Robyn Baitcher A passerby gazes into a diorama on the gate of the Ninth Street Community Garden (top) and is treated to one of J. Kathleen White’s boxed drawings inside.

Since 2005, a set of dioramas has appeared each fall on the gate of the Ninth Street Community Garden. Residents and visitors peer inside for a glimpse of another world – a praying couple kneels before a tree inside this year’s green “Tree” diorama; in the blue “Knots,” skeletons hold knotted rope underwater as a sunken ship looms in the background. A Wells Fargo truck makes an appearance in a red diorama called “Treasure,” and a pink forest blooms behind a pudgy child in one called “Rocket SuperBaby.”

“I don’t know what they’re going to be like until I start making them,” J. Kathleen White said of the whimsical boxed scenes she creates. “Sometimes I think up a theme afterward. It’s a neighborhood thing. There’s no publicity.”

Ms. White said the dioramas are a way to show her drawings fitted against a background of lush greenery, a rare experience for a Manhattan resident looking at art.

“It’s these little scenes in completely obscure places,” she said. “It makes a miniature world within that world of the garden.”

Each year, Ms. White installs about a half dozen boxes on the garden fence along Avenue C. She has worked as a teacher and writer, in addition to drawing and creating art pieces all over New York City and nationally. This month, Ms. White is painting a mural in the basement of the East Village Theater for the New City.

Ms. White said she enjoys watching residents’ surprise each year that the Ninth Street boxes have returned. Though a sign by the installation bears her name, Ms. White gives only small clues as to the meaning behind the funky, vibrantly lit images.

“The continuum in these boxes is that in general, there’s a sense of narrative to the boxes,” she said. “There’s a story here – but what is it? It’s up to people to decide what that is.”

“Findings,” Ms. White’s current set of dioramas on the Ninth Street Community Garden fence, will run until Oct. 25.

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

On Monday, The Local’s Kim Davis wrote about NYU’s expansion plan. This morning, the Washington Square News describes the debate a bit west of our neighborhood where many residents questioned the plan at a Community Board 2 meeting Monday night.

Another one of our Monday posts offered a patron’s perspective on the closing of the Sin Sin lounge. EV Grieve reports on another sign that the end is near for Sin Sin: the club’s website is down. (Grieve also has a humorous item demonstrating that concerns about noisy students are hardly a new development.) And Bowery Boogie has a post about the neighborhood’s star turn in a new Samsung commercial.

Today, The Local East Village inaugurates a recurring feature of photo essays on neighborhood pets called “Beyond the Dog Run.”

One day, Michael Sean Edwards, an East Village photographer, decided to pay close attention to the dogs that were waiting for their owners outside a neighborhood coffee house. This is what he saw.
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Chaz Kangas.

Last week, The Local confirmed reports that the Sin Sin lounge would be closing at the end of the month and revising its format. Sin Sin, the scene of a fatal shooting in August, has been a source of complaints about noise and violence in the neighborhood. Chaz Kangas, a frequent patron of Sin Sin, offers his perspective on the club and its closing.

The absolute safest, most welcome and happiest I’ve ever felt in my adult life was at a bar in the East Village called Sin Sin. It’s a spot I’ve been loyally attending for almost five years. It’s where I’ve brought close friends, classmates, dates, co-workers and visitors, and they’ve all been given a lasting memory that will stay with them the rest of their lives. The end of October will see its doors close permanently, and in a climate where New York’s landscape is changing more than ever, I feel like I’m losing another connection to what first made me fall in love with the city. This is what Sin Sin means to me.

I began attending the club during my sophomore year of college in November 2005. I had always heard about their “Freestyle Mondays” Hip-Hop open mic since even before I had moved to the city a year prior. Word-of-mouth around the NYU campus was that it was next-to-impossible to get into. It wasn’t until the evening’s host iLLspokinN extended an invitation to me after he heard me rap at an NYU event that – after promising not order from the bar until I turned 21 – I made my Sin Sin debut. Stepping into that dim red room with a live band reinterpreting classic rap instrumentals next to a lineup of MCs eager to perform awakened a feeling inside me that was as exciting as it was validating. Here was a room full of people, whether performers or listeners, who felt the exact same passion that I did, and they’d been meeting there for the past four years for the same reason – the love of rap music.

The vibe of Freestyle Mondays at Sin Sin would remain the same from its 11:30 start-time until the lights came on at 3:30. I began attending every Monday and, after I moved to the East Village, would often stop by there to cap off other nights for its pleasant feeling of familiarity. Over the years, its accessibility and safe, comfortable atmosphere has allowed me to take countless friends, acquaintances and associates to Sin Sin for their first rap show. As a child I was always taught the importance of including others in things I loved and my time at Sin Sin was the adult realization of that virtue. More importantly, my experiences under those red lights really shaped me as a person. Most of the close friends I’ve ever had in the city, some who’ve moved away and even some no longer with us, have stepped through those doors. While Freestyle Mondays will continue and thrive at another location, the East Village will have lost a historic and important venue for young artists.

Chaz Kangas is a resident of East Harlem. He blogs at popularopinions.wordpress.com.

A Memorial for Michael Shenker from The Local East Village on Vimeo.

With chants, signs and a New Orleans-style brass band, about 100 friends of community activist Michael Shenker honored his life with a parade-like procession Saturday through the streets of the East Village.

The procession, which began near Mr. Shenker’s home on the southeast side of Tompkins Square Park, wound its way past some of Mr. Shenker’s favorite places in the neighborhood and ended several hours later with a memorial service at The Catholic Worker on Second Avenue and First Street.

Mr. Shenker, who died earlier this month of liver failure at the age of 54, was a squatter and activist known for his advocacy on housing issues and the preservation of community gardens.

With chants of “Long live Michael,” members of Saturday’s procession – led by Aresh Javadi, a puppeteer who knew Mr. Shenker for a dozen years – spontaneously pulled weeds at a garden on Avenue C (before the space’s perplexed owner asked them to leave) and stopped at such locations as 319 East Eighth Street.

It was there that Fran Luck first met Mr. Shenker 25 years ago, when Mr. Shenker was working to turn what was then an unoccupied and neglected building into a popular squat. Today, the building is fully renovated with modern amenities.

“The gathering today shows the power, not only of Michael, but of an era we went in together for our neighborhood against gentrification,” said Ms. Luck.

This image from NYU’s 2031 expansion plan depicts a proposed tower near Houston and Mercer Streets. It is still unclear how the plan will affect the East Village.

New York University’s so-called “2031 plan” for expansion contains detailed proposals for what it calls its “Core” around Washington Square. What concerns many East Village residents is a larger boundary that the university has drawn around the Core.

University officials call it “the Neighborhood,” and on maps published about the expansion plan it clearly contains the East Village. The Neighborhood figures in the university’s long-term plans, but the specifics remain unknown.

“We can’t live in a world where everything is no, no, no.” That’s New York University spokeswoman Alicia Hurley’s reaction to the welcome she received from the East Village’s Community Board 3.

“We have heard you, and we’re very conscious of your concerns. Our most recent dorm purchase was at 23rd and Third, well outside the Neighborhood.” But in response to discussions with East Village residents she says, “Help us to understand which areas are most sensitive. Are there sites which are under-performing. Are certain types of use acceptable?”

She wonders whether an extension of the Tisch School of the Arts would be welcome in the area. “If you want to just say no, and be afraid, there’s not much I can do. We’re happy for you to coach us.”

Read more…

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

During the weekend, a reader, Micki Goldberg, commented about our story on the death of the neighborhood icon known as Annie, who for years worked as a vendor at the Fulton Fish Market. Although Annie was a friend to many, few knew her real name – Gloria Wasserman – or the details of her life before she came to the market.

“The story of South St. Annie is so fasinating it wants to make you know more about her,not the life in the East Village only but her life as Gloria Wasserman,” Ms. Goldberg wrote.” She chose to become another personality in life, what drove her to this ?”

On Sunday, The Times offered a rich appraisal of Annie’s life that is well worth reading. Be sure to check it out.

In other neighborhood news, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York captures an unusual newspaper box at First and First and EV Grieve has more on Friday’s bike lane demonstration (in case you missed it, here’s our video report on the protest).

The debate over bike lanes in the East Village continued in the form of a demonstration tonight as roughly two dozen people on both sides of the issue took to the streets to weigh in.

Organizers had planned the gathering on First Avenue and 14th Street as a protest against what they said were unsafe conditions in bike lanes. But a large contingent of bike lane supporters turned out for the event, too. Ultimately, supporters of the lanes ended up outnumbering detractors.

The two sides held up signs and loudly exchanged opinions. Those in favor of the lanes argued that bikes were environmentally friendly, and that roads should be shared among motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Those against the lanes, led by Leslie Sicklick, who organized the protest, said that redesigned roadways were hazardous for pedestrians, disrupted traffic, and were an impediment to businesses.

NYU Journalism’s Helen Zhang and Spencer Magloff spoke with some of the demonstrators about the benefits and drawbacks of bike lanes.

C.C. Glenn A typical sign outside East Village bars and restaurants on fall weekends.

Football season is upon pigskin fans, and you don’t have to wander far to seek out lively crowds, bargain beers, jumbo screens and crazy specials on caloric-heavy favorites like hot wings, burgers and mile-high nachos. The East Village, and its 10003 zip code, was recently ranked the nation’s second-most dense nabe for bars, with 73 in the area. (Wait – 73, is that all?)

On any given Saturday, Sunday and definitely Monday night, rowdy — and some not so boisterous — bars burst with sticky-fingered fans. Decked in jerseys and bright team colors, patrons take advantage, maybe too much, of cheap drink specials and let loose with indefatigable chants.

The East Village is a goldmine for football fans of all kind, bar none. But let’s face it, some are better than others, especially when seeking the winning combination of libations, vittles and good company. Jets and Giants games are ubiquitous, but where can you watch teams that are not housed in New Jersey? Urban Tailgate links like-minded fans with game-ready bars. Whether it’s the Bears or the Bulldogs, there’s a place where fellow football fanatics will, depending on the score, share your joy or pain.
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Helen Zhang Amanda Cohen at work in the kitchen of Dirt Candy.

In October 2008, Amanda Cohen, fresh out of culinary school, ventured into the high-risk restaurant business with a novel but untested concept: all vegetables, all the time. Not vegan, not vegetarian. Simply vegetables. This month, she will celebrate the second birthday of Dirt Candy, her restaurant on East Ninth Street that revolves around what she calls, “candy from the earth.”

Ms. Cohen ascended to food blog notoriety over the past year, thanks to her recent appearance on the Food Network’s “Iron Chef America,” dueling Masaharu Morimoto in a battle of broccoli. Since then she’s claimed her own hash tag on Eater.com, turned down the chance to be on The Next Iron Chef and gained a few admirers expressing their affection via Craigslist. She draws 7,000 visitors on the restaurant’s blog each month.

We caught up with Ms. Cohen earlier this month as she briskly chopped dozens of stalks of celery in preparation New York City Wine and Food Festival.

There are dozens of dining options for vegetarians in the East Village. How is Dirt Candy different from a typical vegetarian restaurant?

There are fish restaurants in the city, and steak restaurants, and you know, fried chicken restaurants, and we revolve around vegetables and there is nothing like us in the city. So we happen to be vegetarian, but that’s not our focus. Our focus is vegetables.
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Timothy J. Stenovec Officers Edward Thompson (left) and John Sivori were honored at a ceremony Thursday night saluting officers of the Ninth Precinct.

A loaded .22 caliber semi-automatic weapon, eight daggers and a silencer.

Those are the items that Officer Edward Thompson and Officer John Sivori, both of the Ninth Precinct, discovered on a burglary suspect in the East Village early one morning in March.

The officers, who are also Marine veterans and have served in Iraq, were two of the 34 police officers who were recognized last night for their “outstanding service to the safety and well being of our community” at the annual Ninth Precinct Recognition Ceremony.   The Ninth Precinct Community Council, a volunteer organization focused on strengthening the relationship between the community and the police, put on the event, which highlighted specific instances in which officers had acted with exceptional bravery.

“Not a lot of people know what we do on a daily basis, and it’s nice for my guys to get the recognition,” said Sergeant Elias Miranda, who supervises the unit that includes Officers Sivori and Thompson.
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Tania Barnes Supporters of the anti-smoking measure address Community Board 3 Thursday night. One board member called the plan “over-legislation.”

Smoking is allowed here – that was the message Community Board 3 sent to anti-smoking groups Thursday night by refusing to endorse legislation that would broaden the city’s ban on smoking in public.

Staff from the American Lung Association in New York and Asian Americans for Equality asked the board for a resolution supporting City Councilwoman Gale Brewer’s proposed expansion of the smoking ban. In their request, the anti-smoking groups cited the high rates of smoking in the district: 18.3 percent vs. 15.6 percent citywide.

Councilwoman Brewer’s proposal would extend the existing ban at restaurants and bars to such outdoor locations as parks and beaches.

The resolution from the board would have largely been a symbolic gesture: it would indicate to City Council that the district’s leadership supported the legislation.

But when asked if they wanted to make a motion, board members were conspicuously silent. A motion must be made before a vote on a resolution can take place: no motion, no resolution.

“The government is crossing the line – it’s over-legislation,” Community Board member Tom Parker said in an interview after the meeting, explaining his refusal to support the resolution. “Look, both my parents died of smoking. But it’s an outdoor activity. Where are people supposed to go?”

Still, Lisa Spitzner, of the American Lung Association in New York, remained optimistic, saying that one of the group’s main goals Thursday night was to get the word out to the community about smoking cessation programs. “This is the best way to do it,” she said.

What do you think about the plan to extend the smoking ban?

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

Here’s a brief roundup of reads in the local blogosphere: Bowery Boogie has a post about a spontaneous shrine that has emerged near a mural on East Houston Street. EV Grieve has a quick riff about a feature on The Mars Bar in The Wall Street Journal. Over at City Room there’s a nice piece on the Central Art Supply. And The Local Fort Greene-Clinton Hill has a post about the death of a Brooklyn woman who worked at an Orchard Street jewelry shop. Sara Campbell, who was 34, collapsed while she was jogging in July and officials were puzzled about what caused her death until earlier this week.

Elisa LagosState Senator Daniel L. Squadron discusses Hayley and Diego’s Law, a measure that makes it easier for prosecutors to seek penalties against careless drivers. The law goes into effect today.

Traffic accidents are nothing new in a neighborhood like the East Village where pedestrians, drivers, and bicyclists rush along the road. But a new state law that goes into effect today aims to prevent and punish careless driving.

The law, called “Hayley and Diego’s Law,” will impose a $750 fine, a 15-day jail term, and suspension or revocation of a driver’s license for reckless driving that injures pedestrians and bicyclists for a first offense. A second offense could have the same consequences and land a driver in jail for a year.

“Every driver in New York State should know driving carelessly is not just something to fix next time,” said State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, who represents the East Village, the Lower East Side and parts of Brooklyn. “Driving carelessly is not a minor problem that you should laugh about. Driving carelessly puts people at risk. Driving carelessly can have devastating consequences.”

Senator Squadron sponsored the legislation in the State Senate following the deaths of Hayley Ng, 4, and Diego Martinez, 3, in Chinatown last year. The two children were struck and killed by a delivery van that had been left in reverse as the driver stepped out.

“To all the careless drivers out there across New York, I know you’re busy, I know the phone is ringing, the Blackberry is buzzing, the coffee is spilling but focus on the road – do it for the safety of all the other users of the road,” the senator said at a news conference on the corner of Essex and Delancey Streets. That intersection is one of the 10 most dangerous for pedestrians in the city, according to an analysis of crash data by Transportation Alternatives.

Prior to “Hayley and Diego’s Law,” prosecutors could only charge careless drivers with minor traffic violations or a more serious charge of criminal negligence. There was no middle ground. In the crash that killed Hayley and Diego, that meant the driver of the delivery van was not charged after the children’s deaths. The new law will make it possible for prosecutors to charge drivers in similar circumstances.

“Careless driving already exists in the law,” Senator Squadron said. “The problem is we don’t have any penalty structure to distinguish it from non-careless driving and this law will fix that as well. There is standard due care that must be exercised.”

Samantha Ku Dario D’Ambrosi supervises preparations for his new show at La MaMa Experimental Theater. His work explores the experience of the mentally ill.

Life-size puppets were perched on stacked chairs at the La MaMa Experimental Theater as Dario D’Ambrosi, the Italian avant-garde actor and director, attended to last-minute details for the opening of his new play tonight.

“Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads” opens the fourth annual La MaMa Puppet Series. Mr. D’Ambrosi first worked with mentally ill patients more than 30 years ago, doing research in a mental institution in Milan. Since then, his main avenue of creative exploration has been portraying the experience of mentally ill people through acting and playwriting.

This passion led him to create the Pathological Theater drama school in Rome, which teaches stagecraft to students with a range of conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism and Down syndrome.

We caught up with Mr. D’Ambrosi earlier this week as he supervised the hectic construction of the set at the theater.

What was the inspiration for this piece?

This piece came from my work with the mentally ill. You see the set and the puppets, they designed it. We developed the play together. Yes, it’s my play, but it’s also from Teatro Patologico [Pathological Theater].
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It’s hard enough to make it in New York, much less as a coffee house or cafe in a neighborhood where a basic search for “East Village, coffee” brings up 2,130,000 hits in .28 seconds.

So many East Village cafes are trying to get a cup up on the competition by adding alcohol service to their menus.

One could debate the merits of serving alcohol in a neighborhood already overrun by bars. But the recession prompted a spate of cafes to apply for a license to serve beer and wine in an attempt to separate themselves from the competition. (Hair salons and barber shops have also gone that route.) And longtime residents know that the cafe-plus-soft-alcohol model has worked in the East Village for years.

“There is certainly economic motivation to serve alcohol,” said Alex Clark, one of the owners of Ost Cafe. “If you’re running any service you look for the highest kind of profit and the least amount of time that you spend doing it. In the morning you’d go get coffee, in the evening you’d go and have a drink, it serves that function.”
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Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

A quick look at what we’re reading today: EV Grieve has a nice post about a report on NY1 about a landmark dispute on East Fourth Street. Bowery Boogie has a piece about how the producers of a new HBO series are scouting the Bowery for shooting locations. And be sure to check out this time-lapse sunset from East Village Feed.

Suzanne Rozdeba Amy Sidney, inside her St. Marks Place store earlier this month, said that she was threatened Saturday by someone who was apparently upset at the space’s previous tenant, the artist James De La Vega.

Street artist James De La Vega was used to getting threatened in his St. Marks Place museum store. He chalked it up to people not liking his quirky art or his bold messages. But now the new tenants of his former storefront say that they, too, have gotten a taste of those old threats.

Amy Sidney, the co-owner of Junk on St. Marks Place, said a man recently walked into her shop on Saturday and threatened her because he was apparently upset at Mr. De La Vega.

Mrs. Sidney said that a clean-cut looking man, in his late 20s or early 30s, came into the thrift shop at about 8 p.m. and asked if this was “De La Vega’s new place.” Mrs. Sidney said that after she replied no, the man threatened her.

”The guy said, ‘If we find out you have anything to do with him, we’re going to break your windows,’” she recalled. “I was startled, but I tried to play it cool, and said, ‘Go ahead, I have insurance.’ The guy said, ‘Then we’ll keep breaking your windows,’ and walked out.”
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Meredith Hoffman A line form at Tompkins Square Park to await food distribution by the volunteers of Bowery Mission.

Beyond serving as a green refuge, Tompkins Square Park offers a wide range of eating experiences. A recent food tasting in the park allowed area restaurants to serve up their creations. Locals frequent the Sunday morning farmers’ market where artisanal cheese from Hudson Valley farms and apples from nearby orchards are among a host of organic produce.

Saturday mornings, around 8 o’clock, a lengthy line reminiscent of Coxey’s Army begins to form along Avenue A. A broad ethnic mix of people, many aged or infirm wait patiently alongside mothers with their children in strollers. Most are wheeling shopping carts. Some on crutches, in wheel chairs form a separate line.
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