Cyn Darling Ariel Palitz with Darryl McDaniels from Run DMC.

The owner of the neighborhood’s hip-hop haven is looking to expand her brand and open a new business that goes beyond the club scene.

Ariel Palitz, the owner of Sutra Lounge on First Avenue, put her club on the market last week — only a few days before she celebrates its seventh anniversary.

While insisting that her business was making as much money as ever, Ms. Palitz admitted to The Local that she has been mulling over a new endeavor in the East Village.

“It’s a unique idea. It will have food, alcohol, there will be unexpected services — it’s going to be an unexpected twist on what I think the future of nightlife is,” she said, without going into further details. Read more…

Paul Defiglia A box that used to be loaded with rat poison.

Paul Defiglia Another broken box.

Someone broke open a handful of bait boxes loaded with rat poison along Houston Street last night, leaving the deadly pellets scattered on the sidewalk, a reader tells The Local.

Our tipster said that she noticed the turquoise poison on the sidewalk on Houston Street between Second Avenue and Avenue A (once “the most ratted place around”) this morning. A visit to the site later in the day revealed that the boxes had indeed been broken open — including ones on First Street — but no poison was anywhere to be found. The tipster had pressed officials from the Fire Department and the Department of Environmental Protection to clean up the mess.

Still, be alert when walking your pets in the area.

Seen something like this? E-mail us about it, and add your photos to The Local’s Flick pool.

Jamie Larson Owner of St. Mark’s Bookshop Terrence McCoy, along with Borough President Scott Stringer, Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha and others.

Cooper Union has eased the St. Mark’s Bookshop financial burden — somewhat.

A day after students from the school protested the possibility that they would have to pay tuition for the first time in more than a century (we’ve now added video of that demonstration to our initial post), politicians, community activists, school officials and the bookshop’s owners officially brought the two-month rent dispute to an end at a press conference this morning.

Under the agreement for the next year, Cooper Union will, as reported by The Times last night, cut the bookshop’s rent by $2,500 from its current rate, $20,000 a month.

Cooper Union will also forgive $7,500 of the shop’s debt and send a team of students to work with the owners on creating a new business plan. The agreement, which only last week seemed dead in the water, should save the store $40,000 over the next year, according to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who took credit for bringing an end to the standoff.
Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Inspectors look for signs of the longhorned beetle.

Climbers from the federal Department of Agriculture were spotted today inspecting trees on Avenue A for signs of the dreaded Asian longhorned beetle, an invasive species that virtually guarantees the death of any tree it infests.

The Parks Department confirmed that the climbers were between Fourth and Fifth Streets at around 11:30 a.m. inspecting the trees for the circular, pencil-diameter holes that indicate the presence of the Chinese beetle that first appeared in the city — and in the U.S. — in 1996.

Since then, the beetle has been spotted in Central Park, Staten Island, parts of Brooklyn, and even as far away as Chicago. Typically, when a tree is found to be infested it is cut down, chopped up and burned. Trees in its immediate vicinity may also be felled in an attempt to quarantine the pest. Trees within a wider radius may be treated with an insecticide, as well. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The Cabrini Center at 542 East Fifth Street.

The six-story building that houses a medical center catering to the elderly is on the market, raising concerns that a new landlord will give low-income patients the boot before the center can build a new location.

Last night, Community Board 3 sounded the alarm on the possible closure of the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, sending a formal letter to the lawyer of the mystery buyer of the building at Avenue B and Fifth Street. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Board Member Alexandra Militano discussed October’s applications for liquor licenses.

Community Board 3 approved Jane’s Sweet Buns application for a beer and wine license last night, paving the way for the bakery to pair alcohol with its desserts.

“Literally 75 percent of our clientele that comes in after 8 p.m. wants to have a glass of wine with their sweet bun or tart,” said Ravi DeRossi, the owner of the business on St. Marks Place between First Avenue and Avenue A. “Wine and dessert go so well together.”

The business was met with skepticism by some members of Community Board 3, however.

“I hear we’re all dying to receive this: A bakery that sells booze,” joked board member Joyce Ravitz.
Read more…

Eater sits down with Jason Wang, the manager of Xi’an Famous Foods (a favorite around The Local’s offices) and gets the latest on plans for the popular noodle joint’s expansion. Mr. Wang said that a new location should be opening in East Williamsburg soon, and that an expansion into Washington D.C. or Boston is likely. Given Mr. Wang’s grand ambitions for Xi’an, it should come as no surprise that one of his idols is the man behind McDonald’s, Ray Kroc.

Suzanne Rozdeba

A scuffle at 7A reported by EV Grieve earlier today resulted in a shattered window at the cafe, which remodeled earlier this year. William Day, an employee there, told The Local that the fight broke out at around 5:30 a.m. “It happens every now and then – it’s a 24-hour restaurant,” he said. A police spokesman had no further information regarding the incident. The window had already been fixed by 4:30 p.m.

Stephen Rex Brown The shuttered store at 64 East Fourth Street.

Sara’s Vintage and Handmade Jewelry on East Fourth Street closed over the weekend, and the landlord says it is being evicted.

The store, which opened in 2008, sold vintage and antique jewelry as well as handmade jewelry by local designers, according to Yelp.

The store’s landlord said that it was far from an ideal tenant.

“They didn’t pay the rent for roughly the last six months,” said Valerio Orselli, the executive director of the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association. “They are being evicted.”
Read more…

Jamie Larson St. Mark’s Bookshop owners Terrence McCoy and Bob Contant say Cooper Union will not reduce their rent. The university, however, says no decision has been made.

The St. Mark’s Bookshop’s fate may still hang in the balance — at least according to Cooper Union. Though the beloved bookstore’s owners have abandoned hope of getting a $5,000 rent reduction, a Cooper Union spokeswoman insisted today that no official decision has been made.

After a meeting yesterday with top administrators from the school, bookshop co-owner Terrence McCoy was left with the clear impression that a reduction of the $20,000-a month rent was not in the cards.

“They said they couldn’t do anything — that all they could do was defer one month’s rent,” Mr. McCoy said. “I don’t want to have more debt.” Read more…

Late last month, Community Board 3 left supporters of Heathers stunned by voting nearly unanimously to recommend a denial of the bar’s liquor license renewal. But was the whole process a waste of time? Two weeks later, the State Liquor Authority — the true arbiter of the fate of businesses that sell booze — renewed the bar’s license with little fanfare, raising doubts about whether it had heeded the board at all.

Just how much stock does the S.L.A put in the community board’s recommendations, anyway? For all the blogosphere’s feverish coverage of dramatic and often-controversial community board rulings, the question is rarely addressed. To answer it, The Local combed through a year’s worth of liquor authority license applications going up to Feb. 2011 (we ignored applications after that date, since many of them are still under review). In that year, we found that the State Liquor Authority consistently granted licenses to bars and restaurants that Community Board 3 had recommended for denial.

Read more…

The Wall Street Journal reveals that playboy hotelier Andre Balazs bought the Cooper Square Hotel for $90 million, and that he is partnered with the property manager Ironstate Development Company. Mr. Balazs’s takeover of the hotel was approved by Community Board 3 last month. According to the Journal, he is not planning to change much about the hotel, but is examining the possibility of a new restaurant and bar.

Colorful jeans have been getting a lot of attention lately, but tights in the same hues can add personality and pizazz to a dress or shorts. Check out the trendy tights The Local’s Rachel Ohm spotted around the neighborhood.

EV Grieve notes that the BMW Guggenheim Lab will be dismantled Saturday and Sunday, resulting in the closure of East First Street between First and Second Avenues to traffic during the day. The ballyhooed “urban experiment” hosted its final gathering last weekend and is now bound for Berlin. It’s unclear what is next in store for the lot. A forum last month suggested making it a sculpture garden, or even a cat park.

Stephen Rex Brown Cafe Orlin at 41 St. Marks Place.

Ajay Naidu isn’t the only celebrity who enjoys Cafe Orlin. A reader spotted Julia Stiles lounging with a friend in the terrace of the restaurant on St. Marks Place at around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday. “Why couldn’t she be alone?” our reader joked. “Why wasn’t she seated there in mournful solitude with an expectant look on her face? I guess it’s because… she’s a movie star!”

He added that the star of “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “10 Things I Hate About You” did have a certain aura about her. “She looks like the girl next door. The wholesome farmer’s daughter who, thankfully, didn’t have the gap between her teeth fixed.”

Liv Buli

The 25 toddlers attending the new Preschool of the Arts in Cooper Union’s sleek new academic building aren’t just learning — they’re “exploring.” They don’t play with toys — they play with “heuristic tools.” And once a week, they do yoga.

The Jewish preschool originally opened on East Sixth Street in 1999, but quickly outgrew the location and found new digs in Chelsea four years later. “We have always been looking back to the neighborhood,” said director Sarah Rotenstreich of the school’s satellite location, which opened at 41 Cooper Square last month. “There is something so exciting about the East Village; the pulse, the creativity, the types of families.”

The Local visited on a recent Tuesday as an instructor gave morning yoga classes to each of the school’s three age groups. (In the case of toddlers, calling it yoga might be a bit of a stretch.) Read more…

Dominique Zonyee Scott Officer James Luongo

On Nov. 11 of last year, Sergeant Michael Fabitti and officers Katherine Keating, Joanna Lopez, and Natasha Deleon came upon a burning building at East Fourth Street and Avenue A. Recognizing that many of the residents would still be asleep in their apartments, the police officers ran into the blaze and helped evacuate the building. No one died — though all the officers and seven residents were treated for smoke inhalation.

The heroic tale of police work was just one of the many stories shared on Wednesday evening in Cooper Union’s Great Hall as part of the Ninth Precinct Community Council’s 16th annual awards ceremony. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The Bowery Hotel.

The Department of Buildings hit the Bowery Hotel with a violation for an enclosed roof over a backyard terrace on Monday. According to Department of Buildings spokeswoman Ryan Fitzgibbon, the roof was contrary to the building’s approved plans. The hotel’s management will now face a formal hearing regarding the violation.

Interestingly, the complaint is nearly identical to one filed last year when the structure was being built. According to online records, workers were improperly storing construction equipment on the property of the New York Marble Cemetery, which abuts a portion of the hotel.

Caroline DuBois, the president of the cemetery, said she did not know why the violation was reopened (all complaints are filed with 311 anonymously). Rumors regarding a dispute between the hotel and the cemetery over the burial ground’s crumbling walls have swirled since an article in The New York Times in 2008.

Stephen Rex Brown Le Basket at 683 Broadway.

An armed thief robbed the popular bodega, Le Basket, this morning and made off with around $3,000.

Police said that the heist occurred at around 4:35 a.m. Nick Lee, the 51-year-old owner of the business on Broadway at East Third Street, said that the suspect held up one of his employees (who was still working at lunchtime) at gunpoint and demanded the cash from the registers.
Read more…