Michael Natale

Here we are, hurtling towards New Year, and we have some celebratory local suggestions for you.

Tomorrow evening, Prodigy, of Queens duo Mobb Deep will be tearing up Webster Hall, along with other Plain Truth Entertainment…well, entertainers. On Saturday, Resolution 15 will be asserting their right to rock at the same venue.

Also tomorrow, punk marches on at the Bowery Electric with The Waldos, featuring Heartbreakers veteran Walter Lure.

For chuckles tomorrow evening, Zebra Cake is feeding gags to the masses at Beauty Bar on 14th Street. On Saturday night, consider “If You Build It,” Kara Klenk’s stand-up comedy compendium at UCB East.

More tomorrow.

FRIDAY, OCT. 19
“Ghosts of New York Tour: Peter Stuyvesant And His Ghostly Neighbors Of The East Village”
During this tour of some of the neighborhood’s spooky sites, the tour guide will perform as a downtown denizen from the past, such as Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain and Washington Irving. 7 p.m., tour begins at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, 131 East 10th Street at Second Avenue, (718) 591-4741, ghostsofny.com/calendar/; $25.

SATURDAY, OCT. 20
“Halloween Haunting: Phantom Pub Crawl of the East Village Starring Harry Houdini”
Join the search for Harry Houdini, Edgar Allan Poe, Jonathan Swift and other ghosts known for their fondness for the drink, at some of their favorite drinking spots. The tour meets in front of the lion sculpture in front of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, northwest corner of Tenth Street and Second Avenue. 6:30 p.m. $25 by credit card online; $30 in person if space is available.
Read more…

Courtesy B. Dolan B. Dolan in full regalia.

This Sunday, the Church of Love and Ruin Tour returns to the East Village, bringing with it a kaleidoscopic array of acts ranging from independent rap sensation Sage Francis to a marching band to the gender-bending practitioners of sissy bounce. The tour’s headliner and mastermind, B. Dolan (Bernard Dolan), hopes to get the New York audience – “which can stereotypically be very stoic and non-responsive,” he said – wiling out with the help of a new host, a drag queen by the name of Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova. “I predict that she is about to become a hip-hop legend,” he told The Local, adding that “what she’s going to do to these audiences will be remembered by their children’s children.”

You heard it here first. Mr. Dolan recently sat down with us to discuss his East Village origins as well as the significance of bringing the tour back to where he got his start.

What inspired you to make a name for yourself in the East Village?

I grew up in an old mill town outside Providence, R.I., and hip-hop culture was nowhere near me really. I discovered rap via an older cousin, and then scavenged for what I could find. I knew shortly after that I wanted to be a writer-rapper and that my favorite hip-hop came from New York City. So that’s where I headed in 1999, as soon as I finished high school. I discovered the scene in the East Village and started performing there. Read more…

Ray Lemoine Mr. Flanagan shows off his wound outside of court today.

Speaking for the first time since his arrest at Webster Hall last Saturday, former Cro-Mags bassist Harley Flanagan insisted he was acting in self-defense during a brawl that landed two of the band’s current members in the hospital with knife wounds. A grand jury trial was scheduled for Sept. 27 during a hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court today.

“DMS jumped me, man,” Mr. Flanagan told The Local outside of the courtroom, upon recognizing this reporter as the roadie for an opening band who bunked with him on a Cro-Mags tour in 2000. Mr. Flanagan said he was attacked by members of the Doc Marten Skinheads, a gang with a history of violence that grew out of the 1980s hardcore scene and is still active today (graffiti around the Lower East Side reads “Demonstrating My Style” and “Drugs Money Sex.”)

“You know this scene – a bunch of loser bullies,” said Mr. Flanagan, who appeared in court along with three fellow Hare Krishna devotees and his attorney. “Seven or eight guys kicked me to a bloody mess.” Read more…

A screengrab of the fundraiser.

If you can’t donate $5,000 for a brand-new 3-D portrait, then can you spare a dollar for a hardcore legend behind bars?

After allegedly biting and slashing members of the Cro-Mags at Webster Hall last weekend, Harley Flanagan, a founding member of the band, needs help.

Friends of Mr. Flanagan’s are soliciting money for a legal defense fund on IndieGoGo, and hope to raise $50,000 in the name of “Harley’s Army.” So far supporters have donated $579.

“All of the details aren’t out, though certain stories are being bandied about in the court of public opinion,” the post reads. (The Local corrected typos). “All of the details aren’t going to get out, or get presented properly in a court of law if Harley doesn’t get top notch legal representation.”
Read more…

Chris O. Cook The Baroness and entourage.

The annual NYC Fetish Marathon kicked off last night in the basement lounge of One and One with a “Beat & Greet” thrown by fIXE Magazine. “We are the new mainstream,” said Cary Monotreme, the impresario of the fetish-pinup photo mag. “There’s a nut commercial with a dominatrix in it. I don’t know how much more mainstream you can get.”

Indeed, the atmosphere was one of a convivial dinner party thrown by old friends – that is, if one could mentally adjust to the revealing PVC gear sported by nearly all attendees and the occasional bound-up transvestite getting worked over on a giant X-cross. Once in a while, a band of vanillas inadvertently stumbled downstairs and got scared off, but their squeamishness was unwarranted, according to top-hatted longtime scenester Dale Whysper. “If you talk to the bouncers,” he boasted, “they’ll say, ‘We have fewer problems at your parties.’” Read more…

Photos: Scott Lynch

After celebrating early with the Hells Angels in the wilds of Queens, The Local spent St. Patrick’s Day proper in – where else? – the East Village. Of course we knew better than to look for green in the bars where Irish eyes weren’t exactly smiling on it; instead we had photographer Scott Lynch rove the streets near McSorley’s, Webster Hall, Penny Farthing, Village Pourhouse, Bull McCabes and other destinations. That’s right: he left the apartment on Saturday so you didn’t have to. If you did venture out, let us know how it went for you.

Here’s The Local’s latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” your weekly roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from Feb. 12 to Feb. 19, sorted by the type of incident. Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15 is at bottom.

Assault

• A early-morning brawl on East Fourth Street resulted in a man being clobbered with an aluminum baseball bat on Feb. 18. The 22-year-old victim told the police he got in an argument with the suspect on East Fourth Street between First and Second Avenues at around 5 a.m., after which the suspect punched him in the face and clocked him with the bat, causing swelling to his face and a cut.

Robberies

• A 21-year-old told the police he was on Third Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets at around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 17 when he was blindsided and knocked out. When he came to, his wallet and watch were missing.
• A man was clobbered with a rock in the hallway of the Jacob Riis Houses on Feb. 19. The 39-year-old victim said he was in a building on Avenue D near East Seventh Street at around 1:15 a.m. when two men struck him and stole his cellphone and wallet. The victim would not cooperate further with the police.
• A thief confronted a man in a playground of the Jacob Riis Houses on Feb. 18 and stole a whopping $2,300 from him. The 30-year-old told the police he was crossing through the playground on FDR Drive near East 14th Street at around 4:45 a.m. when the suspect punched him in the face and demanded money. The victim said he handed over $40, but the suspect demanded more. The victim then fled into the lobby of a nearby building, where the two wrestled. The suspect — who is said to have brandished a glass bottle — eventually gained the upper hand and stole the wad of cash from the victim’s pocket. Read more…

Lauren Carol Smith The now-closed location of Nevada Smiths.

The popular soccer bar Nevada Smiths served its final beer last night, but there’s no need to behave like a hooligan: the staff will be showing games at Webster Hall until the bar reopens at its new location.

Owner Patrick McCarthy told The Local that he planned on showing his first game at Webster Hall this weekend. A staffer at the nightclub and concert hall confirmed the arrangement.

“It’s perfect in there,” said Mr. McCarthy, who was cleaning out his old space on Third Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets. “I want to stay in the neighborhood, naturally. This all worked out great.” Read more…

Simon McCormack

During two separate meetings with representatives of the police department this week, East Villagers complained about noise caused by the 13th Step on Second Avenue between Ninth and Tenth Streets, with one resident comparing the sports bar to Sodom and Gomorrah. Last night, other bars – including the Village Pourhouse, Webster Hall, and Amsterdam Billiards – were also singled out as sources of fighting and noise.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Ninth Precinct Community Council, David Keller, who lives across the street from the bar, complained that “late at night, it transforms into a nightclub. There is a line winding down the street.” Lieutenant Patrick Ferguson described it as one of the most successful bars in the neighborhood. He said the police were well aware of the quality of life issues there, but that it passed a noise test by the Department of Environmental Protection on Sept. 17, so there wasn’t much he could do.

Last night, the bar came up again at a community forum at Webster Hall, meant to address ongoing nightlife problems around Second and Third Avenues.

A crowd of about 25 gathered at the nightclub to discuss heavy foot traffic, street noise, and drunken behavior in the northwest corner of the East Village on weekend nights. Webster Hall general manager Gerard McNamee, who began hosting bi-annual community forums about four years ago, moderated the conversation, which incorporated voices of neighbors across generations and representatives from popular bars on nearby blocks, including the Village Pourhouse and Amsterdam Billiards. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Yesterday on Astor Place.

Good morning East Village, and happy Rosh Hashanah.

The National Review’s Katrina Trinko checks out Ron Paul’s speech at Webster Hall on Monday and finds a crowd that “skews more hipster than hip replacement.” In her piece, she dubs the contrarian Libertarian the “The President of the East Village.”

Further south, City Room has the latest twist in the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests: Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna may have used pepper spray in a second incident.

Back in our neck of the woods, EV Grieve spotted a noise complaint outside of UCBeast, the Upright Citizen Brigade’s recently opened East Village outpost. Anyone else think noise in front of the club is no laughing matter?
Read more…

Michelle Rick

Good morning, East Village.

When you think all the good ones are taken, try looking in your own backyard. That’s right East Villagers, our neighborhood ranks as the number one place for dating in New York City — or at least according to the online dating site, HowAboutWe. The Village Voice reported the findings earlier this week, noting that Webster Hall and the Strand top the list of local hotspots.

Of course there are other reasons for coming to the East Village, as we’ve seen each year with the so-called Crusties; but now it seems some of these annual squatters are not getting a warm welcome from the authorities, according to Andrea Stella, executive director of The Space at Tompkins.

But that’s not all that’s changing this summer. Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York shares photos from East Villager Andrea Legge, who lives in the building next to Mars Bar; both buildings will be bulldozed by the end of August.

Mario Ramirez

Good morning, East Village.

Streetsblog profiles Local Spokes, a cycling planning organization. It hopes to work with the community across the Lower East Side to promote cycling and make life easier for bikers. Given all the back-and-forth on the issue of bike lanes, a new approach to planning might be a good idea.

Curbed asked restaurateur and general man on the scene Cobi Levy where he gets his hair cut. After abandoning an up scale Meat Packing salon he switched allegiances to Neighborhood Barbers on East Ninth Street, he told the site. Your correspondent is a Rafael’s man, but to each his own.

Showbiz 411 reviews, in ecstatic fashion, a recent Paul Simon show at Webster Hall. It was a rare club appearance for the musician and, in addition to his fans, a PBS crew was at the venue filming for an upcoming documentary on Mr. Simon.

Lastly: it’s going to be hot today, so be careful if you’re outside. The mayor’s office runs cooling centers – you can search for your nearest one here.

Timothy Krause

They say there is a chemical in turkey that makes you sleepy.

Now, it’s safe to say no scientific institution or study has actually proven this information. The truthiness of this bit of knowledge goes unquestioned because on every Thanksgiving day the fact is loudly announced by the obligatory young and obnoxious cousin/child of a neighbor/stranger’s nephew to a room full of people who are wiping gravy sweat from their brows. Often, it’s the last thing many people hear before drifting off into a tortured, caloric slumber.

It is for this reason alone that Thanksgiving shouldn’t be celebrated at home. Since our fair collection of loud and populated street corners means this city never sleeps, we certainly can’t be sleeping on Nov. 25 ; we have things to do. Funkmaster Flex and Swizz Beatz will be at Webster Hall, and after that it’s straight to Union Square to stand in the line at Best Buy. If we sleep, someone will steal our spot.

However, some East Village residents who actually admit to having a family – and maybe, god forbid, a life before their days of wearing a leather jacket – do get nostalgic for sweet potatoes and gizzards. Luckily, a few restaurants are providing prix fixe menus for gobblers of gravy and gratin. And, thank your holy fowls, it’s all the same delicious East Village food at the same reasonable prices.
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The Quarterly Art Soiree began quietly on Sunday afternoon with sing-a-longs, button making and painting lessons. There were young performers, aspiring filmmakers, free popcorn and even a balloon artist all in the cellar space at Webster Hall on East 11th Street.

“They’re loving it, they’re loving it,” Pauline Vitale said of her two grandsons. “My little Cyrus has a speech delay so he’s really into the music. So he’s enjoying it. They’re having him play the squeezebox.”
Read more…