The East Village has any numbers of spots which would be recognized in New York’s more prosperous neighborhoods as restaurants. Most of them, however, are closed during the day. No conspiracy is at work: the Village’s day-time population of students, freelance writers, unemployed graphic designers and denizens of the street cannot afford nice lunches. A very different, and more elegant, crowd, descends on the neighborhood at night — and the nice places open up. Fortunately, for those of us who work here, and care, perhaps all too much, about our lunch life, there is La Palapa, at 77 St. Marks Place, just east of First Avenue.
I discovered La Palapa on one of my daily rambles, and was at first put off by the fact that, though it seated at least fifty, absolutely no one was inside. Still, I thought, it looks so nice. And the menu seems so terribly nuevo Mexicano. What could be wrong? Nothing, I soon learned: La Palapa serves an extremely refined cuisine. I once asked, as diplomatically as possible, “How do you guys survive?” And Drew Doallas-Baxter, the day-time wait staff, an amiable stringbean with a hipster chin-beard and a skinny braid, explained that the restaurant packed them in at night; and since Domingo Torres, the indefatigable chef, comes in at mid-day anyway, they might as well open up for the occasional lunch-time stray. Read more…
Helen ZhangNow 81, Barbara Shaum has been making sandals at her East Village shop for five decades.
Summer has faded into memory and trips to warm climes are still months off, so having just ended her busiest season, the celebrated sandal maker Barbara Shaum can take some time to sit and chat.
At age 81, Ms. Shaum, who seems to call everyone “darling,” has been fashioning custom-made leather sandals for the last 50 years in her store at 60 East Fourth Street. She arrived in New York in 1951 from a small town in central Pennsylvania with a dollar in her pocket and not a clue of what she wanted to do, except that she wanted to work with her hands. Read more…
After years of drug use, Acacia Cruz decided it was time to kick her heroin habit. Ms. Cruz is currently a regular client at the Cooper Square methadone clinic, and she hopes to complete her program soon.
Home to posh boutiques and hip vintage stores alike, the East Village is one of the most style-savvy neighborhoods in New York. So earlier this week, The Local roamed the area with one question in mind: What are the latest trends that locals are following?
Our findings were less than conclusive. Turns out East Villagers put their own spin on even the trendiest clothes, and know how to mix high and low with aplomb. The clothes ran the gamut from a Valentino trench coat to a leopard-print Target dress and everything in-between.
NYU Journalism’s Sally Lauckner and Sophie Hoeller take a look at some of the neighborhood’s most distinctive styles.
Rue B has been serving up cocktails and live jazz for almost 10 years, but it feels much older. It’s a bar that emulates the décor and demeanor of a speakeasy, although anyone is welcome to walk in.
Avenue B has been home to many bars over the years, of course, and the stretch between 11th and 14th Streets is still home to some modern age holes-in-the-wall, not to mention a certain notorious karaoke bar.
Those seeking a little more finesse can settle down at Rue B for one of their retro cocktails, or just a simple glass of wine and some exceptional live jazz nearly every night of the week. Read more…
Sophie HoellerThe cow in question, prior to its abduction.
Have you seen this cow?
If you’ve strolled around the East Village in the past two weeks, you may have seen the “Missing Cow” flyers plastered on lamp posts and telephone poles. The cow in question, named Bessie, was stolen from its home on the awning outside The Sunburnt Cow, an Avenue C bar, in the early hours of Oct. 17. The theft has left the tavern’s owner, Heathe St. Clair, to wonder, where’s my beef?
Mr. St. Clair is offering a $500 reward for the safe return of the plastic light-up cow, which marked his bar and served as a distinctive beacon near the intersection of Avenue C and East Ninth Street. The two-foot tall orange and black bovine hung from the bar’s exterior, emitting an orange glow that, Mr. St. Clair’s posters attest, “lit the way for party people and seekers of great Australian food and booze.” Bessie was “a tiny landmark, a bright light on a once dark street.” Read more…
On a recent Saturday, the line at Perfection Barbershop on Avenue C near East Third Street extended from the leather bench inside, through the door jam, all the way to the curb where men leaned on parked cars.
When the shop’s co-owner, Hubert Phillip, 27, takes a break to talk he leans on a car and five or six passing customers offer their fists for a pound. The scene is repeated almost daily at Perfection, a barber shop that is as bustling as any nightclub. But here, it seems like just about everyone already knows each other. Read more…
After working 20 years as a crane operator on barges, Jim Scileppi has learned to love the East River. Employed by the New York Parks Department, Mr. Scileppi and his crew work from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day in all types of weather conditions.
This week his barge parked at 12th Street to finish adding stones to the East River walkway’s erosion-protection wall. According to Mr. Scileppi, the Parks Department project is wrapping up its fourth year of working to fortify the wall and restore the bike lane overlooking the river.
NYU Journalism’s Rachel Wise describes taking pictures in the East Village.
“The changing leaves and crisp autumn air make the East Village irresistible this time of year. I could spend every day outside enjoying the scenery. As I looked up to admire this particular tree, a gust of wind blew, sending leaves cascading down on me and my camera. It reminded me of the possibility of serene moments, even against the backdrop of a buzzing East Village.” Read more…
The students of NYU Journalism’s Reporting New York and Reporting the Nation graduate concentration took to the streets of the East Village to ask a simple question: Do you think the recession is over?
Are you doing better this year than last? What do you think when you hear people say that the recession is over?
Beatriz Gil, a writer, and Carlos Martinez, a photographer, teamed up this year to offer the Calaveritas Poetry Workshop at the eighth annual Mano a Mano Day of the Dead Festival Sunday at St. Mark’s Church In-The-Bowery, at 10th Street and Second Avenue.
Participants lined up at kiosks to write poems about deceased family members (an old-fashioned typewriter was available to those who sought an authentic experience), before entering Mr. Martinez’s “Photo Booth Without Borders” to read their poems and pose for a portrait. The photo booth is an ongoing project that Mr. Martinez started as a resident artist with the Laundromat Project.
Through this initiative community members receive a free instant photograph in exchange for their personal story, according to Ms. Gil.
Celebrated on Nov. 2, Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is one of Mexico’s most important holidays, where families invite the souls of their dead ancestors to their home for a visit. This year, in order to commemorate the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence and centennial of its Revolution, festival attendees dressed as figures from Mexican history.—Deanna Yurchuk Read more…
John Penley’s circuitous journey to the world of community activism in New York City began with a single question.
It was 1984 and Mr. Penley had just finished a year in jail after charges arising from his role in a protest at a South Carolina nuclear plant.
“When I got out of custody, they gave me a $100 bill and a bus ticket and asked me where I wanted to go,” recalls Mr. Penley, who is 59. “I said New York and that was it.” Read more…
Timothy J. StenovecGraffiti, 224 East 10th Street.
New York will never die so long as gifted, passionate people from all over the world feel that it is here, and nowhere else, that they must make their mark. These brave souls don’t recoil from the city’s impossible demands; they turn those limitations into virtues.
Jehangir Mehta, the chef-owner of Graffiti, a shoebox-sized restaurant at 224 East 10th Street, came to New York from Mumbai to learn how to cook. He opened Graffiti in 2007 after working as a pastry chef at some of the city’s more grandiose establishments, including Jean-Georges, and after creating the Candy Camp, where he taught children how to make pastry. A gentle soul whose convictions were culinary rather than mercenary, Jehangir wanted a place that felt true to him. He found an abandoned handbag store with holes in the floor and the ceiling, a space where he could start from zero. The rent was $3,000, which meant that he could hire a sous-chef and break even with 15 customers a night. He had lines out the door the first week. He hired two more people. And he continued to do exactly what he thought was right. Read more…
Meredith HoffmanThe actress Rosario Dawson leads members of the Lower Eastside Girls Club in a cheer at a ground-breaking ceremony Friday for the club’s new home.
Meredith HoffmanMs. Dawson spoke at the ceremony (top) before joking around with some of the club’s members. She was joined by local elected officials, including City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez.
Dave Pentecost’s eyes gleamed as he pointed up at the steel and wood building frame being constructed over East Eighth Street near Avenue D.
“That’s where the 30-foot high dome of the planetarium will rise,” said Mr. Pentecost, the technology director for The Lower Eastside Girls Club. During a brief tour, Mr. Pentecost described the green features of the $26 million, 12-story building that would soon fill the muddy construction site, from green roofs to solar panels, which would produce electricity for the site, to water collectors which would water the gardens holding a sculpture created by neighbor, the artist Kiki Smith.
In addition to 78 units of mixed-use housing, this will be the future home of The Lower Eastside Girls Club. The Norwegian maples which had filled the lot had been cut on site and made into lumber which would eventually serve as tables in the conference room. Mr. Pentecost is looking forward to seeing a ‘58 Airstream trailer soon hoisted into place and converted into a state of the art recording studio where local girls would learn recording technology.
The ground-breaking ceremony Friday was graced with a parade of politicians and dignitaries including Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Council Member Rosie Mendez, Borough President Scott Stringer. The loudest applause greeted actress and neighborhood celebrity Rosario Dawson as she excitedly told how she looked forward to working in The Girls Club library.
Meredith HoffmanMembers of the Girls Club at Friday’s ceremony.
Maya MillettTrick or treating siblings Ayodele and Adetayo Abinusawa, Alexia and Leo Muentes, and their Iron Man-costumed friend, Ethan Unthank, take a break from collecting sweets along First Avenue.
“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!” sang Adetayo Abinusawa, 7, to a gaggle of fellow trick-or-treaters as they waited for a crosswalk light to turn near First Avenue and Avenue A. He and his older sister, Ayodele, 10, have been trick-or-treating in the neighborhood their whole lives, and by now could be considered local experts on the subject. “The Dunkin’ Donuts usually gives out free munchkins,” Ayodele says, adjusting the black felt pirate hat on her head, “but this year, it was just candy.”
Across the East Village, excited groups of children popped in and out of the neighborhood’s many restaurants, shops and corner stores Sunday afternoon in the hopes of accumulating as much sugary loot as their pumpkin pails could handle. They clustered close on street corners, pushing aside wings and antennas to get a better look at their wares; they traded sticky taffy for lollipops and strategized their next moves. Read more…
Hannah RubensteinStarr Ravenhawk is a high priestess of the Wiccan Family Temple, which hosts its sixth annual witches ball on Sunday.
This Sunday night is the one time of the year that a mere mortal can cavort with “real witches.”
The sixth annual Witches Masquerade Ball, at The Delancey in the Lower East Side, occurs on Halloween night. Billed as “A Night for all Vamps, Pagans, Witches, Druids, Goths, Faerie Folk, Magical Folk, Indigos & Urbanites,” the Ball regularly draws hundreds of guests to its Halloween festivities, which include performances by belly dancers, an ancestral drum circle, Indian pop singers, dancing, and what is mysteriously referred to as “a secret midnight ritual.”
“We’ll put a spell on you!” laughs Starr Ravenhawk, a high priestess of the Wiccan Family Temple that hosts the Ball.
Starr, co-founder of the Wiccan Family Temple, describes the Wiccan group as an “eclectic, improvisational, all-inclusive open circle” based in the East Village. Twice a month, in a rented storefront on East Ninth Street, a motley group of Wiccans and curious guests come together to practice the religion — recent offerings include “Witchcraft Ethics” and “Psychic Self-Defense” — in a public forum unimaginable in years past.
Starr has many monikers — real estate agent, minister, high priestess, mother, and independent business owner. Many people have told her that she bears a striking resemblance to Chaka Khan, and she does — if the singer wore a silver pentagram necklace and wove purple strands into her curls. Read more…
Darla MurrayGordon Linzner, who leads tours of locations that are reportedly haunted in the East Village, with a bust of Peter Stuyvesant.
Have you ever found yourself walking along the Bowery and heard the “clip-clop” of a wooden cane hitting the pavement behind you only to discover no one was there? Or have you developed a photograph snapped at Shelton Cemetery and discovered an unexplained streak of light smeared across it? Or what about a time when you’ve reached down from your stool at McSorley’s Ale House to stroke the cat that brushed up against your leg, then realized the only feline in the pub is asleep twenty feet away in the windowsill?
Phil Schoenberg, a history professor at Queens College by day and a ghost historian by night, can explain.
Mr. Schoenberg and his team of experts offer skeptics and believers 90-minute walking tours of so-called haunted locations of the East Village – an area of Manhattan often overlooked by paranormal enthusiasts who tend to focus on Greenwich Village and Midtown’s Theater District.
“The popular literature will always mention the Merchant’s House,” says Mr. Schoenberg, referring to the oft-cited 19th century red brick rowhouse on East Fourth Street said to be haunted by the former owner’s daughter, “but not much else in the East Village.” Read more…
This Sunday the streets will undoubtedly be filled with little witches, vampires and Justin Biebers clamoring for candy bars.
But if you’re looking for more than just penny candy, there are plenty of upscale treats in the East Village for you to eat:
Laura KuhnChocolate skulls at Bond Street Chocolate.
Bond Street Chocolate 63 East Fourth Street 212-677-5103
www.bondstchocolate.com
If it’s candy you’re after, Bond Street Chocolate sells dark chocolate skulls made of 70% chocolate. At $14, they’re not cheap, but proprietor Lynda Stern molds them like an artistan and tops them with a sprinkle of pure gold powder.
Trying to complete your Snooki costume? Stop by Italian Bakery Veniero’s for some sweets. They make brightly-iced sugar cookies in the shapes of ghosts, Frankensteins and vampires for $3.50 each. Look in the glass cases for the serious sweets like the Autumn Trifle ($4.00)—made from layers of carrot cake, New York cheesecake and pumpkin topping. Equally devilish is the Blood Orange Delight ($4.50)—a combination of white chocolate sponge cake, white chocolate and blood orange puree, and dark chocolate ganache.
Cupcake eaters have choices. For strict dieters, Tu-Lu’s Gluten-Free Bakery decorates their gluten-free and vegan cupcakes in chocolate and vanilla icings with spooky sprinkles. The cupcakes, $2.95 a piece, come in chocolate, vanilla and red velvet and are made from rice tapioca and potato flour. Butter Lane goes the opposite route, loading up on the dairy with chocolate, vanilla and banana cupcakes slathered in buttery icing ($3.00 each). Fall flavors include apple spice and pumpkin.
I work in fashion, which means I can say things like “stripes are the new black” without getting laughed at. I have also recently started an accessories line which means I can call myself a “designer” and now everyone I meet thinks I make everything I wear.
I don’t let how I dress define who I am, so while eavesdropping during Sunday brunch in the East Village, I was surprised to hear that not only do some people define a person by their style, but they also define style by a neighborhood.
A gaggle of girls sat at the table next to me and said “our waitress dresses so East Village-y, you can just tell she lives around here.” This got me thinking. I’m now an East Village resident and haven’t broken out a CBGBs T-shirt since high school.
Are a pair of Converse and some plaid a dead giveaway? If these girls could so easily point out an East Village “look,” how do others stereotype the East Village aesthetic?
I style stalked a handful of people, and found the common answer to be “individualism.” People see the East Village as a place where style doesn’t define who you are, but it can help describe who you are and what you’re feeling. Take a look at the slideshow above to see what people consider East Village style to be.
The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »
Gloria Chung La Palapa, 77 St. Marks Place.
