Since I started writing this blog I have explored blocks in many neighborhoods, and I think the East Village has emerged as my favorite for its great mix of culture and art and generally very interesting and unique sights in every direction. Let's check out another great street in this area...
At 2nd Avenue there were two rows of bikes, neither of which was the Citi Bike program.
Nothing against Citi Bike, but it's nice to see lots of bikes without sponsorship. Also, I find many Citi Bike users to be rather aggressive riders, even by NYC bike-riding standards.
The red and yellow restaurant in the photo above is a Ukrainian place called Veselka. Its signs say it was established in 1954.
As mentioned in previous posts on this area in the East Village, there is a large Ukrainian presence around these parts.
Going back to the bicycles in front of the restaurant, I also thought the flowers next to them were a nice touch:
At the opposite corner is a grocery store, and just next to that is some street art by Chico, who has several works around the East Village.
He also did the art on the outside of a nearby holistic pet care shop which I included in my post on Little Tokyo. On the sidewalk nearby was this message, which highlights the 'art' in 'heart.'
The person behind it is an artist called UncuttArt and these can be seen on many sidewalks around lower Manhattan, possibly beyond that as well.
Nearby is a jewelry shop called Ambica next to a clothing store called Pinkyotto, which I don't know how to pronounce.
There are many, many clothing stores on this block.
There are also some nice small trees!
I noticed an interesting product at the base of this tree that was a watering bag.
Interesting product. I wonder how it would do on 'Shark Tank.'
When I was bending down to get a photo of that tag, a guy walked by and loudly muttered about people standing in the wrong freaking spots all the time. I guess I was taking up some space on the sidewalk but he was able to walk by so I wasn't exactly blocking the whole area. Even if I was, that's still a very aggressive thing to say. The East Village has lots of "characters." Quote unquote.
Anyway, let's brush off the negativity and continue to an interesting shop called Honest Chops, which is a halal butcher.
Halal food is similar to the concept of kosher in terms of it meaning what is permissible for Muslims to eat. Muslims cannot eat pork, and generally speaking, whether other permissible meat is halal is based on the animal being killed in a humane manner.
Along with being halal, Honest Chops also gets meat from local sources in the northeast and only from animals that were ethically raised on farms and were fed a vegetarian diet, with no antibiotics, steroids, or growth hormones. All of these factors seem appealing to many people's meat-eating preferences these days, especially in a progressive area like the East Village and Manhattan generally.
They have also opened a burger place in Greenwich Village on Macdougal Street between Bleecker and West 3rd. It's called Burgers By Honest Chops.
As a side note, one of the founders of Honest Chops is Imam Khalid Latif of the NYU Islamic Center. His friendship with NYU's Rabbi Yehuda Sarna was featured in a documentary produced by Chelsea Clinton that was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014. It was called 'Of Many,' and here's an interesting trailer for it:
Moving along the block, here's a panorama of some beautiful old buildings, fire escapes and all:
There is some more art on the block, on a building at the 1st Avenue corner that has murals and mosaics.
Here is a look along the ground level, with the East Village Hotel to the left and a coffeehouse called The Bean to the right:
There are some hints in those photos to the artwork along the outside of The Bean, with mosaic coffee cups each having a different multi-colored painting coming out of the top. Here's one example:
I don't know who did the painted parts, but I believe the mosaics were done by Jim Power, aka The Mosaic Man, who has lots of great mosaic art throughout the East Village and has also been featured in previous posts.
On the other side of the block is the St. Marks Veterinary Hospital, which has some nice animal art on its outside. That is, art of animals, not by animals... I'm assuming.
This vet practice started in 1986. It's nice that they make house calls, I've never heard of human doctors doing that in the city except for rich people in movies. Here's another look:
Here is just a random doorway on the block but I thought it had a definite East Village vibe:
Overthrow is a boxing gym on Bleecker Street. Next to that doorway was a toy store called Dinosaur Hill that had a fun-looking window, which I guess is the look you're going for in a toy store:
There were also two colorful writings of "Dinosaur Hill" embedded in the sidewalk using marbles and/or beads:
I thought those were pretty cool.
There was another store on the block for kids/families:
It happened to have another piece of 'Heart' art out front on the sidewalk.
East Village blocks are great for having so many local shops, and also because there aren't many tall buildings. Most of them are older, classic residential buildings and you can actually see the sky when you're walking around and feel like you're in an authentic neighborhood.
I noticed that 'Juliette' was written near the top of a building:
I did some internet searching but couldn't find out why it says Juliette. I came across the term 'Juliet balcony,' which was occasionally spelled (misspelled?) as Juliette balcony and is a very small balcony area named after Romeo and Juliet. That seems like an unlikely reason for the building saying 'Juliette.' Maybe it was the building's original owner or something like that. I guess there's just a few more odds and ends before we wrap up. There's a shop called Verameat but it isn't another meat store, it's a jewelry shop.
And there was an old, cool-looking car parked in front of a wine bar called The Immigrant.
I'm not really a car person so I didn't know anything more about this car, but I was able to zoom in and read "Fairlane" along its side. After an internet search and consulting my Dad, I believe it's a Ford Fairlane 500 from the mid-1960's. It has a cool look, I can dig it.
Here was another collection of bikes, plus a pizza place at 1st Avenue called East Village Pizza and Kebabs.
I like pizza and kebabs though I don't know if I want them from the same place. But maybe they make both well. And here's a last look at some nice buildings at the 2nd Avenue corner:
I guess that's all from this really interesting block in the East Village that has a little something for everyone. Thanks for reading.
The phrase 'art and architecture' sounds like it's from a few college courses I've taken, but I thought I would put it in the title anyway. Keep reading for the syllabus and the date of the midterm.
There is actually a lot of interesting art and art history on this block in Noho, and let's start with a type of street art that hasn't been covered before in this blog: sidewalk carving.
This big work was done by the artist Ken Hiratsuka in 2008.
Hiratsuka is from Japan and moved to New York City in the early 1980's, when he started doing his carvings "always formed by one continuous line that never crosses itself," according to his website. His work appears throughout the world.
He calls his art "fossils of the moment," which is a poetic and apt phrase.
There's something oddly satisfying about being able to walk on a work of art. Not only is it accessible street art, free for everyone, but it's interactive: walking over it means you're affecting and changing it, even if just a little. It may be carvings in stone, but in a way it's also a living part of the city that has been touched and altered by countless people from all over the city and world.
There is another work by Hiratsuka in the lobby of one of the buildings at this spot:
And there is another sidewalk piece by Hiratsuka nearby at the corner of Broadway and Prince. I look forward to the next time I walk by that corner and actually know for the first time who is behind that work.
The sidewalk carving is close to the Lafayette corner with Bond Street, and here is a view from that area that includes interesting buildings and a parked truck with colorful graffiti of Rocky and Bullwinkle. I assume all copyright laws were followed for this artwork:
The building behind the truck with the gold statues on it is 24 Bond Street, home to the Gene Frankel Theatre, which dates back to 1949 and has been at this location since 1989.
This building has other artistic legacies too. According to the website Untapped Cities, the building was owned for a time by Virginia Admiral, who was a successful painter and Robert DeNiro's mother. It was also home in the 1970's to a performance space for experimental jazz artists called Studio Rivbea, founded by jazz musician Sam Rivers.
24 Bond Street was also the site of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's first studio. He kept the space as a darkroom when he moved to West 23rd Street in the 1980's.
According to Untapped Cities, the gold statues are titled "Dreams of Hyperion" and were done by an artist named Bruce Williams from 2006-2010. Here are some closer looks:
This building and the ones next to it have a nice old-fashioned New York vibe:
Though there are some hints at newer buildings as we take a wider view down some more of the block:
I saw these images near the sidewalk carvings on the other side of the street:
I didn't see it signed by an artist but I think it qualifies as street art. I enjoyed them, at least.
Here are some other attractive buildings near the Lafayette Street corner:
And next to those two is the building with the Ken Hiratsuka sculpture in the lobby, which seems much newer and sleeker:
After this building you can see parts of some more old-fashioned buildings to the left in the photo. I found this mix of old and new to be representative of the block, which has a long history and seems to have been affected by the recent gentrification of the whole area in the past couple of decades or so.
The Bowery and sections near that street used to be rough areas but have become more upscale and trendy, though this block has some artistic and more gritty remnants here and there. Not every newer or nicer place is a product of gentrification, of course. Il Buco is an Italian restaurant on the block that actually started as an antique store in 1994. I thought this photo captured another good mix of the block's nicer and grittier elements, with some graffiti next door:
And nearby are signs for a scrap metal business called D&D Salvage Corp. next to an upscale clothing store called A.P.C.
I don't know what all the initials stand for in the businesses, so please don't ask.
And just past the salvage yard are some places that seem rather trendy and/or upscale, including a delicatessen, a French bistro that is apparently closed down, a women's clothing store called Curve, and a Kenneth Cole at the Bowery corner.
The building towards the corner seemed to have a partly curved construction to it, which I will assume is not a coincidence with a store there named Curve. You can see some of this curve from the Bowery corner:
The curved part of the building is an interesting look, but overall I don't understand why so many modern buildings seem to only be in varying shades of gray. Along with older buildings usually having more attractive architecture, they also just have more colors, which makes them and the environment more pleasant. I'm probably generalizing too much, but it just seems like New York has a lot of drab-colored buildings. Let's liven things up, folks. The building on the other Bowery corner is white, which is not technically a color but it's not gray and I'll take it!
Besides, you don't see too many all-white buildings around town, so it's a rather unique look, to go with the ornate carvings. At this corner area and along that side of the block there are several clothing stores, plus a hat shop and a modeling agency that all strike me as part of the 'newer' vibe of the neighborhood. And mixed in among all that is this old-looking sign for a welding business:
Halfway up this side of the block is a very modern-looking building that is sort of a blue-green color (hey those are nice colors, better than gray!) with an interweaving type of sculpture all along the outside of its ground floor.
The fanciness continues at a door with the 40 Bond address above it:
As best I can tell, this is just an apartment building, but you're probably like me in assuming that it would be rather pricey to live there. And we turned out to be right, since I found a 2013 article on the site Curbed detailing a full floor in this building that was being sold for 27 million dollars. Granted, it's a whole floor and seemed to include a large outside terrace area, but that still strikes me as a lot of money. Maybe it's just me.
Near the Gene Frankel Theatre and 24 Bond Street is a restaurant called The Smile in the lower level of a building. In this photo, facing back east down the block, it's just past the sign for Elika Real Estate:
While on this block I saw a guy moving along on one of these circular riding things:
I think I saw another person on one of those recently and both times my reaction was the same: what is that and how in the world can you stay balanced on it? But apparently you can because this guy was doing it with seeming ease.
I think we're close to wrapping up our look at this block. I have to include a few more nice buildings, one with ivy!
If you're going to have a grayish building, why not throw some ivy on there to spruce things up! I feel like I'm the Martha Stewart of architecture.
Here are some last looks from the other side of Lafayette Street. A building at the corner is sporting some graffiti and old fading signs on its side that keeps some of the old vibe of the area in tact:
Of course, the old shouldn't automatically be romanticized and preferred over the new. But as neighborhoods and blocks change, which they always do, it's important to remember what came before and strike a balance that keeps the city's soul as it continues moving forward.
I hope you enjoyed this look at Bond Street and thanks for reading.
