Courtesy of Eater NYThe 6th Street Kitchen last spring and after this morning’s fire.

Suzanne Rozdeba

The premises at 507 East Sixth Street, stricken by fire early this morning, housed the yearling restaurant 6th Street Kitchen which had replaced the long-established Oriental Grill early last year.

“O.G.,” as it was universally known, enjoyed a long run by New York restaurant standards – some 15 years – offering an Asian-fusion menu ranging from duck rolls to BBQ pork at reasonable prices. Regulars, including myself, missed the cozy, lived-in feel of the place and the friendly service when it closed. What replaced it looked altogether smarter and trendier, with communal tables, and an open kitchen; but an owner of O.G., Chris Genoversa, was behind the project, the prices were reasonable, and so I soon found myself eating there.

Gone were the Asian flavors, replaced by shareable plates of modern American food, evidently market-driven and seasonal, with a few hearty entrées like pork belly and radicchio topped with a poached egg. I found the transition to the new régime painless, and continued my patronage. My interest intensified last fall, when a new chef, Greg Torrech, began to stamp his personality on the menu. I discovered a remarkably light flan made with summer’s corn and topped with arugula and chanterelles, and a plate of fried chicken and waffles with what looked like cream but turned out to be smooth, seasoned ricotta.

Recently the wheels turned again and Andrew Kraft, who Mr. Torrech had brought in to work as his sous chef, assumed charge of the kitchen. He has continued the family-style dining theme of shared small plates, and you can still get the signature house-made chorizo and Manchego sliders. Publicist Annie Wang told The Local that the fire has been “devastating” for the kitchen team. Kitchen supplies were destroyed with the exception of one lucky chef’s tools. Mr. Genoversa’s guitar also survived, discovered undamaged in a well-charred guitar case. Here’s hoping this kitchen can rise again from the dismay of this morning’s ashes.

Kim Davis is the community editor of The Local East Village. He also authors a blog about restaurants and food.

A slideshow of images of this morning’s fire at 6th Street Kitchen by NYU Journalism’s Suzanne Rozdeba and community contributors Paul Canetti and David Gold.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

David Gold Flames erupt as firefighters attempt to enter the 6th Street Kitchen around 7:30 this morning. A second blaze around mid-morning forced another evacuation for the residents of apartments above the restaurant.

Shortly after the tenants of a Sixth Street apartment building were allowed to return to their homes after an early morning fire, they were forced to evacuate a second time while firefighters put out a lingering pocket of flames.

The second evacuation, which occurred around 9:40 a.m., came after firefighters extinguished a blaze that gutted the 6th Street Kitchen, a restaurant located on the ground floor of the building at 507 East Sixth Street.

A Fire Department spokesman said that fire marshals at the scene came across areas that were still smoldering on the first floor. They called for several units to return. “It wasn’t a major operation. It was put out in about 20 minutes,” said the spokesman.

Paul Canetti, 27, who lives on the building’s third floor said that he had returned to his apartment after being allowed back inside by firefighters.

“Within 30 seconds of being in the apartment, we couldn’t breathe, so we said, ‘No, we will not stay here,’ ” Mr. Canetti said. “We went back downstairs. Within five minutes, we hear them radioing for firefighters to come back because the fire was still burning between the first and second floor.”

Mr. Canetti said he and other tenants were again forced to evacuate.

Around 1 p.m., Mr. Canetti said they were let back into their apartments. “The apartment is a war zone. It’s pretty terrible. Everything is knocked over and completely covered in soot.”

The American Red Cross was at the scene and gave disaster relief paper work to the tenants. “They said we should call them if we need a place to stay, and they would put us up in a hotel for a few days,” he said. “I think I’m going to take them up on that because I definitely cannot stay in my apartment.”

Suzanne Rozdeba Firefighters at the scene of a blaze at Kitchen, a restaurant on East Sixth Street. The fire was one of two this morning in the East Village that sent eight people to the hospital with minor injuries.

Eight people were treated for minor injuries after two separate early-morning fires that broke out in the East Village today, one that destroyed a restaurant on East Sixth Street, and the other in a bodega on Second Avenue.

The first blaze occurred at East Fourth Street and Second Avenue around 4 a.m. at the East Village Farm Groceries store, the authorities said. 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.

The second fire, at 507 East Sixth Street, occurred around 7:30 a.m. inside 6th Street Kitchen, a restaurant on the first floor. The authorities said that a firefighter sustained a minor injury while battling the blaze and was being treated at Bellevue Hospital.

Deputy Chief Robert Carroll told The Local that firefighters had to cut their way through the restaurant’s roll-down security gate before they could put out the fire.

The restaurant was all but destroyed by the blaze. “It’s pretty bad,” Chief Carroll said of the damage. “It’s all burnt out. We had to go in there, take the ceilings down, check for any hidden fire.”

Paul Canetti, 27, who lives on the building’s third floor and was with his girlfriend, told The Local, “I woke up at 7:30. We heard the beeps from the fire alarms. We started to smell smoke. We opened the front door, and you couldn’t see in the hallway. It was filled with smoke.”

After exiting the building safely, he said, “A couple minutes later, the fire trucks came. They cut the locks off the restaurant gate. When they lifted it up, the flames came shooting out.”

David Gold, 32, who also lives on the third floor, said, “We heard four, loud pops. They sounded like gunshots. That woke me up. Then the smoke alarm went off and we came down and called 911.”

Tom Claxton, 35, who was staying at a friend’s apartment in the building, said, “I heard this large, cracking noise, and then the fire alarm started. A few minutes later I smelled smoke. I panicked, grabbed my laptop and a couple of things and got out. I just got in last night from London, and this was my first night here. Most of my things are still in a suitcase upstairs.”

The authorities said that investigators are still trying to determine what caused both blazes.

Suzanne Rozdeba A firefighter surveys the damage to the 6th Street Kitchen.

Firefighters are investigating the cause of two separate blazes that broke out in the East Village this morning. The first fire, near Second Avenue and East Fourth Street, occurred about 4 a.m. and was placed under control in about an hour; the second blaze, near East Sixth Street and Avenue A, erupted around 7:30 and was placed under control in about 45 minutes. There were no immediate reports of injuries in either blaze; reporters from The Local are on the scene and will post a full report as soon as we have more details.—Suzanne Rozdeba

Suzanne Rozdeba With city sanitation trucks busy plowing snow-covered streets, piles of trash have continued to accumulate in the East Village. Limited trash pickups are scheduled to resume today.

The snow is melting away, but the piles of trash in the East Village keep getting bigger.

“It’s disgusting,” Yolanda Gonzalez, 26, an East Village resident, told The Local on Jan. 3. Staring at a mountain of over 25 bags of trash on Avenue A, she said, “I’m worried about the rats, and about diseases from this garbage. I don’t know why they’re not picking it up. It’s been too long.”

According to the Department of Sanitation, limited pickup resumed today. But as of this morning, residents and businesses that normally have Monday garbage pickups have yet to see the trash disappear.

On Monday morning, Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty held a press conference at Foley Square and told reporters that 1,100 trucks would be picking up trash throughout the city on Monday. He estimated that about 50,000 tons of trash had accumulated since the storm.

“We’re not going to get it all today,” he said, adding that by the end of the day: “I think there’ll be less garbage.”

The pickups cannot come quickly enough for some East Villagers.

“The trash is still out there. Now there are lots of bags, and furniture, and Christmas trees,” said Hugo Ascazubi, 21, an employee at 442 Quality Cleaners on East Ninth Street. Outside the business, there were more than 15 bags of garbage piled up. “People do make comments that it’s gross. It smells. Do you know why they haven’t come to pick it up yet? They haven’t told us anything. I’ll be relieved when it’s gone.”

At East Village Gourmet Deli on Avenue A, 25 bags of garbage created a mini-mountain outside the business. “It’s been a week, and nobody has picked up anything,” said Ali, an employee there. “We have our own garbage picked up privately, but there is still all this other trash. I saw the garbage trucks plowing this morning, but not picking up garbage. They are supposed to come today to pick it up, but nothing yet.”

But some East Villagers were unruffled about the pileups. “I’m not concerned. I’ve seen it before,” said Angel Shea, 54, who’s lived in the East Village for 30 years.

And in at least one instance, the trash piles have been credited with doing some good elsewhere in the city, according to authorities. Vangelis Kapatos, 26, a resident of Hell’s Kitchen, was saved by a huge pile of garbage bags after leaping from his apartment window on the ninth floor of a building on West 45th Street Sunday.

Although regular trash pickups are not expected to resume immediately in the East Village, some hopeful locals have continued to stack bags at the curb.

“We put out our garbage today because it’s supposed to be picked up. If they don’t come today, I’m not worried,” said Duane Zaloudek, 80, who’s lived in the East Village since 1983. “The rats are here, anyway. I’m happy they plowed the streets, and I know there aren’t enough people in the sanitation department to do it all. This was a big snowstorm.”

Colin Moynihan contributed information to this report.

Share your stories about trash collection at The City Room blog at The Times.

Colin Moynihan Before the snow began melting during the weekend, Adam Johnson used letters made of snow to create poetry on the barks of trees in Tompkins Square Park. Below: Mr. Johnson at work.

In the days since a powerful blizzard blanketed the neighborhood East Village residents have built snowmen, snow forts, igloos and even a few abstract-looking sculptures out of snow. The drifts are now vanishing quickly, but on Friday afternoon, when many surfaces were still covered by a thick blanket of white, Adam Johnson, a 26-year-old furniture designer and painter, decided to introduce in Tompkins Square Park what could be a brand new genre of expression: snow poetry.

Initially Mr. Johnson was drawn to the park because he hoped to build a snowman that would compete with a large specimen near the center of Tompkins Square. A different inspiration struck, however, when he observed that a hurled snowball left a white mark on the bark of a tree.

“I wanted to top that guy in the other part of the park,” he said as he worked on his creations near the East Ninth Street entrance from Avenue A. “But I couldn’t do that so I had to find a new route to snow-making fame.”

For more than an hour on Friday afternoon, Mr. Johnson, carefully wrote messages on the trunks of trees in Tompkins Square. The technique he employed was methodical and involved picking up bits of snow that had just the right gooey consistency then shaping that raw material into letters that could be read from yards away.

The first snow poem he created read simply “I’m melting” and was accompanied by the silhouette of a running figure. Next, Mr. Johnson began making a message that read: “Whatever you do, don’t trust the snowman.”

As he formed those letters, passersby stopped to photograph him and inquire about the project. All the attention prompted Mr. Johnson to muse aloud about Thierry Guetta, a mysterious street artist character depicted in the 2010 film “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” which was said to have been made by Banksy, the reclusive artist and prankster.

“Maybe I should take on a street artist persona right now like Mr. Brainwash,” he said, referring Mr. Guetta’s pseudonym. “And put a bunch of stuff on the Internet for sale for $20,000.”

John Galayda on photographing the Kitty Nights burlesque show at Bar on A in the East Village.

“It’s an ordinary Sunday night at a bar in the East Village, and a group of
regulars begin to trickle in through the door. But instead of sitting at the
bar, these regulars — Creamy Stevens, Minnie Tonka, Anja Keister, La Maia, and Fem Appeal — sit near a dimly lit stage and apply glitter to their busts,
lotion to their legs, and makeup to their faces.”
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John Galayda Anja Keister performs during the Kitty Nights burlesque show at Bar on A. The show, which has been running at the bar since 2006, is one of the few remaining burlesque acts in the East Village.

While for most people Sunday is a day of relaxation, filled with leisurely strolls or The Times crossword puzzle, at Bar on A, Sundays are anything but tame. The wild felines of Kitty Nights, the bar’s weekly burlesque show, close out each weekend with salaciously provocative entertainment.

Founded in June 2006 by producer and performer Fem Appeal, Kitty Nights is now one of the few remaining burlesque shows in the East Village.

Yet, in addition to hosting the last of the scantily clad Mohicans, at its heart Kitty Nights is a tribute to the strength of small neighborhoods that can often get lost amidst constant change and development.
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Kenan

The end of the year is a time for recollection, for looking back at our achievements. I feel that I accomplished a lot this year. I took a job that allowed me to afford a monthly subway pass and I rode my bike all the way to the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge once. There are the little things too: I never left a drink undrunk or a hot dog half-eaten. But not many things in the past year occurred with enough regularity to accumulate into an actual list – except for one thing that happens to me each and every day. And so, here is my year in review:

The Top Five Things Hollered at Me While I Walk Through Tompkins Square Park on the Way to Work Each Day

5. “Ooooh, Honey, You Better Wipe That Sour Look Off Your Face”

This is by far the most frequent of hollers at me in the park. The rotund lady in a pink Hannah Montana beanie was the first to yell this to me from the entrance to the dog pen. I don’t like that I walk with a confused and constipated-looking expression that makes me look like I just watched the last episode of “Lost” six times, but that’s exactly what a New Yorker looks like. Sadly, when I get into work, my boss usually says the same thing. He also wears a similar beanie.
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Tim Milk

Illustration by Tim Milk Top: The Merchant’s House Museum, considered one of the most “haunted” locations in New York, was once inhabited by Seabury Tredwell, whose ghost is said to make appearances at the museum.

There it is again, the creeping feeling that you are being watched. You check to make sure the curtains are closed, and they are, so you wonder why you should feel so jumpy. You chalk it up to lack of sleep, or too much coffee, or maybe you should stop eating gluten.

There it is again, you feel it, even stronger now. You cannot help but think, “Maybe I really am being watched.”

The marvel of living in an older city, and New York would qualify, is that the ghosts of those who have gone before are standing all around. Life in the East Village often means inhabiting a place through which has marched a parade of people who cannot be remembered by any living soul.

But that doesn’t mean they ever left your apartment. The place is haunted. And these ghosts don’t bear tidings of the Past, Present or Future, but mostly just wish you would get the hell out.

And the more they make themselves known, and you talk it up amongst your friends, the more you realize that you are out-numbered. They stand in witness to all that you do. They laugh at your lunch. They crowd your elbow when you unpack your groceries. And although you may consider their haunting a nuisance, just imagine what they must think: “Who is this stranger in my home? Why did she paint the walls this color! And what has become of all my things?”

A chat with Anthony Bellov, Board Member of the Merchant’s House Museum, dispelled any doubt that was left in my mind. He has documented the many dozens of paranormal manifestations in Merchant’s House, considered to be New York’s most haunted place. I mentioned that I believed there was a ghost in my own apartment, and that this had become a real problem. “Have you tried communicating with him?” he asked. “It really helps.” He should know, because Merchant’s House is replete with oppressive miasmas, especially if anything inside is disturbed. Then the spirits freely throw things, poke visitors in the ribs and sometimes even appear at the door.

“It matters to them what will happen to this house,” he noted. Its inhabitants, the Tredwells, clung to it as a life-long refuge. And, it would seem, they never left it. Seabury Tredwell, the patriarch, stares out verbosely from his portrait in the parlor. And when he turned that piercing stare on a visiting fourth grader who strayed and stepped into his bedroom, the boy ran out with a frightful tale of a man in there.

“What man?” the tour guide asked him.

“The man in the picture downstairs!”

“Time is not there for them,” Mr. Bellov told me, and we speculated on concepts of parallel existence. Life goes on, it would seem, for us all. Seabury’s daughter Gertrude is also said to haunt her former home.

Back home in my apartment, I pulled up a chair and called out to my ghost.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

John Vaccaro, a theater director active in the downtown arts scene of the 1960’s and 1970’s, has lived in his sprawling, bespoke loft on Second Avenue for several decades. The vast space is filled with artwork from local friends – including various portraits of himself that Mr. Vaccaro has received as gifts – furniture and other odd items found around the East Village over the years.

If the project, which was endorsed by Community Board 3 last week, moves forward, Mr. Vaccaro’s building, 11-17 Second Avenue, will be one of two torn down to create a single 12-story building. The project will also force the temporary closure of the landmark Mars Bar, which is also on the site. Current residents will be offered units in the new development with an option to buy for just $1. But those living in 2,000 sq. ft. lofts like Mr. Vaccaro will have to adjust to downsized apartments closer to 1,200 sq. ft.

Even as many in the neighborhood have lamented the loss of Mars Bar, Mr. Vaccaro, who is 81, stands to lose far more: his home.

NYU Journalism’s Tania Barnes and Stephanie Butnick report.

Emily Lawrence

Good morning, East Village.

As the Great Dig Out continues, The Times considers a question on the minds of many New Yorkers: how did the city do with the snow-clearing effort? The answer, the article notes, depends on how one interprets the Sanitation Department’s arcane system for classifying snow removal.

EV Grieve landed an exclusive interview with the bicycle at Avenue C and Eighth Street that is the subject of one of the iconic images of the blizzard.

And Bowery Boogie takes a look at some of the more notable snowmen that have been built in the neighborhood.

Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

On day two of what New York 1 is calling “the sixth biggest snowstorm in the city’s history,” (East Village Radio just says Snowpocalypse!) most streets in the neighborhood remain hushed, either blanketed in white or lined with pushed-aside walls of snow. The Times has region-wide coverage including information on transport delays and power failures. Unresolved problems in this neighborhood? Please let us know (editor@thelocaleastvillage.com).

Still, no reason not to continue with the traditions of the season, like throwing unwanted Christmas trees on the sidewalk.

The members of The Local East Village Flickr Group share their images of a neighborhood suddenly snowbound.

Dan Nguyen

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Roey Ahram

Good morning, East Village.

There are mornings when New York is not a collection of neighborhoods, but one big city sharing the same experience. This is one of those mornings.

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Vivienne Gucwa on photographing the East Village at night.

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Laura Kuhn Looking for some last-minute gifts that are environmentally friendly? An option might be Sunbeam Candles, which are made from vegetables and beeswax in solar-powered factories.

The holidays mean presents but if the lack of green gift options has you seeing red, here are some last-minute sustainable solutions from East Village stores.

Sustainable NYC (139 Avenue A at Ninth Street), opened three years ago when owner Dominique Camacho, was renovating her apartment. “I’d been in retail almost 17 years,” she said, “and I got bored. I got really into re-using things in my apartment.” She took an energy and environmental design course and opened her store. Sunbeam Candles ($7.50-$17.50) are all made from vegetables and beeswax in solar-powered factories. “They’re also really good about packaging,” said Ms. Camacho of the company’s box-return program.

For a party gift, bring a bottle of wine and a Bitters and Co. Reclaimed Cork Stopper ($6.25). The company also makes sustainably-harvested Cork Coasters ($12.50). The store is also filled with decorations from compostable Oots Seed Ornaments ($3.50 each) that can be planted after the holidays to Laser-cut Ceramic Butterflies ($44.95) made from vintage china.
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Last month, The Local published excerpts from a photo essay by Steven Hirsch on the community of “Crusty Punks” who live in Tompkins Square Park. Earlier this week, a commenter noted that one of the men featured in the post, Robert Edward Dyck, who was known as Yardsale, had recently been killed. The Local has confirmed that two men face voluntary manslaughter charges in the death of Mr. Dyck, who was found dead in Virginia last month of blunt force injuries.—The Local