Stephen Rex BrownJeff Greenberg, the owner of Elan Antiques.
Elan Antiques stayed in business for 23 years, but it couldn’t survive the ailing economy.
“2008 was really the death knell,” said Jeff Greenberg, the owner of the store at Bleecker and Lafayette Streets, just a few blocks away from the temporarily shuttered Billy’s Antiques. “I wasn’t able to recover. It kept getting worse — I really haven’t seen it get better.”
Mr. Greenberg, 58, said that he had been on a month-to-month lease for several years, and that a new tenant — it’s not certain who — had made a large offer on his space. “I can’t bear ill will — that is business,” he added, noting that his current rent is under the market rate. Read more…
The Local will probably get a firsthand look at the porcine mosaic any day now. We just finished off a punch-card for a free sandwich, and those burnt ends are irresistible.
This nugget of news from an online auction house fits right in with the upscaling of The Bowery. City Room reports that a leather jacket once worn by drummer Marky Ramone (of The Ramones, obviously) is currently going for $3,146. An employee at the auction house says that it does not come with any lingering odors of stage sweat. Meanwhile, a more affordable option for Ramones fans: the new Dee Dee and Johnny Wacky Wobblers.
Recently released 311 complaint data reveals a veritable who’s-who in the neighborhood’s ongoing struggle with nightlife.
An analysis of commercial noise complaints submitted to 311 between January 2010 and October 16, 2011 finds that some familiar faces like La Vie, Sin Sin Lounge and Nublu are near the top of the list. The data, which represents the most recent 311 complaints available on NYC Open Data, shows that the undisputed champion of noise complaints in the East Village is Sutra Lounge. The hip-hop lounge had a whopping 265 complaints during the 22-month stretch — 116 more than the runner-up.
“We have the number one most vigilant neighbor, that’s what it really means,” said Ariel Palitz, the owner of Sutra and a member of Community Board 3. Read more…
Kim Davis was good and thorough during his recent tour of East Village biscuit destinations, but something occurred to us: he overlooked 7-Eleven’s $1 biscuit! We asked our trusted chowhound to swallow his pride and give it a nibble. Here’s how it stacked up against the others.
Lauren Carol Smith
Ninety years ago, the New York columnist O.O. McIntyre was complaining that the Bowery wasn’t what it used to be. He detected “the faint rustle of silk.” What he couldn’t have anticipated was the faint rustle of hungry bargain-hunters unwrapping hot, steamy dollar biscuits, sold at the front counter of a spanking new 7-Eleven.
A review? Well, the biscuit tasted biscuity, thanks no doubt to the “natural butter flavor” listed along with dozens of other ingredients on the wrapper. It was more soggy than dry, its texture contrasting sharply with the springiness of the pale pork patty. “Spices,” the wrapper duly noted, and in fact I found pepper flakes in the sausage, responsible for the warm after-burn in the throat. Read more…
I first knew Walter Bowart around 1963 or ’64 when he was a bartender at Stanley’s Bar, located at 12th Street and Avenue B. Bowart was an artist who did some design work in early 1965 for LeMar, the Committee to Legalize Marijuana, which operated out of my Peace Eye Bookstore located in a former Kosher meat store on East 10th Street between Avenues B and C.
Allen Katzman I had known since 1961 when he helped run open readings at various east-side coffee houses, such as Les Deux Magots on East Seventh, and later the Cafe Le Metro on Second Avenue. Katzman was known at the time mainly as a poet. (During his time at EVO, Katzman spelled his first name Allan.)
During the summer of 1965, Bowart, Katzman and others, including the artist Bill Beckman, Ishmael Reed, Jaakov Kohn, and Sherry Needham, decided to found a newspaper. Poet Ted Berrigan, as I recall, came up with the name, The East Village Other, with “Other” coming, of course, from Rimbaud’s famous line of 1871, “Je est un autre,” I is an Other. Another account has Ishmael Reed coining the name. (The participants in the Dada movement argued for 50 years over who first thought of the name “Dada.”) Read more…
When I went to Japan to revise my book, “Japan on $5 a Day,” I had been dating Sherry Needham. When I returned, he was dating her.
Q.
Did you fight?
A.
Of course not. I was just worried that she wouldn’t fulfill her promise to bare a breast in the fourth picture of a story I wanted to tell in one of those-25 cent photo machines.
Q.
And did she?
A.
Yes, Walter came along and we had a high old time, assisted, as I remember, by the benevolent herb. Walter told me he was starting a new paper and I agreed to write for it. My first column was about how forgery had been a constant presence on the art scene for centuries. I called it “Art & Other Scenes” but Walter eliminated the “Art &.” The appearance of the column in EVO infuriated Ed Fancher [Village Voice founder and publisher] who insisted I choose between the two papers. Read more…
Fred W. McDarrah/Getty ImagesFrom left: Dan Rattiner, Walter Bowart, and brothers Allen and Don Katzman. Jan. 14, 1966.
Little is it known that Dan Rattiner, doyen of Dan’s Papers, helped launch the East Village Other alongside its more celebrated founders, the late Walter Bowart and the late Allen Katzman. In 1964, having abandoned graduate school in architecture at Harvard, Mr. Rattiner, in between gigs producing a summer newspaper in Montauk, rented an apartment in a brownstone on West 10th Street in Greenwich Village. A year later, in the fall of 1965, something amazed him on the newsstand at Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. He picks up the story from there.
It cost 15 cents and was an enormous piece of newsprint all folded up into tabloid size. The four pages, when unfolded looked more like a work of modern art than a newspaper. A new way to print a newspaper was on the market. It involved using scissors and rubber cement to put together a proof of a page, then making a plate from a photograph of it and then printing from that. But I had never seen anyone make use of the new process like this before; most people just used it to mimic the old.
As for the content, it was also revolutionary. The lead headline read: “TO COMMEMORATE THE GLORIOUS NEWSPAPER STRIKE THE HERETOFORE UNDERGROUND ‘OTHER’ EXPANDS ITS PATAREALISM.” In huge black type, the words coiled along the perimeter of the page and ended with a half-tone photograph of a half-closed eye. “Peace Rally Breeds Strange Bedfellows,” was the headline below. “Generation of Draft Dodgers” read another headline below that.
I bought it. And I looked for, and found the name, address and phone number of the publisher and editor, Walter Bowart. Read more…
Daniel MaurerPolice outside of the store on Jan. 6.
A cell phone store on East 14th Street near First Avenue was robbed again last night, two weeks after a pair of men held it up at gunpoint.
A police officer was seen dusting for prints inside of the Metro PCS store at 350 East 14th Street last night. The police said that shortly before 7:10 p.m., a black man wearing all-black clothing walked into the store, demanded money while keeping a hand in his pocket, and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash. No further details could be revealed because the investigation is ongoing.
Two weeks ago (also on a Friday evening) two men entered the same store, flashed a gun, and left with around $4,000. The police released surveillance camera footage of that incident.
Ralph Feldman, 76, was a fireman in the Bronx with Engine 45 for two decades, and then in Harlem with Engine 37 for several years. Before retiring about 26 years ago, he served as a fire marshal intermittently. In 1969, he bought a building at 315 East Eighth Street and in the 1970s and ’80s he photographed fires near there, sometimes giving a hand to his fellow firefighters.
On his block of mostly vacant buildings, there were as many as five fires a week, said Mr. Feldman. “At the same time when the Bronx was burning, the East Village was burning,” he said. “All of Brooklyn was burning. In the ’70s and ’80s, big portions of the city burnt down.” Mr. Feldman spoke with The Local about his photos. Read more…
Police are searching for a suspect who locked a local woman in her bathroom while he ransacked her apartment on Jan. 16.
The 31-year-old victim told police that the suspect got in the elevator with her, followed her, and then forced his way into her apartment. He then locked her in the bathroom while searching in vain for valuables in the bedroom. The victim screamed for help, perhaps leading to the suspect leaving empty-handed.
The suspect is described as a white or Hispanic man in his 20s with brown eyes who was last seen wearing a long jacket, hooded sweatshirt, dark jeans and black-rim glasses.
The end of the East Village’s biggest drag destination is just around the corner.
Lucky Cheng’s will move to 240 West 52nd Street in May or June, and owner Hayne Suthon says that club-kid turned designer Richie Rich, formerly of Heatherette, will sell a new fashion line in the space.
“He wants to put his new designs for clothing on the upper floor,” said Ms. Suthon of her new collaborator. “It’s kind of a wild venue, and he’s a wild guy.” Read more…
Less than a week after 12-year-old Dashane Santana was killed crossing Delancey Street, a new report finds that intersections near public housing complexes are by far the most dangerous for children.
In the East Village, Lower East Side and Chinatown, “a person struck by a car is nearly two times more likely to be a child than a crash victim on the Upper East Side,” according to the new report released by the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. The data, culled from statistics from the state Division of Motor Vehicles from 1995 to 2009, also highlights intersections on East Houston Street and Delancey Street as high-crash areas.
According to the figures, Ms. Santana, a resident of the Jacob Riis Houses, was disproportionately exposed to dangerous intersections on the east side compared to her peers in other parts of the city. Read more…
The Local will now offer weekly roundups of notable crimes within the confines of the Ninth Precinct, which covers the East Village. In addition to possible gunshots at Lillian Wald Houses on Friday, here’s who fought the law in recent days.
New Year’s Mayhem
A knife-wielding thief from New Jersey took cash from a New Year’s reveler mere hours after the ball dropped.
The victim told the police that a trio approached at the corner of East Fourth Street and Avenue A at around 1:40 a.m. and said, “Happy New Year. Let me see your wallet.” The victim then tried to walk away, and the suspect reiterated his demand and flashed a blade while his cohorts looked on. The victim handed over $50 and the group left. About 20 minutes later, the police arrested Dion Watson and charged him with robbery, possession of a deadly weapon and possession of stolen property. His alleged cohorts, Krishard Jones and a 17-year-old girl, were also charged with robbery.
Trouble at the Tavern
A thief chatted up a bar-goer on Jan. 7 at the Village Tavern and then forced him to hand over $200.
The victim told the police that the suspect kept chewing the fat with him in the bar on Avenue C at East 10th Street. At around 2:15 a.m. the suspect reached into the victim’s pocket, took his cellphone and wallet and said, “You’re not getting this back unless you give me money.” The suspect then forced the victim to go to an ATM and withdraw $200. About 30 minutes later, the police arrested Adam J. Soto, a 31-year-old resident of Campos Plaza, and charged him with robbery in the third degree and grand larceny. Read more…
The new owner of the building that houses Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation has failed to come to terms with a potential new operator of the nursing home, increasing the likelihood that it will close when its lease expires in April.
Kenneth Fisher, an attorney representing Magnum Real Estate Group, which bought the building at Avenue B and Fifth Street late last year, said that negotiations to resell the building to a for-profit nursing home operator fell apart earlier this week. “On Sunday, we believed there was an agreement on the price,” he said. “On Tuesday, they had walked back from the agreement.” He added, “We’re disappointed that the transaction wasn’t reduced to a written contract.”
Michele deMilly, a consultant for Cabrini who is authorized to speak for the company, confirmed that a deal is no longer in the works: “Yesterday we heard that Magnum, meaning Ben Shaoul, was no longer negotiating with the prospective new operator of the nursing home facility on that site – he had terminated all negotiations – and that Cabrini was going to proceed with their closing plan.” Read more…
Daniel MaurerA 7-Eleven is said to be opening in the former porn shop next to IHOP.
Back in November, Amber Tamblyn told The Local that she and her fiancée, comedian David Cross, planned to leave the East Village for Brooklyn. Last month, Mr. Cross, who had previously bemoaned the arrival of a Subway on Avenue B, complained to Gothamist about the neighborhood’s new 7-Eleven and IHOP (that was before news broke, today, of another 7-Eleven.) This week, The New Yorker tags along as he makes the big move to – wait for it – Dumbo.
In the Talk of the Town piece, which is available online to subscribers only, the comedian reiterates, “I’m really not one of those whiny, annoying people who complain about any change, but there’s a 7-Eleven and an IHOP in the East Village now. It could be a suburban mall. Also, I was a younger man when I came here, doing younger-man things.” He clarifies: “I’m trying to be classy about saying ‘I don’t go out and get laid anymore.’” Read more…
Courtesy of Daniel SquadronMs. Spink with State Senator Daniel Squadron
Mary Spink, a member of Community Board 3 recognized for decades of community activism, including work on sustainable and affordable housing, died yesterday morning at around 12:30 a.m. after struggles with liver and kidney failure. Her colleague at the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association, Rona Clemente, said Ms. Spink was 64. The news was first reported by The Lo-Down.
In an e-mail to The Local, Susan Stetzer, the board’s district manager, wrote, “Mary was a good friend and a hero in the community. Many people talk about making change — Mary made things happen.”
“Mary was [a] comrade in everyday battles to work for the Lower East Side and she was friends/family with many people in the L.E.S.,” Ms. Stetzer added. “She was on many boards dedicated to working for people in the community — such as the Girls Club (until very recently) and the East Village Community Coalition, as well as the Community Board — and there were no boundaries between this work and her everyday life. Mary is much loved and will be very missed.” Read more…
Noah FecksEast 10th Street. The second building from the right was approved for a rooftop addition only hours before the street was designated a landmark district.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a historic district on a block of East 10th Street along Tompkins Square Park today, though a controversial rooftop addition that led to the expedited hearing also got the go-ahead literally hours before the vote.
With the designation, the exteriors of the 26 buildings between Avenues A and B will essentially be preserved as-is. But at the meeting the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Andrew Berman, revealed that developer Ben Shaoul’s plans for a rooftop addition to 315 East 10th Street had been approved by the Department of Buildings.
“It reflects poorly on Shaoul and the city agencies that they couldn’t get their act together,” said Mr. Berman. Read more…
Some folks get prickly about discarded Christmas trees littering the street well after they were due to go to the evergreen graveyard (MulchFest was a week ago!), but those rogue conifers are more or less invisible to us: See, we’re fixated on some unsightly leftovers from All Hallows’ Eve. On East 12th Street between First and Second Avenues, inside of a fenced-in lot behind P.S. 19 Asher Levy School, about ten pumpkins have been squatting on a bench and a table – ever since Halloween, presumably. And as you can see from our close-ups below, these pumpkins are in desperate need of chunkin’. We’re about to roll up our sleeves and get to the gooey, seedy bottom of this mystery, but in the meantime: is anyone else similarly vexed by this? Can someone from Liquiteria, the Juice Press, or Rawvolution walk a few blocks over and juice these suckers already? Read more…
Handsome Dick Manitoba, the owner of Manitoba’s bar on Avenue B, appeared on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” last week to promote his Throbblehead doll, his upcoming reunion show with the Dictators, and his radio program. Mr. Fallon is a big fan of the jukebox at Manitoba’s, which he calls the “best in any bar in New York City.” A bold claim considering The Library, Double Down, Mona’s, Sophie’s, Doc Holliday’s, B-Side, International Bar, and Mars Bar all have fine jukes (to name just a few). What’s your favorite in the neighborhood?
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 »
Stephen Rex Brown Jeff Greenberg, the owner of Elan Antiques.
