Sasha von Oldershausen

Sasha von Oldershausen

There’s never a shortage of pizza news in the neighborhood.

Yesterday, Joey Pepperoni’s opened at 245 14th Street, just a couple blocks away from the location that opened on First Avenue in August. The latest outpost is right next to the IHOP and 7-Eleven, and across from another $1 slice joint, Krust.

And while we’re talking dollar slices — a bold experiment in $1.50 slices has apparently failed: 2 Bros. Plus, which had been serving $1.50 slices a couple of doors over from the dollar-slice original on St. Marks Place, has been closed for a few weeks now.

Suzanne Rozdeba

There’s a slice special at the new Nino’s. Just how good is the deal? Well, it depends which way you’re walking. Above, both sides of the sandwich board earlier today.

Damaged house in the Rockaways. Matt Kliegman

East Villagers continue to band together to help bring relief to the storm-battered Rockaways, where thousands are still without power or heat.

On the Sunday after Hurricane Sandy struck, Emmett Shine – founder of Gin Lane Media, a Bowery-based branding and design company – and James Cruickshank, his partner in Lola and an owner of Whitmans restaurant on East Fifth Street, poured into a 15-seat passenger van with 14 other people and headed out to the ravaged peninsula. They ended up at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club at Beach 87th Street, where Lava Girl Surf was leading a community relief effort.

“We were so impressed that this whole grassroots organization had flourished at this beach club,” said Rebecca Zhou, 22, a strategist at Gin Lane.

The group broke into teams of five and began distributing donated items. “That day people in our group cleaned out flooded basements and helped people clear out moldy, wet furniture,” said Ms. Zhou, who went door-to-door, checking on the elderly residents of a high-rise apartment complex. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Alternate-side parking rules, suspended in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, are back in effect today, according to the Department of Transportation.

And that’s not the only hassle for Village vehicles: “Smash,” the NBC show (now with Liza Minnelli!) that has filmed in the neighborhood numerous times, is back at it, according to signs posted, oh, just about everywhere.

Cars are discouraged from parking in the following areas:

East side of Second Avenue, between Easr Sixth and East Ninth Streets
East side of First Avenue, between East Sixth and East 10th Streets
Both sides of St. Marks Place, between First and Second Avenues
West side of First Avenue, between St. Marks Place and East Ninth Street.

By the way: This weekend “Criminal Justice,” a new HBO crime drama starring James Gandolfini, filmed at Stuyvesant Street and East 10th Street, in the middle of Saturday-night madness. We shared footage from the shoot on Twitter.

Suzanne Rozdeba

The Jacob Riis Houses, still reeling from Hurricane Sandy, were hit by a fire early this morning.

The blaze erupted in a 13th-floor apartment shortly before 12:50 a.m. and was under control within half an hour, the fire department said. There were no injuries.

Residents of the high-rise on East 10th Street, between Avenue D and FDR Drive, told The Local that a woman and her son lived in the apartment, and were temporarily relocated.

“Hopefully they’ll be able to have a good Thanksgiving,” said one neighbor. “Thank God they’re okay.”

Suzanne Rozdeba contributed reporting.

Joann Pan On Tuesday, Knickerbocker Village management said they will have electricity fully restored to its buildings by early Wednesday morning.

Two apartment complexes that were among the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy are inching back to normality.

Residents at One Haven Plaza who last week were without power are in a better place today, as electricity is flowing to most of the building’s apartments, and heat and hot water have been fully restored.

But work remains to be done. “In some apartments, [electricity] is still not on,” said Daisy Lopez, site manager for Haven Plaza. “But we have the electrician here and he’s going to go around.”

The development’s management company, Wavecrest Management Team, has hired Enviro Waste, a hazardous waste company, to clean and sanitize flooded basements where power equipment was badly damaged. Electricians are also repairing elevator cables in the complex’s four high-rises, in hopes of getting an elevator in each building running by late tomorrow.

Until then, Ms. Lopez said, management is discouraging elderly tenants — some of whom were given temporary shelter at the Grand Street Guild, also managed by Wavecrest — from returning to their apartments.

Still, many evacuees have done just that. One sign of improved conditions: today was the last day tenants were provided hot meals.
Read more…

Sanna Chu

A man who assaulted two women and slashed a third victim inside of an East Village subway station was sentenced to 15 years in prison today.

On Sept. 30, 2010, Godfrey Molemohi, 54, approached Roxanna Christina Walitzki at the F train station at East Houston Street and Second Avenue and told her, “I want to touch you,” according to the office of District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.

Ms. Walitzki, an N.Y.U. graduate student and opera singer, tried to flee her attacker, but he punched her in the neck, inflicting what was described in a sentencing memorandum as a “career-threatening” injury to her throat.

Mr. Molemohi then approached an unidentified woman and banged her head against a tiled wall.

Douglas Smith, a stand-up comedian, tried to help the second victim and was slashed from ear to chin with a boxcutter. He sustained “a deep laceration and permanent facial disfigurement,” according to the District Attorney’s office. Read more…

Alexa Mae Asperin

Park Slope has landed in the East Village.

Union Market will soft-open at 240 East Houston Street — the former home of Houston Deli & Grocery Corp., on the corner of Avenue A — sometime between 10 a.m. and noon tomorrow.

Following a grand opening next week, it’ll be open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., according to general manager Steve Cardona.

The gourmet market, which launched its first store in Park Slope in 2004 and has since opened two more in Brooklyn, professes a commitment to humanely-raised organic meat, prime butchering, local and seasonal produce, sustainable seafood, baked goods and desserts from local bakers, “chef-driven” prepared foods, and a wide variety of specialty products.

In February of last year, The Times wrote that the first Manhattan outpost would boast “green construction, expanded departments, a facility for aging beef and more services, including personal shopping.”

Just a few days after Halloween redux, the winter holidays have come to the East Village.

A crew is putting up lights over St. Marks Place, meaning it’s that time of year again.

Still no date announced for Unsilent Night. But brace for SantaCon, Dec. 15.

Saturday evening, Archangel Antiques was one of the dozens of East Village and Lower East Side shops giving out candy to neighborhood kids. As for us, we got something even sweeter: a nice bit of gossip.

In August, co-owner Richard Cullen told us that a celebrity he couldn’t name had purchased a couple of his old typewriters. While showing us around this time, he let drop that the celeb — who has now snagged five of the classic keyboards — was none other than…

Well, you’ll have to watch our video to find out. Here’s a hint: he’s quite the collector.

Sanna Chu

After the storm, sandy streets have become a fact of life for many New Yorkers. But sand on Third Avenue?

Around 11 a.m., a sanitation truck was picking up garbage when there was a “loud pop,” according to one of the drivers. The truck spilled hydraulic fluid down Third Avenue, from 12th to 11th Street.

Earlier this morning, the fire department had covered the oil slick with sand and the truck was waiting for a mechanic to check on the damage.

Two weeks ago, the Jacob Riis Houses were hit by Hurricane Sandy.

Annie Stergis, 80, and her daughter Sharon, 50, were among those trapped on the 13th floor of a darkened high-rise as water from the East River flooded Avenue D.

Having lost a leg following an incident that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, Annie, a diabetic, didn’t want to evacuate her apartment and go to a shelter that might not be able to accommodate her medical needs. After a third day without power, as her food supply diminished, she feared that any small injury to her remaining leg might leave her in dire straights.

In this video, the Sergises tell their story.

Daniel Maurer Miguel Gutierrez of Nino’s

A couple of businesses on the corner of Avenue A and St. Marks Place have taken longer than most to reemerge from Sandy.

EV Grieve noted Friday that Nino’s, the corner pizzeria, had closed, causing commenters to go into mourning mode. So imagine The Local’s surprise to find it open last night.

Pointing to a spot above the front window, Miguel Gutierrez, a manager, explained that the ceiling leaked during Sandy and the owner decided to use it as an excuse to strip the place down. Now the walls consist of wood beams, and the pies sit on a wooden front counter sans glass display.

Other than that, Mr. Gutierrez assured, “the place is going to be the same,” open 20 hours a day with the same menu.

Next-door, Flea Market — no stranger to temporary closures — remains dark. A sign on the window reads: “We are closed for post-Sandy renovations.”

Nicole Guzzardi

Courtesy Liz Wolff Piano outside of Ms. Wolff’s family’s home.

Cure Thrift Shop usually donates proceeds from its earnings to diabetes research, but this week it has a new cause: the Rockaways, where residents – about 31,000 of them still without power – are cleaning up demolished homes and struggling for food and warmth.

Liz Wolff, the store’s owner, has a personal connection to the devastation: she grew up in Rockaway Beach, and her parents’ home was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy, as were those of friends and family. The wreckage, she said, was incredible.

“Homes are either tumbled to the ground, or just unlivable,” she said.

To help out, she decided to turn her store into a donation center. “A lot of people in the city can’t get out to Rockaway and they want to be able to help and do anything they can,” she said, “but of course gas is an issue now, so we’re collecting everything here.” Read more…

Hugh Mackie has spent the past weeks cleaning up damage in the basement of his motorcycle repair shop, including six wrecked bikes.

“It’ll take more than a hurricane to get rid of me,” he told The Local.

Indeed his shop, Sixth Street Specials, has been a fixture since it opened in 1986. Even before Avenue C became Zone B, Mr. Mackie was a “neighborhood savior,” according to his son and co-worker, Keith. “People are always coming by the shop with their microwaves or their irons,” he said. “Some woman just came by on her electric wheelchair. She couldn’t get the wheelchair working so my dad just fixed her wheelchair for her.”

Watch our video to see the Sixth Street Specials crew in action.

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

The two police officers who were acquitted of raping an East Village woman were sentenced yesterday: “a jury found the duo guilty of three counts of official misconduct for each time they returned to the petite fashion exec’s East 13th St apartment. Moreno, the supervising officer, was sentenced to one year in prison in Aug. 2011 and Mata got 60 days.” [Daily News]

The Queens-Midtown Tunnel reopens today, and the mayor has instituted odd-even gas rationing. [NY Post]

More about the gas rationing. [NY Times]

It could be weeks before the west side of Knickerbocker Village is back to normal. “On Tuesday, a 105-year old woman died after her oxygen machine malfunctioned. The woman, who did not live at Knickerbocker Village but was staying with her son, could not call for help because there was no phone service.” [The Lo-Down]
Read more…

Dana Varinsky Miguel Paula carts garbage out of the Lavanburg Homes.

Formerly homeless families were displaced once again when Sandy drove them out of their Lower East Side apartments, and it’s uncertain when they’ll be allowed back in.

The Lavanburg Homes, located just west of FDR Drive on Baruch Place, have sat empty since Saturday. The buildings, owned by the New York City Housing Authority, are home to Henry Street Settlement’s Urban Family Center, a 95-unit apartment-style shelter for homeless families with children.

This afternoon, Lisa Pellot tried to get into her apartment to retrieve some belongings, but was told she couldn’t enter. “They’re saying it’s not safe,” she told The Local. Ms. Pellot and her three children are currently staying with family, in an apartment that usually houses five and is now home to nine. They haven’t been told when, exactly, they’ll be allowed to return to their home.

Dana Varinsky Dumpster outside of Lavanburg
Homes.

On Saturday, the complex’s residents were evacuated in preparation for the storm. Some went to a temporary shelter set up by the Henry Street Settlement, while others stayed with friends or family. Ms. Pellot said that when she left, she only brought enough clothing for a few days. She hadn’t prepared for the colder weather. “My kids gotta go to school,” she said, adding, “They’ve been absent. I have no clothes for them.”

As she waited outside, frustrated, Ms. Pellot’s mail was brought out to her by a caseworker. “They’re keeping us in the dark here,” she said.

Yesterday, the New York City Housing Authority released an accounting of its buildings indicating that the Lavanburg Homes were the last in Manhattan without power. Today, an updated list indicated that electricity had been restored. But Miguel Paula, a member of the building’s maintenance staff, said that because of water damage in the basement, only some apartments had electricity.

This afternoon, Mr. Paula and other workers wore face masks as they carried trash out of the building, filling a dumpster bag by bag. “We have a big-time flood in the basement,” said Mr. Paula. “We were draining water for four to five days.”

The building is also without heat. At the time of today’s update, the only other Manhattan housing complexes still in the cold were the Samuel Gompers Houses, at 50 Pitt Street, and Lower East Side Rehab V, at 89 Avenue C. Those buildings were expected to receive temporary boilers so that their heat could be restored within the week, the authority said.

Citywide, the authority said it had restored power to 331 of the 402 buildings affected by Sandy and heat and hot water to 272 out of 386 buildings.

Micah Kaplan Arthur.

Last Monday, just before Sandy hit, Micah Kaplan lost his newly adopted Beagle mix when it escaped its leash and ran away. Saturday morning, Arthur was found dead on a ramp of the BQE, at Atlantic Avenue.

“It was very hard,” Mr. Kaplan said. “The worst part was, his previous foster mother was the one who spotted his body and notified me where he was.”

Mr. Kaplan is one of many who were separated from their pets during the storm. “People were impacted and animals were impacted, too,” said Sandra DeFeo, executive director of The Humane Society of New York.

Animal Haven, in Little Italy, was without power for five days; once it recovered, the facility began taking in animals from all over the city, including a number of cats from Staten Island’s Animal Care And Control Center, which closed in the wake of Sandy. Read more…