Michael Lefkovits

Good morning, East Village.

Yesterday was hot, but today and the rest of the week will be hotter. Cooling stations are open in the East Village today, as the heat index is expected to exceed 95 degrees. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat watch, and temperatures as high as 100 degrees are expected by Friday. You can find a local cooling center here or by calling 311.

One fun way to ride out the heat wave is with a cup of flavored, shaved ice, also known as a piragua. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York offers an Alphabet City tour of where to get a piragua, which gets its name from the Spanish words for pyramid, pirámide, and water, agua.

As one fast food spot moves out, a new one moves in to the neighborhood. EV Grieve reports that the new Subway on Avenue B is open for business, while the Nathan’s-Pizza Hut-Arthur Treacher’s combo, according to a Grieve reader tip, is being transformed into a casual Italian restaurant from the folks behind the uptown restaurant Destino.

And in case you missed it, The Local’s Ian Duncan reports on Google Offers, a new deal site that started in the East Village last week.

Julie Turley, Shawn Hoke, Kenan Christiansen and Lindsay Wengler, members of The Local East Village Flickr Group, share their images of a murals outside Mars Bar in recent years.

Shawn Hoke

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Ian Duncan Crif Dogs was the second downtown business to try Google Offers, a new daily deal site

Last week tech giant Google rolled out its daily deal service in New York, launching with two East Village businesses: Pommes Frites and Crif Dogs.

Twitter user @jamiedurante summed up the pairing neatly: “LOL @ yesterday and today’s google offers. It’s like they KNOW us!! #eastvillage #eats #options #fat”

Despite the less-than-healthy picks, Google’s entry into this fast-growing business could be significant as it can bring search, e-mail and its new social network Google+ to bear on consumers. It had been trialing its Google Offers service in Portland, Ore., expanding the test run last week to New York and the San Francisco Bay area.

Like some other neighborhood business owners, Brian Shebairo, owner of Crif Dogs, said he had been unconvinced by other deal sites. “I kind of turned my nose up at these deals,” he said. “The reason I did it with them is because they’re Google.”

Mr. Shebairo explained that he thinks Google has the size to make the daily deal idea successful. He added that the company created a marketing campaign for the hot dog restaurant and gave his staff Android cell phones to scan offer barcodes.

The site works along the same model as Groupon and Living Social. Users sign up to receive a daily e-mail offering a coupon for discounted goods or services. When the coupons are purchased Google sends money to the business up front and customers use them to pay in the store. Last Thursday, 1,035 coupons for Crif Dogs were sold through the site. On Wednesday, the launch, 1,198 were sold for Pommes Frites.

Ian Duncan A Google Offers tag at Crif Dogs.

Google takes a cut of each offer it sells. For example, the $5 Crif Dogs offer was good for $10 of food at the store. Google keeps half, with the rest going to the restaurant.

At Pommes Frites, staff members were tight-lipped about the offer. Manager Ivan Roque said he could not discuss the terms of the deal and owner Omer Shorshi did not respond to e-mail messages requesting comment.

Phillip Kalantzis Cope Mars Bar closed its doors Monday.

It happened a little before 4 p.m. The patrons were let out, the door was shut. And with the resignation of a whimper in place of the much anticipated bang, Mars Bar closed, forever.

On any other afternoon, the iconic bar — a symbol of a time gone by for a neighborhood experiencing an era of commercial development — would be sprinkled with regulars yakking away about the day’s gossip with a sympathetic young bartender.

Debates over the distinction, if any, between bands like Foreigner and Journey would be overheard as music from John Fogerty to Wesley Willis bounced off the bar’s graffiti-laden walls. Glasses of whiskey and discount red wine would be filled to the top, and the beer was always served ice cold.

But by late Monday afternoon, Mars Bar had finally served its last drink.

Raymond Bell, 60, a longtime regular with a taste for red wine, described being on the scene Monday afternoon when the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene closed the bar down — only a few weeks before the building’s demolition to make way for a new 12-story condo.

“I didn’t even get to finish my last drink,” he said. While other customers lingered outside, Mr. Bell said he “just walked away.”
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Roey Ahram, Clark Carr, Rachel Citron, Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Joshua Davis, Dave DiRoma, Vivienne Gucwa, Shawn Hoke, Meghan Keneally, Scott Lynch, Clint McMahon, Michael Natale, Michah Saperstein and Lindsay Wengler — all members of The Local East Village Flickr Group — share their images of Mars Bar through the years.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

If you’d like a chance to see your best shots appear on The Local, join The Local East Village Flickr Group.

Joshua Davis

Good morning, East Village.

The neighborhood is still abuzz at the sudden closure of Mars Bar late Monday evening. EV Grieve broke the story just before 4:30 p.m, followed by confirmations from the Department of Health about the closure. The Local has a report on last night’s vigil with reactions from the neighborhood. Check back later for a closer look inside Mars Bar though the eyes of some regulars, as well as a presentation of photos of the bar throughout the years.

In news not involving Mars Bar, The Local’s Meghan Keneally reports that Banjo Jim’s is one step closer to to being sold to a new ownership group led by Robert Ceraso. The State Liquor Authority Committee of Community Board 3 endorsed the transfer of the liquor license Monday night, the last bit of work left before the sale.

If the deep fried Kool-Aid wasn’t enough for you, EV Grieve points out that Jane’s Sweet Buns, a bakery selling pastries “inspired by cocktails,” opens today at 2 p.m. They are located on St. Marks Place in the former home of the De La Vega Museum.

The Daily News reported that an East Village street merchant, who sells hand-made gothic clothing and accessories, was beaten on the subway on his way home early Monday morning. The assault happened on the 4 train and, though racial slurs were exchanged, police have not labeled this a hate crime. WPIX has a video interview with the victim.

Finally, The Local would like to congratulate Asghar Ghahraman, a.k.a. Ray Alvarez of Ray’s Candy Store on Avenue A, for becoming a U.S. citizen, as reported in the Villager. This egg-cream’s for you, Ray.

Joshua Davis Former patrons of Mars Bar customers gathered outside the now-closed bar Monday night for an impromptu candlelight vigil.

Occasional customers and regulars at Mars Bar were shocked Monday night to learn that the Department of Health ordered the bar to close. City health inspectors found several sanitation violations and slapped a yellow “Closed” sticker on the bar’s front door Monday afternoon. Many East Villagers believe that Monday was the last time they’ll ever see Mars Bar open to the public.

Julie Turley, East Village resident since 1995 and a librarian at Borough of Manhattan Community College, said she loved the art on the walls at Mars Bar.

“I didn’t realize it was closing so soon. I don’t even drink really, but I always said if the Mars Bar closed, I would have to leave New York because it would be sort of the last slice of cake for that area — that represented this city’s grungy past. I never felt like I belonged there, but I’m still sad to see it go.”
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Meghan Keneally The transfer was approved for Banjo Jim’s.

The State Liquor Authority Committee of Community Board 3 Monday night endorsed the transfer of the liquor license at Banjo Jim’s, the popular bluegrass bar on Avenue C.

The transfer of the bar’s liquor license was said to be the only issue left to be resolved before the bar was sold to an ownership group led by Robert Ceraso. The next step is for the Community Board to pass along its recommendation to the State Liquor Authority.

The new license allows for acoustic guitar accompanied by microphone amplification and DJs up to two times per week. The hours will remain the same as they are at Banjo Jim’s currently — 5 p.m. to 4 a.m. throughout the week, and then from noon until 4 a.m. on the weekends. Few other details were finalized at Monday’s meeting, except that the signage will change — perhaps unsurprising since Mr. Ceraso has indicated that he will depart from the bluegrass theme and opt for an “artisanal” motif, which may not fit with the large banjo on the current sign over the bar’s front door. The bar’s new doors will be barn-style with glass windows that can be lifted and opened in the summer months.

Joshua Davis Owner Hank Penza sat outside Mars Bar as beer was taken away for what could be the last time after the Health Department ordered the bar closed.

Update | 7:34 p.m. Mars Bar, a symbol of a bygone era in the East Village, was widely expected to go out with a bang — a blow-out party before its home on the corner of East First Street and Second Avenue is demolished to make way for a condo tower. Instead, the bar has fallen to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which today ordered the shutters pulled down for what regulars expect to be the last time.

A spokeswoman for the department confirmed that the bar was closed after an inspector found approximately 850 fruit flies in the bar; conditions “conducive to a pest infestation;” cracked and chipped walls and unsecured gas cylinders.

News of the bar’s closure was first posted by EV Grieve, with other outlets quickly following suit. Calls to the bar were met with gruff confirmations that it had been closed but further details did not immediately emerge.

Outside Mars Bar this afternoon, regulars and staff appeared in a foul mood, threatening reporters and photographers and refusing to answer questions. Owner Hank Penza told a Village Voice reporter that he was “tired” and that was why the bar was closing.

Around 4 this afternoon, a yellow Health Department sign had been spotted posted on the bar’s door but within a half hour it was covered by a makeshift sign that simply read “closed.”
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Joshua Davis Workers removed beer and other beverage from Mars Bar, which was apparently closed by the authorities earlier today.

Update | 6:14 p.m. Health Department officials have confirmed that they ordered the closure of Mars Bar today because of a litany of health code violations. The department said that inspectors observed about 850 fruit flies in various areas of the restaurant and in a bottle of alcohol; the department also cited “conditions conducive to a pest infestation including standing water on a floor near an ice machine, water logged wooden flooring and bottles in a box with fluid in them.”

Update | 5:26 p.m. With the wrecking ball already hanging over its head, Mars Bar was apparently forced to close by the authorities earlier today. EV Grieve posted rumors that the bar had been closed by the Department of Health, but it was unclear whether the closure was temporary or permanent.

A reporter from The Local saw a yellow sign bearing the words “Closed by Order of the Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene” affixed to the front door of the bar around 4 this afternoon. Within a half hour, the sign had been covered and a worker hurled expletives at reporters as they took photographs of the scene.

Grieve called the bar, as did The Local. A man answered the phone and asked about the closure said: “The Mars Bar just closed down now.” He refused to answer any more questions and hung up. Late this afternoon, a handwritten, cardboard sign attached to the store read simply “closed” and beer was being carted out on to the sidewalk.

Owner Hank Penza was at his usual station outside the bar, but patrons and staff at the bar declined to comment to The Local.

In an interview with the Village Voice’s Runnin’ Scared blog, Mr. Penza denied that the Health Department was involved in the bar’s closure.

The Local is continuing to report this story and we will provide more details as they become available.

Khristopher J. Brooks, Joshua Davis, Ian Duncan and Todd Olmstead contributed reporting to this post.

Khristopher J. Brooks The scene outside Mars Bar earlier today.

Meghan Keneally. A staple of the East Village music scene, the future of Banjo Jim’s is up for approval.

After the blogger EV Grieve reported that changes may be coming to Banjo Jim’s, a popular bluegrass bar on Avenue C, locals took to their keyboards and headed to the blog’s comments section in anguish.

The bar’s prospective owner, Robert Ceraso, told the blog that he will be presenting a plan to the State Liquor Authority Committee of Community Board 3 tonight asking that the liquor license for the bar be tranferred to he and his partners. In describing his vision for his bar, Mr. Ceraso said that he envisioned it as an “artisanal neighborhood cocktail bar.” And that did him in.

Commenters skewered his use of the word, likening it to buzzwords of trends past, and immediately branded him as one of the big bad developers swooping in to discard the East Village of old.

One commenter, Chris Flash, wrote: “Yet another cool unpretentious music venue lost on the LES, to be replaced by yet ANOTHER yuppie dive, as if Ceraso’s dive will be different from any other dive!!”

Another, Bowery Boogie, said: “Missing Banjo Jim’s already. Artisinal is one of those buzz words that makes me puke every time.”

Mr. Ceraso said that the reaction was not totally unexpected.

“I knew there was going to be some backlash,” Mr. Ceraso said in a telephone interview. “People don’t like change and they turned me into some crazy guy that wants to change the neighborhood.”
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Scott Lynch

Would-be messages from the East Village, in 140 characters or less.

Out of Office Tweet (Automated Response)

Obviously we am very concerning among the flowers.
Ditto says ‘Go Home Now’ but what about the hours?
 212-555-4444 but it’s déclassé to phone

or text weekends, and dubious at best Mon. & Fri. & as
 for Tues.-Thur. why it’s impossibly busy here at our loft
 on Lafayette I really

don’t know what you should do my advice is buy a fat
 novel for a couple of bucks from one of those Avenue A
 vendors and get on a bus

and stay on it until you finish it could be weeks if it’s
 Proust have you read Proust I haven’t but they say he’s
 good & takes a lot of

Time you seem to have a lot of Time that’s your
 problem you see we’re all tremendously busy I mean we
just don’t have Time so do read Proust
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Meghan Keneally. Natasha Dillon.

It hasn’t exactly been a banner year for New York politicians: the names Weiner and Kruger have recently been added to the list of elected officials who are associated with scandal.

But the roster of players on the state’s political scene is constantly replenishing, and this summer, a handful of aspiring East Village pols are among 90 Manhattanites running for positions at one of the lowest levels of the state’s political hierarchy, the New York County Democratic Committee.

You could be forgiven if you hadn’t heard of the county committee before — its workings are one of the more arcane aspects of state politics. County committees meet roughly once a year and one of their most significant roles is to step in during times of unexpected transition to choose nominees for special elections, such as the Sept. 13 contest to fill Mr. Weiner’s seat.

Natasha Dillon, 26, is one of local candidates running for a seat on the committee. Ms. Dillon has a growing familiarity with the city’s political scene — she recently became a member of Community Board 3 and has long been an activist in the gay and lesbian community — but she wasn’t completely aware of the role of the county committee.

“I know they have some sort of say in nominations of Democratic candidates of special elections, like the Queens County Committee is meeting about Weiner,” she said one recent afternoon before she headed out to petition for the required signatures in order to get her name on the ballot. “It’s a very small commitment.”
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Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Good morning, East Village.

With the days numbered for 11-17 Second Avenue — perhaps better known as the site of Mars Bar — The Times published an in-depth piece Sunday recalling the history of the block and the lives of the residents who lived there. And, in case you missed it, The Local’s Ian Duncan offered an investigative report Friday about the developer of the site, which is home to the iconic Mars Bar.

The Women’s World Cup wrapped up last night, and though Team U.S.A. lost in the final in penalty kicks, it did not stop fans, and CNN, from spending the day at Zum Schneider.

Some new breakfast options will line 14th Street, EV Grieve reports, including an International House of Pancakes and the relocation of the coffee and smoothie bar, Xoom. And just a couple blocks away, The Bean will be opening a new location on Broadway and 12th Street, just across the street from Strand Book Store.

And DNAinfo tells us that a new mural honoring women’s suffrage is planned for the same Avenue C site where a controversial mural featuring President Obama once stood.

Scott Lynch on capturing his love affair with New York.

“I’ve been in New York City for more than 30 years now, since the late 1970’s, and have always had such a huge crush on this town. Street photography, the (sometimes a bit obsessive) shooting of anything and everyone that catches my eye, or makes me smile, or suddenly seems fresh and new even if I’ve walked by it a thousand times before, has been an amazing discovery for me, the most immediate and satisfying way I’ve ever found to express my affection for this beautiful city and its never-ending parade of people, and to share it all with my daughters, my friends (especially New Yorkers in-exile… LOVE making them homesick!), and, thank you Internet, tons of strangers.”
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Mary Ellen Matthews

She may be known for the lovably oddball characters she’s brought to life on “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock”, but in the East Village, actress Rachel Dratch has another mark of distinction. She’s a local.

As new mom to an infant, Ms. Dratch has been more of a homebody than usual of late, especially now that she is penning a collection of autobiographical (and, we trust, laugh-out-loud funny) stories on life after “S.N.L.”. Still, we found her to be an enthusiastic consumer of the local hangs, and with nine years as a resident of the East Village, she’s sampled more than a few of the best. Lucky for us, she was not at all timid about sharing her favorite spots.

Best Breakfast

“I like the pierogis at Veselka, and I like that it’s open 24 hours. Now that I have a baby, I don’t usually take advantage of the 24-hour thing like I used to, but I just like living in New York and knowing everything is open 24 hours.”
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Courtesy of NYPDA police photo of the suspect.

The police are searching for a suspect in an attempted bank robbery Monday morning. Around 10:30 a.m., a man entered Bank of America at 72 Second Avenue and passed a note demanding money. The authorities describe the suspect, who did not receive any money, as a man in his 40’s who was wearing a white shirt and carrying a black backpack.

Ian Duncan The site BFC will develop, 11-17 Second Avenue – the current home of Mars Bar – is squeezed in among the much larger Avalon Bowery Place development

For Donald Capoccia, the developer behind 11-17 Second Avenue — the new apartment complex to be built on the current site of Mars Bar — the project is a return, after a decade away, to the East Village — the neighborhood where he launched his career and where he left his mark during the gentrification of the late 1990’s.

BFC Partners, Mr. Capoccia’s company, was responsible for the construction of hundreds of units of affordable housing in the East Village at a time when property values in the area were taking off. But the firm also became mired in a bitter dispute with residents over the destruction of community gardens to make way for Eastville Gardens, a mixed income development on Avenue C between East Seventh and East Eighth Streets.

Despite some rumblings over the loss of Mars Bar, a relic of the rough-and-tumble East Village of the 1980’s, the reception for the current project could hardly have been more different. In the past decade, the neighborhood has changed dramatically: when the 12-story building rises, it will stand among the much larger Avalon development on East Houston and Bowery. So far, BFC’s plan is going smoothly and Mr. Capoccia stands by his record.

“Housing production of that type in a neighborhood that was changing so rapidly is a great asset,” Mr. Capoccia said in a recent interview. Referring to low-income owners of units at the co-op he added, “community gardens are also a good asset but what was going on in the East Village then and where we are today, clearly a lot of these people wouldn’t be able to afford to live in the neighborhood.”
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