According to I Love East Village, a local arts group is looking for volunteers to paint an entire block of roofs on East Fourth Street. The White Roof Project, working with Fourth Arts Block, says the project will demonstrate that white roofs lower the temperature in the area, which in turn reduces demands on the power grid.

Last week’s episode of “Louie” stopped into East Village Wines, and last night’s episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” had an East Village arc, too. Sort of.

Early in the episode, Larry visits Veniero’s, the 115-year-old pasticceria on East 11th Street, and takes a loaf of Italian bread to Suzie’s dinner party “around the corner.” (You’ll forgive the grainy and inverted screen grabs.)

Funny thing is, an establishing shot shows the dinner party isn’t around the corner at all. Doesn’t this avenue look suspiciously like Central Park West? Read more…

Ross Bennett Lewis on capturing neighborhood creatives.

Silver Print / First Avenue, 1995

“Tompkins Square Park with the surrounding avenues and streets offer an endless milieu of unexpected finds. Photographing people is most challenging yet very rewarding. I admire people with creative energy and their endeavors. After losing so many people to AIDS in the 1980s, I was disappointed in not having taken wonderful black and white images of them, so by the early 1990s I resumed shooting in black and white, using analog cameras and film. Years later these photographs become historical, as they have a different texture than digital. New York City has an abundance of material to shoot, whether it be people, architecture or just recording the quality of light and city life.”
Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Dennis Mykytyn paid $3,000 for 100 phone numbers with a 212 area code.

Newcomers to the city are often burdened with area codes that advertise their rookie status like a scarlet letter. But few go to the drastic lengths of Dennis Mykytyn, who wanted a 212 area code so badly he paid $3,000 for 100 of them.

“It’s prestigious,” said Mr. Mykytyn, who runs a record label, Modern Records, in an office at Lafayette and East Fourth Streets. “When 212 is on your phone, everyone knows where that it is, and it means you’ve been around for a while.”

Mr. Mykytyn bought the 212 numbers in bulk in 2007 when he was moving his hedge fund from Westchester to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. He’s since closed the fund and now uses less than 10 of the numbers.

But he has no intention of selling the dormant digits. Read more…

Elizabeth Vulaj The old East Village location

Back in April, Mara Levi touched off quite a bit of commenter chatter when she claimed that a lack of parking (caused by a newly installed bike lane) contributed to the closure of her East Sixth Street restaurant, Mara’s Homemade. In May, Ms. Levi opened a new location of the restaurant in Syosset, Long Island. So how’s life with a parking lot? Quite good, Ms. Levi said yesterday. In fact, she said she would probably not return to the East Village.

“You can’t do lunch, and it’s very expensive,” she explained. “I was paying Madison Avenue prices and not having the accessibility of that many people.” She said she had been offered a “much better location where I could do lunch” on the Upper East Side, at one third of the rent of her small East Village storefront. (Ms. Levi said she was not opposed to returning to the city: “If an opportunity comes along, we would consider it.”)

Meanwhile, the Nassau County resident is enjoying the perks of suburbia. Read more…

Susan Keyloun

Good morning, East Village.

Have you seen the bus stop sign on St. Marks Place that seems to have been hacked down like an old oak tree? If not, Neighborhoodr has some fun photos. “No Standing” indeed.

In other news, the fire department had an early wake up call this morning. DNAinfo reports that a minor fire broke out at 5:43 a.m. at 40 Avenue D. It took firefighters 30 minutes to control the blaze on the eighth floor. No one was hurt and the cause of the fire is being investigated.

Finally, after the closing of Banjo Jim’s was delayed, the staff of the bluegrass, jazz, and Americana bar has now announced (per EV Grieve) that Monday is the final day of business. As you know, new owner Rob Ceraso is converting the space into an artisanal cocktail bar.

Noah Fecks

Last week The Times introduced us to an East Village couple that found hipness upstate. On the flip side of that coin is Shane Covey, a man from New Hartford, N.Y., who, last week, opened Upstate in the East Village. The restaurant’s woodwork, including 150-year-old hemlock, is from a barn in Mr. Covey’s hometown, and breweries represented on the draft beer list include Ithaca Beer Company and Keegan Ales of Kingston.

Despite the out-of-town allegiance, Mr. Covey’s first instinct was to call the restaurant Local, and offer a menu of exclusively local, sustainable food. “I was thinking, man, it’s going to be tough to do that 100 percent,” he said. “I do it probably 85 percent if not more, but you’re going to get someone who comes and asks, ‘Where did the tomato come from?’ and I’m going to be like, “I don’t know— I got it at the bodega next door!” (Mr. Covey also gets his wines from down the block, at Tinto Fino.) Read more…

Jay Sullivan A scene from “Yeast Nation,” part of the month-long Fringe Festival starting this evening.

You’ve already been told about “Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera” and “Theater of the Arcade: Five Classic Video Games Adapted for the Stage,” but where the 15th Annual Fringe Festival is concerned, that’s just the start of the kookiness. A few weeks ago, we received a whopping 87 press releases for the festival, which throws its opening party tonight. We combed through them to find lines that alone are worth the price of admission.

Whale Song or: Learning to Live With Mobyphobia: “Only Maya Swan knows why Molly the whale is stranded in the Hudson River. Maya knows Molly has come to deliver a message from her dead father (whose body was found sprawled nude on the back of a killer whale at Sea World). But what is the message?”

Killing John Grisham: “Follows aspiring author Josh’s quest to escape his minimum wage life, derailed by self-doubt, girl problems and loyal friends with violent tendencies. Did we mention the world famous author who steals Josh’s book? That too.” Read more…

Rachel Citron

Good morning, East Village.

The weekend is almost here, so why not start partying a little early? Cure Thrift Shop is celebrating its 3rd birthday today with a party at 111 East 12 Street. Proceeds from the $5 admission fee go toward diabetes research and get you access to snacks, drinks, and a raffle, as well as live music from Roosevelt Dime.

In entertainment news, DNAinfo reports that the production staff of the USA Network show “White Collar” disguised Cooper Union’s Foundation Hall as a hotel for a recent scene shoot.

Speaking of cable television, the Post gets inside the East Village walk-up that Constance Zimmer of “Entourage” shares with her husband, commercial director Russ Lamoureux. Fun fact: She went to school with Benicio del Toro. Read more…

Almost a year after 45 Bleecker Street ceased to operate as a theater due to a dispute between the landlord and the production company that leased the space, the New York International Fringe Festival is reviving it as a temporary headquarters. Starting this Friday, the venue will host productions such as “Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera” and “Theater of the Arcade: Five Classic Video Games Adapted for the Stage.” However, it’s uncertain how long the space’s life as a theater will last.

The landlord Fred Rogers, a retired New York City electrical engineer who now lives in Las Vegas, is aggressively trying to find a new tenant. He said that of the potential renters, “a couple” were interested in turning the space into a restaurant, another couple hoped to turn it into a bar, and just one was interested in keeping the building as a theater.

Mr. Rogers said he doesn’t care what type of business eventually occupies the space: “I’m an owner, period, and I’m looking for steady tenants.” Read more…

Michelle Rick

Today on The Local, we’re hosting a dialogue about the neighborhood’s proposed historic districts. First, Britton Baine and Richard Moses, who serve on the steering committee of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, spoke out in favor of them. Now architect Ido Nissani argues that one of the districts would burden and disrespect the synagogue he attends. Add your own thoughts via the comments.

As an active member of the Meseritz Synagogue on East Sixth Street and a graduate of Cooper Union, the East Village has come to be part of my heart.

Recently, our house of worship has been included in a proposed historic district in the neighborhood. This has caused great concern among the congregation of the synagogue about the expenses associated with being a landmarked building, as well as the implication of ceding dominion of our building to a city agency.

For those who ask: “What guarantees do we have that the historic synagogue will still stand many years from now if it is not landmarked?” I respond: “What guarantees do we have to see these very buildings standing if they are landmarked?” Read more…

Today Dangerous Minds posts some 1967 footage (believed to be from the film “Last Summer Won’t Happen”) of the East Village, which had only recently come to be called that. Keep an eye open for a trio of underground and hippie bastions: The Peace Eye Bookstore at 147 Avenue A, the Digger Free Store at 264 East 10th Street, and Underground Uplift Unlimited (makers of the “Make Love Not War” buttons) at 28 St. Marks Place.

Michael Natale East 10th Street

Today on The Local, we’re hosting a dialogue about the neighborhood’s proposed historic districts. First, below, Britton Baine and Richard Moses, who serve on the steering committee of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, speak out in favor of them. Later, architect Ido Nissani argues that one of the districts would burden and disrespect the synagogue he attends. Add your own thoughts via the comments.

This has been an exciting time for the East Village and its historic architecture. In June, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission calendared for public hearing two new historic districts: the proposed East Village-Lower East Side and East 10th Street districts. In July, after three contentious public hearings, Community Board 3 voted with a strong majority to support landmarking these districts.

The question now is, when will the LPC schedule the hearing date for their designation? For preservationists, sooner is much better than later, because until the LPC votes to landmark the districts, the buildings will not be completely safe from defacement or demolition.

Two questions preservationists have been hearing are, why landmark, and how will landmarking benefit the East Village? There are many reasons. Read more…

A second NYPD officer was sentenced to two months in jail today for his improper interactions with an intoxicated East Village woman while on duty, City Room reports. The sentence for Franklin Mata, 29, comes two days after his partner, Kenneth Moreno, was sentenced to one year for the same incident. City Room quotes the judge as telling Mr. Mata that he “drew the short straw” when he was assigned Mr. Moreno as a partner.

Lauren Carol Smith

Good morning, East Village.

The Associated Press tells us that Gavin DeGraw, who was attacked by at least two men in the East Village on Monday night, has been released after a night’s stay at Bellevue Hospital. A police source tells the Post that the singer was too drunk to remember the attack clearly, but his brother Joseph insists he was drinking nothing but cranberry juice.

If that incident isn’t keeping you away from the nightlife, the folks at DNA Info remind us that the first-ever AlphaBet City Dolly Film Festival starts tomorrow. Thirty independent films will be screened at bars and restaurants between Avenues A and C, from First Street to 14th Street.

Two new Bowery restaurants are coming along: Yesterday EV Grieve noticed that Veselka Bowery was readying its tables, and now Bowery Boogie notes that the Bowery Diner, from the owners of Peels, has put up some signage. Read more…

Joel Raskin

Authorities are looking for two men who are believed to be involved in a robbery at the Baruch Houses, just below Houston Street. A police spokesman said that two men robbed a 75-year-old Hispanic male at gunpoint around 10:30 p.m. on Monday at 105 Baruch Drive. “The victim states that he was robbed and made to give up money,” the spokesman said. The suspects were described as about 25 years old and about 5-foot-11. This isn’t the only crime involving a septuagenarian victim in recent weeks. A 18-year-old male was arrested last week and charged with grand larceny after police say he snatched the purse of a 78-year-old woman in a wheelchair. The purse contained $15 and medication.

Lyn Pentecost, Executive Director of The Lower Eastside Girls Club, came across what some fashion lovers might consider the ultimate Craigslist find: 50 never-worn vintage wedding gowns, each with its original price tag. Looking to purchase one or two last fall, Ms. Pentecost contacted the seller (a lawyer representing the estate of a wealthy woman) who told her it was an all-or-nothing deal— 50 dresses for $2,500. She declined at first, only to hear back from the lawyer a few months later with an offer of $500 for the entire lot.

Within weeks, two boxes arrived on her doorstep stuffed with mint-condition gowns—garments that a group of teenage girls have since ripped, cut, and spray painted, putting an individual, modern twist on fifties style. Read more…

Christina Jean Chambers A scene from “Ambrosia” by Kelley Nicole Girod.

A pair of upcoming plays at the Red Room aim to turn notions of “black theater” upside down.

“Ambrosia” (about an elderly southern woman deciding to die happy) and “Breakfast” (about a middle-class black family dealing with a gay son) will run as a double feature starting August 10.

Both playwrights said that they sought to avoid the clichés of their genre. Read more…

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

The Post reports that singer Gavin DeGraw was attacked by a group of men on First Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Streets around 4 a.m. Monday. He was scheduled for a concert in Saratoga Springs today, but instead Mr. DeGraw, who owns The National Underground with his brother Joey, is under observation at Bellevue Hospital.

The “outlook is dim” for the last of the lighting businesses along the Bowery. “Store owners point to gentrification, the downturn in the local housing market and the rise of online shopping as having taken a toll on their businesses,” writes The Wall Street Journal.

More change on the Bowery: The folks at Bowery Boogie and The Lo-Down recap last night’s CB3/SLA meeting. According to The Lo-Down, a “slightly more affordable” version of midtown steakhouse Quality Meats has been green-lighted for liquor at 199 Bowery. Bowery Boogie reports that the owners of Peels at 325 Bowery were given the nod for some alterations.

Correction: August 12, 2011

An earlier version of this blog post misstated the name of a neighborhood blog. It is The Lo-Down, not The Lo-Side.