This afternoon, some fancy new signage is going up outside the new headquarters of the Comprehensive Companies, the umbrella firm for a rapidly growing special needs school and therapy and home care services organization.  Last week, Nathan Sklar, the company’s executive director, hosted an open house at the new state-of-the-art facility at 101 ... Continue reading]]>

101 Norfolk Street.

This afternoon, some fancy new signage is going up outside the new headquarters of the Comprehensive Companies, the umbrella firm for a rapidly growing special needs school and therapy and home care services organization.  Last week, Nathan Sklar, the company’s executive director, hosted an open house at the new state-of-the-art facility at 101 Norfolk Street. 

Speaker Sheldon Silver and Nathan Sklar, head of the Comprehensive Companies.

Sklar and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver cut the ribbon as staff and neighborhood stakeholders looked on.  Guests were then led on a tour of the 18,000 foot facility, which includes five classrooms and eight speech therapy room. The centerpiece of the three-level school is a large sensory gym specially equipped to treat children with developmental delays.

This week, Comprehensive opened another new school facility on Grand Street, in space leased from the Seward Park Cooperative.  Comprehensive Kids Development School is designed for children with autism and other developmental issues.

The 101 Norfolk facility will be operational later this summer or early in the fall when various city and state agencies sign off on the project.  Next up for Comprehensive: a revamp of the adult rehabilitation center at 460 Grand Street.  Recently, the landlord there removed scaffolding after a protracted renovation job, so the location is already looking better.

Gallery Goer is a weekly column featuring not-to-be-missed gallery shows on the LES. Have a fun, art-inspired week!

Opening May 19 at Dodge Gallery is Twisted Sisters, a highly eclectic show that includes painting, sculpture, video, installation, prints, mixed media and performance art. Curated by Kristen Dodge and Janet Phelps, the ... Continue reading]]>

Moyna Flannigan, Femme (Scarlet) at Dodge Gallery

Gallery Goer is a weekly column featuring not-to-be-missed gallery shows on the LES. Have a fun, art-inspired week!

Opening May 19 at Dodge Gallery is Twisted Sisters, a highly eclectic show that includes painting, sculpture, video, installation, prints, mixed media and performance art. Curated by Kristen Dodge and Janet Phelps, the show features works by women artists whose subjects are women.

Summer Wheat-Scratchpad at Dodge Gallery

The body becomes a canvas for the artist to project whatever she experiences—from fury to whimsy, fantasy, repulsion, frustration, pride and any other state you might imagine. Xaviera Simmons’ Index One-Composition Two presents an assemblage representing a woman we can only imagine–a totem of sorts. It’s up to the viewer to decide who “she” is or if  “she” even exists.

Xaviera Simmons-Index One- Composition Two

The works in this show deftly depict the intrinsic variety of various emotional states and experiences as seen through the artist’s eyes. Through June 24.

Michael Bauer H.S.O.P. - Ambro Gardens - 49 at Lisa Cooley

Over at Lisa Cooley, the German artist Michael Bauer presents his first solo show in New York, a group of paintings that reveal a complex mix of figurative and abstract elements. Bauer says his work portrays gangs, families, music bands and mobs—he doesn’t appear to have taken inspiration from Occupy Wall Street.

This Dali-esque work features subjects that wear lop-sided grins, sport  deflated genitalia and loosely defined limbs. They are submerged within the paintings, and the viewer is challenged to draw them out. It’s a challenge worth taking. A large foot or foot-like shape appears in each painting.

Bauer is known to have spent time experimenting with collage and drawing, which have added a lightness to the work in this show vs. previous work. According to the Saatchi Gallery, “Bauer uses the qualities of abstract painting as a deviation of representational portraiture, allowing the media to replicate the characteristics of physical matter.”

The H.S.O.P. is a reference to the Hudson River School of painting—nothing could be farther from the truth here and one wonders what Bauer means by it. The work is fun, dark and chaotic at once, all of which makes for the perfect reason to see them. Through June 17.

Upcoming and noteworthy: Hendershot Gallery’s (Re)(Print), a show featuring the works of some amazing street artists opening May 23. Dacia Gallery debuts the works of painter Barbara L. Bachner with a reception on May 17 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Bachner’s show “Circle of Life” features basic shapes and colors that are transformed into dynamic abstractions–through June 1.

Featured gallery picks:

Lisa Cooley/ 107 Norfolk St./ 212.680.0564

Wed.-Sun. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Dodge Gallery/ 15 Rivington St./ 212-228-5122

Wed.-Sat. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., SUN 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Tues. by appointment.

TLD contributor Tobi Elkin is a writer, editor and interviewer and former resident of the Lower East Side who delights in the neighborhood’s eclectic pleasures. A regular reader of The Lo-Down, her diverse interests include arts and entertainment, film, food and cultural critique. Visit her website at tobielkin.com.

Consider me shallow if you like, but I do actually think about coolness. I know it’s generally more of a teenage concern than a middle age one, but I can’t help myself. Coolness is like beauty: it has a short shelf life. This transience is part of its appeal. Today’s shock of ... Continue reading]]>

Photo by Cynthia Lamb.

Consider me shallow if you like, but I do actually think about coolness. I know it’s generally more of a teenage concern than a middle age one, but I can’t help myself. Coolness is like beauty: it has a short shelf life. This transience is part of its appeal. Today’s shock of the “new” quickly becomes tomorrow’s rehash. Either catch the moment or miss out entirely. That’s how it works.

When it comes to neighborhoods, coolness is a function of transition. The early stages of gentrification are cool, the end result is not.  If you doubt this, spend a Saturday night in the East Village or a Sunday brunch in Park Slope. Our Lower East Side food scene has been in what I consider a perfect balance for the last five years or so. There’s just enough upscale stuff to make the old schoolers shake their heads in dismay, yet no dearth of cheap, lowbrow deliciousness. Such a balance is a delicate, fleeting thing, and I’m a big advocate of enjoying it while it lasts. Because change is inevitable.

I make no secret of the fact that I think the Essex Street Market is the coolest place to shop for food (and grab a quick bite) in the neighborhood. Why? Balance. In a neighborhood as diverse as ours, it’s easy to feel the cultural and socioeconomic differences between you and your neighbors. Yet we all walk the same sidewalks. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Essex Street Market. Upscale and down to earth businesses are side by side in an historic space originally designed to get pushcart vendors off the streets. They are all small independent businesses – the kind I prefer to patronize. Every one of them is somebody’s dream, and there’s a good chance that person is behind the counter.

You can listen to the Shopsins cursing each other out while buying $30/lb cheese, less than twenty steps from bags of bell peppers selling for a dollar each. Greek pastries and Japanese health food are just a few feet from yuca and bacalao. Have a taco. Or maybe chocolate covered bacon is more your style? Buy some fish. Or maybe you’re in the mood for goat tonight? A sandwich or a cupcake? Coffee or kombucha? Don’t forget your veggies and fresh herbs – they’re all here.

Over the last seven years, the EDC (Economic Development Corp.) has put great effort into revamping this market. The place is not just a home for businesses that have served our neighborhood for decades, it’s also become an incubator for daring small businesses that really couldn’t exist anywhere else in the neighborhood. That, dear reader, is cool.

Unfortunately, we have to face the fleeting nature of coolness when it comes to the Essex Street Market. The EDC has chosen to ignore Community Board 3’s recommendation that the market be preserved in its current location as part of the SPURA development. There’s still some lip service given to the remote possibility of preservation, but at this point it looks like a fait accompli. They’re gonna bulldoze it. The current vendors will, by all indications, be left hanging. We’ll get a “new” Essex Street Market and maybe a Wal-mart out of the deal. If that sounds profoundly uncool to you, that’s because it is.

Editor’s note: This evening Community Board 3′s land use committee will vote on the Seward Park Development application, which includes plans for the Essex Street Market.  The meeting will be held at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street, at 6:30 p.m. If you would like to read about the EDC’s position on the market,  have a look at our previous coverage.  JP’s wife, and the photographer for his TLD columns, Cynthia Lamb, is the founder of “Save the Essex Street Market,” a community advocacy organization.

JP Bowersock is a professional musician and music producer who has toured the world repeatedly, eating at top restaurants and hole-in-the-wall joints. He is a serious home cook with over two decades’ experience cooking for family, friends and fellow rock and rollers. Mr Bowersock keeps a toe in the wine business as well, consulting for the wine lists of several neighborhood establishments, including Clandestino, 35 Canal St. When not on tour or in the recording studio he’s scouring the neighborhood for frugal food finds.

As champagne prices have risen over the last decade names like prosecco and cava have entered our vocabularies. If you’re priced out of France why not turn to Italy or Spain? But let’s not forget Portugal. They’ve made great strides in their wine making of late. Vidigal 2007 sparkling wine is an example ($15 at Seward Park Liquors). It’s made from the arinto grape, just like vinho verde. While it shares the acidity and minerality of many vinhos verdes, Vidigal has no residual sugar. If your take on whites is “the drier the better” this one is for you. It’s a novel sparkler that’s affordable enough to have when you’re celebrating nothing in particular.

If you have an interest in neighborhood change and an appreciation for photography, there’s an event next week you won’t want to miss.  Brian Rose will be debuting his remarkable book, “Time and Space on the Lower East Side.” There will be a launch party next Wednesday at the Clic Bookstore and Gallery, 255 Centre Street.

Rose ... Continue reading]]>

If you have an interest in neighborhood change and an appreciation for photography, there’s an event next week you won’t want to miss.  Brian Rose will be debuting his remarkable book, “Time and Space on the Lower East Side.” There will be a launch party next Wednesday at the Clic Bookstore and Gallery, 255 Centre Street.

Rose and Ed Fausty photographed the neighborhood in 1980, during its “darkest, but most creative moment.”  Twenty years later, in the aftermath of 9/11, Rose returned to the streets of the LES to document the profound transformation that had taken place. The result is a “collection of photographs that, in Rose’s own words, “looks backwards and forwards, that posits the idea that places are not simply ‘then and now,’ but exist in a continuum of decay and rebirth.”

The event takes place from 6-8 p.m.

Isolated showers this morning — clearing in the afternoon and a high of 79.  Looks like we can expect sunny skies for a few days ... Continue reading]]>

Rivington Street. Photo by Vivienne Gucwa; nythroughthelens.com.

Isolated showers this morning — clearing in the afternoon and a high of 79.  Looks like we can expect sunny skies for a few days beginning tomorrow.

In today’s world of fast paced, non-stop Facebook updates and Twitter feeds we have become accustomed to the “one-liner.” We find humor in its simplicity more now than ever. It has become the standard to abbreviate and get right to the point, when discussing our ... Continue reading]]>

Auhor and LES native Sissy Silva. Photo by Erin Egan Rodriguez.

In today’s world of fast paced, non-stop Facebook updates and Twitter feeds we have become accustomed to the “one-liner.” We find humor in its simplicity more now than ever. It has become the standard to abbreviate and get right to the point, when discussing our daily lives and our feelings on everything from child rearing to politics. Auhor Sissy Silva, a Lower East Side resident (and native), has taken this phenomenon to the next level with her book, Random Ish and Other Nonsense: Things That Make You Shake Your Head, Curse Like a Sailor & Give the Finger.

Silva grew up in the Amalgamated Co-op on Grand Street with three sisters, her mother and step-father. She laments how growing up she “always wanted to live in the Vladeck Houses. There was always something going on over there.” As the second eldest of the brood she developed a good sense of humor towards life and the people around her. She went to the old PS 134, “when it was really PS 134,” she says. Now a mother of two boys, she lives in the Seward Park co-ops and uses her wit to get  her through daily life.

When I asked how the Lower East Side has influenced her writing, Silva explained, “The diversity in the people helps to shape your personality. The L.E.S. is tough, we make tough people and we learn to roll with the punches. Not every neighborhood is like the L.E.S.”

Her friends encouraged her to write (and self-publish) a book after constant positive feedback on her Facebook updates and blog entries. (One of my favorites: “Men, it is not considered baby-sitting when they are your kids.”) On her blog she writes, “I woke up one day with an epiphany (could have been gas) and realized that I wanted to laugh more and cry less. I’d been allowing many life experiences to cause me distress, so I began using my sarcastic bitterness laced with humor (it’s charming. Really!) on my Facebook updates.“  She admits her inspiration comes and goes, but she is always armed with pen and pad to jot down anything she feels is worthy of sharing with friends and family.

The book is a light and funny read for when you need a good laugh and want to relax. It is for sale on Amazon for $6.50 here. You can find our LES sister on Facebook here and on Twitter here.

Erin Egan-Rodriguez lives on the LES with her husband and three kids. She has many interests that include writing about local restaurants, arts, real estate and community affairs. She works as a real estate agent and is completing her Bachelors in Business. She can be reached at erintrodriguez@yahoo.com.

Okay, it was a little more than a fender bender, but luckily no one was hurt. The truck was apparently heading north on Pitt and the car was heading west on Grand, but it’s unclear who had the light.

photo ... Continue reading]]>

Fender bender on Grand Street. photo by thelodownny.com

Okay, it was a little more than a fender bender, but luckily no one was hurt. The truck was apparently heading north on Pitt and the car was heading west on Grand, but it’s unclear who had the light.

photo by thelodownny.com

Don’t you just love visual aids?  This particular graphic explains most everything you need to know about Cocktail Bodega, the fruit-smoothie themed lounge from Sons of Essex operators Matt Levine and Michael Shah.  Last night, Community Board 3′s alcohol licensing committee signaled its approval for a liquor permit at 205 Chrystie/19 Stanton.

Levine said there will be ... Continue reading]]>

Don’t you just love visual aids?  This particular graphic explains most everything you need to know about Cocktail Bodega, the fruit-smoothie themed lounge from Sons of Essex operators Matt Levine and Michael Shah.  Last night, Community Board 3′s alcohol licensing committee signaled its approval for a liquor permit at 205 Chrystie/19 Stanton.

Levine said there will be a restaurant on the first floor — a lounge on the lower level. Chef Roble (of Bravo-TV fame) is designing the menu, which will offer new twists to traditional street food.  The applicants came to the meeting last night with letters from residents in support of the project, and more than a dozen people prepared to speak in favor of the concept. Shah, a real estate developer,  recently purchased the building.

The CB3 committee signed off on a 4 a.m. closing time seven days a week. They did ask the operators to come up with a traffic management plan, since the area around Chrystie and Stanton is nightlife heavy. The Box is right there, as well as new venue Experimental Cocktail Club and the re-branded Inga at 141 Chrystie.