Michelle Rick

Lindsay Wengler

Good morning, East Village.

As we told you last week, East Villagers will have their final chance today starting at 10 a.m. at The Great Hall at Cooper Union to address the Rent Guidelines Board before board members vote on increasing rent citywide. Renters will band together after the hearing at 4 p.m. to march in a rally for fair rents.

In other news, EV Grieve shared photos of a Mars Bar mural via local blogger Melanie Neichin. We’ve posted an image of the mural by community contributor Lindsay Wengler, the smaller image above and right. Grieve wonders if this will be the last mural to adorn the walls of the iconic bar before it closes in August. Crain’s business reported last week that the tenants living above Mars Bar tenants will only be charged $10 for rent – that is, after the building is demolished and rebuilt, which will take an estimated two years to complete.

While the days might be numbered for Mars Bar, Off the Grid posted pictures of other well-known East Village buildings over the weekend, including  the Umbrella House at 21-23 Avenue C, between East Second and Third Streets, showing a colorful array of umbrellas poking out of windows and fire escapes.

Meghan Keneally The 310 Deli Corp V.

Earlier today, EV Grieve reported on the police-ordered closure last night of an East Village convenience store. We now have more details about what led the authorities to shutter the store — the police said that the shop’s owner was arrested and charged with possession and sale of narcotics.

The authorities said that undercover officers bought narcotics from the store on five occasions and the police issued a warrant May 28 for the store’s owner, Saleh Fadhel.

Mr. Fadhel, 31, owns 310 Deli Corp V on the corner of East Fourth Street and Avenue C, and that is where he was arrested Thursday night; the police said that four bags of narcotics were recovered at the scene. The authorities did not indicate what kind of drugs were seized.

The store remained closed today with two duct-taped signs displaying a court order and restraining order. Mr. Fadhel is scheduled to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court on June 20.

Tim Schreier

East Villagers, Monday is your last chance to publicly address the Rent Guidelines Board before board members vote on rent increases.

The board held a public testimony session yesterday at the New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn. Board members will hold their final testimony session starting at 10 a.m. Monday inside Cooper Union’s Great Hall. Board members will listen to testimonies throughout the day and into the evening.

To the dismay of many East Villagers, the board took a preliminary vote last month to increase rent prices from 3 percent to 5.75 percent for tenants signing one-year apartment leases and from 6 percent to 9 percent for those inking a two-year lease.

Andrew McLaughlin, the board’s executive director, said Friday it’s tough to determine how much the public testimonies will impact the board’s final decision on increases.

“It’s certainly an important part of the process,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “It gives the board an opportunity to hear from the public, but the amount the testimonies impact the actual vote depends really on each individual board member.”

If you would like to speak during the public testimony session, arrive at the Great Hall before 6 p.m. and register with a board official.

The successor to the beloved Amato Opera, the Bleecker Street Opera, is closing its doors after two years of existence. One of the founders of the itinerant company, John Kim, wrote in an e-mail message that he and he his wife were recently “forced to leave our residence on City Island, which had been purchased and run jointly by the Amato family;” Mr. Kim said that the “home had been the headquarters of the Amato Opera for more than 40 years, and was the cradle of the Bleecker Street Opera.” The opera began as an effort by former Amato employees to carry on its legacy, and staged several performances that garnered favorable reviews.—Stephen Rex Brown

Meghan Keneally One of the few available rentals.

When scouring apartment listings, it always seems like that time — that particular time when you decided to move — was the worst possible choice because there are so few apartments available. For those searching now, they’re not just imagining it.

The percentage of available apartments in Manhattan this May hit its lowest rate in the past five years. With every neighborhood differing slightly, the East Village average was 0.69 percent — the same as the city wide average — and the overall city vacancy rate decreasing by 0.25 percent from the month prior.

According to StreetEasy, a real estate comparison website, the overall amount of rental apartments in Manhattan is down by 18 percent from this time last year.

“Rental inventory is tight everywhere right now. It’s the season: May, June, and July are the peak months for rental,” said Sofia Song, vice president of research at StreetEasy.

The East Village is known largely in the real estate world for being filled with college students and recent grads (along with the artists and musicians who shaped the area’s identity), and while they do still make up a sizable amount of the market, there are other groups interested in the area.
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Meghan Keneally Northern Spy Food Co.

Northern Spy Food Co., at 511 East 12th Street between Avenues A and B, is a very pure place. The produce is locally grown, the wine is artisanal and even the very simple décor — blue benches lining white walls — “incorporates as much reclaimed and repurposed materials as possible,” according to the restaurant’s website. The meat comes from “the best and most progressive butcher on the East Coast.” Even the name conjures up purity, since a Northern Spy is a New York State heirloom apple.

I was not initially aware of the depth of Northern Spy’s commitment to purity. At lunch the other day, I asked my waiter if the turkey in the turkey sandwich was regular Boar’s Head. He shot me a look of pure disbelief; maybe he thought I was needling him. The turkey came from a farm in Pennsylvania; it had been roasted in-house, and then shaped into a roulade for uniform slicing. And the turkey was, indeed, dense and moist and darker in color than most commercial birds, and made for a beautiful sandwich.
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Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

Some new names and familiar faces will be added to the menu of restaurants in the East Village soon, with the eventual opening of Tre Scalini restaurant on St. Marks Place. Vegan restaurant Quintessence is due to reopen today after being shut for a health code violation on Wednesday. And finally, a neighborhood jokester plays on the gentrification fears of many in the neighborhood with a mock sign advertising just what everyone has been waiting for: a faux Chase bank and Starbucks location replacing Café Centosette on 10th Street and Second Avenue.

While the crusties may not have returned to Tompkins Square Park, the pianos have! The charity Sing for Hope, which benefits artists throughout the city, has retuned to the city this summer and plans to place 88 pianos around for public use (a jump from last years 60 pianos). One of the 88 was spotted in Tompkins Square Park, but will not be officially unveiled until tomorrow.

Continuing the park’s cinematic tradition, free movies will be shown every Thursday night this summer, starting in two weeks time with “Raging Bull.” The event will be sponsored by a number of neighborhood bars, Two Boots Pizza and Epix films.

Though the Marriage Equality Bill continues negotiations, Lady Gaga has turned into the ringleader of support, both inside and outside of the State Senate offices. The popstar was quoted in the State Assembly when they were debating the bill (which they eventually passed) and at the New York City Council’s Gay Pride event last night. She’s done her part as well, urging her little monsters to call undecided state senators.

People are getting excited about the rumor of a floating summer pool in the East River. Even though it is being heavily hinted at by developers, this isn’t the first time that the crowds began to talk, so who knows whether it will come to fruition or not.

This post has been changed to clarify an item; the note about the opening of a new Chase-Starbucks location has been modified to reflect that it is a hoax.

Meghan Keneally Council Speaker Christine Quinn at tonight’s rally.

New York politicos gathered at Cooper Union tonight to kick off the city’s annual Gay Pride celebration, which this year is dominated by the “will they or won’t they” speculation over the State Senate’s impending vote on the Marriage Equality bill.

Though the spectacle’s Broadway-style musical numbers were lighthearted, the real focus was upstate. At last count, 31 senators publicly support the bill, falling just one vote short of the 32 needed to ensure passage. Late Wednesday night, the state assembly passed the bill — and it was the Assembly’s fourth time doing so — leaving the Senate as the final stop before the bill becomes law.

“This is finally our moment,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who organized the event. “We know this is the moment again that New York can actually call itself the Empire State.”
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Khristopher J. Brooks A sign created by advocates for new rent laws.

As the hours tick by and criticism mounts, state lawmakers have not settled on a renewal plan for New York City rent laws.

Legislators in Albany allowed the law to expire Wednesday night and they’re now in extra innings trying to develop a solution that satisfies both Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said that he wants the law renewed in some form before the 2011 legislative session ends Monday.

Meanwhile, local tenants and tenant advocacy groups in our neighborhood are anxious to find out what will happen. They’re constantly checking news Web sites, e-mailing their contacts in the Capitol and taking their protest efforts to a higher level. Here’s some local reaction to the deliberations in Albany.

Steve Herrick
Executive Director
Cooper Square Committee

“I think it’s not surprising that it’s come down to the wire again because the Republicans have the majority in the Senate and so they have a little more leeway there, but luckily we have Gov. Cuomo on our side. Tenants are going to continue calling Cuomo and telling him they appreciate what he’s doing, but he has to continue to apply some pressure.”
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Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

Those who rise early to exercise can now add an extra drop of motivation to their morning protein shake as the ‘Summer in the Square’ fitness program kicks off today and continues through the summer. Every Thursday morning, starting at 7 a.m., running groups, yoga lessons and boot camp sessions will be held in Union Square. Events will also be held for children, including mommy and me yoga.

When one door opens, another begins to close: EV Grieve noted a new barber shop that opened on Avenue A between 13th and 14th Streets. Nearby, Exquisite DVD on 14th Street between Second and Third Avenues has signage hinting that they might be moving out. The storefront is apparently up for rent, which, if it leaves, will add to the list of movie rental stores that have left the East Village in recent weeks.

In spite of numerous rallies and protests, the city’s rent regulation laws expired last night. State Democrats continually called for not merely an extension of existing laws, but stronger laws all together. Neither option prevailed when legislators failed to come to an agreement.

The State Assembly passed the Gay Marriage bill yesterday, 80-63. This was actually the fourth time that the Assembly passed the bill, and surprisingly this had the smallest margin of the four. That being said, all attention is now on the Senate, who are expected to bring the issue to a vote either today or tomorrow, though it is up to Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos when it occurs. So far, 31 of the 32 senators needed to pass the bill have publicly declared their intentions to vote in favor.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg took to the microphone to push for one of his biggest pet peeves: immigration reform. At a meeting of New York’s Council on Foreign Relations, Bloomberg said that he wants to create programs allowing foreign entrepreneurs and permanent status for foreign students in top industries, along with an increase in guest-worker visas and legal guest labor visas. He later took to his Twitter to continue to the push to “honor the values that made America great, and we must embrace the new realities of the 21st century economy.”

Earlier this year, we told you about the frustrations some M15 riders share regarding local bus service. In response to rider complaints, Community Board 3 tonight voted to file a joint resolution requesting that New York City Transit and the Department of Transportation consider relocating Select Bus Service stops so they are adjacent to or combined with local stops. Board members hope that riders will have quick and easy access to both local and Select Bus Service.
— Chelsia Rose Marcius

Last week, we told you about Luca Bar’s $31,000 in back taxes, which led to it being closed by the State Department of Taxation and Finance. Now comes the news that the bar and restaurant re-opened yesterday. As for the owners’ tax troubles, bartender Anastasia Morozova told us, “It’s all been taken care of.”—Stephen Rex Brown

Tim MilkThe grave of Eva Schneider and her daughter at Greenwood Cemetery.

On the 107th anniversary of the Slocum Disaster, local historian Tim Milk looks at the fate of two passengers.

It’s always had that inexplicable sadness about it, that red former Lutheran church on Sixth Street. Even before the plaque went up on the cast-iron fence which tells the sad story, one could never shake the brooding heaviness that hovered in its yard and hung over its doorstep while passing it by.

Surely it felt different on that lovely early summer’s day when Eva Schneider and her teenage daughter, also named Eva, departed its gates with so many mothers and kids from the largely German congregation to cross over to the East River piers. There, the two Evas and their many good friends, all in holiday dress, would board the excursion steamship General Slocum for an invigorating trip around the bend.

Today, their headstone looks out from a hillside just inside the fence of Greenwood Cemetery. It sadly attests to all who pass by that the two Eva’s lie there together, having both died that same day with 1,200 others. What a vivid picture the legend creates in the mind — a blue sky, the spray of the waves, stiff breezes stirring dresses and children’s hair tied with ribbons, then a desperate panic as the lumbering paddle-wheeler burst into flames.
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Joshua Davis Joe’s Locksmith, a business in the same cluster of buildings as Mars Bar, will shut its doors June 30. Above: Joe Filini Jr., son of the store’s founder, says “We always knew it was gonna happen.”

As the Mars Bar keeps the public guessing as to when it will close its doors, Joe’s Locksmith confirmed yesterday that June 30 will be its last day of business. Though unlike the Mars Bar, which has no immediate plans to reopen, Joe’s Locksmith expects to relocate to Brooklyn within the next two months.

The Local caught up with Joe Filini Jr., son of the store’s founder Joe Filini, Sr., to reflect on his time in the East Village and discuss his future in Brooklyn.

“In a sense we always knew it was gonna happen,” said the younger Mr. Filini. “It was just a matter of time of when it was gonna happen. My father’s been hearing about it for years and years and years.”
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Ian Duncan Albert Ibrahimi in the garden at Barbone. The restaurant was closed over the weekend for health code violations.

Albert Ibrahimi was hoping to spend Thursday night celebrating the five years in business at Barbone, his first restaurant, an Italian place on Avenue B. Instead, he spent it sitting with a health inspector who was in the process of closing the restaurant down for sanitary code violations.

Mr. Ibrahimi said his restaurant was “spotless” certainly no vermin and not a single fly. His undoing was a refrigerator that failed in the strain of Thursday’s heat shortly before the inspector came knocking at 10 p.m.

“I was in shock that he was closing me down,” Mr. Ibrahimi said. “I actually planned to go out and meet some friends.”

What followed was a scramble to get a new refrigerator online and fill in the health department’s paperwork to get inspected again the next day and have permission to reopen for the weekend.
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Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

Some East Village institutions may be closing down, but now people are starting to notice the complete disappearance of others: The Times reports that the traveling wanderers, known to locals as ‘crusties,’ who typically take up residence in Tompkins Square Park in the summer, have yet to be seen. One local blogger attributes the lack of crusties to the amount of summonses that they received last year.

As we told you yesterday, a group of East Villagers were among those who gathered in Albany to fight for the continuation of rent control laws. After a good deal of back-and-forth in the state Senate, the rent control laws have been extended into 2019, though without some provisions that advocates hoped will safeguard housing for some of the neediest groups.

The questioned continuation of the M15 Select Bus Service along First and Second Avenues will be the hot topic at tonight’s Community Board 3 meeting. The $60 million service was launched in October and one city councilmember expressed disapproval of the ticket machines.

A surprise six-month sweep of restaurants by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene resulted in tickets for 704 restaurants that were not properly displaying their hygiene letter grade placards. Restaurants that do not display their grades in a “clearly visible place” can be stuck with a $1,000 tab.

DNAinfo did a review of the city’s bike lanes and the East Village came up as an area with very few blockages by cars. Police cars were cited as some of the most common offenders.

Ian Duncan The festival is postponed until October.

A $29 ticket for this Saturday’s East Village Eats food festival would have got buyers a taste of 12 neighborhood restaurants as well as discount drinks and theater tickets, but there were few takers. Organizer Fourth Arts Block decided yesterday to push the event back to October, and will try to drum up more interest in the meantime.

Tamara Greenfield, Fourth Arts Block’s executive director, said that fewer than 100 tickets had been sold. The first East Village Eats, held last October, saw more than 400 foodies nibble their way around the neighborhood.

“We felt it would be more damaging to go forward with an unsuccessful event,” than to reschedule for the fall, Ms. Greenfield said.

Jimmy Carbone, owner of Jimmy’s No. 43 a restaurant and bar on East Seventh Street, helped to organize the festival. In an e-mail message he said that there were a number of competing events this weekend and that without sufficient advance ticket sales, the festival could not serve its purpose of raising money for Fourth Arts Block.

Tickets will still be good for a free happy hour this Saturday at Idle Hands on Avenue B and a small Mud coffee at the FAB Cafe on East Fourth Street. The full event will now be held on October 22 but restaurant owners lined up for this weekend have not yet confirmed their involvement.
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Roey Ahram

Area bartenders discuss the closing of Mars Bar and the question of commercialization versus preservation.

Mark Trzupek, manager of Life Café, 343 East 10th Street

“I don’t have any respect for landlords who come in and try to make money off people who have been here for 30 years and who took a risk in coming down here in the first place. Evolution always comes but at what cost? It’s changing the look of the neighborhood.”

Pepe Zwaryczuk, bartender at McSorley’s Old Ale House, 15 East Seventh Street

“Isn’t it a natural progression of life? It’s like how when Henry Hudson went up the river, the Indians looked over and said ‘There goes the neighborhood!’”

Randy Weinberg, manager of The Boiler Room, 86 East Fourth Street

“I’m absolutely 100 percent for it” — closing. “It’s all criminal to me, that they make their money off all the people that other bars throw out. It’s a real seedy crowd with a lot of drunks, a lot of druggies, and a lot of pickpockets. It’s not that they’re our competition because they take everyone we throw out because they’re bad. It’s a bad scene. It’s a part of the old East Village but really it’s time for it to go.”
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Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

In the wake of the news about the closure of Mars Bar, Jeremiah took to his blog to remember a neighboring landmark that’s due to be destroyed. The building at 7-9 Second Avenue (between Houston and First Streets) was a cultural center starting in the 1950’s and was once home to the German Anarchist movement. The construction of a 12-story apartment building will change the landscape of the area come August.

Further up Second Avenue, on the corner of 12th Street, the empty lot that used to be Ruby Lounge is due to become a residential property. An application has been filed with the Department of Buildings and the project is due to begin Friday.

Yesterday’s opening of the East River Ferry meant little to residents of our neighborhood as the route completely bypasses the East Village. The ferry picks up at a dock on 34th Street and proceeds to cross the river to Long Island City, then has a number of stops in Brooklyn before heading back to Manhattan and making a final stop at Wall Street.