Late last month, Community Board 3 left supporters of Heathers stunned by voting nearly unanimously to recommend a denial of the bar’s liquor license renewal. But was the whole process a waste of time? Two weeks later, the State Liquor Authority — the true arbiter of the fate of businesses that sell booze — renewed the bar’s license with little fanfare, raising doubts about whether it had heeded the board at all.
Just how much stock does the S.L.A put in the community board’s recommendations, anyway? For all the blogosphere’s feverish coverage of dramatic and often-controversial community board rulings, the question is rarely addressed. To answer it, The Local combed through a year’s worth of liquor authority license applications going up to Feb. 2011 (we ignored applications after that date, since many of them are still under review). In that year, we found that the State Liquor Authority consistently granted licenses to bars and restaurants that Community Board 3 had recommended for denial.
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Good morning, East Village.
Per an obituary in The Times, Swami Bhaktipada, a controversial ex-leader of the American Hare Krishna movement, has died near Mumbai at the age of 74. A Times article from 2004 tells more: “Mr. Bhaktipada was one of the first American followers of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, an Indian holy man who opened a temple in the East Village in 1965. His organization, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, was seen by young members of the counterculture as a thrilling novelty. Known as Hare Krishnas, his followers were famous for dancing around Tompkins Square Park in saffron robes, beating drums and chanting.”
The Post reports that a man was arrested after posing as a realtor and getting a woman to hand over $3,500 for the key to an East Sixth Street apartment. Problem was, the apartment was occupied and the key didn’t work.
Speaking of property disputes, Bowery Boogie points to an interesting BlockShopper item: It’s reported that the Charles D. Saulson, the sculptor turned developer who was accused of flinging feces at an art gallery next door, has sold his condo at 259 Bowery for $2.321 million. Read more…
The Wall Street Journal reveals that playboy hotelier Andre Balazs bought the Cooper Square Hotel for $90 million, and that he is partnered with the property manager Ironstate Development Company. Mr. Balazs’s takeover of the hotel was approved by Community Board 3 last month. According to the Journal, he is not planning to change much about the hotel, but is examining the possibility of a new restaurant and bar.
Earlier, The Local tweeted and reported from the scene of the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Now see video of the demonstration as it moved from Union Square, down East Eighth Street, to Avenue D – near to where Makever Brown died on the FDR Drive while fleeing the police. We spoke to the march’s organizers and attendees, including Shamar Thomas, a former Marine whose yelling at N.Y.P.D. officers last week received widespread attention, and Jean Griffin, the sister of David Glowczenski, who died after Southampton police used a Taser stun gun on him in 2004.
Daniel Maurer At Astor Place shortly before 4 p.m.Hundreds of people protesting police brutality have marched from Union Square, down Broadway, down East 8th Street and St. Marks Place, and through Tompkins Square Park heading toward Avenue D. Follow The Local and its editor on Twitter as we tweet minute-by-minute updates from the scene. Tweet us your own updates and add photos to our Flickr pool as you take them. We’ll have more from the scene as this unfolds.
Update | 7:15 p.m. The event was the October 22nd Coalition’s 16th Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Similar marches were planned in 27 other cities today. The march ended with a gathering at Avenue D and East Sixth Street, outside of the Jacob Riis Houses, where a group of about 350 – including members of the Communist organization Ignite, Occupy The Hood, and others – listened to short call-and-response speeches.
Among those who took the bullhorn were Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (which spearheaded a “Stop and Frisk” protest that ended in the arrest of Cornel West and others in Harlem yesterday) as well as the parents of Elijah Foster-Bey, a teenager who was involved in a shootout with police in Brooklyn a year ago. “Shoot first, ask questions later is not right,” said Mr. Foster-Bey’s mother, Ellen Cross.
About 65 police officers lined Avenue D, many of them riding motor scooters and some of them surveying the scene from rooftops as demonstrators chanted, “Come down and face the truth, no hiding on the roof.” Their number had dwindled to about 20 community affairs officers by 6 p.m., when the crowd began thinning. The Stop Mass Incarceration Network will organize their next demonstration against “stop and frisk” policies during a meeting at St. Mary’s Church in Harlem, tomorrow at 2 p.m.
Update | Oct. 23, 12:45 a.m. We’ve now posted video from the demonstration. Watch it here.
Rachel Ohm
Colorful jeans have been getting a lot of attention lately, but tights in the same hues can add personality and pizazz to a dress or shorts. Check out the trendy tights The Local’s Rachel Ohm spotted around the neighborhood.
EV Grieve notes that the BMW Guggenheim Lab will be dismantled Saturday and Sunday, resulting in the closure of East First Street between First and Second Avenues to traffic during the day. The ballyhooed “urban experiment” hosted its final gathering last weekend and is now bound for Berlin. It’s unclear what is next in store for the lot. A forum last month suggested making it a sculpture garden, or even a cat park.
Stephen Rex Brown Cafe Orlin at 41 St. Marks Place.Ajay Naidu isn’t the only celebrity who enjoys Cafe Orlin. A reader spotted Julia Stiles lounging with a friend in the terrace of the restaurant on St. Marks Place at around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday. “Why couldn’t she be alone?” our reader joked. “Why wasn’t she seated there in mournful solitude with an expectant look on her face? I guess it’s because… she’s a movie star!”
He added that the star of “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “10 Things I Hate About You” did have a certain aura about her. “She looks like the girl next door. The wholesome farmer’s daughter who, thankfully, didn’t have the gap between her teeth fixed.”
Liv BuliThe 25 toddlers attending the new Preschool of the Arts in Cooper Union’s sleek new academic building aren’t just learning — they’re “exploring.” They don’t play with toys — they play with “heuristic tools.” And once a week, they do yoga.
The Jewish preschool originally opened on East Sixth Street in 1999, but quickly outgrew the location and found new digs in Chelsea four years later. “We have always been looking back to the neighborhood,” said director Sarah Rotenstreich of the school’s satellite location, which opened at 41 Cooper Square last month. “There is something so exciting about the East Village; the pulse, the creativity, the types of families.”
The Local visited on a recent Tuesday as an instructor gave morning yoga classes to each of the school’s three age groups. (In the case of toddlers, calling it yoga might be a bit of a stretch.) Read more…
Dominique Zonyee Scott Officer James LuongoOn Nov. 11 of last year, Sergeant Michael Fabitti and officers Katherine Keating, Joanna Lopez, and Natasha Deleon came upon a burning building at East Fourth Street and Avenue A. Recognizing that many of the residents would still be asleep in their apartments, the police officers ran into the blaze and helped evacuate the building. No one died — though all the officers and seven residents were treated for smoke inhalation.
The heroic tale of police work was just one of the many stories shared on Wednesday evening in Cooper Union’s Great Hall as part of the Ninth Precinct Community Council’s 16th annual awards ceremony. Read more…
Stephen Rex Brown The Bowery Hotel.The Department of Buildings hit the Bowery Hotel with a violation for an enclosed roof over a backyard terrace on Monday. According to Department of Buildings spokeswoman Ryan Fitzgibbon, the roof was contrary to the building’s approved plans. The hotel’s management will now face a formal hearing regarding the violation.
Interestingly, the complaint is nearly identical to one filed last year when the structure was being built. According to online records, workers were improperly storing construction equipment on the property of the New York Marble Cemetery, which abuts a portion of the hotel.
Caroline DuBois, the president of the cemetery, said she did not know why the violation was reopened (all complaints are filed with 311 anonymously). Rumors regarding a dispute between the hotel and the cemetery over the burial ground’s crumbling walls have swirled since an article in The New York Times in 2008.
Stephen Rex Brown Le Basket at 683 Broadway.An armed thief robbed the popular bodega, Le Basket, this morning and made off with around $3,000.
Police said that the heist occurred at around 4:35 a.m. Nick Lee, the 51-year-old owner of the business on Broadway at East Third Street, said that the suspect held up one of his employees (who was still working at lunchtime) at gunpoint and demanded the cash from the registers.
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Stephen Rex Brown A camera dolly at East Fourth Street and Avenue D.
Stephen Rex BrownAn overturned motorcycle, an ambulance, and a fire truck would normally be cause for concern. Rest assured, the scene at Fourth Street near Avenue D was all part of a shoot of the new CBS drama, “A Gifted Man.” The show, starring Patrick Wilson (he was in “The Watchmen”) tells the story of “A brilliant, charismatic surgeon whose life changes forever when his deceased ex-wife begins teaching him the meaning of life from the hereafter,” according to its website.
A cultural oddity of the East Village is that it has more often been a home to poets than novelists. Some of the poets (Allen Ginsberg, W.H. Auden) are about as famous as poets get. Others (Edwin Denby, Bernadette Mayer) are known to only a few. The vast majority, as you would expect, are almost completely unknown.
Weldon Kees, who lived at 129 E. 10th Street (the apartment building directly next to St. Mark’s Church) from October 1943 until November 1945, and later rented a loft at 179 Stanton Street in the Lower East Side, is an exception. As a cult figure with an ardent following, he’s certainly known to some people – but his connection to the East Village has been all but forgotten. Perhaps that’s appropriate: An absence as much as a presence, a shadow where a human should be, Kees is the Harry Lime of modern American poetry, as in the character played by Orson Welles in “The Third Man”: Now you see him, now you don’t. Read more…
The Real Deal brings news that puts an end to the speculation surrounding the empty lots on 13th Street between Second and Third Avenues. Charles Blaichman, a big-time developer who works primarily in Chelsea, bought the three parcels of land for $33.2 million, according to paperwork filed today. Last month, The Local noticed some activity at the lot while reporting on a proposed homeless shelter that is across the street. EV Grieve assumes that the lot is now bound for a “luxurious end.”
Last week we learned that East Houston Street and Bowery was the most dangerous intersection in the city for cyclists. New information culled from the same set of State Department of Transportation data reveals that Community Board 3 (which includes the East Village, Lower East Side, and part of Chinatown) was the fifth-most dangerous part of the city for pedestrians from 1995 to 2009. The statistics, compiled by the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, show that 4,138 accidents involving cars and pedestrians occurred during the 14-year span within Community Board 3. Community Board 5 — which covers Union Square, Times Square and much of Midtown — was by far the most dangerous district for pedestrians, with 8,604 accidents.
Scott Lynch This weekend marks the end of the three-month run of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, and the think tank has an assortment of events lined up to commemorate its closure. Yoga classes, a salon with Clayton Patterson, and plenty of “What have we learned?”-type lectures are scheduled, along with a closing reception Sunday night. Here’s a look back at The Local’s coverage. Will you miss the Lab? The burgers, at least? Read more…
Noah Fecks The city’s Department of Transportation confirmed late yesterday what seemed obvious: you can’t claim a bike rack on a sidewalk as private, even if you installed it yourself.
The Local submitted the oddball inquiry yesterday after reporting on the mystery of the “private” rack on East Fourth Street. A local plumber told The Local he installed the rack at the request of Flash Courier Service, and assumed it would be available to the public. But as it turned out, someone has claimed the rack as his own, and left notes warning that the “trespassing” bikes will be forcibly removed.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation said that the rack did not appear in city records. “Still, even if a permit is issued for installation, that does not mean the bike rack is for the exclusive use of the owner if it is installed on a public sidewalk,” the spokeswoman added. Read more…
Noah Fecks Someone is leaving menacing messages on a bike rack on East Fourth Street, warning cyclists that they are not allowed to park on the u-shaped steel he claims as his own.
Four days ago, photographer Noah Fecks sent a snapshot to The Local, of two bikes parked at the rack between Avenues A and B with notes attached to them saying “This is a private rack — remove your bike or it will be done for you!” Yesterday, one of the bikes remained, bearing the same note.
But this is not just a run-of-the-mill case of an over-assertive cyclist claiming a parking space. A longtime local who identified himself as a plumber and welder, but asked not to be named, told The Local that he installed the bike rack for the landlord of 211 East Fourth Street, who he said ran Flash Courier Service out of the building. (The courier service indeed has an East Fourth Street address on Foursquare, but is said to be located on East Fifth Street on YellowPages.com and elsewhere; today, an employee who said he did not have time to speak to The Local brusquely told us the company was located on Lenox Avenue before hanging up.) Read more…
Alexis Lamster
After a brief closure by the Department of Health, Butter Lane has once again fired up the ovens and is preparing to serve cupcakes. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health confirmed that the bakery was shut down yesterday for “extensive rodent infestation,” and that it passed a reopening inspection today. The Local just put in a call to Butter Lane, and an employee said that vanilla cupcakes should be ready by 2:30 p.m.
