Melvin Felix

As Spanish soccer fans celebrated their Euro 2012 victory by thrashing in the Washington Square Park fountain yesterday afternoon, members of the East Village Book Club sat in a grassy corner of the park and pondered the birth of Frankenstein’s monster.

The book club had decided to take its monthly discussion, which usually occurs at Bar on A, outdoors for the first time since its inaugural meeting in Tompkins Square Park last November.

Melvin Felix The East Village Book Club

Sitting in a circle around cookies and chicken fajitas, the group of eight agreed that there was more to Mary Shelley’s classic novel than a mad scientist screaming, “It’s alive!”

“The movies massacred what the book was all about,” said Ranita Saha, a long-time member who commutes from the Bronx.

Jae Disbrow, the East Village resident who created the club, picked this month’s book for its philosophical and existential themes. “It gets a really bad rap,” she said. “I had to convince some of our members that it’s not like the book ‘Dracula.’ It has a lot of subtext and a lot of good things about it.” Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Andre Balazs speaking to East Fifth Street block association.

That book nook isn’t the only new development at The Standard, East Village: hotel higher-ups are moving forward with plans for a overhaul of the ground floor, and according to Department of Buildings records, initial construction will cost over $3 million.

Last week, The Standard filed two applications for construction work and zoning changes to 25-33 Cooper Square. The first, requesting permission to modify egress on the first floor as well as other general construction, estimates a price tag of $2.4 million. The second, for similar work, predicts an additional expenditure of $610,000.
Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Chico at work today.

The original Kiss mural at Avenue A and East First Street has been wiped out, and Antonio “Chico” Garcia is busy creating a temporary replacement that depicts the band comin’ home to New York City.

The new design is on a woodshed outside of the former Nice Guy Eddie’s, which is getting a gut renovation by the new owner, Darin Rubell, who also owns Ella and Gallery Bar. When finished in the next day or two, the mural will show the band arriving on a train to the city. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Workers on East Seventh Street today.

East Seventh Street just can’t catch a break. Last week it was sinkholes, and now the block between First and Second Avenues has been closed to traffic due to repairs of a collapsed sewer in the area. A worker on the scene earlier this afternoon confirmed that some electricity on the block was being disconnected so that the repairs could be made.

Tim “Eater X” Janus and Jason “Crazy Legs” Conti

This Wednesday, July 4, Takeru Kobayashi will be downing dogs at the Crif Dog Classic instead of the Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest. Meanwhile, among those returning to the eaters’ table at Coney Island are two East Villagers.

Walk into Gruppo pizzeria some afternoon and there’s a good chance you’ll see an extremely normal looking guy in a polo shirt and jeans behind the counter. He might be holding forth on Euro monetary policy, arguing with a coworker over a word in that day’s Times crossword puzzle, or chatting with schoolchildren who know him by name. This is Tim Janus, the Clark Kent alter-ego of Eater X. Mr. Janus, 32, has spent the last eight years working at Gruppo while making a name (or at least, a pseudonym) for himself on the competitive eating circuit. Most recently, he set the world record for longest burp – a monster belch so epic ESPN ran the whole 18 seconds on SportsCenter.

Mr. Janus lives in the East Village with fellow competitive eater Jason “Crazy Legs” Conti, subject of the film “Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating.” On Tuesdays, Mr. Conti hosts Crazy Legs Movie Night at Professor Thom’s, the notorious Boston bar on Second Avenue. The Belmont, Mass. native starts his films at 6 p.m. so he won’t miss the end of Red Sox games.

The Local caught up with the gurgitators during their hectic week before the Nathan’s contest, to be aired on ESPN at noon.  Read more…

Photos: Stephen Robinson

After celebrating its 12th year in the East Village, the Bicycle Film Festival Block Party may be zipping across the bridge to Brooklyn.

On Saturday, the annual block party once again came to East Second Street between First and Second Avenues. But Brendt Barbur, its founding director, said that taking it to the streets of Manhattan had becoming increasingly daunting. “The city doesn’t make it as easy unless you’re a major corporation. It’s hard to do community events,” he said. “It’s kind of a bummer because we’ve been doing this a long time.”

Mr. Barbur said it might prove easier to rent a private warehouse or parking lot in Brooklyn, rather than dealing with the rules and regulations of hosting the event on a city block. “They changed the rules within the six-month permitting process,” he complained, declining to go into specifics.

The festival director hinted at one possible new location: “We like Fort Greene,” he said. Read more…

Mary Reinholz

Good morning, East Village.

Above, workers who were locked out by Con Edison picketed outside of company headquarters at 4 Irving Place this morning. The Times reported that “the workers, members of the utility’s largest union, were locked out after their contract expired at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, and talks broke down less than two hours later. About 5,000 managers, including some former union members, will step in to keep the utility running, Con Ed said.”

A cab trying to avoid a biker plowed into the cyclist and then through the window of a Staples at East Eighth Street and Broadway yesterday: ABC 7 Eyewitness News has footage of the damage. Eight were injured.

Meanwhile on 16th Street and Avenue C another cab driver was stabbed by a man who was upset that the cabbie cut him off. “He stabbed me in my right side four to five times and he stabbed me in my shoulder,” Etzer Jerome tells CBS New York. Read more…

The Air Sex World Championships, which were started in Austin, Tex. in 2009 as a gag on air guitar competitions and have now become a national phenomenon, rolled into town last night. And because they took place at Drom on Avenue A, we were professionally obligated to attend. Apologies: this video isn’t entirely safe for work (or for human eyeballs, in some cases), but there’s no reason you can’t let it ride you into the weekend.

Sarah Darville Matthew Broderick, in glasses.

The City Council hearing on New York University’s controversial expansion plan got a star cameo today, as Greenwich Village native Matthew Broderick argued that N.Y.U. 2031 would further strip the neighborhood of of its character. He was one of about 250 people who spoke out during the packed nine-hour meeting, with about 60 percent opposing the plan and 40 percent voicing their support.

Six hours before the actor testified, N.Y.U.’s president, John Sexton, started the hearing (which The Local liveblogged earlier today) by vigorously defending the project and the university’s need to expand. “This is not a development project. This is an academic project,” he said, explaining that more space was needed to recruit top-quality faculty and students.

Asked why N.Y.U. couldn’t look to other parts of the city, Mr. Sexton told council member Leroy Comrie that further dissipation of N.Y.U.’s activities across the city would amplify the perception that it doesn’t have a traditional campus “or a big football stadium where we gather,” turning off potential students.

“This is the most enlightened way to do this,” said Mr. Sexton, who also used his presentation to announce that a “huge initiative” for financial aid would be coming soon. Read more…

Courtesy DMT Lt. Dick Craig (Joshua Schwartz) and
Janet Lawton (Lindsey Carter) in “Bride of
the Monster”

This weekend, you’ll want to jump on your last chance to catch Frank Cwiklik’s madcap stage adaptations of the works of Ed Wood, widely hailed as the worst director of all-time.

Using minimal sets in the Red Room theater, Mr. Cwiklik ingeniously deploys music, dance, projections, video screens and many entrances and exits to elaborately block his very skillful actors through Wood’s unintentionally bad dialogue. They seamlessly carry the plots and garner many laughs along the way.

“Downtown Theater is all about motion in small spaces, with limitations and low budgets just like Ed Wood did,” said Mr. Cwiklik, a prolific writer, director, and producer who is drawn to Wood’s works along with those of Shakespeare. “They tackle every genre,” he said of the two auteurs. “They come from the heart and are concerned with entertaining their audiences first.“

Mr. Cwiklik previously wrote and directed a popular S&M version of “Macbeth” called “Bitch Macbeth.” Since 1999, his company, DMTheatrics, has staged more productions than most put out in decades. Which, of course, brings Wood to mind. Read more…

Susan Keyloun

A day after a play based on the life of Coca Crystal and her cable-access show “If I Can’t Dance…” winds down its run at the Metropolitan Playhouse, an entertainer who might just be the Coca’s present-day counterpart will celebrate the second anniversary of her own underground talk show, “ReW & WhO?”

Rew Starr’s quirky two-hour internet show, blending live musical performances and interviews, tapes in the back room of Otto’s Shrunken Head (and occasionally at Branded Saloon in Prospect Heights) most Wednesdays. Next week, to mark two years, there will be special shows at Otto’s on Monday and Bowery Electric on Tuesday.

The Warholian premise of “ReW & WhO?” is that each guest receives 15 minutes of fame (literally). The guests are a broad spectrum of East Village talent ranging from drag queens to lounge acts to published authors to museum curators.

Wide-eyed and with boundless energy, Rew resembles a glam-rock Vargas pin-up. Not one to interview her subjects with measured indifference, she has a knack for getting them to admit their follies, true loves, and addictions. She’s gotten Richie Ramone to talk about his former backstage urinary antics and present love of gardening, and Angie Bowie (former wife of David) to confirm whether Keith Richards did, in fact, write “Angie” for her. Not bad for a 15-minute segment. Read more…

The circus is in full swing over on East 10th Street near University Place, where Alec Baldwin clashed with the paparazzi camped outside of his apartment building. The New York Post has video of a sandal-wearing Mr. Baldwin getting in the face of a photographer for Splash and saying, “You little girl,” before stalking into his building with a pink stuffed animal under his arm. Later he reportedly barreled through the gaggle of shutterbugs on his bicycle. Mr. Baldwin’s wedding to yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas is tomorrow, so expect the conflict to continue.

Melissa Cronin

On Wednesday, the last day of school, dozens of students hung up their Gone Fishin’ signs – literally. Along the East River esplanade, kids of various ages tried out their angling skills at a fishing clinic hosted by the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

“Our goal with fishing clinics is to get people down here to learn about the river,” said Daniel Tainow, the center’s educational director. “We want to teach people that there are things they can do to help protect the quality of the river.”

While kids threw back anything they hooked, a little further up the river, near the Williamsburg Bridge, it was a different story.

“I eat whatever I catch,” said Wilfredo Castro, one of several East Village residents who lounged by their fishing poles. He fishes on the river almost every day. “The ecosystem is healthy. That’s why the fish like it,” he said. Read more…

Sarah DarvilleProtesters on the steps of City Hall this morning.

The protesters have arrived in full force at City Hall, and so has Mayor Bloomberg and Matthew Broderick: it’s time to settle in for the City Council hearing on N.Y.U. 2031 – the final one before council members vote on the fate of the school’s expansion plan in Greenwich Village. Follow us on Twitter or stay parked right here as we update in real-time from what is sure to be a marathon meeting. If there’s a lull in the action and you want to brush up on what all this hoopla is about, you can review our Expansion Explainers. Otherwise, without further ado…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

The folks at N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan send word that actor Matthew Broderick will testify at today’s City Council meeting regarding the school’s expansion plans. He’s described as “a Village resident and a staunch opponent of the plan.” We’ll have coverage of the meeting as news develops.

The Villager reports that Davawn Robinson, who was accused of strangling a man to death during the course of a robbery in the man’s East Village apartment (the defendant said the strangling was consensual and occurred during sex) has been convicted of second-degree manslaughter.

The Villager also reports that St. Emeric’s Church will close and its parish will be merged into that of the new St. Brigid. Father Lorenzo Ato, who will be the priest of the new parish, says there’s “no decision yet on the disposition of the St. Emeric’s church building or the two-story parochial school built in 1952 next door on E. 12th St. and Avenue D. ‘The first preference is always to see if another Catholic agency wants it,’ Zwilling said.” Read more…

Sarah Darville Donna Schaper, Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church, at left.

Local residents and N.Y.U. faculty members gathered this evening in a garden that will be demolished if the university’s expansion plan is approved. During a mock funeral scheduled a day before a critical City Council hearing about N.Y.U. 2031, they lamented the loss of trees and the displacement of wildlife due to construction, and shared memories of a leafy retreat where they had meditated and played with their children.

Tucked between the two towers of the Washington Square Village superblock, Sasaki Garden has a low profile in the neighborhood. That lends itself to peace and quiet, neighbors said — but it also makes their fight to save the park more difficult.

Jan Blustein, professor of health policy and medicine at N.Y.U., was saddened at the prospect of the destruction of what she said had been a “beloved resource” for her and her family. “I had such a great experience living here and being a young faculty member here, and I’d hate for faculty to not have that opportunity in the future,” she said. Read more…

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

People’s Pops just got some competition: An Icy Introduction, a shaved ice stand that popped up on Lafayette Street last month, just started selling SnoPops, packaged snoballs that go for $5 a pair and $20 a dozen.

Kafi Dublin, the stand’s owner, creates her snoballs by pouring handfuls of ice into an ice shaver that shreds it into small bits. Then she pours sweet syrup, made with organic Muscovado sugar, on the ice cup and adds toppings like sweet condensed milk, caramel sauce, and marshmallow cream.

SnoPops are packaged in plastic tubes, much like supermarket ice pops. “They’re a portable version,” she said. “You can put them in the freezer and eat them later.” Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba A new awning over the Fat Sal’s space.

Benny’s Burritos is expanding into its onetime takeout space. Al Landess, a manager at the Mexicali spot on Avenue A said the restaurant let go of the next-door nook several years ago for rent-related reasons, and it became Fat Sal’s Pizza. “When the pizza place left,” he said, “we decided to jump on it again.” Mr. Landess said he hoped to expand into the space and add more tables within a month.

You may have also noticed on Community Board 3’s July agenda that Croxley’s Ales plans to inform the SLA & DCA Licensing committee of an alteration at its July 16 meeting. The agenda notes an “expanding space,” but a manager at the restaurant knew nothing of plans to expand. We’ll let you know if we hear more.

The Villager scored a tour of the five-story mansion that accommodates one lucky family at 47 East Third Street, and boy does it sound like a palace. Where once were 15 rent-regulated apartments, now sits a two-story “airy living room,” a wrestling room, a room for a live-in nanny, a room for the building’s security system, and “an upside-down river” of re-purposed wooden beams that serves as a ceiling sculpture. Even Mosaic Man plans to do one of his signature designs on the exterior of the building. The Economakis family waged a controversial battle to oust tenants in the building beginning in 2003. Eventually, nine holdout tenants took buyouts that averaged $70,000, according to the paper.