Person in chicken suit alert!

A reader just passed this along from St. Mark's Place...



Don't have any context just yet. Like, what is the chicken handing out? Or does a photo like this really need context?

Report: East Village crime stats were fudged to make the area look safer

From the Post today:

A city police captain was forced to retire last year after he fudged crime statistics to make his precinct look safer -- adding to widening concern over the accuracy of NYPD stats and the belief that top bosses pressure supervisors into cooking the books.

Capt. James Arniotes, a 23-year veteran, told The Post that he was busted for reclassifying 23 grand-larceny felonies as petit-larceny misdemeanors in early 2008.

The misconduct occurred while Arniotes, 48, was second in command at the Ninth Precinct in the East Village.

Grand larceny is one of seven major crimes, along with murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary and grand larceny auto, that the NYPD and FBI track and publicize.

[Image via]

Day of Ray recap

Bob Arihood reports that the Day of Ray benefit yesterday raised $1,300. And this is Bob's photo of Haley Moss Dillon (left) and Lilly O'Donnell, the East Village natives who helped organize the Day of Ray.

Melanie has some photos of the day too. As she wrote, "the community efforts that went into Ray Day combined the best of Old New York with The New."

Bowery Hotel celebrity....REVEALED

After consulting with celebrity sketch artists and people who pay attention to this stuff more than I do... I now know who it was in front of the Bowery Hotel Friday:

Amanda Seyfried.



OK, after looking at her bio, she's familiar to me now...

Oh my God! (OMG!) It's...It's... that woman from that movie or TV show or band or something!

So yesterday I'm walking on the Bowery...and I see two paparazzi, two fanboy types with cameras and one large black sedan thingy in front the of the Bowery Hotel. Celebrity! So I stop. I stood there for about two minutes. Passersby asked me who we were waiting for. I always offered a different response. Madeleine Albright. Snooki... Oops. Hotel doors open, I set my camera to "take blurry photos" and....




I had no idea who this woman was. Blond. Pretty. Petite. That really narrows it down. Maybe she played someone's sassy best friend in a movie? I just don't know.

There's always that one guy in gym shorts in this kind of weather

In Tompkins Square Park a little bit ago.

Snowed in

Please send help. I'm in Room 548 at the Cooper Square Hotel. I can't get through to room service. I need four lobsters and a case of Clamato juice. Seriously, though: Where's the nine-feet of snow? And who drinks Clamato juice?

Getting ready for another weekend out and about....

Noted

Paralyzing? (Via 1010Wins)

Avenue A's new Black Market

Missed this yesterday at Gothamist:

The former Pizza Shop next to Niagra on Avenue A will be called Black Market.

Black market?

Keeping with the Clash theme perhaps?



Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: Former Pizza Shop becoming a bar

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

LES neighbors let the SLA have it (The Lo-Down)

No progress at Chumley's (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Rat tails in Tompkins Square Park (Neither More Nor Less)

TSP at dusk (Greenwich Village Daily Photo)

Curbed checks in on the million dollar condos at 32 Clinton (at Stanton). Says the broker: "We have a lot of West Villagers coming over here because this area is now what that was 15 years ago. The West Village is too chic. This area is raw and gritty, and the young creative crowd want that."

That sketchy Blimpie/pizza/sushi place on Park Row was shuttered by the DOH again



Why is the newish Chase branch in FiDi built to look like a Jersey diner?



Snoop Dog and Storm Trooper at the SoHo Adidas (Racked)

Snooki is always watching (BuzzFeed)

Big Blue condo for sale (BoweryBoogie)

Can't wait to read this on my Kindle!* Via (lordy) GaGaDaily:

The rumors are true: Overlook Press is publishing the first biography of the world’s favorite pop star. The press release says:

“In Lady Gaga: Behind the Fame biographer Emily Herbert introduces 23 year old Stefani Germanotta. A Catholic school girl turned go-go dancer, Gaga rose out of the Lower East Side club scene to reign supreme in the pop world.

“An inspiring story as well as commentary on today’s celebrity and fame-obsessed culture, Lady Gaga: Behind the Fame is a well-researched, intimate look into the music, fashion, art, and life of the first Lady of pop.”

* Not true. Just seeing if I could bait Jeremiah....

Your Day of Ray flier

Anyway, here's the Day of Ray Flier designed by Jennifer Schindelar... You should be able to print one out.... And as Leah Milstein, who helped put all this together, noted: "PLEASE DON'T POST ON CITY PROPERTY BECAUSE WE GET FINED!! (this includes lamp posts, parking meters, your neighbors dog)."

Yes. I know this from experience. Like $300.





As always...

www.twitter.com/saverays

And there's the Save Ray's Facebook page...

Neighborhood gears up for Day of Ray tomorrow

So many people are coming together to help with saving Ray's Candy Store on Avenue A near Seventh Street... last night, we saw a lot of chalk signs on the sidewalk for tomorrow afternoon's big event...





As Chris Flash said in a comment on the Day of Ray, "This is an example of community organizing at its finest."

Indeed. Lilly O'Donnell and Haley Moss Dillon, who both grew up in the East Village, have helped put this benefit together. I asked Haley about her earliest Ray's memory. "Kindergarden -- on my way from the neighborhood school on 3rd street to the playground in Tompkins, my mother bought me and my friend a giant milkshake."

And what does Ray's mean to her and the neighborhood? "Ray is old school New York. He's open all the time. It's a weird little place that everyone feels connected to, that's what New York used to be about, that's what New York felt like when i was growing up, the anonymity of the neighborhood now is destroying what used to be a thriving community."

Get the Day of Ray lineup at Sidewalk Cafe here.

For further reading:
Ray pays rent, faces fries fight; Benefit on tap (The Villager)

And, if you're new to this, go to Neither More Nore Less and type in Ray's Candy Store in the search up top... Bob Arihood has been been taking photos and reporting on Ray from Day 1...

And, you know, there's a Save Ray's Twitter feed, which will have the latest updates...

www.twitter.com/saverays

And there's the Save Ray's Facebook page...

Giant rats invading one of the nicest blocks in the East Village?

Here, on the tree-lined East 10th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue (oh, yes — as seen below in this photo from the summer...where Parker Posey once lived!)



...Anyway, right in the heart of the St. Mark's Historic District -- evil lurks... in the form of some bigass rats, apparently... just check out these traps...




...hope the neighborhood doesn't have a problem with stray cats too...