Kathryn DoyleDouglas Light outside of the building
that inspired “East Fifth Bliss”
With “The Trouble With Bliss” opening tomorrow, The Local took a stroll down memory lane with Douglas Light, whose novel “East Fifth Bliss” is the basis of the film starring Michael C. Hall, Lucy Liu and Peter Fonda.
An Indiana native, Mr. Light, 43, moved to the East Village in 1995 and lived for a year at 60 East Third Street while working as a waiter at what is now Bondst. Some mornings, he awoke to the sound of a Hell’s Angel cracking a bullwhip in the middle of Third Street. “I guess it would help him get over his hangover somehow,” Mr. Light remembered.
In 1996 he moved to the fourth floor of 343 East Fifth Street, the building that inspired “East Fifth Bliss,” which takes place over the course of one long weekend. “Originally it was about the building, looking into the lives of the people in all the different apartments,” he said. “Then Morris emerged as a kind of lead character and the story became about him.”
Morris Bliss, played by Michael C. Hall, is a 35-year-old who has shared an apartment with his father ever since his mother died when he was 13.
Mr. Light met the director of the film, Michael Knowles, at Velvet Cigars on Seventh Street. The fellow cigar enthusiast read the novel and quickly suggested they make a movie out of it. It took four months to adapt the novel into a screenplay. Read more…
Looks like Berliners liked the idea of the BMW Guggenheim Lab even less than certain East Villagers did. Atlantic Cities reports that the project’s May opening in Berlin has been scrapped due to protests and threats over the idea that the project would gentrify Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood.
Struggling to find a way to prevent her business from closing, Kate Halpern, the owner of Kate’s Joint, is considering adding another ingredient to the menu of her vegetarian restaurant. “I hate to admit it, but put bacon on it, and they will come,” Ms. Halpern told the Wall Street Journal. As previously mentioned, she’s trying to raise about $30,000 to keep the doors of her joint open.
A luxury condo building going up at 250 Bowery has released a price list for its residences. Designed by Morris Adjimi Architects, the 24-unit building will offer one- and two-bedroom condos starting at $700,000 and three-, four- and five-bedroom penthouse apartments beginning at $2,700,000. Read more…
More than a thousand people rallied in Union Square on Wednesday evening with the parents of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager who was shot dead in Florida in late February. The protest, dubbed “A Million Hoodies March for Trayvon Martin” on Facebook and elsewhere, attracted an angry and racially diverse crowd of New Yorkers.
“We’re not going to stop until we get justice for Trayvon,” Tracy Martin told the crowd of his son, according to The Lede. “George Zimmerman took Trayvon’s life for nothing.” Mr. Zimmerman, a white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer, shot the teenager after telling a 911 dispatcher he had seen a “black male” who “looks like he’s up to no good.” A controversial self-defense law has kept him from being charged. Read more…
The Police Department has released stomach-churning footage of alleged Occupy Wall Street demonstrators dumping a disgusting mix of what is said to be human waste in a bank and a stairwell last week.
According to the police department, surveillance cameras captured protesters on March 14 dragging a tub filled with a mix of urine and feces into a public plaza at Nassau and Cedar Streets at 8 p.m. They then poured the concoction down a stairwell. About 20 minutes later, another camera caught a man dumping waste inside of a Chase Bank on Water Street. A witness gave investigators the license plate number of the van allegedly used to haul the smelly brew, and two days later they arrested 25-year-old Jordan Brooks Amos of Philadelphia. Mr. Amos is charged with unlawful possession of noxious matter, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, and criminal possession of a weapon due to a stun gun that was allegedly in his vehicle.
The gross video was immediately met with shock — and some skepticism — on Twitter.
The high-profile owners of the long-vacant “mystery lot” on 13th Street have applied for a construction permit, setting the wheels in motion for what promises to be a blockbuster eight-story condominium.
The application, filed last Thursday by developer Scott Shnay, indicates that the lot between Second and Third Avenues will get an eight-story mixed-use building containing 71 residential units. (The Post previously reported that the building would be a condo containing 82 units, to be completed late next year.) According to the application, which was under review as of Monday, the project will boast 5,275 square feet of commercial space (Brokers Weekly initially reported 4,500 square feet).
The architect of record is Todd Poisson of BKSK Architects, the firm behind 25 Bond Street, where a $19.5 million apartment was briefly home to Will Smith. In addition to Mr. Shnay and his brother Abe, developers said to be attached to the lot, which sold in November for $33 million, include Ironstate Development (a partner in The Standard East Village) and Charles Blaichman, whose projects include the Soho House building, the Richard Meier-designed 173/176 Perry Street, and an aborted hotel project with Jay-Z.
Jared MalsinThe Local’s raw footage of this morning’s events. Yoni Miller, 18, is dragged off and arrested around the 4:00 mark. Video contains explicit language.
City Room reports that a total of six protesters were taken into custody during this morning’s clashes between police and Occupy Wall Street protesters in Union Square. Charges include resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Meanwhile, a non-Occupy demonstration protesting what many say is a lack of justice in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is slated to occur in the park this evening.
It’s official: 7-Eleven is moving in next to the IHOP on 14th Street. A few weeks ago, Larry Guttman, the landlord of 239 East 14th Street told The Local that multiple parties were vying for the building’s storefront. Today, he confirmed that he had signed a lease with the corporate convenience store.
Mr. Guttman said he went with the chain because it seemed “more positive for the area” than the adult establishment before it (Exquisite DVD & Video closed when its lease expired) and preferable to yet another watering hole. “There are so many bars moving into the area that it might just get overwhelmed with that,” he said over the phone today.
“I think 7-Eleven will be a good tenant,” he said, explaining that a 24-hour store would make the block safer by increasing nighttime foot traffic. “The idea of a 7-Eleven which doesn’t issue exhaust or noise – it could be a positive,” he said. Read more…
Earlier this morning, a new neon sign was going up over Artichoke Pizza. Now the hungry hordes can spot the 14th Street hole-in-the-wall from the avenues! (As if the line wasn’t long enough?) We’ll check back later to see the signage in all of its illuminated glory.
Mark your calendars, barflies: On Sunday, Lucyna Mickievicius, the owner of Lucy’s, will close shop for two and a half weeks to visit her son in Poland. “He’s very sick and I’m going to spend some time with him,” she told The Local. “I’ll be there for Easter with my family, and will come back April 12 or 13. It’ll be nice to spend Easter in Poland.” Aww, but will she miss us? “I’ll miss everyone at the bar,” she said. “I always do.”
Development company YYY Third Avenue reportedly signed a 99-year lease for the Karl Fischer-designed apartment building that is being built at 78-84 Third Avenue. The Real Deal estimates that lease payments for the future nine-story building are about $1 million a year. The lease was signed in April of 2011 but property records did not reflect the transaction until last Wednesday.
The residential building at 532 East Fifth Street is quickly nearing completion and will offer a haven for green-minded renters. The 10-unit building will offer two-bedroom apartments with a Street Easy Listing quoting the rent at $4,495 per month, a small to price to pay for moving into a place with the “new apartment” smell.
Vanishing New York reports that the iconic “Chow Mein” and “Jade Mountain” signs that hung outside of the Second Avenue restaurant of the same name until 2007 have been recovered. Someone known only as Kathleen from Canada retrieved the signs from a Bronx contractor’s stockpile and has placed them in storage until they can be repaired. Read more…
Jared MalsinA demonstrator taunted officers with a doughnut on a string.
At least one person was injured and another arrested when police confronted Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in Union Square early Wednesday morning.
Shortly after midnight, police moved protesters, some of which had been sleeping in the park since Saturday night, off of the south steps of the square and onto the sidewalk before sweeping through the encampment and rousting reclining protesters.
Police arrested activist Yoni Miller, 18, of Brooklyn, dragging him away by the shoulders. In an interview with The Local moments before his arrest, Mr. Miller said, “I think we will eventually be arrested.” Read more…
The founder of Gathering of the Tribes is awaiting a ruling from a Housing Court judge regarding his pending eviction, and is hopeful that his case will be moved to State Supreme Court.
Steve Cannon, the blind poet who runs the freewheeling art space on East Third Street, said that his lawyer preferred trying the case in Supreme Court because it would allow him to pursue a broader legal strategy and avoid the arduous process of staying an eviction through Housing Court. Mr. Cannon was not sure exactly when the ruling would come down.
“Our lawyer thinks that [the judge] is leaning towards taking the case to the Supreme Court due to our unique circumstances,” Mr. Cannon wrote in a newsletter. “Up until this point we weren’t sure how our efforts would be met in the courtroom, but now it seems that the ruling ‘might’ be in our favor.”
Meanwhile, the new exhibition at Tribes is called “Exquisite Poop: Blind Reproduction.” The show places an artist’s work alongside the work of another artist who attempted to reproduce the same piece by only reading a written description of it. Why the name? “I’m not going to comment on that — you know what that means,” Mr. Cannon said.
For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly — or not so quietly — making it. Here’s one of them: Manitoba’s.
Shira Levine Zoe Hansen
Since shutting down her two brothels in 2002, Zoe Hansen has refocused her hustle, using her entrepreneurial skills to bring some semblance of order to the punk rock bar Manitoba’s on Avenue B. Her husband, Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba, may be the public face of the dive (he recently told The Local, “I’ve got to keep it going if just for one thing: I can’t let another Subway move in here”) but the husband and wife are very much a team. So much so that they’re shopping a reality show about their life in the East Village. We spoke with Ms. Hansen about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and… management?
Q.
You used to be a sex worker and ran a brothel. How did that prepare you for tending and running a bar?
A.
I ran and owned a brothel on Park Avenue and 23rd Street and another on Second Avenue and 22nd Street. It’s all good material for me now that I am a writer. It’s just business, so it wasn’t any different. It was about being there all the time to make sure things are happening and flowing. It was really an office environment. We had to keep up, creatively, with advertising and marketing. Read more…
Parents are constantly called upon to chip in for school supplies, whether it’s through the P.T.A. or through the fundraising Website that two teachers at the Neighborhood School favor. Sometimes, it gets ugly. Last week, The Times pointed to tension in certain schools where well-to-do gentrifiers have more to spend on increasingly expensive bake-sale cupcakes and auction items than their less privileged counterparts have. One example: At the East Village Community School, “which serves the children of architects and artists as well as those of housekeepers and handymen,” a backlash broke out when the Parent Association sent out a letter telling parents “we can do better” even though it had reached its $20,000 fundraising goal.
With the “season of asking” now in full swing, SchoolBook wants to know how much you spend on your child’s public education. Go here to tell the site.
Here’s the latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” The Local’s regular roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from Feb. 28 to March 11, sorted by the type of incident. Plus: Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15.
Two men were bloodied during a brawl with eight others on March 2. The two victims told the police they were throwing down at the corner of Third Avenue and East 12th Street at around 12:30 a.m. when the 24-year-old was stabbed four times and the 27-year-old was sliced across the chest. Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital.
That same night, another brawl between four guys one block away. The 25- and 26-year-old victims told the police they were in an altercation at around 4:30 a.m. at Third Avenue and East 11th Street. That’s when at least one of the suspects managed to slash the former in the head, and the latter in the hands. Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital. One of the suspects fled on foot, the other took off in a car. A police source said both stabbing incidents involved patrons of Webster Hall.
A cyclist was slashed in the face for no apparent reason on March 8. The 22-year-old victim said he was riding on the sidewalk on Avenue D near East 10th Street at around 9:30 p.m. when he was cut from behind.
A pair of drinkers beat up the bartender at Doc Holliday’s on March 11. The 39-year-old victim told the police that he spotted a woman walking out of the bar with a beer at around 1:45 a.m. When he told the woman she could not take the booze on the street she smashed the bottle over his head, cutting his forehead. That’s when another bar-goer joined in the melee and started punching the victim in the head. Police arrested both suspects.
Two items proved contentious at a meeting of Community Board 3’s liquor licensing committee last night: Neighbors got their bottoms in a bunch over Bikinis, a sandwich shop that had been vying for a controversial backyard space. And the new project in the former Superdive space got the committee’s thumbs-down once again.
First, the good news: At 116 Avenue C, the owners of popular newcomer Edi and the Wolf are opening a new Austrian tavern. Transfer of the existing full liquor license quickly and easily got the committee’s support. Also: Angelica Kitchen, which had been illegally allowing customers to bring their own bottles, got a vote of support for its first wine and beer license, which the owners said would help it resume BYOB service.
Meanwhile a “simple ground-floor sandwich shop,” as a representative described it, due to open at 56 Avenue C didn’t have such an easy time of it. The owners of Bikinis, which will serve the like-named Spanish sandwiches, made clear that the backyard they had previously expressed interest in using was off the table for the moment. But eleven community members lined up to protest anyway, some insisting the noise from the supermarket recycling machines on the corner and the oft-overpowering music and revelry from Nublu was already unbearable. Read more…
Good morning, East Village. And happy first day of spring!
The folks at Blue & Gold tell the Post that Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez is disputing $17,604 worth of purchases at the Bowery boutique. The store says he disputed charges to his AmEx Black card after he tried to return outfits he had purchased for his niece and was told he could only receive store credit.
Gothamist hears more about the forthcoming CBGB music festival, though nothing concrete: “For now, we can tell you that Duff McKagan (Guns n’ Roses, Velvet Revolver) has expressed interest and could potentially be one of the headlining acts—the venue and the musician have a mutual appreciation for each other.”
Real Deal reports that Nina Munk, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of “Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner,” has purchased a historic townhouse designed by the architect who went on to design St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Grace Church. The 3,380-square-foot townhouse at 25 Stuyvesant Street went for $3.7 million. Read more…
Could Union Square be the next Zuccotti Park? Earlier this afternoon, a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters said that they had decided to attempt an indefinite occupation there, although few were confident that police would allow them to stay for long.
“We reached consensus today to try to make this a permanent occupation,” said Darah McJimsey, a 23-year-old activist who came to New York from California in November to join the Occupy movement full-time. “Although we’re aware of what we’re up against, and we’re going to draw on our skills as far as being mobile.”
The decision to launch an open-ended occupation of Union Square was made by 20 to 30 activists who came there after police forcibly dispersed around 500 people from Zuccotti Park on Saturday. The Union Square group, which has spent two nights there, appears to have attracted support from the broader movement. Occupy Wall Street’s website now features a call to “Occupy Union Square.” Read more…
A couple of weeks ago, the founders of the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space told The Local they had started hosting “spontaneous tours” of squats and community gardens. This past weekend, we joined just such a tour, as longtime squatter activist Frank Morales took visitors on a winding, nearly three-hour journey through the interiors of four urban homesteads.
Standing outside C-Squat, where MoRUS is to be housed, Mr. Morales described homelessness as “the consequence of state repression.”
“That was the point of entry for our taking buildings – to create communities of self defense, to defend against being forcibly moved into the shelter system,” he said.
Homesteaders recalled the raucous days of the late 1980s, when squatters controlled as many as two dozen East Village and Lower East Side buildings. Read more…
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Kathryn Doyle Douglas Light outside of the building
