Mario Ramirez

The bicycle is such a decorous, ingenious, quiet machine, it’s a shame it has become a politicized one as well. But when you see somebody on a bike with a placard attached to it which reads A QUIET PROTEST AGAINST OIL, you know Politicization has arrived. (On First Avenue, in this case.)

Beautiful and ingenious as the bicycle may be, the human body is even more beautiful and ingenious, at least until the age of 60, and especially below the age of 30. And let’s not forget one important thing. As a pedestrian, I also fall into the category of partaking in A QUIET PROTEST AGAINST OIL, unless I’m in a cab. I just don’t have a sign, or a T-shirt, with which to make this fact plain. But I’m going to get one. It’s going to be a quiet protest against other, equally quiet protests.
Read more…

Michelle RickBrowsing outside Strand Books.

I enjoyed the portrait of Mast Books by Brendan Bernhard we published yesterday because the clean, bright space has become one of my regular haunts on Avenue A. Not that I can claim to be a valued customer. I like to take my ten year-old daughter in there and point out the books I’ve already got. “I have that. I have that. I do have that, but in a different edition.” The problem for Mast Books, if not for me, is that its curation of titles is so close to my taste that the store’s bookshelves uncannily mirror my own.

Reading the piece, I mentally counted off the neighborhood’s surviving independent bookstores and paused to mourn a few long lost. Posman’s on University Place was somewhat west of the East Village but housed an extraordinary selection of academic paperbacks. This was a place to revel in critical theory, bask in sociology and drown in philosophy. Almost irreplaceable, but I get an adequate fix of Foucault and Badiou, together with the opportunity to browse improbably expensive glossy magazines, at St Mark’s Bookshop.

The Strand is the neighborhood giant, of course, and one of the largest bookstores in the world in terms of miles of shelving. Usually crowded, always hard to navigate thanks to crowd-sourced aisle dithering, it’s the place to find relatively new books heavily discounted as well as cheap used editions. The Strand has been easier to access since surveillance cameras took over from the bag check (like only people with large bags can steal books) and the store’s website, unlike aspects of the store itself, is a model of user-friendliness. Read more…

Heartonastick Tom Verlaine performing at Central Park Summerstage, 2007.

There are certain artists one wishes one could outgrow. They belong to one’s youth, after all, and perhaps they should remain there, along with all the other youthful things one is relieved to have outgrown. But for me, the music of the CBGB’s-era band Television, and in particular its singer and songwriter, Tom Verlaine, is one of those youthful enthusiasms which (so far, anyway) threads its way through my life with embarrassing persistence. Occasionally it disappears for long periods while other, more novel interests take hold, but then, like mosquitoes in Spring, back it comes, nipping at the senses as tenaciously as always, only in this case the result is intense pleasure rather than irritation and blood marks.

Television was, or is — no one seems to be sure of its exact current status — the band best known for inaugurating the CBGB’s scene in the mid-1970’s; for having to this day a small but ferociously loyal group of devotees; and for having been eclipsed, at least in terms of popularity, by other bands of that era such as Talking Heads, Blondie, The Ramones, et al. Even by the monstrously egotistical standards set by most rock stars, they seemed weirdly indifferent to fame and record sales, but like the Velvet Underground their musical influence remains pervasive and lives on in a variety of formats which now include amateurishly filmed but invaluable concert clips put up on YouTube.
Read more…

Tim Milk

Enzo’s Pizza, famous to those who dwell near 50 Second Avenue, will be selling slices and soda up through this Thursday, May 12, Enzo’s last day of business.

Enzo’s pizza, made with fresh homemade marinara sauce and topped with real mozzarella — “not that white rubber crap,” as Enzo would put it — will be missed. His eggplant slice with farm-fresh ricotta was a masterpiece offered seasonally, and his delicious hot meatball and chicken Parmesan sandwiches were a mainstay to many in the area.

As ever, Enzo could be relied upon to serve up his specialties with opinions on everything from food to sports to politics. The more poetic aspect of the southern Italian dialect was also a feature whenever an attractive lady passed by his windows.

Stop by the place for one last slice and to say goodbye. There will never be another Enzo’s.

nyc.gov

I recently attended a Community Board meeting where a representative from the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT) shared one of the newest updates to the 311 Online Services. An online service map, updated daily, shows residents the total amount of complaints made to 311 in any given area. In addition to being able to click on the complaint marked on the map by a yellow circle (relative in size to the amount of complaints per area), you can receive the status of the request.

Using this map, you can search by address, intersection, community board, city council district, or zip code. You may also narrow down the categories by using a pull-down menu to search for topics such as ‘sanitation’ or ‘public safety’. The map keeps information for up to 3 months, or using the advanced settings, data is stored for up to one year.

What’s the difference between a “call” and a “complaint?” Nick Sbordone of the DOITT explained that with a call, there is usually no follow-up required by the city. A complaint usually involves a service request, where the caller’s information and complaint is recorded and an action by one of the City’s Departments will follow.

It may be useful, or at least interesting, to track your own requests, those of your neighbors, or just to remain informed about any particular area’s happenings. Follow this link to search for the East Village’s Community Board 3 district, type in your own address or any intersection, and stay updated with what’s up in your area!

Ian Duncan The author, one of the preservationists trying to forestall the demolition of 35 Cooper Square, issues a call to the developer of the site to cover the roof to prevent further damage. Below: A detail of the roof shortly after work began in February.

The recent article, “Developer Cited for 35 Cooper’s Roof” had some readers curious re what’s so important about the roof. The history of this building has been well-told, but the roof and dormers as essential structural elements and character-defining features, are currently compromised by partial demolition and exposure to the elements. Any effort to save this building, at this point, needs to start with the basics: putting a tarp back on the roof.

Over the winter, roofing material was removed by workers hired by the new owner under a permit for asbestos abatement, a prerequisite for obtaining a demolition permit. The dormers were similarly stripped of their protective roofing, and non-historic skylights were removed, exposing not only the roof structure but the upper floors of the building to the elements. The old wooden shingles, part of the historic fabric of the building, are now visible, but so too are the gaping holes in the roof. The rain and snow of the past few months are surely accelerating any decay and rot in the 185-year-old structure smacks of demolition by willful neglect.
Read more…

M.J. Gonzalez Giano, 126 East Seventh Street.

One morning not long ago, Paolo Rossi, the co-owner of Giano, an Italian restaurant at 126 East Seventh Street, was having his coffee when he was struck by an inspiration for “a new caprese for 2011.” The caprese is a classic Italian sandwich with tomato and mozzarella.  Paolo is fond of the classics but also, as a worldly Milanese, of the newest of the new. The caprese of 2011, now available on Giano’s menu,  would feature a basil-flavored soft bun wrapped around a paper-thin slice of tomato and buffala mozzarella ice cream.

After more than 10 years in New York, Paolo’s English is pretty good, but I thought I had misheard him. Ice cream? “It’s a ‘Wow’ effect,” Paolo explained. “I can ask Simone to make you one.” Simone Bonelli is Giano’s new chef.  He had, Paolo proudly told me, “worked seven years next to the number six chef in Italy” and had recently left the terribly pricey Per Bacco to cook at Giano. It was the middle of the afternoon, and Simone had just arrived on his Vespa; his  helmet, bright orange with a white racing stripe, was sitting on Giano’s curving, fan-shaped white bar. I felt like I had walked into a Fellini movie.
Read more…

Tim Milk

Just a few years ago, in the face of a widespread rodent infestation, a concerned citizen offered the suggestion that New York would do well to appoint a “Rat Czar.” City Hall firmly said no. The idea was, indeed, preposterous. Especially when you consider that the rats themselves had already filled that position.

The Rat Czar is, by all accounts, a shadowy figure, whereabouts unknown. My calls were not returned directly. But the Czar’s own Lieutenant of the East Village, a rat of great cunning, agreed to speak on condition of anonymity:

“I apologize for the security precautions,” he said as we sat down, “but you see, someone is trying to poison me.”

“Oh, how awful,” I exclaimed. “Any idea who’s behind it?”

“No,” he huffed. “It was but a single, cowardly act.”
Read more…

Philip Kalantzis Cope

If you’ve been keeping up with local news, you probably know that two East Village police officers are on trial for rape, still on the city payroll but excused from their duties until the case is resolved. Statements made before the trial began revealed the following facts. A panicked taxi driver called police for assistance when his passenger began vomiting in the backseat of his cab. Two officers arrived to help her into her apartment. Once inside, she testified that one of the officers raped her while the other played lookout. A surveillance camera shows the two men returned to her apartment three more times that night.

What is their defense? She was too drunk to accurately recall the events that took place. The idea that behavior diminishes victimhood is a familiar one that even the New York Times perpetuated in its reporting of a Texas rape case last month.

“Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town” was the newspaper’s headline over an article that described the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl from the perspective of a battered and reeling community. Readers were asked to consider where the girl’s mother was through her child’s ordeal; what will happen to the young boys and men now accused of rape; and why this child was hanging around with older boys and dressing, as the writer put it, too old for her age. Of the victim and her future, the writer posed no questions.

The article had little time to idle on newsstands before outrage surfaced. Within 2 days, the public editor filed a response that called the story unbalanced and cited highlights from the Times initial response issued that week. This response explained that he paper did not intend to invoke victim blaming, and seemed to give the reporter his get out of jail free card. In a sentence, “They are not our reporter’s reactions, but the reactions of disbelief by townspeople over the news of a mass assault on a defenseless 11-year-old,” the statement said.

The Local isn’t suggesting that the quotes the writer chose necessarily represent his personal opinion, but that’s really beside the point. The point is, why did it go to print as an incomplete story? Why did paraphrased interviews take such a front running role in the telling of this story?

The New York Times does not make a habit of covering rapes in small towns across the country. The Times chose to cover this because it is as unusual as it is horrific. Nearly 20 individuals— children and adults— coordinated to attack a small child, and yet, the coverage makes no effort to unpack the very element that made this a New York Times story.

The article states that the events occurred around Thanksgiving. Why not wait until the rest of the story unfolded in order to pay the young victim the attention she deserves? What, The Local wonders, was the rush?

But the fact that The Times printed the story in the state it did isn’t the only source of confusion. The article suggests an entire town is rallying behind a group of gang rapists who likely destroyed a child’s life. If this perspective holds true, then the town must be subject to its own set of questions.

Both The Times article, and the local rape case, invoke judgment of a rape victim’s actions to form the basis of an assailant’s defense. They employ the familiar claim — “But she was asking for it!” No, no woman is ever asking to be raped, nor is any child.

Join the conversation: What do we as a society think about a woman’s right to her body? How do these incidents of public victim blaming effect our community?

Hadas Goshen Adding fuel to the fire: the author ponders the place of civility on the Internet.

I forced myself further into the flames, my face flushed and finger burning above my touchpad— I read them all, every single scalding comment. All 20-something of them, following the new fires as they reached 30, then climbed to 40. And all I could think was, “I’m so glad it’s not me.”

Internet flaming is nothing new. Glowering into the glare of computer screens and cracking fists above keyboards, web users — safe in their basements or bedrooms — have been ranting in chat rooms and online forums for years. Miles and maybe countries away from her recipient, a flamer feels empowered to not only to speak her mind, but scream it — USING ALL CAPS!! Or employing smoldering, DESPICABLE, disgusted and APPALLING language or even $%@^&*#! to communicate the incommunicable!!!!

In the vast expanse of the World Wide Web, it used to be that the chances of an actual encounter between the anonymous flamer and flamee was slim to none. But on a hyper-local news blog in the East Village, a slender area spanning about 10 by 15 streets, the cyber-world reduces into a neighborhood, and things get more personal. Is it still O.K. to bash (on a community forum by and for local residents) the storeowner down the block on Avenue A, or that obnoxious woman you always avoid at Tompkins Square dog run?
Read more…

Michelle RickFree as a bird (not the article’s author).

I am an educated person who can read and write. I can also see perfectly well. I should know, therefore, that when there is a giant red hand flashing at me from across the street, I should probably stay on the curb instead of walking out into the oncoming traffic. But I don’t remember learning as a child that crossing the street only when the white symbol for walking-human was illuminated was essential to societal orderliness. I was always just told to hold hands.

Lacking this educational background, I convinced myself that if a car was to hit me, the driver would have to pay me several thousand dollars in some sort of law suit and I could go back to my life of walking into oncoming traffic again, except I’d be richer. I’m in no position to turn down free money. “Bring it on cars!” I would say as they honked their useless horns and I tiptoed across the asphalt. “Try and hit me, I’ll see you in court!” They would slow down, like cowards, or slam on their breaks, also like cowards. They would climb out their windows and tell me I’m crazy and that I must have a death wish. No, I just knew that the alternative to getting to the other side of the street when I wanted meant either free money or death. And if I died, then I wouldn’t really know the difference would I?

This attitude allowed me to get a lot done while crossing intersections. I could time myself on a mile walk, uninterrupted. I could eat the falafel I just bought. I could make calls to my grandmother. I saw the stretch of open asphalt as a vast field of opportunity. What could I get done from point A to point B? Could I finish this container of pasta salad? Could I paint my nails this shade of electric blue? Could I keep knitting this scarf? Of course I could. Read more…

Rachel OhmThe upstairs dining room at Peels.

At 7:35 on a recent cold, wet and thoroughly lousy morning, I was sitting at the counter at Peels, a clean-well-lighted place at 325 Bowery, at 2nd Street. Peels was empty, as it always is then, and I asked Wendy, the counter waitress, why a restaurant as ambitious and expensive as Peels opened up for breakfast. Wendy had pushed her soft green Mao-style cap to the back of her head, as if to call attention to its strictly decorative function. She batted her eyes at me, and said, “For you!”

Well, yes, that’s what it feels like. There is something wonderfully gracious about proper restaurants, whose real lives take place at night, opening for breakfast. It’s so utterly unnecessary that it feels like an act of community service (why is why, I hear you cynics out there saying, they do it). Downtown, most serious restaurants don’t even serve lunch. Among those that serve all three meals are the legendary bistro Balthazar, at 80 Spring St., which really does get a breakfast crowd, and Vandaag, at 103 Second, whose “cream biscuit” puts all of its breakfast competitors, Peels included, to shame.

I salute them all; but let me sing the praises of Peels. Peels calls itself “a regional American restaurant,” an expression so vacuous as to imply sterile restaurant-marketing calculation. I would have said that it’s neo-Southern roadhouse; the playlist leans to Johnny Cash and “Porgy and Bess,” and the menu includes hush puppies and collard greens. I have never eaten dinner at Peels, in part because it’s very hard to get a table, but you can order shrimp and grits, an andouille corn dog, and a 32-ounce grass-fed Piedmontese ribeye steak for two. I’m told it’s wonderful, but I don’t feel an overwhelming need to know.

The biscuit plays a foundational role at Peels. At my first breakfast there, I ordered a biscuit with scrambled eggs and ham (“local organic scrambled eggs” and “country ham,” that is) from the “Build-A-Biscuit” menu. I was a little flummoxed when it arrived, since the sandwich is too high to be placed directly in your mouth and too small to be assayed with knife and fork without creating a mess. My son Alex faced the same quandary at lunch one day when he ordered the biscuit with fried chicken and red-eye gravy, a great gloppy mass shoveled between biscuit halves. He kept circling it until he finally resigned himself to nibbling away with utensils. The combination of crunchy dark-meat chicken, smoky gravy and chalky biscuit was heavenly. Even his mother, who found the concept mildly repellent, loved the result. Read more…

Illustration by Tim Milk

Some time last year, I was in line at a smoke-stand to play lotto when the man ahead of me suddenly turned from the cashier and said: “Hey, do you remember me?”

I looked him up and down. A typical neighborhood guy, a deli and bodega guy, about sixty or so. “He doesn’t remember,” he laughed to his friend behind the counter. “Well, I remember you! A long time ago you used to buy cigarettes from me. On 14th Street! Remember?”

I squinted. I drew a blank. “You don’t remember? I can’t believe it. Surely you remember that day!”

That day?

“Not even that one day? Oh my goodness! That day! You were held up that day. Right there in my store! By the kid with the silver gun!”

It all came rushing back to me: a spring day, 1981. This guy had just sold me a pack of Camels when an audacious young voice arose from my side: “Hey mister, you got any money?”

I looked down to see this boy, not quite thirteen years old, with a face so angelic it belonged on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. “Well, not today,” I told him, “Sorry.”

The boy smirked. “No problem. I got money. Wanna see?” He then pulled from his pocket a whopping stack of fifties. He fanned them in my face so I could glory in his wealth. I had heard that drug dealers were making mules out of kids, but not until now did I make the connection.

“Wanna know how I got it?” he asked. Read more…

Gustavo Valdes is better than me at ping-pong.

Then again, I imagine so are most people. I’m what some might call athletically challenged. My high school gym teacher once asked me to sit out during a flag football game because she claimed I was a safety hazard to both my classmates and myself. When it comes to possessing hand-eye coordination, I appear to be significantly lacking.

Still, I found myself vaguely interested when I heard through the East Village blogosphere that a new ping-pong table had moved to Tompkins Square Park, a permanent fixture donated by local outdoor table manufacturer, Henge Tables.
Read more…

Phoenix Eisenberg A pair of retrospectives at The New Museum – one from sculptor and video artist Lynda Benglis, the other by painter George Condo – create a dialogue about the schism between body and mind.

Currently at The New Museum on The Bowery, retrospectives from sculptor and video artist Lynda Benglis and painter George Condo explore what it is to be human.

Known for challenging conventional gender roles, many of Ms. Benglis’s sculptures explore sexuality and the complicated politics of the body. Yet, whereas Ms. Benglis focuses on the corporeal, Mr. Condo operates in the realm of the abstract, with portraits that delve into the inner psyches of his subjects. Housed a floor apart from each other, the the works of these two equally provocative artists create a dialogue where soul meets body.
Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis Cope Mars Bar and views of Ori Carino’s mural.

In the ephemeral world of public art on the Lower East Side, the longevity and unbombed state of the mural decorating the brick wall outside Mars Bar stand as a mark of respect for its creator, Ori Carino.

Hank Penza, Mars Bar’s owner, first gave Ori permission to utilize the wall in 2002. Ori’s distinctive style was already familiar in the neighborhood from the numerous murals he had designed and executed, along with art work he was hired to place on the sides of trucks, and his spray-painted t-shirts that were sold in local boutiques. At first, Ori returned annually to execute a new composition on the Mars Bar wall. The current mural has been standing since 2007. Plans to erect a 12-story apartment building on the site may threaten its continued existence.

Walking quickly along East First Street, it is difficult to fully appreciate the intense drama and rich allegorical meaning being depicted in his mural, as animal and human figures grapple with the human condition. Rather, it is necessary to slow down, pause, step back, focus on the detail, mastery, and complexity of the struggle occurring on this urban canvas to fully appreciate it.
Read more…

Claire Glass Pulino’s, 282 Bowery.

I am old enough to remember when the immediate association with “Bowery” was”bum.” The Bowery was New York’s Skid Row from the late 19th century, and its reputation was so pervasive, and so dismal, that homeless folk everywhere were known as Bowery bums. And so it’s very strange to reconfigure “Bowery” in one’s mind to denote “trendy.” It’s strange to walk past the terribly glamorous Bowery Hotel, and Daniel Boulud’s DBGB, and Peels, and to cross Houston and to find, immediately adjacent to a Chinese store which sells restaurant furnishings, Keith McNally’s rollicking pizzeria-bar, Pulino’s.

At the moment, Pulino’s is a pioneer on the desolate stretch south of Houston; but if McNally, who practically invented TriBeCa with the Odeon restaurant 30 years ago, thinks his customers will go there — which they do, in droves—you should consider investing in local real estate. I made the mistake of dropping by one weekday evening at 8:30 to have a pizza at the bar. Ha! I couldn’t even see the bar for the crowd surrounding it, and quickly fell back before the tidal swell of noise.
Read more…

Kathryn Kattalia Degustation, 239 East Fifth Street.

At Degustation, a tapas restaurant at 239 East Fifth Street, the indispensable article in the chef’s toolkit is the tweezers. The dishes are of micro dimensions, and are arranged from their constituent elements with minute delicacy. Once my wife and I had settled ourselves at one of the short ends of Degustation’s 16-seat U-shaped counter, we watched Oscar Islas, a burly chef, remove from a small plastic tub a tiny, soft pumpkin-colored object and delicately place it inside a ceramic egg cup. Oscar then put down his tweezers, and with a small spoon scooped a flimsy white blob of something unrecognizable into the cup — a panna cotta which had just enough gelatin content to prevent it from deliquescing altogether.

“What’s that?” my wife, Buffy, asked in horror. “That is way too wiggly for me to eat.” Yara Oren, who works next to Oscar and does more of the talking, explained that it was the sea urchin we had just ordered. “I promise you,” Yara said, “you will love it.” The tiny white-orange mass in our cup lay in a mild broth. I devoured most of the sea urchin and passed it to my wife, thus slightly reducing the ick factor. “Whoa!” Buffy said. “This is fantastic.”

Pretty much everything produced under the supervision of Degustation’s head chef, Wesley Genovart, is fantastic, both in the sense of wonderful and of pressing against the borders of conventional reality. It is the East Village’s window into avant-garde Spanish cuisine. The act of assemblage is as essential to such cuisine as the chemical transformation involved in cooking. An actual cook’s station runs along the length of Degustation’s counter, with a gas grill and burners, and Oscar and Yana performed their magic on the plates of grilled fish and meat being prepared behind their backs. The cooking seemed almost banal by comparison. If you’re seated at either end, you can witness the delicate compositional flourishes from two feet away. If you’re seated along the length of the counter you’ll have to make do with the gross business of applying heat to raw flesh.
Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis Cope

As we know by now, the 185-year-old 35 Cooper Square is about to be torn to the ground, and replaced by a giant futuristic hotel, or luxury condominiums, or a really swanky office building, or some such non-East Village-y thing. And as we know by now, a lot of longtime East Villagers aren’t happy about it, the destruction of the awe-inspiring, historical, super-significant ageless wonder that was the Asian Pub.

Protestors picketed, petitions were signed, letters were mailed, and for naught. The capitalistic Man that is New York City prevailed. It’s a time for tears, right?

Not so fast. Recently, one of The Local’s readers commented on the expected demolition of the historic building, saying that even though she went to school and lived closed by, she “didn’t even know it existed.”

And although I’m but 22 years old, only lived in the East Village for some eight months, and am more privy to this neighborhood’s prolific bar scene than its historic past, I can’t help but thinking that maybe, just maybe, this sudden preservationist uproar is a bit, well, contrived.

Because as I said, I don’t know much about this neighborhood. I do know, though, that for years, 35 Cooper Square was little more than a place for broke NYU and Cooper Union kids to get really, really drunk. It was a lovely place, but not really historic. Where was the outcry then?

The days of Diane di Prima living upstairs have long since passed. Over time, 35 Cooper Square evolved, from a residential haven for poets and writers, to – like it or not – a cheap watering hole. Over time, 35 Cooper Square’s become little more than an eyesore next to its surroundings. And somewhere over that time, 35 Cooper Square lost its history.

One preservationist said to me in disgust that by the time the Bowery is fully developed, “only the wealthy and trust fund babies” would live here. Her anger seemed less directed toward 35 Cooper’s demise and more at the type of people who will ultimately live here.

But why are we fighting it? This is one of the most progressive neighborhoods in one of the most progressive cities in the world. For decades, we’ve been a haven for artists, musicians, minorities, gays, freedom fighters, beatniks, hippies. Our rich history stems from us opening our doors, to everyone, and the ever-shifting landscape that our tolerance produces.

The East Village skyline will shift, and shift again. It always has. Who’s to say this is a bad thing, or that tomorrow’s residents won’t include the next di Prima, Hendrix, or Madonna? As East Villagers, it’s our duty to remember the past. But when we reflexively cling to our past, when we use 35 Cooper Square as a scapegoat for fear and uncertainty of an unseen future, we become something altogether different.

Join the conversation: Is the concern over preserving 35 Cooper Square justified?