Annie Fairman

Customers, friends and employees of the New York Copy Center returned to the re-opened store after the final day of religious rites were performed for Sunando Sen, who died on Thursday evening in Queens after being pushed onto the subway tracks.

Annie FairmanAt New York Copy Center.

On Sunday, a yellow rose and handwritten sign were spotted outside of the store that read: “Sunando Sen A Beautiful Good Soul in Heaven Your Kindness Good Soul Gentle Heart Remembered Always!” As of today, others had written notes of regret and condolences on the paper, and a photo of Mr. Sen was posted along with text on the store’s front door. The outdoor vigil, composed of candles, cards, and flowers, had been moved inside to the front counter because of weather.

Helen, a resident of the East Village for over fifty years who declined to give her last name, has been a customer of the store since it opened roughly 16 years ago. “They had so many, but this place, with Sunando, he knew exactly how to handle everything graphically,” she said.

“I mean he really had a good touch,” said Helen, adding that they drew many of the neighborhood’s graphic artists to the store. “We are all mourning. We are very sad.”

Bidyut Sarker, 55, opened New York Copy Center in late 1995, and Mr. Sen helped him set up the businesses computer systems before they opened their doors. Though he had “no institutional education” in computers, Mr. Sarker said he taught himself complex software, often staying at the store until two or three in the morning working on the computer. After opening his own copy store on the Upper West Side, Mr. Sarker said the two would still call one another frequently for help. Smiling, Mr Sarker recalled how Mr. Sen would phone the store with any problems from the copy machine equipment, and Mr. Sarker would respond in kind with all computer questions. Read more…

Photo courtesy David Bellel1959 Little League: David Bellel, middle row, second from left.

In the second part of a two-part story, Mary Reinholz speaks with some former residents of Knickerbocker Village.

According to some former residents, free speech became muted at liberal leaning Knickerbocker Village with the onset of the cold war with the Soviet Union, the United States’ former ally against Nazi Germany. During the height of anti-communist fervor, tenants shied away from joining the National Committee to Secure Justice for the Rosenbergs, which author David Alman and his wife Emily helped to co-found while they were living at KV.

“We wanted a new trial for the Rosenbergs, and if not that then clemency,” he said, “But that was a very hot potato in 1951 and we couldn’t get anyone (at KV) to join us. It’s not that people were running from us, just not to us. One tenant,a lawyer and his wife were very sympathetic and contributed (money) to the committee. For us, it was matter of trying to help two people whose lives were at stake.”

David Bellel, 64, a former classroom teacher and retired social studies coordinator for District One on the Lower East Side, lived at Knickerbocker Village from 1952 to 1964. He was an only child, the son of a garment worker. Because his father didn’t belong to any political group, young David wasn’t always aware of the fear that gripped his friends’ parents during the communist hunting years of the Cold War era.

“I was there at the height of the McCarthy era and everybody who was (political) kept their mouths shut or moved away,” he said. “I wasn’t aware of the Rosenbergs until I was an adult. Friends would tell you that their parents belonged to the communist party but never told their kids until it was later revealed them. It wasn’t a matter of being ashamed but a fear of what could happen. I wasn’t aware of the fear because my father never belonged to any organization,” he added. “But you would be hard pressed to find anybody in New York City with a pulse who grew up during the Depression as my father had who didn’t talk politics. I only remember as a kid that he would get into heated discussions with a cousin who was a communist and my father would say, ‘If you don’t like it here, go back to Russia!'”

Photo courtesy David BellelHallowe’en 1959: David Bellel in red bow-tie.

Otherwise, Mr. Bellel, who now lives in Brooklyn with his wife, described an idyllic childhood at KV. He remembers joining, at age ten, a Little League team associated with the LMRC, which stands for the Lower Manhattan Republican Club, and learning what it was like to be part of a team. “For me and my friends it was a time of innocence, collegiality and good times around sports,” he said. “We didn’t have the Internet or video games, so we lived our lives in the streets and in the parks. It was a wonderful opportunity to mingle with all the racial and ethnic groups on the Lower East Side. It was a time when we are all baby boomers and there were lots of kids. If you didn’t like one group, you could find another bunch to hang out with. You had the freedom and knowledge that you were safe within your neighborhood and didn’t have to worry about somebody mugging you for lunch money.”

For the past six years, Mr. Bellel has been in touch with some 100 former KV residents through his KV blog, and has joined in annual reunions with people who attended public school with him, or played on his Little League team. Read more…

Laura KupersteinReunion of former and current KV residents, 2012.

In the first part of a two-part story, Mary Reinholz speaks with some former residents of Knickerbocker Village.

Although hard hit by Hurricane Sandy, Knickerbocker Village still looks like an urban fortress, with its aging collection of 13-story brick buildings spanning one full city block. As lower middle income residents once again consider the option of going co-op, it’s worth noting that this sprawling complex, a precursor to the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program, was once a hot bed of tenant activism and radical politics during the Depression era on the Lower East Side.

This was a time when the gangs of New York held sway in impoverished immigrant neighborhoods, and mobsters controlled the docks on the East River nearby. An infamous “lung block” on which the complex sits between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges got its name because so many tenants there had died from tuberculosis in squalid living conditions.

“It used to be all alleys and tenements, the worst kind of tenements you can imagine,” said Hal Kanter, 83, a retired restaurateur and former owner of Manhattan’s Broadway Joe steak house who lived at Knickerbocker Village from 1935, a year after it opened, to 1948. “Knickerbocker Village cleaned all that up. I was a tot when it opened and it seemed so safe. It was like a prison–with walls and gates so high you couldn’t scale them.”

Photo courtesy David AlmanlRosenberg author Dave Alman

Author David Alman, 93, who grew up in a tenement on Rivington St., moved into KV in 1941, noting “It dwarfed anything we had ever seen before.” It struck him, he said, as a kind of working-class paradise. Some seven decades later, in 2009, he published a book with his late wife Emily Arrnow on an episode in KV history. It was called, “Exoneration: the Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Morton Sobell.“

The Rosenbergs, who were convicted for conspiring to pass atom bomb secrets to Russia, and executed at Sing Sing prison in 1953, remain Knickerbocker Village’s most notorious former tenants. Both were communists who had been living with their two young sons in a modestly priced apartment. Read more…

Michelle RickSkilled, unemployed, homeless, on The Bowery.

At exactly 4:45 a.m. everyday, Albert Alston flicks on the lights to rouse the men asleep on what passes for a dormitory annex at the Bowery Mission–its chapel floor and pews. “I do it the same way I did it as a platoon sergeant,” he said. “I know I just have to get them up.”

Sometimes the men wake weary-eyed and waspish, but not usually. “Sergeant” Alston’s gruff voice and wide grin are part of a routine they’ve come to expect when sleeping at the Mission this winter, as temperatures drop and it’s become too cold to stay outside.

They turn to the Mission for shelter in extreme weather-induced emergencies, too, as we saw last month, when it became a refuge for many neighborhood residents without power during Hurricane Sandy, as well as when the Nor’easter dropped that thick coat of snow soon after. But even before the storms, the staff was braced for its annual winter increase in homeless patrons, which can mean up to 50 percent more than the usual 700 meals to serve, and twice as many men to lodge.

“The elements can kill them,” Matt Krivich explained. He’s the mission’s director of operations. “We’ve lost a couple of our guests before to hypothermia. That’s why we open up our chapel.” Krivich and the Mission’s other staff–many once homeless themselves–have an open-door policy for anyone seeking shelter from the cold.

When temperatures drop below 40 degrees, the Mission provides regular shelter to 80 men in its residential recovery program and emergency shelter to up to 80 more, making room for 30 in the dining room in addition to the 50-plus it can handle in the chapel. During some snowy weeks last winter, the Mission even allowed community members to sleep in the serving line near the kitchen.

“How can you turn somebody away when you’ve got space?” Krivich said. “If it’s just up on stage, if it’s in the serving line?”

As the chapel usher, Alston helps organize the emergency housing guests, part of the group known here as the “community.” Though other staff caution that the community can be “rough,” Alston gets along with them.

“That’s only because I give them the same respect they give me,” he said.

It might also be because the 56-year-old Alston, soft-spoken with bright eyes, is down on his luck, too. He lost his job at a Canarsie metal yard in September because “they decided to keep all them younger guys.” Shortly after, Alston’s landlord decided to sell his apartment building in Brooklyn. Not wanting to burden his mother, Alston went to a veteran’s organization in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn looking for a place to live. The organization connected him with the Mission, which had a spot free in their residency program.

Alston’s been here for two months, living in the actual dorm above the chapel. As part of his new job, he shepherds the community into pews for service three times a day before the kitchen opens. Read more…

Picture courtesy Sarah Shanfield.Sarah communes with the globe

While there are good reasons to be skeptical about the Mayan calendar prediction that the world will end today, The Local decided to ask journalist, savant, thought-leader, and Local contributor Sarah Shanfield for words of advice and comfort.

Sarah, the end of the world seems to be predicted with frightening regularity these days. How have you felt in the past when it turned out to be a false alarm?

No one was more upset at the failure of the rapture than me. I had not even started my taxes and was going to wait until the last fiery demon rode away in a chariot made of rabid wolves to see if I’d be alive enough to have to actually sit down and file them. Boy, was I wrong! I have learned not to put too much belief in these human predictions. Still, I won’t do any Christmas shopping until acid-filled pigs stop falling from the sky on Friday and then, only then, will I venture to the Union Square holiday market.

Coming from California as you do, we know you’re an earthquake expert. Do you expect the end of the world to involve earthquakes, as well as other disastrous phenomena, or not necessarily?

Humans – and living organisms in general – are very smart. We defy the laws of nature time and time again (like you said, I’m from California. Nature, gravity and logic are all defied by the faces of my mother’s friends). Especially after Sandy, I don’t question the power of a humankind to be able to survive whatever the earth or the forces that be will throw at him or her. Read more…

East Yoga Center, the vinyasa and pilates studio, has been looking for a permanent home since fire tore through its Avenue B premises last month.

East Yoga Center

Some good news came in the form of an email to supporters yesterday. The studio has raised $6500 in partnership with Lucky Ant, the crowdfunding site. Now comes the search for a permanent home. Meantime, the studio’s schedule reflects the availability of temporary locations.

Shelf Awareness A fan shows off a tattoo of Mr. Gaiman’s signature.

Neil Gaiman stopped into the St. Mark’s Bookshop for a so-called “ninja signing” yesterday, bringing a camera crew and a welcome sales boost with him.

According to Terry McCoy, a co-owner of the shop, Mr. Gaiman’s agent called last Thursday to set up the event, but the bestselling British author didn’t announce it to his nearly 1.8 million Twitter followers until hours before the 11 a.m. signing.

“He did it really to help us out, because he knows we’re kind of struggling,” said Mr. McCoy. “He’s a real prince of a guy.”

Several dozen people showed up to the crash signing. For those who missed it, the shop still has about two shelves of books signed by the fantasy and sci-fi novelist and screenwriter. “Perfect holiday gifts for people who like my books. Useless for anyone who doesn’t,” tweeted Mr. Gaiman, who has said the bookshop is his favorite in New York (he, in turn, is one of the store’s top sellers).

As for the camera crew following Mr. Gaiman, that’s a big secret. “I was told that it was confidential, whatever it was,” said Mr. McCoy.

Daniel Maurer Baldwin leaves the building.

Displaced NYU students got an unexpected dinner guest today, as Alec Baldwin made a star appearance at the school’s student center.

The “30 Rock” star stopped into Kimmel Center, off of Washington Square Park, around 7 p.m. tonight. “I’m an alum and John Sexton asked me to come and talk to the students, thank them for their patience,” he told The Local as he left the building, politely breaking free from a dozen students that swarmed him at the elevator.

NYU relocated about 6,000 students earlier today after back-up power ran out at their dorms, according to an e-mail from Jules Martin, the school’s Vice President for Global Security and Crisis Management. Around midday, the generator at 3rd North residence ran out of fuel, creating a “temporary smoke condition,” but power was expected to be restored this evening, the e-mail said. Displaced students are currently showering at the school’s two sports complexes.

Mr. Baldwin, who lives near Kimmel on East 10th Street, has also been displaced by the storm: he told The Local that he and his wife had moved to a friend’s hotel because his elevator was out and taking their two dogs up and down several flights of stairs “wasn’t working.” He was also out of work for two days: “the show I do,” he said, referring modestly to “30 Rock,” suspended filming on Monday and Tuesday because team members couldn’t make it to Silvercup Studios in Queens.

As soon as Mr. Baldwin made his appearance alongside school president John Sexton in the cafeteria, students charging their phones, pecking at laptops, and dining at Kimmel sent out word via Twitter.

“Alec Baldwin just came to Kimmel and told us to stay safe #YesSir,” wrote @Glenneth_Coco.

“You know those weird moments when you’re temporarily living in Kimmel and you run into Alec Baldwin?” wrote @taylorsprow.

“Thats cool Alec Baldwin came to NYU to chill, but uhh.. can you take us home with you so we can shower n sleep in your probably fancy bed?” tweeted @CinemaBite.

View from the 13th floor.

Earlier this week, a 57-year-old woman jumped to her death on University Place. Even when such suicides don’t make the news (and they usually don’t) they leave an indelible impression on those who encounter them. Such was the case in April when a woman, also 57, ended her life at the Salvation Army’s Markle Evangeline Residence for Women. Today, her would-be neighbor tells the story. 

July 1, 2012
When I first stepped into the Markle Evangeline Residence, I felt it: a peculiar darkness. Yet this was the same bright cheerful woman’s dormitory on 13th Street I had been coming to for years, each semester I came from Paris to teach at NYU.

Was it the downturned lips of the receptionist? Was it the fact that the new manager of the place, which was run by the Salvation Army, had just sent me a curt e-mail, in response to my request, if possible, for a firm mattress: “You may need to look into another place to stay while you’re here in New York.” Signed Major William T. Bender, and cc-ed to his staff.

I took the elevator up to a room that was inauspiciously on the 13th floor: 1309, in fact, an odd number I did not like. I was afraid of what I would find. I turned the knob – and there, a grim disappointment.

The room faced south, the way I had asked, and the window showed a skyline of the city. But it was dark. How could it be dark? It was shining with light, the walls painted yellow.

The room needed something, but what? I asked for an air conditioner to be placed in the bathroom window, so as to not block my view, but the Major instructed the custodian to put it in the bedroom instead. You may need to go elsewhere… 

Let it go, I told myself. After all, there was nothing wrong with this room. I moved the bed around by the window and with a screwdriver I opened the flaps of the air conditioner, to let in a slice of view. I put a poster up, of the Eiffel Tower. I moved the bed around once more. I pushed back the desk.

I stared out the open bathroom window. There was a patio below, nine stories down.

I wondered where the body would land if one threw oneself out. Read more…

The champions of the 22nd annual Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade were no strangers to the winner’s circle. The pup that ranked Best in Show has won a similar contest on the Upper East Side the last three years, dressed as a hurricane and as Beyonce. Gracie, winner of the second round, took Best in Show two years ago as Scarlett O’Hara. That year, Benny the boxer also got a prize as Internet sensation Antoine Dodson.

Dana Varinsky Benny the Boxer as Butthead

This year it was Benny’s behind that got all the attention: glasses and a wig were perched atop his tiny tail to make it look like a wiggling nose.

The Butthead costume was spontaneous. “I wasn’t sure I was going to dress him up,” said Benny’s owner, Michael Godere. But the dog’s godfather, Grover Guinta, came over that morning with a bag of wigs and glasses. “We just improvised,” Mr. Godere said, laughing when another dog sniffed Benny’s rear-end. “It’s great when the other dogs try to kiss his butt.” Read more…

Just a couple of weeks after “Golden Boy” filmed around the East Village, another crime drama is in the neighborhood: we spotted signs on East Sixth and Seventh Streets, near Cooper Square, indicating that NBC’s “Infamous” is shooting today. And another development on Sixth Street: the tiny space at 208 East Sixth is up for rent after briefly housing Cooper Convenience Store.

Sasha Von OldershausenThe shoot at 7B.

A couple of blocks from where a real-deal crime occurred in the wee hours of the morning, a make-believe one was filmed for CBS’s forthcoming series “Golden Boy.”

The crime drama was shooting at Percy’s Tavern on the corner of Avenue A and East 13th Street this morning, with equipment being stored at the landmarked St. Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church a few blocks down on the corner of East 10th Street. In the scene shown here, an actor dressed as a busboy runs out of the restaurant only to be thrown against the hood of a car, tossed to the sidewalk (actually a cushy faux-cement mat), and cuffed by a comely detective.

Just another day in the hood?

Update | 1:50 p.m. The Local also spotted a crew outside of (you guessed it!) 7B, which was rechristened Lehane’s Tavern for the shoot.

There’s much to see in Tompkins Square Park: birds, trees, and – best of all – dogs and their owners. Here’s this week’s duo from the dog run.

Nicole Guzzardi

The Master: Raf Astor, 46, a musician who has lived in the East Village for 30 years. When the money from playing in his Latin-music band got slow, he decided to take up dog-sitting.

His Pet Tricks: Mr. Astor says he uses music therapy to rid dogs of behavioral issues. “I play for them and they respond to it,” he said. “They relax; it calms them down.” Read more…

Today, we tip our hat to a couple of locals who are making the East Village a greener, cleaner place.

Photos from “East River and the Sanctum we walk” by Alan Gastelum.

Alan Gastelum Garbage collection this past weekend.

Some people go to the park to photograph birds, while others document trees. Alan Gastelum photographs garbage. This past weekend, he and 20 volunteers filled almost two dozen industrial-sized bags with trash gathered on the banks of the East River.

The cleanup effort at the East River Promenade was organized by the photographer along with Partnerships for Parks and the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

Almost two years ago, Mr. Gastelum, 31, an East Village resident who enjoyed relaxing in the park, began taking pictures of stray items that washed ashore: broken marine rope, dirty T-shirts, bottle caps, baseballs and toys. With every new tide, different items would wash onto the rocks, he said. Some of them, he kept: he has collected ceramic coffee mugs, wooden planks, single sneakers and plastic relics beaten smooth by the East River. Read more…

Sanna Chu Ann Humphreys, 42, hoola hoop teacher

City Room reported that 124 people were arrested near Wall Street earlier today, on the anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Gothamist noted that several of the arrested were in wheelchairs. Meanwhile other protesters are amassing at Liberty and Foley Square for public assemblies.

Around 1 p.m. Union Square, the site of many previous demonstrations, was relatively quiet. Volunteers manning the Occupy table were redirecting people downtown for scheduled events. But one woman, a hoola hoop teacher, was doing her part: Ann Humphreys, 42, was offering free hoola hoop lessons in what she hoped was the spontaneous and joyful spirit of Occupy. “I see the hoop as a way to bring the pressure down,” she said.

Based in North Carolina, Ms. Humphreys travels the country espousing the uplifting benefits of the hoop. She spent a few days at Zuccotti Park last October. “Back in the early days,” she said, “I noticed just the presence of hoop dance – the fun and levity – brought smiles to everybody’s faces.”

Dana Varinsky It was either this or a shot of him spinning the cube.

The college kids are back – in droves. Maybe you remember what it was like to be an innocent in the East Village. If not, meet Jonathan Krohn, a member of N.Y.U.’s class of 2016. Actually, you may already know him: he was a “Time 100” finalist at the age of 14, and just two years later wrote his second book, “Defining Conservatism.” His thinking has evolved since then, but like any freshman he’s still got a lot to learn. And you, oh jaded Villager, could learn a thing or two from him. Hence, his weekly column about life as a neighborhood newbie.

“Welcome to the East Village.” Something no one said to me when I first arrived here.

My first night in the East Village went a little something like this: About thirty minutes after I left my dorm on Third Avenue a balding, stocky middle-aged man attempted to get me to hold his keys, wallet, license, and wedding band in exchange for me paying him gas money. I ran off. An hour later I encountered a scantily clad woman (I was told she was a prostitute) who was very high. She rolled around on the ground, screaming that someone was coming for her, and threw her backpack into the little pond in the center of Washington Square Park. I left the park with some nice jazz musicians from Brooklyn who took me up MacDougal Street, where I was then hit on by a transsexual. I screamed at some point around there. We don’t have these things in the suburbs of Atlanta. Or at least, we don’t have all of them in one neat little area. Read more…

Sanna Chu Dennis Edge.

Dennis Edge Blackburnian warbler

It’s bird migration season, meaning you can see more than just the usual pigeons and sparrows in Tompkins Square Park. Dennis Edge, a local birder, has photographed 92 species there, and he’ll talk about it at the 6th & B community garden later this month.

The retired graphic designer often roams the park with a digital SLR camera and telephoto lens. Just yesterday morning he spied an American redstart warbler, a migratory bird with orange patches, in the vines near the park’s offices.

Dennis Edge American Kestrel

Mr. Edge, 74, grew up in North Carolina and moved to the East Village in 1970. He first became interested in birds over 10 years ago when he photographed an injured red-tailed hawk on East Ninth Street. He contacted the National Audubon Society and was put in touch with a bird rehabilitator, who told him to throw a blanket over the bird, put it in a box and bring it over. “Easier said then done,” he said. Read more…

Melvin Felix Chef Paul Gerard before the opening of
Exchange Alley.

Even during Fashion Week, the sight of chauffeurs idling just a half-block from Avenue A is an unexpected one. But when Exchange Alley opened last month, chef-owner Paul Gerard said he wanted it to be “a place for creatives to exchange ideas,” and that’s what it was last night, as actor Josh Hartnett, director Paul Haggis, and other bold-face types mingled at a dinner party for Vs. Magazine, hosted by Liv Tyler.

At a back table, supermodel and avid photographer Helena Christensen sat across from nightlife impresario Nur Khan and Michael Stipe of REM, who wore a serious pair of horned-rims.

Ms. Christensen, a West Village resident, said she wanted to make it over to the east side more often. “I love the West Village because it reminds me of European villages, but the East Village is so gritty and so real and so New York,” she told The Local. Read more…

Lauren Carol Smith

Here’s one more item to add to your Fashion’s Night Out itinerary: Buffalo Exchange, at 332 East 11th Street, between First and Second Avenues, will Bedazzle your clothes free of charge. The magic continues till 7 p.m. tonight.