Natalie Rinn The Economic Development Subcommittee.

New zoning meant to encourage retail diversity in the East Village might not go far enough, Community Board 3 considered last night. Speaking to the board’s Economic Development Subcommittee, an urban planner urged attendees to consider forming a group that would gather consumer data used to encourage landlords to let the butcher and baker move in — instead of the barkeep or “Sandwich Artist.”

The more aggressive — and costly — approach to retail diversity is also the most effective, said Larisa Ortiz, the head of Larisa Ortiz Associates, a consulting firm for commercial districts.

Only by collecting hard data that demonstrates that a fishmonger or cobbler (for example) can prosper in the neighborhood will landlords let them move in, Ms. Ortiz said. Read more…

Laura Edwins

Councilwoman Rosie Mendez joined around 50 tenants of three buildings on a stoop at 50 East Third Street yesterday evening to protest the unexpected non-renewal of their leases.

Last month, the Local reported that roughly 17 market-rate tenants from 50, 54 and 58 East Third Street received letters demanding that they move out when their leases expire over the summer. Their landlord, Abart Holdings, is in negotiations to sell the buildings.

Yesterday the tenants, some strumming guitars and singing protest songs, assembled outside of their buildings along with the councilwoman and representatives from activist organizations Good Old Lower East Side and the Cooper Square Committee. Read more…

Godlis A 1977 photo of CBGB, which operated on the Bowery from 1973 to 2006. Owners of the club’s assets are now planning a festival and seeking to revive it at a new site.

For the last six years the name CBGB has been little more than a logo on T-shirts for young people in the East Village. Now a group of investors has bought the assets of that famous punk-rock club, which closed in 2006, and plans to establish an ambitious music festival this summer, with an eye toward reopening the club at a new downtown location.

The new owners of the club’s assets — some with ties to the original Bowery establishment — say they hope that the festival will revive the wide-open artistic aesthetic associated with CBGB, which in its heyday served as an incubator for influential acts like Television, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Sonic Youth and Patti Smith. Read more…

Sitting on their couch one Saturday night while in college, Roni Jesselson and his roommate Mike Dabah started talking about how much they missed hockey. They had played in Jewish youth leagues, and discussion soon turned to how they could re-connect with the game they loved. They decided to organize a casual pick-up hockey league at Tompkins Square Park.

“We were like, ‘We have to do this’,” said Mr. Jesselson, 26, a documentary filmmaker who lives in Greenwich Village. “And from there it bloomed.”

At first, they used garbage cans instead of a net and goalie. Mr. Jesselson and Mr. Dabah would call friends late into the night trying to scrap together enough players for a game of three-on-three. But gradually, the scrimmages increased in organization, and in popularity. Today, five years later, the league’s mailing list boasts 45 people from as far as Queens or New Jersey.

The players are an “eclectic mix” of Jews (both religious and non-practicing, Mr. Jesselson said) and the game takes on a uniquely Jewish twist. Read more…

Daniel Maurer The flyer for the stolen cycle.

Remember the guy who recovered his stolen bike after posting flyers around the neighborhood? Rich Minkoff is hoping he’ll be so lucky. The Greenpoint resident’s custom-built bike, estimated to be worth $2,000, disappeared from Avenue A last week, and now he has papered the area in an effort to get it back.

Mr. Minkoff said that around 10:30 a.m. Thursday, he met his girlfriend, who lives in Stuyvesant Town, at Table 12, the coffee shop at Avenue A and 12th Street. He rested his bike against a table outside of the café and walked in to fetch his girlfriend. Within two minutes, it was gone. Read more…

Kwanwoo Jun A man prays at the grave of a relative who
was buried in 1830.

Two of the New York Marble Cemetery’s vaults may soon be reclaimed and put up for sale for the first time since 1830.

The cemetery hasn’t seen a new burial since 1937. But that may soon change. On July 15, its operators will ask the New York State Department of Cemeteries if they can reclaim two of its graves. In New York, a vault may be reclaimed if it is empty, if there has been no contact with the owners for over 75 years and if no owners can be found after diligent searching and advertising. Read more…

Daniel Maurer The mural-in-progress this morning.

Ray LeMoine David Nordine on Saturday.

Last week it was The Bean’s forthcoming location, and this week an Avenue A newcomer makes itself known with a mural. On Saturday, David Nordine, 27, was painting what he said would be “a cameo of a man and woman facing each other” on the wall that Amor y Amargo shares with its forthcoming sister establishment, Gin Palace. (The building at Avenue A and Sixth Street also houses Cienfuegos, a cocktail bar by the same owners.)

Mr. Nordine, who lives on Third Street, has done other work in the neighborhood, including murals on the walls of Mama’s Food Shop and the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union.

Created with Photos: Tim Schreier

A handful of new exhibits opened at the New Museum last week. Click through our slideshow to preview three of them: Phyllida Barlow’s “Siege” (slides 1 through 4; showing through June 24) is the British sculptor’s first New York solo exhibition. “Five Americans” (slides 5 and 6; through July 1) showcases British filmmaker and photographer Tacita Dean’s portraits of dancer Merce Cunningham, art critic Leo Steinberg, and visual artists Julie Mehretu, Claes Oldenburg, and Cy Twombly. And “The Parade” (slides 7 through 13; through Aug. 26 in the Studio 231 space adjacent the museum) pairs the films of Nathalie Djurberg with bird sculptures that the Swedish claymation artist created from wire, clay, and canvas.

Also showing: “Bodies of Society,” an installation by Ms. Djurberg’s compatriot, Klara Linden, and Ellen Altfest’s “Head and Plant,” collecting the New York artist’s recent oil paintings of male anatomy.

David X Prutting/BFAnyc.com The Hole’s dinner for Dior Vernis.

After blurring the line between art and landscaping, The Hole is now bending the boundaries between art and food. Last night, the Bowery gallery held a dinner party that introduced attendees to the medium of “pour painting,” and this summer, The Local has learned, it will open a pop-up “artist cafe,” cheekily dubbed Hole Foods.

The pop-up cafe is in part the vision of The Hole’s founder, Kathy Grayson, who described herself as an arm-chair restaurant critic and food blogger. “I had never seen an artist-designed restaurant, only restaurants with a few sad paintings on the walls,” she told The Local. “I thought that the artists I represent are all interdisciplinary and are capable of doing not just painting and drawing but sculpture, video, design, installation, furniture, you name it.”

On Wednesday, the Meatball Factory temporarily closed on 14th Street and Second Avenue so that Brooklyn-based artist Joe Grillo could install a mural on its walls, ceilings, and floors. Read more…

HiFi Bar and B.A.D. Burger both set up somber shrines to the neighborhood’s past today. The bar at 169 Avenue A just announced on Twitter that the vintage photo booth from the recently-closed Lakeside Lounge now has a new home. And just next door, a tipster tells EV Grieve that a candle is burning in honor of Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys, who died today. Back in 1982 the Beastie Boys recorded “Polly Wog Stew” in the B.A.D. Burger space, which once was a studio.

Stephen Rex Brown One of the many students at yesterday’s rally against the cuts to after-school programs.

A panoply of politicians blasted Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to slash funding for after-school programs citywide yesterday, saying the cuts would have a particular impact on the Lower East Side.

“It’s outrageous,” said Councilwoman Margret Chin, whose district would lose seven out of 10 of its after-school programs if Mr. Bloomberg’s budget proposal is approved in its current form. “He needs to look at these kids and say, ‘You don’t count.'” Read more…

The conflicts over the future of two of the city’s most revered academic institutions rage on. Over in Greenwich Village, add Bloomberg’s architecture critic to the list of people not fond of N.Y.U.’s expansion plans. “For a while I thought these expressionless shapes were simply cartoon placeholders for real buildings that could be developed with a great deal more sensitivity,” reads the hard-hitting review. And over at Cooper Union, students have begun a petition drive in support of an alternative plan, dubbed “The Way Forward,” that suggests ways to raise revenue without charging students tuition.

Daniel Maurer The bar at 170 Avenue A.

Once again, it’s neighbor versus nightlife: Bar on A is locked in a battle of wills with an upstairs tenant who has frequently complained to city authorities about what she says is “extreme noise.”

However, a person associated with the 17-year-old watering hole, which opened around the same time as the recently shuttered Lakeside Lounge, blames the neighbor for incessant complaints which he says have cost the establishment tens of thousands of dollars in revenue and even resulted in a police raid.

Mitch, an associate of Bar on A who did not want to be identified by his last name owing to the bar’s delicate situation, blamed the present conflict on “this nuisance neighbor who’s abusing the 311 system and recruiting people like a vigilante to hang us and hang everybody else in the neighborhood.” Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The Mars Bar site today

The Department of Buildings smacked a partial Stop Work Order on the former Mars Bar site today. A sign posted on the plywood construction fence at First Street and Second Avenue, where a 12-story condo is being erected, indicates that “all chopping and saw cutting on foundation walls” must cease.

It’s uncertain what provoked the order (we’ll let you know what we hear from the D.O.B.), but it isn’t the first hiccup at 25 East First Street. According to paperwork, a partial Stop Work Order was served last month after the Department of Buildings received a complaint that a crane appeared to be unsafe, and an inspector found that the project’s engineer of record hadn’t signed off on it. That issue has now been resolved.

In December, before the dive bar was toppled, another stop work order was issued after a worker was injured during a ceiling collapse.

Suzanne Rozdeba Joe Barbosa had been selling records outside of the store.

Earlier today, John Kioussis hauled a turntable and a few remaining crates of records out of an empty, darkened storefront at 33 St. Marks Place. Before locking up the narrow nook that has housed Rockit Scientist Records since 2003, he said he had closed in part because of squabbles with one of his landlords.

Mr. Kioussis let forth a litany of complaints about Amnon Kehati, a co-owner of the building (which is for sale) and of Mark Burger next-door: he had set up tables in front of his store without asking, made unreasonable complaints about garbage bags being left out, and accused the record store of attracting rats.

“The reason we have rats in the building, according to the landlord, is because I have records downstairs and rats are attracted to records,” Mr. Kioussis said as he cleared out his shop. “I wonder what scientist would tell you that Bob Dylan and Sex Pistols records attract rats as opposed to bags of tomatoes and onions all over the floor.” Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The scene at 152 Second Avenue at around 1:30 p.m.

Workers building a three-floor extension to 152 Second Avenue put out a minor fire at around 1:30 p.m.

A pair of workers at the site said that the fire was little more than a spark from an open gas line.

“They had a fire extinguisher handy and it went out right away,” said Battalion Chief Jim Tracy.

Daniel Maurer

After months of struggling to hang on, Zee’s Pet Shop and Supply has closed. Workers who earlier today were breaking down the empty storefront on Avenue B, near 10th Street, said they didn’t know when exactly the business folded, and had no idea who would occupy the space next. It’s the latest closure off of the northeast corner of Tompkins Square Park, following Life Café and Lakeside Lounge.

Back in February, Timothy Sanders, the landlord at 155 Avenue B, told The Local that Zee was having trouble making the rent. He wasn’t available for comment today.

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Essex Card Shop

Shira LevineM. Aslam (left) and Jayant Patel (right) outside of their store.

Twelve years ago, Jayant Patel came to the East Village for cheaper rent (yes, your read that correctly), after the monthly dues were hiked at his 12-year-old stationery store at 116th Street and Broadway. Back then, the rent in the city-owned building at 39 Avenue A was $3,500. It’s now $5,800, and the modest paper store has expanded to include items like printer cartridges, socks and baby clothes. Five years ago, Mr. Patel, who is Indian, partnered with M. Aslam, a Pakistani immigrant. Not only are the two of them making it at Essex Card Shop (and at their other store, Village Stationery on LaGuardia Place), but as Mr. Patel revealed to The Local, a movie is being made about his life story.

There is a lot of quirkiness in here, with thoughtful quotations you’ve pasted here on the counter. What is your philosophy on life?

Mr. Patel: My philosophy is “truth, love, and honesty.” It’s universal. Trust is something everyone follows. If you are truthful then people will trust you. I see myself as Muslim, Hindu, Christian, all in one. If you’re nice to people, people are friendly. People in New York are good. New York is a tough town, but it’s full of good people if you stop and experience it. Life is hard and not always comfortable. Struggle makes you strong and I don’t mind it. Read more…

Daniel Maurer An abandoned bike in the East Village.

The East Village and Lower East Side aren’t just a hotbed of bicycle accidents: they’re also where most of the city’s abandoned bikes are, if a new map is any indicator.

A project launched by WNYC’s Transportation Nation on Tuesday asks users to submit geo-located photos of unclaimed bicycles. The site aims to come up with a citywide tally of clunkers that have been chained to sign posts for months (or even years) at a time.

So far, 250 photos have been sent in across the five boroughs: the Lower East Side comes in first with 17 jalopies spotted, and the East Village follows close behind with 16. Read more…