Last week, Sandy Berger began documenting every scent and stench that wafted from the IHOP underneath her apartment as she waited for the International House of Putrid Odors, as she called it, to install a $40,000 ventilation unit. An IHOP representative has now told The Local that delivery of the bacon buster has been delayed, and it’s unknown when it’ll arrive. And Louis, a manager at the 14th Street location who would only give his first name, said the swine swatter is being custom built. “It’s in the hands of the exhaust company that is making it,” he said. In the meantime, let’s continue following Ms. Berger’s nose.

Sandy Berger’s Bacon Dairy, Page Two

Monday, June 4
No smells today. Maybe everyone took a three-day weekend!

Tuesday, June 5
At 4:13 p.m. there were no smells, but then again there weren’t a lot of garbage bags visible either. Around 7 p.m. I began to feel hungry and realized that I was getting a whiff of bacon grease. It wasn’t as strong as it has been but after about 30 minutes I decided I’d rather smell the food I was going to eat. It’s 11:16 p.m. and I’m back in my bedroom but I guess it’s still dinnertime at IHOP because there are wafts of the usual you-know-what smells.

Daniel Maurer

Wednesday, June 6
Nothing much in the way of smells today. I’m wondering whether this ventilation unit has been installed inside and we’re beginning to see the benefit, or did every customer order salads today?

Friday, June 8
At noon, a new smell was introduced – burnt toast! No way as awful as bacon grease, but anything burnt isn’t welcome, even in my own kitchen. At 9:30 p.m. the smell switched to hamburger fat dripping into stove flames: annoying but so far not overwhelming.

Saturday, June 9
At 8:30 a.m., even before I got out of bed, that familiar smell of bacon grease was there which sort of surprised me since I was hoping I wasn’t going to ever smell it again unless I was cooking it. It lasted most of the day, letting up around 7:30 p.m. What a disappointment.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this post referred to the ventilation unit as a “smog-hog.” That reference has been deleted since the term is a brand name and Smog Hog says that it did not manufacture the unit in question.

Photos: Lauren Carol Smith.

The old CBGB is ready for its close-up, and The Local was on hand as a section of the bar, the phone booth, a urinal, pieces of wall and founder Hilly Kristal’s desk hit the road yesterday for Savannah, Georgia, where they will be used in the upcoming CBGB movie.

The assorted items still have hints of the glory days at 315 Bowery. The beat-up old desk has a list taped to it of phone numbers for old staffers at the club that closed in 2006. The toilets are still filthy and showed no signs of scrubbing (a latrine and a urinal from the women’s room are shown in our slideshow). Most surfaces are covered in band stickers, and the cash register still has a cut-out image of Mr. Kristal alongside a photo of Shakira.

Yesterday it had all been packaged with care in storage near the Brooklyn Navy Yard and loaded into a moving van bound for south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Read more…

The Ex-Villagers: they loved the East Village and left it. Mara Levi closed her East Sixth Street restaurant last year. With the Long Island outpost of Mara’s Homemade now a year old, we checked in to see how she’s doing.

Lauren Carol Smith Mara Levi at the new Mara’s Homemade in
Syosset, N.Y.

When the building that occupied our Union Square coffeehouse, Java N Jazz, was sold and all the tenants were asked to leave we started looking for a new space in the neighborhood, for a new type of restaurant. We found one, but lost out when a celebrity chef also started negotiations for it. The search started again and we found a place in the East Village. We opened there a month after Java N Jazz closed.

The space was not ideal. We were forced out in three months, but were lucky to find another location three doors down. The rent was $5,000 a month for 750 square feet. With the failing of the first location we had changed our focus to the foods of New Orleans. We started out with the basics: jambalaya, shrimp Creole, etouffee, and of course the live crawfish boil.

The customers started coming and requested dishes they had eaten at Jazz Fest. My husband was waiting tables and I was in the kitchen. He would describe dishes and I would prepare them and the customers would tell me if I was on the mark. Then we’d add them to the menu.

My husband has a love for barbecue; he found a smoker that would fit in the kitchen and we started serving Arkansas barbecue. The neighborhood took a liking to what we were doing. Read more…

Kevin McLaughlin

This past weekend, the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative hosted a walking tour of the long-gone Jewish Rialto, formerly one of the preeminent theater districts outside of Broadway. The marquees touting lively music, comedy, and burlesque acts are no longer aglow, but during the three-hour stroll, theater historian Cezar Del Valle noted architectural remnants of the Yiddish theater era’s early-1900s heyday.

The district was ample, stretching from Second Avenue to Avenue B, and from Houston Street to 14th Street. Smaller stages nestled on side streets also hosted Jewish, Shakespearean, and original plays, as well as vaudeville, burlesque and musical shows.

Beginning at 143 Houston Street, Del Valle opened the tour with the story of the Houston Hippodrome, which was “a wooden ‘worm eaten building'” and a German evangelical church in the late 1800s until the General Slocum steamboat disaster in 1904. The Minksy family of real estate investors funded a reconstruction and in 1909 the space reopened, “presenting movies and vaudeville. Short plays were added circa 1912,” said Mr. Del Valle. It’s now the home of the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. Read more…

Lauren Carol Smith

First the “Legends of the Lower East Side” were immortalized in coloring-book form, and now the “Saints of the Lower East Side” have been painted onto scaffolding on Fourth Street, between Bowery and Second Avenue.

Tom Sanford, known for his portraits of cultural and historical figures, painted some local heroes on scaffolding above 70 East Fourth Street Cultural Center, where the future home of the Downtown Art and Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company is under construction. The portraits, from left to right, are of Martin Wong, Joey Ramone, Miguel Piñero, Ellen Stewart, Charlie Parker, Arthur “Weegee” Fellig and Allen Ginsberg.

Lauren Carol Smith 107-113 Second Avenue.

The artist got some help from Graham Preston, who will present his own works, depicting cultural heroines of the area, on June 26 at 6 p.m. at FAB Café. Both exhibits, which are presented by FABnyc and are part of the ArtUp program that recently brought a new mural to the La MaMa building, will be up till Sept. 5.

And speaking of scaffolding, The Local spotted the scaffolding that was expected to obscure the new Metropolitan Citymarket (formerly Met Foods) going up earlier today. As previously reported, N.Y.U. is renovating its classrooms in the former Saul Birns Building at 107-113 Second Avenue, and the scaffolding is expected to come down in the fall.

Photos: Philip Ross.

The Lower Eastside Girls Club will field two new softball teams with the help of a $5,000 check, but the check itself disappeared before it could be presented at East River Park yesterday afternoon.

SportsNet New York planned to turn over an oversized $5,000 check to the Girls Club, to go toward uniforms and equipment for its new Avenue D Sluggers. But before that could happen, the car containing the giant check was towed away, all but kiboshing the presentation ceremony. But there’s no crying in baseball, or softball, either – so the folks at SNY gave the Girls Club 100 tickets to a Mets game on July 24 and promised to present the check then.

The donation is being made in honor of the 40th anniversary of Title IX, which bans gender discrimination in educational programs receiving federal assistance, and will allow two teams of girls aged six to 12 to play at East River Park every Saturday. It’s the first sports team that the Girls Club has fielded in a few years. Read more…

Photos: Daniel Maurer

The Patricia Field store, which was on East Eighth Street for many years and then moved to a former kitchen supply store at 302 Bowery, moved a couple of doors over last week and has reopened at 306 Bowery in the designer’s former home.

Ms. Field, who has outfitted everyone from drag queens to club kids to Carrie Bradshaw, first made a home at 306 Bowery in 2005, after many years of living above her previous store in Greenwich Village. She eventually acquired the ground floor of the building behind her apartment, at 298 Elizabeth Street, knocked down its exterior wall, and connected it to her home by building a skylight between the two buildings.

Now that Ms. Field has moved to a smaller place in the Seward Park area, her former Bowery digs are serving as the new location of her boutique. At 4,000 square feet, the bi-level space is nearly twice the size of the previous location, leaving space for more inventory from brands like Boy London, M.Y.O.B., and Noir. Read more…

Nick DeSantis

After nearly losing its liquor license last September, Heathers Bar is up for sale.

Heather Millstone confirmed her eponymous bar was on the market after The Local received a listing from Steven Kamali Hospitality indicating that it’s available for a $150,000 fixture fee plus $6,850 per month in rent.

“It’s been a rough year for me on a lot of different levels, so I’m exploring my options,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I don’t think anyone should rejoice or mourn just yet, Heathers will probably still be around for some time, just not forever.”

Ms. Millstone said her reasons for seeking a new operator were “solely personal” and had nothing to do with her recent experience in front of Community Board 3. In September, neighbors complaining of late-night noise and unlimited drink specials convinced the board to recommend that the State Liquor Authority reject the bar’s application for a liquor license renewal, but the S.L.A. granted it anyway.

At the time, signs on the bar’s door read, “SAVE HEATHERS.”

Philip Ross Alfa Diallo at the Dias Y Flores Community Garden

A vendor at the flea market at Avenue A and 11th Street is suing a former N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts student who disappeared after filming a short documentary about him. The t-shirt designer, Alfa Diallo, is demanding $5,000 in small claims court.

Mr. Diallo said that he agreed to show Matthew Swenson his t-shirt making process after Craig Atkinson, who is also named in the suit, approached his booth last summer and asked if he would participate in his friend’s graduate thesis project.

Mr. Diallo, a relaxed and amicable 60-year-old who was born in Senegal and educated in France, handcrafts the t-shirt designs using a French curve, a tool that creates curly, looped, and elliptical patterns. Mr. Swenson filmed him for two days, said Mr. Diallo – one day at the flea market and another at his apartment on 13th Street and Avenue A.

“They did all this shooting without me being able to see anything,” he said. “Matt said to me, ‘I’ll send you things by e-mail, you should be able to open it and see.’ But I was not able to see it.” Read more…

The CBGB Festival just added a few big names. Superchunk, Wyclef Jean and Fishbone will play shows during the frenzy of rock music, conferences, and movies on the weekend of July 4. The former bass player of Nirvana, Krist Novoselic, will also deliver the keynote address on “association and how it can transform politics,” according to a press release.

The new names join other bands like Guided By Voices, War On Drugs, MxPx, the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart that will play the festival taking place at around 30 venues around Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Local joints like Lit Lounge, Webster Hall, Bowery Electric and Otto’s Shrunken Head are slated to host.

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

Shira Levine Igor Iskiyev tends to a customer while Imanuel (Manny) Ibragimov looks on.

Five years ago Igor Iskiyev left his gig cutting hair at Neighborhood Barber on East Ninth Street and became commissar of his own chop shop at 20 First Avenue. The Azerbaijan native had dabbled with hair-cutting back home after serving as an anti-aircraft gunman. Igor’s reputation for detail and perfection precedes him: good Yelp reviews, affordable prices ($15 for a haircut, $15 for a shave) and, let’s face it, the occasional offer of a beer have been key to his success. The Local recently spoke with Mr. Iskiyev and his right-hand man, Imanuel (Manny) Ibragimov about Mr. Iskiyev’s decision to go solo and his distaste for small talk.

How is business?

Igor: Right now it is slow, but not very bad. It was not good in 2008. Customers didn’t come as much. Some moved because they couldn’t afford to stay. We didn’t see many of our old customers for a while. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown

Someone made a failed attempt to rob the Emigrant Savings Bank at 105 Second Avenue around 45 minutes ago, a police officer and bank employee confirmed. The pair would only add that the suspect did not flash a weapon. Just last Wednesday a man robbed the HSBC three blocks to the north.

Sandy Berger The view out of Sandy Berger’s window.

I’m not averse to bacon. I used to make it, on very rare occasions. But ever since the International House of Putrid Odors opened and its ventilation fans began pumping out the smell of recycled bacon through my bedroom windows, a mere whiff of it is enough to make me ill.

Last August, before IHOP opened on East 14th Street, two gigantic air conditioners suddenly appeared on its second floor roof (they must have been crane lifted). At night, when it used to be pretty quiet, they sounded like 100 antiquated air conditioners running simultaneously.

It took several 311 complaints before a Department of Environmental Protection inspector found them in violation of the law. The inspector told me he knew he’d be back once the restaurant opened: he predicted there would be odor complaints, and he was so right. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Outside of the shuttered restaurant.

Tables, chairs and old plates from Kate’s Joint were being tossed in a dumpster at the corner of Avenue B and East Fourth Street this morning. The For Rent signs are still up at the old vegetarian standby, which closed for good in April.

Stephen Rex Brown The sidewalk outside Fine Fare was a bloody mess Sunday morning.

Wondering why there was pool of blood outside the Fine Fare on Avenue C Sunday morning? Here’s your answer: One of the men injured during Saturday night’s stabbing in East River Park was arrested outside of the grocery store.

The neighborhood’s top police officer, Deputy Inspector John Cappelmann (he was promoted from captain last week) confirmed the sequence of events, saying that the perp fled the park and was found at Avenue C and East Fourth Street. Initially, the police reported that only the suspect found at Fine Fare was arrested, but Inspector Cappelmann revealed that the 59-year-old “victim” ended up in handcuffs, as well.

“It was two people who are acquaintances. They got in a dispute in the park, wound up assaulting each other and both were charged,” Inspector Cappelmann said.

Meanwhile the blood, which was a hot topic of discussion on EV Grieve and Gothamist, has washed away in the rain.

Daniel Maurer

Not one but apparently two indie dramas about a restaurant owner and his wife are set to be filmed in the East Village – maybe even in your apartment.

Flyers posted in the doorway of 277 Tenth Street over the weekend indicate that “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” starring James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain, will be filming in the neighborhood for approximately one week between July 9 and August 31.

According to Variety, the film, written by Ned Benson, will actually be two stand-alone movies: one written from the perspective of the husband, and the other from the perspective of the wife.

The casting flyer informs locals that “we are currently seeking locations in your area for the film” without saying much more. If you think your bar looks like the type of place where a man would skulk into his beer while his wife goes back to college, you may be in business.

Photos: Chris O. Cook.

The finale of Howl! Festival today was marred by intermittent bouts of rain, but the party never quite ground to a halt.

Rap and rock acts were the order of the day, with performances from Hip Hop Howl, Bear 54, and others. Male members of Deans of Discipline sported kilts for the occasion, perhaps as a means of acclimating the crowd to the drag queens who would be taking the stage at 5 p.m. Read more…

Photos: Chris O. Cook.

It’s Allen Ginsberg’s birthday weekend and today Tompkins Square Park was buzzing with art, dance, music, and, um, bouncy castles and face-painting. Yes: it’s Howl! Festival.

Chris O. Cook Bob Holman, a festival organizer.

Bob Perl, an organizer of the annual happening, told The Local it was created as a nod to the neighborhood’s abounding influence. “The idea was that the East Village mindset is not just tied to here,” he said. “It’s had effects in places like Kyoto. There are creatives who come out of here and they become part of the diaspora and there are some that remain here, but this is a great place for us to all gather, and an opportunity for everyone to come out at least for a few days a year to create the scene that was so potent and vital down here.”

Indeed, the festival drew many former East Villagers, including Susan Martin, who came back from her current home in New Mexico to serve as Howl!’s publicist. She was keen to emphasize that the festival raises money for Howl! H.E.L.P., created to provide emergency assistance to local artists. “Up until the time of Howl!, if you were a drag queen and you got sick, and you didn’t have health insurance, good luck,” she said. Read more…

Daniel Maurer Original tilework from Ratner’s

The Met Foods on Second Avenue will soon be reborn as Metropolitan Citymarket, complete with photo murals paying tribute to Ratner’s and the Fillmore East. The new signage has already been installed, but it’s covered by a gigantic plastic tarp and won’t be unveiled until fall. That’s because N.Y.U., the building’s owner, is about to cast the store in the shadow of its scaffolding. But there’s something you can feast your eyes on in the meantime: original tilework from Ratner’s restaurant.

Michael Schumacher, who owns and manages the store with his brother Steven (their father, Sam, took it over in 1986), said the supermarket’s overhaul was long overdue. In 2004, he explained, he was told by N.Y.U. that the store’s lease wouldn’t be renewed, and its appearance went into decline. “They told us four years prior that we weren’t getting a lease in 2008, so it was the nail in the coffin,” he said.

But as stories in The Villager recounted, N.Y.U. eventually renewed the lease for 15 years after much public outcry and intervention from public officials (Mr. Schumacher said his rent was raised by 20 percent). That left the grocers free to revamp. In gutting the store, they found remnants of Ratner’s, the 24-hour dairy restaurant that once occupied the space. Its original tilework now gleams on either side of the front entrance. Read more…