This memoir, by a former Village Voice writer and critic, is a cockeyed personal history of the East Village — a place nobody moved to on purpose. This is a short stretch of history, to be sure, framed as it is on one side by the Summer of Sam and on the other by the Tompkins Square Park riots, two notorious incidents that defined an age. The naive protagonist's lies, dreams, and daily blunders, overcome in places only by spectacular acts of will, might remind you of what it feels like to be a beginner in a land of crooks and geniuses. And because there’s nothing everyday about everyday people in New York, the citizens that appear on these pages, whether shy or brazen, upright or felonious, are always new.
#eastvillage Twitter friends: what is happening 9th & A? Tons of police w/riot gear
— Celia Alicata (@CeliaAlicata) March 3, 2016
Tenants of 118 East 4th Street in the East Village appear back in Manhattan Housing Court on Thursday March 3rd at 9:30 AM as part of ongoing litigation against their landlord, Jared Kushner. Tenants are calling for the immediate restoration of essential services and for living conditions to be rectified.
The tenants have recently endured bouts of no heat, mounding trash, and have been without cooking gas since October 2015. Con Ed shut down all gas for the building and Jared Kushner has yet to take the necessary procedures with the city to restore it. This comes on top of the landlord’s failure to repair a multitude of potentially dangerous conditions in the building, including:
• No cooking gas
• Collapsed ceilings
• Questionably safe electrical systems
• Mounding trash
• Deprivation of heat
• Apartments entered without notice
• Blocked mail delivery
• Vermin
The tenants filed an HP Action for repairs and services in January to seek a remedy for these unsafe conditions. The landlord received a default judgement at the first court appearance on February 4th as Kushner failed to appear in court to address matters – a sign the tenants interpret as further disregard for the issues they face. At the time of a previous court appearance, the building had a total of 17 open violations with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, including 4 considered “immediately hazardous.” The current violation count is now 35 in total with 8 class “C” immediately hazardous violations. A motion was recently filed in court to hold Kushner in contempt of court due to the lack of restoration of services.
Woke up this morning to 7 degrees, its now 14 degrees outside, and no heat at 118 East St. Through some communications with the other tenants, it seems the heat is on in one line of the building. That line contains the market rate tenants. There are 2 other heat lines that are off and those lines contain the majority of rent stabilized tenants, including some senior citizens in fragile health. I think one or two market rate folks are getting the frozen treatment if they are unfortunate enough to reside above or below a rent stabilized tenant. Calls to the Westminster office provide no results as usual. There seems to be a Westminster person living in 118 at the moment. A call put into him goes unanswered and he has no voice mail set up on his phone. The same goes for the "Super". No answer. No voice mail set up on phone.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., New York City Police Department Commissioner William J. Bratton, and Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced a new initiative to change how individuals who commit low-level offenses are processed in Manhattan.
Beginning on Monday, March 7, 2016, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office will no longer prosecute most violations or infractions, and the NYPD will no longer arrest individuals who commit these offenses – such as littering, public consumption of alcohol, or taking up two seats on the subway – unless there is a demonstrated public safety reason to do so.
This initiative will enable the NYPD to devote its resources to investigating serious crimes, while further reducing the backlog of cases in Criminal Court. The issuance of summonses instead of arrests is expected to result in the diversion of approximately 10,000 arrests that would be prosecuted in Manhattan Criminal Court.
[EVG file photo]
Attention all of our guests!
Hakata Hot Pot and Sushi Lounge will move from 58 Saint Marks Place to 31 Saint Marks Place from March 1st.
Hakata Hot Pot had started 1983 as NATORI Restaurant.
Unfortunately we lost our lease in this place, and now we are going to join our sister restaurant Zen 6 since 1985 on the heart of Saint Marks Place between 2nd and 3rd avenue.
Zen 6 is Ramen restaurant, and we will add new Japanese Hot Pot on the menu.
Our new restaurant name is Hakata Hot Pot & Zen 6.
Please visit feel free to our new location and enjoy our authentic Hakata style izakaya food.
Thank you for your patronage.
owner
Hideyuki Okayama
Prior to opening the sales office, the rare luxury 32 unit condo property is already 50% sold to date as a result of early buzz generated by a daring marketing campaign featuring nearly nude models painted to blend into their surroundings. 100 Avenue A is set to break countless records, including the highest residential price per square foot achieved in the East Village for a non-penthouse unit, with residence 7C already going into contract for $2,685 per foot.
