Tompkins Square Park looked something like Zuccotti Park in its heyday yesterday, as a giant Statue of Liberty puppet shimmied to a beat thrashed out by a cohort of drummers. Next to them were the People’s Library, a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cart, and a “Parents for Occupy Wall Street” station crawling with children.

Activists said the single-day occupation – the third to be organized by the group Occupy Town Square – was part of the movement’s process of reorganizing in the wake of the police eviction of the original Occupy encampment.

“We lost a few things when we lost Zuccotti,” said Jonathan Jetter, one of the event’s organizers. “We lost a place where the movement could come together to network amongst itself.” Read more…

Natalie Rinn Protestors held a rally before the Community Board’s vote on the N.Y.U. plan.

The ambitious expansion of New York University faced its first formal rejection last night, as Community Board 2 voted unanimously against the plan, saying it would turn Greenwich Village into a construction site for at least 19 years and fundamentally change the neighborhood for the worse.

Not a single person spoke in favor of the plan during over two hours of testimony in the packed basement of St. Anthony of Padua Church on 154 Sullivan Street. After 115 locals, academics and students skewered the plan that would add four new university buildings and 2.5 million square feet of space just south of Washington Square Park, the board cast its vote in opposition to the expansion dubbed “N.Y.U. 2031.”

“We’re here tonight to firmly reject this plan,” said board chair Brad Hoylman. “It’s clear that there is no support for this insidious plan that would destroy the culture of Greenwich Village.”

Cheers went up from the standing-room only audience after the vote, though its impact is limited, given that it is only an advisory opinion. The project will next be considered by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the City Planning Commission and the City Council, which will ultimately determine the project’s fate. Read more…

Michael Clemens lives and writes in the East Village. Here’s how he ended up here.

Michael Clemens

Apartments in New York City are like family members. We like some more than others. We go back and see our favorites and our most hated from time to time, and realize how far we’ve come, or not, since we were last there. I’ve had six apartments in the ten years that I’ve lived here, and my current one, in the East Village, is my favorite.

When I was a student, Columbia provided me with a decent-sized bedroom on 113th Street. They charged about eight grand for the school year, and graciously lumped it into my student loans which will haunt me to the day I die. It overlooked the snow-capped rooftops of Morningside Heights and smelled like paint when the steam heating came on. I lived in it alone my first two semesters of school, and I had no idea how lucky I was.

There, I made fast friends with Daniel, a member of a gay-friendly literally society called Alpha Delta Phi. The society owned a brownstone on 114th Street across from the campus. It had a billiard room, a full copper-topped bar, a backyard and a roof deck, and a working fireplace with a moose head above it supposedly shot by Teddy Roosevelt.

As a kid from Texas I loved space, and as an aspiring pseudo intellectual I longed for the wood paneling and secrets. I got invited to join the group. My first room there was half the size of my room on 113th Street, cost the same and overlooked the hulking mass of Butler library. Late at night, drunk after parties downstairs, I’d look across to the kids diligently studying at the long tables. From my room I’d hear my neighbor across the hall, Irene, being spanked with a paddle. She was into S&M. Read more…

Evan Bleier This banner promoting the Vagina Monologues
(spotted at Astor Place earlier today) has nothing
to do with Occupy Town Square, but we had to
share it somehow.

Nearly a month after an Occupy Wall Street march rolled up to Tompkins Square Park but stopped short of entering it, an offshoot group called Occupy Town Square is planning a day of teach-ins, discussions, “brain monsoons” and “radical dreaming” in the park this Sunday.

Lily Defriend, a 32-year-old Ph.D. candidate at NYU who helped organize two similar roving occupations in Washington Square Park and West Park Church on the Upper West Side, said that the Tompkins Square Park event will address issues like gentrification, squatting, and health care.

“We’re hoping local issues come to the forefront,” she told The Local, adding that her team of about eight people is working with organizations such as the fledgling Occupy Avenue D as well as reaching out to others such as the Tompkins Square Greenmarket and the group that is attempting to return the former CHARAS/El Bohio building to use as a community center. Read more…

Photos: Daniel Maurer

As expected, Tompkins Finest Deli opened Tuesday in the former Avenue A Mini Market space at 153 Avenue A, between 10th and 11th Streets. That’s co-owner Adeeb Ghamem (also a partner in East Village Finest Deli as well as First and First Finest Deli) putting signs up in the window. And here’s the menu, complete with the obligatory Special Sandwiches section. None of them are named after local bloggers as at Tompkins Square Bagels: You’ll have to settle for a Mr. Bean, a Chelsea Antique, or the Amtrack [sic] Express. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Captain John Cappelmann at the Ninth Precinct.

Captain John Cappelmann has taken over his new post as the top police officer in the East Village with a bang, arresting three men suspected of a string of nine middle-of-the-night robberies of local businesses as well as a series of apartment break-ins.

In a conversation with The Local that covered his previous experience policing public housing in Northern Manhattan, gang activity in the East Village and the challenges of quality of life enforcement, the new commanding officer of the Ninth Precinct shared a few more details about the bust.

“Burglaries are the biggest crime that we have here, grand larcenies notwithstanding,” Captain Cappelmann said in his office overlooking East Fifth Street. “We normally average about 16 for a 28-day period. So, that would be four a week on average from last year. Now to go almost three days since the arrest without any burglaries, I think we got the right people.”
Read more…

The Frigid New York theater festival starts today and runs until March 4. Earlier this month, The Local recommended five must-see shows that previewed in “snippet” form. Last night at Under St. Marks, some of the cavalcade’s out-of-town participants (Frigid was co-founded by the group that started the San Francisco Fringe Festival and is part of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals) offered similar glimpses into shows that were decidedly more personal and eccentric, but not necessarily as recommendable.

While the locals skewed toward ensemble comedy or musical, the travelers tended toward one-man or one-woman shows. “The Rope in Your Hands,” for instance, is a one-woman show about Hurricane Katrina survivors – similar in conceit to “nine/twelve tapes” – in which playwright Siobhan O’Laughlin dramatizes actual interviews that she conducted in New Orleans. Her transformation into an opinionated black engineer was disconcerting at first, but the audience ultimately approved. Read more…

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Barbara Feinman Millinery.

Robyn Rock

Before she opened her East Village hat shop, Barbara Feinman spent twenty years working office jobs. “I was raised to be a smart Jewish girl who went to college,” she said. “Those girls aren’t supposed to use their hands.” But she burned out on white collar work, took a class at FIT, and decided to become a hat maker. After initially working out of her kitchen, she opened Barbara Feinmen Millinery at 66 East Seventh Street in June of 1998. She recently told The Local how she has managed to make it to 14 years.

What prompted you to stop working out of your kitchen and seek a proper storefront?

I got a few big orders. One from Barney’s that was a $17,000 order. That was absolutely huge in the 1990s. After that I started sharing a studio space on Ninth Street. When I got a dog and wasn’t allowed to bring my dog to work, that really bugged me since what’s the point of working for myself if I can’t work how I want? That’s when I went solo. I walked around the East Village, saw a sign and walked in. It was walking distance from my home. I grew up around here. I feel most at home here. Plus, fourteen years ago there weren’t many places I could have afforded. Read more…

Scott Rettberg Barney Rosset at the offices of the Evergreen
Review, 2001

The East Village has lost a legend of letters. Barney Rosset, who championed avant-garde literature and defended first amendment rights as the owner of Grove Press, is dead at the age of 89, per an AP report. The crusading publisher – who more recently operated the Evergreen Review with his fifth wife, Astrid Myers, out of their fourth-floor walk-up near Cooper Square – died in a hospital on Tuesday night.

As documented in a two–part profile at the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Chicago native acquired Grove, then a reprint press, for $3,000 in 1951 and sold it to Ann Getty (only to be ousted from the company) for $2 million in 1986. During that time, he published a who’s-who of cutting-edge authors, introducing American audiences to literary trailblazers such as Samuel Beckett. His list included Jean-Paul Sartre, Allen Ginsberg, Eugene Ionesco, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Jean Genet, Frantz Fanon, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and the Marquis de Sade, to name just a few.

As documented in a 2008 movie about his groundbreaking censorship battles, “Obscene,” he fought in court to print uncensored versions of D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer,” and William Burroughs’s “Naked Lunch.” Read more…

Natalie Rinn The intersection of Bowery and Houston.

Ten East Village intersections have been targeted for improvement by the Department of Transportation, including one – the intersection of Houston and Bowery – that has seen a bevy of biking accidents.

Last night at a joint meeting of Community Boards 2 and 3, the department unveiled the findings of a two-year survey covering a southern portion of the East Village as well as portions of Greenwich Village, NoLIta, and the Lower East Side. The study, which can be seen below, identified 15 intersections (10 of them in the East Village) that the city will target for future makeovers, including five intersections (one in the East Village) that were said to be “high accident locations.” From 2008 to 2010, the intersection of Avenue A and First Street saw 25 accidents, 18 of which resulted in injuries and one of which resulted in the death of a pedestrian.

Though the intersection of Houston Street and Bowery wasn’t among those identified by the D.O.T. as the most dangerous, it was that crossing – the city’s most accident-prone intersection for bicyclists from 1995 to 2009 – that initiated the study to begin with, and it was the one most East Village residents spoke up about. The study found noticeable congestion at the intersection, where 10 to 15 percent of daytime vehicles were trucks, and noted that it was in need of changes to better accommodate turns. Read more…

Evan BleierPaparazzi perched on Bond Street.

Goodbye Coens, hello Mac guy: This morning, more than 20 paparazzi were gathered outside the Gene Frankel Theater at 24 Bond Street, where the forthcoming romantic comedy “A Case of You” was being filmed. They were hoping to snap a photograph of Sienna Miller and Justin Long, rumored to be inside. Shortly after noon, their lenses were trained on the three trailers parked on the south side of the street: a shutterbug said one of the film’s stars, Evan Rachel Wood, had been spotted going inside and had to come out sooner or later.

According to Variety, “A Case of You” centers around a young writer who has to live up to the online profile he created for himself in order to impress a girl. With Justin Long as a co-producer of the film, we’re assuming the profile was created on a Mac.

Stephen Rex Brown The Local now shares a light pole on Second Avenue with other neighborhood blogs.

A phone call from “Mosaic Man” Jim Power brought our favorite news of the week: The Local has been immortalized in tile form on a light pole on Second Avenue at St. Marks Place.

The Local shares the pole with other neighborhood media outlets like Bowery Boogie, EV Grieve, Neighborhoodr, East Villager, Neither More Nor Less, and The Village Voice (our Cooper Square neighbor is next to us on the pole as well).

“If you want information about the neighborhood, that light pole will tell you,” Mr. Power said. Read more…

Mary Reinholz Bill Weinberg in his home office.

Bill Weinberg is a nocturnal creature, generally writing from midnight to just before dawn in his Fourth Street apartment, a second-floor walk-up with a bathtub in the kitchen and a bathroom in the hallway. He’s lived in the book-lined space since 1989, and has lately been engaged, he said, in “the nitty gritty of defending my apartment as one of the last rent-stabilized holdouts in the building.”

The political journalist and left-wing anarchist is no stranger to such fights: last March his long-running show, the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade, was canceled by WBAI-FM (99.5), the “free speech radio” station where he had discoursed for nearly 20 years on topics such as the war in Iraq, the Arab Spring, and the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riots. The station, part of the Pacifica radio network, has not offered any official comment on the cancellation. But Mr. Weinberg said he got into hot water with management for disrespecting fellow producers on air, including Gary Null, a health guru whom he had denounced as a quack and an AIDS denier.

Nearly a year after his ouster, Mr. Weinberg keeps busy by maintaining the World War 4 Report, a Website dedicated to “deconstructing the war on terror” (he also edits the Global Ganja Report and New Jewish Resistance). In two weeks, he’ll go to Peru, on assignment for The Progressive, to cover a national movement for water rights at the U.S.-owned Conga gold mine project. The subject is part of his long languishing manuscript for a book about indigenous and ecological struggles in Latin America. Read more…

With the premiere last week of Angelina Jolie’s film about the Bosnian War, “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” conflict in the Balkans is once again making headlines. Last week, Serbs in northern Kosovo voted against that region’s autonomy four years after its declaration of independence from Serbia, a country that is vying for E.U. status. Clearly, the past has left divisive wounds for many in the region, but in the East Village, Vladimir Ocokoljic, a Serbian ex-pat who has made the neighborhood his home for the past 21 years, says that all are welcome at his restaurant, Kafana.

Mr. Ocokoljic describes himself as a proud Serbian, but he says that many of his customers come from across the Balkans. Watch The Local’s video to find out more about the “little piece of Belgrade” that he has carved out on Avenue C.

With this post, The Local concludes its recap of the past month of crime within the Ninth Precinct. We started with beat-downs, brawls, and blades, then continued on to burgled businesses and stolen rides. After that: Robberies and cell-phone snatches. And now: Purse pinches and bag snags. Plus: Click on our crime map, which will be constantly updated and can always be found on the right-hand column of The Local’s homepage.

View Crime Report in a larger map

• A club-goer left Nublu with the blues on Jan. 21. A thief swiped a bag containing a laptop and jewelry that the victim had left unattended in the club between East Fourth and Fifth Streets at around 2 a.m.
• A quick-handed thief snatched a woman’s bag on Jan. 14. The 49-year-old victim said she was inside her building on East Fourth Street between Avenues C and Dat around 4 p.m. when she placed her bag (containing $2,281-worth of items) on the ground. That’s when the thief made his move and fled towards East River Park.
• A thief snatched a man’s bag on Jan. 16. The 25-year-old victim said that he had placed his bag down at around 10 p.m. at Avenue B and East Seventh Street when the thief grabbed his bag and ran into Tompkins Square Park. The bag contained a laptop, camera and sunglasses worth $2,281.
• A not-so-sweet thief snatched a woman’s bag from Jane’s Sweet Buns on Jan. 16. The victim told police that she set her bag down by the front door of the store on St. Marks Place between First Avenue and Avenue A at around 3 p.m. and went downstairs to work. When she returned the bag, containing an assortment of credit cards, was gone.

Read more…

Today, we’re looking back on the past month of crime within the Ninth Precinct. Earlier it was beat-downs, brawls, and blades. Then: Burgled businesses and stolen rides. And now: Robberies and cell-phone snatches. 

Daniel Maurer Metro PCS on Jan. 6

• At last, the incriminating words uttered by the man who twice robbed a Metro PCS store on 14th Street have been revealed. An employee at the store between First and Second Avenues told police that when the suspect showed up on Jan. 20, he said, “Give me the money, I was here before,” and simulated a gun. The man then told the victim to go downstairs into the basement, and he made a run for it.
• Three perps pushed a woman down and snatched her shopping bag on Jan. 22. The victim told police she was at Second Avenue and East Ninth Street at around 8:30 p.m. when she was shoved and robbed.
• An attempt to hold an iPhone ransom went sour on Feb. 11. The 22-year-old victim told the police that when she realized her phone was missing she called it at around 2:30 a.m. and was told she could have it back for $150. The suspect instructed her to meet him at East First Street and Avenue A. When they made their rendezvous an officer pounced from behind, leading to a struggle on the street. The officer eventually arrested a 46-year-old man and recovered the woman’s bag and iPhone.
• A teenager snatched a woman’s phone on Jan. 24. The 26-year-old victim told the police she was on East Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenues at around 10 p.m. when the suspect put her arm around her neck, covered her eyes and grabbed the phone. Police are on the hunt for a 17-year-old woman.

Read more…

Today, we’re looking back on the past month of crime within the Ninth Precinct. Earlier it was beat-downs, brawls, and blades. Now: Burgled businesses and stolen rides.

Daniel Maurer A burglar struck Angels and Kings on
Jan. 16.
• A burglar struck Angels and Kings on East 11th Street on Jan. 16. An employee told the police that as he left his apartment in the morning he noticed the gate of the bar near Avenue A was lifted up and the cash registers were empty.
• A burglar snatched a 46-inch television from the Haven Plaza community center on Jan. 22. An employee told police that she arrived for work at the center near Avenue C and East 12th Street and noticed the padlock to an entrance on the floor. Another door was locked from the inside, and the television was missing from its mount on a wall.
• Someone stole $300 from Baohaus on Jan. 23. An employee of the restaurant on East 14th Street between Second and Third Avenues told the police that the bandit must have entered through a rear bathroom window, which had a broken lock from apparently being forced open.

Read more…

Last month, The Local unveiled its inaugural weekly police blotter. Subsequent changes at the Ninth Precinct caused delays, so today we’re playing catch-up and presenting the past month in crime, in four handy installments. First up: Brawls, beat-downs and blades.

• Four teenagers are accused of beating up a 50-year-old man as he was parking his car on Sept. 14. The victim told the police — on Feb. 7 — that he was parking near Avenue D and East Seventh Street at around 1:30 a.m. when the four perps picked a fight. He said that one slapped the hood of his car with a t-shirt, and when he got out of the vehicle they pounced, punching him and causing multiple fractures in his face.
• A man is accused of stabbing another reveler at a rowdy party on Feb. 1. The police said that they entered the building on East Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenues at around 1:05 a.m. after receiving three noise complaints about the bash. When they arrived they came upon a 24-year-old in the hallway of the fourth floor shirtless and bleeding from a finger. Cops arrested both the victim and the alleged slicer.
• A brawl on Broadway resulted in an 18-year-old man and two 19-year-olds being arrested on Feb. 7. The 48-year-old victim told police that three teenagers tried to rob him near East Fourth Street at around 5:48 p.m. and that he resisted, resulting in the youngsters hitting him with two metal ladders and a chair.

Read more…

Earlier this month, and then again in a preview of gallery openings, The Local reported that Steve Cannon was planning an exhibition to raise money for his legal battle against the landlord who is attempting to push him out of his apartment and art space, Gathering of the Tribes. On Friday, The Local visited the opening of “Occupy Tribes Now” and came back with this video.