Here comes the cavalry. The embattled St. Mark’s Bookshop is gearing up for the arrival of the liberal icon Michael Moore, who just announced on Twitter that tonight all royalties from sales of his book, “Here Comes Trouble,” will go to the Occupy Wall Street protests. Mr. Moore is expected to arrive at 7 p.m. at the store on Third Avenue at Stuyvesant Street. The Local’s intrepid reporter, Liv Buli, will be on hand to get his opinion regarding the bookshop’s predicament. If you spot her, say hello!

Stephen Rex Brown 222 East 13th Street.

If Steve Herrick, Carl Siciliano and the late Bea Arthur have their way, a long-neglected, city-owned house at 222 East East 13th Street will be converted into a refuge for gay, lesbian and transgender kids living on the streets.

The respective executive directors of the Cooper Square Committee and the Ali Forney Center hope that their proposal for a transitional housing center — funded by a $300,000 donation from the late “Golden Girls” star — will resonate with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which has owned the dilapidated property since 1993. As part of the effort to generate community support, representatives from both groups will pitch their idea for the Bea Arthur Residence For L.G.B.T. Youth at next month’s meeting of the Community Board 3 Land Use Committee.
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Stephen Rex BrownSeptember’s Community Board 3 meeting was an overcrowded “disaster,” according to District Manager Susan Stetzer.

Community Board 3 general board meetings — known throughout the neighborhood for heated debates that go on at least four hours — just got a lot more uncomfortable.

Last month, the Department of Education stopped allowing the board to use its facilities for free, leaving District Manager Susan Stetzer searching for a space that can accommodate the scores of people that attend the monthly meetings.

The consequences of the Department of Education’s new policy was on full display on Tuesday at a standing-room-only general board meeting at the Ukrainian Museum. People had come out in droves in regards to Heathers Bar and Basketball City on Pier 36 in the Lower East Side, leaving the roughly 100 attendees flooding into the stairwell and lobby. Other people in the audience leaned in between historic Ukrainian paintings while struggling to hear the goings-on at the other end of the art gallery-turned-meeting space.
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The Lo-Down spotted a hawk devouring a pigeon in Seward Park yesterday — and so did much of the Lower East Side, apparently. The bird of prey dined unperturbed as a gaggle of excited onlookers took pictures of nature in all its brutality. When The Local spoke to the executive director of New York City Audubon last week regarding the hawks in Tompkins Square Park, he said that it was likely the newborns were venturing far beyond the green space where they were raised. Might this hawk in Seward Park once have nested in Tompkins?

The New York Post reports that John Legend has put his posh two-bedroom condo on the market for $2.95 million after moving in only two years ago. The smooth crooner is reportedly a big fan of his space in 52E4 on the Bowery, but is looking to upgrade. Maybe he should go house hunting with David Schwimmer?

A longtime photographer of Lower Manhattan has taken close-up photos of the World Trade Center and mounted them on a scaffolding on East Fourth Street, just out of reach.

Brian Rose, the photographer behind “WTC,” said he was inspired to prepare the outdoor exhibit after cleaning negatives of World Trade Center photos he took as long as 30 years ago. In the process of ridding the film of dust, he zoomed in on it and became mesmerized by the architectural beauty of the towers’ details.

“’WTC’ was never a project, it was found,” Mr. Rose said.
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Stephen Rex Brown Yesterday on Astor Place.

Good morning East Village, and happy Rosh Hashanah.

The National Review’s Katrina Trinko checks out Ron Paul’s speech at Webster Hall on Monday and finds a crowd that “skews more hipster than hip replacement.” In her piece, she dubs the contrarian Libertarian the “The President of the East Village.”

Further south, City Room has the latest twist in the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests: Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna may have used pepper spray in a second incident.

Back in our neck of the woods, EV Grieve spotted a noise complaint outside of UCBeast, the Upright Citizen Brigade’s recently opened East Village outpost. Anyone else think noise in front of the club is no laughing matter?
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Community Board 3 has just released its calendar of meetings for October. On the docket for October 17’s SLA Licensing committee is Fonda, a restaurant that EV Grieve noted earlier today is coming to the former Octavia’s Porch space at 40 Avenue B. A call to the Park Slope restaurant of the same name, opened in 2009 by former Rosa Mexicano culinary director Roberto Santibañez, reveals that it is planning an outpost. See the rest of the CB’s planned topics of discussions here.

So you want to land another kickflip just like the good old days, but you’re too scared of being singled out by the young skateboarders at Tompkins Square Park as an outsider. Now, thanks to Enclave Skate Shop in New Haven, you’ll be able to fit right in. The shop’s rundown of skate decorum covers flow of traffic, where to have a meltdown over not landing a trick, where to get $1 pizza (Mamani, naturally) and places to avoid (it’s a shocker: the public bathroom.)

Last seen staging a “takeover” of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, activist and photojournalist John Penley is planning a press conference at City Hall on Monday to address the police’s conduct during the Occupy Wall Street protests. He tells Runnin’ Scared, “Like everyone else I just got so outraged by stuff I’d seen both personally and in some of the videos.”

Daniel Maurer

At 433 East Ninth Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A, Zohar Zohar and her husband Yaniv Zohar have opened Zucker Bakery, complete with Stumptown coffee. Why not Zohar Bakery? Ms. Zohar explains that her maiden name, Zucker, means “sugar” in German. But a German bakery this is not – Ms. Zohar, who put in time as a line cook at restaurants like Daniel before taking time off to bake at home for her family some ten years ago, was raised in Israel by Eastern-European Jewish parents. She described her baked goods – mostly cookies – as “a collection of stuff I like, made from recipes given down from my friends, mothers of my friends, my mother, my mother-in-law.” Read more…

Hayley Roberts of World Class Learning Academy teaches her kindergarteners about shapes during play time.

Every day before and after school, John Taylor, headmaster of World Class Learning Academy, stands outside, greeting parents and waving goodbye to children.

“I know it’s a bit old fashioned, but it’s still kind of nice,” he said.

It may be the only thing that’s old-fashioned about this new private school. After commandeering two-thirds of the old La Salle Academy building in 2010, the school “injected millions,” per Mr. Taylor, into renovating and modernizing the 75-year-old building at 44 East Second Street. On Sept. 6, it opened its doors to 32 students between pre-kindergarten and fourth grade. The bulletin boards in hallways and classrooms are already filled with their artwork and projects. Read more…

Last week, as SchoolBook reported, the Department of Education issued its annual Progress Report for grade schools and middle schools (high school results will be issued next month). Due in part to changes in grading methods, double the number of schools — 10 percent — received failing grades of Ds and Fs. In the East Village, however, many schools held steady or raised their grades from last year, with the majority receiving Bs or Cs. Read more…

Ken Stein

Last Monday my wife and I were returning home to Williamsburg when the L train suddenly jolted to a stop somewhere between the Third and First Avenue stations. The train was packed, having filled up at Union Square, and we all moaned in chorus at the delay.

As we waited, I teased Wendy about cyber-stalking members of her favorite band, the Bad Plus, who we’d just seen perform. She’d once found a bread recipe on the pianist’s wife’s blog and made it for a dinner party we hosted. It was an innocent appreciation, and joking about it kept me from thinking about having to use the bathroom. After about fifteen minutes, though, passengers began eyeballing each other and sharing the obligatory mutual response: Two full weekends of having to take the shuttle because the train is out of service, and now this.

The elderly woman seated next to me seemed worried after an MTA worker rushed through our car. I told her the exact same thing had happened to me the previous weekend: “Someone probably pulled the emergency brake again.” Read more…

The D.O.B.’s map of stalled construction sites as of July.

In an effort to promote alternative uses of construction sites (for instance, those containers-as-canvases on East Fourth Street), Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has issued what a press release says is an unprecedented survey of stalled construction sites across Manhattan. The study found that of 129 stalled sites visited in June, Community Board 3 (which includes the East Village, the Lower East Side, and a part of Chinatown) had the second highest number of stalled sites, with 19. Out of 12 community districts, it also had the highest number of sites behind plywood (13), and the highest number of sites showing evidence of significant litter or dumping (5). The report noted that two thirds of Manhattan’s stalled sites showed signs of vandalism, using a photograph of a lot on Eighth Street as an example. Read more…

Meredith Bennett-Smith

Last month, the twentieth anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union went largely unnoticed elsewhere in Manhattan; but in a corner of town once known as Little Ukraine, the modest Ukrainian Museum served, as it has since 1976, as a central meeting place for the region’s expats – or as historian Orest Subtelny put it, “a good place to get together to talk.” Last night, Mr. Subtelny, a professor at York University in Toronto, addressed a crowd of about 100 that had gathered to hear him discuss the country’s uncertain future. The event helped launch the museum’s fall season. Read more…

Dominique Zonyee Scott Rosa Goldstein, Charles Krezell, and De Colores treasurer Elizabeth Ruf relaxing in the garden after the first meeting of LUNGS.

Saturday afternoon at the De Colores Community Yard, members of seven community gardens gathered for the first meeting of Loisada United Neighborhood Gardens (LUNGS), a support group founded by De Colores garden-keeper Charles Krezell. “I want LUNGS to unify all of our gardens, and make the Lower East Side greener,” said Mr. Krezell.

Forty East Village gardens were invited to the introductory meeting; in attendeance were a total of 12 representatives from El Jardin del Paraiso, Green Oasis, 6th & B, Miracle Garden, Jardin Los Amigos, 6BC Botanical Garden, and De Colores.

Diana Utech, 55, of El Jardin del Paraiso, considered LUNGS “a great idea,” adding that “we can share ideas to keep gardens alive, spread awareness about the positivity of gardens in the community.” Read more…

Meredith Bennett-Smith The pizzeria’s interior as of last week.

In August, bright orange signs appeared in the windows of 334 Bowery, announcing the summer opening of Forcella, a sister location of Giulio Adriani’s recently opened Williamsburg pizzeria. Now it’s autumn, and Mr. Adriani tells us that due to delays, his Neapolitan pies will come to the Bowery closer to Halloween. The former home of Bowery Tattoo is landmarked, he explained, so “everything is much more complicated.” Read more…