Concerned cyclists can breathe easy: the two bike racks being removed from the west side of the cube at Astor Place tomorrow will be reinstalled after August 18, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation. The racks are not going to be replaced by a bike share station, as some commenters had speculated on EV Grieve. Rather, they’re being taken out to make way for Summer Streets, the annual event that closes roads to cars on the first three weekends in August and includes a stage at Astor Place. (So no need to go claiming one of the remaining racks as private). If you’re looking for the zip line that the city set up in Union Square last month as a teaser for Summer Streets, though, you’ll have to head south to Foley Square near City Hall.
A driver involved in a car accident at Avenue C and East Houston Street assaulted a traffic agent who arrived on the scene yesterday, police said.
The suspect, Lower East Side resident Magda Napoleon, was driving a Dodge Caravan through the intersection at around 9 a.m. when she was involved in an accident with another vehicle that fled the scene, a police spokeswoman said.
The police said that Ms. Napoleon — apparently infuriated by the accident — threw a liquid in the face of a traffic agent who responded to the accident; the confrontation escalated further, and the 43-year-old suspect ended up in a scuffle with the traffic agent. A 40-year-old man, Jason Ferrer, is said to have joined the melee, and ended up in handcuffs as well.
Ms. Napoleon was charged with assault. Mr. Ferrer faces a charge of obstructing government administration. The traffic agent was taken to New York Downtown Hospital for scratches and bruises on her face.
Courtesy Village FishmongerFarm-raised littleneck clams are one of the
types of seafood that will be offered through the
“community-supported fishery.”
It’s a common lament at community board meetings: the neighborhood needs a butcher, baker and candlestick maker. Inevitably someone will add, “And a fishmonger!”
If Samantha Lee’s plans come to fruition, one of those neighborhood needs will be filled. She and two partners have founded the Village Fishmonger, a seafood-pickup service modeled on community-supported agriculture — everyone calls them CSAs — that should deliver its first bounty off the boat in September.
Ms. Lee also aims to open a brick-and-mortar location in the East Village sometime early next year. Read more…
The perennially on-the-brink St. Mark’s Bookshop has unveiled a new crowdfunding campaign on Lucky Ant to pay for its move to a new location. The campaign comes less than a week after a successful cash mob. Crain’s, which first reported the latest plea, notes that the Bookshop hopes to raise $23,000. The initiative is particularly urgent because the store’s rent, which it renegotiated with landlord Cooper Union last year, will sharply increase in January.
The Times gets a tour of Reno Dakota’s Bed-Stuy Brownstone. In his salad days, Mr. Dakota “was for many years a downtown beau idéal, living in the East Village, working as a prop stylist and decorating nightclubs like Area, even inspiring a song by the Magnetic Fields about unrequited attraction.”
EV Grieve has an update on the ongoing tenant-landlord clash at 50, 54 and 58 East Third Street, where over a dozen people were notified their leases would not be renewed earlier this year. Now, a rep is going door to door talking to remaining tenants about buyouts and “relocation opportunities,” as heavy renovations are about to begin on vacant apartments. “Many tenants have accepted our offer as most people aren’t interested in living in a building that is under construction and they would much rather move during the summer months,” a letter from the rep reads. Read more…
Sarah DarvilleCouncilwoman Margaret Chin, behind the podium, spoke to the press about the compromises she had made with N.Y.U. before the Council’s vote. To her left is Speaker Christine Quinn and land use Committee chair Leroy Comrie. To her right is Councilman Robert Jackson.
The City Council gave New York University a final green light to build four new buildings south of Washington Square Park, but opponents tossed out of City Hall today vowed to file a lawsuit against the controversial expansion plan.
As The Local’s video shows, calls of “shame on you” and “corruption and greed” caused Speaker Christine Quinn to eject all of the spectators from the balcony, meaning university administrators weren’t around to see the City Council vote 44-1 in their favor.
Still, Alicia Hurley, N.Y.U.’s Vice President of University Relations and Public Affairs, seemed to anticipate the outcome. “This is a terrific day for us,” she said as she awaited official word in front of City Hall.
The expansion, dubbed N.Y.U. 2031, will add significant space for classrooms, dorms, and research — though not quite as much space as the university wanted. The plans were reduced by about 21 percent by the City Planning Commission and the City Council’s land use committee, though neither round of changes drastically altered the plan’s overall character. Today’s vote allows the university to build just under 1.9 million square feet across two blocks. Read more…
Imagine the graffitied lot at 35 Cooper Square hosting free theater by La MaMa. Or how about food vendors setting up at the corner plot where a historic row house was demolished over a year ago.
That’s what Eric Ho has in mind for some of the 212 empty lots and storefronts he has identified in the East Village and Lower East Side.
“How can we transform these underutilized spaces into valuable resources for local residents?” Mr. Ho, an architect, asked in a mission statement for Made in Lower East Side (MiLES). The project, dedicated to filling vacant lots with community groups, artistic events and small vendors, has been in the works since February and is still in its nascent stages. Earlier this month, Mr. Ho received what he said was a positive response from Community Board 3’s Economic Development committee, and last week he met up with graduate students from New York University’s Wagner School to gauge their interest in becoming involved. Read more…
Above, watch Marky Ramone give a tour of his food truck for Fuse TV.
Gallerist brings word that Audio Visual Arts Gallery on East First Street near Second Avenue is planning a 60-hour marathon of German artist Conrad Schnitzler. According to the site, the event is part of Con-Mythology, “a whole slate of Schnitzler activities in New York over the next week.” It starts at 6 p.m. on Friday.
Zagat takes a peek in Extra Place and Heidi. The former will feature a “Mediterranean menu with a focus on döner, a type of German-meets-Turkish Street food,” according to the blog. The latter is a “tiny Swiss eatery that will serve fondue.” EV Grieve reports that both are opening today. Read more…
Courtesy of N.Y.U. A rendering of N.Y.U.’s plans for two blocks south of Washington Square Park that features the newly reduced buildings.
Opponents of N.Y.U.’s expansion are hinting that they will announce new legal maneuvers to derail the project should it be approved the City Council tomorrow as expected.
An e-mail from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation notes that lawyers representing faculty opposed to the plan will speak tomorrow after the vote at City Hill “regarding their next steps.” Those opponents have long spoken about the possibility of challenging the land-use review process in court.
N.Y.U.A slide depicting the reduction of building’s in
the proposed project footprint.
The executive director of the Greenwich Village Society, Andrew Berman, would not comment on the organization’s specific legal plans until tomorrow, but added, “Should they vote to approve this plan, we and our partners on the N.Y.U. faculty will be working closely with our counsel, Gibson Dunn, to look at every remedy available to right this wrong.” Read more…
After interviewing embattled ex-Cro-Mag Harley Flanagan, Steven Blush, author of “American Hardcore: A Tribal History,” believes that the man accused of stabbing two current band members was set up. “To accept Harley’s ‘beatdown’ scenario is to accede to a not-totally-unlikely conspiracy involving his long-standing beefs with the intimidating DMS street gang (mostly over who did what to whom back in the day) as well as other NYHC elements. Anyone who knows the tough new punk subculture around DMS realizes nothing is beyond the pale,” Mr. Blush writes for Papermag.
EV Grieve notes that construction has commenced at the Mystery Lot on East 13th Street, and neighbors are already using words like “nightmarish” to describe it.
ArtsBeat has first word on PS 122’s upcoming fall season, which will be a collaboration with the French Institute Alliance Française and the Chocolate Factory in Long Island City. The renovation of its headquarters on First Avenue will soon be underway. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal attends “Uncle Vanya” in the Lincoln Center Festival with PS 122’s artistic director, Vallejo Gantner. Read more…
A critical public hearing on a proposed hotel next-door to the Merchant’s House Museum has been postponed for the fourth time. A spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission said that the presentation, originally scheduled for tomorrow, had been put off at the request of the developer, who needed more time to prepare. The museum’s administration has fiercely lobbied against the nine-story hotel, saying it would ruin the 180-year-old building’s aesthetic and could potentially undermine its foundation, as well. A new date for the hearing has not yet been scheduled. Update | 3:56 p.m. An earlier version of this post said the public hearing had been delayed for the second time. According to the Merchant’s House Museum, it is the fourth. “We want to believe it is because the Commission is taking this very, very seriously. As well they should,” the museum wrote in an e-mail.
The Post doesn’t just hate the new water cafe on East 10th Street. A pair of reporters got wind of an $18 entree at Northern Spy Food Co. that consists of carrots with wild spinach, freekeh, and almonds — and they are outraged. The pricey plate, like the water cafe, is a signal that New York’s dining scene is spiraling out of control, according to the paper. (“Even Bugs Bunny would balk.”) The restaurant doesn’t seem too concerned, though. “The fact that we’ve teed off the NY Post could stand as a point of pride,” it writes on Twitter.
By the way, The Voice joins The Post in criticizing the water cafe, calling it a “snake oil factory.”
DNAInfo reports that Bleecker Bob’s won’t be at its current location for much longer, as the landlord is actively dealing with potential tenants. “We’re letting them stay there until we get somebody, so it works for both of us,” the landlord said. “There’s no timeline, but they should be finished very shortly though.” Read more…
Mars Bar closed and all you can get is this lousy t-shirt.
It’s been a year (plus a couple of days) since the dive was shuttered, and the former regular who designed the “Marz Bar” shirts is selling the very last of them. “This building has been marked and stocked as a fallout shelter,” the t-shirt reads.
“I thought I had sold out of them last year but this one turned up in a box of records for some reason,” writes the designer (who goes by the name of Ecto-Glow) in an eBay listing, adding that he won’t be reprinting the shirt. The size-small is going for $25 and at the time of posting, a little over 4 and a half hours were left on the auction.
In an earlier blog post, the shirt’s designer, who says he grew up on Lafayette Street, explained that he first designed a “DEFEND MARZ BAR” shirt because “everyone wanted a shirt, including me. I asked someone to ask Hank [Penza, the owner] for me and he was cool with it so the first lot came out and sold out fast.” The fallout shelter shirts followed, and a little under 300 shirts were sold in the end.
“I’ve been to tons of Bars in NYC,” wrote Ecto-Glow, “but the only place I’ve been to at least triple digits was Mars (stoops and 40s don’t count) and I could probably fill a book with stories about the place (as I’m sure most could).”
If you’re not a size small or the auction’s over, don’t worry: Sergey Aniskov’s drunken Santa shirts are also still available for purchase.
N.Y.U.Red lines indicate the reduction of the boomerang
buildings on the northern block.
At a meeting attended by Rosie Mendez and Margaret Chin last night, members of Community Board 2 spoke out against the scaled-back version of N.Y.U.’s controversial expansion plan that the two City Council members supported earlier this week.
Ms. Chin said she wanted to explain the “compromise” she helped work out, which she said reduced above-ground space associated with N.Y.U. 2031 by an additional 17.4 percent, or 212,000 square feet.
The modified plan would cut the Mercer Street building from 11 stories to four, and shrink the height of towers in the Zipper Building. Over all, according to Ms. Chin’s newsletter for her district, it represents a reduction of 26 percent or 352,000 square feet from the original proposal that was certified in January.
Residents last night were clearly disappointed that the City Council’s land use committee had approved the plan by a vote of 19-1, with the Council’s subcommittee on zoning also voting in favor of it. “I know people aren’t happy,” Ms. Chin said, to sardonic laughter. “It’s a compromise. But I want you to look at what we’ve been able to achieve with density and open space, because the City Council will vote on this issue.” Read more…
An electrical fire at the Union Square subway station led to the temporary closing of one block of 14th Street at around 2 p.m.
EV Grieve rounded up photos of the small blaze, which is in a grate beside a subway entrance on the south side of 14th Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue. The fire was caused by a “service box failure,” a spokesman for Con Edison told The Local. A spokesman told Gothamist, which gathered tweets about the fire, that the cause was “a failure of electrical cables.” No injuries were reported. Read more…
Courtesy La MaMaPreliminary work on La MaMa’s white roof.
The building that houses La MaMa got a new mural back in May, and now it’s getting another paint job – but not in the name of art.
The White Roof Project laid down a first coat of white paint on the theater’s rooftop on Wednesday, adding another 7,000 square feet of solar-reflective white roof to the neighborhood in an ongoing effort to reduce carbon emissions and encourage energy efficiency.
Juan Carlos Piñeiro Escoriaza, the project’s founder, told The Local that the Lower East Side is one the heaviest energy users in the city. “Our efforts there get you more ‘bang for your buck’ every time a roof is coated white,” he said, adding that he wanted to have contiguous rooftops along East Third and Fourth Streets between Bowery and Second Avenue painted white by the end of 2013. Read more…
Earlier this week, Jose “Cochise” Quiles recounted his time as a member of the Satan’s Sinners Nomads, and told The Local that gangs such as the Bloods, Latin Kings, and Money Boys are still very much prevalent in the neighborhood.
Today, we hear more about the problem from a few of the people who are fighting it at Henry Street Settlement and the Boys’ Club of New York’s Harriman Clubhouse, on East 10th Street. They join others like Aida Salgado and the D.A.’s office in promoting alternatives to street violence.
Dante Lawson, assistant group leader at Grand Street Settlement, says he sees gang activity on an almost daily basis. In this video, he explains why he has resisted the temptation to join his own family members in some of the neighborhood’s many “sets.”
Life Cafe’s most storied artifact is headed to Jersey. The owner of the shuttered cafe, Kathy Kirkpatrick, writes on her blog that the bench where Jonathan Larson wrote “Rent” is now at Adelphi University. According to Ms. Kirkpatrick, Mr. Larson is an alum of the university in Garden City. “I felt a heaviness in my heart as I watched the boys lift the bench into the truck. It felt like a big part of my life was being taken away,” she wrote.
The Daily Beast tries to get to the bottom of Jennifer Sultan’s finances. Ms. Sultan, who was swept up in the arrests related to the missing guns from the Ninth Precinct, was reported to have made millions of an Internet company in 2000.
At the very least, the water store on East 10th Street, Molecule, is a hit with reporters. “I mean it’s subtle, but if you have a sensitive palate you can totally tell” co-owner Adam Ruhf tells The Wall Street Journal. “It was sweet and tasted good,” a customer tells DNAInfo. “Who’d waste money on Molecule? Those who belong to the High Holy Church of Culinary Rectitude,” writes the always warm and fuzzy Steve Cuozzo in The Post.
Has Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver gone rogue? He tells The Daily News he won’t be campaigning exclusively for Democrats in the Senate this year.
Second Avenue has its noodle nuts, Jersey Street has its sneaker fiends. Bowery Boogie has shots of people queuing up for the release of limited edition Nike sneakers. Read more…
Curbed reports that the Landmarks Preservation Commission gave architect Richard Metsky the green light for a significant enlargement of 45 Great Jones Street yesterday. The approved plans call for two additional floors on the three-story building, as well as a penthouse recessed from the street. The building, which originally housed a lumber company, will have a commercial space on the ground floor.
New York Police DepartmentThe suspected impersonators.
The police are still searching for two men who posed as police officers late last year and attempted to rob two spas, one of which is in the neighborhood.
New surveillance images depict the men, who the police say posed as police officers at the Waterfront Spa on First Avenue on December 1. In that incident, the pair flashed a shield and asked to review the spa’s licenses and any cash kept on the premises, police said. A 55-year-old worker was grabbed by one of the suspects but not injured.
A second incident on December 12 at a spa in Washington Heights followed a similar pattern.
In both cases the victims refused and the suspects fled empty-handed.
The suspected police impersonators were first covered in a police blotter in January.
Earlier this week the police announced they were searching for a man who posed as an officer and robbed teenagers in the Bronx of their cellphones. Read more…
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 »
