Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

“A proposal to renovate a historic East Village synagogue and construct a penthouse suite on top of it took a step forward last week, with plans passing through a Community Board 3 committee and subcommittee and now awaiting approval from the full community board and the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.” [East Villager]

“A somewhat grim Department of Transportation parking lot on the Lower East Side is getting a major facelift (or facade-lift, as the case may be), courtesy of Michielli and Wyetzner Architects and the city’s ‘design excellence’ initiative.” [Curbed]

“Police were able to get their hands on a knife-wielding robber after he struck at a Union Square Taco Bell restaurant, but his accomplice fled with the cash.” [East Villager]

Clayton Patterson looks back on a summer morning in 1996 when “hundreds of police were getting ready to flood onto E. 13th St. between Avenues A and B, above, to evict squatters from several tenements.” [East Villager]

“DBGB Kitchen and Bar on the Bowery will be hosting a ‘Sausage Slam’ Wednesday night featuring a seemingly endless array of mouth-watering wursts served alongside bottomless pints from the Bronx Brewery.” [DNA Info]

“This area really wants vegan, so 90 percent of my stuff is,” says Jennifer Esposito of Jennifer’s Way, though she herself eats meat. [NY Post]