Stephen Rex Brown Yesterday on Astor Place.

Good morning East Village, and happy Rosh Hashanah.

The National Review’s Katrina Trinko checks out Ron Paul’s speech at Webster Hall on Monday and finds a crowd that “skews more hipster than hip replacement.” In her piece, she dubs the contrarian Libertarian the “The President of the East Village.”

Further south, City Room has the latest twist in the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests: Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna may have used pepper spray in a second incident.

Back in our neck of the woods, EV Grieve spotted a noise complaint outside of UCBeast, the Upright Citizen Brigade’s recently opened East Village outpost. Anyone else think noise in front of the club is no laughing matter?
Read more…

Community Board 3 has just released its calendar of meetings for October. On the docket for October 17’s SLA Licensing committee is Fonda, a restaurant that EV Grieve noted earlier today is coming to the former Octavia’s Porch space at 40 Avenue B. A call to the Park Slope restaurant of the same name, opened in 2009 by former Rosa Mexicano culinary director Roberto Santibañez, reveals that it is planning an outpost. See the rest of the CB’s planned topics of discussions here.

Last seen staging a “takeover” of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, activist and photojournalist John Penley is planning a press conference at City Hall on Monday to address the police’s conduct during the Occupy Wall Street protests. He tells Runnin’ Scared, “Like everyone else I just got so outraged by stuff I’d seen both personally and in some of the videos.”

Francisco Daum

Good morning, East Village.

EV Grieve notes that Michael Moore will appear at the St. Mark’s Bookshop this Thursday. He also stopped by Zuccotti Park to lend his support to the Occupy Wall Street activists, as did Susan Sarandon and Dr. Cornel West, per Gothamist. The Daily News suggests that few of the protestors are familiar with the film “Bull Durham,” or any of Ms. Sarandon’s work for that matter.

Bowery Boogie hears that Lillian Wald Houses is getting a new park. A press conference and garden planting will occur at Avenue D and Fifth Street next Monday.

Next month, the Sixth Street Community Synagogue will open The Center for Jewish Arts and Literacy, “an ambitious program of classes, concerts, films, poetry readings and performances.” Leading the program is rabbi, saxophonist and all-around hep cat Greg Wall, who George Robinson profiled yesterday in The Jewish Week. Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown today, just FYI. Read more…

Meredith A. Bennett-Smith A performance at FAB! Festival on Saturday.

Good morning, East Village.

Last night, new information surfaced regarding the protests that ran from Wall Street to Union Square on Saturday. The Daily News reports that the hackers collective known as Anonymous has identified the officer who pepper-sprayed a demonstrator as Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna. The group also targeted Mr. Bologna with an “ominous but vague online warning.” Meanwhile, City Room reporter Corey Kilgannon toured the demonstrating group’s encampment in Zuccotti Park.

Ken Jaworowski of The Times catches “From Rags to Riches” at the Metropolitan Playhouse and finds a play that is “by turns slapdash, bewildering, rousing and ridiculous.” For those whose appetite was whet by actors Erin Leigh Schmoyer and Tod Mason’s preview performance at the FAB! Festival this past Saturday, the show will be running through October 16th.

If experimental dance is more your thing, Gia Kourlas of The Times reviews Brazilian artist Michel Groisman’s current show “Porta das Mãos” (“Door of Hands”) at Performance Space 122. Parents shouldn’t be discouraged by Mr. Groisman’s “Saw”-like appearance, as the show actively encourages family attendance. Read more…

Dominique Zonyee Scott Rosa Goldstein, Charles Krezell, and De Colores treasurer Elizabeth Ruf relaxing in the garden after the first meeting of LUNGS.

Saturday afternoon at the De Colores Community Yard, members of seven community gardens gathered for the first meeting of Loisada United Neighborhood Gardens (LUNGS), a support group founded by De Colores garden-keeper Charles Krezell. “I want LUNGS to unify all of our gardens, and make the Lower East Side greener,” said Mr. Krezell.

Forty East Village gardens were invited to the introductory meeting; in attendeance were a total of 12 representatives from El Jardin del Paraiso, Green Oasis, 6th & B, Miracle Garden, Jardin Los Amigos, 6BC Botanical Garden, and De Colores.

Diana Utech, 55, of El Jardin del Paraiso, considered LUNGS “a great idea,” adding that “we can share ideas to keep gardens alive, spread awareness about the positivity of gardens in the community.” Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village. The FAB! Festival and the falling tree certainly weren’t the only things that happened over the weekend.

A spokesman for the police told City Room that approximately 80 people were arrested on Saturday as Wall Street protesters marched from Zuccotti Park to Union Square. According to the spokesman, police arrested “individuals who blocked vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but also for resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and, in one instance, for assault on a police officer.” A Metro section follow-up indicates that officers, in what a spokesman for the protesters calls “police brutality,” used pepper spray. The department says it was used once, “appropriately,” in the case of a woman who was trying to prevent the deployment of a mesh barrier on East 12th Street. NYU Local has footage of that incident, and City Room posted more videos from the protest. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Brian Fox (in blue), Bob Tashjian (in brown), who both live on the street, assess the damage with Mr. Fox’s father (right).

Neighbors were buzzing around an area blocked off with yellow caution tape early Sunday morning after a tree crashed down on East Sixth Street between Avenues A and B.

Roberto Perez, who lives on the street, said he had heard a loud noise around 4 a.m. and immediately got up from bed to investigate. “I wasn’t scared, but I saw through my window a big tree laying there.” The tree, which was labeled as a Japanese Pagoda, cracked the windshield of a car. Read more…

Robert Schmunk The Parks Department has begun placing rat poison in Tompkins Square Park, a measure it previously declined to use because of the presence of red- tailed hawks.

The city has unleashed a new weapon in the fight against the rodent menace in Tompkins Square Park.

After destroying rodent hideouts and deploying mint-scented trash bags, new garbage cans, and “Feed a pigeon, breed a rat” signage, this week the Parks Department began baiting the park with poison.

Previously, the Parks Department had said it did not use rat poison due to the danger it posed to the red-tailed hawks that dine on the critters. But now, new Parks Department policy allows the agency to use poison when hawks are not in the fledgling season, which is roughly from February to August. Read more…

Daniel Maurer The alleged rape occurred outside of 303 East Eighth Street.

The 51-year-old accused of the brutal and brazen rape of a woman on Eighth Street on Saturday morning spent seven years being shuffled between city jails and state mental health institutions.

Neal Essex, who was scheduled to appear in criminal court today, spent a total of 1,350 days behind bars over the course of seven separate jail bids; all of which were related to a second-degree murder charge in 1984 (The Local was unable to confirm the victim or verdict in the case, but The New York Post reported that Mr. Essex was accused of killing his mother.) Despite all the jail time, Mr. Essex did not end up serving time in the New York prison system, according to a Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman. And, until the alleged rape, he had not been to jail or prison since 1991. Read more…

Runnin’ Scared has the harrowing tale of an actress and NYU professor, Cynthia Wright, who was nailed by a speeding cyclist while crossing Third Street at Avenue A. She didn’t file a report, but realized days later that she has several visits to the orthopedist on the horizon for damage to her face, jaw, knees and tibia. A friend then posted a sign in the neighborhood asking that the cyclist listen to his conscience, call Ms. Wright and help with the expenses. As it so happens, Andrea Peyser’s column today mentions an East Village man, Jack Brown, who was also injured by a bike but failed to go to the hospital.

Google Maps The Jacob Riis Houses, where Mr. Brown lived, at FDR Drive and Sixth Street.

The death of a man fleeing police across FDR Drive last week has led to aggression toward officers patrolling Avenue D, with some angry residents even tossing objects from the rooftops at them.

Lieutenant Patrick Ferguson of the Ninth Precinct revealed that the environment on Avenue D has taken a turn for the worse at a meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council last night.

“It’s been hostile,” said Mr. Ferguson. “We don’t have the best of friends there right now.” Read more…

Sick of that vacant lot? Tired of that dead tree? Now you can clean them up using grant money from the Citizens Committee for New York City. The Love Your Block grant offers up to $1,000 for any community group looking to improve a street in a variety of ways (trash cleanup, bicycle parking — the sky’s the limit). The city also chips in by offering the help of the transportation, parks, and sanitation departments, as well as other agencies. Here’s the application. An informational session is today at 6:30 p.m. in Lower Manhattan.

Daniel Maurer 303 East Eighth Street

A 51-year-old man was arrested for raping a woman on Saturday morning, an N.Y.P.D. spokesman said.

The victim told the police that the suspect threw her to the ground outside of 303 East Eighth Street at around 8:19 a.m. and attacked her. The suspect was arrested at the scene between Avenues B and C. The victim — whose age was not available — was treated at Bellevue Hospital and had bruising to the face, according to the spokesman.

A resident in the area commented on EV Grieve that a person walked out of a building nearby, saw the crime and called 911.

According to the latest crime statistics, the incident is at least the tenth rape this year in the Ninth Precinct, which covers the East Village.

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Ahoy, East Village! And happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The Times has more on the state of St. Mark’s Bookshop: Over time, the owners have had to halve their inventory from about 43,000 titles. Fun fact: The store’s rent when it opened at 13 St. Marks Place in 1977 was $375 per month. And some good news: according to Jeremiah’s Vanishing, this past weekend was one of the shop’s busiest.

Another St. Marks institution, Cafe Mogador, gets yet another celebrity endorsement: David Carp, founder of Tumblr, tells the Times that it’s his standard brunch spot.

The Times’s “At The Table” column visits Edi & the Wolf, the Austrian spot on Avenue C that “plays host to a mix of funky young Lower East Siders and buttoned-down diplomats.”

Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is the latest pol to voice his support for the St. Mark’s Bookshop, according to NY1. Meanwhile Runnin’ Scared wonders how many of the 27,000+ people who’ve signed the petition have actually dropped into the store to buy a book recently.

Borough President Stringer was also cheering on the new Lillian Wald Playground on East Houston Street between Avenue D and Lillian Wald Drive at a ribbon-cutting yesterday. The Lo-Down has a photo. According to a press release sent to The Local and others, renovations came as a result of $893,000 in capital funding allocated by Council Member Rosie Mendez and $361,000 allocated by Mayor Bloomberg.

Have there been playground improvements in Tompkins Square Park as well? One parent tells NY1 she has seen fewer rats. Others “say the rat problem is not entirely gone and there are still frequent rat sightings.” Read more…

A new citywide bike share program will debut next summer, and the Department of Transportation is asking for input regarding where the distribution stations should be set up. The map, which went live today, shows that people have already suggested bike share spots at Tompkins Square Park, Cooper Square, and Sixth Street at Avenue C. Where would you like to see stations in the neighborhood (if anywhere at all)?

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

According to Eyewitness News 7, a 22-year-old man fleeing police was struck and killed by a livery cab while crossing FDR Drive near 6th Street last night.

While the Bean opens two new outposts, its original location at Third Street and First Avenue is being taken over by a Starbucks, according to The Times. The Bean isn’t taking this sitting down – they plan to move right across the street. East Village baristas are quite stubborn, after all – though the owner of Ninth Street Espresso tells the Post he has loosened up on his rule of no espresso to go.

With St. Mark’s Bookshop now getting attention from the Daily News, Vanishing New York pens an open letter to landlord Cooper Union, threatening to boycott whatever replaces the store should it go out of business. Meanwhile Save the Lower East Side writes, “Frankly, I’m not convinced this neighborhood deserves to have a great bookstore… [The East Village] is a youth destination for children of means, not an intellectual or countercultural destination anymore.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

It’s primary election day, and across the East Village that means a Democratic scrum for district leader positions in two of the three assembly districts that carve up the neighborhood. In the 64th Assembly District, Part C, which includes the Financial District as well as a southern section of the East Village, Linda Belfer and Jeff Galloway are running against incumbents Paul Newell and Jenifer Rajkumarand. To the west, in the 66th District, Part B, the race is (as the Villager noted) between John R. Scott and David B. Reck. The female leader, Jean Grillo, is running for reelection unopposed.

Turnout is typically low for primary elections, and afternoon indicators showed that today’s contests are no exception. Read more…