The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the creation of an East Village/Lower East Side Historic District today, bestowing landmark privileges on 330 buildings.
The district, surrounding Second Avenue from East Seventh Street to East Second Street, received enthusiastic support from six commissioners, with just one voting against it.
The decision is two years in the making, as the district was mapped after the commission conducted an extensive survey in 2010.
After a brief presentation recounting the neighborhood’s history – from the mansions and row houses of the 1830s to the advent of tenements, vaudeville theaters, and German immigrants – commissioner Elizabeth Ryan said, “It’s great to hear that most of the structures have changed little since the 1930s.”
Michael Devonshire, another commissioner who voted in favor of the district, said he was “scared to death” when he first walked through the Lower East Side in 1967, but that he now considered it New York’s “culturally richest district.”
Pablo E. Vengoechea, the commission’s vice chair, called the historic district “long overdue.” Read more…
Ahead of its momentous vote on the East Village-Lower East Side Historic District today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission gave its blessing to two residential developments in the existing NoHo Historic District.
The first, a 12-story building set to rise on the lot at 688 Broadway that houses the NoHo flea market, received high praise from commissioners who admired design touches such as its terra cotta “fins.” With their varied angles and perlescent sheen, the panels on the building’s facade will create visual effects depending on how the sun hits them during various times of day. The commissioners commended the building’s developers, and the architectural firm of B.K.S.K., for reaching out to the community and coming up with a design that was consistent with the NoHo Historic District. Read more…
Nicole GuzzardiDay of the Dead figurines at La Sirena.
Nicole Guzzardi
La Sirena, the Mexican memorabilia shop that got news of a whopping rent hike in July, will live to see another Day of the Dead.
Despite earlier indications that she planned to close her store at 27 East Third Street, Dina Leor now says she won’t give up (or pack up) until she receives written documentation from Tower Brokerage that her rent will increase by 42 percent.
Asked about her future plans, she told The Local, “I don’t know yet because it’s not clear yet what we’re negotiating. They told me 42 percent but I said I want it in writing.” She said she made the request about a month ago.
While she continues to pay rent on a month-by-month basis, Ms. Leor is having merchandise shipped in from Mexican artisans, in hopes that Day of the Dead will mean killer business. “I really need stuff to get sold because I don’t want to move all this when I move, but also I need the money,” she said. Read more…
Certain things tend to haunt us this time of year. Last year, it was a ghostly patch of decaying pumpkins that vanished into thin air one day. And this year?
Sasha von Oldershausen
Behind a green plywood fence on the corner of Avenue C and Sixth Street lies one of the greatest, most disturbing mysteries of the East Village.
“Oh my goodness,” said Denine Stewart, an East Village resident, as she peered through the fence for the first time.
“I’ve always wondered why this fence is here and so offensive to the eye. Now I see why: inside, it’s doublyoffensive,” she said.
Keith Beavers said the site has been around since he opened Alphabet City Wine Company down the block, in 2007. “It was little then and now it’s gotten bigger,” he said, emphasizing the enormity of the thing with a word that cannot be uttered here. “It’s as big as a smart car.”
In fact, it’s bigger than a smart car: 12 feet by 10 feet to be exact, and approximately six feet deep, according to Department of Buildings records.
Ralph Nader isn’t on the ballot this year, but the consumer advocate managed to fire up around 350 people, including rocker-writer Patti Smith, at Barnes and Noble in Union Square last night.
Introduced by former public advocate Mark Green, Mr. Nader touched on themes from his new paperback, “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future,” and recalled how mass movements led by a handful of people produced radical change.
These days, Mr. Nader said, many everyday folks seem to have lost their passion for activism and have become far more narrowly focused – and with lame excuses to justify it. “They’ll tell you,” he said drily, “that they’re too busy changing their profile on Facebook.”
Others, he noted, fear being ostracized or crushed by the powers that be because of their belief that the “the big boys own the system and you can’t control it. There’s been a loss of nerve. But it took six women in 1840 to start the suffrage movement” in New York, he said. Read more…
Suzanne RozdebaDereese Huff with shooting victim David Cruz
State Senator Daniel Squadron will visit the scene ofMonday morning’s shooting in Campos Plaza to rally for an emergency session in Albany addressing gun violence. At the same time, a Campos resident is circulating a petition demanding security upgrades to the complex and refusing to pay rent until they’re made.
Senator Squadron’s press conference tomorrow will follow an op-ed he penned for today’s Daily News, calling for the passage of a package of bills that “would ensure that New York State has the nation’s strongest gun laws.” The series of “common-sense measures” he advocates includes microstamping shell casings, broadening the definition of “assault weapon,” and limiting the number of guns that one person can purchase in a month.
As Senator Squadron implores state lawmakers, Dereese Huff, president of the Campos Plaza Tenant Association, is appealing to her neighbors via a petition titled “We Must Take a Stand They are Killing our Children with Drugs and Bullets.”
“I put it under everybody’s doors,” she told The Local. “I already got 60 returned to me, signed. They’re signing this petition because they feel that they’re not getting help from N.Y.P.D. nor N.Y.C.H.A. They have to step up on their jobs.” Read more…
As the Public Theater unveiled its renovations today, another conspicuous construction project was also celebrating, right down the block. A communion of suits and hard hats marked the addition of a final structural beam to the top of 51 Astor.
The office tower’s “topping out” ceremony was attended by some 170 construction workers who have been working at the site since July of 2011, as well as 75 guests that included financial partners, architects, engineers, and contractors of the site.
The building, designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, now stands at its proposed 12 stories with 400,000 square feet of space. Read more…
The folks who are trying to bring a floating pool to the East River have just started a second round of fundraising in hopes of raising $1 million in the next six months. You can watch a video promoting + POOL, as the project is being called, above. Its organizers tell Gothamist that, assuming they can bring the water-filtering pool’s design up to code and sell everyone on it, they hope to launch it in summer of 2015.
While you wait for that to happen, here’s an easier but pricier way to take a dip: rent out this $6,500-a-month three-bedroom apartment at 425 East 13th Street (yup, the “A” building, where that wacky slide is located) and you’ll have access to an “engaging rooftop pool,” according to the Corcoran listing. The rooftop lounge boasts private cabanas and presumably an awesome view of the “private rooftop cabana terraces” going up just a couple of blocks away.
First Avenue Pierogi & Deli reopened yesterday with a new look and a new owner.
Eva Audit, 31, has taken over the family business from her mother, Wieslawa Kurowycky, 70, who opened the shop in 1985. “I grew up in this store. I worked here in the summers and I know how to make everything,” Ms. Audit, an East Village resident, told The Local. “I don’t have a cooking background, but I do have a big Polish eating background,” she laughed. Her uncle owns Kurowycky Meat Products down the street.
The deli was closed for two months while the owner installed new floors, a small counter that will soon have stools, and a new awning. That last change perturbed some regulars, said Ms. Audit. “We had a really old sign out there, but we didn’t want to throw it out,” she said. “We’re going to refinish it and hang it inside.” Read more…
Daniel MaurerPolice vehicles at Campos Plaza last night.
The gunshots that rang out near the corner of Third Avenue and East Ninth Street last night followed a dispute at The Central Bar, The Local has learned. That altercation ultimately led to an early-morning shooting in Alphabet City that sent a man to the hospital, according to residents of Campos Plaza.
A source who reviewed Central Bar’s security tapes, but who did not want to be named, said the fight broke out at last night’s “Rock Da Blok” competition, staged by a longtime bouncer at the East Ninth Street sports pub. According to the source, there were about 30 to 40 people in the bar’s upstairs events space when a fight broke out around 10:40 p.m. “The fight lasted about a minute. I didn’t see anyone with a gun or anything like that,” he said. “The bouncers came in, broke it up, and the guys were thrown out. There were three or four people involved and it broke up quickly. I didn’t see anyone getting very badly hurt.”
Barry Feeney, a manager at Central Bar, told The Local that the organizer of the event was a “good guy and works hard.” He said, “One of my employees asked if he could use the upstairs for an open mic. There were 20 people there, mostly his friends, hanging out and singing at six, seven o’clock in the evening.”
After the men were ejected, shots were reported near the corner of East Ninth Street and Third Avenue. The bar was closed “as soon as there were cops on the corner,” said Mr. Feeney. “We were advised to shut everything down.” Read more…
Susan Stetzer may have her detractors (it’s still uncertain who posted flyers last month assailing her as an “unelected meddler” and “assassin of New York’s creativity”), but she also has her admirers, including the personnel committee of Community Board 3, whose August resolution asking that she receive a $1,500 “discretionary” raise was approved by the full board during its meeting last week.
As district manager, Ms. Stetzer is not a voting member of the board, but the resolution noted that she is “on call 24 hours, seven days a week,” and added that the proposed increase in her $71,000 annual salary was “not representative” of her “high level of performance.”
Reached for comment, Ms. Stetzer said the money for her raise would come out of her “very small” operating budget and that she had asked for that amount when appearing before the personnel committee. “We couldn’t afford more,” she added. “However, this was a month ago. Since that time we have received a proposed very large cut and all raises are on hold. So the vote (by board) was amended to be implemented when we are fully funded.” Read more…
Just a day after their children were relocated to a new school following the evacuation of their building, parents of East Side Community High School students are lamenting the new arrangement and demanding a speedy resolution from the Department of Education.
Officials now estimate that students and teachers of East Side and Girls Prep, which were co-located at 420 East 12th Street until it was evacuated Monday due to structural damage, won’t be able to move back into the building for another three to four weeks. During that time, East Side students will be sharing a building with Norman Thomas High School – one of 14 high schools that the city proposed closing last year due to poor performance.
At a meeting last night, about 40 parents of East Side high schoolers expressed concerns about security issues and negative interactions between their children and their new schoolmates. They also complained that the building felt oppressive, with its metal detectors and lack of windows.
“They felt like they were in prison all day – that’s the first thing my kid told me,” said one parent, Judy Castillo. Read more…
Time for some more fun at the run. Here’s this week’s dog-run duo.
Nicole Guzzardi
Nicole GuzzardiGus jumps the fence.
The Master: Joanie Koveleskie, 40, visits the dog run every day with her “life-saver.” Before him, she was a self-proclaimed loner who rarely left her East Village apartment. At the park, she’s made many a friend, both human and canine.
Pet Tricks: Rather than getting fur all over the house, Ms. Koveleskie brushes her dog at the park. He spreads out on the ground and lets her go to town, no problem.
The Dog: Augustus Gloop, a 15-month-old Siberian Husky, is also known as Gus. He loves to chase his two cat siblings around the house, just for fun. “I have to tell him sometimes, ‘Leave your brother and sister alone,’” Ms. Koveleskie said. Read more…
Last night Havaar, a self-described “Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions and State Repression,” took the Illuminator out for a spin, projecting messages like “Peace = Freedom from state repression, foreign and domestic” on the side of a building at East 14th Street and Broadway. The group, which had earlier protested the Iranian government’s policies outside of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hotel during his visit to the U.N. General Assembly, describes itself as a grassroots organization of Iranians, Iranian-Americans and allies (including Occupy Wall Street) opposing military action and U.S.-led sanctions against Iran.
Now the trend moves over to Avenue B. Manny Haimovich, the owner of 15 Avenue B, told The Local today that the building on the corner of Second Street will be home to a dessert shop.
He wouldn’t give up the goods as to what exactly will be served, but said ice cream will be on the menu and it will be the first of its kind to hit the area. Dessert lovers can expect a grand opening in the next two months.
It was a busy, boisterous weekend in the East Village.
On Saturday, Fourth Arts Block, the nonprofit constellation of art groups and performance spaces lining East Fourth Street between Bowery and Second Avenues, hosted its annual FAB! Festival, as you can see above. Meanwhile a few blocks south, the latest Centre-Fuge murals debuted at the First Street Block Fair. And at First Park, the first annual “James Day” raised money for James Panitz, an East Village child who shortly after his second birthday was diagnosed with a form of pediatric cancer. (See those photos below.)
Tamara Greenfield, overseeing her sixth FAB! Festival, said this year offered a range of musical, dance, and spoken word activities and performances to appeal to even the most impatient of attention spans. The event boasted two outdoor stages, an indoor performance space, and a host of food options, from vegan empanadas to pulled pork tacos.
As expected, a collaboration with the Asian American Arts Alliance brought hula, rap, Japanese drumming, and modern dance to the festival. Read more…
The dream board on 12th Street got some more contributions after we spotted it yesterday. Passersby wrote that they wished New York was… “CHEAPER,” “safe,” “extraordinary,” “full of equadorians [sic],” “less international,” and (again) “CHEAPER.”
The Real Deal notes that “Ivan Hakimian’s brokerage HPNY has purchased a Lower East Side gas station site primed for residential development,” in a deal said to be worth $8 million. “Existing zoning allows for 43,000 square feet of residential development on the parcel, which has 120 feet of frontage on Houston Street.”
The Lo-Down reports that the 7-Eleven on Delancey Street is now open in the old Loew’s Delancey Theater building. 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 »
