Adam Lehrer Bob Gruen (in blue) gets his photo taken.Young hipsters and middle-aged punks collided at R Bar last night to celebrate the 67th birthday of rock ‘n’ roll photographer Bob Gruen.
Sporting a black blazer and blue scarf, the birthday boy greeted friends like punk journalist Legs McNeil and singer Jenni Muldaur, as well as younger admirers of his photography.
Mr. Gruen was one of the first – along with Godlis and our own Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers – to heavily document the bands that played CBGBs and similar clubs in the 1970s. In the process, he snapped iconic photos of John Lennon, the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, and others.
He said his mother, a photographer, introduced him to the craft by taking him to the dark room at the age of three. When he was a teenager, and rock ‘n’ roll came into its own, early classics by Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry made a lasting impression. At 18, he bought his first camera and became the family photographer. Read more…
Sasha von Oldershausen Plywood around The Standard, now black.After being defaced last week, the new plywood around The Standard East Village has been painted black. Maybe it’s getting a Shepard Fairey mural?
Daniel MaurerA pit-bull we profiled earlier this year has gone missing.
Last week, a commenter informed us that Sugar, a 12-year-old black-and-white pit-bull, was stolen from her sleeping owner, Kevin Kleber. “Please keep a look out for this girl,” wrote the commenter. “She is missed greatly.”
Mr. Kleber, a.k.a. Toasty, is a 27-year-old member of the East Village’s community of “travelers.” Since he rescued Sugar over seven months ago, the two have been inseparable. They recently traveled to Maine together before returning to Mr. Kleber’s native New York.
“She’s such a sweetheart,” he said. “She makes me happy.” Read more…
Alberto ReyesFire in the hole!
Smoke poured out of a manhole at St. Marks Place and Third Avenue this morning.
The condition was noticed shortly before 11 a.m., according to a ConEd spokesperson who cited a failure of underground equipment. No one was injured, he said.
On Twitter, one person reported seeing fireballs. ConEd said the smoke was likely from smouldering equipment rather than from a fire.
M101, M102 and M103 buses were rerouted while the fire department and ConEd investigated the incident.
After reopening a couple of weeks ago, First Avenue Pierogi & Deli is sporting some elegant new window signage. Like it as much as the old one?
Ria ChungGood morning, East Village.
Local nightlife impresario Ravi DeRossi and the team behind Proletariat beer bar got a “civic lashing” at Monday’s S.L.A. Licensing Committee meeting, reports Grub Street. The committee was perturbed that they didn’t get a 30-day notice before Mr. DeRossi converted the now-shuttered Jane’s Sweet Buns into the bar. Committee chair Alexandra Militano called it a “ruse” and the board voted unanimously to deny the team’s request to lengthen its bar. The foodie site writes that committee member David McWater told the crowd, “I wouldn’t vote for this alteration if Baby Jesus came down here.” Grub also notes that Paulaner Brauhaus, the Bowery beer hall that has faced its share of construction and community board woes, was granted approval for a liquor license. And Mighty Quinn’s, taking over the old Vandaag space, was approved for a liquor license transfer and will open next month.
Castmembers of “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice,” including Bret Michaels, La Toya Jackson, Lil Jon, and Dennis Rodman took over The Meatball Shop on Stanton Street yesterday for filming, reports Bowery Boogie, which has a pic of the crew in action. Bowery Boogie also has details for filmmakers on submissions to the third annual LES Film Festival, which will be held June 13-23, 2013.
Finding a hotel room in Manhattan that won’t break your budget is possible, assures The New York Times. Case in point: East Village Bed & Coffee. Single rooms go for $120 and doubles, $145, and each one has a different theme, like the Dutch and Afghani rooms, as well as common, well-equipped kitchens and free bikes for borrowing. The Times also notes that Italian restaurant L’Apicio on East First Street is opening tomorrow in an area that it says “is becoming quite a restaurant hub.” The restaurant has a substantial list of pastas and various polentas, as well as a roast-pig entrée served family-style. Read more…
Time for some more fun at the run. Here’s this week’s dog-run duo.
Nicole Guzzardi
Nicole GuzzardiThe Master: Jimmy Tom, 56, enjoys taking his dog to the park where they can get a little exercise. The East Village resident spent a recent afternoon doing pushups off a bench in the dog run while his pooch lounged just below it.
The Dog: Wally, a 7-year-old German Spitz. He’s more a “people’s” dog than a dog’s dog, preferring to mingle with humans (and especially his owner). “He doesn’t do much socializing,” Mr. Tom said.
Favorite Past-Time: What else? Fetch, with his favorite ball. And wading in the pool.
Favorite Food: Pepperoni. But Wally will eat just about anything. “That’s why he’s so fat,” said Mr. Tom with a laugh.
Meagan KirkpatrickGood morning, East Village.
Police have arrested Brooklyn resident Joshua Nunez, 21, in connection with a fatal shooting on Oct. 6 outside of the Jose Beauty Salon and Barber Shop on Forsyth Street, reports the Daily News. He was apprehended in the death of NoLIta resident Charles Fernandez, 29, and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police said. Mr. Fernandez, a father of three and sometime construction worker, was shot in the torso and taken by private means to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
EV Grieve reports that Gimme Gimme Records on East Fifth Street is closing after Sunday. The shop, which just celebrated its 18th year, is the fourth East Village record store to shutter this year, writes EV. This past summer, landlord Steven Croman bought the building and a huge rent hike followed. EV also points to more construction at the Standard East Village and a malleable man performing “vertical planking on the plywood.”
If you fancy some risqué entertainment, Horse Trade Theater Group is putting on “Revealed Burlesque,” a one-night show on Nov. 14, 8 p.m., at the Kraine Theater that promises “the most beloved burlesque performers in New York City and beyond.” The show stars producer and performer GiGi La Femme. Tickets are $30 and sold at www.horseTRADE.info.
And if you happened to spot some burly bikers descending on Bowery last Sunday, Bowery Boogie has photos of Hells Angels gathering for their annual biker bash at the Bowery Electric. Angels collided with fashionistas, including one leather-clad biker who volunteered to pose with a little pooch. Aww.
Vivienne Gucwa The Rev. Winnie Varghese will be installed as the first rector in 23 years at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery at a special service there this Saturday. She will also become the church’s first, female rector.
In the Episcopal Church, a rector has charge of the parish. St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery has credited Ms. Varghese, 40, who is openly gay, as increasing attendance since she joined in 2009 as the pastor and priest in charge. “I’m honored to be installed as the Rector of this historic, welcoming, progressive, diverse and high-energy church,” she said in a press release sent out by the church. “I look forward to continuing to grow with St. Mark’s by embracing its tradition of supporting diversity, arts and social justice and by providing members a welcoming environment to grow spiritually.”
Ms. Varghese has served as the Episcopal chaplain at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles. She graduated from Southern Methodist University and holds a Master of Divinity from the Union Theological Seminary in New York. The service will be held at 11 a.m.
For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Inkstop Tattoo.
Shira Levine In 1997, when tattoo shops were again legalized in New York City, Eric Rignall was one of the first artists to legitimately sketch on skin in the East Village. His shop, Inkstop Tattoo, at 209 Avenue A wasn’t easy to establish because most landlords refused to house his needlework. “They figured tattoo shops meant trouble, bikers and gangs,” said Rignall. An established tattoo artist from New Jersey, where inking was legal, helped vouch for him. “I also put down a pretty large deposit to really show I was serious and could be trusted. I’m sure at first they kept a pretty watchful eye on me, but they quickly saw that all I was about was doing high-quality tattoos,” he said. Almost 16 years later, Mr. Rignall gave The Local a glimpse into what makes his ink flow.
Read more…
Meagan KirkpatrickGood morning, East Village.
In the latest “Mystery Lot” news, EV Grieve has photos of new construction at 211 13th Street, where there are plans to erect an 83-unit building. No sign yet of the rooftop cabana terraces. EV also points us to a couple of closings, including Pinisi Café & Bakery on East Fourth Street, where workers were clearing out the space on Saturday, and Walid Menswear on East 14th Street, which opened about two-and-a-half years ago.
Bowery Boogie reports that the owners of Sunshine Cinema have pulled out of a Community Board 3 meeting tonight where they planned on discussing their new “dinner-and-movie” concept, and are instead focusing on “grassroots outreach.” Flyers posted around the neighborhood invite locals to stop by the theater and chat about plans for “two restaurants with full bars, four floors of table seating and a grand revamping of the interior of our theatres and lobby areas.” Remodeling will start early next year. Bowery Boogie also notes that EMM Group has launched the website for 199 Bowery, touted as “a new nightlife experience” that will open this fall.
DNA Info interviews the creator of “The Elephant in my Closet,” a one-man play about how to “break the news to your conservative father of your defection to the Democrats.” The play, focused on standup comedian David Lee Nelson’s own experience with his dad, opened last night at the Kraine Theater on East Fourth Street. As for the future of his relationship with his father, he said, it “depends on who wins the election, so check back with me in November.”
And with Halloween around the corner, the Daily News, in a roundup of costume contests for pets, mentions the annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade, taking place this Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. at the Tompkins Square Dog Run, along Ninth Street between Avenues A and B.
It’s supposed to be nice and sunny tomorrow, so why not while away your afternoon at a local community garden? East Villagers did just that last weekend, during the Harvest Arts Festival put on by the folks at Loisada United Neighborhood Gardens. Watch our video to see what some of the 24 participating gardens organized in the way of music, dance, visual arts, poetry, and more.
Last night, everyone at Professor Thom’s was glued to – no, not the Yankees game: the place is a Boston bar, after all. They were watching the Vice Presidential debate, silly! The Local stopped by to see which zingers got the most cheers.
Daniel Maurer JoeDough is psyched.With the Yankees going into game four tonight, it’s going to be tough to find somewhere to watch the Vice Presidential debate, which starts at 9 p.m. But there are a few places where you can join fellow Democrats or Republicans, or go bipartisan.
Village Pourhouse (64 Third Avenue, at 11th Street) if offering a left-leaning gathering, with $5 blue Barack O-Bombs, while sister establishment SideBAR (120 East 15th Street, at Irving Place) is catering to the Republican crowd with red Rum-ney shots for the same price. Marketing director Lauren Ferrante said specific ingredients are up to the bartenders, but she was thinking black cherry rum with a spash of grenadine for SideBAR and Absolut Mandarin and blue curacao dropped into Sprite for Pourhouse. Just don’t let the drinks determine your party affiliation.
Those who want to hash out the issues with a more neutral crowd can watch at Professor Thom’s (219 Second Avenue, between 13th and 14th Streets). The New American Tavern, which produces bar events for the politically inclined, is hosting, and asks that you RSVP.
Other Democrat gatherings in the area include a Watch Party for Young Professionals of Color at Katra Lounge (217 Bowery, near Rivington Street) and a viewing at the 13th Street Repertory Company (50 West 13th Street, near Sixth Avenue). Both require RSVPs. Read more…
An eclectic group of musicians – including Gordon Gano belting out his Violent Femmes classic “Blister in the Sun” – performed last night at a benefit to “put a stop to this destructive, environmentally calamitous process that’s destroying the city we all love.” At least, that’s how the evening’s M.C., Mark Crispin Miller of Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, put it shortly before announcing that Susan Sarandon and Matthew Broderick were among those who pledged money to a lawsuit against N.Y.U.’s expansion plans.
The idea behind the “Save the Village” concert at Le Poisson Rouge, Mr. Miller told an audience of about 200, was to show that the Village still rocks – even if “N.Y.U. does not rock. N.Y.U. rolls. It rolls its students; it rolls its faculty; it rolled the City Council. We’ve got to stop this.”
To that end, songstress Janine Nichols kicked off the night by cooing “This Land Is Your Land” with John Kruth on sitar. (It was that kind of evening: bongos, banjos, cowbells, canastas, and, yes, even scatting. At times the Greenwich Village club resembled a genuine Beat coffee shop.)
Noise rocker Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth got right into it with composer and saxophonist John Zorn. The duo launched into a cacophany of discordant free jazz that had all the abrasiveness of, well, jackhammering south of Washington Square Park. Read more…
Daniel Maurer The wall of P.S. 60 this morning.Parents at East Side Community High School are demanding to know when their children will be allowed back into the P.S. 60 building, evacuated over two weeks ago. Last night, they called on the Department of Education to start searching for alternatives to an interim school building that they likened to a prison.
At a parent association meeting at Theater for the New City, Michael Mirisola of the city’s School Construction Authority drew scoffs as he explained that the agency wouldn’t know when students could return to the building at 420 East 12th Street until engineers submitted a report – likely by the end of the week – based on their daily probes of the building. “By this time next week we should have a better idea of where we’re at,” he said. “I won’t know if we’re going to have a plan yet.”
That wasn’t good enough for some of the 150 or so parents who attended, several of whom complained that their children were no longer motivated to go to school now that they were sharing a Midtown South building with students of Norman Thomas High School. (Councilwoman Rosie Mendez also attended the meeting.)
“Whoever is going to Norman Thomas is being bullied. The only one that can actually do something about it is me – I’m a gangster,” said the parent of a 12th grader, to laughter and applause. He complained that he didn’t know where his daughter’s upcoming college fair would be located.
Another parent, of a ninth grader, said she was only at Norman Thomas for an hour when she began “suffocating” from a lack of air and light. “These kids are in prison from 8:30 a.m. to whenever they leave the building,” she said to applause. “I don’t even know how those kids survive on a normal daily basis. No matter what kind of kids you put in there they will end up bad.” Like others at the meeting, she stressed that the Department of Education should begin looking for alternative locations in case repair of a faulty wall at 420 East 12th Street took longer than expected. Read more…
