eastvillagedenizen

Good morning, East Village.

DNAinfo has details on the newest – and, apparently, very temporary – mural at the space at Bowery and Houston Street. NYU Journalism’s Jenn Pelly
captured an image Tuesday night of the mural in progress.

DNA also reports that the owners of the wall space at Sixth Street and Avenue C – where the mural of President Obama was recently removed – are looking for an artist to re-paint the space.

And Antonio Garcia, the artist known as Chico who created the Obama mural, spoke with New York NearSay about its removal.

In other neighborhood news, Bowery Boogie has a full report on Kanye West’s not-so-surprise concert Tuesday at the Bowery Ballroom.

And Ephemeral New York posts an unidentified archival photo from 1903 that the site believes may be a relic of the time when the East Village was known as “Little Germany.”

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

There’s been a lot of activity in recent days around the subject of transportation and pedestrian safety in the neighborhood and we begin this morning by taking a closer look at some of the recent coverage. DNAinfo has an informative post about five surveillance cameras that have been installed along the M15 bus route on First and Second Avenues.

The cameras will be used to help enforce a ban against vehicles riding in the lanes (exceptions are made for right turns and picking up or dropping off passengers) and drivers are subject to a fine between $115 and $150. Bowery Boogie posted a photo of a group cyclists towing rolling billboards to publicize the violations.

The benefits and drawbacks of bike lanes, a source of much debate in the neighborhood, is the subject of a piece in The Times. And over at City Room, they want to hear from readers – few New Yorkers are as well-versed in this issue as we are here in the neighborhood so go ahead and weigh in.

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

On Friday, we wrote about how – despite the efforts of preservationists – permits were issued that would allow for the re-development of two townhouses at 326 and 328 East Fourth Street. EV Grieve has more details about what changes are expected to occur at the properties, including a look at the work plans.

In other neighborhood news, we’d like to offer congratulations and commiserations to Marc Canora, chef at Hearth restaurant on the corner of East 12th and First Avenue, who made it to the finals of “Next Iron Chef” before finishing as runner-up to Tribeca-based chef Marc Forgione.

There are two interesting historical looks at the intersection of Broadway and East 10th Street. Ephemeral New York has a then-and-now post featuring photographs of the intersection in 1911 and today. And EV Transitions examines the growth of Grace Church and the origin of the bread line that used to stretch from the old Fleischmann’s bakery nearby.

And The Villager has an update on Ray’s Candy Store, including details on how it fared with the Health Department’s revised sanitary inspection grades for restaurants.

Spencer Magloff Preservationists had sought landmark designations for these two buildings at 326 and 328 East Fourth Street.

On the same day that two preservation groups held a news conference urging the Landmarks Preservation Commission to reconsider refusing to designate a pair of 170-year old buildings at 326 and 328 East Fourth Street as historic landmarks, the Department of Buildings awarded permits for both buildings to developer Terrence Lowenberg.

“This is truly outrageous,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, who learned from The Local that the permits had been issued.

“It’s tragic that the Landmarks Preservation Commission sat on their hands for more than three months and allowed this to happen,” said Mr. Berman, whose group led the landmark designation effort. “A wonderful piece of the city’s history will likely be destroyed due to the city’s inaction.”
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When New York University announced that it was abandoning a proposal to build a fourth structure on the Silver Towers site, it changed the direction of its expansion plan.

Activists opposing New York University’s “2031 Plan” for expansion won’t have the “Silver Sliver” to kick around anymore.

That was the news yesterday afternoon as the university announced it would not be filing with the Landmarks Preservation Commission for approval to build the tower, which would have been the tallest building ever constructed on Bleecker Street. Although criticism of the tower had come from many quarters, the death blow seems to have been the hostility of internationally renowned architect I.M. Pei, responsible for the design of the three buildings already on the landmarked Silver Towers site. In news accounts, the proposed tower was disparagingly nicknamed the Silver Sliver.
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Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

The Villager reports that the overhaul of St. Brigid’s Church at Eighth Street and Avenue B might cost significantly more than expected.

According to The Villager, the church’s $10 million restoration fund has already been exhausted and there is still extensive structural work to be done. While church officials have deflected The Villager’s report they have not offered a timetable for when the work at the church will be completed.

In other neighborhood news, Bowery Boogie looks at the Bowery’s role in shaping modern slang, including such phrases as “chum” and “kick the bucket,” which Boogie suggests were popularized by notorious 19th century “street thugs” whose slang “never quite faded from our collective lexicon.”

Ephemeral New York offers up an item about neighborhood style, circa 1984, as seen in the pages of an old copy of the East Village Eye.

And EV Grieve, who blogged the EV Lambo to fame, may have found a rival for the neighborhood’s automotive affections.

New York University announced today that it would not be pursuing plans to build a 400-foot residential tower and hotel on Bleecker Street. The so-called “silver sliver” was an important element in the university’s “2031 plan” for expansion previously reported at The Local. Reportedly, architect I.M. Pei is expressing a preference to build on the Morton Williams supermarket site already owned by the university. — Kim Davis

Dan Nguyen

Good morning, East Village.

There’s more information this morning about the disappearance of the mural of President Obama over at Sixth Street and Avenue C. DNAinfo reports that the owners of the space, RCN, said that they removed the mural because they considered it a piece of “illegal graffiti.” A spokesman for RCN told DNA that they never endorsed the creation of the mural, which was done by Antonio Garcia, who paints under the name Chico. (The mural was also connected to recent news events: one of the assistant painters who helped Mr. Garcia create the mural is Jairo Pastoressa, who has been charged with murder in a fatal stabbing Oct. 25.)

EV Transitions offers some striking stills and newsreel footage documenting the 1956 fire at the old Wanamaker building at Eighth Street and Broadway. According to Transitions, 187 firefighters were injured in the blaze, which took 25 hours to control. The 50 million gallons of water that were used to put out the fire also flooded the Astor Place subway station causing enough damage to shut down the BMT and IRT subway lines for two days.

And, from a more recent page in history, The Villager reproduces an image of the old Tent City in Tompkins Square Park taken in the late ’80s or early ’90s.

<Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

We woke up to soothing pictures of the willow trees of Avenue C, brought to us by EV Grieve. The tranquility was quickly broken by news of protest on East Fourth Street around the corner, where a group of protestors raised objections to planned alterations to the 170 year old houses at 326 and 328. DNA Info has the story and reporters for The Local are preparing their own report on the larger issues surrounding the debate.

It must be time for coffee.

Robyn Baitcher Pizzas on display on the counter at Ray’s on St. Marks Place near Third Avenue. In July, city officials released a new cleanliness rating system for restaurants. Some of the revised grades for local pizzerias were released this month.

The East Village is home to myriad iconic late-night eateries, from 5 a.m. nachos on Avenue A to curry-sauced Belgian fries on Second Avenue. But for all our dining options, many of us share a common snacking obsession: The hot, cheesy pizza slice.

In July, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released a new cleanliness rating system for restaurants in New York City. Residents around the East Village have no doubt seen the department’s laminated cards – displaying letter grades of “A,” “B” or “C” – propped up in restaurant windows around the neighborhood.

Pizza shops in the area have had a tough time scoring well under the new system, in part because storing pizza slices on open display before reheating them can be a Department of Health violation.
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Liz Wagner Audience members at last night’s meeting of the State Liquor Authority committee of Community Board 3 listen as the panel refused to support a pair of license requests.

A Community Board panel Monday night refused to lend its support to plans to reopen two bars on Avenue A, despite pre-emptive efforts by business owners to smooth things over with East Village residents fed up with noisy nightlife in their neighborhood.

The State Liquor Authority Committee, which helps regulates liquor licenses in the East Village for Community Board 3, declined to lend its support to an application for the new space at 34 Avenue A, formally Aces & Eights, saying the area already has enough bars.

The committee also deflected a request from the owner of the former Superdive space at 200 Avenue A, explaining that the board had initially approved a license at that location for a bookstore or cafe. The State Liquor Authority subsequently permitted a change to let tenants apply for a liquor license, but the committee wants to stick with the board’s original decision.
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Samantha Ku David Mulkins, chair of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, with a 1901 stereoview of the lower Bowery by H.C. White Co. (enlarged below).

In a closet off the bedroom of his East Fifth Street apartment, David Mulkins stores a treasure trove of old New York artifacts. Stacks of round film reels, piles of papers, photographs and old entertainment posters compose a shrine to the Bowery from the 1800s to the present.

“A lot of people, especially younger people, if they know the Bowery at all, they only know the period when it was known for bars and flophouses,” said Mr. Mulkins. “In the second half of the 20th century, the Bowery was home to some of the most important cutting-edge art that has come out of this country.”

Mr. Mulkins, a high school teacher and 25-year East Village resident, is the chair of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, which works to preserve the historic character of the Bowery.

The organization started three years ago to protest the construction of the 21-story Cooper Square Hotel, completed in 2009. “It’s completely out of scale, out of context,” said Mr. Mulkins. “It’s probably the most hated building in this area.”

Currently, the Alliance has a two-pronged approach to the Bowery’s preservation. First, it has submitted an application to have the Bowery included on the National Register of Historic Places. Owners of specific historical buildings would be eligible for tax credits and grants from the state and the city. However, it is not seeking landmark designation from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which comes with a variety of restrictions, said Mr. Mulkins.
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eastvillagedenizen

Good morning, East Village.

We begin today by letting out a sigh of relief about a local musical landmark. There was a fire Saturday night at 98 St. Marks Place, known to music lovers as one of the buildings featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album “Physical Graffiti.” While the blaze looked scary – EV Grieve has some vivid photos of the fire – no serious injuries were reported and the damage appears to have been contained mostly to a second-floor apartment. When Grieve visited Sunday there was virtually no visible damage to the exterior.

In other neighborhood news, New York magazine offers its take on NYU’s expansion plan. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York examines the disappearance of the mural featuring President Obama at Sixth Street and Avenue C and traces the lineage of recent street art at the site. (NYU Journalism’s Claire Glass captured an image of the mural being removed last Wednesday.)

And while we’re on the subject of street art, Neighborhoodr has a photo of Jim Joe’s latest piece.

Molly O’Toole Jim Lesczynski (left) of the Manhattan Libertarians, with New York state Libertarian Chairman Mark Axinn and Manhattan Libertarian Chairman Ron Moore.

The chairs are eerily empty, the table settings untouched. A blonde waitress in a black apron, seated in the far corner, says something in a language I don’t understand.

“Libertarian?” she repeated, this time in English, with a heavy Eastern European accent. 
I nod, and she points to another doorway.

The backroom of the tucked away Ukrainian East Village Restaurant seems an unlikely meeting spot for the Libertarian Party, but once a month its members gather loyally here to share their fiscally conservative, socially liberal ideology and some spinach pierogis.

It can’t be easy to be a Libertarian in this neighborhood, whose preferred political fare is liberal Democratic. Last week’s election was no exception.
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Andre Tartar The six-story brownstone at 114 East First Street has been riddled with problems — including a four-month-long gas outage and a rat infestation. Today, the building’s tenants are taking the landlords, Galron Realty, to court over the conditions.

Across from Katz’s Delicatessen on Houston Street is a six-story brownstone with cast-iron fire escapes zigzagging up its front, a Punjabi grocer on the ground floor, and a laundry list of problems.

About a third of the building’s apartments were recently without cooking gas for 138 days — no less than 20 separate complaints were filed with 311 since late June. Rats long ago colonized the garbage area and have been heard fighting under some tenants’ windows — 24 vermin complaints have been filed with 311. And water damage in several units is beginning to look like a possible health hazard while shoddy repair work plagues many apartments, as was observed during a recent visit to the building.

Most of this concerns rent-stabilized apartments, which make up about half the building’s 30 units and can go for as little as $500 a month or less. That said, new tenants in renovated apartments, some paying rents above $2,000, have been among those affected by the gas outage and experiencing leaks. So today, the fed-up tenants of 114 East First Street will face their landlord, Galron Realty LLC, in housing court.
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Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

EV Grieve has a detailed post about the ongoing dispute between the residents of East Fifth Street and the owners of the now-closed Sin Sin Lounge.

The post describes how the block association on Fifth used a recent hearing before the State Liquor Authority to call for the revocation of the liquor license that’s associated with the property.

Meanwhile, Bowery Boogie reports on a recent Lada Gaga sighting at a Lower East Side yoga studio.

EV Transitions has a nice history lesson on the old A.T. Stewart/John Wanamaker department store on Broadway and Ninth Street.

And The Villager offers some intriguing clues about the owner of the EV Lambo.

Courtesy Antonio GarciaJairo Pastoressa was deemed “mentally unfit” to stand trial in the Oct. 25 murder of Christopher Jusko.

In the days since Christopher Jusko was killed, his step-sister, Christina Rumpf, has ridden a range of emotions, heightened since Wednesday when she learned that the man who the authorities said fatally stabbed Mr. Jusko has been deemed “mentally unfit” to stand trial.

Now, Ms. Rumpf feels sadness for what she says is essentially the loss of two young lives.

“I’ve always felt that living the rest of your life with the guilt of knowing you killed an innocent person is a certain kind of punishment, one that no court verdict will ever alter,” Ms. Rumpf told The Local. “One man made one quick decision and took two lives: my brother’s and his own. There really is no justice in a situation like this, only sad stories.”

On Wednesday, Jairo Pastoressa, 25 – who the authorities said killed Mr. Jusko Oct. 25 after a dispute over a woman in whom both had a romantic interest – was ordered to undergo treatment at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Ward’s Island.

Ms. Rumpf learned of the development from The Local and said that her family continues to cope with the loss of Mr. Jusko, who was 21.

“This has been an extremely hard time for my family,” Ms. Rumpf wrote in an e-mail message. “But we’re all doing our best to deal with the shock of losing someone so young in such an unexpected way.”
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Timothy J. Stenovec Firefighters extinguished an early morning blaze at Ageloff Towers.

Timothy J. StenovecThe fire was reported around 8 a.m. and declared under control about 45 minutes later.

Seven people were hospitalized with minor injuries this morning after a blaze ripped through a sixth-floor apartment of the Ageloff Towers on East Fourth Street near Avenue A, the authorities said.

Two people apparently suffered from smoke inhalation and all of the injured were taken to Beth Israel Medical Center. Officials said that there were no other injuries in the blaze, which occurred around 8 this morning and forced an evacuation of the 11-story building. The fire was declared under control at 8:45.

Dana Schwartz, a resident of the building, woke up early to go to the airport to fly to a wedding when she smelled smoke. At first she though it was her hair dryer, but then she heard a commotion coming from outside of her apartment.

“As soon as I smelled the smoke I heard pounding in the building and, like, a lot of people yelling,” said Ms. Schwartz, who is 24. “So I went out and one of my neighbors was looking out and I said, ‘There’s a fire we have to go.’ I came out and there were crazy flames coming out of the window.”

Ms. Schwartz ran with her luggage down the stairs and evacuated the building, where she was waiting for a family friend to come pick her up just minutes after the fire was extinguished.

“The scary part is over,” Ms. Schwartz said. “It’s scary not knowing what’s happening, but it’s fine now. I felt like it was under control.”

A woman who bystanders said was the resident of the destroyed apartment was accompanied by three children – one with bare feet – and was seen with a police officer trying to hail a cab.

Visibly shaken, the woman, who declined to speak with a reporter, huddled with the children while firefighters began gathering their equipment after they finished putting out the blaze.

Amid news that the MTA is working to improve efficiency on the M15 bus line, The Local East Village offers a special report on recent changes to the route. In the video above, NYU Journalism’s Alexandra DiPalma asks riders who use the service for their assessment of the changes. Bill Millard, a community contributor who frequently writes about transportation issues, offers an analysis below of whether the new system is achieving its goals.

Select Bus Service isn’t quite bus service as New Yorkers know it; it’s more a cross between buses and light rail. Like every transit innovation, it takes some getting used to. Adjusting to it boils down to three ideas: treat it like a train, stay out of the lane, and don’t expect miracles overnight.
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