Have you heard of Fashiontribes? The women behind Valley, Travessia, Kaight, Tahir Boutique, Pixie Market, Lola y Maria, Clarabella and Dangerous Mathematicians have decided to band together to celebrate the neighborhood with a series of monthly events. The inaugural event will be a Shop Hop/Benefit, with designer trunk shows and exclusive sales held throughout the neighborhood. Select bars and restaurants will also offer drink specials. Additionally, each store will donate 10% of the evening’s sales to the L.E.S. Girls Club of New York.

Don’t mess wiff our heads! A majority of New York City voters say the federal government’s promise to give the city $354 million in transit funding only if a congestion pricing plan is approved constitutes "federal meddling in a municipal decision," according to a new poll. (Crain’s New York Business)

DiNapoli tells MTA to put brakes on fare hikes. Metaphor-wise, this headline should be shot in the temple (which is also a metaphor, come to think of it). When a fair is hiked, much like a skirt, you don’t put breaks on it, unless you’re gunning full speed for it with your caboose, which you may not do, because a caboose is not a gun. Anyway, Comptroller DiNapoli urged officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Monday to defer any action on a fare hike until 2008 and call off a vote scheduled for December on raising fares. They want "moderate raises" in fares and bridge and tunnel tolls of 6.5 percent early in 2008 and 5 percent in 2010. (Times Ledger – Astoria)

Brave Muggers Attack the Elderly. Police are seeking a pair of violent muggers responsible for two attacks on elderly Asian men on the Lower East Side. The first victim, 81, was attacked July 10 on Broome Street. He suffered a cut to his cheek that needed stitches after he was shoved to the ground and punched and kicked by the heartless duo. The second victim, 71, was attacked Sunday on Orchard Street, and also pushed to the ground, punched and kicked. What courage… (New York Post)

Soon on your block: NYU. New York University recently announced plans to expand by more than a third in the next 25 years, adding an additional six million square feet in service of an extra 5,500 students, prompting concern about the continued growth of the already sprawling campus. That war’s been lost, children. (The Indypendent)

Angry Crowd Questions Contractor. This is one of those phrases that could be read left-to-right and right-to-left (What did the contractor ask the angry crowd?) Frustrated Lower Manhattan residents and city officials confronted executives of the construction company overseeing the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building at a packed two-hour meeting last night. (New York Times)

Dog days. David Gibson wrote a nice essay in Article Magazine (same publisher as Chapter Book and days Calendar): The art world becomes a slumbering giant during the summer months, only to roar awake right after Labor Day. Artists spend their time in studios and gallerists perhaps in the Hamptons, but they all return to familiar stomping grounds when the bell tolls for Fall. This year there are 155 openings on the first week of September, half of that number on Thursday, September 6, when a virtual deluge of gallery receptions sweeps New York from Chelsea down to the Lower East Side. An air of overall festivity accompanies a month when there are more parties than one can shake a stick at, counting both opening receptions and after-parties.

by Pat Arnow
There’s a cheerful chaos just before the holidays in the East Side Supermarket at 504 Grand Street (near East Broadway). But the bustle of remodeling the kosher dairy store doesn’t deter the shoppers. Customers picking up fruit and fish, milk and crackers duck beneath workers assembling shelf units. This is the first phase of an overhaul, says owner Jacob Martin. He wants to “give the neighborhood what it needs,” and that’s more and better food. First, the store now offers more “appetizing.” That includes fish, cheeses, fresh-squeezed juice, salads and sandwiches at the deli counter. There’s more fresh produce. They’re adding an organic section and will be getting new refrigeration!

[ September 1, 2007; September 2, 2007; September 3, 2007; ] Liberty Street from Trinity Place/Church Street to Greenwich Street and Cedar Street from Trinity Place to Greenwich Street are closed to vehicular traffic due to the fire in the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street. The following streets are closed to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic: Greenwich Street from Liberty Street to Carlisle Street; […]

Andrew M. Cuomo

by Rob Hollander
Here’s a link to the new Attorney General’s Tenant’s Rights Handbook. In the past, the handbook focused on the rights of rent regulated tenants, since non regulated tenants had few rights worth writing about. You’ll notice that the focus has shifted in this handbook to those few rights of the growing population of unregulated tenants — a reflection of the loss of regulated housing and the rapid dismantling of rights and protections under the law in NYC.

The attendance at the city-wide tenants union mid-August was unprecedented. We will be meeting again in late September, date and place soon to be announced. Join us. Tenants can be an overwhelming political voice in NY if we just get ourselves together…

by Jonathan Leeder
I’ll dub this Thursday evening “Folkie” night. First, for free over at The Living Room is Charles Theodore, a half American/half French guy. Thankfully, his musical roots are Americana, but oddly the majority of his fans are French.

Over at The Bowery Ballroom is Mark Olson, former member of The Jayhawks, one of the biggest Alt-Country bands ever. Mark left the band in 1996 after they had achieved huge success. The fact that he left a big act to pursue his own thing makes him pretty rad in my book. He just put out a solo album, and will be playing material from that at The Bowery.

On Friday night, the most attractive bill would be Battles and Deerhunter at The South Street Seaport. Battles are a futuristic “Math” rock band, which means they play highly intricate, atypical rhythmic compositions…..huh? Not the easiest to groove to, but it’s all about the complexity, Man. Deerhunter is electronic music sans the computers and record scratchers (phew).

Over at The Mercury Lounge, straight from Jersadelphia is The Blue Method. These guys are a funk/soul hybrid jamband that plays happy music that’s easy to get down to.

Saturday night at Pianos is Spokane, who are actually not from Spokane, but from Richmond, Virginia. Their brand of music is ambient indie-folk, aka: Music to cut yourself to… not that there is anything wrong with that.

Over at NuBlu on Ave C is Prins Thomas, a buzz worthy DJ spinning electro-house-trance beats, not really my cup of tea, but this venue is a lot of fun and always filled with sweaty pretty people.

Sunday night, back at The South Street Seaport is The Zen Tricksters. These guys started their “long strange trip” over 25 years ago as a Grateful Dead cover band. Now, they are all grown up and play lots of their own material. Whether they are playing their own stuff or others’, it is all jam, all the time. So if you’re looking for stretched out, 20 minute songs, head south!

PRINCE OF THE PUNKS IS DEAD. We couldn’t have said it better than the NY Post, God love them. Hilly Kristal, founder of New York’s iconic CBGB, died Tuesday from complications of lung cancer. He was 75. If you’re in the habit of waging quarter bets on when any Post item would mention a bodily function, the winner this morning is Vomit (#18), followed by Urine (#20). BTW, did you know Kristal also managed the Village Vanguard for a while? Well, did you?

Whitehot paperless magazine runs street festival. The Avanguard just keeps on inventing and discovering and stuff. like Whitehot magazine, which revolutionized the art world when it concluded early this year that "Print media is fast losing ground to up-to-the-second information on the web and art magazines are no exception." Holy cow, what vision!

So, "after five successful months (my guess would be 40 visitors, the navigation on this thing is near-autistic) the cyber mag – Swear to God, they wrote cyber mag! Talk about 1987 terminology, are they going to revive the Well, too? – is leaping out of the click-n-scroll world (oh, Mama) to New York City’s lower east side art scene (uncapped neighborhood name in the original). Celebrating with live music performances, cinema (okay, let the 82-year-old copywriter lady go free and no one gets hurt) and an office on wheels, the event is tapped as the Whitehot Magazine Festival, a three-days event coinciding with the season’s opening of many art galleries. Seven contemporary art galleries are participating in the festival which will also include live interviews with artists, live music, film, and printouts of selective editions of the magazine. Thursday, September 6 to Saturday September 8, 2007.

Whitehot Trucks will be in two different locations on the Lower East Side in New York: The corner of Eldridge and Stanton, and in front of Envoy, 131 Chrystie St. Bring your walker… (icp/a backstage)

Is Gogol Bordello the new Lower East Side sound? Step aside, Nora Jones, your services are no longer required. This neighborhood will from now on be represented in the realms of Rock and Pop by a bunch of drunk gypsies with a penchant for vulgarity and pornography. Yea!

Art, mathematics and neuroscience on same canvas. Jennie Booth’s new show “2 to the Nth Power,” at the Skinny bar, 174 Orchard Street, bet. Houston and Stanton, thru September 30. The title, according to Booth, is a mathematical term used to mean the ultimate incalculable something. "So I’m talking here about the ultimate power of the brain—how we use it (if we use it) and how it uses us." (Brooklyn Art Project)

by Jonathan Slaff
Troy Lavallee (as Bruno) convinces himself that his fear of being cuckolded can be appeased only by the certainty of knowing he is a cuckold. So he offers his wife (Morgan Lynch) first to his best friend and then to all the young men of the village.

“The Magnificent Cuckold” by Crommelynck, made famous by Meyerhold, will be staged as a farce by East River Commedia, directed by Paul Bargetto, in lively new translation by Ben Sonnenberg and Amiel Melnick.

September 14 to October 6, Connelly Theater, 220 East 4th Street (between Avenues A & B). Presented by East River Commedia (www.eastriver.org), F-S, September 14-15 at 7:30 p.m.; Wed - Sat, September 19-October 6 at 7:30 p.m. $18 general admission, $10 student and seniors. Box office: SMARTTIX (212) 868-4444 www.smarttix.com, Running time 2:30 with intermission.

by Yori Yanover
While on assignment a few weeks ago, I ran into this amazing bus, which was parked outside the Sixth Street Synagogue. I don’t think the owner is a member, though. He or she would probably feel more comfortable among chanting druids than Lower East Side Jews. Does anyone know who they are? This may be the most highly decorated vehicle I’ve seen in my life, and I’ve seen some highly decorated vehicles, let me tell you.

Emily King released East Side Story Yesterday. Contemporary R&B musician and Songwriter Emily King released her debut album East Side Story August 28. Entertainment writer Shelia M Goss interviews Emily on e-Spot. Shelia: For those readers who may not have heard of Emily King, what singer would you compare yourself with? Emily K.: That’s a tough one. I get a lot of comparisons. Sometimes people say Teena Marie, Alicia Keys or Norah Jones. I’m honored to be compared to them but I’m trying to bring my own thing and I hope people like it. Everybody is unique.

Whole Foods invents the 64-ounce beer. When its proposal for a wine shop met with community opposition, the Whole Foods store on the Lower East Side decided to do something better than make lemonade: it turned the area into a beer room. The room opened yesterday, with direct access from both the main shopping floor and the street. Customers can buy any of the beers on tap in a 64-ounce jug called a growler for $7.99 to $17.99, plus a $2.99 one-time deposit on the jug, which they can have refilled. (NY Times)

Utopia, anyone? Mayor Bloomberg Addressed The Brookings Center On Children And Families and told them: "In New York City, for instance, welfare caseloads are lower than at any time since 1964. They’ve dropped more than 33 percent over the past five years while we’ve been in office, which outpaces the decline nationally. Unemployment in our city hit a historic low last year – 4.9 percent." The pitch sounded vaguely familiar, so we googled for a while and found this NYT item from December 3, 1995, Mayor Defends Bid to Cut Child Welfare Caseloads. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani defended the Child Welfare Administration yesterday for pressing caseworkers to close cases as quickly as possible, saying the use of budget-driven formulas to keep caseloads down was merely an attempt to clear a backlog caused by years of inefficient management. The internal memo warned supervisors that they were opening too many child protection cases without closing old ones. Remember how the Reagan Administration reduced unemployment by including the military in the count? We’re just saying…

Paradise is here, get your number at the door. The Census Bureau reported yesterday that the nation’s median household income rose to $48,200, and the poverty rate fell to 12.3% in 2006, the first time this decade that both improved. But our Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney, vice chairwoman of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, noted that “the Census report shows that only the well-to-do are doing well in the Bush economy.” According to USA Today, more than half of all household income was earned by the wealthiest 20% of the population, with incomes above $97,000. Only 3.4% was earned by the bottom fifth, with incomes below $20,000. The median household income remained 2.1% below its pre-recession peak in 1999.

The $60 high noon beating. A mugger viciously attacked a man on a Lower East Side street, police sources said yesterday. Raymond Hecker, 27, allegedly accosted the 44-year-old victim, with whom he’s acquainted, on Catherine Street near Cherry Street at 1:26 p.m. last Wednesday. Hecker punched and kicked the man in the face, arm and shoulder, cops said. Then he allegedly snatched the victim’s chain and $60. Hecker was busted last Saturday on charges of assault and robbery. (NY Post)

Father of Captain America, born on the Lower East Side 90 years ago. David Lasky blogs this happy bit of news. Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg), came into the world on August 28, 1917 around here somewhere, and died February 6, 1994, in Thousand Oaks, California. In-between he gave us the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Captain America, and hundreds of other superheroes.

An upcoming two-day film festival will screen and celebrate Latino cinema outdoors in one of New York City’s most vibrant and multicultural neighborhoods, the historic Lower East Side.The Loisaida Cortos Latino Film Festival, now in its sixth year, showcases works from emerging and established artists working in visual media in outdoor settings with the goal […]

An elderly woman was critically injured Tuesday when she was run down by a piece of construction equipment in a tragic accident outside her Lower East Side apartment complex.
Authorities say the victim, in her 80s, was hit by the construction vehicle inside the courtyard area outside the Hamilton-Madison House at 50 Madison Street at around […]

by Don Cruise
LoHo Realty is once again proud to sponsor its annual blood drive, in conjunction with the NYC Blood Service. The need for blood is currently at an all-time high and we encourage everyone who can donate to do so!

As an added incentive, every person who donates blood will receive a FREE t-shirt and TWO(2) FREE tickets to a NY Mets game (current season)**

383 Grand Street (near Essex), Community Room of Seward Park Housing Corp

Wednesday, August 29th, 4PM- 9PM

LoHo Realty has organized and sponsored six blood drives since 2004. Even if you can’t donate blood it is important to just show and to lend support for such a worthy cause.

Donors must be at least 17 years of age, weigh a minimum of 110 pounds and be in good general health. All donors will receive a free mini medical exam and refreshments following their donation.

For more information, contact Malki at LoHo Realty, 212-388-1115.

Potential donors are encouraged to schedule a convenient appointment via the internet at: www.nybloodcenter.org. New York Blood Center is a community-based, independent blood center that has been supplying life-saving blood products and services to area hospital patients for close to 40 years.

**To receive your free NY Mets tickets, you must provide a valid mailing address when you make your blood donation. Tickets will be sent via mail.

DOT plans two-way bike lane leading to the Manhattan Bridge. Perhaps the most dramatic element in the project is a “complete intersection” redesign for Canal St. at Forsyth St. This is where the bridge’s newly reopened northside bike path currently ends, at a blind corner that practically guarantees conflict with pedestrians and cyclists riding the wrong way along the one block stretch of Canal St. leading to Christie St. The DOT’s plan will separate bike and pedestrian flows with a fence and provide a one block physically-separated bike path (with bicycle traffic signals) on Canal St. The DOT press office did not respond to questions about the project and would not say when it would be completed. (Streetsblog)

Ellen Wallenstein, Opus for Anne: A Still Life, 2002-2005. At the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, October 10 - November 1. This poignantly beautiful exhibit of photographs and artist books were made during the three years Wallenstein spent as a hospice volunteer, visiting Anne, a cancer patient, at her apartment in Greenwich Village. Ellen photographed Anne’s windows, bedroom, flower arrangements, and cat, to give the woman views of what she couldn’t see from her bed. As time went on she began to photograph the objects in the apartment as metaphors of the remnants of an interesting life. (ArtCal)

This one deserves a kicking while he’s down. We wholeheartedly endorse Judiciary Subcommittee Chairman and downtown Congressman Jerrold Nadler suggestion that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate "the attorney general’s false statements to Congress and…the apparent criminal violations of law by Attorney General Gonzales and others, including President Bush, by initiating the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program.”

“The resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales does not absolve the Bush administration of its various abuses of power," Nadler said. "Mr. Gonzales is but one actor in the administration’s ongoing campaign to evade, ignore and undermine the Constitution." (Politico)

Governor sends developers to the poorhouse. It’s official: With a few strokes of Gov. Spitzer’s pen, New York City’s 421-a regulations were rewritten so the developer incentive program funds affordable housing in all five boroughs and demands mixed-income housing. On Friday Spitzer announced that he had signed the bills reforming the city-run, state-governed 421-a program, and it signaled a wrap to over a year of reform efforts by city officials and housing advocates and to a summer of political wrangling in Albany. (City Limits)

Our autistic subway system. The NY Times says that ten minutes after a suspicious package was found at a subway station in Washington on a recent Wednesday, riders read about it on the electronic screens at all of the system’s 86 stations. Here, during another recent Wednesday’s crippling storm, legions of commuters had to rely on station agents scrawling updates on white boards. Welcome to the 20^th Century, please take a number.

Take me out to the ballgamus. Seeing as we here at LoHo10002 are sticklers for proper Latin conjugatin (damn those media), it was nice to see the Wall Street Journal being even bigger asses than we are. In Joel Kotkin’s attack on needlessly glitzy post-Minneapolis urban planners (Even as Mayor Bloomberg talks boldly of a new Penn Station or a Second Avenue subway, much of the city’s subway, road and bridge system has been in disrepair and subject to sporadic service disruptions for at least a generation), he writes: "They emphasize not brick and mortar, but sports stadia." When we’re done here we’ll surely post proper responses in all the online fora.

Simon Hammerstein, co-owner of The Box

by Tibi Z. Singer
Lower East Side neighbors of The Box, New York’s hippest nightspot at 189 Chrystie Street, told the NY Daily News they are taking action to have the club closed down. “They lied,” says Chrystie St. resident Alexandria Cohen. “They told us that The Box was to be a cultural institution. They actually showed us the plans - which showed rows of seats like any Broadway theater. They told us they’d be introducing playwrights and had purchased the lost Jack Kerouac work as their first play.”

In fact, The Box is more like the Kit-Kat Club from “Cabaret,” with risqué acts, music and frolicking celebrities. It was raided by police last Thursday night and briefly shut down on a health violation. Sources say unhappy neighbors may have called the cops, who searched some guests but made no arrests.

The Box website promises: One hundred years ago, this area was legendary for its vaudeville palaces, theaters and dime museums; THE BOX will bring the excitement and energy of those concert saloons and burlesque halls back to the neighborhood.

A Backstage casting call for their next show, Theatre of Varieties & Pandora, is way more explicit: Seeking—Male Dancers: possible full-frontal nudity required; Female Dancers: topless nudity required. Note: show features strong sexual content and themes.

And a Daily News story from July, 2006 (cited here) is gushing over The Box’s plans to present "world-class entertainment in an intimate environment." You mean, they didn’t know "intimate" is code for tits?

by Pat Arnow
15th Annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival Sunday at Tompkins Square Park. Abby Lincoln couldn’t make it, so Cassandra Wilson filled in. She’s got a great voice, strong, round and warm and really knows how t sing jazz. She gets kind of fizzy poppy sometimes, but today she stayed jazzy.

Thousands of people filled the south end of the park, in chairs in front of the stage and lined up around, standing. Hundreds more lounged in the grass. As befits an East Village jazzfest, there was lots of style. Check out the woman wearing an Astroturf dress—she looked good in it! (and notice her companion in backgammon-board pants).

Is Community Board 3 going to squeeze progress out of the neighborhood? This, too, came from the NY Times today: Some members of the board say they’d like to see that building and the other vacant building converted into low-rent housing or leased at a discounted rate to nonprofit community development groups. But according to the development corporation, city law dictates that most of the available space must be reserved for food-related businesses. "If you’ve been in our neighborhood," said Barden Prisant, chairman of the Housing Committee of Community Board 3, "you know that the last thing we need is another high-priced restaurant." Fair and balanced…

Three muggers beat and kicked a man on the Lower East Side in broad daylight. Robert Tinsley, 31, Enrique Trinidad, 39, and Neftali Trinidad, 40, accosted their 44-year-old victim on Catherine Slip near the FDR Drive at about 1:50 p.m. Wednesday, cops said. The suspects allegedly punched and kicked the man in the face, arm and shoulder, inflicting injuries that required stitches. Then they ripped off his gold chain. They fled, but were captured and charged with assault and robbery. (New York Post)

Silver roasts Pataki on Pit. A bit crude, but perfectly serviceable headline. The state’s second most powerful Democrat slammed the ex-Republican governor for failing to demolish the toxic tower that claimed the lives of two city firefighters. Silver, whose district includes Ground Zero, said the Pataki administration was "more concerned with photo opportunities and less concerned about taking care of what had to be taken care of.” (New York Daily News)

1,400 percent growth in surveillance cameras in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. And yet the LES remains one of Manhattan’s least surveilled neighborhoods. There are far more surveillance cameras in operation in or around Chinatown (605), Times Square (604), New York University (510), Greenwich Village (371), Chelsea (368), and the United Nations (322). The only neighborhood we have mapped that has as few or fewer surveillance cameras as the LES is Harlem, in which there are “only” 120. (The New York Surveillance Camera Players)

What’s missing from the Eldridge Street Project celebrations? Metro published an exceedingly positive story this morning, about Eldridge Street synagogue’s approaching re-opening, a mere 20+ years after the work had begun. "The Project will hold expanded educational programs in the synagogue space. Next summer, it will host an educational conference with 100 teachers and scholars to discuss how different immigrant groups have interacted on the Lower East Side." So, what’s missing? A real congregation, of course. Their rabbi has fled and rumor has it the single continuing Saturday morning service pays participants to come in.

Google your subway. The MTA said Friday that it is in talks with Internet search engine Google to develop online transit guides for New York City. NY Business says "New York would be the Internet behemoth’s largest undertaking." We’re not sure the term Internet behemoth is such a compliment…

by Don Cruise
We narrowed down to 400 words today’s Times article that’s sure to stir up the coming political season in the neighborhood.

Emptiness has been the one constant for the five remaining city-owned parcels in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area along Delancey Street, near the Williamsburg Bridge. At a time when the city has few lots to build housing for low- and moderate-income tenants, the five undeveloped parcels are an incongruous sight, especially since officials and advocates considered them the biggest patch of vacant city land in Manhattan.

In the last few months, a local group, the Seward Park Area Redevelopment Coalition, has begun a campaign to get officials to support housing on the empty lots, though history and politics have not been on their side.

About 1,000 units of public or subsidized housing were built in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. The five lots that sit still untouched were considered for low- and moderate-income housing in 1981, but that plan failed when it was shot down by Andrew Stein, the borough president at the time.

“The past is the past, and we want to move forward,” said Harriet Cohen, a member of the local coalition. “We’re not saying it has to be 100 percent low income. But affordable housing is what’s needed in this community, in the city as a whole.”

Harold Jacobs, the general manager and a longtime resident of the Hillman Houses, one of several co-op complexes in the area, questioned that assumption. “Why call for low-income housing in a neighborhood that already has the second-highest concentration of low-income housing in the entire state?” he said. “Why not sell the property at the highest market rate possible, take that money and put up low-income housing somewhere else? This neighborhood is booming, so it should be developed at market rate.”

Msgr. Neil Connolly finds the whole standoff surreal. He came to the area as pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in 1985 … has helped convene meetings, sponsored petition drives and held rallies for housing on those sites. While he said city officials have been sympathetic, they have shied away from tackling those lots lest they anger Sheldon Silver, the State Assembly speaker whose electoral base includes the co-op developments.

“Sheldon Silver moves with the co-op crowd,” Monsignor Connolly said of past attempts to build housing. “He stopped it.”

Current housing officials declined to comment about the sites. But Ms. Perine, the former commissioner, said the failure to build on the site reflected the reality that officials — and she included herself — focused on neighborhoods where they could build, rather than bicker.

“You had complicated politics and complicated local constituencies,” she said. “Ultimately, somebody has to be a champion for it. That never happened down there.”

[ August 28, 2007; 6:37 am; ] Mid Eclipse: 6:37 AM

Total Lunar Eclipse: August 28, 2007

by Don Cruise
This past Saturday there was a fire in an East River Housing building, caused by some inconsiderate smoker, who threw his or her cigarette down the garbage chute.

Residents of all ages had to be evacuated, but the elevators were shut down and the stairwells filled with smoke. People were trapped, and it could have ended a lot worse. Still, today the recently renovated hallways now bear the nauseating stink of smoke.

Again in East River Housing, a few years ago, a family and their four kids barely escaped with their lives one night because a smoker threw his or her cigarette butt out and it landed on their balcony. The fire destroyed their home and could have been fatal.

Another fire was started since in building 2 of East River, by a cigarette butt flicked onto a balcony.

I’ve been hearing about cigarette butts landing on balconies in the 475 FDR building.

All these incidents, in only one housing complex, show that today’s smokers may be less considerate, and perhaps less reliable than past smokers. Maybe the herd of smokers has been thinned down to those who are as dim about cigarette-caused fires as they are about cigarette-caused black lungs.

Another person in East River has told me their bedroom smells like a cheap motel, because smoke from a neighbor one floor below hits their air-conditioner.

Why must I inhale the stinking smoke that has recently been processed in some smoker’s diseased lungs? What about the asthmatics, the babies, or anyone out on the sidewalk?

In hindsight, I understand and appreciate Bloomberg’s smoking ban.

Steve Martin used to respond to people asking, “Mind if I smoke,” with “Mind if I fart?” But, you know something, even if you do not mind my farting, I still don’t want you to smoke…

Luis Guzman

Seward Park’s Luis Guzman steals "War". HBO’s “John From Cincinnati” was cancelled (not a minute too soon), but Seward Park Housing’s best character actor Luis Guzman is riding high. In today’s NY Daily News he says: "I never walk into a situation saying, Watch what I do, I want to steal this scene. I don’t approach it that way. I just say, Let me do what I do best, which is do my job and give a good performance. I’m very humble in that way." Of course, having the most unusual, Peter-Lore-gone-Barrio mug helps. Here’s a link for some trailers.

Surveillance Camera Outdoor Walking Tour: The Lower East Side. This has to be the most unusual walking tour ever. Founded by Fourth Amendment watchdog Bob Brown, the Surveillance Camera Players will take the group on a 90-minute walking tour through the Lower East Side, to marvel at the electronic observation of their path. Today, Aug 26, at 2:00 PM. Meet at the northeast corner of Avenue D and Houston Street.

Barkeep’s revenge. "Spitzer’s Corner Is The Worst Place To Bartend In New York," declares a gawker story which must be of great interest to bartenders everywhere, we suppose. "Spitzer’s Corner, an alleged gastropub that opened recently on the Lower East Side at Rivington and Ludlow, has 39 beers on tap." But professional hazards soon raise their ugly heads: "All night the bartender parried orders and obscure questions from ale enthusiasts who took great pleasure in quizzing him. Some were showing off for the few women there; some were genuinely just beer dorks. This, it might be added, took place at 10 p.m. on a school night. Imagine a Saturday night."

Who says education don’t pay? When school starts next week, New York City will try to use a monetary enticement to get parents in low-income neighborhoods more involved in their children’s education and overall health. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has raised more than $40 million (much of it from his own money and the Rockefeller Foundation) to pay families a modest amount for small tasks—$50 for getting a library card or $100 to take a child to the dentist—that could make a big difference. Discuss it among yourselves… (Newsweek)

Must have more Amy Bloom. Lillian Leyb’s American story begins on July 3, 1924, on New York’s Lower East Side, a scene so vivid and engaging, so delicious in tone, that a reader experiences an immediate thrill, the all-too-rare one that signals: I am in excellent hands here… The language that Bloom employs to tell Lillian’s story is immediate, colorful, and unafraid to be plain…

At this point yesterday, we wrongly accused the Boston Globe of failing to disclose that the reviewer, Elinor Lipman, like Amy Bloom, is on contract with Random House. We were wrong. Ms. Lipman emailed us this note: Your assertion is wrong: I am not under contract with Random House. If the Globe HAD disclosed the name of my publisher, it would have said “Houghton Mifflin.” I do not review a book if the author and I share a publisher or agent, OR if the author has blurbed me or vice versa, OR if I know the author. We are sorry.

Police Search For Tiny Slasher. We’re sticklers for unfair type quotes. This NY1 story about Police looking for the attacker of three Asian women in their 30s and 40s in the last six weeks, describes him as 25 to 30 years old… 5 feet, 8 to 11 inches tall. The wife says we’re easily amused. The Eyewitness News account says it like it should be: 25 to 30 years old, thin, and 5 8″ to 5 11". Now, was that too much to ask?

Thomas Reuben Group releases debut experimental jazz CD. The music on “In Tongues” was recorded live to two track at Loho Studios in Lower Manhattan, NYC.