The Day | More Lewdness in the Park

Ricky PowellScott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

By the looks of Scott Lynch’s photo above, Gem Spa is still missing an E.

The owner of Azaleas writes in to tell us the clothing and accessories store is moving around the corner to 140 Second Avenue, between St. Marks Place and Ninth Street. In the meantime, the current store at 223 East 10th Street is having a “humongoid” moving sale with $5 clearance baskets.

Tonight’s N.Y.U. Against the Sexton Plan benefit just got a special guest: we’re told Gord Gano of Violent Femmes has been added to a bill that already includes Thurston Moore, John Zorn, David Amram, and other heavy hitters.

Some more park lewdness: “A man was busted for allegedly slapping the buttocks of a 25-year-old woman strolling in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village,” police sources told the Post. Meanwhile, Gothamist reports that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants to toughen sex crime laws. She says, “We’re not going to yield one piece of parkland, not one blade of grass, not one street corner in the city of New York to sexual predators.”

Alec Baldwin is off the hook, says the Post. “The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has declined to prosecute the ’30 Rock’ star for his scuffle with a photographer, sources familiar with the case said tonight.”

The Observer notes that artist Wade Guyton, who previously lived in an East Village rental, has paid $1.27 million for a co-op at 8 West 13th Street, over in Greenwich Village.

Off the Grid goes back a hundred years to look at the corner of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, where the New School’s new building is currently nearing completion.

The Times gives a star to Yunnan Kitchen on the Lower East Side, which “takes a farmers’ market approach to the cuisine of Yunnan Province in China. Few New Yorkers know much about this food, which allows Travis Post, the chef, and Erika Chou, the owner, to take liberties without being pulled over by the authenticity police.”