Evan Bleier

The owner of the building that housed Great Jones Lumber is seeking to add four floors of residential space, with high-profile architect Richard Metsky helming the enlargement.

Joseph Lauto, who owned the lumber business and is now manager of 45 Great Jones Street LLC, which owns the building, told The Local that the ground floor would remain a commercial space; the second and third floors would be converted to residential space and two new floors of apartments would be added. An application filed with the Department of Buildings indicates six new residential units will be added at a cost of $1,138,000. Read more…

Photos: Daniel Maurer, Stephen Rex Brown

Yesterday The Local spotted a fake throwback subway entrance being built on the corner of Bleecker and Mott Streets and today the Coen Brothers are using it as a prop for their film “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Moments ago, they were filming a scene in which the movie’s titular folk singer, played by a bearded Oscar Davis, ducks into a vintage car. Sprinklers were used to simulate rain, and ice on the ground simulated melted snow.

As in previous scenes, Llewyn was clutching a fake cat and a guitar case. During one take, the car only drove forward a few feet (not quite as impressive as a checkered cab coasting down Ninth Street), but there should be plenty more chances for action – the Coens are filming in the neighborhood through Friday.

As Village residents await Borough President Scott Stringer’s recommendation early next month regarding N.Y.U.’s expansion plans, The Local is taking a look at the impacts of the project. Today, we’re examining the concerns surrounding parking under the proposed development. Check back throughout the week for our coverage of concerns surrounding loss of light, the dog run, playgrounds, and the LaGuardia Community Garden. What other issues should we tackle? Let us know in the comments.

OK, so how is parking in Greenwich Village going to be affected by this plan?

Currently, there are 670 spaces in a garage underneath Washington Square Village. Of these, 150 are public and the rest, a total of 520, are reserved for residents and their guests. As proposed, 281 parking spaces will be permanently eliminated. No spaces will be available to the general public.

So, 281 lost? That sounds like a lot.

The new garage would have 389 total spaces, which is the minimum required by the city zoning code. The entirely private garage would be built starting in 2022 and would be accessible through only one entrance, whereas the existing one has two (on West Third and Bleecker Streets). The current garage operates at around 80-percent capacity, and has around 130 spaces available on a typical workday. N.Y.U. believes that the amount of traffic using the new garage will be significantly less than it is now, given that the lot will not be open to drivers regularly commuting into the area. Opponents like Terri Cude, co-chairwoman of the Community Action Alliance, argue that the single entrance and exit would create a choke point that would exacerbate traffic. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Joe Barbosa.

Rockit Scientist records will close at the end of April, and sidewalk vinyl vendor Joe Barbosa will remain in his normal spot in front of the store until the landlord finds a new tenant.

Mr. Barbosa told The Local that the landlord gave Rockit Scientist Records, which was expected to close at the end of February, an extension on its lease.

“I’m going to hang here until they rent the place out,” said Mr. Barbosa, who has subleased the space in front of the store for several years. He added he was already thinking of a new spot to sell his records. “Hopefully I’ll be able to find something on this block. Haven’t seen anything as of yet, though.”

Hey, there’s always the minivan option…

Daniel Maurer Andy Koszewski at the cafe’s front counter.

The Bowery Poetry Club’s front café, which went dark after Bowery Beef closed last summer, is once again brewing coffee, this time under the eye of a former manager at Think Coffee’s Mercer Street location (not the Bowery location just a block away – that would be awkward).

Andy Koszewski, the café’s new operator, opened shop earlier today, and is pouring drip coffee ($2.50, refills $1.50) from Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., a stylish small-batch roaster from his hometown of Milwaukee, Wis. Once the La Marzocco machine is back from the repair shop later this week, he’ll be pulling espresso ($2.50) for cappuccinos ($3.75), mochas ($4.25) and the like. Also on offer: Chai lattes, hot chocolate, and eventually croissants and quiches from Ceci Cela Patisserie, salads from Choice Greens, and cookies from Salt of the Earth Bakery. Read more…

The police are on the hunt for a man suspected of a string of four robberies at knife-point, two of which occurred within the span of 20 minutes.

The police said that on March 13 at around 4:30 a.m. the suspect robbed a 41-year-old man at Seventh Avenue and West 12th Street. Less than a half-hour later he struck again at East 14th Street and First Avenue, robbing a 24-year-old man. In both cases the victims handed over their cash and cellphones.

The man is also wanted in connection with two other similar incidents. The first occurred on Feb. 25 at West 26th Street and Broadway. The other March 17 on the platform of the 23rd Street station of the F train. None of the four victims were injured, the police said.

Photos: Tim Schreier

The pews of Middle Collegiate Church were packed on Sunday morning as more than 400 people worshiped in hooded sweatshirts in honor of slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin.

“We are wearing hoodies in solidarity with all those who seek justice,” associate minister Chad Tanaka Pack told the group at the beginning of the “Wear A Hoodie to Church” service, urging those with hoods to put them on.

The sight of worshipers dressed similarly to the demonstrators who flooded Union Square last Wednesday might have been disconcerting if not for Middle Collegiate’s credo: “Welcoming. Artistic. Inclusive. Bold.” The church on Second Avenue espouses a commitment to economic, social and LGBT justice, and was one of the houses of worship that opened its doors to Occupy Wall Street protesters after Zuccotti Park was cleared by police in November. Read more…

Daniel MaurerA woman protests the arrest of Mesiah
Hameed earlier in the day.

Multiple arrests – five of which were witnessed by The Local – occurred this afternoon during a march protesting police brutality organized by the Occupy Wall Street movement. The arrest of a teenager drew outrage when she was carried to a police van with her bra exposed.

Susan Howard, the New York City chapter coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild, said that an estimated 21 people were arrested during Occupy-related activities throughout the day, with “about a dozen” arrested during the march from Zuccotti Park to Union Square. The police were not yet able to confirm a number of arrests.

Videographer Paul Davis, who witnessed the arrest of Mesiah Hameed on Mott Street below Prince Street around 2:50 p.m., said the teenager was obstructing police movement before she was detained. “She was blocking the scooters from going,” he said. “Civil disobedience. Somebody grabbed her, one of the deputy inspectors.” Read more…

On Monday, just a couple of weeks after Occupy Wall Street’s Illuminator rolled through the East Village, the neighborhood’s walls were lit up once again. This time the art wasn’t political: it was created by Dawn of Man Productions, a collective specializing in guerrilla projections. Check out their far-out, far-up work in The Local’s video.

Ray Lemoine

She’s been called “NYC’s biggest killjoy,” and now she’s looming larger than ever. Last Tuesday at Community Board 2’s S.L.A. Licensing meeting, longtime activist Zella Jones publicly unveiled the NoHo-Bowery Stakeholders, a group of heavy-hitters that will act as a united front in helping to determine the course of the historic neighborhood – with Ms. Jones as President and Chief Operating Officer.

Two years in the works and modeled after similar organizations in Baltimore and San Francisco, the non-profit 501(4)c consists of 250 paying members, including residents of NoHo, local real estate and business owners, and non-profits such as the Merchant’s House Museum and La MaMa.

At Community Board 2 meetings, where Ms. Jones and her loose coalition of concerned neighbors were once the neighborhood’s scrappy watchdogs, they’ll now be part of what Ms. Jones likens to “A Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book about President Lincoln’s cabinet.

“We have some really powerful people – some of whom traditionally have squared off against each other for a variety of reasons, from out-of-scale development to landmarking to nightlife proliferation – all involved for the benefit of NoHo,” she said, adding that the group’s members range from “purist” property owners who began their NoHo careers in artist-in-residence lofts to the more recent arrivals living in the sleek new properties on Bond Street. Read more…

The plot thickens. A new note (at least the fifth of its kind) posted in the window of the law office of Zenon B. Masnyj details a board meeting of an undisclosed credit union in which members were pressed to disclose charitable donations. “As elderly people subjected to two dozen introductions, financial reports and calls for applause that would make a Tupperware hostess blush, testily waited to get their free lunch he read off the names of dozens of charities that the credit union claims to have given money to,” the item in all-caps reads. And the mysterious credit union critic isn’t done yet: the note hints at a trip by board members to Europe may have been an unnecessary expense.

Stephen Rex Brown

Go enjoy the lovely weather in International Bar’s backyard and you’ll be surprised to find a wooden fence splitting it in half. The divider is the result of a court battle roughly a year ago that pitted the owners of the bar against the neighboring German sausage and beer joint.

A co-owner of International Bar, Shawn Dahl, said that the landlord of both businesses, Steven Croman, had rented the whole backyard to International when it opened after its renovation, and subsequently rented half of it to Wechsler’s when it opened in 2009.

“When Wechsler’s came along it turned out that the landlord had rented them the backyard as well,” Ms. Dahl said, later adding, “I blame the landlord.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

It may be too late to buy the CBGB name, but you can now snag Life Cafe’s. A few weeks after the failure of negotiations to bring the legendary corner spot back from the brink, its trademark is now up for grabs.

A Craigslist posting offers up the right to use the name of the cafe – “immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical ‘Rent’” – for restaurants, t-shirts, cups, and marketing material.

To sweeten the deal, the ad says the “current East Village liquor license may be available” and offers up the services of John Sunderland, the artist responsible for much of Life’s branding and its fanciful chalkboard menus.

Hey, if you want to own a piece of East Village restaurant history, it’s either this or those Ratner’s buttons.

The head of the organization that spent $20,000 rebranding a part of Vancouver as The East Village says the name isn’t a rip-off of our East Village. “People have said we’re copying the East Village in New York, when we’re not,” Tricia Barnes of the Hastings North Business Improvement Association tells Canada’s News1130. “There are East Villages around the world.”

Indeed there are! Read more…

Daniel Maurer

A few weeks after filming at Hopper House the Coen Brothers are back, and taking advantage of NoHo’s cobblestone for their 60s flick “Inside Llewyn Davis.” A flyer on Bond Street between Lafayette and Bowery indicates they’ll be shooting Tuesday through Friday of next week. Cars must be moved by Monday at 9 p.m.

Mere hours after opponents of N.Y.U.’s expansion plan rallied on the steps of City Hall, they get a big boost from Michael Kimmelmann, the architecture critic of the Times. “Common sense and the billions of dollars that the project would cost suggest the university would be hard pressed to build half of what it’s outlining during the next decade or two,” Mr. Kimmelmann writes, calling for a scaled-back version of the project that would build only two of the proposed buildings and include additional green space. Meanwhile, The Daily News ran an editorial earlier this week strongly in favor of N.Y.U., as well as an op-ed last week by former Mayor Ed Koch that supported the plan.

N.Y.P.D. The suspected thief.

As if blind dates aren’t awkward enough. A 20-something man stole a 50-year-old woman’s cell phone and wallet after going on a date with her in the Lower East Side on March 9, the police said.

The victim reportedly arranged a night out with the alleged thief — who may be named Hayden — over the internet. The pair parted ways at the Second Avenue station, and then the victim realized her items were missing. The police described the suspect with corn rows in his hair as roughly six-foot-one and around 165 pounds.

Earlier this week The Local’s crime blotter, “Police and Thieves,” reported two cases of victims taking their dates home for the night, only to be robbed in the morning.

Stephen Rex Brown Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society, opened the press conference today.

Around 90 opponents of N.Y.U.’s controversial expansion urged Borough President Scott Stringer to disapprove of the plan, reiterating their longstanding claims that it would overwhelm the neighborhood and destroy much-needed green space.

“This kind of development is character-defining in all the wrong ways,” said Simeon Bankoff, the executive director of the Historic Districts Council and one of over a dozen speakers at the rally this afternoon. “This plan will not build up this section of the Village, it will destroy it.” Read more…