The East Village Art Movement Christine Valerio | Typography 2 | Professor Tom Dolle | Pratt Institute | Fall 2009
Table of Contents 6-15 16-23 14-33 34-43 44-51
THE HISTORY THE ART MOVEMENT THE VISUAL ARTS THE PERFORMING ARTS THE EAST VILLAGE TODAY
Early 1800s 1600s
The East Village was originally a farm owned by Dutch Governor Wouter Van Twiller.
1651
Petrus Stuyvesant received the deed for the farm, which is today the East Village.
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A decendent of Stuyvesant’s began to sell off parcels of property. Wealthy townhouses dotted the dirt roads.
1840s-1850s
The great Irish and German immigration.
Mid 1960s 1850
Tompkins Square Park opened to the public.
1850s-1900s
The East Village hosted the largest Urban population of Germans outside of Berlin and Vienna.
The migration of Beatniks, which attracted hippies, musicians and artists.
1967
The area was given the name “The East Village.” Before this, it was the northern part of the Lower East Side. This was stated in “The East Village Other.”
1966
Andy Warhol promoted a series of shows, entitled “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” and featuring the music of the Velvet Underground, in a Polish ballroom on St. Marks Place.
1980s
The East Village art gallery scene helped to galvanize a new post-modern art in America with artists such as: Haring and Basquiat.
Mid 1990s
1975
CBGB, Country, Blue, Grass and Blues, opened its doors at 315 Bowery and Bleeker.
1968
Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East in a Yiddish Theatre on 2nd Avenue. The venue quickly became known as “The Church of Rock and Roll.”
High rise buildings and other real estate forms were beginning to take over.
Oct. 2006
CBGB closed its doors with intent to reopen in California. The last Concert was played on October 15 by Patti Smith.
Late 1990s
The Art scene began to decline because artists could no longer afford the high living costs.
2009
NYU controls the real estate of the East Village while its students control the business market.
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It was
America's
language firstforeign speaking
neighborhood
The History
8
Definitions vary, but the boundaries are roughly defined as east of the Bowery from 14th Street down to Houston Street.
THE FARMLAND Today’s East Village was originally a farm owned by Dutch Governor Wouter Van Twiller. Petrus Stuyvesant received the deed to this farm in 1651, and his family held on to the land for over seven generations, until a descendant began selling off parcels of the property in the early 1800s. Wealthy townhouses dotted the dirt roads for a few decades until the great Irish and German immigration of the 1840s and 1850s. Speculative land owners began building multi unit dwellings on lots meant for single family homes, and began renting out rooms and apartments to the growing working class. The “East Village” was formerly known as Klein Deutschland (“Little Germany, Manhattan”); however, Little Germany dissolved after the SS General Slocum burned into the water in New York’s East River on June 15, 1904. From the years roughly between the 1850s and the first decade of the 20th century, the “East Village” hosted the largest urban populations of Germans outside of Vienna and Berlin. It was America’s first foreign language neighborhood; hundreds of political, social, sports and recreational clubs were set up during this period, some of these buildings still exist.
What is now the East Village once ended at the East River where Avenue C is now located. A large portion of the neighborhood was formed by landfill, including World War II debris and rubble from London, which was shipped across the Atlantic to provide foundation for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. TOEHOLD IN AMERICA For a long time the East Village was an urban frontier. The upper half of the Lower East Side, stretching from Houston Street north to 14th Street, and from Third Avenue and the Bowery to the East River, it was a toehold in America for generations of new immigrants—Irish, German, Jewish, Ukrainian, Puerto Rican and others—and a magnet for artists, bohemians, radicals and reformers. It has often been ravaged by grueling poverty and neglect. But it was also an area of intense cultural activity that changed the world. Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the 2000s, new waves of “immigrants” came to tame the frontier. Condominium towers reared up from blocks of old tenements. Many tenements themselves were renovated, with expensive rents and lofts worth more than a million dollars.
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ART GALLERIES ABC No Rio 8BC Now Gallery Mudd Club Club 57 PERFORMANCE SPACE Webster Hall La Plaza Cultural CBGB & OMGFUG Bridge Theater Astor Place The Pyramid Club Kraine Theater NIGHTLIFE Theater for the New City Eileen’s Reno Bar The Fun Gallery Tompkins Square Park SHOPPING Astor Center Big City Records Jill Anderson St. Mark’s Place Tower of Toys DINING Lafayette French Pastry MudTruck Gray’s Papaya Three Steps Down Taste of Tokyo Quiet Little Place in the Corner
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Must see places of the time
At that time the park was used around the clock. Homeless people camped in one corner, drug dealers had another, and families shared the rest with punks. Homeless people took up 40% of the population in the 1980s. The Bowery use to be synonymous with “Bowery Bums.�
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In the 1950s there was a migration of Beatniks into the neighborhood, which later attracted hippies, musicians and artists well into the 1960s. 12
TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK A focal point in the neighborhood’s history is Tompkins Square. During the Vietnam War many antiwar rallies were staged in the park, and the Grateful Dead gave a concert there in 1967. Wigstock, the annual drag festival, began there in 1985. At that time the park was used around the clock. Homeless people camped in one corner, drug dealers had another, and neighborhood families shared the rest with punks and anarchists. On the night of Aug. 6, 1988, the New York Police Department met with resistance trying to enforce a new 1 a.m. curfew. Police batons cracked heads, bottles flew, and mounted officers galloped up Avenue A in bizarre charges. LOISAIDA In the 1960s and ’70s, the area between Avenues A and D became largely Hispanic, known as Loisaida (Nuyorican for Lower East Side) and Alphabet City. Neglected by slumlords and city services, the neighborhood had one visible sign of real estate activity: the arson that routinely destroyed abandoned buildings, which were then razed to leave debris-strewn lots. In the early 1970s local residents began to create community gardens on many of those
city-owned lots. The city auctioned off a number of the lots to private developers in the 1980s and ’90s, but other gardens were saved and now operate under the auspices of the Parks Department Offices. THE NEW IDENTITY In the 1980s and ’90s, squatters commandeered more than 30 abandoned buildings, some because they could no longer afford the rents in the neighborhood, others as a political stand against gentrification. Definitions vary, but the boundaries are roughly defined as east of the Bowery from 14th Street down to Houston Street. Until the mid-1960s, this area was simply the northern part of the Lower East Side, with a similar culture of immigrant, working class life. In the 1950s the migration of Beatniks into the neighborhood later attracted hippies, musicians and artists well into 1960s. The area was dubbed the “East Village”, to dissociate it from the image of slums evoked by the Lower East Side. The term was adopted by the popular media by the mid-1960s.
A drag queen at Wigstock, the annual drag festival.
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DANIEL RADCLIFFE
CHLOE SEVIGNY
ROSARIO DAWSON
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MARK RONSON
Notable residents Throughout its history, there have been many notable individuals who have lived in the East Village, Manhattan. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Dick Manitoba who owns Manitoba’s bar Darren Aronofsky and his wife Rachel Weisz Chris Cain Bassist for the band We Are Scientists Barbara Feinman hand bag designer John Leguizamo comedian and actor Daniel Radcliffe actor of Harry Potter Rosario Dawson actor and singer Tom Kalin screen writer and film director W. H. Auden English poet born in York Greer Lankton artist and doll maker Ellen Stewart founder of La MaMa, E.T.C. Madonna lived there in the 1980s Jean-Michel Basquiat graffiti artist David Bowes painter Allen Ginsberg Beat Generation poet Keith Haring neo-pop artist Candy Darling actress and Warhol superstar Bill Raymond actor Ryan Adams alt-country musician David Cross actor and comedian Negin Farsad writer, director and comedian Nan Goldin photographer Stephen Lack actor and painter
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Ronnie Landfield painter Kiki Smith sculptor John Zorn composer and musician Richard Hell musician and author Abbie Hoffman 1960s political activist Ayun Halliday actress and writer Greg Kotis playwright Jerry Rubin 1960s political activist Cookie Mueller actress and model Paul Krassner publisher of The Realist Walter Bowart co-founder of The East Village Other Allan Katzman co-founder of The East Village Other Tuli Kupferberg one of the original Fugs Ed Sanders New York School poet Joseph Nechvatal founder of Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine Regina Spektor singer-songwriter and pianist Rachel Trachtenburg singer and musician Tom Otterness sculptor Steven Fishbach runner-up of Survivor: Tocantins Chloe Sevigny actress Conor Oberst musician Lou Reed musician Mark Ronson musician Arthur Russell musician Jack Smith filmmaker and artist
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Art is
fundamental in the East Village
The Art Movement
Self-
promotion The promotion of self and personality, artistic product, and neighborhood became the overwhelming characteristics of the downtown scene in the mid 1980s. The press devoted pages to the art, artists, galleries, art bars, in Manhattan’s “third art district” after Greenwich Village and SoHo. Several articles featured the details of where artists lived and played and included more commentary on the intimate aspects of their social lives and personas than on the art produced. The importance of someone’s work was measured often by the scope of his or her presence in the public spheres of parties and clubs. Media exposure of the local art scene was, then, a promotion of the East Village as simulataneously interesting and desirable.
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The East Village art scene of the 1980s invented new forms of cultural and economic linkages between the avant garde and urban. THE ART BOOM It’s hard to believe that abandoned buildings and dirty streets could be so conducive to art. But in the ’80s, the East Village was falling apart on the outside while internally fostering one of the greatest art movements that New York City will ever be the home to. Art is fundamental to the East Village. In the ’60s, the thriving art and music scenes developing in the streets north of Houston and east of Broadway caused it to develop a separate identity from that of the Lower East Side. Since then, the neighborhood has been home to artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons and Lady Pink. The East Village scene had spontaneity on its side. It was a grass-roots phenomenon with home-grown young dealers operating out of grungy storefront galleries, a cast of largerthan-life personalities (not all of whom were artists), tons of performance-oriented talent untainted by the market, and more than its share of tragedy within the scene.
Its avant-garde bona fides were extensive. As one of New York’s longest-running bohemias, the East Village was the home of the culture before there was one. Its tangled network of artistic undergrounds, painters, Fluxites, poets, filmmakers, cartoonists, musicians and a haven for progressive politics - dates back to the 1930’s. It received infusions of new blood from the punk music and hip-hop scenes, which fed directly into post-punk performance and graffiti. THE COMMERCIAL SCENE The burgeoning East Village art scene of the 1980s invented new forms of cultural and economic linkages between the avant garde and urban space. As artist and contributing editor of Art in America, Walter Robinson, claimed that the East Village art scene was about making an ‘art movement’ seem more real by anchoring it to a concrete physical area. The commercial art scene that developed in the East Village was short lived, lasting roughly from 1980 to 1984. In the late 1970s the East Village’s profusion of underground subcultures
offered an environment where artists could exhibit work that was experimental, untried and, consequently, ill-suited for the established corporate art market centered uptown and in SoHo. The first galleries were makeshift exhibition spaces started by artists or their friends in apartments and eventually in storefronts. By 1984, however, the East Village art scene was fully entrenched within the workings of the New York art world with over 70 commercial galleries located in the space of fourteen blocks. All but a few of these galleries closed by the late 1980s. This rapid growth and decline may be accounted for by the international wave of art speculation and investment that was fueled largely by the profits from the finance and producer growing segments.
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SINGLE-NIGHT EXHIBITIONS In 1979, the painter Kenny Scharf organized a single night art exhibition at the nightclub Club 57 on St. Marks Place; in 1980, Keith Haring followed suit. Shows were held at the Pyramid Club on Avenue A. The Fun Gallery opened in the fall of 1981 in an unheated commercial space on East 10th Street, holding “minifestivals of the slum arts, featuring rap music and break-dancing, along with the graffiti paintings exhibited on its walls.” Other galleries included Gallery 51X on St. Mark’s Place, East 10th Street’s Nature Morte, Civilian Warfare on East 11th Street, New Math on East 12th Street and Gracie Mansion’s gallery on East 10th Street and Avenue B. Along with the galleries appeared new art bars (most
notably the Red Bar and the Pyramid) that conspicuously promoted the mix of fashion, music, performance, video and painting. East Village clubs and galleries functioned as a means for artists to promote their work and themselves. Artists like Basquiat spent their days of obscurity enmeshed in the downtown subculture, hanging out in the clubs and social spaces of the East Village. Basquiat was in the downtown scene before his recognition by uptown and SoHo dealers. Basquiat, although perhaps the most renowned, was not the only self-promoting artist. AVANT, a group that performed/painted to accompanying music at Club 57, plastered SoHo and the East Village with flyers that blended “self-advertisement and graffiti.” This was very common at the time.
Tag in the basement of the former CBGB/OMFUG by 24-7 SPYS.
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The importance of someone’s work was measured often by the scope of his or her presence in the public spheres of parties and clubs.
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Actress Debbie M., artist Keith Haring, actress Sandra Bernhard, singer Madonna, artist Kenny Scharf, rock musician Bob Weir and bassist Rob Wasserman on stage, waving to the audience.
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Alot of
Artists did
important work inthe
East Village
The Visual Arts
Jean-Michel Basquiat Futura 2000 Keith Haring AVANT Kenny Scharf Walter Robinson Nicholas Moufarege Kiki Smith Andy Warhol Peter Halley Stephen Lack Greer Lankton Joseph Nechvatal Nan Goldin Jeff Koons Peter Hujar Ethyl Eichelberger Lady Pink Peter Schuyff Ellen Birkenblitt McDermott and McGough Jack Smith Philip Taaffe Sue Coe George Condo Jimmy De Sana Martin Wong
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Artists who made an impact
In the ’60s, the thriving art and music scenes developing in the streets north of Houston and east of Broadway caused it to develop a separate identity from the Lower East Side.
How it Started The East Village art world’s most intense period of commercial growth and media blitz was between 1982 and 1984, after which the neighborhood’s rents became prohibitive to unestablished artists and dealers; the neighborhood’s former nonartist, low-income population had also been partially driven out by gentrification. By 1986, most of the galleries that gained notoriety in the first half of the 1980s had folded or moved. The scene had run its course. Between 1982 and 1984, Graffiti Art was in the spotlight of the New York art world. It was the first labeled artistic trend to be launched from the new East Village galleries; in fact, alongside a group of artists associated with the Gracie Mansion Gallery, the attention lavished on Graffiti Art by the media was the main catalyst in the explosion of the East Village art disctrict as a whole. Graffiti Art encompassed a variety of experimental applications of the formal techniques and iconographic customs of New York graffiti. The work ranged from the most liberal of the kinds of designs seen painted on New York City subway trains at the time onto surfaces such as canvas, to the subtlest incorporation of street and subway graffiti elements into works of more mixed cultural influences.
The artists Jean-Michael Basquiat and Keith Haring were the greatest celebrities of the trend by far, even though they were exceptional in that they had never been subway painters; instead they were known for having written on street walls (Basquiat) and drawn on the walls of subway stations (Haring). THE LEGENDS Although Basquiat and Haring were the earliest among the graffiti artists to attain fame as professional artists, and while their celebrity far exceeded and outlasted that of others, they either collaborated or appeared with the other graffiti artists at highly publicized events, such as exhibitions, during the early 1980s. Haring especially was instrumental in promoting the work of other graffiti artists by organizing some of the first exhibitions in the East Village. Many of the artists who made their first impact there: Nan Goldin, Jeff Koons, Philip Taaffe, Sue Coe, George Condo, and Peter Halley are still alive. Legendary status has been awarded to several artists whose careers were cut short by AIDS or drugs, including Keith Haring, JeanMichel Basquiat, David Wojnarowicz, Ethyl Eichelberger and Jack Smith. And other artists, both living and not, deserve wider appreciation, among them Greer Lankton, Lady Pink, Peter Schuyff, and Ellen Birkenblitt.
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Basquiat was an American artist and the first African-American painter to become an internationally known art star. Known for writing on the street walls of the East Village, NYC, Basquiat became a celebrity in the downtown Graffiti Art scene. He died of a drug overdose at 27 years old, but his work is still exhibited worldwide and sold for very high prices.
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Jean-Michael Basquiat
Basquiat started spray-painting graffiti art on buildings in lower Manhattan, adding the signature of SAMO.
Basquiat dated an aspiring and then unknown performer named Madonna in the fall of 1982.
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Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s. Haring achieved his first public attention with chalk drawings in the subways of New York. His bold lines, vivid colors, and active figures carry strong messages of life and unity. Starting in 1980, he organized exhibitions in Club 57.
Keith Haring
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The “Radiant baby” became his symbol.
By expressing concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, Haring’s imagery has become a widely recognized visual language of the 20th century.
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From left to right 1. LADY PINK in the Garden of Elridge 2. kenny scharf at Paul Kasmin, NY 3. kenny scharf on East Village wall 4. BASQUIAT on East Village wall 5. lady pink on subway station interior
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And in the
East Village, to be different is to fit
right in
The Performing Arts
The Grateful Dead The Chambers Brothers Sly & the Family Stone The Allman Brothers Band Patti Smith Arto Lindsay The Ramones Blondie Madonna Talking Heads The Plasmatics Glenn Danzig Sonic Youth The Beastie Boys Anthrax The Strokes The Velvet Underground Arto Lindsay Michael Peppe Details At Eleven Rat At Rat R Ron Kuivila David Garland Susan Stone Barrett Golding Lou Harrison Shelley Hirsch Alison Knowles Jin Hi Kim
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Artists who got their start
Since the East Village rarely sleeps, it is always alive with music, there are always sounds within earshots. How it Started New York is a city of differences; in the East Village, those differences are just a little louder. The street life is livelier, the hairdos are spikier, the short skirts a bit shorter than in other neighborhoods. People in the East Village wear their differences proudly. There are more tattoos, more black leather, more white T-shirts and more guitars than anywhere else in Manhattan. There are fewer suits and ties there, too, so to wear a suit and tie is to be different. And in the East Village, to be different is to fit right in. Since the East Village rarely sleeps, it is always alive with music. Whether it’s boom boxes on the streets in the afternoon, Aerosmith albums at Dojo’s restaurant in the evening, late-night blues at Dan Lynch’s on Second Avenue or after-hours house music at nightclubs like the Pyramid, there are always sounds. When it comes to live music, though, the traditional sound of the East Village is rock-androll. In 1973, the New York Dolls posed in front of Gem Spa on St. Mark’s Place for the back cover of the group’s debut album; in 1977, the Ramones sent punk rock to the world by way of a small club called CBGB. Throughout the 80’s, new clubs opened and closed with alarming regularity, while others like the Ritz
and the Lone Star Cafe left the trashy haven of the East Village for the bigger bucks and respectability of upscale locations. THE LEGENDS In 1966 Andy Warhol promoted a series of shows, The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, and featuring the music of the Velvet Underground, in a Polish ballroom on St Marks Place. On June 27, 1967 The Electric Circus opened in the same space with a benefit for the Children’s Recreation Foundation. The Grateful Dead, The Chambers Brothers, Sly & the Family Stone, the Allman Brothers were among the many rock bands that performed there before it closed in 1971.
CBGB, the nightclub considered by some to be the birthplace of punk music, was located in the neighborhood, as was the early punk standby A7. No Wave and New York hardcore also emerged in the area’s clubs. Among the many important bands and singers who got their start at these clubs and other venues in downtown Manhattan were: Patti Smith, Arto Lindsay, the Ramones, Blondie, Madonna, Talking Heads, the Plasmatics, Glenn Danzig, Sonic Youth, the Beastie Boys, Anthrax, and The Strokes. From 1983 - 1993, much of the more radical audio work was preserved as part of the Tellus Audio Radio Cassette.
Punk rock icon and writer Richard Hell still lives in the same apartment in Alphabet City that he has had since the 1970s. On March 8, 1968 Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East in a Yiddish Theatre on 2nd Avenue. The venue quickly became known as “The Church of Rock and Roll,” with two-show concerts several nights a week. While booking many of the same bands that had played the Electric Circus, Graham particularly used the venue and its West Coast counterpart, to establish new British bands like The Who, Pink Floyd, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, and Led Zeppelin. It too closed in 1971.
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Punk rock was founded in the East Village. By the late 1970s, it began to take over the music scene. 38
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States. They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and political, antiestablishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream such as the East Village.
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CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street. It became famous as the birthplace of the American punk movement. Many bands had their debut performance there. Bands incuding the Ramones, Misfits, Television, the Patti Smith Group, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, and The Dictators performed on a regular basis in the 1980s-1990s.
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Many works were born that tried to capture this moment in East Village history. One of the most famous is
Rent.
During this dynamic period, the East Village gave rise to a number of artworks that memorialize the place, a representative one of which is Rent, Jonathan Larson’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prizewinning musical. Rent portrays and celebrates the Bohemian life and communities of multiethnic and multi-sexual people living with and without HIV. Developed over seven years by an obscure East Village composer, Rent is set in the East Village, “amid poverty, homelessness, spunky gay life, drag queens and punk.” The musical opened at the New York Theatre Workshop in the East Village on February 13, 1996 to glowing reviews.
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“
To days of inspiration, playing hooky, making something out of nothing. The need to express, to communicate. To going aginst the grain, going insane, going mad. To loving tension, no pension, to more than one dimension. To starving for attention, hating convention, hating pretension. Not to mention of course hating dear old mom and dad. Lyrics to “La Vie boheme” from Rent.
”
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Art seems to be the
one
thing
missing
The East Village Today
Jim Power, 60, has been morphing ordinary street surfaces into lively sidewalk art with his intricate, ornate mosaics for the last 20 years. Dull gray lampposts, plain planters and bland bus benches became Power’s canvases for his energetic mosaics depicting New York as “our town� with tributes to the people who work here. 46
The success of the art scene led to a renewal of interest in the area, which ultimately increased rents and drove artists out.
THE ONE THING MISSING With such a rich past, one might expect to find the place bursting at its borders with contemporary culture. Yet art seems to be the one thing missing on the streets of Alphabet City and the Bowery today. There are plenty of restaurants and thrift stores, but artists and galleries are few. What happened? The East Village’s performance and art scene has declined since its hey-day of the 1970s and 1980s. One club that had opened to try to resurrect the neighborhood’s past artistic prominence was Mo Pitkins’ House of Satisfaction, part-owned by Jimmy Fallon of Saturday Night Live. It closed its doors in 2007, and was seen by many as another sign of the decline of the East Village performance and art scene, which has mostly moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. According to the E.V. Grieve, a blog devoted to the neighborhood, it’s all connected to something Columbia students can relate to, housing. The success of the art scene led to a renewal of interest in the area, which ultimately increased rents and drove artists out. Today, NYU controls the real estate while its students influence the business market. The increasingly sanitized East Village of this era may sadly be remembered for its readily available chain drug stores, frozen yogurt, and high-end hair salons,” said the blogger. Several
of the bars that have sprung up in the area to cater to students use their extra wall space for art. The most generous in size, and the cleanest, is Tom & Jerry’s 288 Bar (288 Elizabeth St. at Houston Street). While the art on display may not come from the area (the current artist, Jess Thorsen, is from Seattle), the bar tries to promote “real art for real people,” said Ika Sobczak-Conover, an employee at the bar. This same philosophy can be found in the few galleries present. PS122 Gallery (150 First Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets), located in the former school building of the same name, exhibits juried shows of emerging New York artists. WHAT REMAINS PS122 Gallery offers something very special to emerging artists in New York,” said PS122’s director. To learn from doing, to be seen and hopefully appreciated. Another East Village find is the newly opened Zürcher Studio (33 Bleecker St. at Lafayette Street), which exhibits mostly European artists. Despite the efforts of the galleries that remain, the art scene that once flourished above Houston seems to have moved below, back to the Lower East Side, where rents are lower. It’s disappointing, but perhaps something good will come of the recession and artists will be able to return to the East Village.
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THE bASICS People used to want to live here because it was trendy,” says Mary A. Vetri, of William B. May, “but now people know it’s one of the last neighborhood neighborhoods left.” Young professionals love the renovated Tompkins Square Park (no syringes, two dog runs), and the Ukrainian and Polish communities still thrive. bOUNDARIES 14th Street to Houston Street on the east side bORDERS Lower East Side and the West Village and Gramercy SUbWAY 6 to Astor Place
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The East Village Run-Down 2009
It’s all connected to something Columbia students can relate to, housing. Today, NYU controls the real estate while its students influence the business market. The young generation of the East Village endulging in mass marketing of small shops.
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Whether it’s dining at the Bowery or going shopping on St. Mark’s Place, there are some must see places of the East Village. Dining
■■ 2nd Avenue Deli Prepare to chase your brisket, hush puppies and pickles
with Maalox at this legendary culinary landmark. 156 Second Ave at 10th St.; 212-677-0606. ■■ Brick Lane Curry House If it’s curries you crave, check out this recently
expanded hot spot on East 6th St. Indian row. 306-308 E. 6th St. between First and Second Ave; 212-979-2900. ■■ Butter Come to see, be seen and be seated at this trendy New American boîte,
a hybrid restaurant/nightspot. 415 Lafayette St. between Astor Place and 4th St.; 212-253-2828. ■■ BONDST Everything is fabulously fishy at this chic sushi lounge that caters
to the rich and famous set. 6 Bond St. between Broadway and Lafayette St.; 212-777-2500. ■■ Café Orlin For inexpensive eats that won’t cheat your palate, try the hearty
sandwiches and salads at this unpretentious café. 41 St. Marks Pl. between First and Second Ave.; 212-777-1447. ■■ ChikaLicious Enjoy your desserts at New York’s first eatery devoted solely
to the last course of every meal. 509 E. 6th St. between Avenues A and B; 212-777-5920. ■■ Hearth Chef Marco Canora, formerly of Gramercy Tavern and Craft, struck out on
his own with this homey haunt serving up a pasta-laden dinner menu. 403 E. 12th St. at First Ave.; 646-602-1300. ■■ Prune Unpretentious home cooking is the essence of Prune, which offers mul-
ticultural dishes that are essentially American at heart. 54 E. 1st St. between First and Second Ave.; 212-677-6221.
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Nightlife ■■ The Mermaid Inn Urban hipsters longing for a taste of simple sea life, flock to this upscale clam shack to chow down on oysters, shrimp, scallops and calamari. 96 Second Ave. between 5th and 6th St.; 212-674-5870. ■■ Angel’s Share Eastern-influenced cocktail den hidden in a Japanese restaurant.
8 Stuyvesant St. at 9th St. and Third Ave.; 212-777-5415. ■■ Continental A seedy nightspot featuring an array of loud bands every night.
25 Third Ave. at St. Marks Place; 212-529-6924. ■■ Hi-Fi Music lovers’ lounge offers 23,000 surfable songs on hard drive. 169 Avenue
A between 10th and 11th St.; 212-420-8392. ■■ Holiday Cocktail Lounge A spacious dive serving cheap drinks to drunks of
all ages. 75 St. Marks Place between First and Second Ave.; 212-777-9637. ■■ Lakeside Lounge Earnest young bands tend to make their debuts here. 162
Avenue B between 10th and 11th St.; 212-529-8465. ■■ Pyramid Club Two-tiered, multifaceted club boasts dancing, theater and
burlesque. 101 Avenue A between 6th and 7th St.; 212-473-7184.
Shopping ■■ Trash & Vaudeville Outfitting rock stars like Iggy Pop since the early 1980s. 4 St. Marks Place between Second and Third Ave.; 212-982-3590. ■■ Back From Guatemala Eclectic clothes and jewelry from Central America.
306 E. 6th St. between First and Second Ave.; 212-260-7010. ■■ Kiehl’s Upscale apothecary with the same down-to-earth philosophy since 1851.
109 Third Ave. at 13th St.; 212-677-3171.
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bibliography
Gartenfield, Alex. “The New New York Art Scene.” Interview. <http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/the-new-new-york-art-scene/>. Indiana, Gary. “One Brief Scuzzy Moment.” New York Magazine. 21 May 2005. < http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/features/10557/>. Pearlman, Alison. Unpacking Art of the 1980s. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. Rubin, Kimberly. “Art Finds its Corner of the East Village.” Columbia Spectator. 27 March 2009. <http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2009/03/27/art-finds-its-corner-east-village>. Stevens, Mark. “Everything Went.” New York Magazine. 21 May 2005. <http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/art/reviews/10741/>. “East Village Art Guide.” Time Out New York. <http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/fea tures/76537/east-village-arts-guide>.
Photo Credits
Chris Denver (flickr account) Luc Devroye Lonny Pop (flickr account) Lyon Photography (flickr account) Jack Mitchell CS Muncey (flickr account) New York Observer (flickr account) Preamble (flickr account) Frank Toliver Wally G (flickr account) Wikipedia: The East Village, NYC
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