Miha Matei

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Pink Olive.

Grace Kang spent her early career as a buyer for fashion retailers like Barneys, Bloomingdale’s, and Saks. “People thought I would open a fashion clothing store,” she said, “but I am into doing the unexpected.” Five years ago, she opened Pink Olive, a gift shop stocked with charming treasures at 439 East Ninth Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A. It did so well that she opened a second location in Park Slope. She told us how she’s managed to make it.

Why did you choose the East Village?

The East Village has always felt like home to me. It’s my favorite neighborhood because it is low-key and full of unexpected finds. That’s what Pink Olive is all about, too: character with hidden gems. The East Village has the kind of vibe I wanted for my store. Read more…

Earlier this month, The Local learned that the installation of an odor-eating ventilation unit at IHOP had been delayed, raising concerns among neighbors that the bacon smell emanating from the restaurant was there to stay. In the meantime Sandy Berger, whose apartment overlooks the roof of the International House of Putrid Odors, as she calls it, continues to maintain her diary of olfactory impressions.

Sandy Berger’s Bacon Dairy, Page Three

Sandy Berger Could it be? Are these workers preparing for installation of the ventilation unit.

Thursday, June 14

My wake-up call came at 7 a.m. this morning in the form of bacon grease from IHOP — not my alarm clock! And it was still going strong at 8:42 a.m. When I came back home at 1:30 p.m. I could smell that lunch was in full swing, but it was bearable.

Friday, June 15

At 8 a.m. there were no smells, but four hours later the bacon grease was definitely on the burner! It is now 3 p.m. and the smell still lingers.
Read more…

Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong are sifting through their voluminous archive of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. Here’s this week’s trip down memory lane, starting with a word form Jeff Magnum, bassist for the Dead Boys.

Emily Armstrong/NightclubbingStiv Bators

I was working in a record store, it was horrible. Farmers would come in demanding John Denver, or say, “Do you have that record they play on the radio…” But at least there was Rocket From the Tombs. They were the only good band in Cleveland in the early 1970s, and I went to see ’em play a lot! I heard they were breaking up but they were playing one last gig (Bators and Cheetah were gonna start a new band). I went to that last gig and I walked up to Cheetah, who I never met, and told him, “I’m the bass player yer lookin’ for!” That new band was called Frankenstein (Bators, Cheetah, Blitz, Zero, and me).” [In 1976, the band left for New York without Magnum, and booked a gig at CBGBs. They came back for him, and returned to the city as the Dead Boys.] We went on this 20-hour car ride, the whole time them telling me how great it will all be, that they had a place and that we would be playing at the greatest club in the world. I got to the club and said, “What a shit-hole.” But it became our living room. We were there every night and when we played, we kicked ass. — Jeff Magnum

The Dead Boys held a special status at CBGBs. They were managed by the club’s owner, Hilly Krystal, and played there more than any other band. Read more…

Felton Davis Joanne Kennedy gives a quick astronomy lesson.

If it were up to him, Felton Davis would install a 75-foot dome atop the communal shelter where he has lived for 25 years. But the Catholic Worker doesn’t have that kind of money, so he uses a simple telescope to show his fellow Maryhouse residents the wonders of the universe.

Mr. Davis hosts informal viewings on the rooftop of the Catholic-anarchist hospitality house, but on a half dozen occasions, he’s taken his planet parties to the street. Saturday night, he took his Orion telescope and wide-angle Q70 lens to the corner of East Third Street and Second Avenue to give over a hundred passersby an intimate view of Saturn. Positioned next to a bright star in the Virgo constellation, the planet is imminently visible during these summer months.

“This is something that intrudes on people’s consciousness in very strange ways. It’s out of this world,” Mr. Davis told The Local. “People were surprised they could see Saturn from the city streets.” Read more…

Map of the proposed district.

Preservationists came out in force today to support a proposed historic district that would encompass a large chunk of the East Village, and ran into familiar anger from religious groups.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission held the public hearing to collect feedback on a proposed 330-building district that would be centered around Second Avenue south of St. Marks Place and regulate the facades of cultural icons like the La MaMa theater, the former Fillmore East building, and the Anthology Film Archives, among other storied buildings.

At the meeting, which was standing-room only for the first hour and a half, members of the commission listened to about 80 speakers express more support than opposition, with many sporting blue and yellow stickers reading “Preserve the East Village, Landmark Now!”  Read more…

Cue “Return of the Rat” – the furry fiends are back on First Street.

Last summer when the BMW Guggenheim Lab took over an empty lot between East First and Houston Streets, near Second Avenue, even the project’s detractors begrudgingly gave it credit for cleaning up a longstanding rat infestation. Well, guess what? The rats are back.

A friend who lives a couple doors over from the lot, which is now a park hosting public programming, brought the rodent resurgence to our attention. (She didn’t want to be named lest she gain a reputation on the block as, well, a rat.) “They’ve steadily become more of a presence and now it’s threatening to be what it used to be,” she said, adding that she has started walking in the street again to avoid the stretch of sidewalk on the southern side of First Street, near Second Avenue, where the whiskered interlopers frolic.

Sure enough, minutes after The Local set up to film the rats on a recent evening, they were seen zig-zagging across the sidewalk every 20 seconds or so, scampering from underneath a set of trash containers to a pile of garbage bags across the way. Passersby shrieked at the site of the voluminous vermin. Before long, we bumped into Emily Armstrong, co-author of The Local’s Nightclubbing column and a longtime resident of the Lower East Side. “They’re back!” she exclaimed as she walked her dog on the block. Read more…

Followers of the Occupy East 4th Street blog may have noted Friday’s report of a woman injured at 86 East Fourth Street after a stairwell landing partially collapsed due to construction in the building. A spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings revealed today that the victim, who is in her 30s, had non-life-threatening injuries. The incident occurred between the third and fourth floors and inspectors hit the owners with a violation for failing to maintain the building. Further details were not available. A resident in the building said that earlier today a temporary stairwell landing built by the Fire Department was still in place. Gatsby Realty, which has been the subject of several tenant harassment complaints, did not respond to a request for comment. Last year EV Grieve reported that the new owners of the building were not renewing tenants’ leases.

On the eve of a critical hearing regarding the proposed East Village-Lower East Side Historic District, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Andrew Berman, shared information on 12 of the more compelling buildings within the footprint. Here’s a look at the first six.

G.V.S.H.P. 101 Avenue A

101 Avenue A, now the The Pyramid Club. Built in 1876 by architect William Jose.

Although little is known about William Jose, a German-born tenement-house architect, his buildings are often some of the most unusual and intricate in their neighborhoods. His Neo-Grec design for 101 Avenue A is no different, with an unusually ornate cornice, florid fire escapes, and deeply incised window hoods.

The building housed several tenement apartments on its upper floors, while its ground floor long served as a hall where locals would gather to eat, celebrate, mourn, or discuss labor issues and neighborhood gossip. Kern’s Hall was the first to open in 1876 and was followed by Shultz’s Hall, Fritz’s Hall, and most famously, Leppig’s Hall.

John Leppig and later his son, also named John Leppig, both served as the unofficial “Mayor of Avenue A.” Leppig’s closed in the 1930s, and by the 1960s the space was home to a series of performance spaces and cultural centers, which reflected the East Village’s evolution from an ethnic enclave to a worldwide center of cultural ferment. It was also at this time that underground music icon and Warhol superstar Nico lived upstairs at 101 Avenue A, while she was performing with the Velvet Underground.

In 1979 the present occupant, the Pyramid Club, opened in the space. The Pyramid Club had a profound impact on the downtown art, music, and performance art scene. The Wigstock Festival is said to have begun there, as well as politically-conscious drag performance in the early 1980s. In later years it became a showcase for up-and-coming artists, including Madonna, RuPaul, Nirvana, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Read more…

As expected, the Drag March made its way from Tompkins Square Park to the Stonewall Inn on Friday night, and The Local’s cameras were there to capture the color. Lucky Cheng’s may be on its way out, but watch our video and you’ll see drag lives on in the East Village.

Susan Keyloun Sandy Michelle (in turquoise) and the Ladies of Mug Lounge.

“Trying to eliminate the old colorful ways of the East Village is like trying to put a marshmallow in a piggy bank,” said the transsexual with the inch-long nails. “It ain’t gonna happen, and why would you wanna?”

As the “Queen of the East Village,” Sandy Michelle should know. She’s hosted parties at Karma and Sin Sin, and now she presides over a weekly “trannie living room” at Mug Lounge on 13th Street. This evening, she’ll be among those participating in the annual Drag March from Tompkins Square Park.

Ms. Michelle’s dance parties are a carnal carnival where wallflowers need not apply. Aside from the occasional appearance from legendary drag performers like Ireland’s Marianne Madox and South Beach’s Ebony Excel, the dancers are all transsexuals and Sandy is their Mama Morton. Originally from Pittsburgh and once a show director at the notorious Club Edelweiss, she’s been promoting her dance parties at Mug for a year now, mostly through social media. (See here for the weekly lineup of “fabulous, sexy sassy gals,” including a recent Kim Kardashian lookalike, and see this video teaser unless, of course, you’re at your work desk.) Read more…

Oscar Fuller, the man who punched a woman over an East 14th Street parking spot in 2011, was sentenced to one year in jail today, according to The Daily News. The sentence is the maximum allowed for the misdemeanor assault that left the victim, Lana Rosas, with serious head trauma. The judge in the case was unsatisfied with the sentence, according to the paper. “If anyone heard this outside the court, just on common sense, would say that this sentence is not adequate,” Judge Bonnie Wittner said.

Daniel Maurer The current location of Lucky Cheng’s on First Avenue.

With the annual Drag March set to kick off in Tompkins Square Park at 7 p.m. tonight and the final performance of “Cowboy Mouth” tonight as well, we thought we’d check in with Hayne Suthon, the owner of Lucky Cheng’s, which will soon move to Times Square.

Ms. Suthon hopes to haul her her drag operation to 240 West 52nd Street around Labor Day weekend, and is in negotiations with two “upscale” operators in the same vein as Beauty & Essex.

“All the concepts are nice restaurants. Not clubby kind of stuff,” Ms. Suthon said.

“Sutra has been shopping around for something more high end,” she added, referencing Ariel Palitz’s nightclub on the same blocks as Cheng’s, which is also on the market. “It’s time to be a bit more grown-up around the neighborhood.” Read more…

The sixth annual Make Music festival celebrated the first day of summer with free concerts around the city yesterday. Here in the East Village, Joe’s Pub took its programming out to Astor Place. Watch our video to see the harmonicas, banjos, and gospel choirs in action, and hear more about the festival from the director of Joe’s Pub, Shanta Thake.

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council several residents raised concerns about the nomadic punks spending much of their day in Abe Lebewohl Park in front of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. Now, The Villager reports that several people observed one of the drifters spray painting obscene messages on a statue and in the portico of the church. The graffiti has since been removed and no permanent damage reported. Still, Winnie Varghese, the church’s rector, is ready for the punks to head elsewhere. “They’ve kind of crossed the line,” she tells the paper. “They’re kind of different from old drunk people. There’s just an aggression to these people that’s different.”

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Keshav Music Imports.

Shira Levine Keshav Das

During his forty-six years as a professional musician, Keshav Hunter (known to most as Keshav Das) has played with the likes of Sting, Jeff Buckley, and Alice Coltrane. He also spent twelve years touring with Krishna Das and playing with him at the Jivamukti Yoga School. “Everywhere we went people would say, ‘Hey man, where can we get a harmonium?'”, said the 59-year-old. Finally, he decided to open a store where fellow musicians could shop for Indian instruments or just sit around and play them while sipping chai and smoking beedies. Nearly eight years after Keshav Music Imports moved from its namesake’s Suffolk Street apartment to a 300-square-foot space at 67 East Fourth Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery, the owner is still plucking away at sitars as well as selling and repairing them. We asked him how he’s managed to make it.

Your store seems to be doing well. Why do you think that is?

Musicians and artists are always looking for a new flavor. People in general are looking to fill a hole. Some people fill it with music. Some people fill it being on the Internet. Some people fill it with sex, some with drugs. I fill it with music and find people with the same thinking. Read more…

Courtesy Brad Hoylman

Soon after Thomas K. Duane announced he wouldn’t run for re-election, the state senator all but endorsed Community Board 2 Chair Brad Hoylman, who has worked with him on many East Village issues. Over a plate of eggs over-easy, Mr. Hoylman told The Local the senator’s is “a huge legacy to live up to,” and that he considers it a “solemn responsibility to do so.” He also got specific on how he’ll carry the torch should he win in November, talking tenants’ rights, transgender equality and the new ideas that are at the top of his to-do list.

What parts of the Duane legacy do you plan to carry forward?

Tom’s advocacy on tenant rights is something that I feel very strongly about. I have some background myself, in the area, not only working with Senator Duane over the years in that realm, but also as a former board member of Tenants & Neighbors, the tenants rights group. And I, as Community Board 2 chair, just launched an initiative where the board will now have a tenants clinic for the first time in cooperation with MFY Legal Services: tenants who meet income level requirements in the CB 2 area will be able to come to our tenants’ clinic and get free legal representation from MFY.  So that’s the kind of tenant outreach that I want to do, and continue to do to build on Tom’s legacy.

Read more…

Melvin Felix

It’s business as usual in Cooper Square: protesters who say Village Voice Media’s Backpage.com ads facilitate sex trafficking once again chanted “Village Voice, the choice is clear, no more selling humans here” outside of the weekly’s offices this evening. The demonstration drew a handful of counter-protesters, including a woman who shouted, “They’re not being sold, they’re selling themselves.”

Courtesy 5th Street Farm Project The Earth School’s rooftop.

Courtesy 5th Street Farm Project Manure awaiting installation

Not only are middle-schoolers at P.S. 64 creating traffic signs, they may soon be growing ingredients for school lunches. This fall, the Earth School, which shares a building with P.S. 64, plans to unveil a $1.1 million rooftop garden designed by Michael Arad, the architect of the 9/11 Memorial.

Five years ago, Abbe Futterman, a science teacher at Earth School, had the idea of turning the 56-year-old building’s roof into an outdoor classroom. To get there, the school had to develop a cost-friendly design, procure over a million dollars in funding with the help of local politicians, and get necessary city approvals – complicated steps for building professionals, let alone schoolteachers and administrators focused on students.

Courtesy 5th Street Farm Project Stairs to the green roof.

The Earth School’s principal, Alison Hazut, said the project received a major push from one individual: “It really was a parent saying, ‘I can help to make this happen.’ And that parent was Michael Arad.” Read more…

Earlier today we shared some snaps of Model Ts lined up outside of John’s of 12th for the ongoing “Boardwalk Empire” shoot. Well, now there’s more of ’em! And they’re moving! Above: footage of the buggies purring as extras in old-time garb practice their Prohibiton-era struts.