Results tagged “eastvillage”

An East Village resident sent us these photos of the aftermath of a horrific automobile crash that happened early this morning, at First Avenue and Fourth Street. An NYPD spokesman tells us that according to a "preliminary report," a 55-year-old black female was killed after a delivery van and minivan collided. Apparently, the minivan was so totaled that EMS had to cut the top off to get inside. The spokesman said there were no other injuries (which seems hard to believe) and no one was charged (which seems typical). Streetsblog hears an "unconfirmed" report that "this was a T-bone collision in which the minivan ran the light."

    

Click on the images here for more details on The Vanderbilt in Prospect Heights, Bill's Burger in the Meatpacking District, Corsino in the West Village, and Giano in the East Village.

When they're not shooting themselves in the groin, threatening to kill the president, or trying to blow up Starbucks, the city's rebellious youngsters continue to commit the less sensational crime of burglary. Cops arrested two teenagers suspected of ransacking dozens of lower Manhattan apartments in separate burglary sprees.

When we last checked in on the state of the sprawling Manhattan apartment complex known as Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town, it was at high risk of default on some $4.4 billion in loans. That was the beginning of September, and the prognosis is still negative. At the end of the month, it had $33.7 million left of the $400 million in interest reserves set up to service its debt, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. This means that at its current burn rate of about $16 million per month, the reserve could be depleted before the end of the year.

After earning the adoration of the hipster masses with his killer Neapolitan-style pizza, Belgian-born chef Mathieu Palombino has recently opened his second Motorino location across the river in Manhattan. The East Village spot (49 East 12th Street) is cozy compared to the spacious original, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in charm and legend: It's the former home of beloved Una Pizza Napoletana, and with the lease Palombino got his hands on the restaurant's prized Acunto wood-burning oven, handcrafted in Naples.

"Everybody here is scared now," downtown bodega worker Primo Dlmn from Morocco tells the Times. "I’m as nervous as I can be, but I’ve got to go to the store. Life goes on." Or does it? A sniper with a high-power BB gun has been terrorizing Avenue D between Third and Fourth Streets during the past week, lodging pellets in a construction worker's skull, shattering car windows, and wounding six others. Now the NYPD says there have been other BB gun shootings in the area, and it looks like there may be some sort of teen pellet gun gang. How street is that? Local mailman James Heckstall says, 'It used to be terrible around here, the Wild West...The neighborhood is getting nicer and nicer. Then, every once in a while, something like this happens, and it makes us look bad." And then someone shoots their eye out.

Some warped punk with a BB gun has been firing at people near the corner of Avenue D and East Third Street during the past week; at least eight people have been shot, and several car windows have been blown out by the sniper. Construction worker Edward Gilyard was shot on Friday, and doctors found two pellets lodged next to his skull. He was at his job site when he felt a sharp pain on his right temple, and tells the Daily News, "I put my hand up there and felt the blood... All of a sudden, I had a little hole in my head."

Gansevoort 69: Last summer, when Florent ended its decades-long run as a 24/7 Meatpacking District oasis, the building's owner Joanne Lucas saw her hopes of finding an upscale boutique tenant evaporate. Then Lucas's attempt at running a restaurant (under the original name R&L) came off like a depressing ghost of its former self, and the space closed again. The new venture, Gansevoort 69, looks a lot better than the previous effort, with a design that keeps some of the old (the original bar and terrazzo flooring) while creating something new.

Motorino: This top-notch thin-crust pizzeria was an instant hit in East Williamsburg, but will it compete in downtown Manhattan, which is now flooded with "artisan" pizza options? Anyone who's eaten at the original knows the answer's hell yes, and chef Mathieu Palombino is confident his authentic Neapolitan pizza will make its mark. He has the added advantage of inheriting a space already known for pizza excellence; it was previously the home of Una Pizza Napoletana, which left behind its Acunto wood-burning oven, handcrafted in Naples. Palombino's filled the 36-seat space with marble-topped tables and kept the vibe comfortably casual, with shiny subway tiling and wooden bistro chairs. Motorino's Manhattan menu is slightly smaller than the original, and includes seven classic pies, plus a variety of seasonal pizzas. 349 East 12th Street; (212) 777-2644

An ex-con who is suspected of robbing over a dozen homes throughout the East Village and Lower East Side was feeling so cocky while hanging out inside the East 10th Street apartment he was hitting up that he decided to have a little shirts-off time and take a snooze. When the super of the building found his cellphone and t-shirt behind, cops were able to use DNA testing on the shirt to nail 45-year-old Ramon Pacheco. One police source said Pacheco would use acrobatics to get inside hard-to-reach spots in apartments, taking "laptops, iPods and cameras," telling the Post, "He's kind of like a Spider-Man. Sometimes he's kicking in windows. Sometimes he's going through skylights. One time, he kicked in an air conditioner and crawled inside the apartment."

Today, a funeral was held for Eric Pagan, the 42-year-old bouncer who was killed while trying to intervene in a dispute outside East Village bar Forbidden City over the weekend. A bartender in the neighborhood told NY1, "Taz was always the protector. I used to work at the bar next door to where he used to work and he was always there if we needed him... Anytime anybody ever needed him, Taz was there. He's such a wonderful guy and he's so missed. Avenue A will never be the same. You walk down the block and expect to see him." We're told that East Village bars Drop Off Service, Planet Rose, Forbidden City, Common Ground, Habibi Lounge, and Superdive will donate 50% of their register on Monday, Aug. 31 (all day and night) to set up a college fund for Pagan's children, a 14-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son whom he adopted when the boy's mother died.

A lawyer for the man arrested for the murder of an East Village bouncer claims that his client Louis Rodriguez is innocent. Rodriguez is accused of shooting Pagan in the face outside the bar Forbidden City after allegedly hitting someone standing on the sidewalk with a van. The Daily News spoke to lawyer Paul Brenner, who said, "An off-duty cop was present. He said Mr. Rodriguez was definitely not involved...My client wasn't there" While Brenner doesn't know the cop's name, he asked the Manhattan's DA office about him. A rep from the DA's office told the News, "We will, of course, investigate all information that comes to our attention, but for now, the charges speak for themselves." A memorial for Pagan has been growing outside Forbidden City and his mother told WCBS 2 that when she found out he was killed, "From there, my heart, my heart, I don't know what happened. From there, I got a pain here, and I - am beat."

The police arrested a 29-year-old man for the fatal Sunday shooting of Eric Pagan, a bouncer at East Village bar Forbidden City. Louis Rodriguez was arrested yesterday in Gramercy; According to the Daily News, "Police said the quarrel started when Rodriguez rolled up on the club in a white van and accidentally struck bar patron Salvador Moran, 31, as he stood outside with Pagan and Robert Calbo, 30. Moran and Rodriguez started arguing until Rodriguez ended the back-and-forth with gunfire, hitting Moran in the neck." Pagan, who wasn't on duty but would check into the bar even off-duty, was also shot, in the face; Moran and Calbo were injured. Witnesses and surveillance video led cops to Rodriguez, who has previously been in prison for assault. On Sunday night, East Village residents paid their respects to Pagan; EV Grieve has more.

Yesterday, the shooting outside East Village bar Forbidden City, on Avenue A near 13th Street, that left its bouncer dead and two other men injured was apparently spurred from a fight, which bouncer Eric Pagan, 42, had been trying to break up. Pagan actually had the night off but Forbidden City's manager Ron Ancheta said he usually checked in. Ancheta told the Times that when he heard the gunfire around 4:25 a.m., he rushed out, "[Pagan] was laying right in the middle of the street, face up. There were so many witnesses, probably around 10 to 15 people surrounding his body."

An off-duty firefighter got called into action Friday night when he ended up pulling a Wes Autrey and jumping down on the tracks to rescue a man who had fainted and was laying unconscious on the tracks just as an uptown Q train began pulling into the Union Square station. 30-year-old Adam Rivera, originally of Bay Ridge, had been out in the East Village getting Indian food with his girlfriend to celebrate their seventh anniversary. The couple was heading home to the Upper West Side when Rivera spotted 45-year-old Marco Delamo on the tracks. The firefighter out of Engine 10 in lower Manhattan told reporters, "People were panicking, but nobody was doing anything...I thought to myself, 'This is my job — I'm a New York City firefighter, and I have to do something...There was no time to be afraid. You can't waste time hesitating. You just move, and the thinking stops...Being right there in a position to help — that's why I joined the department." Rivera and two other men lifted Delamo to the platform before he was taken to St. Vincent's intensive care with head injuries.

Around 4:30 a.m. today, a shooting broke out on Avenue A and East 13th Street—a total of three men were shot, and one was killed. According to 1010 WINS, "All three of the unidentified men were rushed to Bellevue Hospital where one of them was pronounced dead. The other two were listed in stable condition." It's unclear what caused the shooting, which occurred just south of Stuyvesant Town, and the investigation is ongoing. 1010WINS adds that East Village residents told "reporter Glenn Schuck, that they are upset the bars and clubs in the area stay open so late." Update: The Daily News reports that the shooting occurred outside the bar Forbidden City and that the bouncer was killed after throwing two men out: "The men, who continued to fight with another group as they exited the night spot, hopped into a waiting white van and one of them reemerged a moment later brandishing a handgun, horrified witnesses said." One witness elaborated that a man got out of the vehicle and "popped one guy. He then walked around another car, went straight up to [the bouncer] and capped him point blank in the forehead."

Today Frank Bruni ends his five year gig at the Times with a review of the Redhead, an East Village bar that gradually evolved into a casual restaurant with, some say, the best fried chicken in town. Quoth the Bruni: "It isn’t exactly like any other downtown restaurant I know—its semi-polished, Southern-inflected pub grub is all its own—but it sharply reflects a few of the most prominent and rewarding developments in Manhattan dining over the years during which I’ve had the privilege of serving as The Times’s restaurant critic.

The woman who is accusing two NYPD officers of raping her inside her apartment while she was intoxicated has filed a claim against the city and the two cops for $5 million. The woman, who remains anonymous, is seeking $3 million for personal injuries and $2 million in punitive damages. Officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata are currently awaiting trial for the sexual assault charges after being indicted by a grand jury in April. The Post has gotten a hold of "newly disclosed legal papers" from the suit whic bring to light new details which had not previously been made public:

Dun dun dun duuuuun: composer Philip Glass recently came home to find his apartment had been broken in to. While someone took the time to shatter a window to get in, the only thing that was taken was a cell phone. The Villager reports that his 2nd Avenue home is just around the corner from the 3rd Street Men's Shelter, where it's suspected the thief resides. The paper notes a broader issues with the shelter, saying that muggings, car break-ins and drugs are becoming more rampant problems in the area. One community board member, Elinor Tatum, was recently at the Marble Collegiate Cemetery and "was shocked to see all the 40-ounce beer and vodka bottles littering the graveyard, which she is sure were tossed out of the shelter’s windows." She told the paper: “I don’t want to see it going back to the way it was in the late ’80s.”

This week outgoing Times dining critic Frank Bruni files on Table 8, the new venture from California chef Govind Armstrong located in the controversial new Cooper Square Hotel, where disgruntled neighbors have hung soiled underwear on their clotheslines to undermine the cachet. "I spotted only one sad, fluttering garment on the evening when I ate on Table 8’s street-level patio," reports Bruni. "And it did less to ruffle my serenity — the patio is a pretty, breezy treat — than the door that crashed into the back of my chair when someone decided to step outside. Placing a table for diners smack in the door’s way exemplifies the curious planning at which Table 8 excels."

Okay so we're all familiar with the Verizon eyesore on the banks of the East River, and the fact that it's hate-fuel for those who have to look at it from Brooklyn, but now the company is taking it to the streets, and likely annoying even more of the city. Their never-ending "network is always with you" campaign was filming earlier over near 7th Street and 1st Avenue. Did you see hundreds of red shirts clogging up the East Village today? Can you see them now?

Cellar 58: The wine bars are coming for you; they're coming for us all! The latest vino dispenser to descend upon the East Village is Cellar 58; but this one has a lot going for it. One, it's run by real Italians who run around talking at each other in their glorious native tongue. Two, there's a really cute back room, seen here, that fills with diffused, late afternoon light and feels sort of other-worldly. Three, during the opening party last night, we heard the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, Radiohead, and not a single Andrea Bocelli torch song. Fourth, besides the 120+ international wine selection, they're doing a pretty extensive small plates menu (flatbread pizzas, pastas, bruschetta, etc.) which doesn't set them apart from other wine bars (like the one right across the street) but we felt great amore for everything we tried. 58 Second Avenue; (212) 420-1300

According to Rihanna Buff (your ultimate online Rihanna news source?), the singer was in the East Village yesterday getting tattoo lessons at East Side Ink. The fan blog reports, "All the black she’s been wearing is getting kind of repetitive, but I can deal with it." So understanding. Anyway, she was allegedly there for a sketching class; could Rihanna be looking for a second career? You know what...Rihanna says, "Just live your life/ay ay ay/Intead of chasing that paper." However, she does have an $18,000 a month rental in SoHo to pay for. UPDATE: TMZ went and ruined the fun, they posted about the illegality of Rihanna touching a needle without a license, and now the NYC Health Dept. are sending someone down to the shop. Meanwhile, the singer could be charged with three misdemeanors.

A number of people were injured when a police cruiser crashed into a car and then headed into people on a sidewalk in the East Village. The incident occurred on Avenue D: According to WCBS 2, "the police car was traveling at a high rate of speed northbound." The Post reports the "cop car, which was traveling in the wrong lane while apparently on a chase, smashed into a white Cadillac making a right turn at Avenue D and Fifth street. Then the cruiser went on the sidewalk and hit a building—and some people. The cruiser was also traveling very fast, perhaps chasing another vehicle—one witness told the Post that three people plus a baby were sent flying by the impact, "The baby was in the stroller and it flew up in the air. The baby landed under the police car. The mother was panicking holding the baby. She was in shock." Another witness said he didn't hear a siren while a third said, "The problem is they were going so damn fast. These guys were going 55 miles an hour."

The Big Apple isn't always hard-hearted—witness these sweet tributes to Pretty Boy, an East Village cat who passed away last month at the suspected age of 22 (!!). He traveled between Mikey's Pet Shop, where he slept, and Salon Seven, where, the NY Times reports, he "spent his day purring, sprawled on the appointment calendar at the reception desk and in the laps of clients having their hair washed." Salon Seven's Mark Dolengawski told the Villager that neighborhood supers loved Pretty Boy, one even wished "I had a cool walk like that." Dolgengawski added, "It really was a cool walk...it was a Zen-like stroll. It was so serene. I like to think of him as my sensei — my Zen master. I hope to be as cool and serene as that when I get old." And Living in Narnia wrote last month, "Mikey told me that Pretty Boy wanted to hold on until Tuesday, when Mark returned to the salon, and so he did. He died in Mark's arms...Rest in peace, Pretty Boy. The East Village lost a good friend. " A former Mikey's Pet Shop employee told the Times, "Every day I cry. He knew he was the man. He was the man on East Seventh Street. Everybody just loved him."

And the great 2009 hotel war rages on: Over the weekend, we showed you hellish video depicting a cacophonous multi-media roof party at the Thompson LES Hotel, documented by an understandably disgruntled neighbor. Today we're back over to the Cooper Square Hotel, where angry neighbors have been using bullhorns and dirty laundry to fight back at loud-talkers on that hotel's patio.

Earlier this week, a former squat, the Bullet Space at 292 East 3rd Street in the East Village, was turned over to its residents. Or, as the NY Post puts it, "Nearly 30 years after an eclectic group of poets, performers, anarchists and artists illegally occupied a burned-out East Village tenement, they've officially become a Manhattan co-op."

The two cops accused of raping an intoxicated woman placed a fake 911 call in order to give themselves an excuse to return to her apartment and sexually assaulted her after having tended to her on two previous visits. According to the New York Post, prosecutors say that Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata (pictured) used a pay phone at First Avenue and East 13th Street to place a 911 call under the name "John Edward." In the call, they complained about a drunk homeless man whom they said was in front of a building two doors down from the victim's residence.

More revolting details emerged on the rape charges against two NYPD officers during their arraignment yesterday, and Commissioner Ray Kelly held a special press conference to publicly condemn the men. Officer Kenneth Moreno—a 17-year veteran on the force and 41-year-old married father of two—pleaded not guilty to allegations that he illegally entered an unidentified woman's East Village apartment and, according to Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau, "had sexual intercourse with the physically helpless victim as she lay face down on her bed, having previously vomited multiple times."

A grand jury has indicted two NYPD officers in the alleged rape of an intoxicated woman they had escorted to her East Village apartment. Sources tell City Room that a grand jury voted last week to indict officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata, but the exact nature of the charges is still unclear. A lawyer for officer Moreno, a 17-year veteran on the force, says, "My client will appear in court tomorrow and enter a plea of not guilty. We look forward to a rigorous examination of the district attorney’s evidence."