John Galayda Anja Keister performs during the Kitty Nights burlesque show at Bar on A. The show, which has been running at the bar since 2006, is one of the few remaining burlesque acts in the East Village.

While for most people Sunday is a day of relaxation, filled with leisurely strolls or The Times crossword puzzle, at Bar on A, Sundays are anything but tame. The wild felines of Kitty Nights, the bar’s weekly burlesque show, close out each weekend with salaciously provocative entertainment.

Founded in June 2006 by producer and performer Fem Appeal, Kitty Nights is now one of the few remaining burlesque shows in the East Village.

Yet, in addition to hosting the last of the scantily clad Mohicans, at its heart Kitty Nights is a tribute to the strength of small neighborhoods that can often get lost amidst constant change and development.
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Kenan

The end of the year is a time for recollection, for looking back at our achievements. I feel that I accomplished a lot this year. I took a job that allowed me to afford a monthly subway pass and I rode my bike all the way to the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge once. There are the little things too: I never left a drink undrunk or a hot dog half-eaten. But not many things in the past year occurred with enough regularity to accumulate into an actual list – except for one thing that happens to me each and every day. And so, here is my year in review:

The Top Five Things Hollered at Me While I Walk Through Tompkins Square Park on the Way to Work Each Day

5. “Ooooh, Honey, You Better Wipe That Sour Look Off Your Face”

This is by far the most frequent of hollers at me in the park. The rotund lady in a pink Hannah Montana beanie was the first to yell this to me from the entrance to the dog pen. I don’t like that I walk with a confused and constipated-looking expression that makes me look like I just watched the last episode of “Lost” six times, but that’s exactly what a New Yorker looks like. Sadly, when I get into work, my boss usually says the same thing. He also wears a similar beanie.
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Tim Milk

Illustration by Tim Milk Top: The Merchant’s House Museum, considered one of the most “haunted” locations in New York, was once inhabited by Seabury Tredwell, whose ghost is said to make appearances at the museum.

There it is again, the creeping feeling that you are being watched. You check to make sure the curtains are closed, and they are, so you wonder why you should feel so jumpy. You chalk it up to lack of sleep, or too much coffee, or maybe you should stop eating gluten.

There it is again, you feel it, even stronger now. You cannot help but think, “Maybe I really am being watched.”

The marvel of living in an older city, and New York would qualify, is that the ghosts of those who have gone before are standing all around. Life in the East Village often means inhabiting a place through which has marched a parade of people who cannot be remembered by any living soul.

But that doesn’t mean they ever left your apartment. The place is haunted. And these ghosts don’t bear tidings of the Past, Present or Future, but mostly just wish you would get the hell out.

And the more they make themselves known, and you talk it up amongst your friends, the more you realize that you are out-numbered. They stand in witness to all that you do. They laugh at your lunch. They crowd your elbow when you unpack your groceries. And although you may consider their haunting a nuisance, just imagine what they must think: “Who is this stranger in my home? Why did she paint the walls this color! And what has become of all my things?”

A chat with Anthony Bellov, Board Member of the Merchant’s House Museum, dispelled any doubt that was left in my mind. He has documented the many dozens of paranormal manifestations in Merchant’s House, considered to be New York’s most haunted place. I mentioned that I believed there was a ghost in my own apartment, and that this had become a real problem. “Have you tried communicating with him?” he asked. “It really helps.” He should know, because Merchant’s House is replete with oppressive miasmas, especially if anything inside is disturbed. Then the spirits freely throw things, poke visitors in the ribs and sometimes even appear at the door.

“It matters to them what will happen to this house,” he noted. Its inhabitants, the Tredwells, clung to it as a life-long refuge. And, it would seem, they never left it. Seabury Tredwell, the patriarch, stares out verbosely from his portrait in the parlor. And when he turned that piercing stare on a visiting fourth grader who strayed and stepped into his bedroom, the boy ran out with a frightful tale of a man in there.

“What man?” the tour guide asked him.

“The man in the picture downstairs!”

“Time is not there for them,” Mr. Bellov told me, and we speculated on concepts of parallel existence. Life goes on, it would seem, for us all. Seabury’s daughter Gertrude is also said to haunt her former home.

Back home in my apartment, I pulled up a chair and called out to my ghost.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

John Vaccaro, a theater director active in the downtown arts scene of the 1960’s and 1970’s, has lived in his sprawling, bespoke loft on Second Avenue for several decades. The vast space is filled with artwork from local friends – including various portraits of himself that Mr. Vaccaro has received as gifts – furniture and other odd items found around the East Village over the years.

If the project, which was endorsed by Community Board 3 last week, moves forward, Mr. Vaccaro’s building, 11-17 Second Avenue, will be one of two torn down to create a single 12-story building. The project will also force the temporary closure of the landmark Mars Bar, which is also on the site. Current residents will be offered units in the new development with an option to buy for just $1. But those living in 2,000 sq. ft. lofts like Mr. Vaccaro will have to adjust to downsized apartments closer to 1,200 sq. ft.

Even as many in the neighborhood have lamented the loss of Mars Bar, Mr. Vaccaro, who is 81, stands to lose far more: his home.

NYU Journalism’s Tania Barnes and Stephanie Butnick report.

Emily Lawrence

Good morning, East Village.

As the Great Dig Out continues, The Times considers a question on the minds of many New Yorkers: how did the city do with the snow-clearing effort? The answer, the article notes, depends on how one interprets the Sanitation Department’s arcane system for classifying snow removal.

EV Grieve landed an exclusive interview with the bicycle at Avenue C and Eighth Street that is the subject of one of the iconic images of the blizzard.

And Bowery Boogie takes a look at some of the more notable snowmen that have been built in the neighborhood.

The members of The Local East Village Flickr Group share their images of a neighborhood suddenly snowbound.

Dan Nguyen

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Roey Ahram

Good morning, East Village.

There are mornings when New York is not a collection of neighborhoods, but one big city sharing the same experience. This is one of those mornings.

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Vivienne Gucwa on photographing the East Village at night.

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Laura Kuhn Looking for some last-minute gifts that are environmentally friendly? An option might be Sunbeam Candles, which are made from vegetables and beeswax in solar-powered factories.

The holidays mean presents but if the lack of green gift options has you seeing red, here are some last-minute sustainable solutions from East Village stores.

Sustainable NYC (139 Avenue A at Ninth Street), opened three years ago when owner Dominique Camacho, was renovating her apartment. “I’d been in retail almost 17 years,” she said, “and I got bored. I got really into re-using things in my apartment.” She took an energy and environmental design course and opened her store. Sunbeam Candles ($7.50-$17.50) are all made from vegetables and beeswax in solar-powered factories. “They’re also really good about packaging,” said Ms. Camacho of the company’s box-return program.

For a party gift, bring a bottle of wine and a Bitters and Co. Reclaimed Cork Stopper ($6.25). The company also makes sustainably-harvested Cork Coasters ($12.50). The store is also filled with decorations from compostable Oots Seed Ornaments ($3.50 each) that can be planted after the holidays to Laser-cut Ceramic Butterflies ($44.95) made from vintage china.
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Last month, The Local published excerpts from a photo essay by Steven Hirsch on the community of “Crusty Punks” who live in Tompkins Square Park. Earlier this week, a commenter noted that one of the men featured in the post, Robert Edward Dyck, who was known as Yardsale, had recently been killed. The Local has confirmed that two men face voluntary manslaughter charges in the death of Mr. Dyck, who was found dead in Virginia last month of blunt force injuries.—The Local

Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Good morning, East Village.

A fire in a five-story building on First Avenue near East Third Street briefly disturbed the pre-holiday peace Wednesday night, but was quickly extinguished. EV Grieve has photos. Battalion Chief Patrick Sheridan told The Local that the fire started inside a duplex apartment on the top floor of the building and that the cause was under investigation. There were no injuries to firefighters or civilians, Chief Sheridan said, adding that all residents of the building except those living in the apartment where the fire began were permitted to return to their homes Wednesday night.

In other neighborhood news, The Times reports on a judge’s ruling against the use of “stop-and-frisk” police tactics in public housing developments; the case at issue originated a bit south of the East Village in the Baruch Houses.

And New York magazine offers a look inside the East Village apartment of the singer John Legend.

Dr. David Ores, or “Doctor Dave” as he’s more commonly known, relies on only himself to run his medical practice: He is the physician, the nurse and the receptionist. He answers all his own phone calls and e-mail messages — which are seemingly never-ending.

Dr. Ores also runs what he calls the Fresh Start program, in which he removes gang- or prison-related tattoos from the face, neck or hands of his patients free of charge. Dr. Ores — who often serves uninsured and low-income patients through a pay-what-you-can philosophy — cites the stigma attached to prison tattoos and notes that those who wear them are often unable to afford removal procedures.

“There are people out there who are willing to help them if they’re willing to help themselves,” he says.

NYU Journalism’s Rachel Wise reports.

Carol Vinzant Drayton Michael, a dog trainer, discourages pet owners from carrying weapons to fend off dog attacks. He spoke to pet owners Sunday at the Tompkins Square Dog Run.

Leave the knife, take a bottle of water.

That’s the advice Drayton Michael, a dog trainer known as the “pit bull guru,” is offering to the citizens of the East Village who are concerned about a series of attacks at the Tompkins Square Dog Run.

After a series of serious dog fights, to which some dog owners reportedly responded by carrying knives to the park to protect their dogs, the community was worried — though not all were sure these fights were anything new in a neighborhood that only a decade or so ago had more pit bulls than the toy breeds that now frolic in the specially segregated small dog run.

“Don’t worry,” said the dog run manager and dog trainer, Garrett Rosso, introducing Mr. Michael to the crowd of about 80 who gathered at an information session at the park on Sunday. “He knows that we’re not the type of dog run where people sit around on the edges and are afraid of certain breeds.”
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Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

Even with the start of winter today, one of the summer’s most significant stories – the debate over the safety of bike lanes in the neighborhood – remains very much in the news.

The Post reports this morning on a 16 percent increase in collisions between bicycles and other vehicles during the past year, which notes that our neighborhood and downtown Brooklyn have the most perilous intersections. The piece attributes the spike to “rogue cyclists who have turned city streets into demolition derbies.”

“This was a catastrophe in the making as soon as they put those bike lanes up around the city,” The Post quotes a police officer in the neighborhood as saying. “They are arrogant. They think they now own the road and think they can do no wrong. Some even yell at police cars saying they have the right of way.”

In other neighborhood news, DNAinfo has a post about a Christmas tree vendor outside St. Marks Church in the Bowery who has been hit with a $1,500 fine for building a makeshift shack where his employees can stay warm.

Emily Armstrong Some of the tapes from the archive of around 200 punk and new wave performances that will soon be preserved by The Fales Collection at New York University. The collection’s director calls it “the very best.”

The Fales Collection at New York University will shortly begin the process of preserving and cataloging an extraordinary video archive of punk and new wave performances known as “Gonightclubbing, Ltd.,” mainly recorded in the nineteen seventies at East Village clubs like CBGB using reel-to-reel video.

The archive is the work of video artists Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers, and until collected by a team from Fales last week it occupied significant cupboard space in Ms. Armstrong’s apartment. Although the material has been presented at museum and theater shows, it has never been commercially available. Almost 200 live shows by acts like the Dead Boys, the Heartbreakers, Iggy Pop and Suicide have remained largely unseen since the two young cable TV employees hauled their gear around downtown clubs more than 30 years ago.

Fales has been collecting documentation of the downtown art scene since 1994. Marvin Taylor, director of the archive, told The Local, “You can’t talk about the art scene without talking about the birth of punk rock.” He described the Armstrong-Ivers material as the “premiere collection” of live recordings from the period, with great sound quality because the makers were able to record directly from the soundboards at clubs. “It’s the very best. I have never seen anything like it,” he said.
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Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

We return today after a weekend build-up to holiday cheer. EV Grieve has a report on the tree-lighting in Tompkins Square Park and the “Unsilent Night” celebration. Like many of our readers, some of us will be making a list, checking it twice, then schlepping around the stores this week, so brace yourselves for a slightly less busy The Local than usual.

Nostalgia still abounds, though, as Bowery Boogie offers a look at some footage from a 1928 silent film shot in Washington Square Park and other parts of the neighborhood that shows how driving in New York was a perilous activity even back in the day.

And Ephemeral New York takes in some of the architectural details at 704 Broadway.

Allison Hertzberg Geová Rodrigues.

Geová Rodrigues is a Brazilian fashion designer who opened his East Village shop, Geová Atelier, in 2001. After working as a painter in San Paolo, Geová came to New York City in 1992 and launched his first collection in 1998. Trading in his paint brush for fabric, needles, thread and tons of sequins, Geová’s designs have been featured in New York’s Fashion Week and in editorials worldwide.

Vivacious is the first word that comes to mind when trying to describe the designer. He’s effusive and talks to you like you’ve been friends for years. The same energy runs through his bright little shop located at 208 Avenue B. I recently sat down with Geová to better understand who he designs for, why he chose the East Village and how come grown men still play
with dolls.

Why did you choose the East Village as the place to open your shop?

I love the East Village. I can get very inspired here. It’s a neighborhood with a great attitude. I love how the East Village embodies the same aesthetic as my clothing – a mixture of fabrics, textures and designs that come together to create something beautiful – just like the mix of languages, cultures and creative people that live in the East Village and make it the unique and interesting neighborhood that it is. Also, my first fashion show was in the East Village.
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Theresa Byrnes has been living in New York City since 2000, showing her art since age 16, and a rebel for as long as she can remember. “I have always valued being challenged more than being happy. Approval seems so stagnant and unexamined,” she wrote in her most recent blog post. And “I am not nice,” she said on her Twitter page, where she goes by the handle feistysparrow.

Ms. Byrnes is a portrait, abstract and performance artist in the East Village. Together, her three forms of expression make up what she calls her “holy trinity,” encompassing the body, mind and soul. The Australian-born Ms. Byrnes uses a wheelchair because of a degenerative nerve disease called Friedrich’s Ataxia. And yet Ms. Byrnes lives and creates with a distinct grace, fearless in her life as well as in her art.

“There is no forever,” she said recently in her East Ninth Street studio, wearing a paint-splattered smock and surrounded by works-in-progress. “It’s a bit boring to me, talking about identity and disability because my life is so beyond that. I’ve left all that way in the past.”

As for the way she sees life, Ms. Byrnes is firm. “There is nothing to fear, except your own illusion of identity,” she said. “Don’t protect yourself – reinvent. Break down the wall.”

NYU Journalism’s Robyn Baitcher reports.

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

Always in the mood for radical political debate, East Village anarchists are divided on the Wikileaks affair, according to The Villager, some supporting Julian Assange’s exposure of government secrets while others wonder if Wikileaks isn’t a phony cover for a government assault on Internet freedom.

If the paranoia is too much, let I Love Charts take you back to a simpler time, when all you had to worry about it in the neighborhood were the Bowery Boys, with their contract killing, gambling and “stockpiling of weapons.” Famous for their dandy dress sense, we’re guessing the Bowery Boys would be shopping at EV Grieve if they were around today.