Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle

The new NYU construction at 133-139 Macdougal Street, built on the ruins of the old Provincetown Playhouse, is almost ready to roll.  In just the last few weeks, much of the heavy-duty machinery, scaffolding, and traffic barricades have been relieved of their duties.  Instead, there are NYU security guards.  But that’s not all.

The perennial Greenwich Village frat-dive, Town Tavern, is now under new management.  Yellow signs in the windows announce this fact, as does the brown paper obscuring shots of the interior.

Yesterday afternoon, the in-production crime thriller Son of No One was filming inside Caffe Dante at 79 MacDougal Street.  Lead star Al Pacino sat in a director’s chair curbside for a good amount of time, drawing stares (and cameras) from giddy passersby.  This production was last seen on Grand Street back in mid-April.

Remember the Provincetown Playhouse (est. 1916) on MacDougal?  Like so many buildings across downtown, the last remaining piece of the historic structure is now held hostage by NYU.  Nevertheless, after a year wrought with overzealous demolition, stop work orders, and new construction, the legal facility is finally taking shape.

Getting clipped by scummy street-splash certainly sucks, especially while on a cell phone and without an umbrella.

Just two short months after Esperanto Cafe called it quits, a new java joint is opening a few doors north at 124 MacDougal Street.  Signs hanging in the papered windows above the underground Rabbit Club advertise a Pubblico Espresso Bar.