Stephen Rex Brown Cigkoftem at 438 East Ninth Street.A little over a week ago, Cigkoftem opened on East Ninth Street near Avenue A, the first American outpost of a chain that has over 130 locations in Turkey.
The eatery only serves one item: a vegetarian patty similar to falafel that is made of cracked wheat, tomato or chili paste, chili pepper and spices. It comes in spicy or mild varieties — “The Sweetest Hot” is Cigkoftem’s slogan — and is served in a pita.
“Why’d we choose the East Village? Because the people are cool,” said Cigkoftem’s laid back manager, Ghengis Demir. “People like it, we’ll see what happens.”
The menu, which is below, includes some interesting history about the chain, as well as the phone number for two locations in Turkey.
Read more…
Rachel Citron Good morning, East Village.
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.”
The Daily News, The Post and The Times all file previews of “Smash,” the NBC show that’s been filming around the neighborhood. It premieres tonight. Read more…
It was autumn, 1966. I had come to New York from Los Angeles only months before. My then-boyfriend and I took acid and went walking through the streets of the Lower East Side – a bad idea. As the acid took hold, everything started to look weird, and not in a good way. It was a case of “people are strange when you’re a stranger,” even though the song had not come out yet. Faces came out of the rain and they looked ugly. In short, it was a bad scene, man, and we were freaked out.
And suddenly I saw that we had come to the EVO offices, in their storefront on Avenue A, across from Tompkins Square Park. Sanctuary! We rushed in and caught our breath. The office was empty except for Allen Katzman, the EVO publisher. A potbellied stove was providing warmth. I gratefully explained to Allen that the streets of the Lower East Side had become a bad trip.
As we sank into a worn sofa, Allen stood in front of the potbellied stove and talked us down. To make us feel better, he told us about the time he had been a guest speaker at a women’s college, stoned out of his mind on acid: “See, I too get unsettling experiences on acid.” Read more…
Coca Crystal (born Jackie Diamond) was EVO’s self-described “gatekeeper,” receptionist, sometime reporter and sometime model until the bitter end, when, as staff and resources dwindled, she became its defacto publisher (she financed the final two issues out of her own purse). Here, she describes how she got her start.
The first time I set foot in the EVO office, it was in the fall of 1969 and I had come to visit with a college friend, Barbara, who was EVO’s secretary.
The office was located on the third floor of the Fillmore East building on Second Avenue and Sixth Street. The place was a wreck. It was freezing, the garbage cans were overflowing, cigarette butts were everywhere, and the walls were covered in fabulous cartoons by the best in underground comix: R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Spain Rodriguez, Yossarian, Shelton, Art Spiegelman, just to name a few. It was chaos, but a kind of cool chaos.
The office was in a frenzy to get copy ready for the typesetter, and I was asked if I could type. I said I could and was given the job of typing up the classifieds. I had never seen such weird ads. (“Dominant Iguana seeks submissive zebra,” sex ads, odd employment opportunities, legal advice for pot busts). I had to type while sitting on Allen Katzman’s lap (his idea), wearing my winter coat and gloves. When I had completed the classifieds I was told the other secretary, Marcia, was leaving and I could have her job if I wanted it. The pay was $35 a week. I took the job. Read more…
In its early issues, The East Village Other began featuring a “Slum Goddess,” a title that was taken from a Fugs song:
When I see her coming down the street,
I’m as happy as I can be,
My beautiful Slum Goddess from Avenue D.
Among the first to be featured was Suze Rotolo, the artist who had been Bob Dylan’s girlfriend. In her memoir, “Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties,” Ms. Rotolo, who died a year ago, of cancer at age 67, tells of the time Walter Bredel photographed her for the feature.
A few weeks later a reporter from the East Village Other, a new local biweekly claiming to be hipper than the Village Voice, asked me to be part of a feature the paper was starting up called “Slum Goddess,” inspired by a song by the Fugs, “Slum Goddess of the Lower East Side.” The feature would be the counterculture’s answer to the Miss America aesthetic of overly made-up and girdled women with beehive hairdos. I thought it was a fine idea and said yes. I was to be the Slum Goddess for December 1965. Read more…
Natalie RinnOn St. Marks Place, where the Sock Man and similar vendors have plied their trade for years, new competition has popped up in a vacant restaurant space. The store goes by the name of Sox in the City.
At 12 St. Marks Place – in a historic building that has held an array of restaurants, from the Korean spot Gama to the Tex-Mex joint San Marcos – the bar and tabletops that recently belonged to Hirai Mong Fusion Restaurant are now piled with wool-knit socks, hats and gloves from Afghanistan and Nepal.
Kate FitzGerald, 25, said that her father, Charles FitzGerald, who has owned the building since the 1970s, opened the pop-up to sell off overstock from In the Woods, his recently shuttered store in Martha’s Vineyard. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because In the Woods, which still has an outpost in Bar Harbor, Maine, had a location across the street at 11 St. Marks Place. In 2005, The Times noted that Mr. FitzGerald had kept a store there since 1961.
Down the block at 27 St. Marks Place, the vendor who goes by the name The Sock Man wasn’t too concerned about the return of the competition. “He’s selling for $12, I’m selling for $10. If he’s going to sell socks and hats, I wish him good luck.” Read more…
Stephen Rex Brown Owner Lalita Kumut, along with her friend Daphne Blake (left) and her cousin, Maka Inthraphuvasak, pack up the Aromatherapy store on East Seventh Street.After 20 years, a fragrance shop on East Seventh Street is moving three blocks south, and the owner of Porsena is considering expanding into the vacated space.
Lalita Kumut, the owner of Aromatherapy Bath and Body Oils, said that her lease had expired in December, but that she’d been holding out for a new location. “My customers told me to wait until another lease came up — I’m a good tenant,” Ms. Kumut said. “Finally, I found something nice.” Read more…
Courtesy of Professor Thom’s The crowd at Professor Thom’s during the AFC
championship game.According to the owner of Professor Thom’s, every one of the bar’s tables has been reserved for Super Bowl Sunday – mostly by fans of the New England Patriots. “If we had 10 more floors, we’d still be booked,” Pete Levin told The Local. He said the bar’s phone has been ringing off the hook since early Monday.
As The Times noted yesterday in its “Neighborhood Joint” column, the Second Avenue bar is a notorious Boston sports hangout. In fact, the first 100 customers that show up for its pregame tailgate party on Sunday will get “W.W.B.D. (What Would Brady Do)” wristbands.
Mr. Levin estimated that 98% of his crowd would consist of Pats fans. Kenny Williams, the head bouncer at the bar, expected to see a few Giants fans, as well. He’s sacrificing a day off to work on Sunday, but not because he expects trouble. “Sure, there’s a knucklehead or two, but that’s anywhere.” Referring to Giants fans, he said, “They’ll be fine.” Read more…
Kathryn DoyleLast night, at the opening of an exhibition of Bruno Hadjadj’s photographs documenting the final nights of CBGB, the artist expressed doubts about the legendary club’s impending revival.
“It will be another story,” said Mr. Hadjadj, 46. “If [the original owners] couldn’t keep it open, it can’t happen again.”
A crowd of leather-clad punk rockers and tastefully dressed French artists had crammed into Clic Gallery on Centre Street for “Bye Bye CBGB,” billed as a farewell in photographs to the club.
“CBGB is the property of the world,” said Mr. Hadjadj, flanked by light boxes displaying his black-and-white prints of the club, its patrons, and the neighborhood.
In the room full of former regulars, some wearing CBGB t-shirts, emotions were mixed over the venue’s potential rebirth.
“You can reopen the club but you can’t restart the spirit,” said Bill Popp, 58. His band, Bill Popp and the Tapes, auditioned at CBGB for the first time in 1981 and played there regularly until Sept. 15, 2006, a month before the venue closed. He became a close friend of Hilly Kristal, who founded the club in 1973 and died in 2007. Read more…
A dispute between two cabbies turned violent on Saturday night.
The police said that Mohammed Sharief, 47, assaulted a 39-year-old man with a metal tire jack. A witness said that two cab drivers confronted each other on First Avenue and Sixth Street, some time around 9:45 p.m., and one of them struck the other in the head.
The confrontation was loud enough to attract the attention of customers inside nearby stores and restaurants. Mr. Sharief was arrested at the scene and later charged with assault and criminal mischief.
Last month, the club-kid turned designer Richie Rich told The Local that he would be opening a studio on the fourth floor above the new location of Lucky Cheng’s, which will be departing the East Village in May.
Recently, Mr. Rich gave The Local a tour of his new digs near Times Square at 240 West 52nd Street. He and Lucky Cheng’s owner Hayne Suthon have visions of a Warhol-esque fashion factory where new merchandise for the drag destination will be cranked out on the regular. The pair are planning cosmetics, clothes, and of course, fake eyelashes bearing the Lucky Cheng’s brand.
Read more…
Evan BleierA year after alarm bells sounded when its home on Second Avenue was put on the rental market, the Ukrainian Sports Club is still soldiering on, and will be among the neighborhood drinking establishments showing the Super Bowl this weekend.
Wasyl Zinkewitsch, the president of the club, said that previous reports that it might leave the neighborhood were misinterpreted. “Our interests are to keep this club running,” he said while sipping from a bottle of Coors Light yesterday evening. “We’ve been here since 1947.”
In February of last year, The Local reported that the club was reeling from $80,000 in yearly property tax, $25,000 per year in insurance, and $250,000 in repairs after a fire the previous summer. To cover those costs, the sports fraternity is currently hoping to rent out a commercial space on the second floor, a vacant loft apartment, and even the front room of its clubhouse.
“We need some serious revenue to keep this place going,” said Mr. Zinkewitsch. “There’s no other choice. We have to rent places that were once exclusively part of the club.” Read more…
Stephen Rex BrownGood morning, East Village.
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…
N.Y.P.D. Surveillance footage from two separate incidents — one on Dec. 12, the other on Jan. 6 in the East Village — allegedly involving the same suspect.
One of the gun-toting thieves who allegedly held up a Metro PCS store on Jan. 6 had the audacity to return and rob it again two weeks later, the police said.
In the first heist on Jan. 6 — which is depicted in surveillance footage released by the Police Department — the duo entered the Metro PCS store at 350 East 14th Street at around 6:45 p.m., flashed a gun and removed cash from the register and a safe.
On Jan. 20 one of the suspects returned at around 7:10 p.m., simulated a gun and demanded cash from a Metro PCS employee, the police said. The employee complied and the suspect fled with an undisclosed amount of money. Read more…
Suzanne RozdebaEasy come, easy go: A week after The Local spotted Motek creperie’s old awning being unceremoniously carted away, an awning for San Matteo Panuozzo has gone up on St. Marks Place, near Avenue A. The owners of the shop – an offshoot of Upper East Side pizzeria San Matteo that will specialize in a sort of “supersize panino” – will go before Community Board 3’s S.L.A. and D.C.A. Licensing committee on Feb. 13, in anticipation of a mid-month opening.
NYPD Deputy Inspector Kenneth LehrCaptain John Cappelmann has replaced Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr as the top police officer in the Ninth Precinct, which covers the East Village.
Detective Jaime Hernandez of Community Affairs at the Ninth Precinct confirmed the move, and said that Captain Cappelmann came over from Public Service Area 6, which covers public houses in Harlem and the Upper West Side.
The new commanding officer will be formally introduced at the next community council meeting on Feb. 21 at the Ninth Precinct station house on East Fifth Street. Read more…
Hannah Thonet The executive director of the Nuyorican, Daniel Gallant.The Nuyorican Poets Cafe should reopen soon after being shuttered by the Health Department for a variety of violations in its East Third Street building.
“Our repairs are moving along smoothly, and if all goes well, we should be able to reopen by this weekend,” wrote the executive director of the cafe, Daniel Gallant, in an email.
On Monday the cafe announced on Twitter that it would temporarily close after a visit from city inspectors. Turned out, the cafe had several violations of the health code, including evidence of rodents, unclean surfaces, and improper storage of food.
Natalie Rinn A “Sale” sign over the front door was nowhere to be seen this week.Around the corner from where Life Cafe’s fate hangs in the balance, a pet store has come back from the brink of closure, at least for the time being.
Last October, The Local reported that Zee’s Pet Shop and Supply, facing Tompkins Square Park on Avenue B, had fallen victim to an unmanageable rent hike. But yesterday, several “going out of business” signs that had been posted on the store’s front – along with sale tags attached to almost every piece of merchandise inside – were nowhere to be seen.
The store’s owner, Zee, who again declined to give a last name, was tight-lipped about the deal he had struck with his landlord, but confirmed the business would remain open. “I’m staying. As of today, I’m staying,” he said from behind the counter.
“The owner was so mad when he saw your article,” said the shopkeeper, referring to The Local’s report that a sign in his window sought a hair or nail salon for the storefront at 155 Avenue B. “But he is a nice man.” Read more…
N.Y.P.D. A surveillance image of the suspect.The police are on the hunt for a man who allegedly robbed an Apple Bank on Feb. 1.
The police said that the man walked into the bank at Irving Place and East 14th Street at around noon and passed a note to the teller demanding money. The bank employee complied and the suspect fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.
The suspect is said to be around 55 to 60 years old, around 5-foot-8 and roughly 150 pounds. Judging by the surveillance image, he is also a Mets fan.
