Latest news with #EastVillage
CTV News
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
New art installation along riverwalk celebrates the stories of Calgary's rivers
A new art installation of works by Calgary artist Alex Kwong is on display along Calgary's river walk in the East Village. There's a new art installation along the river walk in Calgary's East Village. 'What Sustains Us' is the work of Calgary artist Alex Kwong. He says the work is based on stories people told him about their personal relationships to the Bow and Elbow rivers. A Blackfoot Elder and a Calgary fly fisher are some of the people featured. Kwong said it was a profound experience made even richer by the conversations he had with people passing by while he was painting. 'This is impacting their visual landscape,' said Kwong, 'so you want them to feel as involved as possible, and be able to enjoy it every day. Alex Kwong Calgary artist Alex Kwong, whose work is on display along the East Village river walk, said it's based on stories people told him about their personal relationships with the Bow and Elbow rivers. (CTV Calgary) 'It's like that little bit of impact that I can make on someone's day might make a bigger impact down the road,' he added. The art can be found on the bridge abutments and other structural surfaces along the riverwalk. It will remain there for three years. After that, a jury of community volunteers will choose another local artist to feature.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Doner Haus: A Kebab Specialist Opens Its Third NYC Location—More To Come
At the opening of Doner Haus in the East Village, crowds form, and now there are 3 of them in NYC. According to founder and CEO Nikolaus von Solodkoff, Doner Haus, his NY City eatery with 3 locations in the East Village on East 14th Street, Astoria and recently opened Bayside, Queens, means Kebab House in German. That's where Solodkoff grew up in a small town of 40 people 'with more cows than people,' he says. Doners are usually served on a plate with rice, fries and salad. In the U.S., he says, doners are often confused with shawarma, gyros, or placed into a wrap with a few toppings. But German and Turkish-style doner begins with marinated meats cooked on a vertical rotisserie and then sliced in thinly-cut ribbons, and placed into hot crispy Turkish pide or flatbread. Solodkoff says this doner version didn't exist in NYC or the U.S. and he saw a clear path to preparing it the way it is done overseas. He says back in his homeland people joke that 'Doner was invented in Turkey but perfected in Germany.' But he came to New York City to work in finance at J.P. Morgan Chase in 2010 at age 25 and lived there for 15 years, and helped launch Embargo, an overseas hospitality restaurant tech firm that garnered over 3,000 clients, where he was COO. Its focus was on loyalty tools, point of sales (POS) integration and data that drove repeat business. Running Two Businesses At Once He's still one of its largest shareholders, but not actively involved. However, he also runs Patron Security, a hedge fund out of Miami, and usually devotes 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. to it and then turns his attention to running Doner Haus. Despite Solodkoff's learning a considerable amount about the intricacies about what makes a successful restaurant, he recognized that 'not working inside a restaurant, you miss how chaotic and unforgiving it really is. Things fall apart quickly,' and technology can't solve everything. Why NYC Works For Launching His Restaurant When Covid struck, he moved to Miami, but when he wanted to launch Doner House, he decided that NYC was the perfect place for his eateries because the city 'runs on speed, flavor and value. Doner hits all three.' He maintains an apartment in NYC, making it easier to visit. But No One Said NYC Would Be Easy But savvy to the city's logistics, he notes that 'New York is one of the hardest places in the country to run a restaurant' because permits can take months to be issued, rent and labor costs are high. But he figured 'If the concept can work here, it can work anywhere,' sounding like the lyrics from the Kander and Ebb song 'New York, New York.' When he opened his first outlet in the East Village in 2023, he capitalized it on his own, with, 'No investors. No loans. No SBA support,' so he'd have full control. But his goal from the outset was to build Doner House into a successful franchise operation. Running Lean In developing Doner Haus, he stripped everything away 'that did not serve the core mission.' Hence it offers either no or very limited seating, no servers, no host stand, a small footprint and streamlined menu, operated by a small team. 'The result is a system that runs lean, trains fast and holds up at volume,' he declares. And yet all the meat served is 100% halal, 100% filler-free, 100% gluten-free and 100% organic. The East Village space is 1,000 square feet, including 200 square feet of basement storage space. The Astoria and Bayside both have 2 small outside tables and that's it for seating. After a year, the East Village location generated a $1 million in revenue, proving his concept, and launching him toward franchising. After Doner Haus was sued because of logo infringement, it drew attention to it. Von Solodkoff garnered almost 1,000 franchise inquiries due to the publicity, though he says only about 1 in 100 turns out to be legitimate. It did lead to its first franchise that recently opened in Bayside, Queens. And the third company-owned Doner Haus is due in mid-to-late July in Hell's Kitchen on 9th Avenue and 47th Street. Consumer reaction on Yelp to dining at its original East Village location was rather positive. Maria from NYC wrote that it was 'the best doner in town, very close to German doner and very good for the money.' Wei from Dumont, N.J. liked the original chicken sandwich, fries and special seasoning but thought it should have been layered more and said the service was quick. And Vanessa from NYC liked her doner combo and noted that were only two tables outside, and felt as if it would draw more of a crowd with more seating. 'The beef was the standout,' she said. But when this reporter stopped for chicken doner salad at the 14th Street outpost, he was struck by two things. At a time of shrinking portions, it was huge, and lasted for two meals. But there were only two staff members, with one preparing the food and one serving customers, but when another patron arrived followed by 4 construction workers, service slowed down. Asked about the slow down, Solodkoff says it hires two people to prepare food on weekends, but try their best to keep the line moving weekdays. Solodkoff expects that the growth in kebabs will mirror that of sushi in the U.S. When sushi first entered the U.S., some people were surprised about eating raw fish and now it's become quite popular. Now kebabs have swept through France and the U.K., and Solodkoff expects that the U.S is next. In the next few years, he expects Doner Haus to grow through franchising in places such as Florida, Texas, and Los Angeles, without any more corporate-owned locations. He expects there will be 25 Doner Haus's in the next few years. Asked the keys to its success, he replies, 1) Staying lean and efficient, 2) Training franchisees intensively including on-site training and joining them at their new site, 3) Staying ambitious; 'We'd like to dominate this growing field,' 4) Keeping our royalties of 3% in check.
CTV News
18-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Carbon monoxide alarm prompts evacuation of downtown Calgary grocery store
Customers and staff stand outside a Superstore located in Calgary's East Village, after it was evacuated due to carbon monoxide on June 18, 2025. (CTV News) A grocery store was evacuated in Calgary's East Village on Wednesday after carbon monoxide (CO) alarms went off. Around 150 people were evacuated from the Superstore located at 428 6 Ave S.E., according to the Calgary Fire Department. By the time crews arrived, everyone had already evacuated the store due to the alarms. CO at 50 parts per million was detected inside. The cause of the concentration of gas has not yet been confirmed. Exposure to carbon monoxide can cause flu-like symptoms, including headaches, nausea, dizziness, confusion, fatigue and loss of consciousness. The City of Calgary warns that working CO alarms provide the only warning for the dangerous gases.
Telegraph
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
New York's iconic neon signs are disappearing – these are the ones to see before it's too late
When I walk through the East Village after dark, down 2 nd Avenue to the corner of East 6 th Street, my heart swells. The red neon sign that spells out 'BLOCK DRUG STORES' on the Avenue, continuing with 'DRUGS COSMETICS' around the corner, has been there since the mid 1940s. It includes the detail of when the shop opened: 1885, the same year that parts of the Statue of Liberty sailed into the harbour of New York City, ready for assembly. That sign – as grubby as it is glam – feels like a reliable friend in the neighbourhood. We all bitch about gentrification and inflation, but on this corner of town, time stands still. It's seen it all. Take a picture if you visit that corner – it won't last forever. Many of my favourite masterpieces of typography are gone. The effervescent 1960s cursive of the Ziegfeld Theatre sign between Central Park and Times Square was kept for posterity when the cinema was repurposed as a ballroom in 2017 (141 W 54th St), but that wasn't the case with the frisky deco Subway Inn sign which glowed opposite Bloomingdales for eight decades. Forged in the 1930s, it was a glorious beacon for daytime drinking in one of the dive's perpetually midnight pleather booths. And what is New York for, if not a 2pm martini? The bar relocated twice after its eviction in 2014 but went the way of all flesh last December. The iconic sign has now been mothballed by its owners, while the site it originally occupied was demolished and remains vacant, overgrown with weeds. Landmark signs sometimes get a new lease of life. The Long Island City Pepsi-Cola sign was first created in 1940 for the top of the company's bottling factory. Its 1993 remake is now permanent and protected at Gantry Plaza State Park, beaming out across the East River. Less than a dozen blocks away, in Astoria, is Silvercup Studios ( 42-22 22 nd Street), where Succession, The Sopranos and 30 Rock were filmed (sadly you can't visit the sets). The marquee branding on the scaffolding out front is pure vintage cinema, recycling letters from the old bread factory sign that was here in the 1950s. Twenty minutes by cab south, beside the Williamsburg Bridge, you'll find the brilliantly 1960s-style Domino Sugar sign which was recreated perfectly in 2022 when the old factory was turned into offices. Lucky, but less showy architectural salvage now gets a good home. The New York Sign Museum was established near Broadway Junction in Brooklyn in 2019 by a group of archivists and artists. For my money, it's more fun than a trip to the Met or Guggenheim, with a spooky Scooby Doo atmosphere of abandoned objects and the places they were once attached to. There are guided tours (from $28.52) of the collection on semi regular Fridays and Sundays, taking you through two floors of hand painted and steel artefacts, including signs for pianos, furs, goat meat and Jesus. One of the signs at the Museum that resonates most with me is for Essex Cards, my local stationary shop for years, and a focal point of Avenue A life since the 1920s. The shonky lettering on the façade belongs to the streets of a 1970s Cassavetes or Scorsese movie. The shop was gutted by fire in 2022, but rose Phoenix-like thanks to a community GoFundMe. It's shiny and new, inside and out. While you must go to the Museum to see that old sign, the stretch of the East Village on which the shop still sits is a key artery for a self-guided walking tour of downtown Manhattan graphic design history. I'd suggest you start with a tuna melt and a milk shake in the throwback 'Formica diner' that is Joe Junior (167 3 rd Avenue). Its gleefully naive signage of a cartoon burger and a character licking their lips has been there for over 50 years. From Gramercy, head south and meander, making sure you take in the 1950s amusement arcade-style display outside Gringer & Sons Appliances (29 1 st Avenue). Although I'm no fan of the food or omnipresent queue at Katz's Deli (205 E Houston S), I hope the brick-brown 1940s signage along its side on Ludlow Street, offering 'wurst fabric' (Yiddish for sausage maker), outlives us all. When former owner Harry Tarowsky was asked by the signwriter what he wanted on one of the panels he replied 'Katz's Deli. That's all'. So, that's all it reads. Go to see the yellow and red 1910 sign of Yonah Shimmel Knish Bakery nearby, then head into the Lower East Side to buy sacks of gummy sweets at Economy Candy (107 Rivington Street), here since 1937, and to Beauty & Essex (146 Essex Street), where the current restaurant's name has been attached on to the still-visible sign for the building's previous tenants, M. Katz's Fine Furniture. The ghost signs of the city are treasures: When absurdly spendy restaurant Carbone opened in the West Village in 2013, it attached its neon to the gorgeous old hanging sign for Rocco Restaurant, which had been there for 90 years. Also fabulous: the fancy Aesop store on the Upper West Side (219 Columbus Avenue), which hasn't changed anything about the sign for Anel French Cleaners which was here before it. Head further down the Lower East Side, to 130 Orchard Street, to see the 1920s paint-on-brick lettering that covers two storeys of what was the fabric and interiors company S. Beckenstein, currently the Perrotin Art Gallery. The adjacent Tenement Museum offers brilliant tours of this historic neighbourhood and should be your penultimate stop before ending the day with a cocktail. There's no shortage of gaudily emblazoned dive bars here, but I favour 169 Bar (169 East Broadway). The vibe inside is kitsch and cosy, and the retro martini glass on the sign outside is a work of art. They also serve dumplings. What more could you want? While the best of old New York is being erased by chain stores and impossible rents, the signs are still there to enjoy. Lots of businesses, including Katz's, and the ancient gay bar Julius' (159 West 10 th Street) in the West Village, have turned their signage into a revenue stream in the form of T-shirts and other merch. Those graphics are the familiar backdrop to so much pop culture from yesteryear. The reason they're so beautiful is that they never looked new to begin with, so they'll never get old. Until, of course, they're gone. Essentials The Hotel Chelsea (rooms from £369) refreshed its iconic marquee and neon signage when it was turned from a notorious bohemian dive into a luxury hotel three years ago. You already know that Sid killed Nancy here, and that Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith and Warhol were all regulars, but you may not know the previous 'CHELSEA' part of the neon sign sold at auction for $46,000 (£33,800) last year (each of the letters of 'HOTEL' went for just over $3,000 each). The rooms are plush, and the bar is genteel and refined, but predictably full of fashionistas.
Forbes
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Can ChatGPT Conquer Loneliness? The Pivot To AI In Therapy And Dating
Gen Z woman smiling at her phone getty Strolling through New York City a few weeks ago, one thing was unmistakable--ChatGPT has very much become a part of the zeitgeist. Whether shooting pool at Doc Hollidays in the East Village or sipping on a Bellini at Cipriani's in Soho, nearly all of the conversations overheard had some mention of the AI companion. My own AI use has increased substantially since first demoing ChatGPT on BBC TV. And not just with ChatGPT, but also with Claude, Grok, Gemini in Google Search, Meta AI on Facebook, even Rufus while shopping on Amazon. I spend so much time with AI these days, the expectation of how I interact with the appliances around me has been changing as well, including disappointment that I can't have a normal conversation with my refrigerator when I come home hungry, or with my TV when I want to order Lily Collins' green leather boots from Emily in Paris, or when I don't know why my car is flashing red. It's 2025, shouldn't I just be able to ask my devices for what I want, or better yet, shouldn't they already know. After all, cars are driving themselves and my phone talks to me all day long, about everything. During an on-the-record Informatica press dinner that I attended right before the company was acquired by Salesforce, CEO Amit Walia casually shared with our table of reporters how he has been using ChatGPT as a therapist, echoing the same sentiment that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said at Dreamforce last year: 'It's pretty helpful." With so many of us increasing our engagement with AI, and possibly dependence on it, it feels like we're approaching a tipping point. Former SNL comedian Colin Quinn warned of this during his set at the Comedy Cellar. He said, first they'll appear as friendly companions, part of our community, smiling at us in church. Next, he laughed, Armageddon. And that does seem to be the stage we're at with AI as our ever-affirming companion, sans Armageddon. Mark Zuckerberg recently shared a stat that the average American has fewer than three friends, yet demand is meaningfully more, like 15 friends. But Justin McLeod, CEO of the popular dating app Hinge, explained to me why it's not likely that AI will ever be able to fill the gap. 'AI is great when it comes to providing services, like people using it instead of Googling, asking it to solve problems and figure things out,' he said. 'What I'm concerned about are people using it as an emotional companion, like having this be my virtual boyfriend or girlfriend or my best friend--because it's tempting, it's tantalizing, It's always there for you. It's always going to say the right thing. And so why put in all this work into a relationship." 'But like junk food, it's ultimately going to feel really unfulfilling to have a relationship with AI, because there's no mutual sentient connection. It has no needs, you're not showing up for it in any way. You're not being of use to it in anyway. People want to feel useful and needed by friends as much as they want their friends to be there. You want the vulnerability and risk of putting yourself out there and feeling what that feels like. That is the richness, and without that, relationships become very hollow and empty,' he said. And yet it is AI that is making Hinge so effective at helping users find their match. The company has been leveraging AI to help increase users success at landing a first date, including AI-powered coaching that nudges users with guidance to make their profile standout and prompts like 'Are you sure?' to encourage them think twice before sending a potentially offensive comment. Parent company Match is all in on AI as well. Its CEO Spencer Rascoff recently took the stage with ChatGPT-maker Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, to announce that Tinder is partnering with Altman's World start up to biometrically scan irises in Japan to age verify users.
