Good morning, East Village.
In case you missed our weekend posts, a homeless man was arrested after a woman said she was raped while sleeping in Tompkins Square Park Friday night. Plus, two more disturbing incidents: on Saturday, a NoLIta man was shot and killed outside of a Lower East Side barber shop, and on Sunday morning, a New Jersey man was slashed to death near Union Square. We’ll have more on that later this morning.
The Times notes that friends and relatives of Lower East Side documentarian Bradley Will are still pressing for information about his 2006 killing in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Former East Village couple Amber Tamblyn and David Cross got married, per US Weekly. An attendee said that Yo La Tengo played Superchunk, Mission of Burma, and Pixies covers at the ceremony.
Another former East Villager, John Leguizamo, will release a video along with the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation that will call for Mayor Bloomberg “to landmark 25 blocks of the South Village, which stretches from Washington Square Park to Watts Street and from Sixth Avenue to La Guardia Place,” according to The Post.
The G.V.S.H.P.’s blog, Off the Grid, reminds us that the South Village is “a dynamic and thriving community which has a number of significant sites like the birthplace of former NYC Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia, the home Padrone Luigi ‘Papa’ Fugazy, the Church of St. Anthony of Padua, the oldest existing Catholic Italian parish in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a wealth of wonderful places to buy or eat food.”
Per NY1, Richard Wright of Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection wants out of a possible East Village-Lower East Side Historic District. “Wright says the church has asked the LPC to be removed from the district and is waiting to hear back. He also worries that the new district would gentrify the neighborhood.”
Ephemeral New York reprints a photo of the Bowery looking north from Grand Street. “The low-rise tenement buildings on the left are still there, now occupied by lighting shops. Cooper Union looms way in the distance.”
Curbed points out a remarkable Lower East Side renovation. The owner “spent two months on design and three and a half on construction, tearing away plaster to expose the brick north-facing wall and constructing most of the surfaces out the same Maple veneer plywood used in the Eames furniture.”
The Times profiles John Cornelius Foley, who lived on the Bowery for 20 years. He’s now in a subsidized apartment in the Bronx but still feels the pull of his former life.
While Guest of a Guest singles out seven restaurants to try in the Lower East Side, Cooking Channel personality Chuck Hughes takes the Daily News on a food tour of the East Village, stopping into Abraco, Porchetta, Luke’s Lobster, and Gem Spa.
Grub Street reports that Cafe Katja will reopen this week: “the formerly minuscule Lower East Side Austrian restaurant has expanded into the storefront next door, emerging with 52 seats and an expansive U-shaped bar in the center of its dining room.”
