Boots were big news during the fall 2010 runway shows and they’re the footwear choice du jour in the East Village. Designers like Alexander Wang and Tommy Hilfiger put their own spin on the now-ubiquitous lace-up styles, while Rag & Bone sent studs and zippers down the catwalk.

With that in mind, The Local hit the streets to check out Villagers’ feet. From rugged combat booties and knee-high riding boots, to fringed platforms and slouchy Westerns, here are some of the most popular looks on fashion-forward locals.

NYU Journalism’s Sophie Hoeller and Sally Lauckner report.

Sophie Hoeller Cienfuegos, 443 East Sixth Street.

The Volstead Act prohibiting the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol from 1919 to 1933, may be a thing of the past, but secret bars (many of which are in our own backyard) are here to stay. These tucked-away little corners offer visitors a haven away from a city and a neighborhood overrun with bars and people. The allure of a clandestine bar lies in the thrill of the chase, the effort of finding the place, landing a reservation and actually getting past secret (and sometimes not-so-secret) entrances. Once seated and sipping old-school drinks without fear of arrest, comes a feeling of being in the know, an insider, and being able to make other New Yorkers feel like tourists.

Here’s our guide to the East Village’s most happening “secret” bars of today. Of course, we can’t guarantee access.
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Colleen Leung The author during a workout.

The East Village is home to many expensive gyms, but some of the best places to work out are free – you just need to be creative! One of the few things I dislike about life in New York City is all the construction, but every cloud has a sliver lining. While it can be an eye sore, construction scaffolding is great for doing pull-ups.

Anyone who’s walked beneath scaffolding has no doubt been tempted to jump up, grab a bar and go for it. Those things are practically begging to be swung around on, hung from or climbed.

With that in mind, my brother Danny and I decided to get a scaffold workout in recently during the morning commute. While everyone around us scuttled off to school or the office, we did all kinds of pull-ups and other exercises without setting foot in a gym. In typical New York fashion, however, most people passing by didn’t even seem to notice. Watch the video below for more.

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.

Looking to go out to eat, but don’t want to leave the kids or the neighborhood behind? Community contributor Rachel Trobman takes a look at some local restaurants that make dining out with children a breeze.
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C.C. Glenn Butter Lane Cupcakes, a small boutique bake shop on Seventh Street, offers classes in cupcake making.

Who says cupcakes must induce a sugar rush?

Not Pam Nelson, the co-owner with Linda Lea and Maria Baugh of Butter Lane Cupcakes, a small boutique bake shop on Seventh Street.

In a quest for a less sugary miniature cake Ms. Nelson and her partners tested dozens of recipes before opening in 2008. She recalls tasting the batter of one recipe after using only half the sugar called for, and thinking even that was too sweet for her taste. Soon the trio nailed down their recipe, and they’re not keeping it a secret – even in the competitive cupcake business.

The expert cupcake blog, Cupcakes Take The Cake, lists more than 50 cupcake and cake stores in New York, and that’s not including several branches of sugary mainstays like Crumbs and Magnolia Bakery. Nonetheless, Butter Lane seems to have found its niche. “I felt the East Village would get us,” Ms. Nelson said one crisp afternoon as she walked around the corner to drop off a few of her treats to a neighbor.
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Liz Wagner Figurines in the window of Russian Souvenirs. Below: The shop’s storefront.

East Village boutiques are pretty quirky, but Russian Souvenirs, a small consignment store on 14th Street near Third Avenue has some of the most unusual finds in the neighborhood.

The dust-crusted window leads to a view of a chaotic array of Matryoshka dolls, which includes one that’s painted to look like Michael Jackson. There’s a line of Soviet military caps adorned with red stars hanging from stretched-out wire hangers, and a collection of wooden statutes whittled to look like bears posing in odd positions. A hodgepodge of war medals, army pins, dangly gold earrings, glasses without lenses, and swaths of fabric — 50 percent off, as advertised on a rumpled piece of paper taped to the front of the store, — complete the window display.

The spectacle has been known to entice passersby.

“I saw this sort of messy stuff in the window and it was interesting,” said Catherine Siemann, a Chelsea resident, who stopped to take a peek.

Inside, Russian Souvenirs is a hoarder’s paradise. It is packed floor-to-ceiling with stuff; more nesting dolls and military paraphernalia, Ukrainian eggs, paintings of Soviet landscapes, racks of dark-colored clothing. The only aisle is too narrow for two people to stand side by side, and the place smells like a grandfather’s coat closet that hasn’t been opened for quite some time.
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Jenn Pelly A newspaper distribution box designed by Adam Cole, the graffiti artist known as Cost. The piece is the first major public work in more than a decade by Mr. Cole, who has been largely inactive since a 1995 arrest for vandalism. Below: The reverse of the box.

A newspaper distribution box in the East Village now showcases the first major public work of art in more than a decade by one of New York City’s most infamous graffiti artists, Adam Cole, a.k.a. Cost. The work is a distribution box for Showpaper, the free New York newssheet that lists all-ages concerts throughout the tri-state area.

As one half of the graffiti duo Cost and Revs, the artist achieved mythic status in New York in the early ’90s graffiti world, for revolutionizing the wheatpasting medium and helping catapult it to a worldwide street art phenomenon.

The Cost-designed newsbox stands on Second Avenue at Houston Street, one of 12 Showpaper boxes redesigned last week by 25 notable graffiti and street artists at the Brooklyn art space Market Hotel. For Showpaper’s guerilla initiative, the newsboxes function as works of public art, with Manhattan and Brooklyn streets as their pop-up gallery. A map of locations is available here.

Mr. Cole, 41, has remained quiet since 1995, when he was arrested for vandalism. Then, The Times labeled him “New York’s most prolific graffiti-ist,” citing his arrest as, for some, “the end of an era.” Mr. Cole, of Rego Park, was 26. One irritated Times reader, however, wrote a letter to the editor saying: “The graffiti writer using the tag ‘Cost’ is probably the worst graffiti vandal in the history of New York.”

In their early ’90s unauthorized public art, Cost and Revs made use of the backs of “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs at nearly every intersection of Manhattan, with confusing slogans that perpetually included either the name “Cost” or “Revs.” (A 1993 Times piece on those curious, incognito Manhattan signs is available here.)
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Molly O’Toole Dumpling Man, 100 St. Marks Place.

Without dumplings, life would scarcely be worth living.

Like sweets made from boiled milk, sugar and something-or-other, dishes made from dough formed into a pocket and filled with meat or vegetables or soup give the people of East Asia, South America and Russia, to name only a neighborhood or two, something to look forward to. The same is true for the heterogeneous peoples of the East Village, a food-grazing and cheap-eats micro-climate extremely conducive to the production and distribution of dumplings, whether in Ukrainian, Mexican, Venezuelan or, above all, Chinese form.

In this regard, I am most partial to The Dumpling Man, a takeout and counter place on St. Marks Place between First Avenue and Avenue A, where the diner can watch a lineup of silent, dexterous Chinese chefs assemble his or her order before actually consuming it. The Dumpling Man, in the great East Village tradition, makes one thing only, and makes it with great care. You can get grilled or steamed shrimp, chicken, pork, vegetable or soup dumplings. Lucas Lin, the moon-faced, bespectacled owner, is enough of a New Yorker that he gets bored without a little variety, and so usually offers a special as well. Asparagus dumplings haven’t gone over too well, he concedes. On the other hand, water chestnut dumplings — prepared only when juicy water chestnuts are available in the market — have been a hit.
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Jenn Pelly Josh Korda meets with a participant after leading a meditation session at Dharma Punx, a free, walk-in meditation class that fuses the tenets of Buddhism and punk rock. Below: The Dharma Punx logo.

In late October, my stress levels hit an all-time high. I wanted to escape, but no fancy spa for me. Being the sort of girl who wears vegan combat boots and listens to Bikini Kill while steaming kale, I decided to hone inner peace at Dharma Punx. The free, walk-in meditation class fuses the tenets of Buddhism and punk rock every Tuesday at 7 p.m.

While some may question whether these sessions confuse achieving Nirvana with listening to it, participants note that there are common threads running between the Buddhist faith and the punk movement. Like Buddhism, punk music and lifestyles are centered on streamlining and simplification: three-chord Ramones-like song structures, straight-edge lifestyles, and Do-it-Yourself work ethics that cut out the middleman.

Led by Josh Korda, a tattoo-covered Buddhist Brooklynite with gauged ears, the 25-minute sessions at Lila Yoga, Dharma, and Wellness, 302 Bowery attracted a variety of practitioners. On that particular Tuesday night, a young beret-clad woman sat in front of me, and a grey-haired man in a yellow polo to my right, along with many tattooed 20 and 30-somethings. Mr. Korda opened wide the front windows, surrounded by tiny portraits of Buddhist gods, and in floated sidewalk sounds, cabbie screeches, and ambient New York noise.
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On a nice day, it is not uncommon to hear a soulful rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” resonating across Alphabet City. A regular at Tompkins Square Park and an East Village resident, Giuseppi Logan continues to play his saxophone well into the fall season. But, it might soon be too cold for him to perform.

During a break between songs, Mr. Logan told The Local East Village that he will continue to man his post near Ninth Street and Avenue A as long as the weather is tolerable.

Many of the New Yorkers who walk by know nothing about Mr. Logan’s legendary career. A well-known free jazz musician in the 1960s, he has played with his fair share of “cool cats,” such as John Coltrane, Don Pullen, Eddie Gomez and Milford Graves. After a mysterious decades-long hiatus, Mr. Logan remains optimistic about a musical comeback with his new band.

NYU Journalism’s Sarah Tung reports.

Sarah Tung on finding compelling images in the East Village.

“As a sketch artist, I often see the world in cropped focus. Interesting people, shapes and colors most often catch my eye because my hand itches to record their essence on a thick sheet of drawing or water color paper. But in a fast-paced city like New York, I simply don’t have time to sit and draw for hours or days on end. Luckily, digital photography has been my savior.
And the East Village never ceases to amaze me.”
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John-Francis Bourke Susan McKeown’s new CD, “Singing in the Dark,” explores her family’s history of mental illness.

In September, songwriter Susan McKeown produced an album of children’s playground songs from all over the world, sung by East Village Community School students.

In stark contrast, her newest CD is a dark, often melancholic journey into the murky world of mental illness. The Irish-born Grammy Award-winning songwriter has forged an album that explores the connection between creativity and madness, brilliance and mental illness, helplessness and hope.

Singing in the Dark, released late last month, is Ms. McKeown’s attempt to grapple with her family’s history of mental illness. Three generations of men on her father’s side suffered from manic depression. “Because it’s in my family, it’s a way to take it on,” Ms. McKeown said. “It’s a way to help by addressing the issue.”

The 20-year resident of the East Village said she wanted to find a way to discuss mental illness that was free from the stigma that plagues diseases like schizophrenia. “Music is powerful and, like poetry, it expresses moods,” Ms. McKeown said. “By linking mental illness with creativity, and letting people ponder it through poetry and music, it seemed like a very human way to approach a subject that many learn about from sources such as commercials for pharmaceuticals”

The lyrics for “Singing in the Dark” originate from poems like Theodore Roethke’s “In a Dark Time,” Anne Sexton’s “Her Kind,” and “The Nameless One” by James Clarence Mangan.

“I read a lot of Irish nature poems about living solitary lives amongst nature,” Ms. McKeown said. “I looked for singability and something in the lyrics that speaks to creativity.”

Whether she’s backed by electric and acoustic guitars, accordion or piano, it is Ms. McKeown’s quivering, but relentless voice that dominates the soundscape. This, in turn, pushes the poetry to the forefront. Lyrics like, “there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” from the Leonard Cohen cover “Anthem” are among the many references to the link between brilliance and madness. “The creativity exists because of the mental illness,” Ms. McKeown said. “It offers a way to deal with what’s been handed to you.”

Stream songs from “Singing in the Dark” here.

Spencer Magloff A selection of the 900 beer varieties that are offered at Good Beer, a Ninth Street shop that opened Tuesday, which specializes in craft beer.

Once a niche drink, craft beers are tapping new devoted drinkers, especially in the East Village. At last month’s NY Craft Beer Week, the East Village had more participating bars than any other neighborhood in the city.

Good Beer on 422 East Ninth Street became the latest craft beer purveyor when it opened its doors on Tuesday. The shop stocks more than 400 chilled craft beers, and David Cichowicz, the store’s manager, said he hopes to have about 900 unique beers once all shipments are received from his six distributors. The beers are organized geographically from East to West coast in refrigeration flanking the entire right-side wall along with 12 growler-ready taps.

Besides their quintessentially quirky names—Ommegang, DogFish Head, Smuttynose, Allagash, Pretty Things—a beer is designated “craft” so long as it is brewed by traditional methods and lacks adjuncts like rice or corn that often lower production costs but dilute flavor. While craft beer often costs a few more dollars, many aficionados say the more flavorful taste and heftier alcohol content are well worth the price.

Spencer Magloff Taps (top) and bottles at Good Beer.

As U.S. beer sales declined in the first half of 2010, the craft brewing industry grew in both volume and retail dollars, according to the Brewers Association. While this is indicative of a national trend, Chris O’Leary, writer of the beer blog, Brew York, New York, said the trend has gained a particularly strong foothold in the East Village for several reasons.

For one, the neighborhood is less pricey and the demographic is generally younger. Also many The East Village restaurateurs believe food can pair as well with craft beer as with wine.

“There is just as much complexity to beer as wine, and people are becoming convinced they can couple craft beer with good food,” Mr. O’Leary said while sipping a pint of Shipyard Pumpkin Head at Destination Bar on Avenue A. Price is another consideration. “A lot of people can’t justify spending $40 for a bottle of wine, but $12 for a good six-pack is doable.”

The East Village also has a storied history of craft brewing tradition. Standings Bar on East Seventh Street, formerly known as Brewsky’s, was one of the first bars in all New York City to serve a selection of craft beers. This was 20 years ago when, as Mr. O’Leary said, “The holy grail was just to find a Samuel Adams.”

The “How did you meet?” question is almost as loaded as the “How did he propose?” question. Proposals you can plan, meeting your future girlfriend/boyfriend is usually left up to chance. To me, the meeting cycle of most single New Yorkers starts out at a house party, graduates to a bar, ends up online and after a self imposed break from dating altogether, your great aunt Esther fixes you up with a “nice young man” she met at services…or maybe that’s just me.
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Maya Millett Handbag designer Jack Germain, who resides in Alphabet City, shows off her upcoming spring collection.

When The Local first encountered handbag designer and fashion blogger Jack Germain, she was rushing to get a manicure in preparation for her 25th birthday party. It was one of the season’s first truly autumn days, and Ms. Germain, an Alphabet City resident, was outfitted accordingly — dressed in leggings, a slouchy green army jacket, and Victorian lace-up boots.

But what caused a stir among readers of The Local was her worn leather shoulder bag covered with muted gold studs, one of her own designs. Many of you wanted to know more about Ms. Germain, a raspy-voiced south Florida native who moved to New York five years ago in the hopes of making a name for herself in the fashion industry. We recently caught up with Ms. Germain again to talk about her upcoming spring collection, future goals and New Year’s resolutions.

How did you get into handbag designing?

When I was younger I wanted to design evening gowns for the Oscars, and as I got older I wanted to do clothes, then I wanted to do shoes, then handbags were just easiest to make. You could make a handbag out of your apartment. And the more I began to study up on it and get into bags themselves, I started to see this underlying theme with the woman’s handbag — that really it’s one of the most true reflections of who a woman actually is. It’s a reflection not only of the style of this woman but where this woman’s been. People change shoes, people change even sunglasses, but a bag is like a woman’s sidekick. My whole theme is that your bag lives the life that you live.
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A non-profit group specializing in sustainability has appointed a half-dozen high school students to act as green energy consultants to small businesses here in the East Village. Envirolution is currently teaching interns — students from Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School on Second Avenue near 14th Street — energy efficiency and weatherization skills to share with local shopkeepers.

The program is linked to Con Edison, and began in the East Village.

NYU Journalism’s Liz Wagner caught up with a group of students as they canvassed the neighborhood on a recent Saturday.

Courtesy Felton Davis An audio recording made by an East Village resident in July offers listeners another chance to hear the voice of the beloved neighborhood fixture Gloria Wasserman, who was widely known as Annie.

The East Village lost one of its great characters in September, when Gloria Wasserman, a neighborhood fixture known and beloved as “Annie,” died at her daughter’s Los Angeles home at age 85. But thanks to one East Village resident, we’re still able to hear Ms. Wasserman’s voice and recall her energy and good humor.

An audio clip of Ms. Wasserman comes from Zara Burdett, an East Fourth Street resident who often saw Ms. Wasserman holding court at one of her favorite spots – perched on the stoop of the KGB Bar. Stream the clip, an exchange from July, here. In 58 seconds, the audio exemplifies Ms. Wasserman’s catchphrase “Leave ‘em laughing,” and provides a sample of her banter with neighborhood residents.

“Annie made a personal mark on my life in recent months,” Ms. Burdett wrote in an e-mail message to The Times, noting that she enjoyed listening to Ms. Wasserman’s “hilarious jokes and provocations” on the street.

According to Ms. Burdett, the exchange took place on a sweltering day. Ms. Wasserman was excitedly yelling out to strangers, determined to learn who uttered the famous words “I came, I saw, I conquered.” She repeatedly asked, “Who said that?” One gentleman incorrectly assured her it was Alexander the Great.

“She deserved to get the facts straight!” Ms. Burdett wrote. She approached Ms. Wasserman several minutes later. “It was Julius Caesar,” Ms. Burdett said. Ms. Wasserman recognized the name, and let out a blissful roar of excitement. “I came, I saw, I conquered,” she repeated over and over.

“I use it for comic material,” Ms. Wasserman said. “I don’t perform, but I think about it.” She took out a pen from somewhere deep in her familiar red, wire-frame shopping cart, and attempted to scribble the name onto a scrap of plastic.

Ms. Wasserman was best known for her work at the Fulton Fish Market, where she spent 35 years selling newspapers and cigarettes and earning the nickname “South Street Annie.” She suffered a stroke in August and was taken to Bellevue, where she stayed for a month before ending up with her family in Los Angeles. An extended tribute to Ms. Wasserman was published in The Times on Oct. 15 and is available here.

Gloria Chung Matt Hamilton, chef and partner in the Second Avenue restaurant Belcourt, says that he puts in 60 hours a week to manage the restaurant. “I don’t see it as a burden,” he says. Belcourt, below, is part of a wave of restaurants that have helped the East Village become one of the city’s premier dining neighborhoods.

Gloria Chung

Cheese for breakfast? Why not?

In the upstairs tasting room at Murray’s on Bleecker Street, Matt Hamilton, chef and partner in the Second Avenue restaurant Belcourt, is moaning gently over a mouthful of Brunet, a rich Italian goat cheese firm in the center, meltingly gelatinous just below the wrinkly, earthy rind.

A chef’s life would be great, he says, if it just involved tasting and cooking. He imagines that’s how it probably is if you’re Tom Colicchio or one of those corporate guys. We moved on to the Salers, a Cheddar-like cow’s milk cheese from the mountainous Auvergne in France. Elizabeth Chubbuck of Murray’s explains that the sentimental Salers cows only give milk when their calves are nearby. Salers is rare, and like so many fine cheeses, expensive.

Matt doesn’t visit Murray’s daily, or even weekly. Usually, in fact, the rep comes to him. He changes his menu with the seasons, then makes small adjustments within each season. Every month or so he considers new possibilities for his cheese program. He currently offers a plate of four cheeses but would like to do more, would love to have a cheese tray. Elizabeth says she knows his palate; apparently it tends toward the creamy and funky. We eat some Stilton from Colston Basset, a cheese I grew up with.

My plan was to follow in Matt’s footsteps for a day. Over the last few years, the East Village has become one of the city’s premier dining neighborhoods. Alongside the inexpensive pizzerias, the discount sushi, and the tandoori restaurants of East Sixth, serious restaurants have established themselves. With some exceptions, like Daniel Boulud’s DBGB, the best of these are independent, not part of a larger organization or corporate chain. What makes these places run?
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Alexa Tsoulis-Reay Mike Codella, a retired police officer, has turned his experiences working the streets of the East Village into a book, “Alphaville.”

After dumping some stuff in my locker, I decided to take a drive around my new beat. What I saw was shocking. Even though it was January and one of the coldest days so far that year, there were dope deals taking place on nearly every corner I passed. Junkies and dealers shivered together, exchanged dope and money and parted company. A group of users followed one after the other into an abandoned building lobby being used as a “toilet” or a designated spot to shoot up indoors.— “Alphaville,” pg. 127

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Mike Codella steered his car from Avenue D onto East Houston Street. “This place used to be like a volcano, but look how quiet it is now,” he said, surveying the territory of the beat he patrolled as a New York City plainclothes detective at the height of the drug wars in the 1980s. “The further east you went, there was an atmosphere, something was always about to explode, and it usually did,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air.

From 1986 to 1991 Mr. Codella — his nickname is Rambo — patrolled Alphabet City. He has turned his memories into a gritty, nonfiction book, “Alphaville,” co-authored by former East Village resident Bruce Bennett.
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