Melvin Felix The crime scene at Union Square East.

A man was slashed with a razor blade in Union Square this afternoon by an attacker who fled the scene, the police and witnesses said.

The police said that around 2:30 p.m., across from Beth Israel’s Phillips Ambulatory Care Center at Union Square East near 15th Street, a 37-year-old man was slashed in the face by a man who wore a white t-shirt and is said to be around five-foot-eight and 170 pounds.

Melvin Felix Robin Stewart was spotted by the victim’s blood.

Robin Stewart said she saw the alleged attacker approach her acquaintance, whom she named only as Mr. P, from behind and then use a razor blade to stab him in his head and neck. The slashing, she said, was in retaliation for an altercation between the two men yesterday in the same area.

Ms. Stewart described the victim as “a good hard-working man who’s in between jobs,” and the incident as “a senseless act of brutality.”

Tyrone Curry, another witness, said, “It cut him so deep and hard that the blade broke.” Shortly after the attack, the blade lay on the ground in an area cordoned off by police tape. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown

Someone made a failed attempt to rob the Emigrant Savings Bank at 105 Second Avenue around 45 minutes ago, a police officer and bank employee confirmed. The pair would only add that the suspect did not flash a weapon. Just last Wednesday a man robbed the HSBC three blocks to the north.

Stephen Rex Brown The sidewalk outside Fine Fare was a bloody mess Sunday morning.

Wondering why there was pool of blood outside the Fine Fare on Avenue C Sunday morning? Here’s your answer: One of the men injured during Saturday night’s stabbing in East River Park was arrested outside of the grocery store.

The neighborhood’s top police officer, Deputy Inspector John Cappelmann (he was promoted from captain last week) confirmed the sequence of events, saying that the perp fled the park and was found at Avenue C and East Fourth Street. Initially, the police reported that only the suspect found at Fine Fare was arrested, but Inspector Cappelmann revealed that the 59-year-old “victim” ended up in handcuffs, as well.

“It was two people who are acquaintances. They got in a dispute in the park, wound up assaulting each other and both were charged,” Inspector Cappelmann said.

Meanwhile the blood, which was a hot topic of discussion on EV Grieve and Gothamist, has washed away in the rain.

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

Hope you had a good Howl! Festival. The Allen Ginsberg Project wishes the poet a happy birthday and notes that the flowering dogwood that was planted at St. Mark’s Church in 1999 is flowering in his honor once again. You can still enter to win a tour of the poet’s longtime East Village apartment by signing up for The Local’s free newsletter.

The Times reports that State Senator and gay rights champion Thomas K. Duane, whose district covers part of the East Village, will not seek reelection. “It’s not that Albany isn’t a lovely place, but it’s not home,” he tells The Times after 14 years of service. “I always knew that I was going to have another chapter in my life, and it’s time for me to start that new chapter.” Possible successors: State Assembly members Deborah J. Glick and Brian Kavanaugh, or Brad Hoylman and Corey Johnson, the chairmen of Community Boards 2 and 4.

The Times points out that a new Website, 1940s New York, has reprinted a real estate market analysis of New York based on the 1940 census. In it, the Lower East Side (as the East Village and its neighbor to the south were collectively known) is said to be in transition. “Its more than 100,000 foreign-born population gives the Lower East Side a tinge that is essentially alien,” reads the guide. “But the district is changing. It has lost nearly 40,000 foreign-born since the last census.” It goes on to note new parks and big housing developments. Read more…

A man was stabbed in a playground in East River Park last night, the police said.

The 59-year-old was near FDR Drive and East Eighth Street at around 8:30 p.m. when he got in a dispute with another man. The argument escalated, and the victim was stabbed in the torso.

Police charged Conrado Speck, 50, with assault with a weapon and criminal possession of a weapon. The victim is expected to survive.

Stephen Rex Brown

A cyclist collided with a cab at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and 10th Street shortly after 7 p.m. this evening.

The cab driver, Abou Coulibaly, said the bike rider was heading east on 10th Street and ran a red light. When an MTA bus crossed her path, she tried to turn back and collided with the cab, which was going north on Fourth Avenue.

“Nothing happened to her,” said Mr. Coulibaly, who said he had been driving a cab for three years. “No cuts or bruises, but she was pregnant. I was almost to a complete stop but I bumped her a little bit.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer Original tilework from Ratner’s

The Met Foods on Second Avenue will soon be reborn as Metropolitan Citymarket, complete with photo murals paying tribute to Ratner’s and the Fillmore East. The new signage has already been installed, but it’s covered by a gigantic plastic tarp and won’t be unveiled until fall. That’s because N.Y.U., the building’s owner, is about to cast the store in the shadow of its scaffolding. But there’s something you can feast your eyes on in the meantime: original tilework from Ratner’s restaurant.

Michael Schumacher, who owns and manages the store with his brother Steven (their father, Sam, took it over in 1986), said the supermarket’s overhaul was long overdue. In 2004, he explained, he was told by N.Y.U. that the store’s lease wouldn’t be renewed, and its appearance went into decline. “They told us four years prior that we weren’t getting a lease in 2008, so it was the nail in the coffin,” he said.

But as stories in The Villager recounted, N.Y.U. eventually renewed the lease for 15 years after much public outcry and intervention from public officials (Mr. Schumacher said his rent was raised by 20 percent). That left the grocers free to revamp. In gutting the store, they found remnants of Ratner’s, the 24-hour dairy restaurant that once occupied the space. Its original tilework now gleams on either side of the front entrance. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba

Good morning, East Village.

DNA Info attended the historical plaque ceremony at Justus Schwab’s former saloon on East First Street. The Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, along with Phil Hartman of Two Boots, plan to install similar plaques at least once a year, and Mr. Hartman is hoping to commemorate the former home of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable at 19-25 St. Mark’s Place.

Speaking of Andy, The Times reviews “Jukebox Jackie,” based on the life of Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis. Charles Isherwood says that at times the new production at La MaMa “comes close to mimicking the foggy ramblings of someone on an intense trip,” but Justin Bond “most naturally embodies the Curtis who bloomed briefly before drug addiction felled him at the age of 38.”

The folks at the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative tell us that on Sunday at 1 p.m., theater historian Cezar Del Valle will lead a tour of the East Village’s Yiddish theater district, once known as the “Jewish Rialto.” As part of the tour, an architect involved in the restoration of Village East Cinema will talk about the theater that opened in 1926 as The Yiddish Art Theater. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 on Sunday, and can be reserved here.  Read more…

Vivienne Gucwa The original. Nuff said.

Remember how the Hastings-Sunrise neighborhood of Vancouver spent $20,000 re-branding its business district as the East Village? Well, according to the Vancouver Courier, residents haven’t exactly taken a shine to the new name. Some think it sounds like “a reference to New York City instead of celebrating what’s indigenous to Vancouver,” and in a recent survey of more than 450 Hastings-Sunrisers (East Villagers?), 81 percent of them preferred the old name.

Of course, Hastings-Sunrise is hardly the fist to poach the monicker. An area of Des Moines, Iowa, was renamed the East Village sometime around 2000. Todd Dorman, a columnist at The Gazette who was there when it happened, notes that the move “drew plenty of derision. Common reactions: ‘Can’t we even think of our own name?’ ‘Do we have to steal one from New York?'” But that isn’t stopping the City Council of Cedar Rapids, a couple of hours from Des Moines, from naming a flood-damaged commercial area of the city the West Village. (The Gazette has the story today.) Read more…

Philip Ross 118-122 East Fourth Street

It costs a pretty penny to throw down with the East Village’s elite.

A swank benefit for the United Jewish Appeal of New York on June 6 will be co-chaired by Benjamin Shaoul, who owns numerous properties all over the neighborhood, and will feature a performance by another local: John Legend. Questlove of the Roots will also spin records.

Tickets for the gala at Capitale on Bowery start at $360, and go as high as $20,000 for the “Legend package” that includes a meet-and-greet with the piano-playing crooner, as well as a listing on a “Scroll of Honor as ‘Legend.'” Lesser donations yield designations as a “producer,” “promoter,” or “performer,” among others. Read more…

Nadja Popovich

Good morning, East Village.

The above photo was taken during “casserole night” yesterday, part of what organizers hope will be an ongoing international movement to show solidarity for students protesting tuition hikes in Quebec. According to a reporter for The Local, over 100 protesters made their way from Washington Square Park to Union Square and then uptown, some of them banging pots and pans as they headed up Broadway.

Crain’s reports that the Jehovah’s Witness Hall that was such a headache for Nublu is now on the market. “The 3,050-square-foot, two-story property located at 67 Avenue C, at 5th Street, is up for grabs, according to Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, which was retained to market the building on behalf of the Witnesses.”

The Post reports that one of the men accused of attaching skimming devices to ATMs in Astor Place and Union Square has been sentenced to three years in prison. His brother and alleged accomplice remains at large. Read more…

The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court has affirmed the city’s decision to evict the longtime operator of a newsstand at Astor Place — though a strongly-worded dissenting opinion has given the Greek immigrant a glimmer of hope.

The latest blow to Jerry Delakas’s livelihood comes as the result of an arrangement made in 1987 with his friend, Katherine Ashley. Ms. Ashley was the owner of the license for the newsstand, and Mr. Delakas paid her $75 a week to work there. When Ms. Ashley died in 2006, she wrote in her will that Mr. Delakas should inherit the license. It subsequently passed to other family members while Mr. Delakas continued to operate the stand. Last year, the Department of Consumer Affairs refused to let Ms. Ashley’s estate and then Mr. Delakas renew the license on the grounds that the deal was illegal.

The appellate division of the State Supreme Court concurred with that argument in a ruling filed late last month. Mr. Delakas “had to be aware of the illicit, under the table arrangement he facilitated by his payments to three separate owners beginning as far back as 1987,” reads the ruling, which is below. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown

New York Police Department The suspect.

The police are searching for a man who allegedly robbed the HSBC at Second Avenue and East Ninth Street around 45 minutes ago.

An officer at the scene provided The Local with a surveillance image of the suspect, who is seen wearing a black cap and a long-sleeved white shirt. The investigation had just gotten underway, but the police officer said that the suspect passed a note demanding cash, did not show a weapon, and escaped with under $200.

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

After the departure of David Cross, it looks like the neighborhood is losing another longtime celebrity resident. Remember that $1.7 million apartment that had been featured in House & Garden? Maison 21 notes that it belongs to actress Chloe Sevigny and posts photos of the listing along with the magazine spread.

Paper magazine has new details on the CBGB movie. Malin Akerman will play Debbie Harry and Joel David Moore will play Joey Ramone. Meanwhile The Guardian talks to Joey Ramone’s little brother, Mickey Leigh, about the rocker’s new album. “Downtown New York had been on the decline since the 50s,” he recalls. “Alphabet City was a notorious drug haven, the Bowery was all hookers and alcoholics – it was dangerous. It took an area like that for something like [Ramones] to be able to happen. CBGBs was a place where you could make your own character. Everything else was discotheques and rich people.”

The Post has more on the woman who was struck and killed by a dump truck while crossing Broadway near 14th Street last week. Roxana Sorina Buta was a 21-year-old aspiring actress who was heading home from her waitressing job that day. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The scene of a similar incident last summer.

Someone shot a 19-year-old in the back with a BB gun at around 7 p.m. near the Campos Plaza houses, the police said.

The teenager was on East 12th Street between Avenues B and C when he was hit, according to the police. He was taken to Beth Israel Hospital in stable condition and no arrests have been made, according to a police spokesman.

The incident comes less than a week after a pair of teenagers were arrested for spraying a corner near PS 2 in the Lower East Side with BBs. Read more…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

Neighborhoodr posts a photo from Sunday’s Loisaida Festival on Avenue C while Off the Grid looks back at the festival in 1987, as photographed by Marlis Momber.

Real Deal notes that the East Village and Lower East Side saw a 47.8 percent residential sales growth in 2010, the most of any neighborhood.

Curbed admires a two-bedroom coop a block from Tompkins Square Park that’s going for $599,000. “It might be a little on the small side, but the layout, location, and price all seem pretty decent.” Read more…

Landmarks Preservation Commission The garage at 27 East Fourth Street, and the proposed building.

Community Board 2 beefed up its efforts to protect the historic Merchant’s House Museum last night, resolving to disapprove of a plan to build a hotel next to the historic building unless the proposed structure is scaled back.

Earlier this week, the board’s Landmarks and Public Aesthetics Committee issued a recommendation that the nine-story hotel be “in scale with the adjacent Merchant’s House, not industrial buildings on Lafayette,” meaning the new hotel should only be four stories tall. But last night, members of the full board objected that the recommendation failed to explicitly demand that the hotel’s construction permit be denied unless its developers agreed to downsize.

Nick Nicholson, the chair of the board of directors of the Merchant’s House Museum, felt that, without such a rejection clause, the recommendation wasn’t forceful enough in voicing concern that the demolition of a one-story garage next to the Merchant’s House and the construction of the hotel might jeopardize the structural integrity and delicate plasterwork of the 19th century landmark. And members of the board agreed. Read more…

Scott Lynch Work at the Mars Bar site is coming along.

Good morning, East Village.

The Post informs that Geoffrey Bartholomew, a longtime bartender at McSorley’s and a poet, has published a new volume of “The McSorley’s Poems,” entitled “Light or Dark?” and featuring gems such as “Restaurant Inspection.”

Speaking of local men of letters, the St. Mark’s Bookshop sends word that Ed Sanders will read from his memoir, “Fug You,” next Tuesday. Mr. Sanders, of course, was part of our East Village Other retrospective, the entirety of which you can find online at the newly launched EastVillageOther.org.

Yesterday, we noticed a new 24-hour convenience store on 14th Street near First Avenue. PcvstBee has more about Adam’s Deli & Convenience. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown A worker at the site.

Construction workers at 35 Cooper Square were preparing to pour concrete for a new sidewalk this afternoon, but knew nothing about any plans for the closely watched lot. Last year preservationists fought a losing battle to save the Federal-style building built around 1825 that once stood there.