Meredith HoffmanA new series of programs offered by the Educational Alliance for those 55 and older include lessons in ballroom dancing, tai chi and yoga. Here, Marcy Simon, who directs the program, leads a class.

There were lessons in zumba, ballroom dancing, karaoke, ceramics, and tap dance. Some people were learning tai chi and yoga. Others were taking part in poetry readings or Chinese dance sessions.

Many might assume that a place offering those programs was some ultramodern studio targeting this year’s crop of college students. In fact, these are just some of the new programs being offered by the Educational Alliance’s specifically for older adults. And no, they do not offer bingo.

The East Village Center for Balanced Living is located in the Sirovich Center on 12th Street between First and Second Avenues (similar programs are also available at the Whittaker Center on East Broadway). The center believes that just because people qualify for the breakfast special, this doesn’t mean that their health and wellness shouldn’t remain a vital aspect of their day. “It is about finding ways to challenge people as they get older, not feeding into it,” said Marcy Simon, the director and founder of the center.
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Tim Milk An artist’s rendering of Charlotte Canda.

She was swept inside from out of the gloom and crowned with 17 roses. It would be, despite the weather, her happiest birthday ever, or so her friends had thought. Singing and dancing ensued, while a great storm, like an ogre, shook the panes and doors with the devil’s own passion. Each colossal display of its might caused the celebrants to thrill and delight ever louder in singing their songs.

She was born on Feb. 3, 1828 in New York, and thereafter forsaken until her adoption by Charles and Adele Canda, notables of the local French Quarter. The Candas, it seems, were childless, and so they took in this girl as their own, and duly named her Charlotte.

As the years went by, Charlotte astounded one and all. By age 13 she could speak five languages and sketch like Da Vinci. The finishing school her parents ran on Lafayette Place became famous to have such a star pupil, and soon the whole town was smitten with the attractive lass. They lovingly called her “The French Girl.”

Vivacious Charlotte was known to keep a whole aviary of parrots, a teeming flock of friends, and a standing army of admiring boys. She drew the attention of the clergy, socialites, and, yes, politicians, who found in her smile that rare and shining light that flatters even scoundrels if only they should stand nearby.

By age 16 she had scored her beau, a young French nobleman, and they were soon engaged.

Tim Milk Charlotte Canda’s tomb at Green-wood Cemetery, which she designed for her aunt who had died only months before.

But in the bleak November of 1844, her adoring aunt Clemence died at age 26. Charlotte was devastated. She took refuge in Old St. Pat’s, and amidst its gothic tracery found inspiration to sketch a fairy tale castle for Clemence. But she, in her grief, let no one see it, and hid the drawing in her desk.

On the evening of Feb. 3, 1845, Charlotte’s 17th birthday, a great Nor’easter swept in off the sea, a maelstrom of sleet and hail. Charlotte’s friends nonetheless showed up at her house, to entice her to a party. Her mother forbid it, but Charlotte insisted, and so Mr. Canda conceded to chaperone.

At the close of this happy soiree, she and her father drove her girlfriend home to Waverly Place. The coachman tossed the reins across the seat, dismounted, and let Mr. Canda escort the girl inside. Meanwhile he stamped his frozen feet, and his team shook the heavy sleet from their manes.

Suddenly, inexplicably, the horses spooked, and off they charged with Charlotte still in the carriage. As it rounded the corner, she was thrown out and onto Broadway.

Witnesses from a nearby hotel then dashed out to carry The French Girl inside. There, just before midnight, she gave a smile, and then she died.

Her parents later found Charlotte’s fairy tale castle, and it became her tomb. Today, at Green-Wood, it still encloses their daughter’s likeness, where on her face, in certain lights, you can sometimes glimpse that one last smile.

Meredith Hoffman Writer Laurie Kamens gets make-up advice.

It felt unnatural. I arched my foot backwards, gracefully pointing my toes, pushed out my chest, and forced a cheesy grin. Posing as a pin-up model was proving harder work than the smiling, curly-headed girls of the 1940’s and 50’s made it look.

“If it feels comfortable, you’re doing it wrong,” Bettina May said as we started mugging for the camera.

A professional pin-up model and burlesque dancer, Ms. May has been teaching her Pin-Up Class for the past five years, giving contemporary women a tutorial in vintage make up and hair, complete with a personalized photo shoot at the end.

Bettina May removes curlers.

Popularized by movie stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, and Rita Hayworth, the classic pin-up look, defined by Ms. May as, “red lips, black eyeliner and a big smile,” is now an iconic image of feminine beauty and sex appeal.

Held at Beauty Bar on 14th Street, the class I attended was intimate, six women including myself. A perfect setting, the converted beauty parlor is decorated with swiveling chairs and display cases holding dusty hairbrushes and expired beauty products. As we settled into the vinyl salon chairs, Buddy Holly playing softly in the background, Ms. May asked why we had signed up for the class and what we hoped to take away from it.

There was Kim, 47, a mother of two, who became interested in pin-up culture through themed events she helped organize. Her enthusiasm reached so far that she brought along a friend, Marcela, 36. Also recommended by a friend was Margaret, 27. Swing dancing since high school, she was looking for a vintage hair and make up style to match her dance moves.

Hailing from Texas, Lorraine, 30, was a one-time hairstylist who was looking to fill a gap in her professional knowledge, as well as make a personal connection; “I’ve recently been looking at pictures of my grandmother and I kind of resemble her,” she said. “I remembered seeing some of her outfits in my dad’s closet. I just want to start presenting myself in a glamorous way.”

Then there was Amy who, though 37, looked as if she was in her early 20’s with a pixie haircut and a bubbly personality to match. After a long-standing fascination with vintage glamour, she was excited to resemble the pin-up girls she had plastered on the walls of her apartment. Read more…

Courtesy of Rose Keefe. ‘Monk’ Eastman.

Eleven days ago, the arrest of nearly 125 mobsters reacquainted many to the fact that the mob still has life outside of the occasional H.B.O. series.  Federal officials labeled the bust “the largest mob roundup in F.B.I. history,” and once the media got ahold of the accused’s food-centric monikers – here’s lookin’ at you “Junior Lollipops” – curiosity ensued.

Americans have a longstanding fascination with the mob. As Eric Ferrara, director of the Lower East Side History Project puts it, “The outlaw is timeless. They have a certain brazen quality that people tend to admire.”

In light of recent gangster coverage, The Local thought it might be the perfect time to take a look at one of the East Village’s own “brazen” outlaws – one with whom you may not even be acquainted.

Before Al Capone, before Luciano, and definitely before “Tony Bagels,” the gangster to be feared and admired was “Monk” Eastman.

Born Edward Eastman in 1873, the mobster known as “Monk” was a frightening figure to behold. As the historian Herbert Asbury described, “He began life with a bullet-shaped head.” He was broken-nosed, bull-necked, and had a face scarred from smallpox and a lifetime of brawling.

In the 1890’s, the Lower East Side was a warren of disease-friendly tenements for the immigrated poor and, by all accounts, its streets were a breeding ground for pickpockets, thugs, and slummers of all stripes.

It was on these same mean streets that Mr. Eastman carved out a reputation as a neighborhood tough and eventually recruited his own gang: the Eastmans.
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Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Over the years, contributors to the political publication World War 3 Illustrated have created art and written about 1980’s guerilla war in Central America, the demonstrations that disrupted 1999 meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle and the ravages visited upon New Orleans in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.

But the geographic entity that features most prominently in the history of the publication is the East Village. That is where the artists Seth Tobocman and Peter Kuper came up in 1980 with the title World War 3, which was based upon the idea that the United States has been involved since the Cold War in a nearly constant string of military conflicts.  (Armed warfare and civil unrest are not the publication’s sole subjects: “WW3 also illuminates the war we wage on each other and sometimes the one taking place in our own brains,” its website notes.)

Mr. Tobocman, who has participated in exhibitions at ABC No Rio and the Museum of Modern Art, lives to this day in the East Village.  So do several other World War 3 contributors like Mac McGill, Fly, and James Romberger.  It comes as little surprise, then, that stories and images related to the neighborhood play a significant part in a World War 3 retrospective at Exit Art called Graphic Radicals that runs until Feb. 5.
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Meredith Hoffman Porchetta, 110 East Seventh Street.

The supreme realization, or maybe the reductio ad absurdum, of the East Village nano-scale restaurant is the place which serves only one item, and has no room to do anything other than order that one thing. In this regard, I would say that the echt East Village establishment is Porchetta, a shoebox at 110 East Seventh Street, between First and A. It is at least theoretically possible to eat something there other than porchetta – a roast pork sandwich – though it’s hard to see why you would; and you can squeeze onto a stool at the counter, though you’re liable to get trampled by the foot traffic if you do.

What is porchetta that one should make so much of it? Sara Jenkins, the founder, owner and master chef, explains that, in classic form, porchetta is a whole, slow-roasted pig stuffed with herbs and innards, and then encased in its own belly to produce a rich outer layer of crispy fat. Porchetta is street food, and served only in the form of a sandwich consisting of a thick slab of pork and its surrounding fat.
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A slideshow of images of today’s snowstorm by NYU Journalism’s Suzanne Rozdeba and community contributor J.B. Nicholas.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The members of The Local East Village Flickr Group share their images of yet another snowy day.

Kelly Samardak

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Chelsia Rose Marcius Felix Gates, 57, shoveled stranded motorists out of snow piles during December’s snowstorm. For many of the East Village’s homeless, the inclement weather can bring new opportunities to make money by performing odd jobs.

Snow for the homeless of Avenue D is a mixed blessing. They can earn quick cash shoveling out stranded motorists, but it is not enough to get them off the streets.

Take Abraham Rosado, for example.  Mr. Rosado, who’s 56, has earned money during winters on Avenue D by shoveling snow. To keep warm, he seeks out sidewalk grates and liquor stores.

It is a wearing routine when the temperature dips below freezing and, according to AccuWeather.com, Mr. Rosado will have more such days to endure. The last week of January is forecast to include a few more days of snow and possible rain with little sun.

That means Mr. Rosado may make a small profit wielding his shovel. But it also means that the only sustained periods of relief from the outdoors that he will likely be able to count on will come during dinner hours at a local soup kitchen.

Many of Alphabet City’s homeless helped commuters last month plow through piles of snow in exchange for a small fee.

Others like Shea Darnell Belle, 30, a homeless man born in the East Village, said they offer assistance for free, or next to free.

“One lady had me shovel out her car,” he said. “She asked, ‘What do you charge?’ and I said, ‘What you can afford.’”

Felix Gates, 57, who sells cigarettes on the corner of Avenue D and Ninth Street, watched during the late December blizzard as some motorists struggled to restart engines that sputtered and stalled. Some of those people left their cars unattended for a few days until the snow was cleared. Their misfortune ended up providing a boon to some homeless men and women who managed to get inside the vehicles and use them as temporary shelters.

Others, of course, slept outside, even in frigid temperatures.

“Many of them sleep on the steps, on stairways before the police tell them to go to a shelter.” Mr. Gates said. “You see people move from one spot to another, just trying to stay warm. I’ll be glad when it’s all over.”

Dale W. Eisinger

Jenn Pelly Adam Cole, the reclusive street artist who is also known as Cost, and the newspaper distribution box that he designed. The box was stolen from a street corner and Mr. Cole played a role in its recovery.

In the early 90’s, Adam Cole, a.k.a. “Cost,” hit the streets undercover. As one half of the now-mythic graffiti duo Cost and Revs, he was busy revolutionizing the graffiti world and catapulting the wheatpasting medium to an international street art phenomenon. According to Mr. Cole, he and Revs were wanted by the NYPD. He wore a mask in photographs.

In 2010, Cost’s life is different. After remaining largely quiet since a graffiti-related arrest in the mid-90s, he heads to Mars Bar for a recent interview — on the theft and recovery of his most recent work — in a Porsche. Over noontime beers, Mr. Cole explains he has done “okay” for himself with “honest work” as a small business owner. “I don’t want to run from the law anymore,” he says, each word’s articulation recalling his home borough, Queens. As one of New York City’s most infamous and enigmatic street artists, Mr. Cole found himself, in December, chasing after a thief himself.

Described by Cost as a “professional street art thief,” that Brooklyn-based criminal stole, a carefully crafted newspaper box Mr. Cole created for Showpaper, a free newssheet of all-ages DIY concert listings distributed throughout the city. The box was Cost’s largest public artwork since his mid-90s arrest, and hit Second Avenue at Houston Street one Monday last November. By the Thursday evening, it was stolen, and immediately posted on eBay with a $4,000 price tag. The box has been off the streets since—but after being recovered by project curator Andrew Shirley in December, it will return to the East Village in coming weeks.

When it first hit the East Village, the box was loaded with rocks and concrete, but Mr. Shirley, also at our Mars Bar meeting, was not surprised by its theft. “We dropped the box off around two in the afternoon, and as we drove back down First Avenue, that day, I didn’t even expect to see it then,” Mr. Shirley said. “I didn’t think it would last a day.”

“The thief represents society to me,” Mr. Shirley said. “Society is all about money —capitalism, and making a buck. The thief took the joy and purity out of the project.”
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Vivienne Gucwa

When I walked into Mars Bar for the first time I immediately noticed the smell. It was more of a stench, the same odor that permeates my yoga studio after a crowded Bikram class. The second thing I noticed was the man next to me at the bar, who pulled out a deli-bought sub from a paper bag. After a few bites, he ordered a Budweiser from the bartender. Mars Bar does not serve food. Even so, the bartender was remarkably nonchalant about the customer who was halfway through his dinner.

The establishment has been tirelessly documented as a quintessential New York City dive bar — a remnant of an East Village before the Bowery accommodated luxury hotels. Its graffiti-adorned walls, scrawled with disparaging phrases like “Die, Yuppie Scum,” take aim at the shiny high rises and condominiums popping up at an alarming rate.

Now, as Mars Bar prepares to close its doors for at least the next two years – and perhaps longer – it seems like an appropriate time to take a step back and assess the East Village’s best dive bars before they close for good.
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Chaz Kangas.

Passing by the corner of Second Avenue and Fifth Street on a Monday night has become quite a different experience in the three months since Sin Sin closed. The former home of Freestyle Mondays, the vibrant, laidback epicenter of one of the country’s longest lasting hip hop scenes, now sits in silence with the tinted windows whispering to passersby about parties past. Sometimes I’ll even stop in front of the windows and peer inside for a brief moment of nostalgia. When I do this for more than 10 seconds, a local resident will approach and say something to the effect of “that place is closed, the party is over.” While it’s hard to deny the first half of that sentence, the latter portion couldn’t be more wrong.

For many involved in the East Village hip hop scene, “Freestyle Mondays” is the center of our musical solar system, and it would take more than an eviction notice to eclipse such a brightly shining community. When it was announced that Sin Sin would be closing last October, there was tremendous interest from different venues offering to inherit the event and keep things continuing as usual. Eventually, hosts iLLspokiNN and Mariella chose Bar 13, (13th and University) as Freestyle Mondays’ new home. Since then, even amid the numerous snowstorms, the loyalists have returned.

But this move doesn’t mean a complete migration of hip hop from the East Village. Brown Bag Thursdays, a bi-weekly rap showcase at Voodoo Lounge (First Avenue and Second Street), is currently in its second year and is becoming something of a landmark for rap enthusiasts to visit.

Organized by local favorite rhyme collective the Brown Bag All Stars, the event has become one of the area’s premiere hip hop attractions, pairing local acts back-to-back with independent rap artists from all over the continent. This international appeal has resulted in events such as last December’s benefit for the family of Minneapolis rapper Michael ‘Eyedea’ Larsen who died suddenly in October. It’s this outreach and togetherness that exemplifies what makes the scene so special as Brown Bag Thursdays joins long-running hip hop open mic End of the Weak (Sunday nights at Club Pyramid on Avenue A) as another staple in keeping the underground rap scene in the East Village alive. In a genre with an ever-changing sound, perhaps it’s fitting that the walls surrounding it change too.

Chaz Kangas writes about the hip hop music scene at his blog.

Suzanne Rozdeba The East River Park is the focal point of an unrealized plan for a unbroken protected greenway on Manhattan’s east side. Below: The park, renamed for former Mayor John V. Lindsay in 2001, is also a hub for runners and cyclists.

Before the construction of the East River (later FDR) Drive and the public housing along the east side of the street, Avenue D’s relationship with the East River was much more direct than we see now. When the area was still dominated by an active industrial waterfront, almost every east-west street in the neighborhood flowed directly into the river. Today, only a couple of those streets give access to the waterfront and the FDR must be traversed first.

Indeed, a quick look at some historical photographs and maps shows that the water was physically much closer to Avenue D than it is today. For instance, if you stood on the corner of 13th Street on Avenue D in the 1930’s, you could look directly at the water lapping up against the dock, while today that view is dominated by a power plant. Meanwhile, a walk from the corner of East Sixth street and Avenue D would deliver you to the water’s edge after approximately 900 feet, and the equivalent walk today is about 350 feet longer.

The difference, of course, is due both to FDR Drive and the East River Park (renamed John V. Lindsay Park in 2001). What the neighborhood lost in direct access to the water, it gained in additional open space. In fact, it gained Manhattan’s biggest open space south of 59th Street. The park, which is almost 60 acres in size and stretches from East 12th Street to Montgomery Street, owes its origins to the FDR Drive and Robert Moses, the man behind almost every piece of serious infrastructure conceived and/or constructed between the Great Depression and the city’s financial crisis of the 1970’s.
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For more than three decades, Marlis Momber has chronicled the changes that have occurred in the East Village and the Lower East Side – Loisaida. She reflects on 30 years of observing a community in transition.

“I hope we will learn from this having lost against gentrification, but it was inevitable,” said Ms. Momber in her East Fourth Street apartment as she sorted through photos, such as this image from 1986. “There’s this sense now that we must reconnect — preserve and continue — or all the earlier stuff will be for naught.”
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Suzanne Rozdeba Hung-Ry, 55 Bond Street.

In the course of my first lunch at Hung-Ry, a neo-noodle restaurant at 55 Bond Street, I used my chopsticks to tweezer from my bowl a rather odd black wedge-shaped object, walked it over to the chef, Michael Hodgkins, who was standing behind the counter and said, “What’s this?”

“That’s the gizzard,” Mike explained. “It filters the soil which gets into the chicken’s system and gives it a. . .” He searched for the word.

“Soily?”

“Earthy flavor.” A lot of people, Mike added, regard a gizzard with deep suspicion. I had, too. But by the time I had reached the bottom of my duck breast noodle soup, I was hunting everywhere for those cushy, earthy bits of innard.

When I say that Hung-Ry practices neo-noodle cuisine, I mean that Mike has adapted the Chinese convention of broth, noodle and meat for a different world, and a different palate. Mike’s own training is French — he says that he worked for people who worked for Alain Ducasse, which I suppose is something like jamming with someone who once jammed with Bono — and he has infused into this ancient and rather tired staple a thrilling intensity of flavor and a commitment to fresh and exotic products. The duck breast in my soup had been exquisitely grilled and layered atop a bed of thick noodles which Chen, the noodle-man, had just finished stretching and twisting and yanking and then chopping. The broth was so redolent of distilled essence of duck that I couldn’t bear to order a dessert for fear of dispersing the flavor.
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Courtesy David Amram David Amram will celebrate his 80th birthday with a fundraiser at the Bowery Poetry Club Jan. 30.

The rapidly altering Bowery landscape might prove disorienting to someone who first performed at the fabled Five Spot jazz club in 1956, then located on the Bowery at Fifth Street. For David Amram this isn’t the case, as he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday at a fund raiser for The Community-Word Project on Jan. 30 at The Bowery Poetry Club. A long-time downtown resident, Mr. Amram has continued to create music, perform and remain vital over the past half century. He explains that “It’s important for young artists to see it’s possible to lead a creative life in the arts.’

Internationally known as a composer, multi-instrumentalist, conductor and author, Mr. Amram has composed more than one hundred orchestral and chamber music works, along with film scores such as those for “Splendor in the Grass” and “The Manchurian Candidate.” He has collaborated with a vast legion of performers including Charles Mingus, Willie Nelson, Dizzy Gillespie, Langston Hughes, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, and scores of others. In 1966, Leonard Bernstein chose him as the first guest composer-in-residence of The New York Philharmonic.
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Bernardo After closing his museum store on St. Marks Place in September, the artist James De La Vega says that he is moving toward a “digital experience” for his work and that he is no longer selling his art. Below: Some of Mr. De La Vega’s work.

When last we heard from James De La Vega, he had just closed his museum store on St. Marks Place and was answering questions about why someone was threatening the proprietor who replaced him.

Now, four months removed from the East Village, the iconic street artist told The Local earlier today that he is moving into a new “digital experience,” and that he is no longer selling art.

“America’s moving in a bad direction, in a deeper sense than economics. Right now, we have to focus on building trustful relationships with people,” said Mr. De La Vega. “There’s no interest in selling anything. I’m not doing that now. We are committed to a more powerful message, one that was given to me.” Mr. De La Vega said he’s instead been giving away his art – which is frequently adorned with his slogan “Become Your Dream” – as gifts.

As for plans for another New York store, he said, “We have too many enemies out there. There is no store. For all of 2011, De La Vega will totally be a digital experience. De La Vega will explain his work in a language that you will understand.”

His message, he said, still resonates with his followers. “The De La Vega message is a bigger thing. People are identifying with this concept as a form of fighting,” he said. “It reminds people that they can be powerful and they go out there and create. They don’t have to live within the uniform that life imposes on them.”

He and his team are in “a total planning process. Right now, I’m building a powerful team to continue into our next phase. There’s a story going on.”

Meredith Hoffman Years after coming to East Village soup kitchens for help, Jeremy Jarvis now works as a volunteer helping those who are homeless.

Jeremy Jarvis has lived at opposite ends of the social spectrum. About 20 years ago – his life in a spiral of homelessness and alcoholism – he found himself standing in line at East Village soup kitchens.

Now, his is a life transformed and he works as a volunteer serving those who are in as much need as he once was.

And earlier today, as others gathered at ceremonies across New York and the nation to honor the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. Jarvis paid tribute to the civil rights icon in his own quiet way: serving those in need.

“If I’m living with more than I need, when other people don’t have enough, I’m doing an injustice,” said Mr. Jarvis, glancing at a portrait of Dr. King in the soup kitchen of the Catholic Worker on First Street near Second Avenue.

As Mr. Jarvis gazed around the room, he recalled eating his “first bowl of soup in this room, at one of these tables” amid his troubled youth. Traveling “from handout to handout,” he found few places that consistently wanted to help him — or even cared about him.
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Samantha Ku Carey Pulverman, the “worm lady” of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, shows off her red wigglers. The worms are an essential part of composting process.

Bugs and insects are an apartment dweller’s nightmare. But some East Village residents are embracing a creepy crawler as an ally in urban composting: the red wiggler worm, a.k.a. Eisenia foetida. With the right mix of worms, newspaper and food waste, combined with about four months’ worth of patience, you can end up with several pounds of the moist, sticky brown compost known to green thumbs as “steroids for plants.”

In an effort to be more “green,” Richard Carlsen, 53, a public school teacher, bought a worm bin 18 months ago to use in his East Ninth Street apartment. “I thought composting was out for me not having a yard, but after researching vermicomposting, I was like, ‘Oh, let me give it a try,’ and it’s worked out great,” said Mr. Carlsen.

He uses the rich fertilizer excreted by the worms on his houseplants, and he gets rid of food leftovers. ”I’m proud of my worms,” he said. “It’s amazing, you stick something in there, and in a week it’s gone.”

As a result of keeping the worm bin in his living room, Mr. Carlsen has put up with some extra insects like mites, fruit flies and gnats. He uses frequent vacuuming and fly traps to control the pest population.

For recyclers who can’t abide by worms in their homes, outdoor composting is even more passive. You can visit one of four official demonstration sites at community gardens in the East Village (see map below) to dump select food scraps into bins filled with various plant clippings.

Once every few weeks, someone in the garden will give it a good toss for aeration. In several months, it will become the nutrient-rich compost and potting soil that make avid gardeners shell out the big bucks.

There are other places to compost, including The Lower East Side Ecology Center, which has a community compost drop-off in the northeast corner of the Union Square Greenmarket for local residents.

Robert Appleton, a teacher on sabbatical who lives in the East Village, brings his compost to the Union Square Greenmarket and the 4th Street Food Co-op when he does his weekly grocery shopping.

“I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, so anything left over I just bring here in a plastic bag, usually twice a week,” said Mr. Appleton. “My apartment’s too small for me to do my own composting.”

Each week, the large black garbage bins at the compost drop-off site are filled with the rotting, moldy, smelly piles of New Yorkers’ apple cores, eggshells, and coffee grounds. The Ecology Center, in turn, uses the donated scraps to create compost and potting soil, which sells for $7 per 5 pound bag three months later at the same stand in Union Square.

Learning More About Composting

The Department of Sanitation’s NYC Compost Project also operates demonstration sites at the following community gardens:

• La Plaza Cultural, East Ninth Street and Avenue C
• Dias y Flores Garden, East 13th Street between Avenues A and B
• El Sol Brillante Garden, East 12th Street between Avenues A and B
• Earth School Garden, East 6th Street and Avenue B

View NYC Compost Project Demonstration Sites in a larger map