Jenn Pelly Josh Korda meets with a participant after leading a meditation session at Dharma Punx, a free, walk-in meditation class that fuses the tenets of Buddhism and punk rock. Below: The Dharma Punx logo.

In late October, my stress levels hit an all-time high. I wanted to escape, but no fancy spa for me. Being the sort of girl who wears vegan combat boots and listens to Bikini Kill while steaming kale, I decided to hone inner peace at Dharma Punx. The free, walk-in meditation class fuses the tenets of Buddhism and punk rock every Tuesday at 7 p.m.

While some may question whether these sessions confuse achieving Nirvana with listening to it, participants note that there are common threads running between the Buddhist faith and the punk movement. Like Buddhism, punk music and lifestyles are centered on streamlining and simplification: three-chord Ramones-like song structures, straight-edge lifestyles, and Do-it-Yourself work ethics that cut out the middleman.

Led by Josh Korda, a tattoo-covered Buddhist Brooklynite with gauged ears, the 25-minute sessions at Lila Yoga, Dharma, and Wellness, 302 Bowery attracted a variety of practitioners. On that particular Tuesday night, a young beret-clad woman sat in front of me, and a grey-haired man in a yellow polo to my right, along with many tattooed 20 and 30-somethings. Mr. Korda opened wide the front windows, surrounded by tiny portraits of Buddhist gods, and in floated sidewalk sounds, cabbie screeches, and ambient New York noise.
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Samantha Ku David Mulkins, chair of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, with a 1901 stereoview of the lower Bowery by H.C. White Co. (enlarged below).

In a closet off the bedroom of his East Fifth Street apartment, David Mulkins stores a treasure trove of old New York artifacts. Stacks of round film reels, piles of papers, photographs and old entertainment posters compose a shrine to the Bowery from the 1800s to the present.

“A lot of people, especially younger people, if they know the Bowery at all, they only know the period when it was known for bars and flophouses,” said Mr. Mulkins. “In the second half of the 20th century, the Bowery was home to some of the most important cutting-edge art that has come out of this country.”

Mr. Mulkins, a high school teacher and 25-year East Village resident, is the chair of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, which works to preserve the historic character of the Bowery.

The organization started three years ago to protest the construction of the 21-story Cooper Square Hotel, completed in 2009. “It’s completely out of scale, out of context,” said Mr. Mulkins. “It’s probably the most hated building in this area.”

Currently, the Alliance has a two-pronged approach to the Bowery’s preservation. First, it has submitted an application to have the Bowery included on the National Register of Historic Places. Owners of specific historical buildings would be eligible for tax credits and grants from the state and the city. However, it is not seeking landmark designation from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which comes with a variety of restrictions, said Mr. Mulkins.
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On a nice day, it is not uncommon to hear a soulful rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” resonating across Alphabet City. A regular at Tompkins Square Park and an East Village resident, Giuseppi Logan continues to play his saxophone well into the fall season. But, it might soon be too cold for him to perform.

During a break between songs, Mr. Logan told The Local East Village that he will continue to man his post near Ninth Street and Avenue A as long as the weather is tolerable.

Many of the New Yorkers who walk by know nothing about Mr. Logan’s legendary career. A well-known free jazz musician in the 1960s, he has played with his fair share of “cool cats,” such as John Coltrane, Don Pullen, Eddie Gomez and Milford Graves. After a mysterious decades-long hiatus, Mr. Logan remains optimistic about a musical comeback with his new band.

NYU Journalism’s Sarah Tung reports.

eastvillagedenizen

Good morning, East Village.

We begin today by letting out a sigh of relief about a local musical landmark. There was a fire Saturday night at 98 St. Marks Place, known to music lovers as one of the buildings featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album “Physical Graffiti.” While the blaze looked scary – EV Grieve has some vivid photos of the fire – no serious injuries were reported and the damage appears to have been contained mostly to a second-floor apartment. When Grieve visited Sunday there was virtually no visible damage to the exterior.

In other neighborhood news, New York magazine offers its take on NYU’s expansion plan. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York examines the disappearance of the mural featuring President Obama at Sixth Street and Avenue C and traces the lineage of recent street art at the site. (NYU Journalism’s Claire Glass captured an image of the mural being removed last Wednesday.)

And while we’re on the subject of street art, Neighborhoodr has a photo of Jim Joe’s latest piece.

Sarah Tung on finding compelling images in the East Village.

“As a sketch artist, I often see the world in cropped focus. Interesting people, shapes and colors most often catch my eye because my hand itches to record their essence on a thick sheet of drawing or water color paper. But in a fast-paced city like New York, I simply don’t have time to sit and draw for hours or days on end. Luckily, digital photography has been my savior.
And the East Village never ceases to amaze me.”
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John-Francis Bourke Susan McKeown’s new CD, “Singing in the Dark,” explores her family’s history of mental illness.

In September, songwriter Susan McKeown produced an album of children’s playground songs from all over the world, sung by East Village Community School students.

In stark contrast, her newest CD is a dark, often melancholic journey into the murky world of mental illness. The Irish-born Grammy Award-winning songwriter has forged an album that explores the connection between creativity and madness, brilliance and mental illness, helplessness and hope.

Singing in the Dark, released late last month, is Ms. McKeown’s attempt to grapple with her family’s history of mental illness. Three generations of men on her father’s side suffered from manic depression. “Because it’s in my family, it’s a way to take it on,” Ms. McKeown said. “It’s a way to help by addressing the issue.”

The 20-year resident of the East Village said she wanted to find a way to discuss mental illness that was free from the stigma that plagues diseases like schizophrenia. “Music is powerful and, like poetry, it expresses moods,” Ms. McKeown said. “By linking mental illness with creativity, and letting people ponder it through poetry and music, it seemed like a very human way to approach a subject that many learn about from sources such as commercials for pharmaceuticals”

The lyrics for “Singing in the Dark” originate from poems like Theodore Roethke’s “In a Dark Time,” Anne Sexton’s “Her Kind,” and “The Nameless One” by James Clarence Mangan.

“I read a lot of Irish nature poems about living solitary lives amongst nature,” Ms. McKeown said. “I looked for singability and something in the lyrics that speaks to creativity.”

Whether she’s backed by electric and acoustic guitars, accordion or piano, it is Ms. McKeown’s quivering, but relentless voice that dominates the soundscape. This, in turn, pushes the poetry to the forefront. Lyrics like, “there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” from the Leonard Cohen cover “Anthem” are among the many references to the link between brilliance and madness. “The creativity exists because of the mental illness,” Ms. McKeown said. “It offers a way to deal with what’s been handed to you.”

Stream songs from “Singing in the Dark” here.

Spencer Magloff A selection of the 900 beer varieties that are offered at Good Beer, a Ninth Street shop that opened Tuesday, which specializes in craft beer.

Once a niche drink, craft beers are tapping new devoted drinkers, especially in the East Village. At last month’s NY Craft Beer Week, the East Village had more participating bars than any other neighborhood in the city.

Good Beer on 422 East Ninth Street became the latest craft beer purveyor when it opened its doors on Tuesday. The shop stocks more than 400 chilled craft beers, and David Cichowicz, the store’s manager, said he hopes to have about 900 unique beers once all shipments are received from his six distributors. The beers are organized geographically from East to West coast in refrigeration flanking the entire right-side wall along with 12 growler-ready taps.

Besides their quintessentially quirky names—Ommegang, DogFish Head, Smuttynose, Allagash, Pretty Things—a beer is designated “craft” so long as it is brewed by traditional methods and lacks adjuncts like rice or corn that often lower production costs but dilute flavor. While craft beer often costs a few more dollars, many aficionados say the more flavorful taste and heftier alcohol content are well worth the price.

Spencer Magloff Taps (top) and bottles at Good Beer.

As U.S. beer sales declined in the first half of 2010, the craft brewing industry grew in both volume and retail dollars, according to the Brewers Association. While this is indicative of a national trend, Chris O’Leary, writer of the beer blog, Brew York, New York, said the trend has gained a particularly strong foothold in the East Village for several reasons.

For one, the neighborhood is less pricey and the demographic is generally younger. Also many The East Village restaurateurs believe food can pair as well with craft beer as with wine.

“There is just as much complexity to beer as wine, and people are becoming convinced they can couple craft beer with good food,” Mr. O’Leary said while sipping a pint of Shipyard Pumpkin Head at Destination Bar on Avenue A. Price is another consideration. “A lot of people can’t justify spending $40 for a bottle of wine, but $12 for a good six-pack is doable.”

The East Village also has a storied history of craft brewing tradition. Standings Bar on East Seventh Street, formerly known as Brewsky’s, was one of the first bars in all New York City to serve a selection of craft beers. This was 20 years ago when, as Mr. O’Leary said, “The holy grail was just to find a Samuel Adams.”

The “How did you meet?” question is almost as loaded as the “How did he propose?” question. Proposals you can plan, meeting your future girlfriend/boyfriend is usually left up to chance. To me, the meeting cycle of most single New Yorkers starts out at a house party, graduates to a bar, ends up online and after a self imposed break from dating altogether, your great aunt Esther fixes you up with a “nice young man” she met at services…or maybe that’s just me.
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Maya Millett Handbag designer Jack Germain, who resides in Alphabet City, shows off her upcoming spring collection.

When The Local first encountered handbag designer and fashion blogger Jack Germain, she was rushing to get a manicure in preparation for her 25th birthday party. It was one of the season’s first truly autumn days, and Ms. Germain, an Alphabet City resident, was outfitted accordingly — dressed in leggings, a slouchy green army jacket, and Victorian lace-up boots.

But what caused a stir among readers of The Local was her worn leather shoulder bag covered with muted gold studs, one of her own designs. Many of you wanted to know more about Ms. Germain, a raspy-voiced south Florida native who moved to New York five years ago in the hopes of making a name for herself in the fashion industry. We recently caught up with Ms. Germain again to talk about her upcoming spring collection, future goals and New Year’s resolutions.

How did you get into handbag designing?

When I was younger I wanted to design evening gowns for the Oscars, and as I got older I wanted to do clothes, then I wanted to do shoes, then handbags were just easiest to make. You could make a handbag out of your apartment. And the more I began to study up on it and get into bags themselves, I started to see this underlying theme with the woman’s handbag — that really it’s one of the most true reflections of who a woman actually is. It’s a reflection not only of the style of this woman but where this woman’s been. People change shoes, people change even sunglasses, but a bag is like a woman’s sidekick. My whole theme is that your bag lives the life that you live.
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Molly O’Toole Jim Lesczynski (left) of the Manhattan Libertarians, with New York state Libertarian Chairman Mark Axinn and Manhattan Libertarian Chairman Ron Moore.

The chairs are eerily empty, the table settings untouched. A blonde waitress in a black apron, seated in the far corner, says something in a language I don’t understand.

“Libertarian?” she repeated, this time in English, with a heavy Eastern European accent. 
I nod, and she points to another doorway.

The backroom of the tucked away Ukrainian East Village Restaurant seems an unlikely meeting spot for the Libertarian Party, but once a month its members gather loyally here to share their fiscally conservative, socially liberal ideology and some spinach pierogis.

It can’t be easy to be a Libertarian in this neighborhood, whose preferred political fare is liberal Democratic. Last week’s election was no exception.
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Andre Tartar The six-story brownstone at 114 East First Street has been riddled with problems — including a four-month-long gas outage and a rat infestation. Today, the building’s tenants are taking the landlords, Galron Realty, to court over the conditions.

Across from Katz’s Delicatessen on Houston Street is a six-story brownstone with cast-iron fire escapes zigzagging up its front, a Punjabi grocer on the ground floor, and a laundry list of problems.

About a third of the building’s apartments were recently without cooking gas for 138 days — no less than 20 separate complaints were filed with 311 since late June. Rats long ago colonized the garbage area and have been heard fighting under some tenants’ windows — 24 vermin complaints have been filed with 311. And water damage in several units is beginning to look like a possible health hazard while shoddy repair work plagues many apartments, as was observed during a recent visit to the building.

Most of this concerns rent-stabilized apartments, which make up about half the building’s 30 units and can go for as little as $500 a month or less. That said, new tenants in renovated apartments, some paying rents above $2,000, have been among those affected by the gas outage and experiencing leaks. So today, the fed-up tenants of 114 East First Street will face their landlord, Galron Realty LLC, in housing court.
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Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

EV Grieve has a detailed post about the ongoing dispute between the residents of East Fifth Street and the owners of the now-closed Sin Sin Lounge.

The post describes how the block association on Fifth used a recent hearing before the State Liquor Authority to call for the revocation of the liquor license that’s associated with the property.

Meanwhile, Bowery Boogie reports on a recent Lada Gaga sighting at a Lower East Side yoga studio.

EV Transitions has a nice history lesson on the old A.T. Stewart/John Wanamaker department store on Broadway and Ninth Street.

And The Villager offers some intriguing clues about the owner of the EV Lambo.

Courtesy Antonio GarciaJairo Pastoressa was deemed “mentally unfit” to stand trial in the Oct. 25 murder of Christopher Jusko.

In the days since Christopher Jusko was killed, his step-sister, Christina Rumpf, has ridden a range of emotions, heightened since Wednesday when she learned that the man who the authorities said fatally stabbed Mr. Jusko has been deemed “mentally unfit” to stand trial.

Now, Ms. Rumpf feels sadness for what she says is essentially the loss of two young lives.

“I’ve always felt that living the rest of your life with the guilt of knowing you killed an innocent person is a certain kind of punishment, one that no court verdict will ever alter,” Ms. Rumpf told The Local. “One man made one quick decision and took two lives: my brother’s and his own. There really is no justice in a situation like this, only sad stories.”

On Wednesday, Jairo Pastoressa, 25 – who the authorities said killed Mr. Jusko Oct. 25 after a dispute over a woman in whom both had a romantic interest – was ordered to undergo treatment at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Ward’s Island.

Ms. Rumpf learned of the development from The Local and said that her family continues to cope with the loss of Mr. Jusko, who was 21.

“This has been an extremely hard time for my family,” Ms. Rumpf wrote in an e-mail message. “But we’re all doing our best to deal with the shock of losing someone so young in such an unexpected way.”
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Timothy J. Stenovec Firefighters extinguished an early morning blaze at Ageloff Towers.

Timothy J. StenovecThe fire was reported around 8 a.m. and declared under control about 45 minutes later.

Seven people were hospitalized with minor injuries this morning after a blaze ripped through a sixth-floor apartment of the Ageloff Towers on East Fourth Street near Avenue A, the authorities said.

Two people apparently suffered from smoke inhalation and all of the injured were taken to Beth Israel Medical Center. Officials said that there were no other injuries in the blaze, which occurred around 8 this morning and forced an evacuation of the 11-story building. The fire was declared under control at 8:45.

Dana Schwartz, a resident of the building, woke up early to go to the airport to fly to a wedding when she smelled smoke. At first she though it was her hair dryer, but then she heard a commotion coming from outside of her apartment.

“As soon as I smelled the smoke I heard pounding in the building and, like, a lot of people yelling,” said Ms. Schwartz, who is 24. “So I went out and one of my neighbors was looking out and I said, ‘There’s a fire we have to go.’ I came out and there were crazy flames coming out of the window.”

Ms. Schwartz ran with her luggage down the stairs and evacuated the building, where she was waiting for a family friend to come pick her up just minutes after the fire was extinguished.

“The scary part is over,” Ms. Schwartz said. “It’s scary not knowing what’s happening, but it’s fine now. I felt like it was under control.”

A woman who bystanders said was the resident of the destroyed apartment was accompanied by three children – one with bare feet – and was seen with a police officer trying to hail a cab.

Visibly shaken, the woman, who declined to speak with a reporter, huddled with the children while firefighters began gathering their equipment after they finished putting out the blaze.

A non-profit group specializing in sustainability has appointed a half-dozen high school students to act as green energy consultants to small businesses here in the East Village. Envirolution is currently teaching interns — students from Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School on Second Avenue near 14th Street — energy efficiency and weatherization skills to share with local shopkeepers.

The program is linked to Con Edison, and began in the East Village.

NYU Journalism’s Liz Wagner caught up with a group of students as they canvassed the neighborhood on a recent Saturday.

Amid news that the MTA is working to improve efficiency on the M15 bus line, The Local East Village offers a special report on recent changes to the route. In the video above, NYU Journalism’s Alexandra DiPalma asks riders who use the service for their assessment of the changes. Bill Millard, a community contributor who frequently writes about transportation issues, offers an analysis below of whether the new system is achieving its goals.

Select Bus Service isn’t quite bus service as New Yorkers know it; it’s more a cross between buses and light rail. Like every transit innovation, it takes some getting used to. Adjusting to it boils down to three ideas: treat it like a train, stay out of the lane, and don’t expect miracles overnight.
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Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

Enjoy an old school start to your day by following Sheryl Lee Ralph’s lead as she grooves through an almost unrecognizable East Village in her 1984 video for “In the Evening,” resurrected by Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York.

On a less upbeat note, EV Grieve has photographs of the makeshift “for rent” signs which have appeared in the windows of the theaters at 45 Bleecker, seized in mid-October by the landlord. Several shows previously in residence there also have notices taped to the doors redirecting their audiences to different venues.

Finally, readers with a sweet – okay, make that very sweet – tooth will surely be voting for their favorite soft serve in a poll posted by Momofuku Milk Bar. The rest of us can cheer from the sidelines. “Go, snickerdoodle!”

Courtesy Felton Davis An audio recording made by an East Village resident in July offers listeners another chance to hear the voice of the beloved neighborhood fixture Gloria Wasserman, who was widely known as Annie.

The East Village lost one of its great characters in September, when Gloria Wasserman, a neighborhood fixture known and beloved as “Annie,” died at her daughter’s Los Angeles home at age 85. But thanks to one East Village resident, we’re still able to hear Ms. Wasserman’s voice and recall her energy and good humor.

An audio clip of Ms. Wasserman comes from Zara Burdett, an East Fourth Street resident who often saw Ms. Wasserman holding court at one of her favorite spots – perched on the stoop of the KGB Bar. Stream the clip, an exchange from July, here. In 58 seconds, the audio exemplifies Ms. Wasserman’s catchphrase “Leave ‘em laughing,” and provides a sample of her banter with neighborhood residents.

“Annie made a personal mark on my life in recent months,” Ms. Burdett wrote in an e-mail message to The Times, noting that she enjoyed listening to Ms. Wasserman’s “hilarious jokes and provocations” on the street.

According to Ms. Burdett, the exchange took place on a sweltering day. Ms. Wasserman was excitedly yelling out to strangers, determined to learn who uttered the famous words “I came, I saw, I conquered.” She repeatedly asked, “Who said that?” One gentleman incorrectly assured her it was Alexander the Great.

“She deserved to get the facts straight!” Ms. Burdett wrote. She approached Ms. Wasserman several minutes later. “It was Julius Caesar,” Ms. Burdett said. Ms. Wasserman recognized the name, and let out a blissful roar of excitement. “I came, I saw, I conquered,” she repeated over and over.

“I use it for comic material,” Ms. Wasserman said. “I don’t perform, but I think about it.” She took out a pen from somewhere deep in her familiar red, wire-frame shopping cart, and attempted to scribble the name onto a scrap of plastic.

Ms. Wasserman was best known for her work at the Fulton Fish Market, where she spent 35 years selling newspapers and cigarettes and earning the nickname “South Street Annie.” She suffered a stroke in August and was taken to Bellevue, where she stayed for a month before ending up with her family in Los Angeles. An extended tribute to Ms. Wasserman was published in The Times on Oct. 15 and is available here.

Gloria Chung Matt Hamilton, chef and partner in the Second Avenue restaurant Belcourt, says that he puts in 60 hours a week to manage the restaurant. “I don’t see it as a burden,” he says. Belcourt, below, is part of a wave of restaurants that have helped the East Village become one of the city’s premier dining neighborhoods.

Gloria Chung

Cheese for breakfast? Why not?

In the upstairs tasting room at Murray’s on Bleecker Street, Matt Hamilton, chef and partner in the Second Avenue restaurant Belcourt, is moaning gently over a mouthful of Brunet, a rich Italian goat cheese firm in the center, meltingly gelatinous just below the wrinkly, earthy rind.

A chef’s life would be great, he says, if it just involved tasting and cooking. He imagines that’s how it probably is if you’re Tom Colicchio or one of those corporate guys. We moved on to the Salers, a Cheddar-like cow’s milk cheese from the mountainous Auvergne in France. Elizabeth Chubbuck of Murray’s explains that the sentimental Salers cows only give milk when their calves are nearby. Salers is rare, and like so many fine cheeses, expensive.

Matt doesn’t visit Murray’s daily, or even weekly. Usually, in fact, the rep comes to him. He changes his menu with the seasons, then makes small adjustments within each season. Every month or so he considers new possibilities for his cheese program. He currently offers a plate of four cheeses but would like to do more, would love to have a cheese tray. Elizabeth says she knows his palate; apparently it tends toward the creamy and funky. We eat some Stilton from Colston Basset, a cheese I grew up with.

My plan was to follow in Matt’s footsteps for a day. Over the last few years, the East Village has become one of the city’s premier dining neighborhoods. Alongside the inexpensive pizzerias, the discount sushi, and the tandoori restaurants of East Sixth, serious restaurants have established themselves. With some exceptions, like Daniel Boulud’s DBGB, the best of these are independent, not part of a larger organization or corporate chain. What makes these places run?
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