Daniel Maurer

The bacon will keep sizzling, but the smell won’t linger.

At least that’s what Ed Scannapieco, the owner of the IHOP on 14th Street, expects when he installs a new ventilation unit that costs $40,000.

“It knocks down virtually all of the odor and almost all the noise,” said Mr. Sannepieco, who was taking a break from an IHOP conference in Washington, D.C. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Firefighters at the Schwimmer house.

A small crane lifting construction material at the Schwimmer house knocked over a piece of scaffolding this afternoon, injuring a pedestrian below.

Frank McCarton, the deputy commissioner of operations with the Office of Emergency Management, said that the scaffolding struck the passerby at around 2:30 p.m. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital with a minor injury to his shoulder. Read more…

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Gizmo.

Shira Levine Hossein Amid

The notion of describing sewing accessories as “notions” is a rather antiquated one. But notions, like buttons, snaps, trimmings, seam rippers and collar-stays, are exactly what Hossein Amid has been selling to the East Village’s artists, D.I.Y. designers, and drag queens for 22 years. The trimmings and fabrics at his First Avenue shop, Gizmo, are particularly popular among casual costume designers. “Every year, Halloween is a big, busy time for me,” Mr. Amid told The Local. But how does Gizmo manage to make it the rest of the year?

You must really love to sew.

Repairing this stuff is what I like doing. I have a mechanical background from when I lived in Iran. When we first opened in 1990, my wife did all the sewing, now she doesn’t. My work is helping people find what they need and repairing sewing machines. Read more…

Better get Michael Moore on the phone. City Room reports that a fight is on the horizon between the owners of the Strand Bookstore and its unionized workers, who are likely to reject a new contract that cuts back on benefits. The store’s general manager says that the offer reflects the realities of the ailing book industry, which affects independent stores in particular. The staff counters that a strike might be necessary down the road. “If that’s what we need to do to defend our rights in the long term, well, we’ll see when we cross that bridge,” an employee says.

Lauren Carol Smith The restaurant at 7 St. Marks Place will expand next door.

A worker renovating the below-ground space at 5 St. Marks Place, near Third Avenue, just told The Local that the Thai restaurant next door, Klong, will be moving in. An employee at JKNY Realty, which is listed as the owner in Department of Buildings records, confirmed the expansion. The space was previously occupied by Hottie, which closed in November.

Around 250 parents and friends of the Children’s Workshop School gathered on Friday evening for a benefit that featured a silent auction of art by local artists, as well as a performance by the pop singer Lisa Lisa (of Cult Jam fame). As turned out, the organizers of the “SchoolAPalooza” didn’t have to pull too many strings to get the woman behind the 1987 hit “Lost in Emotion” to make an appearance: the principal of the school, Maria Velez-Clarke, is her older sister. The Local was there with camera in hand to document the festivities — as well as footwear signed by none other than the Material Girl.
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Here’s the latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” The Local’s regular roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from March 12 to 18, sorted by the type of incident. Plus: Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15.

Trouble on the Trains

Vivienne Gucwa The Astor Place station.

• A thief chucked two sneakers at a man and robbed him on March 12. The 44-year-old victim told the police he was sitting on a bench on the northbound platform in the Astor Place station at around 6 a.m. when a man sat beside him and said, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t give me your money.” After getting what he asked for, the suspect reached into his jacket, pulled out the shoe and threw it at the victim, hitting him in the back. The victim alerted a booth clerk, and re-approached the suspect, who had moved up the platform, only to get a shoe hurled at him again.
• A guy asked a woman for directions in the Second Avenue subway station and then snatched her cellphone on March 17. The 23-year-old victim said that after she gave the suspect directions at around 9:50 p.m., he grabbed her iPhone 4S from her hand. She gave chase but lost the thief on the street.
• After drinking till closing time at Double Down Saloon on March 18, a 27-year-old from Wisconsin passed out on a subway platform. He woke up four hours later and was missing his cellphone as well as the iPhone that he used for browsing the internet. To add insult to injury, when he awoke and tried to report the crime to a booth clerk at the station she wouldn’t help him out. Read more…

Union Square has a knack for drawing the talented, the bored, and the show-offs to its broad open spaces. For that reason I gravitate to this part of the city on a daily basis in order to capture some of its magic and to add some of my own. Now Occupy Wall Street protesters have bitten off quite a chunk of the south side of Union Square, and in response, police officers hover around the perimeter of the park, poised to stop anything unruly or obstructive. Despite surveillance, artists, street performers and park-goers don’t seem to shy away from self expression. Rush hour is a great time to take photos not only because the park is flooded with characters, but also because it’s then that the sun is likely to create interesting highlights and shadows on faces.
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A new site dedicated to the Occupy Wall Street movement aims to be a sounding board for protests around the world, and its launch party is next week at Arrow Bar on Avenue A. According to a write-up on Facebook, Occupy.com will “use media as a call for social, economic, environmental and political justice. We seek to inspire resistance, engagement and the creation of the new world we imagine.” The architects of the site add that they are “morally accountable to the movement as a whole.”

Daniel Maurer

A Japanese restaurant with three locations in Long Island will open in the space that was home to Lan, a neighborhood favorite for a little over a decade. When The Local stopped into Kotobuki at 56 Third Avenue earlier today, the owner politely declined to speak about the restaurant or let us take photos, since he is still staffing up, but said he hoped to quietly open next Thursday.

According to a Website advertising outposts in Babylon, Roslyn, and the original location in Hauppauge, the mini-chain was established in 1987, with an aim to “relentlessly revolutionize the facets of Japanese fare to craft extraordinary delights to satisfy even the most discerning of palates.” Read more…

Maya Millett The 5C Cultural Center, 68 Avenue C.

Update | 10:57 a.m. This article was revised to include comments from Bruce Morris, the co-owner of 5C Cultural Center, who responded to several phone calls from The Local shortly after the story was posted.

After 17 years of bad blood, injunction orders, and noise complaints, the co-op board of 702 East Fifth Street dropped its eviction of 5C Cultural Center and Cafe yesterday.

The decision draws the lengthy court battle to a close, though it’s far from certain that the conflict between the art and performance space and its upstairs neighbors has been resolved. In fact, the outcome may not be as favorable for the owners of 5C as it appears.

According to David Studer, the maintenance coordinator for the building, the board had been trying to drop the eviction for the past year, but the owners of 5C resisted, opting to keep an injunction in place that discouraged their landlords from seeking the monthly rent. Yesterday a judge sided with the board and lifted that injunction on the grounds that it was moot because the board no longer wished to evict 5C. Now the board is free to pursue around $16,000 in back rent. Read more…

Finally, the perfect t-shirt to go along with your mosaic belt buckle. The Mosaic Man Jim Power just alerted The Local on Twitter to his new shirts, which feature a portrait of the local legend gazing into the distance. The collection on Cafe Press also includes Mosaic Man-endorsed iPhone covers, coffee mugs, notebooks and even t-shirts for a dog.

Vanessa Yurkevich The former of home of “Lucky” Luciano at 265 East 10th Street.

Before there were squats, there were social clubs. And before pricey restaurants began taking over East Village storefronts, many were gathering places for the mob.

Every Friday and Saturday night Gideon Levy, the founder of NYC Gangster Tours, gives a tour of these onetime crime scenes, clandestine casinos and fronts for drug smuggling operations.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Mr. Levy’s obsession with mob history started in 2003 when the film “Gangs of New York” inspired him to organize his tours, one of which winds through the East Village.

“Walking through neighborhoods that are familiar, that you might walk by every single day, you might not know about a thread that leads back to smuggling or a murder,” said Mr. Levy during a recent tour. Read more…

As Village residents await Borough President Scott Stringer’s recommendation early next month regarding N.Y.U.’s expansion plans, The Local is taking a look at the impacts of the project. Today, we’re examining the concerns surrounding parking under the proposed development. Check back throughout the week for our coverage of concerns surrounding loss of light, the dog run, playgrounds, and the LaGuardia Community Garden. What other issues should we tackle? Let us know in the comments.

OK, so how is parking in Greenwich Village going to be affected by this plan?

Currently, there are 670 spaces in a garage underneath Washington Square Village. Of these, 150 are public and the rest, a total of 520, are reserved for residents and their guests. As proposed, 281 parking spaces will be permanently eliminated. No spaces will be available to the general public.

So, 281 lost? That sounds like a lot.

The new garage would have 389 total spaces, which is the minimum required by the city zoning code. The entirely private garage would be built starting in 2022 and would be accessible through only one entrance, whereas the existing one has two (on West Third and Bleecker Streets). The current garage operates at around 80-percent capacity, and has around 130 spaces available on a typical workday. N.Y.U. believes that the amount of traffic using the new garage will be significantly less than it is now, given that the lot will not be open to drivers regularly commuting into the area. Opponents like Terri Cude, co-chairwoman of the Community Action Alliance, argue that the single entrance and exit would create a choke point that would exacerbate traffic. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Joe Barbosa.

Rockit Scientist records will close at the end of April, and sidewalk vinyl vendor Joe Barbosa will remain in his normal spot in front of the store until the landlord finds a new tenant.

Mr. Barbosa told The Local that the landlord gave Rockit Scientist Records, which was expected to close at the end of February, an extension on its lease.

“I’m going to hang here until they rent the place out,” said Mr. Barbosa, who has subleased the space in front of the store for several years. He added he was already thinking of a new spot to sell his records. “Hopefully I’ll be able to find something on this block. Haven’t seen anything as of yet, though.”

Hey, there’s always the minivan option…

The police are on the hunt for a man suspected of a string of four robberies at knife-point, two of which occurred within the span of 20 minutes.

The police said that on March 13 at around 4:30 a.m. the suspect robbed a 41-year-old man at Seventh Avenue and West 12th Street. Less than a half-hour later he struck again at East 14th Street and First Avenue, robbing a 24-year-old man. In both cases the victims handed over their cash and cellphones.

The man is also wanted in connection with two other similar incidents. The first occurred on Feb. 25 at West 26th Street and Broadway. The other March 17 on the platform of the 23rd Street station of the F train. None of the four victims were injured, the police said.

The plot thickens. A new note (at least the fifth of its kind) posted in the window of the law office of Zenon B. Masnyj details a board meeting of an undisclosed credit union in which members were pressed to disclose charitable donations. “As elderly people subjected to two dozen introductions, financial reports and calls for applause that would make a Tupperware hostess blush, testily waited to get their free lunch he read off the names of dozens of charities that the credit union claims to have given money to,” the item in all-caps reads. And the mysterious credit union critic isn’t done yet: the note hints at a trip by board members to Europe may have been an unnecessary expense.

Stephen Rex Brown

Go enjoy the lovely weather in International Bar’s backyard and you’ll be surprised to find a wooden fence splitting it in half. The divider is the result of a court battle roughly a year ago that pitted the owners of the bar against the neighboring German sausage and beer joint.

A co-owner of International Bar, Shawn Dahl, said that the landlord of both businesses, Steven Croman, had rented the whole backyard to International when it opened after its renovation, and subsequently rented half of it to Wechsler’s when it opened in 2009.

“When Wechsler’s came along it turned out that the landlord had rented them the backyard as well,” Ms. Dahl said, later adding, “I blame the landlord.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

It may be too late to buy the CBGB name, but you can now snag Life Cafe’s. A few weeks after the failure of negotiations to bring the legendary corner spot back from the brink, its trademark is now up for grabs.

A Craigslist posting offers up the right to use the name of the cafe – “immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical ‘Rent’” – for restaurants, t-shirts, cups, and marketing material.

To sweeten the deal, the ad says the “current East Village liquor license may be available” and offers up the services of John Sunderland, the artist responsible for much of Life’s branding and its fanciful chalkboard menus.

Hey, if you want to own a piece of East Village restaurant history, it’s either this or those Ratner’s buttons.