City Room reports that a total of six protesters were taken into custody during this morning’s clashes between police and Occupy Wall Street protesters in Union Square. Charges include resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. Meanwhile, a non-Occupy demonstration protesting what many say is a lack of justice in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is slated to occur in the park this evening.

Ruth Spencer Steve Cannon

The founder of Gathering of the Tribes is awaiting a ruling from a Housing Court judge regarding his pending eviction, and is hopeful that his case will be moved to State Supreme Court.

Steve Cannon, the blind poet who runs the freewheeling art space on East Third Street, said that his lawyer preferred trying the case in Supreme Court because it would allow him to pursue a broader legal strategy and avoid the arduous process of staying an eviction through Housing Court. Mr. Cannon was not sure exactly when the ruling would come down.

“Our lawyer thinks that [the judge] is leaning towards taking the case to the Supreme Court due to our unique circumstances,” Mr. Cannon wrote in a newsletter. “Up until this point we weren’t sure how our efforts would be met in the courtroom, but now it seems that the ruling ‘might’ be in our favor.”

Meanwhile, the new exhibition at Tribes is called “Exquisite Poop: Blind Reproduction.” The show places an artist’s work alongside the work of another artist who attempted to reproduce the same piece by only reading a written description of it. Why the name? “I’m not going to comment on that — you know what that means,” Mr. Cannon said.

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly — or not so quietly — making it. Here’s one of them: Manitoba’s.

Shira Levine Zoe Hansen

Since shutting down her two brothels in 2002, Zoe Hansen has refocused her hustle, using her entrepreneurial skills to bring some semblance of order to the punk rock bar Manitoba’s on Avenue B. Her husband, Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba, may be the public face of the dive (he recently told The Local, “I’ve got to keep it going if just for one thing: I can’t let another Subway move in here”) but the husband and wife are very much a team. So much so that they’re shopping a reality show about their life in the East Village. We spoke with Ms. Hansen about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and… management?

You used to be a sex worker and ran a brothel. How did that prepare you for tending and running a bar?

I ran and owned a brothel on Park Avenue and 23rd Street and another on Second Avenue and 22nd Street. It’s all good material for me now that I am a writer. It’s just business, so it wasn’t any different. It was about being there all the time to make sure things are happening and flowing. It was really an office environment. We had to keep up, creatively, with advertising and marketing. Read more…

Here’s the latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” The Local’s regular roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from Feb. 28 to March 11, sorted by the type of incident. Plus: Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15.

Assaults

• Two men were bloodied during a brawl with eight others on March 2. The two victims told the police they were throwing down at the corner of Third Avenue and East 12th Street at around 12:30 a.m. when the 24-year-old was stabbed four times and the 27-year-old was sliced across the chest. Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital.
• That same night, another brawl between four guys one block away. The 25- and 26-year-old victims told the police they were in an altercation at around 4:30 a.m. at Third Avenue and East 11th Street. That’s when at least one of the suspects managed to slash the former in the head, and the latter in the hands. Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital. One of the suspects fled on foot, the other took off in a car. A police source said both stabbing incidents involved patrons of Webster Hall.
• A cyclist was slashed in the face for no apparent reason on March 8. The 22-year-old victim said he was riding on the sidewalk on Avenue D near East 10th Street at around 9:30 p.m. when he was cut from behind.
• A pair of drinkers beat up the bartender at Doc Holliday’s on March 11. The 39-year-old victim told the police that he spotted a woman walking out of the bar with a beer at around 1:45 a.m. When he told the woman she could not take the booze on the street she smashed the bottle over his head, cutting his forehead. That’s when another bar-goer joined in the melee and started punching the victim in the head. Police arrested both suspects.

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Jared Malsin

Could Union Square be the next Zuccotti Park? Earlier this afternoon, a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters said that they had decided to attempt an indefinite occupation there, although few were confident that police would allow them to stay for long.

“We reached consensus today to try to make this a permanent occupation,” said Darah McJimsey, a 23-year-old activist who came to New York from California in November to join the Occupy movement full-time. “Although we’re aware of what we’re up against, and we’re going to draw on our skills as far as being mobile.”

The decision to launch an open-ended occupation of Union Square was made by 20 to 30 activists who came there after police forcibly dispersed around 500 people from Zuccotti Park on Saturday. The Union Square group, which has spent two nights there, appears to have attracted support from the broader movement. Occupy Wall Street’s website now features a call to “Occupy Union Square.” Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Coal Yard and International Bar owner Molly Fitch is prepared to lay down the law on any drunken St. Patty’s Day revelers.

Anxious about the hordes of St. Patrick’s Day revelers ready to stumble their way through the neighborhood tomorrow? The Local is here to help. We called dives around the neighborhood to find out which ones would rather you not show up in a green top hat with shamrocks painted on your face. Here are your shelters from the drunken storm.

International Bar, 120 First Avenue, 212-777-1643
“I celebrate drinking at two in the afternoon every day. St. Patrick’s is a day where, all of a sudden, drinking in the afternoon is fun, and it ruins it for us,” owner Molly Fitch said. “I do not want a St. Patrick’s day pub crawl in my bar in any shape or form.”

Blue & Gold, 79 East Seventh Street, 212-777-1006
“This place is going to the anti-anti-anti haven. We’re not an Irish bar; we’re a Ukrainian bar. People will pack in here to get away,” said bartender Mike Roscishewsky. “We are absolutely not doing anything.”
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Sasha Von Oldershausen Women and children hopped over the symbolic fires on Tuesday night.

Iranians from as far away as Houston, Texas crowded into La Plaza Cultural Community Garden on Tuesday night to observe a holiday that celebrates Iran’s pre-Islamic past.

“Chahārshanbe-Sūri,” or, “Red Wednesday,” is rooted in Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions. The holiday, which precedes the Persian New Year, occurs on the eve of the last Wednesday of the Zoroastrian calendar. Since the 2009 elections, the Iranian government has tried to dissuade residents from celebrating the holiday considered un-Islamic, though many continue to celebrate it throughout the country.

Children and adults alike hopped over bonfires lit at sunset to symbolize the passage of the old year.

Simin Farkhondeh, the event organizer, felt a particular pleasure in the gathering. “It’s a celebration of resistance,” she said.

Ms. Farkhondeh has coordinated the event at La Plaza for the past three years. She said the celebration was a way for her to reminisce about the holiday with fellow Iranians, and to share a lesser-known cultural tradition with the community.

“Since I left Iran, I felt a need to do this,” Ms. Farkhondeh said. “I wanted to share something really beautiful.”
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Fuse Gallery Anton Perhlich in Chelsea in 1979, one of the artists participating in the upcoming exhibit.

Normally, a nosebleed at Lit is just another Monday night. Starting on March 28, it’s art.

“Nose Bleed” is an upcoming exhibition at Fuse Gallery (in the back of Lit) of artists nurtured in the neighborhood. “Nosebleed takes its name from the prevailing motto of that sensibility, that we wouldn’t go up there (up being anything north of 14th Street ) because we’d get a nosebleed,” writes Erik Foss. The co-owner of the bar adds that to him and his cohorts, there is nothing more than “a void” outside of the neighborhood. “Downtown may have been colonized by money and gentrified into something way white and polite, but the attitude persists.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Foss’s own art is on display in SoHo at the Munch Gallery as part of a group show, “Night,” which opens tomorrow. Earlier this week, Ray LeMoine looked back at the illustrious 10-year history of Lit Lounge.

CBGB Flyers on a newspaper box in Austin.

The new CBGB is looking for a few good bands at South By Southwest.

One of the owners of the lucrative brand passed along this photo of CBGB flyers posted on newspaper boxes in Austin, Texas. “We are looking to be honest, raw, loud. We are not going to franchise or turn into the Hard Rock Cafe or CMJ but we do want punks to take over the city for one week this summer,” wrote the owner, who still wishes to remain anonymous. “We’ll try to prove that in just a few months.”

The co-owner also noted that he and his partners are still in the hunt for a permanent venue, likely south of Houston Street. At least one former staffer from the legendary club is said to be involved, as well. In the meantime, they are scouting bands in Austin for the CBGB music festival set for July 4 weekend.

Yesterday This Ain’t The Summer of Love spotted new details about the festival, which will take place in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. The event will feature a mix of “music, rock-n-roll films, insider-industry workshops, and intimate storytelling.”

While on our daily perambulation on the Bowery, we noted that there is construction on nearly every block between St. Marks Place and East Houston Street. The experience was so intense we recreated it for our readers who can’t live it for themselves. Mouse over the cones, put on your headphones, and brace yourself for an immersive auditory experience.


Road Construction

Suzanne Rozdeba Attendees at last night’s meeting regarding the new cameras.

Residents of Campos Plaza expressed optimism last night that new high-tech security cameras would deter the violence that they said has left many of them living in fear.

“I am scared for a lot of our lives here in this development. I am scared for our kids, for ourselves, for our elderly, for us all,” said Dereese Huff, president of the Campos Plaza tenants association. “We need these cameras.”

The surveillance equipment, financed by Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, will be installed in pathways, playgrounds and lobbies around the houses bordered by East 13th and 14th Streets and Avenues B and C. Public officials hope to have 16 cameras for each of the four building at Campos Plaza. Ms. Mendez has secured $400,000 for the cameras, which is roughly half of the total needed to cover the entire complex. The cameras would monitor both inside and outside the buildings and will be connected to a network than can be observed from a central location.

An official with the New York City Housing Authority sought to dispel any notions of a “Big Brother”-style system.
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Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance just announced the indictment of Luis Martinez, the man accused of firing at two police officers in a wild gun battle last last month that culminated in the Baruch Houses. Mr. Martinez is charged with attempted murder in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon. During the melee an officer narrowly avoided being shot in the gut thanks to an extra ammo clip on his belt that deflected the bullet. The violence prompted Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to renew a call for a gun buy-back program in the neighborhood. “A metal gun magazine and its leather pouch was all that stood in the way of a bullet piercing an officer’s abdomen, after he was fired upon by this defendant,” Mr. Vance said in a press release.

Kathryn Doyle Eric Borg and his dog Sam enjoyed coffee in front of The Bean last week.

Now that Starbucks and The Bean are squaring off on either end of their block on East Third Street, you might be wondering: which is doing swifter business? Are The Bean’s loyal customers walking that extra block to avoid the corporate coffeehouse? Or has the demure signage of the “neighborhood Starbucks” managed to win folks over?

To answer those questions, The Local stationed a reporter outside of the Starbucks on First Avenue, and another outside of The Bean on Second Avenue. They counted customers from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. last Wednesday, and here’s what they found.

29 people walked into Starbucks.

43 people – and over a dozen dogs – walked into The Bean.

Siobhan Quinn said she chose The Bean partly because it accommodates Seamus, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel. “I like the owner, and it’s more neighborhoody,” she added. “There’s more of a community feel.”
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Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

This Ain’t the Summer of Love spots an update to the CBGB website, which includes more information about a music festival planned for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Lower East Side and the Bowery on July 4 weekend. “Experience four energy-fueled days & nights of music, rock-n-roll films, insider-industry workshops, and intimate storytelling; all live, all in New York City,” the still-anonymous promoters write.

Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, passes along a letter to public officials expressing concern that the City Council’s public hearings on N.Y.U.’s proposed expansion will take place in late June and early July — presumably when people will be on vacation. “Holding the City Council public hearings during a time period when the broadest possible cross-section of the public was not able to participate would significantly favor the applicant, N.Y.U.,” Berman wrote.

The Post reports that Faye Dunaway, fresh off her embarrassing exile from a rent stabilized apartment in the Upper East Side, is now house hunting in the East Village — specifically at 300 East Fourth Street.
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Suzanne Rozdeba Dorothy Rasenberger, Elizabeth Herring, and Joy Garland protested outside of the Cabrini Center this afternoon.

The staff of the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation were still breaking the news to elderly residents that their home on Avenue B and East Fifth Street would soon close, leaving some of them in tears, a family member of a resident said today.

While the meeting regarding the closure was going on, a small group of protesters outside toted signs saying “Occupy Cabrini!” and “Save Cabrini! From Condos.” The mix of around 10 locals and family members of residents decried the failure of the new owner of the property, Benjamin Shaoul, to secure a deal to keep it open. They also blamed local politicians for not doing enough to facilitate the negotiations. Without the deal, Cabrini will almost certainly become apartments of some kind.

“My mother turned 101 on Feb. 1, and she’s been here for two years. It’s a shame,” said George Matranga, 70. “Six months ago, she’s telling me that they’re going to make the second and third floor condominiums. I’m going, ‘Mom, you’re hallucinating.’”

He added that he received a packet last week detailing the closing and how Cabrini would help residents with the transition.
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Olvier Zahm In 2009 Lindsay Lohan, looking somewhat stressed, showed up at Lit Lounge.

“The new Lit.” The expression has been used countless times to describe a club that might just be as cool as Lit when it opened a decade ago. Many of the venues that have vied for “new Lit” status have come and gone, but the original gallery/bar/club hybrid, improbably, is still going strong on Second Avenue. It’s still the best place to splash your beer all over the place while dancing to Britpop and punk at 3 a.m. It’s had its slumps, to be sure, but these days Lit is enjoying what can only be called a flare-up.

You might say Lit has had three lives. Its first golden age lasted for a few years after it opened in February of 2002. Then things slowed down around 2006 when the cool crowd moved on to the newly opened Beatrice Inn. But when that club was shut down in 2009, some of its DJs moved over to Lit, bringing a new generation with them.

The First Golden Age 2002-2004
Dave Murphy used to run around downtown and now, at the age of 36, owns Towne Deli in Summit, New Jersey. “Mondays were the big night in town,” he recalled. Lit was always the last stop after you made the scene at Max Fish, the Lower East Side’s perennial art bar, and Pianos, another cool newcomer.

Adrian Fussell Big Ups performing at Lit Lounge last year.

“Bjork was at the Monday Pianos party one night, in some furry outfit, just sitting at the bar looking like a giant mouse,” said Mr. Murphy. “This was right after we’d seen somebody get shot in the foot outside Lotus. D.J. Clue laughed at the guy, who was bleeding from one foot and hopping on the other. That night ended in the cave at Lit.” Mr. Murphy recalled watching a member of a well known band from San Francisco snorting cocaine off of one of the couches in the cavern-like basement.

At the time, two local music scenes were converging and about to go national: dance pop and retro rock.

Electro-clash, a punk-techno hybrid that drew inspiration from Germany, was at its peak. Fischerspooner’s single “Emerge” was played at clubs as often as Rihanna’s “We Found Love” is today. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem was DJing at Meatpacking District lounge APT, honing the DFA sound that sprung to life in 2003 with The Rapture’s ubiquitous single “House of Jealous Lovers.”

Lit was essential in helping this music find an audience. It was also one of the first clubs to embrace Euro DJs like Soulwax a.k.a. 2 Many DJs, and Erol Alken, who were inventing the mash-up, where the vocals of one song are played over the music of another song.
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Suzanne Rozdeba Looks like there is still some work to do before the Gin Palace can open.

Out with the Iberian, in with the Victorian.

Gin Palace, the Victorian-themed bar replacing El Cobre on East Sixth Street, is opening by the end of April, co-owner Ravi DeRossi, told The Local this morning.

The new bar, which has a fancy mural in the works on the ceiling, will not have the same air of exclusivity as Mr. DeRossi’s other popular establishment, Death and Company.

“The original gin palaces in England in the 1800s were a response to a failing economy, where people would go to get wasted and escape disease and the plague. It’s not as bad right now, but it’s a pretty weak economy,” said Mr. DeRossi, who also owns nearby The Bourgeois Pig. “This will be a spinoff of those old Victorian dive bars, and no pretension. If the space fits you in, you get in.”
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Elizabeth Ferrara Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council said the plan would create much-needed construction jobs.

In the first rally of its kind, advocates of N.Y.U.’s controversial expansion gathered yesterday at City Hall calling on Borough President Scott M. Stringer to approve the plan.

About 35 people, business owners, union leaders, and construction workers among them, attended the roughly 15-minute gathering in support of the university’s proposal that would add four new buildings south of Washington Square Park.

“We’re here today asking Borough President Stringer to recognize that N.Y.U.’s growth strategy is an essential part of securing the financial future of small businesses in Greenwich Village,” said Tony Juliano, president of the local Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, which represents around 200 businesses in surrounding neighborhoods.

It was clear that the approval for the plan dubbed N.Y.U. 2031 is getting down to crunch time. The event amounted to a formal endorsement from the Building and Construction Trades Council, which is led by the influential Gary LaBarbera.
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Theater For The New City Elizabeth Barkan as Bobby in “Bike Shop.”

Who knew cycling could be so liberating — and devoid of controversy?

In “Bike Shop,” a one-woman musical showing at The Theater for the New City, Bobby, a bike messenger and mechanic, sings odes to the freedom of the streets. For her, the bicycle is an escape — even a vehicle for feminine liberation.

Set in 1993, this bit of cycling nostalgia takes place in a purer time, before every hipster had a neglected fixed gear hanging in his loft, new bike lanes led to lawsuits, business owners blamed cycling for declining customers and passersby won’t even stop a brazen bike thief.

The songs are campy and catchy, and the writing often amusing to the biker-friendly audience. However, non-cyclists likely won’t find the storyline of two-wheeled redemption as touching.

A charming Elizabeth Barkan, the show’s creator and star, plays Bobby, who works at her family’s bike store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her grandmother, also played by Ms. Barkan, opened the store 30 years prior. The final character onstage is an Uncle Rabbi, and at times the exertion required of the multiple rolls and onstage cycling while singing seems to wear the star of the show down. Occasionally Ms. Barkan would start a song strongly, but by the end had lost her momentum.
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