Eastvillagedenizen

To coincide with back-to-school day, The Times and WNYC have launched their new SchoolBook site, which in addition to reporting news about New York City schools, encourages parents, teachers, and students to share their own. Not only can you watch as Rachel Ohm (whose “Street Style” videos you know and love) asks parents to show off their back-to-school shopping bags, but you can compare rankings and statistics for schools in the 10003 and 10009 zip codes. The news coming out of 10009 isn’t particularly good: Of 11 public schools listed, only one (Tompkins Square Middle School) boasts an above-average performance rating, and only two scored As (compared to six Cs) on their 2010 Progress Reports. For more about what these numbers mean, and for the latest education news from all over the city, head over to SchoolBook.

Daniel Talbott Tony (Bryan Kaplan) and Dina (Melody Bates).

Four wildly different characters make up the cast of Eightythree Down, an airtight thriller-comedy written by J. Stephen Brantley, directed by Daniel Talbott and now playing at Under St. Marks. First we meet Martin. Even during the raucous, drug-riddled eighties, he’s content to spend New Year’s Eve at his parents’ house, reading about birds (his obsession) in his quilted bed. A Cyndi Lauper poster on the wall and Duran Duran on the stereo hint at the year that’s about to pass – 1983. But crashing into this subdued suburban New York scene comes his old high-school friend Dina, played by a dynamic Melody Bates. She’s accompanied by her East Village roommates: Stuart (Ian Holcomb) is a gay English punk-rocker, and Tony (Bryan Kaplan) is his beefcake Italian-American polar opposite. The only thing these “silly boys” have in common is their love for Dina.

Clad in black leather, the half-brilliant, half-batty blonde (clearly a student of Madonna) bounces between the arms of Stuart and Tony while making her best effort to bring Martin up to speed on her new life. She is friends with a transvestite named Sal as well as with Keith Haring and Basquiat. The producer Jellybean Benitez recently encouraged her to “work on herself.” Read more…

An article on Gothamist offers a behind-the-scenes look — from the perspective of one of the jurors — at the trial of an ex-police officer accused of raping a woman in her East Village home. In one bizarre scene in the story (which is behind a paywall), the exonerated police officer, Kenneth Moreno, embraces and thanks the author, who only a few days prior had declared him not guilty. Another episode reveals that on the first day of deliberations, nine of the 12 jurors already thought that the prosecution had failed to prove Mr. Moreno’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Over the next several days, Fashion Week will bring a barrage of exclusive runway shows and parties, none of which you’ve likely been invited to. But then who wants to trek up to Lincoln Center anyway? Fashion Week’s populist spin-off cum kick-off, Fashion’s Night Out, takes place right here in the East Village and elsewhere around town tonight, and everyone’s invited. Here’s our rundown of this evening’s festivities.

Photos: Rachel Ohm Patricia Field Boutique

Patricia Field Boutique
302 Bowery, (212) 966-4066
From 6 p.m. to midnight, Patricia Field, who famously outfitted the “Sex and the City” gals, will host a party that will double as a celebration of Veselka’s second location across the street. There’ll be a D.J., raffles for cute bags, vodka cocktails (or free coconut water), and pierogi from Veselka. Read more…

Khristopher J. Brooks St. Mark’s Bookshop at 31 Third Avenue.

The co-owners of one of the neighborhood’s most popular bookstores pleaded to members of Community Board 3 last night for help as they struggle to stay in business.

The causes of the St. Mark’s Bookshop’s financial woes (a book industry in free-fall amid the rise of e-readers and online retailers) have been well documented. Things became so dire that the owners even posted an ominous note in the store entrance, saying “Find it here, buy it here, keep us here.”

Now, the store’s owners are pressing their landlord, Cooper Union, to reduce the $20,000-per-month rent for the space in the base of the dormitory building at Third Avenue and Stuyvesant Street. Read more…

George Kuchar, a filmmaker who, along with his twin brother Mike, had a great influence on the Lower East Side’s “underground” (or New American) cinema movement as well as lo-fi and “camp” cinema in general, died in San Francisco on Tuesday at the age of 69, per an obituary in The Times. Runnin’ Scared, which also eulogizes Mr. Kuchar, describes his 1964 film “The Lovers of Eternity” as “a burlesque of bohemian squalor set on the Lower East Side and featuring a monstrous cockroach, as well as several avant-garde filmmakers (notably Jack Smith).”

Stephen Rex Brown Firefighters blasting a manhole with a fire hose.

Firefighters were dousing a manhole with water at Second Avenue and Seventh Street this morning after it caught fire. A spokesman for the fire department said the first report of the blaze came in at 9:17 a.m., and that there were roughly 30 firefighters on the scene. Read more…

Daniel Maurer Dr. Brendan outside the new shop.

Yesterday, longstanding rumors that Apple would announce its so-called iPhone 5 at a September 7 event proved to be false. But on St. Marks Place, a local hero among Apple aficionados was unveiling his very latest.

Last year, The Times introduced us to Brendan McElroy, who repaired iPhones out of his East Village walk-up under the name Dr. Brendan. Soon after that story came out, he secured a small storefront at 8 St. Marks Place; thirteen months later, he has grown his team to eight technicians. Last week, he smacked the Dr. Brendan logo on a Fiat 500 that is now being used for house calls. And this Tuesday, he added yet another feather in his cap, by taking over the cell phone store across the street, giving it 1960s-style signage, and renaming it Another Wireless Shop. Read more…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

According to a report compiled by DNAinfo, the East Village is the 58th safest out of 69 neighborhoods citywide. The reason it’s less safe than Harlem, according to DNAinfo’s math? High rates of grand larceny and burglary, as well as a “600 percent increase in DWI arrests from 2001 to 2010 in the East Village’s 9th Precinct, as well as a 56 percent increase in reported rapes since 2008.”

Some more stats for you: According to a rental market report released by Citi Habitats and excerpted on the Real Deal, the citywide occupancy rate has risen to 1%, but is still at 0.88% in the East Village: “Below 96th Street, the cheapest neighborhoods were on the East Side, the report shows, as rents in the neighborhoods from the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side rose steadily from $2,950 to $3,290 heading north.”

According to City Room, the city’s plan to install a restaurant, City Farm Café, in the Union Square Park pavilion has fallen through because concessionaire Don Pintabona pulled out. Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, wants to see the pavilion go to public use, but the Parks department says it’s “reviewing other high-quality proposals submitted and will select a new operator in the very near future.” Read more…

The cast, left to right: Andres Munar, Lynne McCollough, Guy Stroman, Lori Prince and Erin Treadway.

Directed by Ryan Pointer, “nine/twelve tapes” is a fascinating reenactment of man-on-the-street interviews conducted by citizen journalist Collin Worster Daniels, mostly during the two days following September 11, 2001. Mr. Daniels had moved to New York shortly before the attacks, and was galvanized to capture the widespread disconnect among his fellow survivors. His tapes sat in a closet for nearly ten years before they were recently turned over to a friend of a friend, playwright Leegrid Stevens.

“I listened to these tapes and was amazed at the immediacy and rawness of the material,” said Mr. Stevens. “They are a time capsule – a bridge back to the thoughts and feelings of that time. They show a people desperately trying to make sense of a world turned upside down, trying to understand it and each other.” During the premiere of “nine/twelve tapes” earlier this month at the Dream Up Festival at the Theater for the New City, the interviews were acted out exactly as they first occurred, with a talented cast performing over the background noise of the original recordings. Read more…

The Times shines a light on “Sweet,” the stand-up comedy showcase that started at the Slipper Room in 2004 and moved to Ella on Avenue A last year (the seventh season kicks off this week). The host, “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” warm-up Seth Herzog, has lured big-name comics like Jim Gaffigan and Zach Galifianakis – many of them when they were on the cusp of fame.

Stephen Rex Brown Jim Power’s planter honoring the 9/11 first responders at its new home on Seventh Avenue.

A 9/11 memorial in the West Village got a surprise addition to its collection on Saturday. In a frenzied mix of patriotism and general disgust with the state of Astor Place, “Mosaic Man” Jim Power decided to move his planter dedicated to first responders from its original spot.

Mr. Power said the decision came to him after learning that the Walk of Remembrance honoring Rev. Mychal Judge, a firefighter who died while giving last rites to a comrade at the World Trade Center, would pass by the Tiles For America memorial at Seventh Avenue and 11th Street.
Read more…

While the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation mourns the loss of 331 East Sixth Street (the fourth pre-Civil War building in the East Village to be demolished this year, the GVSHP’s site points out), Curbed learns that two nineteenth-century townhouses on East 10th Street are now being marketed as a pair for $12.5 million (down from $17.8 million three years ago).

Courtesy of Erik Foss. The artist with the show’s centerpiece, “Rapture.”

Erik Foss, co-owner of East Village fixtures Lit Lounge and the adjoining Fuse Gallery, is known to the downtown art world mainly as a curator with an eye for musicians and counterculture types: when The Local last encountered the lanky 38-year-old he was hosting a reception for rocker-turned-artist David Yow. On September 11, he’ll open his first solo show in New York City as an artist, at Mallick Williams & Co. in Chelsea. If the date seems like an odd one for what should be a celebratory occasion, it isn’t — the exhibition, “Avarice,” is a reflection on the events of a decade ago. Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope

Good morning, East Village.

City Room profiles Larry Fagin, a poet and teacher who, at the age of 74, is “one of the East Village’s last standing bohemians.” He lives in a two-bedroom walk-up in Allen Ginsberg’s old building. His rent has almost tripled since he took the apartment in 1968 – yet he’s still paying only $150 a month.

EV Grieve notes that the Upright Citizens Brigade has opened its outpost on East 3rd Street, complete with Hot Chicks Room.

Thought Delancey was a bad street to bike on? Brooklyn Spoke thinks the Bowery is also a “death-trap” for bikers, and believes there has been “too much focus on what’s happening on the Manhattan Bridge and not enough on what’s happening when cyclists get off of it.” Read more…

A FDNY spokesman told The Local that at 8:02 p.m., a call came in regarding a transformer fire at the Con Edison plant at 14^th Street and FDR Drive. According to the spokesman, a standard response team of 12 units comprising 65 firefighters was dispatched to the scene. “It doesn’t appear to be serious,” he said. (The cause of these types of fires is typically determined after an investigation by fire marshals.) EV Grieve has some shots from the scene as well as an eyewitness account: “big explosion, giant black plume of smoke, no flames.” A tipster tells Grieve that “most of the emergency crews” had packed up as of 9 p.m.

Check back here for any updates.

See the full chart here.

When we sent you into the Labor Day weekend with a compendium of hot dog horror stories, we expected a reaction. And what a reaction! Of course, there were the jaded eaters who found this to be a dog-bites-man story: a Huffington Post commenter thought that 64 reported instances of allegedly adulterated hot dogs over the course of two years “isn’t really enough to warrant such a panic-inducing headline” about stray Band-Aids. But the comments we’re throwing into the Chatter Box today come from people who’ve had some truly hairy experiences with food production, starting with BaobabDobbs, a Boing Boing commenter. Read more…

How long will the Flaming Cactus display remain in Cooper Square? Possibly until June 2012. According to a City Room post, that’s how long the city has given the Animus Arts Collective (which first pitched the art project back in 2009) till they have to take down the colorful zip ties.

Stephen Rex Brown Part of the film crew outside of Cafe Orlin today.

Film crews have entirely overtaken Cafe Orlin (no stranger to cinema stars) and parts of St. Marks Place for the shoot of an upcoming NBC drama that takes a (fictional) behind-the-scenes look at the production of a Broadway musical.

A crew member outside the cafe near Second Avenue told The Local that they were shooting “Smash.” According to IMDB, the new series will depict the ups and downs of the cast and crew preparing a show about Marilyn Monroe’s life. Anjelica Huston is the biggest star in the cast, though she was not spotted today at around lunchtime. (There were few opportunities for paparazzi-style photos; the rain had forced most of the crew indoors.)

The show is set to premiere on February 6.