The neighborhood’s renegade documentarian, Clayton Patterson, filed a dispatch from the Occupy Wall Street protests to Bowery Boogie. In a photo essay, Mr. Patterson writes that he snapped pictures of an officer trying to start a fight with protestors as an excuse to lock them up. Other shots capture the tension between the police and protestors as Occupy Wall Street approaches its second week.

Liv Buli Michael Moore addresses the crowd at St. Mark’s Bookshop.

A book signing at St. Mark’s Bookshop by Michael Moore turned into a rally for the embattled store on Thursday, as the champion of the left exhorted patrons to continue buying literature in person.

“At some point you just have to stop and stand up and say: ‘No more,’ ” Mr. Moore shouted to the roughly 100 people packing the store on Third Avenue.

Mr. Moore’s appearance reaffirmed the sudden swell of affection for the Bookshop, which has gone from a store struggling to turn a profit into a symbol of the rapidly changing neighborhood in only one month.

“It comes down to a simple bookstore here on the corner of Third Avenue and Ninth Street in the East Village in New York City,” Mr. Moore said in between criticism of corporate executives and appeals to the store’s landlord, Cooper Union.
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Ian Gordon A street performance by the Theater for the New City.

Good Morning, East Village.

Hot on the heels of Michael Moore’s rallying cry for St. Mark’s Bookshop, the East Village book scene notches another victory. The New York Post reports that East Village Books owner Donald Davis helped apprehend a notorious New York City library thief in a sting that included the use of wrestling moves. This would make a great movie or, well, book.

City Room has run a collection of photographs by Leland Bobbe, a regular in the Downtown scene of the 1970s who shot the likes of Patti Smith, Mink DeVille and The Ramones.

The International Business Times takes a look at the Occupy Wall Street protests and finds a few similarities with the Tompkins Square Park Riot of 1988. Do you think the two have much in common?
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Here comes the cavalry. The embattled St. Mark’s Bookshop is gearing up for the arrival of the liberal icon Michael Moore, who just announced on Twitter that tonight all royalties from sales of his book, “Here Comes Trouble,” will go to the Occupy Wall Street protests. Mr. Moore is expected to arrive at 7 p.m. at the store on Third Avenue at Stuyvesant Street. The Local’s intrepid reporter, Liv Buli, will be on hand to get his opinion regarding the bookshop’s predicament. If you spot her, say hello!

Stephen Rex Brown 222 East 13th Street.

If Steve Herrick, Carl Siciliano and the late Bea Arthur have their way, a long-neglected, city-owned house at 222 East East 13th Street will be converted into a refuge for gay, lesbian and transgender kids living on the streets.

The respective executive directors of the Cooper Square Committee and the Ali Forney Center hope that their proposal for a transitional housing center — funded by a $300,000 donation from the late “Golden Girls” star — will resonate with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which has owned the dilapidated property since 1993. As part of the effort to generate community support, representatives from both groups will pitch their idea for the Bea Arthur Residence For L.G.B.T. Youth at next month’s meeting of the Community Board 3 Land Use Committee.
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Stephen Rex BrownSeptember’s Community Board 3 meeting was an overcrowded “disaster,” according to District Manager Susan Stetzer.

Community Board 3 general board meetings — known throughout the neighborhood for heated debates that go on at least four hours — just got a lot more uncomfortable.

Last month, the Department of Education stopped allowing the board to use its facilities for free, leaving District Manager Susan Stetzer searching for a space that can accommodate the scores of people that attend the monthly meetings.

The consequences of the Department of Education’s new policy was on full display on Tuesday at a standing-room-only general board meeting at the Ukrainian Museum. People had come out in droves in regards to Heathers Bar and Basketball City on Pier 36 in the Lower East Side, leaving the roughly 100 attendees flooding into the stairwell and lobby. Other people in the audience leaned in between historic Ukrainian paintings while struggling to hear the goings-on at the other end of the art gallery-turned-meeting space.
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The Lo-Down spotted a hawk devouring a pigeon in Seward Park yesterday — and so did much of the Lower East Side, apparently. The bird of prey dined unperturbed as a gaggle of excited onlookers took pictures of nature in all its brutality. When The Local spoke to the executive director of New York City Audubon last week regarding the hawks in Tompkins Square Park, he said that it was likely the newborns were venturing far beyond the green space where they were raised. Might this hawk in Seward Park once have nested in Tompkins?

The New York Post reports that John Legend has put his posh two-bedroom condo on the market for $2.95 million after moving in only two years ago. The smooth crooner is reportedly a big fan of his space in 52E4 on the Bowery, but is looking to upgrade. Maybe he should go house hunting with David Schwimmer?

A longtime photographer of Lower Manhattan has taken close-up photos of the World Trade Center and mounted them on a scaffolding on East Fourth Street, just out of reach.

Brian Rose, the photographer behind “WTC,” said he was inspired to prepare the outdoor exhibit after cleaning negatives of World Trade Center photos he took as long as 30 years ago. In the process of ridding the film of dust, he zoomed in on it and became mesmerized by the architectural beauty of the towers’ details.

“’WTC’ was never a project, it was found,” Mr. Rose said.
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Stephen Rex Brown Yesterday on Astor Place.

Good morning East Village, and happy Rosh Hashanah.

The National Review’s Katrina Trinko checks out Ron Paul’s speech at Webster Hall on Monday and finds a crowd that “skews more hipster than hip replacement.” In her piece, she dubs the contrarian Libertarian the “The President of the East Village.”

Further south, City Room has the latest twist in the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests: Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna may have used pepper spray in a second incident.

Back in our neck of the woods, EV Grieve spotted a noise complaint outside of UCBeast, the Upright Citizen Brigade’s recently opened East Village outpost. Anyone else think noise in front of the club is no laughing matter?
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So you want to land another kickflip just like the good old days, but you’re too scared of being singled out by the young skateboarders at Tompkins Square Park as an outsider. Now, thanks to Enclave Skate Shop in New Haven, you’ll be able to fit right in. The shop’s rundown of skate decorum covers flow of traffic, where to have a meltdown over not landing a trick, where to get $1 pizza (Mamani, naturally) and places to avoid (it’s a shocker: the public bathroom.)

Last seen staging a “takeover” of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, activist and photojournalist John Penley is planning a press conference at City Hall on Monday to address the police’s conduct during the Occupy Wall Street protests. He tells Runnin’ Scared, “Like everyone else I just got so outraged by stuff I’d seen both personally and in some of the videos.”

Nick DeSantis

Members of Community Board 3 just voted overwhelmingly to recommend a denial of Heathers’ application to renew its liquor license, heeding the complaints of residents who earlier told the board’s SLA committee that the bar is a noisy nuisance. Supporters of the bar — mostly employees and customers — were left dumbstruck as only one member of the board voted in favor of the 13th street watering hole. Heathers’ ultimate fate will be decided by the State Liquor Authority at a later date.

City Room sits in on a film class taught by the star of “127 Hours” and “Milk” at NYU, and the first-time professor’s curriculum is as avant garde as one would expect. Soon the nine graduate students will travel to Detroit to shoot a collaborative film with the themes of “rejuvenation and memory.” Of course, the class has its fair share of perks, too. The students’ films will likely get attention from film festivals, and then there’s just the thrill of spending time with Mr. Franco. “I got over being star-struck,” one student said. “But handsome, yes, he is handsome.”

Bowery Boogie spotted the Yankee second baseman — and 2011 home run derby champ — playing a game of stickball on Bond Street yesterday. The game, complete with adoring kids playing the outfield, was part of a promotion by the MLB Fan Cave, which is nearby on Broadway. No word on whether Mr. Cano’s power and smooth swing were in full effect on the mean streets of Bond.

Robert Schmunk The Parks Department has begun placing rat poison in Tompkins Square Park, a measure it previously declined to use because of the presence of red- tailed hawks.

The city has unleashed a new weapon in the fight against the rodent menace in Tompkins Square Park.

After destroying rodent hideouts and deploying mint-scented trash bags, new garbage cans, and “Feed a pigeon, breed a rat” signage, this week the Parks Department began baiting the park with poison.

Previously, the Parks Department had said it did not use rat poison due to the danger it posed to the red-tailed hawks that dine on the critters. But now, new Parks Department policy allows the agency to use poison when hawks are not in the fledgling season, which is roughly from February to August. Read more…

Daniel Maurer The alleged rape occurred outside of 303 East Eighth Street.

The 51-year-old accused of the brutal and brazen rape of a woman on Eighth Street on Saturday morning spent seven years being shuffled between city jails and state mental health institutions.

Neal Essex, who was scheduled to appear in criminal court today, spent a total of 1,350 days behind bars over the course of seven separate jail bids; all of which were related to a second-degree murder charge in 1984 (The Local was unable to confirm the victim or verdict in the case, but The New York Post reported that Mr. Essex was accused of killing his mother.) Despite all the jail time, Mr. Essex did not end up serving time in the New York prison system, according to a Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman. And, until the alleged rape, he had not been to jail or prison since 1991. Read more…

Runnin’ Scared has the harrowing tale of an actress and NYU professor, Cynthia Wright, who was nailed by a speeding cyclist while crossing Third Street at Avenue A. She didn’t file a report, but realized days later that she has several visits to the orthopedist on the horizon for damage to her face, jaw, knees and tibia. A friend then posted a sign in the neighborhood asking that the cyclist listen to his conscience, call Ms. Wright and help with the expenses. As it so happens, Andrea Peyser’s column today mentions an East Village man, Jack Brown, who was also injured by a bike but failed to go to the hospital.

Google Maps The Jacob Riis Houses, where Mr. Brown lived, at FDR Drive and Sixth Street.

The death of a man fleeing police across FDR Drive last week has led to aggression toward officers patrolling Avenue D, with some angry residents even tossing objects from the rooftops at them.

Lieutenant Patrick Ferguson of the Ninth Precinct revealed that the environment on Avenue D has taken a turn for the worse at a meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council last night.

“It’s been hostile,” said Mr. Ferguson. “We don’t have the best of friends there right now.” Read more…