A note on the door of Lucy’s informs that the watering hole on Avenue A is closed and will reopen Dec. 12. Upon her return, we’ll celebrate with a video profiling the bar’s namesake hostess and owner. In the meantime, hear her tell the story of a man who, sometime around 1987, jumped behind her bar, fearing for his life.

Want to bend Lucy’s ear while she’s away? Have your own Lucy’s memories? Leave your message in the comments.

Yesterday we brought you photos and video from Union Square, as hundreds of labor union members, students, and others spoke out against what one Occupy Wall Street demonstrator, Johnny Rabuse, called “the economic inequality going on in the world.” Now, The Local speaks to a few of the protesters.

Daniel Maurer

A couple of changes on First Avenue: Yesterday, The Local spotted new signage (above) indicating that the former Quantum Leap space will become a Vietnamese restaurant, Sao Mai. Today, EV Grieve notices that Kebab Garden, near St. Marks Place, is becoming Mediterranean Grill.

Last night, members of the Cooper Square Committee attended a party celebrating the rent reduction at the St. Mark’s Bookshop. According to DNA Info, the Committee has now turned its attention to the possibility of tuition at Cooper Union: “[Joyce] Ravitz and others from the committee met with the university’s president Jamshed Bharucha last Monday to talk about the tuition proposal. Among other ideas, Bharucha discussed making tuition free only to those with no means to pay for an education, according to Ravitz.”

City Room has more on the lawsuit that Bikram Yoga NYC filed against Yoga to the People, including a copy of the lawsuit itself. “We sent an investigator to take the classes,” says Bikram Choudhury’s lawyer. “The classes were virtually mirror images and the dialogue was consistently the same.” Read more…

Photos: Susan Keyloun, Jasmine Brown

A little over an hour ago, protesters once again poured into Union Square, the halfway point of a “March of the 99%” from Herald Square to Zuccotti Park. A Facebook page described the event as “a call to action and a show of unity” as well as a “March for Jobs and Economic Fairness.” Around 5:20 p.m., around 500 people, many of them affiliated with the U.A.W. (the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America) and other labor unions, arrived at the north side of the park, accompanied by a bagpipe band. As of now, at 6 p.m., almost all protesters have dispersed to Zuccotti Park. We’ll have more from the scene in a bit.

Update | 6:25 p.m. See below for Susan Keyloun’s video footage of protesters entering the park, taken on the corner of Broadway and 17th Street. Read more…

The police easily tied one of the men accused of robbing Souen to the crime: he had a large bird tattoo on his face that was captured by surveillance cameras. DNAInfo reports that 22-year-old Jorge Molina was arrested on Nov. 20 for running from the police — seven days after the macrobiotic restaurant near University Place was burglarized. The police quickly recognized the tattoo on his right cheekbone and charged him with the crime. An accomplice in the heist is still being sought.

A documentary premiering tonight at the Duo Theater on East Fourth Street examines the impact of AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s through the eyes of a local musician, DNAInfo reports. Mimi Stern-Wolfe recalls in “All The Way Through Evening” that “You didn’t expect an illness to wipe out a whole section of people with such swiftness.” The film follows Ms. Stern-Wolfe as she plans an annual concert named after one of her fellow artists who died from the disease in 1988.

If it hurts to watch, just be glad you’re not a contestant. On Monday nights the comedy troupe Face Off Unlimited takes over the basement of Jebon Sushi and Noodle on St. Marks Place and puts on its own version of a cringe-inducing Japanese game show.

The Local recently talked with one of the performers and watched with a mix horror and delight as audience members ate sushi off of a hairy man’s belly — but not before signing a waiver, of course.

The above video has been edited to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 2, 2011

A previous version of the video gave incorrect names for Jay Painter and Eric Robinson.

Earlier this week, The Local reported that on Black Friday, a handful of youngsters brazenly stole four vaporizers from a St. Marks Place tattoo parlor and smoking accessories store. Now the owner of Smoking Tattoos has provided surveillance camera footage that shows the team not only snatching the vaporizers, but returning just minutes later to help themselves to more.

Grace Liu, 19, the lone sales clerk at the store when the theft happened around 9:20 p.m. on Nov. 25, said that she had no idea that the team removed four Iolite Wisprs from a temporarily unlocked display case and then walked out with them (watch it happen from 0:58 to 1:28). But when two members of the team returned (at the 1:40 mark of the video) and one of them tried to take another box out of the cabinet, she noticed him and removed it from his hands. Read more…

Photos: Noah Fecks

Earlier this week The Local told you about Tepito, the new restaurant at 228 First Avenue, between 13th and 14th Streets, that was to be called Agave Azul (and then Agave Azuré) until it was hit with a cease-and-desist order by another restaurant, Agave, in the West Village. Toward the end of his first night of dinner service yesterday, executive chef Adrian Ramirez took a break to speak with The Local at the dining room’s long communal table.

Previously an executive sous chef at Le Cirque and later at the Park Avenue and Meatpacking District locations of Dos Caminos, Mr. Ramirez described his menu, which you can see below, as “Mexican modern cuisine.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer Mr. Elhage said he works nights,
since he can’t afford to hire help.

During a citywide undercover operation conducted earlier this month, the State Liquor Authority and the N.Y.P.D. caught 118 convenience stores selling alcohol to minors. Among the East Village stores caught in the sweep was a convenience store on St. Marks Place that was already facing previous charges. Yesterday, the owner of that store said he was being unfairly targeted.

According to the State Liquor Authority, the following stores sold alcohol to undercover volunteer decoys between Nov. 16 and 18: St. Marks Convenience Inc. (31 St. Marks Place), Ave A Deli & Grocery (123 Avenue A), Anwar Grocery (106 Avenue B), Yoo’s Convenience (50 Second Avenue), and C & B Grocery (248 East 14th Street). The businesses face fines of anywhere from $2,500 (the starting penalty for a first offense) to $10,000 per violation.

One of those stores, St. Marks Convenience, is no stranger to the S.L.A. According to documents obtained from the authority, the store is accused of selling to minors in May, June, July, and October of this year, and may face the cancellation or revocation of its license during a hearing set for Dec. 19. Read more…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

In case you missed it, President Obama’s motorcade rolled down East 12th Street last night, to the consternation of many. Above, Scott Lynch got a photo of preparations at University Place. According to City Room, more than 100 Occupy Wall Street demonstrators marched to the president’s next stop, the Sheraton Hotel in midtown, to protest a fundraising event there.

Back when The Local spoke to Clayton Patterson about his in-the-works anthology, “Jews: A People’s History of the Lower East Side” (which ended up being successfully funded on Kickstarter), he showed off a mock-up of the “Legends of the Lower East Side” coloring book that he was working on with artists Troy Harris and Orlando Bonilla. The Villager has more about the project, and Bowery Boogie publishes some sample pages.

The Times reviews “Golem” at the Ellen Stewart Theater and opines that its “visual illusions feel far more magical than anything you’ll see in a Broadway blockbuster.” Read more…

For a period of time this evening, 12th Street was “frozen,” to use the police parlance, as President Obama’s motorcade came and went from a fundraising dinner at Gotham Bar & Grill between Fifth Avenue and University Place.

Around 7 p.m., The Local couldn’t get any closer to the restaurant than the southeast corner of 11th Street and University Place, where N.Y.P.D. barricades prevented pedestrians from passage.

A woman who claimed to be a resident of 12th Street was told she would have to wait behind the barricade or at a nearby business until the freeze was lifted. Meanwhile, a delivery worker from nearby L’Annam Vietnamese Cuisine was not only allowed through the ersatz blockade, but escorted by a uniformed officer to the next corner where it appeared he was handed off to another officer and allowed to continue. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Now you don’t: the Shepard Fairey mural is no more.

Well, that didn’t take long.

Yesterday, The Local noticed that the four-story Shepard Fairey mural on the side of the Standard East Village was coming down. Today, all evidence of the massive Buddhist monk was gone.

A spokeswoman for the hotel’s new owner, the famed hotelier Andre Balazs, said that there were no immediate plans to replace the mural.

Since 2011, Ya’el Tap has been a resident company at the Wild Project on East Third Street. Most of the group’s dancers, including founder Julie Rubin, graduated from the dance education program of the NYU Steinhardt School a few years ago. Tonight, in “FIGURE 18, Jewish Life Never Ends: A Celebration Through the Arts”, they’ll perform four pieces inspired by Hebrew music, Israeli folk dance, and Jewish life after the Holocaust. Before you go and see the show, sit in on rehearsals by watching The Local’s video.

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The East Village’s most well-known yoga studio, Yoga to the People, has been sued by the originator of the Bikram variety of yoga for stealing poses, DNAInfo reports. Bikram Choudhury, the creator of the yoga done in sweltering studios, alleges that instructors at Yoga to the People were illegally using his copyrighted poses. Mr. Choudhury is seeking over $1 million in damages.

A familiar sight inspires some to make art, and others to wax poetic.

Brendan Bernhard

Garbage is but a flower
Which garbage trucks devour;
Darkness falls from the air,
Stars have died young and fair,
Dust hath closed Amy’s eye.
We are sick, we must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

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Local punk rocker and bar owner Dick Manitoba has truly entered the realm of the immortals: he now has his own bobblehead. “This figure, capturing Richard’s signature modern-day look is limited to 1000 numbered units,” according to a post on Mr. Manitoba’s Maniblog. “Don’t mess with Manitoba as he stands proudly representing the Lower East Side. He’s accurately sculpted right down to the weathered Dictators leather jacket and searing glare.” Mr. Manitoba was last heard from talking trash about his former bandmate in the Dictators, Andy Shernoff. Despite the drama, a Dictators reunion is still in the works, sans Mr. Shernoff.

The Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union gained notoriety last month when Occupy Wall Street opened an account there and encouraged others to do the same. This month, as the credit union celebrates its 25th anniversary, its membership has grown exponentially. Linda Levy, C.E.O. of the L.E.S.P.F.C.U., said that it was created out of necessity, after the closure of the last remaining financial institution within many blocks of its headquarters at 37 Avenue B. Its surroundings have changed dramatically in the last quarter century, but its customers have not. Watch The Local’s video to find out more.

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Daniel Maurer

Good morning, East Village.

The Local spotted a giant inflatable rat outside of Cooper Union’s Great Hall last night. According to Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, it was part of a student exhibition, “On the Table: An Exhibition for Free Education.”

President Obama will be on the outskirts of the neighborhood today. The Daily News reports that part of his fundraising tour includes a stop at Gotham Bar & Grill on East 12th Street. “He’ll dine with 40 to 45 donors, each of whom forked over the maximum donation of $35,800.”

Stuy Town Living reports that Henry Huggins, the man alleged to have robbed two octogenarians in Stuyvesant Town, is being held on $75,000 bail. Read more…