Daniel Maurer

At 433 East Ninth Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A, Zohar Zohar and her husband Yaniv Zohar have opened Zucker Bakery, complete with Stumptown coffee. Why not Zohar Bakery? Ms. Zohar explains that her maiden name, Zucker, means “sugar” in German. But a German bakery this is not – Ms. Zohar, who put in time as a line cook at restaurants like Daniel before taking time off to bake at home for her family some ten years ago, was raised in Israel by Eastern-European Jewish parents. She described her baked goods – mostly cookies – as “a collection of stuff I like, made from recipes given down from my friends, mothers of my friends, my mother, my mother-in-law.” Read more…

Hayley Roberts of World Class Learning Academy teaches her kindergarteners about shapes during play time.

Every day before and after school, John Taylor, headmaster of World Class Learning Academy, stands outside, greeting parents and waving goodbye to children.

“I know it’s a bit old fashioned, but it’s still kind of nice,” he said.

It may be the only thing that’s old-fashioned about this new private school. After commandeering two-thirds of the old La Salle Academy building in 2010, the school “injected millions,” per Mr. Taylor, into renovating and modernizing the 75-year-old building at 44 East Second Street. On Sept. 6, it opened its doors to 32 students between pre-kindergarten and fourth grade. The bulletin boards in hallways and classrooms are already filled with their artwork and projects. Read more…

Francisco Daum

Good morning, East Village.

EV Grieve notes that Michael Moore will appear at the St. Mark’s Bookshop this Thursday. He also stopped by Zuccotti Park to lend his support to the Occupy Wall Street activists, as did Susan Sarandon and Dr. Cornel West, per Gothamist. The Daily News suggests that few of the protestors are familiar with the film “Bull Durham,” or any of Ms. Sarandon’s work for that matter.

Bowery Boogie hears that Lillian Wald Houses is getting a new park. A press conference and garden planting will occur at Avenue D and Fifth Street next Monday.

Next month, the Sixth Street Community Synagogue will open The Center for Jewish Arts and Literacy, “an ambitious program of classes, concerts, films, poetry readings and performances.” Leading the program is rabbi, saxophonist and all-around hep cat Greg Wall, who George Robinson profiled yesterday in The Jewish Week. Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown today, just FYI. Read more…

Nick DeSantis

Members of Community Board 3 just voted overwhelmingly to recommend a denial of Heathers’ application to renew its liquor license, heeding the complaints of residents who earlier told the board’s SLA committee that the bar is a noisy nuisance. Supporters of the bar — mostly employees and customers — were left dumbstruck as only one member of the board voted in favor of the 13th street watering hole. Heathers’ ultimate fate will be decided by the State Liquor Authority at a later date.

Daniel Maurer

Forcella isn’t the only Bowery newcomer that’s experiencing delays. When we last checked in with Tom Birchard, owner of Veselka, he had hoped to open his Bowery outpost in September. Now he says it’ll be “about a month” before the borscht martinis are flowing, adding that he’s “pushing hard” for November 4 or 5. The good news: As of yesterday, Veselka Bowery has a chef in Michael Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan got his start as the sous chef at the esteemed Chanterelle before moving on to become executive chef at David Waltuck’s other defunct restaurant, Le Zinc. More recently, he was opening chef of Greenpoint restaurant Anella, and then executive chef at Flex Mussels.  Read more…

Last week, as SchoolBook reported, the Department of Education issued its annual Progress Report for grade schools and middle schools (high school results will be issued next month). Due in part to changes in grading methods, double the number of schools — 10 percent — received failing grades of Ds and Fs. In the East Village, however, many schools held steady or raised their grades from last year, with the majority receiving Bs or Cs. Read more…

Ken Stein

Last Monday my wife and I were returning home to Williamsburg when the L train suddenly jolted to a stop somewhere between the Third and First Avenue stations. The train was packed, having filled up at Union Square, and we all moaned in chorus at the delay.

As we waited, I teased Wendy about cyber-stalking members of her favorite band, the Bad Plus, who we’d just seen perform. She’d once found a bread recipe on the pianist’s wife’s blog and made it for a dinner party we hosted. It was an innocent appreciation, and joking about it kept me from thinking about having to use the bathroom. After about fifteen minutes, though, passengers began eyeballing each other and sharing the obligatory mutual response: Two full weekends of having to take the shuttle because the train is out of service, and now this.

The elderly woman seated next to me seemed worried after an MTA worker rushed through our car. I told her the exact same thing had happened to me the previous weekend: “Someone probably pulled the emergency brake again.” Read more…

We were impressed by those one-cent ice cream cones last week, but this might be an even juicier deal – Katz’s Delicatessen has not only cut the price of its massive corned beef and pastrami sandwiches to $10 each (if you’re one of the first 200 to order via GrubHub from noon till 10 p.m. today), but in an unprecedented move, they’re delivering to the East Village and points beyond. We’ve just placed our order via GrubHub’s Facebook promotion and will let you know how it goes. Update: Our pastrami sandwich arrived (with pickles!) at 2:10 p.m., just a little over half an hour after we ordered it. Heaven.

The D.O.B.’s map of stalled construction sites as of July.

In an effort to promote alternative uses of construction sites (for instance, those containers-as-canvases on East Fourth Street), Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has issued what a press release says is an unprecedented survey of stalled construction sites across Manhattan. The study found that of 129 stalled sites visited in June, Community Board 3 (which includes the East Village, the Lower East Side, and a part of Chinatown) had the second highest number of stalled sites, with 19. Out of 12 community districts, it also had the highest number of sites behind plywood (13), and the highest number of sites showing evidence of significant litter or dumping (5). The report noted that two thirds of Manhattan’s stalled sites showed signs of vandalism, using a photograph of a lot on Eighth Street as an example. Read more…

Early Saturday morning, members of BANGdance warmed up for the debut of “City Life” at the FAB! Festival. “We’re calling this, terrible as it is, full-on homeless,” choreographer Nathalie Matychak reminded her seven dancers, four of whom were sprawled out across folding chairs. Ms. Matychak, who has lived in the East Village since 2007, was inspired to create what she said was an “honest portrayal” of day-to-day life in the city, complete with a subway ride, a traffic jam, and a death that is largely ignored by the dancers. Hear and see more from her and from her performers in our audio slideshow.

Meredith A. Bennett-Smith A performance at FAB! Festival on Saturday.

Good morning, East Village.

Last night, new information surfaced regarding the protests that ran from Wall Street to Union Square on Saturday. The Daily News reports that the hackers collective known as Anonymous has identified the officer who pepper-sprayed a demonstrator as Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna. The group also targeted Mr. Bologna with an “ominous but vague online warning.” Meanwhile, City Room reporter Corey Kilgannon toured the demonstrating group’s encampment in Zuccotti Park.

Ken Jaworowski of The Times catches “From Rags to Riches” at the Metropolitan Playhouse and finds a play that is “by turns slapdash, bewildering, rousing and ridiculous.” For those whose appetite was whet by actors Erin Leigh Schmoyer and Tod Mason’s preview performance at the FAB! Festival this past Saturday, the show will be running through October 16th.

If experimental dance is more your thing, Gia Kourlas of The Times reviews Brazilian artist Michel Groisman’s current show “Porta das Mãos” (“Door of Hands”) at Performance Space 122. Parents shouldn’t be discouraged by Mr. Groisman’s “Saw”-like appearance, as the show actively encourages family attendance. Read more…

Last week, photographer Guney Cuceloglu contributed a memorable Street Scene of a couple of retro stylers in Union Square. Turns out they’re members of a group called Tribe NYC. Check out Mr. Cuceloglu’s blog for more on the colorful consortium of dancers, musicians, poets and designers. (Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the name of the group and mistakenly said it was based in Bushwick, where the photo shoot occurred.)

Meredith Bennett-Smith

Last month, the twentieth anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union went largely unnoticed elsewhere in Manhattan; but in a corner of town once known as Little Ukraine, the modest Ukrainian Museum served, as it has since 1976, as a central meeting place for the region’s expats – or as historian Orest Subtelny put it, “a good place to get together to talk.” Last night, Mr. Subtelny, a professor at York University in Toronto, addressed a crowd of about 100 that had gathered to hear him discuss the country’s uncertain future. The event helped launch the museum’s fall season. Read more…

Dominique Zonyee Scott Rosa Goldstein, Charles Krezell, and De Colores treasurer Elizabeth Ruf relaxing in the garden after the first meeting of LUNGS.

Saturday afternoon at the De Colores Community Yard, members of seven community gardens gathered for the first meeting of Loisada United Neighborhood Gardens (LUNGS), a support group founded by De Colores garden-keeper Charles Krezell. “I want LUNGS to unify all of our gardens, and make the Lower East Side greener,” said Mr. Krezell.

Forty East Village gardens were invited to the introductory meeting; in attendeance were a total of 12 representatives from El Jardin del Paraiso, Green Oasis, 6th & B, Miracle Garden, Jardin Los Amigos, 6BC Botanical Garden, and De Colores.

Diana Utech, 55, of El Jardin del Paraiso, considered LUNGS “a great idea,” adding that “we can share ideas to keep gardens alive, spread awareness about the positivity of gardens in the community.” Read more…

Meredith Bennett-Smith The pizzeria’s interior as of last week.

In August, bright orange signs appeared in the windows of 334 Bowery, announcing the summer opening of Forcella, a sister location of Giulio Adriani’s recently opened Williamsburg pizzeria. Now it’s autumn, and Mr. Adriani tells us that due to delays, his Neapolitan pies will come to the Bowery closer to Halloween. The former home of Bowery Tattoo is landmarked, he explained, so “everything is much more complicated.” Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village. The FAB! Festival and the falling tree certainly weren’t the only things that happened over the weekend.

A spokesman for the police told City Room that approximately 80 people were arrested on Saturday as Wall Street protesters marched from Zuccotti Park to Union Square. According to the spokesman, police arrested “individuals who blocked vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but also for resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and, in one instance, for assault on a police officer.” A Metro section follow-up indicates that officers, in what a spokesman for the protesters calls “police brutality,” used pepper spray. The department says it was used once, “appropriately,” in the case of a woman who was trying to prevent the deployment of a mesh barrier on East 12th Street. NYU Local has footage of that incident, and City Room posted more videos from the protest. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Brian Fox (in blue), Bob Tashjian (in brown), who both live on the street, assess the damage with Mr. Fox’s father (right).

Neighbors were buzzing around an area blocked off with yellow caution tape early Sunday morning after a tree crashed down on East Sixth Street between Avenues A and B.

Roberto Perez, who lives on the street, said he had heard a loud noise around 4 a.m. and immediately got up from bed to investigate. “I wasn’t scared, but I saw through my window a big tree laying there.” The tree, which was labeled as a Japanese Pagoda, cracked the windshield of a car. Read more…