Lauren Carol Smith The former Van Tassel and Kearney Horse Auction Mart.

A building that served as an auction block for some of the city’s finest steeds around the turn of the century and decades later the studio of artist Frank Stella is now protected for the ages.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission today voted to designate the former Van Tassel and Kearney Horse Auction Mart building at 126-128 East 13th Street a landmark, essentially preserving its exterior as-is. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown The State Liquor Authority committee of Community Board 3.

Last-minute negotiations between East Fifth Street residents and the owner of the Standard East Village paved the way for the hotel’s overhaul on Monday.

The famed hotelier Andre Balazs and members of the East Fifth Street Block Association presented Community Board 3’s State Liquor Authority Committee with a series of stipulations marked up with fresh ink before formally presenting the plans for the hotel formerly known as the Cooper Square Hotel.

The sticking points of negotiations were the concepts of “undetectable” sound versus noise that is “un-disturbing to neighbors,” according to Stuart Zamsky, an officer with the East Fifth Street Block Association. In the end, the association won the former. Read more…

The Tompkins Square Park and Playgrounds Parents’ Association (the group behind last summer’s uproar over the rats in Tompkins Square Park) is deciding how to address concerns such as “reduction of pigeon/rat feeding, sand box cleanliness and increasing the number of garbage cans on the Avenue A side of the park,” according to a Facebook post. Meanwhile, a tipster spotted a flyer in the park for a missing 16-year-old who “likes parks and street musicians,” according to the notice.

The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission will consider whether to designate the former horse auction house at 126-128 East 13th Street a landmark on Tuesday. The former Van Tassell & Kearney Auction Mart “is one of the last remaining in the city that was constructed for staging horse auctions,” a commission spokeswoman wrote in an email. The building also served as sculptor Frank Stella’s studio and was the subject of much lobbying by preservationists when developers revealed plans to replace it with a seven-story building in 2006. (That plan fell through). The vote on the auction house was originally slated for June 26 — the same day as the vote on the larger 330-building historic district in the neighborhood — but was moved up due to a packed agenda.

Stephen Rex Brown Ducks Eatery will open in the old Resto Leon space on East 12th Street.

The chef from the trendy ping pong bar Spin plans to open a new creole barbecue and seafood joint on East 12th Street in the next four to six weeks.

Crispy pig ears, yakamein (a New Orleans noodle soup), shellfish, braised pork spines, and peppercorn briskets injected with cachaca and apricot preserve are all planned for the menu of the new restaurant, called Ducks Eatery.

“We’re diving hardcore into the creole and barbecue thing,” said chef Will Horowitz. “It’s pretty wild, the flavor profiles we’re doing.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer Workers removed kitchen items today.

Friend House, an Asian restaurant and lounge that brought in a weekend party crowd, has closed amid a bankruptcy filing, lawsuits, and mounting debt. The deathblow came Monday when a city marshal turned possession of the space over to the landlord.

The eatery at Third Avenue and 13th Street applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last June, court papers show. At the time, it cited $675,995 in liabilities, including over $491,200 in rent arrears, more than $86,206 owed to Renaissance Development Corp., and smaller debts to food and wine vendors. According to papers filed last week, the company also owes about $87,000 to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance and about $24,000 to the city Department of Consumer Affairs. Read more…

Department of Transportation

The city just released it’s plans for bike share locations in the city, and the East Village has 27 stations as far east as East Sixth Street and Avenue D.

Ray LeMoine A bike-share display at Tompkins Square Park.

The Department of Transportation said that the map is a draft, and could change. At each location, dubbed Citi Stations thanks to a $41-million sponsorship deal with Citibank, cyclists can rent a ride and then drop it off at any other station. Astor Place, Tompkins Square Park, and three blocks of East Seventh Street are all slated for shares.

The base price is $9.95 per day, $25 per week, or $95 per year for an unlimited number of half-hour rides. Users who want to sign up for longer rides pay an additional $4 for hour-long trips, or another $13 for trips of an hour and a half. And so on.

Since late last year the city has solicited opinions on where the share locations should be built.

The first bikes should hit the streets by late July, and next summer 10,000 bikes should be docked at 600 stations.

The Neighborhood School The library in the Neighborhood School.

A local school’s library narrowly avoided the chopping block this year, and now The Bean is hosting a fundraiser to help get a head start on the next inevitable fight to keep it open.

On May 23 students from the Neighborhood School will sell raffle tickets, art and lemonade at the coffee shop on Second Avenue to benefit the library and its librarian. Cafe customers who buy travel mugs with art designed by students will get free coffee refills for a week, and The Bean will match the money raised by the students by up to $1,000.

“It’s been great to see community businesses jump on board and say it’s something they want to support,” said Amy Richards, a parent at the Neighborhood School with kids in kindergarten and the third grade. Read more…

For all the hubbub, might developer Benjamin Shaoul’s rooftop extension to 315 East 10th Street not be such an eyesore? The Lower East Side Preservation Initiative seems to think so. “Now that work is ending, the final result could have been much worse, and we’re very glad to see the facade including the lovely cornice intact,” the preservationist group writes on its Facebook page. Back in January the block of East 10th Street along Tompkins Square Park was designated a historic district by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but Mr. Shaoul got the green light for the extra story on his building literally hours before the vote.

Suzanne Rozdeba Construction workers at the space eyed by the owner of Angelina Cafe.

The owner of Angelina Cafe, Rafik Bouzgarrou, is considering crossing the street to new digs.

Suxanne Rozdeba

A construction worker renovating the interior of 37 Avenue A (just next door to Essex Card Shop) told a tipster that the small restaurant was moving in. Reached by telephone, Mr. Bouzgarrou made it clear he would rather not be talking about the possibility of a new location.

“It’s not a sure thing,” he said. “A deal is not done. Please don’t ruin it.”

Meanwhile, construction workers at a salon slated to open next door to the possible Angelina location — that’s a busy block! — say that Joyful Nail should be open in about a week.

Illustration: Lauren Carol Smith

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There’s been much ado about chain stores lately: last month, anarchists targeted a new 7-Eleven; earlier this week, Community Board 3 continued its discussion on retail diversity; and now a petition calls for a halt to the perceived chain invasion in the East Village. But just how many chains are in the neighborhood, anyway? The Local pounded the pavement to find out.

The petition claims that “zip code 10003, which we all know as the East Village, now has the most national retail stores of any zip code in NYC (except for one that has a huge shopping mall).” Not exactly true: a recent study by the Center for an Urban Future found 169 chain retailers in the zip code, actually the third-most in the city. Since the 10003 zip includes parts of the Flatiron District and Gramercy (and only part of the East Village), the question remains: how much of the East Village do chain stores own?

Here’s what we found: if one were to place every national chain store, bank, restaurant, and movie theater in the East Village side-by-side, they would span 16 city blocks, and that’s with stores on both sides of the street. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

A quirky “ambassador” program that failed because its cool members weren’t cool enough for the Chelsea nightclub they were representing will be implemented in a new bar on East 14th Street.

The owner of Bishops & Barons, which is celebrating its opening tonight in the old Hype Lounge space, expects that his roughly 150 ambassadors will invite their friends to the restaurant and cocktail lounge that evokes the days of “showgirls, movie star gangsters and supper clubs,” according to a press release.

“It’s all about creating a foundation for the place,” said owner Danny Kane of his ambassadors. “That way, when people walk in it’s not empty and there’s energy.” Read more…

A jury convicted a 35-year-old electrician from Queens today of punching a woman in the face and leaving her in a coma following a dispute over a parking space on East 14th Street.

Oscar Fuller could face up to a year in prison for the brutal blow on Feb. 25 of last year, but he avoided the more serious charge of felony assault. The verdict hinged on the perception that the victim, Lana Rosas, was knocked into a week-long coma as a result of her head striking the pavement — not the punch to the face, according to The New York Post.

“This was a brutal and unjustified act of rage,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in a statement. “That a petty argument over a parking space could escalate into physical violence is shameful.” Read more…

HiFi Bar and B.A.D. Burger both set up somber shrines to the neighborhood’s past today. The bar at 169 Avenue A just announced on Twitter that the vintage photo booth from the recently-closed Lakeside Lounge now has a new home. And just next door, a tipster tells EV Grieve that a candle is burning in honor of Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys, who died today. Back in 1982 the Beastie Boys recorded “Polly Wog Stew” in the B.A.D. Burger space, which once was a studio.

Stephen Rex Brown One of the many students at yesterday’s rally against the cuts to after-school programs.

A panoply of politicians blasted Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to slash funding for after-school programs citywide yesterday, saying the cuts would have a particular impact on the Lower East Side.

“It’s outrageous,” said Councilwoman Margret Chin, whose district would lose seven out of 10 of its after-school programs if Mr. Bloomberg’s budget proposal is approved in its current form. “He needs to look at these kids and say, ‘You don’t count.'” Read more…

The conflicts over the future of two of the city’s most revered academic institutions rage on. Over in Greenwich Village, add Bloomberg’s architecture critic to the list of people not fond of N.Y.U.’s expansion plans. “For a while I thought these expressionless shapes were simply cartoon placeholders for real buildings that could be developed with a great deal more sensitivity,” reads the hard-hitting review. And over at Cooper Union, students have begun a petition drive in support of an alternative plan, dubbed “The Way Forward,” that suggests ways to raise revenue without charging students tuition.

Stephen Rex Brown The scene at 152 Second Avenue at around 1:30 p.m.

Workers building a three-floor extension to 152 Second Avenue put out a minor fire at around 1:30 p.m.

A pair of workers at the site said that the fire was little more than a spark from an open gas line.

“They had a fire extinguisher handy and it went out right away,” said Battalion Chief Jim Tracy.

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Essex Card Shop

Shira LevineM. Aslam (left) and Jayant Patel (right) outside of their store.

Twelve years ago, Jayant Patel came to the East Village for cheaper rent (yes, your read that correctly), after the monthly dues were hiked at his 12-year-old stationery store at 116th Street and Broadway. Back then, the rent in the city-owned building at 39 Avenue A was $3,500. It’s now $5,800, and the modest paper store has expanded to include items like printer cartridges, socks and baby clothes. Five years ago, Mr. Patel, who is Indian, partnered with M. Aslam, a Pakistani immigrant. Not only are the two of them making it at Essex Card Shop (and at their other store, Village Stationery on LaGuardia Place), but as Mr. Patel revealed to The Local, a movie is being made about his life story.

There is a lot of quirkiness in here, with thoughtful quotations you’ve pasted here on the counter. What is your philosophy on life?

Mr. Patel: My philosophy is “truth, love, and honesty.” It’s universal. Trust is something everyone follows. If you are truthful then people will trust you. I see myself as Muslim, Hindu, Christian, all in one. If you’re nice to people, people are friendly. People in New York are good. New York is a tough town, but it’s full of good people if you stop and experience it. Life is hard and not always comfortable. Struggle makes you strong and I don’t mind it. Read more…

A new six-story building with condominiums on each floor is coming to Alphabet City.

Stephen Rex Brown 227 East Seventh Street.

The building, expected to be completed in the summer of next year, will replace a vacant one-story building at 227 East Seventh Street, near Avenue C. Plans to demolish the existing building, which was built around 1980, were approved by the Department of Buildings late last month.

The new structure also spells the end of a big Jim Joe tag. An email to the ubiquitous artist seeking comment bounced back. Read more…