"I don't even want this bike back. I just made these flyers to tell you that I hate you, bike thief. I hope you ride my bike without a helmet and get hit by a monster truck. I hope my bike takes you straight to Hell."
I saw a smallish, grey and blue (maybe some purple) budgie or parakeet or little parrot looking bird flying around tompkins square park at about 12:30 today. He was on the fence on the west/north side of the center lawn. When I stuck my hand out he flew away (he can fly pretty well) to the rail on the lawn just west of the center lawn. I tried to get close to him but he wouldn't let me. He was hanging with the wild birds and they weren't attacking him so maybe he'll be ok, but he must belong to someone.
The fire began when a workman's welding instrument ignited a section of the timber cornice, and from there the blaze spread rapidly. "Smoke was pouring out of the hell tower when we arrived," recalls one of the first firefighters on the scene. "I said to myself, 'This ceiling's going to go.' And sure as hell, there was a partial collapse." The rear section of the 50-foot high peaked roof collapsed a half-hour after the fire began.
The 75 firefighters involved with the three-alarm blaze Were faced with many other problems as well. A six-foot iron fence that surrounded the church and a graveyard on one side prevented the companies from utilizing anything but portable equipment. Consequently, a tower ladder had to be employed to spray the front and rear, while the sides of the church remained practically unassailable.
There was also danger of the 150-foot steeple collapsing. "We kept an eye on the steeple'supports," explains John J. Moffatt, the commander in charge of the fire. "If it fell, we would have had a lot of injuries."
The St. Mark’s Church and its yards are just a few reminders of the once vast “bouwerie,” or Dutch plantation, which Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Amsterdam purchased in 1651 from the Dutch West India Company. When Stuyvesant died in 1672, his body was interred in a vault under the family chapel he’d had built in 1660. In 1793, Stuyvesant’s great-grandson, Petrus Stuyvesant, donated the chapel property to the Episcopal Church with the stipulation that a new chapel be erected and on April 25, 1795, the cornerstone of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery was laid.
Conrad Schnitzler (1937 – 2011) is legendary in the German electronic and avant-garde music scene as a founding member of Tangerine Dream and of Kluster, but his intermedia work from the 60s, 70s and 80s is far less known. On the anniversary of his passing, New Yorkers will have a rare opportunity to see and hear many of his seminal multi-channel concerts and film/video works, most of which have never been screened or performed in the US until now.
THE TOMPKINS SQUARE REBELLION IS ON!!
24th ANNUAL TSP RIOT REUNION!! Commemorate the anniversary of the mini police riot of July 30, 1988, followed a week later by the infamous 6 hour riot inside and outside of Tompkins Square Park on August 6, 1988, in which hundreds of "New York's Finest" from all over the city descended on our neighborhood, indiscriminately clubbing anyone in their sights in furtherance of a non-existent midnight park curfew.
Where: Tompkins Square Park: When: July 29 + August 4 + 5, 2012
These shows celebrate the vitality of the counter cultural scene that has survived on the Lower East Side, despite the rampant gentrification, soaring rents and lost venues that have contributed to the cultural genocide sweeping New York City.
Sunday, July 29:
Blest Mess
Dust Angel
Gas NYC
Nihilistics
Rejuvenate
Iconicide
