Mark Nickelsburg, a longtime East Village resident, will debut “Harry Grows Up” tonight at the inaugural New York International Short Film Festival at Sunshine Cinema. The 12-minute film is about a toddler, Harry (played by Mr. Nickelsburg’s son Lucas) who loses his babysitter (Elizabeth Elkins) when she heads off to college. The tot sinks into the kind of deep depression that results in empty baby bottles strewn about the house, leading narrator Josh Hamilton to quip, “I’m not the first heartbroken New Yorker to turn to the bottle.” But then along comes Zoey, a love interest closer to Harry’s age. Mr. Nickelsburg, 41, described the short as a “romantic comedy for adults, starring babies.” The Local spoke with him about filming his own son in the streets of the East Village.

One of the major characters in your film is the East Village. Was that intentional?

Yes. The experiences that Harry is going through and some of the locations that he’s going to I drew from my own experiences. Like the storefront that figures prominently in the movie, that was around the corner from where I used to live. Moonstruck is the diner on Fifth and Second where Harry drowns his sorrows. I went there all the time. Read more…

Theater For The New City

An “aerial circus,” poetry, burlesque, plenty of theater and even talk show legend Joe Franklin are part of this weekend’s Lower East Side Festival of the Arts.

The free festival, celebrating its 17th year at the Theater For The New City, starts on Friday and will feature outdoor performances on East 10th Street near First Avenue.

Other highlights include excerpts from productions by local institutions La Mama ETC and Horse Trade Theater Company, a film festival dedicated to the neighborhood, and a performance by the experimental dance group from the Children’s Workshop School. The theme for the over 100 participating arts organizations is “Legalize Freedom: Art as Activism.” Read more…

Evan BleierSister Kelly Carpenter

A program that serves needy East Village and Lower East Side immigrants is in peril, as a significant chunk of its funding will disappear when its sponsor, the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, closes next month.

After last-ditch efforts to keep the Cabrini Center open fell through and the new owner of its building at Fifth Street and Avenue B, Benjamin Shaoul’s Magnum Realty Group, announced in March that it would go ahead with redevelopment plans, it became apparent that the nursing home’s 240 residents would be forced to relocate.

Those elderly residents won’t be the only ones affected by the closure on June 30. The Cabrini Center also sponsors Cabrini Immigrant Services, a Lower East Side organization that, according to its director Sister Kelly Carpenter, feeds about 16,000 people a week. City, state, and federal grants totaling $94,000 pay for most of the meals, but the cost of administering them has, to this point, been covered by the center. Read more…

There’s an air of serenity about Anna Sheffield as she works at a small desk in her studio on Lafayette Street. On a recent Thursday evening, the jewelry designer spoke to The Local over a cup of tea, away from the buzz of her workroom and kitchen, in a well-lit corner room filled with her designs, art books and warmly worn wooden furniture. Her hair was pulled back and tattoos of hearts, flowers and birds covered both her arms.

Ms. Sheffield started her Bing Bang line (available at Cloak & Dagger, Warm, and Reformation) in 2002 in San Francisco and launched her fine jewelry line, Anna Sheffield, (available at Love, Adorned and coming to ABC Carpet & Home in a couple of weeks) in 2007. Before that, she grew up Catholic in northern New Mexico. Her influences are evident in the Madonna, crucifixes and feathers that adorn some of her works. Read more…

Gavin Doyle Zac Posen and Susan Kirshbaum

Tonight at 6 p.m. at the Bowery Poetry Club, Susan Kirschbaum will read from her debut novel, “Who Town.” The book is drawn from Ms. Kirschbaum’s experiences over the past 15 or so years in New York: after moving from a middle-class Philadelphia suburb, she covered the downtown scene for The Times, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post and others. Now in her late 30s, Ms. Kirschbaum is the rare reporter who became part of her stories, dating band members and artists and hanging out with the crowd she was supposed to cover. She told The Local about her downtown-centric writing life, and how Candace Bushnell, the author of “Sex and the City,” started it all.

When you came to New York, what was the Lower East Side and East Village scene like?

I got to New York in the late ’90s, when the Beahver parties were raging at Don Hills and junkies still roamed Alphabet City. A lot of young artists still lived in the East Village and bars like 7A and 2A raged late at night. I also remember going to poetry slams in Tompkins Square Park. Read more…

Daniel Maurer Outside of T.S.B. earlier today.

Chains aren’t just an East Village issue. Our neighbors to the south are grappling with them as well.

A group of Seward Park Co-Op residents have convinced the Lower East Side housing complex’s board of directors (at least for the moment) not to lease out a pair of Grand Street storefronts to a Dunkin’ Donuts and 7-Eleven, according to an e-mail sent out today. But the e-mail’s joyful opening – “We Won!!!!!!! Congratulations! WOO-HOO!  Yipeeee!” – is followed by sobering words: “Now it’s time for the hard work.”

Auguste Olson, a shareholder of the Co-Op who started a petition asking the board of directors not to take on the corporate behemoths as tenants, sent the e-mail to fellow residents. During a special meeting last night, it said, the board voted to give the group of shareholders three weeks to “find other strong businesses that would meet the communities [sic] needs and wants.” The message goes on to say, “This proves that when like minded individuals come together, we can achieve great things!” Read more…

Godlis A 1977 photo of CBGB, which operated on the Bowery from 1973 to 2006. Owners of the club’s assets are now planning a festival and seeking to revive it at a new site.

For the last six years the name CBGB has been little more than a logo on T-shirts for young people in the East Village. Now a group of investors has bought the assets of that famous punk-rock club, which closed in 2006, and plans to establish an ambitious music festival this summer, with an eye toward reopening the club at a new downtown location.

The new owners of the club’s assets — some with ties to the original Bowery establishment — say they hope that the festival will revive the wide-open artistic aesthetic associated with CBGB, which in its heyday served as an incubator for influential acts like Television, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Sonic Youth and Patti Smith. Read more…

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…

Last Thursday, Brad Burgess was able to stop city marshals from evicting The Living Theatre after gathering $10,400 for back rent. But in 12 days the theater, known for its avant garde productions admired by the likes of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, faces yet another deadline. If The Living Theatre cannot raise $24,000 by May 14 it will have to move out. Its founder, Judith Malina, will likely face eviction from her apartment above the theater shortly thereafter.

To meet the goal, the theater has set up a call for donations that went live yesterday through a local crowd-funding site, Lucky Ant. The $24,000 would go towards arrears, as well as the money to pay a consultant who would formulate a plan to put the theater back in the black.

“We are down to the wire,” said Mr. Burgess, the 27-year-old actor who is caring for Ms. Malina and helping run the theater. Read more…

Rachel Citron

Good morning, East Village.

Big Think talks to Richard Price about his novel “Lush Life,” which was inspired by a shooting on the Lower East Side. Describing changes in the neighborhood, he says, “It had a neighborhood identity. That identity has gotten lost, that sense of community has gotten lost. But also what’s gotten lost is about a million junkies. Now, do you want to replace junkies with yuppies? Maybe the truth lies in the middle.”

DNA Info attends an open house for a penthouse on Third Avenue that, with its solarium and “three-bridge view,” is going for a little over $4.5 million.

Playbill touts two new productions at the New York Theatre Workshop: Paula Vogel’s “A Civil War Christmas” looks at the war through the eyes of President Lincoln, Union and Confederate soldiers, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman; and “Sontag: Reborn” is “a tender look at the prolific essayist before she was a world-renowned author and activist.” Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown

The neighborhood’s top shop for photocopies, the Source Unltd., is one of 11 business in the Lower East Side and East Village that scored grant money to make environmentally friendly upgrades.

Thanks to the money from the Lower East Side Ecology Center — $1,000 is the maximum grant available — the copy store bought a new awning that will decrease its air conditioner use. It went up last week.

“We’re on the sunny side of the street here, so it makes the air conditioner run a little less, especially with the summer coming up,” said Santo Mollica, who opened Source Unltd. in 1982. “From noon to four we get bombarded, you know.” Read more…

Laura Edwins The director of First Steps, Luz Whetstone, teaches a youngster. The daycare has struggled to attract parents in the aftermath of another preschool’s abrupt closing in the same location.

A new daycare on Clinton Street is struggling to attract parents who remain wary thanks to the previous occupant: the notorious Love A Lot preschool.

After eight months in operation, First Steps only has 12 preschool students, and director Luz Whetstone said parents and city officials are still asking questions about Love A Lot. “We still get the residuals of it, I guess,” Ms. Whetstone said. “The Labor Department came by and we had to show them our tax ID and show them that we have no affiliation with Love A Lot. We didn’t just change the name. We’re really a legit business.”

But parents still remember the mess that led to the Clinton Street location of Love A Lot closing in July due to financial struggles and a variety of Department of Health violations including the lack of an educational director, the inability to provide documentation of staff medical records, and failure to screen staff. Read more…

The Lo-Down reports that The Living Theatre is struggling financially, and that its founder Judith Malina was recently threatened with eviction from her apartment above the art space. The theater, founded in 1947, opened in its current location on Clinton Street five years ago. Since then, its 20-year commercial lease has been in a “constant state of re-negotiation,” according to the Lo-Down. Ms. Malina says that a professional business manager is needed to pull the theater back from the brink.

N.Y.P.D. The suspected thief.

As if blind dates aren’t awkward enough. A 20-something man stole a 50-year-old woman’s cell phone and wallet after going on a date with her in the Lower East Side on March 9, the police said.

The victim reportedly arranged a night out with the alleged thief — who may be named Hayden — over the internet. The pair parted ways at the Second Avenue station, and then the victim realized her items were missing. The police described the suspect with corn rows in his hair as roughly six-foot-one and around 165 pounds.

Earlier this week The Local’s crime blotter, “Police and Thieves,” reported two cases of victims taking their dates home for the night, only to be robbed in the morning.

The Lo-Down provides an in-depth examination of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area — easily one of the most important developments in Manhattan and one that will radically change the Lower East Side. The article explains the plans for the project that involve a new school, room for a “big box store” like Wal-Mart, 900 new apartments, and possibly the relocation of the Essex Street Market. The three-year planning of the project is now entering a new phase in which Community Board 3’s will have “the most leverage to impact what will be built,” according to the website. The next public hearing is scheduled for April 18.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance just announced the indictment of Luis Martinez, the man accused of firing at two police officers in a wild gun battle last last month that culminated in the Baruch Houses. Mr. Martinez is charged with attempted murder in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon. During the melee an officer narrowly avoided being shot in the gut thanks to an extra ammo clip on his belt that deflected the bullet. The violence prompted Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to renew a call for a gun buy-back program in the neighborhood. “A metal gun magazine and its leather pouch was all that stood in the way of a bullet piercing an officer’s abdomen, after he was fired upon by this defendant,” Mr. Vance said in a press release.

Following the recent gun battle near the Baruch Houses and the arrest of an alleged armed member of the Money Boys gang, The Lo-Down reports that State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is calling for a gun buy-back program in the Lower East Side. “Far too many of my constituents live in fear of violence. We must take proactive steps to take guns out of the hands of criminals so that our streets are safer,” Mr. Silver wrote in a letter to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. A recent buy-back program in Crown Heights netted 29 semi-automatics.

If you’re looking to take in some art this weekend, head uptown to The Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, where admission goes towards the Lower East Side-based Henry Street Settlement.

And if the Upper East Side isn’t your thing, the Brucennial is on Bleecker Street at Thompson Street. Tim Schreier, a community contributor for The Local, recently snapped some photos of that show as well.

Would you like to shoot photos for The Local? Join our Flickr group.

The police say this is the gun that Luis Martinez fired at two police officers early this morning. N.Y.P.D.

If you were wondering why those helicopters were hovering around the neighborhood early this morning here’s your answer: two police officers narrowly avoided being shot while chasing a man down Columbia Street into the Baruch Houses.

The police said that 25-year-old Luis Martinez opened fire on Officers Thomas Richards and Thomas Dunne at around 1:45 a.m. as the pair approached him on Columbia Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets. One of the shots struck Officer Richards’s spare ammunition magazine holstered to his gun belt, just missing his abdomen.

“It was a very close call for Officer Richards,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement. “The magazine may have well saved his life.” Read more…