The Local’s QR code.

Many New Yorkers have started to notice the odd square bar codes that are popping up on signs and advertisements around the city. These are called ‘QR codes’ which stands for Quick Response. QR codes provide a link between the physical world and the virtual world of the Internet. When you use your smartphone to scan a QR code you are often taken to a website with more information on a product or special offers. So while you use your mouse to click links on the computer you can now use your phone to ‘click’ QR links you find on the street. QR codes have been popular for years in Japan but are just now catching on in the United States.

We here at The Local East Village wanted to know how many people in our community were using QR codes. To find out, over the next several days we will be distributing Local East Village flyers – on brightly colored paper – to local businesses. When the code is scanned, your smart phone visits a site that we run so we can keep a tally of visitors and then is directed to The Local East Village. We are distributing four different versions of our flyer so that we can see how many people are using QR codes in different areas. We’ll publish our findings in a few weeks and share our data with you. If you see one of our flyers be sure to scan it so you can take part.

Have a smart phone but don’t know how to read QR codes? Simply go to your favorite app store and look for ‘qr reader’ – you’re sure to find a number of free programs to use.

Alexa Tsoulis-Reay Carlos Rodriguez, a customer of the fang-maker known as Father Sebastiaan, shows off his new fangs. The author, while researching an article on vampire culture, purchased a custom-made set of the prosthetics, too.

On a recent soggy fall evening just past 7 p.m., I found myself standing on Fourth Avenue, smoking a cigarette while my new custom-made vampire fangs set. Next to me hovered a six-foot tall man dressed in a shiny black butcher’s apron, splattered with white paste, like he had been interrupted while baking a cake. A black cowboy hat sat upon his long-blonde hair.

Meet Father Sebastiaan aka Sebastiaan van Houten: Master Fangsmith, a self-described living vampire and head of the Sabretooth Clan.

“The Father,” as he is commonly known, has lived in Paris since 2007. Attracted by the scent of Halloween, he returns to the East Village every October to custom design removable fangs. He sets up shop in a tiny red and black windowless room, just past the pirate costumes inside the Halloween Adventure costume store on Fourth Avenue near 11th Street. He is assisted by Victor Magnus, whom he met in 1995 in a Greenwich Village magic store and who now runs the New York arm of the fang business.

I had been researching vampire culture and heard that I must talk to Father Sebastiaan, fang-maker extraordinaire. When we met for the first time, he insisted that I experience the fang design firsthand to truly understand his craft. After some convincing, I submitted to the procedure.

Seated inside his cramped workroom, I was instructed to use my pinkies to stretch open my mouth and reveal the top of my teeth and gums. I felt like a cat, about to get an oral vaccination. “I’ll make them subtle,” he said, then, turning to Mr. Magnus, who hovered nearby, he added, “We don’t want to make her look like a beaver.” Next, I was told to roar and throw a pair of devil’s horns. This took some time for me to perfect.
Read more…

Carl Guadalupe The front steps of 98 St. Marks Place today (above) and as it appeared on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album “Physical Graffiti.”

The buildings’ stony expressions look out over this last leg of St. Marks Place going east, between First Avenue and Avenue A. At first glance these two buildings look like standard East Village stock, but, eyes wide-open, the facades of 96 and 98 St. Marks Place have witnessed musical history taking place on their very stoops.

They are the iconic buildings featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album Physical Graffiti, and also in the 1981 Rolling Stones music video, “Waiting on a Friend.”

Bobby Pinn, the creator and host of Rock Junket walking tours, “In the 70’s, Led Zeppelin were big fans of New York City. They partied here a lot and they played the Garden quite a bit, so they really had a close tie to New York. The cover was designed by Peter Corriston, a graphic design artist from New York. Peter said that he was looking for a building with a lot of character, which this building has with all the kings’ faces and it has that tenement-style feel with the fire escapes. He wanted a building that had symmetry and a lot of windows.”
Read more…

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

The ongoing debate over bike lanes in the neighborhood took a new twist this week when Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr, the head of the Ninth Precinct, announced that his officers were stepping up efforts to ticket cyclists who flout traffic laws. The Times reports today on a similar effort by police across the city.

In other neighborhood news, we’d like to remind you, courtesy of Neighborhoodr, that Saturday will feature the 20th annual Halloween Dog Parade at Tompkins Square Park starting at noon. The Halloween Parade prompts us to tell you about our recurring feature, Beyond The Dog Run, in which we display photos of neighborhood pets here on The Local. If you’d like to contribute your photos, please join our Flickr Group.

While on the subject of photos from the neighborhood, we’d also like to tell you about a new feature on The Local’s photo contributors. Later today, we will showcase the work of Gloria Chung, who contributed the image above and whose work has often been featured here in our morning roundup.

And this morning the Village Voice posted an item from its archives about Sammy’s on the Bowery, the bar and music hall on the Bowery at East Third, which closed its doors in 1970 after 36 years.

Hannah Rubenstein Iana Di Bona (top) has been scrawling chalk messages on East Village sidewalks calling for civil rights for the gay community. Her effort is part of larger effort that includes a 24-hour vigil outside the offices of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on West 26th Street.

Iana Di Bona crouches low near the corner of St. Marks and First Avenue scrawling a chalk message that she would repeat on sidewalks across the East Village: “Gay Civil Rights! QueerSOS.com!” Her electric blues and purples are defiant against the monochromatic city streets.

“Some people don’t want to stop and take a flyer,” Ms. Di Bona says, explaining the chalk that now stains her fingers. “This is a graffiti tactic that brings attention and awareness to the cause.” She places the chalk in a tattered plastic bag and continues walking, searching for the next blank slate.

Graffiti activism is only the latest action that Ms. Di Bona and the group she represents, QueerSOS, have taken in recent days in hopes of promoting gay rights. Two months ago, the 30-year-old Ms. Di Bona quit her job as an office manager in an East Village medical office and began living off of savings, dedicating herself to social activism full-time.

Since Sept. 27, she has been part of a daily vigil outside of Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s campaign office on West 26th Street. For the past nine days, she and her best friend and fellow activist Alan Bounville, a 34-year-old former NYU student, have been sleeping on the sidewalk outside — an act of “political homelessness,” Ms. Di Bona says. QueerSOS, which stands for Standing OutSide, has only one mission: pressuring Senator Gillibrand to introduce the American Equality Bill.
Read more…

East Village Street Style from Sally L on Vimeo.

Last month, The Local showed you fall runway trends in some of the most popular neighborhood boutiques.

But what are East Villagers actually wearing now that the temperatures are dropping?

We took to the streets on a recent Sunday afternoon and asked stylish locals about their personal fall fashion.

Joan Heffler Warren Redlich.

Warren Redlich is a Libertarian who hates the war on drugs, supports gay marriage, thinks college loans harm more than help students, and wants to cap bureaucrat pay and pensions.

Mr. Redlich, 44, is the Libertarian party candidate for governor and his longshot campaign received a moment in the spotlight after his participation in the gubernatorial debate on Monday at Hofstra University.

If nothing else, Mr. Redlich, a lawyer from Albany, does not lack for confidence: he believes Carl Paladino is going to take third place in the Nov. 2 election – after he comes in first and Andrew Cuomo places second. Mr. Redlich spoke with The Local East Village on Wednesday about why voters should choose him, what they should know about him, and his love of East Village Korean food.

What do you think of Carl Paladino?

Carl Paladino is done. He’ll come in third place, if he’s lucky. After the debate, Carl’s campaign manager said it looked like I hadn’t taken my Prozac. They weren’t satisfied offending blacks, gays, women, Jews – I’m Jewish – now they’ve offended mental health patients. I think they’re going to stop on Nov. 3, when he comes in third place in the election.
Read more…

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

Start the day by casting envious eyes in the direction of Jimmy McMillan, the “Rent is Too Damn High” gubernatorial candidate who – according to Gothamist – is renting an East Village apartment for his son at a cost of only $900 per month.

In other news, like the rest of the city we can’t help noticing that the CMJ Music Marathon is underway with over 1,200 live performances, mainly in downtown New York and Brooklyn. Lit Lounge and the Bowery Poetry Club are among the East Village venues hosting performances, but the musicians and fans are everywhere. The festival runs through Saturday, so there’s still time to catch a few dozen shows.

Speaking of music, especially of the loud variety, EV Grieve updates on us on the planned Halloween protest against pressure from Community Board 3 to reduce the quantity and volume on live music in Tompkins Square Park. We plan to be there.

Finally, a striking piece of visual history. It’s easy to walk by Alphabet Café on the corner of East 14th and Avenue B without giving the building a second thought. Vanishing New York has photographic evidence today that it has survived as a one-story structure for decades. How did the developers not notice this? And does anyone have an idea how old that first photo is?

There is no shortage of opinion when it comes to the speed hump installed in November 2009 on East 10th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

But now that the hump has been installed for nearly a year, many residents and storeowners are concerned about its effectiveness or confused by its location – or simply annoyed by it.

After several car accidents involving children in front of the 10th Street Boys’ Club, residents and neighbors from the local community board lobbied for the installation of a speed hump on the street.

Roadway layout and driveway locations are major factors that determine where the city places speed reducers, according to a spokeswoman with the Department of Transportation. The department determined the 10th Street hump’s current location as the best place to maximize safety for pedestrians crossing the road.

NYU Journalism’s Alexandra DiPalma, Sarah Tung and Rachel Wise describe the reactions of those who live and work near the speed hump.

Courtesy the Allen Ginsberg After the Tuesday release of a collaboration between the poet Allen Ginsberg and the musician Arthur Russell (above), a record company now plans to issue more previously unreleased music by Mr. Russell.

As previously reported on The Local, a new 12-inch single featuring a rare Allen Ginsberg-Arthur Russell collaboration was released Tuesday from Audika Records and Press Pop Music. But fans of Mr. Russell will be excited to hear that there’s more unearthed material on the way.

“There are a few things people haven’t heard that I want to get out,” said Audika Records founder Steve Knutson in a recent interview with The Local.

Mr. Russell, an East Village resident who died in 1992, collaborated with the Talking Heads, Studio 54 resident DJ Nicky Siano, and minimalist composer Philip Glass, among others. His diverse discography — ranging from avant-disco and experimental pop, to ethereal cello compositions and folk-tinged love songs — touched on many facets of the New York downtown scene in the ’70s and ’80s, and has been widely acclaimed.

Over the next six months, Mr. Knutson plans to “go full circle” with two additional never-before-heard releases, focusing primarily on smaller releases of Mr. Russell’s avant-disco work. One of those avant-disco tracks, “Let’s Go Swimming,” is currently being mastered. Mr. Knutson plans to release the remastered original 12-inch version (which he says “sounds better than the original”) backed with previously unreleased material.

Mr. Russell recorded “Let’s Go Swimming” several times. A reverb-laden, cello-based rendition of “Let’s Go Swimming” previously appeared on the 1986 album “World of Echo,” and an Arthur Gibbons mix of the “mutant disco” version appeared on 2004 compilation “The World of Arthur Russell” from Soul Jazz Records. But the original has yet to be released.

Mr. Knutson, who also manages Rough Trade Records in North America, founded Audika in 2003 for the sole purpose of releasing material from Russell’s archives. Focusing primarily on the musician’s experimental pop output, previous Audika releases have included the posthumous collections “Calling Out of Context” (2004) and “Love is Overtaking Me” (2008).

Though Mr. Knutson never met Mr. Russell, he has been an avid fan since the mid-‘80s, when he first heard the Walter Gibbons mix of Russell’s “Schoolbell Treehouse.” Knutson said it changed his life. “It was like what I’d been waiting to hear all my life,” he said. “I thought it was one of the most incredible things I’d ever heard.”

Nearly a year after the completion of their $1.2 million renovation, the 14th Street Y is putting the southwest corner of 14th and First even more firmly on the East Village cultural map. The Jewish community center (open to “all backgrounds”) is nearing completion of their brand new theater and positioning themselves to provide a community space for “puppetry, filmmaking, experimental theater, aligning Jewish texts with the arts,” according to Reva Gaur who works for the Educational Alliance, a network of social and cultural centers of which the Y is a part. Ms. Gaur says that the “new theater will serve as the only professional theater in a community space in the East Village” when completed.

There are three key players that have made such a theater possible. Stephen Hazan Arnoff, Executive Director of the 14th Street Y, David Tirosh, LABA (the Y’s community arts program) artist-in-residence and Becky Skoff, who manages the theater and the arts program for the Y.

Securing funds for the arts in a time of economic uncertainty is no easy feat. Impressively, the center’s renovation funds have now exceeded the original $1.2 million to nearly $1.5 million with the help of New York City Council Members Rosie Mendez and Dan Garodnick. According to Mr. Arnoff, Councilman Garodnick grew up in the neighborhood and even “attended pre-school at the Y”.

Said Ms. Gaur, “We reached out to City Council members Dan Garodnick and Rosie Mendez to think about how we could obtain the first funds needed for the project. They embraced our vision and supported our application for funds from the City Council Capital Budget. This resulted in a $250,000 from the city which we combined with other funds to make our vision a reality for the community.”

Ms. Gaur explained that “laba” is Hebrew for “lava,” signifying an ambition to delve beneath the surface of the cultural landscape to find ancient wisdom. It’s also wordplay on the English “laboratory.” The next major arts program event is “What Kind of Love Is This: Bob Dylan and the Band” a combined gallery exhibition, symposium, and concert. The theater has already announced collaboration with AMAS Musical Theater, Red Fern Theater Company and Variations Theater Group.

My report on New York University’s expansion plans and implications for the East Village, which at this stage remain frankly unclear, drew extra attention, doubtless because this is one of those curious cases of a news source reporting on itself.

More or less, anyway. As our banner makes clear, The Local East Village is produced by NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute (in collaboration with The Times). Could NYU report on its own controversial development strategy without bias? This was the focus of commentary by Tom McGeveran at Capital, a New York news website which was covering the story before we were even launched. “How’d they do?” he asked, answering, “I don’t detect any bias in the piece.”

It’s a curious feeling to be under such close scrutiny, and maybe it’s worth repeating that I’m working for The Local as a consultant to the Journalism Institute rather than as an employee of the university (or the Times) and with an assurance of complete editorial independence on stories about the university. Skeptics might expect nothing else, but I may as well say that the university was entirely hands-off in the development of the piece.

On the one hand, it’s important to see the story as the beginning of The Local’s reporting on the plans and not any kind of conclusive summary. At the same time, covering the story highlighted for me one of the challenges facing hyperlocal news coverage. Some of the people I spoke to for the story told me they didn’t really have much to say about NYU’s plans as they affect the East Village – the main focus, after all, being the neighborhood around the existing Greenwich Village campus. Commenting on the story, Andrew Nusca of SmartPlanet.com wanted to put the story in the broader context of contentious developments uptown by Columbia University, and beyond that to encroachments by “any large institution of higher education that’s located within a major city.”

That’s certainly a story and someone should write it. Our remit, however, is to cover the East Village – hyperlocally. It’s difficult when a story spills naturally across neighborhood boundaries – which are, after all, largely an invention of habit and realtors. But readers can expect further, unbiased reporting here if and when we learn more about NYU’s intentions for our particular backyard.

Kim Davis is the community editor of The Local East Village.

Timothy J. Stenovec Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr, pictured at a police ceremony earlier this month, told the Ninth Precinct Community Council Tuesday night that cyclists who violate traffic laws in bike lanes will receive tickets just as motorists do.

The head of the Ninth Precinct issued a stern warning to East Village cyclists at the Community Council meeting Tuesday night – traffic laws don’t just apply to vehicles.

“They are under the same rules and will get a moving violation just like a motorist would,” said Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr, referring to neighborhood cyclists. “They’re required to adhere to the same rules as the road.”

Much of the council meeting focused on enforcing traffic laws in the re-designed bike lanes that were introduced this summer along First and Second Avenues from Houston to 34th Streets.

Kurt Cavanaugh of Transportation Alternatives called bike lanes the “new hot button issue” and asked the Ninth Precinct to step in to prevent bike lanes from being blocked by vehicles, delivery trucks and even pedestrians.

“We ask the local precinct to increase the bike lane blockage enforcement,” he said. “There’s still a lot of bike lane blockage, which is really unsafe for all parties.”
Read more…

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

NYU Local has photos of the rapper Lil’ Jon and the actor Gary Busey selling pizzas Tuesday afternoon at Eighth Street and Broadway. Neighborhoodr has a post about a new exhibit by the photographer Cary Conover. (While you’re at Neighborhoodr these images are worth checking out, too.) Nice photograph here over at EV Grieve. The Villager offers up a story about one man’s theory on those explosives that were found in a cemetery earlier this month. And I Love East Village has a Halloween-themed sketch by the artist Terry Galmitz.

Portrait of An Artist from The Local East Village on Vimeo.

Last week, we told you about our video storytellers at The Local and the space that is reserved for weekly features on the right side of the page.

Over the past month, NYU Journalism’s Bolanle Omisore has explored the world of extreme tattooing, Sarah Tung has described the world of Japanese culture that exists in the East Village and Damon Beres took viewers inside the world of Toy Tokyo.

Other pieces have included Timothy J. Stenovec’s look at a commuter mosque and Maya Millett’s profile of the Social Tees Animal Rescue. In this week’s feature, which also plays above, NYU Journalism’s Steven McCann interviews the artist Andrew Castrucci.

You can find these videos and others at The Local East Village’s Vimeo page.

And if you’re interested in submitting your visual stories to The Local, please contact Kim Davis, The Local’s community editor.

Hannah Thonet Founded in 1973, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe regularly features spoken word events and open mic nights

The East Village has long been considered a Mecca for poets and writers. From bars to old tenement buildings, the historic neighborhood is brimming with former haunts of longtime residents like Allen Ginsberg and W.H. Auden. The crisp weather and changing leaves makes fall the perfect season to wander through the area on a romantic tour. So here’s a roundup of iconic East Village literary landmarks – why should the West Village get all the glory?

Ginsberg Residences

206 East Seventh Street (between Avenues B and C)
170 East Second Street (between Avenues A and B)

Arguably the neighborhood’s most well-known scribe, poet Allen Ginsberg called several apartments home throughout the East Village, including one we recently told you was on the market. In addition to the 12th Street apartment, he lived at 206 East Seventh Street from 1952 to 1953 where fellow Beat poet, William S. Burroughs, was a frequent visitor. Another one of his apartments was at 170 East Second Street. Ginsberg and his longtime partner, Peter Orlovsky, also a poet, lived there from 1958 to 1961.
Read more…

Robyn Baitcher A passerby gazes into a diorama on the gate of the Ninth Street Community Garden (top) and is treated to one of J. Kathleen White’s boxed drawings inside.

Since 2005, a set of dioramas has appeared each fall on the gate of the Ninth Street Community Garden. Residents and visitors peer inside for a glimpse of another world – a praying couple kneels before a tree inside this year’s green “Tree” diorama; in the blue “Knots,” skeletons hold knotted rope underwater as a sunken ship looms in the background. A Wells Fargo truck makes an appearance in a red diorama called “Treasure,” and a pink forest blooms behind a pudgy child in one called “Rocket SuperBaby.”

“I don’t know what they’re going to be like until I start making them,” J. Kathleen White said of the whimsical boxed scenes she creates. “Sometimes I think up a theme afterward. It’s a neighborhood thing. There’s no publicity.”

Ms. White said the dioramas are a way to show her drawings fitted against a background of lush greenery, a rare experience for a Manhattan resident looking at art.

“It’s these little scenes in completely obscure places,” she said. “It makes a miniature world within that world of the garden.”

Each year, Ms. White installs about a half dozen boxes on the garden fence along Avenue C. She has worked as a teacher and writer, in addition to drawing and creating art pieces all over New York City and nationally. This month, Ms. White is painting a mural in the basement of the East Village Theater for the New City.

Ms. White said she enjoys watching residents’ surprise each year that the Ninth Street boxes have returned. Though a sign by the installation bears her name, Ms. White gives only small clues as to the meaning behind the funky, vibrantly lit images.

“The continuum in these boxes is that in general, there’s a sense of narrative to the boxes,” she said. “There’s a story here – but what is it? It’s up to people to decide what that is.”

“Findings,” Ms. White’s current set of dioramas on the Ninth Street Community Garden fence, will run until Oct. 25.

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

On Monday, The Local’s Kim Davis wrote about NYU’s expansion plan. This morning, the Washington Square News describes the debate a bit west of our neighborhood where many residents questioned the plan at a Community Board 2 meeting Monday night.

Another one of our Monday posts offered a patron’s perspective on the closing of the Sin Sin lounge. EV Grieve reports on another sign that the end is near for Sin Sin: the club’s website is down. (Grieve also has a humorous item demonstrating that concerns about noisy students are hardly a new development.) And Bowery Boogie has a post about the neighborhood’s star turn in a new Samsung commercial.

Today, The Local East Village inaugurates a recurring feature of photo essays on neighborhood pets called “Beyond the Dog Run.”

One day, Michael Sean Edwards, an East Village photographer, decided to pay close attention to the dogs that were waiting for their owners outside a neighborhood coffee house. This is what he saw.
Read more…