Gloria ChungThe Ukrainian East Village Restaurant, 140 Second Avenue.
The Ukrainian East Village Restaurant at 140 Second Avenue between St. Marks Place and Ninth Street is quite possibly the least welcoming restaurant in the hyperbolically friendly Lower East Side. My office sits across the street, and I had been there a year before I made bold last week to open the outer doors under a canopy advertising “Ukrainian National Home,” which appears to be the name of the restaurant, though it is not; pass through an empty lobby into the interior of the building; round a corner, and open a second set of doors. It was lunch time, and the restaurant looked like the grill room of a public golf course in February — low ceiling, blonde wood paneling, too-bright lighting, oilcloth-covered tables with glass tops and, of course, scarcely any customers.
Unlike the Chinese-Mingrelian tapioca bars and whatnot which dot the Lower East Side, the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant does not need to impress. It has always been there, and probably always will be. My lunchtime companion, Eyza Kurowyckyj — think of “quart of whiskey,” she says helpfully — was born on Sixth Street between First and Second Avenues in 1957, long before the first cut-rate Bengali place had arrived. Eyza says that she never knew a time when Ukie Nash, as she and the entire neighborhood called it after the name on the canopy, didn’t sit there at the end of its blank hallway, and when her friends and family members didn’t go to the giant catering hall upstairs for weddings and galas and balls. But Eyza hadn’t eaten there recently — possibly for fear that the cholesterol would kill her. Read more…
Sophie HoellerThe Deutsches Dispensary, Third Avenue and St. Marks, an enduring icon of the East Village’s history as “Little Germany.”
Last Friday, at the start of the first weekend of Oktoberfest, we wrote about the East Village’s former notoriety as “Little Germany,” an enclave for German immigrants in the 19th century.
As the celebration of German culture comes to close this weekend, the answer to one question remains elusive: What happened to the German community in the East Village?
Some historians — and at least one reader — link Little Germany’s decline to the General Slocum disaster in 1904, when a chartered cruise boat carrying members of the St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church to a picnic, caught fire in the East River, killing more than 1,000 people, including many inhabitants of Little Germany.
A memorial of the General Slocum disaster can be found in Tompkins Square Park, where a small fountain reminds us of the Germans who lost their lives.
However, author William Grimes said that the decline was due more to the classic immigrant pattern of “succeed and disperse,” in which immigrants prospered and moved out of the immediate neighborhood. Many successful Germans moved to 86th Street, creating Yorkville, another German enclave of which little remains. Read more…
Daniel SnyderSteve Dalachinsky helped organize Tuesday night’s tribute to Tuli Kupferberg.
The Living Theater on Clinton Street was the scene of an 87th birthday party Tuesday night. Unfortunately, the guest of honor, poet and pacifist Tuli Kupferberg, was not in physical attendance, having died last summer. His friends had a wonderful time on his behalf.
Tuli Kupferberg, born on the Lower East Side in 1923, and in his last years a resident of SoHo, will be forever associated in many minds with the East Village arts underground of the 1960s.
He was a member of the quintessential East Village radical band The Fugs, performing alongside poet and novelist Ed Sanders, then owner of Peace Eye Books on Avenue A.
The Fugs, along with David Peel and the Lower East Side, and The Holy Modal Rounders, formed an underground music scene which mixed raw folk-rock with anarcho-pacifist politics, an approach now widely regarded as a prototype for the punk rock of the 1970s. Fugs songs like “Kill for Peace,” “C.I.A. Man” and the nihilist classic “Nothing” (“Monday nothing, Tuesday nothing…”) occupy an eccentric niche in music history. Read more…
Sidewalk Café, nestled on the northeast corner of Avenue A and Sixth Street, looks like an unassuming bar with the usual dingy decor, cheap happy hour, and constant huddle of smokers at the door. But the backroom boasts a different sort of history, one filled with battered guitars, risky performances, and a tidal wave of eccentric entertainers looking to pick up a fan or two.
This East Village staple, around since the late 1980s, has long been home to an almost overwhelming roster of young musicians. The Café boasts free live music every night of the week, as well as some comedy shows, but the cost is hidden in the two drink minimum (not a problem for most attendees). Read more…
Samantha KuA red-nosed surprise for three young visitors to the Fourth Arts Block Festival Saturday.
The Fourth Arts Block, or FAB! as it’s known by the locals, held its seventh annual FAB! Festival on East Fourth Street on Saturday.
Jamie NewmanScenes from the festival.
On a balmy early autumn day, the festival showcased a wide variety of the neighborhood’s creativity from the performances of the Alpha Omega and Rod Rodgers dance companies, to readings by poets from the Nuyorican Poets Café.
There were also culinary offerings, including Akiko’s Cookie’s Green Tea cookie and Bao Bing’s Taiwanese-style shaved ice. The diverse program made for a fun and widely appreciated festival.
The Fourth Arts Block, on Fourth Street between Bowery and Second Avenue, is home to a large number of theaters and cultural organizations, and is one of only two communities to receive “cultural district” designations from city officials (the other is the neighborhood around the Brooklyn Academy of Music).
The festival is designed to celebrate the creativity of one of the most densely populated blocks for the arts in the city.
As Tamara Greenfield, the arts block’s executive director, puts it, “We see the festival as an opportunity to spill everything that takes place in our neighborhood year round out on the street so its accessible to everyone.”
Did you attend the FAB! Festival this year? What did you find most memorable about it?
Jamie NewmanPerformers from the Alpha Omega dance company.
On Sunday afternoon, indie rock pioneers Superchunk hit Other Music, performing an acoustic set between sold-out shows during the weekend at Bowery Ballroom and Music Hall of Williamsburg. The group’s setlist included “Everything At Once,” a video of which appears above.
A line to enter the shop began wrapping around the corner of Lafayette Street and East 4th Street an hour in advance of the band’s 1 p.m. performance. The crowd was comprised of noticeably few Gen Y fans, who were largely outnumbered by die-hard, middle-aged rockers and a handful of flannel-clad toddlers. (“Are you excited for your first rock show?” one indie Dad asked his daughter.)
Performing sans bassist Laura Ballance, the trio—frontman Mac McCaughan, guitarist Jim Wilbur and drummer Jon Wurster—powered through seven songs. Included were “Slow Drip,” and “Digging for Something” from the band’s ninth studio album “Majesty Shredding,” out last week via Merge Records, the label founded by Ms. Ballance and Mr. McCaughan in 1989.
Other Music regularly pushes their CD shelves aside for in-store performances and special events. The shop hosts Maximum Balloon on Sept. 27 and Cursive’s Tim Kasher on Oct. 5.
Artist Harumi Ori Thursday unveiled her latest work, a 4-foot by 24-foot installation erected on a sliver of scaffolding titled “I Am Here.” The work, a three-dimensional depiction of various street scenes cut from orange safety mesh and hand-sewn by Ms. Ori, will appear outside 70 E. Fourth Street until Jan. 9.
Singer-songwriter and Nashville native Justin Townes Earle may be a country boy at heart, but his new album, Harlem River Blues, which was released earlier this week, celebrates the neighborhood he lives in now: the East Village. Before recording Harlem River Blues this summer, his tour brought him home, where he and his band performed at the Bowery Ballroom. Here are some shots that The Local was able to snag during that show.
Two new curators hope that the large piece of “extreme tagging” on the cement wall at Bowery and Houston will quell concerns about over-sized street art from some members of the community.
Produced by San Francisco painter and graffiti artist Barry McGee, the wall is a collage of simple but striking tags, referring by name and writing style to various intergenerational graffiti artists.
Mr. McGee’s work is the fourth formally curated project at Bowery and Houston since May 2008, and the first for the space’s new curators: 29-year-old East Village residents Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman, both alumni of now defunct Deitch Projects.
“Barry McGee is the ultimate smoother over,” Ms. Grayson said, explaining her hope that Mr. McGee’s mural would “smooth over the Shepard Fairey mess,” referring to the previous, controversial mural. (For a comprehensive play-by-play of destruction to the Fairey mural, which lived from April to August, see here via Bowery Boogie and here via ArtsBeat.) Read more…
The closing of the De La Vega Museum on St. Marks Place isn’t the last the city will see of James De La Vega. He said he is going to make a New York City comeback, just not in the East Village.
“There will be another museum in New York City,” said Mr. De La Vega, whose colorful and comfortably claustrophobic museum was filled with the street art and inspiring messages that made him famous. “I don’t know yet what neighborhood, but the ones that make sense to me are Latin neighborhoods. My stepfather shared the culture of Puerto Rico with me. I have an interest to build those people up, listen to their stories, their powerlessness and frustrations.”
He also has plans to write a book filled with his observations on corruption, gentrification, poverty and love, he said.
Mr. De La Vega, 38, said he has his reasons for saying goodbye to the museum after five years in the East Village.
Samantha KuDrenched but undaunted, two young spectators at the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park.
Over the last three days, poetry and spoken word, music and theater, performance art and visual art combined in Tompkins Square Park for the annual Howl! Festival.
Samantha KuModels for the Hemma collection applaud the designers.
Howl! Arts board member Bob Perl estimated that around 20,000 to 30,000 attended the festival this weekend. Saturday drew the most people because of a mix of programming and pleasant weather. But the sun didn’t last. “Whether it’s the weather or inclement rain coming, today so far is quiet,” said Mr. Perl of Sunday’s performances.
The festival started on Friday night with a group of local poets reading Allen Ginsberg’ epic poem “Howl.”
From 1952 until his death in 1997, Beat poet Ginsberg lived and worked in the East Village.
Holding the event in the East Village adds “a sense of roots,” said Anne Waldman, the poet laureate of this year’s festival.
“In the spirit of continuity or a sense of lineage of honoring all the arts that have gone on here, it’s important to remind people of that at this site.”
Were you there?
Please share your stories of the Howl! Festival.
This post has been changed to correct an error.
Samantha KuMaster of ceremonies Bob Holman encourages audience members to join in the howl.
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 »
Gloria Chung The Ukrainian East Village Restaurant, 140 Second Avenue.
