Grace Maalouf

A critical hearing to determine whether a large swath of the neighborhood will be designated a historic district has been set for June 26, a spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission just revealed.

The news sets the stage for another clash between local preservationists and the religious leaders who oppose the district on the grounds that it would create burdensome additional expenses. The public hearing is the final step before the Commission votes on the proposed district, which has Second Avenue south of St. Marks Place as its spine. The exteriors of all the 330 buildings within the district would essentially be preserved as-is.

Last month, a much smaller district on East 10th Street along Tompkins Square Park was approved with minimal opposition. However, the developer Ben Shaoul was able to get approval for a controversial rooftop addition to a building on the block literally hours before the district was given the green light.

The Commission spokeswoman added that on June 26 the former auction house at 126-128 East 13th Street will also face a separate vote to determine whether it should be designated an individual landmark. Here is the Commission’s write-up regarding the building. Read more…

Courtesy Travel Channel Billy Leroy on the set of “Baggage Battles.”

Billy Leroy, the proprietor of Billy’s Antiques & Props, said the goodbye bash that was originally planned for late January probably won’t happen until next month, and it’ll be followed by a proper burial.

“We’re going to have a monster party. It’s going to be in March, most likely on the tenth. I’m confirming the date this week,” said Mr. Leroy, who just got back from filming in Atlanta and Indianapolis for the Travel Channel show, “Baggage Battles.” Read more…

What says romance better than hot dogs? Crif Dogs just unveiled over Twitter a new line of condoms featuring a variety of puns on the wrapping that The Local need not reprint. (You can probably guess.) The condoms will be available for free at the Williamsburg location of Crif Dogs on V-Day. What, no love for St. Marks?

Stephen Rex Brown The scene at Cooper Square today at noon.

Stephen Rex Brown Peter Cooper, minutes before being donned with the wreath.

Under the shadow of Peter Cooper, students are celebrating the founder of their university while also protesting the possibility that future scholars at Cooper Union will have to pay tuition.

The wreath-laying ceremony is an annual event that honors Cooper’s birthday. Today at around 12:30 p.m., students were using the event as an opportunity to remind the president of the school, Jamshed Bharucha, of their opposition to any tuition hike. Many of the roughly 75 attendees held balloons that read “110 years free.”

“Once,” the well-received musical that recently ended its run at the New York Theatre Workshop, is headed for Broadway, but the cast hasn’t left the East Village far behind: A video posted to YouTube shows a photo shoot and hootenanny at Swift Hibernian Lounge. If you missed the show’s local run, tickets for the Broadway reprise, starting Feb. 28, can be purchased here.

And if you’d rather keep it local, the New York Theatre Workshop’s next production, “An Iliad,” opens Feb. 15. The adaptation of Homer’s classic, by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, will feature Mr. O’Hare (“True Blood,” “American Horror Story”) and Stephen Spinella (“Angels in America”) in alternating performances. More information here.

Michelle Rick

Community Board 3 may reverse its hardline stance against new beer-and-wine licenses in booze-heavy areas of the East Village and Lower East Side. In a letter to residents, the board will ask whether it should be more lenient to those seeking such licenses within resolution areas, so long as the businesses agree to operate primarily in the daytime and close at midnight or earlier.

The move comes just a few months after The Local unleashed a sobering study showing that the State Liquor Authority regularly disregards the board’s recommendations regarding who should or shouldn’t be allowed to serve wine and beer (as opposed to hard liquor) in resolution areas – nightlife-heavy strips such as St. Marks Place where the board has recommended a moratorium on new licenses.

At a meeting of the SLA task force last night, board member David Crane described the motivation behind the potential policy shift. “The SLA generally is going to grant a beer-wine license,” he said. “Since that’s a reality, we’re interested in preventing problems. We want to work with the SLA given that that’s a fact.”  Read more…

The Local’s Facebook wall is an opportunity to sound off regarding anything in the neighborhood (noisy neighbors, beloved bar closing, missing squirrel, whatever). Bertha Freundlich — one of our many, many readers in New Delhi, apparently — posted a question on our wall today about the film “Bed of Roses.” Here’s Ms. Freundlich:

Has anyone seen the movie ‘Bed of Roses’ (1996) which shows, besides the love story, the Ottendorfer Branch library? Well there is also this flower shop in the movie, sort of hidden and in front of an open square or something. Any clue if this was also filmed in the Village?

We have no idea. Anyone else know? Tell us in the comments or “like” The Local on Facebook to answer Ms. Freundlich directly.

Chris Palmer Ryan Morningstone showed up at 10:30 a.m.

So how did all those Patriots fans who blitzed Professor Thom’s take the Giants win last night? Not too well, as you can imagine.

“This sucks,” said Melissa Garcia, 26, in barely more than a whisper.

Ms. Garcia, from Country Club, Bronx, had lost her voice from screaming during the game. After Tom Brady’s last-second Hail Mary pass fell to the turf in the end zone, ensuring a Giants’ victory, she slumped down onto a barstool and cupped her head in her hands while leaning onto a table littered with half-empty beer bottles.

The crowd exited quickly and quietly after the final whistle, turning Professor Thom’s into an island of heartbreak in a citywide sea of celebration.

“This one hurts,” said Jeffrey Tente, 24, standing outside the bar.

Mr. Tente, an East Village resident, grew up in Rhode Island. His dad has been a Patriots season ticket holder since before Mr. Tente was born, and the two attended the last two Patriots playoff games before this Super Bowl.

“I’ll give the Giants credit, they played a better game,” he said, sporting an oversized jersey of Devin McCourty, a Patriots cornerback.  “But it sucks to be in this situation.” Read more…

Jared Malsin 50 East First Street.

A storefront space on First Street is empty but for a stylized mirror in the shape of Babe Ruth – one of the few odds and ends left over from the previous tenant, a mirror and glass designer. The owners of the former studio are looking for a new tenant – and not a bar. But the space has a boozy past: it once held a tavern that Emma Goldman, the influential anarchist who counted herself a regular, called “the most famous radical center in New York.”

During the turn of the 20th century, 50 East First Street was the home of Justus Schwab’s saloon. Just 8-foot wide by 30-foot deep, it was described as a “bier-höhle” (or “beer-cave”), a pun on “bierhalle.” Though small in size, the tavern was a “mecca for French Communards, Spanish and Italian refugees, Russian politicals, and German socialists and anarchists who had escaped the iron heel of Bismarck,” according to Goldman, who spent so much time there that she had her mail sent there.

Christin Couture and William Hosie, who are members of the board that owns the building, said that the space had been vacant for a year. (The asking rent is between $3,000 and $3,500 per month.) Mr. Hosie said they were “not about steep rent hikes” and suggested they might be looking for someone unable to afford the ever-rising rents elsewhere in the neighborhood. Read more…

Coca Crystal (born Jackie Diamond) was EVO’s self-described “gatekeeper,” receptionist, sometime reporter and sometime model until the bitter end, when, as staff and resources dwindled, she became its defacto publisher (she financed the final two issues out of her own purse). Here, she describes how she got her start.

The first time I set foot in the EVO office, it was in the fall of 1969 and I had come to visit with a college friend, Barbara, who was EVO’s secretary.

The office was located on the third floor of the Fillmore East building on Second Avenue and Sixth Street. The place was a wreck. It was freezing, the garbage cans were overflowing, cigarette butts were everywhere, and the walls were covered in fabulous cartoons by the best in underground comix: R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Spain Rodriguez, Yossarian, Shelton, Art Spiegelman, just to name a few. It was chaos, but a kind of cool chaos.

The office was in a frenzy to get copy ready for the typesetter, and I was asked if I could type. I said I could and was given the job of typing up the classifieds. I had never seen such weird ads. (“Dominant Iguana seeks submissive zebra,” sex ads, odd employment opportunities, legal advice for pot busts). I had to type while sitting on Allen Katzman’s lap (his idea), wearing my winter coat and gloves. When I had completed the classifieds I was told the other secretary, Marcia, was leaving and I could have her job if I wanted it. The pay was $35 a week. I took the job. Read more…

In its early issues, The East Village Other began featuring a “Slum Goddess,” a title that was taken from a Fugs song:

When I see her coming down the street,
I’m as happy as I can be,
My beautiful Slum Goddess from Avenue D.

Among the first to be featured was Suze Rotolo, the artist who had been Bob Dylan’s girlfriend. In her memoir, “Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties,” Ms. Rotolo, who died a year ago, of cancer at age 67, tells of the time Walter Bredel photographed her for the feature.

A few weeks later a reporter from the East Village Other, a new local biweekly claiming to be hipper than the Village Voice, asked me to be part of a feature the paper was starting up called “Slum Goddess,” inspired by a song by the Fugs, “Slum Goddess of the Lower East Side.” The feature would be the counterculture’s answer to the Miss America aesthetic of overly made-up and girdled women with beehive hairdos. I thought it was a fine idea and said yes. I was to be the Slum Goddess for December 1965. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Owner Lalita Kumut, along with her friend Daphne Blake (left) and her cousin, Maka Inthraphuvasak, pack up the Aromatherapy store on East Seventh Street.

After 20 years, a fragrance shop on East Seventh Street is moving three blocks south, and the owner of Porsena is considering expanding into the vacated space.

Lalita Kumut, the owner of Aromatherapy Bath and Body Oils, said that her lease had expired in December, but that she’d been holding out for a new location. “My customers told me to wait until another lease came up — I’m a good tenant,” Ms. Kumut said. “Finally, I found something nice.” Read more…

Courtesy of Professor Thom’s The crowd at Professor Thom’s during the AFC
championship game.

According to the owner of Professor Thom’s, every one of the bar’s tables has been reserved for Super Bowl Sunday – mostly by fans of the New England Patriots. “If we had 10 more floors, we’d still be booked,” Pete Levin told The Local. He said the bar’s phone has been ringing off the hook since early Monday.

As The Times noted yesterday in its “Neighborhood Joint” column, the Second Avenue bar is a notorious Boston sports hangout. In fact, the first 100 customers that show up for its pregame tailgate party on Sunday will get “W.W.B.D. (What Would Brady Do)” wristbands.

Mr. Levin estimated that 98% of his crowd would consist of Pats fans. Kenny Williams, the head bouncer at the bar, expected to see a few Giants fans, as well. He’s sacrificing a day off to work on Sunday, but not because he expects trouble. “Sure, there’s a knucklehead or two, but that’s anywhere.” Referring to Giants fans, he said, “They’ll be fine.” Read more…

Last month, the club-kid turned designer Richie Rich told The Local that he would be opening a studio on the fourth floor above the new location of Lucky Cheng’s, which will be departing the East Village in May.

Recently, Mr. Rich gave The Local a tour of his new digs near Times Square at 240 West 52nd Street. He and Lucky Cheng’s owner Hayne Suthon have visions of a Warhol-esque fashion factory where new merchandise for the drag destination will be cranked out on the regular. The pair are planning cosmetics, clothes, and of course, fake eyelashes bearing the Lucky Cheng’s brand.
Read more…

Evan Bleier

A year after alarm bells sounded when its home on Second Avenue was put on the rental market, the Ukrainian Sports Club is still soldiering on, and will be among the neighborhood drinking establishments showing the Super Bowl this weekend.

Wasyl Zinkewitsch, the president of the club, said that previous reports that it might leave the neighborhood were misinterpreted. “Our interests are to keep this club running,” he said while sipping from a bottle of Coors Light yesterday evening. “We’ve been here since 1947.”

In February of last year, The Local reported that the club was reeling from $80,000 in yearly property tax, $25,000 per year in insurance, and $250,000 in repairs after a fire the previous summer. To cover those costs, the sports fraternity is currently hoping to rent out a commercial space on the second floor, a vacant loft apartment, and even the front room of its clubhouse.

“We need some serious revenue to keep this place going,” said Mr. Zinkewitsch. “There’s no other choice. We have to rent places that were once exclusively part of the club.” Read more…

One of the gun-toting thieves who allegedly held up a Metro PCS store on Jan. 6 had the audacity to return and rob it again two weeks later, the police said.

In the first heist on Jan. 6 — which is depicted in surveillance footage released by the Police Department — the duo entered the Metro PCS store at 350 East 14th Street at around 6:45 p.m., flashed a gun and removed cash from the register and a safe.

On Jan. 20 one of the suspects returned at around 7:10 p.m., simulated a gun and demanded cash from a Metro PCS employee, the police said. The employee complied and the suspect fled with an undisclosed amount of money. Read more…

NYPD Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr

Captain John Cappelmann has replaced Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr as the top police officer in the Ninth Precinct, which covers the East Village.

Detective Jaime Hernandez of Community Affairs at the Ninth Precinct confirmed the move, and said that Captain Cappelmann came over from Public Service Area 6, which covers public houses in Harlem and the Upper West Side.

The new commanding officer will be formally introduced at the next community council meeting on Feb. 21 at the Ninth Precinct station house on East Fifth Street. Read more…

Hannah Thonet The executive director of the Nuyorican, Daniel Gallant.

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe should reopen soon after being shuttered by the Health Department for a variety of violations in its East Third Street building.

“Our repairs are moving along smoothly, and if all goes well, we should be able to reopen by this weekend,” wrote the executive director of the cafe, Daniel Gallant, in an email.

On Monday the cafe announced on Twitter that it would temporarily close after a visit from city inspectors. Turned out, the cafe had several violations of the health code, including evidence of rodents, unclean surfaces, and improper storage of food.

N.Y.P.D. A surveillance image of the suspect.

The police are on the hunt for a man who allegedly robbed an Apple Bank on Feb. 1.

The police said that the man walked into the bank at Irving Place and East 14th Street at around noon and passed a note to the teller demanding money. The bank employee complied and the suspect fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The suspect is said to be around 55 to 60 years old, around 5-foot-8 and roughly 150 pounds. Judging by the surveillance image, he is also a Mets fan.