Arabella 101, the new rental building that began leasing apartments last August, is almost filled to capacity on Avenue D, where luxury apartments and new businesses are quickly and dramatically changing the landscape.
Today The Local got a tour of the 78-unit building, located at 101 Avenue D between 7th and 8th Streets, where only three apartments are still up for grabs. Green, and seeking LEED certification, Arabella 101 offers studios for $2,400-$2,995 a month, and one-bedroom apartments for $2,800-$3,400 a month (although half the units are at an “affordable” rate).
The apartments, which feature bamboo flooring and stainless-steel Whirlpool appliances, are located above The Lower East Side Girls Club. Sean Sorise, the property manager for the building, being developed by The Dermot Company, said they plan on co-hosting events with The Lower East Side Girls Club, and building a “strong partnership” together. Read more…
It looks like the changes to the south side of East 14th Street between Avenues A and B could be more extensive than the loss of Petland and Bargain Express. Details began to emerge yesterday of the sale of eight lots at the end of November. Could this be the end of Blarney Cove?
Suzanne Rozdeba
Our neighbors south of Houston, in the 10002 zip code, will be getting more post-Sandy assistance from the federal government in the form of D-SNAP benefits: that means replacement benefits for food stamp recipients who lost food in the disaster.
Feeling the chill? The Ukrainian Sports Club on Second Avenue has free coats and will be handing them out Sunday lunchtime.
And in gleeful anticipation of the John Sexton no-confidence vote, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York blog offers a compendium of anti-N.Y.U. expansion quotes from the book “While We Were Sleeping.”
Justin Timberlake was feeling SantaCon this year: “Seriously… The whole Lower East Side of NY looks like Invasion Of The Drunken Santas!” he tweeted. “I’m not missing out on this next year…”
But neighborhood residents weren’t quite as amused.
If, like many, you barricaded yourself into your apartment all day (or better, evacuated Zone A as the storm approached), watch our slideshow to see what you missed. And below, the madness as it unfolded on Twitter.
Worried that Manhattan’s literary culture is fading, Dwight Garner, a book critic for The Times, hops around town and finds it alive and well at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (“if the vogue for poetry slams has dimmed somewhat in America, no one here got the memo”), KGB Bar (“always worth a drop-in”), St. Mark’s Bookshop (“the place to go when your spirits are sagging”) and the Strand (“Manhattan’s bookstore ground zero”). He also visits Jimmy’s Corner in midtown but he might’ve done better to visit Jimmy’s No. 43 downtown: that’s where the Guerrilla Lit Series convenes every last Wednesday of the month. [NY Times]
Today’s talk of Mama’s Food Shop got us wondering: what’s going on with the restaurant that its landlord was planning to install in its former digs?
Richard Freedman, who owns the former Mama’s space along with Mama’s Bar next-door, said he’s still planning to open a restaurant at 200 East Third Street, though it may no longer be called “Mama’s something or other,” as he told us back in September. (That plan didn’t sit well with Mama’s Food Shop owner Jeremiah Clancy.) The new venue is tentatively named Eats Village, and should start dishing out comfort food (but likely not burgers) in February. Read more…
Last year, the perfect gift for all the naughty people on your Christmas list was a Mars Bar t-shirt (you can still score one on eBay). This year another fallen institution, Mama’s Food Shop, is slinging tees.
Jeremiah Clancy, the restaurant’s owner, says he’s selling the heather-grey shirts, designed by Alexia Stamatiou, for $35 until Dec. 31. They’re available via PayPal: just e-mail mamasfoodshop@gmail.com with your size (XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL).
Mr. Clancy closed the beloved comfort-food spot in July. He’s now working at the Ace Hotel.
Nino’s may be closed again, but 2 Bros. Pizza Plus has reopened.
The neighboring offshoot of 2 Bros. Pizza is selling $1.50 “supreme” slices at 36 St. Marks Place once again. The takeout joint temporarily shut its doors due to damage from a fire in the building. According to a worker, they reopened over the weekend.
The neighborhood’s cultural district is about to lose some of its color.
With water-main repairs on Cooper Square just about done, the construction containers that were being used as canvases on East Fourth Street are not long for this world.
“The containers are still needed while the final touches are completed on the project; they should be removed by the end of January,” said a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Design and Construction.
Fourth Arts Block and No Longer Empty first jazzed up the containers with a Skullphone painting in September of last year, and works by H. Veng Smith and other artists followed.
Their disappearance isn’t the only unfortunate byproduct of the construction project’s final phase: a reader commenting on our post about an accident at East Seventh Street noted that crossing Cooper Square has become a harrowing experience. Read more…
Star, the pit-bull that was shot in the head by a police officer, is still recovering in a secret location. Meanwhile the miracle mutt’s owner, who was passed out when the shooting occurred in August, has returned to Poland, according to a friend.
The Lexus Project — which advocated for Star after video of the incident gained widespread attention — said the persevering pit-bull had left New York and declined to give further information about her whereabouts.
The dog’s custodians, the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, said that Star isn’t yet ready to be adopted. When she is, the bar will be very high, according to Charlie Cifarelli, the man who created a Facebook fan page for Star and visited her last week. “It will have to be someone without any animals, someone who understands her condition and most likely someone who lives in the East Coast so if there’s an issue, doctors who are familiar with her can help.”
Meanwhile, Star’s former owner, Lech Stankiewicz, has left the country. Read more…
Time for some more fun at the run. Here’s this week’s Dog Run Duo — Trio, actually!
Nicole GuzzardiMs. Chryssafi and Angelina.
Nicole GuzzardiCharlie Fudge
The Master: Vicky Chryssafi, a lifetime East Village resident, brings her two dogs every single day.
The Dogs: Charlie Fudge is an 11-year-old “Beagle on steroids,” as Ms. Chryssafi calls the Harrier. And Angelina is a 4-year-old Chihuahua adopted a few months ago from Earth Angels.
Favorite Food: Charlie Fudge loves to eat. “He is the original garbage disposal,” says Ms. Chryssafi. “He will eat anything, anytime, anywhere.” Angelina, weighing in at only for pounds, will only eat straight from her owner’s hands. “She’s been through a lot, but she’s extremely sweet.”
Nicole GuzzardiCharlie Fudge
Best Friend: Ms. Chryssafi owns a few other pets, including three parrots, but Angelina is the one that shares a bed with Charlie. “She’s taken over the house, but we don’t mind.”
Pet Tricks: Begging for food. Charlie Fudge barks at his owner when she doesn’t bring his food fast enough. Angelina doesn’t do tricks, but has the special talent of looking quite adorable bundled up in a sweater.
Last week, we noted that Liberated China, the surf-and-streetwear label, would open a pop-up store between Second Avenue and Cooper Square. Well, here’s a look inside Panda Diplomacy, now doing business at 206 East Sixth Street.
Customers who mention an Instagram photo or Facebook post by Panda Diplomacy or Liberated China can get 20 percent off their purchase.
Back when the now-open Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space took us on a tour of former squats, we met Siobhan Meow, a Bullet Space resident who at one point kept 100 cats at home.
Since the mid-nineties, the artist has rescued felines and used them as muses for paintings, ceramics, and photography. She even collaborated with one of them, Jupiter, by combining his organic material — fur, urine, and yes, poop — with her paints. After his passing this October, she is dedicating her current collection to him.
Ms. Meow’s paintings, which start at about $1,500, will be showing at “Masterpieces: A Fact-Filled Coloring Book” this Friday at ABC No Rio. In our video, she talks about her beloved Jupiter and his talent for “thinking out of the litter box.”
A new building is coming to the site of a long-empty lot on Avenue C, according to Department of Buildings records.
A building permit filed Dec. 6 indicates that 13 Willow Avenue Realty Co. LLC will erect a six-story, 14-unit residential building at 699 East Sixth Street, where a 12-foot-by-10-foot hole, at one point infested by rats, has lingered conspicuously since 2007.
Morton Kriger, a member of 13 Willow Avenue Realty, has been trying to develop the lot since as early as 2003. He had plans to build a four-story building there in 2007, but they never came to fruition.
Israel Rosenbaum, the partner listed on the more recent application, was unavailable for comment about this latest attempt to bring housing to the 2,362-square-foot corner parcel.
Cooper Union students, along with members of the Bruce High Quality Foundation, held a “Free Umbrellas for Free Education” event this evening outside of the school’s Foundation Building, where anti-tuition protesters continue their occupation of the Peter Cooper Suite.
The spirited dance party was a prelude to more activism tomorrow: The Students for a Free Cooper Union have called on students and faculty of high schools and colleges around the city to gather at Washington Square at 11 a.m. for a series of lectures and “speak-outs,” followed by a Casseroles march to Cooper Union at 3 p.m.
Today, Cooper Union released a press statement asserting that “the administration has asked the [students] to leave on several occasions and they have not,” and calling for “a civil process as we attempt to resolve critical issues relating to the institution’s future and survival.” The statement notes that “The Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Dec. 5 to support President Jamshed Bharucha and the planning process he is leading,” and points out that the school’s president invited a group of students to the Rose Auditorium after they demanded to meet with him immediately. “However, most of the protesters declined and left the building,” the statement says.
St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church, at Avenue B and East Eighth Street, has pushed back its reopening yet again.
“The process has simply taken longer than we originally thought,” said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesperson for the church’s owner, the Archdiocese of New York.
The church’s main building, built in the 1840s by Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine, closed in 2001, after a back wall that had been slowly pulling away from the main structure for two decades began to accelerate its separation. The building was slated for demolition until an anonymous benefactor donated $20 million in 2008.
Today, the initial cause of the closure continues to be a challenge. “The damage on the back wall has taken longer to resolve,” said Mr. Zwilling. “It has been a complex issue to repair in order to make sure it is not a running problem in 20 years again.” Read more…
Heat and electricity is once again warming a formerly flooded basement in Knickerbocker Village, but some of the 100 tenants who met there Wednesday night continued to express fury and frustration over what they said was mismanagement in the wake of Sandy.
A little over a month after Sandy struck the 1,590-unit housing complex, power has been restored but telephones are still down for many of the 3,500 people who live in the modestly priced rentals.
Before the meeting, a 79-year-old resident named Nettie fumed about Verizon’s failure to restore service to her land line. “I’ve got nothing — it’s back and forth with them and then nothing,” she told The Local. Other tenants complained of slow garbage pickup.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the offices of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, State Senator Daniel Squadron and Councilmember Margaret Chin along with 20 out of about 72 elected representatives from the dozen 13-story buildings.
Bob Wilson, a leader in the Knickerbocker Village Tenants Association, moderated. Read more…
Rebecca Krauss, manager of EcoBizNYC, said the Ecology Center program assesses businesses in order to recommend environmentally friendly changes. “We focus on changes that are free, low-cost, or can potentially save money for businesses, and our program takes only a brief amount of time for the business owner,” she told The Local. Participants become eligible for grants of up to $1,000. 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 »
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