Timothy J. Stenovec Detectives at the scene of the stabbing Monday morning. Jairo Pastoressa, 25, a resident of the East Seventh Street tenement where the stabbing occurred, faces murder charges.

A 25-year-old East Village man was charged with murder last night in the fatal stabbing of another man early yesterday morning, the authorities said.

The suspect, Jairo Pastoressa, lived in a tenement at 272 East Seventh Street where the police said that Christopher Jusko, 21, was stabbed around 5:30 a.m. Monday. The authorities said that Mr. Pastoressa surrendered to the police shortly after the attack.

While detectives did not immediately provide details about a possible motive, Mr. Pastoressa’s neighbors said that the killing occurred after a dispute over a woman in whom both had a romantic interest.

The arrest of Mr. Pastroressa was confirmed by The Local this morning. It has also been reported by other news organizations.

One of Mr. Pastoressa’s neighbors, John Bonilla, said that a friend of Mr. Pastoressa’s family indicated that Mr. Pastoressa told investigators that he was acting in self-defense.

Mr. Bonilla described Mr. Pastoressa, his neighbor of about four years, as a “personable young man” and said that he “generally kept to himself.”

“We’d exchange hello and goodbye when he’d go out and walk his dog,” said Mr. Bonilla.

Mr. Bonilla said that neighbors along the stretch of East Seventh Street where the stabbing occurred were jolted by the crime.

“It’s very unnerving,” said Mr. Bonilla. “It doesn’t give you a good sense of security, and makes me wonder about staying in New York.”

Leslie Koch, a contributor to The Local East Village, visited the 20th annual Dog Parade at Tompkins Square Park Saturday and turned her lens on the costume competition.

Karen Biehl, of the Upper West Side, posed with her Chihuahua Eli. Their Egyptian costumes were created by pet fashion designer Roberto Negrin.
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Spencer Magloff Hundreds of participants munched their way through 15 eateries during the East Village Eats tour.

From sweet Maine shrimp rolls to Korean fried chicken, seitan dumplings to braised venison, the East Village was a food lover’s paradise on Saturday, as hundreds of participants and 15 eateries took part in the East Village Eats Tasting Tour.

With a map and complimentary spork in hand patrons trekked from one eatery to the next on a self-guided tour, sampling some of the best finger-licking foods the neighborhood has to offer from an assortment of varied restaurants. The event cost about $40.

“You walk by these places all the time, but never stop in,” said Zoe Lee-McDermott, a high school student and East Village resident. “This is definitely the best to way to learn what’s in your backyard.”

Saeju Jeong, 30, a tech entrepreneur, echoed the sentiment while gnawing on chicken wings. “Unless you spend $50, you don’t know if you’re going to like a restaurant. With this you can discover what you do and don’t like.”

Sponsored by the Fourth Arts Block, the tasting tour promoted local restaurants. Andy Song, manager of Mono+Mono, a Korean restaurant that opened in September on East Fourth Street, said he was hoping to garner new customers. “Since we just opened this is really a great way to advertise to new people in a new neighborhood. So far everyone has left happy,” he said.

Perhaps one of the most popular destinations was Luke’s Lobster, a little East Seventh Street seafood shop, packed with a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd that spilled out onto the sidewalk all vying for their sample of half a shrimp roll. Salacious-sounding moans encircled the restaurant as people chomped down on their rolls – some in as little as two bites.

“Picking restaurants can be hit or miss,” said Crystal Simpkin, 25, finishing up her shrimp on the congested sidewalk. “But so far, this is definitely my favorite, and I’ll be back.”

Timothy J. Stenovec Detectives have continued working at the crime scene along East Seventh Street through the afternoon.

The authorities this afternoon identified the victim of a fatal stabbing on East Seventh Street even as detectives were still trying to determine a motive for the crime.

Police said that the victim, Christopher Jusko, was stabbed once in the neck about 5:30 this morning inside an apartment at 272 East Seventh Street. Mr. Jusko, who was 21, was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Andre Tartar A group of eighth grade students at Tompkins Square Middle School, one of two schools in the East Village to receive “A” grades on a recent evaluation of city schools. Students attributed the school’s success to strong bonds with the faculty. “We are like a family,” said one eighth grader.

The halls of Tompkins Square Middle School fill with children headed to their next classes. The silver-haired dean of community affairs, Devan Aptekar, warns a visitor to get ready for some noise. But it never really comes. Instead of hollering and ricocheting off the walls, students chat with each other using their inside voices. A few even wave hello to Mr. Aptekar as they pass. Nearby, a math teacher jokes with a student and asks him to answer a question before he can enter the class: “What is negative fourteen squared?” Clearly, something is going right here.

In the wake of the recent progress reports on which East Village schools performed poorly, The Local decided to ask the two schools awarded “A” grades, Tompkins Square Middle School and East Side Community School, about the ingredients of their success.
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Timothy J. Stenovec Detectives are continuing their investigation into a fatal stabbing that occurred this morning on East Seventh Street.

Detectives are investigating a fatal stabbing that occurred this morning on East Seventh Street between Avenues C and D.

The police said that the victim is a 21-year-old man who was stabbed in the neck around 5:30.

The authorities have a taken another man into custody in connection with the incident.

Reporters from The Local are on the scene and we will post a full report as soon as we have more details.

Today, The Local East Village begins a new recurring feature highlighting the work of local photographers who are our community contributors.

Regular readers of The Local are likely familiar with the photography of Gloria Chung, whose contributions often grace our morning roundup of blogposts known as The Day. Ms. Chung, who’s lived in the East Village for seven years, discusses some of her favorite images and how she found them.
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Clint Rainey Frank Restaurant & Vera Bar, 88 Second Avenue.

Frank Prisinzano opened Frank’s, a trattoria on Second Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Street, in 1998, a time when the East Village was not yet a byword for funky cosmopolitanism. “I was the first of the small restaurants in the neighborhood,” Frank said, exercising perhaps a bit of poetic license. “People said we’d never make it. My ex-wife was out front, my father and I did the prep work.” They made it. Today the restaurant is the foundation of the Frankish empire, which also includes Lil’ Frankie and Supper, both on First Avenue between First and Second. And Frank himself is wreathed in glory, his restaurants celebrated in The Times, the Michelin Guide and elsewhere. Try getting a table at Supper on short notice.

Frank’s serves serious food in a self-consciously non-serious setting, which is to say that is very Lower East Side. On my first visit, I had a kind of galette made of an oozing straciatella the texture of crème fraiche on top of two thick slabs of tomato. Then I had fabulous beet ravioli. “It’s kind of a teenage-girl color,” my friend Nancy said — the purple of a scrunchy. It was a lovely summer day, and Nancy and I were sitting outside behind the white picket fence, which Frank has incongruously built out on to the sidewalk. Liesl Schillinger, the crackerjack book reviewer for The Times, walked by on her way to the Ottendorfer Public Library to return some books. That’s one of the nice things about sitting outside at Frank’s. Liesl was dressed for the season — vivid pink and lime green. “Her shirt was. . .” “The color of your lunch,” Nancy finished for me.
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The Local’s QR code.

Many New Yorkers have started to notice the odd square bar codes that are popping up on signs and advertisements around the city. These are called ‘QR codes’ which stands for Quick Response. QR codes provide a link between the physical world and the virtual world of the Internet. When you use your smartphone to scan a QR code you are often taken to a website with more information on a product or special offers. So while you use your mouse to click links on the computer you can now use your phone to ‘click’ QR links you find on the street. QR codes have been popular for years in Japan but are just now catching on in the United States.

We here at The Local East Village wanted to know how many people in our community were using QR codes. To find out, over the next several days we will be distributing Local East Village flyers – on brightly colored paper – to local businesses. When the code is scanned, your smart phone visits a site that we run so we can keep a tally of visitors and then is directed to The Local East Village. We are distributing four different versions of our flyer so that we can see how many people are using QR codes in different areas. We’ll publish our findings in a few weeks and share our data with you. If you see one of our flyers be sure to scan it so you can take part.

Have a smart phone but don’t know how to read QR codes? Simply go to your favorite app store and look for ‘qr reader’ – you’re sure to find a number of free programs to use.

Alexa Tsoulis-Reay Carlos Rodriguez, a customer of the fang-maker known as Father Sebastiaan, shows off his new fangs. The author, while researching an article on vampire culture, purchased a custom-made set of the prosthetics, too.

On a recent soggy fall evening just past 7 p.m., I found myself standing on Fourth Avenue, smoking a cigarette while my new custom-made vampire fangs set. Next to me hovered a six-foot tall man dressed in a shiny black butcher’s apron, splattered with white paste, like he had been interrupted while baking a cake. A black cowboy hat sat upon his long-blonde hair.

Meet Father Sebastiaan aka Sebastiaan van Houten: Master Fangsmith, a self-described living vampire and head of the Sabretooth Clan.

“The Father,” as he is commonly known, has lived in Paris since 2007. Attracted by the scent of Halloween, he returns to the East Village every October to custom design removable fangs. He sets up shop in a tiny red and black windowless room, just past the pirate costumes inside the Halloween Adventure costume store on Fourth Avenue near 11th Street. He is assisted by Victor Magnus, whom he met in 1995 in a Greenwich Village magic store and who now runs the New York arm of the fang business.

I had been researching vampire culture and heard that I must talk to Father Sebastiaan, fang-maker extraordinaire. When we met for the first time, he insisted that I experience the fang design firsthand to truly understand his craft. After some convincing, I submitted to the procedure.

Seated inside his cramped workroom, I was instructed to use my pinkies to stretch open my mouth and reveal the top of my teeth and gums. I felt like a cat, about to get an oral vaccination. “I’ll make them subtle,” he said, then, turning to Mr. Magnus, who hovered nearby, he added, “We don’t want to make her look like a beaver.” Next, I was told to roar and throw a pair of devil’s horns. This took some time for me to perfect.
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Carl Guadalupe The front steps of 98 St. Marks Place today (above) and as it appeared on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album “Physical Graffiti.”

The buildings’ stony expressions look out over this last leg of St. Marks Place going east, between First Avenue and Avenue A. At first glance these two buildings look like standard East Village stock, but, eyes wide-open, the facades of 96 and 98 St. Marks Place have witnessed musical history taking place on their very stoops.

They are the iconic buildings featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album Physical Graffiti, and also in the 1981 Rolling Stones music video, “Waiting on a Friend.”

Bobby Pinn, the creator and host of Rock Junket walking tours, “In the 70’s, Led Zeppelin were big fans of New York City. They partied here a lot and they played the Garden quite a bit, so they really had a close tie to New York. The cover was designed by Peter Corriston, a graphic design artist from New York. Peter said that he was looking for a building with a lot of character, which this building has with all the kings’ faces and it has that tenement-style feel with the fire escapes. He wanted a building that had symmetry and a lot of windows.”
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Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

The ongoing debate over bike lanes in the neighborhood took a new twist this week when Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr, the head of the Ninth Precinct, announced that his officers were stepping up efforts to ticket cyclists who flout traffic laws. The Times reports today on a similar effort by police across the city.

In other neighborhood news, we’d like to remind you, courtesy of Neighborhoodr, that Saturday will feature the 20th annual Halloween Dog Parade at Tompkins Square Park starting at noon. The Halloween Parade prompts us to tell you about our recurring feature, Beyond The Dog Run, in which we display photos of neighborhood pets here on The Local. If you’d like to contribute your photos, please join our Flickr Group.

While on the subject of photos from the neighborhood, we’d also like to tell you about a new feature on The Local’s photo contributors. Later today, we will showcase the work of Gloria Chung, who contributed the image above and whose work has often been featured here in our morning roundup.

And this morning the Village Voice posted an item from its archives about Sammy’s on the Bowery, the bar and music hall on the Bowery at East Third, which closed its doors in 1970 after 36 years.

Hannah Rubenstein Iana Di Bona (top) has been scrawling chalk messages on East Village sidewalks calling for civil rights for the gay community. Her effort is part of larger effort that includes a 24-hour vigil outside the offices of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on West 26th Street.

Iana Di Bona crouches low near the corner of St. Marks and First Avenue scrawling a chalk message that she would repeat on sidewalks across the East Village: “Gay Civil Rights! QueerSOS.com!” Her electric blues and purples are defiant against the monochromatic city streets.

“Some people don’t want to stop and take a flyer,” Ms. Di Bona says, explaining the chalk that now stains her fingers. “This is a graffiti tactic that brings attention and awareness to the cause.” She places the chalk in a tattered plastic bag and continues walking, searching for the next blank slate.

Graffiti activism is only the latest action that Ms. Di Bona and the group she represents, QueerSOS, have taken in recent days in hopes of promoting gay rights. Two months ago, the 30-year-old Ms. Di Bona quit her job as an office manager in an East Village medical office and began living off of savings, dedicating herself to social activism full-time.

Since Sept. 27, she has been part of a daily vigil outside of Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s campaign office on West 26th Street. For the past nine days, she and her best friend and fellow activist Alan Bounville, a 34-year-old former NYU student, have been sleeping on the sidewalk outside — an act of “political homelessness,” Ms. Di Bona says. QueerSOS, which stands for Standing OutSide, has only one mission: pressuring Senator Gillibrand to introduce the American Equality Bill.
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East Village Street Style from Sally L on Vimeo.

Last month, The Local showed you fall runway trends in some of the most popular neighborhood boutiques.

But what are East Villagers actually wearing now that the temperatures are dropping?

We took to the streets on a recent Sunday afternoon and asked stylish locals about their personal fall fashion.

Joan Heffler Warren Redlich.

Warren Redlich is a Libertarian who hates the war on drugs, supports gay marriage, thinks college loans harm more than help students, and wants to cap bureaucrat pay and pensions.

Mr. Redlich, 44, is the Libertarian party candidate for governor and his longshot campaign received a moment in the spotlight after his participation in the gubernatorial debate on Monday at Hofstra University.

If nothing else, Mr. Redlich, a lawyer from Albany, does not lack for confidence: he believes Carl Paladino is going to take third place in the Nov. 2 election – after he comes in first and Andrew Cuomo places second. Mr. Redlich spoke with The Local East Village on Wednesday about why voters should choose him, what they should know about him, and his love of East Village Korean food.

What do you think of Carl Paladino?

Carl Paladino is done. He’ll come in third place, if he’s lucky. After the debate, Carl’s campaign manager said it looked like I hadn’t taken my Prozac. They weren’t satisfied offending blacks, gays, women, Jews – I’m Jewish – now they’ve offended mental health patients. I think they’re going to stop on Nov. 3, when he comes in third place in the election.
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Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

Start the day by casting envious eyes in the direction of Jimmy McMillan, the “Rent is Too Damn High” gubernatorial candidate who – according to Gothamist – is renting an East Village apartment for his son at a cost of only $900 per month.

In other news, like the rest of the city we can’t help noticing that the CMJ Music Marathon is underway with over 1,200 live performances, mainly in downtown New York and Brooklyn. Lit Lounge and the Bowery Poetry Club are among the East Village venues hosting performances, but the musicians and fans are everywhere. The festival runs through Saturday, so there’s still time to catch a few dozen shows.

Speaking of music, especially of the loud variety, EV Grieve updates on us on the planned Halloween protest against pressure from Community Board 3 to reduce the quantity and volume on live music in Tompkins Square Park. We plan to be there.

Finally, a striking piece of visual history. It’s easy to walk by Alphabet Café on the corner of East 14th and Avenue B without giving the building a second thought. Vanishing New York has photographic evidence today that it has survived as a one-story structure for decades. How did the developers not notice this? And does anyone have an idea how old that first photo is?

There is no shortage of opinion when it comes to the speed hump installed in November 2009 on East 10th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

But now that the hump has been installed for nearly a year, many residents and storeowners are concerned about its effectiveness or confused by its location – or simply annoyed by it.

After several car accidents involving children in front of the 10th Street Boys’ Club, residents and neighbors from the local community board lobbied for the installation of a speed hump on the street.

Roadway layout and driveway locations are major factors that determine where the city places speed reducers, according to a spokeswoman with the Department of Transportation. The department determined the 10th Street hump’s current location as the best place to maximize safety for pedestrians crossing the road.

NYU Journalism’s Alexandra DiPalma, Sarah Tung and Rachel Wise describe the reactions of those who live and work near the speed hump.

Courtesy the Allen Ginsberg After the Tuesday release of a collaboration between the poet Allen Ginsberg and the musician Arthur Russell (above), a record company now plans to issue more previously unreleased music by Mr. Russell.

As previously reported on The Local, a new 12-inch single featuring a rare Allen Ginsberg-Arthur Russell collaboration was released Tuesday from Audika Records and Press Pop Music. But fans of Mr. Russell will be excited to hear that there’s more unearthed material on the way.

“There are a few things people haven’t heard that I want to get out,” said Audika Records founder Steve Knutson in a recent interview with The Local.

Mr. Russell, an East Village resident who died in 1992, collaborated with the Talking Heads, Studio 54 resident DJ Nicky Siano, and minimalist composer Philip Glass, among others. His diverse discography — ranging from avant-disco and experimental pop, to ethereal cello compositions and folk-tinged love songs — touched on many facets of the New York downtown scene in the ’70s and ’80s, and has been widely acclaimed.

Over the next six months, Mr. Knutson plans to “go full circle” with two additional never-before-heard releases, focusing primarily on smaller releases of Mr. Russell’s avant-disco work. One of those avant-disco tracks, “Let’s Go Swimming,” is currently being mastered. Mr. Knutson plans to release the remastered original 12-inch version (which he says “sounds better than the original”) backed with previously unreleased material.

Mr. Russell recorded “Let’s Go Swimming” several times. A reverb-laden, cello-based rendition of “Let’s Go Swimming” previously appeared on the 1986 album “World of Echo,” and an Arthur Gibbons mix of the “mutant disco” version appeared on 2004 compilation “The World of Arthur Russell” from Soul Jazz Records. But the original has yet to be released.

Mr. Knutson, who also manages Rough Trade Records in North America, founded Audika in 2003 for the sole purpose of releasing material from Russell’s archives. Focusing primarily on the musician’s experimental pop output, previous Audika releases have included the posthumous collections “Calling Out of Context” (2004) and “Love is Overtaking Me” (2008).

Though Mr. Knutson never met Mr. Russell, he has been an avid fan since the mid-‘80s, when he first heard the Walter Gibbons mix of Russell’s “Schoolbell Treehouse.” Knutson said it changed his life. “It was like what I’d been waiting to hear all my life,” he said. “I thought it was one of the most incredible things I’d ever heard.”

Nearly a year after the completion of their $1.2 million renovation, the 14th Street Y is putting the southwest corner of 14th and First even more firmly on the East Village cultural map. The Jewish community center (open to “all backgrounds”) is nearing completion of their brand new theater and positioning themselves to provide a community space for “puppetry, filmmaking, experimental theater, aligning Jewish texts with the arts,” according to Reva Gaur who works for the Educational Alliance, a network of social and cultural centers of which the Y is a part. Ms. Gaur says that the “new theater will serve as the only professional theater in a community space in the East Village” when completed.

There are three key players that have made such a theater possible. Stephen Hazan Arnoff, Executive Director of the 14th Street Y, David Tirosh, LABA (the Y’s community arts program) artist-in-residence and Becky Skoff, who manages the theater and the arts program for the Y.

Securing funds for the arts in a time of economic uncertainty is no easy feat. Impressively, the center’s renovation funds have now exceeded the original $1.2 million to nearly $1.5 million with the help of New York City Council Members Rosie Mendez and Dan Garodnick. According to Mr. Arnoff, Councilman Garodnick grew up in the neighborhood and even “attended pre-school at the Y”.

Said Ms. Gaur, “We reached out to City Council members Dan Garodnick and Rosie Mendez to think about how we could obtain the first funds needed for the project. They embraced our vision and supported our application for funds from the City Council Capital Budget. This resulted in a $250,000 from the city which we combined with other funds to make our vision a reality for the community.”

Ms. Gaur explained that “laba” is Hebrew for “lava,” signifying an ambition to delve beneath the surface of the cultural landscape to find ancient wisdom. It’s also wordplay on the English “laboratory.” The next major arts program event is “What Kind of Love Is This: Bob Dylan and the Band” a combined gallery exhibition, symposium, and concert. The theater has already announced collaboration with AMAS Musical Theater, Red Fern Theater Company and Variations Theater Group.