East Village Omelette

There's an old saying in the East Village: If you want to make an omelette, you gotta break a few eggs!

Behold, on East 12th Street, an East Village omelette:

Omelette.

I gotta tell you, I don't really understand that saying.

#eastvillage #eggs #omelettes #12thstreet

Fixer-Upper

I was walking down Second Avenue yesterday afternoon, when I noticed this dumpy-looking building, just above East 12th Street:

Formerly-beloved Schoolbred's.

In the past, I didn't pay much attention to it — it was a bar called the beloved Schoolbred's.

Talk about a fixer-upper!

#eastvillage #secondavenue #12thstreet #graffiti #schoolbreds

Groovy New Art

In my recent post Watch Out, Lego Man!, in the second picture, you probably noticed a small figure of a woman just to Lego Man's left.

When I posted that on Instagram, it was called out by febreaks as being the work of IsThatPhoebe, and/or phoebenewyork.

Here is a larger figure that I saw on East 12th Street:

Larger figure.

Are those balding turtles?

#eastvillage #12thstreet #art #febreaks #isthatphoebe #phoebenewyork

Pull Up A Seat

Wherever you go in the East Village, you will almost always find a place to sit down!

Behold, as seen on Second Avenue at East 12th Street:

Seating for one.

The view is nothing to write home about, but you can throw away any litter you have easily enough!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #abandonedchairs #secondavenue #trashcans

Second Avenue Street Fair

If you think East Villagers love gyros, you're right!

We love them so much that at a recent Second Avenue Street Fair, that's almost all there was to eat!

Gyros on 14th Street.

Gyros on 13th Street.

Gyros on 12th Street.

Look at the fifth movie in the list: Guess Who's Coming To Dinner To Eat Gyros!

There was even a bodega-looking gyro stand:

Bodega gyros on 11th Street.

And finally:

Gyros on 10th Street.

But… what if the gyro doesn't fill you?

That's why they have sweet roasted corn!

Sweet roasted corn on 13th Street.

Sweet roasted corn on 11th Street.

$3 at both locations? I wonder if there's a sweet roasted corn cartel?

Not everyone comes to the Second Avenue Street Fair for the food though. Many come for locally-produced goods:

Locally-woven baskets.

More locally-woven baskets.

Some basket stands even had locally-produced masks and talismans:

Locally-produced masks and talismans.

The mask and talisman vendor said "No pictures" to the guy in the blue shirt.

"Oh, OK" he said.

Clearly, he's not a photographer!

Not a photographer.

There was even a stand where you could buy locally-woven rugs!

Locally-woven rugs.

As always, there were novelty items:

Novelty items.

Who doesn't hate thick wallets? All that money…

For some reason, many gyro vendors couldn't make it this year, as can be seen by all the empty spaces:

Empty space on 12th Street.

Empty space between 11th and 12th Street. 

Empty space in front of St. Mark's Church on The Bowery.

Empty space near 10th Street.

For that matter, many East Villagers didn't make it either:

Few and far between.

It was such a nice day, they probably went to the beach!

#eastvillage #10thstreet #11thstreet #12thstreet #13thstreet #14thstreet #photographers #secondavenue #stmarkschurch #streetfairs

Two Murals In One

Just the other day, I wrote about the change to the artwork adorning the construction fence on Second Avenue, including the highlight of the piece: glam shoe.

Who knew this was the start of a movement?!

Behold, on Avenue C and East 12th Street:

Glam shoe mural.

Whoa! I just noticed something: There's words behind those shoes on the left!

Backstabbers Incorporated.

They smile in your face
All the time they want to take your place
The backstabbers
(Incorporated)

It's two, two, two murals in one!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #avenuec #constructionfences #murals

Barricaded Log

Even though there is a tree guard in this picture, this is not a story about tree guards.

This is story about how some East Villager put a log into a tree bed outside the beloved Social Security Administration office on East 12th Street, and how some other East Villager (probably) put a barricade beside the log, to keep people from tripping over it!

Don't trip over the log.

If they had put string or ribbon across the tree guard, that barricade wouldn't have been necessary!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #barricades #logs #socialsecurityadministration

Even More About Tree Guards

Earlier today, I showed how East Villagers go about stringing up their tree guards to keep dogs from pooping in the tree bed.

These are even odder — inside the tree guard is… another tree guard!

Let's take a look, shall we?

This one, on Avenue A, has an elevated, inner tree guard — a pretty flimsy-looking one, at that:

Elevated, inner tree guard.

This one, on East 12th Street, could have been in my even earlier post about decrepit tree guards:

Decrepit tree guard, with inner tree guard.

This is an inner tree guard without an outer tree guard, on East 7th Street. What's the point?

No outer tree guard.

This one, on East 3rd Street, has no inner tree guard, and no outer tree guard, but it does have caution tape!

Caution tape.

That's it for now!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #3rdstreet #7thstreet #avenuea #cautiontape #treeguards

Art Becomes Trash Becomes Art

In the East Village, trash and art become one another so quickly, your head might spin!

I was walking across East 12th Street this past weekend, when I saw this assemblage of both:

Assemblage.

The Chico mural is art, and the trash cans hold trash, but there are two slashed paintings, now trash, and I took a picture of it, so it's art again!

Only in the East Village!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #murals #chico #paintings #trashcans

St. Emeric School + Church

East Village Today is the only blog that goes where no other blogger dares to go, to bring you the pictures of all of the East Village!

I will start with St. Emeric School, on Avenue D and East 12th Street:

St. Emeric School.

The view from East 13th Street:

From East 13th Street.

Here is the Church of Saint Emeric, on East 13th Street:

Church of Saint Emeric.

Here is a close-up of the stained glass window:

Close-up.

It's more broken than stained!

The East Village is not always pretty.

#eastvillage #12thstreet #13thstreet #avenued #church #saintemeric #stemericschool

Record Store Day

One week and one day ago was Record Store Day.

To commemorate that, here is a picture of the beloved Academy Records, on East 12th Street, taken one week and one day ago:

Academy Records.

You can see by the crowd that East Villagers don't buy records. Still, Academy Records is beloved because, you know… it's a store!

#eastvillage #academyrecords #12thstreet #recordstoreday

The Prodigal Cool Old Pickup Truck

The cool old pickup truck has been found, on East 12th Street!

The last time it was seen was March 2, after spending a month unmoved from its parking spot on St. Mark's Place! Speculation ran high after that, that its owner had packed up and moved out of the East Village. But here it is again:

Cool old pickup truck on East 12th Street.

The strange thing is that I found myself on 12th Street quite by accident; I even thought to myself "What am I doing here? There's nothing down here." And then, voila!

As you might expect, it has a couple of stylish, new accoutrements, like this rooster crest hanging from the rearview mirror:

Rooster crest and beads.

Also, the last time it was seen, it was sporting a red seat cover. That's gone now, and contrasting seat belts have been added:

Contrasting seat belts.

East Villagers are delighted at the return of the cool old pickup truck, if in fact it was ever really gone. If slaughtering a fatted calf were legal, it would be done. Instead, I'm just going to have a cheeseburger tomorrow for lunch!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #cool #cars #pickuptrucks

Selling Clothes

You might wonder what a sign such as this one on First Avenue and East 12th Street has to do with selling clothes:

Clothes store advertisement.

Well, the answer is this: SSUR is a clothes store on Elizabeth Street, between East Houston and Bleecker Streets — not in the East Village!

Why would a clothes store in a chichi part of town bring their gun imagery to the East Village, where as you can see from the picture, mothers pushing strollers are a familiar sight?

East Villagers say: "Keep your gun posturing in NoLita, where it belongs!" They also say: "The copyright symbol should be superscript!"

That's what they say… in the East Village Today!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #firstavenue #signs

I'm Looking Through You

From a construction fence on East 12th Street:

I'm looking through you,
Where did you go?

I thought I knew you,
What did I know?

You don't look different,
but you have changed

I'm looking through you,
you're not the same… in the East Village Today!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #constructionsites

Contrary Meets Shrewd

East Villagers are quite contrary; they're also very shrewd. And when they see a chance to turn contrariness into dollars, they jump on it!

Ciao For Now is a small restaurant on East 12th Street. It's not the kind of place you would go to on Valentine's Day, though. And since Valentine's Day falls on a Saturday this year, a lot of people who might otherwise have gone there to eat will go somewhere else, leaving them with little cash on such an important night.

Here is where the shrewdness comes in: they are hosting an Anti-Valentine's Day party!

Who do you think will go to this? A bunch of guys looking to score. They know that any woman there that night is available.

But the women are wise to this. They know that any guy who's there also doesn't have a date, and they're not going to make themselves available to some guy that no other woman would go out with!

The room will be split into two groups: the guys who haven't figured out yet that no girls are coming; and the vampires of the East Village, who feed off of unhappiness.

I'm tempted to swing by there and get a picture of the sad event, but I can't. I have a date!

#eastvillage #12thstreet #ciaofornow #valentinesday #vampires

Gated Window

Today, I clearing out my Drafts folder.

I took this picture back in December of 2014. It's dangerously close to being East Village Yesterday, but it's still less than a month ago.

I think this is of apartments on East 13th Street, taken from East 12th Street. One room in particular stands out. Can you tell which one it is?

It's the one with the saffron, vinyl Gate!

The Gates were cool, and the East Village is cool!

Cool.

#eastvillage #13thstreet #12thstreet #thegates

Kerfuffles

Every time I see this painting of a pig, on this building on the corner of Second Avenue and East 12th Street:

Pig on a building.

…I remember the kerfuffle that arose when it was first put there.

The objection was that this was the former Jewish Lower East Side, and that a pig would be disrespectful to that memory (because Jews don't eat pork).

A few years ago, the building was repainted, and another kerfuffle arose when it was thought the pigs (there's another on the adjacent side of the building) would be painted over!

East Villagers do love their kerfuffles!

#eastvillage #secondavenue #12thstreet

No Bike Parking at Bike Racks

Sometimes, East Villagers will put up signs on their fences, telling bikers not to lock up their bikes there.

Here on East 12th Street, someone has taken it upon themselves to prevent bikers from locking up their bikes… to a bike rack!

No bike-parking allowed.

It's very decorative, as you can see in this close-up:

Very decorative bike-parking prevention.

East Villagers love bicycles, but they hate bicycle parking!

#eastvillage #bicycles #12thstreet

Archeological Site on Avenue A

This big hole in the ground on Avenue A between East 11th and 12th Streets is the former site of a church, Our Lady of Perpetual Coolness, or something like that, a parking lot, a rectory, and some other stuff, I think.

Today it's an archeological site:

Big hole in the ground.

If they dig further, they may find the hidden catacombs, and the lost treasure of OLPC!

Bet you didn't know the East Village was so important!

#eastvillage #avenuea #lady #perpetual #coolness #11thstreet #12thstreet #catacombs #archeology

Santa Barbara Deli

This is a relatively new deli, at the corner of Avenue B and East 12th Street:

Santa Barbara Deli.

It used to be a ratty, old bodega, but they've really fixed it up nicely! Not only does it look nicer, but they now have a wheelchair entrance!

You see? It is possible to make things better… in the East Village!

#eastvillage #santabarbaradeli #avenueb #12thstreet #bodegas