David Jarrett Details from a building within one of the two proposed districts.

A critical hearing regarding a proposed landmark district on East 10th Street has been expedited due to a controversial application for an addition to a building in the area, the Landmarks Preservation Commission revealed today.

Last week, the real estate magnate Ben Shaoul applied for an additional floor to 315 East 10th Street along Tompkins Square Park, which he had recently purchased. The rooftop addition, which would be a departure from the 26 buildings – most of which are four-story 19th- and 20th-century dwellings – that line the block, garnered the attention of the city Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“The reason we’re scheduling the date earlier than we planned is that the Department of Buildings notified the Commission’s staff this past Sunday that the owner of 315 East 10th Street had filed an application for a permit to construct a rooftop addition that could potentially affect the character of the proposed district,” wrote Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the Commission. Read more…

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation 285-287 East Third Street. Preservationists would like to see it landmarked, and a local poet would like to keep holding events in it.

It’s been 10 months since the building housing Gathering of the Tribes was put on the market, and the relationship between the artistic space’s founder, Steve Cannon, and his landlord is as tense as ever.

The latest dispute revolves around the regular art events organized by Mr. Cannon that take place at the federal-style townhouse on East Third Street.

“He’s made assurances that he wouldn’t do anything that would disturb other tenants in the building,” said Simon Chow, a partner of the building’s landlord. “If other people are complaining about noise, am I supposed to give him consideration over the tenants in the buildings?”

Mr. Cannon countered that only one person in a neighboring building had complained about the noise. Nevertheless, he said, the landlord, Lorraine Zhang, had threatened him with eviction. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The poet at work.

A 20-year-old itinerant poet was offering up stanzas on the cheap today, and she even penned an ode to St. Marks for The Local.

Abigail Mott had set up at St. Marks Place and Third Avenue with a typewriter and a sign saying, “Name a price, pick a subject, get a poem.” A four-person film crew shot her every move. Read more…

Da Capo Press

Out this month, poet Ed Sanders’s memoir of the 1960s, “Fug You,” serves as a veritable who’s-who of the characters of the beatnik, hippie, and yippie scenes: Splitting his time between playing with his satirical rock group the Fugs (first at local spots such as the Bridge Theater at 4 St. Marks Place and then around the world), publishing one of the East Village’s most influential alternative journals, and operating the iconic Peace Eye Bookstore (first at 383 East 10th Street and then at 147 Avenue A), Mr. Sanders crossed paths with the likes of Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Abbie Hoffman, and Timothy Leary, among others. Jonas Mekas and Harry Smith inspired him to experiment with underground filmmaking, and another close friend, Allen Ginsberg, joined him in attention-grabbing stands in support of drug legalization, pacifism, and first amendment rights.

Interspersed with Mr. Sanders’s memories of publishing everything from mimeographs (many of which are reproduced in the book) to some of Ezra Pound’s “Cantos” out of his “Secret Location” on Avenue A (at one point, the $27.49-a-month apartment was raided by the F.B.I. as they sought a roommate rumored to have knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald) are his recollections of recording with the Fugs, defending himself in court against charges of obscenity, and also defending himself on television against a drunk and surly Jack Kerouac, who had grown conservative in his later years. (“During the show,” writes Mr. Sanders, “I was very tempted to mention his daughter Jan, who’d come to many Fug shows. I remembered how the owner of the Astor Place Playhouse had come on Jan and a Fugs guitarist making it on the drum riser one midnight.”)

The Local spoke with Mr. Sanders, who now lives in Woodstock, over the telephone earlier today. Read more…

Two puppet festivals at the Theater for the New City this month will feature performances of children’s fare like “Little Red Riding Hood,” as well as more avant-garde material, like the prisoner uprising at Attica in 1971. Bread and Puppet Theater and the Voice 4 Vision Festival begin on Dec. 7 and 8, respectively, at the theater on First Avenue. The former will also feature “Man of Flesh and Cardboard,” an examination of Bradley Manning, the soldier facing life in prison for allegedly leaking a bounty of government information through WikiLeaks.

A documentary premiering tonight at the Duo Theater on East Fourth Street examines the impact of AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s through the eyes of a local musician, DNAInfo reports. Mimi Stern-Wolfe recalls in “All The Way Through Evening” that “You didn’t expect an illness to wipe out a whole section of people with such swiftness.” The film follows Ms. Stern-Wolfe as she plans an annual concert named after one of her fellow artists who died from the disease in 1988.

If it hurts to watch, just be glad you’re not a contestant. On Monday nights the comedy troupe Face Off Unlimited takes over the basement of Jebon Sushi and Noodle on St. Marks Place and puts on its own version of a cringe-inducing Japanese game show.

The Local recently talked with one of the performers and watched with a mix horror and delight as audience members ate sushi off of a hairy man’s belly — but not before signing a waiver, of course.

The above video has been edited to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 2, 2011

A previous version of the video gave incorrect names for Jay Painter and Eric Robinson.

Stephen Rex Brown Now you don’t: the Shepard Fairey mural is no more.

Well, that didn’t take long.

Yesterday, The Local noticed that the four-story Shepard Fairey mural on the side of the Standard East Village was coming down. Today, all evidence of the massive Buddhist monk was gone.

A spokeswoman for the hotel’s new owner, the famed hotelier Andre Balazs, said that there were no immediate plans to replace the mural.

Local punk rocker and bar owner Dick Manitoba has truly entered the realm of the immortals: he now has his own bobblehead. “This figure, capturing Richard’s signature modern-day look is limited to 1000 numbered units,” according to a post on Mr. Manitoba’s Maniblog. “Don’t mess with Manitoba as he stands proudly representing the Lower East Side. He’s accurately sculpted right down to the weathered Dictators leather jacket and searing glare.” Mr. Manitoba was last heard from talking trash about his former bandmate in the Dictators, Andy Shernoff. Despite the drama, a Dictators reunion is still in the works, sans Mr. Shernoff.

Philip Kalantzis-Cope The Theater for the New City at 155 First Avenue.

The Theater For The New City is in the final stages of a 24-year fundraising drive to pay off its debt.

In 1986 the theater’s mortgage was $717,000. Now, it’s down to $90,000, and administrators are orchestrating a big push to ensure its political, avant garde and always-colorful productions continue at the location on First Avenue.

“Our building, our permanent home, is the basis of our ability to produce new art,” said Crystal Field, the theater’s executive director in a press release. “The economic difficulties coming our way, indeed, to the whole of the art world, will best be met by a strong foundation.” Read more…

If you just can’t get enough of the images coming out of Occupy Wall Street, you’re in luck: JujoMukti will be hosting a photo exhibit of the protests on Dec. 1. The Local’s photographers and videographers have filed numerous dispatches from Lower Manhattan and Union Square; one of our contributors even spent two nights behind bars. Doors open at 7 p.m. at the tea lounge on East Fourth Street between Avenues A and B. Just be careful where you park your bicycle.

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.

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…

Harold Schrader

Last Thursday, approximately 100 spectators gathered on the top floor of the Barnes & Noble on 82nd Street and Broadway, expecting to hear Anthony Amato read from his new book, “The Smallest Grand Opera in the World.” Mr. Amato, now 90 years old and more than two years removed from his career at Amato Opera on the Bowery, was under the weather that evening, but the show — as it must — went on without him. Several students from the Manhattan School of Music and nearly a dozen former singers and stagehands exchanged memories of the house’s effervescent owner, from his ability to mimic a French horn to his famous spaghetti and meatballs.

It’s this brand of nostalgia that offers a proper lens with which to read Mr. Amato’s autobiography. Co-written with Rochelle Mancini, herself a former singer at Amato Opera, the book traces its author’s journey from the seaside town of Minori, Italy, to New Haven, Connecticut, and finally to the East Village, where Mr. Amato served as producer, director and owner of one of the city’s most beloved music institutions. Read more…

Earlier this week on their “How Did This Get Made?” podcast, Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael dissected what many believe is the best worst movie of all-time, “The Room.” Greg Sestero, a producer of the film who also acted in it, explained perplexing scenes such as the one in which tuxedoed men play rooftop catch. If you never got a chance to throw spoons at the screen while the film was playing at Village East Cinema, fear not: It’s now enjoying a midnight run at Sunshine Cinema (where “The Lost Interview With Steve Jobs” is screening tonight), the first Saturday of each month.

“Where Am I?”, an exhibit that opened at A Gathering of the Tribes last week, is the latest (after “Blind Light” last month) to take inspiration from the Third Street gallery’s owner, Steve Cannon.

Attendees enter a dark room filled with fog and are guided through a labyrinth of sculptures that they cannot see but are encouraged to touch. The intention is to mimic the way that Mr. Cannon experiences art despite having been diagnosed with glaucoma in 1991 (that same year, he retired from teaching at the City University of New York and started “A Gathering of the Tribes” as a literary journal). 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.

Courtesy of The Wild Project

The playwright Anton Chekhov once wrote that “one must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” In “Refrain,” a new play at The Wild Project on East Third Street, Chekhov’s gun comes in the form of an unconventional pregnancy.

When Sarah dies in a sudden accident with her infant daughter, her husband Leo (Marc Santa Maria) and sister Angela (Brooke Eddey) decide that the best way to honor her memory is to have a baby together via artificial insemination. So much for memorial services.