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The Lo-Down NY

The Lower East Side's most influential online news source. We are Ed Litvak and Traven Rice, a reformed television news producer and filmmaker (in that order).

The Lo-Down is a local news site dedicated to covering news, events and – most significantly – the people who live and work in one of the world’s greatest neighborhoods, the Lower East Side. We are Lower East Side residents who launched The Lo-Down to help provide our community with a constant source of information about current events, culture, real estate, food and entertainment. We are featured

in the Columbia Journalism Review’s News Frontier Database. You can also read a profile of us in the Village Voice article, “I Blog New York: Your Guide to Gotham’s Best” here. http://bit.ly/1JWybRU The Lo-Down is a member of the Local Independent Online Publishers Association (LION). Rather than serve a single segment of our diverse neighborhood, we are a resource for all cultures and groups on the LES to share information and ideas and to engage in a meaningful dialogue about issues that unite and divide us. We are not a blog that espouses a particular point of view or has an agenda. We work hard to reach out to people and organizations that are not often heard from – and to solicit multiple points of view and new perspectives. It is most important to us that everyone has an opportunity to tell their own story.

11/09/2025

Good morning! Preparations are underway for everyone’s favorite feast in the streets of Little Italy. The 99th Annual Feast of San Gennaro starts this evening, with the “blessing of the stands” at 6pm on Mulberry Street. They are welcoming actor and radio host Joe Piscopo as this year’s Grand Marshal, “honoring his outstanding contributions to entertainment, his deep Italian-American roots, and his unwavering support for community and culture.”

08/09/2025

Openings and closings at East River Park as the East Side Coastal Resiliency project enter the next phase. The bridge at Corlears Hook Park is now open, offering access to the new amphitheater, NYC Ferry and Pier 42. On the northern stretch of the park, the running track and all of the amenities above East Houston Street close today. More details: https://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2025/09/east-river-park-track-closes-monday-other-amenities-opened-friday.html

07/09/2025

Food journalist, former New York Times recipe columnist and author of the renowned cookbook How To Cook Everything, Mark Bittman is creating a new type of restaurant with a focus on equitable access for all involved. The pilot project, Community/KITCHEN, is a non-profit public restaurant model that will be based in the LES and will operate on a sliding scale for diners.

The concept combines locally sourced, seasonal meals made by workers being paid a living wage.

The restaurant will pay staff in excess of $32 an hour, and menu prices will be tiered at $15, $45, and $125 for diners to select what they can afford.

Located at The Lower East Side Girls Club at 7th Street and Avenue D, they plan to serve dinner for the next three months, Wednesday through Saturday, beginning September 19th. We talked with Bittman and two members of his team, Executive Director Rae Gomes and Culinary Director Mavis-Jay Sanders about the endeavor and how it came about:

“When I decided I’d had enough of writing or at least of writing full time, I thought I wanted to do something,” Bittman said. “I wanted to do something in food, and I wanted to do something in good food. And I first thought it was important for me to come up with a definition of what good food is, and it’s pretty simple, but people weren’t saying it. It’s food that’s sourced well, sourced from farmers who care about the land and care about the crops and care about their workers. Handled by workers who are being treated respectfully, which as you probably know has been long been a problem in the food chain. Cooked well, deliciously, nutritiously, wholesomely. And then made accessible to everybody.” … Read the full story on The Lo-Down. 👆 Link tree Photo 1 - Culinary director Mavis-Jay Sanders (left), executive director Rae Gomes (center) and founder Mark Bittman in their soon-to-be new restaurant space at The Lower East Side Girls Club. Photo 2-4 courtesy of Community Kitchen

05/09/2025

Here’s some news just about everyone in the Lower East Side/Chinatown community will be happy to hear. As we reported this past Friday, D**g Wang and Helen Chen of Shan Fu Grocery (A&N Fruit Store) were preparing to shut down their business. There was an outpouring of love and support for what’s known to most of us as “the snowman fruit stand,” after it appeared that new owners of the building wanted the popular grocery at 23 Canal St./1 Essex St. to vacate the space effective October 1. But D**g and Helen were all smilies today, telling The Lo-Down that they will be returning to the space after renovations are completed next spring.

We’re told there was a failure to communicate due to differences in language. The building was purchased earlier this year by TTC Investments VII LLC, which is controlled by local resident and property owner Adam Woodward. He’s working with Ron Castellano, the Lower East Side-based architect behind the restorations of The Forward Building on East Broadway and the Jarmulowsky Bank Building (now known as the hotel, Nine Orchard). Castellano tells us Woodward always wanted Shan Fu Grocery to stay. Castellano went by yesterday, with a Chinese translator, to explain the situation. The grocery will need to move out temporarily, but is set to return following renovations.

There was a lot of speculation that the new owners would demolish 1 Essex Street, replacing it with a tall, glassy tower. That’s not happening. In the months ahead, there will be repairs and restoration of the facade; work will take place on the first floor and cellar level. For inspiration, the design team will be drawing on historic photos of the building, including these from the 1930s. As you can see, a corner grocer has been part of the history at this location going back decades.

More details: https://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2025/09/snowman-fruit-store-owners-say-they-will-return-after-renovations.html

04/09/2025

Curious how this will go….

02/09/2025

We finally tried the tasty competition from just down the street from Doughnut Plant. The young entrepreneur Kieran Madan (center, with friends) who started his business four years ago, when he was 10 years old, has been out on Grand Street with his cart, selling his homemade doughnuts three days a week, all summer long. We got the last chai latte doughnut and it was delicious!

30/08/2025

It feels like the pace of neighborhood change on the Lower East Side is always accelerating, with new businesses opening and closing every month. But this one hurts more than most. In recent days, loyal customers of Shan Fu Grocery (A&N Fruit Store) at 23 Canal St. have been saying their goodbyes. The grocery, better known to most of us as, “the snowman fruit stand,” will close at the beginning of October, following the sale earlier this year of the property for $7 million. All of the businesses in the building are being forced out.

D**g Wang and Helen Chen opened the business in December of 2010, taking over a corner location at Canal and Essex streets, a decade before anyone had heard of “Dimes Square.” D**g’s broad smile and friendly demeanor, as well as the grocery’s freshly made watermelon juices and slushies built a devoted clientele. That first winter in business, after a big snow storm, they decided to build a huge snowman in front of the store. We all loved it (The Lo-Down covered the Essex Street Snowman like breaking news)! Year after year, the snowman reappeared, brightening those cold winter days, seemingly speaking a language everyone who passed by the store could understand. It reflected D**g and Helen’s generous spirit and earnest desire to welcome the entire Lower East Side and Chinatown community. Read the full story online, including details about the broader chnages on this corner impacting 23 Canal St. and 3-5 Essex St., the former home of the Schames paint store.

https://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2025/08/the-snowman-fruit-store-set-to-close-as-big-changes-await-at-canal-and-essex-streets.html

26/08/2025

The Texas-based firm, MML Hospitality, has completed its acquisition of , the high-end hotel in the former Jarmulowsky Bank Building. The $92 million deal closed on August 20 and the signed documents appeared in city records today.

DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners purchased the property and a neighboring building back in 2012 for $41 million. Over the years, the owners completed a painstaking and costly restoration of the 1912 Beaux Arts beauty, which was designated a New York City landmark in 2009.

There have been signs for quite awhile that the hotel was about to change hands. Back in June, Community Board 3 considered an application for a change of management in Nine Orchard’s dining establishments. There was speculation in Eater about star Chef April Bloomfield potentially leading a revamp of the Corner Bar, as well as the other bars and restaurants within Nine Orchard. Bloomffield recently signed on with MML as executive chef. And the other day it was all confirmed by Emily Sundberg .feedme who published an interview with MML Hospitality’s Larry McGuire, discussing plans for the Lower East Side hotel. More details on our website.

18/08/2025

Great shot of the Seward Park ping pong table, from the rooftop across the street, by Ben Meyers. ☀️

15/08/2025

The fashion designer Alexander Wang is the new owner of one of the most conspicuous buildings in Chinatown: the former Citizens Savings Bank, a city landmark, at 58 Bowery (at Canal Street). As Crain’s first reported, two family trusts controlled by Wang, his mother and sister purchased the building for $9.5 million from HSBC bank, which has owned the property since 1999.

Wang hinted at the acquisition on his personal Instagram account about three weeks ago. He didn’t reveal any plans for the century-old Beaux Arts building, alluding only to the words inscribed between the building’s four grand arches: ““Wisdom,” “Safety,” “Thrift,” “Success.”

Wang’s company has its headquarters in the Seaport District and he has a flagship store in Soho. The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted to protect the exterior of 58 Bowery back in 2011. A notice from Con Edison posted outside the bank building warns that gas service will be cut off on or after August 14 (that’s today).

12/08/2025

Good morning! The ping pong table at Seward Park is a hot spot these days. The park was lively as ever last night. Send us your neighborhood photos: [email protected] or tag us here ☀️

11/08/2025

Good morning! The new grills are up and running along the new stretch of East River Park under the Williamsburg Bridge. ☀️

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The Lo-Down is a local news site dedicated to covering news, events and – most significantly – the people who live and work in one of the world’s greatest neighborhoods, the Lower East Side.