A reporter on the scene for The Local says that parts of East 10th Street were cleared between Avenues B and C shortly before 4 this afternoon and that firefighters have entered the fourth floor of a building by ladder. We are continuing to track the story.—The Local

This post has been changed to correct an error; an earlier version misstated the extent of the evacuation effort along East 10th Street.

Al Kavadlo The author during a recent workout in the snow at Tompkins Square Park.

This snowy weather may be keeping many East Village residents cooped up indoors, but it hasn’t stopped me from doing my usual workouts at Tompkins Square Park. In fact, the snow makes my routine a lot more fun!

In addition to my standard regimen of pull-ups and dips, I also did some parkour
training. After all, parkour is about overcoming obstacles and the snow is just another obstacle to work around!

If you’re serious about getting in shape or improving your fitness, there is no reason that you can’t make time for exercise no matter what craziness is going on with the weather. Even if you have to fit in a quick at-home workout with no equipment, you can always dedicate at least a few minutes a day to improving your body.

I’m not saying you have to go out in a blizzard, but once you get moving out there in the snow, you might be surprised how fun and invigorating cold weather workouts can actually be.

Al Kavadlo is a personal trainer, freelance writer and author of the book, “We’re Working Out! A Zen Approach to Everyday Fitness” (Muscle-up Publications, 2010). For more information visit www.AlKavadlo.com.

Colin Moynihan

Two people were injured on East Second Street on Wednesday morning. The authorities said that a man was shot in the abdomen and a woman received a cut to the head. Both were removed to hospitals, and neither injury appeared to be life threatening, the authorities said.

Several police officers, including some from the Emergency Services Unit, arrived on the block of East Second Street between Avenue B and Avenue C around 9:30. Shortly afterward, police escorted a woman with a bandaged head from a brick building at 225 East Second Street.

Police confirmed that a Hispanic male, 33, was shot one time in the abdomen. Emergency services responded and transported the victim to Bellevue Hospital where he is listed in stable condition. A woman was also taken to Bellevue to be treated for a laceration to her head. The perpetrator fled the location and the investigation is still ongoing.

Denis Dang, 33, who lives across the street, told The Local that at about 8:30 a.m., “I heard crying. and then I looked out the window. He was laying on the ground, and she was laying over him in her pajamas.”

Although Mr Dang said “This is a great neighborhood,” when asked about how he feels about shootings in his neighborhood, he also said, “This is normal.” A resident who asked not to be named said there was a shooting at the same building last summer.

Meredith Hoffman and Suzanne Rozdeba contributed information to this report.

Dan Nguyen

Good morning, East Village.

As we trudge through the slushy snow – we got nine inches overnight – the cleanup is in full force. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, mindful of the mistakes of the Dec. 26 and 27 blizzard, when the city was left in a snowy, trashy mess, has declared a “weather emergency”. Tread carefully — more injuries are caused after the snow falls as we slip in icy patches and dodge puddles, reports NY1.

Speaking of snow, if you’re walking near First and First on your way to work, catch a glimpse of a tag by the late East Village artist Daniel “Dash” Snow, his work on the rolldown gate at Rogers Garden, which is under renovation.

Finally, more changes in view for the Bowery. Curbed reports on plans for the Salvation Army shelter with its familiar red sign at 347, sold for $7.6 million to a London-based boutique hotel group.

Two years ago, Dave Ahdoot and his childhood friend Ethan Fixell (who together form comedy duo Dave and Ethan) went on a “man date” that was so much fun it got them wondering “why don’t we take girls on something like this?” They put an ad on Craigslist and linked it to a YouTube video asking for submissions for pairs of girls wanting to go on a double dates.

Thousands of responses and more than 200 double dates later, the pair have become dating experts and gained a wealth of knowledge about what to do, and more importantly what not to do on a date. Some of their filmed double dates have been made into a YouTube video series.

The response to the series led to monthly performances at The Peoples Improv Theater, re-enacting some of the dates, singing songs about first date fouls and even conducting spur of the moment dates live on stage. Recognizing that college students need their instruction the most, Dave and Ethan have started touring college campuses across the nation imparting their wisdom into the porous minds of today’s youth. In 2011 alone, they are scheduled to perform at more than 50 colleges and as long as people date, there seems no sign of a slowing demand for this kind of expert advice.

I sat down with Dave Ahdoot, until recently an East Village resident, to get some tips and play some games.

Allison Hertzberg is owner and head designer at Accessories by ASH.

Joy Malin Neo stands beside a portrait created by Joy Malin, an East Village painter who specializes in portraits of dogs. Below: Ms. Malin with Neo and Charlie.

Alexa Tsoulis-Reay

Joy Malin can’t conceal her love of dogs, even over the phone. “When you arrive, come to apartment D, as in dog” she announced when I called to schedule a meeting. This was a fitting introduction to the East Village-based artist who estimates that she has painted oil portraits of more than 120 dogs in the last three years.

Her animal portrait business started when she did an oil painting of her daughter’s Doxie, Neo. Her daughter was delighted with the result and Ms. Malin decided it would be a fulfilling way to supplement her art brokering business which had suffered during the recession.

She began to advertise on Craigslist, with signs in Washington Square Park and through the gossip networks that connect East Village dog lovers. She’s a regular at Tompkins Square Park where she walks her Yorkie Charlie with a team of dog owners who call themselves the “Housewives of Tompkins Square Park,” because their lives are so intertwined.

While Ms. Malin’s process varies from dog to dog, she usually paints from photos. That, she says, is the key to a successful portrait: turning the 11 × 14 inch oil paintings into more than generic portraits of a breed. “If you have a great photograph then it is easy to capture the soul of the dog,” Ms. Malin says. “It’s in the eyes.” She tends to work quickly noting “when you spend a lot of time on it, it gets stale.”
Read more…

Kelly Samardak

Good morning, East Village.

Noise-burdened neighbors may be relieved to hear EV Grieve’s news that in the Community Board’s meeting last night, they didn’t renew hookah bar La Vie’s license. Of course, La Vie wasn’t so happy at the verdict.

Meanwhile, also check out Grieve for shots of yesterday’s bustle in Tompkins Square Park, with the filming of CBS police drama series Blue Bloods.

In case you haven’t heard yet, more snow is headed our way this evening. If you’re looking to stay warm to watch the flurry, you might venture to Lebanese restaurant Balade at 1st Avenue and 13th Street, where they’ll be offering a free glass of wine to toast their one-year anniversary.

Meanwhile, on a more somber note, Engine 28 has posted the funeral time for its noble firefighter, Roy Chelsen, whose death from cancer was announced yesterday.

Stay safe and stay warm.

Suzanne Rozdeba Firefighters at Engine 28 and Ladder 11 mourn Roy Chelsen, who died Sunday of bone-marrow cancer and was credited with saving the lives of 11 of his colleagues on Sept. 11.

Courtesy of FDNY

Already, the south tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed. But as Kevin Murray and Roy Chelsen huddled with their fellow firefighters for safety in the lobby of the north tower on Sept. 11 – debris and bodies falling all around them outside – no one knew what had happened.

“Roy ran out to leave, and realized the whole other building wasn’t there,” Mr. Murray recalled in an interview earlier today, describing how Mr. Chelsen, who died Sunday, saved the lives of 11 of his fellow firefighters. “He turned around, and ran all the way back to get us. He ran through it three times to get us out. He convinced everybody that we had to go because it looked like the north tower was coming down.”

In all, Mr. Murray and Mr. Chelsen worked side-by-side for eight years as firefighters in the East Village. And they were side-by-side again Sunday just hours before Mr. Chelsen died after a long battle with bone-marrow cancer at age 51.

At Engine 28 and Ladder 11 firehouses in the East Village, the mood was somber today after firefighters learned of the death of Mr. Chelsen, whose cancer had been linked to his work digging through the rubble at Ground Zero in the days and weeks after the attacks.

But Mr. Murray, who still works with Ladder 11 on East Second Street, said that the sadness at the firehouse was tinged with something else.

“Of course everybody’s upset,” said Mr. Murray, who’s 36. “But nobody wanted to see him suffer anymore.”
Read more…

Whiskers at Ninth Street and Second Avenue was something of a novelty when it opened back in 1988. Its approach to pet care was an idea Phil and Randy Klein seized on after a holistic veterinarian treated their cancer-stricken dog. The couple became convinced that raw foods and natural supplements were the way to help anxious city animals. The shop is now three times the size it used to be and their philosophy is so popular that similar stores have sprung up. In Mr. Klein’s words, “it’s become the wave.”

Most days you can find him holding court in the supplements corner of the store. Owners approach him like a soothsayer for advice about their pets.

NYU Journalism’s Meredith Hoffman reports.

Courtesy of Daniel L. Squadron State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, with constituents last fall, said that he favors expanding the East Village’s “bike network so that it’s a viable way for folks to get around to commute and recreate.”

A new year brings a new legislative agenda for State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, who – entering his second term – says that he wants to bring issues that are important to neighborhood residents to the forefront in Albany. In an interview with The Local, Senator Squadron, whose 25th District includes the East Village, the Lower East Side and parts of Brooklyn, discussed the importance of bike lanes, renewing housing laws, cracking down on careless drivers and noisy bars, and expanding East Village parks.

Bike lanes are a hot topic right now. But there are battles still brewing. What will you do this year to help smooth out the sometimes rocky relationship between bikers, businesses, the community and the Department of Transportation?

There’s an overall increase in the bike lanes use, and I think that is great. We are continuing to develop the bike network so that it’s a viable way for folks to get around to commute and recreate.

I like the idea of a bike share program. As we have more bicyclists and more access, which is a great thing, we need to increase compliance with laws. And we need to expand our bike networks for more people out there.

My frustration at bike lanes comes from two places: failure, in some cases, to be fully collaborative with communities and think through the consequences as we expand the network, and secondly, from those few who don’t follow the rules. Too often, the DOT implements lanes without preparing businesses to understand what the rules are. They’ve done it in ways that are not responsive to the community. DOT has gotten better at this; my job is to keep the pressure on. We need clarity about rules for bicyclists and members of the community, and work with community boards, businesses and residents before implementing them. We need opportunities for folks in bicycling communities and other groups to weigh in.
Read more…

Tim Schreier

Good morning, East Village.

We wake up to the sad news that Roy Chelsen, an East Village firefighter who rescued his colleagues from the north tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, has died from cancer. The Daily News and DNAinfo have his story.

In other neighborhood news, the folks at East Village Radio were recognized in a light video on Huffington Post on the musical passions of the station’s DJs.

Meanwhile, many East Village residents were out and about this weekend, some of them mulching their trees at Tompkins Square Park, as The Epoch Times reports. Trees across the city are being mulched, including the 74-foot one at Rockefeller Center, the remains of which will go to Habitat for Humanity to build part of a family’s home.

If you feel like treating yourself after all that mulching – or just because it’s Monday – you might want to check out The Village Voice’s list of the most pretentious restaurants; two of them are in the East Village.

Meredith Hoffman Sigiri, 91 First Avenue.

The virtually indistinguishable Indian restaurants which line both sides of Sixth Street between First and Second Avenue, with their garish lights and obsequious waiters, constitute the one zone of ethnic kitsch in the otherwise vital world of East Village cuisine. Perhaps all those vindaloos aren’t really delivered to the Something Mahals along an underground tunnel serving a central kitchen; but they might as well be.

Authenticity, however, lies literally around the corner. Sigiri, a Sri Lankan restaurant at 91 First Avenue, up an iron staircase between Fifth and Sixth Streets, tastes like itself only. Sigiri roasts its own black curry, a mixture of spices different from the cumin-coriander-garam masala combination familiar on Sixth Street. The bread-equivalent is the Hopper, a bowl-shaped pancake made with coconut flour and rice milk, which somewhat resembles the South Indian dosa, but with a spongy base like uttapam. The Hopper in the bottom of the basket has a poached egg cooked into the base.

Mala Rajapakse, the co-owner, believes that Sigiri is the only Sri Lankan restaurant in New York City. She may be right: Sigiri is the only place listed in Zagat which describes itself so. Mala moved to New York 30 years ago, and did her cooking for the family. Five years ago, she and her friend and fellow housewife Tanya Desilva, took a trip to London, where they visited a Sri Lankan restaurant. Eureka! “We decided we have to open up a restaurant.” Now Antonia, the very English Sri Lankan woman whose brother operated the place in London, works the day shift as a waitress.

Sri Lanka is divided — violently, in recent years — between ethnic Sinhala, who dominate the country, and Tamils, who emigrated from South India. Mala is Sinhalese; she happens to share a last name with the country’s rather brutal ruling family, though she assures me that she is not related to them. Sri Lankan cuisine combines elements borrowed from the Dutch and Portuguese colonists, from the Malays and the Tamils. The Lamprais, rice, meat and spices baked in a banana leaf, combines Dutch and Tamil elements. Some dishes won’t be familiar at all even to fans of South Indian cuisine, such as the kuttu roti, described on the menu as “Sri Lankan road-side specialty prepared from doughy pancakes shredded and stir-fried with vegetables, onions and egg.”

Sigiri is narrow and rather gloomy, which is to say that it looks like a million other inexpensive restaurants in New York. Mala is a woman of few words, at least to an English-speaking stranger, so I cannot tell you much of her thoughts about running the only Sri Lankan restaurant in New York. She is, I imagine, content to let her food do the talking.

Sigiri, 91 First Avenue, 212-614-9333. www.sigirinyc.com

For the first 29 years of his life, Vincent Ciniglio was an artist waiting to happen. With no training or art appreciation classes, he’d simply marvel at the religious statues of his Catholic school, and he felt moved to tears by paintings on his first trip to Italy.

One day he walked into the New York Studio School on West Eighth Street, and then studied there for three years. At the encouragement of one of his teachers, the artist Philip Guston, Mr. Ciniglio then went on to Columbia University, where he earned a master of fine arts.

Since the 1980’s, Mr. Ciniglio has had a studio in the P.S. 122 performance space on First Avenue and Ninth Street, where he paints nearly every day. His work – which usually depicts tender, whimsical figures and are each painted in only three days – are modeled off of plastic baby dolls. On canvas, Mr. Ciniglio’s creations appear to look viewers straight in the eye with surprising intensity.

An exhibition of Mr. Ciniglio’s work will be held this weekend upstate. Before Mr. Ciniglio leaves for the show, he’ll bid each painting left in his studio a fond farewell, such is the connection he feels with his art.

NYU Journalism’s Meredith Hoffman reports.

Emily Lawrence

Good morning, East Village.

We’re expecting up to five inches of snow today, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg insists the city is ready to handle the storm, reports The Times. He was heavily criticized after the big blizzard on Dec. 26 and 27, when trash piled high, emergency response was slow, and New Yorkers couldn’t get to work. Let’s hope we won’t have to navigate around big mounds of trash in our neighborhood again.

Meanwhile, pedestrians will enjoy more open space at the busy intersection of Astor Place and Cooper Triangle. DNA reports that at a meeting Thursday night, Community Boards 2 and 3 passed a big redesign plan, unveiled by the Department of Design and Construction.

In culinary news, if you’re planning for brunch this weekend, 7A, a favorite breakfast spot for East Villagers, will unfortunately be closed for renovations until Jan. 14, writes EV Grieve. (And on the subject of building projects, Grieve also has a very cool look at the construction of 2 Cooper Square.)

If you’re still thirsty for the banned Four Loko, you might think twice after we tell you it’s now being turned into (gulp) gasoline. The Village Voice reports that a company called MXI Environmental Services is converting the alcoholic and caffeinated drink into, yes, petrol. Still thirsty?

Suzanne Rozdeba Pratik Shah, owner of the East Village Farm & Grocery, stands in front of what remains of the store after it was devastated by a fire Tuesday morning. Below: Mr. Shah greets a well-wisher outside the store.

When Pratik Shah’s family opened East Village Farm & Grocery 20 years ago, he was 14 years old. He quickly got to know the customers as he helped his parents, who had emigrated from India, run their first, successful business on the corner of Second Avenue and Fourth Street.

“Our customers watched me grow up. I remember being a teenager there, and then I worked there through college. It’s a family business,” Mr. Shah, 34, told The Local. “It didn’t make us rich. It was more for survival. This is what we have, and this is what we will have, if it’s reconstructed. We are ready to do whatever it takes to bring this place back.”

On Tuesday at 4 a.m., a fire roared through the business, leaving the store, which Mr. Shah owns with his father, in ruins. Seven residents of the six-story building were treated for minor injuries, officials said; all of the injured were taken to Beth Israel Hospital. The fire, which was confined to the first floor, was declared under control within an hour. Mr. Shah said that the Fire Department told him it seems there was an electrical fire, but officials say the cause is still under investigation.

Mr. Shah estimates the damage at close to $500,000.

“This business is how I support my family,” said Mr. Shah, who has a wife, Niti Parekh, and 6-year-old son, Sahil. As he stood outside the boarded-up bodega, customer after customer walked by to offer apologies. One gave him a huge hug, and said, “It’ll be alright.”

He found out about the fire when his cashier, who was working the late shift at the 24-hour store, called him at 4 a.m. that morning. “I had just come back from India after a two-week break. They don’t usually call me then, so I knew there was something wrong,” he said. “There were sparks in the ceiling lights. It was a flammable drop ceiling. In the area where it started, we had paper products. It all caught fire really quickly.

“The workers tried to open water jugs and throw it on the fire, but they only did it to the point they thought it was safe. Then the FDNY came and took it from there.”

Mr. Shah arrived 15 minutes after he got the call. The damage was so bad that it took the better part of 24 hours for him to be able to see what was left of his store. “There’s a lot of water damage,” he said. “Most of the inventory, equipment and infrastructure have been damaged. It’s just something we have to deal with.”

He’s been busy meeting with his insurance investigator and an architect to assess the damage, and see how quickly he can rebuild the family business. “This was an area which was affordable 20 years ago,” Mr. Shah said. “The first line of work my father got was in a convenience store, and he found it interesting because of all the people. He wasn’t skilled in any profession, but he said, ‘This is something I can do.’ And he loved being around people all the time.”

“We’re hopeful that we can get it running again in one or two months,” Mr. Shah said. “It takes time to rebuild. We’ll recreate what we had. We’ll come back. We will.”

Suzanne Rozdeba Mr. Shah has been busy meeting with his insurance investigator and an architect to assess the damage, and determine how quickly he can rebuild the family business.

Suzanne Rozdeba Bike lanes along First Avenue.

The city announced on Tuesday that a record 47.8 million tourists visited New York City in 2010 and in a lot of ways that is good news. There are a plenty of things that bring visitors to New York: a fascinating history, excellent museums, and beautiful public places like Central Park and Prospect Park.

As the city noted, tourists have helped bolster the declining local economy. During his announcement at the conservatory of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that tourists contributed $31 billion last year. They have also played another positive role that has gone largely unnoticed. Tourists, in some ways, have become the newest public space activists. New York City has always been a tough town when it comes to expanding on green infrastructure, like car-free pedestrian malls and bicycle lanes. But this car-centric city is now changing. Tourists have always loved strolling in New York’s gorgeous parks and gardens and now they are also enjoying other amenities like bike lanes, open walkways in Times Square and the greenways that edge the city’s rivers. Visitors love the new green infrastructure and use it heavily – thus creating the demand for more.
Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Good morning, East Village.

While you were sleeping (unless the sirens awoke you) our neighborhood witnessed yet another fire, on East Seventh Street near First Avenue. Officials said that the blaze broke out around 11:40 Wednesday night at 127 East Seventh; the fire was declared under control in about 40 minutes. Two firefighters were hospitalized with minor injuries and investigators are still working to determine the cause. The blaze is the third in the neighborhood this week after a pair of fires Tuesday morning. DNAinfo has more information and there are photos at EV Grieve.

In school news, on this first week back for the semester, we’d like to point you to DNAinfo’s report on an East Village charter school suing the city to stay open.

Meanwhile, if you’re hungry for brunch, you might be tempted by The Wall Street Journal’s blurb on Jewish-fusion foods at Octavia’s Porch on Avenue B.

This post has been updated to correct an error; an earlier version misstated the location of the restaurant Octavia’s Porch.

Suzanne Rozdeba A day after a fire that destroyed the 6th Street Kitchen restaurant and severely damaged several apartments above it, displaced residents of the building are still trying to cope with damage from the blaze and an uncertain timetable for a return to their homes. Below: Damage to a third-floor apartment.

Paul Canetti

When David Gold stopped by his apartment on East Sixth street Tuesday evening, hours after a fire ripped through the restaurant on the first floor, he couldn’t bear the smell.

“It smells terrible. It’s like being around the biggest campfire you’ve ever seen – in a closed apartment,” Mr. Gold told The Local earlier today. “You get a headache after being in there for 10 minutes. There was no way I could sleep there. It’s that bad.”

Instead, Mr. Gold spent the night at his girlfriend’s apartment. “I’m assuming I’ll be there at least a week until it’s cleaned up.”

Mr. Gold’s apartment was one of eight that firefighters stormed through after a blaze broke out in 6th Street Kitchen, the restaurant on the first floor of the building at 507 East Sixth Street. While the building’s management has already begun repair work, there is no timetable yet for when residents might be able to return. In the meantime, Mr. Gold and his displaced neighbors have taken temporary refuge with friends and family.

Even as residents adjusted to their jarring, new living arrangements, a fire department spokesman told The Local today that officials were continuing to investigate two fires that broke out there yesterday morning, and an earlier blaze at a bodega on Second Avenue and Fourth Street.

While Mr. Gold applauded the work of the firefighters, he’s left with torn-up floors, ripped-open walls, and broken furniture. “There’s so much smoke damage that I don’t know yet if it can be cleaned. If damage is bad enough, you have to replace your whole wardrobe.”

The management company of the East Sixth Street building already had workers repairing apartments last night, said Mr. Gold. “They’re cleaning up the walls, floors, and ceilings, and the smashed windows and doors. The problem is, I can’t really go back there until it’s done. Hopefully, they’ll do a quick job.”

While Mr. Gold’s apartment will eventually be restored, 6th Street Kitchen, which had quickly become a neighborhood favorite, is in ruins and its future remains uncertain.

“Chris is a wreck,” Annie Wang, a publicist for the restaurant, told The Local referring to Chris Genoversa, the restaurant’s owner. “Right now, we’re going through all our options. The staff is taking it pretty hard.”

Ms. Wang said Mr. Genoversa was told by the fire department that there seemed to have been an electrical fire in the restaurant, but an investigation is still pending. “It was the FDNY that called him yesterday morning to tell him about the fire. When I talked to him, he was just speechless. You could tell in the tone of his voice he was completely torn apart. He’s invested so much money into the place. We were all really optimistic about the New Year.”

“There are still a lot of things going on before Chris can make a decision on what to do next,” Ms. Wang said. “I don’t know how long it would take to fix the place up. It’s a complete mess.”

The entry of 2 Cooper Square onto the East Village real estate scene has been well-chronicled, from its high-profile residents to the renovation of the landmarked Skidmore House next door.

Recently, The Local spoke with residents of the luxury high-rise about life in one of the neighborhood’s newest – and priciest – addresses, which has a gym and screening room in the basement lounge as well as a much blogged-about rooftop pool.

Residents say the building’s amenities are top-notch. For some, though, the prime East Village location is perhaps busier than they had expected. One resident cites disturbances from an ongoing construction project on Fourth Street, which impacts residents in Southern-facing units; she also says that noise from the nearby nightspot Bowery Bar keeps her up at night.

NYU Journalism’s Stephanie Butnick reports.

Comprehensive real estate information about the East Village is available at the following links:

• Market Snapshot Data
• Building Permits Data
• Sales Activity Data
• Building Directory Index