James Gray

At the Marrakech International Film Festival, one thing was clear: Parisians love James Gray.

Asked if it’s because he has European sensibilities, the Queens-born director disagreed. “I’m a very American director,” he said. “But I should have been making films in 1976. Coppola, Kubrick, Scorsese, Altman — American film was the best in the world then. But we lost that.”

As a child of the ’70s, Mr. Gray became obsessed with the era’s cinema. Like the works of that time, his movies show an “obsession with social class” (or so his wife says). And that obsession will be on full display next year, when he releases his fifth feature, tentatively titled “Lowlife.”

The film, set on the Lower East Side and Ellis Island in the 1930s, was filmed in part in the East Village last February as well as on a Bronx street that resembled the Lower East Side during its grittier days. But the work has nothing to do with Luc Sante’s Bowery-focused history, “Low Life.”

“‘Moron,’ ‘cretin,’ ‘lowlife’ were actual Ellis Island designations. You didn’t want to be a lowlife,” Mr. Gray explained.
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Sasha von Oldershausen

Two men were arrested after a Thanksgiving-weekend stabbing, according to a police source familiar with the case.

Juan Santiago, 26, was arrested on Nov. 23, the day of the incident. A second suspect, Luther Wright, also 26, was arrested four days later.

After being stabbed at 64 Baruch Drive, in the Seventh Precinct, 26-year-old Jonathan Flores walked north across Houston into the Ninth Precinct, where the crime was reported at 950 East Fourth Walk, in the Lillian Wald Houses. He was treated and released within two days of the incident, according to our source.

The report, filed with the Seventh Precinct, cited robbery and assault. Investigators believe the incident was drug-related, our source said.

Daniel Maurer

If you welcomed the news that Mile End is again delivering its smoked meat sandwiches, boy are you going to love this: you can now order lunch and dinner from Katz’s.

Traditionally, if you wanted to get delivery from one of the last of the old-school delis (R.I.P., Stage), you had to get the whole office in on it: there was an order minimum of $80 and a $20 fee for delivery to the East Village. But in recent days, Katz’s joined Seamless, where the order minimum is a mere $15 and the charge for delivering to the East Village is $2.95. (The delivery fee jumps up to $7.95 if you live in the West Village and goes up from there, depending on neighborhood.)

According to an employee, Katz’s quietly joined GrubHub a couple of months ago (the delivery minimum is a mere $10 there) and is now serving Seamless customers as well.

We ordered lunch earlier this week and within half an hour got a pastrami sandwich with a couple of pickles, a wooden spoon for smearing mustard, and, thankfully, a big ol’ stack of napkins.

Now if only Russ & Daughters would deliver?

The minds behind “Richard 3,” a Shakespeare-meets-punk standout of the Fringe Festival, have now tackled “A Streetcar Named Desire,” mixing a modern, party-fueled interpretation of the Tennessee Williams play with the stories around its conception.

Some fans might be familiar with the theory that Blanche was modeled after the playwright’s sister Rose, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and lobotomized. That backstory is essential to the Less Than Rent production “Desire! (A Varsouviana),” in which selections from “Streetcar” proper are bookended by scenes of Williams in the process of imagining it, and struggling to separate fact from fiction.

The real story here is the playwright’s guilt over failing both his sister and his lover. The first connection is clear enough, as Rachel Buethe’s manic and melodramatic Blanche easily slips into the role of Rose at the end. But Natalie Kropf’s double stint as Williams’s lover and a young reporter is more confused than clarifying. Luckily, her brief appearance as his mother is an absolute showstopper.
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Daniel Maurer

Students barged into a meeting at Cooper Union’s new academic meeting this morning, sobbing dramatically in front of president Jamshed Bharucha as the school of art’s board members discussed controversial new programs.

Saar Shemesh, a student in the school of art, was among an estimated 65 students who chanted in the basement hallway outside of the meeting. Three of her colleagues, she said, managed to gain entry before maintenance workers were instructed to block the door.

Ryan Cullen, a sophomore, was one of the three who entered the board meeting. “At some point we just walked past everyone and walked through. After a few students got in they made a wall,” he said, referring to the security detail.
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Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library.

Ritz Furs

“You don’t need a million to look like a million!” So went the tagline touting Ritz Furs in a ubiquitous late night commercial that ran throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Ladies were urged to sell their skins or buy them second-hand at a fraction of the price because, like the man said, “Some women ski in St. Moritz; other women just look that way.”

Cynthia Sley, lead singer of the Bush Tetras, got to live the dream. One night, she found a full-length fur coat lying on an East Village street. She picked it up, dusted it off and the next day sold it to Ritz Furs. The cash allowed her to live another month in New York, pursuing her art instead of a paycheck.

The choice of art over commerce has been a thread running through the history of the Bush Tetras. A staple on the New York music scene since 1979, their sound has been described as both danceable postpunk and no wave, two utterly different styles that they somehow made work together. The original Bush Tetras lineup consisted of guitarist Pat Place and keyboardist Adele Bertei, both freshly departed from The Contortions, as well as bassist Laura Kennedy, who had been their roadie. Dee Pop, a drummer with a taste for jazz as well as punk, rounded out the mix.
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Above a nondescript clothing store on at 652 Broadway, between Bond and Bleecker Streets, you’ll find Alexandre Gertsman’s apartment. The loft doubles as an art gallery where for five years the former architect has exhibited works of contemporary Russian art.

“If I want, my gallery becomes my very large living room,” he told The Local during a recent visit.
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Sasha von Oldershausen The manager of Rudy Volcano
unpacks new merchandise.

A month after Sandy, and with the deadline for federal and city-wide emergency loans looming at the end of December, East Village businesses are still struggling to get back to normal — and many of them aren’t getting assistance.

Several businesses contacted by The Local said they were still dealing with technical and equipment issues, limited phone lines, the cost of replacing lost merchandise, loss of business, and damage from mold, not to mention the red tape of applying for loans.

Some, like The Sunburnt Cow on Avenue C, are still contending with gas and electricity problems. Last Friday, the restaurant’s manager, Matilda Boland, said she was still without gas, and was only open for weekend brunch. “We’re currently cooking on what’s essentially camping equipment,” she said.

Ian Pearl, owner of Royale on Avenue C, has been dealing with his own equipment issues. “Stuff keeps breaking. The power surges blow, then it’s the compressors. There’s all that to deal with on top of the refrigeration, which was ruined, and all of the ruined inventory.”

Mr. Pearl, who estimates a $100,000 loss of business, has applied to a number of emergency loans without much luck. The city’s Department of Small Business Services, which offers emergency loans and a matching grant program, rejected his application; now he’s waiting to hear back from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“I’m just trying to wrap my head around it. It’s really a lot. With all this combined, it’s just not a good time,” he said.

Several small-business owners complained about heavy paperwork and unanswered applications, where loans program were concerned.
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Alexa Mae Asperin At today’s press conference.

If you were wondering how the students who seized the eighth floor of Cooper Union’s Foundation Building were going to get hot meals, here’s your answer: this afternoon, supporters delivered pizza to them by stringing it up with dozens of balloons.

According to Joe Riley, a junior in the art school who is one of the twelve currently barricaded inside, the Two Boots pizza (fancier than his usual fare) was sent up by the Bruce High Quality Foundation, an artist group made up of Cooper Union alums. “The pizza delivery today was really just a show of a support,” he said. “We didn’t really need it. We came in here with plenty of food.”

Nevertheless, the students were happy to snag it. “They just made the catch,” said Tyler Paige, another occupier.

The delivery, photos of which appeared on Twitter, came shortly after a press conference in which senior art students Rachel Appel and Audrey Snyder, speaking on behalf of the occupiers outside of the building, said tuition would be “the end” of the art school.
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Courtesy of Lina McGinn

While eleven Cooper Union students, along with another from the New School, occupied the eighth floor of the art school’s Foundation Building last night, a group of first-year students banded together and camped out on the fourth floor to protest the possibility of undergraduate tuition.

“In a mass, we thought we could basically sleep there overnight without locking ourselves in but still resist requests for us to leave,” said Lina McGinn, who organized the group.

Around midnight, about 20 students armed with sleeping bags entered the studio space four floors below their colleagues. Because the studio closes at 2 a.m., they were asked by security to vacate the premises but refused.

“They went back downstairs and basically just sat outside the door the rest of the night,” Ms. McGinn said of the security guards. “They didn’t call the cops.”
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Care for a Malibu Barbie with that plate of frickles? You can now order just that on St. Marks Place.

Its red-and-gold exterior may be loud, but Saints Tavern opened rather quietly last week, boasting 20 beers on tap, cocktails with names like The Grapeful Dead, and a touch of Americana (a pinup photo of Marilyn Monroe faces a replica of Joe DiMaggio’s Yankees uniform).

Alfonso Londono, who owns the tavern along with partners Richard Romano and Aida Levinshon, comes from a restaurant family. He opened his first place Hoops, a college sports bar, at the age of 21, and went on to operate a Mexican restaurant and an Asian fusion concept as well as The Copper Barrel in the Financial District.

Mr. Londono thought the American vibe would help distinguish Saints Tavern from its Asian neighbors. He and his partners scoured flea markets and local shops such as Obscura Antiques to find decor such as a bear head with boxing gloves and a big fish with a soda can. On the ground floor customers can draw all over tables made of chalkboard.
See the menu

Dana Varinsky Students occupying the school’s Peter Cooper Suite Skype into a community summit downstairs in the Great Hall.

A dozen Cooper Union students currently occupying the school’s Foundation Building were met with an enthusiastic round of applause when they joined a community summit via Skype this evening.

During their brief appearance, they urged their peers, who had gathered for a series of presentations about higher education and student debt, to continue protesting tonight and throughout the day tomorrow.

The occupiers also informed summit attendees about a document, reprinted below, that came into their possession, which outlines four possible plans for implementing undergraduate tuition.
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Photos: Tim Schreier Cram of Cram Concepts

On Friday we showed you the latest cycle of the Centre-Fuge Public Art Project as it kicked off on East First Street. Saturday we headed back as the epic collaboration came together. See our shots below, and check back later for more.
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View the complaint

Two former tenants of a building owned in part by controversial real estate developer Ben Shaoul are suing the owners and managers of the walkup for failing to snuff out bedbugs.

The complaint, filed last month, alleges that the landlords of 508 East 12th Street were “willfully, wantonly, deliberate and grossly negligent” in dealing with the infestation, causing “pain, shock, mental anguish.”

Lauren Wilms, 24, and Alexandra Sanchez, 25, told The Local that they moved into the building in June 2011; within six weeks, bedbugs had infiltrated their home. During the three-month infestation, they woke up with bites on their bodies and faces, and had to evacuate repeatedly for exterminators, the plaintiffs said.

P.V.E. Associates proved difficult to deal with throughout the process, according to the roommates. “We were traumatized and broken down ourselves from dealing with this situation, but we were being yelled at by the management company,” Ms. Sanchez said.
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Kat Yen Ming Peiffer in “The ABC’s Guide to Getting Famous”

Ming Peiffer — her face powdered white, to contrast her suggestive red kimono — leaps onto the stage at the Red Room, promising to teach Asians how to get famous. It’s easy to incite pity, she assures: just play up your immigrant background and describe how your family lived in poverty before coming to America. It’s because of this tragic past that you are entitled to make art — regardless of quality!

The farce should be obvious by now. An exposé of systematized racism against Asians in the theater industry, “The ABC’s Guide to Getting Famous” is part of a well-established tradition in American literature. It’s no “Invisible Man,” but this ingenious solo show cum documentary doesn’t claim to be. Instead, it uses projections of Ms Peiffer’s interviews with contemporary Asian actors and actresses to form a sociological foil to her blaring embodiment of the Asian stereotype.

These two viewpoints are particularly well-suited to disentangling the paradoxes and difficulties of fitting into a larger culture. Ms Peiffer, or ABC, says immerse yourself in Asian clubs, societies, meeting groups, while the interviewees say this is just as alienating as being the only Asian around; ABC says accentuate your eyes and audition for the kung fu master, the ninja, or the prostitute, while the actors on screen testify that they feel like caricatures daily, yet have a hard time finding work. Ms Peiffer, of half-Asian descent, offers herself as a demonstration in the end, since her other half is routinely neglected at auditions searching for stock characters.
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Alexa Mae Asperin

You may have seen photos of 116 Avenue C in our Flickr stream yesterday: the space near East Eighth Street that was formerly Vibrations Lounge is well on its way to becoming The Third Man, the new project from Eduard Frauneder and Wolfgang Ban of Edi & the Wolf.

The cocktail bar will soft-open in the next couple of weeks, according to Florian Altenburg, one of the designers. Yesterday he told The Local that it would seat around 70 people and serve small plates. It was expected to open last month, but that has been pushed back: the bar’s basement, said the designer, saw some flooding during Sandy, though it fared better than Edi & the Wolf did, a block away.

In its fall restaurant preview, The Times wrote that The Third Man was “inspired by the noir film of the same name, with décor reminiscent of the Loos Bar in Vienna, including a floating steel bar suspended from the ceiling. There will be Austrian-influenced small plates, wine, beer, Champagne and cocktails created with house-made ingredients.”

Update | 12:17 p.m. Speaking of Edi & the Wolf, the restaurant has sent over its Thanksgiving prix-fixe menu. Check it out here, and see the menus for 28 more Thanksgiving feasts here.

Suzanne Rozdeba

A block and a half from where Nino’s recently got a makeover, Mamani Pizza is up for sale.

The owner of the 99-cent-slice joint at 151 Avenue A, who didn’t want to be named, confirmed it’s on the market for $129,000. “We’d like to keep it private why it’s for sale,” she said, “but you can write about how good our pizza is.”

Earlier this week, we noted the closure of 2 Bros. Plus on St. Marks Place and the opening of another Joey Pepperoni’s on East 14th Street. Nearby on East 14th, Twitter user @THIEVERYCORP72 noted signage going up for yet another cheap-slice joint, Famous 99-Cent Pizza.

Alexa Mae Asperin

Alexa Mae Asperin

While small businesses on Avenue C struggle to become fully operational again, one of the neighborhood’s largest and oldest supermarkets remains completely shuttered during what would’ve been its busiest time of year.

The C-Town at 188 Avenue C, which has served the community for two decades, sustained “significant water damage” during Sandy, according to manager Elio Hernandez. He estimated the store had lost nearly $1.5 million, and said it wouldn’t reopen for another month.

About $100,000 worth of goods had to be thrown out after the 9,000-square-foot basement was submerged in 10 feet of water. On the main floor, which was flooded with two feet of water, new shelves will cost around $3,000, and $130,000 worth of refrigerators and cases will have to be replaced along with the flooring.
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Alexa Mae Asperin

Alexa Mae Asperin

Artichoke aficionados, rejoice: cousins Francis Garcia and Sal Basille have opened Chubby Mary’s a few steps away from their 14th Street pizzeria. The signage promises “The Best Heros In Town!”

In the space where Led Zeppole once served fried Oreos and cannolis, this new venture offers a variety of sandwiches, all under $8, that can be ordered as heros or small rolls. The menu is below.
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