With change in store for Billy’s Antiques, it’s good to know that the neighborhood’s other reliquary for bizarre and macabre artifacts, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, is still going strong. Season three of “Oddities” will premiere on the Science channel on Dec. 17 at 9 p.m. Here are just some of the customers and items mentioned in the episode guide: “An evil clown touting a grinder,” “a smoking lung,” “some art, made of body parts,” “a devil-horned patron… looking to rid himself of a possibly possessed spirit,” “an extraordinary exploded skull preparation,” “incredible 18-inch fingernails,” “a prostate warmer,” “an unusual Tibetan skull drum,” “a chainsaw-wielding performer,” and “a taboo piercing kit that isn’t used to put holes in ears.”

So, business as usual!

Kathryn Kattalia squeezed a camera into Obscura back in March. In case you missed it, her video for The Local is above.

Rachel Citron

Good morning, East Village.

The Lo-Down reports that the building housing the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation at Avenue A and Fifth Street sold last week for $25.5 million. Last month, The Local pointed out that Community Board 3 was concerned that a sale of the building might lead to the center’s closure before its relocation in approximately five years. The buyer and his or her intentions remain a mystery.

Dominic Pisciotta, the chairperson of C.B. 3, and Susan Stetzer, the district manager, pen a piece for the Villager patting the board on the back for successfully working with local politicians on issues like the St. Mark’s Bookshop, Wald Playground, and more.

EV Grieve discovers that 15 East 10th Street was sold for $3.7 million in September. Magnum Real Estate Group is the name given on a demolition permit, indicating that Benjamin Shaoul may have bought the building. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Workers were back at the Mars Bar site today.

The worker injured by falling rubble yesterday at Mars Bar is at home and doing well, the superintendent of the construction site said today.

Stephen Rex Brown An overhead view of the demolition, taken yesterday.

“He’s good, back at home. He has a few days off,” said the superintendent, who did not wish to give his name.

Another worker shoveling rubble into a dumpster said that his fellow laborer had not broken his leg, as had been rumored yesterday. The worker also did not want to give his name.

A Department of Buildings spokeswoman noted that a stop work order had been issued for hazardous conditions at the site. The order also reports that a 16-by-20-foot section of ceiling collapsed on the worker, causing the injury. Previous complaints, some of which were filed by a neighbor, were investigated and no violations were issued, the spokeswoman added.

The work site must be deemed safe by the city Environmental Control Board before the stop work order can be lifted. The date of that hearing was not immediately available.

Stephen Rex Brown Mosaic Man’s “fellow conspirator,” Al Bonsignore, sports the signage.

Stephen Rex Brown Jim Power supervises the installation of the new sign.

The Mosaic Man Jim Power is currently presiding over the installation of the new signage for The Bean cafe at Second Avenue and Third Street.

The letters, along with an abstract tiling, look to be one of the larger works Mr. Power has done recently.

“Man, we’ve been working round the clock for days,” said Mr. Power, who showed no signs of exhaustion, as usual. “We had tiles coming in from Texas!”

A sign on the window of the cafe says it is opening on Monday. Read more…

Daniel Maurer Lucky Cheng’s at 24 First Avenue.

The neighborhood’s top drag destination, Lucky Cheng’s, will be moving to a location near Times Square in the next six months, the owner revealed today.

Citing dwindling tourist traffic, Hayne Suthon, who has run the First Avenue cabaret restaurant since 1993, said that the operation would move to a more desirable location on 52nd Street.

“The phone used to ring off the hook, but as Times Square became a magnet for tourists — we just can’t get them down here,” said Ms. Suthon. “We’ve tried back flips, standing on our heads; they want to stay up there now.”

Ms. Suthon would not give an address for the new location because she had yet to sign a lease. But that didn’t keep her from singing the new space’s praises. If all goes as planned, the location will have two tiers of drag performances, an all-you-can-eat buffet, a more high-end menu and seating for around 350 people. (Yesterday, Grub Street reported that the current location was on the market.)

“Walking by the space, and looking at the people, we said, ‘This is our demographic,” Ms. Suthon said, later noting that her clientele is “the kind of customer that wants to go see ‘Jersey Boys,’ and tourists from Missouri.” The bachelorette and birthday partiers will just as easily go to Times Square as the East Village, she added. Read more…

Daniel Maurer 53 Bond Street

As Noah Bernamoff, an owner of Mile End, expected might happen when The Local spoke to him before Tuesday’s meeting, Community Board 2’s S.L.A. Licensing Committee has voted, 8-0, to recommend that the State Liquor Authority deny the Boerum Hill delicatessen’s application for a beer-and-wine license at its forthcoming sandwich shop at 53 Bond Street.

“Generally, there were concerns about over-saturation in the area,” said C.B. 2 District Manager Bob Gormley, who attended the meeting. Mr. Gormley added, “There were some questions raised as to whether it was even allowable to have a liquor license at that location,” and said that the board is writing a letter to the Department of Buildings asking for clarification about the building’s zoning. Read more…

Courtesy of Prince Chenoa

During the three years he’s lived in the East Village, Prince Chenoa has been keeping the neighborhood’s rebel heart alive. Born Peter Robinson, he originally made his name with his Prince Peter Collection. Though his edgy t-shirts have been featured in high-fashion glossies and more than a few tabloids — adorning the likes of Lil Wayne, Susan Sarandon and Katy Perry — these days his energies are devoted to being creative director of “Lovecat,” a fanzine for models and the artists who love to chase them. Last weekend, he jaunted to Miami Beach to debut the latest issue to the sun-dipped Art Basel crowd.

Prince Chenoa, as he now prefers to be called, said that the magazine’s aesthetic, which borrows from punk fanzines of the pre-Internet era, was inspired by the East Village’s “cool rock ‘n’ roll vibe that still feels nostalgic of the punk rock days.” The result is a bit “messy, dirty and provocative,” he said — “[produced] on newsprint so we stand out among all the glossies, kind of like an East Village kid would.”

So where does this East Village kid hang out?

Read more…

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

Grub Street notices a listing that would seem to indicate that drag-queen institution Lucky Cheng’s is on the market for $25,000 a month. The link to the listing was live yesterday but is no longer available.

How’s Alec Baldwin enjoying his new digs at Devonshire House on East 10th Street between Broadway and University Place? As Curbed pointed out, he recently told Conan, “The Village is like one big bus depot of drunken young people.” Watch the clip and hear him continue: “It’s all night long. It’s like, ‘Stanley, you bastard!’ – women screaming at their boyfriends and punching their boyfriends, people screaming at each other… it’s like two o’clock in the morning. It’s loud. It’s young people drinking.”

A judge has ruled that the N.Y.P.D. was “not incompetently or in knowing violation of the law” when it arrested a 52-year-old man on charges of prostitution. According to Gay City News, Robert Pinte claimed he was arrested on false charges after being approached by an undercover officer who offered him $50 and oral sex in an East Village porn shop.  Read more…

Da Capo Press

Out this month, poet Ed Sanders’s memoir of the 1960s, “Fug You,” serves as a veritable who’s-who of the characters of the beatnik, hippie, and yippie scenes: Splitting his time between playing with his satirical rock group the Fugs (first at local spots such as the Bridge Theater at 4 St. Marks Place and then around the world), publishing one of the East Village’s most influential alternative journals, and operating the iconic Peace Eye Bookstore (first at 383 East 10th Street and then at 147 Avenue A), Mr. Sanders crossed paths with the likes of Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Abbie Hoffman, and Timothy Leary, among others. Jonas Mekas and Harry Smith inspired him to experiment with underground filmmaking, and another close friend, Allen Ginsberg, joined him in attention-grabbing stands in support of drug legalization, pacifism, and first amendment rights.

Interspersed with Mr. Sanders’s memories of publishing everything from mimeographs (many of which are reproduced in the book) to some of Ezra Pound’s “Cantos” out of his “Secret Location” on Avenue A (at one point, the $27.49-a-month apartment was raided by the F.B.I. as they sought a roommate rumored to have knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald) are his recollections of recording with the Fugs, defending himself in court against charges of obscenity, and also defending himself on television against a drunk and surly Jack Kerouac, who had grown conservative in his later years. (“During the show,” writes Mr. Sanders, “I was very tempted to mention his daughter Jan, who’d come to many Fug shows. I remembered how the owner of the Astor Place Playhouse had come on Jan and a Fugs guitarist making it on the drum riser one midnight.”)

The Local spoke with Mr. Sanders, who now lives in Woodstock, over the telephone earlier today. Read more…

One construction worker suffered a leg injury after an accident on the third floor of the Mars Bar building at around 1:45 p.m.

A battalion chief with the Fire Department, Bob Sputch, said that the worker was removing a piece of ceiling when a beam collapsed, possibly breaking the worker’s leg. Several witnesses at the corner of Second Avenue and First Street said that the injury did not appear to be serious.

“If you’d heard the bang, you would have thought it was something serious. But I think he’s alright,” said Malik Johnson, a construction worker at the site. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Angelica Kitchen at 300 East 12th Street.

Officers from the Ninth Precinct ordered the staff of the popular vegan restaurant, Angelica Kitchen, to stop allowing customers to bring their own bottles — but it’s not clear why.

The owner of the eatery, Leslie McEachern, said that the officers told a manager on Friday night to cease-and-desist B.Y.O.B. service, citing a complaint from Community Board 3. But the district manager of Community Board 3, Susan Stetzer, said she had never heard a complaint about the restaurant on 12th Street near Second Avenue since she took her job in 2004.

“I have no idea why they came, really,” said Ms. McEachern. “For now, we’re just complying with the order.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

A veteran psychic has left her storefront at 86 East Third Street between First and Second Avenues. During a telephone conversation, the psychic, who said her customers know her as Cathy and did not want to give a last name, said that she closed her shop a few weeks ago after her landlord of ten years more than doubled her rent.

“I was getting a great deal,” she said, “but once it ran out, it ran out.” Read more…

Lauren Carol Smith

It’s happening right now: As spotted by The Local’s Stephen Rex Brown (on Twitter) and Lauren Carol Smith (above), workers are installing signage at 351 Bowery, where the much ballyhooed 7-Eleven was due to open today. It’ll be a little longer before the store pits its Biscuit Breakfast Sandwich against the ones down the block at Peels: A worker on the scene says the convenience store will open “sometime next week.”

Suzanne Rozdeba

A little earlier than expected, Lucyna Mickievicius has reopened her namesake bar, Lucy’s, after visiting family.

“I was in Poland for nine days in Warsaw, and I was with my son and daughter,” she told The Local yesterday in Polish. “In New York you’re always running and it’s good to get away. But when you don’t have New York, you miss it dearly.”

Lucy said she had a good time abroad. “My sister came to see me from the city of Gdansk, and I saw some of my old, dear friends. It was wonderful to see them.”

But she missed her customers, too. She was on her way to her bar on Avenue A when she told The Local, “I’m very excited that I’m back.”

We are, too. Stay tuned for our video tribute to Ms. Mickievicius.

The Local’s Stephen Rex Brown Tweeted from a meeting of Community Board 3’s Youth & Education Committee last night: “And the name change to S.T.A.R. Academy at P.S. 63 gets the green light from C.B. 3. Members of the board decline the celebratory free doughnuts.” The unanimous vote of approval will now be considered by the full board, and then the District 1 Community Education Council for ultimate approval. At the meeting, a fifth grader said the new name “brings out the star inside. William McKinley? It’s just boring … He was assassinated?”

Noah Fecks Tink’s Cafe, coming to 102
East Seventh Street

Good morning, East Village.

EV Grieve reports that a small fire broke out at Gyro King on First Avenue earlier this morning.

A Citi Habitats survey posted on The Real Deal indicates that the city-wide apartment vacancy rate is down from last year. In the East Village, the average price for a studio is $1,871; one-bedrooms are going for $2,448.

L magazine points out that Fred Armisen of “Saturday Night Live” and “Portlandia” will be performing at Other Music on Sunday. According to the blurb in the record store’s newsletter, “Fred will be performing songs from perennial favorites including the Clash, Devo, the Stranglers, the Damned and Husker Du, and truly, that’s all we know.” Read more…