Lauren Carol Smith Television reporters interview a local about Eason Alonzio, a disabled man who was left in a van and died after six hours yesterday.The police have confirmed to The Local East Village that the developmentally disabled man who died in the back of a van after being left there for six hours on Tuesday was a resident of the neighborhood. News vans are currently clogging East Fifth Street.
The 48-year-old, Eason Alonzio, was part of a group of disabled people driven to a daytime activity at 2082 Lexington Avenue in East Harlem at around 9 a.m, according to The Times.
The group got out of the van operated by AHRC New York City, but somehow Mr. Alonzio was left behind.
The police said that at around 2 p.m. the resident of 224 East Fifth Street, was found dead in a backseat.
A cause of death has not yet been determined. On Tuesday the temperature reached a high of 91 degrees.
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Vivienne Gucwa Good morning, East Village.
We start with a preview of Rent’s new off-Broadway incarnation from the Observer. The musical that portrayed the drug-infested Alphabet City of the early 1990s had a twelve-year run that eventually came to an end in 2008. The new production has kept original director Michael Greif on board and will open at the New World Stages on August 11th.
Meanwhile on the big screen, the LA Times brings us a detailed look at the set designs for “The Smurfs,” which premiered last weekend. Exterior scenes were filmed on location in the East Village and the interiors were made to look like a shabby artist’s tenement from the 1960s that has survived largely untouched to the present day (a weirder concept than little blue guys running around town?) In one scene, star Neil Patrick Harris rocks out on “Guitar Hero” in a CBGB shirt – one reviewer called it “the moment rock and roll died.”
Banjo Jim’s closed last night, and EV Grieve notes that the“artisanal” cocktail bar that will replace it is now known as The Wayland. Elsewhere on Avenue C, TenEleven is also closed while it awaits its liquor license renewal, and EV Eats frets that a low-key favorite, Duke’s, is “slowly falling apart.”
Speaking of disrepair, EV Grieve has been keeping close tabs on a sink hole on Second Avenue. Previously, some good egg had marked it with a municipal trash can, but that has since been removed. One Grieve commenter has high hopes for the little crack’s role in neighborhood reclamation: “Hope it’s a large hole as all the yuppies and there [sic] poodles might not fit.”
Tim MilkThe Church of the Nativity has for many years serviced the less fortunate with their basement food pantry at 44 Second Avenue. Last week bilingual signs were posted advising locals that due to state and federal budget cuts, “The Food Pantry will be closed until further notice.”
Contrasts abound in the East Village. On one hand we see a fashionable epicenter with its glittering night life. But on the other one finds a place haunted by desperation. As families struggle to make ends meet, as unemployment takes its toll, as food prices rise, it is all the more regrettable to see a neighborhood food pantry shut for lack of funds.
It puts a very personal, poignant perspective on the rather circus-like proceedings in Washington over the debt ceiling. One has to wonder just how many food pantries must be closed in order to narrow State and Federal deficits.
Let us know what you think about the closure.
East Village residents can eat free hot dogs, jump in a moon bounce and meet local N.Y.P.D. members at today’s National Night Out event hosted by the Ninth Police Precinct. The block party (which runs until 8 p.m. in the space across from the Precinct at 321 East Fifth Street) is one of many community events across the country designed to facilitate interaction between neighbors and police.
Rachel Citron The 7th Precinct has been targeting bar owners for serving drinks to minors.The police crackdown on bars in the Lower East Side resulted in a dramatic increase in charges of underage drinking against business owners, data provided by the State Liquor Authority shows.
During a three-month stretch of intense enforcement early this year, the S.L.A., which acts on recommendations from the police, handed down 39 charges of underage drinking in the neighborhood, compared to 31 charges issued during all of 2009 and 2010.
Bar owners in the three zip codes that, taken together, include the East Village and Lower East Side faced 230 charges of serving minors from 2007 to 2011, resulting in $1,034,800 in fines. The data shows that large numbers of charges come during intense periods of enforcement, and bars in the Lower East Side in particular have faced an unprecedented and disproportionate amount of scrutiny this year.
Each offense results in fines of up to $10,000, and repeat offenders risk being shut down permanently. Some of the more high-profile watering holes caught in the dragnet include Mason Dixon (which eventually closed altogether) and Welcome to the Johnson’s.
The increase in enforcement came as the 7th Precinct resurrected its cabaret unit, which focuses on the Lower East Side’s booming nightlife scene, as well as the arrival of Capt. David Miller at the precinct last year. An officer with Community Affairs in the 7th Precinct would not comment on enforcement of sale of alcohol to minors.
In 2009, the East Village’s 9th Precinct disbanded its own cabaret unit, though at a recent community meeting Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr said underage drinking remained a priority.
Many bar owners say that they are being unfairly punished for an issue beyond their control.
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Ian Duncan The Avenue C poker club was robbed at gunpoint on Saturday. It has now closed. Below: a joker marks the club’s door.Six card players were robbed at gunpoint late Saturday night in a poker club on Avenue C, according to police reports. Two armed men entered the New York City Poker Tour club shortly before 11 p.m. and ushered the players into a closet before robbing them. One player – identified by owner Jeremy Martin as Michael C. – had just returned from a successful night at a casino and was carrying $4,500 in cash.
Ian DuncanThe club had closed on Saturday night, but Mr. Martin and a few other players were inside after hours. The robbers knocked at the door and were let in. They quickly rounded up the players, took their cash and left.
Mr. Martin believes that he was “set up” by one of the players, because the gunmen shook down Michael first, before ordering the other players to empty their pockets.
Mr. Martin said no one was hurt in the robbery, but according to police reports, one person was punched in the face by the attackers. The robbers escaped with $6,500 in cash, a driver’s license and a Medicaid card.
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Courtesy of Curtis Brown Curtis Brown, the former frontman of rock band Bad Wizard who became chef at Bubby’s, has left his gig at the Tribeca comfort-food standby and will open his own place at 234 East Fourth Street. Named after the bird of his home state of North Carolina (Mr. Brown was born in Asheville in 1972 and moved to New York City in 1996), The Cardinal is expected to open around Aug. 14, and will offer a “90 percent Southern” menu consisting of Memphis-style ribs, North Carolina-style pulled pork, and Texas-style brisket, as well as non-barbecue items such as lard biscuits, fried chicken, and fried pork chops with red-eye gravy. Among the restaurant’s investors is Dov Charney, the notorious founder of American Apparel.
Mr. Brown’s front-of-house partner in the restaurant is Leanne Hebert-Nguyen, who worked at the clothing company for two years (before that, she was a manager at restaurants in Montreal). “He’s a friend of hers and we were looking for investors and he got involved,” said Mr. Brown of Mr. Charney’s “hands-off” role. “He’ll be here opening night— that kind of situation. And he gives us any support he can, helping us find stuff like light fixtures for the restaurant.”
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Rachel CitronGood morning, East Village.
Neighborhood restaurants are falling behind in the cleanliness stakes. In a report marking a year since letter grades were introduced, The Department of Health announced that 69 percent of restaurants received a grade A. In the East Village, 167 received top marks – that’s around 58 percent. City Room reports that Mayor Bloomberg thinks the system has been good for restaurant owners and diners alike.
EV Grieve picks over the agenda for next Monday’s meeting of Community Board 3’s SLA & DCA Licensing Committee, noting that the renewal for Heather’s will be a likely source of tension (its neighbors have complained about smoke and noise for years). Elsewhere on the restaurant front, DNA Info reports that next month an Israeli native, Zohar Zohar, will open Zucker Bakery, featuring Stumptown coffee and “cookies influenced by her European and Middle Eastern roots.”
The BMW Guggenheim Lab, which opens to the public on East First Street tomorrow, has its media preview today from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and you can follow along on its Twitter stream. Its organizers have been soliciting contributions on how to make the city more comfortable. It has achieved this in its own right, to some degree, by driving the rats from the lot it inhabits. Perhaps BMW could be induced to build a few more pop-up galleries around Tompkins Square Park and solve the problem there, too.
One Animus Arts Collective artist constructs a Flaming Cactus Saturday nightThe “WALK MAN” that was erected in Tompkins Square Park over the weekend has already been vandalized (DNA Info has the story), but another art installation is still standing. Over the weekend, a group of roughly ten artists calling themselves the Animus Arts Collective transformed fourteen East Village lampposts into “Flaming Cactus” displays.
You may have seen some of the lampposts at Astor Place; four similar lampposts, festooned with fluorescent cables to resemble cacti, are located on Governor’s Island.
Officials with the New York City Department of Transportation commissioned the project in order to mark the route of the D.O.T.’s fourth annual Summer Streets program. Read more…
Karl Fischer An exclusive rendering of the new building bound for 427 East 12th StreetWhen the news first broke that a new six-story residential building at 427 East 12th Street would be designed by controversial architect Karl Fischer, speculation immediately ensued about its appearance.
Now, The Local has obtained a rendering of the building, which is marked by floor-to-ceiling windows and a penthouse that sits two stories above its neighbors. The developer of the building, Shaky Cohen, said that he and Mr. Fischer had strived to make the building fit into the neighborhood.
“We try to blend in to the neighborhood. We try not to be a focal point,” Mr. Cohen said. “Obviously it’s a modern building — we’re not going to replicate a design from the 1930s.”
He added that the building will feature a pair of one-bedroom apartments on floors two through five, with the ground floor accommodating an apartment with a backyard, and the top floor a penthouse. The building will also include perks like a virtual doorman and a communal roof deck.
But two local preservationists scoffed when they saw Mr. Fischer’s design.
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Marit Molin Sherwin Zabala stands in front of the construction that he says is hurting his Downtown Floor Supplies store on Lafayette Street.Three business owners at the corner of Lafayette and Bleecker Streets say that construction on a new subway passage is warding off customers, leading to their revenue plummeting by as much as 50 percent. Workers for the Metropolitan Transit Authority have been busy since 2009, building a passageway between the uptown 6 train at Bleecker Street and the Broadway-Lafayette station. Unfortunately for the businesses at the entrance to the downtown 6 train, the latest phase of work, which according to an M.T.A. spokesman started four weeks ago, requires a construction zone that occupies parking spaces in the area and forms a barrier in front of the three store entrances. Read more…
Over the weekend, the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck (which is following in the footsteps of Van Leeuwen in adding an East Village store to its mobile enterprise) updated its blog readers on the progress of its hotly (coolly?) anticipated brick-and-mortar debut. Pending some electrical upgrades, the storefront at 125 East Seventh Street should finally open in mid-August with Oslo coffee, baked goods from The Treats Truck, and a store-only Choinkwich (chocolate ice cream and bacon sandwiched between chocolate cookies).
Cristobal ReyThe East Village lost a raw food store when Jubb’s Longevity shuttered in 2008; more recently, it lost a vegetarian spot when Counter closed. Now, two doors down from the former Jubb’s, another raw food spot (this one a Los Angeles transplant) has opened its doors. Euphoria Loves Rawvolution soft opened at 504 East 12th Street last Thursday. Its grand opening is today, and in two weeks it will begin offering a weekly cleanse that can be supplemented with “emotional shamanic journeys” and colonics.
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Vivienne GucwaTop of the morning to you, East Village!
Ephemeral New York mourns some bygone record shops, including the Saint Mark’s Music Exchange, but it’s not all doom and gloom on St. Marks. EV Grieve notices that the space that briefly housed the CBGB store now hosts a tattoo and tobacco accessories shop. Speaking of CBGB, Bowery Boogie reports that John Varvatos and Jesse Malin of Niagara are teaming up to host a Sirius XM show, “New York Nights…Direct from the Bowery.”
EV Grieve notices web postings indicating that Bar on A seems to be for sale and Banjo Jim will close on Tuesday; meanwhile City Room remembers Mars Bar’s alternate identity as an art gallery, and WNYC also revisits the dive’s closing. Elsewhere on the art scene, EV Grieve gets a glimpse of the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s food menu, by East Williamsburg pizza destination Roberta’s; and the Times considers Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s online gallery of photographs from the East Village in the 1980s, also on display at the Asia Society.
Finally, New York magazine strolls the neighborhood with onetime “mayor of the East Village” Aziz Ansari. The actor and comedian identifies “East Village dogs” and interrogates a NYC Icy employee: “This is pumpkin flavor, not pumpkin-pie flavor. Pumpkin pie has pie crust in it.”
Adrian Fussell on the beauty of taking photographs in an urban setting.
“People on the street give me endless fleeting moments of beauty. In capturing them, I try to make the viewer feel the irony of a scene, feel empathy for the subject, or show a unique juxtaposition. I’m training myself to be ready for those decisive moments in the random chaos of people going about their daily lives.”
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Phillip Kalantzis CopeAs my last day as editor of The Local draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have joined our experiment in collaborative journalism over the past year.
Since our launch in September, many of our neighbors have accepted our invitation to tell their own stories about the community that we all share and the blog has served as a showcase for the richness of voices and images and perspectives that makes the East Village what it is. Even more of you have visited the blog or paused to leave a comment in our forums or speak with us via Facebook and Twitter. We are grateful to you all.
The hard work that we have put into the site speaks for itself — and by “we” I mean community contributors, NYU students, and everyone else who has generously shared their talents in this effort.
And happily that work will continue under the exceptional leadership of Daniel Maurer, who on Monday will formally assume the editorship of the blog with all of my best wishes.
To my neighbors and friends here in the East Village, to the extraordinary students whom I’ve had the pleasure of teaching, to my wonderful colleagues at NYU and The New York Times, again, thank you all.
Vivienne GucwaSupporters of same-sex marriage during a parade last month. An anticipated spike in business for wedding planners, florists and others because of the new law has so far failed to materialize.The legalization of same-sex marriage in New York meant many things to many people. It meant freedom to marry for lesbian and gay couples who had been waiting to do so in their home state. It meant a landmark civil rights victory for New York legislators. And to many in the wedding industry, it meant cash.
But they may have seen the dollar signs a bit too soon.
There were 659 marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples who wed on Sunday, the first day that the law was put into effect, but those numbers have not led to a bump in profits.
Wedding planner Jeannie Uyanik, executive director of C&G Weddings, thought that the expectations of business owners were overblown from the outset, making the lackluster increases seem even more disappointing.
“Even before the law was enacted, there were people who were going to get married no matter what. It didn’t matter if they had to go to Canada or Amsterdam or Massachusetts: where there’s a will there’s always been a way,” Mrs. Uyanik said. “This in and of itself is not going to change the wedding industry. There’s going to be that small blip — probably of just a year — but at that point its really going to normalize.”
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Chelsia Rose MarciusOur recent posts on bodegas in the East Village that continue to sell caffeinated Four Loko struck a nerve. Many readers took time to write in and express their thoughts on our investigation, and Gothamist picked up the story and republished similar articles twice.
The action wasn’t limited to the blogosphere either: The Local’s Chelsia Rose Marcius revisited the subject after the commotion, reporting that the State Liquor Authority planned to investigate the bodegas in question.
A common label, used both in the comments section and the Gothamist posts, was “narcs” and “snitches.”
“tacony palmyra” started off the name calling:
“Well, thanks East Village Narc! I’m sure the SLA or whatever authority is going to make sure these bodegas you individually identified will be in trouble if they find any, and now we get no more old school Four Lokos. Do journalistic ethics require that you play fun police?”
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