Residents, activists, community groups and their elected representatives gathered at the steps of City Hall yesterday afternoon with a Valentine’s Day message for Mayor de Blasio. Their request – to convert the long vacant P.S. 64 building in the East Village into a community center and disallow owner Gregg Singer from developing it into a college dorm.
Valentine’s Day
9 Ways to Do Valentine’s Day That Are More Oddball Than Cheeseball
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
As inevitable as your student loan bills, Valentine’s Day is once again around the corner. If you’re inclined to celebrate it ironically rather than romantically, fret not: this is, after all, a city of misanthropes. At these Valentine’s weekend events, there’ll be nary a chocolate heart in sight.
How Not to Be That Person Who Buys a Valentine’s Card at Duane Reade
Pink Olive (Photo: Paula Ho)
Lingerie aside, there’s nothing quite as sexy as penning deep, mad feels onto paper. Whether you’re professing romantic love, friend love, or even self love, we’ve hunted down the best stationery stores for the most poignant, passionate, and tastefully blunt Valentine’s Day cards. So, make like an E L James and put your brain (and metaphors) to good use.
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Not-So-Happy Valentine’s: The Best Parties for the Dark and Depraved
Masks at Gothic Renaissance. (Photo: Angelica Frey)
If aphrodisiac menus and vanilla-scented candles make you cringe, there’s no need to lock yourself in your apartment on Valentine’s Day. Explore the darker side of love and eros at one of these alt affairs (all on Saturday, Feb. 14 unless otherwise noted).
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Gotta ♥ These Churros
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Where Valentine’s grub is concerned, I never thought my heart would stray from Doughnut Plant’s rose-petal doughnuts, but these heart-shaped churros really take the cake. And speaking of cake, La Churreria is also offering a churro cake for the V-Day season. Take a look.
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They’ve Been Struck By Queue-pid
(Photo: Jenna Marotta)
Almost two dozen guys (and one gal) were queued up to buy bouquets from Sunny’s Florist this afternoon, in what’s become an East Village rite of passage: between Feb. 13 and 14 last year, owner Sun Ja Hwang told NYU Local she sold $15,000 worth of flowers. One Yelper spent such a long time in this Valentine’s line that his cellphone battery died and his girlfriend thought he’d been hit by a car.
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11 Folks Who Tweeted or Instagrammed Their Way Into Our Hearts Today
Before social media, Valentine’s Day was an occasion for couples to show their love to one another via handwritten notes, chocolates, Hallmark cards and roses. Now it is an opportunity for couples to show the world how vomit-inducingly in love they are whilst reenforcing how crappy and meaningless and empty our lives are by comparison.
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Valentine’s Day Is Never a Bust at This 45-Year-Old Corset Shop
(Photo: Jenna Marotta)
On the weekend before Valentine’s Day, the Orchard Corset Center was crowded with customers looking to get fitted for bras, bridal bustiers and corsets. The Lower East Side relic hasn’t attracted nearly as much recent media attention as American Apparel’s lingerie mannequins have around the corner, but it has this much going for it: authenticity beyond displays of fake pubic hair. Oh, and Peggy Bergstein, who owns the tiny storefront with her husband Ralph, claims she can tell a customer’s bra size just by looking at her bust.
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Big Gay Ice Cream Is Serving Up Padma Lakshmi Sundaes
(Photo: Randi Eichenbaum)
Not to be outdone by Stephen Malkmus, Padma Lakshmi is also getting her very own soft-serve flavor. That’s right, Big Gay Ice Cream tweeted earlier this morning that Padma’s “rose ice cream with pistachios and rose-infused whipped cream” is coming this Valentine’s Day. The sundae is a take on a recipe in Padma’s cookbook Tangy Hot Tart & Sweet. Though Padma won’t be in-store doing any meet n’ greets, co-founder Douglas Quint suspects she’ll pop by to sample the creation. He tells us Padma even taste tested some batches last week. Did you taste test batches of your ice cream, Stephen Malkmus?
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