At 6 a.m., before the sun had cleared the horizon, the members of U TOUGH Bootcamp met around the jungle gym at Tompkins Square Park. Their trainer, a former army sergeant known as Sergeant D-Train, laid his equipment out on the pavement: hooks, ropes, carabiners, and resistance weights that looked like gigantic rubber bands.

Over the next hour, the students strained themselves in a series of army-style drills, while Sergeant D-Train offered firm instructions.

“Kate, you’re moving like pond water,” he said to one sprinting student. “Pond water don’t move! Let’s go!”
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Lauren Carol Smith

A film crew from “Nurse Jackie” in Tompkins Square Park today.

Next time you see something like this, tell The Local.

Stephen Rex Brown A flyer alerting locals to the squirrel.

New details have emerged about the orphaned baby squirrel that is reportedly approaching passersby in a desperate attempt to feed. A woman who said she had posted the flyers alerting locals to the squirrel contacted The Local this morning and shared her saddening first encounter with the critter on Monday on East Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenues.

“This precious little squirrel — literally the size of my hand — was looking at people beseechingly and trying to climb up their pant legs,” said the woman, who did not wish to give her name.

The next day, the woman saw the squirrel again, this time rummaging around in a trash can on East Seventh Street. That’s when she realized the squirrel must be hungry. “It probably cannot crack nuts,” she said. “It is very small!”
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While our reporters were covering yesterday’s student walkout at Washington Square Park, The Local sent photographer and community contributor Rachel Citron to capture the action further downtown. Here’s a slideshow of her photographs, followed by her thoughts about what she saw.

In the past days, photographs of the Occupy Wall Street protestors and videos of their anti-government chants have become ubiquitous. So has the controversy. When I emerged from the City Hall subway station yesterday afternoon – new to the scene – I expected a hodgepodge of hippies and hipsters trying to catch a spirit of activism that seems to have alluded our generation. To my surprise and excitement, I found prescient issues being protested, many of which affect East Village residents. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The crew from “CSI” packs up its gear on Wednesday.

The Local spotted the crew for “CSI: NY” filming on Eighth Street between Broadway and Lafayette Street all morning. And for all you would-be paparazzi out there, “Nurse Jackie” — starring Edie Falco of “Sopranos” fame — will be shooting on Thursday on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue, according to notices posted on the street.

Next time you see something like this, tell The Local.

Tompkins Square Park, September 1994

From 1994 to 1995 I lived in a converted storefront on the Lower East Side, at 112 Suffolk Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets. Back then the neighborhood was not yet gentrified and was somewhat rough around the edges. I was a new father and even though I was pushing my baby daughter around in a stroller it took the drug dealers a couple of weeks before they realized I lived there and wasn’t there to buy heroin. I worked part-time waiting tables and working as a photographer’s assistant whenever I could; I was rarely without a camera.

I always found the temperance fountain in Tompkins Square Park to be quite out of place — not many of the park’s residents practiced temperance.

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Guy Fieri, the peroxided Food Network star, was spotted filming at John’s of 12th Street yesterday for his show, “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.”

Mr. Fieri spent about three hours in the afternoon shooting at the Italian restaurant between First and Second Avenues, and co-owner Mike Alpert was thrilled.

“He learned about us through the grapevine. I was amazed that he’d never heard of us; an Italian restaurant that’s been around for 103 years,” said Mr. Alpert.
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Two of the most comprehensive documentarians of the late-1970s East Village punk scene will give a screening of their rare no wave footage at the BMW Guggeinheim Lab on Sunday.

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The Lo-Down spotted a hawk devouring a pigeon in Seward Park yesterday — and so did much of the Lower East Side, apparently. The bird of prey dined unperturbed as a gaggle of excited onlookers took pictures of nature in all its brutality. When The Local spoke to the executive director of New York City Audubon last week regarding the hawks in Tompkins Square Park, he said that it was likely the newborns were venturing far beyond the green space where they were raised. Might this hawk in Seward Park once have nested in Tompkins?

The New York Post reports that John Legend has put his posh two-bedroom condo on the market for $2.95 million after moving in only two years ago. The smooth crooner is reportedly a big fan of his space in 52E4 on the Bowery, but is looking to upgrade. Maybe he should go house hunting with David Schwimmer?

So you want to land another kickflip just like the good old days, but you’re too scared of being singled out by the young skateboarders at Tompkins Square Park as an outsider. Now, thanks to Enclave Skate Shop in New Haven, you’ll be able to fit right in. The shop’s rundown of skate decorum covers flow of traffic, where to have a meltdown over not landing a trick, where to get $1 pizza (Mamani, naturally) and places to avoid (it’s a shocker: the public bathroom.)

Ken Stein

Last Monday my wife and I were returning home to Williamsburg when the L train suddenly jolted to a stop somewhere between the Third and First Avenue stations. The train was packed, having filled up at Union Square, and we all moaned in chorus at the delay.

As we waited, I teased Wendy about cyber-stalking members of her favorite band, the Bad Plus, who we’d just seen perform. She’d once found a bread recipe on the pianist’s wife’s blog and made it for a dinner party we hosted. It was an innocent appreciation, and joking about it kept me from thinking about having to use the bathroom. After about fifteen minutes, though, passengers began eyeballing each other and sharing the obligatory mutual response: Two full weekends of having to take the shuttle because the train is out of service, and now this.

The elderly woman seated next to me seemed worried after an MTA worker rushed through our car. I told her the exact same thing had happened to me the previous weekend: “Someone probably pulled the emergency brake again.” Read more…