A landmarked building on Bond Street will get two additional floors and major renovations to the entrance and backyard thanks to an approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Curbed reports that the plan comes after a previous proposal was rejected by the commission for being too out of context with its surroundings between Bowery and Lafayette Street. The building, which was built in 1890, fared better than a planned addition to the nearby Puck Building, which was rejected yet again by the commission yesterday.

N.Y.P.D. The suspects in the burglary.

The police are searching for two men suspected of stealing cash from Souen restaurant on East 13th Street.

The duo broke into the macrobiotic eatery near University Place sometime between 11 p.m. on Nov. 13 and 6:30 a.m. the next day and stole an undisclosed amount of money, the police said. The suspects are depicted in a surveillance image released by the police.

Souen, which also has a noodle restaurant on Sixth Street in the East Village, specializes in Japanese food and encourages — according to its website — chewing.

Last month, a group of residents living near University Place raised concerns about crime in the area after an early-morning stabbing outside of a pizzeria.

Brendan Bernhard

Good morning, East Village.

In case you missed it, The Local reported late last night that the police announced the arrest of a man suspected of attacking a woman in her First Avenue apartment building Sunday morning. 35-year-old Imre Meszesan of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn has been charged with burglary and attempted rape.

Middle Collegiate Church on East Seventh Street is among the churchs that DNA info says have offered to take in Occupy Wall Street protesters. NBC New York adds that the church served a pizza dinner last night.

The Daily News reports that Ai Weiwei, the artist known partly for his photographs of the East Village in the 1980s, has deposited $1.3 million into a Chinese government account while he contests charges that his design firm (which he says does not own) owes $2.4 million in back taxes. Read more…

Surveillance footage released by N.Y.P.D.

The police have arrested a suspect in Sunday’s early-morning attempted rape, Lieutenant Patrick Ferguson of the Ninth Precinct announced tonight.

Mr. Ferguson said that he had just heard about the arrest shortly before addressing around 25 attendees at a Ninth Precinct Community Council meeting and had no further information. A police spokesman had not yet received any information regarding the arrest of the suspect, either. [See update below.] Read more…

Abe Lincoln’s Jr.’s sidewalk art; Artist Alley at Extra Place.Scott Lynch

Three months after Occupy Wall Street started to take hold, in part after a planning meeting in Tompkins Square Park, the N.Y.P.D. began clearing Zuccotti Park of protesters and their property around 1 a.m. this morning. The Times reports that 70 protesters, some of whom had chained themselves together, were arrested for defying orders to leave the park. Gothamist had updates throughout the night, and linked to an Observer report that Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez was arrested (according to the press secretary of Councilman Jumaane Williams, he was bleeding when he was taken away). The Post reported that at least one police officer was injured: “He was seen being taken out of Zuccotti Park on a stretcher, his eyes closed and with several lacerations on his face.”

Mayor Bloomberg explained in a statement that he and the park’s owner, Brookfield Properties, felt the encampment was “coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protestors and to the surrounding community.” His complete statement is reprinted on City Room, which also posted a photo of Zuccotti Park at 7:22 a.m., completely cleared of protesters.  Read more…

Joel Raskin

Almost 10 years after protests over Con Edison’s 14th Street plant led the power company to agree to dedicate $3.75 million to funding environmentally friendly endeavors, more than half of the money is still up for grabs.

Last Thursday marked the most recent deadline for the submission of grant proposals to Community Board 3’s Con Edison Task Force, which manages the funds. But as the deadline approached, Carol Kostik, the chair of the task force, said that relatively few residents knew that approximately $1,991,084 in funding was there for the taking.

“I think people have really moved on to other issues,” she said. Read more…

Good morning, East Village.

The police have released surveillance camera footage, posted by NBC New York, of their suspect in an attempted rape. The Local reported yesterday that around 3:20 a.m., a man pretending to have a gun pushed a woman to the ground in the stairwell of her First Avenue apartment building.

If you enjoyed last week’s story about the return of a stolen bicycle, you’ll love this one: Gothamist points to a post by Jayson Elliot, who noticed a man suspiciously walking a $3,094 bicycle out of a Soho bike store. Mr. Elliot followed the man to Pinche Taqueria, where he says he saw the bike being sold to a delivery boy, and then to a secondhand clothing store on East 10th Street, where he got the police to arrest the suspect.

You may be seeing more gun-toting nuns on the subway: The Post reports that the N.Y.P.D. is upping the number of decoy officers on trains after a 16 percent increase in thefts. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

A man sexually assaulted a woman in her First Avenue building early this morning, according to the police.

A police spokesman said that the victim was walking up the stairwell of her building between 12th and 13th Streets at around 3:20 a.m. when the man pushed her to the ground from behind. He then pulled up the victim’s skirt, said “keep quiet,” and pretended to have a gun in his hand. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Free samples outside of NY Tofu House during its first night.

Good morning, East Village.

Why was it so easy for Edward Minskoff to secure a $160 million construction loan for his futuristic office building at 51 Astor, despite not having a single tenant? Mark Edelstein, the chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Global Real Estate Finance Group, explains to Globe St. that “it is adjacent to Cooper Union, mass transit hubs and NYU. It’s a funky area. Edward Minskoff has an amazing knack of finding locations ahead of its time and being extremely successful.”

The Post and DNA Info report that John Martinez, an ex-con who robbed women with an ice pick in Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town, will likely have his sentence reduced by two years, to 18 years, since he returned an engagement ring to one of his victims.

Meanwhile, more on the outcry over the ice skating rink that’s coming to the Stuy Town. A Website advertising the rink promises that it will be solely for tenants and their guests, but Stuy Town Living writes that “these events are often attended by the public and a growing base of tenants feel they are for the public, a dog and pony show to attract new tenants with seemingly little regard for the current tenants.” Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The future location of The Bean, in the former “crazy landlord” building.

Add The Bean to the list of East Village businesses that will feature Jim Power’s signature artwork. The Mosaic Man told The Local last night that he had just signed on to do his colorful tile work at the upcoming location of the cafe at Second Avenue and East Third Street. The Bean is the latest addition to the Mosaic Man’s portfolio, which also includes — in addition to numerous light-poles — Porchetta, Tompkins Square Bagels, and Exit 9. Mr. Power said that the management of The Bean had been very generous to him and his dog through the years, and he was happy to be working for them alongside several other collaborators. After a quick chat, the Mosaic Man had to get back to work. “Not bad, huh? I was homeless six months ago,” he said.

Michael Sean Edwards Outside of Life Cafe earlier this year.

Good morning, East Village.

Addressing accusations that Cooper Union hasn’t been forthcoming enough about its financial troubles until now, the school’s former president George Campbell Jr. tells The Times that the current administration is perhaps being too forthcoming about the possibility that it will begin charging tuition. He says, “Frankly, I think it’s a mistake to have this discussion now in the public domain, before doing all the hard work to see whether there are viable alternatives.”

The Times reviews a production of “King Lear,” starring Sam Waterston and directed by James Macdonald, that opened at the Public Theater on Tuesday. Bill Irwin delivers “an enlightening new interpretation of a well-worn character.”

EV Grieve discovers that Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches has become Vicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches after an ownership change this summer. Meanwhile the 4th Street Food Co-Op has reopened after a renovation. Read more…

Paul Defiglia A box that used to be loaded with rat poison.

Paul Defiglia Another broken box.

Someone broke open a handful of bait boxes loaded with rat poison along Houston Street last night, leaving the deadly pellets scattered on the sidewalk, a reader tells The Local.

Our tipster said that she noticed the turquoise poison on the sidewalk on Houston Street between Second Avenue and Avenue A (once “the most ratted place around”) this morning. A visit to the site later in the day revealed that the boxes had indeed been broken open — including ones on First Street — but no poison was anywhere to be found. The tipster had pressed officials from the Fire Department and the Department of Environmental Protection to clean up the mess.

Still, be alert when walking your pets in the area.

Seen something like this? E-mail us about it, and add your photos to The Local’s Flick pool.

Suzanne Rozdeba

Though some were all atwitter about Veselka’s Bowery’s new cocktails last night, the restaurant itself tweets that it will open for dinner tonight, with extended hours to come. And look: Menupages has the menu! The Local first took you inside Veselka Bowery, where Michael Sullivan is chef, in August.

The Observer hears that Edward J. Minskoff Equities has secured a loan from Bank of America valued between $165 and $200 million, for construction of its office tower at 51 Astor Place. The Observer paraphrases Mr. Minskoff as saying the building “promises to be among the most technologically advanced buildings erected in Manhattan in the past decade.”

The Villager discovers that Mike Falsetta, a friend of Bob Arihood, has taken control of the photographer’s two blogs along with Mr. Arihood’s brother: “As for Arihood’s voluminous photo archives of East Village street life, Falsetta said the hope is to give it to someplace where it will be publicly accessible, such as the New York Public Library. There are also plans in the works for a photo show sometime next year.” Read more…

Scott Lynch

Yesterday when The Times reported that Cooper Union agreed to give St. Mark’s Bookshop a rent reduction of $2,500 per month, we mentioned that Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer promised a formal announcement at 11 a.m. today. Now a press release from Mr. Stringer’s office informs that he’ll be doing so at the Bookshop along with Cooper Union’s president, Jamshed Bharucha, and the store’s co-owners.

According to the Post, a woman got a photo of the man who she said groped her on the subway platform at Union Square. “He went on the train and sat down as if nothing happened. I was hysterical. I yelled that he just groped me. I literally started punching him in the head,” City College senior Shyane DeJesus tells the paper.

The Huffington Post has a great interview with Billy Leroy of Billy’s Antiques, who tells a classic “Bowery story” about the time he bought a preserved tiger from a drunk man for $1,200 and turned around and sold it to the Museum of Natural History for $16,000. He says that the “old New York” is dwindling and becoming a gated community. “We have a sense of pride because we’re holding on,” he says of his antiques and oddities tent on Houston Street. “We’re the old New York. We’re really holding on by our fingernails.” Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Inspectors look for signs of the longhorned beetle.

Climbers from the federal Department of Agriculture were spotted today inspecting trees on Avenue A for signs of the dreaded Asian longhorned beetle, an invasive species that virtually guarantees the death of any tree it infests.

The Parks Department confirmed that the climbers were between Fourth and Fifth Streets at around 11:30 a.m. inspecting the trees for the circular, pencil-diameter holes that indicate the presence of the Chinese beetle that first appeared in the city — and in the U.S. — in 1996.

Since then, the beetle has been spotted in Central Park, Staten Island, parts of Brooklyn, and even as far away as Chicago. Typically, when a tree is found to be infested it is cut down, chopped up and burned. Trees in its immediate vicinity may also be felled in an attempt to quarantine the pest. Trees within a wider radius may be treated with an insecticide, as well. Read more…

Good morning, East Village.

How ’bout a little trance music to start your day? Sutra, a thriving destination for old-school hip-hop, sent over the above video celebrating its seven years on First Avenue, along with a flyer stating, “Back in 2004 when Sutra first opened its doors it was publicly accused of being the ‘#1 loudest bar in New York’ and it hasn’t quieted down since.”

Meanwhile MyBlockNYC has far less groovy video, picked up by Gothamist and Huffington Post yesterday, of an officer macing an angry group crowding a police car on Avenue A on Halloween night. One member of the group is eventually tackled.

Robert Christgau profiles Jeffrey Lewis, an anti-folk singer-songwriter who grew up in the East Village and is described as “the lifetime bohemian as likable supernerd, neurotic and vulnerable in a rather universal way.” His latest song, which you can listen to on N.P.R.’s site, is “a dystopian yet tongue-in-cheek reflection on consumerism, evolution, mortality and the tiny place of life itself in the cosmos.” Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The Cabrini Center at 542 East Fifth Street.

The six-story building that houses a medical center catering to the elderly is on the market, raising concerns that a new landlord will give low-income patients the boot before the center can build a new location.

Last night, Community Board 3 sounded the alarm on the possible closure of the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, sending a formal letter to the lawyer of the mystery buyer of the building at Avenue B and Fifth Street. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba

A scuffle at 7A reported by EV Grieve earlier today resulted in a shattered window at the cafe, which remodeled earlier this year. William Day, an employee there, told The Local that the fight broke out at around 5:30 a.m. “It happens every now and then – it’s a 24-hour restaurant,” he said. A police spokesman had no further information regarding the incident. The window had already been fixed by 4:30 p.m.

Alexander Kok 10th Street and First Avenue on Saturday.

The Times interviews the mother of Pvt. Danny Chen in her East Village apartment. The soldier, whose death in Afghanistan is still under investigation, was “a child of Chinatown who, amid self-doubt about his physical abilities, strived to succeed in the military.”

Last week it was reported that 68-70 Second Avenue, also known as 86 East Fourth Street, went for $8.7 million. Now a tenant tells EV Grieve that “the new owner and management are declining to offer new leases as current tenant leases expire.” Also according to a banner spotted by an Grieve reader, a complex of full-floor lofts is coming to 222 Seventh Street near Avenue C.

The Bowery, which already boasts Hair Date and (at Cooper Square) Hair Mates, has a new tenant: Takamichi Hair is moving from 35 Great Jones, into a space at 263 Bowery that, per a press release sent to Bowery Boogie, “has the feel of a chic, modern, art-collector’s home.” Read more…