While on our daily perambulation on the Bowery, we noted that there is construction on nearly every block between St. Marks Place and East Houston Street. The experience was so intense we recreated it for our readers who can’t live it for themselves. Mouse over the cones, put on your headphones, and brace yourself for an immersive auditory experience.


Road Construction

Suzanne Rozdeba Attendees at last night’s meeting regarding the new cameras.

Residents of Campos Plaza expressed optimism last night that new high-tech security cameras would deter the violence that they said has left many of them living in fear.

“I am scared for a lot of our lives here in this development. I am scared for our kids, for ourselves, for our elderly, for us all,” said Dereese Huff, president of the Campos Plaza tenants association. “We need these cameras.”

The surveillance equipment, financed by Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, will be installed in pathways, playgrounds and lobbies around the houses bordered by East 13th and 14th Streets and Avenues B and C. Public officials hope to have 16 cameras for each of the four building at Campos Plaza. Ms. Mendez has secured $400,000 for the cameras, which is roughly half of the total needed to cover the entire complex. The cameras would monitor both inside and outside the buildings and will be connected to a network than can be observed from a central location.

An official with the New York City Housing Authority sought to dispel any notions of a “Big Brother”-style system.
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Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance just announced the indictment of Luis Martinez, the man accused of firing at two police officers in a wild gun battle last last month that culminated in the Baruch Houses. Mr. Martinez is charged with attempted murder in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon. During the melee an officer narrowly avoided being shot in the gut thanks to an extra ammo clip on his belt that deflected the bullet. The violence prompted Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to renew a call for a gun buy-back program in the neighborhood. “A metal gun magazine and its leather pouch was all that stood in the way of a bullet piercing an officer’s abdomen, after he was fired upon by this defendant,” Mr. Vance said in a press release.

Kathryn Doyle Eric Borg and his dog Sam enjoyed coffee in front of The Bean last week.

Now that Starbucks and The Bean are squaring off on either end of their block on East Third Street, you might be wondering: which is doing swifter business? Are The Bean’s loyal customers walking that extra block to avoid the corporate coffeehouse? Or has the demure signage of the “neighborhood Starbucks” managed to win folks over?

To answer those questions, The Local stationed a reporter outside of the Starbucks on First Avenue, and another outside of The Bean on Second Avenue. They counted customers from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. last Wednesday, and here’s what they found.

29 people walked into Starbucks.

43 people – and over a dozen dogs – walked into The Bean.

Siobhan Quinn said she chose The Bean partly because it accommodates Seamus, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel. “I like the owner, and it’s more neighborhoody,” she added. “There’s more of a community feel.”
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Suzanne Rozdeba Dorothy Rasenberger, Elizabeth Herring, and Joy Garland protested outside of the Cabrini Center this afternoon.

The staff of the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation were still breaking the news to elderly residents that their home on Avenue B and East Fifth Street would soon close, leaving some of them in tears, a family member of a resident said today.

While the meeting regarding the closure was going on, a small group of protesters outside toted signs saying “Occupy Cabrini!” and “Save Cabrini! From Condos.” The mix of around 10 locals and family members of residents decried the failure of the new owner of the property, Benjamin Shaoul, to secure a deal to keep it open. They also blamed local politicians for not doing enough to facilitate the negotiations. Without the deal, Cabrini will almost certainly become apartments of some kind.

“My mother turned 101 on Feb. 1, and she’s been here for two years. It’s a shame,” said George Matranga, 70. “Six months ago, she’s telling me that they’re going to make the second and third floor condominiums. I’m going, ‘Mom, you’re hallucinating.’”

He added that he received a packet last week detailing the closing and how Cabrini would help residents with the transition.
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Olvier Zahm In 2009 Lindsay Lohan, looking somewhat stressed, showed up at Lit Lounge.

“The new Lit.” The expression has been used countless times to describe a club that might just be as cool as Lit when it opened a decade ago. Many of the venues that have vied for “new Lit” status have come and gone, but the original gallery/bar/club hybrid, improbably, is still going strong on Second Avenue. It’s still the best place to splash your beer all over the place while dancing to Britpop and punk at 3 a.m. It’s had its slumps, to be sure, but these days Lit is enjoying what can only be called a flare-up.

You might say Lit has had three lives. Its first golden age lasted for a few years after it opened in February of 2002. Then things slowed down around 2006 when the cool crowd moved on to the newly opened Beatrice Inn. But when that club was shut down in 2009, some of its DJs moved over to Lit, bringing a new generation with them.

The First Golden Age 2002-2004
Dave Murphy used to run around downtown and now, at the age of 36, owns Towne Deli in Summit, New Jersey. “Mondays were the big night in town,” he recalled. Lit was always the last stop after you made the scene at Max Fish, the Lower East Side’s perennial art bar, and Pianos, another cool newcomer.

Adrian Fussell Big Ups performing at Lit Lounge last year.

“Bjork was at the Monday Pianos party one night, in some furry outfit, just sitting at the bar looking like a giant mouse,” said Mr. Murphy. “This was right after we’d seen somebody get shot in the foot outside Lotus. D.J. Clue laughed at the guy, who was bleeding from one foot and hopping on the other. That night ended in the cave at Lit.” Mr. Murphy recalled watching a member of a well known band from San Francisco snorting cocaine off of one of the couches in the cavern-like basement.

At the time, two local music scenes were converging and about to go national: dance pop and retro rock.

Electro-clash, a punk-techno hybrid that drew inspiration from Germany, was at its peak. Fischerspooner’s single “Emerge” was played at clubs as often as Rihanna’s “We Found Love” is today. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem was DJing at Meatpacking District lounge APT, honing the DFA sound that sprung to life in 2003 with The Rapture’s ubiquitous single “House of Jealous Lovers.”

Lit was essential in helping this music find an audience. It was also one of the first clubs to embrace Euro DJs like Soulwax a.k.a. 2 Many DJs, and Erol Alken, who were inventing the mash-up, where the vocals of one song are played over the music of another song.
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Suzanne Rozdeba Looks like there is still some work to do before the Gin Palace can open.

Out with the Iberian, in with the Victorian.

Gin Palace, the Victorian-themed bar replacing El Cobre on East Sixth Street, is opening by the end of April, co-owner Ravi DeRossi, told The Local this morning.

The new bar, which has a fancy mural in the works on the ceiling, will not have the same air of exclusivity as Mr. DeRossi’s other popular establishment, Death and Company.

“The original gin palaces in England in the 1800s were a response to a failing economy, where people would go to get wasted and escape disease and the plague. It’s not as bad right now, but it’s a pretty weak economy,” said Mr. DeRossi, who also owns nearby The Bourgeois Pig. “This will be a spinoff of those old Victorian dive bars, and no pretension. If the space fits you in, you get in.”
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Elizabeth Ferrara Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council said the plan would create much-needed construction jobs.

In the first rally of its kind, advocates of N.Y.U.’s controversial expansion gathered yesterday at City Hall calling on Borough President Scott M. Stringer to approve the plan.

About 35 people, business owners, union leaders, and construction workers among them, attended the roughly 15-minute gathering in support of the university’s proposal that would add four new buildings south of Washington Square Park.

“We’re here today asking Borough President Stringer to recognize that N.Y.U.’s growth strategy is an essential part of securing the financial future of small businesses in Greenwich Village,” said Tony Juliano, president of the local Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, which represents around 200 businesses in surrounding neighborhoods.

It was clear that the approval for the plan dubbed N.Y.U. 2031 is getting down to crunch time. The event amounted to a formal endorsement from the Building and Construction Trades Council, which is led by the influential Gary LaBarbera.
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Meagan Kirkpatrick

Good morning, East Village.

EV Grieve is alerted to a protest planned for 2 p.m. at the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, which is expected to close this summer. Check back later for The Local’s coverage of the gathering.

The Wall Street Journal examines the Archdiocese of New York’s efforts to revamp its Catholic education system, and singles out La Salle Academy on East Fifth Street. By 2009 the school’s enrollment had shrunk to only 360, down from around 900 in the 60s. By leasing out part of its facility to another private school it was able to pull back from the brink.

The co-owners of The Bean tell Dollars and Sense that they are seeking a beer and wine license due to customer demand. “Small businesses do whatever we can do to keep our customers coming back,” the café’s manager said.
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Theater For The New City Elizabeth Barkan as Bobby in “Bike Shop.”

Who knew cycling could be so liberating — and devoid of controversy?

In “Bike Shop,” a one-woman musical showing at The Theater for the New City, Bobby, a bike messenger and mechanic, sings odes to the freedom of the streets. For her, the bicycle is an escape — even a vehicle for feminine liberation.

Set in 1993, this bit of cycling nostalgia takes place in a purer time, before every hipster had a neglected fixed gear hanging in his loft, new bike lanes led to lawsuits, business owners blamed cycling for declining customers and passersby won’t even stop a brazen bike thief.

The songs are campy and catchy, and the writing often amusing to the biker-friendly audience. However, non-cyclists likely won’t find the storyline of two-wheeled redemption as touching.

A charming Elizabeth Barkan, the show’s creator and star, plays Bobby, who works at her family’s bike store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her grandmother, also played by Ms. Barkan, opened the store 30 years prior. The final character onstage is an Uncle Rabbi, and at times the exertion required of the multiple rolls and onstage cycling while singing seems to wear the star of the show down. Occasionally Ms. Barkan would start a song strongly, but by the end had lost her momentum.
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The Times shares this hilarious — and depressing — video of filmmaker Casey Neistat staging blatant “thefts” of his own bicycle, many in the East Village. (One is right in front of the Ninth Precinct stationhouse). Can you guess how passersby react to the seemingly criminal act?

Billy’s Antiques has gotten a lot of coverage around these parts as of late, but when the man himself sends videos our way of the prep for the party, the bash on Friday, and then the funeral procession, we can’t resist. The two other short videos are after the jump.
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Noah Fecks The neighborhood’s most controversial burger — at least for today.

Here’s a pair of quick follow-ups to stories we posted yesterday: Josh “Mr. Cutlets” Ozersky’s tough review of the bagel burger at Tompkins Square Bagels resulted in an equally tough response from the shop’s owner, who said the burger was nothing more than a lark.

“I probably put more thought into what color chalk to use on the special board than to that burger,” wrote owner Christopher Pugliese. “The fact that you actually found this whole thing interesting enough to come, take pictures of the burger, and dedicate a headline to it had all of us laughing our [faces] off.” Check out the story to chime in on this delicious controversy.
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Sunday afternoon the Third Street Crew of the New York City Hells Angels transformed Jamaica, Queens into a scene straight out of a post-apocalyptic motorcycle movie. Roaring in on low-slung chrome-plated Harleys, roughly 500 tattooed riders seemed right at home in the desolate industrial terrain that hosted the 13th annual St. Patrick’s Day Bash.

All the ingredients were in place for a great time: corned beef, cabbage, a comely brunette serving $4 drinks, a rock and roll band and not a police car in sight. But Angels run a tight ship and there were no orgiastic drunken brawls observed by The Local. In fact, when a female reporter dropped her fountain pen, three muscular bikers scrambled to retrieve it. Perfect gents for at least one moment in time.

By 2 p.m. U.S. military veterans and iron workers on hogs were still arriving in a steady stream to the Portuguese recreational club on Liberty Avenue near 148th Street, greeting fellow wheelers with brotherly hugs and man-talk. They paid $20 a piece for admission to the club, lining up for the hearty catered lunch and taking in music by Hugh Pool and Buddy Cage from New Riders of the Purple Sage.

It was hard to hear and maneuver amid the crush of hulking alpha males in leather and denim, but it was clear that union members with their own motorcycle clubs vastly outnumbered the Angels at the event. These included bikers belonging to Locals 46 and 580 of the New York Iron Workers (currently working on the new World Trade Center) and to the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, New York City Council District. “We ride with our own clubs but we have respect for the Angels,” said the carpenters’ motorcycle club president Joe Urbano.

Of course, any public event with the cultural cache of the Hells Angels is going to have a merchandising component behind it. Angels clothing, including some items for women, was for sale along with copies of the club’s 2012 calendar (you’ll have to decide for yourself how it stacks up against the Fire Department’s calendar).

Kathie Gimino of Staten Island hawked black t-shirts and assorted “badass embroidery.”
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Scott Lynch What to like better? The necklace celebrating Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog, or the Marvel Comics bag?

Good morning, East Village.

Our friends at Arts Beat got wind of a new record label put together by the owners of Other Music. Other Music Recording Co. will showcase lesser-known musicians in the city while also reissuing foreign recordings. “Despite everything happening in the music industry, we are always getting excited about new bands,” an owner of the record store said. The first release is slated for April 24.

The Lower East Side Preservation Initiative urges its supporters to attend tonight’s meeting of the Community Board 3 landmarks subcommittee, which will consider issuing a letter in support of preserving the Bialystoker Senior Center in the Lower East Side. “Unprotected by landmark status, the building is threatened by demolition or drastic alteration,” the group writes. The meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at Campos Plaza Community Center, 611 East 13th Street.

In other development news, check back later this afternoon for our coverage of a rally at City Hall in support of N.Y.U.’s expansion plan.

Bowery Boogie unearths a cool trove of photos of the Lower East Side from 1997.
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Suzanne Rozdeba The sign from last week, alongside this week’s new name.

First it was Bea’s Cafe, now it’s La Betola. On Thursday The Local noted that Bea’s Cafe was coming to 514 East Sixth Street, a building with a controversial rooftop extension that is owned by Benjamin Shaoul. Now, a new sign in the window says that the cafe will be called La Betola. The concept hasn’t changed, apparently: the sign still advertises “an espresso bar and more.” Anyone have a clue to the story behind this cafe crisis that’s piqued our interest almost as much as the mysterious messages on East Seventh Street?

Today EV Grieve shared a photo of two men and a minivan inside the lot at 35 Cooper Square. Naturally, the prospect of a surveying crew prepping for construction at the high profile site led us to ask its owner, Arun Bhatia, what was going on. His spokeswoman’s response only added to the intrigue: “I spoke to Arun and we do not know who those men were. We are trying to find out. We are not doing anything on the site.”