According to the weather prophets it should have been raining but it wasn’t raining so I went to the Tompkins Square Library to see if I could get Vol. 1 of Proust, but they didn’t have any Proust, and probably never do have any Proust (“Who’s Proust?”), so I decided to take out another novel instead, only to realize I didn’t have a library card, a wallet, or any form of ID, unless you count a cell phone, which I don’t. I did have cash, though.
On to Mast Books, five blocks down Avenue A, but first I encountered… The Racist. A drably turned-out white woman in her thirties, looking like a hipster gone to seed, possibly a junkie. In fact I’d already passed her a few minutes earlier on the way to the library, where I heard her shout racial slurs at more darkly hued people than herself outside the deli on 10th Street, but I wasn’t really paying attention, and frankly it just seemed weird. She looked like a dyed-in-the-wool East Villager. Down on her luck, maybe, but a characteristic member of the neighborhood nonetheless. It was almost unthinkable. Read more…
A posh condo at 40 Bond is cited in a $50 million lawsuit involving Sly Stone and his ex-manager, Curbed reports. The $7.5 million condo, which will be foreclosed next month, is used in court documents as an example of the former manager’s alleged mismanagement of the music legend’s assets. Mr. Stone — yes, of Family Stone fame — sued his ex-manager back in January for $50 million, charging that he had used music royalties to fund an opulent lifestyle.
Ryan Gosling still hasn’t said anything about breaking up that fight on Astor Place, and whether it was all a viral stunt as some blogs suspect. Yesterday, E! Online got some details from the photographer who shot the footage (seems Mr. Gosling offered one of the men $20 to end the scuffle), but she doesn’t say when it all went down. UsMagazine.com, which also shares an eyewitness account, says it happened Saturday (when the video was uploaded), but EV Grieve readers spot a clue that they believe proves it occurred sometime before the Flaming Cactus displays went up on July 30. And with this, When Did Ryan Gosling Break Up That Fight? becomes a bigger mystery than Who Fought Gavin DeGraw? Update | 6:25 p.m. Valerie Herrera tells OMGICU that it happened June 24 and it wasn’t a stunt.
Stephen Rex BrownThe rowhouse at 316 East Third Street.
Last week, preservationists doubled down on their last-minute effort to protect a 177-year-old row house that the owner hopes to demolish and replace with a seven-story, 33-unit apartment building.
A quartet of local preservation groups began pressing the city Landmarks Preservation Commission early this month. In a letter you can read below, the coalition cited the building’s historic qualities, which are reminiscent of 35 Cooper Square, another Federal-style row house that was demolished in May amid much controversy.
“The significance of this and the handful of other surviving pre-Civil War rowhouses to Alphabet City cannot be underestimated,” the preservationists wrote in a letter to the commission on August 2, referring to 316 East Third Street. “Built for merchants associated with the East River’s thriving shipbuilding industry, they recall the neighborhood’s formative years and are all that remain from its heyday as the dry dock neighborhood.”
The letter also noted that the commission had singled out the property as being “eligible for historic designation” in a 2008 study assessing the impact of rezoning in the area. Read more…
Stephen Rex BrownThe incident occurred at the Lower East Side II Houses.
Five people taking target practice with a BB gun on Friday night were arrested for accidentally shooting a passerby in the leg, police reported.
The 44-year-old victim told the police that she was walking by 716 East Sixth Street at around 8:15 p.m. when she was struck, according to an NYPD spokesman. Police then canvassed the area and found a broken window on the third floor of the building between Avenues C and D, as well as a bottle on the windowsill, leading them to conclude that an errant BB had struck the woman. Read more…
The Daily News reports that three First Avenue teenagers were arrested for walking across a beam of the Williamsburg Bridge early Saturday morning.
According to The Post’s crime blotter, a man posing as a real estate agent showed off an East Third Street apartment and pocketed $3,575 from two victims who thought they had snagged the digs.
EV Grieve notices a sign indicating that an outpost of the organic hamburger chain BareBurger is coming to the former Sin Sin space.
In addition to the mint trash bags we told you about, a baiting station is now being used to fight the Tompkins Square Park rats, EV Grieve notices.
Photographer David Schmidlapp shares photos (his own as well as a couple by Marlis Momber) from the archives of El Jardin del Paraiso on East Fourth Street between Avenue C and Avenue D, where he has volunteered for nearly 30 years. His work can currently be seen in the Nepenthes New York Gallery on 38th Street.
Marlis MomberThe garden in the winter of 1982 or 1983.
They demolished a lot of buildings in the neighborhood around the mid-1970s. This is how it looked east of First Avenue back then. You could see all the way to Seventh Street, and from Seventh Street you could see all the way to the Con Edison plant. There was plenty of parking back then. Read more…
Stephen Rex BrownBad news for lovers of $3 Schaefer and cigarettes.
Falling bricks from a neighboring building have forced the International Bar to close its backyard, eliminating a haven for locals who enjoy cigarettes with their cheap beer.
According to a spokesman for the Department of Buildings, an inspector slapped the bar with the vacate order last month after noting the plummeting masonry from 93 East Seventh Street.
A bartender at the popular dive told The Local over the phone that the blocked backyard was only temporary, and that any barflies who were looking to drink outdoors should go to sister bar the Coal Yard nearby. Read more…
People are judging you everywhere you go. Do you have visible panty lines? Are you paying for that in all pennies? Who actually wears those shoes with individual toes?
You’d think in a world full of judgment, that at least the supermarket would be a safe place, but it isn’t. People are peering into your basket left and right and scoffing at your Muscle Milk or chocolate-covered edamame. You can tell a lot about a person based on what is in their grocery basket. I’m not sure what it says about me, but sometimes I look down at my own basket and all I see is various cheese products. While my basket clearly communicates that I like coagulated milk, most baskets tell more of a story about those who carry them. Here’s some baskets and their owners to avoid:
Bomb Shelter Bro (see photo above) – It’s good to date a planner, but dating someone who is always preparing for the next apocalypse is just a bad plan. A good test to know if they’re for you, is to picture them eating canned baby corn. If you’re still attracted to them, then you’re on your own on this one. Read more…
The Lower East Side’s most deadly street tragically reaffirmed its reputation yesterday, as a cyclist was killed at Delancey and Chrystie Streets. The Lo-Down reports that the rider was turning at around 6 p.m. when he lost control of his bike and fell under a cement truck. Earlier this month, we noted that the Lower East Side has the most dangerous intersections for cyclists of any neighborhood in Manhattan, with most of them on Delancey Street.
The Observer discovers that model and MTV personality Alexa Chung has purchased a one-bedroom apartment on East Third Street.
According to The Villager, two brothers have made a documentary about the neighborhood hip-hop scene during the seventies and eighties. “No Place Like Home: The History of Hip Hop in the Lower East Side” will screen at Clayton Patterson’s gallery next Sunday. A coloring book of Lower East Side personalities is also in the works.
A handicapped resident of the Lillian Wald Houses says his apartment is in such a sorry state that it is literally killing him.
Robert Campbell is a burn victim who sleeps on a couch because his roughly 9-by-11-foot apartment doesn’t have room for an electric bed that would allow him to sleep on an incline, as ordered by doctors. He says odors from a dumpster beneath his 12th-floor studio hurt his lungs, which were severely damaged by an electrical fire in 1988. The blaze burned over 80 percent of his body and resulted in numerous surgeries and the amputation of fingers on his left hand. His doctors have implored the New York City Housing Authority to put him in a three-room apartment since 2003, because even the pilot light in Mr. Campbell’s oven hurts his skin.
“I just want to get in a proper apartment and have this nightmare be over with,” said Mr. Campbell, 58. “I’ve never lived like this before.” Read more…
Scene contains strong language that may not be safe for work. Courtesy of Frontstoop Films.
Ajay Naidu uses his St. Marks Place apartment for more than just people-watching: It’s prominently featured in the actor’s directorial debut, “Ashes,” which screens tonight at the New York International Latino Film Festival. The walk-up (Mr. Naidu’s home since 1995) is where the character he plays, Ashes, tends to his schizophrenic brother, Kartik (played by Faran Tahir of “Iron Man” notoriety) and where Kartik awkwardly courts a similarly troubled woman, Bettina (played by another East Village resident, Piper Perabo).
Mr. Naidu said that he decided to set “Ashes” in the East Village circa 2006, in part because at the time “there was a vast dichotomy of wealth distribution that made it possible for people to slip through the cracks.”
Add to that, the character of the neighborhood: “There was a more personal feeling to the Village,” said Mr. Naidu. “It felt more like a neighborhood as opposed to a place where a bunch of young rich people came and bought a piece of the charm.” Read more…
Flaming Pablum shares a clip of Cro-Mags vocalist John “Bloodclot” Joseph leading his tour of the East Village. Mr. Joseph promises, “It’s the only place you can hear about murders, drugs, and vegan food all on the same tour.”
According to East Village Eats, Casimir’s new owner Mario Carta has started a brunch deal that gets you bottomless mimosas and Bloody Marys for $19.95.
An episode of “Let Them Talk” just posted to YouTube features playwright Juan Valenzuela recalling the glory days of the Nuyorican poetry movement. Along with Pedro Pietri, Mr. Valenzuela led the Latin Insomniacs Motorcycle Club.
Tompkins Square Park Playground and Parents’ AssociationThe truck carrying 5,000 mint-scented trash bags arrived at Parks Department offices in Lower Manhattan this morning.
A truckload of mint-scented trash bags have been donated to the Parks Department in the latest volley in the ongoing war against the rats of Tompkins Square Parks.
A spokesman for the Tompkins Square Park Playground and Parents’ Association, which secured the 5,000 minty bags, said that Mint-X recently made the offer to donate all the bags after seeing all the publicity the rats were attracting.
“If the rats don’t touch it, the Mint-X guy is looking at a big purchase from the city,” said the spokesman. “I’m hopeful that they’ll work.” He added that the bags should be in trash cans at Tompkins Square Park today. Read more…
Stephen Rex BrownSigns outside of the shuttered Nublu.
Presenting DocuDrama, in which The Local has a look at documents that dramatize goings-on in the neighborhood. Today, a look at Nublu’s fight to reopen at its Avenue C location.
One of the East Village’s last bastions of avant garde music has been forced to leave its home on Avenue C after an anonymous tipster alerted State Liquor Authority investigators to its proximity to a Kingdom Hall belonging to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now, Nublu is hosting shows in the basement of Lucky Cheng’s while the owner of the business, Ilhan Ersahin, struggles to find a loophole in liquor laws so that he can return to his original location.
“Really honestly and truthfully, I had no idea that the building across the street was a house of worship until six months ago when I received this letter,” Mr. Ersahin wrote in a letter to the liquor authority in May. (You can see the full letter as well as other documents below.) “I just don’t think it’s fair to blame me for all of this and after nine years in good, willing business.” Read more…
The lines are sure to get longer at Motorino now that its Williamsburg location has closed. Fret not: DNAinfo has more on earlier reports that NoLita pizzeria L’asso is opening an outpost at 107 First Avenue. Partner Greg Barris admits “there’s an endless amount of pizza in that neighborhood,” but wants in anyway: “The East Village is more classic New York City.”
Stephen Rex BrownThe Flea Market Café, hours before it will reopen.
Workers at the Flea Market Café have swept up the ashes and are preparing to reopen at 5 p.m. — less than 24 hours after an alleged arson left the eatery a messy crime scene.
While cleaning counter tops earlier today, the manager of the restaurant, Haveen Bonnet, bemoaned the blaze that has been the talk of the neighborhood.
“Two napkins catch on fire and the fire department comes in and smashes everything,” Mr. Bonnet said as deliverymen hauled in fresh loads of food. Read more…
The Dieline points out that The Blind Barber has teamed up with Joya to create custom candles. One of the scents in the so-called “Tompkins” line is “Smoke.” If that conjures images of tents being torched or trash barrels being used for warmth, rest assured that the smells were inspired by the East 10th Street barber shop, not by the park.
A fire scorched the interior of Flea Market Café today at around lunch time. A spokesman for the Fire Department said the blaze broke out at around 1:23 p.m. and that 60 firefighters arrived at the scene on Avenue A between St. Marks Place and Ninth Street. Within 20 minutes the fire was under control, and one firefighter was treated for minor injuries, according to the spokesman. Shortly thereafter, the dining room was a singed mess, and burnt tables and chairs were strewn about the sidewalk. An acrid odor still hung in the air.
An employee at Nino’s next door reported seeing a napkin holder on fire before the flames spread. The cause of the blaze is still being investigated, according to the spokesman.
The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »
(c)2011 Nanci Ezzo, All rights reserved. 
