Citybiz reports that the hotel at 151 East Houston Street is going for $21 million. The building’s marketer notes that its “rooftop area and basement level could easily accommodate a restaurant, bar, lounge or a combination of all three, and preliminary architectural designs for such space have been completed.”
The Lo-Down outlines changes that the city believes will make Delancey Street more safe, including extended sidewalks, lengthened crossing times, and the elimination of left turns at certain intersections.
Add Douglas Howard to the list of people who are unhappy with the permitting system at East River Park. According to The Post, the East Village resident is suing the city for revoking his permit to teach tennis due to what he says is racial discrimination. Mr. Howard, who is white, was arrested after clashing with a park employee who, the lawsuit claims, gave preference to a non-licensed Hispanic tennis instructor.
According to a Citi Habitats report released on The Real Deal, January rents were up 5% from last year. In the East Village, the average studio went for $1,881 and 1-bedrooms went for $2,616.
The Post and the Daily News report that Louise Meanwell, who is accused of extorting money from Brian Cashman, the General Manager of the New York Yankees, was told in court yesterday that she will also face charges of harassing an ex-boyfriend, Thomas Walsh, who lived in the East Village. The charges, from 2010, had been suspended but are now being revived. Read more…
The Post has ID’d the man who climbed the statue of George Washington in Union Square yesterday as “Maksim Katsnelson – whose past antics have included a ‘protest’ against Donald Trump and scuffle with cops in Times Square.” He was taken to Beth Israel for evaluation but will not be charged.
The Real Deal reports that Rose Associates has taken over leasing at 2 Cooper Square, a 15-story rental building owned by a Kuwaiti firm where a studio goes for $4,125 per month.
Today in letter writing: Bowery Boogie reports that Rosie Mendez is on board with the East Bowery Preservation Plan proposed by the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors. That plan seeks to ensure that “any new developments in the area would be of a size and scale that would not interfere with the Bowery’s architectural integrity.” Read more…
If you heard marauders singing “New York, New York” under your window last night, it’s because the Giants won the Super Bowl, and the East Village was all a’Twitter. Jake Walsh (@jake_walsh2) posted a photo from inside the 13th Step. Heidi Hackemer (@uberblond) tweeted, “Giants win. Fireworks in the east village. Drunks screaming in the streets. Sirens wailing. Can we get back to Downton Abbey now please?” And Ben Furnas (@bfurnas) wrote, “All these East Village restaurants that told the Community Board they ‘happen to serve beer’ sounding an awful lot like sports bars tonight.” Strangely, not many tweets coming out of Professor Thom’s.
The Post is running with speculation that David Schwimmer is the one who razed a townhouse vying for landmark status at 331 East Sixth Street in order to replace it with a six-story mansion. Schwimmer still hasn’t confirmed it’s his property, but The Post says that “sources briefed on the purchase confirmed that Schwimmer is the owner.”
A press release from District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. announces the indictment of Jeffrey Bernstein. Mr. Bernstein once owned Pudgie’s Famous Chicken, an outpost of which is opening on First Avenue; he’s accused of stealing more than $2,500,000 from the Albert Ellis Institute. For more on the charges of grand larceny and money laundering, read the press release here.
Capital New York reflects on urban etiquette signs such as the one outside of Heathers bar that reads “if you go outside to smoke, please go all the way over to the corner of Avenue A.” The piece theorizes that “through the ’80s and ’90s [East Village] residents were paying rents low enough that they could overlook nighttime noise. As rents increased, so did complaints.” Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York disagrees with the idea: “We didn’t overlook noise prior to 2003–we remember when the East Village was much quieter and less crowded than the nightmare of screeching it is today.”
The Wall Street Journal notes the trend of Lower East Side and East Village restaurateurs opening offshoots in Williamsburg. A broker points out that Williamsburg’s retail rents are much lower: from $30 to $80 a square foot, compared with $100 to $150 a square foot. “The cheaper rents allow [restaurant owners] to experiment with new concepts with less risk involved.” Read more…
According to a press release from the office of Council Member Margaret Chin, the city council passed a resolution yesterday that calls on the military to “examine its policies around cultural diversity and sensitivity.” Says Council Member Chin in the release, “New York City calls on the armed forces to reform their policies regarding diversity training, bullying, and hazing.”
The Daily News reports that Shana Spalding, who robbed an East Village shop in June of 2010 and became known as Catwoman has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. “‘Get off of me,’ she said, cursing at court officers taking her out of the courtroom and photographers snapping her picture. ‘I’m not the Catwoman!'”
Ephemeral New York has a bit of trivia about Hengington Hall, a former meeting place for political groups on Avenue B that now houses an art studio: “Interestingly, it’s where David Greenglass — who helped send his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the electric chair — got married in 1942.” Read more…
Huffington Post picked up our story about the sale of CBGB and asked its readers whether the rock club should reopen. At time of posting, 59.87% said yes, and 40.13% said no.
EV Grieve finds a liquor license application indicating that Robert Ehrlich, a Sea Cliff, N.Y. cafe owner and the founder of Pirate Brands (makers of Pirate’s Booty snacks), is planning to bring a “local regional menu” to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge space.
The Voice sits down with Philip Glass. The composer sings the familiar refrain of “the rent is too high,” but also admits that the East Village has changed for the better in some ways: “The Bowery used to be synonymous with people who lived on the street and were alcoholics,” he says. “In the ’80s, if you wandered over to Avenue B . . . there would be people walking in the middle of the street hawking drugs! Just announcing what they had for sale! It was that open… I am not sorry to see that part of the East Village disappearing. It was a very grungy part, you know?” Read more…
And happy birthday to Philip Glass. Before the composer’s 75th today, NPR spoke with him at his home a block from the former Fillmore East, where he once admired Jefferson Airplane’s wall of speakers. His townhouse is equipped with “very expensive windows,” he says: “And at one point I realized, look, it’s like — it’s like looking at a silent movie. You can’t hear the cars.”
But forget Philip Glass’s windows: Architect Bill Peterson shows The Wall Street Journal his 14th Street condo, which includes a brownstone facade that folds into the apartment like a garage door, to create an open-air living room. The one-bedroom apartment, decorated with a photo of Patti Smith and a framed Fillmore East t-shirt, is currently on the market for $2.499 million.
Over the weekend, we noticed that Boukies, the Greek restaurant that will replace Heartbreak on Second Avenue, had posted its menu. See it on The Local’s Flickr page. Read more…
Last night, The Local reported from an Occupy Wall Street march that stopped at the former Charas/El Bohio building and ended at Tompkins Square Park. According to City Room, 12 were arrested: “Three men were charged with assault and one with criminal weapons possession, the police said. Most of the rest of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct. Three of the 12 people arrested were women. One officer sustained an injured finger.” Gothamist has video footage of a couple of the arrests.
Per the sign above, Veselka is offering free pedicab service to its Bowery location during weekend brunch hours.
Someone who might want to know about this service: The man who posted the flyer above, announcing that his bike disappeared from 13th Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue on Friday. Apparently it was a gift from grandma. Read more…
According to Curbed, the price of Adria Petty’s apartment at 325 East Ninth Street has been trimmed from $1.995 million to $1.85 million. The Local toured the condo when it went on the market in November.
DNA Info catches wind of an East Village resident who gives $10 astrology readings three nights a week at the Scratcher bar.
Still fighting eviction from his St. Marks Place apartment, Jimmy “The Rent Is Too Damn High” McMillan now wants a recount of votes in the 2010 gubernatorial election. According to the Daily News, he’s hoping for a bump up to 50,000 votes so that he can be placed on the ballot for the upcoming presidential election. Read more…
Runnin’ Scared reports that La MaMa E.T.C. is evicting Millenium Film Workshop from the building it has occupied at 66 East Fourth Street since 1975. Millenium board member Jay Hudson admits that the film collective, which has been hurt by steep cuts from the New York State Council for the Arts, hasn’t paid rent in about ten months.
Rumors that CBGB will stage some sort of return swept the internet yesterday after Gothamist said it had it “on good authority that the legendary venue is still alive in spirit, and angling to take over a new space in Manhattan.” Brooklyn Vegan noted a tweet from a CBGB Twitter account claiming to be official: “who would you like to see at the #CBGB Music Festival this summer? No band to big or to small.” And this morning, Bowery Boogie, without explaining much about its origin, posts a flyer indicating that “CBGB is Coming” July 3 to 7.
DNA reports from the funeral of Dashane Santana. Her middle school principal told tearful mourners, “We’re broken in the sense that one of our angels is no longer with us.” Read more…
Above: footage of 13th Step celebrating the Giants win on Sunday.
Marky Ramone tells City Room that he never actually wore the leather jacket being auctioned off as his own. He posted on Facebook: “It’s a fake. Yes, I had more than one coat. But this is not mine.” Update: The auction house tells City Room that it has taken the jacket off the block while it investigates its authenticity.
Speaking of CBs nostalgia, Gothamist quotes from a press release for “Bye Bye CBGB.” Opening at the Clic Gallery in SoHo on Jan. 30, the exhibition of Bruno Hadjadj’s sketches, photographs, and video from the last 48 hours of the rock club’s existence promises to pay “testament to the incredible endurance of CBGB’s influence.”
Delving still deeper into the neighborhood’s music heritage: Dangerous Minds posts some footage of Lead Belly, the blues and folk legend who lived at 414 East 10th Street. Researching Greenwich Village History writes that while living in the East Village, the bluesman would often stop into the Avenue B apartment of Elizabeth Barnicle, an NYU professor and folklorist, to record songs. Read more…
Teresa Pedroza, a resident of the Riis Houses, tells DNA Info that her family has raised more than $5,000 for the funeral of Dashane Santana, her granddaughter who was killed while crossing Delancey Street.
With the Board of Standards and Appeals holding a hearing about rooftop additions at 514-516 East Sixth Street today, Off the Grid reiterates its stance that “it is clear that the construction is inappropriate, out of scale and detracts from the character of the buildings and the streetscape.”
The Indypendent notes the opening of “Street.Life.Live” at the 14th Street Y, featuring the work of photographers Rebecca Lepkoff, Silvianna Goldsmith, Marlis Momber, Anna Sawaryn, and Shell Sheddy. The exhibition of photos of the Lower East Side from 1968 to the present “serves as a reminder of a time when things weren’t as rosy in the Lower East Side, a neighborhood that includes enclaves such as the East Village, Chinatown and Little Italy. Images of run-down houses and anti-drug protests remind viewers of darker times, when even the photographers themselves feared for their safety. ” Read more…
As previously reported here, The Times writes that religious leaders are opposing the creation of an East Village historic district. “Almost a dozen houses of worship, including the late-19th-century Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection and a crumbling century-old synagogue, argue that they are dependent on donations and that including them in a landmark district would make simple projects like repairing a window or fixing a roof more expensive and bureaucratically time-consuming.” In August, Ido Nissani, an architect and member of the Meseritz Synagogue on East Sixth Street, complained to The Local that “people who never stepped foot in this building now feel entitled not only to have a say, but to even have control over the building.” Read more…
In case you missed it last night, The Local reported that Benjamin Shaoul’s Magnum Real Estate Group, the new owner of the building that houses Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, has failed to come to terms with a potential new operator of the nursing home, increasing the likelihood that it will close when its lease expires in April.
EV Grieve has photos of workers dismantling the roof at 315 East 10th Street, which is also owned by Magnum. The building sits on the block that the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated a historic district on Tuesday. Grieve writes that the work started at 8:30 a.m., shortly after Magnum got the go-ahead for a controversial rooftop addition only hours before the L.P.C. vote.
The New York Post has a cover story on “East Village apartments with eye-popping asking prices,” including penthouses for between $3.6 and $4.525 million at 123 Third Avenue. The Post also reveals that 74-84 Third Avenue, the former home of Nevada Smith’s, will be turned into a rental building, and the vacant lot at 211 East 13th Street will house an 82-unit, eight-story development. Read more…
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is urging Transportation Department Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan to improve safety conditions on Delancey Street after the tragic death of Dashane Santana, who was struck by a car while crossing Delancey Street at Clinton Street. In a letter excerpted by The Lo-Down, Mr. Silver writes, “The recent accident which took the life of 12-year-old Dashane Santana is yet another reminder that we must act immediately to improve safety conditions for pedestrians at several dangerous intersections on Delancey Street.”
In an e-mail to The Local this morning, State Senator Daniel Squadron shares his thoughts on the loss of local activist Mary Spink, who died on Jan. 16. “I am lucky to have known Mary, and our community is lucky to have had her. Stories and commitment to the community like hers are rare and a unique inspiration. She will be sorely missed.”
The New York Times expands on reports that Booker & Dax, “a new bar that places technology squarely in the service of mixology,” is opening Friday in the old Milk Bar space in David Chang’s Momofuku Ssam Bar. Zagat first heard the rumors last week. It’s a collaboration between Mr. Chang and the French Culinary Institute‘s director of culinary technology, Dave Arnold.
Six protesters were arrested yesterday during Occupy Wall Street’s “Occupy the Dream” protests held at Union Square, reports The New York Observer. About 150 protesters marched around Union Square before entering several stores, according to AM New York. Around four protesters were arrested after being warned to leave a Bank of America lobby. The Wall Street Journal reports that protesters marched from the African Burial Ground to the Federal Reserve in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. “He set the benchmark,” protester Ted Actie said. “He set the blueprint as far as what Occupy Wall Street is talking about.”
In The Daily News, two Alphabet City moms sound off on Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to grade teachers. “A lot of the teachers are acting like the children. You can tell there are teachers who shouldn’t be teaching yet, and I think it should be known who they are,” Tracy Gomez, who has an 11-year-old at P.S. 34, told the paper. Yvette Hernandez, whose 6-year-old daughter attends Success Charter School, disagreed: “They shouldn’t be graded. They know what they’re doing. It’s not always the teacher’s fault.”
The Daily News also gives a shout out to Yerba Buena on Avenue A and Indochine on Lafayette Street as spots to hit up during Restaurant Week. Read more…
Mehdi Kabbaj, the owner of 20 Peacocks, a men’s clothing boutique on Clinton Street, died yesterday after being struck by oncoming traffic on the F.D.R. drive on Wednesday night, The Daily News reports. The paper writes that Mr. Kabbaj, 45, was drunk, got out of the cab in frustration at gridlock and was struck by a minivan.
The cabbie accused of raping a 26-year-old East Village woman at knife point on May 6 has “no idea” how his DNA was recovered from the woman, writes The New York Post. According to statements read at Gurmeet Singh’s Brooklyn arraignment on Wednesday, he initially told cops he “never” had sex in the back of his taxi, but then said, “Sometimes I pick up women, call girls, off the street and have sex with them.”
The Villager reports that local advocates are pushing to have the trials of soldiers accused of abusing Private Danny Chen held in the U.S. A coalition including Councilwoman Margaret Chin and Mr. Chen’s parents are in discussions with the Army to suggest reforms to its diversity training and recruitment policies. Read more…
A mural on East Second Street has infuriated a neighborhood activist, reports The Lo-Down. “Not only is it racist but it is also sexist and it is upsetting,” says Ayo Harrington. The artist sent a letter to Lo-Down, defending the work: “My name is Adam (Sirois) and I am the designer and commissioner of the apparently infamous Second St. Mural. The mural is part of a marriage proposal to my girlfriend and love of my life, Marisha. Fortunately, Marisha does not have the same myopic and antiquated notions as the community activist referenced in your article, and I am now fortunate to call her my fiancé.”
Rent is rising as apartments become scarce, according to The New York Post: “Manhattan rents soared 8.6 percent last year, while vacancy rates plummeted.” A sidebar photographed by EV Grieve indicates that an average East Village apartment now rents for $3,027. At least you can land your décor for less – according to The Times, you can decorate your pad with dollar-store deals.
Meanwhile Jimmy McMillan of The Rent Is Too Damn High fame makes The Voice’s list of “100 Most Powerless New Yorkers,” as do the employees of the St. Mark’s Bookshop. Read more…
The Post reports that a cabbie, Gurmeet Singh, is accused of raping a 26-year-old East Village woman at knife-point after she fell asleep during a ride home from Williamsburg on May 6. The woman was also robbed of $20 and her phone.
With the Landmarks Preservation Committee set to consider landmarking a portion on East 10th Street on Tuesday, Off the Grid digs up a photo of the block in 1934 and notes that it has “changed very little. Cornices, stoops, window hoods and original materials are all very much intact.”
Eater reports that The Wayland will open in the former Banjo Jim’s space this Friday, offering “a slew of cocktails made with housemade bitters, jams, and syrups” as well as a “menu of oysters, bone marrow, steak tartar, and smoked trout.” 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 »
Scott Lynch 
