The building at the former Mars Bar site will be called Jupiter 21: “The building will ultimately have 65 units: 13 affordable condos, 52 market-rate studio through two-bedroom rentals, and two commercial condos.” [Curbed]
Flooding at the Navy Yard has damaged equipment for the city’s bike-share program. It’s uncertain whether the launch date will be delayed. [NY Times]
The owner of Northern Spy Food Co. kept a diary following Sandy: “Every day we’re not open is an average of $5300 in lost revenue. Paying managers through the week costs around $6000. Incidentals and fixed costs are another $3200. Around $4000 of food is wasted or given away.” [Huffington Post] Read more…
There’s a slice special at the new Nino’s. Just how good is the deal? Well, it depends which way you’re walking. Above, both sides of the sandwich board earlier today.
Missing Billy Leroy’s Houston Street tent? You’ll have a chance to catch up with him (assuming your cable is back) when the second season of “Baggage Battles” premieres tonight at 8 p.m.
Till then, check out this Travel Channel video in which the eccentric antiques dealer takes us through his morning routine. At his Greenpoint, Brooklyn home, he shows off quirky collectibles including a stuffed, moving deer head, a bear with its mouth wide open, and a “Jim Morrison Blvd” sign. “I like things that have an edge, and things that are slightly dangerous,” he says.
After a year’s delay, Union Market has opened at the corner of Avenue A and East Houston Street, as anticipated yesterday. Around 2:30 p.m., Marko Lalic, a partner in the operation, made the rounds as shoppers and gawkers taste-tested olive oils, perused the bountiful cheese section, and admired a baked goods area overflowing with rolls and baguettes.
Last night, The Times revealed that the Brooklyn brand’s first Manhattan outpost would feature a prepared-foods department directed by Katy Sparks, the chef of the future Tavern on the Green, with “dishes like Dominican pork roast, porchetta-style leg of lamb, brisket meatloaf, roasted cauliflower and (since this is a market from Brooklyn) sautéed kale.”
Alexa Mae AsperinA section of AVE C Pharmacy is still blocked off.
In the days following Sandy, restaurant owners along Avenue C told us they were hurting (today, DNA Info checks in with some of those same restaurateurs). But what about dry businesses that haven’t been championed by the likes of the Eat Up Tip Down movement? A brief survey of neighborhood mom-and-pop operations, including a few veterans of our Making It column, revealed that many are still without telephone, Internet and credit card services. (The Times reported today that 100,000 throughout the state are still without landlines.) Several of them reported tens of thousands of dollars in losses.
Alexa Mae Asperin
Urban Vets 163 Avenue C, near East 10th Street Estimated Losses: At least $21,000 Days Closed: 7 Structural Damage: Basement flooding, slight flooding on ground level Other Losses: Ultrasound and Dentistry machines, benches
“Right now I’m using my cell phone and iPad for a hotspot. I’m calling in credit cards but the credit card companies are giving me problems. It’s a headache, it’s really hard. I can’t get my lab results because we don’t have a fax line; I can’t give customers receipts because I can’t connect to a printer. The biggest challenge has been fighting off the cold. We are also a small rescue so we aren’t taking in too many animals because we don’t have heat. Now we don’t have much business.” –Jessica Martinez, receptionist Read more…
East Villagers continue to band together to help bring relief to the storm-battered Rockaways, where thousands are still without power or heat.
On the Sunday after Hurricane Sandy struck, Emmett Shine – founder of Gin Lane Media, a Bowery-based branding and design company – and James Cruickshank, his partner in Lola and an owner of Whitmans restaurant on East Fifth Street, poured into a 15-seat passenger van with 14 other people and headed out to the ravaged peninsula. They ended up at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club at Beach 87th Street, where Lava Girl Surf was leading a community relief effort.
“We were so impressed that this whole grassroots organization had flourished at this beach club,” said Rebecca Zhou, 22, a strategist at Gin Lane.
The group broke into teams of five and began distributing donated items. “That day people in our group cleaned out flooded basements and helped people clear out moldy, wet furniture,” said Ms. Zhou, who went door-to-door, checking on the elderly residents of a high-rise apartment complex. Read more…
Alternate-side parking rules, suspended in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, are back in effect today, according to the Department of Transportation.
And that’s not the only hassle for Village vehicles: “Smash,” the NBC show (now with Liza Minnelli!) that has filmed in the neighborhood numerous times, is back at it, according to signs posted, oh, just about everywhere.
Cars are discouraged from parking in the following areas:
East side of Second Avenue, between Easr Sixth and East Ninth Streets
East side of First Avenue, between East Sixth and East 10th Streets
Both sides of St. Marks Place, between First and Second Avenues
West side of First Avenue, between St. Marks Place and East Ninth Street.
By the way: This weekend “Criminal Justice,” a new HBO crime drama starring James Gandolfini, filmed at Stuyvesant Street and East 10th Street, in the middle of Saturday-night madness. We shared footage from the shoot on Twitter.
Yes, that’s the Union Square Holiday Market you see above. It’ll reopen this Friday, complete with a “Little Brooklyn” section. [Gothamist]
At a meeting last night, an executive at the company that owns Knickerbocker Village told residents that power would be fully restored today and heat and hot water would be back by the end of the week. They will also get rent breaks. [The Lo-Down]
“A fashion publicist who butchered his ex-girlfriend in her Lower East Side apartment for trying to move on without him was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison this morning – and prosecutors are already pleading with the parole board to ‘never, never, never let him out.'” [NY Post] Read more…
The Jacob Riis Houses, still reeling from Hurricane Sandy, were hit by a fire early this morning.
The blaze erupted in a 13th-floor apartment shortly before 12:50 a.m. and was under control within half an hour, the fire department said. There were no injuries.
Residents of the high-rise on East 10th Street, between Avenue D and FDR Drive, told The Local that a woman and her son lived in the apartment, and were temporarily relocated.
“Hopefully they’ll be able to have a good Thanksgiving,” said one neighbor. “Thank God they’re okay.”
Joann PanOn Tuesday, Knickerbocker Village management said they will have electricity fully restored to its buildings by early Wednesday morning.
Two apartment complexes that were among the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy are inching back to normality.
Residents at One Haven Plaza who last week were without power are in a better place today, as electricity is flowing to most of the building’s apartments, and heat and hot water have been fully restored.
But work remains to be done. “In some apartments, [electricity] is still not on,” said Daisy Lopez, site manager for Haven Plaza. “But we have the electrician here and he’s going to go around.”
The development’s management company, Wavecrest Management Team, has hired Enviro Waste, a hazardous waste company, to clean and sanitize flooded basements where power equipment was badly damaged. Electricians are also repairing elevator cables in the complex’s four high-rises, in hopes of getting an elevator in each building running by late tomorrow.
Until then, Ms. Lopez said, management is discouraging elderly tenants — some of whom were given temporary shelter at the Grand Street Guild, also managed by Wavecrest — from returning to their apartments.
Still, many evacuees have done just that. One sign of improved conditions: today was the last day tenants were provided hot meals. Read more…
A man who assaulted two women and slashed a third victim inside of an East Village subway station was sentenced to 15 years in prison today.
On Sept. 30, 2010, Godfrey Molemohi, 54, approached Roxanna Christina Walitzki at the F train station at East Houston Street and Second Avenue and told her, “I want to touch you,” according to the office of District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.
Ms. Walitzki, an N.Y.U. graduate student and opera singer, tried to flee her attacker, but he punched her in the neck, inflicting what was described in a sentencing memorandum as a “career-threatening” injury to her throat.
Mr. Molemohi then approached an unidentified woman and banged her head against a tiled wall.
Douglas Smith, a stand-up comedian, tried to help the second victim and was slashed from ear to chin with a boxcutter. He sustained “a deep laceration and permanent facial disfigurement,” according to the District Attorney’s office. Read more…
If Village Scandal doesn’t pay almost $22,000 in back rent today, the hat shop will get the boot.
Thursday, a civil court judge ordered Wendy Barrett, the embattled owner of the East Seventh Street store, to pay the sum by 5 p.m. today, or face eviction.
But Ms. Barrett insists she already paid it – or that she tried to, anyway. “Rent was deliberately sent back to me by A.J. Clarke,” she said, referring to the management company she believes has unfairly kept her in delinquency.
“I’ve been running around, trying to get the money. I haven’t slept since last week,” she said through tears this afternoon. “I have to have the money today.”
In response to the potential eviction, Ms. Barrett is suing her landlord and the management company for $10 million. Read more…
Union Market will soft-open at 240 East Houston Street — the former home of Houston Deli & Grocery Corp., on the corner of Avenue A — sometime between 10 a.m. and noon tomorrow.
Following a grand opening next week, it’ll be open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., according to general manager Steve Cardona.
The gourmet market, which launched its first store in Park Slope in 2004 and has since opened two more in Brooklyn, professes a commitment to humanely-raised organic meat, prime butchering, local and seasonal produce, sustainable seafood, baked goods and desserts from local bakers, “chef-driven” prepared foods, and a wide variety of specialty products.
In February of last year, The Times wrote that the first Manhattan outpost would boast “green construction, expanded departments, a facility for aging beef and more services, including personal shopping.”
No, that’s not another blackout shot. A dozen generators were placed around the Bowery and East Fourth Street last night — for road work.
“The New York City Housing Authority said it would issue rent credits for tenants on their January bill for those days spent without electricity, heat or hot water, but the public advocate, Bill de Blasio, urged the authority to stop collecting rent now.” [NY Times]
The MTA “said on Monday that it would not provide refunds to riders who purchased 30- or 7-day unlimited MetroCards before Hurricane Sandy.” [NY Times]
“Gov. Cuomo appealed to utility companies Monday to give rebates to storm-ravaged customers, warning that asking for a rate hike now would be adding ‘insult to injury.’ [NY Daily News]
Limited PATH train service has resumed at 9th Street. [NY Post] Read more…
Saturday evening, Archangel Antiques was one of the dozens of East Village and Lower East Side shops giving out candy to neighborhood kids. As for us, we got something even sweeter: a nice bit of gossip.
In August, co-owner Richard Cullen told us that a celebrity he couldn’t name had purchased a couple of his old typewriters. While showing us around this time, he let drop that the celeb — who has now snagged five of the classic keyboards — was none other than…
Well, you’ll have to watch our video to find out. Here’s a hint: he’s quite the collector.
At 23, Leigha Mason doesn’t lack for confidence: “I know I’m young but I know I’m right,” she says.
The painter and filmmaker is one of four artists in their twenties who run 1:1, a gallery and events space at 121 Essex Street. The second-floor nook is meant to be a “nucleus for contemporary activity,” said Ms. Mason (it’s also her sometime home: there’s a shower in the pink-lit bathroom).
What kind of activity is she talking about? “Before 1:1, I was doing a lot of aggressive performances with anti-capitalist sentiment,” she said. Now she’s focused more on the “social possibilities of bodies navigating each other, space, and diverse practices.” Her latest work was “Sketches for Baal,” with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, the gender-bending performance artist and leader of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. And this Thursday at 8 p.m., one of her partners in the gallery, Whitney Vangrin, will perform the second installment of a “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” trilogy.
We caught up with Ms. Mason before the opening of 1:1’s current show, Nathile Provosty’s first solo exhibition of abstract paintings, “Book of Hours.”
Q.
What’s the current state of downtown art?
A.
Most of it sucks, some of it is relevant. A lot of what is relevant isn’t necessarily visible. Most of the art scene is market-driven, which is very boring to me. It seems that for a lot of people, the “downtown” moniker just adds a sort of cultural capital to an already dispassionate and insular world. But there are people who are doing interesting and important things, either because we are committed to ideas or beauty or whatever (we are compelled to do it) and/or because we get pleasure from it. Read more…
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.
Halloween poster.
After a weekend of belated Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations, how about another bit of eerie entertainment? Better than a bag of candy, more shiver-inducing than a zombie apocalypse: ladies and gentlemen, we present The Cramps.
For more than a quarter of a century, the band cave-stomped their signature brand of rockabilly and blues with a blend so stripped down that for years, they used no bass. Relying on sinuous guitars and drums to stake their rhythms, they created a sound that invoked surf rock, grade-B horror films and a whiff of medicine show. Lead singer Lux Interior hated the use of the term psychobilly to describe their sound but the fans embraced it.
The Cramps obliged those delighted to follow music down any dark and twisting corridor: their live shows were sweaty, primal and wild. They sounded like they crawled from an oozing swamp, or the back of some toxic ’50s auto graveyard. And the fans wanted to dive right in. Read more…
After the storm, sandy streets have become a fact of life for many New Yorkers. But sand on Third Avenue?
Around 11 a.m., a sanitation truck was picking up garbage when there was a “loud pop,” according to one of the drivers. The truck spilled hydraulic fluid down Third Avenue, from 12th to 11th Street.
Earlier this morning, the fire department had covered the oil slick with sand and the truck was waiting for a mechanic to check on the damage.
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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