Adrian Fussell, Vivienne Gucwa, Heather Holland, Susan Keyloun, Tim Schreier and Guney South — all members of The Local East Village Flickr Group — share their images of the weekend’s Gay Pride Parade and the celebrations surrounding the passage of the Marriage Equality Act.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

If you’d like a chance to see your best shots appear on The Local, join The Local East Village Flickr Group.

Earlier today, we wrote about the Fillmore East, one of the more remarkable properties within the confines of a proposed landmark district. The unofficial house photographer of the Fillmore East, Amalie R. Rothschild, shared her photos and memories from the theater’s brief yet influential existence from 1968 to 1971. — Stephen Rex Brown
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Peppy patterns are all over the runway (and the sidewalk!) this spring. One of our favorites here at The Local is stripes, and we’re not talking about the blah black and white versions in the back of your closet. Stripes this season are either wider, with varying widths across the fabric, or a mix of horizontal and vertical across the body. Some of the most interesting variations also play with color, either bold primary colors, classic muted tones or bold neons.

Take a look at some of our favorite takes on this playful and fun summer trend!

The Local’s Rachel Ohm reports.

Philip Kalantzis Cope

October 25, 1903. Up until about 4 p.m. on that listless Sunday, the only topic of interest had been the weather. The first chill of autumn had fallen, and everyone strolling the Brooklyn shore that day sought out their own little place in the sun.

But suddenly all complacency ended when a flash-mob of children burst on the scene. In a split-second they were all over the place, incited by none other than one of their own, a street urchin calling from the foot of the docks. He yodeled a series of “melodious yelps,” the eternal high sign, common to all kids, that something was up. And so, crazy with delight, laughing and screaming, the little ones invaded the East River piers.

This extraordinary commotion drew the attention of hundreds. They pressed forward, en masse, to behold what had amazed their children that hour: the sight of two people, a young lady and her escort, ascending one of the cables of the Williamsburg Bridge.

It was a full two months before the bridge was to open. The giant span was still festooned with the catwalks the crew had used to tighten the wires. One of these contrivances is what beckoned the dare-devils to steal aboard. But what a treacherous route to heaven it was — nothing but slats, 20 inches wide. A few unlucky workers had already fallen from these catwalks. Would the young woman and this man soon join them in death?
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Meghan Keneally Chris Coon.

Chris Coon takes a very methodical and well-accounted approach to panhandling, not because he is particularly fond of organization, but because he thinks of his work on the sociological level.

Mr. Coon, 29, is conducting a “social experiment” by trying to see how long it will take him to ask one million people for a donation to help get him out of homelessness.

In order to preserve the integrity of the project, he has a number of rules that he follows: he doesn’t start making the rounds until about 1 p.m. because he doesn’t like to talk to people while they’re eating (“its not respectful,” he said). He tries to remember the faces of the people he talks to because he doesn’t want to count them twice. He prefers to talk to couples, because it counts as two people. And more than anything, he hates it when people cut him off mid-spiel because then it doesn’t count at all.

To Mr. Coon, it all comes down to the numbers, and since starting in the beginning of May, the big number is the 3,462 people he has asked.

“I think it’s intuitive and creative and I made it into a job instead of just going up and saying ‘Hey, look, can I have a dollar?’” he said. “I probably have to speak to five or six million people to be able to actually ask one million of them.”

When he approaches people in Union Square, which has been his base of operations and his home on and off for the past few years, Mr. Coon explains the concept of his “experiment” and then records their gender and ethnicity, in an attempt to make the project as professional and accurate as possible.

“I want this to feel as much as an experiment as it can because for me it is an experiment to see how quickly I get out of being homeless,” Mr. Coon said.
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Khristopher J. Brooks

A tiny crowd of photographers and birdwatchers has gathered outside NYU’s Bobst Library trying to spot Pip, the red-tailed hawk who flew for the first time earlier today. Many in the the crowd of onlookers were excited that the 49-day-old hawk made a successful take off, but were bewildered about where she went during the flight. Visit The City Room blog of The Times for more updates.

Khristopher J. Brooks Ann Green, who lives in Washington Square Village, looks at Pip’s parents, Bobby and Violet (top photo) through binoculars.

Todd Olmstead Some of the selection at Van Daag.

For many coffee drinkers, the morning brew is a ritual, an essential start to the day whether consumed at home, work, or somewhere in between. But for coffee geeks, the experience is so much more than adding fuel. It’s a precise, scientific process in which beans cultivated with care on small farms in far away countries are ground specifically for that single, perfect cup. Many are coming to drink coffee with the same attention as fine wine.

Joining the movement is Van Daag, with a new coffee menu featuring beans from two renowned Scandinavian micro-roasters.

“Van Daag wanted a coffee program that would be something different, something that New York hadn’t seen yet,” David Latourell of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea told me. He helped assemble Coffee Collective of Copenhagen and Tim Wendelboe of Oslo along with Ecco Caffe, a small California roastery that Intelligentsia owns.

One patron described the former World Barista Champion as “godlike,” but Mr. Wendelboe, who is tall and has boyish features, doesn’t carry himself like a star. This event felt more like a gathering of old friends – though they were also happy to dispense their considerable coffee wisdom to anyone eager to slurp the brown nectar.
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In 1992, Dr. Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor for more than 30 years, wrote a book called “The 5 Love Languages.” In this perennial Times bestseller, all ways humans show love for one another are divided into five key categories: Words of Affirmation (“Is that a new dress, you look great and I love you”), Quality Time (watching True Blood together), Receiving Gifts (other than just on your birthday), Acts of Service (doing the dishes), and Physical Touch (….). So as a single lady I’ve been thinking a lot about how I show affection and like to receive affection.

Admittedly, I too like girly things like receiving flowers and handholding, but the more I think about it, the more I think Dr. Chapman forgot to include a sixth love language; the mixtape.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 90’s when tape recorders were all the rage, and one would spend hours personalizing a cassette case for that special someone. But I can’t think of a better way to communicate one’s love for another person other than through a Stevie Nicks song. Or a Mr. Big Song. Or for those not living in the 80’s, a Bright Eyes song.

Making a good mix is an art form. Getting the flow just right can take hours. But when you hit the right notes, it can set the mood, and score you major points. I’ve never been cool enough to hang out in record stores, I’m more of library dweller, but for this assignment I went to the source. This past Saturday, I parked outside three local record stores and asked East Villagers what songs they would put on their ultimate mixtape for someone they cared about. *

Check out the playlist they came up with.

Brendan BernhardKevin.

We met because he needed money, and I happened to be standing on Avenue A in bright, windy sunshine looking like someone who had more of it than he did. Not that he looked poor exactly. He was wearing a nifty white hat, a clean New York Jets shirt, and blue jeans. He was a tall, good-looking black man with a friendly smile and what appeared to be a positive attitude. Before handing over a buck, I asked him why he couldn’t find a job.

“Five felonies” was his crisp reply. It sounded like a movie title. One of the five, he said, involved a cut throat, but it was an “accident.” He’d served time (several times), had stayed out of jail since 2005, and had no plans on returning. We talked about this and that for a minute or so and then parted ways.

An hour later I ran into him again. He was walking down St. Marks Place. He looked cheerful and greeted me like a long lost friend. I’d already told him I was a journalist and so we decided to stop at a kebab house on First Avenue for a brief interview. Of course there was a price: We settled on $10. Since I refused to pay extra for food, he purchased a minute salad from the self-service counter, which left him with $8.81.

I quickly jotted down some basics. Name: Kevin. Age: 40. Birthplace: Yonkers. Mother a cleaning lady, father an alcoholic. It turned out Kevin did have a job of sorts: Selling roses on the street, mostly in SoHo. But since he also had five felonies on his record, and was panhandling, I cut to the chase.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Women, drugs, and alcohol.”

“What’s your problem with women?”

“I never had a problem with women. I make a problem. I don’t trust ‘em.”
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Heather Holland on the new season’s photographic possibilities.

“I didn’t get into photography (or what I call picture-taking) until about six months ago when I began my first job as a reporter. One of my first assignments was to take photographs in Stuyvesant Town after the severe snow storm from last Christmas. It was then that I realized how a picture can be used to tell a story, perhaps more vividly than my pen ever could. I took this photo from the boardwalk at Coney Island. Bubbles tend to add a little magic to photographs, but the story of this photo is in the little girl and she told it all on her own.”
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Meghan Keneally Northern Spy Food Co.

Northern Spy Food Co., at 511 East 12th Street between Avenues A and B, is a very pure place. The produce is locally grown, the wine is artisanal and even the very simple décor — blue benches lining white walls — “incorporates as much reclaimed and repurposed materials as possible,” according to the restaurant’s website. The meat comes from “the best and most progressive butcher on the East Coast.” Even the name conjures up purity, since a Northern Spy is a New York State heirloom apple.

I was not initially aware of the depth of Northern Spy’s commitment to purity. At lunch the other day, I asked my waiter if the turkey in the turkey sandwich was regular Boar’s Head. He shot me a look of pure disbelief; maybe he thought I was needling him. The turkey came from a farm in Pennsylvania; it had been roasted in-house, and then shaped into a roulade for uniform slicing. And the turkey was, indeed, dense and moist and darker in color than most commercial birds, and made for a beautiful sandwich.
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Tim MilkThe grave of Eva Schneider and her daughter at Greenwood Cemetery.

On the 107th anniversary of the Slocum Disaster, local historian Tim Milk looks at the fate of two passengers.

It’s always had that inexplicable sadness about it, that red former Lutheran church on Sixth Street. Even before the plaque went up on the cast-iron fence which tells the sad story, one could never shake the brooding heaviness that hovered in its yard and hung over its doorstep while passing it by.

Surely it felt different on that lovely early summer’s day when Eva Schneider and her teenage daughter, also named Eva, departed its gates with so many mothers and kids from the largely German congregation to cross over to the East River piers. There, the two Evas and their many good friends, all in holiday dress, would board the excursion steamship General Slocum for an invigorating trip around the bend.

Today, their headstone looks out from a hillside just inside the fence of Greenwood Cemetery. It sadly attests to all who pass by that the two Eva’s lie there together, having both died that same day with 1,200 others. What a vivid picture the legend creates in the mind — a blue sky, the spray of the waves, stiff breezes stirring dresses and children’s hair tied with ribbons, then a desperate panic as the lumbering paddle-wheeler burst into flames.
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Joshua Davis Joe’s Locksmith, a business in the same cluster of buildings as Mars Bar, will shut its doors June 30. Above: Joe Filini Jr., son of the store’s founder, says “We always knew it was gonna happen.”

As the Mars Bar keeps the public guessing as to when it will close its doors, Joe’s Locksmith confirmed yesterday that June 30 will be its last day of business. Though unlike the Mars Bar, which has no immediate plans to reopen, Joe’s Locksmith expects to relocate to Brooklyn within the next two months.

The Local caught up with Joe Filini Jr., son of the store’s founder Joe Filini, Sr., to reflect on his time in the East Village and discuss his future in Brooklyn.

“In a sense we always knew it was gonna happen,” said the younger Mr. Filini. “It was just a matter of time of when it was gonna happen. My father’s been hearing about it for years and years and years.”
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