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At least on East 11th Street near First Avenue ... where workers moved this docking station 17 blocks across First Avenue yesterday ... did you spot any others?
The church was formerly the site of the cemetery of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where thousands of people were buried starting in the early 19th century. This was only the third and at the time the largest Catholic Cemetery in New York. While the graveyard was moved to Calvary Cemetery in Queens in 1909, it is not known if all remains were removed and cleared from the site or if some still lie in burial underneath.
The preservation organizations have written to developer Douglas Steiner and the city’s Department of Buildings and Landmarks Preservation Commission to notify them that a very large cemetery was formerly found on this site, and calling for a complete archaeological evaluation of the site as required by law in such cases before any work proceeds, to prevent disturbance of any burial site or human remains which may remain here.
Cafaro listed recent accidents in the East Village involving distracted cyclists talking on phones and running red lights, along with one biker who slipped on a wet roadway and wound up putting his hand through a car windshield.
"Bikers don't realize you can't do that," Cafaro said, describing behaviors that could endanger cyclists. "You have to stay off the phone, you have to stay in the bike lane and you have to stop at red lights."
The East Village recently saw a spike in reported bicycle crashes, with eight in the 28-day period ending May 19, compared to just four in the same period the previous year, Cafaro said.
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space will host a pop-up exhibit in support of the movement to Save Our CHARAS Community Center (SOCCC).
Come celebrate and learn about the vibrant history of CHARAS/El Bohio and demand the return of this historic cultural institution. The exhibit will open tonight when community leaders, local activists and concerned neighbors will gather for a show of unity.
With guest speakers: Chino Garcia, Rosie Mendez, Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, Senator Brad Hoylman. More guests, performers and announcements TBA.
May 23 - 31, 2013
Opening Night:
Thursday, May 23, 2013
6-9 pm
For four decades, the name CBGB has been synonymous with all musical genres emerging from the indie and punk underground. This year, CBGB will be breaking more new ground with the expansion of the CBGB MUSIC & FILM FESTIVAL, a five-day festival/conference.
This will take place Wednesday, October 9 to Sunday, October 13, 2013 within NYC's rich and varied music venues throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Landmark Sunshine Theater on E. Houston St. will serve as the conference and film festival hub.
Name: Edward “Eak the Geek” Arrocha.
Occupation: Coney Island Circus Performer
Location: East River Promenade, East River Park.
Time: 3:30 on Friday, May 17.
I’m a suburban kid. I was born in downtown Mexico City but I grew up in a neighborhood called Lomas Verdes, which was known to be the most ‘Fresa,’ which would be the equivalent of the word square, suburban neighborhood in Mexico City. My dad’s a lawyer from Mexico and my mom’s a professor from the East Coast. I didn’t want to be a professor or a lawyer but you don’t really aspire to be a circus performer. I actually think I was the kid who had the balls to do what I wanted to do.
It was my lifelong dream to live here. I remember going to Times Square and thinking I wanted to be there. It was perverted and cool and weird. I moved to the East Village in the early 1990s and I’ve lived in the same apartment for 20 years. There used to be dealers in the building where I live. The prostitutes would sometimes be plying their trade in the halls at 4 in the morning. I always had a soft spot for the working girls. I kind of feel that in a lot of ways they’re somebody’s sister or somebody’s mother. I used to kick them out of the building but they always were nice to me. The dealers and the junkies and the working girls, I was always nice to them and they were always nice to me for whatever reason. The ones who were really nasty were the Johns. They had paid for it and would be like, “Mind your own business,” and I would go into my apartment and walk out with a baseball bat and that was it.
My first job here was as a street vendor, selling jewelry. I moved here to make it as an artist. I really was not into being a sideshow performer. I played in bands as a vocalist. I was into weird bands, anywhere from somewhat punk and hardcore to weird art bands. I was more of a screamer than anything else. I also wrote a lot of poetry and did a lot of poetry readings. I still write poetry — it’s kind of what I do. I write everyday. I’ve never really had a straight job. I didn’t want to become the hamster in the wheel going around and around in a circle. That, to me, was perhaps the most terrifying place to end up in.
I lost my street vending job and I needed a job badly, so this woman said they needed a ticket guy in Coney Island. It was incredible. There was so much energy and so much weirdness. There was such an intense vibe. It really was a war zone, although once you got to know people it was not a bad place.
The people I worked with were interesting but the people who really intrigued me were the people who hung out there. You’d have the kite flyers, the beach walkers, the beach combers, you had the people who would sit there and watch the sun all day, you’d have some old Italians who had been there for many years, you had the people from the projects who were really nice and coming to enjoy the beach. You had a wide variety of people that made up New York. No matter that they had all these gangs, it still had this nice and laid back vibe.
There was a big difference when I tattooed my face. A lot of people get really obsessed with the tattoos and then they start talking to me and realize I’m more than just the tattoos. When I tattooed my face I had to go work inside and there was a bed of nails and I said, ‘Oh, let me go do that.’ Little did I know that I would be Eak the Geek. I was the guy who got squeezed by the bed of nails. I was the pain proof man. It was one of the classical sideshow acts.
It was always really hard, hard, gritty work. There was a time when you would do 12, 45-minute shows a day. People would get very tired and beat up from doing the shows. It was not ideal working conditions. You spent a lot of your year with the five people in the backstage, that you’d see everyday, everyday, everyday. You were kind of a dysfunctional family. There was a lot of fighting and arguing.
After 15 years, when it stopped becoming a place for me to write about, that’s when it became time to leave. It had an interesting shelf life and then it became a job. I always liked fishing but I began to fish seriously in 2007 after I left the sideshow. The sideshow took so much of my time and life that I needed something to fill in the void.
What an amazing day to go fishing.
As it stands, this stretch of Second Street was grandfathered into a general residence district, and doesn’t allow for any performances with cover charges. There was reportedly contact with the DOB to settle this issue, but the Living Room hadn’t heard any news as of last night. And they didn’t have the luxury of laying over the application another month due to landlord/lease constraints, so a vote had to transpire.
Last night, another gay man was brutally attacked in NYC's East Village. "You just want to cry and move on," he says. twitter.com/JordanBach/sta…
— Jordan Bach (@JordanBach) May 21, 2013
Allegedly, witnesses are reporting the assailant was yelling "f*ggot" as he was kicking and beating Dan. Neighbors rushed to Dan's aid and chased after the attacker but unfortunately he got away. The police are investigating the assault now and have not determine it a hate crime.
The men were both punched, and one suffered an eye injury, sources said.
Police said two men, 32 and 33, were arrested and face a charge of assault as a hate crime.
"You don’t expect this to happen. Sometimes certain people just snap, maybe its marriage equality, something on people’s minds, the anger that comes out when they drink,” said Dan Contarino, who believes that is how he became a victim of the latest anti-gay hate crime in New York City.
He says a man who he had seen before in the area where he lives, started yelling at him on the street near Avenue D in the East Village Monday night.
“Are you a f****t, things like that. Certain things I don’t usually like to publicly say. It just happened so quick, I’m still absorbing the shock,” he told PIX 11 News.
The first attack took place late Monday after what began as an afternoon of drinking between two men, who had known each other about a month, turned violent, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.
At around 10:45 p.m., as they walked near the Bowery Mission, where one of the men lives, they discussed the fact that one of them was gay. While the conversation was initially friendly, Mr. Kelly said, “suddenly, according to the victim, his assailant just snapped, became enraged and yelled antigay expletives.”
A few hours earlier, Dan Contarino and another man went out for drinks at the Yuca Bar on Avenue A and then to the Boiler Room, a gay bar on East Fourth Street, where they drank shots and beer, police said.
After a pizza stop at around 11 p.m., they started up a conversation about homosexuality while walking back to a homeless shelter where they both were staying.
That’s when the other man snapped.
Police say Gornell Roman was charged Wednesday with assault and aggravated harassment, both as hate crimes.
Roman is accused of yelling an anti-gay remark and attacking a drinking companion in the East Village on Monday. Roman and the victim, Dan Contarino, lived at a nearby homeless shelter.
[We] will call on the Department of Buildings (DOB) to finally force developer Ben Shaoul to come into compliance with the law and evacuate and dismantle a roof top addition tomorrow — an addition that was deemed illegal by the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA). In addition, there are 13 major code violations that put tenants in danger, including fire safety issues (there was an electrical fire at the building in March), that continue to be unresolved. The DOB has thus far not responded to the BSA’s decision and tenants feel that they are being forced out by the developer for higher paying renters.
"This construction was found illegal in BSA decisions in 2007 and 2008. Now the landlord is seeking to reverse them. If the landlord is allowed to keep this illegal construction it will set a precedent for other landlords to do the same ... leading to dangerous construction that can cause damage to the structure of such old tenement buildings."
Notably, the owner does not claim that the addition was built pursuant to a valid permit or that the addition was built in compliance with the prior zoning. Instead, what the owner is asking you to do is to reinstate the permit under the old zoning, based on an unenforceable promise that eventually, somehow, the owner will bring the building into compliance — despite the compelling fact that the owner has kept the building in willful noncompliance for over six years. In the strongest possible terms, we urge you to reject this request.
Moreover, we note the essential fact that for at least six years, the owner has profited from these persistent and repeated zoning violations. According to DOB records, since at least December 2006, the owner has occupied the four duplex apartments that comprise the unlawfully built addition. We trace such unlawful occupancy back to December 5th, 2006 when the DOB issued a violation for "ALTERED BUILDING OCCUPIED WITHOUT A VALID CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY. SIXTH FL AND PENTHOUSE OCCUPIED WITHOUT A VALID C OF O."
Vintage 1970s East Village NYC "I Love AVE A" T-Shirt 70s Jersey Ringer Rare