Daniel Maurer The East Village location, still open.

The East Broadway location of Xi’an Famous Foods has quietly closed.

Of course, East Villagers still have the location at 81 St. Marks Place, but if your first bite of the place’s pungent, offal-happy Shaanxi cooking was at the hole-in-the-wall in Chinatown, you’re probably making a sad-face now.

Rest assured, Xi’an has told its Facebook fans that it’s determined to “open up more stores, all while doing our best to stay true to our original concept.” A Facebook post indicates it’s scouting the Upper West Side (which would make it easier for uptown fan Anthony Bourdain to get to the place), but the next outpost will actually be in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at 86 Beadel Street.

“It is a small storefront attached to our central kitchen facility,” Jason Wang, the owner, said of the fairly remote location. His Facebook post links to a coupon for a free burger or noodle dish during the grand opening on Saturday.

Upward and xi’anward!

Joann Jovinelly

Good morning, East Village.

At 250 Bowery, “22 of 28 units sold in just one month, with prices from $925,000 for a one-bedroom to a hair under $6 million for a penthouse. The loft-like project is attracting the likes of Scarlett Johansson and singer Paul Simon, and will house an upscale Anthropologie shop in the ground floor.” [Daily News]

Heidi Grumelot, head of artistic development at Horse Trade Theater, explains why the Red Room will close: “We’ve been renegotiating our lease since the beginning of January, and our landlord has told us that he wants to repurpose the Red Room space into something besides a theater. We’re retaining the Kraine and Under St. Marks, but starting April 1, he’s going to be using the Red Room for his own purposes.” [Astor Place Riot]

An East Villager is facing up to $30,000 in fines for renting his apartment on Airbnb. [WNYC]
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Samantha Balaban

Three months after Sandy struck, The Sunburnt Cow still hasn’t restarted its dinner service, and is offering only weekend brunch. Its manager, Matilda Boland, told The Local she hopes the Australian spot will be fully operational “by the time it’s warm out.”

While most of its neighbors on Avenue C are back up to full capacity, the Cow was forced to shut its doors for a month when Con Edison turned off its gas because of safety concerns, said Ms. Boland. Then it had to rewire its building, which is over 100 years old. It’s still in the process of replacing damaged equipment.

Meanwhile, state senator Daniel Squadron has urged the quick passage of the NYC Hurricane Sandy Assessment Act, a bill initiated by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. The act, if passed, would provide property tax reduction to home and business owners commensurate to the damage done during Sandy.

“Around our city, New Yorkers are still struggling to rebuild their homes and businesses in the wake of Sandy’s catastrophic damage,” said Senator Squadron in a press release. “By providing tax relief to New Yorkers whose property was severely impacted by Sandy, our bill will allow them — and our city — to rebuild and again thrive.”

Are you still struggling after Sandy? Tell us about it.

Samantha Balaban 199, 201 and 203 East Fourth.

Massey Knakal

Jared Kushner has signed a contract to pay $49 million to Benjamin Shaoul for seven buildings on East Fourth Street, sources tell The Real Deal.

The Local suspected that the properties might have been purchased when they were mysteriously removed from Massey Knakal’s website shortly after we wrote about them two weeks ago. Yesterday, John Ciraulo, vice chairman of the firm, failed to reply to our inquiries about the matter. This morning, Mr. Shaoul’s attorney, Ken Fisher, declined to comment on the status of the buildings. The Real Deal broke the story this afternoon.

News of Mr. Kushner’s seven-building purchase comes on the heels of reports that he purchased 17 buildings from Mr. Shaoul and Westbrook Properties. The Post reported that the sale was for $128 million; The Real Deal now says the number is $130 million. The seven-building package consists of 118, 120-122, 195, 199, 201 and 203 East Fourth Street, which have a combined total of 115 residential units and one store.

Mr. Kushner, 32, is married to Ivanka Trump and owns The New York Observer. When it comes to high-profile real estate purchases, this isn’t his first rodeo. His family business, Kushner Companies purchased 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007 in a $1.8 billion deal, which The Times referred to as “a classic example of reckless underwriting.”

Last week, Billy Leroy told The Local that his antiques shop might reopen on a side street, away from “yuppies asking stupid questions.”

Around the corner from where his tent once stood, Olde Good Things is now courting that clientele. The shop has quietly started selling “architectural antiques” on the Bowery.

Bob Johnston, one of its owners, knows his average shopper isn’t the punk rocker of yore. “It’s a very upscale, conservative crowd here, surprisingly, that I found, for the Lower East Side, it’s changed quite a bit,” he told The Local. “It’s not so much the bohemian style of yesteryear. It’s lost a lot of the grit. We can still bring some grit here but we’re trying not to do that.”
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Joanna Marshall

The longtime home of Village Scandal was finally seized by its landlord yesterday, but the owner of the 17-year-old hat store is fighting to get it back.

“We’re trying to get the eviction reversed,” Ms. Barrett’s lawyer, Ronald Podolsky, told The Local this morning. On Jan. 25, the shop on East Seventh street was served with an eviction notice demanding it leave by Monday. Mr. Podolsky said he is waiting for word from a city Supreme Court justice regarding the order. He is arguing that the eviction is invalid because lawyers for the landlord, 19 East 7 Group, refused to accept a court order yesterday morning for a stay of eviction.

“They claim the order was a forgery,” said Mr. Podolsky, still in disbelief. “I never saw such a ridiculous situation in my life. They claimed that no orders are signed on a Sunday. Well, the weekend Supreme Court justice signed the order on Sunday. The order is valid. And it’s signed by Wendy.”
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Bahram Foroughi

Good morning, East Village.

Almost a decade later, the man who poured kerosene on patrons of Bar Veloce and held them hostage at gunpoint has been found guilty. Steven Johnson faces life in prison. [NY Times]

“While ‘P.S. 122: East Village’ is under construction, funded primarily by the City of New York, P.S. 122 will work collaboratively with small Brooklyn theaters, stage performances in public parks and dive bars, to bring more innovative and site-specific work to the outer boroughs and beyond.” [Theatermania]

Bummer: “Starting with the 2013-2014 school year, the Greenwich Village-based university will no longer allow first-year students to select their own roommates.” [DNA Info]

“A major orthodox Jewish New York developer wants to open up a new Jewish Lower East Side kosher restaurant to replace the old Schildkraut Vegetarian Restaurant at 171 Broadway.” [Jewish Press]
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Daniel Maurer Spotted outside of Bow and inside of Pink Elephant.

Spotted outside of Bow, the new club on Bowery, and inside of Pink Elephant, on West Eighth Street. If it helps you pick a favorite, the guy at right was shooting smoke and lasers out of his spacesuit. #PartyLikeIts1999.

Chester Higgins, Jr./New York Times Shamus Jones.

As you can tell by peeking at the pickle menu at East Village newcomer Boulton & Watt, pickles are popular. So popular that one of the city’s most popular pickle producers might just be opening an eatery of its own.

Shamus Jones, who co-founded Brooklyn Brine in 2009, revealed to The Local that the wholesaler will open a brick-and-mortal location in north Brooklyn.

A source told The Local that the pickler was working with Dogfish Head, the Delaware brewery that had a hand in its popular Hop-Pickle, to open a spot on Bedford Avenue. Mr. Jones wouldn’t comment on the location or the particulars of the operation because he wanted to coordinate an official announcement with the beer company, but he did confirm that the report of a collaboration was true. “It’s a brick and mortar and it’s Dogfish and Brooklyn Brine,” he said.

The project won’t be a retail shop along the lines of the one that opened in the producer’s Gowanus factory last year. “It isn’t going to be a factory and isn’t going to be a store,” said Mr. Jones.

And Dogfish Head won’t be a full partner, he added. “They don’t have a vested equity or share or whatnot, but I felt so strongly about our initial collaboration and out of respect wanted to incorporate them.”

You can get a taste of the Brooklyn Brine-Dogfish Head magic at Eataly’s rooftop beer garden on Wednesday, assuming you have a ticket. Brooklyn Brine pickles will be served at a sold-out lunch featuring Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada beers.

Daniel Maurer

Thought after-hours clubs were taking a dirt nap? Thought illegal speakeasies were just for those crazy kids over in Brooklyn? Think again. On the outskirts of the East Village, the after-hours tradition is still going strong.

We don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun here (we’ve been accused of that in the past), so we’ll keep this vague. But rest assured there’s a place where, at 5 a.m., you can bang on the door and a bouncer will appear. He’ll tell you to step inside, charge you $10, and direct you down the stairs into a narrow, brick-walled lair where DJs pump out house and techno. In a crowd several dozen strong, you’ll see couples making out, boys smoking e-cigarettes (and regular cigarettes), and girls ducking into the bathroom two at a time. But mostly people are dancing and drinking into the wee hours.

How wee? Well, the bartender who was serving drinks at 5:30 a.m. Saturday said the party goes till 6 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. (That bartender didn’t know he was talking to a reporter.)

When the bouncer let us out by directing us up a dingy stairwell and through a metal gate (the bar’s service entrance), he said, “Have a good night, and do not stand by that door.” The door is not inconspicuously located, you see: when we stepped out onto the strangely quiet streets of the East Village (even South Brooklyn Pizza and Stromboli were closed), a police car was right there at the intersection.

This is no fly-by-night operation: we first caught wind of the place last spring and have heard about it from two people since then. Feel free to guess the location. We won’t confirm or deny.

Good morning, East Village.

Above, footage from Saturday’s Bodega Walk, in which poets Bob Holman, Eileen Myles and other East Villagers protesting the influx of 7-Elevens. [Gamma Blog]

“Hundreds of local residents marched through the streets Thursday night as a show of unity against a spate of Lower East Side shootings in recent months, with the latest resulting in the death of 16-year-old Raphael Ward.” [DNA Info]

Jared Kushner, publisher of the New York Observer, has purchased 17 apartment buildings for $128 million. The seller was Benjamin Shaoul and Westbrook Partners. [New York Post, The Real Deal]

“Some of Joey Ramone’s leather wardrobe and some of his other personal belongings are hitting the auction block. A custom-made black leather motorcycle jacket with zebra-skin pocket flaps, cuffs and epaulets is the star item in an online sale of the Queens-raised punk rocker’s belongings.” [NY Post]
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Courtesy Billy Leroy

Billy Leroy has his hands full with “Baggage Battles,” the Travel Channel show in which he stars: the show just premiered in France, and tomorrow a new season begins shooting in Red Hook.

But what about the tent on the Bowery that launched him to fame in the first place? According to the eccentric antiques dealer, the store is currently in “limbo” and there’s a chance it won’t be back — at least, not on the Bowery.

Mr. Leroy buried his shop last March, with plans to reopen it in a building planned for the lot where the tent once stood (and where a coffin briefly took its place).

But that plan may have changed following the death of his landlord, Tony Goldman, in September. “I have not been approached by his family to do a new Billy’s,” Mr. Leroy told The Local. “I have heard of no plans of building since Tony passed, so we will see. Right now what remains of Billy’s is the skeletal structure, a memory of the Old Bowery.” He added of his former landlord, “He was a really great man. He supported the store and artists… it is a great loss.”
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Daniel Maurer The water is still flowing in our offices. Now will
someone please clean their dishes?

East Villagers are complaining of lack of water after a water main burst in the Flatiron this morning.

The pipe broke at 10:45 a.m. at West 23rd Street and Broadway, and caused flooding that resulted in the suspension of N, Q and R trains between Whitehall station and West 57th Street, The Post reported.

On Twitter, East Villagers have been complaining. “Water out in my building in the East Village, assuming it has something to do with the burst water main on 23rd St,” tweeted David Gillespie.

Alison Leary, N.Y.U.’s Executive Vice President for Operations, said in an-email that the disruption to the water supply was “having an impact on many N.Y.U. facilities.” Washington Square News confirmed that the Third Avenue North and Broome Street residences were “suffering water loss.”

Jonathan Krohn, a contributor to The Local and a resident of Third North, said that water went out there about an hour ago. Asked if students were freaking he said, “No one is freaking.”
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Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library.

L.P. cover.

Looking back at the cover of the L.P. that The Offs released in 1984, we didn’t remember that Jean-Michel Basquiat had designed it. But the image of their lead singer, Don Vinyl, face down, his bicep glistening with the tattoo of a .45 pistol — that we had not forgotten.

We recall Don coming to our apartment the day he got the ink, his arm still red and a little bloody. “Paul Simonon is getting the same one!” he told us, excitedly. It was the summer of 1981 and everyone in the East Village was getting tats, even The Clash. Bob Roberts, The Offs’ saxophonist — and also a tattooist — had done the work for both.

We met The Offs in 1979, on our first trip to the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco. They were hugely popular on the West Coast, bringing a mix of punk, funk and reggae with a political bent that sounded fresh. When they came to New York later that year, we became friends.

Their bassist, Denny DeGorio, often crashed on our couch. He remembers how the band was formed: “Don and I were roommates in this flat on Mission, along with Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys and guys from Flipper and The Dils; it was a real punk-rock flop house.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Not only is “handmade ice cream” coming to First Avenue and frozen yogurt coming to Second Avenue, but it looks like gelato is bound for 199 Avenue A. The sign for Casa Gusto, near East 12th Street, promises macarons and chocolate as well.

Speaking of forthcoming sweets spots, Wafels and Dinges posted a photo from inside its forthcoming cafe on Avenue B: it seems a new item, galettes, is in the works.

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

As you can see above and read about on Thrillist, Breads Bakery has opened in Union Square.

The city’s Commission on Human Rights has dismissed charges that Continental bar had a racist door policy. “The ownership of the bar provided us with videotapes showing customers that were going in and out,” says a deputy commissioner at the agency. “There was no indication that people of color were being turned away. People of color were being admitted.” [East Villager]

The Greenwich Village Preservation Society is upset about NYU’s plans to place physics labs, classrooms and other facilities in 726 Broadway: “What the university never revealed was that these plans would violate the special zoning restrictions for Noho and Soho, require a precedent-setting zoning variance, and involve the addition of a highly intrusive, four-story mechanical penthouse atop the building.” [Off the Grid]
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Anthony Pappalardo. Peter Hook signs books.

On Tuesday, the last 30 years of British music collided in the East Village. An appearance by Peter Hook, bassist for Joy Division and New Order, was followed by a performance by Drowners, a new band named after a song by Britpop champs Suede. The Local went to The Strand and then bounced over to Mercury Lounge to experience the British invasion.

Mr. Hook was driven to write “Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division” after he watched several tomes about the band get published. “What annoyed me about all the books was that none of these people knew us,” he said. “I’d see another one and go, ‘Who is this person?’”

Speaking in a croaky Manchester accent, the musician marinated in his ego before a crowd of about 200, often citing himself, and not his co-conspirators, as the main reason for their many successes. Did you know, for instance, that he wrote the melody for Joy Division’s most popular song, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”? Another fun fact: “Blue Monday,” New Order’s most successful track and the best-selling 12” single of all-time, took six months to write, but “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was composed in only three hours.

Mr. Hook, or Hooky as many audience members addressed him, spoke with Sasha Frere-Jones, music critic at The New Yorker, for close to an hour before fielding questions from fans. The audience, nearly all dressed in some shade of black, spanned generations: weathered punk veterans in leather jackets sat next to middle-aged goths and teenage girls. Even Chloe Sevigny came to worship. Read more…

Dana Varinsky Clemente Soto Velez.

Community Board 3 has voted against supporting a beer-and-wine license renewal for The Suffolk, the bar that has been fighting to stay in the lobby of the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center. Now Drew Figueroa, the bar’s owner, is crying corruption: he says C.B. 3 shouldn’t have let a board member who also happens to be the cultural center’s executive director participate in discussions about the license application.

Jan Hanvik, the CSV center’s executive director, also serves as chair of Community Board 3’s subcommittee on the arts and cultural affairs. During two meetings of C.B. 3’s liquor licensing committee, he strongly opposed Mr. Figueroa’s application and accused The Suffolk of creating a “laundry list” of problems for the city-owned cultural center, including accepting fake IDs from minors, stirring incidents of violence and prompting numerous noise complaints from neighbors.

Mr. Hanvik recused himself when the full board cast a final vote on the matter last week. “But Community Board 3’s integrity was compromised when it allowed Jan Hanvik to carry on as chair of its task force on arts and culture,” Mr. Figueroa said in a phone conversation with The Local. He accused Mr. Hanvik of being behind a series of “fraudulent 311 and 911 calls” involving noise complaints against his bar and performance space “when there were no scheduled events,” a charge previously made by a former security guard who testified for Mr. Figueroa during a December committee hearing.

Mr. Hanvik adamantly denied the allegation in a second committee hearing earlier this month. Susan Stetzer, district manager of Community Board 3, said that ethics complaints like Mr. Figueroa’s are common in liquor license hearings and noted the city’s Conflict of Interest Board addresses those issues.

“This type of issue has come up more than once,” she told The Local in an e-mail. “When there is a conflict of interest, a board member must declare ‘present not voting’ and declare the conflict. However, it is explicitly stated that the board member may participate in discussion.” She added: “All community boards are very educated on this issue as it is a common issue and we know that a [board] member can participate with disclosure.” Read more…

The Village Scandal has been served with an eviction notice demanding it leave its East Seventh Street storefront by Monday. Now the 17-year-old hat shop’s owner, Wendy Barrett, is urging neighbors and supporters to call her landlord, the district attorney’s office, and even the judge.

Ms. Barrett, who has been involved in a complicated legal battle with A.J. Clarke Real Estate since 2004, is making the last-ditch effort “to support elementary justice, and the survival of the Village Scandal Hat Shop, which is now under attack by a criminal conspiracy of a corrupt managing agent,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Local today.

In November, Ms. Barrett’s lawyer, Jonathan Zimet, said the hat shop owner’s landlord claimed she owed close to $130,000 in back rent and real estate taxes. She vigorously disputed the amount, and sued her landlord and management company for $10 million in State Supreme Court. Read more…