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?

Grace Maalouf Gino di Girolamo speaks with a customer at his East 14th Street shop, Royal Tailor.

Gioacchino di Girolamo has a punctured nail. For the first time in decades, the needle of his black iron sewing machine has slipped straight through his finger, and the Royal Tailor of 14th Street is not quite sure how it happened. Maybe he fell asleep at the wheel. After all, he keeps it spinning just about every weekday from about six in the evening till sunrise, and all day on the weekends. Six days a week, nearly every week, and yet —

“Never in my life this happened,” he says of the wound. And it’s been more than 45 years that the bespectacled man from Palermo, Sicily, has been steadily stitching shirts and dresses, hemming pants and re-fastening buttons for the New York City masses unraveling at the seams. In all that time, he hasn’t strayed far from Avenue A; he has worked in four different shops, all here in a two-block radius. And as the East Village has prospered, turned violent and then fallen peaceful again around him, he has watched it all from behind an ever-present pile of clothing waiting to be mended.

“I don’t know. I work hard,” he says about the possibility of having dozed off. “But, thank God.”

Business is good, though that might be incidental. For the 75-year-old Mr. di Girolamo — Gino to his friends and customers — the long hours and open door that have made him a cornerstone on this avenue aren’t about money.
Read more…

Shawn Hoke on the visual power of perspective.

“So much of photography is about perspective. You can usually improve an average shot by moving your feet; get closer, get lower, look up, look down, do something different.”
Read more…

Kenan Christiansen James Metalarc, 37, taking down equipment after playing a set at Astor Place Station. The popular street musician is considering quitting because of regulations that prevent him from playing.

Last month, The Local brought you the story of James Metalarc, a street musician who plays Jimi Hendrix tunes at the Astor Place subway station.

On Thursday, Mr. Metalarc, who is also known as Jamal Butler, contacted the blog to report his growing frustrations over MTA regulations which allow police to drive him out of the subway. He added that he was thinking about quitting.

“What I do, I do for a living,” Mr. Metalarc said in a telephone interview. “I’m not hurting anybody.”

His problems arise from the type of music he plays. The MTA’s “Rules of Conduct” do not allow musicians using sound amplifiers to perform on subway platforms, citing that the noise level can interfere with subway operations. Even in the designated performance mezzanines, amplifiers must be kept below the 85-decibel limit.

“I don’t see how that is fair,” Mr. Metalarc said. “I’ve seen a guy down there banging on a full drum set. He can’t control how loud he is, but at least my amp has a volume control.”
Read more…

Michelle Rick

A sampling of reader reactions to recent posts that have appeared on The Local.

Commenting on our post about the rejection of a liquor license application for 34 Avenue A, Mattias questioned the fairness of the panel that approves licenses:

“Business owners should have the right to opportunity; the burden should be one of ‘proof’ and should be on the committee members. A commercial way is just that, commercial; a committee having the final say in such matters is not a free market democracy.”

Brendan Bernhard’s series of “East Village Tweets” continues to evoke wide praise from readers.

Celia Farber wrote: “An inspiring new form, to carry big ideas on these tiny bridges. Keep going.”

Amy Bull said: “Who could have thought that the tweet could impose a structure and like Haiku be made an art form?”
Read more…

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…

Clint McMahon

Would-be messages from the East Village, in 140 characters or less.

Think Café

Think? He can’t even hear! So he’ll just stand & stare at
the barista there: Sleek update of the girl in Manet’s Un
Bar aux Folies Bergère

Literary Investigation

If T.S.E. were 23, would he be a downtown dandy,
mouth full of Jay-Z? LinkedIn loner on Facebook?
Poetry Society grandee? Let us go then,

& take a look. (Everything you wrote that was prophetic
& new, Major Tom, has long come true. So what would
you do now, for Act Two?)

Life

You can either embrace it or invent increasingly
complicated ways to replace it. Either way, it’ll catch
you in the end. Worse, before then

Truth Deferred

One mirror cruel, the other kind, I stick to the latter
when I unwind. If truth is called for, I take a look: The
first reads me like a book
Read more…

In fashion, utility often takes a backseat to stylish – but it doesn’t have to be so. As spring rolls on, stylish East Villagers are playing up what winter wear remains with zippers and buttons that are both functional and fun. Accents on coats, boots and bags have a purpose whether it be to stash keys or sunglasses or keep you warm, but they can also spice up an outfit. The Local hits the pavement to find out what accents serve the dual purpose of functionality and fashion forward.

NYU Journalism’s Rachel Ohm and Claire Glass report.

Tim Schreier on photographing people as they interact with art.

“I am simply a ‘picture taker.’ I would not call myself a photographer because that indicates some form of formal training, study or professional capacity. I kind of think of myself as a painter with a severe attention deficit, meaning I love light and admire photographers who are able to take advantage of natural lighting in it’s purest form. One of my favorite things to do is to visit galleries or museums and watch people as they interact with art.”
Read more…

Last night hundreds of people lined up on Astor Place or paused their post-work rush to observe a curious scene. Was there a celebrity? A fire? Actually, there was free squab and stuffing, from a truck.

The “Game of Thrones” truck, promoting the HBO fantasy series launching April 17, is popping up in a different spot in the city each evening this week, doling out “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio’s cooking to the first 300 fans that arrive. The series, based on the fantasy books by George R.R. Martin, has already drawn wide interest on Twitter and Facebook, where the truck announces its evening location minutes before it parks.

The strategy seems to be working. The East Village was filled with crazed “Game of Thrones” devotees last night–crazy enough to eat pigeon anyway.