The Times speaks to some of hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur’s neighbors in the Jacob Riis Houses and discovers that he often irritated them by throwing loud parties into the wee hours. But he wasn’t the worst neighbor: he also offered to fix their credit scores.
The Villager notes that, based on a petition of nearly 500 signatures, Community Board 3’s Transportation committee has supported a motion to co-name a part of East 10th Street after Cornell Edwards, the beloved owner of The Flower Stall who died nearly a year ago.
John Liu’s audit of 107 city playgrounds reveals what we already knew about Tompkins Square Park (rats!) and more: “The comptroller’s inspectors also found chipped paint on playground equipment and a missing safety mat near its swings during a visit last July,” reports DNA Info. Plus, “tripping hazards or cracked safety surfaces” were found at Dry Dock Playground at East 10th Street and Avenue D. Read more…
EV Grieve spots police removing the makeshift shelter that William Hernandez, a 59-year-old Cuban refugee who told The Local he had been homeless during his 30 years in the United States, had set up on the Bowery. We’ll let you know if we hear anything about Mr. Hernandez’s whereabouts.
The Real Deal cities a City Habitats survey showing that Manhattan rents were almost at an all-time high in February. Meanwhile vacancy rates in the East Village were at just 1.15 percent, compared to 1.59 and 1.34 percent for the Upper West and Upper East sides.
Eater reports that David Chang’s right-hand chef, Peter Serpico, is leaving the Momofuku empire to pursue independent ventures. The site also spots evidence that Momofuku Milk Bar is opening a location in Carroll Gardens. Read more…
DNA Info reports that Army investigators have recommended dropping involuntary manslaughter charges against four of the soldiers who are accused of driving Pvt. Danny Chen to suicide. If the recommendations stand, the soldiers will still be court-martialed on charges of criminally negligent homicide.
Neighborhoodr reprints a section of a new National Geographic city guide that gives a shoutout to “Mosaic Man” Jim Power. Read more…
In the wake of Retna’s new mural, Complex looks back at some previous installations at Bowery and Houston, including murals by Kenny Scharf and of course the original Keith Haring.
According to SchoolBook, Bill de Blasio and other city officials joined parents in protesting proposed budget cuts to after-school programs.
EV Grieve gets wind of an audio tour, narrated by Jim Jarmusch and featuring music by John Zorn as well as commentary by the likes of Richard Hell and Ed Sanders, about East Village poets and poetry. Read more…
The Daily News has a photo of the MTA worker who was treated for neck and back injuries after plunging down a shaft on 14th Street. He gave a thumbs up as he was transported to Bellevue.
The Post reports that bail has been denied in the case of Luis Martinez, accused of firing at police officers on the Lower East Side.
NY1 says residents are concerned about a sinkhole on Avenue C near 13th Street. ConEd says it will meet with the Department of Environmental Protection to figure out who’s responsible for fixing the hole.
The Lo-Down reports that a closed section of East River Park, near the Williamsburg Bridge, is now set to reopen this summer.
In The Villager, Jerry Tallmer pens an obituary for Barney Rossett. The late publisher’s wife says there are no immediate plans for a memorial – perhaps around the time of what would have been his 90th birthday in May. Read more…
The police say they’ve arrested the man they believe shot at officers on Monday morning. 25-year-old Luis Martinez, a resident of the Baruch Houses, has been charged with attempted murder, attempted assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and reckless endangerment.
Last night The Local reported from N.Y.U. President John Sexton’s town hall about the school’s ambitious expansion plan. Today, Chabad.org has news of students making some real estate moves: Chabad House has hosted its inaugural event in its new Bowery digs, a “8,000-square-foot space with exposed steel beams, warm wood-toned doors, leather couches and room for everyone.” The space, for which the Jewish organization has raised $5 million, is “divided into a main hall, industrial kitchen, a rabbi’s study, meeting space, conference room and offices, library and synagogue, the building will allow for even further innovation as programs migrate to the new space.”
DNA Info sits in on a cooking class at East Village Community School that’s sponsored by the Food Bank for New York City’s CookShop program. Started in 1994, the program aims to teach healthy choices to students in high-need areas. Read more…
Gothamist reports that an estimated 200 people – including Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary, who performed Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and other songs – converged on Union Square yesterday to protest police brutality. All Hip Hop reported that Dr. Cornel West and Norman Siegel were also expected at the rally protesting the “oppression of the Occupy movement.” You can see more of Scott Lynch’s photos of the event in The Local’s Flickr pool.
The Daily News has a shot of a mural depicting Jeremy Lin that graffiti-artist collective Tats Cru has painted on a wall on East Second Street: “The mural was commissioned by online culture magazine Animal for several thousand dollars, and will be up for at least a month.”
The Lower East Side Preservation Initiative tips us off to an event, “Germany in America: Kleindeutschland and New York City’s Lower East Side,” that will include an illustrated talk by Dr. Richard Haberstroh, a genealogist, about the East Village’s Little Germany, which was once the third-largest population of Germans in the world. It’s tomorrow from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Neighborhood Preservation Center at 232 East 11th Street, between Second and Third Avenues. E-mail LESPI-nyc.org or call (212) 477-9869 to make a free reservation.
The folks at Horse Trade Theater tell us that some productions from Frigid New York festival – “Fear Factor: Canine Edition,” “Little Lady,” “The Terrible Manpain of Umbertto MacDougal,” “The Rope in Your Hands,” “Missed Connections,” “Coosje,” and “Rabbit Island” – have been held over and Frigid Hangovers will run March 5 to 10 at The Kraine Theater. Tickets can be purchased online here.
Speaking of the Frigid festival, East Village Arts hears from Tim Murphy of “Blind to Happiness,” which “aims to leave the audience questioning their own perceptions and derivations of happiness.” Read more…
The video above just hit YouTube and is said to have been made for the PS 122 video workshop. It pairs audio of Paul DiRienzo’s coverage for WBAI of the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riots with video of the park ten years later. But the park’s history of protest isn’t entirely behind it: stay tuned for our report from the Occupy Town Square event yesterday.
Crain’s New York profiles Andrew Berman, the head of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation who is often quoted in these pages. And the profile isn’t exactly flattering: dubbing him “The Obstructionist,” Crain’s says that “developers may finally be getting the upper hand on their longtime tormenter” (citing NYU 2031, among others) and writes that “Mr. Berman’s outsize personality and nose for the limelight has alienated activists, community board members and other neighborhood groups who have been his allies over the years. At the same time, dustups between Mr. Berman and others have bruised egos and increasingly splintered a fragile coalition seeking to insulate the area from development.”
Speaking of gentrification, The Daily News notes that Life Cafe is for rent, and gets the obligatory quote from the publicist for “Rent,” which was written at Life: “The East Village of ‘Rent’ is a very different place than the East Village of today,” says Richard Kornberg. “‘Rent’ helped gentrify that neighborhood, but unfortunately places like Life which were once institutions could no longer fit in the market.” Read more…
Yesterday The Local spotted a construction crew removing jersey barriers on Houston Street, near Crosby Street – close to where a bus got stuck in August. Will the congested artery be slightly less of a pain now?
According to another press release, Magen David of Union Square, a Sephardic synagogue based in Union Square, is planning to move to new digs on Sullivan Street. The Real Deal has more about the new facility and the $3.3 million building purchase.
The Wall Street Journal reports that online poker player Phil Galfond is selling his East Village duplex, which includes a game room, a wet bar, and a custom-built steel slide connecting two floors, for $4 million. Read more…
The Times prints a proper obituary for Barney Rosset, the trailblazing publisher who died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. According to his son Peter, he died after a double-heart-valve replacement.
NY1 reports that a teacher’s aide at P.S. 94 was suspended and transferred to another school after she was accused of striking a nine-year-old autistic student on the head and then later grabbing him by the arm and slamming into a chair. “It’s disturbing,” says the mother, “that she’ll be working with other children with special needs that can’t speak and can’t defend themselves.”
Gothamist talks to Lit owner Max Brennan on the bar’s tenth anniversary, who says the neighborhood has changed since the bar opened. “There were many little bar/venues for bands that have since gone out of business and have been replaced with upscale, overpriced coffee lounges and designer clothing boutiques.” Still, he admits “the coffee is pretty good” at Starbucks. Read more…
Hypervocal points to a trailer for “This Is My Home,” Mark Cersosimo’s documentary about Anthony Pisano, whose East Village apartment of 32 years is a virtual curiosity cabinet. Watch it above.
Add another one to the more than 80 crimes we brought word of yesterday: The Post reports that two men were caught sneaking into Il Bagatto on East Second Street on Feb. 13 and one of the perps admits to having broken into Spice Cove and Landmark Vintage Bicycles.
Real Deal notes that Ashkenazy Acquisition has ramped up its marketing efforts to sell 235 East 14th Street for an asking price of $14.5 million. According to the item, the building got an IHOP because Ben Ashkenazy is a managing member of Trihop, which owns IHOP franchise rights in the tri-state area.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the bi-annual Antifolk Festival will be at Sidewalk Cafe from Feb. 22 to Feb. 26. American Songwriter also sits down with booker Ben Krieger, who confesses he misses a couple of things about the old Sidewalk: “There was this smokin’ hot Southern waitress that used to work the back room on Mondays. I miss her. And I’ll never forgive [management] for killing the salmon burger.” Read more…
Your “neighborhood” Starbucks opened today in the Bean’s former home at First Avenue and Third Street. Hours are from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday (it closes at 10 p.m. on Sundays) and wireless won’t be installed for another few weeks. So much for our plans to liveblog the coffee shop’s first day. And three blocks north, the Subway between Sixth and Seventh Streets has opened.
On Friday night, Marco Canora, the owner of Hearth, tweeted, “Yes that’s a cab that just ran into the corner of HEARTH restaurant. Scared the hell out of our guests.” According to Eater, there were no injuries.
Pavement Pieces speaks to Larry Jackson, a 56-year-old homeless man who sells cigarettes in Tompkins Square Park and sleeps on the banks of the East River. “After losing his ‘dream job’ as mortician in sunny Los Angeles, Jackson hitchhiked across the country, arriving in New York City on his last dollar and dying hope for work just eight months ago.” Read more…
According to DNA Info, Kelly’s Sports Bar on Avenue A is one of the satellite-equipped watering holes benefiting from the cable blackout on Knicks games. In a previous item about Linsanity, DNA Info noted that 13th Step has also seen its share of basketball fans.
Speaking of Jeremy Lin, Diner’s Journal reports that Baohaus has added a sandwich to its menu called the “The Taiwanese Te-Bao,” and Eater notices that the restaurant has built a shrine to the baller.
Sound of the City attends the opening of Ed Sanders’s exhibit at Boo Hooray Gallery. Jesse Jarnow describes Mr. Sanders as “a soft-spoken straight man to the world’s ‘military-industrial surrealists,’ as he dubbed them in his nine-volume ‘America: A History in Verse.’ During a short reading, he presented from Fug You’s chapter about the Peace Eye obscenity raid and, while undoubtedly mellowed since his Fugs days, retained his keen drollness.” Read more…
On Ninth Street, setting the scene for the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” See more of Scott Lynch’s photos in The Local’s Flickr Pool, and see Rachel Citron’s slideshow here.
Good morning, East Village.
AM New York reports that the driver and passenger who crashed into a taxi cab yesterday at 13th Street and Third Avenue and then fled the scene have turned themselves in and have been charged with leaving the scene of an accident and (in the driver’s case) reckless endangerment.
The Daily News has the latest on the Denny Chen case: “The Army officer accused of looking the other way while his soldiers drove Pvt. Danny Chen to his death is facing a court martial. So is a sergeant who allegedly joined in on the sadistic and racist abuse of Chen, a 19-year-old soldier from the Lower East Side, the military said.” Read more…
The Post reports that a fire broke out last night on the second floor of an apartment building at 21 East Second Street, near Second Avenue, and spread across four stories: “The three-alarm inferno ran mostly through one shaft in the building and was difficult to put out because several of the apartments were heavily cluttered, the FDNY said.” According to the AP, the fire, which started around 11:30 a.m., wasn’t under control until 1:30 a.m. and two firefighters and three civilians were treated for minor injuries. NBC New York reports that about 30 adults and four children have been displaced and the cause of the blaze is under investigation.
DNA Info reports that a car crash on Third Avenue and 14th Street left two people hurt early this morning.
In case you missed The Local’s earlier coverage, there was a minor fire on St. Marks Place this morning, and a head-on collision on FDR Drive early Sunday morning. Two were killed and two injured in the car wreck, which occurred near Houston Street.
The Post reports that a husband and wife who met at a Grateful Dead concert are opening the Chabad Serving NYU synagogue above the building at 353 Bowery where the 7-Eleven is located. “CBGB was the hub of punk-rock culture, driven by passion, excitement and energy — an energy that’s an expression of spiritual thirst,” says Lubavitch Rabbi Dov Yonah Korn. “Two blocks north, we’re harnessing that energy in a Jewish way.”
The Daily News tells the story of the newest Knicks star, Jeremy Lin, who rose to stardom while sleeping on a couch in what the paper says is his brother’s East Village apartment. The Post has a photo of the couch, and places the apartment in the Lower East Side. E-mail us if you have any Linformation about the sofa’s exact location. Read more…
The Daily News reports that a Manhattan lawyer’s license has been suspended owing to a 2007 incident in which he assaulted his girlfriend in her East Village apartment. According to the News, Michael Zulandt “grabbed a hammer, smashed her $3,500 Cartier watch, ruined her $1,000 purse by filling it with water, poured oil on her $1,500 couch and ripped into artwork with a pen before ripping her intercom off the wall and snatching her cell phone.”
Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York notices a flyer demanding, on behalf of “The East 10th Street Protestors,” that the owner of 106 and 110 East 10th Street “clean up his mess” at two townhouses where work is being done.
The Villager profiles the eccentric CD and DVD vendor on Avenue A who goes by the name of the Birdman: “The proprietor estimates that there are more than 100,000 CD’s in a space that is much too small for them. And that’s just in the front — the back room holds another 20,000. Not long ago, The Birdman spent five hours trapped in that room when the piles collapsed, trapping him until he could dig himself out.” Read more…
The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »
Meagan Kirkpatrick
