Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

Welcome to the weekend, that is, unless you started things early with Cinco de Mayo celebrations last night. East Village bars, restaurants, and even delis got into the festivities.

Keep out those calendars out for some more memorable dates; Sunday is Mother’s Day, and for all you naughty children who forgot to make plans, DNAinfo put together a nice list of “outside the box” ideas, like East Village and NoHo History and Dessert Tour at Twilight.

For Yiddishe Mamas, perhaps a walking tour chronicling the “beloved balabustas” of the Lower East Side and sharing rugelach with the Eldridge Museum? While you jot down your plans, make note of the the annual Ukrainian festival coming up next weekend and spanning Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenue.

And in other neighborhood news, it seems the much loved ping pong table in Tompkins Square Park has been “defaced, kind of,” according to EVGrieve, despite its graffiti-resilient design of polished steel.

It’s been bad luck lately for the neighborhood’s outdoor sports fixtures: Grieve also reports that the basketball hoop on Extra Place has been removed; the why remains to be seen.

Today’s sunny high of 69 will make a quick dip for rain tomorrow, then back to the high 60’s and sunny skies on Sunday.

Phillip Kalantzis Cope

A sampling of reader reactions to recent posts that have appeared on The Local.

Two recent posts regarding development in the neighborhood — Suzanne Rozdeba’s article about the developer of 35 Cooper Square’s refusal to maintain the historic site and Mark Riffee’s interview with Anne Guiney, the director of the Institute for Urban Design — resonated with readers who are concerned about the changing face of the neighborhood.

Sam offered a defense of the developer of 35 Cooper, writing:

“This is absurd.

I’m all for the preservation of historical buildings to retain the charm, character and elegance of previous generations.

But this man owns this property and at the end of the day, he should be allowed to do what he wants with it.

If people cared so much about 35 Cooper, they should have done something about it before it became an eyesore and, more importantly – public hazard.”

Read more…

Hadas Goshen Buenos Aires, 513 East Sixth Street.

As a person of encroaching middle age, I have a largely declinist worldview. Certain things, however, give me hope for the next generation, including the large numbers of thoughtful young persons who have rejected their parents’ counsel in order to engage in pleasingly unhealthful activities, including smoking, drinking to excess, and the eating of large quantities of red meat. Thus, despite public service ads advising Americans to eat more “plant matter,” the 16-ounce steak is making a comeback in the youth setting of the East Village.

Allow me, then, to introduce Buenos Aires, a restaurant at 513 East Sixth Street which features the high-cholesterol cuisine of the South American pampas. I would be predisposed towards any restaurant with that name, since in Buenos Aires I learned to eat cuts of meat, and even inner organs, that I had never tried before; at a little stand in San Telmo — the city’s East Village, more or less — I ate rich, greasy slabs of flank steak taken straight from the grill and slapped between thick slices of white bread. ‘Twas very Heaven.

Buenos Aires-the-restaurant is a no-funny-business steak place. The décor features a few standard photos of tango dancers, and two large-screen TVs which are turned to soccer games night and day, thus bathing the place in the electric green glow of distant soccer fields. You can, if you wish, order spaghetti, lobster, chicken or various kinds of milanese—breaded beef cutlet. But why bother? Stick to the house specialty.
Read more…

Phillip Kalantzis Cope

Good morning, East Village.

As we offer you our daily greeting, we pause to ask how you’d greet a neighborhood Wal-Mart?

At Wednesday’s Community Board 3 meeting, Wal-Mart representatives expressed a wish to open up shop on the Lower East Side as part of an effort to stake its presence across Manhattan. DNAinfo reports that a coalition of groups opposed to the retailer called Walmart Free NYC asked the Economic Development Committee to vote against any future developments that could adversely affect small businesses.

But in a recent poll of New York City voters by Quinnipac University, 68 percent of respondents said that they’d shop at Wal-Mart. Would you? Let us know in the comments section below.

A vision of our community’s future is being offered through the weekend with the first Festival of Ideas for the New City, a collaborative project featuring downtown organizations with conferences and events, and a “Streetfest” along the Bowery.

The festival, which began Wednesday and carries on through Sunday, highlights the history of the Bowery with local voices, including Rob Hollander of the Lower East Side History Project, who’ll be giving a walking tour entitled “The Bowery: How It Got There and Where It’s Going,” beginning on Astor Place.

If you plan on going, you may want to bring along an umbrella: Today’s mix of clouds and sun will most likely give way to rain by Saturday.

Since the early 19th century, locals and visitors alike have gazed at the striking Gothic architecture of Grace Church, located on Broadway and 10th Street. However, if visitors were to venture through the church’s doors, they are also likely to encounter a rich crescendo of organ music.

Grace Church’s artist-in-residence and concert organist, Stephen Tharp, helps to maintain Grace’s musical legacy alongside its master of choristers, Patrick Allen.

Today, Grace Church is undergoing a massive restoration process. In addition to stained glass windows and ornate woodwork, Grace will fit the colossal building with a world-class organ by 2012. Besides Mr. Tharp’s career accomplishments as an organist (touring around the world, composing his own music, and performing for the pope), he is eager to fortify Grace’s musical legacy on its brand new organ.

The Local speaks with Mr. Tharp about his current position as artist-in-residence at a church that is evolving both architecturally and musically.

NYU Journalism’s Stephanie Buck and Kristin Buettner report.

Gloria Chung

Good morning, East Village.

For some who attended last night’s meeting at Cooper Union, it may not be such a good morning. Protestors booed and jeered as the New York City Rent Guidelines Board took a preliminary vote to increase rent stabilized apartments between three to 5.75 percent for one year apartment leases, and up to nine percent for two year leases, with an additional one percent for oil-heated buildings, DNAinfo reports.

The board approved the increase with a 5-4 vote, citing the need to keep up with the growing operating costs for building owners. What’s next? Two more public hearings on June 16 and 20, before a final vote on June 27. Will you be in attendance? Let us know.

But hey, at least British royalty can still afford the neighborhood. On Saturday, the East Village tipped its hat to the famous newlyweds, with a fresh mural of Prince William and Kate Middleton holding court on the corner of East Houston and Avenue B. According to BoweryBoogie, Lower East Side artist Chico offered up his congratulatory message (only up for about three weeks) after being commissioned by Branson B. Champagne, a Harlem based liquor company.

And the rain, rain won’t go away–at least not for another day. Expect wet weather with a high of 55.

Mark Riffee Anne Guiney.

It would be a gross understatement to say that the East Village is in the midst of a transition. Old buildings have been threatened and new ones are scheduled to rise, much to the chagrin of many locals. But as Bill Millard, an East Village resident and freelance writer for various architectural and urban design publications, points out in an e-mail, it’s just as “important to consider ways to encourage the types of development that provide or foster benefits for a neighborhood” as it is to protest and block “destructive forms of development.”

So what kind of development is positive and why, recently, have some seemingly less favorable projects been allowed to continue in the East Village? The Local caught up with Anne Guiney, executive director of the Institute for Urban Design, and asked for her thoughts.

What architectural elements characterized the East Village before the gentrification of the neighborhood?

It all depends on what your carbon dating system is for gentrification and how you define it. I think the East Village has, for a very long time, been defined by tenements in terms of building type. And that hasn’t changed a lot architecturally. Obviously the street-level retail and the kinds of uses are a lot more commercial, a lot more recreational than they were 20 or 30 years ago, but the physical structure of the buildings is still defined by the tenement.
Read more…

Mark Riffee There are 23 galleries on Orchard Street between Canal and Houston Streets and 71 total in the Lower East Side.

In the more than three years since to The Times declared, ‘Here comes art,” with the opening of the New Museum space on the Bowery in 2007, the galleries indeed have come to the Lower East Side.

They occupy ground-level storefronts of skinny buildings with wrought-iron fire escapes zigzagging up their front facades on the seven tree-speckled blocks of Orchard Street between Canal and Houston and in the New Museum’s vicinity, too. They teeter on the edge of Houston. When Miguel Abreu opened his eponymous gallery at 36 Orchard Street in 2006, he can remember no more than four or five reputable galleries in the area. By the time the New Museum opened the next year, the Times counted two dozen. Now there are 75.

And the movement is inching northward.

So, East Villagers, is this a cultural revival on the scale of the 1980’s, which spawned the likes of Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Jenny Holzer? It’s hard to ignore the similarities. Like the East Village was, the Lower East Side has become a hotbed of intimate spaces at the bottom of tenement-style buildings run on low budgets by young gallerists eager to be the first to show New York’s freshest talent. The new scene is home to “very idealistic people who believe in the art. And that’s incredibly admirable,” says Pepe Karmel, 55, a professor of art history at NYU and a former art critic for The Times. “There’s really a place for that in the art world.”

Like their predecessors, the participants of this new scene put authenticity above all else. Mr. Abreu, 48, chose his Orchard Street location because adding to the Chelsea “super-market,” land of the “homogenous white cube,” wouldn’t allow any potential for distinction. In the Lower East Side, collectors and gallery-goers can expect to “discover something” and engage in “some kind of conversation with the work,” says Mr. Abreu Read more…

John Galayda, Phillip Kalanztis Cope and Timothy Krause, community contributors to The Local, share their photographs of the celebration at Ground Zero early Monday morning.

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.

Adrian Fussell

Good morning, East Village.

Sunday’s news of Osama Bin Laden’s death left many in our community reflecting on the significance of the event; from East Village firehouses to local Muslim shops–even Twitterers shared their thoughts.

While some took to the streets to celebrate, one local community contributor worried that the jubilation could lead to more divisiveness:

“I am not Muslim but my first reaction to viewing the celebrations in Times Square, WTC and the White House was concern. I was kind of appalled at the reaction of the people. It looked to me like a sporting event celebration. I worried that the loss of life in NY, DC and PA as well as the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would be overshadowed. I was and remain equally concerned for the Muslim communities throughout our world. I can only hope and pray that this does not lead to more unjust treatment of Muslims and Islamic people who are very important to the very fabric of what New York is. Peace.”-Tim Schreier

As the celebrations subside, how do we move forward without forgetting what has past? We welcome your thoughts.

As for the weather, expect a mix of clouds and sun with highs in the mid 70s.

Ian Duncan Six firefighters from Ladder 11 lost their lives on 9/11. This morning, all was quiet at the station house

A single rose marked plaques remembering firefighters killed in the line of duty. At Engine 28 and Ladder 11, six in all mark those who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 – five firefighters and one lieutenant. On this milky gray morning, the station house appeared almost abandoned. The engines stood mutely inside the garage and no men could be seen through the windows. It was a sharp contrast to the frenzy of action as firefighters rushed downtown almost ten years ago.

At a ring of the station house bell, a young firefighter came to the door. He was not at the World Trade Center, he explained, and summoned his colleagues from the back of the station. Kevin Murray, a survivor of the rescue efforts was on duty, but in the hours after Osama Bin Laden’s death, the Fire Department is not permitting individual firefighters to talk to the press.

Ian Duncan At Engine 28, Ladder 11.

At the station on East Second Street, firefighters were on duty as normal and seemed in good spirits, happy to chat, if not to comment. Across the firehouse door, the slogan “We support our troops” stood as a reminder of how closely tied New York’s fire department is to the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and the wars that followed.

Just a few blocks over there was a hint at the rawness of the emotions brought up by last night’s news. A tired-looking firefighter on duty at the front desk at Engine 33 and Ladder 9 told The Local that the men there were not yet ready to share their thoughts and were still processing what they had heard.

In all, 26 firefighters from the East Village’s four stations died on 9/11, according to department memorial pages. Across the city 343 members of the fire department lost their lives.

In January, Roy Chelsen, an Engine 28 and Ladder 11 firefighter who was at the World Trade Center on 9/11, died after a battle with bone-marrow cancer. His disease was linked to working in the toxic rubble of the collapsed towers.

In an statement posted on Twitter late last night, FDNY commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano said, “Osama Bin Laden was responsible for killing 343 members of the FDNY on Sept. 11, 2001. Tonight, in firehouses throughout the city, our members are grateful for the news, and thankful to all the brave members of the U.S. military that had a role in this successful operation.”

This morning a post from the Twitter account read, “Commissioner Cassano: #OsamaBinLaden’s death is a relief for the 343 FDNY families who lost a loved one on 9/11.”

Adrian Fussell

Good morning, East Village

It started at 8:46 a.m. Then again at 9:02 a.m. Two buildings stood burning — one for 56 minutes, the other 102 minutes.

Each building took 12 seconds to fall.

Since that day the world has remembered the nearly 3,000 people, who were lost on September, 11, 2001 and the families that were forever altered.

In the East Village, the tragedy brought a spirit of community to areas like 14th Street and  Avenue A, where people gathered under Chico Garcia’s mural and agreed to “remember that time we all grieved together.”

After time, though, the murals were covered and the people wondered if the man responsible for creating that scar in their lives would ever be caught.

Now, 3,518 days later, an answer, a moment of justice and, perhaps, a measure of peace.

Tim Milk The developer of 35 Cooper Square has told preservationists that he will not maintain the historic site and will move forward with an undetermined development plan.

Update | 6:30 p.m. In a blow to preservationists, the developer of 35 Cooper Square has announced that he will not preserve the historic site and will move forward with an undetermined development plan.

“Unfortunately, it was concluded that it would not be feasible to develop the site with the building or any significant portion of it remaining, and that any potential relief” — in the form of a variance — “would not remedy the site conditions which make preservation infeasible,” Stephen Lefkowitz, an attorney for the developer Arun Bhatia, wrote in a letter dated April 28 to City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez.

Workers were also seen on site today erecting scaffolding around the historic building.
Read more…

Mario Ramirez on personification through a lens.

“Urban fabric, the objects of everyday city life. Although not really pretty, each object has an almost human personality about it. There are thousands if not millions of instances like this in an urban setting, and the East Village is not immune to them.”

Read more…

Spring colors are abounding and on the runway they’re brighter than ever. From the storefront to the street you don’t have to look hard for neons because they definitely pop!

The Local takes a look at how some trendy East Villagers are livening up their wardrobes for spring and (dare we say!) summer with some fluorescent flair.

NYU Journalism’s Rachel Ohm and Claire Glass report.

Work at 35 Cooper Square is set to resume now that the site’s developer, Arun Bhatia, has been issued a new permit to install scaffolding at the site. “The owner can do work under permits issued,” said a Department of Buildings spokeswoman. As for the status of a violation issued against Mr. Bhatia regarding the site’s roof, a hearing is scheduled for June 2.—Suzanne Rozdeba

Grace Maalouf A customer orders at Tu-Lu’s Gluten-Free Bakery, which is dedicated specifically to providing treats without the protein found in wheat, oats and barley that causes illness for those sensitive to it.

In the sprawling East Village dining scene, there’s no shortage of choices: cheap or exorbitant, healthy or indulgent, quick or leisurely, deciding on a meal is a culinary choose-your-own-adventure. There are plenty of options for meat-eaters, for vegetarians, even for vegans. But for the rising number of people intolerant to gluten, a protein found in wheat, oats and barley, what’s the best way to navigate the pizza- and dessert-lined streets of the neighborhood?

Enter the spate of restaurants ready to guarantee every last corner of the masses has access to a few of their favorite things. More and more are adding special gluten-free menus or dishes, and others are altering their entire line of offerings to make them friendly to those who can get sick from certain grains and flours.

At East Village comfort-food headquarters S’MAC, for example, the entire mac-and-cheese menu is available in gluten-free varieties. So whether diners want the gruyere-bacon “Alpine” dish or the manchego-fennel-onion “La Mancha,” all the pastas can be ordered sans gluten.
Read more…