After defying his landlord’s repeated requests to stop holding events at A Gathering of the Tribes, Steve Cannon,who founded the homegrown gallery in 1991, has received a notice ordering him to vacate his East Third Street live-work space by Feb. 1. The gallerist, who said that he had neglected to sign a new rent agreement in part because he is blind, has vowed to prevent yet another disappearance of an eccentric art space.
“I’m going to fight her,” Mr. Cannon said of his landlord. “I don’t think she has a leg to stand on.” Read more…
After abruptly shuttering during the summer and moving its parties to the basement of Lucky Cheng’s, Nublu will reopen at its original Avenue C location, serving beer and wine rather than hard liquor.
E-mailing from Sweden, Nublu’s owner, Ilhan Ersahin, said that the club would reopen tonight at 62 Avenue C and will once again operate from 8 p.m. till 4 a.m. nightly, but will now host earlier shows at lower volumes. He described the new operation as “less clubby style,” with “more wine/lounge/art/talky kinda vibes,” and said that finger food would be served. He added that there would be “more acoustic-friendly nights, neighborhood-style, with an international touch” in keeping with his record label. Read more…
A letter sent from Kenneth Fisher to local politicians indicates that the attorney’s client, Benjamin Shaoul’s Magnum Real Estate Group, may be close to reselling the property that houses the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, which Magnum recently purchased for $25.5 million. With a new for-profit operator in the mix, the deal would allay fears that the building will be replaced by condos, and would help insure that it continue to be used as a nursing home.
The letter was sent on Wednesday to State Senator Daniel Squadron and other politicians who had earlier written to Mr. Fisher reiterating their position that “any future use of the building should retain nursing home beds on the Lower East Side.” In his response, Mr. Fisher indicated that on Dec. 6, he was advised by a lawyer representing Cabrini that an earlier plan to relocate the not-for-profit nursing home had fallen through, and the Center was now negotiating to be purchased by a for-profit operator that might also be able to purchase the building from Magnum. Read more…
Have you abandoned South Brooklyn Pizza ever since it stopped carrying Manhattan Special coffee soda on draft? (We’re assured it’ll return when the takeout parlor expands into a proper restaurant, possibly next month.) Well, there’s a new option just a block away: L’asso has opened its East Village outpost for dinner. Last month, The Local told you what to expect from the NoLIta transplant. Check back here shortly for interior shots as well as the menu, which features a Polish pie with kielbasa, pickles, and mustard oil.
In the “Eighth Annual Curbed Awards,” Curbed highlights some lost landmarks, including 35 Cooper Square and Mars Bar, and also names Ray’s Candy Store and the St. Mark’s Bookshop as “Threatened Neighborhood Landmarks That are Somehow Still Standing.”
EV Grieve also remembers some of the notable East Villagers we lost this year, including photographer Bob Arihood, teacher and activist Monica “Kathryn” Shay, and bartender John Leeper. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York also laments some of those we lost, including Tony Amato, owner of his namesake opera house on the Bowery, and Chloe Dzubilo, “transgender and AIDS activist, artist, writer, punk rocker and East Villager.”
Grieve writes that Itzocan Café, a French-Mexican spot that opened on East Ninth Street in 2003, has “For Rent” signs up along with a note saying: “To our loyal customers, thank you for all your support throughout the years. But unfortunately we are out of business.”
Evan McKnight, who discovered on Christmas Day that his $1,100 bicycle had been stolen from his East 10th Street apartment building, has recovered the bike and will end the year on a positive note – though he’s out $50 that he spent printing “Stolen Bike” flyers plus $40 that had to be paid to the man who returned the custom wheels after seeing one of the flyers posted at a local shop.
Mr. McKnight said that yesterday evening, a man came into Continuum Cycles on Avenue B to buy a tire tube for a bike he had purchased on the street the previous night. He told the rest of the story in an e-mail to The Local.
On his way out of the shop he noticed one of my flyers. He gets home to his new bike and after deducing that he’s in fact purchased a stolen bike from the ‘homeless man’ he decides to bring it back to Continuum Cycles. He speaks with my friend Jeff and tells him he doesn’t want the reward money he just wants his $40 back. Jeff hands it over out of pocket, and sends me a text later that night to let me know he had my bike.
Jeff Underwood, the owner of Continuum Cycles, said that at least once a day, someone comes into his shop complaining about a stolen bike, and complaints about stolen parts are even more numerous. (The editor of this blog had his locked bike stolen on the Bowery last month, a couple of months after having to replace a stolen seat.) Read more…
From bike lanes to bar noise, from school squabbles to Four Loko — these are the stories that got readers of The Local worked up this year.
Rachel Citron
1. Conversation | 35 Cooper Square: “It’s not about the restuarant that occupied the space last month, or the artists that lived there in the last decade – it’s about 200 years of history that, if torn down, no one else will ever get to experience firsthand. And it’s not about this one building, but more about what it means in context of all the other buildings on the Bowery… And if we replace these gems with nothing but more bars for you frat-types, then a couple of decades from now, when you’re long gone, we’ll be the ones still here who’ll have to relive those bad days of drunks and dives all over again. Please don’t do that to us.” —Bowery Boy
2. Amid Headlock Allegations, Parents Complain About Disciplining at Girls Prep: “Hello!!! This is not a detention camp! Girls Prep is treating our girls as though they are in detention camp! Our girls should be treated with respect and dignity. If they caim to be prearing our girls to be leaders, this approach will not make them leaders. I’m hurt when my daughter tells me that she does not want to go to school anymore…this is a child who loves school. It even hurts more when she says, ‘mom they treat us like dogs’ These teachers seem to have no heart.”— GenevaRead more…
Last month, The Local reported that Community Board 3 drafted a letter to the lawyer of the then-unknown buyer of the building that houses the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation. Now The Lo-Down reprints a letter in which State Senator Daniel Squadron and other elected officials tell attorney Kenneth Fisher and his client, Ben Shaoul’s Magnum Real Estate Group, that “any future use of the building should retain nursing home beds on the Lower East Side.”
New Year’s Eve is the worst night of the year to catch a cab – reason enough for East Villagers to keep it local. And if you don’t live in the neighborhood? Well, some of these parties are worth crawling to.
Noah Fecks
Daniel Maurer
7A Café
Tapas menu, including sea scallops with chorizo ragout and herb polenta, and steamed mussels in a scallion, ginger, curry and coconut sauce. Midnight champagne toast. No reservations required. $6.95 and up, 109 Avenue A, (212) 475-9001.
Back Forty
Devour pigs-in-a-blanket, mini muffulettas, oysters and ceviche while a D.J. spins R&B, soul and funk. The party ticket also includes three drinks. 9:30 p.m., 190 Avenue B, (212) 388-1990; $115.
The Beagle
A four-course dinner that includes confit quail leg in sauerkraut mayo, cured scallop grits with dill and pomegranate, and short ribs. 162 Avenue A, (212) 228-6900; $65 or $85, plus tax. Read more…
The New York Post runs a photo of a deliveryman close to collision with a pedestrian in the East Village. James Vacca, the chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, tells the paper he will introduce legislation requiring commercial cyclists to finish a bicycle-safety course and submit proof of completion to employers. “If nothing else, this bill will ensure that commercial cyclists have been educated about what the rules actually are,” he said.
Fourth Arts Block still needs about $900 of the $3,000 it’s trying to collect through KickStarter for its ArtUp program, reports Bowery Boogie. The program “transforms construction sites…in the East Village/Lower East Side into street-side galleries.”
In a “Vanished” series, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York laments the loss in 2011 of some notable East Village structures and figures, including 35 Cooper Square, Mars Bar, and the booting out of Edgar Oliver, “one of the East Village’s last Bohemians.” Read more…
After 28 years in the East Village, the owners of Polonia have closed shop after their landlord said she would more than triple their rent.
“I came here from Poland, my husband and I raised our children, and ran this business. We worked hard. I did everything I could,” Renata Jurczyk, who owns Polonia with her husband Jozef, said in Polish. “The landlords are killing small businesses in this neighborhood with the rent.”
The family had a small, informal gathering at Polonia last night with longtime customers. “After all these years, Polonia was important to the East Village,” said Ms. Jurczyk, 51. “When I told customers who have been coming here a long time that we’re closing, they started crying. They were Poles and non-Poles, and it was their second home.”
Ms. Jurczyk and her son Paul, 23, said they closed on Christmas Eve after the landlord, Ludmilla Lozowy, said she would raise their rent from $3,500 to $12,000 per month starting February 2012. “I tried to do something, but the landlord said we pay too little,” said Ms. Jurczyk. Read more…
If you’ve ever woken up on Christmas day to find a brand new bicycle by the tree, you can imagine how Evan McKnight must’ve felt when he walked into his East Village apartment building on the morning of Dec. 25 to find his bike – valued between $1,100 and $1,200 – missing from a stairwell where he had left it the day before. He’s now taking his search for the bicycle to the streets, by posting flyers offering a $300 cash reward.
Mr. McKnight, 27, a piercer and body-jewelry buyer at New York Adorned, said he bought the frame of the 1997 Uno bike for about $850, and this year, sunk somewhere around $1,200 into converting the track bike by installing a 3-speed gear system, breaks, and other accessories. When he locked his bike outdoors, he used two Kryptonite U-locks. When he stowed the bike indoors, he locked its wheel to its frame; but that wasn’t enough to discourage someone from entering the building at 420 East 10th Street sometime on Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning (while Mr. McKnight was out of town) and swiping the bike. Read more…
Workers have now demolished the walls of all but the first story of the building that housed Mars Bar. This was the scene during their lunch break today, looking southeast from where the dive’s bathrooms used to be.
The Local has turned its attention to the services offering free food in Tompkins Square Park once or twice before. Today, we ride alongside Adi Purusha Das, a monk at the Bhakti Center, and Father Joseph Gingrich, a priest at St. Nicholas of Myra church, who – under the name Interfaith Community Services – team up with locals and tourists alike to bring home-cooked meals to the park every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Know of other neighborhood organizations that deserve recognition? E-mail The Local to tell us about them.
The owner of 77 East Seventh Street, Robert Koziej, is among those honored on public advocate Bill de Blasio’s 2011 list of “NYC’s Worst Landlords,” with 110 infractions listed.
So do you think teachers should be allowed to wear flip-flops and tank tops to school? An editorial in the Daily News sides with East Village principal Marlon Hosang of Public School 64, who wants a “professional” dress code. The paper sarcastically says of the teacher who filed a complaint: “Good policy: Defend the right to look like a slob. Challenge the ability of a school leader to set a respectful tone in his building.”
Jazz musician Sam Rivers died on Monday, reports The New York Times. Studio Rivbea, the noncommercial performance space he ran out of his Bond Street loft, was an anchor of the 1970s loft scene, and “served as an avant-garde hub through the end of the decade.” Read more…
Thought the imminent closing of Filene’s Basement would be the biggest news coming out of Union Square today? Not so much. A 36-year-old man was stabbed in the leg in Union Square earlier this afternoon, the police said.
The victim, who was not identified, is said to have been stabbed around 3 p.m. at Union Square and East 15th Street by an unknown Hispanic man who fled the scene. A representative of the police department did not know whether the man had been taken to the hospital, but said he was not considered likely to die.
The author of the blog Sana and the City tweets a rumor, which The Local has not been able to confirm, that the victim was homeless.
Know anything else about the incident? E-mail The Local or comment below.
Hotel Chatter points out that there are still New Year’s Eve rooms available at the Cooper Square Hotel, now 0fficially The Standard East Village. Out of curiosity, The Local called around to other hotels in and around the neighborhood to find out who’s booked up, and who still has “cheap” rooms available. Here’s what we found.
Last Friday, the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop closed for the holiday season. Co-owners Doug Quint and Bryan Petroff are taking a break from the shop until it reopens Jan. 2, but the business partners won’t be taking a break from each other: the sultans of soft-serve have been a couple for six years.
Mr. Quint, who previously played the bassoon in various orchestras, said they stumbled into the ice cream business by accident. In 2008, he jumped on an opportunity to rent a used ice-cream truck through a friend.
“I was keeping my ears and eyes open for weird things to do,” he said. Mr. Petroff hopped on board both with moral support and by helping serve ice cream nights after work.
After two years on the truck and countless ice cream cones, the duo decided it was either time to find something new or expand. To their fans’ delight, they decided to open the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop this past September. 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.
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