A flatbed truck struck and killed a 58-year-old woman crossing West Houston Street on a scooter this morning.
The police said that the victim was run over by the rear wheels of the trailer as it turned onto Sixth Avenue around 8:50 a.m. She was dragged to Minetta Lane before witnesses alerted the truck driver to the horrific accident. “There were a dozen people running up the street screaming and telling him to stop,” one witness told The Daily News.
The latest accident only reinforced the perception that Houston Street is one of the most deadliest thoroughfares in the city.
“Of course today’s tragedy is unique and we don’t know if any of these critical improvements would have prevented it. But we must do everything in our power to prevent the next one,” State Senator Daniel Squadron wrote in a statement, pointing to a bill that would strengthen penalties against reckless drivers, as well as recent safety improvements to Delancey Street.
Stephen Rex Brown A distraught man was interviewed by police at 191 Orchard Street.A 29-year-old woman was slashed across the neck and died this morning.
A police spokeswoman confirmed that the victim was declared dead at Beth Israel Hospital about 10 minutes ago. She was found around 10:33 a.m. “heavily bleeding” from the neck and in partial cardiac arrest inside of 191 Orchard Street near East Houston Street.
Further details regarding how she died or if there are any suspects were not immediately available. A distraught man, pictured above, was seen speaking at length to investigators a half-hour after the incident.
Update | 12:52 p.m. A resident of the building who did not wish to be identified came upon the victim moments after a neighbor attempted to revive her in the hallway. “It was a big mess. There was blood everywhere,” the resident said.
According to the resident, a medic said the victim’s injuries were not consistent with a fall down the stairs, as some initially suspected. “She had compound fractures in her arm and she was cut,” the resident said. The victim, who was wearing acid-wash blue jeans, had a Missouri drivers license in her wallet, which also still contained money, credit cards and an iPhone.
“She did not look like she was homeless or a hooker,” the resident said. “She had too many accouterments of the average American young person in her 20s: An iPhone and wallet full of plastic.”
The longtime resident added that it was unlikely the victim lived in the building.
“It’s pretty upsetting. I almost threw up.”
Update | 5:20 p.m. Lower East Side Slashing Victim Identified
Joann Jovinelly At the flea market on East 11th Street, which will soon close.Good morning, East Village.
The Daily Beast chatted with protestors camping out in Tampa, Florida in anticipation of the Republican National Convention, and guess who was working the media tent in Romneyville? John Penley, the “longtime East Village anarchist activist.” He tells the Web site that roughly 600 protesters from New York will join rallies against the Republican agenda.
The New Yorker notes that Nublu will celebrate its 10-year anniversary at Le Poisson Rouge on September 13. That means for one night only, cocktail service is back!
The Times gives props to Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble’s performance of the opera “Dialogues des Carmélites,” performed at East 13th Street Theater. “The singers in the Dell’Arte performance, directed with eloquent simplicity by Victoria Crutchfield on a set consisting of little more than some chairs, were largely up to the task, singing with force and musicality and acting with unexaggerated sobriety.” Read more…
A man robbed the Chase bank on Second Avenue near 10th Street this afternoon.
Around 1 p.m., a man passed a teller a note demanding money and then fled with an unknown amount, according to the police.
The suspect, who wore sunglasses and black and yellow sneakers, was said to be about five-foot-eight with a medium build.
It’s the first bank robbery in the neighborhood since the Emigrant Savings Bank, just a few blocks away, was held up in June.
Courtesy Animal Care and Control of NYCThe pit bull that was shot on 14th Street has been turned over to the city after her owner failed to fetch her, and The Local has obtained the first photos of Star since she was shot while charging a police officer on Aug. 13.
Richard Gentles, a spokesperson for city Animal Care & Control, said Star’s owner failed to claim her by a deadline of 8 p.m. yesterday, at which point she was released to the agency. Once she leaves the care center in East Harlem where she’s been recovering, she’ll be turned over to the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City’s Animals, a coalition of non-profit animal shelters and rescue groups aimed at insuring that animals are adopted rather than killed in city shelters.
Mr. Gentles said his agency had arranged for what had come to $10,000 in medical treatment, most of which will be paid for by donations. He said Star was still resting and not ready for visitors, but – as with three previous status updates – her condition is improving.
See another photo…
Smoke gushing from a manhole at Broadway and 17th Street rattled commuters in Union Square this evening.
“A big boom and black smoke at the NE corner of 17th and Broadway,” tweeted the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. “It was NOT our truck blowing up. What’s going on?”
Others tweeted about an explosion, but a ConEd spokesperson said there was no explosion when the manhole started smoking at 5:30 p.m. He said there were no injuries or power outages as a result of the smoke, the cause of which is currently under investigation.
A fire department spokesperson said the smoke was quickly brought under control.
The event unnerved some already shaken up by this morning’s shooting near the Empire State Building. More photos…
If you thought three days of “Eleanor Rigby” have been a parking hassle, wait till N.Y.U.’s freshman class moves in this Sunday.
But wait! If you live in the shaded area above, which includes the East Village from Second Avenue eastward, the school will reimburse you for a 24-hour stay in a parking garage. Ikea’d you not!
The school’s announcement, intended to “help alleviate potential difficulties,” invites non-students who park in a garage this Saturday night or Sunday to bring a receipt and proof of residency to its Office of Government and Community Affairs, Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more details, contact the office at (212) 998-2400.
Daniel Maurer Good morning, East Village.
As you can see above, Joey Pepperoni’s Pizza has opened at 222 First Avenue, between 13th and 14th Streets.
Is it possible that the steamiest establishment on 10th Street isn’t the Russian-Turkish baths? Renee Linnell, an investor in Body Evolutions, has filed what the Post calls a “blockbuster” lawsuit against the workout studio’s founder (and her former romantic partner) Billy Macagnoner, claiming that he drove away clients by “improperly abusing his position as a teacher and authorized Gyrotonic master trainer to seduce and sleep with both trainers and clients — serially and simultaneously.”
Curbed presents four alternatives to the SPURA plan that got the City Planning Commission’s stamp of approval this week. One proposal envisions ski slopes above big-box retailers. Read more…
Melvin Felix The scene of the shooting.Readers as far away as Argentina, South Africa, Los Angeles, and Texas have been asking for updates about Star the pit bull. Here’s the latest: ten days after she was shot by a police officer on 14th Street, Star is doing “fairly well,” according to a spokesman for city Animal Care and Control.
“She is eating and moving around more,” the spokesman told The Local, adding that the organization is accepting donations to help with the pit bull’s care.
Meanwhile readers of The Local are debating whether pit bulls are dangerous animals. A commenter named Mike said his previous dog died after being attacked by one. “The Pit got away from his owner who was attempting to walk three pit bulls at the same time,” Mike wrote. “He could not help get his animal off of my friend Abby, a beautiful yellow lab. If I had a gun that day I would have shot that animal and saved Abby’s life.”
Penny Brumfield disagreed, saying that pit bulls are lovable and loyal dogs. “Because of the media and t[h]ugs the pit bull has got a bad name,” she said. “If you remove every pit, there would still be another breed to take its place.”
Mary Robbins said it could’ve happened with any other dog: “Any breed of dog, that sees their owner being kicked, or any other kind of abuse would get very defensive and that is what had happened here.”
Pearce Pics Good morning, East Village.
In an interview with The Atlantic, Jeremiah Clancy, the owner of Mama’s, reiterates some of what he told The Local about the food shop’s closing. On the East Village: “Where it used to be a very vibrant neighborhood with a mix of cultures as well as different socioeconomic backgrounds, it started becoming very homogenous.”
Big news on the Lower East Side. DNAInfo reports that the long in-the-works Seward Park Urban Renewal (SPURA) plan got the nod from the City Planning Commission. “The current plan — which includes space for retail stores, offices, community facilities and a bundle of 900 apartments with 50 percent of them allocated for permanent affordable housing — is the closest any proposal has come to being built.”
According to DNAInfo some neighbors are upset that Jane’s Sweet Buns didn’t give them notice that it was changing to a 10-seat speakeasy called Proletariat. Read more…
A critical hearing regarding the proposed nine-story hotel abutting the Merchant’s House Museum is scheduled for September 4, the museum just announced in an e-mail. Following the hearing, the Landmarks Preservation Commission will either give the green light for the controversial hotel, or send the developer back to the drawing board. Supporters of the museum consider the proposal dangerous because construction could undermine the structure of the 180-year-old building, as well as its aesthetic. Still, there’s no guarantee the hearing will take place on the scheduled date — it’s been postponed four times already. “Hopefully we don’t have a fifth postponement,” said Emily Wright, a museum spokeswoman. “We’re still of course very concerned, the potential for damage is very serious.”
Claire Glass and Stephen Rex Brown The demolition of 35 Cooper last year.So, what university is behind the dormitory planned for 35 Cooper Square?
EV Grieve first spotted the plans, filed with the Department of Buildings yesterday, which call for over 30,000 square feet of student housing.
But which students will stay there?
“Not N.Y.U.’s,” wrote university spokesman John Beckman of the dorm.
“We already have a dorm on Third Avenue,” said Jolene Travis, spokeswoman for Cooper Union.
“We’re already building a dorm on Fifth Avenue,” said Sam Biederman, a spokesman for The New School. Read more…
Ria Chung Good morning, East Village.
The Times reports that a dozen or so community gardeners occupied a vacant lot on Attorney Street near Stanton Street in an effort to prevent an L-shaped building planned for the space. “The actions on Sunday harked back to an earlier era, when territorial battles on the Lower East Side involved lawsuits filed to prevent the sale of gardens to developers and barricades erected around city-owned plots by gardeners hoping to stave off takeover attempts.”
DNAInfo files a dispatch from a Democratic debate for the 27th District seat. Brad Hoylman, who has been endorsed by outgoing State Senator Thomas K. Duane, touted his experience as district chair of Community Board 2, saying it gave him an edge over his opponents.
ArtsBeat continues its string of Fringe Fest reviews, this time showing love to “American Midget”: “The message of this little psychological gem, conveyed by a cast that can play comedy all the way to pathos and back, is both pessimistic and spirit-affirming.” Read more…
Daniel Maurer New signage at Bar Veloce.Those flyers calling for a boycott of Bar Veloce have disappeared from the neighborhood – and the wine bar got a spiffy new sign today – but rest assured there’s drama on the horizon: the bar on Second Avenue is gearing up for a courtroom fight with the disgruntled ex-employees who sued it in April 2011. A series of court filings made as recently as yesterday reveal that both parties will go to trial before a federal judge on November 5.
You’ll recall the twists and turns of the case: three employees sued Bar Veloce for unpaid wages and labor violations. In February, Frederick Twomey, the owner of the bar, filed a countersuit alleging that one of the plaintiffs, ex-employee John Sawyer Preston, defamed him and damaged his business by posting flyers urging customers to avoid Bar Veloce and other restaurants he owned. In turn, Mr. Preston filed a counter-counter suit alleging that the defamation suit amounted to unlawful retaliation in response to the original claim of backwages.
But now a layer of litigation has been peeled away: late last month Mr. Twomey filed a motion to withdraw his defamation suit (a hearing regarding that case is scheduled for Thursday) and yesterday, Mr. Preston withdrew his counter-counter suit as part of an agreement that paves the way for November’s trial. Read more…
Melvin Felix The Mosaic Man’s cane and service
dog, in court today.After being thrown out of his studio in the basement of Barbiere, Jim Power avoided eviction from his apartment at The Lee today. Mr. Power, known for creating the neighborhood’s mosaic trail and outfitting local businesses like Porchetta and The Bean, agreed to pay $547.29 in outstanding rent by the end of September, staving off a return to homelessness.
In July, the low-income residence brought a lawsuit demanding $806.66 in back rent and requesting a final judgment of eviction. The Mosaic Man said he had stopped paying the monthly dues for his rent-stabilized apartment in order to protest a slew of problems at 133 Pitt Street. This week, he told The Local, he found a pool of blood in a building elevator.
“It’s shocking,” Mr. Power said. “They need to put a security guard in there with a gun.” (The Local has left a message with a spokesperson for Common Ground requesting comment.) Read more…
Daniel Maurer Good morning, East Village.
“Eleanor Rigby” is filming in the neighborhood again. As you can see above, East Seventh Street has been secured for shoots tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday.
Um, wow: someone has gone and remixed the audio of Star the pit bull getting shot by a police officer and incorporated it into a video that seems calculated to shock and disturb. “It’s only offensive to people who love dogs,” says the creator.
ArtsBeat reviews “Antigone Unearthed” at the Fringe Festival and isn’t a big fan. “Be wary of a play whose selling points, according to its publicity materials, include ’20 cubic feet of potting soil’ and ‘spinal movement.'” Read more…
Here’s video of workers demolishing the building on the corner of Avenue B and East 12th Street that held the Elim Pentecostal Church and before that, a theater that was a locus of 1960s counterculture.
A 40-unit, seven-story condo will be built at 193 Avenue B, with the church returning to the ground floor and basement. Earlier today, the walls of the Bijou (later the Charles) Theater were being demolished brick by brick.
The Bijou was opened in 1926 by Charles Steiner, a “pioneer motion picture exhibitor” who opened his first theater in 1906 (when “motion pictures were scarce,” per the Times obit) and died in 1946. According to the book “Selling The Lower East Side,” the Charles (as it was renamed) showed underground and experimental movies in the 1950s (think Edward G. Ulmer) and then became a “favored site for the nascent hippie community” in the early ’60s. Read more…
Melvin Felix After the shooting, this cop car with a kennel in the trunk likely hauled the wounded pit bull to a veterinarian.The pit bull that took a bullet in the middle of 14th Street last week continues her remarkable recovery. “She is showing more signs of improvement,” wrote a spokesman for Animal Care and Control. “Her swelling has gone down and she is more alert.”
Meanwhile, the debate continues on The Local’s Facebook page regarding whether the shooting was justified. Graphic video of the incident shows that the dog, named Star, did indeed lunge at the police officer who shot her. But most commenters believe that deadly force was unnecessary. “Star was doing what she was suppose to do,” wrote one reader. “If you watch the video in entirely you see for 9 min they did not even attend to her owner still on the ground. This was not justified.”
“That cop will remember this for the rest of his life and if he owns dogs at home I hope he doesn’t do this to his own pets,” wrote another. “I smell a huge lawsuit against that cop and the N.Y.P.D. for not helping Star and his owner.”
Alberto ReyesGood morning, East Village.
Over the weekend Rosie Gray, a former staffer at The Village Voice, shared her thoughts regarding the alt weekly’s latest round of layoffs. Writing on Buzzfeed, she said many people share the blame for the paper’s current state. “The Voice suffered from the same ailments that afflict print media organizations everywhere, but it proved less adept than most at adapting to the changing media. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that it adapted to the Internet in the entirely wrong way, figuring out only the web’s seamiest edge.” A skeleton crew now runs the paper and it will soon be moving out of its offices at Cooper Square.
The Voice is still churning out blog posts, though. Robert Sietsema reports that the ice cream cart outside of The Standard, East Village is “some of the best tasting stuff” in the neighborhood.
Bowery Boogie continues the Intermix rumor mongering, this time reporting through an unnamed source that the high-end boutique is bound for the Steve’s On The Bowery space. Read more…
The Post reports that Mary-Kate Olsen’s boyfriend Olivier Sarkozy has put $6.25 million down for one of the twin East 10th Street townhouses that were being marketed as a package.
According to The Post, elderly residents of Washington Square Village are suing N.Y.U. in order to insure that a park they consider a “necessary service” won’t be replaced during the school’s expansion.
Meanwhile in the Villager, Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation outlines “the 10 most outrageous things about the city’s approval of the N.Y.U. expansion plan.” Read more…
A D.O.T. handout from earlier this year, outlining areas
