If I’m still living in this neighborhood when I turn 50, I’m going to knock on the door of the Third Street Music School at 11th Street and Second Avenue and join New Horizons, a wind and brass ensemble composed only of adults that old and older, many of whom had never picked up an instrument until they retired from other careers.

In the three and a half years since New Horizons came to the East Village, it has grown from 15 students to 70 and split into two bands that each meet twice a week. These students practice on their own up to two hours a day and the bands perform once every several weeks.

New Horizon’s parent organization, New Horizons International Musical Association, started twenty years ago in Rochester as the inspiration of Roy Ernst who wanted to get older adults into playing music together. It now has locations across the United States and in Iceland, the Netherlands, Australia, and Ireland. Here, the program has funding from the National Endowment for the Art and is “the first and only New Horizons in New York City,”according to Nancy Morgan, the director of school and community partnerships at Third Street.

Ms. Morgan told me that when this band of New Horizons musicians started, “they didn’t even know how to put their instruments together.” New students are always welcome, she said, so if you’re “50 or better” and you’ve always wanted to become a musician, maybe now’s the time. Check out the band and see what you think.

More information about New Horizons can be found here.

Courtesy of Eric Felisbret Eric Felisbret.

After an MTA representative went to Eric Felisbret’s school to speak to his class against subway graffiti, his curiosity was immediately sparked. Despite being warned of the consequences of what his school called “vandalism,” Mr. Felisbret began exploring the culture of graffiti writing and dove headfirst into the world of street art. In the mid ‘70s, he tagged local streets and painted subway cars with his pseudonym DEAL, eventually becoming a member of the infamous writing crew known as Crazy Inside Artists. Now as the author of Graffiti NYC and co-founder of the old school graffiti website at149st.com, Mr. Felisbret talks to The Local about how he continues to document the best works of past and present generations.

What is the difference between graffiti and street art?

Graffiti is almost exclusively letter-based, with a focus on signatures, bubble letters, and different letterforms. In street art, if an artist wants to use stickers or wheat pasting for a collage on a wall, they can. It’s a different kind of medium.

What made you want to document he graffiti you saw in your book and on your website?

I really wanted to let the younger generation of graffiti writers and the general public to get a bigger understanding of the history behind the movement. I wanted the public to understand that it’s not just vandalism, but a community of thoughtful organized artists. Read more…

Al Kavadlo The author during a recent workout in the snow at Tompkins Square Park.

This snowy weather may be keeping many East Village residents cooped up indoors, but it hasn’t stopped me from doing my usual workouts at Tompkins Square Park. In fact, the snow makes my routine a lot more fun!

In addition to my standard regimen of pull-ups and dips, I also did some parkour
training. After all, parkour is about overcoming obstacles and the snow is just another obstacle to work around!

If you’re serious about getting in shape or improving your fitness, there is no reason that you can’t make time for exercise no matter what craziness is going on with the weather. Even if you have to fit in a quick at-home workout with no equipment, you can always dedicate at least a few minutes a day to improving your body.

I’m not saying you have to go out in a blizzard, but once you get moving out there in the snow, you might be surprised how fun and invigorating cold weather workouts can actually be.

Al Kavadlo is a personal trainer, freelance writer and author of the book, “We’re Working Out! A Zen Approach to Everyday Fitness” (Muscle-up Publications, 2010). For more information visit www.AlKavadlo.com.

Two years ago, Dave Ahdoot and his childhood friend Ethan Fixell (who together form comedy duo Dave and Ethan) went on a “man date” that was so much fun it got them wondering “why don’t we take girls on something like this?” They put an ad on Craigslist and linked it to a YouTube video asking for submissions for pairs of girls wanting to go on a double dates.

Thousands of responses and more than 200 double dates later, the pair have become dating experts and gained a wealth of knowledge about what to do, and more importantly what not to do on a date. Some of their filmed double dates have been made into a YouTube video series.

The response to the series led to monthly performances at The Peoples Improv Theater, re-enacting some of the dates, singing songs about first date fouls and even conducting spur of the moment dates live on stage. Recognizing that college students need their instruction the most, Dave and Ethan have started touring college campuses across the nation imparting their wisdom into the porous minds of today’s youth. In 2011 alone, they are scheduled to perform at more than 50 colleges and as long as people date, there seems no sign of a slowing demand for this kind of expert advice.

I sat down with Dave Ahdoot, until recently an East Village resident, to get some tips and play some games.

Allison Hertzberg is owner and head designer at Accessories by ASH.

Whiskers at Ninth Street and Second Avenue was something of a novelty when it opened back in 1988. Its approach to pet care was an idea Phil and Randy Klein seized on after a holistic veterinarian treated their cancer-stricken dog. The couple became convinced that raw foods and natural supplements were the way to help anxious city animals. The shop is now three times the size it used to be and their philosophy is so popular that similar stores have sprung up. In Mr. Klein’s words, “it’s become the wave.”

Most days you can find him holding court in the supplements corner of the store. Owners approach him like a soothsayer for advice about their pets.

NYU Journalism’s Meredith Hoffman reports.

Meredith Hoffman Sigiri, 91 First Avenue.

The virtually indistinguishable Indian restaurants which line both sides of Sixth Street between First and Second Avenue, with their garish lights and obsequious waiters, constitute the one zone of ethnic kitsch in the otherwise vital world of East Village cuisine. Perhaps all those vindaloos aren’t really delivered to the Something Mahals along an underground tunnel serving a central kitchen; but they might as well be.

Authenticity, however, lies literally around the corner. Sigiri, a Sri Lankan restaurant at 91 First Avenue, up an iron staircase between Fifth and Sixth Streets, tastes like itself only. Sigiri roasts its own black curry, a mixture of spices different from the cumin-coriander-garam masala combination familiar on Sixth Street. The bread-equivalent is the Hopper, a bowl-shaped pancake made with coconut flour and rice milk, which somewhat resembles the South Indian dosa, but with a spongy base like uttapam. The Hopper in the bottom of the basket has a poached egg cooked into the base.

Mala Rajapakse, the co-owner, believes that Sigiri is the only Sri Lankan restaurant in New York City. She may be right: Sigiri is the only place listed in Zagat which describes itself so. Mala moved to New York 30 years ago, and did her cooking for the family. Five years ago, she and her friend and fellow housewife Tanya Desilva, took a trip to London, where they visited a Sri Lankan restaurant. Eureka! “We decided we have to open up a restaurant.” Now Antonia, the very English Sri Lankan woman whose brother operated the place in London, works the day shift as a waitress.

Sri Lanka is divided — violently, in recent years — between ethnic Sinhala, who dominate the country, and Tamils, who emigrated from South India. Mala is Sinhalese; she happens to share a last name with the country’s rather brutal ruling family, though she assures me that she is not related to them. Sri Lankan cuisine combines elements borrowed from the Dutch and Portuguese colonists, from the Malays and the Tamils. The Lamprais, rice, meat and spices baked in a banana leaf, combines Dutch and Tamil elements. Some dishes won’t be familiar at all even to fans of South Indian cuisine, such as the kuttu roti, described on the menu as “Sri Lankan road-side specialty prepared from doughy pancakes shredded and stir-fried with vegetables, onions and egg.”

Sigiri is narrow and rather gloomy, which is to say that it looks like a million other inexpensive restaurants in New York. Mala is a woman of few words, at least to an English-speaking stranger, so I cannot tell you much of her thoughts about running the only Sri Lankan restaurant in New York. She is, I imagine, content to let her food do the talking.

Sigiri, 91 First Avenue, 212-614-9333. www.sigirinyc.com

For the first 29 years of his life, Vincent Ciniglio was an artist waiting to happen. With no training or art appreciation classes, he’d simply marvel at the religious statues of his Catholic school, and he felt moved to tears by paintings on his first trip to Italy.

One day he walked into the New York Studio School on West Eighth Street, and then studied there for three years. At the encouragement of one of his teachers, the artist Philip Guston, Mr. Ciniglio then went on to Columbia University, where he earned a master of fine arts.

Since the 1980’s, Mr. Ciniglio has had a studio in the P.S. 122 performance space on First Avenue and Ninth Street, where he paints nearly every day. His work – which usually depicts tender, whimsical figures and are each painted in only three days – are modeled off of plastic baby dolls. On canvas, Mr. Ciniglio’s creations appear to look viewers straight in the eye with surprising intensity.

An exhibition of Mr. Ciniglio’s work will be held this weekend upstate. Before Mr. Ciniglio leaves for the show, he’ll bid each painting left in his studio a fond farewell, such is the connection he feels with his art.

NYU Journalism’s Meredith Hoffman reports.

Suzanne Rozdeba Bike lanes along First Avenue.

The city announced on Tuesday that a record 47.8 million tourists visited New York City in 2010 and in a lot of ways that is good news. There are a plenty of things that bring visitors to New York: a fascinating history, excellent museums, and beautiful public places like Central Park and Prospect Park.

As the city noted, tourists have helped bolster the declining local economy. During his announcement at the conservatory of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that tourists contributed $31 billion last year. They have also played another positive role that has gone largely unnoticed. Tourists, in some ways, have become the newest public space activists. New York City has always been a tough town when it comes to expanding on green infrastructure, like car-free pedestrian malls and bicycle lanes. But this car-centric city is now changing. Tourists have always loved strolling in New York’s gorgeous parks and gardens and now they are also enjoying other amenities like bike lanes, open walkways in Times Square and the greenways that edge the city’s rivers. Visitors love the new green infrastructure and use it heavily – thus creating the demand for more.
Read more…

Courtesy of Eater NYThe 6th Street Kitchen last spring and after this morning’s fire.

Suzanne Rozdeba

The premises at 507 East Sixth Street, stricken by fire early this morning, housed the yearling restaurant 6th Street Kitchen which had replaced the long-established Oriental Grill early last year.

“O.G.,” as it was universally known, enjoyed a long run by New York restaurant standards – some 15 years – offering an Asian-fusion menu ranging from duck rolls to BBQ pork at reasonable prices. Regulars, including myself, missed the cozy, lived-in feel of the place and the friendly service when it closed. What replaced it looked altogether smarter and trendier, with communal tables, and an open kitchen; but an owner of O.G., Chris Genoversa, was behind the project, the prices were reasonable, and so I soon found myself eating there.

Gone were the Asian flavors, replaced by shareable plates of modern American food, evidently market-driven and seasonal, with a few hearty entrées like pork belly and radicchio topped with a poached egg. I found the transition to the new régime painless, and continued my patronage. My interest intensified last fall, when a new chef, Greg Torrech, began to stamp his personality on the menu. I discovered a remarkably light flan made with summer’s corn and topped with arugula and chanterelles, and a plate of fried chicken and waffles with what looked like cream but turned out to be smooth, seasoned ricotta.

Recently the wheels turned again and Andrew Kraft, who Mr. Torrech had brought in to work as his sous chef, assumed charge of the kitchen. He has continued the family-style dining theme of shared small plates, and you can still get the signature house-made chorizo and Manchego sliders. Publicist Annie Wang told The Local that the fire has been “devastating” for the kitchen team. Kitchen supplies were destroyed with the exception of one lucky chef’s tools. Mr. Genoversa’s guitar also survived, discovered undamaged in a well-charred guitar case. Here’s hoping this kitchen can rise again from the dismay of this morning’s ashes.

Kim Davis is the community editor of The Local East Village. He also authors a blog about restaurants and food.

Colin Moynihan Before the snow began melting during the weekend, Adam Johnson used letters made of snow to create poetry on the barks of trees in Tompkins Square Park. Below: Mr. Johnson at work.

In the days since a powerful blizzard blanketed the neighborhood East Village residents have built snowmen, snow forts, igloos and even a few abstract-looking sculptures out of snow. The drifts are now vanishing quickly, but on Friday afternoon, when many surfaces were still covered by a thick blanket of white, Adam Johnson, a 26-year-old furniture designer and painter, decided to introduce in Tompkins Square Park what could be a brand new genre of expression: snow poetry.

Initially Mr. Johnson was drawn to the park because he hoped to build a snowman that would compete with a large specimen near the center of Tompkins Square. A different inspiration struck, however, when he observed that a hurled snowball left a white mark on the bark of a tree.

“I wanted to top that guy in the other part of the park,” he said as he worked on his creations near the East Ninth Street entrance from Avenue A. “But I couldn’t do that so I had to find a new route to snow-making fame.”

For more than an hour on Friday afternoon, Mr. Johnson, carefully wrote messages on the trunks of trees in Tompkins Square. The technique he employed was methodical and involved picking up bits of snow that had just the right gooey consistency then shaping that raw material into letters that could be read from yards away.

The first snow poem he created read simply “I’m melting” and was accompanied by the silhouette of a running figure. Next, Mr. Johnson began making a message that read: “Whatever you do, don’t trust the snowman.”

As he formed those letters, passersby stopped to photograph him and inquire about the project. All the attention prompted Mr. Johnson to muse aloud about Thierry Guetta, a mysterious street artist character depicted in the 2010 film “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” which was said to have been made by Banksy, the reclusive artist and prankster.

“Maybe I should take on a street artist persona right now like Mr. Brainwash,” he said, referring Mr. Guetta’s pseudonym. “And put a bunch of stuff on the Internet for sale for $20,000.”

John Galayda on photographing the Kitty Nights burlesque show at Bar on A in the East Village.

“It’s an ordinary Sunday night at a bar in the East Village, and a group of
regulars begin to trickle in through the door. But instead of sitting at the
bar, these regulars — Creamy Stevens, Minnie Tonka, Anja Keister, La Maia, and Fem Appeal — sit near a dimly lit stage and apply glitter to their busts,
lotion to their legs, and makeup to their faces.”
Read more…

John Galayda Anja Keister performs during the Kitty Nights burlesque show at Bar on A. The show, which has been running at the bar since 2006, is one of the few remaining burlesque acts in the East Village.

While for most people Sunday is a day of relaxation, filled with leisurely strolls or The Times crossword puzzle, at Bar on A, Sundays are anything but tame. The wild felines of Kitty Nights, the bar’s weekly burlesque show, close out each weekend with salaciously provocative entertainment.

Founded in June 2006 by producer and performer Fem Appeal, Kitty Nights is now one of the few remaining burlesque shows in the East Village.

Yet, in addition to hosting the last of the scantily clad Mohicans, at its heart Kitty Nights is a tribute to the strength of small neighborhoods that can often get lost amidst constant change and development.
Read more…

Kenan

The end of the year is a time for recollection, for looking back at our achievements. I feel that I accomplished a lot this year. I took a job that allowed me to afford a monthly subway pass and I rode my bike all the way to the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge once. There are the little things too: I never left a drink undrunk or a hot dog half-eaten. But not many things in the past year occurred with enough regularity to accumulate into an actual list – except for one thing that happens to me each and every day. And so, here is my year in review:

The Top Five Things Hollered at Me While I Walk Through Tompkins Square Park on the Way to Work Each Day

5. “Ooooh, Honey, You Better Wipe That Sour Look Off Your Face”

This is by far the most frequent of hollers at me in the park. The rotund lady in a pink Hannah Montana beanie was the first to yell this to me from the entrance to the dog pen. I don’t like that I walk with a confused and constipated-looking expression that makes me look like I just watched the last episode of “Lost” six times, but that’s exactly what a New Yorker looks like. Sadly, when I get into work, my boss usually says the same thing. He also wears a similar beanie.
Read more…

Tim Milk

Illustration by Tim Milk Top: The Merchant’s House Museum, considered one of the most “haunted” locations in New York, was once inhabited by Seabury Tredwell, whose ghost is said to make appearances at the museum.

There it is again, the creeping feeling that you are being watched. You check to make sure the curtains are closed, and they are, so you wonder why you should feel so jumpy. You chalk it up to lack of sleep, or too much coffee, or maybe you should stop eating gluten.

There it is again, you feel it, even stronger now. You cannot help but think, “Maybe I really am being watched.”

The marvel of living in an older city, and New York would qualify, is that the ghosts of those who have gone before are standing all around. Life in the East Village often means inhabiting a place through which has marched a parade of people who cannot be remembered by any living soul.

But that doesn’t mean they ever left your apartment. The place is haunted. And these ghosts don’t bear tidings of the Past, Present or Future, but mostly just wish you would get the hell out.

And the more they make themselves known, and you talk it up amongst your friends, the more you realize that you are out-numbered. They stand in witness to all that you do. They laugh at your lunch. They crowd your elbow when you unpack your groceries. And although you may consider their haunting a nuisance, just imagine what they must think: “Who is this stranger in my home? Why did she paint the walls this color! And what has become of all my things?”

A chat with Anthony Bellov, Board Member of the Merchant’s House Museum, dispelled any doubt that was left in my mind. He has documented the many dozens of paranormal manifestations in Merchant’s House, considered to be New York’s most haunted place. I mentioned that I believed there was a ghost in my own apartment, and that this had become a real problem. “Have you tried communicating with him?” he asked. “It really helps.” He should know, because Merchant’s House is replete with oppressive miasmas, especially if anything inside is disturbed. Then the spirits freely throw things, poke visitors in the ribs and sometimes even appear at the door.

“It matters to them what will happen to this house,” he noted. Its inhabitants, the Tredwells, clung to it as a life-long refuge. And, it would seem, they never left it. Seabury Tredwell, the patriarch, stares out verbosely from his portrait in the parlor. And when he turned that piercing stare on a visiting fourth grader who strayed and stepped into his bedroom, the boy ran out with a frightful tale of a man in there.

“What man?” the tour guide asked him.

“The man in the picture downstairs!”

“Time is not there for them,” Mr. Bellov told me, and we speculated on concepts of parallel existence. Life goes on, it would seem, for us all. Seabury’s daughter Gertrude is also said to haunt her former home.

Back home in my apartment, I pulled up a chair and called out to my ghost.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

John Vaccaro, a theater director active in the downtown arts scene of the 1960’s and 1970’s, has lived in his sprawling, bespoke loft on Second Avenue for several decades. The vast space is filled with artwork from local friends – including various portraits of himself that Mr. Vaccaro has received as gifts – furniture and other odd items found around the East Village over the years.

If the project, which was endorsed by Community Board 3 last week, moves forward, Mr. Vaccaro’s building, 11-17 Second Avenue, will be one of two torn down to create a single 12-story building. The project will also force the temporary closure of the landmark Mars Bar, which is also on the site. Current residents will be offered units in the new development with an option to buy for just $1. But those living in 2,000 sq. ft. lofts like Mr. Vaccaro will have to adjust to downsized apartments closer to 1,200 sq. ft.

Even as many in the neighborhood have lamented the loss of Mars Bar, Mr. Vaccaro, who is 81, stands to lose far more: his home.

NYU Journalism’s Tania Barnes and Stephanie Butnick report.

The members of The Local East Village Flickr Group share their images of a neighborhood suddenly snowbound.

Dan Nguyen

Read more…

Vivienne Gucwa on photographing the East Village at night.

Read more…

Laura Kuhn Looking for some last-minute gifts that are environmentally friendly? An option might be Sunbeam Candles, which are made from vegetables and beeswax in solar-powered factories.

The holidays mean presents but if the lack of green gift options has you seeing red, here are some last-minute sustainable solutions from East Village stores.

Sustainable NYC (139 Avenue A at Ninth Street), opened three years ago when owner Dominique Camacho, was renovating her apartment. “I’d been in retail almost 17 years,” she said, “and I got bored. I got really into re-using things in my apartment.” She took an energy and environmental design course and opened her store. Sunbeam Candles ($7.50-$17.50) are all made from vegetables and beeswax in solar-powered factories. “They’re also really good about packaging,” said Ms. Camacho of the company’s box-return program.

For a party gift, bring a bottle of wine and a Bitters and Co. Reclaimed Cork Stopper ($6.25). The company also makes sustainably-harvested Cork Coasters ($12.50). The store is also filled with decorations from compostable Oots Seed Ornaments ($3.50 each) that can be planted after the holidays to Laser-cut Ceramic Butterflies ($44.95) made from vintage china.
Read more…

Dr. David Ores, or “Doctor Dave” as he’s more commonly known, relies on only himself to run his medical practice: He is the physician, the nurse and the receptionist. He answers all his own phone calls and e-mail messages — which are seemingly never-ending.

Dr. Ores also runs what he calls the Fresh Start program, in which he removes gang- or prison-related tattoos from the face, neck or hands of his patients free of charge. Dr. Ores — who often serves uninsured and low-income patients through a pay-what-you-can philosophy — cites the stigma attached to prison tattoos and notes that those who wear them are often unable to afford removal procedures.

“There are people out there who are willing to help them if they’re willing to help themselves,” he says.

NYU Journalism’s Rachel Wise reports.