Modestmerlin

Good morning, East Village.

DNA Info reports that the East Village has dropped off of the city’s “target” list of neighborhoods in need of after-school funding. The move jeopardizes The Educational Alliance’s program at P.S. 64, University Settlement’s program at P.S. 63, and Henry Street Settlement’s Boys & Girls Republic at the Lillian Wald Houses.

The Times reports that prosecutors have dropped charges against 21 people who were arrested during an Occupy Wall Street march to Union Square on Sept. 24. Fifty other cases are headed to trial.

EV Grieve points to an empty lot on East Third Street near Avenue D that just hit the market for $6 million. Read more…

Last month, The Local reported that Mary Help of Christians was on the market, as its congregation had dwindled to about 70 people. Meanwhile, on St. Marks Place, a church that came back from the brink of closing is, if not thriving, at least surviving. Father Krizolog Cimerman, who 19 years ago was charged with closing St. Cyril’s Church but works there to this day, said that 200 worshippers attended Christmas Eve mass last month. Two months prior, 150 people had celebrated the church’s 95th anniversary. But on Christmas Day and New Years, only 20 to 30 people showed – evidence that the Slovenian community that has long frequented the church is in a state of transition.

Slovenia, a small country of just 2 million people, separated from the former Yugoslav in 1991 and adopted the Euro in 2004. The land is coveted by tourists and locals alike, as sea, mountains, and vineyards can all be seen within the same afternoon. Because of its size, Slovenia had been occupied by just about every European country, from the Holy Roman Empire onward. Slovenians who migrated to countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United States starting in the mid 1800s made it a priority to retain their culture and language to pass along to future generations. This can certainly be said of the ones who ended up in New York, many of whom have considered the Church of St. Cyril a home away from home.

The brownstone church is long and narrow, with just enough room to fit one pew on either side of an aisle that can only accommodate two people standing side-by-side. American and Slovenian flags flank a modest altar overlooked by a large stained glass depiction of St. Cyril. There are no altar servers and often no choir. On a recent morning, however, five men descended from a loft for communion. Each donned a pair of slippers like the ones kept in every Slovenian home for guests and residents alike (cold feet is a fate worse than death).

Each Sunday after mass, members of the small parish stay and chat with each other in their native tongue – a tradition stemming not from their homeland, but that developed as Slovenians began moving further away from each other and seeing each other less frequently. A single pot of coffee is enough for everyone to have a small cup or two, as many Slovenians take theirs with mostly milk. Tins of homemade cookies are spread across a table.

“This is not only a church, but a cultural center as well,” said Father Cimerman. Read more…

Zagat Buzz hears that “in roughly two weeks, the space attached to Momofuku Ssäm Bar (that used to house the first Milk Bar) will transform to a technology-heavy cocktail lounge” serving “a menu of 22 creations, made with the likes of liquid nitrogen and high-tech toys (a rotovap and centrifuge among them)” as well as accompanying food. David Chang confirms via Twitter: “True! Dave Arnold created own company with @momofuku, called ‘Dax & Booker’, one of first projects is working w Ssam Bar bar on booze.”

We’ve made some New Year’s resolutions here at The Local – for one: making sure there are napkins around before we lay into a Porchetta sandwich. Another thing we’re going to do: update our blogroll. If you write about the East Village, or know of any sites that we should be following, let us know via e-mail and we’ll add you to our blogroll and our RSS reader. You don’t even have to grease our palms (because let’s face it, we’re probably going to forget about those napkins.) And hey, if you’d like to subscribe to The Local’s RSS feed, click here.

By pasting together some snippets from the Times archive, Bowery Boogie pens a brief history of 101 Avenue A, the building that now holds Pyramid Club. Turns out, it once housed a brewery belonging to the grandfather of Mae West.

Taylor Mead with Wesley Eisold

This week, you can admire the many facets of the Warhol superstar whose Ludlow Street apartment of 32 years is the subject of the 2005 documentary “Excavating Taylor Mead.”

The week begins with Mr. Mead showing off his usual poetic erudition at his regular Monday night readings at The Bowery Poetry Club.

On Thursday, Mr. Mead’s painterly skills will be on display at an opening at Churner and Churner Gallery. The show will feature new drawings from his “Fairy Tale Poem” series, which appeared in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, along with paintings including his portraits of Warhol and Garbo. Be on the lookout for the vestiges of Warhol superstars as Mr. Mead adds to the opening festivities with a reading at 7 p.m.

On Saturday, close out your Taylor Mead week by viewing several of the films that earned him a spot in the pantheon of underground film stars. Churner and Churner will screen Andy Warhol films featuring Mr. Mead, including “Lonesome Cowboys” and the rarely seen “Taylor Mead’s Ass,” along with several of the actor’s home movies. The films will be followed by a Q & A.

“The Taylor Mead Show” at Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery; (212) 614-0505; bowerypoetryclub.com. Monday, 6:30 p.m.

“Taylor Mead” at Churner and Churner, 205 Tenth Avenue, (212) 675-2750; churnerandchurner.com. Jan. 12 to Feb. 18.

Clint McMahon

Good morning, East Village.

The Local received a letter from a tenant mourning the loss of East Village native Andrew Kowalczyk, the landlord, super, and tenant of a building on East Seventh Street that has been seen in the “Godfather II” and other productions. EV Grieve also received the eulogy and reprinted it:  “Andrew wasn’t a rich guy. He could have hiked the rents every time an apartment changed hands but he didn’t. A friend recommended us and that was good enough for him. ‘I just want local people we know,’ he would say whenever an apartment came up and we would get another friend in there.”

Speaking of landlords, The New York Post reports that an heir of William Gottlieb, “perhaps the biggest private landowner in Greenwich Village,” is selling off some of his property. Among his properties are an East 10th Street townhouse selling for $5.6 million and two vacant lots on East Houston going for $9.5 million. The sales could “remake downtown in the process.”

Save The Lower East Side rails against NYU’s plan to build in Community District 3, but is surprised to see the animosity against NYU: “Hasn’t NYU already transformed the commercial character and the residential demographic of the EV? Is there anything left to lose to NYU? NYU has already wrought its worst on real estate values and rents. What is the complaint against them? They are, on the whole, much more agreeable than the yuppies. They party less and they have more intellectual curiosity. What are East Villagers protecting?” Read more…

Daniel MaurerPolice officers outside of Metro PCS
last night.

Two men robbed a wireless store at gunpoint on 14th Street last night, forcing two employees into the store’s basement while they made off with what police said was $4,000 in cash.

An employee at the Metro PCS store at 350 East 14th Street said that two black men wearing black leather jackets, hoodies, and shades also made off with his personal cell phone.

The police said that one of the men, thought to be in his 40s or 50s, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a black stocking hat (the employee described it as a ski hat), displayed a black revolver while another man thought to be in his 30s or 40s, who wore white latex gloves, went behind the counter to remove money from the register. That’s when the employees were ordered into the basement. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba

For 12 years, H. Song helped run East Village Farm with his wife and his mother, a grandmotherly woman known to sneak candy into customers’ bags at the counter. But this will be the last month of business for the grocery store on Avenue A near Sixth Street.

“We’re closing at the end of the month,” said Mr. Song, 56, who first identified himself as a partner in East Village Farm Plus Inc., which owns the deli, and then said he is now a manager. “I came with a dream to America. I started with a small store, and then I dreamed of something bigger. But I lost everything. I give up,” he said.

Rumors that the store was closing first surfaced on EV Grieve today. Read more…

In one of The Local’s most commented stories of 2011, the owner of Mara’s Homemade blamed bike lanes for the closing of her restaurant. The owners of The Toucan and The Lion, which quietly opened in the former Mara’s space on East Sixth Street last month, say they’re just fine with them.

“Having a bike lane on First Avenue creates a lot of order,” said Craig Dagata, 33. “It makes the neighborhood so much more convenient for everybody traveling.”

Mr. Dagata – who has worked in the restaurant industry as a manager, bartender, and events planner – and his partner, Tabitha Tan, 29 – a freelance food-and-lifestyle writer turned events organizer – gutted the old Mara’s space and built a marble 6-stool bar and communal table on one side of the room. On the other side, a small dining room holds 30 seats. Read more…

David Chang, the chef and owner of the Momofuku restaurants, tells the Times’s Travel section “Where to Go Eat in 2012,” and one of his recommendations, Kajitsu, is right here in the East Village: “I think, consistently, it might be the best restaurant in the city,” he writes. “And it’s totally a value; there’s an eight-course tasting menu for $70. The executive chef, Masato Nishihara, serves Shojin temple food, an ancient cuisine developed in Buddhist monasteries — sort of Japanese comfort food. It’s all vegetables, but you’re not going to miss the meat. And his pickles are so delicious. It’s a thought-provoking experience, but also incredibly fun and extremely tasty.”

Daniel Maurer

Just how excited are some East Villagers about the Starbucks that’s replacing the Bean at First Avenue and Third Street? Well, in addition to the crude messages that were affixed to construction plywood at that location last month, The Local spotted the flyers at left attached to the plywood at the Bean’s soon-to-open location at First Avenue and Ninth Street, and the message at right chalked onto the exterior of Khufu, the coffee shop and hookah lounge around the corner from the ‘bucks. Not that any of this is delaying the inevitable; as you can see below, workers were putting scaffolding up at the Starbucks site this morning.  Read more…

Puddin’ by Clio, a new dessert shop offering pudding, parfaits, cakes and pies, will open on St. Marks Place today at 11 a.m. Clio Goodman, 23, the founder and executive chef, has enlisted her mom, Hevra, as sous chef. “We’ll be here until midnight,” said mom as she made preparations days before opening, making phone calls and taking orders from her daughter.

Puddings, which cost between $5.50 and $12.50, include creamy butterscotch (made with actual scotch), vanilla (made with Madagascar vanilla beans), chocolate, and vegan coconut. There are also parfaits like the “Banana Cream Dream,” made with banana pudding, graham cracker crumbs, banana cake and a dollop of whipped cream. Watch The Local’s video to see the mother-daughter duo in action, and check out the menu below. Read more…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

The family of Private Danny Chen learned from Army investigators new details about allegations of mistreatment by his comrades. The New York Post reports that investigators said that “on the day of his death, he was forced to crawl 100 meters on gravel with his equipment on as his comrades threw rocks at him. It’s alleged that Chen was mistreated shortly before he committed suicide in an Afghanistan guardhouse.” Eight former comrades face charges ranging from dereliction of duty to involuntary manslaughter.

In his column for The Villager, Clayton Patterson remembers how the 1988 riots in Tompkins Square Park turned him into an activist: “I regret little, and to say both Elsa and I learned a lot about police corruption, the damaging role that gentrification plays on the downwardly struggling middle class, and the adversity that the poor and the disadvantaged face, as well as, how outsourcing has affected the economy in New York City would be a gross understatement.”

Real estate sales firm Massey Knakal sent The Local an email yesterday detailing the sale of 73 and 75 East Third Street, steps away from the Hells Angels Clubhouse. An Italian buyer purchased the property for $15.5 million. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

JapaDog’s takeout menu boasts a photo of a line down the block at one of its original hot dog stands in Vancouver, Canada, but no such line has formed outside of its first stateside outpost, which opened at 30 St. Marks Place, between Second and Third Avenues, earlier today. We’ll give the place credit for the shortest soft-opening period in history: Yesterday, a tweet announced, “Opening ceremony is going to be held at 2:40 pm on 5th Jan! And GRAND OPENING is at 3:00 pm!”

When The Local spoke to Noriki Tamura, the mini chain’s owner, back in November, he promised a special dog made with Kobe beef – turns out, it’s topped with caviar and costs $13.04 (other dogs range from $7.99 to $9.55). Have a look at JapaDog’s interior below, and ponder the takeout menu if you care to find out what the Love Meat hot dog consists of. Hours are 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Wednesday and till 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Read more…

Photos: Noah Fecks

A couple of months after its roll-down gate was painted by Chico, Bobwhite Lunch & Supper Counter opened at 94 Avenue C, near Sixth Street, last night. Keedick Coulter, the restaurant’s 33-year-old owner, said he hoped the menu would evoke the home-cooked meals he enjoyed at the family table while growing up in Roanoke, V.A.

Mr. Coulter described his menu as “more Old Dominion than deep south,” adding, “People come in sometimes and say, ‘Where are you from?’ and when I say, ‘Virginia,’ they have this disappointed look on their faces because they’re from Mississippi or Alabama and Virginia doesn’t count in their minds.”

Don’t expect to see barbecue and mac and cheese on the menu – at least, not very often. The specialty – executed by chef Amanda Beame, a recent graduate of the Culinary Institute of America – is fried chicken, made with free-range organic meat (white or dark) and paired with biscuits and a side salad consisting of produce from upstate farms. Read more…

The Daily News reports that Oscar Fuller, the man accused of punching a woman during a parking space dispute on East 14th Street, has rejected a plea deal and will again stand trial for felony assault on March 8. The original trial ended in a deadlocked jury.