Phillip Kalantzis-Cope Life Cafe.

Dismay over the sudden closing of Life Cafe — an East Village mainstay for 30 years — swiftly spread around the neighborhood on Monday.

“You have been an amazing and supportive neighbor for so long. I hope you will be back. Thanks for all you have done for the local artists over all these years,” wrote one commenter on the cafe’s Facebook page.

“Please come back soon. You’re a NY landmark. Hate to see all your employees out of work,” wrote another. Read more…

Courtesy of Patricia Thomsen

On Saturday, near the corner of Avenue B and Seventh Street, under a short stretch of blue scaffolding across from Tompkins Square Park, a makeshift bed of cardboard stretched across a few blocks of concrete. At the top – where a pillow would be on most beds – lay a crumpled heap of clothes and a few plastic bags. A solitary votive candle stood in the center of the designated sleeping spot, the flame so feeble that a small gust of wind might have blown it out.

Liz Hooper, 50, a homeless woman, had occupied this sidewalk space for the last six months until she was found dead next to it on Saturday morning, as reported by City Room. Ellen Borakove, a spokesperson for the city medical examiner told The Local that, as of now, the cause of death is still uncertain. Read more…

Rachel Arons

East Village fashionistas who are used to hopping on the L train to comb the racks of Beacon’s Closet can now do so without crossing the river. Two Fridays ago, a third location of the popular second-hand clothing store (the first outside of its native Brooklyn) quietly opened at 10 West 13th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The 2,500 square-foot space is half the size of the Williamsburg warehouse original, but is larger than the Park Slope location. (With crisp white walls and tall columns, it’s also a bit more chic.) Read more…

The movement to convince Cooper Union administrators to lower the St. Mark’s Bookshop’s rent has become so popular that a petition for the store already has over 15,000 signatures. “St. Mark’s bookshop is vital! Please don’t let greed get the better of you!!” one of the signers of the petition wrote. The owners of the financially fragile bookshop have a meeting with Cooper Union officials on Wednesday.

Jake Sugarman John Gorman reads at Launderette.

As anticipated, the annual Lit Crawl offered hundreds of readers across the East Village and the Lower East Side the opportunity to drink, schmooze and, in one instance, square off in a contest of literary acumen with their favorite poets and novelists. “Nerd Jeopardy” was sponsored by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, but house authors Will Hermes, Paul La Farge and Alina Simone lost to a team of laymen going by the name of “Whale Blubber.” (The Daily Double question: “The first book in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy would have been a veritable house party if only Lisbeth had listened to this master sampler.” The answer: “Girl Talk with the Dragon Tattoo.”) Meanwhile on East Sixth Street and Second Avenue, the Laundrette laundromat hosted “Dirty Laundry: Loads of Prose,” a collection of stain-inspired short stories. The material wasn’t everyone’s cup of Tide: Most regulars scurried to the washing machines at the back of the store.

While the Department of Transportation, in a report posted by City Room, has declared the pedestrian plazas on the north side of Union Square Park to be a success, Gothamist points to a more recent change to the park: Spanish artist Miquel Barceló’s 26-foot-tall bronze sculpture of an elephant standing on its trunk is being installed today.

Stephen Rex Brown Ron Britt, the owner of the Free Willie Nelson, in front of his damaged RV

The East Village’s most recognizable recreational vehicle caught on fire this morning, destroying the engine and leaving its mellow owner bummed but not brokenhearted.

The Free Willie Nelson, a 1973 Dodge Mahal Travco known for its whale-themed paint job and cowboy-style interior, was set ablaze by an electrical fire at around 8:55 a.m. on Sixth Street near Avenue A.

“A neighborhood icon comes to rest,” said Darryl Thompson, a musician. “Man, this sucks. I slept many nights in this thing — it’s like my old buddy.” Read more…

Neighborhoodr tweets a photo of smoke coming out of the neighborhood’s most visible vehicle, the Free Willie Nelson, after an apparent fire this morning. Good thing owner Rob Britt just invested in another RV. The fire doesn’t appear to be serious, but we’ll let you know if we hear more.

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

City Room reports that a homeless woman, Liz Hooper, was found dead at Avenue B and East Seventh Street on Saturday, in the same spot where the body of Grace Farrell was found in February. The Local will have more on the death, the cause of which has yet to be determined.

Some celebrity cameos on the Lower East Side over the weekend: Bowery Boogie has video of Jim Carrey doing “Rock n Roll Karaoke” at Arlene’s Grocery on Friday night. The blog also spotted Lady Gaga at Welcome to the Johnson’s on Saturday. Meanwhile according to Global Grind, Rihanna made an appearance on the Bowery – The Local saw paparazzi waiting for her outside of a photo studio at 222 Bowery (which also houses William S. Burroughs’s old “bunker”) last night. And Rihanna’s East Village tattoo artist, Bang Bang, inked up “High School Musical” stars Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens, according to the Daily News.

DNAinfo has more crime stats today: “The neighborhood’s 9th Precinct arrested a huge 141.4 percent more suspected drunk drivers in 2010 compared to the year before. That’s 140 incidents compared to 58.” Read more…

On Friday afternoon, while asking East Villagers to reflect on the events of a decade ago, The Local happened upon a Roman Catholic priest and a Villager who asked to be identified as Monsignor Donald, blessing the home of Engine Company 28 and Ladder Company 11, at 222 East 2nd Street.  The firehouse lost six members at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2011, and earlier this year, it lost another firefighter, Roy Chelsen, to bone-marrow cancer said to be linked to his work at Ground Zero in the weeks following the attacks. Here, Monsignor Donald talks about his work blessing local firehouses.

jdx View from the East Village, September 11, 2001.

Last week Susan Keyloun reviewed “nine/twelve tapes,” a play that reenacted man-on-the-street interviews conducted in the days following September 11, 2001. Now The Local has acquired clips from the tapes, which you can listen to for the first time below. Collin Daniels, 40, had been living in New York City for just three months when the World Trade Center attacks occurred – he had moved here along with eight other Ohio University theater-program graduates, and was working a temp job in publishing. “I was feeling out of place and alienated,” said Mr. Daniels over the telephone today, “and when 9/11 happened, it heightened my sense that I didn’t belong to this city yet and I wanted to do something to heal and process this.” Read more…

On Friday, we shared John Vaccaro’s memories of September 11, 2001. Because he isn’t the only the one looking back on that day, The Local asked other Villagers some of the same questions that The Times posed to its readers: What was their strongest memory of 9/11? How did it change them, and America? What did they lose – or gain – because of it? Share your own reflections or reactions here, and if you’ve posted a video to the New York Times YouTube channel, leave that link in the comments.

In a city where the streets double as runways, Michelle Rick shares her experience capturing local fashionistas.

“Like any girl with a TV set in New York during the 1970s and 80s, I formed my first impression of “high” fashion watching the Ritz Thrift Shop commercial. It evoked everything glamorous about that time: mother dabbing Givenchy perfume on her wrist, and Bloomingdale’s, which was the height of chic. I return to my comfort zones almost every day to take pictures; a red wall where I know how the light hits at 5 p.m., for example.”
Read more…

Back in June, The Local visited the home of John Vaccaro, one of the residents above Mars Bar who was being temporarily relocated so that his building could be replaced by condos. It wasn’t the first time the retired theater director had been displaced. On September 11, 2001, he was living just a few blocks from the World Trade Center while also keeping his loft on Second Avenue. In this video, Mr. Vaccaro describes fleeing ground zero and making an unexpected return to the East Village. Nearly ten years later, on July 21, he would officially move back to John Street, with a clear memory of that fall day.

Courtesy of Andrew Buckler

“I very rarely go above 14th Street,” says menswear designer Andrew Buckler. His daily commute, on foot no less, takes him from his East Village apartment straight across Manhattan to Buckler headquarters at 13 Gansevoort Street, where his subterranean shop is stocked with clothing described as “English bloke meets New York.” It’s a rather fitting description of Buckler himself, who has lived in the East Village ever since launching his line in 2001. He finds the neighborhood inspirational because it’s “a little bit untouched. It’s still a bit bohemian. It hasn’t gentrified as much as other areas and it’s got a younger vibe.” Mr. Buckler presents his Spring 2012 collection today in the heart of the meatpacking district, but not before telling us about his local favorites. Read more…

For much of America’s Muslim community, the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed their relationship with the rest of American society – for the worse.  Broad government surveillance and discriminatory law enforcement policies, combined with an increased suspicion of Muslims by the general public, left many feeling that daily worship had suddenly become synonymous with terrorism. But a decade on, Imam Abu Sufian tells a different narrative.

The Imam, a 35-year old American of Bangladeshi origin, sat on fading jade-colored carpet upstairs at Madina Masjid – the redbrick mosque with an unobtrusive turquoise minaret on the corner of First Avenue and 11th Street. Speaking softly and holding a worn, leather-bound copy of the Koran in his hands, he wanted to highlight positive developments in the mosque’s relationship with East Villagers in the ten years since the terror attacks.  “I would actually say that since 9/11, we have had a greater relationship with the local community than we did before,” he said. “Everyone realized that we needed to get to know each other better.” Read more…

This event has passed.

Today, the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, which publishes The Local with The New York Times, is hosting a series of panel discussions on “The Journalism of 9/11 – A Decade Later.” All day, esteemed journalists will discuss their coverage of the attacks on September 11, 2001. If you can’t attend the free event at 20 Cooper Square, 7th floor, watch it here as we stream it live throughout the day – the schedule is below. Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

Finally, we get to hear Ryan Gosling’s take on the Astor Place street fight, in an MTV interview. He says he’s embarrassed and “should’ve just kept my nose out of it,” because the alleged thief was actually a fan of the artist whose painting he stole: “He finally steals the painting and he’s getting his ass kicked by his hero and then the guy from ‘The Notebook’ shows up and makes it weirder. The whole thing – nobody wins.” Gosling had just come from the gym and was “feeling warmed up.”

Elsewhere in heartthrob news, The Daily Beast reports that former Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean was a no-show at the Fashion’s Night Out event at Kiehl’s last night.

Here’s some good news: According to DNAinfo’s math, parking tickets in the East Village were down 48.8 percent – from 26,200 citations issued to 13,422 – between 2009 and 2010.

According to Eater, NGam, a new spot serving traditional Thai dishes as well as a burger and chicken wings for lunch, has opened at Third Avenue and 13^th Street.