Is the East Village getting noisier or just grumpier?
An evening in front of Superdive. Meri Micara
8:21 am Jun. 29, 20107
Earlier this month, the community board representing the East Village voted not to recommend granting a liquor license to Frank Prisinzano, owner of local mainstays Frank, Lil’ Frankie’s and Supper, for another Italian restaurant in the neighborhood.
They also turned down Keith Masco, who wants to open up a seafood restaurant tentatively called Sea on A, on Avenue A between 10th and 11th Street.
“You think I don’t know what’s going to happen?” said Masco, a veteran of the music industry, an hour before the vote came down, 23 to 17, against him.
A group of his neighbors-to-be had organized a drive against his restaurant, and by 9:00 p.m. last Monday, it was clear they had won over the community board.
Masco said afterward the vote was short-sighted, since his restaurant would not only serve food and liquor at night but sell fresh fish to his neighbors to cook at home.
“It was unbelievable,” he said. “The whole area is dying for a great seafood place. Almost everybody I talk to loves the idea.”
This is what it has come to. A critical mass of civically active East Village residents have come to believe that the neighborhood's restaurants are taking on the character of nightlife destinations, and now organize as a matter of course to block applications for new liquor licences. They don't believe that a restaurant won’t bring in a DJ and pound its bass speakers till closing time, no matter how refined the food, or that a "family-friendly" restaurant that fails to cut it won't wind up as another bar.
They don't believe their neighborhood is theirs anymore.
“If you talk to local residents, they say,'I don’t go out on Thursday, Friday or Saturday night,'” says Andrew Coamey, 43, who helped organize the drive against Masco’s application.
The stand by residents against new places to go out raises some interesting questions, though.
Like, for example, the question of whether the East Village wasn't always noisy.
The area is indisputably loud. Since the beginning of 2010, the 10009 zip code has racked up more of the types of noise complaints linked to nightlife than any other area in the city, according to the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, which collects data from 311 calls. (A second East Village zip code, which extends west from 1st Ave to 5th Ave, ranks fourth in that category.)
But as loud as it is these days, complaints about noise in the area have actually decreased over the past few years. Since 2005, the number of nightlife-related noise complaints to 311 in East Village zip codes has done down by as much as 32 percent—in 10009, from 1,803 in 2005 to 1,224 in 2009. Citywide, nightlife-related noise complaints decreased by only eight percent in that same time period. In 10009, the decrease in noise complaints far outpaced a decrease in total 311 calls, too: complaints filed in that zip code dropped from 16,237 in 2005 to 15,342 in 2009—a decrease of just 5.5 percent.
It's also not clear that the East Village is much boozier than it used to be, in terms of the numbers of venues licensed to serve drinks. Data from the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.)show that the number of active liquor licenses in the area has stayed relatively stable. In 2006, in the zip code 10009, an area stretching east from 1st Ave between Houston and 20th St., the S.L.A. documented 222 active liquor licenses for on-premise consumption—the types of licenses that restaurants, bars, and clubs use. Over the next two years, that number dipped to 216, but by 2009, there were 231 active liquor licenses in that area. The aggregate increase was nine licenses.
But there has been plenty of turnover. Of the 231 licenses in 2009, only 153 have been consistently active since 2006. That means that about a third of the licensed establishments in the East Village have opened in their current incarnation only within the past four years.
But what the numbers can’t capture, and what may really be driving the neighborhood crazy, is the way the character of the nightlife in the neighborhood has changed. Coamey admits as much.
“The neighborhood used to be a bastion for the counterculture, and you feel now like you’re living in Times Square,” Coamey said.
Of course, that's the part that's not possible to quantify.
Jill Ackerman, 46, has lived in the neighborhood since 1992 when Drop Off Service, an ironically named bar just north of 13th Street on Avenue A, was still an actual laundromat.
“The hookah bar used to be a photo processing store,” she added. And Vampire Freaks, a gothic culture store, was an electrician’s shop.
Now, within a half-block radius of Avenue A and E. 13th St, you can play board games at Common Ground, order keg service at Superdive, or down a blueberry pancake shot, which tastes mostly like maple syrup, at Destination Bar and Grill.
I enjoyed this article and I think it paints an accurate picture (and I can tell the author has been reading the comments at EVGrieve!).
One small issue, though about the former tenants of Destination and Superdive:
And many of the new establishments were bars before: Superdive used to be a Clockwork Orange-themed spot called Korova Milk Bar; Destination Bar & Grille was a gay bar called Boysroom.
Clockwork Orange and alterna-gays versus the kinds of places people in white ballcaps congregate to order bottle service: Could it be that it’s not the level of the noise but the people making it?
In my opinion, no. Before Superdive (and after Korova) the space was a bookstore, Rapture Cafe, with a bar situated in back. Similarly, recall that Korova had a long, dark passageway to the main bar space, which was situated in the very back. Because of this set-up, both Korova and Rapture were quiet, despite being bars. Contrast this with Superdive's exterior velvet rope and the crowds such a set-up incurs.
As for Boysroom, it was a gay bar, yes, but unlike Phoenix down the block, Boysroom also had go-go dancers so it was really more of a club. Despite that, it was perfectly quiet because the street-facing open-air style windows were always closed. Destination, on the other hand, keeps its windows open for as long as possible. I don't dislike Destination (although Mason Reese is rather whiny), but it is funny that a sexxay gay club can be a better/more peaceful neighbor than a simple neighborhood bar. Perhaps because Boyroom was run by downtown club legend (and longtime EV resident) Michael Formika, who knows what he is doing.
Long story short, the new fratty patrons are largely corny and annoying (WHOOO!), yes, but I am also certain that these establishments are quantitatively louder than their predecessors.
Holy crap, I formatted the heck out of my comment so it wouldn't be a huge chunk of text. Apologies in advance to anyone who tries reading it.
I still can't get the image of Mason Reese dancing with multiple trannies from about 15 years ago out of my head. STOP!
I agree 100% with what LVV said.
And Andrew is to be commended for his work rallying the troops. I worked a little with him on the opposition to Sea on A due to the fact it's the building next to me. After I read the owner was buying dinner and drinks for anyone that showed up to Community Board to support them, I was livid. If you have to bribe people, you're already in trouble in my book.
And since when has anyone asked for "quiet?" - that is ridiculous. We're talking about saturation. The short block of Avenue A between 10th/11th ALREADY has
1. Bar on A - full bar
2. Orologio - restaurant w/beer+wine
3. Horus - hookah bar
4. Diablo - full bar
5. Hifi - full bar
6. Westville - restaurant w/beer+wine
Did I mention bar?
We don't need ANOTHER place to drink. We need something else entirely. The amount of people jamming the sidewalks make it very difficult to get in or out of our front door. It's unlivable. There have been confrontations. My right to reasonable access to my apartment door trumps your right to brunch and booze. PERIOD! And what's wrong with the pancakes in your own god damn backyard?
We had problems with Westville patrons but Westville has been doing a lot - posting signs, and getting waiting people to move over to 11th Street where there aren't residential doors to obstruct. I wish all owners were as easy to work with.
Since I've never been to "Douchenation," I mean "Destination," I don't know if it has 50% local people or not. I don't know anyone who's ever been there. Most of my friends go to 11th Street Bar.
"Superdive" was the beginning, I think, of an awakening that we had let the block/Avenue "go" and it was time to stop all new SLA liquor permits or end up like Ludlow and drown. Avenue B and C are on high alert with the arrival of "Billy Hurricanes" My guess is that it won't survive the winter unless they have a lot socked away.
Thanks everyone.
Please fix the formatting bug! Ugh, one big block of text is nasty.
"When the ... bar strung out its velvet rope in 2009, limousines starting pulling up to its door—an extravagance previously unheard of for a night at an East Village bar."
Does anyone remember Babyland on A, with all kitsch juvenalia and goatee'd hipsters and models arriving in limousines? No-tell Motel was up the street. Beauty Bar survives.
The East Village has long had the most bars per capita in New York. The fact that the clientèle frequenting these bars has changed is not surprising. Residents trying to stop that change are going to be disappointed in the end because they romanticize an East Village during its earlier stages of gentrification-- a period which is by definition only temporary.