Stephen Rex Brown

First, the good news: Just a week after its paint job, Calliope has opened in the former Belcourt space. Grub Street has a look inside, and you can find the menu at Menupages.

Now, the bad. A couple blocks up on Second Avenue, Vandaag has become the latest ex-Villager. Thursday morning, The Local spotted a sign on the window of the darkened Dutch restaurant indicating that it was closed due to plumbing problems. Today, a new sign regretfully informs patrons of a “recent decision to close Vandaag.” The note concludes, “Fortunately, we were able to move most of our team to new digs, in Brooklyn,” meaning Woodland in Park Slope.

Vandaag opened in the former Bounce Deuce space at Second Avenue and Sixth Street and garnered two stars from The Times and then another favorable review from The Local (“Perhaps Vandaag, too, will disappear before long,” worried James Traub back in November of 2010. “I hope not; it’s the only Dutch-Danish restaurant in the neighborhood.”) Unfortunately, it was under-performing even before it lost its chef back in August.

Anyone know where to go now for a nice shot of aquavit?

Kevin Farley

Have a great Memorial Day, everyone – and remember to look out when you cookout! Barring any breaking news or irrepressible urges to post, we’ll see you back here Tuesday.

City Room reports that the police closed Tompkins Square Park around 8 p.m., presumably to keep last night’s protesters at bay. One would-be park-goer didn’t understand why the gates were still chained after 10 p.m. “It just feels creepy that this public gem is being closed down,” said a 33-year-old architect. Gideon Oliver, New York President of the National Lawyers Guild, tells Runnin’ Scared, “The summary closure of a public park, when New York City rules require that park to be open, flies in the face of those rules, and the rule of law more generally.”

Daniel Maurer

If you’re looking for something to do tonight, tomorrow, or Sunday, the 36th Annual Ukrainian Festival, featuring over 100 performers, is now in full swing next to St. George Church on Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenues. Find more info here, and if you take photos, add them to our Flickr group.

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

Scott Lynch got the above shot of a new mural by L.A.-based street artist Alec Monopoly, on a plywood shed at 199 Bowery.

St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery tells The Local it has reprinted a must-read letter from W.H. Auden on its Facebook page. Responding to the church’s new liturgy, the poet asks, “Have you gone stark raving mad?” and goes on to say, “I implore you from the bowels of Christ to stick to Cranmer and King James.” The posting is meant to promote the church’s bid for a Partners in Preservation grant. It’s currently 19th in the running, and the Duo Multicultural Arts Center is 39th.

Alistair Economakis tells The Villager that he and his family have moved into the so-called “Economakis mansion” at 47 East Third Street, defying suspicions that he pushed out the building’s tenants under a false premise in 2002. Read more…

Gothamist reports that a man was struck and killed by an L train at Union Square this morning. According to the MTA’s site, Manhattan-bound service has been suspended from the Bedford Avenue station to the Eighth Avenue Station.

Michael Natale

Good morning, East Village.

CBGB is being revived as more than just a summer festival: it will also be the subject of a biopic in which Alan Rickman will play owner Hilly Kristal. An “insider” on the project tells WENN, “We will be recreating CBGB on a soundstage as the club no longer exists. But it will be an authentic replica of the place.”

The Post reports that a woman plunged from her seven-story apartment on 11th Street near Second Avenue yesterday in an apparent suicide attempt. She died at Bellevue Hospital.

According to the AP, Sara Jenkins of Porchetta is one of 10 New York City chefs that will be cooking at a Cuban art fair in a converted shipping container: “It’s a rare culinary treat in a country where many state-run and independent restaurants serve up dull, unimaginative fare. It’s also a performance art spectacle that’s about bridging the gap between estranged neighbors and socioeconomic classes.” Read more…

Michael Natale

Good morning, East Village.

With May Day around the corner, the Cooper Square Committee announces in an e-mail that tomorrow at 5 p.m., as the Rent Guidelines Board makes its annual vote about raising rent-stabilized rents, there will be a “Tenants General Assembly” at 7 East Seventh Street: “It will be like an OWS general assembly, where you talk about your experiences with the RGB using the ‘people’s mike.’ People will also talk about the origins of tenant protections, the peoples’ struggles to protect them, and the roots of the dreaded RGB.” More info here.

Runnin’ Scared hears rumors that hundreds of police are training on Randall’s Island in preparation for tomorrow’s festivities. Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t say anything about the rumors but tells the blog, “We are prepared for everything we can think of all the time. Our tactics are something that we don’t talk about in advance for obvious reasons.”

Tomorrow will also be the 79th anniversary of Dorothy Day’s founding of the Catholic Worker Movement. The Times visits a resident of one of the Catholic Worker’s two East Village buildings: “Megan Fincher, who, at 29, having completed college (at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Day studied) and graduate school, decided to devote herself to the movement.” Back in October, The Local also paid a visit to the residences  – which, according to The Times, offer “lessons in the kind of radical empathy we rarely get to witness.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Organic Modernism, a modernist furniture store with locations in Manhattan and Williamsburg, has closed its shop at 43 Avenue A. James Bekbemir, the brand’s operational manager,  told The Local, “We opened several new locations so we decided to close that one.” The store on the corner of Avenue A and Third Street was smaller than the chain’s seven other stores, and its rent was going up, Mr. Bekbemir said, so the owners decided not to renew the lease.

It’s the third recent home-furnishings store closure in the neighborhood after Elan Antiques in January and Art & Industry earlier this month.

Daniel Maurer

Here’s your first look at new art on the walls of The Bean’s forthcoming location at First Avenue and Ninth Street (more shots here and here). An employee at the Second Avenue store says it should open in a month or two.

Also turning heads just a block away: the plywood signage at Iconic Hand Rolls has been crudely defaced (hint: it’s no longer hand rolls that are being offered). Owner David Ravvin can’t be happy about that, but Joe Dobias, whose sandwich shop JoeDough is next door, likes what he sees.

Update: Nicolina, the East Village artist who has contributed to the Bean’s other locations and is currently painting a harbor of boats in Brazil, tells us the artist behind this latest work is Walker Fee.

When we spoke to Grace Sull, she mentioned that “Law & Order” filmed in her laundromat. Well, the show is back in the neighborhood and taking up a heck of a lot of parking spaces. Click on the flyer if you’re a “Law & Order: SVU” fan and want to know where they’re filming today.

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

Curbed reports that the Landmarks Commission has approved a more modest version of the controversial rooftop addition planned for the Hotel Chelsea. As The Local reported, the developer and architect behind the remodeling are also planning a hotel for the East Village.

Pete Wells of The Times awards two stars to Empellon Cocina, calling it “an exciting restaurant where even the dishes that don’t quite add up can be fun.” Ryan Sutton of Bloomberg is even more bullish on the Mexican newcomer: he gives it three stars, and recommends the yucatan tamal colado.

Prima also scores a rave from The Times, this one from Oliver Strand: “Order the arctic char ($18) at Prima, a small East Village restaurant that opened last November in the old Elephant space, and you’ll receive a generous serving of fish cooked so that the skin is as crispy as crackling, the flesh flaky and succulent. It’s flawless, a master class in fish.” Read more…

A couple of weeks ago, a tenant of 50 East Third Street complained that her landlord declined to renew her lease as well as those of about 17 neighbors because the building was being sold. “Enough is enough! These are our homes! We pay a fair rent! How much is too much?”, wrote Sue Palachak-Essenpreis, who subsequently formed a tenant’s organization.

Hers was an impassioned argument for renter’s rights, but we’d like to hear the other side of the story: are you a landlord who thinks your profession gets a bad rap? Want to air your frustrations about the business of owning property, maintaining a building, and managing tenants? Agree that rent control is an unfair burden? If you’d like to write about it for The Local, e-mail the editor. We want to publish your story. To get you thinking, here are excerpts from just some of the comments our two stories about 50 East Third Street have received. Read more…

Rachel Citron

Good morning, East Village.

Big Think talks to Richard Price about his novel “Lush Life,” which was inspired by a shooting on the Lower East Side. Describing changes in the neighborhood, he says, “It had a neighborhood identity. That identity has gotten lost, that sense of community has gotten lost. But also what’s gotten lost is about a million junkies. Now, do you want to replace junkies with yuppies? Maybe the truth lies in the middle.”

DNA Info attends an open house for a penthouse on Third Avenue that, with its solarium and “three-bridge view,” is going for a little over $4.5 million.

Playbill touts two new productions at the New York Theatre Workshop: Paula Vogel’s “A Civil War Christmas” looks at the war through the eyes of President Lincoln, Union and Confederate soldiers, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman; and “Sontag: Reborn” is “a tender look at the prolific essayist before she was a world-renowned author and activist.” Read more…

The Times reports that the Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to rent control laws brought by the owners of an Upper West Side brownstone who say they are being unconstitutionally forced to subsidize their tenants’ below-market rents.

Want to show off your rent-stabilized pad to the market-rate masses? E-mail us: The Local would like to photograph your apartment and hear about how you scored it.