Courtesy of L.P.C. A rendering of the proposed hotel.

A Community Board 2 committee threw a wrench in plans for a nine-story hotel next-door to the Merchant’s House Museum last night in response to concerns that the development would endanger the historic landmark.

The plan, which calls for the demolition of an unremarkable one-story garage to be replaced by the hotel, was disapproved by the Landmarks and Public Aesthetics committee in a unanimous vote. As expected, the museum’s staff and supporters  – including Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, who has funded restoration of the museum – voiced their concerns about construction next to the only intact family home from the 19th century in the city.

“We have to treat this as if it were Notre Dame in Paris,” Nick Nicholson, the chairman of the board of directors for the museum, told The Local today. “Whoever develops the property, the first concern has to be the preservation and safety of this building.” Read more…

Here’s one to add to your coffee-mugs-for-a-cause collection: on the heels of the Living Theatre’s successful campaign, online fundraising site Lucky Ant has announced that it’s expanding into the East Village and teaming with FAB Cafe. The coffee shop, an arm of Fourth Arts Block, is attempting to draw $6,000 to replace its floor. Depending on how much you donate here, you can score anything from a FAB Cafe coffee mug to a private barista class.

Jared Malsin

The Horse Auction Mart isn’t the only local building garnering recognition from historians – a storefront on East First Street that once housed “the most famous radical center in New York,” according to Emma Goldman, will be in the spotlight later this month.

On May 30, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation will present a plaque commemorating the history of 50 East First Street, between First and Second Avenues. As The Local has reported, the ground-floor space – which recently got Fantom, a photography magazine, as a tenant – once housed Justus Schwab’s Saloon. The drinks den was an “important meeting place for like-minded radicals of the day, including anarchist Emma Goldman and writer Ambrose Bierce, many of whom used the saloon as their mailing address,” according to a letter from the G.V.S.H.P.

An invite to the 6 p.m. ceremony indicates that Two Boots will provide refreshments and entertainment, and “Emma Goldman” herself will make an appearance.

Lauren Carol Smith The former Van Tassel and Kearney Horse Auction Mart.

A building that served as an auction block for some of the city’s finest steeds around the turn of the century and decades later the studio of artist Frank Stella is now protected for the ages.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission today voted to designate the former Van Tassel and Kearney Horse Auction Mart building at 126-128 East 13th Street a landmark, essentially preserving its exterior as-is. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Daniel Maurer

No, the Coen Brothers aren’t back in the neighborhood, but some vintage cars are. French actor and director Guillaume Canet is filming “Blood Ties” at Odessa (and the “travelers” who’ve been asked to leave their normal spot outside of the restaurant aren’t too happy about it). Previous shoots for the remake of French thriller “Les Liens Du Sang” took place in Brooklyn and Harlem: The Daily Mail published photos of Clive Owen mounting a motorcycle as well as kissing co-star Mila Kunis during one scene and getting married to her in another.

According to IndieWire’s Playlist blog, the crime drama, set in 1970s Brooklyn, also stars Billy Crudup, Zoe Saldana, James Caan, Noah Emmerich, Matthias Schoenaerts, Lili Taylor and Domenick Lombardozzi, and is the story of two brothers on either side of the law: “the younger of two brothers (Crudup) is asked by his older brother (Owen) to return to the underworld in order to help the family out.”

It’s uncertain which of the stars was on the set today, but one thing’s for sure: the Cesspool Man was large and in charge. Click on photo above-right.

Stephen Rex Brown The State Liquor Authority committee of Community Board 3.

Last-minute negotiations between East Fifth Street residents and the owner of the Standard East Village paved the way for the hotel’s overhaul on Monday.

The famed hotelier Andre Balazs and members of the East Fifth Street Block Association presented Community Board 3’s State Liquor Authority Committee with a series of stipulations marked up with fresh ink before formally presenting the plans for the hotel formerly known as the Cooper Square Hotel.

The sticking points of negotiations were the concepts of “undetectable” sound versus noise that is “un-disturbing to neighbors,” according to Stuart Zamsky, an officer with the East Fifth Street Block Association. In the end, the association won the former. Read more…

Michael Natale

Good morning, East Village.

CBGB is being revived as more than just a summer festival: it will also be the subject of a biopic in which Alan Rickman will play owner Hilly Kristal. An “insider” on the project tells WENN, “We will be recreating CBGB on a soundstage as the club no longer exists. But it will be an authentic replica of the place.”

The Post reports that a woman plunged from her seven-story apartment on 11th Street near Second Avenue yesterday in an apparent suicide attempt. She died at Bellevue Hospital.

According to the AP, Sara Jenkins of Porchetta is one of 10 New York City chefs that will be cooking at a Cuban art fair in a converted shipping container: “It’s a rare culinary treat in a country where many state-run and independent restaurants serve up dull, unimaginative fare. It’s also a performance art spectacle that’s about bridging the gap between estranged neighbors and socioeconomic classes.” Read more…

Just hours before its deadline, the Living Theatre tweets that it has met its goal of raising $24,000 for rent arrears. Congrats to the Clinton Street mainstay. And speaking of Twitter, The Local’s Stephen Rex Brown is tweeting from Community Board 3’s SLA committee meeting right now.

It’s a fitting time for the revival of a thirteenth-century play with corruption in Chinese bureaucracy at its heart: Last month, Chinese official Bo Xilai was suspended from the Politburo, the twenty-five member committee that rules China by fiat, following allegations that he wiretapped President Hu Jintao. Meanwhile, Mr. Xilai’s wife stands accused of murdering a British business consultant.

It’s also about time that China’s growing influence on the world and cultural stages be reflected in a more well-rounded way than it was in “Chinglish” – the comedy about a Cleveland sign-painting company looking to expand to China whose characters were “about as personally involving as the brightly colored, illustrative figures in a PowerPoint presentation,” according to the Times review.

Unfortunately, the Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America’s production of “The Chalk Circle,” now at Theater for the New City, doesn’t even rise to the level of “Chinglish.” Read more…

G.V.S.H.P. A rendering presented at a
previous C.B. 2 meeting.

Councilwoman Rosie Mendez and the Merchant’s House Museum are opposing plans to demolish a garage next to the historic structure and replace it with a nine-story hotel.

A statement released by the museum on East Fourth Street near Bowery indicates that at a meeting tonight, staffers along with Councilwoman Mendez will ask Community Board 2’s Landmarks and Public Aesthetics committee to recommend that the city deny a construction permit for the proposed hotel, on the grounds that it would “pose a beyond-serious threat to the structural stability of the house.” Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The sign on the door of the Starbucks at 145 Second Avenue.

The Starbucks at Second Avenue and Ninth Street has been closed by the Department of Consumer Affairs for “operating illegally,” according to a sticker on its darkened window.

When a tipster sent word earlier today, we wondered if it was a hoax, since Starbucks became a target of neighborhood scorn after it replaced the Bean at 49 1/2 First Avenue in February. But a walk past the Second Avenue location confirms that it was indeed shuttered by the D.C.A. We’re waiting to hear back from the agency about the circumstances of what will likely be a temporary closure, and will post any updates as we get them.

Update | 2:57 p.m. Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson explained that the coffee shop failed to renew its sidewalk cafe permit. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Organic Modernism cleared out its store on Avenue A last month and announced it was closed, but now it’s stocked and selling again. Today, Inanc Uyar, a manager at the Williamsburg-based mini chain, told The Local that the store would be open for just another two weeks before calling it quits once and for all. In the meantime, furniture is 10 to 15 percent off.

OM’s initial closing followed the shuttering of three vintage furniture stores in NoHo, but for at least four days this month there will be no shortage of designers selling their wares in that neighborhood. The third annual NoHo Design District will feature over 100 local and international designers promoting their experimental art, furniture prototypes, “glass stalactites dripping off candelabras” and more beginning on May 18, according to a press release. Read more…

The Tompkins Square Park and Playgrounds Parents’ Association (the group behind last summer’s uproar over the rats in Tompkins Square Park) is deciding how to address concerns such as “reduction of pigeon/rat feeding, sand box cleanliness and increasing the number of garbage cans on the Avenue A side of the park,” according to a Facebook post. Meanwhile, a tipster spotted a flyer in the park for a missing 16-year-old who “likes parks and street musicians,” according to the notice.

Kevin Farley

Good Morning, East Village.

In case you missed it over the weekend, there was a shooting in Alphabet City early Saturday morning. The victim refused to identify the person who shot him in the leg near Avenue D and East Sixth Street and the matter is still under investigation, precinct commander John Cappelmann told The Local.

Gothamist and EV Grieve caught wind of a “hostage situation” at 514 East 12th Street on Saturday morning. But Captain Cappelmann told The Local there was no hostage: an emotionally disturbed person barricaded himself into an apartment and was removed without injuries.

The Post reports that in order to prevent further gun thefts, two officers are patrolling the Ninth Precinct’s locker room, which now boast more locks and a security camera at the entrance. Read more…

Ralph Ginsburg Coca Crystal

The first thing on Jackie Diamond’s to-do list: “2008 – Publish book.”

“You see I’m behind schedule,” the 64-year-old said of the unfinished work, her chest purring with laughter. “I got busy with cancer.”

Ms. Diamond is better known to students of the underground as Coca Crystal – a secretary, writer, and “Slum Goddess” for The East Village Other who went on to host a cult cable-access television show for nearly two decades.

In 2006, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Since then, she’s had three operations to remove over a third of her lungs, undergone chemotherapy, and become a patient at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. The last time her cancer returned, her doctor told her it had spread to a part of her lung that was inoperable.

Her to-do list continues: “2010 – Movie based on my life released. Drew Barrymore stars as Coca Crystal.”

“And then the dignitaries and the party,” Ms. Crystal imagined. “And then I’ll live happily ever after. Finally.”

But the real reason she wants to publish her book isn’t the dream of a movie deal – it’s Gus. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba A police car outside of the Wald Houses after gunshots back in January.

A man walked into Bellevue Hospital with a gunshot wound to his right leg around 1 a.m. this morning, the police said. The victim refused to provide a description of the person who shot him in the vicinity of Avenue D and East Sixth Street, due to what a police spokesperson said was his uncooperative nature.

In January, gunshots were heard in the same area near the Lillian Wald Houses, a month after a 19-year-old was shot in the leg further up Avenue D, in the courtyard of Campos Plaza II.

Know anything else? E-mail us.

Update | May 13, 7:45 p.m. Captain John Cappelmann said the shooting was “the result of an unknown dispute. We don’t have a solid motive at this point.”
Asked whether it was gang-related, he said, “That’s one angle that we’re looking at.”

Photos: Tim Schreier

That Adam Yauch painting wasn’t the only public art to hit the streets yesterday. Cake, a street and studio artist who boasts degrees from Pratt and Parsons and has been featured in the Barney’s windows as well as on countless walls around town, has added three of her signature portraits to the back wall of La MaMa E.T.C.’s building.

The work on Third Street between Bowery and Second Avenue was a collaboration between FABnyc‘s ArtUp program and Murals Around New York, which previously collaborated with FABnyc on those Fourth Street construction-container canvases, among other projects.

Daniel Maurer

The former home of Dana Falafel Shawarma Deli will be offering falafel again – and flavored tobacco, as well. In the next weeks, a hookah lounge will open in the modest storefront at 45 First Avenue, near Third Street.

Stu El-Boghdedy, the manager of the forthcoming Aziza (a girl’s name meaning “beloved” in Arabic) gave The Local a sneak peek into the 35-seat lounge decorated with Moroccan lanterns, fabrics and poufs. In addition to Egyptian water pipes, he said, he’ll be serving light appetizers such as hummus, falafel, grape leaves, and eggplant salad as well as non-alcoholic drinks such as Turkish coffee, mint tea served in ornate teapots, and salep, a sweet, hot milk drink.

Mr. El-Boghdedy said hookahs would go from $12 to $35 or $40, which raised the question: why are water pipes at the East Village’s numerous smoke dens so expensive, anyway? Read more…

The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission will consider whether to designate the former horse auction house at 126-128 East 13th Street a landmark on Tuesday. The former Van Tassell & Kearney Auction Mart “is one of the last remaining in the city that was constructed for staging horse auctions,” a commission spokeswoman wrote in an email. The building also served as sculptor Frank Stella’s studio and was the subject of much lobbying by preservationists when developers revealed plans to replace it with a seven-story building in 2006. (That plan fell through). The vote on the auction house was originally slated for June 26 — the same day as the vote on the larger 330-building historic district in the neighborhood — but was moved up due to a packed agenda.