Bartender extraordinaire Sasha Petraske might just be stuck brewing coffee at Mercury Dime on East Fifth Street, after local Community Board 3 again declined to support his aspirations of alcohol service, according to Eater.

Grub Street adds a splash of drama, noting that the Milk & Money maestro "must have assumed his fate, as he didn't show at the meeting."

Still, his pint dreams probably aren't completed crushed by the community board's rejection.

The vote is only advisory, and other bars, notably including the Beatrice Inn, have succeeded in slinging drinks, despite neighborhood protests. That being said, the ruling New York State Liquor Authority (SLA) has tended to lend a more sympathetic ear to the various community boards' whims in recent years.  read more »

An ongoing dispute with an upstairs neighbor continues to create more legal headaches for David Kaplan, proprietor of the popular yet embattled East Village cocktail lounge Death & Co.

Mr. Kaplan, who is also suing the State Liquor Authority over its decision to not renew his liquor license, has now filed for a court injunction barring landlord P.V.P. Management from evicting his bar, located at 433 East Sixth Street, over alleged noise issues.

The tenant living directly above the bar, identified in court papers as Joseph Hurley, has claimed that "repeated and forcible closing of the [bar's] front door ... causes a severe and unreasonable amount of vibration" in his apartment.  read more »

On July 22, just a couple of weeks shy of the 20-year anniversary of the Tompkins Square Park riots, the Parks Department opened a $150,000 dog run, complete with a canine paddling pool, in what was once a refuge for the homeless and all manner of fringe groups.

The inauguration of a sleeker, odorless, more expensive dog run is a fitting bookend to Tompkins Square Park's transition from a lawless swathe of parkland in the freewheeling East Village of the 1980s to the upper middle-class enclave the neighborhood is today.

On Aug. 7, 1988, the police tried, and failed, to enforce a 1 a.  read more »

It's been well over a month since I received one of the most riveting letters in the history of letter writing. It's an e-mail from a man who says he's the eldest cousin of Alistair Economakis--the landlord that's awfully close to turning the 15-unit, 60-room tenement building he owns at 47 East Third Street into a mansion for his family.

Despite several e-mails sent from The Observer to the landlord's lawyer (as well as to that lawyer's spokesperson) asking to confirm that Mr. Economakis has a cousin named Evel, we still haven't heard anything one way or the other. So take the letter with a grain of salt.  read more »

Folk singer David Peel was leading a crowd of protesters in a singalong of his charming ditty “Die Yuppie Scum” on Friday evening, when suddenly the rebellious crooner experienced a moment of clarity.

“What are we doing over here?” Mr. Peel asked. “Where are the apartments?”

A few doors down, it turned out.

Demonstrators had intended to gather outside an apartment building at 47 East 3rd Street, owned by controversial landlord Alistair Economakis, who has been trying to uproot its rent-stabilized tenants for years in order to create a sprawling manse for himself and his family.  read more »

Of all the new wine bars that have opened in Manhattan in recent months—a record 11 of them during the last Zagat survey alone—Bowery Wine Company at 13 East First Street has perhaps attracted the most vocal following.

“Die yuppie scum!” chanted protesters outside the small sipping spot last Friday night; many wielded placards: “EVICT WINE BARS SAVE THE EAST VILLAGE.”

At least some of the attention can be attributed to the venue’s location on the ground floor of the Avalon Bowery Place luxury apartment complex, one of several shiny new upscale buildings to pop up along the once downtrodden corridor.  read more »

David Kaplan, owner of embattled East Village cocktail cathedral Death & Co., is suing the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.) over its refusal to renew his liquor license.

Mr. Kaplan had formally requested a reconsideration of that potentially business-killing decision this past February—a request the S.L.A. has since denied.

In court papers, Mr. Kaplan and his attorney have argued that the proprietors “never defrauded nor made misrepresentations” to the S.L.A.—despite what some critics in the neighborhood have alleged.  read more »

Long-embattled East Village nightspot Le Souk will remain open at least another week.

Proprietors of the North African-themed eatery and hookah bar at 47 Avenue B are appealing their case against the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.), which recently yanked the venue's liquor license.  read more »

The well-heeled but sleepy Sutton Place enclave does not seem particularly well-suited to Manhattan's most renowned British dandy, so perhaps it’s fitting that fashion editor Hamish Bowles has decided to take up residence in the East Village.

The European editor-at-large for U.S. Vogue has gone to contract on a $1.5 million, two-bedroom, eighth-floor co-op at 45 East 9th Street, city records show. The 1,500 square-foot, duplex apartment is outfitted with “all the bells and whistles” one would expect of a male fashionista’s residence, according to the Corcoran listing: A gracious entry foyer leading to a spacious double-height living room with domed decorative ceiling and romantic Juliet balcony overlooking the living room with a wall of windows.  read more »

The Department of City Planning is forging ahead with its plan to rezone 114 blocks of the East Village and the Lower East Side to limit the height and density of future development, despite allegations of racism from community groups in the Bowery and Chinatown, which were not included in the rezoning.  read more »