Welcome to our pretty bank branch

We've written before about the increase in bank robberies in NYC this year. Fancy bank branches abound on seemingly every corner of some East Village streets. It's so convenient! On the topic of the increase in bank robberies, the Times makes this observation today:

A look at the data shows that bank robbers seem to prefer some of the inviting environments of the newer banks on the city scene. Sovereign, Wachovia and Commerce — with plants arrayed on marble floors, jars of lollipops set on low-slung counters and no bullet-resistant barriers between tellers and customers — have some the highest ratios of robberies to branches.

I wonder when bank officials will realize these sparkly new branches are in the middle of an enormous metropolitan area, and not in Pleasantville USA...

Cops nab so-called albino bank robber

Cops have arrested the man wanted for a string of bank robberies in the city, including a holdup at the Chase branch on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place on Oct. 4.

Let's send it over to Lisha Arino at DNAinfo:

Dennis Nemirovskiy, 27, of Brooklyn, robbed banks in the East Village, Greenwich Village and Midtown by approaching tellers with a note demanding money, police said. In total, he made off with $8,480, police said.

Police finally caught Nemirovskiy after a witness saw him get into a cab after his last heist on Oct. 17, according to the NYPD.

I'm new to bank robberies, though I have seen "Point Break." Is leaving a bank robbery in a cab such a good idea?

Anyway, after the Chase robbery, the NYPD released the following description of the suspect: "white male (possibly albino), 5'10", mid to late 20s..."

Suspect who knocked off the Chase on 2nd Avenue wanted for 2 more bank robberies

The suspect who got away with $1,080 from the Chase branch on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place Saturday afternoon is now also wanted in connection with two more bank robberies on Monday.

Per CBS New York:

Around 2:40 p.m. Monday, a robber walked into the Citibank branch at 1107 Broadway near Madison Square Park and handed a note to the teller demanding money, police said. The suspect made off with $600.

Around 3:20 p.m. Monday, the suspect walked into a Chase Bank branch at 835 Broadway near Union Square, and handed the teller a demand note, police said. The suspect made off with $4,740.

In total, he's made off with $6,420. (He's almost made his share of the rent!)

The NYPD released the following description of the suspect:

"white male (possibly albino), 5'10", mid to late 20s, light colored hair with a medium build. He was last seen wearing a black and grey jacket, dark rimmed glasses, black sneakers with a red bandana around his neck."

And now there's video of the rather uneventful robbery at Chase (via Gothamist)...



Anyone with information that could help in the investigation is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). You may also submit tips online.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: NYPD looking for a possibly albino suspect in yesterday's Chase branch robbery

Crime stat of the day: Bank robberies up 57 percent in NYC this year

"There are a lot more desperate people," a law-enforcement source told the Post. There have been 263 bank heists in the Big Apple this year, compared with 168 in the same period last year, sources said. That's an increase of 56.5 percent. Perhaps it's more tempting -- or convenient? -- to rob a bank these days since there are bank branches on nearly every corner.

Report: Man arrested after 3 failed bank robberies

Somebody's been watching too many heist movies https://t.co/qrXMoZPhCE

— New York Post (@nypost) July 20, 2017

The NYPD has arrested a man for attempting (unsuccessfully) to rob three local banks, two on the Lower East Side and one on Broadway near Astor Place.

"This was a very bad bank robber," a police source told The Post, who reported that cops arrested Richard Callison, 22, of Oradell, N.J., near 14th Street and Third Avenue.

During his attempted robbery Tuesday at the Bank of America on Delancey Street:

[He] also failed to make off with any dough, despite passing the teller a note that said: “Give me all the big bills, make the wrong move and you will get shot.”

The missive ended with the words: “Rapido, rapido.”

The teller was not intimidated by the note, and simply locked her drawer and walked away from the window, leaving the crook standing there empty handed, police sources said.

Neither here nor there but the suspect does have a passing resemblance to Spaulding Smails from "Caddyshack."

Week in Grieview

[The former Village Gifts Friday morning on St. Mark's Place]

Stories posted on EVG this past week included...

The real story behind the so-called Lower East Side hoarder (Tuesday, 55 comments)

The Living Stage Summer Festival coming to Meltzer Tower Garden (Friday)

Out and About with Brian Breger (Wednesday)

Basketball courts at Open Road Park getting refurbished thanks to NBA star Kevin Durant (Tuesday)

An update on Steiner East Village, "Usherer of Alphabet City Gentrification" (Wednesday)

Montauk Salt Cave coming to 10th Street (Monday)

Gelarto officially (re)opens on Avenue A (Friday)

Townhouse living on 5th Street for $7.5 million (Friday)

N'eat is currently closed (Thursday)

Report: Man arrested after 3 failed bank robberies (Thursday)

Traveling and panhandling (Monday)

Going up and going down on 14th Street (Tuesday)

New EVG feature looks at the rent-stabilized apartments of East Village residents (Thursday)

More about Boris and Norton, the dog-friendly cafe coming to Avenue A (Thursday)

Ladybird about a month away from opening on 7th Street (Wednesday)

Café Floral Delight now open on 10th Street (Thursday)

What's happening with the former Edge space? (Thursday)

La Newyorkina joins Astor Plate on Astor Place (Thursday)

Retail space at 347 Bowery sells for $20 million (Monday)

Looking at the Allegro Coffee Roasters, now open at Whole Foods Market® Bowery (Tuesday)

More about Martina, Danny Meyer's "fine-casual pizzeria" coming to 11th Street (Wednesday)

Mayahuel closing Aug. 6 on 6th Street (Tuesday)

Yuan Noodle in soft-open mode on 2nd Avenue (Monday)

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Out and About in the East Village, Part 2

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Christopher Reisman
Occupation: Police Officer, retired
Location: 9th Precinct, 5th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue
Time: 11 a.m. on Monday, May 5

Read Part 1 here.

In 1975, my partner, Andrew Glover and my boss, Sgt. Fred Reddy were murdered. It was a stupid killing. It was on 5th Street, between Avenue A and B. They were just getting into the car … it was a replacement, because the regular car they had was in the shop. The replacement cars were almost always clunkers. They worked just well enough to roll. So they’re getting into the car and my partner sees a car double parked behind him and a guy is behind the wheel.

There was always pressure to write summons and he was driving the boss, so he said, ‘I’m gonna go back and check this guy’s license.’ To make a long story short, he asks the guy for his driver’s license, and the guy reaches for his driver’s license and shoots my partner in the chest. Then he runs up to the police car. The sergeant was sitting in the passenger seat, but the door was so stiff that you couldn’t open it. You had to turn and kick the door open with both feet. By the time he got the door open the guy was on him and shot him and then he went back and shot my partner.

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The Hells Angels chapter was founded here after I came. There had been a small gang run by a fellow named Sandy Alexander. I think the Angels today are much more circumspect than they were then. There was a fellow they use to call Big Vinny. Vinny was large ... he never wore a shirt. All he wore was the patch with the colors and that was it. Vinny was arrested for allegedly throwing a girl off the roof at a party in 1977.

The District Attorney’s office, in their infinite wisdom, allowed him out on bail, which meant that all the witnesses to this disappeared. But Vinny died about that time anyway from a burst pancreas.

Anyway, most of the people who were victims of the Hells Angels kind of provided themselves. These were exotic characters; they were bikers, outlaws. The clueless would gravitate to them. They would like to hang out with them not realizing that the Angels were a closed group. They were kind of hermetically sealed within themselves. If I was a Hells Angel and I considered you a good friend and another Hells Angel was mad at you and hit you, then I’d hit you too. As far as they were concerned, anybody outside of the club was a civilian.

It was kind of a blue-collar fraternity in a sense, and that’s not being fair to blue-collar people or fraternity people. Quite often drugs were involved. For the most part, they made an effort to avoid us largely because of the organizational structure. It was kind of a standoff. It was considered bad form to get locked up. You were bringing ill repute on the club and they didn’t want further examination.

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Drugs became worse in the 1980s and, not surprisingly, it was when many more white kids came to the neighborhood. The kids from the outer boroughs came in here, often because of music, drugs or a combination of such. The kids were street savvy in the sense that a blue-collar kid knows a lot more than a white collar kid, but they weren’t that down and mean.

Then you had the whole punk rock era, which was great. This was always a very creative area. There were a lot of poets. There were a lot of well-known artists, not necessarily famous, but well-known within their own artistic community. Even if kids were screwed up on drugs, they would get these tremendous creative influxes, but they wouldn’t last long. You would find an abandoned apartment and there would be half a project, and you’d go into another and there would be another half a project, whether they were building something with wood or painting, then for whatever reason they would move on.

The drug organizations became bigger and they got meaner. They became more organized. The neighborhood had already started to be crushed. The housing was diminished by fire and neglect. So we had the guy who might have been selling small bundles of heroin out of his apartment and now he’s moved to Brooklyn and he’s connected with another guy, so instead of selling a small bundle of dope, now he’s got a kilo of dope. He’s got an organization, and the moment you’ve got an organization and the moment you’ve got a lot more money, you in turn are much more vulnerable.

It’s true of all crime. The thing that the criminal needs more than anything else is a police department. This is what the Mafia does. There’s no such thing as a sit down where they plot bank robberies. There’s a guy who controls the area and it’s understood that if you ply your trade in his area you have to pay tribute, and if you pay tribute then nobody else can rob you.

It was the same with narcotics. The very fact that it became a much bigger business and there was much more money at stake, encouraged more sophisticated firearms. I have no way of proving this, but I often wonder if reduced homicides were just due to the drug business becoming more efficient. There is always a certain number of homicides that will never go down. Husbands will always stab wives and vice versus, somebody will just be stupid, and lots will happen in a neighborhood, but homicide is bad for the drug business.

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Two things changed the police department — the video camera and the machine gun. All of a sudden the bad guys had much better weapons than the police department and anything you did on the street was very likely to be recorded. Mostly the weapons were a function of protecting the drug situations, but if you were facing life in prison you would take a chance on killing a cop.

Here’s where I’m going to sound very pompous. If police work were simply a matter of apprehending criminals and throwing brush-back pitches at them — I think there are as many as 29,000 sworn officers in the city — you might need a thousand. The other 28,000 exist to protect me and you and our individual inner jerk. It’s the same as a stoplight. The police exist to stop me from that momentary lapse in judgment. It’s 3 in the morning and nobody is around and I’ll run this light or something. It’s to stop somebody from doing something stupid.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Out and About in the East Village, Part 1