Samantha BalabanAnyone know what happened earlier today at 284 East 10th Street? Police and emergency services vehicles prevented cars from driving down the block between First Avenue and Avenue A for over an hour, around 12:30 p.m.
A police officer at the scene said that it was in response to a sick resident.
Daniel Maurer At one of Wierd’s last nights.It’s the end of an era at a Lower East Side bar – and possibly the beginning of a new one. Tonight, a new weekly replaces the long-running Wierd party.
For 10 years, every time you opened the door to Home Sweet Home on a Wednesday night you were greeted with the smell of artificial smoke. Colored lights poked through the fog, like thousands of e-cigarettes fuming at once.
Started in 2003 at the Southside Lounge in Brooklyn, Wierd was New York’s longest running weekly party for dark music, but it was much more than a place where black-clad 20- and 30-somethings drank and fist pumped to obscure minimal synth music. There was a certain pageantry attached to Wierd balanced with founder Pieter Schoolwerth’s earnestness and enthusiasm. The party might have looked intimidating, but as the drinks flowed even the most stoic goths broke character and smiled. Read more…
Scott Lynch Good morning, East Village.
The East Village, Lower East Side and Williamsburg “are the noisiest in New York City, with 2,108 noise complaints coming from the East Village over the last year, according to an amNewYork analysis of 311 data.” [AM NY]
“Community Board 3′s Landmarks Subcommittee will hear proposals for changes to two East Village landmarks: St Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery (an individual landmark and part of the St. Mark’s Historic District) and Congregation Mezritch Synagogue at 415 East 6th Street in the newly designated East Village/Lower East Side Historic District.” [Off the Grid]
The JJT Gallery on the Lower East Side has a conundrum at the heart of its latest exhibit: how did the single-piece installation called “Cave” by Brooklyn artist Charles Harlan, which is a corrugated cylinder with a 10-foot fit through the 7-foot 6-inch doors of the gallery? [DNA Info]
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A couple of weeks ago we took you inside Feast, a new restaurant from former Veritas chef Chris Meenan and Savoy Bakery owner Brian Ghaw. You know, the place with stuffed bobcat pouncing on a vintage typewriter. With the restaurant opening in less than an hour, it’s time to look at the menu.
One thing has changed since we spoke to co-owner George Chiang: the three feasts are now down to two. Other than that, check out the menu below. In addition, there are “handmade” sodas (lime basil, orange fennel, elderflower lemon, etc.) as well as sodas “by the man.” Presumably none of them are available in 44-ounce sizes. Plus, root beer (and regular beer!) on tap. Read more…
Daniel MaurerA year after it opened, the Subway on First Avenue has finally taken down its Grand Opening banner and is now offering cabbies a discount and a toilette. The new strategy seems to be working for the oft-empty location, too.
Daniel Maurer Zen 6 opened in December. Ippin opened last weekend. And now Mentaikou is planning to bring ramen and sushi to 324 East Sixth Street, just a couple doors down form Zen 6.
According to a liquor license questionnaire, the 72-seat restaurant will have a 15-foot sushi bar and will be open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. (and till midnight on weekends). It replaces Calcutta Restaurant on Curry Row, between First and Second Avenues.
It isn’t the only ramen spot on the horizon: Ivan Orkin, the owner of two Tokyo noodle joints who drew lines to Momofuku during his guest stint there in July, is planning a 56-seat spot with enclosed backyard at 25 Clinton Street. It’ll be a “fun but serious artisanal noodle shop,” according to the liquor license questionnaire. Read more…
Kavitha Team Rizzo’sAn Astoria favorite is aiming to expand into the space that held Frankies 17 and later Francesca’s. The Local spotted the owners of Rizzo’s Fine Pizza at 17 Clinton Street last night, drumming up signatures in support of a beer and wine license.
Rizzo’s is a popular family-run operation that specializes in thin-crust pies. The original location, opened in 1959, still stands at 30-13 Steinway Street and there’s an offshoot on the Upper East Side at 1426 Lexington Avenue.
When it opens in about two months, the 20-seat location will have a rustic vibe and be a bit more formal than the original. Read more…
Good morning, East Village.
Above: the latest mural at Ideal Glass, by LNY.
“No Wave underground legend, feminist icon, artist, author, actress, musician and all-around troublemaker Lydia Lunch is now the author of a cookbook, The Need to Feed: Recipes for Developing a Healthy Obsession for Deeply Satisfying Foods, a “hedonist’s guide.” [Dangerous Minds]
Bowery Poetry Club relaunches Friday with Duane Park Burlesque. [Blackbook]
The Department of Transportation has installed a “bike corral” on Avenue B. “Mosey on up and tie up your steed.” [GammaBlog]
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Inside What Goes Around Comes AroundMel Bailey
Attention, fashionistas! What Goes Around Comes Around is closing its pop-up at 440 Lafayette Street and all merchandise is 70 percent off until March 9.
The store opened in September and was expected to close after three months (just like its previous Williamsburg pop-up), but customers have kept it running three months longer than expected, said Asher Fritz, an employee.
The brand claims to offer “the most sought-after vintage and antiques on earth,” and releases its own collections every fall, spring and summer.
Rest assured, its long-standing Soho location won’t be going anywhere soon. It’ll continue to stock newer and higher-end vintage quality items while merchandise from the pop-up — mostly past collections and surplus — will be sent to the brand’s warehouse in New Jersey.
Lila Selim Sara D. Roosevelt ParkWhat do a public park, a vegan bakery and a preschool have in common? Apparently, Jim Gaffigan.
As we reported this weekend, Gaffigan is filming a pilot for his new television series. Tomorrow the comedian will be shooting at three locations: Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Babycakes bakery and Little Missionary’s Day Nursery on St. Marks Place, an employee of Remote Broadcasting, Inc. told The Local.
The show is based on Gaffigan’s own life as a family man in New York City. Mr. Gaffigan has five children and lives nearby, so the locations aren’t a total surprise. He was involved in the preschool’s fundraiser last year. (Fun fact: as were Rachel Weisz and Darren Aronofsky.)
No word yet on whether Gaffigan, a Subway regular known for his riff about Hot Pockets, also frequents Babycakes, purveyor of vegan baked goods in the Lower East Side.
Funny we were just lamenting the fact that Russ & Daughters doesn’t offer free delivery above East 10th Street. It turns out Tompkins Square Bagels started accepting online delivery orders via Seamless a couple of weeks ago, meaning it’s easier than ever to get bagels and lox delivered to your door (and what better way to avoid one of the neighborhood’s more daunting lines on the weekends?). Of course, if you’re craving rollmops, you’re out of luck.
Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library.
Christopher HardingIt is hard to overstate the giddy hedonism of the early ’80s. Riding the tide of the ’70s sexual revolution, when feminism and gay power met the “if it feels good do it” ethos of the era, it was a great time to be young and on the prowl.
For many, it was all no-strings encounters, erotic explorations and good dirty fun and if there were consequences, well, that would be for another day. It would be a year of two before the specter of AIDS reared its ugly head and there was a feckless, fumbling innocence to it all that in retrospect is kind of touching,
It took a band from Boston, Human Sexual Response, to provide a great soundtrack for those wild sweaty nights. With songs like “What Does Sex Mean to Me?” they were an art rock ensemble with a literate and hilarious take on sexual politics. Borrowing their name from the Masters and Johnson bestseller, the band blended four-part vocals with a bouncy new wave beat.
Read more…
Scott Lynch Good morning, East Village.
Joe’s Pizza didn’t open last week as expected but is due to open today, per Eater. Above, Scott Lynch got a glimpse inside.
“The owners of high-priced units at 199 Bowery want a judge to overturn the liquor license granted to The EMM Group — which operates Finale, the ground floor disco, and Bow, a jazz club in the basement.” [NY Daily News]
Gunshots were heard on Essex Street near Stanton. [The Lo-Down]
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Daniel MaurerHey, look! “Gaffigan” is filming in the neighborhood next week. The pilot from “Rescue Me” creator Peter Tolan revolves around comedian Jim Gaffigan “as a happily married man and New York City father of five — as he is in real life,” according a flyer announcing the shoot on St. Marks Place, between First Avenue and Avenue A, Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Gaffigan is no stranger to the neighborhood: we spotted him ambling down First Avenue once. Others have seen him at Whole Foods Bowery, on Astor Place, and dropping into Bar 82. He digs Wechsler’s Currywurst. When the Post interviewed him last year, he had lived in a two-bedroom, five-story walk-up on the Bowery for six years. He named Crif Dogs, Tompkins Square Park, and the Bowery Hotel as some of his favorite spots.
“Taking your kid to Tompkins Square Park is hysterical, because you’re trying to explain to your 5-year-old why the heroin addict is sleeping on the bench in such a precise manner,” he told the Post. “My son will be like, ‘Why is that guy sleeping?’ And I’ll be like, ‘He was tired.’”
Gaffigan has also been known to drop into EastVille Comedy Club. Heads up: another big-name comic, Janeane Garofalo, will be doing sets there next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then again March 28 to 30.
Update | 4:08 p.m. Looks like “Gaffigan” is also filming on the Lower East Side on Tuesday. A flyer on Allen Street, between Rivington and Stanton Streets, requests that cars be moved by Monday at 8 p.m.
Daniel MaurerThe mural that graced Mama’s Food Shop has been painted over and will be replaced when Heart n’ Soul opens on East Third Street next Thursday.
“We had mixed feelings about that,” said Richard Freedman, the landlord of Mama’s Food Shop who took over the space in July, to the chagrin of many East Villagers.
At the end of the day, the old artwork just didn’t click. “It’s a new place; it has a new identity,” he said.
That identity is “casual soul food with a chef,” said Mr. Freeman, and the chef is David Conn, who said his brand of “Southern coastal cuisine” aims to highlight the history of the Gullah population in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The slave descendents were the first creators of soul food, he said. Read more…
Roni JacobsonA manager of the Sovereign Bank in Alphabet City is alleged to have pilfered money from a customer’s account late Tuesday afternoon, according to a police source.
The manager fled the bank at 57 Avenue A after staffers accused him of taking almost $200,000 from a woman’s account, the source said.
The victim may have had some sort of relationship with the employee, who is being sought as a person of interest. According to the police source, “the guy took advantage of her.”
Sovereign Bank declined to comment about the incident.
Russ and Daughters“Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes from the House That Herring Built” comes out next week, and it’s already getting some nice attention from Gothamist and The Times.
We’re looking forward to smearing caviar cream cheese all over this little volume, but in the meantime we’ve got a question: why doesn’t Russ & Daughters offer free delivery past East 10th Street? What’s the rest of the East Village – chopped liver?
Jen Snow, the appetizing institution’s director of PR, says it’s simple: “Like any restaurant, there has to be a boundary somewhere,” she said, crushing our dreams of gratis gravlax delivery. “We cover a large part of the Lower East Side which is within quick walking distance of Russ & Daughters, but the boundaries just have to be somewhere.”
Okay, so why not move that northern boundary up just a little bit, and go to 14th Street, already? Let Grand Street get shafted out of pickled herring!
“One of the guys who’s at the counter hand-slicing the salmon for the free delivery literally has to put down his knife, put on his winter coat, and walk the order,” Ms. Snow explained.
Russ & Daughters offers free delivery during the weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., for orders of $20 and over. Delivery times vary depending on how busy things are at the Houston Street shop. If you aren’t within walking distance, you can pay a courier fee: $15 if you live in the upper reaches of the East Village.
So will Russ & Daughters ever follow the lead of its equally esteemed neighbor, Katz’s Deli, and hire some delivery boys? Ms. Snow wasn’t aware of any such plans, but we’ll keep pouring on the schmaltz until it happens.
Kavitha SuranaA familiar logo has replaced the string-bikini graffiti that was tagged on Bondi Road’s shutter.
Calexico, the popular food cart with locations in Red Hook and Greenpoint, will open at 153 Rivington Street in three weeks, an employee said.
The Mexicali joint’s first Manhattan location announces itself as Clayton Patterson, writing for The Villager, laments the fate of an old-timer: “El Sombrero (The Hat) is on the verge of extinction, simply because the ever-increasing cost of living on the Lower East Side has purged the community of local long-term residents, and the tourists, students and trendy visitors do not seem to have a taste for an authentic L.E.S. Hispanic restaurant.”
Courtesy “The Current Sessions”Founded in the summer of 2011 by Alexis Convento and inspired by the legacies of dance greats like Pina Bausch, Trisha Brown, and Ohad Naharin, “The Current Sessions” showcases young choreographers exploring emotionally charged subjects.
Volume III, opening tonight at Wild Project, will feature 16 dances and two films in four programs.
Among the noteworthy choreographers are Shandoah Goldman and Donna Salgado. Ms. Goldman’s “Earth Horse,” showing tonight and Sunday evening, is the first work in the festival to incorporate audience participation; Ms. Salgado’s “Working Walls 2,” showing tonight and Sunday afternoon, is its first work of contemporary ballet. Read more…
Lisa HornbergerTenants of three buildings on East Third Street plan to file a lawsuit next week alleging that their landlords have illegally endangered their health and safety while performing renovations.
In April, The Local reported that the residents of 50, 54, and 58 East Third Street were rallying to stay in their apartments after news came down that the buildings would be sold. As feared, the landlord refused to renew the leases of market-rate tenants whose contracts expired last year. An organizer of the tenants eventually gave up the fight and moved to Washington Heights.
The new landlords, Gregory and Graham Jones, are now trying to remove the remaining tenants in rent-stabilized apartments by a combination of buyouts, aggravation and evictions, said Wasim Lone, director of housing services at Good Old Lower East Side, who is working with the tenants on the lawsuit.
“They’re trying to scare the pants off of us — it’s all intimidation,” said Lisa Hornberger, a resident of 58 East Third Street. “They have gone out of their way to make this demolition process an uninhabitable situation.” When she came home from work two weeks ago, her cat’s normally white paws were black with the construction dust that had settled over her apartment.
The new landlords have started renovation, and only half of the original tenants are still living there, according to Ms. Hornberger. Across the three buildings, there are between 25 and 28 people left in the rent-stabilized apartments, who are “under a lot of anxiety given the construction and the landlord’s attitude,” according to Mr. Lone. Read more…
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