Nicole Guzzardi

Nicole Guzzardi

A block away from where Mama’s Food Shop was being emptied earlier this week, signage was torn down from the former Kate’s Joint this evening. Ruth Marquez, a longtime Lower East Sider who spent a dozen years working in Puerto Rico as an events planner and then returned to the neighborhood, held a tattered section of the restaurant’s awning as she spoke about the deli-market she planned to open.

She repeated many of the same details reported by The Local last month, but added that Vella Market would take pains to cater to customers (and their dogs and children). “We want to learn who they are by name and what they need, just like in a suburban store,” she said.

But first, she’ll have to get the space at Fourth Street and Avenue B in order. It was left “in shambles,” she said.

Suzanne Rozdeba

It’s been a week of highs and lows for Nublu. Tonight, the club celebrates its 10th anniversary at Le Poisson Rouge. But earlier this week, owner Ilhan Ersahin was forced to defend himself against accusations that his live music venue was to blame for noise on Avenue C.

Mr. Ersahin appeared before Community Board 3’s SLA licensing committee on Monday after neighbors lodged numerous complaints about noise they said came from Nublu. Some present at the meeting wanted his beer and wine license revoked. Meanwhile, committee member Ariel Palitz defended Nublu, calling it an East Village institution and one of its few remaining live music venues.

Today, Mr. Ersahin denied the block was all that noisy. “I think the complainers have this thing in their head and they keep on going because they have nothing else to do,” he told The Local. “I live right above Nublu; it’s not like I don’t know what’s going on.” Read more…

Michael Natale

Dennis Edge, the birdwatcher, isn’t the only one sharing his wisdom about the flora and fauna of Tompkins Square Park this weekend.

Yesterday, Michael Natale of Gamma Blog posted a high-resolution map of the park’s trees and generously shared it with The Local. On Saturday, he’ll talk about his quest to identify every single one of them.

The Houston Street resident, who moved to the neighborhood in 1978, started cataloging the park’s trees about a year ago, after reading about a pair of Central Park leaf-peepers and noticing that a 1998 map offered by the Tompkins Square Park Conservancy was “way out of date.”

“A lot of trees were long gone and not all the trees were listed and they were just little dots on the map and I found it really not that useable,” he said.

Mr. Natale, 64, decided it was time for an update. “I thought, ‘It can’t be that hard,’” he said, admitting that he soon learned otherwise and spent “endless” hours engaged in the “insanely difficult” task of pacing off accurate distances, gauging trunk diameters, and trying to tell the difference between a Japanaese scholar tree and a black locust (he’s still not sure about that one, and hopes to get help from local tree mavens this weekend). In short, what was to be an arborous task turned out to be an arduous one. Read more…

Photos: Alexa Mae Asperin

After riding out a wave of opposition in March, Bikinis Eatery will open its doors this Saturday.

The tapas bar on Avenue C isn’t selling two-piece swimsuits; it specializes in the Spanish sandwiches of the same name. According to co-owner Karina Correa, good ones are hard to find in the city, so she’s aiming to “marry both Spanish and American flavors” via menu items like the classic jamon y queso (ham and cheese), a “Gordito” (pastrami, turkey, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mayo) and vegetarian options like a smoky portobello blend and a tomato baguette with sea salt and Spanish olive oil.

Ms. Correa, a former manager at Cafe Gitane in Nolita who spent four years in Spain, said she and her business partner, Petrit Pula, who has lived in Madrid, favored the simple tapas found at Spanish corner cafes over Manhattan restaurants that were “too sophisticated both in concept and price.” They envisioned a relaxed, casual place where one can eat three times a day, as is common in Spain. Read more…

Photos: Annie Fairman

While one seafood shack prepares to open on the southern border of the East Village, another opened yesterday up on 14th Street.

In the former Meatball Factory space, lobster traps now hang from the ceiling, the bar is embellished with rope, and a captain’s wheel is mounted on the white-tiled west wall. Div Patel, 38, said he and his partners wanted to “open something that this neighborhood didn’t have: seafood.” (Better not tell him about Mermaid Inn).

Executive chef Joe Bachman, 28, was born in Florida, where his family works in commercial crabbing and fishing, and lived in South Carolina before moving to New York eight years ago. There are a couple of nods to those southern roots on the menu (jumbo shrimp and grits with kale, smoked gouda hush puppies), but the fish comes from the Bronx Terminal Market and the raw bar and fried Ipswich clam bellies are pure New England, with most produce coming from the nearby Union Square Greenmarket. Read more…

Good morning, East Village.

City Room reports that the police are looking for a cyclist they say incited a riot on the corner of Bowery and Bleecker on Thursday, and a woman they say jumped on a man’s car and smashed its windows.

Speaking of cyclists, East Villager Shawn Chittle has posted the above clip to YouTube, showing a frantic bike ride through the neighborhood.

The Blemish spotted Olivia Munn of “The Daily Show” and “Newsroom” at the Bowery Hotel. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba

Preservationists, politicians, and neighborhood residents asked the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday to nix, or at least limit the height of, a proposed hotel that they fear will damage the historic Merchant’s House Museum.

Speaking to about 70 people at a public hearing at One Centre Street, City Council member Rosie Mendez, who said she had allotted close to a million dollars for museum renovations, asked that the nine-story, 32-room hotel be scaled back to three and a half stories, to match the height of the neighboring museum. The commission must approve the application because the proposed site is within the NoHo Historic District Extension.

“In this city, when we have great buildings, and it tells something about our history, and our communities, we landmark them,” she said. “And the Merchant’s House Museum is one of those buildings.” The councilwoman asked for a protection plan that would require the developer to pay for any damage as well as for the expense of moving artifacts during construction. Supporters of the national landmark, built in 1832, believe that any construction could cause damage to its interior Greek Revival architecture and its Federal-style brick exterior.

Edward Carroll, the project’s controversial designer, argued that the Bowery was already home to buildings that were taller than the hotel proposed for East Fourth Street, and said it would have a “tri-part design” that would “put it in context with the loft buildings that are typical to the late 1800s and early 1900s in this particular neighborhood.” He also pointed to Great Jones Street, one block south. “There’s a lot of similarities to be seen, with the heights of 100 feet, 80 feet, interposed between each other on one block.” He said the façade would be made of a dark-grey steel and surrounded by a limestone frame. Read more…

The Williamsburg pizzeria that expanded to the East Village in 2009 only to close its Brooklyn location last year is coming back to Williamsburg. According to The Times, Motorino will open at 139 Broadway, near Bedford Avenue, in January.

It’s not the first case of borough bouncing we’ve seen in recent days: last week DNAinfo reported that East Village taqueria Dos Toros plans to open in Williamsburg, and today an owner of Lobster Joint, a Greenpoint seafood shack, tells The Local that it will open its outpost at 201 East Houston Street in November or December.

Bobby Levitt said that on Monday, Community Board 3’s liquor licensing committee voted to support a liquor license at the location near Ludlow Street. The satellite will replicate the menu and look of the original, and Mr. Levitt expects it to attract a similar demographic: “We get hipsters and families with kids – all ages,” he said.

So why are restaurants that open in the East Village-Lower East Side increasingly eager to expand into the Williamsburg-Greenpoint-Bushwick area, and vice versa? Mathieu Palombino, the owner of Motorino, told The Local, “Williamsburg is to Brooklyn what the East Village is to Manhattan. What works there will work here. It’s a natural expansion from one direction or the other.” (Of course, it doesn’t always work out, hence yesterday’s story about Mama’s.)

In case you’ve lost track, here’s The Local’s rundown of restaurants with locations on either side of the bridge. Read more…

Sanna Chu Dennis Edge.

Dennis Edge Blackburnian warbler

It’s bird migration season, meaning you can see more than just the usual pigeons and sparrows in Tompkins Square Park. Dennis Edge, a local birder, has photographed 92 species there, and he’ll talk about it at the 6th & B community garden later this month.

The retired graphic designer often roams the park with a digital SLR camera and telephoto lens. Just yesterday morning he spied an American redstart warbler, a migratory bird with orange patches, in the vines near the park’s offices.

Dennis Edge American Kestrel

Mr. Edge, 74, grew up in North Carolina and moved to the East Village in 1970. He first became interested in birds over 10 years ago when he photographed an injured red-tailed hawk on East Ninth Street. He contacted the National Audubon Society and was put in touch with a bird rehabilitator, who told him to throw a blanket over the bird, put it in a box and bring it over. “Easier said then done,” he said. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Parishioners locked out of Mary Help of Christians gathered in front of the church steps last night and chanted before a candlelit image of the Virgin Mary. They plan to return to the sidewalk every night, at 7 p.m., even during the cold of winter.

Josephine Messali, who attended the church’s last mass on Sunday, said she would continue to pray in front of it even as Immaculate Conception, on 14th Street, offers Sunday mass to former attendees of Mary Help of Christians.

“This is our church,” she said. “We still adhere to the Salesian spirituality and that’s not over there.”

It isn’t the first time worshipers at Mary Help of Christians have been driven to the streets. When the church ended its run as an independent parish in 2007, its congregation took to the sidewalk to continue the daily rosary chants that are customary in May. At the end of the month, they decided to continue gathering outside, to pray for the reopening of the church. Read more…

Joann Jovenelly

Good morning, East Village.

The Real Deal reports that French-American banker Olivier Sarkozy has bought a $6.2 million townhome in the St. Marks historic district, at 125 East 10th Street.

According to the Post, the “White-Glove Bandit” pleaded guilty to a string of bank robberies on the Lower East Side. He could face 15-plus years in jail.

The Times has a couple of stories about the East River today: First, Verdant Power is hoping to use the river to generate electricity. “In about five years, the company hopes to have 30 turbines arrayed in the river, each capable of producing 35 kilowatts of electricity. All told, the project would produce about as much power as one wind turbine, enough to power a few hundred homes.” And second, the future of East River Ferry service is uncertain since “it is not yet apparent that the ferries can become a daily habit for enough people to keep New York Waterway, which operates the ferry, from losing money, as it has on some other routes.”

Allen Ginsberg’s former research assistant, who has published a book about the poet, tells The Awl, “He loved the East Village and Lower East Side (where his mother Naomi grew up on Orchard Street). I remember him enjoying Tompkins Square Park. He enjoyed eating at Kiev, Leshko’s and Veselka—he loved Eastern European food, also Japanese and Korean. But he had to be careful of hot spicy dishes. He didn’t hang out at bars, he mostly entertained at home, and when he did, the bodega on the northwest corner of 12th Street and Avenue B was the place to hit.”

ArtsBeat brings word of the latest production at the Public Theater, “a new musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel ‘Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,’ with music by Jeanine Tesori (‘Shrek,’ ‘Caroline, or Change’) and book and lyrics by Lisa Kron (‘Well’).” It will open the fall season with a cast that includes Roberta Colindrez, Judy Kuhn, Beth Malone and Joel Perez.

In a roundup of new restaurants, DNA Info notes that the folks from Cacio e Pepe have opened Bocca, an Italian spot near Union Square that “serves fresh pastas made in-house and dishes such as pan-seared salmon with Italian couscous, and roasted pork shoulder, marinated for two days in fennel pollen and rosemary, served with broccoli rabe and red onion marmalade.”

Grub Street reports that Community Board 3 agreed to support a liquor license application for the new Nevada Smiths if it agreed to “a 2 a.m. closing on weeknights and 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, increased security and cleanup detail, and a requirement that owner Patrick McCarthy meet with residents monthly to address potential complaints.”

Blackbook speaks with Matt Levine, the owner of Sons of Essex who just opened Cocktail Bodega a block below Houston Street. He says the concept represents “a strong sense of community within the Lower East Side, and with the use of fresh fruits and fresh vegetables in the cocktail program at Cocktail Bodega, the name Bodega seemed like a natural fit.”

Eater notes that a new happy hour at Peels features “a number of cocktails for $9, canned beer for $5, and bar snacks like tasso potato chips and toasted almonds for $4 apiece.”

Photos: Mary Reinholz

Ladder Company 3 marked the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 with a noontime memorial for twelve firefighters – plus one relative – killed in the terrorist attacks 11 years ago. The company has held an annual mass at its firehouse on 13th Street, but Capt. Glenn Sheridan told The Local that this afternoon’s service was “less formal, more personal for the family members.”

Dressed in a white cassock, Father Christopher Keenan delivered readings from scripture and ruminations on the sense of national vulnerability that followed the terrorist attacks. Father Keenan became Fire Department chaplain after succeeding a friend and fellow Franciscan friar, the Rev. Mychal F. Judge, who died in the attacks. He told an audience of about 70, including 35 uniformed firefighters standing somberly at attention, that his seven months of assisting in the recovery efforts at Ground Zero were like “descending into hell and seeing the face of God in you.”

One attendee wore a tee-shirt emblazoned with the words of Capt. Patrick “Paddy” Brown, a former Marine and resident of Stuyvesant Town who died at age 48 when the North Tower collapsed. “This is 3 Truck and we’re still heading up,” he had said. Read more…

Melvin Felix

So what does the former owner of Mama’s Food Shop think about a new Mama coming to 200 East Third Street? Jeremiah Clancy, who bought the neighborhood institution in 2007 and closed it in July, said learning that the building’s landlord planned to take over the space was “bittersweet.”

Mr. Clancy does not own the Mama’s trademark, but wanted to distance himself from the new restaurant that his former landlord, Richard Freedman, plans to open with the possible name of Mama’s Eats and a similar menu of southern comfort food.

“This is a completely new business with a different owner,” said Mr. Clancy. “Even though he is serving similar foods, by no stretch of the imagination does that have anything to do with the Mama’s ethos, the Mama’s vibes and what was created over the past 15 years. This is something completely different.”

News that Mr. Freedman planned to give the space a significant upgrade including new bathrooms and an improved kitchen didn’t sit well with Mr. Clancy, who cited the burden of maintenance costs as a reason for the restaurant’s closing. “He’s making repairs on the space that I hemorrhaged the majority of my money on,” he said, later adding, “I loved that he sort of played a victim. He feels that property taxes are so high, but he still has the means to gut renovate a restaurant.”

Mr. Freedman, who also owns Mama’s Bar adjacent the restaurant space, said the new eatery would open in the next few months.

Suzanne Rozdeba

A “bistro Francais moderne” has left foodie row. Taureau, a quiet BYOB spot that opened in 2010 and specializes in cheese and chocolate fondues, has moved to 558 Broome Street. The Local noticed a sign up this morning announcing its move from East Seventh Street, between First Street and Avenue A. Don’t worry: you can still do fondue at the Bourgeois Pig on the same block, and also at newcomer Heidi.

A couple of blocks over, I Coppi, an Italian restaurant on East Ninth Street, has also closed, taking its lovely back garden with it. Civil Court documents spotted by The Local over the weekend and dated Sept. 7 indicate that the neighborhood longtimer, which opened in 1998, allegedly owes at least $37,600 in back rent. Calls to the owner, Lorella Innocenti, and the listed claimant, Daria Genza, have not yet been returned.

Melvin Felix Chef Paul Gerard before the opening of
Exchange Alley.

Even during Fashion Week, the sight of chauffeurs idling just a half-block from Avenue A is an unexpected one. But when Exchange Alley opened last month, chef-owner Paul Gerard said he wanted it to be “a place for creatives to exchange ideas,” and that’s what it was last night, as actor Josh Hartnett, director Paul Haggis, and other bold-face types mingled at a dinner party for Vs. Magazine, hosted by Liv Tyler.

At a back table, supermodel and avid photographer Helena Christensen sat across from nightlife impresario Nur Khan and Michael Stipe of REM, who wore a serious pair of horned-rims.

Ms. Christensen, a West Village resident, said she wanted to make it over to the east side more often. “I love the West Village because it reminds me of European villages, but the East Village is so gritty and so real and so New York,” she told The Local. Read more…

Joann Jovinelly

Good morning, East Village.

According to the Post, a judge has tossed out a request by Lou Reed and John Cale for a court order declaring that Andy Warhol’s foundation didn’t have the right to use the iconic banana that appears on a Velvet Underground cover.

Chez Andre, the Standard East Village’s pop-up club, gets rave reviews from the Observer. Its Friday night debut was “packed with the likes of Theophilus London, Jay McInerney, Angela Lindvall, Olivier Zahm and more gorgeous people than have been assembled in one place since, well, last Fashion Week.”

Embattled Avenue C club Nublu will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a concert at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday. According to Artist Direct, the show will feature “four great bands that regularly call Nublu home: Hess Is More, Wax Poetic, Love Trio, Clark Gayton and a new addition of Sabina Sciubba of Brazilian Girls. The evening will also include DJ sets by Greg Caz, Modest P, Alex From Tokyo and Vladimir Radojicic, and special video productions courtesy of Special K!” Read more…

Sasha Von Oldershausen

The Local witnessed a strange sight today: a dismembered tree was being marched up from a basement in the East 10th Street historic district. Turned out the clean-up crew was using the basement as a passageway to the building’s backyard, where a half-rotten tree had posed a threat to residents.

The owner of the building that housed Mama’s Food Shop for over 15 years has taken over the space and plans to open a restaurant with “Mama’s” in the name. But don’t call it a comeback.

Richard Freedman, the landlord of 200 East Third Street, was on site today as trash bags were hauled out of the former comfort-food spot.

Mr. Freedman was not an owner of Mama’s Food Shop (that name is still owned by Jeremiah Clancy, who closed the restaurant in July) but he owns Mama’s Bar next-door. He said he had taken over the Food Shop space and planned to install new bathrooms, upgrade the kitchen, and reopen it in the next few months as a restaurant serving comfort food, with the name “Mama’s something or other” (the working title is Mama’s Eats). Read more…

Photos: Alberto Reyes

Parishioners at Mary Help of Christians celebrated mass there for the last time yesterday, many weeping over the closure of a church that some had been attending for nearly 60 years.

“It was Kleenex heaven. Everybody was crying,” Margaret Hearn, a parishioner, told The Local. About 200 people packed into the church, which is being sold by the Archdiocese. “People who had been going there for years came, people who got married there and came back with their adult children, and others who were sorry to hear of its closing. The church was packed.”

Janet Bonica, another parishioner, said, “It was like attending a funeral and being happy to see family and old friends, but then being devastated by the loss.” Read more…