Melvin Felix Chef and owner Levent Akyol at Reyna Turkish Restaurant and Mediterranean Grill.

Reyna Turkish Restaurant and Mediterranean Grill opened in the former Mission Cafe space on Second Avenue over the weekend. Owner and chef Levent Akyol, a veteran of many a Mediterranean kitchen, plans to concentrate on the food of western Turkey, which he said was more Greek influenced and seafood-heavy than its eastern counterpart.

Mr. Akyol has been in the restaurant business since he was 10 years old. Back then, he cooked fish in his family’s restaurant in the city of Izmir, one of Turkey’s primary port cities. He moved to the United States in 1999 and was the owner of Marmaris Restaurant in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, until it closed in February. Here, he’ll serve a similar menu: seafood casseroles, char-grilled fishes, meat kebabs, cold appetizers such as cod caviar salad and hot appetizers such as cheese rolls and stuffed mushrooms. True to Reyna’s name (it means “new again”), there will also be new dishes like Turkish chicken wings.

Check out the new restaurant’s menu below. It’s B.Y.O.B. while it awaits a license to sell wine and beer, and will begin delivery soon. Read more…

Mary Reinholz Carmen Trotta, front, and hooded protesters.

Last time, it was hoodies; this time, hoods.

On Saturday, a group of orange-clad, hooded demonstrators protested the Obama administration’s failure to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Carmen Trotta, the associate editor of the Catholic Worker’s newspaper, who lives in its St. Joseph’s residence on East First Street, said the demonstration was intended to make others aware of the president’s broken election-year promise. “A lot of people think he has already closed it,” said Mr. Trotta, who is also on the executive committee of the War Resisters League and a founder of Witness Against Torture.

Mr. Trotta said he would join other pacifists in Washington, D.C. for a protest tomorrow, and noted that Amnesty International and other anti-war and humanitarian groups would hold another demonstration June 26 at City Hall.

Daniel Maurer

If the hallways of The Standard East Village were smelling a bit dank last night, this might explain things: Ziggy Marley’s tour bus was being packed up outside of the hotel just minutes ago. Bob Marley’s eldest son played Irving Plaza last night. Next stop: Lewiston, N.Y.

Ray LeMoine

Bret Easton Ellis is renting his condo in the American Felt Building. For $5,000 a month, any ol’ chap can live in the loft that spawned Patrick Bateman, the banker/serial-killer protagonist of “American Psycho,” a Wall Street satire that many never saw as a joke, despite all the mentions of Genesis, moisturizing, sit-ups and Vidal Sassoon.

Mr. Ellis announced the rental of apartment 2D, purchased in the ’80s, to his nearly 300,000 followers on Twitter.

But don’t get too excited: though his bed remains, the writer himself hasn’t lived at 114 East 13th Street for six years. Posters and first editions of his books decorated the walls when it was first rented out, but they’ve since been moved, according to Miles Chapin, who showed the loft over the weekend. Read more…

Ria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

The shooting at the Riis Houses wasn’t the only bit of weekend news.

As The Local reported four days ago, “Boardwalk Empire” is filming in the neighborhood tomorrow. We spotted a pulpit being loaded into Mary Help of Christians church earlier this morning.

Speaking of churches, Neighborhoodr points to a Slavs of New York post about St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic church, “one of the most unusual religious buildings in Manhattan.”

And speaking of “Boardwalk Empire,” Gothamist notes that at the annual benefit for Anthology Film Archives tonight, a $25 raffle tickets gets you the chance to attend a film shoot for the show. Read more…

A woman was shot at the Jacob Riis Houses early this morning, the police said.

The victim was shot in the thigh shortly after midnight, according to the police. Officers taped off an area at the end of East Sixth Street and were seen examining evidence in the street as well as going in and out of Building 16 of the Riis Houses, at the northeast corner of East Sixth Street and FDR Drive.

The police could not provide the victim’s age or description but said she was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Information about the shooter’s identity was not immediately available.

The incident comes a week after a man was stabbed to death on East Fifth Street and two weeks after another stabbing victim was found at East Fourth Street. In his Crime Scene column on Saturday, Mike Wilson of The Times reported that Carl Knox, the suspect in last weekend’s stabbing, was still at large as of Friday.

Brian Rose’s new book, “Time and Space on the Lower East Side,” juxtaposes street scenes from 1980 with images from 2010. The Local asked him to share some of his favorites from the book – as well as some more recent photos – along with his thoughts about the world of change he has documented.

East 4th Street – 1980

In 1980, shortly after graduating from Cooper Union I began photographing the Lower East Side, which includes the East Village, in collaboration with Ed Fausty. Walking in the footsteps of photographers Jacob Riis and Berenice Abbot, and inspired by new developments in color photography, we documented the neighborhood over the course of a year with a 4×5 view camera. It was, perhaps, the neighborhood’s darkest, but most creative moment. While buildings crumbled and burned, artists and musicians came to explore and express the edgy quality of the place.

After moving on to other projects and living in Amsterdam for 12 years, I decided to return to where I first made my stand in New York – the Lower East Side, where so many Americans trace their roots: the old neighborhood tucked beneath the bridges, lying at the feet of the pinnacles of power, would serve as a barometer of change and continuity. Read more…

Evan Bleier Patricia James in her former home.

With the help of over $14,000 in rent that she withheld from the New York City Housing Authority because, she said, it didn’t make repairs to her apartment in the Two Bridges complex, a lifelong New Yorker has left the city’s public housing for suburbia. Now, instead of complaining about rodents, Patricia James is dodging ducks in her parking lot. She even has a fireplace.

In March, the 67-year-old grandmother said she didn’t want to fork over a check for over $14,000 in back rent and fees until the housing authority assured her in writing that it would let her stay in her $517-a-month apartment. In April, a Housing Court judge ruled that she must leave her apartment of 37 years, but gave her permission to stay until July.

The judge, said Ms. James, offered her a “settlement that would give me an opportunity to find a place to live and some money to move. It gave them possession of the apartment, and me the money.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Just a block or two from where his Kiss mural may soon disappear, Antonio “Chico” Garcia added what he called “a brush of color” to the back wall of Arena Eco-Friendly Salon last night.

Rena Anastasi, the owner of the salon at 189 Orchard Street, said the hot pink touches came out “even brighter than I thought,” but she’s feeling it. “It’s definitely fun, LES fun.”

Chico said he’s headed back to his new home in Tampa, Florida in a couple of weeks. Until then, he’ll be repairing his work in the area, including the murals outside the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which got a touch-up yesterday afternoon. “I’m just doing something for the community before I leave,” he said.

Daniel Maurer The museum’s fence got a new coat of paint today.

Word just came down from the Landmarks Preservation Commission that a critical hearing on a proposed nine-story hotel next-door to the Merchant’s House Museum has been postponed so that the developer can have more time to prepare a presentation. A spokeswoman said the developer has asked to present the project on July 24.

“I feel like we’ve just come off the L.P.C. ledge,” joked Margaret Halsey Gardener, the executive director of the museum. She added that dialogue between the museum and SRA Architects, which is designing the proposed hotel, has improved since last month. The developer recently installed a seismograph in the museum to monitor construction in the lot on East Fourth Street near Bowery.

But the concerns regarding the hotel’s impact on the house’s structure — as well as the experience for museum visitors — remain. In fact, when the developer recently dug test pits to examine the foundation of the lot “the house was shaking pretty violently,” Ms. Gardener said.

Update | 4:30 p.m. Breaking News: The Merchant’s House Museum’s fence just got a new coat of paint, as pictured above.

Photos: Noah Fecks.

Yesterday, The Local showed you a mural (possibly 80 years old) excavated during renovations of the former Holiday Cocktail Lounge space. If that got you feeling nostalgic for the old dive, by all means indulge in the slideshow above. Back in February, our photographer Noah Fecks found time – in between cooking meals from every issue of “Gourmet” magazine in his East Village apartment – to wander into the Holiday just days after The Local published photos from the final night of service. These postmortem shots, published here for the first time, are a fine tribute to the St. Marks stalwart.

Courtesy of Underworld Productions. A dance performance in the garden last year.

You’ll have your pick of outdoor concerts tomorrow.

At 3 p.m., a group of opera performers will take the stage at La Plaza Cultural Armando Perez to delight local kids with songs about cats, dogs and rhinos, as the Underworld Productions Opera Ensemble presents “Animals in the Plaza,” a collection of operas performed in their original Spanish, French, English or Italian languages. “We believe children respond to opera in its true form, not watered down,” director Gina Crusco said. Songs include “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat,” “Wynken, Blynken and Nod” and “El Rinoceronte/The Rhinoceros.”

Also tomorrow, the Cooper Square Committee presents its annual Third Avenue Festival: from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 150 vendors and non-profits will dot the avenue from Sixth Street to 14th Street. Performances will take place at East Ninth Street from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. by singer-songwriter Michelle Fury, The St. Marks Ensemble, Kate Vargas, Filthy Rotten System, Marcel Van Dam et Paul, The Dan Piccoli Trio, and The JewelTones.

Good afternoon, East Village.

N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan tells The Local that on June 18 at the York Theater Workshop, Rev. Billy, E.L. Doctorow, David Amram, and others will perform at a fundraiser to fight NYU’s expansion. RSVP to nyu.fasp@gmail.com and pay $200 or whatever you can afford at the door.

Speaking of fundraisers, Neighborhoodr reminds us about a fundraiser for the Neighborhood School at Beauty and Essex that will allow attendees to “feel like a glamorous jet-setter instead of a tired ol’ parent” thanks in part to “FREE CHAMPAGNE IN THE BATHROOM!”, per the invite.

East Village Arts announces some of the raffle items that will be given away at Fourth Arts Block’s fundraiser at The Standard East Village (including tickets to Cirque du Soleil and The Daily Show) and also touts an upcoming performance at Duo: “Confessions of a Cuban Sex Addict” is a theatrical installation involving “actors, video, and smoke” by Michelango Alasa.

DNA Info writes about a new iPhone app that doubles as a theater performance and, according to its creator, is “is part scavenger hunt, part love story, part walking tour” of the Lower East Side.

Gathering of the Tribes announces that “Brain Melt, which opens tomorrow, will be “a rare glimpse into the secret worlds within the heads” of artists from Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Oakland.
Read more…

Sarah Darville Tommy McKean in the air shaft of his building.

This feud over an air conditioning unit certainly isn’t cooling off.

Employees of a Hamptons Market Place at 356 East 13th Street switched off power to their entire building this morning, leaving 16 apartments without electricity for about an hour. Outraged tenants said it’s only the latest disruption that has been inflicted on them by the deli, which installed an air conditioner and ventilator unit on the roof that has bothered them to no end.

The owner of the deli, who has grown weary of a year of noise complaints, is so fed up that today he raised the possibility of a harassment suit against the tenants.

“I can’t get a psychiatrist to come into their apartments but I wish I could,” the owner, Victor Nagi said, later adding, “The tenants are harassing me. They’re complaining every other day and getting me these fines.” Read more…

Noah Fecks Mural from Ali Baba

Barbara Sibley, the owner of La Palapa who in February took over the adjacent Holiday Cocktail Lounge space, tells The Local she plans to preserve elements of the iconic dive, including the awning and the horseshoe bar. Not only that, but she’s restoring elements of the cocktail lounge that came before it.

Ms. Sibley said that the removal of a mirror and deer’s head from behind the bar revealed a mural belonging to the Holiday’s predecessor, which she believes was called the Ali Baba lounge. The 6-by-4-foot mural, as you can see above, shows a dancer being observed by men and harem girls. Read more…

Photos: Noah Flecks

Michael White, the oft-lauded chef-owner of three-star seafood palace Marea, fine-dining Italian spot Ai Fiori, and SoHo’s Osteria Morini, will open Nicoletta, his first pizzeria, for dinner tomorrow, and the pies will be a touch different from the ones at all those other East Village parlors. (A Midwestern touch, to be exact.)

The crust, formed in a wood-burning brick oven (imported from… Long Island) was inspired by Mr. White’s teenage years slinging dough at Domenicos in Beloit, Wis., and is said to be a bit chewier than the Neapolitan norm. Pies, said to cost an average of $21, will come in 12-inch and 16-inch varieties, and can be topped with bacon lardons, egg yolk, truffled mushrooms, and more. Shown in our slideshow: the Calabrese (fennel sausage, pepperoni, red onions, and Pecorino Romano) and the Patate (mozzarella, crushed potatoes, pann, bacon, and charred scallions). Read more…

Daniel Maurer

The Bean finally opened its outpost at First Avenue and Ninth Street this morning. When The Local stopped in, manager Guy Puglia was busy setting up the WiFi and co-owner Ike Escava was anticipating a shipment of outdoor benches.

Daniel Maurer James Wechsler’s art.

The coffee spot’s third location (and its last one for now, said Mr. Escava) is the same size as the Second Avenue cafe that opened in December, though it has 10 more seats (60 in all). It’s offering the same array of muffins, danishes, espresso drinks, smoothies, and – oh, yes! – frozen hot chocolate, but won’t be in the beer and wine business anytime soon: the owners decided not to go for a license after neighbors voiced opposition.

Despite the lack of that particular competitive edge, Mr. Escava said he wasn’t concerned that a Starbucks is opening just a few blocks up First Avenue. Read more…