Stephen Rex Brown Avenue A Mini Market.

A construction shed has gone up at the boarded-up Avenue A Mini Market. A worker told The Local today that another bodega would open in the space between Ninth and 10th Streets. In September, the 24-hour store posted a sign saying it would soon reopen. One month later, a sign in the window advertised the space to potential tenants. A call to the building’s landlord was not answered.

Back in August, when Tropical Storm Irene felled a 60-foot-tall willow tree at La Plaza Cultural, City Room reported that Rolando Politi, whose flowers made from recycled garbage adorn the community garden, planned to honor the tree with a new work of art.

His piece, a miniature tree made from bottle caps, was completed in October. It’s part of a project that Mr. Politi began in Copenhagen in 2010, as a way of reusing plastic caps (made from a material that is different from the rest of the bottle) that are usually discarded by recycling centers. On designated “Kappo Days,” the artist has taught children near his East Village home – as well as students in Switzerland, Denmark, Michigan, and beyond – how to transform trash into toys. See some of Mr. Politi’s creations in The Local’s video.

An assortment of locals want one of the East Village’s largest vacant buildings to once again host community groups — it’s just unclear whether they have the leverage to force the owner’s hand.

After a discussion on Friday night at Theatre 80, roughly 20 residents decided they would press the owner of the old P.S. 64 building, Gregg Singer, to designate as much as two stories of the six-story building as public space. (On Friday, The Local posted interior shots of the building in its current state, as well as renderings of its potential redevelopment.) The group — still very much in the planning and strategizing phase — leaned towards making one floor a community facility that would be open to anyone living within a boundary to be determined. The other floor would accommodate local groups. To entice Mr. Singer, the coalition would present him with a list of potential tenants for the other floors in his 100-year-old building. Read more…

Liv Buli

The Theater for the New City is asking the city to help fund an expansion of its Arts-in-Education after-school program even as fewer public dollars go to such initiatives. Last week, a Community Board 3 committee voiced its support for the bid; tomorrow, the theater will ask the full board for its backing.

At a meeting last Tuesday, Primy Rivera, the program’s coordinator, and Keith Ninesling, the theater’s developmental director, asked C.B. 3’s Youth and Education committee to write a general letter of support that can be attached to any applications for funding.

Mr. Ninesling spoke of the reputation the program has developed since its launch in the late 1990s. “We feel this is an essential community outreach service,” he said, adding that the not-for-profit theater is one of a dwindling number of community theaters in the city. “Not only does it serve the purpose of training young, would-be artists (we need somebody who can carry the torch),” said Mr. Ninesling, “but more important is serving the children in the East Village and Lower East Side.” Read more…

N.Y.P.D. The suspect.

The police are searching for a man suspected of sexually assaulting a woman while she got on the subway at the Broadway-Lafayette station at 10 a.m. on Nov. 10.

The 42-year-old victim told the police that she was boarding an M train when the man came up from behind and assaulted her. The man then fled the station. No injuries were reported.

Police say the suspect is 35 years old, and is seen in surveillance footage wearing framed glasses and a backpack. Anyone with information should call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 800-577-TIPS.

Singer Financial Corp and Stephen Rex Brown.

Less than an hour before a meeting at Theatre 80 regarding the long-vacant building that once housed P.S. 64, The Local has obtained new images of what its future could be. A flyer commissioned by the building’s owner, Gregg Singer, states that the 100-year-old building on East Ninth Street between Avenues B and C “will soon undergo a cutting-edge, comprehensive redevelopment and historic restoration to transform this turn of the century, New York City landmark into a modern community facility use such as a new school, medical, hospital or health-related use, college or school dormitory, museum, non-profit organization with or without sleeping accommodations or any other use as defined as a ‘Community Facility Use'” by city zoning laws.

The flyer, which depicts the former school building’s courtyard being used as an outdoor cafe, then goes on to raise the possibility of condominiums in the 152,075-square-foot building, or the separate leasing of its six stories. Lastly, the flyer notes that a gymnasium, pool, auditorium or theater could be built on the ground floor. Read more…

Tim Schreier, one of The Local’s community contributors, was among a group of journalists who were rounded up at Duarte Square and thrown in jail on Tuesday. He was released yesterday morning.

Now the photographer, who was shooting a group of religious leaders staging a prayer vigil at the park among the protesters, is going to take his charge of criminal trespassing in the third degree to trial.

Tim Schreier The crowd at Duarte Square on Tuesday.

“Basically, it’s the N.Y.P.D. gone crazy and based on fear,” Mr. Schreier said yesterday, shortly after getting his first bit of rest since around noon on Tuesday. “This was an interfaith service that the cops came and disrupted.” Read more…

Amber Tamblyn While shooting “House.”

Amber Tamblyn may be known to many for playing an angst-ridden teen in “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and med student Martha Masters on “House,” but after 15 years as an actress, she’s branching out. These days, she’s performing with her mother, Bonnie Murray Tamblyn; co-producing a show for Fox with Katie Jacobs, an executive producer of “House”; and working on her third book of poetry. She has also written her first screenplay (adapted from the novel “Paint It Black” by Janet Fitch) and runs a non-profit, Write Now Poets, dedicated to finding creative programs to support poetry. “And lastly,” she told The Local over e-mail, “I’m hoping to end world hunger by Wednesday. Fingers crossed!”

Ms. Tamblyn divides her time between Los Angeles and the East Village, where she has lived for three years. She also performs in the neighborhood – most recently at “The Inspired Word,” an open mic night at One and One. “I never liked any other neighborhood,” she told The Local. Although, here’s a secret: She and her fiancée, the comedian David Cross, are moving to Brooklyn. Before she leaves us, we asked her about her favorite spots in the old neighborhood. Read more…

The New York Post reports that famed playboy and hotelier André Balazs will officially seal the deal on his purchase of the Cooper Square Hotel today, and that he will change its name to The Standard East Village. Those aren’t the only changes in store: The tabloid reports that the hotel’s “public spaces will be reconfigured, its rooms refurbished and its restaurants overhauled.” When Balazs appeared before Community Board 3 in September he pledged to keep the hotel fairly low-key in comparison with the original Standard on the west side. Still, does this mean the end of The Trilby?

Thousands of students converged on Union Square this afternoon as part of the Occupy Wall Street “Day of Action,” which was planned to celebrate the movement’s two-month anniversary today. Some of the students marched to Union Square from the steps of New York University’s Stern School of Business, where they earlier castrated a purple-and-gold bull piñata named Wally – a symbol, the protesters said, of their school’s complicity in a financial downturn that has left so many students unemployed.

After the march lurched up University Place to the north side of Union Square, students from several local universities – Cooper Union, N.Y.U., and C.U.N.Y. among them – addressed the crowd with stories of insurmountable debt and lingering joblessness. Taylor Hand, a 21-year-old Cooper Union student, criticized her school’s recent announcement that it may begin charging tuition. Read more…

A job listing for a historian? In this economy? That’s right, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is looking for a director of preservation and research, according to a new post on Histpres. Among the many job responsibilities: Coordinating historic buildings research, preparing draft requests for the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and responding to questions from the public regarding landmarking. (And one recommended qualification from The Local: A strong tolerance for lengthy community board meetings).

Daniel Maurer

A fire broke out on the fourth floor of 218 East Sixth Street between Second Avenue and Taras Shevchenko Place around 8:14 p.m. tonight, a spokesperson for the F.D.N.Y. said. Two people – said to be tenants of apartment 10, where the spokesperson said the fire started due to a cooking oil inflammation – were taken to the hospital (at least one of them to Beth Israel) with minor injuries, one with a burn and the other with a laceration. The fire was under control by 8:57 p.m.

When The Local arrived on the scene around 8:45 p.m., smoke was billowing out of the building’s upper windows as firefighters broke glass and searched apartments. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Two restaurants on First Avenue near 12th Street (where at least one news truck was still parked earlier today) are in trouble. As mentioned earlier, EV Grieve noticed that Sahara East, which has for years lured a young set to its back garden, has been seized by authorities for nonpayment of taxes. A spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance now reveals that the hookah spot owes $393,773.41 in “open tax warrants” (unpaid taxes). The Local hasn’t yet been able to contact the restaurant’s owners to find out whether they will try to reopen.

One block north, a reader told Grieve that Quantum Leap, a vegetarian restaurant, might close this week. A hostess at the restaurant, Elizabeth Perez, told The Local that indeed it would close tomorrow in the wake of a recent rent increase. Read more…

Photos: Noah Fecks

Yesterday evening, Joe Dobias, the chef-owner of JoeDoe on First Street, opened a spin-off sandwich shop, JoeDough, at 135 First Avenue between St. Marks Place and Ninth Street. Slicing bread in a 4-seat nook decorated with personal tchotkes, Mr. Dobias said, “This place is for the customers. It’s about what they want. My other restaurant is about my ego and what I want.”

That said, at least a couple of JoeDough’s $10 sandwiches are carryovers from JoeDoe: The Conflicted Jew consists of chicken liver, bacon and onions on challah bread; the JoseDoe Cubano is made with roasted pork shoulder, shoulder bacon, Swiss cheese, mustard sauce and house-made pickles. Read more…

N.Y.P.D. The suspects in the burglary.

The police are searching for two men suspected of stealing cash from Souen restaurant on East 13th Street.

The duo broke into the macrobiotic eatery near University Place sometime between 11 p.m. on Nov. 13 and 6:30 a.m. the next day and stole an undisclosed amount of money, the police said. The suspects are depicted in a surveillance image released by the police.

Souen, which also has a noodle restaurant on Sixth Street in the East Village, specializes in Japanese food and encourages — according to its website — chewing.

Last month, a group of residents living near University Place raised concerns about crime in the area after an early-morning stabbing outside of a pizzeria.

Surveillance footage released by N.Y.P.D.

The police have arrested a suspect in Sunday’s early-morning attempted rape, Lieutenant Patrick Ferguson of the Ninth Precinct announced tonight.

Mr. Ferguson said that he had just heard about the arrest shortly before addressing around 25 attendees at a Ninth Precinct Community Council meeting and had no further information. A police spokesman had not yet received any information regarding the arrest of the suspect, either. [See update below.] Read more…

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation A rendering of the rooftop addition to the Puck Building that was shown at a public hearing.

For the third time, the owner of the historic Puck Building was sent back to the drawing board because his plans for a new rooftop penthouse were deemed too obtrusive.

“It’s too tall, it’s much too visible and what you see is too aggressive,” said Frederick Bland, a commissioner with the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Jared Kushner, the owner of the New York Observer and the principal of Kushner Companies, which owns the building at Houston and Mott Streets, has tried to gain approval for the proposed condominium since September. In October, the company returned to the landmarks commission with a more modest design, and was rejected again. Today, even more modest designs met the same fate.
Read more…

If you’re feeling welcoming — and aren’t camera-shy — Bowery Boogie has information regarding a photography student who is hoping to photograph local residents inside their homes. The student at the International Center for Photography was charged with documenting the neighborhood in a unique way, and decided that portraits would be a welcome departure from familiar shots of the Bowery or Tompkins Square Park. “I was hoping to get a range of people to capture the diversity of the LES,” he wrote.

At last count, there were 24 items on the agenda for tonight’s meeting of the Community Board 3 liquor license committee. One business that will not be appearing: Nublu, which had to be removed from the agenda because owner Ilhan Ersahin is still working to secure a new space at 151 Avenue C. Mr. Ersahin also told The Local that he’s working to obtain a license to sell just beer and wine at his original space at 62 Avenue C. The State Liquor Authority revoked Nublu’s liquor license at the latter location back in August due to its proximity to a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall. Since then, Nublu has hosted shows in the basement of Lucky Cheng’s.