Photo: A lion dance team made its way down East Broadway Sunday afternoon. Today is Lunar New Year but celebrations for the Year of the Rabbit will continue in Chinatown for the next two weeks.
Lower East Side news headlines:
–Thirty-nine Regal movie theaters are closing, including the 14-screen complex at Union Square. Parent company Cineworld has filed for bankruptcy. The newish Regal cinema at Essex Crossing was not on the closure list. [Time Out]
–The city will launch a study this coming spring with an eye towards making Canal Street safer. But will anything actually come of the study? [Streetsblog]
–Some Chinatown activists are hoping statements from the mayor offer a ray of hope that current plans for a new Chinatown jail could be altered. [Tribeca Trib]
–The NYPD says smoke shop robberies more than quadrupled in the past year as more stores rushed to sell unlicensed cannabis. There was a shooting at a smoke shop on the Lower East Side earlier in the month. [The City]
–Revel is planning five electric vehicle “superhubs” in the city including one with 10 stations at Pier 36 on the Lower East Side. [Our Town]
–Clearing, a gallery “that helped trigger a groundswell of artistic activity in Bushwick in the early 2010s” is making the move to the Bowery, near the New Museum. It will take three floors of 260 Bowery. Gallery founder Oliver Babin says, “There’s nothing wrong with Brooklyn, but there’s more to New York than Brooklyn… We’re not leaving for a bigger or better space. We’re leaving for a better location.” [Artnews]
–A former souvenir shop in Chinatown has been transformed into a space to document the voices of Asian American experiences during the pandemic. [Hyperallergic]
–A look at what it’s like for lion dance teams to prepare for their Lunar New Year performances. [Well + Good]
–More Lunar New Year events [Indypendent]
