Results tagged “lafayettestreet”

The NYC Medical Examiner's Office has completed an autopsy of celebrity DJ Adam Goldstein, known as DJ AM, whose body was found in his Soho apartment yesterday afternoon. According to TMZ, "There has been no determination as to the cause of death -- more tests are needed, including toxicology. That could take several weeks to complete." It's suspected that he may have died of a drug overdose, as a crack pipe and numerous prescription drugs were reportedly found near his body. Friends had become concerned when he didn't go to Las Vegas for a gig and called the authorities to Goldstein's $2 million apartment at 210 Lafayette Street (One Kenmare Square).

It's time for the Lunar New Year, which starts February 7th and lasts for 14 days, and this year is the Year of the Rat, 4706. Sure, there are plenty of things to do to celebrate the holiday, but to us, it means one thing -- a new year banquet. We've found a few places that are offering banquets in honor of the Year of the Rat, including variations of traditional Chinese Lunar New Year foods that bring prosperity, happiness and good fortune to all who join together to feast, like dumplings, uncut noodles, whole fish and chicken.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is in charge of construction on the new 1 World Trade Center – AKA the Freedom Tower – is now seeking developers to design, build and operate a 34,000-square-foot restaurant on the 100th and 101st floors; whoever wins the bid may also win rights to operate the observation deck planned for the 102nd floor. The Authority is gazing into its crystal construction ball and seeing a Grand Opening in 2013.

What do you get when you mix hot chefs like Seamus Mullen, Joey Campanero, and Josh DeChellis with top mixologists like David Wondrich, Dale DeGroff, Audrey Saunders, Julie Reiner, Jim Meehan and Eben Freeman (and many more, pictured above), a brand new space in the East Village and swirl in a dash of festive atmosphere? The opening party for the Astor Culinary Center.

Bun: Chef Michael Bao Huynh and his wife, Thao Nguyen, who has amazing noodle preparation expertise, have opened this Vietnamese rice-noodle and small-plate spot in SoHo. Although he has gotten some financial backing from Warren Cuccurullo, formerly of Missing Persons and Duran Duran, Huynh designed the designed the 45-seat space himself. The menu is affordable, with a cap at around $12, and features four varieties of pho, among other dishes. 143 Grand Street, near Lafayette Street, 212-431-7999.

TOMORROW!: (Due to expected rain, this event will take place tomorrow.) It's that time again...Shakespeare in the Park is back and kicking off its season tonight. Want to add some tragedy to your summer sunset this evening? Then head over to get tickets starting at 1pm today for Romeo and Juliet.

MUSIC: You know summer is just around the corner when the Seaport Music Festival has their first show of the season. Tonight Animal Collective, Danielson and XXXChange (Spank Rock) will all be on Pier 17 for a FREE show! Come, drink, listen.

Buy one get one free everyday

If you've ever been to Pearl Oyster Bar, you might recognize Ed McFarland, who was the sous-chef there for six years. Ed has now struck out on his own with Ed's Lobster Bar, a spot for "New York seafood cuisine inspired by New England's long tradition."

212-533-7000

We wrote about someone we called "The Splasher" splattering - and essentially damaging - street art back in January. Since then, we've been following the Splasher's activities, as well as how street artists are reacting. Now the NY Times enters the Splasher fray again, this time with an article, "Defacer With Mystery Agenda Is Attacking Street Art" and a big front-of-Metro-section photograph of one of the Splasher's attacks in the Lower East Side. Sorry, we couldn't resist!

Time for a major sugar rush. Head over to the ninth annual Chocolate Show for chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate, with some culinary demonstrations and art thrown in for good measure. $25 tickets, for one day's admission, are available online (via Ticketmaster.com or calling 212-307-7171), and will also be on sale at the door (cash and checks only at the door). Metropolitan Pavillion & Altman Building, 125 West 18th Street. Friday, November 10: 11am to 9pm, Saturday, November 11: 10am to 8pm, Sunday, November 12: 10am to 7pm. Children under 5: Free; Children, 5 to 12: Free, but you're limited to 2 children per adult. Each additional child (5-12): $8.

New Yorkers couldn't walk a step without having a leaf, plastic bag or other sundry bit of city detritus hurtle towards them yesterday! It really was insanely windy. Central Park had measured winds of 46 MPH, and the winds were 48 MPH at LaGuardia Airport, causing delays there as well as JFK Airport. Almost two thousand residents in the Bronx and Westchester were without power, and the winds fanned flames of a Bronx blaze. The fire turned into a five-alarmer and destroyed four homes. And LIRR service was also affected: A tree fell on LIRR tracks in Queens and later a signal system was lost power.

You know we love it. It’s the largest collection of delicious wines under one roof. For the wine novice who is looking to expand his palate to the experienced taster looking to find the next big thing, it’s the best way to support a great cause (City Harvest) and get all liquored up in the process.

ART: Local artist Jen Dunlap is having an art show tonight. It's called Yeep! Yeep!, so it's sure to be fun. Check out her work here, then head over there to see it all up close, while enjoying some free drinks!

THEATER: Emergence-See! is a new one-man show in previews at the Public Theater. Conceived and performed by Daniel Beaty, the work imagines what would happen in present-day New York if, say, a slave ship were to rise out of the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty. Beaty portrays 40 New York characters and uses slam poetry and song to examine the toll that centuries of slavery have taken on the human psyche. - John Del Signore

THEATER: Stephen Belber, whose Tape was made into a riveting film by Richard Linkater, unveils his latest opus, A Small, Melodramatic Story at The Public Theater. Previews start tonight so there are no reviews yet, but the synopsis is intriguing: “In Washington, D.C., a widow struggles to figure out whether life is worth re-engaging with. In her path are the 1968 riots, the first Gulf War, the Freedom of Information Act, and herself. There's also an archivist named Keith, a cop named Perry, and a kid named Cleo. And finally there's the question of just how much about anything do we really need to know."

READINGS: Another double-bill this week at the 92nd Street Y - Janet Fitch () are reading from new work tonight, introduced respectively to the stage by Will Allison and Ben Marcus. Plus, the under-35 gets a limited number of tickets for just ten dollars. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras

Moonlight Graham isn't open yet - perhaps Friday - but when we peeked in, we saw lots of retro Mets gear to take advantage of Mr. Met enthusiasts. And "modern vintage" seems to mean pricey, if the prices on the website are any indication ($40 Mr. Met shirt!), but the display makes us happy.

THEATER: Playwright Tina Howe delivers the first play of Atlantic Theater’s fall season: “Birth and After Birth”. Though originally conceived in 1972, the comedy has yet to break water in New York City. It details the clash between Sandy and Bill, who were up all night preparing a birthday party for their four year-old son, and their guests Jeffrey and Mia, childless anthropologists who study primitive children in remote cultures. Be sure to capitalize on the theater’s laudable “Play for the Price of a Movie" initiative: 29 seats at every performance are available for $10 each and may be reserved in advance by calling (646) 216-1119 or bought at the box office (336 W. 20th Street) two hours prior to curtain. If these tickets are sold out, regular price tickets may be purchased at TeleCharge. - John Del Signore

Are new parents a little too worried about their $800 Bugaboos? Some Tribeca residents are petitioning to have cobblestone streets paved over to make them more pedestrian friendly. The Post reports that people who live at 44 Laight Street wanted to "rip up the [cobblestones] directly in front of the building and create a level sidewalk," while leaving others in tact. The community board rejected the proposal - and apparently didn't treat the idea with respect. The best quote is from the Landmark's Committee's Roger Byrom who said, "If you don't like cobblestones in TriBeCa, live on the Upper West Side." SNAP! And it's true - Tribeca was always gentrified grit. Just because cobblestones are notoriously expensive to take care of and one false turn can leave you with a sprained ankle, it's not their fault! But walking up Lafayette Street at Great Jones Street is murder! We wonder, though, if asphalt will be used to fix the street, the way is has been usedon Bond Street.

A real live trailer parked in Soho? We didn't quite know what to expect either, so we headed to the northern tip of Petrosino Square at Lafayette Street and Cleveland Place to see for ourselves. And, from about a block away, walking south on Lafayette, we spotted the metallic silver trailer nestled between some trees on a sliver of concrete just large enough to accommodate it.

It's skateboarders versus the neighborhood as Soho residents and city agencies are eyeing the Greene Street skate shop, Etnies, for its rooftop skate ramp in a historical district. The Landmarks Preservation Commission said, "We received an application from the company, but it was never completed. So the ramp was never approved." Ha - that's totally feeding into the stereotype of irresponsible skaters! Residents have also complained about the noise from the ramp; the Post says that the ramp was "built without protective fencing or construction permits", too! Wow, that is pretty underground. But best of all is Etnies' statement:

"As skateboarders, we are used to this kind of resistance - but it doesn't hold us back! The mini-ramp will continue to be a great investment for etnies in the event the city forces us to remove it. We will donate it directly to New York skateboarders and transport it over to our friends at KCDC [skateboard shop] in Brooklyn who will keep their neighbors awake."

There was a fire this afternoon on Lafayette Street, and Eric Brown took some photographs that are on Flickr. And what we found interesting is that the fire seems to be on the roof - most fires we see seem to come from the inside of the building. We hope no one was hurt. [Related: There was another brush fire in Staten Island's Great Kills area last night...arson or just brush fire season?]

The NYPD's test results on various pieces of evidence in the Imette St. Guillen murder case are starting to emerge - DNA evidence is inconclusive at this point but carpet fibers found in suspect Darryl Littlejohn's home match fibers found on packing tape used to bind St. Guillen. Littlejohn, who was a bouncer at The Falls, the bar St. Guillen was last seen on February 25, still has not been charged in connection to the murder and is being transported to a parole violation hearing today in Kew Gardens. The police are looking at three rapes that happened in Queens and Long Island last fall to see if Littlejohn could be connected to them as the attacker used a blue van and tied up one victim with tape and wire.

Is this a break? The police have questioned a bouncer at The Falls yesterday, as well as conducted more investigations at the 218 Lafayette Street bar and restaurant over the weekend, as they try to solve the murder of graduate student Imette St. Guillen. The NY Times calls the bouncer a "potential suspect," and the NY Post says that the bouncer is a "hardened criminal still on parole for a robbery rap." While the Post seems to be hyperbolic, they also claim that the 41 year old man's cellphone was traced to the Belt Parkway and packing tape and wires - similar to what St. Guillen was found tied with - were found on the basement of The Falls. The Daily News says that there's a "secret doorway" at the restaurant, and that may have been used in the crime. And get this: Geraldine Ferraro's family owns the building, and she tells the News, "[The police] went into the basement, they went on the roof, they went upstairs to the second floor. We allowed them total access to anything that they wanted to see."

Police believe that Imette St. Guillen, the John Jay College graduate student who was murdered last Saturday, was probably targeted by a stranger. After confirming that St. Guillen was last at The Falls, a restaurant and bar on Lafayette Street just south of Spring (near the Andre Balazs Kenmare Square development, across the street from La Esquina) where she headed after the Pioneer Bar, witnesses say she left the restaurant alone. The current theory: A fake livery driver picked up St. Guillen around 4AM - especially considering how easy it seems to be to pose as a livery driver (just a few weeks ago a woman was assaulted by someone she thought was a livery driver). People in SoHo were surprised, with one resident told WABC: "It's surprising that this is something that happened in this part. Down Bowery and down Canal it gets sketchy." Well, unfortunately anything goes - just because a neighborhood is gentrified doesn't mean there isn't crime. Criminologists and experts have been weighing on all media outfits on the grisliness of the murder - and what it means about the killer - here's one look.

After falling one degree short of a record high temperature on Friday, the air came back on Saturday to set a new record of 63 degrees. That's the normal high temperature for April 21st not January 21st. Congratulations Saturday! By our calculations this month is shaping up to be the fifth warmest January on record. Yes, we love obscure statistics.

Alice Arnold wrote in to tell us about her new movie To Be Seen, which profiles some of our favorite NYC streetartists. Her site has some clips from the movie, including a great interview with Swoon-- the infamous stenciler, posterist, and painter. She gives some insight into her work, and best of all, you get to see what she actually looks like-- she definitely bears a striking resemblance to some of the women in her cutouts. [See for yourself at Streetsy's Swoon page.]