Report: LES Jewels died from 'blunt injuries of head'

[Photo from 2007 by Bob Arihood]

On Sept. 14, Joel Pakela, aka neighborhood fixture LES Jewels, was found unconscious on Avenue A at East Ninth Street. He died a short time later at Beth Israel. Rumors quickly circulated that he died from a drug overdose. Later, though, there were claims that he had been kicked in the head during an assault.

Today, The Villager reports on the official cause of death, according to the medical examiner's office:

According to Julie Bolcer, an M.E. spokesperson, the finding of the autopsy and toxicology investigation was that Pakela’s cause of death was “blunt injuries of head.” However, she said, “The manner of death is undetermined.”

Asked for more details — such as how many and what kind of head injuries Pakela had, and whether he got them from being assaulted or, say, falling down on the sidewalk — Bolcer said she would check. However, she subsequently called back to say she had no further information. Asked if alcohol or drugs contributed in any way to his death, Bolcer simply repeated the M.E.’s conclusion, that the cause of death was “blunt injuries of head.”

Jewels was 43.

Previously on EV Grieve:
RIP LES Jewels (80 comments)

Memorials for LES Jewels in the East Village

Out and About in the East Village, Part 2

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.


[Nick Sitnycky with longtime John's employee Pedro]

By James Maher

Name: Nick Sitnycky
Occupation: Owner, John’s of 12th Street
Location: 12th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave
Time: 1 pm on Monday, Dec. 16

Yesterday, Sitnycky talked about growing up on Avenue B and the early days of John's of 12th Street...

So 1972 comes around. I was a little young, 27, and I had just gotten married. One of my best friends, whose family owned Angelo’s on Mulberry Street, goes, ‘Nicky you want to buy a restaurant?’ So I go, ‘No, no, no.’ Then he tells me it’s John’s. Danny, who was John’s son, was retiring. I had also met my partner Mike, or Big Mike as they called him, Mikey two names, a few years before in ’69. So in ’72, I go to him, ‘Mike you want to buy a restaurant with me?’

Big Mike was a big guy from the South Bronx and I was a skinnier guy from the Lower East Side. I still call it the Lower East Side. When we started off in the restaurant we didn’t have any experience. Danny helped us and stayed on for a couple of months.

It was a matter of hard work. We both had other jobs. I was with Xerox corporation for almost 20 years while I had the restaurant. I was multitasking all the time. I started in sales, surprise-surprise, and then I was promoted to management and then I did international operations. And Mike was a salesman, selling in the garment district. So we were both in sales and marketing and [the restaurant business] is about people. We understood that money goes where it’s treated best from the minute someone walks in. The one thing we knew was how to be hospitable and friendly from the minute someone walked in.

When we started, Mike learned the kitchen inside and out so would never have an issue. He had a knack for the kitchen. And sure enough, a couple years later our chef broke his leg and Mike was in the kitchen for months. I started taking care of the front more, although Mike was an impresario up front — he was all over the place. We just mixed and matched and worked and worked. We worked as dishwashers, as busboys, we did everything.

This whole staff, this whole organization has tenure. We have tenure here. Our chef is almost here for 40 years now. Our waiters will be here 10 years, 20 years. Pedro’s been with me 25 years. You want to hear about an American dream story? Pedro came here as a migrant worker picking blueberries when he was 15. He was from Mexico city. He became so proficient and was such a good guy that the farmers got him a green card. He stayed there and then came to New York. We sucked him in here when he was 18 and he’s been with us ever since. Now he’s married and has two children, both in charter school. He’s an American Citizen. Talk about living the American dream.

We pursued preservation, just as Danny did. He went over all of the things from the linen to the candles. It’s a real, historic art gallery. This [below me] is 1890s, tile-by-tile hand-laid Belgian mosaic tiles. I get a little ridiculous sometimes. These walls were brought in from Ferrara, Italy, three-by-five foot slabs of one inch thick marble inlaid in terrazzo. The paintings are painted on canvas. There are city-states of Italy, there are various coats of arms, there are scenes. We preserved and maintained them. We’re like curators. We figure we’re the third generation.

This is my whole life. I have a lot of love for this place so I get emotional. We weren’t really planning on selling even though we had some very strong pursuers, big companies. We wanted to make sure that we passed it along to someone like Brett [Rasinski] who was going to be the 4th generation. Brett’s been a regular customer of ours for almost six and a half years. This is a continuation, not a transition. These are the routines, these are the hours, this is our menu. He’s a real preservationist.

I’m going to be doing with Brett what Danny did with us. He wants me to spend a lot of time with him here and it’s an open amount of time. Unfortunately, when we decided on doing this in May of this year, when Brett came back to us with an offer that we accepted, three days later my partner Mike found out he had cancer. From the end of May to July 13th, he was gone.

This is John’s. John’s is what is disappearing in New York, not only in this area. John’s is part of New York City, so we’re very careful to keep things the same. These traditions are very important. There’s a history; there’s a legacy.

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

Previously on EV Grieve:
About the new ownership for 105-year-old East Village institution John's of 12th Street

Out and About in the East Village

Replacement for 87-year-old 9th St. Bakery revealed

[May 2012]

The 9th Street Bakery closed back in June, as we first reported. Owners Oleg and Tetyana Kucherenko said that they couldn't afford the 38 percent rent hike that the landlord requested with a new lease.

At that time we heard that a juice/smoothie place was taking over the space. Sure enough, here ya go. We spotted the workers putting up the signage last evening...




It's a beQu — for Beyond Quality. The company sells it juices at various health-food stores and what not. Apparently there was a storefront in Cobble Hill that is now closed.

Pretty tough competition for this kind of product right around here — there are two locations of Juice Press close by on East 10th Street ... not to mention Liquiteria on Second Avenue and East 10th Street ... and Organic Avenue on Third Avenue and East Ninth Street... and Commodities on First Avenue near East 10th Street...

In any event, we wouldn't mind one of these from the Bakery right about now...


[File photo by Derek Berg]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reader report: 9th St. Bakery is closing after 87 years

Tomorrow night at MoRUS: Eric Drooker and the anarcho-folk punk of Dr. Stza Crack

Another cool event tomorrow evening courtesy of the Museum of Reclaim Urban Space (MoRUS) at 155 Avenue… via the EVG inbox…

Eric Drooker, native NY street artist, will be giving a musical slide lecture about growing up in Lower Manhattan.

Also performing will be anarcho-punk veteran from Drooker's childhood neighborhood, Dr. Stza Crack, playing the songs of Leftöver Crack, Choking Victim and Star Fucking Hipsters amongst others. Lauren Oakes on vocals, guitar & harmonica will be accompanying him!

Eric Drooker is a painter, graphic novelist, and third-generation New Yorker, born on East End Avenue. While his graphics and street posters are a familiar site in the global street art movement, his paintings are familiar in the mainstream as well, and have appeared on dozens of covers of The New Yorker.

Find more details on the Facebook event page… or the all-new MoRUS website…

[Updated] Want to buy a dorm?

Was talking with an EVG friend the other day. The conversation turned to St. Mark's Bookshop and its likely move.

And my friend casually mentioned the building owned by Cooper Union that houses the Bookshop as well as other businesses, not to mention a dorm, is for sale.

Oh really?

Turns out that there is a listing (PDF) for the building…



The listing is active on Property Shark… with a listing age of 36 days…



Anyway, it's not a secret that Cooper Union is facing financial problems due to increasing operation costs and declining investment income, among other things.

The Student Residence here opened in September 1992 at Stuyvesant Street and Third Avenue. Here are details about the dorm via the Cooper Union website:

The Student Residence offers apartment-style housing for 178 students. Units range in size to accommodate from three to five people, with the majority of the apartments being two bedroom units shared by four people. Each unit contains a bathroom, common living area, and kitchenette. The building amenities include a study room, laundry room, the Residence Hall Office, and the Menschel Room.

As the flyer indicates, "the seller will enter into short term leaseback." Meanwhile, Cooper Union is one of the schools reportedly leasing space in developer Gregg Singer's dream dorm project at the former P.S. 64 and CHARAS/El Bohio community center on East Ninth Street.

------

Updated 6:02 pm
Robert Frischman, executive vice president, retail brokerage, at the EVO Real Estate Group, said that the building is not for sale. No word on how or why the listing appeared on Property Shark in the first place.

Bye bye Big Red: Pulino's goes dark on Dec. 29

The Pulino's Countdown To Closure Clock has started… Eater reported yesterday that Keith McNally's pizzeria on East Houston and the Bowery will close on Dec. 29.

Next here for McNally and Co. as previously reported by Eater: A French restaurant called Cherche Midi will open in its place next spring.

Also, the EVG reader comments on the previous post about this closure were quite good.

Example!

Giovanni said...
Apparently the FAA will have to change their flight patterns now that the big red beacon on Houston Street is going dark. I just hope none of the airplanes trying to find NYC gets lost in the darkness....

Two East 2nd St. buildings sell for $17.5 million; will new owner still honor Allen Ginsburg?

[Via Massey-Knakal]

Two buildings on East Second Street between Avenue A and Avenue B — No. 170-172 and 174 — have been sold for $17.5 million. (The buildings hit the market in July 2012 for $16.5 million.)

There's no word on the new owners, per BuzzBuzzHome, who reported on the deal yesterday.

Combined, the buildings contain a total of four ground-floor retail spaces and 43 apartments. The original listing noted that No. 174 has nearly 3,600 square feet of air rights available.

As you may know, Allen Ginsberg lived in apartment 16 at No. 170 from August 1958-March 1961 ... one of the many places he lived in the East Village until his death in 1997

In a Habitats feature from August 2000, The New York Times ran a feature on the apartment where Ginsberg wrote "Kaddish" — "a mournful elegy for his mother, Naomi, that is considered one of his best works."

(New York Songlines also noted that Ginsberg edited "Naked Lunch" while living here... as well as "where Ginsberg and Timothy Leary began planning the psychedelic revolution.")

As the Times said of this block, "Not long ago, this was major drug territory, and landlords had to defend their turf assiduously; now it is being infiltrated by students from New York University."

The Times reported that two NYU students were living in the two-bedroom apartment, paying $2,000 a month in rent.

To the article:

When the plaque went up on the East Village building saying that it was where Allen Ginsberg once lived, the two young men who now occupy the poet's old apartment had only this to say:

Who was he?

Perhaps the new owners will see fit to leave this up outside No. 170...

World War Pee? SantaCon is the Zombie Apocalypse!

Here's a SantaCon-themed video filmed in the East Village from Local Empire, a sketch comedy show by Addison Anderson, Colin Drummond and Michael Molina.

Heh.

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: Nick Sitnycky
Occupation: Owner, John’s of 12th Street
Location: 12th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave
Time: 1 pm on Monday, Dec. 16

I was born in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg when no one wanted to be in Williamsburg. When I was 9 years old, my parents moved over to Avenue B between 5th and 6th. That was 1958. We moved in 1968 to 145 Second Avenue.

I go back to 1958. Everyone tries to be cool and tells me, ‘Oh I remember the Fillmore East.’ I say, ‘The Fillmore East was a latecomer. It was the Loew’s Commodore.’ When we were kids we’d hang around Avenue B and C. There were little candy stores all over and they’d sell 1-cent chocolates, along with 5-cent sodas. There was Gem Spa, there were used comic book stores on Avenue C. You’d go in and you could buy a used comic book for a penny or two pennies. You’d walk in and it would look like a warehouse.

All us kids would be standing around on corners. And you’d actually be doo-wopping on the street, doo-wop music, you’d harmonize. We were wearing our leather jackets with the stars on it, that was cool. You’d have your groups and then you’d go walk down certain blocks you couldn’t walk down, just because. You’d run away and they’d chase you. It was like cowboys and Indians.

It was almost ethnic by block. You’d have an Italian block, an Irish block, a Puerto Rican block, a Ukrainian block, a Polish block. First Avenue was all Italian stores — it was Italian or it was Kosher. There would be Kosher stores that only sold butter and eggs. There would be Italian butchers and Italian produce stores, fish stores, little butchers on the side streets, Kosher butchers and Italian butchers. There were all these movie houses. All of us kids would be playing basketball and football in Tompkins Square Park. We’d roller-skate around the circle. If you wanted to play baseball you’d go over the bridge on the FDR drive and play in the park along the river.

There weren’t many restaurants around then. It was either the Chinese restaurant or John’s. There was Sonny’s pizzeria around the corner where the kids would go, where Cacio e Pepe is now. Sonny was married to John’s daughter. So when I finished grammar school, my family came to John’s for dinner. In 1962, I had my graduation party from high school at John’s. Then I went to St. John’s and graduated with an economics degree in 1966, and where did I have my graduation dinner, in John’s restaurant. I got my masters at Adelphi in ’68 and we had our dinner at John’s.

John’s is an institution. John Pucciatti came from the province of Umbria, from the little medieval village of Bevagna, between Spoleto and Assisi. My wife and I actually went there. He opened this restaurant 105 years ago, in 1908. The restaurant was just the front room and he was the chef and his wife, known as ‘Momma John,’ helped him.

When prohibition came 10 years later, this became a speakeasy. The whole second floor of the building was the speakeasy. People would sit and eat and then the people who knew would ask for ‘dessert upstairs.’ They’d go through from the restaurant. You can see the outline of a door that they sealed. Our back room was the backyard and Momma John was the brewmaster. She actually made her own hooch. There was a little shack and in there was a still and in the basement she made her wine. Then she had a pulley system to get the liquor up to the second floor because they never wanted a drop of liquor in the restaurant, so whenever they got raided there was never a violation.

Remember, this was the time of "Boardwalk Empire." Joe the Boss Masseria was a real guy and a real friend of John’s. And Lucky Luciano was down here also in the neighborhood, so they would always be around here. And then there was the other side. I’d guess you’d call John a progressive because he was a very, very socialist-minded individual. There were a lot of meetings here. There were guys like Carlo Tresca, who was a real firebrand. And one day they gunned him down [on 13th Street and 5th Avenue]. So you had two sides, the anarchists and the Mafia, that hated each other. But they were all here in John’s.

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

Part 2 tomorrow: Big Nick and Mike buy John's in 1972.

Previously on EV Grieve:
About the new ownership for 105-year-old East Village institution John's of 12th Street

Morning moon

Photo by EVG Moon Correspondent Bobby Williams

Helping Save Jerry

From the EVG inbox… several people here and on Facebook asked if there was a way to help out Jerry Delakas, who the city locked out of the Astor Place newsstand that he has operated the past 26 years… several residents have come together to set up the following...

There is now a contribution box at The New York Copy Center at 34 E. Seventh St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. (cash only, no checks). All proceeds will be given to Jerry.

Please use PAYPAL to send money to this email.

And there's another rally today from 4:30-6 p.m. at Jerry's shuttered newsstand outside the downtown 6 at Astor Place.

You can find more information at the "Save Jerry's Newsstand" Facebook page …

Previously on EV Grieve:
City shutters Jerry's Newsstand on Astor Place for 'operating illegally'

The story about the city shutting down Jerry's Newsstand on Astor Place actually gets worse

More about saving Jerry's Newsstand

'Tis the season

EVG reader Fenton Lawless created this short video… getting into the spirit of the holiday around the East Village...

Go see a play tonight in a laundromat on Avenue A

Longtime East Village resident Emily Rubin shared details about her latest laundromat production… her Dirty Laundry: Loads of Prose show tonight features playwright/director Lizzie Olesker at the Gentle Wash Laundromat at 97 Avenue A…

Read more about tonight's performance here. Read an interview with Rubin in Time Out here.

Developer says 51 Astor Place will be fully leased by the end of January (2014)

Missed this post from Friday in the Observer … in which 51 Astor Place developer Edward Minskoff, who built the whole thing on spec, sounded confident he'd have the place full soon.

“By January 30 we’ll be 100 percent leased there, and that’s all I’ll say,” he told The Commercial Observer today, declining to give any additional details.

In October, 1stdibs reportedly signed a 15-year lease for the entire third floor. And there are also rumors that Twitter is in negotiations for space here.

This 2nd Avenue apartment looks rather haunted, though isn't likely

We were just poking around the apartment listings at Streeteasy, as we like to do. We spotted this new ad for a one-bedroom apartment at 103 Second Ave. Innocuous enough.

The photo caught our attention, though. The empty space is rather chilly looking, with that lonely ceiling fan.

But what is really chilly... and maybe scary! Who are those shadowy figures lurking in the other room?



Ghosts of Brokers past? Hard to capture much paranormal activity based on one photo. We need to see the clocks.

When will it end? WHEN WILL IT END?

East Fifth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B this evening via @EliJGay

Previously on EV Grieve:
A brief history of humiliating Teddy bears in the East Village

Another day, another stuffed bear heartlessly discarded on an East Village Street

Today's light snowfall in Tompkins Square Park

Photos by Bobby Williams

It was beary cold outside Josie's today

Oh, c'mon — it doesn't cost nothing to read!

Outside Josie's on East Sixth Street today via Bobby Williams.

Musician Dev Hynes 'lost everything,' including his dog Cupid, in last night's fire on E. 11th Street

[EVG reader mdmn]

We're learning more about last night's fire at 227 E. 11th St.

The heavily damaged apartment in the building belonged to Dev Hynes, a British singer, composer and songwriter who has written for The Chemical Brothers and Sky Ferreira and tours now as Blood Orange. He took to his Twitter account today to report the losses that he suffered...

Last night, the unthinkable happened. My entire apt burnt down while I was out. I've lost everything I own, including scores, hard drives...

— Devonté Hynes (@devhynes) December 17, 2013

.. clothes, sentimental items. Everything from my life is gone.

— Devonté Hynes (@devhynes) December 17, 2013

My dog died in the fire. I will love you forever Cupid. I miss you.

— Devonté Hynes (@devhynes) December 17, 2013

Just last week the 27-year-old Hynes posted a photo of himself with Cupid on his Tumblr.



We haven't heard about any cause of the fire.

Here's an interview with Hynes last month in the Times.

Manhole fire on Cooper Square

We don't know too many details of what happened here between East Fifth Street and East Fourth Street ... other than what you can see in this photo via EVG reader Marc that shows the scene... and a car not looking too well at the moment.

Anyway, you always post photos of manhole fires.