New bookshop spot? Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York reported last week that St. Mark’s Bookshop is looking to move into 136 E. Third St., just west of Avenue A, in the First Houses, which is part of the New York City Housing Authority. “We’ve been sent a proposed lease,” bookstore co-owner Terry McCoy told the blogger, “and we have a lawyer who has gone through it and sent comments to the landlord, who is the city, NYCHA. There’s a long way to go to signing a lease, though.” The bookstore is still working hard to raise funds for the move through an Indiegogo campaign. Landmark Vintage Bicycles, which is now on the corner of Avenue A and E. Third St., used to be in that First Houses storefront space. Asked why they left the NYCHA spot, a manager at the bike shop told us it wasnʼt anything against the housing agency. “We wanted to be on the corner,” he said.
Citi Grease: Citi Bikes definitely don’t move like greased lightning, but they’re sturdy and stable, and super-affordable for an annual membership. The bike’s seatposts, however, weren’t moving for a while there, especially once the weather turned cold, making adjusting the saddle height a hernia-inducing effort. It now appears, in fact, that some sort of “Citi Grease” lubricant has been smeared on many of the seatposts, so that they can be slid more freely up and down to the right height. But the black grease does come off on our fingers, and the seats now sometimes swivel unless you really tighten the clamp. Anyway, we can “roll with it” — but is it too much to ask for a Citi Rag to wipe the Citi Schmutz off our hand?
Spirit doesn’t move them: Community Board 2 continues to wrestle with the issue of street-fair oversaturation. Last Thursday, the board voted to recommend denial of a street-fair application for WitchsFest USA, to be held on Astor Place on Sat., July 12. During the members’ discussion, some argued that the Wiccans had “no indigenous connection to the district,” and particularly none to Astor Place. But Keen Berger, notably, stood up for the pagans’ proposal, feeling they weren’t getting a fair shake. Maury Schott, chairperson of the board’s Sidewalks and Street Activities Committee, explained the board’s dilemma: Three years ago, then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg decreed that New York should reduce its number of street fairs by 25 percent. But the city’s Law Department then counseled him that this was a free-speech issue, so they couldn’t cut any of the sponsoring organizations. Long story short, the city combined the sponsors into a smaller number of events — but there are still way too many, in C.B. 2’s view. “We have 85 events within seven months, or 10 a month,” Schott said. In the end, only four C.B. 2 members went for the witches, as the board nixed their fair. Shedding some light on the issue, in an article last June in The Villager by Lael Hines, “Pagans seek to dispel fears, and find a Village home,” two of the Wiccan women, Star Raven Hawk and Shantel Collins, explained that they hope to secure a permanent place in the Village. “We want to start to have our own space,” Raven Hawk said then. “We just want to have our own space like any other denomination out there. Over the years, Children’s Aid Society has called me and said, ‘We have families who are pagans and they want a place they can go’ — but sadly, we don’t have a building. … Honestly, I’ve been all over the city practicing in different places, and I don’t know how to describe it, but there’s something down here,” Raven Hawk said of the Village. “I think it’s always had a spiritual background and you can feel it down here. Even when we’re in the park or the garden or something like that, you feel it.” Oh well, C.B. 2 didn’t feel it.
Housing hunt: There’s been a lot of speculation — but few details — so far when it comes to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s highly anticipated plan to create or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing. With the eyes of the city upon him, the mayor has said he and his administration will reveal the plan on May 1. Meanwhile, in our neck of the woods, C.B. 2’s Affordable Housing Working Group met for the second time on March 24 to talk about locations in the district that could potentially become sites for development that would include such housing. We got our hands on a copy of a draft handed out at that meeting, listing some of those potential sites — which were ranked by the working group, apparently based on their perceived likelihood of housing development — and some of them are pretty interesting. Aside from numerous lots within the new Hudson Square Special District that are already owned by Trinity Real Estate or other big developers, most of the C.B. 2 working group’s top-ranked sites are on currently city-owned land, both in and around Soho and the West Village. Those potential sites include a current Fire Department parking lot at 243 Lafayette St., between Prince and Spring Sts., as well as the Ladder 20 firehouse itself, located at the adjacent 247 Lafayette St. A Nolita site that placed highly on the working group’s draft list was 34 Spring St., between Mulberry and Mott Sts., which currently houses the Judson Health Center. A potential West Village site that we found particularly interesting — and which was also ranked among the top locations on the list — was 229-233 W. 10th St., which Villagers might recognize as the current location of the Police Department’s Sixth Precinct. And looking back to the east, yet another high-ranking Soho-area site was 2 Howard St., between Lafayette and Centre Sts., which is city-owned but currently leased to the federal General Services Administration. Top-ranked sites on privately owned land included the St. John’s Center building at 305 West St. (long talked about as a potential receiving site for Hudson River Park air rights) and the building at 627 Greenwich St. (which sits just steps away from 75 Morton St., site of the forthcoming middle school). We asked C.B. 2’s Tobi Bergman, a member of the working group, for some insight on all of this, but he didn’t go into too much detail, calling the debate over possible affordable housing sites “a work in progress.” He pointed out that there’s the possibility of pushing for rezoning in the southeast corner of the district — presumably involving one or more of the aforementioned Soho sites — to create “additional inclusionary housing possibilities,” and said it’s also possible that rezoning in connection with the transfer of Hudson River Park air rights could result in some inclusionary housing, but he added that until that process begins, it’s too early to predict what could happen. “Our district generally is almost fully built up and has many development constraints,” said Bergman. “Preserving the affordable housing we have has to be a primary focus.” True enough, but one assumes that it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on who’s eyeing those potential development sites… .
Google it? Not here! Google might be thrilled about opening up its first-ever retail store at 131 Greene St., right near the Apple Store, as reports indicate is in the works, but some residents on the block aren’t happy at all. “It’s a very bad idea,” Bo Riccobono told us. “It will bring hordes of people to this quiet street with low-traffic, high-end stores. Google should be on Broadway, West Broadway or Lafayette St. on a corner near a subway. Plus,” the C.B. 2 member continued, “I am looking into suspiciously quick Department of Buildings and Department of Transportation approvals at 131 Greene St. without a public hearing or the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.”
