By Henry Krempels 1/12 12:00pm

U-Boats

Alexis. A Greek Tragedy. (Pierre Borasci)

More than a Blip: The Under the Radar Festival Brings Outre Theater to the East Village

As you enter the capacious quarters of the Public Theater in the East Village, you walk through a construction site: a grand building being torn out from the inside. The space is currently undergoing renovations, but still acts as the primary location for the eighth year of Under the Radar, New York’s downtown experimental theater festival, which runs through Jan. 15.

This feeling of restoration never seems to leave as you become privy to the rich, eclectic and fiercely original performances the two weeks has to offer. Experimental theater, by definition, avoids convention, often leaving audiences questioning the value of the genre. But doubters must make the trip downtown: the offerings are impressive and remarkably diverse, including media like video, music, dance and puppetry, produced by companies based in Europe and America. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 1/05 12:43pm

In the Neighborhood

Painted Construction Crate at East Fourth Street and Bowery (Photo from FABnyc)

East Village Gets (More) Artsy

However hard to imagine, the East Village will soon be even more colorful. A local group has managed to raise a full $3,000 on Kickstarter to “beautify” the East Village, DNAinfo reports. Apparently deeming itself too urbane for scaffolding and dumpsters, those city scabs we’ve come to know and love, the Fourth Arts Block (FAB, get it?!) will use the money to paint the industrial construction accoutrements.

The group has been quietly embellishing construction sites in the neighborhood since 2008. Perhaps best known for the sidewalk mural on Extra Place, the non-profit organization hopes both to make the neighborhood more aesthetically agreeable and to evoke the neighborhood’s gritty, guerilla-art past. Read More

By Drew Grant 9/22/11 9:21am

Food

IMG_2216

Pancake House Opens For Pancake Business In Bushwick, East Village

IHOP is usually where you go during those trips back home after you’ve gotten drunk with friends, hooked up with that girl you went to high school with, and then puked out your dinner at 3 a.m. in mom’s parking lot. Anyone up for pancakes??

So yes, it’s a little unnerving to see not one, but two IHOP opening up in the Brooklyn/Manhattan area: it’s like finding out you can now order Moon Over My Hammy at The Spotted Pig. Well, not quite that bad, but… Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/10/11 5:08pm

Hood Winking

It takes a village/Village idiot/CKCKCKCKCKC!!!MR!NJRNUIOFNOGINIO@N!PIGN

The East Village Now Stretches to 20th Street and Avenue C

Neighborhoods in New York have always been fungible. Names change or are invented out of thin air, acronyms, and nearby landmarks. Borders shift like tectonic plates—slowly, imperceptibly, then, in a city-shaking tremor, all at once. We all pretend to hate it, but we live with it, quietly profiting off it all. This is a town singularly obsessed with real estate, after all. So who can really blame Rose Associates for pushing the boundaries of the East Village? Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/05/11 3:25pm

The Rent

Video

You want the rent? I'll give you the rent! (Getty)

Jimmy McMillan: ‘I Live in Brooklyn’ [Video]

Can you feel it? The wave of schadenfreude rippling through the dowdy real estate brokerages and glass-faced, wood-paneled developers’ suites of the city? Look no further than the comments on industry organ The Real Deal. The news that Jimmy McMillan might be evicted from a rent-controlled apartment in the East Village has shocked and delighted the real estate community. His landlord has taken him to court, but the evidence against him is littered across the Internet. Read More

By Pamela Engel 8/01/11 2:43pm

Your Open House

So not the West Village.

The West Village One-Bedroom Alternative

“Everybody seemed to be targeting the East Village and West Village, but they’re finding prices are better here,” said the Douglas Elliman broker for 226 East 12th Street, apartment 4H, a prewar co-op on a tree-lined street. The one-bedroom apartment is going for $495,000 and was one of the hits of the day—it has a spacious living room and a kitchen big enough to move around in, which is more than we could say for some of the cheaper units we stopped by.

This week for Your Open House we took a look at one-bedrooms in the East Village, and most people we talked to noted that they were drawn to the tree-lined streets and vast entertainment options of the downtown villages, but wanted something less pricey than the west one. Read More