Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

We begin the day with the news that has taken the city by storm: Cathie Black, chancellor of education, has stepped down at the mayor’s request and will be resigning effective immediately. The news comes after Ms. Black’s brief and tumultuous tenure and a 17 percent approval rating, according to a recent NY1-Marist poll.

In neighborhood news, EV Grieve reports that another corner market, the Fuji Apple Market, on 12th Street and First Avenue is going out of business, continuing a trend that has seen a wave of small markets and bodegas close across the city.

An East Village artist has come under scrutiny from the MTA for creating a series of oil paintings on discarded subway cards. Maybe partnering with the artist could help the MTA with its financial woes? Sounds better than raising subway fares.

The performance space known as Under St. Mark’s was featured on NY1. The building, which has been owned by a theater development group since 1999, is for sale and some fans of the venue are concerned that the new owner might close the theater. Watch the NY1 video here.

As for the weekend weather, the forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and highs in the upper 50’s.

Hadas Goshen Adding fuel to the fire: the author ponders the place of civility on the Internet.

I forced myself further into the flames, my face flushed and finger burning above my touchpad— I read them all, every single scalding comment. All 20-something of them, following the new fires as they reached 30, then climbed to 40. And all I could think was, “I’m so glad it’s not me.”

Internet flaming is nothing new. Glowering into the glare of computer screens and cracking fists above keyboards, web users — safe in their basements or bedrooms — have been ranting in chat rooms and online forums for years. Miles and maybe countries away from her recipient, a flamer feels empowered to not only to speak her mind, but scream it — USING ALL CAPS!! Or employing smoldering, DESPICABLE, disgusted and APPALLING language or even $%@^&*#! to communicate the incommunicable!!!!

In the vast expanse of the World Wide Web, it used to be that the chances of an actual encounter between the anonymous flamer and flamee was slim to none. But on a hyper-local news blog in the East Village, a slender area spanning about 10 by 15 streets, the cyber-world reduces into a neighborhood, and things get more personal. Is it still O.K. to bash (on a community forum by and for local residents) the storeowner down the block on Avenue A, or that obnoxious woman you always avoid at Tompkins Square dog run?
Read more…

Grace Maalouf During an appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court, a Queens man pleaded not guilty to charges that he punched a woman during a dispute over a parking space in the East Village.

A Queens man who punched a woman in the face in a dispute about an East Village parking spot pleaded not guilty today to a felony charge of second-degree assault.

Oscar Fuller, arrested March 1 for the Feb. 25 incident which left Lana Rosas, 25, hospitalized in a coma, has maintained that the act was one of self-defense, and told reporters in March that surveillance footage would back up his claims.

Prosecutors today presented one security tape as pre-trial discovery, calling it a “very grainy video” taken from a great distance. Thomas Kenniff, Mr. Fuller’s lawyer, told The Local that though he hasn’t seen the footage, he has a “fairly good idea” based on his conversations with the prosecutor and his own investigator of what it would show. Mr. Kenniff has said that Ms. Rosas started the altercation.
Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Good morning, East Village.

We begin today with a pair of in-case-you-missed-it items.

Two red-tailed hawks have taken to a nest on a ledge of NYU’s Bobst Library, just outside the 12th floor office of University president John Sexton. The Times has set up a live stream video where you can watch Violet, the mother named for the school’s official color and mascot, care for her eggs. Occasionally Bobby, the father named for Bobst library, stops by to check in. We put up a short post about the camera Wednesday afternoon.

We also learned Wednesday that the police are on the hunt for a suspect in a series of seven subway robberies, the latest of which occurred last week outside the Broadway-Lafayette subway station in the East Village.

In other neighborhood news, a new antique shop has opened on Second Street at Avenue A, Kabinett & Kramer. The one-room shop is the Manhattan outpost of an upstate store that has attracted celebrities such as Amy Sedaris and Anderson Cooper, the latter having liked the store so much he hired its owner to decorate his apartment across town.

Even as the number of applications for liquor licenses in the East Village continues to grow, a group of residents on East Fifth Street upset about noise are planning to fight proposals for a new pub on the block.

Bird-fanciers can visit The Times to watch a live video feed of the hawk currently nesting outside the office of N.Y.U. President John Sexton on Washington Square Park. — The Local

Jankor

This summer, a young scholar from the neighborhood, college-bound and interested in journalism, will have the opportunity to participate in N.Y.U.’s Hyperlocal Newsroom Summer Academy, thanks to a full $5,000 scholarship.  The newsroom is the reporting engine of The Local East Village.

The Local is reaching out to schools within its coverage area, asking them to identify a high-achieving rising junior or senior, studying and preferably living in the neighborhood, a student who would not otherwise be able to take advantage of this opportunity.

The Summer Academy is a six-week pre-college program for rising juniors and seniors, being held in the newsrooms of the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at 20 Cooper Square in the East Village from July 5 to August 12.

The course in basic reporting or multimedia skills provides four college credits. As part of the program, there will be a newsroom atmosphere all week, where students can get editorial and multimedia support. A planned schedule is in the making of exciting age-appropriate social and journalistic activities, all covered as part of the program.

The centerpiece of the program is The Local East Village, the news and information site being published for the neighborhood collaboratively by the Institute and The New York Times.

More information and a video about the Summer Academy, can be found here.

The authorities are searching for the thief in a series of what has so far been seven robberies in Manhattan subway stations, the most recent of which occurred in the East Village at the intersection of Broadway and Houston Street about a week ago. The thief is believed to be a teenager who targets victims in subway stations before and after school hours, pulling out a knife or gun and then robbing them of their iPod or cell phone. So far all of his victims have been teenagers. — Rachel Ohm

Ian Duncan A passerby inspects South Brooklyn Pizza’s liquor license notice. Despite the hurdles of entering a thoroughly saturated market, owners of bars and restaurants are still flocking to the East Village – and filing applications for liquor licenses.

This weekend, the Post reported what we all kind of knew anyway. The East Village has more places to buy booze than any other neighborhood in the city: 474 in the 10003 zip code by their count. Cue mass eye-rolling in the blogosphere at the non-news.

Concerned by the profusion of bars, Community Board 3 and the authority have started to toughen up. Last month, the board narrowly voted down a liquor license application for a Mexican restaurant run by Two Boots Pizza owner Phil Hartman and music promoter Todd Patrick.

The reason for the proliferation of bars hinges on zoning technicalities and what critics say was the State Liquor Authority’s past trigger-happy attitude to handing out licenses.

That created momentum and now entrepreneurs are desperate to get a foothold in the neighborhood, despite the obstacles. Next Monday, 33 businesses will put their case for new or expanded licenses to the community board.

In a bold step, the owners of South Brooklyn Pizza labeled the community board “infamous” and urged their customers to sign a petition supporting their application. EV Grieve noted the claim, trigging much rumbling from the blog’s commenters.
Read more…

The Landmarks Preservation Commisssion approved N.Y.U.’s application to make changes to the open space at the landmarked University Towers site, following a hearing on April 5. The application represents one element of the university’s revised plans to expand in its core neighborhood. — Kim Davis

Bruce Monroe

Good morning, East Village.

Today DNAinfo reports that the East Village Community School is seeking to expand as a solution to overcrowding that administrators expect to worsen as the school, located on East 12th Street, between Avenues B and C, prepares to undergo renovations. The plans for renovation should be finalized by June while the school works with the Community Education Council of District 1 to explore the possibility of leasing community space for EVCS.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation links a dramatic population increase in the East Village, shown by changes in census records for 2010, to the construction of three “enormous dorms” — Palladium Hall and University Hall on East 14th Street and Founder’s Hall on East 12th.

In the Manhattan Supreme Court a trial continues for the alleged rape of an East Village woman by two N.Y.P.D. officers outside her apartment in 2008. Friends of the woman testified Tuesday, saying she was highly intoxicated and had to be taken home in a cab. The cab driver also testified, saying he had to call the police to escort the alleged victim to her apartment, as Taxi and Limousine Commission rules prohibit drivers from assisting passengers on their own.

And finally, on a lighter, foodie note, the East Village is destined for a new donut shop featuring pastries made from mashed potatoes, as well as a new breakfast-all-day joint, B.A.D. Burgers, which will open a second location on Avenue A looking to match the success of their Williamsburg joint.

Michelle RickFree as a bird (not the article’s author).

I am an educated person who can read and write. I can also see perfectly well. I should know, therefore, that when there is a giant red hand flashing at me from across the street, I should probably stay on the curb instead of walking out into the oncoming traffic. But I don’t remember learning as a child that crossing the street only when the white symbol for walking-human was illuminated was essential to societal orderliness. I was always just told to hold hands.

Lacking this educational background, I convinced myself that if a car was to hit me, the driver would have to pay me several thousand dollars in some sort of law suit and I could go back to my life of walking into oncoming traffic again, except I’d be richer. I’m in no position to turn down free money. “Bring it on cars!” I would say as they honked their useless horns and I tiptoed across the asphalt. “Try and hit me, I’ll see you in court!” They would slow down, like cowards, or slam on their breaks, also like cowards. They would climb out their windows and tell me I’m crazy and that I must have a death wish. No, I just knew that the alternative to getting to the other side of the street when I wanted meant either free money or death. And if I died, then I wouldn’t really know the difference would I?

This attitude allowed me to get a lot done while crossing intersections. I could time myself on a mile walk, uninterrupted. I could eat the falafel I just bought. I could make calls to my grandmother. I saw the stretch of open asphalt as a vast field of opportunity. What could I get done from point A to point B? Could I finish this container of pasta salad? Could I paint my nails this shade of electric blue? Could I keep knitting this scarf? Of course I could. Read more…

Rachel OhmThe upstairs dining room at Peels.

At 7:35 on a recent cold, wet and thoroughly lousy morning, I was sitting at the counter at Peels, a clean-well-lighted place at 325 Bowery, at 2nd Street. Peels was empty, as it always is then, and I asked Wendy, the counter waitress, why a restaurant as ambitious and expensive as Peels opened up for breakfast. Wendy had pushed her soft green Mao-style cap to the back of her head, as if to call attention to its strictly decorative function. She batted her eyes at me, and said, “For you!”

Well, yes, that’s what it feels like. There is something wonderfully gracious about proper restaurants, whose real lives take place at night, opening for breakfast. It’s so utterly unnecessary that it feels like an act of community service (why is why, I hear you cynics out there saying, they do it). Downtown, most serious restaurants don’t even serve lunch. Among those that serve all three meals are the legendary bistro Balthazar, at 80 Spring St., which really does get a breakfast crowd, and Vandaag, at 103 Second, whose “cream biscuit” puts all of its breakfast competitors, Peels included, to shame.

I salute them all; but let me sing the praises of Peels. Peels calls itself “a regional American restaurant,” an expression so vacuous as to imply sterile restaurant-marketing calculation. I would have said that it’s neo-Southern roadhouse; the playlist leans to Johnny Cash and “Porgy and Bess,” and the menu includes hush puppies and collard greens. I have never eaten dinner at Peels, in part because it’s very hard to get a table, but you can order shrimp and grits, an andouille corn dog, and a 32-ounce grass-fed Piedmontese ribeye steak for two. I’m told it’s wonderful, but I don’t feel an overwhelming need to know.

The biscuit plays a foundational role at Peels. At my first breakfast there, I ordered a biscuit with scrambled eggs and ham (“local organic scrambled eggs” and “country ham,” that is) from the “Build-A-Biscuit” menu. I was a little flummoxed when it arrived, since the sandwich is too high to be placed directly in your mouth and too small to be assayed with knife and fork without creating a mess. My son Alex faced the same quandary at lunch one day when he ordered the biscuit with fried chicken and red-eye gravy, a great gloppy mass shoveled between biscuit halves. He kept circling it until he finally resigned himself to nibbling away with utensils. The combination of crunchy dark-meat chicken, smoky gravy and chalky biscuit was heavenly. Even his mother, who found the concept mildly repellent, loved the result. Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Last week the New Museum announced some of the details for its Festival of Ideas, but it seems that not everyone is keen on the street festival scheduled to take place on the Bowery. The Lo-Down reports that Billy Leroy, “mayor” of the Bowery and proprieter of Billy’s antiques is opposed to what he has labeled another attempt “to gentrify the Bowery.”

City Limits reports on the conditions in First Houses, the city’s oldest public housing on Third Avenue between First Avenue and Avenue A, describing the deterioration of the landmark site.

Meanwhile, EV Grieve broods over the extraterrestrial which appeared in a vacant lot on 13th Street over the weekend. Can the mystery of its origins be solved by looking at a once innocuous photo?

Finally, in transportation news it appears that more MTA stops might be adopting the setup of the Astor Place subway station, where retail and riding the rail go hand in hand. Second Avenue Sagas reports that the commercial opportunities available underground just might be the golden ticket to generating more money. The Chicago Transit Authority is already engaged in a real estate overhaul. Is New York next?

Clint McMahon

Would-be messages from the East Village, in 140 characters or less.

Think Café

Think? He can’t even hear! So he’ll just stand & stare at
the barista there: Sleek update of the girl in Manet’s Un
Bar aux Folies Bergère

Literary Investigation

If T.S.E. were 23, would he be a downtown dandy,
mouth full of Jay-Z? LinkedIn loner on Facebook?
Poetry Society grandee? Let us go then,

& take a look. (Everything you wrote that was prophetic
& new, Major Tom, has long come true. So what would
you do now, for Act Two?)

Life

You can either embrace it or invent increasingly
complicated ways to replace it. Either way, it’ll catch
you in the end. Worse, before then

Truth Deferred

One mirror cruel, the other kind, I stick to the latter
when I unwind. If truth is called for, I take a look: The
first reads me like a book
Read more…

In fashion, utility often takes a backseat to stylish – but it doesn’t have to be so. As spring rolls on, stylish East Villagers are playing up what winter wear remains with zippers and buttons that are both functional and fun. Accents on coats, boots and bags have a purpose whether it be to stash keys or sunglasses or keep you warm, but they can also spice up an outfit. The Local hits the pavement to find out what accents serve the dual purpose of functionality and fashion forward.

NYU Journalism’s Rachel Ohm and Claire Glass report.