The Lo-Down spotted a hawk devouring a pigeon in Seward Park yesterday — and so did much of the Lower East Side, apparently. The bird of prey dined unperturbed as a gaggle of excited onlookers took pictures of nature in all its brutality. When The Local spoke to the executive director of New York City Audubon last week regarding the hawks in Tompkins Square Park, he said that it was likely the newborns were venturing far beyond the green space where they were raised. Might this hawk in Seward Park once have nested in Tompkins?
So you want to land another kickflip just like the good old days, but you’re too scared of being singled out by the young skateboarders at Tompkins Square Park as an outsider. Now, thanks to Enclave Skate Shop in New Haven, you’ll be able to fit right in. The shop’s rundown of skate decorum covers flow of traffic, where to have a meltdown over not landing a trick, where to get $1 pizza (Mamani, naturally) and places to avoid (it’s a shocker: the public bathroom.)
Robert SchmunkThe Parks Department has begun placing rat poison in Tompkins Square Park, a measure it previously declined to use because of the presence of red- tailed hawks.
The city has unleashed a new weapon in the fight against the rodent menace in Tompkins Square Park.
Previously, the Parks Department had said it did not use rat poison due to the danger it posed to the red-tailed hawks that dine on the critters. But now, new Parks Department policy allows the agency to use poison when hawks are not in the fledgling season, which is roughly from February to August. Read more…
Elsewhere in Alphabet City, Off the Grid takes note of the Bullet Space gallery at 292 East Third Street – one of eleven buildings (this one dating back to 1867) that the city turned over to squatters for $1 each. Read more…
The death of Liz Hooper – the cause of which has still not been determined – rattled the Tompkins Square Park transient community this week. “Things like this scare me,” said Jocelyn, 33, a mother of three who lives on the streets of the East Village. “It makes me really want to change the way I live. It could have been me.” The Pasadena, Calif. native grew up in New Orleans; like Ms. Hooper, she entered the transient community after she began dabbling in drugs. She now spends most of her days panhandling on Second Avenue, in Tompkins Square Park and around Union Square – at night, she sleeps on East 4th Street and occasionally stays in a squat house in Brooklyn. Her two daughters (7 and 4) stay with their grandmother in New Orleans while her 4-month-old son is in foster care. “I want to change my life so that I can be with them,” she said. “The fact that I am not with them is so painful.” Last month, The Local asked Jocelyn to tell us about a typical day.
On the heels of her Times profile, Budd Mishkin visits the apartment of Vashtie Kola, the “East Village ‘it’ girl” (look out, Chloe Sevigny) who directs music videos, plans parties, blogs about fashion, and is “the first woman to design an Air Jordan sneaker.”
The Lo-Down has posted the September agenda for Community Board 3’s SLA & DCA Licensing Committee. Ichibantei is applying for wine and beer and Heathers is seeking to renew its license despite a complaint history.
Neither More Nor Less spotted workers cleaning up trees in Tompkins Square Park yesterday.
According to DNAinfo and other sites, including NYC.gov’s slow-moving Office of Emergency Management page, parts of the East Village are among the “Zone A” areas most at risk should Hurricane Irene strike Manhattan: “In the East Village, Zone A extends to Avenue D from East 4th Street to East 8th Street. From there, it extends to Avenue B up to 14th Street.” If evacuations are called for, shelters opening at 4 pm on Friday include Seward Park High School (350 Grand Street) and Baruch College (East 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue). Hurricane or no hurricane, the Tompkins Square Park leg of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, on Sunday, has been canceled, according to a press release picked up by Brooklyn Vegan.
Both the Villager and EV Grieve have the latest on what the Parks Department is doing to fight the Tompkins Square Park rats. NY1 also ran a story, and shortly before 11 p.m. last night, The Local spotted “Inside Edition” filming a segment that a crewperson said would air in about two or three weeks. Neither More Nor Less has photos.
Kevin FarleyChess continues at Tompkins Square Park despite yesterday’s earthquake.
When I was growing up in California, earthquakes were kind of fun. You got to hide under your desk or in your doorway, and whether you were in sixth or second grade your teacher always freaked out and rushed outside to the baseball field without providing any instruction to the kids.
The feeling of a southern California earthquake was unmistakable; it rattled the house and shook you with quick jolts. My sister and I would drop to the ground to feel the earth move, because we knew the sweet and powerful force would not last long. I loved earthquakes – their unpredictability, their distaste for shelves, and their short lifespan prevented me from getting bored. My mother used to tell me that earthquakes were the same feeling as riding the subway, which is maybe why I moved here (she was wrong). Read more…
The Daily News reports that three First Avenue teenagers were arrested for walking across a beam of the Williamsburg Bridge early Saturday morning.
According to The Post’s crime blotter, a man posing as a real estate agent showed off an East Third Street apartment and pocketed $3,575 from two victims who thought they had snagged the digs.
EV Grieve notices a sign indicating that an outpost of the organic hamburger chain BareBurger is coming to the former Sin Sin space.
In addition to the mint trash bags we told you about, a baiting station is now being used to fight the Tompkins Square Park rats, EV Grieve notices.
Tompkins Square Park Playground and Parents’ AssociationThe truck carrying 5,000 mint-scented trash bags arrived at Parks Department offices in Lower Manhattan this morning.
A truckload of mint-scented trash bags have been donated to the Parks Department in the latest volley in the ongoing war against the rats of Tompkins Square Parks.
A spokesman for the Tompkins Square Park Playground and Parents’ Association, which secured the 5,000 minty bags, said that Mint-X recently made the offer to donate all the bags after seeing all the publicity the rats were attracting.
“If the rats don’t touch it, the Mint-X guy is looking at a big purchase from the city,” said the spokesman. “I’m hopeful that they’ll work.” He added that the bags should be in trash cans at Tompkins Square Park today. Read more…
WPIX interviews Aaron Goldblum, the Fordham Law student behind the “Rats of Tompkins Square Park” trailer, and gets still more footage of rodents chasing squirrels and pigeons. A resident says dogs are getting rat-borne illnesses at the park. Meanwhile EV Grieve notices some new “Feed a pigeon, Breed a rat” signs.
Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York musters an overview of “the battle for Astor Place— and how Cooper Union helped hatch the plan to turn Astor Place into a suburban office campus.”
EV Grieve points to a trove of photos of the neighborhood from the seventies and eighties taken by East Village resident Michael Sean Edwards.
The Dieline points out that The Blind Barber has teamed up with Joya to create custom candles. One of the scents in the so-called “Tompkins” line is “Smoke.” If that conjures images of tents being torched or trash barrels being used for warmth, rest assured that the smells were inspired by the East 10th Street barber shop, not by the park.
A reader points out a movie trailer that puts a cinematic spin on the Tompkins Square Park rat infestation. Or is it an invasion? Watch the video above. Meanwhile, rats aren’t the only nuisances in the park. Neither More Nor Less has photos of a Friday afternoon arrest.
According to The Post, an appeals court has given Jerry Delakas, operator of the endangered Astor Place newsstand, until at least November.
The Times profiles Paul Marino, a manager at Hearth and half of the duo Popeye & Cloudy. They perform Shakespeare scenes and Abbot and Costello bits on the subway.
New York Magazine sits down with actor, director, and former St. Marks resident Vera Farmiga at her beloved Ukranian East Village Restaurant. “Farmiga mentions, without disapproval, that it smells like an old gymnasium.” Read more…
Back in June, The Times asked, “In the East Village, Where Have All the Nomads Gone?” Now The Villager reports that some of the so-called “travelers” or “crusties” have returned to Tompkins Square Park, “though in smaller numbers.” A reputation for heroin is keeping one couple away; meanwhile in a separate item, veteran “gutter pirate” L.E.S Jewels tells The Villager that it’s not easy getting sober in the park since, he says, “everyone keeps offering me drinks.”
He may have started out in Los Angeles, but musician Alain Levitt, one half of NYC synth-pop duo Bubbles, has called the East Village home for a solid decade. “The neighborhood has changed quite a bit,” he muses via e-mail in between recording sessions. “There’s good coffee now, some nice restaurants and lots and lots of college kids.” Having recently wrapped a “mini East Coast tour” with Gang Gang Dance, he’ll likely see more of those college kids when he hits the road again. For the moment, however, he found time to tell us about his favorite local hangs.
The Times reported that the police conducted an undercover sting operation in the East Village trying to find people who would purchase stolen bikes. The sting targeted bike messengers, specifically mentioning those at S’MAC on 12th Street and Haveli on Second Avenue. Gothamist said that the sting, which lead to three arrests, should be called “Operation Bark Up The Wrong Tree.” Sting operations are not uncommon, and the Department of Consumer Affairs is currently recruiting public participants to help them catch supermarkets who are overlooking basic requirements.
The most publicized bar in the neighborhood — Mars Bar — is set to be demolished next month. The owner, Hank Penza, and his associates are taking bricks from the walls and the cinderblocks from the exterior wall to use in his rumored new bar.
While Jeremiah continues to lament the loss of the “Chow Mein” sign, Off The Grid has a really lovely post on the oft-overlooked fire escapes that greatly impact our urban landscape. In addition to taking a serious look back at the history and need for fire escapes at the turn of the century, the post also includes pictures of some of the more artistic instances of such “iron in the sky.”
Even though the rats in Tompkins Square Park may be over-publicized at the moment, the issue is still alive and well in the East Village. Rat traps were spotted by an EV Grieve reader outside of the new BMW Guggenheim lab which is set to open next Wednesday. The public’s distaste for rats is so evident that it has lent the sentiment to a new reality series: The Animal Planet is going to air a six-part reality series called “Rat Busters NYC” which focuses around two managers of an extermination company that “tackle rat families bigger than their own, and other metropolitan pests like roaches, mice, bedbugs, raccoons and pigeons.”
Ratstravaganza is taking over! The seemingly massive rat population in Tompkins Square Park, which Neither More Nor Less has given an apocalyptic nickname, has hit all of the mainstream New York media outlets at this point. Photographers and reporters from The Post, Fox, WABC, and NY1. The takeaway from a handful of the reports was that the decision by the Parks Department to stop using rat poison in order to protect the local red-tailed hawks, coupled with parkgoers who litter, has led to the rise in our furry foes.
DNAinfo reports that popular mac-and-cheese eatery S’MAC will be opening a second locale at the hut on Houston Street and First Avenue this fall. The original store, which also has an attached sit-down area, is located on 12th Street and First Avenue. Their Ukrainian neighbor, Veselka, is also expanding and will be opening its second restaurant on First Street near Bowery in four to six weeks.
Jeremiah called in experts to talk about the removal of the longtime neon “Chow Mein” sign that used to hang on Second Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets. The sign originally came down on Monday as a construction crew is renewing the façade of the building that was Jade Mountain until 2007. Jeremiah goes on to worry about the safety of the Jade Mountain sign, since it is currently “popped up, like a body suddenly sitting upright in its coffin.”
While the historic significance of the neighborhood is well established, the new architectural gems that have been sprinkled in are the ones gaining attention from realtors. One relatively recent arrival, 40 Bond Street, located between Lafayette Street and Bowery, was named the seventh best building of the last decade. Luckily for those who are particularly flush, there are still units for sale- and one just lowered its price tag to $7.5 million.
Carol VinzantA red-tailed hawk in its nest in Tompkins Square Park earlier this year. Officials said that they stopped placing rat poison in the park to protect birds of prey, which feed on the rodents.
Lately the hoards of rats scurrying all over Tompkins Square Park have disgusted local parents taking their children to the playground. Now, an ironic — and unwitting — culprit has emerged as the reason for the boom in rats: red-tailed hawks.
The Parks Department told The Local Monday that it stopped placing rat poison in the East Village’s green oasis in April because it could pose a danger to the feathered carnivores, which feed on the rodents.
“We are not placing rat poison in Tompkins Square because of the hawk,” said Philip Abramson, a spokesman for the Parks Department. “Instead we have replaced the garbage baskets with garbage drums, preventing rats from accessing its insides.”
The red-tailed hawk was first noticed this month on EV Grieve keeping vigil over the park, and occasionally feasting on a rat. Around the same time, a new parent group, Tompkins Square Park & Playgrounds Parents’ Association, sounded the alarm on the rats in The Villager, saying the critters were even burrowing in the sandbox.
As it turns out, the two occurrences are related. A poisoned rat can be a fatal feast for a hawk, especially a juvenile one. Read more…
Rats. Lots of rats. The playground in Tompkins Square Park has turned into a haven for these unwanted critters, The Villager reports. In response to this growing problem, a new group, the Tompkins Square Park & Playgrounds Parents’ Association, made up of 175 neighbors recently banded together to confront this issue. As did the red-tailed hawk, as seen in photos posted earlier this week by EV Grieve.
In less threatening news — depending on your outlook — the World Naked Bike Ride takes off this weekend. The Local’s Laura E. Lee previewed the ride, which aims to bring attention the vulnerabilities and dangers associated with cycling in the city.
The ride is Sunday, when temperatures are expected to drop into the 80’s. Today and Saturday, however, the peak of the heat wave hits with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees. As we have been reporting the last two days, the National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning, and cooling stations will be open today and Saturday. Find a cooling station here or by calling 311.
With the heat wave upon us, Con Ed is warning of potential scattered power outages, Gothamist reports. The power company recommends reducing energy consumption as much as possible, such as turning off air conditioners when away from home.
The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »
