For most Villagers, the FAB! Festival on East Fourth Street between Bowery and Second Avenue this past Saturday meant homemade kimchi from the 4th Street Food Co-op, choreographed dance performances (as you can see in our slideshow, the Rod Rodgers Dance Company‘s youth ensemble performed a number from “Chicago”), and shopping courtesy of MissWit’s Deborah Goldstein (her best effort: a T-shirt emblazoned with the text “The Unbearable Lightness of Bieber”). For a handful of local artists, the day was quite literally groundbreaking. Read more…

City Room sits in on a film class taught by the star of “127 Hours” and “Milk” at NYU, and the first-time professor’s curriculum is as avant garde as one would expect. Soon the nine graduate students will travel to Detroit to shoot a collaborative film with the themes of “rejuvenation and memory.” Of course, the class has its fair share of perks, too. The students’ films will likely get attention from film festivals, and then there’s just the thrill of spending time with Mr. Franco. “I got over being star-struck,” one student said. “But handsome, yes, he is handsome.”

Bowery Boogie spotted the Yankee second baseman — and 2011 home run derby champ — playing a game of stickball on Bond Street yesterday. The game, complete with adoring kids playing the outfield, was part of a promotion by the MLB Fan Cave, which is nearby on Broadway. No word on whether Mr. Cano’s power and smooth swing were in full effect on the mean streets of Bond.

Robert Schmunk The Parks Department has begun placing rat poison in Tompkins Square Park, a measure it previously declined to use because of the presence of red- tailed hawks.

The city has unleashed a new weapon in the fight against the rodent menace in Tompkins Square Park.

After destroying rodent hideouts and deploying mint-scented trash bags, new garbage cans, and “Feed a pigeon, breed a rat” signage, this week the Parks Department began baiting the park with poison.

Previously, the Parks Department had said it did not use rat poison due to the danger it posed to the red-tailed hawks that dine on the critters. But now, new Parks Department policy allows the agency to use poison when hawks are not in the fledgling season, which is roughly from February to August. Read more…

Daniel Maurer The alleged rape occurred outside of 303 East Eighth Street.

The 51-year-old accused of the brutal and brazen rape of a woman on Eighth Street on Saturday morning spent seven years being shuffled between city jails and state mental health institutions.

Neal Essex, who was scheduled to appear in criminal court today, spent a total of 1,350 days behind bars over the course of seven separate jail bids; all of which were related to a second-degree murder charge in 1984 (The Local was unable to confirm the victim or verdict in the case, but The New York Post reported that Mr. Essex was accused of killing his mother.) Despite all the jail time, Mr. Essex did not end up serving time in the New York prison system, according to a Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman. And, until the alleged rape, he had not been to jail or prison since 1991. Read more…

Runnin’ Scared has the harrowing tale of an actress and NYU professor, Cynthia Wright, who was nailed by a speeding cyclist while crossing Third Street at Avenue A. She didn’t file a report, but realized days later that she has several visits to the orthopedist on the horizon for damage to her face, jaw, knees and tibia. A friend then posted a sign in the neighborhood asking that the cyclist listen to his conscience, call Ms. Wright and help with the expenses. As it so happens, Andrea Peyser’s column today mentions an East Village man, Jack Brown, who was also injured by a bike but failed to go to the hospital.

Google Maps The Jacob Riis Houses, where Mr. Brown lived, at FDR Drive and Sixth Street.

The death of a man fleeing police across FDR Drive last week has led to aggression toward officers patrolling Avenue D, with some angry residents even tossing objects from the rooftops at them.

Lieutenant Patrick Ferguson of the Ninth Precinct revealed that the environment on Avenue D has taken a turn for the worse at a meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council last night.

“It’s been hostile,” said Mr. Ferguson. “We don’t have the best of friends there right now.” Read more…

Susan Keyloun 200 Avenue A, earlier this summer.

The owners behind a proposed art gallery and restaurant at the former site of Superdive, one of the most controversial East Village bars in recent memory, will soon formally go before the State Liquor Authority, a spokesman confirmed yesterday. The last time 200 Avenue A was on the radar, Michael Taub, the owner of the building, was met with skepticism by Community Board 3 and Councilwoman Rosie Mendez after pitching the art gallery idea, which would feature a D.J., full service bar and stay open until 4 a.m. on weekends.
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Dan Glass Saxophonist Darius Jones and Kirk Knuffke on cornet lead the Kirk-Jones Quintet during a less controversial performance at the University of the Streets.

The executive director of University of the Streets has broken her silence regarding a brawl that occurred at her long-standing Seventh Street venue earlier this month. According to Saadia Salahuddeen, the scuffle stemmed from a dispute over $50 that she said the band, Talibam!, owed the University because no one showed up for its show.

That’s when things got heated, according to a statement by Ms. Salahuddeen posted on the University’s Facebook page. A member of Talibam!, Kevin Shea, allegedly said to her, “You think we’re acting crazy? I am crazy — let’s get crazy.” He then allegedly lunged at Ms. Salahuddeen, leading to the fisticuffs. Read more…

Sick of that vacant lot? Tired of that dead tree? Now you can clean them up using grant money from the Citizens Committee for New York City. The Love Your Block grant offers up to $1,000 for any community group looking to improve a street in a variety of ways (trash cleanup, bicycle parking — the sky’s the limit). The city also chips in by offering the help of the transportation, parks, and sanitation departments, as well as other agencies. Here’s the application. An informational session is today at 6:30 p.m. in Lower Manhattan.

Daniel Maurer

While we have our lens trained on Cooper Square today: The Local was shocked to see that the price of a spicy chicken sandwich went up by 25 cents at Cafe Zaiya — a sign that even one of the neighborhood’s cheapest eateries isn’t recession-proof.

Yesterday, the Japanese cafe raised the price of a pre-packaged onigiri with salmon (a triangle-shaped rice cake) by 25 cents to a whopping $1.75. And the spicy chicken sandwich — a favorite around the Local office — is now $4.25, up from $3.95.

“Gas is up. We have to pay tolls a lot,” said Fabian Lima, an employee at the cafe. “We haven’t raised the price since 2003.”
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62-64 4th, Before Renovation

Next Saturday the artistic haven on Fourth Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue will mark a major milestone, as two newly renovated buildings will be officially opened, and crews will break ground on a Latino cultural center.

Fourth Arts Block, the group overseeing the development of the Fourth Street arts district, is hosting the ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings, which will coincide with the FAB! Festival of performances, food and other street-fair fare.

Tamara Greenfield, the executive director of FAB, heralded the upgraded facilities — which were renovated with $10 million in public financing, as well as some private funds — as vital new spaces for artists and their audience.
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Daniel Maurer

After “Greetings from Tim Buckley” took over a stretch of East Fifth Street last week, “Law & Order: SVU” is stepping out of its Chelsea Piers set and has put orange cones down the entirety of East Seventh Street between Avenues A and B, as well as a stretch between A and First Avenue. The show will be filming starting at 6 a.m. tomorrow, according to tow-away signs.

Seen something like this? Tell The Local.

Daniel Maurer 303 East Eighth Street

A 51-year-old man was arrested for raping a woman on Saturday morning, an N.Y.P.D. spokesman said.

The victim told the police that the suspect threw her to the ground outside of 303 East Eighth Street at around 8:19 a.m. and attacked her. The suspect was arrested at the scene between Avenues B and C. The victim — whose age was not available — was treated at Bellevue Hospital and had bruising to the face, according to the spokesman.

A resident in the area commented on EV Grieve that a person walked out of a building nearby, saw the crime and called 911.

According to the latest crime statistics, the incident is at least the tenth rape this year in the Ninth Precinct, which covers the East Village.

“Don’t eat the brown acid,” quipped Lane Steinberg, 50, to several dozen East Villagers — many of them children and young parents — watching his rock-infused salsa group Cracked Latin on Ninth Street between First Avenue and Avenue A on Saturday. An afternoon-long party, sponsored by the Ninth Street A-1 Block Association, helped local businesses like Whitman’s, Good Beer and Dorian Grey Gallery re-introduce themselves, and offered residents the chance to hawk their homemade crafts. Read more…

One of my favorite parts of street photography is that I never have any idea what I’m going to shoot when I go out walking around. For the most part, it’s about turning a corner and getting hit with something goofy, or beautiful, or one-in-a-million. You can go just about anywhere in New York City and expect the unexpected, of course, but somehow the East Village just seems to generate more of those moments. Here are a few recent shots that took me by surprise.
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Lauren Carol Smith Wendy Barrett’s store may soon be evicted by city marshals.

Another longstanding business in the neighborhood is on the brink of closing its doors.

The Village Scandal, a 16-year-old hat shop, is facing eviction from its space on Seventh Street, and the owner is pointing the finger at her property management company.

Wendy Barrett, the milliner who owns the popular shop, has become so desperate that she has written a message on a sandwich board in front of her store asking sympathizers to petition the management company, A.J. Clarke, to stop the eviction.
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This week we took a cue from “T” and tackled brightly colored hues from emerald green to fiery red and sprightly yellow. See how these locals pair their favorite statement colors with neutrals and whites.

Courtesy of Robert Sestok. “First St. Iron.”

What will happen to the BMW Guggenheim Lab once it packs up its video screens and moves on to Berlin? Members of First Street Green – the community group that for years lobbied the city to renovate the lot at Houston Street and Second Avenue – held a brainstorming event at the Lab on Saturday to answer just that. This much is certain: They’ve secured approval from the Parks Department, which owns the land, to install a new sculpture by Robert Sestok, a Detroit-based artist who has been visiting New York for three decades.

Mr. Sestok, who said he has been involved with Detroit’s influential Cass Corridor art movement since the 1970s, called “First St. Iron,” his welded steel sculpture, “a tribute to my past associations with the city of New York.” The piece was inspired by the wrought iron fences lining the streets near a friend’s house in the East Village. Read more…