Daniel Maurer

Good morning, East Village.

It’s Primary Day and Nydia Velazquez got a last-minute boost from Comptroller John Liu, Politicker reports. As mentioned yesterday in our profile of challenger Erik M. Dilan, you can find your nearest polling location here. Polls are open till 9 p.m.

Those who were nervous about potential cuts to after-school programs can breathe easy. The Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council have passed a budget that does not include layoffs, and Gotham Schools points out that “instead of losing 6,500 child-care spots and 30,000 after-school spots, the city will actually have more spots next year than this year.”

DNA Info reports that Community Board 2 has named a new chair after Brad Hoylman stepped down to start his campaign for State Senate. 36-year Villager David Gruber “has served as chair of CB2’s committee on land use and business development and its working groups on the NYU expansion and Hudson Square rezoning.” Read more…

Courtesy Erik Dilan

New York City Councilmember Erik M. Dilan is running to unseat Nydia Velázquez in tomorrow’s Democratic Primary. The congresswoman is seeking her 11th term, this time in a newly remapped seventh district that includes the housing projects east of Avenue D as well as parts of the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Brooklyn.

Mr. Dilan, the 38-year-old son of State Senator Martin M. Dilan, took a break from voter outreach Sunday evening to speak to The Local. In a phone interview, the Bushwick resident – who, like Ms. Velázquez, is of Puerto Rican heritage – admitted he hasn’t spent all that much time campaigning in the East Village. “Should I be elected, I’m hoping to become expertly familiar with all the local issues there,” he said.

On nightlife, an evergreen battle in the neighborhood, Mr. Dilan said, “As an elected official, you want to be there to listen to complaints. It’s always a concern. I think there is a way for nightlife and the residents in the neighborhoods to interact.” If elected, he said, he would zero in on bad actors and help to resolve disputes.

As the City Council’s chair of the Housing and Buildings committee, Mr. Dilan is familiar with the N.Y.U. expansion issue. He said he saw deep opposition to the project, but had yet to develop a specific position on it. Read more…

As expected, the Drag March made its way from Tompkins Square Park to the Stonewall Inn on Friday night, and The Local’s cameras were there to capture the color. Lucky Cheng’s may be on its way out, but watch our video and you’ll see drag lives on in the East Village.

Ria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

The Post reports that a man is wanted for two robberies in the Bleecker Street subway station (one with a butter knife) and one in an East Third Street vestibule last month.

The fate of Jerry Delakas’s newsstand remains uncertain, but according to The Post, the Department of Consumer Affairs has reversed its decision about a 35-year-old Bowery newsstand and is giving the owner a brand-new stand that’s two feet farther from the curb.

The NoHo Bowery Stakeholders has released a guide that “lists the location, phone and website of every art gallery, interior design merchant, theater/performance venue, fashion designer/boutique, food and beverage purveyor, institution or landmark in NoHo,” according to NoHo News. Read more…

This will put a damper on his Fourth of July plans.

A medic for the Fire Department was arrested early this morning after selling fireworks to an undercover officer, the police said.

The suspect, Anthony Baijnauth, was selling the fun — but illegal — explosives out of a large bag stashed in his car at Norfolk and East Houston Streets at around 12:10 a.m., the police said. After selling some of the fireworks to the undercover officer, the 24-year-old resident of Queens was arrested and charged with unlawfully dealing with fireworks.

Oscar Fuller, the man who punched a woman over an East 14th Street parking spot in 2011, was sentenced to one year in jail today, according to The Daily News. The sentence is the maximum allowed for the misdemeanor assault that left the victim, Lana Rosas, with serious head trauma. The judge in the case was unsatisfied with the sentence, according to the paper. “If anyone heard this outside the court, just on common sense, would say that this sentence is not adequate,” Judge Bonnie Wittner said.

>Linda Medard Frantz Medard’s move into his new apartment took a surprising turn today.

A man and a moving truck got caught in separate sink holes on the same block earlier today, causing the truck to be towed and the pedestrian to be taken to the hospital.

Linda Medard The rear wheel lodged in the sinkhole.

This morning, Frantz Medard was moving into an apartment at 70 East Seventh Street, between First and Second Avenues, when he heard one of his movers yell from the street, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He looked out the window to see the moving truck tilting to the side.

“We thought it was a flat tire, looking from the hallway,” he said. “Then we saw half the tire in the ground.”

Melvin Felix The sinkhole, after the truck had been extracted.

The truck, belonging to the Westchester Moving and Delivery company, had fallen into a sinkhole that, according to the fire department, was four feet deep, and six feet wide. Read more…

Daniel Maurer The current location of Lucky Cheng’s on First Avenue.

With the annual Drag March set to kick off in Tompkins Square Park at 7 p.m. tonight and the final performance of “Cowboy Mouth” tonight as well, we thought we’d check in with Hayne Suthon, the owner of Lucky Cheng’s, which will soon move to Times Square.

Ms. Suthon hopes to haul her her drag operation to 240 West 52nd Street around Labor Day weekend, and is in negotiations with two “upscale” operators in the same vein as Beauty & Essex.

“All the concepts are nice restaurants. Not clubby kind of stuff,” Ms. Suthon said.

“Sutra has been shopping around for something more high end,” she added, referencing Ariel Palitz’s nightclub on the same blocks as Cheng’s, which is also on the market. “It’s time to be a bit more grown-up around the neighborhood.” Read more…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

Above, Scott Lynch got a shot of Malcolm D. MacDougall III’s “Microscopic Landscape 2010,” a 24-foot long, 7,500-pound sculpture that “finds its inspiration in the multi-faceted structures and activities seen on the molecular level,” according to a press release. It will be on display in Union Square’s Triangle Park through January 2013.

The folks at the CBGB Festival send word that they’ve finalized the lineup for their summer festival, and tickets for film screenings go on sale Monday. Among the 300 bands playing are Agnostic Front, Fishbone, Superchunk, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, JD Samson & MEN, MXPX, Reggie Watts, The Dirty Pearls, LA Guns, David Johansen, Guided By Voices, Pains Of Being Pure at Heart, Cloud Nothings, War on Drugs, The Virgins, D Generation, and The Cro-Mags. More info here.

DNA Info reports that at a heavily protested meeting at Cooper Union yesterday, the city’s Rent Guidelines Board voted to increase rents by 2 percent or $20 (whichever is higher) for one-year leases and 4 percent or $40 (whichever is higher) for two-year leases. The Post points out that the increases were the lowest in a decade. Read more…

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council several residents raised concerns about the nomadic punks spending much of their day in Abe Lebewohl Park in front of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. Now, The Villager reports that several people observed one of the drifters spray painting obscene messages on a statue and in the portico of the church. The graffiti has since been removed and no permanent damage reported. Still, Winnie Varghese, the church’s rector, is ready for the punks to head elsewhere. “They’ve kind of crossed the line,” she tells the paper. “They’re kind of different from old drunk people. There’s just an aggression to these people that’s different.”

Courtesy Brad Hoylman

Soon after Thomas K. Duane announced he wouldn’t run for re-election, the state senator all but endorsed Community Board 2 Chair Brad Hoylman, who has worked with him on many East Village issues. Over a plate of eggs over-easy, Mr. Hoylman told The Local the senator’s is “a huge legacy to live up to,” and that he considers it a “solemn responsibility to do so.” He also got specific on how he’ll carry the torch should he win in November, talking tenants’ rights, transgender equality and the new ideas that are at the top of his to-do list.

What parts of the Duane legacy do you plan to carry forward?

Tom’s advocacy on tenant rights is something that I feel very strongly about. I have some background myself, in the area, not only working with Senator Duane over the years in that realm, but also as a former board member of Tenants & Neighbors, the tenants rights group. And I, as Community Board 2 chair, just launched an initiative where the board will now have a tenants clinic for the first time in cooperation with MFY Legal Services: tenants who meet income level requirements in the CB 2 area will be able to come to our tenants’ clinic and get free legal representation from MFY.  So that’s the kind of tenant outreach that I want to do, and continue to do to build on Tom’s legacy.

Read more…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

With the primaries on Tuesday, the race between Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and City Councilman Erik Martin Dilan is heating up, according to the Times: “Ms. Velázquez and Mr. Dilan plan to debate on NY1 on Friday, but they are already sparring. They have traded barbs over which one has more effectively delivered money to local projects. And Mr. Dilan accused Ms. Velázquez of inadequately supporting Israel, prompting her to bring forth a torrent of endorsements featuring Jewish Democrats, including former Mayor Edward I. Koch.”

Meanwhile, The Post endorses Ms. Velázquez for reelection: “Frankly, we’d be hard pressed to come up with even a scanty list of issues on which Velázquez agrees with us. But anyone who gives Vito Lopez (Brooklyn political boss who’s backing Velázquez’s opponent) that much agita can’t be all bad.”

Dangerous Minds reminds us that the Philip Glass Ensemble is playing a free concert in Battery Park tonight. Capital New York is very excited. Read more…

Melvin Felix Stanley Cohen at his home office.

Radical lawyer Stanley Cohen denies charges brought by federal prosecutors last week that he failed to file income tax returns, among other allegations. “But I did shoot steroids when I pitched for the Yankees,” he said sarcastically, speaking to The Local from his home office across from the Jacob Riis Houses on Avenue D. The 61-year-old lawyer said he believed an indictment brought against him Thursday stemmed from his representation of Middle Eastern clients charged with terrorism. “If you don’t believe that,” he said, “I’m going to try and sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Mr. Cohen, who once said he would represent Osama bin Laden if asked, said his office had spent the past five years fighting the allegations with prosecutors in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, where the indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury. “They’re not going to win,” he said.

The charges against him, he said, were precipitated by a complaint he said his office filed a month ago that asked the Inspector General’s office in Washington, D.C. to investigate prosecutors for what he described as “pervasive government misconduct,” including what he said were illegal seizures of cash, in their handling of the case against him. “There is no doubt in my mind that once I filed a formal complaint, that foreclosed any appropriate reasonable discussion,” he said. “When you file a complaint against a U.S. attorney, you’re done.” Read more…

Melvin Felix

It’s business as usual in Cooper Square: protesters who say Village Voice Media’s Backpage.com ads facilitate sex trafficking once again chanted “Village Voice, the choice is clear, no more selling humans here” outside of the weekly’s offices this evening. The demonstration drew a handful of counter-protesters, including a woman who shouted, “They’re not being sold, they’re selling themselves.”

N.Y.P.D. Carl Knox

Carl Knox, the 47-year-old who allegedly stabbed a man to death on East Fifth Street last week, turned himself in to police and is in custody, Deputy Inspector John Cappelmann announced at last night’s meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council.

Mr. Knox, who turned himself in on Sunday at the 44th Precinct near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, faces a charge of murder in the second degree. Inspector Cappelmann shared a few additional details about the dispute that led to the death of 31-year-old Corey Capers. Mr. Knox, who was staying at 737 East Fifth Street in the Lower East Side II houses, got in a dispute with the goddaughter of his girlfriend over the fact that she was watching television. The argument escalated to the point that Mr. Knox began abusing his girlfriend, and the goddaughter alerted a group outside of the building. The group then chased Mr. Knox to scaffolding in the front of 709 East Fifth Street, where he allegedly stabbed Mr. Capers.
Read more…

Daniel Maurer Scene of Monday’s shooting.

Tonight is the last meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council this summer, and one subject is sure to come up: the recent uptick in crime in the East Village.

According to the latest crime statistics compiled by the Police Department, felony assaults have increased by 33 percent in the last 28 days in comparison with the same period last year. Robberies are up 29 percent when comparing the same time frames.

In the year to date, overall crime is up by roughly 3 percent when compared to 2011, according to statistics.

The spike comes amid recent high-profile incidents in the neighborhood, including the first homicide of the year, as well as a stabbing in East River Park. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Good morning, East Village.

As expected, “Boardwalk Empire” has started shooting inside of Mary Help of Christians Church. Above, at left: a man in 1920s attire checks his cell phone.

Anthony Planakis, the officer who was called to control that swarm of bees on the Bowery tells The Times he’s been quite busy lately. “Since mid-March, he said, he has tended to 31 jobs in the five boroughs, more than twice the number he handled last season, which is normally mid-April through July.”

The Times reports that Adrian Benape, the parks commissioner who “got his start as a teenager cleaning locker rooms at a city pool in the East Village and picking up litter in East River Park, and ended up overseeing the most ambitious program of building and refurbishing New York City’s parks since the era of Robert Moses,” is leaving the department. Read more…

Ria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

The shooting at the Riis Houses wasn’t the only bit of weekend news.

As The Local reported four days ago, “Boardwalk Empire” is filming in the neighborhood tomorrow. We spotted a pulpit being loaded into Mary Help of Christians church earlier this morning.

Speaking of churches, Neighborhoodr points to a Slavs of New York post about St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic church, “one of the most unusual religious buildings in Manhattan.”

And speaking of “Boardwalk Empire,” Gothamist notes that at the annual benefit for Anthology Film Archives tonight, a $25 raffle tickets gets you the chance to attend a film shoot for the show. Read more…

A woman was shot at the Jacob Riis Houses early this morning, the police said.

The victim was shot in the thigh shortly after midnight, according to the police. Officers taped off an area at the end of East Sixth Street and were seen examining evidence in the street as well as going in and out of Building 16 of the Riis Houses, at the northeast corner of East Sixth Street and FDR Drive.

The police could not provide the victim’s age or description but said she was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Information about the shooter’s identity was not immediately available.

The incident comes a week after a man was stabbed to death on East Fifth Street and two weeks after another stabbing victim was found at East Fourth Street. In his Crime Scene column on Saturday, Mike Wilson of The Times reported that Carl Knox, the suspect in last weekend’s stabbing, was still at large as of Friday.