Photos: Tim Schreier

More than a thousand people rallied in Union Square on Wednesday evening with the parents of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager who was shot dead in Florida in late February. The protest, dubbed “A Million Hoodies March for Trayvon Martin” on Facebook and elsewhere, attracted an angry and racially diverse crowd of New Yorkers.

“We’re not going to stop until we get justice for Trayvon,” Tracy Martin told the crowd of his son, according to The Lede. “George Zimmerman took Trayvon’s life for nothing.” Mr. Zimmerman, a white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer, shot the teenager after telling a 911 dispatcher he had seen a “black male” who “looks like he’s up to no good.” A controversial self-defense law has kept him from being charged.  Read more…

The Police Department has released stomach-churning footage of alleged Occupy Wall Street demonstrators dumping a disgusting mix of what is said to be human waste in a bank and a stairwell last week.

According to the police department, surveillance cameras captured protesters on March 14 dragging a tub filled with a mix of urine and feces into a public plaza at Nassau and Cedar Streets at 8 p.m. They then poured the concoction down a stairwell. About 20 minutes later, another camera caught a man dumping waste inside of a Chase Bank on Water Street. A witness gave investigators the license plate number of the van allegedly used to haul the smelly brew, and two days later they arrested 25-year-old Jordan Brooks Amos of Philadelphia. Mr. Amos is charged with unlawful possession of noxious matter, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, and criminal possession of a weapon due to a stun gun that was allegedly in his vehicle.

The gross video was immediately met with shock — and some skepticism — on Twitter.

Daniel Maurer

The high-profile owners of the long-vacant “mystery lot” on 13th Street have applied for a construction permit, setting the wheels in motion for what promises to be a blockbuster eight-story condominium.

The application, filed last Thursday by developer Scott Shnay, indicates that the lot between Second and Third Avenues will get an eight-story mixed-use building containing 71 residential units. (The Post previously reported that the building would be a condo containing 82 units, to be completed late next year.) According to the application, which was under review as of Monday, the project will boast 5,275 square feet of commercial space (Brokers Weekly initially reported 4,500 square feet).

The architect of record is Todd Poisson of BKSK Architects, the firm behind 25 Bond Street, where a $19.5 million apartment was briefly home to Will Smith. In addition to Mr. Shnay and his brother Abe, developers said to be attached to the lot, which sold in November for $33 million, include Ironstate Development (a partner in The Standard East Village) and Charles Blaichman, whose projects include the Soho House building, the Richard Meier-designed 173/176 Perry Street, and an aborted hotel project with Jay-Z.

City Room reports that a total of six protesters were taken into custody during this morning’s clashes between police and Occupy Wall Street protesters in Union Square. Charges include resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Meanwhile, a non-Occupy demonstration protesting what many say is a lack of justice in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is slated to occur in the park this evening.

Daniel Maurer 239 East 14th Street in background.

It’s official: 7-Eleven is moving in next to the IHOP on 14th Street. A few weeks ago, Larry Guttman, the landlord of 239 East 14th Street told The Local that multiple parties were vying for the building’s storefront. Today, he confirmed that he had signed a lease with the corporate convenience store.

Mr. Guttman said he went with the chain because it seemed “more positive for the area” than the adult establishment before it (Exquisite DVD & Video closed when its lease expired) and preferable to yet another watering hole. “There are so many bars moving into the area that it might just get overwhelmed with that,” he said over the phone today.

“I think 7-Eleven will be a good tenant,” he said, explaining that a 24-hour store would make the block safer by increasing nighttime foot traffic. “The idea of a 7-Eleven which doesn’t issue exhaust or noise – it could be a positive,” he said. Read more…

Jared MalsinA demonstrator taunted officers with a doughnut on a string.

At least one person was injured and another arrested when police confronted Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in Union Square early Wednesday morning.

Shortly after midnight, police moved protesters, some of which had been sleeping in the park since Saturday night, off of the south steps of the square and onto the sidewalk before sweeping through the encampment and rousting reclining protesters.

Police arrested activist Yoni Miller, 18, of Brooklyn, dragging him away by the shoulders. In an interview with The Local moments before his arrest, Mr. Miller said, “I think we will eventually be arrested.” Read more…

Ruth Spencer Steve Cannon

The founder of Gathering of the Tribes is awaiting a ruling from a Housing Court judge regarding his pending eviction, and is hopeful that his case will be moved to State Supreme Court.

Steve Cannon, the blind poet who runs the freewheeling art space on East Third Street, said that his lawyer preferred trying the case in Supreme Court because it would allow him to pursue a broader legal strategy and avoid the arduous process of staying an eviction through Housing Court. Mr. Cannon was not sure exactly when the ruling would come down.

“Our lawyer thinks that [the judge] is leaning towards taking the case to the Supreme Court due to our unique circumstances,” Mr. Cannon wrote in a newsletter. “Up until this point we weren’t sure how our efforts would be met in the courtroom, but now it seems that the ruling ‘might’ be in our favor.”

Meanwhile, the new exhibition at Tribes is called “Exquisite Poop: Blind Reproduction.” The show places an artist’s work alongside the work of another artist who attempted to reproduce the same piece by only reading a written description of it. Why the name? “I’m not going to comment on that — you know what that means,” Mr. Cannon said.

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly — or not so quietly — making it. Here’s one of them: Manitoba’s.

Shira Levine Zoe Hansen

Since shutting down her two brothels in 2002, Zoe Hansen has refocused her hustle, using her entrepreneurial skills to bring some semblance of order to the punk rock bar Manitoba’s on Avenue B. Her husband, Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba, may be the public face of the dive (he recently told The Local, “I’ve got to keep it going if just for one thing: I can’t let another Subway move in here”) but the husband and wife are very much a team. So much so that they’re shopping a reality show about their life in the East Village. We spoke with Ms. Hansen about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and… management?

You used to be a sex worker and ran a brothel. How did that prepare you for tending and running a bar?

I ran and owned a brothel on Park Avenue and 23rd Street and another on Second Avenue and 22nd Street. It’s all good material for me now that I am a writer. It’s just business, so it wasn’t any different. It was about being there all the time to make sure things are happening and flowing. It was really an office environment. We had to keep up, creatively, with advertising and marketing. Read more…

Here’s the latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” The Local’s regular roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from Feb. 28 to March 11, sorted by the type of incident. Plus: Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15.

Assaults

• Two men were bloodied during a brawl with eight others on March 2. The two victims told the police they were throwing down at the corner of Third Avenue and East 12th Street at around 12:30 a.m. when the 24-year-old was stabbed four times and the 27-year-old was sliced across the chest. Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital.
• That same night, another brawl between four guys one block away. The 25- and 26-year-old victims told the police they were in an altercation at around 4:30 a.m. at Third Avenue and East 11th Street. That’s when at least one of the suspects managed to slash the former in the head, and the latter in the hands. Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital. One of the suspects fled on foot, the other took off in a car. A police source said both stabbing incidents involved patrons of Webster Hall.
• A cyclist was slashed in the face for no apparent reason on March 8. The 22-year-old victim said he was riding on the sidewalk on Avenue D near East 10th Street at around 9:30 p.m. when he was cut from behind.
• A pair of drinkers beat up the bartender at Doc Holliday’s on March 11. The 39-year-old victim told the police that he spotted a woman walking out of the bar with a beer at around 1:45 a.m. When he told the woman she could not take the booze on the street she smashed the bottle over his head, cutting his forehead. That’s when another bar-goer joined in the melee and started punching the victim in the head. Police arrested both suspects.

Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Future home of Bikinis.

Two items proved contentious at a meeting of Community Board 3’s liquor licensing committee last night: Neighbors got their bottoms in a bunch over Bikinis, a sandwich shop that had been vying for a controversial backyard space. And the new project in the former Superdive space got the committee’s thumbs-down once again.

First, the good news: At 116 Avenue C, the owners of popular newcomer Edi and the Wolf are opening a new Austrian tavern. Transfer of the existing full liquor license quickly and easily got the committee’s support. Also: Angelica Kitchen, which had been illegally allowing customers to bring their own bottles, got a vote of support for its first wine and beer license, which the owners said would help it resume BYOB service.

Meanwhile a “simple ground-floor sandwich shop,” as a representative described it, due to open at 56 Avenue C didn’t have such an easy time of it. The owners of Bikinis, which will serve the like-named Spanish sandwiches, made clear that the backyard they had previously expressed interest in using was off the table for the moment. But eleven community members lined up to protest anyway, some insisting the noise from the supermarket recycling machines on the corner and the oft-overpowering music and revelry from Nublu was already unbearable. Read more…

Jared Malsin

Could Union Square be the next Zuccotti Park? Earlier this afternoon, a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters said that they had decided to attempt an indefinite occupation there, although few were confident that police would allow them to stay for long.

“We reached consensus today to try to make this a permanent occupation,” said Darah McJimsey, a 23-year-old activist who came to New York from California in November to join the Occupy movement full-time. “Although we’re aware of what we’re up against, and we’re going to draw on our skills as far as being mobile.”

The decision to launch an open-ended occupation of Union Square was made by 20 to 30 activists who came there after police forcibly dispersed around 500 people from Zuccotti Park on Saturday. The Union Square group, which has spent two nights there, appears to have attracted support from the broader movement. Occupy Wall Street’s website now features a call to “Occupy Union Square.” Read more…

A couple of weeks ago, the founders of the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space told The Local they had started hosting “spontaneous tours” of squats and community gardens. This past weekend, we joined just such a tour, as longtime squatter activist Frank Morales took visitors on a winding, nearly three-hour journey through the interiors of four urban homesteads.

Standing outside C-Squat, where MoRUS is to be housed, Mr. Morales described homelessness as “the consequence of state repression.”

“That was the point of entry for our taking buildings – to create communities of self defense, to defend against being forcibly moved into the shelter system,” he said.

Homesteaders recalled the raucous days of the late 1980s, when squatters controlled as many as two dozen East Village and Lower East Side buildings. Read more…

Photos: Scott Lynch

After celebrating early with the Hells Angels in the wilds of Queens, The Local spent St. Patrick’s Day proper in – where else? – the East Village. Of course we knew better than to look for green in the bars where Irish eyes weren’t exactly smiling on it; instead we had photographer Scott Lynch rove the streets near McSorley’s, Webster Hall, Penny Farthing, Village Pourhouse, Bull McCabes and other destinations. That’s right: he left the apartment on Saturday so you didn’t have to. If you did venture out, let us know how it went for you.

The Lo-Down provides an in-depth examination of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area — easily one of the most important developments in Manhattan and one that will radically change the Lower East Side. The article explains the plans for the project that involve a new school, room for a “big box store” like Wal-Mart, 900 new apartments, and possibly the relocation of the Essex Street Market. The three-year planning of the project is now entering a new phase in which Community Board 3’s will have “the most leverage to impact what will be built,” according to the website. The next public hearing is scheduled for April 18.

Suzanne Rozdeba Coal Yard and International Bar owner Molly Fitch is prepared to lay down the law on any drunken St. Patty’s Day revelers.

Anxious about the hordes of St. Patrick’s Day revelers ready to stumble their way through the neighborhood tomorrow? The Local is here to help. We called dives around the neighborhood to find out which ones would rather you not show up in a green top hat with shamrocks painted on your face. Here are your shelters from the drunken storm.

International Bar, 120 First Avenue, 212-777-1643
“I celebrate drinking at two in the afternoon every day. St. Patrick’s is a day where, all of a sudden, drinking in the afternoon is fun, and it ruins it for us,” owner Molly Fitch said. “I do not want a St. Patrick’s day pub crawl in my bar in any shape or form.”

Blue & Gold, 79 East Seventh Street, 212-777-1006
“This place is going to the anti-anti-anti haven. We’re not an Irish bar; we’re a Ukrainian bar. People will pack in here to get away,” said bartender Mike Roscishewsky. “We are absolutely not doing anything.”
Read more…

Sasha Von Oldershausen Women and children hopped over the symbolic fires on Tuesday night.

Iranians from as far away as Houston, Texas crowded into La Plaza Cultural Community Garden on Tuesday night to observe a holiday that celebrates Iran’s pre-Islamic past.

“Chahārshanbe-Sūri,” or, “Red Wednesday,” is rooted in Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions. The holiday, which precedes the Persian New Year, occurs on the eve of the last Wednesday of the Zoroastrian calendar. Since the 2009 elections, the Iranian government has tried to dissuade residents from celebrating the holiday considered un-Islamic, though many continue to celebrate it throughout the country.

Children and adults alike hopped over bonfires lit at sunset to symbolize the passage of the old year.

Simin Farkhondeh, the event organizer, felt a particular pleasure in the gathering. “It’s a celebration of resistance,” she said.

Ms. Farkhondeh has coordinated the event at La Plaza for the past three years. She said the celebration was a way for her to reminisce about the holiday with fellow Iranians, and to share a lesser-known cultural tradition with the community.

“Since I left Iran, I felt a need to do this,” Ms. Farkhondeh said. “I wanted to share something really beautiful.”
Read more…

Fuse Gallery Anton Perhlich in Chelsea in 1979, one of the artists participating in the upcoming exhibit.

Normally, a nosebleed at Lit is just another Monday night. Starting on March 28, it’s art.

“Nose Bleed” is an upcoming exhibition at Fuse Gallery (in the back of Lit) of artists nurtured in the neighborhood. “Nosebleed takes its name from the prevailing motto of that sensibility, that we wouldn’t go up there (up being anything north of 14th Street ) because we’d get a nosebleed,” writes Erik Foss. The co-owner of the bar adds that to him and his cohorts, there is nothing more than “a void” outside of the neighborhood. “Downtown may have been colonized by money and gentrified into something way white and polite, but the attitude persists.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Foss’s own art is on display in SoHo at the Munch Gallery as part of a group show, “Night,” which opens tomorrow. Earlier this week, Ray LeMoine looked back at the illustrious 10-year history of Lit Lounge.

CBGB Flyers on a newspaper box in Austin.

The new CBGB is looking for a few good bands at South By Southwest.

One of the owners of the lucrative brand passed along this photo of CBGB flyers posted on newspaper boxes in Austin, Texas. “We are looking to be honest, raw, loud. We are not going to franchise or turn into the Hard Rock Cafe or CMJ but we do want punks to take over the city for one week this summer,” wrote the owner, who still wishes to remain anonymous. “We’ll try to prove that in just a few months.”

The co-owner also noted that he and his partners are still in the hunt for a permanent venue, likely south of Houston Street. At least one former staffer from the legendary club is said to be involved, as well. In the meantime, they are scouting bands in Austin for the CBGB music festival set for July 4 weekend.

Yesterday This Ain’t The Summer of Love spotted new details about the festival, which will take place in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. The event will feature a mix of “music, rock-n-roll films, insider-industry workshops, and intimate storytelling.”