Good morning, East Village.
The video above just hit YouTube and is said to have been made for the PS 122 video workshop. It pairs audio of Paul DiRienzo’s coverage for WBAI of the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riots with video of the park ten years later. But the park’s history of protest isn’t entirely behind it: stay tuned for our report from the Occupy Town Square event yesterday.
Crain’s New York profiles Andrew Berman, the head of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation who is often quoted in these pages. And the profile isn’t exactly flattering: dubbing him “The Obstructionist,” Crain’s says that “developers may finally be getting the upper hand on their longtime tormenter” (citing NYU 2031, among others) and writes that “Mr. Berman’s outsize personality and nose for the limelight has alienated activists, community board members and other neighborhood groups who have been his allies over the years. At the same time, dustups between Mr. Berman and others have bruised egos and increasingly splintered a fragile coalition seeking to insulate the area from development.”
Speaking of gentrification, The Daily News notes that Life Cafe is for rent, and gets the obligatory quote from the publicist for “Rent,” which was written at Life: “The East Village of ‘Rent’ is a very different place than the East Village of today,” says Richard Kornberg. “‘Rent’ helped gentrify that neighborhood, but unfortunately places like Life which were once institutions could no longer fit in the market.”
The Times profiles Ludwika Mickevicius, the beloved owner of Lucy’s who is no stranger to The Local. She explains why the place hasn’t changed in years: “Many people hear about me and they come in and say, ‘Lucy, don’t change anything; we like it like this.’ Plus, change costs a lot of money.”
Washington Square News reports that NYU’s Brittany residence on East 10th Street will be closed for renovations next spring.
New York magazine is a fan of Bobwhite Lunch & Supper Counter: “Just stepping into this tiny, bustling, Rockwellesque feeding station with its eighteen seats (six of them counter stools) will boost your morale.” The fried chicken is “pretty much perfect: crunchy, crackling, juicy, relatively greaseless, and full of flavor.” We hear its biscuits are good, too.
In a short video teasing “Death, It Happens: A Girl’s Guide to Death,” playing at the Frigid New York festival, Maureen Van Trease tells East Village Arts that the play “will do for death what Vagina Monologues did for vaginas.”
The Times reviews “From the Streets, From the Clubs, From the Houses,” a part of Danspace Project’s Platform 2012: Parallels, which runs through March 31 at St. Mark’s Church. The four-part performance’s final work, “Hoo-Ha (twister pump breakdown)” is “a smart, moving, gorgeous work.”
A couple of East Village spots get ringing endorsements: actor Paul Dano tells The Post that he and his girlfriend have spent time at Odessa, Blue & Gold and Big Bar, and the folks who started the Hello Bitter line of cocktail bitters tell Paper that they’d love their product to be served at Momofuku’s Booker & Dax.
