Suzanne Rozdeba Chung Pai, owner of Landmark Bicycles.

Landmark Bicycles, which opened in the East Village almost five years ago on East Third Street, has expanded to a space around the corner on Avenue A.

“We’re selling new bicycles and accessories in the new space, and will eventually move the store on Third Street downstairs, where we’ll continue to sell vintage bicycles and parts, and do repairs,” Chung Pai, 44, who owns the shops, told The Local this morning. The new store, where Mr. Pai pays $6,500 a month in rent, opened last Wednesday and was formerly occupied by Organic Modernism.

He’s selling brand-name bikes including Jamis, Diamond, Biria and Viva, Chrome messenger bags and cycling shoes, and helmets, bike chains, locks, gloves, and lights. The new store is having a sale until New Year’s Day, with everything 10 percent off. Select messenger bags, used bikes and other items are 15 to 50 percent off.

Mr. Pai came up with the idea of expansion when he learned over the summer that a space had opened up around the corner from his shop. With the bigger space, which also has a basement, he could move into selling new items, as well as continue his vintage-focused business. “My main customers on Third Street are locals, but in the new space, I’ll probably get more people who are just walking around the neighborhood because it’s on the avenue.” Read more…

If photos of the anti-Republican fervor that overcame much of the city in 2004 didn’t make you feel patriotic, perhaps this footage of the TOWN Sidewalk Festival at 26 Astor Place will. Yoga demonstrations, the Standard East Village’s ice cream, and a food truck displaying art were all on hand — set to the soundtrack of Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner.” The event continues for another half hour.

Liv Buli

The 25 toddlers attending the new Preschool of the Arts in Cooper Union’s sleek new academic building aren’t just learning — they’re “exploring.” They don’t play with toys — they play with “heuristic tools.” And once a week, they do yoga.

The Jewish preschool originally opened on East Sixth Street in 1999, but quickly outgrew the location and found new digs in Chelsea four years later. “We have always been looking back to the neighborhood,” said director Sarah Rotenstreich of the school’s satellite location, which opened at 41 Cooper Square last month. “There is something so exciting about the East Village; the pulse, the creativity, the types of families.”

The Local visited on a recent Tuesday as an instructor gave morning yoga classes to each of the school’s three age groups. (In the case of toddlers, calling it yoga might be a bit of a stretch.) Read more…

Margot Wood

Would-be messages from the East Village, in 140 characters or less.

Instructions from the Muse

“Tweet!” the birdie cried. “I am tweeting,” the surly poet
replied. “Tweet! Tweet!” “Look, you dumb… sparrow, I
just told you…” “Tweet!”

A Serious Mutt

Would I be caught dead showboating in that dog run
across the street? Nyet. I’m not some pansified “pet”
pawing the air for adoring looks,

I’m here on important business: Waiting for my Master
to exit the Tompkins Square Library with his usual dose
of videos and books

We ♥ Poets!

Ginsberg’s E. 10th St. apt. gutted; O’Hara’s @ 441 E. 9th
unmarked; the plaque outside Auden’s home on E. 8th
gets the dates wrong

Observer With Cataracts

He finds it hard to not be trivial. He skims, he skates, past
the same stores & faces. Epitaph: “He was not convivial,
& he left no traces”

Materialism

He’s stuck with it, a life of fabricated purpose and no
God. Mud encrusted with jewelry stores. His Western
inheritance, along with not

knowing how to dance. Temples, mosques, are alien, and
the Church does not speak. “Maybe,” he thinks, “It’s
time to speak to It”

Read more…