some of them old neighbors, actually), The Local spoke with 10 core activists, all of whom have spent at least one night sleeping on the edge of Union Square, and all of whom are dedicating their days to the new protest camp. Here are the vitals on two of them, with more to come every day this week.
Name: Fathema Shadida Age: 57 Originally from: Sahara, Egypt Current residence: Brooklyn Job before joining occupy: New York City Parks Enforcement Patrol Officer Read more…
Stephen Rex BrownFirefighters on East Ninth Street.
Stephen Rex Brown425 East Ninth Street.
A pair of fires on the decks of two buildings on East Ninth Street were put out by firefighters today at around 1:15 p.m.
Deputy Chief James Daly said the initial fire at 425 East Ninth Street started in a planter, leading him to suspect that a discarded cigarette was the culprit. Embers from the fire blew over to a deck a 417 East Ninth Street, starting another small blaze. Within 15 minutes both fires were under control, the deputy chief said.
The Lo-Down reports that The Living Theatre is struggling financially, and that its founder Judith Malina was recently threatened with eviction from her apartment above the art space. The theater, founded in 1947, opened in its current location on Clinton Street five years ago. Since then, its 20-year commercial lease has been in a “constant state of re-negotiation,” according to the Lo-Down. Ms. Malina says that a professional business manager is needed to pull the theater back from the brink.
A group of over 30 people gathered Saturday afternoon at Le Petit Versailles community garden to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of gay activist Harry Hay.
Mr. Hay, who died of lung cancer in 2002, was one of the first advocates of the concept of gay rights in the 1950s. He co-founded the Mattachine Society only to be expelled due to his Communist beliefs; later, he and others created the Radical Faeries, a spiritual society of gay men with sanctuaries around the world.
Peter Sturman, who joined the group shortly after coming out in his early twenties, said the faeries almost spoiled him to the realities of the outside world. “We go into a separate space and we get to suspend the rules of society,” he said. 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 »
Shira Levine
