Brendan Bernhard

Today on The Local East Village, it’s all about cleaning house. First, from Brendan Bernhard, the second and final chapter of his harrowing tale about fighting bed bugs. And later, a professional organizer tells how you, too, can make a clean sweep.

If you thought bed bugs were bad enough (I certainly did), wait until you deal with exterminators – bed bug exterminators, that is. Let me tell you, they (or their bosses) are a demanding lot.

Evil sneaky blood-sucking nocturnal mattress-and-sofa infesting predatory vamps-without-glamour they may be, but bed bugs, unlike exterminators, don’t make you wash, dry, and dry clean every article of clothing in your possession. They don’t insist you empty your closets, drawers, file cabinets, and bookshelves, clean the contents therein, and then box them up in airtight containers before they will deign to submit your apartment (which must also be spick and span) to blasts of steam followed by potent doses of poison. In short, those foul vampiric insects that have infested New York do not force you to upend your life and take a good hard look at all the stuff you have accumulated despite spending half your time throwing things out in the interminable war against clutter. Read more…

Phoenix Eisenberg on capturing the complexity of limitations.

“I want to give people a reason to be interested in the things they would normally dismiss– by making the unattractive look beautiful, the crazed look understandable, or the pristine seem imperfect. I want people to understand that it is the imperfections in our lives that make us so interesting.”
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Street Style: Retro Sunglasses from Jennifer Puleio on Vimeo.

Whether you’re outside on a bright afternoon, or dodging sun showers, one of the most unavoidable trends this summer are fifties-inspired sunglasses. We caught up with people in the East Village who were sporting bold and colorful prints, or keeping it classic and neutral. Either way, they were making a spot-on fashion statement.

Leigh LedareThanks for the help, Mr. Levitt.

He may have started out in Los Angeles, but musician Alain Levitt, one half of NYC synth-pop duo Bubbles, has called the East Village home for a solid decade. “The neighborhood has changed quite a bit,” he muses via e-mail in between recording sessions. “There’s good coffee now, some nice restaurants and lots and lots of college kids.” Having recently wrapped a “mini East Coast tour” with Gang Gang Dance, he’ll likely see more of those college kids when he hits the road again. For the moment, however, he found time to tell us about his favorite local hangs.

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Leila Samii

Earlier this week, the Daily News pointed to the intersection of Essex and Delancey Streets as one of the deadliest in the city. Where bicycle accidents are concerned, it isn’t the only dangerous street crossing on the Lower East Side. In fact, data shows that the neighborhood boasts many of the intersections most prone to bicycle crashes.

The Local obtained records from the New York City Department of Transportation of cycling accidents in 2008 and 2009, the most recent years available. The records reported all intersections where four or more cycling accidents occurred in 2008, and three or more in 2009.

Of the 33 intersections on the list, nine are on the Lower East Side (three of those nine are on Houston Street, the border of the East Village). The data reported a total of 45 crashes at those intersections.

Midtown was the second most sketchy neighborhood with 38 crashes across its accident-prone intersections.
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Kim DavisRoberta’s staff had time on their hands while patrons were locked out.

Yesterday, two downtown residents were surprised to be turned away at the BMW Guggenheim Lab, the self-described “part urban think tank, part community center and public gathering space.” Following the first story about a woman and her dog, here’s the second— about a man and his stomach.

Yesterday’s launch of the cafe at the BMW Guggenheim Lab was a wash-out, but not because of the rain.

The cafe is operated by Roberta’s, a Brooklyn-based restaurant with a dizzying buzz factor. Opened as a casual wood-fired pizza joint in a former garage in a bleak, industrial corner of Bushwick, Roberta’s has steadily built a reputation not only for more ambitious food (think tripe and sweetbreads) but for a locavore ethic including herbs grown on the roof, home-baked bread and a Heritage Radio studio in the backyard. A collaboration between Roberta’s and a project to promote “innovative ideas for urban life” must have seemed a no-brainer.

So why did Roberta’s fans find themselves locked out of the compound last night, peering through the railings in the driving rain? The answer given by a door-tender around 6pm was that the screening of “Blank City” in an adjacent tent was sold out. “But we don’t want to go to the screening,” people cried. “We want to eat at the cafe.” Read more…

Michael Lefkovits

On Tuesday, a follower of The Local East Village’s Twitter page tweeted about how some East Villagers had helped a missing man back to his home. Seeing a counterpoint to the tragic death of Eason Alonzio, we asked her to tell us the whole story here.

On Tuesday night, my husband Ben and I settled in at Standings. The low-key sports bar has become the default home for one of our “integrate into America” projects: acquiring a love of baseball, or at the very least starting to work out what all the fuss is about. It’s not the most straightforward endeavor for a couple of Aussies raised to believe cricket is the best game on Earth. Becoming Mets fans has helped, though; we are culturally wired to support the underdog, and they fulfill the role with aplomb.

It was around 10:30 p.m. when we finished watching the Mets throw away their 8th-inning lead against the Marlins. Defeated and more than ready to be home, we crossed Second Avenue over to St. Marks, Ben pushing his bike ahead of me. In my peripheral vision I caught only a fleeting glimpse of what seemed to be a hunched figure leaning up against a tree trunk; it wasn’t until I had gone several feet further that the image even registered.

“Wait up,” I said to Ben, handing him my backpack as I returned to investigate.

An elderly man, perhaps 80 years old, was struggling to reach the walking cane he had dropped on the pavement. I picked up the cane and put it in his hand. He started talking in Mandarin. Within a few moments it became clear he spoke no English, but by this time he was holding my hand.
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Emily Armstrong

Yesterday, two downtown residents were surprised when they were turned away at the BMW Guggenheim Lab, the self-described “part urban think tank, part community center and public gathering space.” Here’s the first story, involving a dog named Finn McCool.

I went to the Guggenheim Lab this afternoon, hoping to get a coffee and sit for a while on their picnic benches. I was barred from entry because, here’s a shocker: “Sorry, no dogs allowed.”

The explanation was that there is a cafe on the premises, hence no dogs.

“What about the recently closed and sadly missed Little Veselka down the block in First Park?”, I asked. “Dogs were welcomed there. They even sold a dog biscuit for fifty cents and left out bowls of water for thirsty pets. And, that was also on parks department, New York City property.

The Lab was far from crowded and there was plenty of room for me and Finn McCool (that’s his name).

The guy at the door said they would look into it.

A spokesperson for the Lab told The Local that “dogs are allowed in the park area but not the structure.” Is that the policy which is actually being implemented? What do you think? Should dogs be allowed into the think tank?

Update | 4:30 p.m. A spokesperson for the BMW Guggenheim Lab says that as of yesterday afternoon, “dogs are allowed to come into the park area but not the structure.”

Read No Quarter at the Guggenheim Lab, Pt. 2: Rebuffed at Roberta’s

Tim Milk

The Church of the Nativity has for many years serviced the less fortunate with their basement food pantry at 44 Second Avenue. Last week bilingual signs were posted advising locals that due to state and federal budget cuts, “The Food Pantry will be closed until further notice.”

Contrasts abound in the East Village. On one hand we see a fashionable epicenter with its glittering night life. But on the other one finds a place haunted by desperation. As families struggle to make ends meet, as unemployment takes its toll, as food prices rise, it is all the more regrettable to see a neighborhood food pantry shut for lack of funds.

It puts a very personal, poignant perspective on the rather circus-like proceedings in Washington over the debt ceiling. One has to wonder just how many food pantries must be closed in order to narrow State and Federal deficits.

Let us know what you think about the closure.

East Village residents can eat free hot dogs, jump in a moon bounce and meet local N.Y.P.D. members at today’s National Night Out event hosted by the Ninth Police Precinct. The block party (which runs until 8 p.m. in the space across from the Precinct at 321 East Fifth Street) is one of many community events across the country designed to facilitate interaction between neighbors and police.

Adrian Fussell on the beauty of taking photographs in an urban setting.

“People on the street give me endless fleeting moments of beauty. In capturing them, I try to make the viewer feel the irony of a scene, feel empathy for the subject, or show a unique juxtaposition. I’m training myself to be ready for those decisive moments in the random chaos of people going about their daily lives.”
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Susan Keyloun takes a look at a subway station that’s been closed for more than six decades.

“When I catch a glimpse of Old New York on my peripatetic jaunts throughout this fascinating city, I can’t help but celebrate her history. My most recent glimpse: the abandoned 18th Street Subway station, which was opened to the public in 1904 and shuttered in 1948. I visited the station, at 18th Street and Park Avenue South, with an accommodating MTA employee who took photos of the station since I was not allowed to go below ground.”

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Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

You may not be able to pronounce it, but Gesamkunstwerk is a boutique you should know about.

Nestled on a corner across Houston Street on the Lower East Side, this boutique voted “Best New Indie Shop” by TimeOut NY is a go to spot for locally made, conversation worthy pieces. Cooper Union grad Alexandra “Allie” Kuzyk mans the store most days and her background in visual merchandising and design makes her an expert in spotting the “next big thing”. The Local sat down with Allie to discuss why she chose her store’s unpronounceable name, where she goes out in the East Village and why she chose the Lower East Side as her shop’s home.

Where did you come up with the name Gesamkunstwerk?

When the shop originally opened in the summer of 2010, it was both a
workshop and a retail boutique. So my partner and I thought of
gesamtkunstwerk, a German word meaning “the complete art work,” because we
thought it captured the essence of what we were trying to accomplish in the
space. Now we poke fun at the name because it’s a mouthful, so we go by
“Werk” and our website is cantspellit.com.
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Brendan Bernhard

It is said, on one of the many Web sites dealing with the subject, that bed bugs, when they attack their sleeping victims, leave a trail of “dark fecal spots (which are partly digested blood) on their host, mattresses, clothes, bedding, walls, ceiling, and every place you can imagine in a room.”

Except, it seems, when they don’t. Except when you are preyed upon by bed bugs who come equipped with their own federally funded clean-up crew — bugs which don’t feed but tidy up after the other bugs — ensuring that the dawn will reveal absolutely no sign of their vampiric brethren except for the clusters of hideous, madly itching welts on your legs and arms and torso.

This is the situation as I lie awake in bed at three in the morning, a copy of George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” propped up on a small cushion in front of me. I’m about 420 pages in, with about 420 pages to go, but it’s a challenge to concentrate. I keep swiveling around thinking I’ll catch a bug scooting purposefully toward me on the pristine sheet. I turn a flashlight on the curls of peeling paint behind the heating pipe and under the window sill, looking for anything that scurries…. Surely there must be something moving somewhere. After all, it’s feeding time.
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