Photo Illustration: Lauren Carol Smith

Subway tunnels flooded with 15 feet of water Monday are carrying trains again.

L trains began running between Rockaway Parkway, in Brooklyn, and Eighth Avenue, in Manhattan, at 3 p.m. today, the MTA announced.

Rush-hour delays are likely, as trains are running at 10 minute intervals, but Twitter users wasted no time rejoicing, with varying degrees of irony.

“THE L TRAIN IS WORKING AGAIN, HALLELUJAH!!!!!” wrote @Jaysilv.

“The L train is back on service!” tweeted @tsardad. “Never thought that statement would make me happy. But it does.”

And BradCCohen wrote: “At first I was all, ‘The L train is back! The L train is back!’ And then I was like, ‘Why do I really need to leave Brooklyn anyway?'”

Crews have spent the past days pumping water and making repairs to the Canarsie tunnel’s signaling and communications systems – footage of which the MTA released yesterday.

There is still no timeline for restoration of A and S service to the Rockaways, N service from Eighth Avenue to Coney Island, and R service into Manhattan.

Ria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

Council Member Margaret S. Chin has sent a letter offering a list of Sandy resources. You can find it below.

The Grompers Houses on the Lower East Side are among those without heat. ““I am mostly concerned that I have been freezing,” says a 79-year-old resident. [DNA Info]

Some Village businesses are unhappy that “Smash” is filming on their block while they’re still recovering from Sandy. [NY Post]

“Russ & Daughters, quite possibly NYC’s most famous appetizing store, will be hosting a Red Cross fundraiser tonight in conjunction with the Astor Center. There are two 75 minute tastings (starting at 6:00 & 7:30 this evening).” [East Village Eats]
Read more…

NYPD Hockeem Smith

Over a year after Hockeem Smith was charged in the murder of Keith Salgado, the 25-year-old is still awaiting trial.

The victim’s mother, Aida Salgado, had hoped a trial date would be set at a court hearing today, but Assistant District Attorney Janine Gilbert told the judge that 911 calls from the night of the shooting have yet to be found and submitted as evidence. As a result, the date won’t be set until Dec. 11 at the earliest.

Dressed in an orange prison uniform, with black-rimmed glasses, Mr. Smith was silent during today’s brief court appearance, his eleventh so far. He did not look back into the gallery where Ms. Salgado sat.

In the last year, the grieving mother has struggled to piece together the details of the night her son was killed.

At a recent memorial, friends and family said that over 40 people were in the courtyard where the shooting took place during an early-morning dice game on Oct. 16 of last year. Not enough of them have come forward, said the victim’s cousin, Christy Cortes, 21.

“Anybody can I.D. him,” said Ms. Cortes of the shooter. “Anybody can point a finger and say, ‘Oh he did it,’ but who’s going to say what actually happened at that moment, at that place in time?”

She added, “Nobody wants to talk but everybody wants to claim Keith as family.”

Both Ms. Cortes and Ms. Salgado believe that the murder was premeditated, orchestrated by those who professed to be lifelong friends with the 18-year-old. On the night of the murder, said Ms. Saldago, her son came home with about $1,500 in winnings from a dice game; friends encouraged him, via text message, to return to the game to try to double his money. He was later shot in the courtyard where the dice game was being held.

According to Ms. Cortes, the teen’s life had been threatened three months prior, shortly after a group from Campos Plaza attempted to jump her boyfriend, a resident of the Alfred E. Smith Houses. “At that moment they told me that Keith was a dead man, that Keith and my boyfriend were dead men.”

For Ms. Salgado, reliving the murder is a daily, and intensely emotional, experience. In recent months, she found a handwritten letter in her son’s backpack addressed “to anyone who cares,” in which the teen wrote that his mother was the only one who truly treated him with respect.

“I would be so devastated if they were to release him,” she said of the suspect.

Last month, at the Ninth Precinct Community Council’s annual awards ceremony, Detective Robert Ronne was recognized for his work interviewing the “numerous witnesses to the crime” and identifying Mr. Smith as the suspect.

Things looked pretty grim on Monday when the MTA told us it had “no sense of any timeline” for restoration of G and L train service. But lo and behold, G train service was up and running again this morning – granted, with “considerable delays due to ongoing work to repair damaged communications and signal equipment inside the Greenpoint tube under Newtown Creek,” according to the MTA. In addition, the F train is now running to Coney Island again.

As for the L train, a spokesman told The Local he still had no estimate on restoration of service. Asked whether it could resume today – as MTA chairman Joe Lhota told The Times might happen – he said “anything is possible.”

In the meantime, crews are hard at work checking signals in the Canarsie tunnel, as shown in footage released by the authority today. Watch the video above and you’ll see crews inspecting the third rail, looking for corrosion, and checking signals. You’ll also see that the tracks are looking a heck of a lot drier than they did earlier this week.

CREDIT

With another storm coming, you may want to print this one out.

On Monday night, at a seminar at Graffiti Community Ministries, about 100 people – including a man whose basement was flooded with ten feet of water – learned how to stave off mold.

“We’ve been here 26 years, and I’ve never had my basement flooded,” said Taylor Field, a pastor at the Baptist church on East Seventh Street, as he introduced Randy Creamer, an Atlanta-based contractor with Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief. Of course, that all changed last week.

Among locals who attended the seminar was Anne Edris, owner of East Village Bed & Coffee on Avenue C. She expressed concern about mold, and about her basement, which completely filled with water during Sandy. “Our basement is a mud pit,” said Ms. Edris, whose first floor was also submerged in eight inches of water.  She was grateful for the information, and asked the church for more help.

The next day, volunteers from the Disaster Relief group came by her bed and breakfast and told her mold was spreading, and that they could smell it.  The group doesn’t usually work with businesses, but since she also lives there, they agreed to “shovel mud” for free.

Here’s what do if your home gets flooded, per Mr. Creamer.

• Empty the flooded area of water, mud, and dirt.
• Clear out personal items. “If it was in the water, it was contaminated by the water,” Mr. Creamer said. Anything with foam in it, mattresses, cloth, material, and upholstery cannot be salvaged. Same with “electronics, computers, speakers, anything with a cord attached.”
• Remove the affected area of the wall, and the foot or two above it. “When you start taking your walls out, think rebuild – don’t put it back,” said Mr. Creamer. “If you had two-and-a-half feet of water, you’re going to need to take out four feet of your wall out.”
• Sweep, vacuum, and then power-wash the floor, and work downward to the basement.  Also use wet vacuums, mops, squeegees, and brooms to get rid of the water.
• Use fans and dehumidifiers for the drying process. Then disinfect the area, and allow it to dry again before repairs.

Other advice:

• Protect yourself with a disposable respirator such as N95, not a dust mask, and wear gloves and boots, both rubber if it’s wet.
• If necessary, use eye protection, goggles or safety glasses, as well as a hard hat.
• Avoid using only fans to dry out damaged walls after flooding, even though the water may have receded in a few hours. “The greatest risk and danger to you are the things you can’t see,” said Mr. Creamer.  Odors and coughing are the first indicators of a mold issue.
• Flooring, linoleum or vinyl will have to come up. “Once it warps it will buck and not go back into place,” he said.
• Use EPA-registered disinfectants like ShockWave. “What will not work is Clorox. We’ve stopped using bleach,” he said, “It does not work on porous surfaces.”
• The colder temperatures of fall are a bonus, since mold thrives in 60-degree heat with humidity.

Approximately 700 people from Mr. Creamer’s organization, some of whom are sleeping in their vehicles, are in affected areas of New York and New Jersey to help out. Monday’s lecture will be repeated this week on Staten Island and Long Island.

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

As if you couldn’t tell by the fireworks last night, Barack Obama was reelected president. U.S. Representatives Nydia Velazquez and Carolyn B. Maloney were also reelected, in the 7th, and 12th districts, respectively. Brian Kavanagh won his uncontested bid for State Assemblyman in District 74, and Brad Hoylman, also uncontested, is the new State Senator in District 27. [NY 1]

Yesterday, in the morning and then again during our liveblog, we noted long waits at East Village polling sites; the same was true throughout the city. [NY Post]

“Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan Democrat, said he thought the complications caused by the storm had reverberated throughout the election system, exacerbating longstanding problems. He said that at a poll site in his district, two poll workers had gotten into a fight when the polls opened and had to be sent home and replaced.” [NY Times]

But things went smoothly in the Lower East Side, considering. [NY City Lens] Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Less than a month after one of the neighborhood’s eight Subways closed, another one has gone belly up.

The Subway at 141 Second Avenue, near East Ninth Street, closed last week and started getting a lightning-fast makeover today. According to a manager, Taz Uddin, the store’s owner decided it “wasn’t working” because “they’re opening too many” Subways.

The store will reopen under the same ownership in about a month. The new joint, Good Guys, will serve and deliver “famous” burgers (per the sign), fries, pastas, salads, espresso drinks. It’ll be open 24/7, said Mr. Uddin, because “there are a lot of bars around here.”

Mr. Uddin said he also hoped to serve beer at outdoor tables in the summer.

Suzanne Rozdeba

This morning we noted that the lines at the polls were giving the gas lines a run for their money. That was then, this is now: at the Sirovich Senior Center around 2 p.m., there was no longer a line out the door. We’re firing up our liveblog now, so our reporters Suzanne Rozdeba, Sanna Chu, and Dana Varinsky can share their reporting in real-time. Tweet at @nytlev if you want to share your Election Day experiences.

Sasha von Oldershausen A volunteer gives supplies to a resident of Masaryk Towers.

Yesterday afternoon, a group of four volunteers, organized by Good Old Lower East Side, headed to the Masaryk Towers on the Lower East Side to check in with some of its elderly residents and to deliver aid. The apartment complex’s electricity had been fully restored, including the elevators, but it was still without heat and hot water.

Among the volunteers was Emily Long, a 26-year-old registered nurse from the Upper East Side, who was using her day off to help out.

Ms. Long delivered a handful of individually wrapped syringes to the eleventh-floor apartment of Daisy Rios. The 71-year-old, who suffers from diabetes, had been re-using syringes to administer her doses of insulin because she didn’t have enough to last through the week.

“I recently had open-heart surgery so I couldn’t go down the stairs,” Ms. Rios said.

Sasha von Oldershausen Volunteers make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
at Sixth Street Community Center.

Aside from her neighbors and the building’s board of directors, who checked in on the residents after the storm, Ms. Rios said she hadn’t received much outside help.

Mary Ostrowski, a 92-year old resident homebound on the twentieth floor, was using the flame burner of her gas stove to heat her apartment when volunteers delivered water and canned soup to her door.

“FEMA came here once before, that’s all,” she said.

In recent days, GOLES, which normally handles issues of tenants’ rights and housing preservation, has redirected all its efforts towards helping those East Village residents who were most affected by Hurricane Sandy. But first, the organization itself had to receive help.

Thursday night, Damaris Reyes, executive director of the community organization since 2005, made her way in pitch-blackness to its modest offices on Avenue B, her two children in tow. By candlelight, she managed to locate a working phone line, and used it to call a friend she knew in the Bronx who had a generator. She likened the power source’s arrival to winning the lottery.

Sasha von Oldershausen Volunteers wait outside of GOLES.

By Friday, over four hundred volunteers had come to contribute to what had overnight become a massive relief effort. Saturday, somewhere between one and two thousand volunteers showed up.

“It’s taken on a life of its own,” Ms. Reyes said.

In addition to drafting flyers by hand while there were no working copy machines, volunteers went door to door, building by building, to create a record of those East Village residents who are elderly, disabled, or homebound.

“When FEMA and the National Guard delivered stuff on Thursday, that was great,” Ms. Reyes said, adding, “If you can access it or you can come down you’re good, but if you can’t, there’s a problem.”

A public housing resident herself, Ms. Reyes said, “We’re used to being forgotten, so we couldn’t forget the forgettable.”

Annie Fairman Food distribution information posted by GOLES.

Jose Quiles, a resident of Campos Plaza, said volunteers also went door to door there, giving away bags of food and water. “We appreciated it,” he said. “Some people really needed that. Especially the elderly and the very young really needed the supplies.”

When Con Edison restored power to parts of the complex Sunday evening, many residents hadn’t left their apartments for days, said Mr. Quiles. “The hallways were dark. People were throwing garbage all over the place and the hallways were littered with junk,” he said. “But that’s been cleaned up. People were just afraid to come out.”

Mr. Quiles said many visitors were shocked by the conditions they encountered, including families huddling together to stay warm. “Even when the volunteers and cops were coming around, asking if anyone needs help, you could see in their eyes that they thought, ‘Woah, this is not right.’”

Suzanne Rozdeba Line stretching from Theater for the New City

Sanna Chu Gas line at Mobil on East Houston.

There were lines on the eastern end of Houston Street this Election Day morning – but not to vote. At the Mobil Station at the corner of Avenue C, 60 cars and 20 pedestrians lined up for gas; a motorist said he had waited 40 minutes to fill up his car. Across the street at Hamilton Fish Park, about 120 people waited for food, water, and blankets being distributed by the city. Those at the front of the line said they had been waiting for two hours.

But at the poll site a block over at P.S. 188, at 442 East Houston Street, only a few dozen people were seen in the auditorium, and not a line was in sight.

At the flooded Bard High School Early College at 525 East Houston Street, a police officer estimated that between 7:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., he had told about 90 voters that their site had been moved to P.S. 188. At the relocated site, there was confusion early in the morning, since the school’s doors were closed; David Iglesia, a polling clerk, said that around 7 a.m. he volunteered to open the door and guard it.

Line at Sirovich Center.

Turnout was heavier at Theater for the New City and other locations around the neighborhood. At 10:30 a.m., a line of about 85 people stretched down First Avenue and around onto East Ninth Street. There, voters reported waits of over an hour. Daniel Simon, an East Village resident, said he arrived at 9:32 a.m. and didn’t mark his ballot until 10:51 a.m. – in part because two of the three machines were broken when he first arrived (they were eventually fixed).

“One cop said to me, ‘These are like the gas lines,’” said Mr. Simon. Still, he added, “Most people on line were pretty chill except for one lady who was complaining, ‘Oh my God, the line is so long.’”

Harya Tarekegu, 25, an East Village resident and law school student, said she got to Theater for the New City around 9:30 a.m. and didn’t vote till around 11 a.m. She agreed things went smoothly, except for “one lady who said, ‘Can we cut all the chit chat?’”

“I thought it was a good turnout, especially with the storm last week and people still dealing with disaster,” she said.

Sanna ChuLine for supplies at Hamilton Fish.

Her friend and fellow East Village resident, Mahlet Seyoum, 24, said she expected long lines, since Governor Cuomo gave New Yorkers in disaster areas permission to vote by affidavit at any site. “There were a lot of people voting with the affidavits, but I think it’s great they came out to vote,” she said.

Karen Faber, an East Villager resident, said she arrived at the Village View poll site around 9 a.m. and waited for half an hour in a line of about 40 people. “When I got there, the line was already outside the door and going around the corner,” she said. “Inside it was pretty organized – everything was working.”

Susan Howard, a Lower East Side resident, said she waited about 45 minutes to vote at P.S. 20, the Anna Silver School.

At the JASA Evelyn and Louis Green Residence at 200 East Fifth Street, about 40 people were on line around noon today.

Earlier today, a voter at the Sirovich Senior Center, reported a wait of 55 minutes.

Have you voted today? How was it? Tip off your fellow voters in the comments.

Sanna Chu Dining Hall at Bowery Mission

Before restaurants and food distribution centers mobilized in the wake of Sandy, shelters and religious institutions that have long fed the neighborhood’s needy were already in high gear.

Last week, more than 160 additional people bunkered down in the Bowery Mission’s emergency shelter areas. James Macklin, director of outreach, said the shelter’s 10 staffers took the uptick in stride, continuing to serve three hot meals a day to 80 permanent residents as well as the influx of visitors.

“I was cooking by torchlight,” said Delon Ali, a chef at Bowery Mission. “We served 700 to 1,000 plates per day here.”

Aside from its long-term residents, the 133-year-old organization provides emergency housing for overnight guests when the temperature drops below 40 degrees and during extreme weather. During cold nights, the Mission might see up to 100 people sleeping in its chapel and dining room.

Mr. Macklin said 160 might have been a record high, but in the 27 years he has worked at the shelter, he has never seen anyone turned away. “I haven’t seen it done and I don’t think we will ever do that,” he said.

During the storm last Monday, the Mission, along with much of downtown Manhattan, was plunged into darkness. It took to Twitter to call for a generator. The next day, three came: two were used to power the Mission on Bowery and one was used at its Transitional Center on Avenue D.

Sanna Chu James Macklin at Bowery Mission

The Mission gets regular donations from individuals and businesses including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Duane Reade, and others. After the storm, there was an even greater outpouring of support. “We have buses coming all the way from Elmira, N.Y., loaded from top to bottom and they’re coming back again to help us do what we do,” Mr. Macklin said. Even neighboring pizzeria Pulino’s sent over some grub.

The donations weren’t just for those at the shelter. The Mission also distributes food all over the city, from churches to Coney Island. It gave away hot meals and supplies on Avenue D today.

Charles Reaves, 43, who had been staying at the Mission for five months, wasn’t troubled much by the storm. “It got a little crowded in here at night but it was okay,” he said. “It was for a good reason. We got to provide food and shelter for a lot of people who otherwise had nowhere to go.”

For Matt Krivich, 38, the Mission’s director of operations, Sandy brought a sense of uncertainty but also of unity. “It brought all of us together a little bit more because we didn’t have distractions. We have a great staff and our residents all stepped up and helped maintain order and keep people safe.”

Over at the Catholic Worker, workers were able to continue using gas ovens to serve hot meals to over 40 residents split between St. Joseph house and Maryhouse. The weekday soup line – normally open to the public from 10 a.m. till 11.30 a.m., Monday through Friday – continued uninterrupted. “But we were cooking in the dark,” said Carmen Trotta, 47, a Catholic worker.

The Catholic Worker did not house any Sandy refugees, since its houses are usually at capacity.

Sanna Chu Relief Effort on Avenue D

With their overstocked freezer, the workers were able to keep food cold for a few days after the power went out, before doing a cook-off with leftover meat. Some salad had to be thrown out but there was no big loss, according to Mr. Trotta.

“It was a humbling experience to see how quickly our high-tech society can crumble,” said Mr. Trotta. With the lights out, the residents were forced to sleep longer. And with nowhere to go, the workers and residents drew closer together as a community.

While the Catholic Worker’s soup line was a little longer than usual, Graffiti Church had a different experience. The church’s normal Wednesday and Saturday meal services saw fewer people than usual, probably because many had moved out of the area to seek shelter.

In addition to organizing a clothing drive, the church has been helping local residents clean out their apartments and fight mold. “People in this area have never had to deal with this problem before,” said Reverend Taylor Field. To address it, the church, at 205 East Seventh Street, will hold a free mold prevention seminar tonight, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

David Teller Steaming L train tunnel at Varick, near Johnson,
Oct. 30.

While most subway lines are up and running again, L and G train service remains suspended, and the MTA still doesn’t have a timeline for restoration.

Flood waters have been cleared out of G train tunnels, but linger inside of L tunnels, said George Seaton, an MTA spokesperson.

Both lines experienced “significant” damage to train signals and it’s uncertain when, exactly, they’ll be fully operational again. “I have no sense of any timeline,” said Mr. Seaton, explaining that the situation was unprecedented.

During a press briefing Saturday, MTA chief Joe Lhota said he hoped L service would resume “one day next week,” according to the Observer.

With the L down, north Brooklyn residents faced delayed commutes into Manhattan. Across the board this morning, a reduced number of trains were running in 10 minute intervals, where they usually would be running in intervals of five minutes or less, said Mr. Seaton. Because routes were sometimes abbreviated (the A train, for instance, terminated at 168th Street rather than the usual 207th Street), trains took longer to turn around.

The result for one commuter – The Local’s photo editor, Lauren Carol Smith – was a 45-minute platform-to-platform commute on the M train that would’ve taken just 15 minutes on the L. Even at 11:30 a.m., she said, all of the train’s seats were taken, with about 40 people standing in each car.

Despite a petition calling for shuttle service, there was no plan to add buses from Brooklyn to Manhattan. “Shuttle buses tend to get bogged down in traffic, especially in that section of Brooklyn,” Mr. Seaton said, adding that the MTA was working to restore train service “as rapidly as possible.”

In the meantime, Mr. Seaton asked customers to stagger their trips during rush hour. He said he expected commutes to improve tomorrow: “As people get accustomed to the service, yes, we do believe things will be a bit better tomorrow.”

On Twitter, the MTA suggested customers use the East River Ferry, which departs from North Sixth Street and Kent Avenue. The ferry’s Greenpoint stop is still out of service.

Daniel Maurer Stuy Town

While the lights came on for most of the East Village Friday, and bars and restaurants wasted no time breaking out the bubbly, many in the neighborhood are complaining they’ve been left in the dark – and the cold.

Several apartment buildings and at least one restaurant were still without power on Avenue C and in Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town this evening, and many others had no heat or hot water.

Around 6 p.m., seven workers were standing around a manhole on Avenue C near Eighth Street — their thirteenth job of today — waiting for the water to go down so they could check the lines. They had pumped out a little over four feet of water with about a foot more to go.

Workers from Pepco, an electric company in Washington D.C., have been working twelve hour shifts in Manhattan since Wednesday. “Con Edison sends us to a location to check the power in the buildings, and we see what we can do to restore it,” said Brian Vaeth, an underground foreman. “We’re pumping a lot of water, and doing a lot of checking of the lines for what’s hot, what has electricity, and what doesn’t.”

Daniel Maurer In Stuy Town, kids play soccer near downed tree.

Workers are also going from block to block and into meter cabinets to see if breakers or meters are damaged. Mr. Vaeth hoped the power would be on by the end of this weekend, but he admitted, “We’re going to be here for a while.” His crew was joined by workers from Duke Energy, an electric company in Cincinnati, Ohio, also trying to help troubleshoot problems. More than 2,000 utility workers from as far away as California are working in New York City and Westchester County, according to Con Ed.

A block away, Kafana, a Serbian restaurant that lost about $3,000 of food in the wake of Sandy, still didn’t have power. Vladimir Ocokoljic, the owner, pointed to his building and the one next door. “Other tenants with kids don’t have power, but they do have heat and hot water,” he said, admitting his life would be a lot easier if he could use his dishwasher and other amenities. “I’m not planning on being open tomorrow. If I get power, maybe Tuesday.”

Electricity returned to Zum Schneider, at 107 Avenue C, around 2 p.m. today, said Sylvester Schneider, the owner. “I’m excited the power is back on,” he said, “The downside to it is we’ve found out what’s working and what’s not.” The big discovery: his two main refrigerators are dead. Zum Schneider was open for business as of yesterday afternoon and relied on generators for evening light.

Daniel Maurer Tree damage in Stuy Town.

John Coca, a resident of the Jacob Riis Houses on East 12th Street and Avenue D, said his power returned yesterday evening. But while he had hot water, he had no heat. According to Mr. Coca, who is renovating Babel Lounge and Hookah Bar on Avenue C, which had power, a landlord has to hire someone from a private company to make sure it’s safe to turn on a boiler.

This evening, the apartment building at 133 Avenue C had no power, no heat, and no hot water, while the apartment building at 129 Avenue C had power, no heat, and no hot water. There was a mishmash of lighting in the vicinity: some buildings on Avenue C had power in the stairwells, others did not.

Ashley Tucker’s apartment building on Avenue C and East Eighth Street had no power, but the lights were on in the hallways. Her heat was turned on today, but she had no hot water. Ms. Tucker, a second-year student at CUNY School of Law was on her way to a neighboring friend’s fully powered apartment to do her coursework. “I can’t do it by candlelight,” she joked.

Ms. Tucker took a can of microwaveable soup with her, since her friend had no cooking gas or heat. “This whole week has been exhausting,” she said, “Shuffling around sleeping at friends’ apartments, and coming back to the neighborhood to help clean up.”

Shortly after 6 p.m. today, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town announced that it had restored electricity to 37 buildings, with 17 buildings expected to regain power sometime in the next 48 hours. 31 buildings were expected to regain heat within six days, and 31 were expected to get hot water again in the same time period. A handful of buildings were still without cooking gas.

“Additional buildings regained power yesterday and today, though several of those buildings had issues, particularly with elevator outages and certain apartment lines remaining without electricity,” read this evening’s update. “This is due to issues ConEd is having with their power distribution system. Full electrical service from ConEd has not yet been restored in these buildings.”

In addition to a spreadsheet kept by management regarding the status of heat, gas, water, and electricity, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town tenants kept their own Google doc tracking the status of WiFi and cell service, and correcting seeming errors in the official matrix. One note, from a tenant of 540 East 20th Street, read, “Finally got phone back with a landline. Great thing considering there’s no cell reception in this void! No electricity. No heat. It’s only getting colder. Come on Stuy Town! I know you’re working hard but this just isn’t fair!”

Con Edison said its steam system, which brings heat and hot water to many buildings, was badly flooded below 14th Street, but it hoped to fully restore service by Nov. 11, with systematic restorations beginning tomorrow.

In the meantime, with temperatures dropping, the city opened overnight warm shelters for residents without heat.

Correction Nov. 8, 2012: The original version of this post was revised to reflect an error. John Coca is renovating Babel Lounge and Hookah Bar but is not the owner.

Courtesy Abounding Grace Ministries

Restaurants and food trucks weren’t the only ones lending a hand as the East Village struggled through a days-long blackout. Churches and religious groups like Abounding Grace Ministries were out in full force.

Friday, locals lined up and around the block to receive food and supplies at Dry Dock Playground near the P.S.34 building, where the ministry normally meets. Volunteers came to Avenue D and East 10th Street after seeing requests on Twitter and Facebook, said Jeremy Del Rio, son of senior pastor Richard and a lawyer who directs 20/20 Vision for Schools.

The relief effort was sparked after a church member living on Avenue D told the senior pastor’s wife, Arlene Del Rio — who was also without power at their Seward Park apartment — that the food and water she had been sharing was running out. The Del Rios placed calls to some of the groups they had worked with during more than 30 years of outreach.

Courtesy Abounding Grace Industries

“The first day we made calls to organizations that already had stuff and they said, ‘We’re going to load the truck and get going,’” Ms. Del Rio said Friday. “People have come, all different denominations, religions, politicians, Housing; it’s unbelievable. Someone said this is a miracle, it absolutely is.”

The ministry worked alongside Trinity Grace Church, the National Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Gleanings, and volunteers from 20 other ministries and groups.

The church is no stranger to extreme situations: its “baptism with disaster,” said Jeremy Del Rio, came during Sept. 11, when fire department chaplain Mychal Judge died at Ground Zero and Mr. Del Rio’s father was the only pastor onsite. This time around, he said, “national organizations called us, and it’s been a real privilege to help mobilize this response.”

A cargo van arrived on Tuesday night, followed the next day by five semi trucks carrying water and food.” Distribution began on Thursday. “It’s been a growing machine since,” said Mr. Del Rio.

Over 20,000 were fed at the distribution center, which was due to close today after lunch, according to Abounding Grace Ministries. But the endeavor wasn’t without its bureaucratic kinks. The ministry had wanted to distribute blankets, food, and hygiene items on school grounds where there was shelter, but the city wouldn’t allow it, said Mr. Del Rio. “We’ve been trying to get an answer for three days,” he said. “The school is okay with it, the Mayor’s Office for Emergency Management won’t let us.”

Courtesy Abounding Grace Ministries

Mr. Del Rio praised the Parks Department, the police, the department of Housing Preservation and Development and the National Guard for their assistance, but leveled criticism against the O.E.M. “There were many city agencies represented here, but they won’t tell us why we can’t use the more sensible place as a staging area. All that’s best of the people of New York, all helping, and the bureaucratic level doesn’t make sense.”

Nevertheless, recipients were pleased to receive help. Cynthia Bonao, who lives on the sixth floor of a building on Avenue D, picked up food for herself and a neighbor. “We thought they forgot about us. They kept saying lower Manhattan, but the Lower East Side is different,” she said. “They’re helping; I’m glad.”

Wendy Garcia had been standing in line for an hour and 45 minutes, and was still a considerable distance from the front. “I switched my jackets, it’s freezing,” she said, “We’ve hardly moved.” During the week, she had been helping a neighbor in a wheelchair and cooking for people on her floor. “My bathtub was filled with water, now it’s gone.” In need of toilet paper and dog food, and with the ice in her cooler on its last day, Friday’s replenishment was perfect timing.

Daniel Maurer Injured elm.

While Sandy hit the city harder than Irene did, Tompkins Square Park got off easier than it did during the storm last year, according to a gardener. 

Deborah Hulse, one of two park gardeners, was in the middle of another long day of cleanup this afternoon — the first day the park was open after the superstorm touched down late Monday. 

She said approximately five small trees, including a crabapple and two from the sycamore family, were felled by wind and rain — three of them in the park and two on the street. 

“None of our beloved American elms got knocked over completely, but several lost major branches that were very old,” she said. On the northern end of the park, one elm was cordoned off because its branch had cracked onto a neighboring tree. Ms. Hulse said a parks department forestry crew would determine what to do about the branch, which could break off and fall to the ground at any moment. 

The gardener said practically every tree in the park — including elms, oaks, lindens, and ginkgos — lost branches. “The place looked liked an explosion of branches,” she said, adding that some were the size of small trees. 

Still, the park didn’t see the sort of damage East River Park did. “Somehow we didn’t get the beating that other parks got, though it looked horrendous,” said Ms. Hulse. She added that visitors, some of which have volunteered to clean up, have been happy to return to the park, and squirrels have been happy to see them.

“The squirrels were like, ‘Will you please let the neighborhood people back in, because they feed us peanuts?'”

Daniel Maurer Welcome back, Mona’s.

With the avenues aglow again (well, all except for Avenue C, which is still dark) we cruised down them to see who was open. If we missed anyone, or if your favorite side-street spot has reopened, let us know in the comments or via Twitter.

Menus are limited, of course, but know this: Lucien is serving filet mignon.

BOWERY/THIRD AVENUE
Bowery Diner
Slainte 
Crime Scene
Agozar
Peels
Forcella 
Hecho en Dumbo
Ray’s Pizza
Pour House
Aaa Amici
Bar None
Bowery Electric 
Studio at Webster Hall

14TH STREET
Belfry
Beauty Bar
Bishops and barons 
Bait and Hook

SECOND AVENUE
Finnerty’s 
Calliope
Professor Thom’s 
Entrez 
Shima
13th Step
Bar 82
Candela Candela
Lit
Cooper’s Craft and Kitchen 
Heart of India 
Queen Vic
Dempsey’s 
Urge
Second on Second 
National Underground 
One and One 
Lucien 

FIRST AVENUE
DBA
Azza
Karma 
Three of cups 
Coal yard
International 
Lunasa 
Simone 
Cheap Shots
East Village Pizza 
Coyote Ugly
Sabor a Mexico
Lanza’s
South Brooklyn Pizza
Vinny Vincenz
Tree

AVENUE A
Horse Box
Hi Fi
Planet Rose
2A
Ella
The Library
Double Down Saloon
Zaragoza 
Percy’s 
Destination 
Odessa
Yuca Bar
7A
Mini Thai Cafe
Lantern 
Key Food
Mary O’s
Gracefully
Common Ground
Cafe Ost
Table 12
Bad Burger
Horus Cafe
La Lucha
Doc Holliday’s
Lucy’s 
Nino’s 

AVENUE B
Idle Hands Bar
Mama’s Bar
Croxley’s Ales
Boxcar Lounge
China Wok
Affaire 
Horus
Manitoba’s
7B
Rue B
Spina
B side 
Mona’s
Blackbird

AVENUE C
99 Cent pizza 
The Wayland
Casa Adela

AVENUE D
New Chinatown restaurant 
Ave D Candy Store 
China Wok
Compare Foods
Joselito Bar-Restaurant

And:
Luke’s Lobster
Terroir
Brother Jimmy’s
Blind Barber
Jimmy’s No 43

Correction: Nov. 2, 2012 The original version of this post placed Hi-Fi in the wrong column. It is, of course, on Avenue A, not First Avenue.

Vivienne Gucwa

After almost four days of darkness, power was restored to about 67,000 people in the East Village and Lower East Side at just after 5 p.m. today, according to Con Edison. The power company sent out a tweet announcing, “Area restored begins at Canal St, stretches as far north as 14/15th and reaches west to Broadway and east to the East River.”

Twitter has been alight with locals celebrating the good news. “Just saw some neighbors from the higher floors dancing in the lobby after not leaving their apts since Mon. Thank you, #coned #eastvillage,” wrote @ZiaJD. And @mslima tweeted, “We have power!! East Village and Lower East Side have light[sic] up like a Xmas tree.”

Those near Tompkins Square Park cheered when the lights went back on, according to DNA Info.

But some are still waiting for power, or have reported power but no Internet access. Bradley Davis, an editor with Dow Jones – The Wall Street Journal, tweeted, “Despite good electric news: Super says 4 bldgs on 7St/Av C without power (incl mine). Says doesn’t know why; he’s calling #ConEd, bldg owner.” And another Avenue C resident, @p2therice, wrote, “Welllllll, just heard from our super. We do not have power. Basement took a beating with that storm and drowned the electricity.” The resident was told it would be another 24 hours before power is restored.

Power to the remainder of lower Manhattan should be restored by tomorrow night, according to Con Ed.

Suzanne Rozdeba

Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference earlier this afternoon. Here’s the latest.

The death toll has reached at least 41 New Yorkers, and it may rise. “We are getting to the point where we think we’ve been through every place but you can never be 100 percent sure,” said the mayor.

Since yesterday, the lights have come on for 70,000 more Con Edison customers. 460,000 New Yorkers are still estimated to be without power, approximately half of them in Manhattan. “The hope is to have power restored to most of the borough by midnight tonight,” said the mayor. “Some of these areas should start coming on in a couple of hours; two networks in lower Manhattan will take a little longer to come back online.”

13 distribution sites are currently open and staffed by National Guard members, NYC Service, and the Salvation Army. The city has given away 260,000 meals and bottled water. Those who visit sites and bring their own bags will get three meals, bottles of water.

AT&T has placed “pods” (trucks with generators) in Zone A that provide cell coverage for customers. Many of the pods are in the vicinity of food and water distribution centers.

The city has raised almost $10 million from individuals and corporations such as Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp, ING, Time Warner, and Viacom.

Companies like Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Co, Walmart and Gristedes have contributed supplies. Developers like Two Trees Management have made generators available.

Goldman Sachs will match the $5 million the city is providing to small businesses in Zone A. Small businesses in need of repairs can receive $5,000 to $25,000.

The city opened the first of several Disaster Assistance Service Centers today in the parking lot of Cyclones stadium at 1904 Surf Avenue. The centers, open till 5 p.m. daily, will provide information about applying for disaster benefits.

Traffic lights are expected to be back on tonight.

Car-pooling restrictions will be waived at 5 p.m. today.

The Holland Tunnel is being opened on a limited basis for commercial vehicles and buses.

Health department inspectors are being redeployed to meet with restaurant owners and explain how to reopen safety so that cases of food poisoning are kept to a minimum.

About 5,500 people are currently in city evacuation shelters. Some 20 percent of them have special medical needs. The city has consolidated its 76 evacuation shelters into 15 in order to make staffing easier.

Schools will reopen on Monday, but about 40 out of 2,000 of the schools may not be able to reopen until Wednesday. An update from the schools chancellor is expected this evening.

The majority of parks and playgrounds will reopen this weekend. About 40 to 50 percent are already open, but others are still dangerous. “A number of the 40-odd people that have died have died from a tree falling on them,” the mayor said.

The sanitation department is picking up garbage wherever possible, but there is still no recycling. About 17,000 tons of refuse was picked up yesterday.

Suzanne Rozdeba Line for a food distribution center on Avenue C.

Immediately after superstorm Sandy passed, local businesses like Northern Spy Food Co. and 11B started doling out free food. The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space began doing the same, and yesterday still more restaurants got out their ladles, with national companies and food trucks joining them.

Even as the city set up food distribution centers for those who hadn’t had a hot meal in a few days, local restaurants like The Cardinal continued to offer alternatives to canned goods and MREs. Leanne Hebert, a co-owner of the East Fourth Street restaurant, said, “When we saw people dumpster diving at Key Food and fighting over food, we thought, ‘This is insane.’ We needed to do something.”

Suzanne Rozdeba Free food at Astor Place.

So Ms. Hebert and her partner, Curtis Brown, via a “bike messenger with a really big bag,” brought in 20 cans of tomato sauce, 20 boxes of pasta and 30 pounds of meat and whipped up some hot spaghetti, plus grilled cheese sandwiches. Thursday, they were able to serve about 70 people in 20 minutes before the free lunches ran out. “We doubled the portions today,” Ms. Hebert said Friday. The restaurant served about 200 people over the course of two days. East Village Finest Deli on Avenue B also donated bread. There were also free socks, underwear, T-shirts and even dog’s clothes donated by American Apparel.

“We know lots of people in this neighborhood, and we wanted to help them. A lot of people were coming in and bringing food to elderly people who haven’t been able to get food. One lady who came in said she had lived in the projects and had five kids to feed, and she took meals and bread home to her children,” said Ms. Hebert.

Suzanne Rozdeba Avenue C bet 9th and 10th.

Over at Rai Rai Ken on East 10th Street, employees dished out steaming miso soup and vegetables for storm survivors. Since Tuesday, they had also been serving yakisoba, a fried noodles dish with vegetables and pork. They served up about 500 free meals over the last few days. “It’s really scary what people are going through. One girl was so happy when she got the food that she almost started crying,” Gerald Sanchez, the restaurant’s manager, told the Local. “People were really glad to be receiving some hot food.”

St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery was also giving away milk and water yesterday afternoon on its front steps.

JetBlue pitched in Thursday and Friday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., and parked food trucks at Astor Place, Tompkins Square Park and East 14th Street. Among the vendors were Wafels & Dinges, Rickshaw Dumplings and Toum. “People seemed pretty happy and were smiling. We wanted to help the community,” said Marina Suberlyrak, who helped JetBlue distribute some of the goodies at Astor Place. The company gave away about 7,000 meals and 12,800 bottles of water, and served about 3,500 people.

Suzanne Rozdeba Coffee and sweets on W 4th.

Sager Panchal, an NYU freshman residing at a dorm on East 12th Street that had lost power, was happily digging into a dulce de leche and butter-dipped waffle. “It’s been good and bad. Some other dorms had to evacuate, but we didn’t have to. We just got hot water yesterday.” His friend, Shirley Shen, who also lives in the dorm, said she was satisfied with her “amazing free waffle.”

And over on East 14th Street, free samples of Castello Cheese were being distributed by Sweetery NYC. The Castello truck had been on a promotional tour for the last three weeks, and was giving away extra samples after the storm. Yesterday they distributed 3,500 cheese samples and 200 cheese wheels. And at Tompkins Square Park, Sweetery NYC also provided 1,000 free meals from Mexico Blvd. “It’s great to help out when people are in a time of doom and gloom,” Grant DiMille, owner of Sweetery NYC, told The Local. “We’ve had a cross section of people. Some people were saying they had no power but were holding up, and others who were much worse off. One gentleman was helping elderly people living on a high floor who couldn’t get to food,” he said.

“This is an emotional and gut-wrenching time,” he added. “But New Yorkers have really pulled together.”

Yesterday, powerwas restored to most of the East Village, but the city will continue to distribute food and water at East 10th Street between Avenues C and D, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., according to its Website.