Susan Keyloun

What is it? The name that’s missing from the East Village?

Think. It’s a name you would expect to hear, but don’t. A name you would expect to encounter in cafes and bars, on street corners and buses, in parks and in shops, in the lobbies of movie theaters and the changing rooms of gyms, on subway platforms and in supermarket lines, and wherever else East Villagers congregate.

The name, still so visible on the Web and audible on TV and radio, has vanished from the neighborhood. Yet it is (surely) the most famous name in the world. It begins with an “o,” and it ends with an “a”: OBAMA! Once it was on everyone’s tongue. Now, it seems, tongues would rather utter any name but that one. The name has been replaced by silence, by the absence of a name. It is a void people no longer know what to do with except to circle around it cautiously while naming other names — Palin, Beck, Murdoch, Cantor, Tea Partiers — as if warding off an evil spell.

There are other people besides Obama you rarely hear discussed these days. For instance, Clinton, Geithner, Bernanke, Biden, Pelosi. The names of those who hold the highest offices in the land are spoken aloud almost as rarely as those of Party officials in a Communist dictatorship. It’s as if merely whispering their names were a crime. It isn’t, of course, but somehow it feels inappropriate.
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Khristopher J. Brooks The intersection where the robbery occurred.

It was her second night in New York City and Rebecca Burns — still jetlagged by the long plane ride from her native Australia — was walking along 11th Street after midnight with a friend, Emma Marquard.

Suddenly a man approached wearing a black bandanna with skeleton designs on it and produced a handgun. “And he says ‘Don’t scream. Give me your bag’ and Bec goes ‘Are you serious?'” Ms. Marquard recalled recently. “You know, we’re from Australia and people there just don’t have guns, so when I saw it, I thought it was fake.”

But within moments, the pair came to a horrible realization: they were being robbed at gunpoint.

The incident underscores a recent uptick in crime in the neighborhood, which has seen robberies in the Ninth Police Precinct increase by about 10 percent when compared to the same time last year.

The police declined to discuss the figures, or the robbery on 11th Street, which occurred July 6. But those who study crime trends note that the typical spikes in crime that occur during the summer months might be exacerbated by the recent run of especially balmy weather.

“Summer months are indeed more dangerous in terms of street crimes as more people hang out till late hours and among the ones who hang out for legitimate reasons are also predators of various sorts and kinds,” said Professor Maria Haberfeld, who studies public law enforcement at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “It is a documented fact in criminal justice research that weather does influence crime rate.”
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Julie Turley, Shawn Hoke, Kenan Christiansen and Lindsay Wengler, members of The Local East Village Flickr Group, share their images of a murals outside Mars Bar in recent years.

Shawn Hoke

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Ian Duncan Crif Dogs was the second downtown business to try Google Offers, a new daily deal site

Last week tech giant Google rolled out its daily deal service in New York, launching with two East Village businesses: Pommes Frites and Crif Dogs.

Twitter user @jamiedurante summed up the pairing neatly: “LOL @ yesterday and today’s google offers. It’s like they KNOW us!! #eastvillage #eats #options #fat”

Despite the less-than-healthy picks, Google’s entry into this fast-growing business could be significant as it can bring search, e-mail and its new social network Google+ to bear on consumers. It had been trialing its Google Offers service in Portland, Ore., expanding the test run last week to New York and the San Francisco Bay area.

Like some other neighborhood business owners, Brian Shebairo, owner of Crif Dogs, said he had been unconvinced by other deal sites. “I kind of turned my nose up at these deals,” he said. “The reason I did it with them is because they’re Google.”

Mr. Shebairo explained that he thinks Google has the size to make the daily deal idea successful. He added that the company created a marketing campaign for the hot dog restaurant and gave his staff Android cell phones to scan offer barcodes.

The site works along the same model as Groupon and Living Social. Users sign up to receive a daily e-mail offering a coupon for discounted goods or services. When the coupons are purchased Google sends money to the business up front and customers use them to pay in the store. Last Thursday, 1,035 coupons for Crif Dogs were sold through the site. On Wednesday, the launch, 1,198 were sold for Pommes Frites.

Ian Duncan A Google Offers tag at Crif Dogs.

Google takes a cut of each offer it sells. For example, the $5 Crif Dogs offer was good for $10 of food at the store. Google keeps half, with the rest going to the restaurant.

At Pommes Frites, staff members were tight-lipped about the offer. Manager Ivan Roque said he could not discuss the terms of the deal and owner Omer Shorshi did not respond to e-mail messages requesting comment.

Phillip Kalantzis Cope Mars Bar closed its doors Monday.

It happened a little before 4 p.m. The patrons were let out, the door was shut. And with the resignation of a whimper in place of the much anticipated bang, Mars Bar closed, forever.

On any other afternoon, the iconic bar — a symbol of a time gone by for a neighborhood experiencing an era of commercial development — would be sprinkled with regulars yakking away about the day’s gossip with a sympathetic young bartender.

Debates over the distinction, if any, between bands like Foreigner and Journey would be overheard as music from John Fogerty to Wesley Willis bounced off the bar’s graffiti-laden walls. Glasses of whiskey and discount red wine would be filled to the top, and the beer was always served ice cold.

But by late Monday afternoon, Mars Bar had finally served its last drink.

Raymond Bell, 60, a longtime regular with a taste for red wine, described being on the scene Monday afternoon when the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene closed the bar down — only a few weeks before the building’s demolition to make way for a new 12-story condo.

“I didn’t even get to finish my last drink,” he said. While other customers lingered outside, Mr. Bell said he “just walked away.”
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Roey Ahram, Clark Carr, Rachel Citron, Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Joshua Davis, Dave DiRoma, Vivienne Gucwa, Shawn Hoke, Meghan Keneally, Scott Lynch, Clint McMahon, Michael Natale, Michah Saperstein and Lindsay Wengler — all members of The Local East Village Flickr Group — share their images of Mars Bar through the years.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

If you’d like a chance to see your best shots appear on The Local, join The Local East Village Flickr Group.

Joshua Davis

Good morning, East Village.

The neighborhood is still abuzz at the sudden closure of Mars Bar late Monday evening. EV Grieve broke the story just before 4:30 p.m, followed by confirmations from the Department of Health about the closure. The Local has a report on last night’s vigil with reactions from the neighborhood. Check back later for a closer look inside Mars Bar though the eyes of some regulars, as well as a presentation of photos of the bar throughout the years.

In news not involving Mars Bar, The Local’s Meghan Keneally reports that Banjo Jim’s is one step closer to to being sold to a new ownership group led by Robert Ceraso. The State Liquor Authority Committee of Community Board 3 endorsed the transfer of the liquor license Monday night, the last bit of work left before the sale.

If the deep fried Kool-Aid wasn’t enough for you, EV Grieve points out that Jane’s Sweet Buns, a bakery selling pastries “inspired by cocktails,” opens today at 2 p.m. They are located on St. Marks Place in the former home of the De La Vega Museum.

The Daily News reported that an East Village street merchant, who sells hand-made gothic clothing and accessories, was beaten on the subway on his way home early Monday morning. The assault happened on the 4 train and, though racial slurs were exchanged, police have not labeled this a hate crime. WPIX has a video interview with the victim.

Finally, The Local would like to congratulate Asghar Ghahraman, a.k.a. Ray Alvarez of Ray’s Candy Store on Avenue A, for becoming a U.S. citizen, as reported in the Villager. This egg-cream’s for you, Ray.

Joshua Davis Former patrons of Mars Bar customers gathered outside the now-closed bar Monday night for an impromptu candlelight vigil.

Occasional customers and regulars at Mars Bar were shocked Monday night to learn that the Department of Health ordered the bar to close. City health inspectors found several sanitation violations and slapped a yellow “Closed” sticker on the bar’s front door Monday afternoon. Many East Villagers believe that Monday was the last time they’ll ever see Mars Bar open to the public.

Julie Turley, East Village resident since 1995 and a librarian at Borough of Manhattan Community College, said she loved the art on the walls at Mars Bar.

“I didn’t realize it was closing so soon. I don’t even drink really, but I always said if the Mars Bar closed, I would have to leave New York because it would be sort of the last slice of cake for that area — that represented this city’s grungy past. I never felt like I belonged there, but I’m still sad to see it go.”
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Meghan Keneally The transfer was approved for Banjo Jim’s.

The State Liquor Authority Committee of Community Board 3 Monday night endorsed the transfer of the liquor license at Banjo Jim’s, the popular bluegrass bar on Avenue C.

The transfer of the bar’s liquor license was said to be the only issue left to be resolved before the bar was sold to an ownership group led by Robert Ceraso. The next step is for the Community Board to pass along its recommendation to the State Liquor Authority.

The new license allows for acoustic guitar accompanied by microphone amplification and DJs up to two times per week. The hours will remain the same as they are at Banjo Jim’s currently — 5 p.m. to 4 a.m. throughout the week, and then from noon until 4 a.m. on the weekends. Few other details were finalized at Monday’s meeting, except that the signage will change — perhaps unsurprising since Mr. Ceraso has indicated that he will depart from the bluegrass theme and opt for an “artisanal” motif, which may not fit with the large banjo on the current sign over the bar’s front door. The bar’s new doors will be barn-style with glass windows that can be lifted and opened in the summer months.

Joshua Davis Owner Hank Penza sat outside Mars Bar as beer was taken away for what could be the last time after the Health Department ordered the bar closed.

Update | 7:34 p.m. Mars Bar, a symbol of a bygone era in the East Village, was widely expected to go out with a bang — a blow-out party before its home on the corner of East First Street and Second Avenue is demolished to make way for a condo tower. Instead, the bar has fallen to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which today ordered the shutters pulled down for what regulars expect to be the last time.

A spokeswoman for the department confirmed that the bar was closed after an inspector found approximately 850 fruit flies in the bar; conditions “conducive to a pest infestation;” cracked and chipped walls and unsecured gas cylinders.

News of the bar’s closure was first posted by EV Grieve, with other outlets quickly following suit. Calls to the bar were met with gruff confirmations that it had been closed but further details did not immediately emerge.

Outside Mars Bar this afternoon, regulars and staff appeared in a foul mood, threatening reporters and photographers and refusing to answer questions. Owner Hank Penza told a Village Voice reporter that he was “tired” and that was why the bar was closing.

Around 4 this afternoon, a yellow Health Department sign had been spotted posted on the bar’s door but within a half hour it was covered by a makeshift sign that simply read “closed.”
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Joshua Davis Workers removed beer and other beverage from Mars Bar, which was apparently closed by the authorities earlier today.

Update | 6:14 p.m. Health Department officials have confirmed that they ordered the closure of Mars Bar today because of a litany of health code violations. The department said that inspectors observed about 850 fruit flies in various areas of the restaurant and in a bottle of alcohol; the department also cited “conditions conducive to a pest infestation including standing water on a floor near an ice machine, water logged wooden flooring and bottles in a box with fluid in them.”

Update | 5:26 p.m. With the wrecking ball already hanging over its head, Mars Bar was apparently forced to close by the authorities earlier today. EV Grieve posted rumors that the bar had been closed by the Department of Health, but it was unclear whether the closure was temporary or permanent.

A reporter from The Local saw a yellow sign bearing the words “Closed by Order of the Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene” affixed to the front door of the bar around 4 this afternoon. Within a half hour, the sign had been covered and a worker hurled expletives at reporters as they took photographs of the scene.

Grieve called the bar, as did The Local. A man answered the phone and asked about the closure said: “The Mars Bar just closed down now.” He refused to answer any more questions and hung up. Late this afternoon, a handwritten, cardboard sign attached to the store read simply “closed” and beer was being carted out on to the sidewalk.

Owner Hank Penza was at his usual station outside the bar, but patrons and staff at the bar declined to comment to The Local.

In an interview with the Village Voice’s Runnin’ Scared blog, Mr. Penza denied that the Health Department was involved in the bar’s closure.

The Local is continuing to report this story and we will provide more details as they become available.

Khristopher J. Brooks, Joshua Davis, Ian Duncan and Todd Olmstead contributed reporting to this post.

Khristopher J. Brooks The scene outside Mars Bar earlier today.

Meghan Keneally. A staple of the East Village music scene, the future of Banjo Jim’s is up for approval.

After the blogger EV Grieve reported that changes may be coming to Banjo Jim’s, a popular bluegrass bar on Avenue C, locals took to their keyboards and headed to the blog’s comments section in anguish.

The bar’s prospective owner, Robert Ceraso, told the blog that he will be presenting a plan to the State Liquor Authority Committee of Community Board 3 tonight asking that the liquor license for the bar be tranferred to he and his partners. In describing his vision for his bar, Mr. Ceraso said that he envisioned it as an “artisanal neighborhood cocktail bar.” And that did him in.

Commenters skewered his use of the word, likening it to buzzwords of trends past, and immediately branded him as one of the big bad developers swooping in to discard the East Village of old.

One commenter, Chris Flash, wrote: “Yet another cool unpretentious music venue lost on the LES, to be replaced by yet ANOTHER yuppie dive, as if Ceraso’s dive will be different from any other dive!!”

Another, Bowery Boogie, said: “Missing Banjo Jim’s already. Artisinal is one of those buzz words that makes me puke every time.”

Mr. Ceraso said that the reaction was not totally unexpected.

“I knew there was going to be some backlash,” Mr. Ceraso said in a telephone interview. “People don’t like change and they turned me into some crazy guy that wants to change the neighborhood.”
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Scott Lynch

Would-be messages from the East Village, in 140 characters or less.

Out of Office Tweet (Automated Response)

Obviously we am very concerning among the flowers.
Ditto says ‘Go Home Now’ but what about the hours?
 212-555-4444 but it’s déclassé to phone

or text weekends, and dubious at best Mon. & Fri. & as
 for Tues.-Thur. why it’s impossibly busy here at our loft
 on Lafayette I really

don’t know what you should do my advice is buy a fat
 novel for a couple of bucks from one of those Avenue A
 vendors and get on a bus

and stay on it until you finish it could be weeks if it’s
 Proust have you read Proust I haven’t but they say he’s
 good & takes a lot of

Time you seem to have a lot of Time that’s your
 problem you see we’re all tremendously busy I mean we
just don’t have Time so do read Proust
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Meghan Keneally. Natasha Dillon.

It hasn’t exactly been a banner year for New York politicians: the names Weiner and Kruger have recently been added to the list of elected officials who are associated with scandal.

But the roster of players on the state’s political scene is constantly replenishing, and this summer, a handful of aspiring East Village pols are among 90 Manhattanites running for positions at one of the lowest levels of the state’s political hierarchy, the New York County Democratic Committee.

You could be forgiven if you hadn’t heard of the county committee before — its workings are one of the more arcane aspects of state politics. County committees meet roughly once a year and one of their most significant roles is to step in during times of unexpected transition to choose nominees for special elections, such as the Sept. 13 contest to fill Mr. Weiner’s seat.

Natasha Dillon, 26, is one of local candidates running for a seat on the committee. Ms. Dillon has a growing familiarity with the city’s political scene — she recently became a member of Community Board 3 and has long been an activist in the gay and lesbian community — but she wasn’t completely aware of the role of the county committee.

“I know they have some sort of say in nominations of Democratic candidates of special elections, like the Queens County Committee is meeting about Weiner,” she said one recent afternoon before she headed out to petition for the required signatures in order to get her name on the ballot. “It’s a very small commitment.”
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Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Good morning, East Village.

With the days numbered for 11-17 Second Avenue — perhaps better known as the site of Mars Bar — The Times published an in-depth piece Sunday recalling the history of the block and the lives of the residents who lived there. And, in case you missed it, The Local’s Ian Duncan offered an investigative report Friday about the developer of the site, which is home to the iconic Mars Bar.

The Women’s World Cup wrapped up last night, and though Team U.S.A. lost in the final in penalty kicks, it did not stop fans, and CNN, from spending the day at Zum Schneider.

Some new breakfast options will line 14th Street, EV Grieve reports, including an International House of Pancakes and the relocation of the coffee and smoothie bar, Xoom. And just a couple blocks away, The Bean will be opening a new location on Broadway and 12th Street, just across the street from Strand Book Store.

And DNAinfo tells us that a new mural honoring women’s suffrage is planned for the same Avenue C site where a controversial mural featuring President Obama once stood.

Ian Duncan The site BFC will develop, 11-17 Second Avenue – the current home of Mars Bar – is squeezed in among the much larger Avalon Bowery Place development

For Donald Capoccia, the developer behind 11-17 Second Avenue — the new apartment complex to be built on the current site of Mars Bar — the project is a return, after a decade away, to the East Village — the neighborhood where he launched his career and where he left his mark during the gentrification of the late 1990’s.

BFC Partners, Mr. Capoccia’s company, was responsible for the construction of hundreds of units of affordable housing in the East Village at a time when property values in the area were taking off. But the firm also became mired in a bitter dispute with residents over the destruction of community gardens to make way for Eastville Gardens, a mixed income development on Avenue C between East Seventh and East Eighth Streets.

Despite some rumblings over the loss of Mars Bar, a relic of the rough-and-tumble East Village of the 1980’s, the reception for the current project could hardly have been more different. In the past decade, the neighborhood has changed dramatically: when the 12-story building rises, it will stand among the much larger Avalon development on East Houston and Bowery. So far, BFC’s plan is going smoothly and Mr. Capoccia stands by his record.

“Housing production of that type in a neighborhood that was changing so rapidly is a great asset,” Mr. Capoccia said in a recent interview. Referring to low-income owners of units at the co-op he added, “community gardens are also a good asset but what was going on in the East Village then and where we are today, clearly a lot of these people wouldn’t be able to afford to live in the neighborhood.”
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Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

Last night, fans of the Harry Potter series flocked to the premiere of the final movie while moviegoers in the East Village enjoyed the free showing of “The Warriors” in Tompkins Square Park.

This weekend is the last chance for diners to enjoy Counter, a vegetarian bistro on First Avenue, which will close on Sunday, Gothamist reports. The space will be occupied by a second site of Empellon, a Mexican restaurant in the West Village, according to Gothamist.

But there are still plenty of dining options in the East Village and the cheapest choices are highlighted in the just-released Cheap Eats list by New York Magazine. Nearsay gives the local rundown here.

The photo above comes from Scott Lynch, a contributor to The Local’s Flickr group. Check back this afternoon for an expanded photo layout by Mr. Lynch.

And just in case you missed it, The Local’s Joshua Davis offered a video highlight of the work of Paul and Monica Shay, East Village community activists who were shot in Pennsylvania on July 2.