A Hidden Lower East Side

      Wednesday afternoon, a childhood friend of mine –– whose family has been at their apartment on East Broadway since 1956 –– got in touch with me about what sounded like people clearing out the buildings next to his at 237 and 235 East Broadway (Sharis Adath Israel and the former home of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis respectively). When I arrived on the scene that same afternoon, the doors to 235 East Broadway were being shut and two Junklugger trucks were just pulling away from the curb, stacked with what looked like large amounts of furniture. East Broadway was littered with papers that had blown off the back of these trucks, and as I started to pick them up I saw that many of these documents represented records of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, correspondence in Hebrew and Yiddish, newspaper clippings, pages from religious books, all of which dating back decades. I called Junkluggers and asked if they would be able to intercept any of these documents before they...

      Three days ago, it was announced  that K Property Group and East End Capital, the developers who purchased Sunshine Cinema for $31.5 million, had received a $67-million construction loan from Capital Source, as well as an additional $19-million loan from Canyon Partners for the new mezzanine. This news indicates the imminent demolition of the 19th century building as plans for a 68,000 square-foot luxury commercial space on the site move forward.       (my original post on Sunshine can be found here )

      Two mornings ago, EV Grieve broke the news  that the Hells Angels appeared to have vacated their clubhouse on Third after 50 years –– all identifying marks had been removed or painted over, leaving only the "77" across the now completely black entryway. The group's sudden departure from a block and neighborhood it had called home since the late 60's has been met with a genuine mixed array of emotions and reactions. As the EV Grieve's article was shared across various Lower East Side pages on Facebook yesterday, numbers of people mourned this move as another symbol of the erasure of the neighborhood's culture, or the further capitulation to real-estate developers, while numbers of others implored commenters to explain why we should lament the loss of an organization with such a violent criminal past. A similar dynamic often arises within conversations around the Lower East Side's long and extensive history of gang activity, drug use, prostituti...