Gloria ChungGood morning, East Village.
Grub Street notices a listing that would seem to indicate that drag-queen institution Lucky Cheng’s is on the market for $25,000 a month. The link to the listing was live yesterday but is no longer available.
How’s Alec Baldwin enjoying his new digs at Devonshire House on East 10th Street between Broadway and University Place? As Curbed pointed out, he recently told Conan, “The Village is like one big bus depot of drunken young people.” Watch the clip and hear him continue: “It’s all night long. It’s like, ‘Stanley, you bastard!’ – women screaming at their boyfriends and punching their boyfriends, people screaming at each other… it’s like two o’clock in the morning. It’s loud. It’s young people drinking.”
A judge has ruled that the N.Y.P.D. was “not incompetently or in knowing violation of the law” when it arrested a 52-year-old man on charges of prostitution. According to Gay City News, Robert Pinte claimed he was arrested on false charges after being approached by an undercover officer who offered him $50 and oral sex in an East Village porn shop.
Paper magazine attended Tuesday’s celeb-studded Occupy Wall Street event at the Bowery Hotel. In addition to the names The Local told you to expect, musicians Michael Stipe and Mos Def showed up. Paper writes, “Though there was a good-sized turnout, the crowd had difficulty focusing at times, talking over many of the speakers to annoyed shushing.”
EV Grieve notices that Second Avenue bar Kabin has been temporarily shuttered by the health department.
Grieve also notices signs posted on the construction shed of the Starbucks that’s replacing the Bean. Let’s just say they aren’t very welcoming.
The Daily News points out that the U.S. Supreme Court has asked the state and city to submit briefs responding to an Upper West Side landlord who is arguing that rent-stabilization laws are a violation of his constitution rights — “a sign that the nine justices are taking Harmon’s arguments seriously.” According to the News, the court “hasn’t taken up a challenge to rent laws since the 1920s, when Oliver Wendell Holmes declared they were on the ‘verge’ of being unconstitutional.”
Will Travel for Vegan Food interviews Matthew Gross, a volunteer at the Food For Life program, and Adi Tarantino, one of the founding members of the organization that gives out free food in Tompkins Square Park three days a week. Mr. Gross explains the program’s “pro-Sodom” approach: “God has an unlimited number of names. We call him Krishna. We make the food for him. We offer it to him. He eats it on a spiritual level. What is left over is then for us.”
Off The Grid remembers a time when the area around 14th Street and Broadway “housed many notable department stores throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century including Macy’s (its building on 14th Street was recently proposed for landmark designation), Lord & Taylor, B. Altman, and S. Klein. It was the southern end of what would be called the ‘Ladies’ Mile. — an area with a concentration of department stores through the early twentieth century.”
According to the Daily Mail, Beyoncé was spotted at her favorite East Village nail salon yesterday.
And finally, congratulations to Bowery Boogie, which took home Best Neighborhood Blog at last night’s Village Voice Web Awards.
