If You Still Believed Abercrombie & Fitch Was Somehow Classy . . .

I suppose it was inevitable we’d eventually have to apply Broken Windows to shopping:

A gunshot fired on one of the most exclusive blocks of Fifth Avenue sent well-heeled passersby scrambling for cover last night after a fight between workers at Abercrombie & Fitch’s flagship store got out of control, witnesses and cops said.

One of the workers, a man who was not identified, was hospitalized last night after a female employee with whom he had been arguing sent two friends to get revenge on him.

The thugs pistol whipped the worker outside the store at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street.

The gun accidentally went off during the brutal beating, shattering the window of the exclusive Beverly Feldman women’s clothing store about 8:45 p.m.

Who Let The Dogs Out?

Meanwhile, Newsday/AM New York reports that Hal the urban coyote may have friends waiting to pounce on the city’s dog population — not a matter of “if” but rather “when”:

The coyote who was captured in Central Park Wednesday may have kin who are living comfortably in the Bronx or even in Manhattan.

His species has been settling in record numbers in and around Gotham, and are especially adept at surviving in cities.

“These animals are the ultimate urban survivors,” said Dr. Michael Klemens, senior conservationist at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“They are adaptable, able to vary their menu, and to find shelter in shadow of the most crowded city.”

The scientist said he was certain there is a breeding population of coyotes in the Bronx, and did not rule out the possibility that dens stuffed with coyote puppies are scattered around Manhattan. They could be getting by in wooded parks or even construction sites.

City officials speculated Wednesday that the captured coyote had made its way down from Westchester County. The animals were unknown in the state less than 50 years ago, but have since moved in en masse to fill an ecological niche left by the decimated wolf population, which was hunted close to extinction.

The coyotes here are much larger than their howling cousins of the Arizona desert. They have probably been interbreeding with wolves or even domesticated dogs, said Klemens, making the eastern breed bigger and stronger.

The Nolita-ization Of The Yippies

Soon, very soon, all of Manhattan below 96th Street will be one big museum:

A man named “Kenny the coke freak” once lived in the basement of the three-story brick building at 9 Bleecker St., just off the Bowery. In the early 1970s, when Kenny no longer could pay the rent, the Yippies moved in.

More than three decades later, the counterculture group founded by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin is looking to turn its Bleecker Street headquarters into a museum. The state Office of Cultural Education is recommending that the Board of Regents grant a five-year provisional charter to the Youth International Party — which spearheads an annual march calling for the legalization of marijuana — at its March meeting next week. The Regents are likely to follow the recommendation.

“It’s sort of going to be like the Hard Rock Cafe of radical culture,” a longtime member of the Yippies, Dana Beal, a co-curator of the museum, said during a tour through the building yesterday. Mr. Beal, who has a shock of white hair and a moustache like Mark Twain’s, has inhabited 9 Bleecker St. since 1973.

The items to be on display will include some of the cremated ashes of acid guru Timothy Leary and an American flag blazer donated by Hoffman’s son, Andrew, who lives in Indonesia.

Completing the transition to a Hard Rock Cafe-type of institution requires some flexibility, however:

“We’re still working out the admission issue,” Mr. Beal, said. “The Yippies were always more anarchist than anti-capitalist . . . everybody knows they’re against capitalism, but nobody knows what to replace it with.”

. . .

According to the application submitted to the Regents, the museum will become “a tourist attraction in New York City for intellectuals interested in the history of the new left, the smoke-in movement, the Ibocaine movement, Dylanology, the connection between rogue CIA agents and the Kennedy assassination including the housing of over 100,000 pages released under the JFK documents act.”

That Storefront Is A Mosque? Sweet! Now We Can Shut Down That Pretentious Wine Bar!

The Sun follows up on the story about the Tribeca couple who (literally) found Allah, providing them a convenient way to force out local bars, noting that one of the bars has been operating at the location for ten years and the mosque in question does not want to shut down neighborhood businesses:

As part of the process of applying for a liquor license, prospective bar owners must assert that they are in compliance with the law. The owner of the Bubble Lounge, a 10-year old bar whose license is being challenged, Eric Benn, said his establishment is 192 feet from the mosque. Mr. Benn said his business is in jeopardy.

“We’re looking forward to the government getting off our case. It’s getting to be rather repetitive – they take a great deal of money from us and then we get harassment,” Mr. Benn said. “It is impossible to detect that there is a mosque there; not even the Community Board knew.”

Since 1990, the two-story white-painted building at 245 West Broadway with drawn Venetian blinds and a locked gate has housed the Sufi mosque, Masjid al-Farah. The gold lettering on the front door does not contain the word “mosque,” but it is registered as a religious not-for-profit corporation with the state and federal government.

An administrator for the mosque, Kris Jones, said a lawyer representing the mosque submitted a letter to the state clarifying the uses of the building. She said that in addition to being a place of worship, the building serves as a space to feed the homeless and host interfaith meetings.

“We don’t have a dispute with any of the neighbors. We are here to support them. Our main thing is to be neutral,” Ms. Jones told The New York Sun. “We don’t want anyone to lose their jobs.”

The Problem With Community Boards, Too, Or, Making The East Village Oversaturated With Boutiques, One Denied Liquor License At A Time

I understand your wanting to sleep, but where do you think I’m supposed to consume overpriced Euro-bistro fare in advance of vomiting absurdly marked-up bottles of wine in your gutter? You make it so hard to yobbo out in this town:

Neighborhood boos have nixed the booze at the European Union, a highly touted restaurant-pub slated to open later this month in the East Village.

The State Liquor Authority — responding to noise, traffic and sanitation concerns of area residents — has denied filmmaker-restaurateur Bob Giraldi and his partner, Jason Hennings, a liquor license for the eatery at 235 E. 4th St.

“We don’t have anything in particular against the establishment or the people involved, but Avenue B and East 4th Street are oversaturated with destination night spots,” said Susan Stetzer, district manager of Community Board 3.

“On Fridays and Saturdays between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., there are hundreds of people on the street. People can’t sleep. There’s tremendous horn honking.”

And, she added, “you can’t stand at the bus stop in the morning there’s so much vomit and garbage.”

Stetzer pointed out that the European Union — which has already spent more than $1 million on renovations — is being touted for its architecture and its well-known chef, Gwenael Le Pape.

“It’s designed to bring people into the area — and the area can’t accommodate one more person, one more cab or one more car,” she said.

See also: “Limits on Liquor Licenses Pinch Restaurant Owners,” (Times, February 1, 2006).