Ian Duncan Ruth Christie at home in her Lower East Side II apartment. Residents of the public housing project complain of damaged facilities and strong smells of sewage.Ruth Christie was staying in wearing her pajamas and watching movies on VHS. She finds it hard to go out as she must constantly be attached to her oxygen tank to deal with her emphysema.
She has a motorized wheelchair but struggles to maneuver it out of her cramped apartment by herself. “Walking does a number on my breathing,” Ms. Christie, who is 59, said.
Ms. Christie said her condition worsened after she moved to Lower East Side II eight years ago. Residents of LES II complain of dark brown water coming from their taps. When washing machines are running, wastewater finds its way into the pipes, they say.
Residents also complain of intermittent heat and a smell of sewage. As early as February this year the smell was strong and according to Ms. Christie it gets worse most summers.
The Obama Administration turned on the stimulus tap just over two years ago, dedicating funds to improving the quality of public housing. $423 million was given to New York City to fix up its projects. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan chose the Rutgers Houses on the Lower East Side to announce the New York package in March 2010. “It’s probably the most significant preservation action in the history of public housing,” he said at the time.
Of the total, $1 million reached LES II and was invested in roof repairs. That work was completed last fall. The problem is that what the project probably needs is a new plumbing system, Marquis Jenkins, then a community organizer at Good Old Lower East Side, told the Local in February.
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C. Ceres MerryGood morning, East Village.
The meeting to discuss the fate of 35 Cooper Square was held yesterday at the National Preservation Center, and DNAinfo reports preservation activists are optimistic about keeping the landmark building intact.
Despite the onset of spring, police are already taking precautions for potential complications caused by weather next winter. Gothamist reports the NYPD is training a dozen officers to use tow trucks in case drivers are snowed in during future snow storms, after Bloomberg admitted the city’s response to this year’s blizzard was unacceptable. As part of the plan, police will be able to get into locked cars, prepare vehicles for towing, and operate trucks, according to the Associated Press.
While a dozen police are being trained for potential snow storms, however, budget cuts are driving Bloomberg to delay the hiring of hundreds of New York City Police Department recruits for several months. NY1 reports the class of 540 recruits scheduled to begin training in April will now begin training in July. Concern has been expressed that with the lowering of police recruits, crime rates will rise.
In more safety news, the Village Voice reports police are searching for missing teen Alexander Vorlicky, 14. Mr. Vorlicky was last seen in his East 10th Street apartment last Sunday wearing black jeans, white sneakers, and a black jacket, and is roughly 115 pounds, and 5 feet, 5 inches tall. Tipsters may contact Tipsters can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) with information.
As for the weather, 55 degrees with a chance of showers. Stay dry, EV.
Tim Milk The developer of 35 Cooper Square met with preservationists this afternoon and listened to arguments for maintaining the historic site.In a room filled with about 20 people at the Neighborhood Preservation Center, Arun Bhatia, the developer of 35 Cooper Square, mostly quietly sat and listened today to requests made by preservationists to keep the building standing.
At the meeting, which began at 4:30 p.m. and lasted an hour, Mr. Bhatia arrived with a team of four people, including his spokeswoman, Jane Crotty, his lawyer and historic preservation architect Richard Southwick. Also at the meeting were Andrew Berman of The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, David Mulkins of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, Kent Barwick of the Municipal Art Society of New York and a former Landmarks Preservation Commission chairman, Carolyn Ratcliffe of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, and representatives for City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez and State Senator Tom Duane.
“We appreciate they met with us and that we started a dialogue about exploring possibilities. We hope the conversation is going to continue,” said Mr. Berman. Asked what Mr. Bhatia said regarding demolition, Mr. Berman replied: “They didn’t give much detail in terms of exactly what their plans are at this point, which hopefully is a good thing that there are some possibilities. He was there to hear what we had to say. He heard it, and we’re going to wait and see what their response is.”
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Michelle RickGood morning, East Village.
We begin today with an updated on the status of 35 Cooper Square, which has been making headlines at the Local since the announcement that the landmark building would be torn down, up to the news that developer Arun Bhatia would be holding a meeting to discuss the fate of the building. EV Grieve reports that the meeting will take place today, but is not open to the public or the press. Those who will make an appearance include president emeritus of the Municipal Arts Society Kent Barwick, Kerri Culhane, and Andrew Bernan, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
EV Grieve also shared a photo taken at last night’s Community Board 3 meeting, featuring locals holding signs reading “enough is enough” when discussing Percy’s Tavern on 13th Street and Avenue A setting up sidewalk tables outside the restaurant.
We hope you enjoyed yesterday’s hot weather and sunshine. Today’s forecast indicates rain and thunder, with a high of 59 degrees. Have a good one, EV.
This post has been changed to correct an error; an earlier version misstated the location of a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor.
Grace Maalouf Village East Cinema manager Steve Albistur sets up the theater’s marquee for Monday night’s premiere screening of Doctor Who, for which fans (below) have been camped out nearly 24 hours.Saturday night, Jessica Whitton and several of her friends heard about a screening for the BBC cult favorite “Doctor Who.” Showing at the Village East Cinema tonight, the screening of the sci-fi series opener will bring together cast members and producers, and allow several hundred fans an exclusive first glimpse at the season premiere. So Ms. Whitton and several friends drove six hours from Youngstown, New York, to Yonkers, then took a 90-minute train ride into Grand Central.
They got to Village East last night around 9 p.m., and have been camped out in front ever since. The screening will begin at 7 p.m.
“I haven’t eaten today,” says Ms. Whitton, 19. Through last night’s mist, she and her friends slept on the sidewalk. “But it was worth it.”
At 10 this morning, actors from the show surprised waiting fans with some breakfast and took pictures.
“I woke up to Karen Gillan offering me a donut,” said Marjory Collado, referring to one cast member. Ms. Collado, 24, has been waiting near the beginning of the line with the first fans, who arrived at 4 p.m. yesterday. They’ve come from Maine, Connecticut, Tennessee. Others have flown in from Florida and Texas. One of them, Tristan Shippen, 19, has been blogging the campout since it began.
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Grace Maalouf Gino di Girolamo speaks with a customer at his East 14th Street shop, Royal Tailor.Gioacchino di Girolamo has a punctured nail. For the first time in decades, the needle of his black iron sewing machine has slipped straight through his finger, and the Royal Tailor of 14th Street is not quite sure how it happened. Maybe he fell asleep at the wheel. After all, he keeps it spinning just about every weekday from about six in the evening till sunrise, and all day on the weekends. Six days a week, nearly every week, and yet —
“Never in my life this happened,” he says of the wound. And it’s been more than 45 years that the bespectacled man from Palermo, Sicily, has been steadily stitching shirts and dresses, hemming pants and re-fastening buttons for the New York City masses unraveling at the seams. In all that time, he hasn’t strayed far from Avenue A; he has worked in four different shops, all here in a two-block radius. And as the East Village has prospered, turned violent and then fallen peaceful again around him, he has watched it all from behind an ever-present pile of clothing waiting to be mended.
“I don’t know. I work hard,” he says about the possibility of having dozed off. “But, thank God.”
Business is good, though that might be incidental. For the 75-year-old Mr. di Girolamo — Gino to his friends and customers — the long hours and open door that have made him a cornerstone on this avenue aren’t about money.
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Tim SchreierGood morning, East Village.
We begin this morning with the grim news coming from just south of our neighborhood that a woman was stabbed to death inside her apartment during the weekend. Sarah Coit, 23, was found dead in her Lower East Side apartment after a series of screams were heard coming from her home on 63 Clinton Street around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The authorities say Ms. Coit’s boyfriend Raul Barrera, 33, stabbed Ms. Coit during a domestic dispute. The police said that Mr. Barrera turned himself into the Ninth Precinct station house less an hour later.
In other neighborhood news, McSorley’s Old Ale House on Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenues, recently made headlines about overlooking sanitation responsibilities despite being granted an A by the New York City Health Department. The Times reports that a city health inspector urged owner Matthew Maher, 70, to remove or at least dust a series of wishbones that hung from an old gas lamp. The wishbones were left by soldiers at the drinking establishment, which celebrated its 157th anniversary last February, on their way to war. Mr. Maher cleaned the wishbones just in time, with the opening of a new East Village Irish bar in the works.
Wondering what the line of people on 12th Street have been waiting for? Village East Cinema on 12th Street and Second Avenue is hosting a screening of Doctor Who, followed by a Q & A, Nearsay reports.
As for the weather, today’s forecast reveals fog and wind, but a high of 72 degrees, enjoy a hint of spring, East Village!
Shawn Hoke on the visual power of perspective.
“So much of photography is about perspective. You can usually improve an average shot by moving your feet; get closer, get lower, look up, look down, do something different.”
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Mateusz Stankiewicz/AF Photo Aga Zaryan, a multi-platinum jazz singer from Poland, will make a pair of rare New York concert appearances this weekend, including one in the East Village Sunday.Aga Zaryan is performing at Joe’s Pub for her second concert in the East Village, a neighborhood she calls “the heart of Manhattan.”
“I love that area, just taking walks around there,” said Ms. Zaryan, 35. “It’s a fascinating place.”
The multi-platinum singer, one of Poland’s top, contemporary jazz musicians, last performed there in 2007 in front of an audience filled with Americans and Poles, many of whom live in the East Village. She’s back for another concert on Sunday.
“I like so many clubs in New York, but this one is so interesting because it’s not just about music; you have all different kinds of people coming in,” she said. “You have musicians that play different styles of music. It’s a very open place for creative musicians. I enjoyed performing there.” Tonight, she’s also performing at The Kosciuszko Foundation, a Polish cultural organization on the Upper East Side.
Ms. Zaryan, who was born and lives in Warsaw, feels at home when the audience is filled with Poles, many of whom live in the neighborhood. “I’ve been visiting New York a few times, and I’ve made a group of Polish friends that I try to meet with every time I’m there,” she said. “They always come and support me when I play, which is really great.”
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Michelle RickA sampling of reader reactions to recent posts that have appeared on The Local.
Commenting on our post about the rejection of a liquor license application for 34 Avenue A, Mattias questioned the fairness of the panel that approves licenses:
“Business owners should have the right to opportunity; the burden should be one of ‘proof’ and should be on the committee members. A commercial way is just that, commercial; a committee having the final say in such matters is not a free market democracy.”
Brendan Bernhard’s series of “East Village Tweets” continues to evoke wide praise from readers.
Celia Farber wrote: “An inspiring new form, to carry big ideas on these tiny bridges. Keep going.”
Amy Bull said: “Who could have thought that the tweet could impose a structure and like Haiku be made an art form?”
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Ian Duncan Luis Rivera and Maritza Lopez outside their Puerto Rican restaurant on Loisaida Avenue. For the first time in 30 years, the area east of Avenue B is less than half Hispanic.The 2010 Census offers a portrait of an East Village that is more populous and less diverse. For the first time since the 1980’s, the area east of Avenue B is less than half Hispanic and the number of white residents in the area has surged.
The total population of the East Village now stands at 73,676, according to the figures, up 5.7 percent over the decade. White people now make up more than half of the population of the neighborhood, while Hispanics make up less than one quarter. The number of blacks in the neighborhood dipped by 5 percent.
East of Avenue B — the census splits records down that street — the trend is even more dramatic. The Hispanic population there fell by a little more than 10 percent, while the white population in that part of the neighborhood jumped almost 38 percent.
Claudio Remeseira, founder and director of the Hispanic New York Project at Columbia University, said the trend illustrates a number of changes taking place to the neighborhood, including gentrification, the upward mobility of some Puerto Ricans, and the decision of others to leave the city entirely.
“We are used to talking about poverty,” Mr. Remeseira added, “we tend to forget there is also upward mobility of Puerto Ricans and Domicans.”
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Vivienne GucwaGood morning, East Village.
We begin the day with the news that has taken the city by storm: Cathie Black, chancellor of education, has stepped down at the mayor’s request and will be resigning effective immediately. The news comes after Ms. Black’s brief and tumultuous tenure and a 17 percent approval rating, according to a recent NY1-Marist poll.
In neighborhood news, EV Grieve reports that another corner market, the Fuji Apple Market, on 12th Street and First Avenue is going out of business, continuing a trend that has seen a wave of small markets and bodegas close across the city.
An East Village artist has come under scrutiny from the MTA for creating a series of oil paintings on discarded subway cards. Maybe partnering with the artist could help the MTA with its financial woes? Sounds better than raising subway fares.
The performance space known as Under St. Mark’s was featured on NY1. The building, which has been owned by a theater development group since 1999, is for sale and some fans of the venue are concerned that the new owner might close the theater. Watch the NY1 video here.
As for the weekend weather, the forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and highs in the upper 50’s.
Grace Maalouf During an appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court, a Queens man pleaded not guilty to charges that he punched a woman during a dispute over a parking space in the East Village.A Queens man who punched a woman in the face in a dispute about an East Village parking spot pleaded not guilty today to a felony charge of second-degree assault.
Oscar Fuller, arrested March 1 for the Feb. 25 incident which left Lana Rosas, 25, hospitalized in a coma, has maintained that the act was one of self-defense, and told reporters in March that surveillance footage would back up his claims.
Prosecutors today presented one security tape as pre-trial discovery, calling it a “very grainy video” taken from a great distance. Thomas Kenniff, Mr. Fuller’s lawyer, told The Local that though he hasn’t seen the footage, he has a “fairly good idea” based on his conversations with the prosecutor and his own investigator of what it would show. Mr. Kenniff has said that Ms. Rosas started the altercation.
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Phillip Kalantzis CopeGood morning, East Village.
We begin today with a pair of in-case-you-missed-it items.
Two red-tailed hawks have taken to a nest on a ledge of NYU’s Bobst Library, just outside the 12th floor office of University president John Sexton. The Times has set up a live stream video where you can watch Violet, the mother named for the school’s official color and mascot, care for her eggs. Occasionally Bobby, the father named for Bobst library, stops by to check in. We put up a short post about the camera Wednesday afternoon.
We also learned Wednesday that the police are on the hunt for a suspect in a series of seven subway robberies, the latest of which occurred last week outside the Broadway-Lafayette subway station in the East Village.
In other neighborhood news, a new antique shop has opened on Second Street at Avenue A, Kabinett & Kramer. The one-room shop is the Manhattan outpost of an upstate store that has attracted celebrities such as Amy Sedaris and Anderson Cooper, the latter having liked the store so much he hired its owner to decorate his apartment across town.
Even as the number of applications for liquor licenses in the East Village continues to grow, a group of residents on East Fifth Street upset about noise are planning to fight proposals for a new pub on the block.
Bird-fanciers can visit The Times to watch a live video feed of the hawk currently nesting outside the office of N.Y.U. President John Sexton on Washington Square Park. — The Local
Ian Duncan A passerby inspects South Brooklyn Pizza’s liquor license notice. Despite the hurdles of entering a thoroughly saturated market, owners of bars and restaurants are still flocking to the East Village – and filing applications for liquor licenses.This weekend, the Post reported what we all kind of knew anyway. The East Village has more places to buy booze than any other neighborhood in the city: 474 in the 10003 zip code by their count. Cue mass eye-rolling in the blogosphere at the non-news.
Concerned by the profusion of bars, Community Board 3 and the authority have started to toughen up. Last month, the board narrowly voted down a liquor license application for a Mexican restaurant run by Two Boots Pizza owner Phil Hartman and music promoter Todd Patrick.
The reason for the proliferation of bars hinges on zoning technicalities and what critics say was the State Liquor Authority’s past trigger-happy attitude to handing out licenses.
That created momentum and now entrepreneurs are desperate to get a foothold in the neighborhood, despite the obstacles. Next Monday, 33 businesses will put their case for new or expanded licenses to the community board.
In a bold step, the owners of South Brooklyn Pizza labeled the community board “infamous” and urged their customers to sign a petition supporting their application. EV Grieve noted the claim, trigging much rumbling from the blog’s commenters.
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