Tim Schreier “Bettie and The Ramones,” oil on canvas by Curt Hoppe.

“Come Closer: Art Around the Bowery, 1969-1989” opened to the public today at New Museum. An offshoot of the museum’s Bowery Artist Tribute, launched in 2007, the exhibit pays tribute to the strip that served as “a social network where painters, photographers, performance artists, musicians, and filmmakers exchanged ideas and drew inspiration from this concentration of creative activity.” The Local dropped in earlier today and came back with these photos. Read more…

Annie Fairman

Plywood went up today on the corner of East 11th Street and Avenue A, where on Monday a construction worker told The Local that the former home of Bar On A would become a 7-Eleven. The owner of Tompkins Square Bagels isn’t taking the development lying down: commenting on Monday’s post, Christopher Pugliese (never shy about the corporate convenience store) said his bagel shop would deliver “a full-service smack-down” to its new neighbor across the street.

Don’t worry about Tompkins Square Bagels. We are going to pummel 7 Eleven. This isn’t Long Island or a truck stop off I-95; microwaved eggs and push button cappuccino out of a fountain isn’t going to cut it here. We look forward handing Joe DePinto and crew a full service smack down the likes of which will they have never experienced and will relish the embarrassment the failure of their Avenue A store will bring to the entire 7 Eleven corporation. It’s on boys and I’m going to win.

Mr. Pugliese’s comment came in response to this one, from reader MarcellaD.   Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba The current Salon Champu.

The East Villager who has owned Body Beautiful for 16 years and Salon Champu for two years is combining both spots and moving a few blocks south.

“It’ll be saving me about $4,000 a month in rent,” said Richard Cacace, who’s relocating to 199 East Fourth Street and opening in October. “We’re expanding to make the businesses better.”

Suzanne Rozdeba Body Beautiful

Mr. Cacace said he’s been doing well, but it made “more sense to combine everything and have more of a full-service business.” The duo follows Taureau in departing East Seventh Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A. Read more…

Alexa Mae Asperin 170 Avenue A today.

Alexa Mae Asperin

The space that held Bar on A for 15 years is becoming a 7-Eleven, according to a construction worker at 170 Avenue A today.

Benjamin Shaoul, who is listed as the building’s owner on an application to renovate the space, could not be reached for comment, but the same Department of Buildings paperwork identifies a representative of Harrison French and Associates as the job applicant. The architecture and engineering firm builds 7-Elevens, according to its Website, and installed the chain’s 14th Street location, according to Department of Buildings records. Read more…

Annie Fairman

Days after local firehouses commemorated September 11, 2001, Engine Company Five dedicated a plaque to the late Raymond Ragucci, a retired firefighter who died last year, just a week shy of the ten-year anniversary of the attacks.

Mr. Ragucci, a first responder to ground zero, died on Sept. 4, at the age of 59, from complications relating to a bone marrow transplant during treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Today’s ceremony, attended by Mr. Ragucci’s family, started just after 11:30 a.m. Fire engines and black sedans lined a stretch of 14th Street between First and Second Avenues, and bagpipe players and uniformed members of several fire companies gathered in front of the station door. Read more…

Nicole Guzzardi

Good morning, East Village.

The Times reported yesterday that the Board of Health passed Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on sodas and sugary drinks over 16 ounces. The Local talked to a few East Village small business owners who didn’t seem too anxious about the new ban. “For me it’s okay,” Kenny Chou, kitchen manager at Tkettle, told us, “but it depends on the customer. Some people just really want bubble tea.” Tkettle’s large size is over the new limit but according to Chou the majority of customers order the smaller one anyway. Saint’s Alp, another bubble tea joint, doesn’t offer cups over 16 ounces.

The Times isn’t sold on the new Warhol exhibit at the Met. “With nearly 50 works by Warhol and around 100 by the other 59 artists, this show (which is in previews for members through Sunday and opens to nonmembers on Tuesday) may be a hit with the public, but it should have been much more challenging and original.”

Washington Square News identifies some “hidden gems” in the neighborhood. The 6BC Botanical Garden is “a perfect escape when the city feels overwhelming.”

Speaking of gardens, Off the Grid shares the backstory of the Fireman’s Memorial Garden on East Eighth Street. “The garden pays homage to the memory of Martin R. Celic (1952-1977), a young member of Ladder Company 18 who lost his life fighting a fire in the tenement that once stood here.” Read more…

Nicole Guzzardi

Nicole Guzzardi

A block away from where Mama’s Food Shop was being emptied earlier this week, signage was torn down from the former Kate’s Joint this evening. Ruth Marquez, a longtime Lower East Sider who spent a dozen years working in Puerto Rico as an events planner and then returned to the neighborhood, held a tattered section of the restaurant’s awning as she spoke about the deli-market she planned to open.

She repeated many of the same details reported by The Local last month, but added that Vella Market would take pains to cater to customers (and their dogs and children). “We want to learn who they are by name and what they need, just like in a suburban store,” she said.

But first, she’ll have to get the space at Fourth Street and Avenue B in order. It was left “in shambles,” she said.

Michael Natale

Dennis Edge, the birdwatcher, isn’t the only one sharing his wisdom about the flora and fauna of Tompkins Square Park this weekend.

Yesterday, Michael Natale of Gamma Blog posted a high-resolution map of the park’s trees and generously shared it with The Local. On Saturday, he’ll talk about his quest to identify every single one of them.

The Houston Street resident, who moved to the neighborhood in 1978, started cataloging the park’s trees about a year ago, after reading about a pair of Central Park leaf-peepers and noticing that a 1998 map offered by the Tompkins Square Park Conservancy was “way out of date.”

“A lot of trees were long gone and not all the trees were listed and they were just little dots on the map and I found it really not that useable,” he said.

Mr. Natale, 64, decided it was time for an update. “I thought, ‘It can’t be that hard,’” he said, admitting that he soon learned otherwise and spent “endless” hours engaged in the “insanely difficult” task of pacing off accurate distances, gauging trunk diameters, and trying to tell the difference between a Japanaese scholar tree and a black locust (he’s still not sure about that one, and hopes to get help from local tree mavens this weekend). In short, what was to be an arborous task turned out to be an arduous one. Read more…

Photos: Mary Reinholz

Ladder Company 3 marked the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 with a noontime memorial for twelve firefighters – plus one relative – killed in the terrorist attacks 11 years ago. The company has held an annual mass at its firehouse on 13th Street, but Capt. Glenn Sheridan told The Local that this afternoon’s service was “less formal, more personal for the family members.”

Dressed in a white cassock, Father Christopher Keenan delivered readings from scripture and ruminations on the sense of national vulnerability that followed the terrorist attacks. Father Keenan became Fire Department chaplain after succeeding a friend and fellow Franciscan friar, the Rev. Mychal F. Judge, who died in the attacks. He told an audience of about 70, including 35 uniformed firefighters standing somberly at attention, that his seven months of assisting in the recovery efforts at Ground Zero were like “descending into hell and seeing the face of God in you.”

One attendee wore a tee-shirt emblazoned with the words of Capt. Patrick “Paddy” Brown, a former Marine and resident of Stuyvesant Town who died at age 48 when the North Tower collapsed. “This is 3 Truck and we’re still heading up,” he had said. Read more…

Sasha Von Oldershausen

The Local witnessed a strange sight today: a dismembered tree was being marched up from a basement in the East 10th Street historic district. Turned out the clean-up crew was using the basement as a passageway to the building’s backyard, where a half-rotten tree had posed a threat to residents.

The owner of the building that housed Mama’s Food Shop for over 15 years has taken over the space and plans to open a restaurant with “Mama’s” in the name. But don’t call it a comeback.

Richard Freedman, the landlord of 200 East Third Street, was on site today as trash bags were hauled out of the former comfort-food spot.

Mr. Freedman was not an owner of Mama’s Food Shop (that name is still owned by Jeremiah Clancy, who closed the restaurant in July) but he owns Mama’s Bar next-door. He said he had taken over the Food Shop space and planned to install new bathrooms, upgrade the kitchen, and reopen it in the next few months as a restaurant serving comfort food, with the name “Mama’s something or other” (the working title is Mama’s Eats). Read more…

Photos: Suzanne Rozdeba

With the close of the Mary Help of Christians flea market last weekend, Bernarda Ortiz, the market’s matron for the past 15 years, is concerned about its move to Immaculate Conception Church.

“I worry we’ll lose half the vendors,” said the sprightly 85-year-old Puerto Rico native. Depending on what’s decided when Monsignor Kevin Nelan returns from vacation next week, the flea may relocate to the cafeteria and inner courtyard of the church on 14th Street. “I worry people won’t see it and won’t come,” she said.

Samantha Balaban

While she awaits the move in October, Ms. Ortiz has a month to clean out a garage brimming with old records, dresses, kitchen supplies, and even a copy of “Pornogami” (don’t ask) perched atop a mountain of stuff for sale (whatever isn’t sold will go to the Catholic Worker or Salvation Army, she said). Today, she sat in the lot at 11th Street and Avenue A, surveying the goods. A man walked by and asked through the fence, “When does it open? When can I get in?” Ms. Ortiz shook her head and said, “Closed.”

If you’re looking for some collectibles and antiques to sift through this weekend, the 10th Street & Stuyvesant Block Association is hosting its 41st annual Block Fair on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on East 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues. A flyer promises antiques, collectibles, food and music.

Daniel Maurer

The shuttered East Village Farm, which has lately served as a pseudo homeless shelter, has now turned into an animated billboard. Last night around 11 p.m., The Local shot this video of a huge Heineken ad being projected onto the old theater space on Avenue A, above the former grocery store.

And this afternoon another audacious ad went up above B Bar, as you can see at right. The hand-painted signs of the old Bowery look all the more quaint by comparison.

Suzanne Rozdeba The church parking lot.

Parishioners at Mary Help of Christians worry they’ll have to worship in a basement chapel – or worse yet, a conference room – after the church holds its final mass this weekend.

The church, which is expected to be sold, is holding its final Spanish-language mass at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Next week the mass will move to Immaculate Conception Church, which has overseen Mary Help of Christians since 2007. But according to John Matcovich, the parish manager, it’s unlikely services will be held in the church’s main space. “We don’t think it’s going to be at the church, at least in the near future, so for now we’re going to keep it somewhere else in the facility,” he told The Local. “We haven’t worked it out logistically yet.”

Immaculate Conception Church is a Gothic-style complex that has been described as “a little French village.” According to its Website, the church boasts soaring ceilings, stunning stained glass windows created by 19th-century artists, and a fresco of The Heavenly City.

Mr. Matcovich said that some of Mary Help of Christians’ most valuable relics – including items from the altar, religious vessels, and statues of Mary Help of Christians, the Pieta, and Jesus and the Tomb – will be moved to a chapel that’s expected to open in the basement of Immaculate Conception in May of 2014, and that several Blessed Mary statues would go in the church’s school. But some worried that during the chapel’s construction, Spanish-language masses would be confined to what parishioners described as a small conference room. Read more…

Leila Samii

Yesterday we spotted a cyclist looking none-too-thrilled as he was ticketed while riding in the bike lane and today, on First Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets, we noticed two police officers – one on a scooter, the other on a mountain bike – ticketing two cyclists. As we passed the scene, a pedestrian called out, “It’s a speed trap!” We circled the block and, sure enough, yet another bike rider was being ticketed at the same location.

We’re not the first to notice what may be a crackdown on scoffing cyclists: in February, Bowery Boogie witnessed three bikers getting pulled over at the intersection of Delancey and Bowery  – “a rarity on the Lower East Side.” Seems the police department is making moves to insure the downtown area doesn’t turn into “Premium Rush.” Read more…

Melvin Felix Got a driveway for this?

Back in June, “Boardwalk Empire” filmed inside the soon-to-close Mary Help of Christians Church. Then, in August, cameras rolled again on East Fourth Street. Now, the Emmy Award-winning television series could come to your apartment.

According to flyers posted in the neighborhood, HBO is looking to film scenes for the third season “inside a period appropriate apartment and outside a period appropriate apartment building.” The flyer reads, “We can look past fixtures and furniture and can work around a modernized kitchen; however, not dropped ceilings or fluorescent lighting.”

If your apartment has high ceilings and “original details” from the 1920s, call Orit Greenberg at the number posted on the flyer.

Samantha Balaban

The film crew spotted outside Mary Help of Christians church last Thursday was working on a comedy called “Growing Up (And Other Lies).” Katie Mustard, an East Village resident who is producing the flick, told The Local the crew was using the church as a holding area while shooting at the Phoenix on 13th Street. She said the comedy was “about four guys who walk from the top of Manhattan to the bottom in one day to relive an event they did in their 20s and they’re now in their early 30s, and they’re trying to do this greatest walk of all time.”

The guys are played by actors Adam Brody, Josh Lawson, Wyatt Cenac and one of the film’s directors, Danny Jacobs. The film also stars Lauren Miller and former East Villager Amber Tamblyn.

The actors were surprised to discover that the Phoenix, where they were filming a fight scene, was a gay bar. “We almost thought our location manager was playing a joke by booking a gay bar,” said Ms. Mustard. “The scene is not a gay bar scene. The guys are very heterosexual, and it just added amusement to filming that scene.”

Courtesy Art in Odd Places The work of Ghana ThinkTank.

Art in Odd Places, the festival that brings public spectacles to 14th Street, has announced this year’s lineup of over 100 participants. According to the Website, which launched on Saturday, this year’s keynote performance on Oct. 6 will feature Martha Wilson, the founder of the Franklin Furnace Archive, as Barbara Bush. Other events will include panel discussions and workshops touching on this year’s theme of “Model.” Of course, it’ll be the dozens of non-permitted guerilla performances that will get the most attention.

Ed Woodham, who founded the festival in Atlanta in 1996 and brought it to New York in 2005, said those performances would once again take place on 14th Street. “It’s this incredible dividing line,” he explained. “It’s where the Manhattan grid starts; it’s always been a dividing line for many years of uptown/downtown, cool/not cool; it traverses through these hugely diverse socioeconomic communities, and Union Square has a long history of political importance.” Read more…

The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop is taking a day off after a fun-filled weekend: Stephen Merritt played a few songs during the shop’s anniversary party yesterday (as you can see in video posted by co-owner Doug Quint, the Magnetic Fields frontman was backed by an advertisement for the ice cream shop’s cookbook, out in spring of 2014). A sign on the shop’s roll-down gate explains the temporary closure: “We have a big staff meeting, a major store cleaning, and then a staff karaoke party.”