Suspect charged in murders of 4 homeless men in Chinatown

Update: Suspect arrested and charged with murder after attacks that killed 4 homeless men in NYC"s Chinatown https://t.co/SuCRtxYVVX

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) October 6, 2019

Several EVG readers shared links to the various published reports about the murders of four men in what police say were random attacks in Chinatown early yesterday morning ... the readers also shared concern about the growing homeless population citywide, including in the East Village. What follows is a recap on what has transpired (the post has been updated)...

The four men and a fifth who was found injured were all believed to be homeless. The victims were brutally assaulted in three different locations around Chatham Square, where East Broadway and the Bowery intersect.



A suspect, named as Rodriguez “Randy” Santos, 24, is in police custody. Police reportedly found Santos, holding a metal pipe, on Canal and Mulberry. He has at least 14 prior arrests, per the Post, and was believed to be homeless.

He is charged with murder, attempted murder and unlawful possession of marijuana.

"The motive appears to be, right now, just random attacks," Chief of Manhattan South Detectives Michael Baldassano told reporters, adding that there was no evidence yet to suggest the victims were "targeted by race, age, anything of that nature."

The Times reported this about the streets around Chatham Square:

[T]he area has been changing rapidly in recent years, as Chinatown has expanded and young professionals, many pushed out by higher rents in the East Village, have begun to move in.

The neighborhood is a bustling traffic hub where commuter vans and long-distance buses vie for curb space. Signs for Chinese family and village associations dot the area. But at night it becomes a place where a growing number of homeless people look for a place to grab a night’s sleep on its quiet sidewalks and park benches.

The murders also highlight the city's struggle to combat the growing homeless population. According to statistics from the Bowery Mission cited by the Times, about 1 in 121 New Yorkers is homeless. The Coalition for the Homeless put the number of homeless people in the city’s shelter system in August at 61,674, and an annual count conducted in late January this year estimated that 3,588 people were living on the streets.

The Times noted Mayor de Blasio's "struggle" to address "the problem of the rising number of homeless people and the high rate of mental illness among them." The Post spoke with former Giuliani and Bloomberg administrators who said the growing, more violent homeless population in NYC "rests squarely with current City Hall policies."

“There’s been an increasing tolerance for the homeless on city streets, sidewalks and subway stations during this administration,” said Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy at NYU and a former campaign advisor to Michael Bloomberg.

“The police are disempowered to remove the homeless — and New York has become less aggressive on quality-of-life issues. You used to be penalized for urinating on the street!”

As the Times reported, advocates for the homeless said yesterday's attacks "rattled the already struggling community of homeless people who frequent Chinatown and the Bowery."

Speaking of ads...

There's also this new Vans campaign, as seen here on the Westville wall on 11th Street at Avenue A.



I don't really know what this ad is trying to say.

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Jeff Underwood
Occupation: Owner, Continuum Cycles and Bike Shop, Continuum Coffee.
Location: Avenue B, between 12th and 13th.
Time: 4:30 on Friday, May 3.

I moved here from North Carolina in 1999. I’ve ridden bikes my whole life but more seriously since I moved to New York. I raced BMX when I was a kid and rode mountain bikes in North Carolina.

I worked in social work in harm reduction. I helped start the first syringe exchange in harm reduction in the state of North Carolina in 1993. Harm reduction is based on meeting people where they’re at as drug users. Instead of telling people they have to get clean, it’s more about telling them, “you know what, today you are going to use a little less, or you’re going to actually clean yourself before you inject and you’re going to use a clean, new syringe.” Any positive change.

You meet them where they’re at and eventually work to make themselves better and healthier. The concept is weird for people but it works if you do it right. I had my own problems with drugs and ended up addicted to heroin and cocaine and living on the streets for a few years. I lost everything. This was a year after I got here. I lost my girlfriend, I lost my dog, I lost my job. I was in a new city with no family and I relapsed and lost everything.

I had to figure out a way to make a living so I got a job as a bike messenger and I also had a book stand on Avenue A between 5th and 6th. Bike messengers are people from all walks of life. It’s terrible money and it’s a very dangerous job. And people treat messengers like shit. Everyone does. But I was used to that so the job seemed okay.

Working at the book stand, a lot of people would bring me books and stuff and one day someone brought me a bike and said, “See if you can sell this, I’m going back to my hometown.” I fixed the flats on it, cleaned it up a little bit and made $100 on it immediately. So I made business cards and started putting them on the beat up bikes lying around with my pager number from the messenger service, to page me if they wanted the bike fixed or to sell it. That’s how I started. Then I went to a flea market and started working at a shop.

I then got a job in my field again doing homeless outreach. Actually, I was homeless, sleeping by the river, going to a drop-in center, getting showered, cleaned up, putting on my Bowery Residence Community shirt, and running around in vans picking up homeless people at night. They had no idea I was homeless.

I started seeing the positive parts of not using. And it’s interesting because my girlfriend, now of almost 10 years, was working as the coordinator of the Lower East Side syringe exchange. We applied for the same job and she got it. She was Columbia University educated, knows everybody in the field, harm reduction superstar. I was kind of the blue-collar harm reduction superstar junkie. Then she ended up being my boss because I was working as a stipend worker there and we used to come to Tompkins Square Park together to do outreach and that’s where we started hanging out and fell in love.

We broke up for like 6 months, which is when I opened up the store. She called me and I was like, “What? Here I was thinking that you were freezing on the streets. I’m crying at night thinking you were a junkie on the streets and here you are opening a store.”

For me, when you say how did I get clean or off drugs, basically everyone just told me to go fuck myself and I couldn’t deal with the rejection anymore. That was the worst thing in the world. No trust. And now everyone trusts me. The difference is insane. And it’s in the same neighborhood, which is even crazier. Usually people have to leave.

We sell bikes all over the world. We’re not just a bike shop. Continuum Cycles is a bicycle company, Continuum, a Bicycle Shop is the space that you see, I fix bikes, we sell new and used bikes, and then Continuum Coffee is our coffee shop.

I opened the coffee shop a week before the hurricane. We lost a lot, that’s all I have to say. But it’s Spring, we’re here. We have a lot of locals, families, kids. It was funny because no one came in the first few months. They were just walking by not even knowing that we had a cafe here. So I put up the sign for an after-school special for dollar hot chocolate and boom. It was crazy.

I think [a bike share program] is a great idea. Obviously, I do — I own a bike shop, I love to bike, I tell people they should sell their car and buy a bicycle. I also don’t understand the makings of this program enough. So I’m kind of ignorant when I’m complaining.

My first question was, why did it have to be such a huge corporation, and then they told me, “Because the city was not going to pay for it.” Okay, so why couldn’t they say, “New York Bike, sponsored by Citibike,” and not with all big blue letters.

Who knows ... after one year of people riding these heavy bikes they might think, “I want my own bike.” It might help us. I hope that it’s successful. The only thing we can do is sit and wait and see what happens.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Only 178 shopping days left until the L-train shutdown

As you may have heard, read, seen, the MTA yesterday announced that the much-anticipated and long-dreaded (but necessary!) L-train shutdown will begin on Saturday, April 27, 2019.

If you missed this, then here are more details via the MTA news release, shared here...

MTA New York City Transit (MTA NYC Transit) and the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) announced new details about what customers can expect ahead of April 2019 when the L train tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn is closed for 15 months for extensive repairs from Superstorm Sandy...

• The L tunnel will close for its 15-month reconstruction on Saturday, April 27, 2019. This means that the last day for L service between 8th Av and Bedford Av in Brooklyn will be Friday, April 26, 2019. L train service will continue throughout Brooklyn, between the Bedford Av station, which will remain open during the tunnel closure, and the Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway station.

• The alternative service options for customers, which includes five additional bus routes, a new M14 Select Bus Service on 14th Street and a ferry service, will begin on Sunday, April 21, 2019, to allow for customers to sample and become acclimated to new travel options. The additional subway service on other lines – more than 1,000 additional roundtrips – will begin on April 28, 2019, following the L tunnel closure. Read the full plan for temporary service options in support of the L tunnel reconstruction project.

• Customers will be able to meet in person with MTA NYC Transit and NYCDOT team members to plan their routes, through a series of open houses, pop-up events or one of the three mobile information centers – two vans and a bus – which will make stops to meet with customers. Official dates and times for open houses and schedules for events and the mobile information center locations will be posted on the L tunnel reconstruction website once announced.

• Numerous stations have received or are receiving capacity expansions, with newly reopened or expanded entrances, stairs and corridors. NYCDOT and MTA NYC Transit are coordinating with key City agencies – such as the NYPD, Department of Buildings and Citywide Events Coordination and Management – on aligning City operations with the needs of L train alternate transit services, including working to minimize disruption from construction projects and events.

• The construction for the project is on schedule. In Manhattan, the construction site footprint and hours of work both reduce between 1st Avenue and Avenue A in January 2019. In Brooklyn, most barricades will be removed along with permanent street and sidewalk restoration on Bedford Avenue by early November 2018, and throughout early 2019, work will continue to open and do permanent finishes on the additional stairs, three of four which have already opened for increased capacity.

• Officials are committing to monitor the air for particulates typically caused by diesel emissions, known as PM2.5, and making results publicly available. This is in addition to the air quality monitoring already in place for the project’s construction sites.

• Outreach continues with customers, local residents, local businesses, and elected officials.

“We’re continuing unprecedented efforts at public outreach, responding to local communities and giving as much notice as possible on key dates in this project,” said NYC Transit President Andy Byford. “With the l running as a Brooklyn-only service for 15 months starting after the weekend of April 27, we’ve been hard at work with our partners at NYCDOT and other City agencies to make sure that the alternate train, bus, ferry and bicycle networks work together to get people around successfully.”

“With DOT crews now putting down new street markings for bus lanes and bike lanes, we are deeply committed to having our streets ready for the l tunnel closure next April,” said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. “From a ‘bus bridge’ over the Williamsburg Bridge to the 14th Street Busway, from more Citi Bikes to expanded pedestrian space for displaced l train commuters, we and our MTA partners are up for this enormous challenge.”

For a reminder about remaining L service changes in 2018, visit the L 2018 service notice page. To help customers plan ahead in 2019, new service information details about the L in 2019 include:

Overnight service closures and weekend closures during February, March and April 2019, from 8th Av in Manhattan to Broadway Junction in Brooklyn to prepare the tunnel ahead of the closure and to expedite maintenance on the l tracks remaining in service when the tunnel is closed. Weekend dates scheduled are:
- Feb 2-3
- Feb 9-10
- Feb 16-17
- Feb 23-24
- Mar 2-3
- Mar 9-10
- Mar 16-17
- April 27-28

Previously on EV Grieve:
Nightmare scenario for residents who learn that 14th Street and Avenue A will be the main staging area for the L-train reconstruction

Prepping for the new protected bike lanes on 12th and 13th streets

Bike lane line work continues on 12th Street

David Schwimmer vs. The Coen Brothers on East Sixth Street

Been a busy few days on East Sixth Street between Second Avenue and First Avenue... The Coen Brothers are back filming "Inside Llewyn Davis." The trucks and all that are parked along East Sixth Street. (The crew seems to be filming inside 110 Second Ave.)

[Yesterday, by Bobby Williams]

Meanwhile, construction continues at Chez Schwimm... where the pallets of cinder blocks await ....

[Early this morning, via EVG]

After the various work crews arrived today for their respective jobs, a resident along here noted, "The street is practically nonexistent as the Haddad's vans (where is Justin Timberlake?) are taking over from the Schwimmer cranes, making it impossible for [the construction workers] to close the street at will, as they often do – for deliveries, etc."

The Coen Brothers crew will also be filming tomorrow, then the street can be returned to the Schwimmers.

Why people move away

I've noticed a few more people than usual moving from the neighborhood. (Perhaps there's a reason for so many more men with vans signs.) Given the drop in some rentals, maybe these people are just moving a few blocks away to a building with better deals. Or maybe they lost everything and have to go bunk with a relative. Or maybe they came here during the heady days of, say, 2005 and figured to become the next Carrie Bradshaw. (Or at least have the chance to sit on her stoop!) I wish I could go up to these people and conduct exit interviews. Why are you moving? What will you miss about the neighborhood? What are you glad to be leaving behind? I'm always curious about this.

Luckily, I came across a blog written by a young professional living on the LES. After one year here, she is moving to another undisclosed neighborhood. Almost in answer to my questions, she provided a list of things she will miss and not miss about her apartment and the LES. Among the items:

Things I will miss:
--The gym. I hope I can still force myself to go to the gym when it isn’t in my building!
--My stainless steel stove
--Dry cleaning in the building
--The statue of Vladimir Lenin on top of the Red Square building. I can see him from my bed so I wake up to him with his right arm in the air every single morning.

Things I will not miss:
--The girls who scream, “Where’s my boyfriend!?” at 4 a.m. while leaving the Lower East Side bars on any given day
--The symphony of honking on Houston Street that forces me to sleep with earplugs
--The fresh vomit that I sometimes step over while leaving for [work] on any given day
--The smell of pickles from Katz Deli that I am forced to inhale when walking home every day
--The fact that there is not a close enough Starbucks
--The mural of Kiss on the brick wall on the bar across from my apartment

I guess that says it all.

Truthful liar

Playing at CBGB From Ulli Lommel's 1980 movie "Blank Generation." For the Vans advertising team.

Did it seem like a lot of people were moving this past weekend?

[East 11th Street Saturday night. Photo by Shawn Chittle]

Of course it's commonplace to see people moving (in or out) at the end of a month... But this month seemed like more than usual... on Saturday morning, during a short walk, I counted 11 moving trucks/vans/station wagons in just a few blocks... anyone else notice more people coming and going...?

Week in Grieview

[As seen at El Camion]

Posts this week included...

• RIP Ali Yasin (Tuesday)

• RIP George Eshareturi (Thursday)

• Gem Spa will not reopen (Thursday)

• Investigation for excessive force demanded after social-distancing arrests on Avenue D (Monday) ... Caravan protest on Avenue C addresses racial bias and police violence in social-distancing arrests (Friday)

• A rooftop musical salute to frontline workers (Friday)

• A visit to Juicy Lucy on Avenue A (Wednesday)

• Now that the L-train tunnel work is complete, here's what to expect along 14th Street (Monday)

• Making beautiful music: The pandemic-era arias coming from 4th Street (Thursday)

• Checking in on Brooklyn Bean Roastery (Monday)

• Checking in on East Village Meat Market (Tuesday)

• The ballfields are currently locked up in Tompkins Square Park (Monday)

• Help Limited to One stay on their feet with these limited-edition Vans (Tuesday)

• This week's NY See (Thursday)

• Asian Taste is back open (Monday)

• Construction watch: 799 Broadway (Wednesday)

• The East Village Social Distancing All-Stars (Friday)

• A Cool collab (Tuesday)

• Ruffian Wine Bar now selling bottles of wine to go (Tuesday)

• A sign of things to come? (Tuesday)

• Demolition watch: 535 E. 12th St. (Thursday)

• Temakase Hand Roll Bar coming soon to 2nd Avenue (Wednesday)

... and a flashback to Thursday's sunrise...



---

Follow EVG on Instragram or Twitter for more frequent updates and pics.

View this post on Instagram

The most quiet that I can ever remember St. Mark’s Place... can hear the wind thrumming through the trees between 2nd Avenue & 3rd Avenue (looking to the west)... #eastvillage #stmarksplace #thrumming

A post shared by EV Grieve (@evgrieve) on May 9, 2020 at 6:54am PDT

Report: May Day march through East Village leads to several arrests

[Via EVG friend Heidi on Facebook]

May Day began around 9 a.m. ... as the NYPD arrived at Tompkins Square Park... ahead of the march to Union Square that was to commemorate International Worker's Day.

By 1 p.m., per those in Tompkins Square Park, about 100-125 people had peacefully gathered for the rally...



According to accounts in The New York Times and on Gothamist, the group started walking north on Avenue A around 2 p.m. ... when we received these photos from a tipster showing people heading east down East 11th Street...





Per Colin Moynihan at the Times:

At 11th Street, the marchers suddenly turned east and began running in the roadway, some of them brandishing red and black flags. The police gave chase. At Avenue C and 12th Street, an officer tried to grab a black banner with the words “Never Work” from a man, who scrambled away.

Several people taking part in the rally were reportedly arrested here.

The group reassembled and continued to East 14th Street, where they turned to keep going toward Union Square...

At Second Avenue, the crowd turned north and a moment later a police commander wearing a white shirt began moving briskly toward a young man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and walking on the sidewalk.

Then more than a dozen other officers, some uniformed and others in plain clothes, plunged into the crowd of marchers, grabbing and arresting at least three additional protesters, shoving others against a wall and pushing news photographers.

Gothamist captured part of this scene on video:



According to Gothamist, the group, "followed by at least 100 NYPD officers on scooters, in vans, and on foot, then marched to Union Square without incident."

Read the Gothamist story here. Find the Times article here.

Depending on the source, either five or six people were arrested.

Throughout the rest of the day, many people noted the presence of helicopters buzzing about the neighborhood...

Reader report: Mysterious late-night activity at the former Cabrini Center

[Bobby Williams]

As you know, work continues on converting the former Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation into residential apartments on Avenue B and East Street via developer Ben Shaoul.

Meanwhile, a tipster notes some late-night activity behind the building, where the construction staging is taking place. The tipster notes that construction usually takes place between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. (and with permit, on Saturdays). Recently though, a few workers returned at 8-9 p.m. Now, a few more developments have made our tipster curious.

To the tipster:

To begin, they've covered the gate with plastic sheets (perhaps to keep out the wind) but also obscuring the site from any onlookers from outside on the street.

Of more interest though, there have also been several unmarked white vans after hours. Most suspicious was [Tuesday night], because this was the latest and largest vehicle I've seen yet. I heard the bang of the truck gate opening at 2:30 am.
There was a large unmarked white truck with a few non-uniformed men in dark clothes.
There was also a red truck and a beige minivan — one of the vehicles belonging to a man in a white shirt.

They were in and out in less than half an hour quickly moving garbage bags. This is odd because there is a large dumpster right beside the truck that could have been used or a garbage disposal service could have been hired. Perhaps it's just my imagination and there is nothing to hide and its merely waste materials that need to be specially delivered to the dump. Yet its still suspicious that they would do this after hours — especially after midnight.

Any theories...?

Previously on EV Grieve:
Cabrini Center patients out by the end of today; closes for good June 30

Hotel Toshi vans make an appearance on 10th Street

An EV Grieve reader passes along these photos from the new Hotel Toshi location at 325 E. 10th St. ... I also hear some neighbors have reached out to the DOB about the legality of a hotel at this address.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Hotel Toshi takes over 325 E. 10th St.

Noted

Thanks to the tipster who pointed out an item that I had missed Friday: American Apparel is laying off hundreds of employees. We linked to a piece a few weeks back that claimed American Apparel was hiring.

Meanwhile! I didn't realize AA had vans. Do they deliver?

Bloomberg boombox

Per Dave on 7th: NYPD vans on Avenue C equipped with speakers telling Zone A residents that they face a misdemeanor of some sort if they don't evacuate...

Reader report: Flood causes damage to under-renovation 315 E. 10th St.

Neighbors were buzzing about the under-renovation 315 E. 10th St. last week... Jose Garcia tells us about the following that neighbors said happened last Wednesday...

"Just as they were putting the finishing touches on 315, there was a flood that apparently did a good amount of water damage on multiple floors to several of their brand new apartments. There were all kinds of cleaning-service vans around ..."

No word from the workers on the extent of the flood damage.

As you'll recall, the city OK'd a one-floor rooftop addition here in January hours before the Landmarks Preservation Committee approved the East 10th Street Historic District.

Developer Ben Shaoul has been converting the building from nonprofit use to residential.

Previously.

[Photos by Bobby Williams]

Paint splattering van vandals strike again

Back in January, we noted the above on East Seventh Street near Avenue A... at the time, we weren't sure if it was some kind of van-owner-created art... or vandalism. (Turned out to be vandalism, or whatever you'd like to call throwing paint bombs at vans.)

Fast-forward to yesterday... a resident reports the following...

"This is my van and I found the lovely work this morning. Odd thing is that I moved the van into that spot at 4:30 am and didn't notice it when I left on foot at 11 am."

The resident discovered the splatter upon returning three hours later.

"The paint was still warm and came off a bit when I came back at 2:15 pm. The police [officer] said he noticed it earlier and was wondering if that was intentional. (Ha! No.)

Such a pain in the ass."

Space for Target now stumping for Vans

At Avenue A and St. Mark's Place.

May!



Today!



Previously on EV Grieve:
Goodbye yellow brick ad

Game over for Kobe Bryant video game ad on Avenue A

So, you know, back in the fall, we devoted a few hundred several posts to Chico's "spay/neuter" mural on Avenue A near 12th Street that was painted over for a Kobe Bryant video game ad.



Anyway, last week, workers painted over the Kobe ad...




So what will we see next on the wall? I'm going with a Vans ad.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Kobe Bryant's slam chunk

Searching for the truth about the cats and dogs mural on Avenue A

Sunday morning around Union Square

Yesterday's peaceful protests turned chaotic in the late-night hours as demonstrators set fire to nearly a dozen NYPD vehicles around Union Square... it marked the end of the third day of protests against racist police violence in the aftermath of George Floyd's death Monday in Minneapolis.

EVG contributor Stacie Joy surveyed the scene this morning around Union Square, including on University Place where many of the police vehicles — specifically the Homeless Outreach vans — had been parked.