Lauren Carol Smith

Good morning, East Village.

The Associated Press tells us that Gavin DeGraw, who was attacked by at least two men in the East Village on Monday night, has been released after a night’s stay at Bellevue Hospital. A police source tells the Post that the singer was too drunk to remember the attack clearly, but his brother Joseph insists he was drinking nothing but cranberry juice.

If that incident isn’t keeping you away from the nightlife, the folks at DNA Info remind us that the first-ever AlphaBet City Dolly Film Festival starts tomorrow. Thirty independent films will be screened at bars and restaurants between Avenues A and C, from First Street to 14th Street.

Two new Bowery restaurants are coming along: Yesterday EV Grieve noticed that Veselka Bowery was readying its tables, and now Bowery Boogie notes that the Bowery Diner, from the owners of Peels, has put up some signage. Read more…

Joel Raskin

Authorities are looking for two men who are believed to be involved in a robbery at the Baruch Houses, just below Houston Street. A police spokesman said that two men robbed a 75-year-old Hispanic male at gunpoint around 10:30 p.m. on Monday at 105 Baruch Drive. “The victim states that he was robbed and made to give up money,” the spokesman said. The suspects were described as about 25 years old and about 5-foot-11. This isn’t the only crime involving a septuagenarian victim in recent weeks. A 18-year-old male was arrested last week and charged with grand larceny after police say he snatched the purse of a 78-year-old woman in a wheelchair. The purse contained $15 and medication.

Lyn Pentecost, Executive Director of The Lower Eastside Girls Club, came across what some fashion lovers might consider the ultimate Craigslist find: 50 never-worn vintage wedding gowns, each with its original price tag. Looking to purchase one or two last fall, Ms. Pentecost contacted the seller (a lawyer representing the estate of a wealthy woman) who told her it was an all-or-nothing deal— 50 dresses for $2,500. She declined at first, only to hear back from the lawyer a few months later with an offer of $500 for the entire lot.

Within weeks, two boxes arrived on her doorstep stuffed with mint-condition gowns—garments that a group of teenage girls have since ripped, cut, and spray painted, putting an individual, modern twist on fifties style. Read more…

Laura E. Lee Union members on strike in front of Verizon offices

This morning, the blare of horns and cheering at the corner of 13th Street and Second Avenue marked East Village participation in the largest strike in the U.S. since 2007.

Dressed in bright red t-shirts and carrying signs, about 60 members of two nationwide unions (the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) again protested in front of Verizon offices today after contract negotiations with the company broke down on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, it looks like an atmosphere of rewinding the clock to a time when there was no union,” said Peter D’Esposito, a Verizon employee and member of CWA Local 101. Read more…

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

The Post reports that singer Gavin DeGraw was attacked by a group of men on First Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Streets around 4 a.m. Monday. He was scheduled for a concert in Saratoga Springs today, but instead Mr. DeGraw, who owns The National Underground with his brother Joey, is under observation at Bellevue Hospital.

The “outlook is dim” for the last of the lighting businesses along the Bowery. “Store owners point to gentrification, the downturn in the local housing market and the rise of online shopping as having taken a toll on their businesses,” writes The Wall Street Journal.

More change on the Bowery: The folks at Bowery Boogie and The Lo-Down recap last night’s CB3/SLA meeting. According to The Lo-Down, a “slightly more affordable” version of midtown steakhouse Quality Meats has been green-lighted for liquor at 199 Bowery. Bowery Boogie reports that the owners of Peels at 325 Bowery were given the nod for some alterations.

Correction: August 12, 2011

An earlier version of this blog post misstated the name of a neighborhood blog. It is The Lo-Down, not The Lo-Side.

One of the two police officers who was acquitted of raping an intoxicated East Village woman in 2009 has been sentenced to one year in jail for official misconduct, the Daily News reports. The officer, Kenneth Moreno, 43 was immediately taken away in handcuffs to begin serving his sentence as his accuser looked on. A jury found Mr. Moreno not guilty of rape in May, but did find him and his partner, Franklin Mata, guilty of misconduct for entering the woman’s apartment without permission. Mr. Mata is expected to be sentenced later today as well.
Update: The sentencing of Mr. Mara has been postponed until Wednesday because his lawyer could not be present, the Daily News reports.

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

East Village cyclists have been put on notice. City workers plan to discard several abandoned bikes near East First Street between Avenue A and First Avenue, according to a Department of Transportation sign spotted by EV Grieve. Better pick yours up by the end of the day.

The New York Daily News profiled former CBGB bartender Jane Danger, owner of Jane’s Sweet Buns. The shop, at 102 St. Marks Place, features baked goods with hints of alcohol, like a Rum Runner bun with nutmeg, cinnamon, raisins, brown sugar, Galliano liqueur and aged rum.

Finally, Neither More Nor Less, Marty After Dark, EV Grieve, and Gothamist have photos from Saturday’s protest against East Village gentrification. Activist John Penley and his crew started at East Third Street, found its way to the BMW Guggenheim Lab and ended at what used to be Mars Bar. A poem was read. A cigarette was lit. Signs were waved, and then the protestors went home.

Susan Keyloun

Good morning, East Village.

Here’s something to consider if you’re considering snatching up one of those rogue cans of Four Loko: Gothamist picked up a study from the Annals of Emergency Medicine that revealed 11 patients under the influence of the banned beverage (10 of them underage) were treated in the Bellevue emergency room in the four month period in late 2010. One patient had fallen onto subway tracks and five others were found unconscious in public places.

The Post’s police blotter (via EV Grieve) has news of a high speed getaway from Tompkins Square Park by a suspected drug dealer. After nearly careening into a sergeant in the stolen minivan he was driving, Robert Ball briefly escaped before hitting traffic and was apprehended.

Also from the Post, word that Jimmy McMillan, who ran for governor on a platform of “the rent is too damn high,” is facing eviction from his $872.96 rent-controlled St. Marks Place apartment. Mr. McMillan’s landlord claims he is in violation of his lease because he actually lives in Brooklyn. Mr. McMillan has vowed to fight the case. Read more…

Leila Samii

Earlier this week, the Daily News pointed to the intersection of Essex and Delancey Streets as one of the deadliest in the city. Where bicycle accidents are concerned, it isn’t the only dangerous street crossing on the Lower East Side. In fact, data shows that the neighborhood boasts many of the intersections most prone to bicycle crashes.

The Local obtained records from the New York City Department of Transportation of cycling accidents in 2008 and 2009, the most recent years available. The records reported all intersections where four or more cycling accidents occurred in 2008, and three or more in 2009.

Of the 33 intersections on the list, nine are on the Lower East Side (three of those nine are on Houston Street, the border of the East Village). The data reported a total of 45 crashes at those intersections.

Midtown was the second most sketchy neighborhood with 38 crashes across its accident-prone intersections.
Read more…

Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

A 1993 Lower East Side rape and robbery case came to an end yesterday when a convict pleaded guilty to the crime, DNA Info reports. Alberto Barriera, now 47, was first linked to the crime when his DNA was added to a Virgina database. Mr. Barriera is serving a prison sentence in that state on a separate felony drug conviction, and will be transferred to a New York prison when it is completed.

EV Grieve notes that 34 Avenue A is on the rental market again. Community Board 3 recently rejected a plan by Todd Patrick, a concert promoter, for a bar and music venue in the space.

Grieve also brings a short interview with artist Legacy Russell. She will be at Tompkins Square Park with her typewriter today, asking residents for their memories of the neighborhood. Ms.  Russell has been posting snippets of the memories to Twitter and they present an intimate picture of the East Village.

Finally, Girlie Girl Army opines that Harlem is the new East Village. However, a quick search reveals a number of contenders for that crown, ranging from Williamsburg to Philadelphia. One food blogger trumpeted Spanish Harlem as the new East Village as early as 2008, so who’s to know for sure.

We’ve now received more information about the disturbance that occurred at the 7th Precinct’s National Night Out yesterday. According to a police spokesman, a man fleeing the scene of a gang assault made an unlucky wrong turn and ran right into police listening to the precinct’s commanding officer as she addressed a crowd of local residents and elected officials.

The suspect was part of a group of seven who allegedly assaulted a 24-year-old man at Ridge and Stanton Streets at around 5:45 p.m. The suspect fled the scene, according to the police, but ran right into the gathering of around 70 people at Attorney and Stanton Streets.

As shown in the Local East Village’s video from the scene, the incident interrupted Deputy Inspector Nancy Barry’s welcoming speech mid-sentence as officers swarmed the suspect.

Read more…

Laura Lee While the 7th Precinct’s National Night Out was disrupted, the 9th Precinct’s event (above) went off without incident.

On the Lower East Side last night, a man allegedly armed with a gun ran past crowds and momentarily disrupted the 7th Precinct’s 28th Annual National Night Out, a community event aimed at reducing crime by bringing police and neighbors together.

Less than ten minutes into Deputy Inspector Nancy Barry’s opening speech, screams were heard on Attorney Street – around fifteen feet away from where she was speaking. Moments after, people began fleeing past Barry’s stage. The speech broke abruptly.

“He had a gun,” said a witness who was standing between Attorney and Stanton Streets when the commotion erupted.

Another witness said it was a “street fight.”

Read more…

Lauren Carol Smith Television reporters interview a local about Eason Alonzio, a disabled man who was left in a van and died after six hours yesterday.

The police have confirmed to The Local East Village that the developmentally disabled man who died in the back of a van after being left there for six hours on Tuesday was a resident of the neighborhood. News vans are currently clogging East Fifth Street.

The 48-year-old, Eason Alonzio, was part of a group of disabled people driven to a daytime activity at 2082 Lexington Avenue in East Harlem at around 9 a.m, according to The Times.

The group got out of the van operated by AHRC New York City, but somehow Mr. Alonzio was left behind.

The police said that at around 2 p.m. the resident of 224 East Fifth Street, was found dead in a backseat.

A cause of death has not yet been determined. On Tuesday the temperature reached a high of 91 degrees.

Read more…

Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

We start with a preview of Rent’s new off-Broadway incarnation from the Observer. The musical that portrayed the drug-infested Alphabet City of the early 1990s had a twelve-year run that eventually came to an end in 2008. The new production has kept original director Michael Greif on board and will open at the New World Stages on August 11^th.

Meanwhile on the big screen, the LA Times brings us a detailed look at the set designs for “The Smurfs,” which premiered last weekend. Exterior scenes were filmed on location in the East Village and the interiors were made to look like a shabby artist’s tenement from the 1960s that has survived largely untouched to the present day (a weirder concept than little blue guys running around town?) In one scene, star Neil Patrick Harris rocks out on “Guitar Hero” in a CBGB shirt – one reviewer called it “the moment rock and roll died.”

Banjo Jim’s closed last night, and EV Grieve notes that the“artisanal” cocktail bar that will replace it is now known as The Wayland. Elsewhere on Avenue C, TenEleven is also closed while it awaits its liquor license renewal, and EV Eats frets that a low-key favorite, Duke’s, is “slowly falling apart.”

Speaking of disrepair, EV Grieve has been keeping close tabs on a sink hole on Second Avenue. Previously, some good egg had marked it with a municipal trash can, but that has since been removed. One Grieve commenter has high hopes for the little crack’s role in neighborhood reclamation: “Hope it’s a large hole as all the yuppies and there [sic] poodles might not fit.”

Ian Duncan The Avenue C poker club was robbed at gunpoint on Saturday. It has now closed. Below: a joker marks the club’s door.

Six card players were robbed at gunpoint late Saturday night in a poker club on Avenue C, according to police reports. Two armed men entered the New York City Poker Tour club shortly before 11 p.m. and ushered the players into a closet before robbing them. One player – identified by owner Jeremy Martin as Michael C. – had just returned from a successful night at a casino and was carrying $4,500 in cash.

Ian Duncan

The club had closed on Saturday night, but Mr. Martin and a few other players were inside after hours. The robbers knocked at the door and were let in. They quickly rounded up the players, took their cash and left.

Mr. Martin believes that he was “set up” by one of the players, because the gunmen shook down Michael first, before ordering the other players to empty their pockets.

Mr. Martin said no one was hurt in the robbery, but according to police reports, one person was punched in the face by the attackers. The robbers escaped with $6,500 in cash, a driver’s license and a Medicaid card.

Read more…

Rachel Citron

Good morning, East Village.

Neighborhood restaurants are falling behind in the cleanliness stakes. In a report marking a year since letter grades were introduced, The Department of Health announced that 69 percent of restaurants received a grade A. In the East Village, 167 received top marks – that’s around 58 percent. City Room reports that Mayor Bloomberg thinks the system has been good for restaurant owners and diners alike.

EV Grieve picks over the agenda for next Monday’s meeting of Community Board 3’s SLA & DCA Licensing Committee, noting that the renewal for Heather’s will be a likely source of tension (its neighbors have complained about smoke and noise for years). Elsewhere on the restaurant front, DNA Info reports that next month an Israeli native, Zohar Zohar, will open Zucker Bakery, featuring Stumptown coffee and “cookies influenced by her European and Middle Eastern roots.”

The BMW Guggenheim Lab, which opens to the public on East First Street tomorrow, has its media preview today from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and you can follow along on its Twitter stream. Its organizers have been soliciting contributions on how to make the city more comfortable. It has achieved this in its own right, to some degree, by driving the rats from the lot it inhabits. Perhaps BMW could be induced to build a few more pop-up galleries around Tompkins Square Park and solve the problem there, too.

Karl Fischer An exclusive rendering of the new building bound for 427 East 12th Street

When the news first broke that a new six-story residential building at 427 East 12th Street would be designed by controversial architect Karl Fischer, speculation immediately ensued about its appearance.

Now, The Local has obtained a rendering of the building, which is marked by floor-to-ceiling windows and a penthouse that sits two stories above its neighbors. The developer of the building, Shaky Cohen, said that he and Mr. Fischer had strived to make the building fit into the neighborhood.

“We try to blend in to the neighborhood. We try not to be a focal point,” Mr. Cohen said. “Obviously it’s a modern building — we’re not going to replicate a design from the 1930s.”

He added that the building will feature a pair of one-bedroom apartments on floors two through five, with the ground floor accommodating an apartment with a backyard, and the top floor a penthouse. The building will also include perks like a virtual doorman and a communal roof deck.

But two local preservationists scoffed when they saw Mr. Fischer’s design.

Read more…

Marit Molin Sherwin Zabala stands in front of the construction that he says is hurting his Downtown Floor Supplies store on Lafayette Street.

Three business owners at the corner of Lafayette and Bleecker Streets say that construction on a new subway passage is warding off customers, leading to their revenue plummeting by as much as 50 percent. Workers for the Metropolitan Transit Authority have been busy since 2009, building a passageway between the uptown 6 train at Bleecker Street and the Broadway-Lafayette station. Unfortunately for the businesses at the entrance to the downtown 6 train, the latest phase of work, which according to an M.T.A. spokesman started four weeks ago, requires a construction zone that occupies parking spaces in the area and forms a barrier in front of the three store entrances. Read more…

Vivienne Gucwa

Top of the morning to you, East Village!

Ephemeral New York mourns some bygone record shops, including the Saint Mark’s Music Exchange, but it’s not all doom and gloom on St. Marks. EV Grieve notices that the space that briefly housed the CBGB store now hosts a tattoo and tobacco accessories shop. Speaking of CBGB, Bowery Boogie reports that John Varvatos and Jesse Malin of Niagara are teaming up to host a Sirius XM show, “New York Nights…Direct from the Bowery.”

EV Grieve notices web postings indicating that Bar on A seems to be for sale and Banjo Jim will close on Tuesday; meanwhile City Room remembers Mars Bar’s alternate identity as an art gallery, and WNYC also revisits the dive’s closing. Elsewhere on the art scene, EV Grieve gets a glimpse of the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s food menu, by East Williamsburg pizza destination Roberta’s; and the Times considers Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s online gallery of photographs from the East Village in the 1980s, also on display at the Asia Society.

Finally, New York magazine strolls the neighborhood with onetime “mayor of the East Village” Aziz Ansari. The actor and comedian identifies “East Village dogs” and interrogates a NYC Icy employee: “This is pumpkin flavor, not pumpkin-pie flavor. Pumpkin pie has pie crust in it.”