Tim Schreier

Would-be messages from the East Village, in 140 characters or less.

Consumer

Noodles, nails, hair, massage, hookahs, bank, vintage,
tattoos, tacos, bar, bank, espresso, antiquities, massage,
hair, nails, noodles

Sour Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation staring into
iPhones flipping thru texts & tweets & pics ordering
ramen on Ave. A

Winter Doggerel

The hedgehog has seen its shadow. Snow was welcome,
but now must go. Birds must sing and leaves come out.
That’s what I’m talking about!

East Village Blues

He would like to have a big, noble, devoted dog, who
would wait for him patiently outside cafes and stores,
but his apartment is too small

Spring Awaits Them

Winter: The girls with the tattooed limbs have
undergone a double hibernation: not just of
flesh, but of ink

Astor Place

Mr. Li is a Personal Banker but it is against corporate
policy to keep personal items on his desk. His cubicle
must be kept impersonal.

…Soon he will be transferred to another branch of the
same bank, far uptown, and we will never see him again.
Goodbye, Mr. Li!

Angels In the Airshaft

OMG OMG OMG OMG that is so funny… ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha OMG OMG OMG OM… did he really? that is
so… ha ha ha ha ha ha funny

Together Through Life

On the other side of the bathroom mirror he hears his
neighbor of 20 yrs gargle & spit. Thru the bedroom wall
he hears him groan and snore

Roku

Jobless, he sleeps by day and streams French movies on
Netflix all night. If he were a cat, which he should be,
everything would be A-OK

Bourgeois

Panting, the super arrives with (yet again) the wrong
part, the incorrect screw. To save face, we discuss his
recent trip to Paris & tip $5

Geography

Broadway marks the outer limit of the East Village. One
block over, on University Place, the real money begins

Vivienne Gucwa A selection of bottles at Mars Bar.

Earlier this week, Community Board 3 voted to amend the policies for transferring liquor licenses when local businesses are bought and sold.

Save the Lower East Side said that the move “may be the most significant vote” that the board has ever taken.

The blog theorized that the move might reverse a trend that has seen rents rise and created a dense cluster of bars in the neighborhood.

“If prospective bar owners know that they must face the community to get license approval, they will be less likely to buy that business, especially here in areas of bar density, where there will be the most community objection. If bars are reluctant, landlords can’t count on high-rent bars for their commercial spaces, and will have to settle for lower-rent businesses. That will lower commercial rents and bring commercial diversity.”

We’d like to hear your thoughts about the board’s decision. Is it a good thing that prospective bar owners may now have to think twice about coming to the East Village? Or are those businesses being unfairly targeted? Let us know. Put your response in the comments section below.

Rachel Citron

Good morning, East Village.

For many bars in our neighborhood, this week marks the start of a new era.

As we reported Wednesday, Community Board 3 voted to overhaul the liquor licensing process in the East Village and Lower East Side. Before the vote, when a bar underwent a change in management, new owners could essentially buy the liquor license from the former owner. This morning, commenters in the blogosphere have been weighing in with their reactions to the vote. Save the Lower East Side characterized the move as a “momentous vote” and wondered if it will eventually lower rents and bring more commercial diversity to the neighborhood. The Lo-Down and DNAinfo also have posts on the decision.

EV Grieve reports the famed East Village bar, Coyote Ugly, reopened last night after being shut down for over a week following a surprise Feb. 15 visit by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. After scoring a 90 (an ideal score would be 13 points or fewer), the bar was ordered to remain closed following a second inspection on Friday. Coyote Ugly was finally given the green light upon third inspection on Wednesday after spending the weekend completing tasks like re-painting the walls and installing a new floor in the basement.

In today’s forecast, Accuweather predicts a high of 46. It is expected to rain through the night into tomorrow, though temperatures will climb into the 50s.

Courtesy of Gene Kaufman Architect The Salvation Army building at the corner of Bowery and East Third Street. Right: A rendering of what the corner will look like when Gene Kaufman’s Bowery boutique hotel is completed.

Much has been said about the design for the new boutique hotel and restaurant that is expected to take the place of the vacant Salvation Army building on the corner of the Bowery and East Third Street.

Several local blogosphere commentators have made it clear that this addition is not welcome in their neighborhood. Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, jokingly referred to the 11-story, 72-room hotel as the “red tumor building” in reference to a series of asymmetric balconies that will protrude from the building and glow red at night.

“It’s totally inappropriate and I think it will be another unfortunate, unwanted intrusion into the Bowery,” said Mr. Berman. “The scale is wrong, the design is wrong. It almost seems designed to offend.”

Gene Kaufman, the architect hired by the Paris-based Louzon Group to design the hotel and restaurant, is aware of the East Village’s reaction to the renderings published by The New York Observer last month, but is hoping it might not be permanent.

“The neighborhood sentiment in the beginning is the start of a process,” said Mr. Kaufman, who has designed other controversial hotels in New York. “It’s not necessarily reflective of what’s going to happen in the long term.”
Read more…

Ian Duncan Members of Community Board 3 debated changes to the liquor licensing process Tuesday night during a meeting at P.S. 20.

Ending months of debate, Community Board 3 Tuesday night approved a sweeping overhaul of the way it makes recommendations to the State Liquor Authority for alcohol license applications.

As the motion passed, by a vote of 37 to 1, attendees made hasty moves for the exit. When board members were asked toward the end of the three hour meeting at P.S. 20 whether they wanted further time to debate, there were groans and calls of “No!”

The vote ended five months of consultation and debate, some of it acrimonious, about the new policies, which are aimed at providing applicants with clarity and guidelines to follow if they are awarded a license.

Much of the debate focused around so-called “transfers” or the ability to pass liquor licenses on to new owners following the sale of business. Bar and restaurant owners had argued this increases the value of the business and any moves to change the policy would hurt them financially.

Under the policy adopted Tuesday night, the board’s State Liquor Authority committee will review transfers of licenses as though they are new applications. In the past they had been automatically approved. The committee does not have the final say over licensing decisions but passes on recommendations to the State Liquor Authority.
Read more…

Greg Howard About three dozen demonstrators turned out to protest the planned demolition of historic 35 Cooper Square. Below: The journalist Pete Hamill (left) speaks with David Mulkins of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors.

Braving freezing temperatures and acknowledging long odds, about three dozen demonstrators took part in a protest tonight calling for a halt to the planned demolition of 35 Cooper Square.

The demonstration, described as a vigil by organizers, represented what preservationists characterized as their last-ditch effort to stop the destruction of the 185-year-old Federal-style structure, which is the oldest building in Cooper Square.

After a months-long fight between preservationists and developers of the site, the fate of 35 Cooper Square is all but certain. Nevertheless, protesters tonight brandished picket signs and defiantly chanted “Keep alive 35!” while organizers gave speeches about the historical significance of the site.

“The city wants to develop, that’s what this is all about,” Rob Hollander, a co-founder of the East Village History Project told the crowd. “It’s our community. It really belongs to us.”

The sense of community ownership, and of loss, pervaded the atmosphere on the blustery night. David McReynolds, 81, said that he has lived in the East Village for 50 years and has many fond memories of 35 Cooper Square.

“I knew Diane di Prima decades ago,” said Mr. McReynolds, referring to the poet priestess who lived in the house in the 1960’s. “She used to stuff envelopes for me at Liberation Magazine.”

The journalist Pete Hamill, who’s 75 and a former resident of the East Village, was one of the most recognizable faces at tonight’s protest.

“It’s an example of failure,” Mr. Hamill, who’s also a member of the faculty at NYU Journalism, said of the impending demolition of the building. “There are people not yet born who won’t get to see what New York was. This is our inheritance. We have to keep this place alive.”

Many demonstrators said that they recognize the futility of trying to stop new construction altogether. “We’re not saying we’re against development,” said Richard Moses, of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative. “We’re for sensitive development. This place has cultural and historic significance.”

And in the blistering winter cold, under the metal scaffolding, in front of the boarded up, doomed little brick house on 35 Cooper Square, East Village residents continue to protest for the preservation of what they call “The Old New York.”

“It’s the eleventh hour,” Mr. Moses said. “But we’ve got to fight.”

Rachel Citron

Good morning, East Village.

We start the day with news on Grace Farrell, the homeless woman who was found dead on Sunday morning near Tompkins Square Park.  The Daily News reports Ms. Farrell, 35, was an aspiring artist who emigrated from Ireland at 17 to attend art school. Police are now trying to track down her family. Ms. Farrell was said to tell friends that her mother lived in the Bronx.  It is also reported that she was once married, and is survived by an estranged son who is about 9 years old.

Preservationists from various New York City organizations are expected to gather at 35 Cooper Square tonight from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in a last-ditch effort to prevent the demolition of the 185-year-old building, Nearsay reports.  The two-and-a-half story brick house is the oldest building in Cooper Square but was not granted landmark status by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.  On Jan. 28, a similar rally in front of 35 Cooper Square garnered more than 1,000 signatures asking for the landmarks commission to protect the building, but demolition plans are still underway.

Meanwhile, the weather is looking up. Sort of. According to Accuweather, today will be cold, with highs around 30, but milder the rest of the week, with temperatures creeping toward the mid-40s.

jdx

Good morning, East Village.

We begin the week with word of a grim discovery.  A woman was found dead outside St. Brigid’s Church Sunday morning; the authorities are not treating her death as crime. EV Grieve has details about a spontaneous memorial that’s developed at the scene.

Two police officers are set to go on trial next week after being accused of raping an East Village woman, according to The Post.  Kenneth Moreno, 43, and Franklin Mata, 28, patrolmen of the Ninth Precinct, both face up to 25 years in jail for rape, burglary and official misconduct. The Village Voice notes that both officers are still on the city’s payroll.

Meanwhile, there are apparently more shake-ups on the local restaurant scene. Grieve reports that Tonda, the Fourth Street pizzeria originally famous for its $30,000 brick oven, seemed to be open for the first time in two weekends. Upon closer inspection, however, its gates were down, and the restaurant appeared to be closed. And though Olympic Deli on First Avenue has shut down, it’s being replaced by Hamptons Market Place, an upscale grocery and deli that already boasts two locations on the West Side.

And it turns out the weekend was a false alarm, East Village. After a beautifully warm day on Friday and a feel-good hangover this weekend, Mother Nature is reminding us that it’s still winter. According to The Weather Channel, we should expect between three and five inches of snow today, highs in the mid-30s, and more snow tomorrow.

Vivienne Gucwa on photographing the art and architectural details that exist overhead in the East Village.

“The East Village is home to some brilliant historic and contemporary architecture that often gets overlooked since it is above the street level. Some of this architectural detail can be viewed simply by looking up.”
Read more…

Richard G. Jones Ballaro, 77 Second Avenue.

When many of us hear “Palermo,” we think “Mafia,” or possibly “the guy who cuts my hair.” To Giusto Priola, Palermo, on Sicily’s northern coast, conjures up almondola, a chewy cookie made of boiled almonds, sugar and egg white, or the soft, pulpy pizza dough known as sfingione. Giusto was born in Misilmera, a little town 15 minutes outside of Palermo, and is now the master of a mini-empire of Second Ave Italian restaurants — Cacio e Pepe at 182 (between 11th and 12th); Cacio e Vino at 80 (between Fourth and Fifth); and Ballaro, across the street at 77.

Giusto is a warm-blooded fellow with close-cropped black hair on a rather round head. He left Italy 14 years ago to work for a friend in the commissary of the Pier 59 studio, where he made pastry for photographers and models. In 2004, he opened Cacio e Pepe, a Roman-style restaurant where the signature dish, a simple and traditional Roman pasta, is served in a hollow carved into a giant block of pecorino. He began to slip a few Sicilian specialties into the menu, like tuna with agua dolce. Giusto says that his customers asked him where he was from. When he told them, they said he had to open up a new place. “They invited me to open a Sicilian restaurant,” says Giusto with a sparkle in his eye. “This was my dream.” Thus was born Cacio e Vino, which serves classic Sicilian dishes like arancina —rice balls mixed with ground beef, peas, ham and bechamel — as well as pizza and schiacciate, a kind of stuffed pizza.
Read more…

From fox to Mongolian lamb to tiger print, fur fashions can be seen all over the East Village this winter. PETA lovers need not fear because it doesn’t even have to be real to be warm, stylish and a great transitional piece as we head into spring.

NYU Journalism’s Claire Glass and Rachel Ohm report.

Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

And Happy Friday. The forecast calls for a windy and overcast weekend so bundle up.

We begin this morning with a few re-openings of note in the neighborhood. St. Mark’s Comics has re-opened after Thursday afternoon’s fire, EV Grieve reports.

DNAinfo reports that Coyote Ugly will re-open today after being shuttered because of some health code violations. (Grieve has posted the health department’s report outlining eight critical violations, including evidence of rats and mice.)

DNA also has a post on another local pub marking more than a century of keeping its doors open: McSorley’s Old Ale House, which Thursday celebrated its 157th anniversary.

And Bowery Boogie describes the sudden end to the problematic Levi’s “gears” billboard at East Houston and Lafayette.

Ian Duncan Owner Mitch Cutler, right, surveyed the damage caused by a fire at St. Mark’s Comics.

Fire officials are investigating the cause of a blaze on St. Marks Place Thursday afternoon. The fire, at St. Mark’s Comics at 11 St. Marks Place, began shortly after 1:30 and it was declared under control about a half hour later. Officials said that one person sustained minor injuries in the fire but refused medical treatment.

Witnesses at the scene said the fire started in the building’s basement. After the blaze, the basement was dark, damp and smelled strongly of smoke but the only visible damage was a few wooden beams that had been knocked down. Most of the damage was caused to St. Mark’s Comics, a store on the building’s first floor.

James Kwiecinski, the building manager, said a man he described as a “caretaker” uses part of the basement as an art studio. Numerous landscape paintings hung on the basement’s wall.

Partially damaged comics and a wrapped Superman t-shirt littered the entrance to St. Mark’s Comics. Mitch Cutler, the owner, said he stocks potentially valuable vintage comics but he added it was “too soon to tell” the extent of the damage.

Yoshi Onoyuri, a chef and manager at Udon West, also on the building’s first floor, said fire fighters had knocked through the wall between his restaurant and the comic store.

Mr. Cutler, who has owned St. Mark’s Comics for 27 years, said water, smoke and sawdust could all damage comics. “Firemen were here with lots of water,” he said, adding that he planned to reopen the store later today.

Mr. Onoyuri said his electricity and gas were still working. “We’re waiting for the insurance company so we can reopen,” he said.

Mr. Kwiecincski said he was fully insured but could not estimate the cost of the damage.

Fire officials are investigating the cause of a blaze on St. Marks Place this afternoon. The fire, at St. Mark’s Comics at 11 St. Marks Place, began shortly after 1:30 and was declared under control about a half hour later. Officials said that one person sustained minor injuries in the fire but refused medical treatment. —Ian Duncan

Dan Glass Saxophonist Darius Jones and Kirk Knuffke on cornet lead the Kirk-Jones Quintet duiring a performance at the University of the Streets, the cultural center that has thrived for four decades.

A tumble of snare snaps and clarinet wails escaped the second-floor windows above the restaurant 7A on a recent Saturday night. A garbage truck and police car replied with a snort and a whoop. Jazz was happening up there, in a place called the University of the Streets.

Neighborhood folks know the tagged glass door, the kitchen-bright vestibule on East Seventh Street and maybe the lighted sign mounted next to it But few know what is on the six floors above, where a karate dojo, artist studios, and until recently a pigeon coop, operate along with a small amphitheater that hosts an open jam session that has taken place every Friday and Saturday night since 1969.

It’s a remarkably consistent run by nearly any measure, but all the more impressive for taking place here in the center of the in the East Village, which has been on an express track of socioeconomic change for the past 40 years.

“This place is an institution,” said Robert Anderson, 57, a Saturday night house bassist who is built like a light heavyweight. “And we’re trying to get it back to how it used to be, back when those guys was comin’ down – C-Sharpe, Barry Harris. Monk used to come through here, Dizzy – everybody used to come through here.”
Read more…

Vivienne Gucwa

Good morning, East Village.

Whether or not you enjoyed the raucous atmosphere at Coyote Ugly, or its trademark bar-top dancing, it’s worth noting that the First Avenue saloon that Hollywood made famous is currently closed. EV Grieve speculates that the watering hole will open again soon but it’s not the only local business that suddenly finds itself shuttered: The Bean Coffee Shop on First Avenue at Third Street currently sports a fluorescent orange “Seized” sign in its large, front window. Apparently the place owes some $25,000 in back taxes. The owners promise that the shop will re-open soon.

Gothamist reports that the city has rolled out a new online 311 Complaint Map. The map allows visitors to track complaints that are being lodged about issues ranging from air quality to noise – a service not unlike our own collaboration with SeeClickFix, which allows East Village residents to report and track neighborhood concerns.

Although informative, the new 311 map probably won’t help anyone in the neighborhood locate the man who the authorities say may be our very own Ponzi schemer and who is still on the lam.

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

More developments about 35 Cooper Square were reported by The Local this morning, but that’s not all that’s happening in local construction news. It seems Seventh Street may be getting a facelift with discussions about a new parking lot between Avenues C and D. There’s also word of a new coffee and ice cream shop to fill the vacant storefront, formerly occupied by City Copies, between First and Second Avenues.

And in a twist on the long-running debate over whether graffiti is blight or art, one East Village teacher has decided it might be something else: a learning opportunity. She’s using the neighborhood’s murals and street art as part of the curriculum in her English classes. She was inspired to do so after learning that a neighborhood mural of President Barack Obama had been painted over.

In other news, the East Village will be receiving its very own Union Market on Houston Street and Avenue A. This store promises to be larger than its predecessor in Brooklyn and is expected to open in the fall.

The developer of 35 Cooper Square blamed a city-issued stop work order on a broken fence at the site and expects workers to return today. “It should be fixed this morning,” Jane Crotty, a spokeswoman for Arun Bhatia, who owns the property, told The Local this morning. “They will be back on the site this morning, and it should take about a half hour to fix, and then they will be back at work.” Ms. Crotty said that she expects full work to resume at the site once city inspectors approve the repairs.—Suzanne Rozdeba