It’s All After-School Drama Club And Community Theatre Productions . . . And Then You Have Drunky Old Eugene O’Neill To Muss Things Up

Is he kidding? Everyone knows the horrible truth about “theater people”:

If all the world really were a stage, Louis Salamone would have no problem getting a liquor license for his new theaters on Bleecker Street, near Mulberry Street.

But many local residents fear that all the world between the Bowery and Broadway north of Houston Street is fast becoming one long bar crawl, and contend that adding yet another place that sells alcohol will produce even more in the way of drunken crowds and late-night rowdiness.

“We are worried that it would be a camouflage for a cabaret and nightclub setting, which we all know is the predominant activity in Lower Manhattan,” said Zella Jones, president of the NoHo Neighborhood Association. The group opposes Mr. Salamone’s effort to sell liquor, and wants beer and wine sales limited to specific areas and times.

Mr. Salamone, executive director of a production company that also owns two Off Broadway houses, plans to open his new performance space, the Theaters at 45 Bleecker Street, in September.

“For a theater to survive, it can’t just be a theater,” Mr. Salamone said. He cited both soaring rents — he pays about $50,000 a month for two floors in a mustard-colored, six-story brick building — and the plight of the building’s previous tenant, the Culture Project, which left in December because of financial problems.

“We’re theater people, not nightclub people or restaurateurs,” Mr. Salamone added. “But the bottom line is we need additional sources of revenue, mainly drinks, a little food, to add to our income.”

It’s Not That I Don’t Enjoy Eating The Large Intestines Of A Pig . . .

. . . but perhaps there is just less of a market for sauteed chitterlings nowadays:

Calvin Copeland was there when rioters burned and looted stores in 1964, when crack cocaine and AIDS tore families apart, when brownstones were for sale for $50,000 and few outsiders dared move in. He endured fire and financial ruin, yet each time he picked up the pieces and prospered, as bold and resilient as the neighborhood around him.

If he could be the master of his fate, he would live out his days in Harlem, Mr. Copeland, 82, said yesterday, serving soul food from the restaurant he has owned for almost five decades, Copeland’s, a relic of the past anchored in a place fast in transition.

Gentrification has pushed away many of the black families who used to patronize his business. “The white people who took their place don’t like or don’t care for the food I cook,” he said. “The transformation snuck up on me like a tornado.”

After falling behind on rent and bills a year ago, Mr. Copeland tried to hold on to his business, investing more than $250,000 of his savings, he said. Finally, in May, he acquiesced to defeat.

Copeland’s, at 547 West 145th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, where Harlem is known as Hamilton Heights, will hold its last gospel brunch at 1 p.m. on Sunday and then close its doors for good.

The (Organic) Carrot And Stick

Maybe Bruce Ratner and Joe Sitt should have dangled the possibility of a Trader Joe’s to naysayers:

Besides a Trader Joe’s, Downtown Brooklyn may be getting something else: A six-story, combination residential and retail development that would exceed the height restrictions currently in place.

It was announced last week that the popular supermarket chain will be opening its first Brooklyn-based store at 130 Court Street, at the former Independence Savings Bank headquarters building constructed in 1922.

For months, however, the project has been a source of contention between residents and the developer, Two Trees Management, which wants to build a 60-foot high structure in the parking lot next door.

Roughly two weeks ago, representatives of both sides appeared at Borough Hall for a special hearing hosted by Borough President Marty Markowitz, during which time Two Trees requested a special permit to build their tower. Although Markowitz has not yet issued a recommendation, he has been straightforward in his support for Trader Joe’s, which specializes in fine imported and domestic foods.

“We’re thrilled this acclaimed store is setting up shop on Atlantic Avenue and Court Street,” he said during a press conference last Thursday. “Trader Joe’s will bring more customers to Downtown Brooklyn, and residents will have even more choices when it comes to shopping for fresh produce, prepared foods, and groceries.”

Yet some of those same neighbors charged Two Trees’ plan to build in the adjacent lot would negatively impact their quality of life, even as Trader Joe’s improves it.

Franklin Stone, vice president of the Cobble Hill Association, said her organization supports having a Trader Joe’s, and wanted 130 Court Street to remain commercial property all along.

“What we opposed was the insertion of floors that would affect how the building looks on the outside,” she said. “We thought that was going to mar this magnificent building.”

However, the Cobble Hill Association remains steadfastly opposed to the project next door, on the grounds it would represent the first building in the neighborhood taller than 50 feet, and would alter what Stone referred to as, “the 19th-century scale and feeling of the Cobble Hill Historic District.”

“We’re not against development,” she later told the Star. “We just want development that lives within the rules. We are pro-development that is in harmony with the surrounding district.”

Isn’t This What We Fought The War For?

Virgin Airlines’ campaign to recolonize the Village gets stonewalled by Community Board 2:

British poet Rupert Brooke once designated a corner of a foreign field as “forever England,” but after a heated discussion last night, the traffic and transportation committee of Community Board 2 unanimously voted not to recommend co-naming a portion of Greenwich Avenue in the West Village “Little Britain.

The resolution will now go before the full board.

Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett, an owner of three British-themed businesses on Greenwich Avenue, including the restaurants Tea & Sympathy and A Salt & Battery, had made an impassioned case in favor of the naming. He said there is another British-style business on the block and still another likely coming. He also stressed the significant support from local businesses and residents. A stack of local letters, as well as an online petition of nearly 6,000 names in support (57% of which were from New York) was presented.

He also said naming the street Little Britain would draw business to the area, and help protect the charm of the neighborhood. “There’s a bit of an English feel to the neighborhood, Mr. Kavanagh-Dowsett, told The New York Sun.

But members of the committee expressed a few doubts. One committee member, Ian Dutton, pointed out that New York is already named for a part of Britain. Sean Sweeney, who is also on the committee, asked about the role of Virgin Atlantic Airways in the campaign to co-name the street. Mr. Kavanagh-Dowsett said he approached the airline, not vice versa, and that some of the plans for what has become the Virgin empire were first drawn up on a napkin at the White Horse Tavern on nearby Hudson Street.

“They Finalized The $1 Trillion Deal Over A Modest Breakfast At Le Pain Quotidien On The Upper East Side” Just Doesn’t Have The Same Ring To It

If you ever wondered how low-rent businesses like diners survive in high-rent Madison Avenue locations, the answer is they don’t*:

Powerbrokers who make big deals at a little diner on the upper East Side may soon have to go elsewhere — if rising rents strike down the Three Guys Restaurant.

The modest-looking, three-decade-old Madison Ave. eatery — where Gov. Spitzer is a regular and $1 trillion business deals have been hashed out over eggs — is facing an upcoming lease renewal that could send the high-end clientele packing.

“Everything must come to an end,” co-owner Spiros Argiros said yesterday. “Nobody hopes for that. We’re on good terms with our [building’s] ownership. We hope that when the time comes, we’ll have a good understanding.”

Argiros wouldn’t say when the lease expires or how much it could rise. But with rents skyrocketing along his posh stretch of Madison Ave. between 75th and 76th Sts., the next hike could be a death blow.

“They’re hurting the little guys,” Argiros said. “It’s unfortunate not only for the owners but for the public. Not everything can be high-end.”

Calls to the owners, Friedland Properties, were not returned.

The restaurant — which has two other locations on the upper East Side — was the site of a trillion-dollar merger between Merrill Lynch’s asset-management business and one-time rival BlackRock. The list of regulars reads like a who’s who of New York.

*Unless you leak the story to the Daily News in advance of negotiations and let public opinion take over.