Fake preacher, former candidate for mayor, and colorful character Reverend Billy, was arrested yesterday for leaving a pile of dirt (which we once thought was poo) as a protest in the vestibule of a Chase Bank in the East Village.

We don't know much about this picture of a heap of manure left in the vestibule of the Chase branch at 10th Street and Second Ave, but it's a pretty awesome protest against shitty three-dollar ATM fees. [Description Without Place]

[When you're trudging through slushy intersections on the way home tonight, just remember how beautiful the fresh snowfall was on Sunday morning, captured here in the East Village. Image via Getty]

[Matt Susser carries a Christmas tree into Mary O's bar on Avenue A in the East Village today. Image via Getty]

As we mentioned earlier his name is Benjamin Maisani and he is the co-owner of gay bar Eastern Bloc. The 36 year old is smart, he's sweet, and he loves to work out. Sounds like a big gay catch.

Old guys: Jon Gosselin's still around, Paul McCartney still has lady problems. Brody Jenner, Joe Francis: small penises. Pattinson, Stewart, and the sacred word. Fire Island, the East Village, Africa: we are the world. Presenting your Sunday Morning Gossip Roundup:

Agyness Deyn is, like, such a rebel. She's a model who is so unmodel-y. She, like, hates fashion! And she, like, lives in East Village and wears Converse sneakers and quirky hats and smoke Parliaments. She's, like, so unique!

Today a blogger decided to have jerk chicken and mac-n-cheese for lunch at an East Village restaurant. He went inside, grabbed a seat, and seconds after his food was served, a hawk swooped in and landed on his plate.

Whoops! An eagle-eyed tipster spotted this today on the front door of Pete Wentz's East Village bar, Angels and Kings, which got smacked down with an NYPD closure. Looks like they were serving to minors.

[Happy Thursday. That's Anne Hathaway picking up dog poop in the East Village. Image via INF]

East Village residents could be in for a pleasant surprise when they see 6'4" Olympian golden boy Michael Phelps walking down the street in a few weeks. That is, if the rumors that he's dating British model Lily Donaldson (and not Amanda Beard, whom he's also been linked to) are true. Donaldson spends most of her time in New York these days: Back in May, she bought a two-bedroom pad on Avenue B for $2.2 million. For his part, Phelps has already said he plans to take a few months off from swimming now that he's done with the Olympics. What else is he going to do if not hang out with his supermodel girlfriend, who just happens to have a lovely new love nest? One (much less alluring) bonus: Lily is just a few blocks from the crummy public pool at the Hamilton Fish Recreation Center on East Houston Street.

Veselka, which has great borscht, terrible bread and this one older lady waitress who is so sad and seemingly fragile that it seems that only her cake makeup is holding up her features, had already opened an outpost in a hut in the park at 1st Avenue and 1st Street. Now, as Grub Street reports, a second larger and sit-downy Veselka place is opening up in the East Village. Where? Right around the corner, in the Avalon Bowery, that slick glass box of a building opposite Whole Foods. It's like when Yaroslov I the Wise conquered Red Rus from the Poles in 1030! Except also nothing like that.

Sophie's, that dive bar on E. 5th Street that never carded and where I once made out drunkenly on the pool table with a woman who, at the time, I was convinced was Catherine Keener but in fact was just this girl who lived on the floor below me in my dorm , is closing in the New Year. Boo! [NYP]

From the mailbag: "some girl just had her purse stolen outside my window on 11th and A at 12:30am. there are so many loud teens in this neighborhood and drunk people at this time of night when she was screaming 'give it back fucker!' i didn't think anything of it until i looked out the window and realized what had happened, as she ran in her heels and continued screaming and running after the guy as he ran down towards avenue D. please post this. all of these rich girls and bankers really need to know they're still not safe over here. please move somewhere safer so the rents don't go any higher and landlords will stop harrassing rent stabilized tenants." You head the man, kids. Stop bugging the old people with your carrying-on and being victims of street crime at all hours!

John Varvatos, the fashion designer who has made a career of co-opting rock n' rollers from Alice Cooper to Chris Cornell and Iggy Pop, has taken over what used to be CBGBs. His store will open in the spring. Unrelatedly, the New York City Coroner Office officially pronounced Punk dead this morning at 11:03 am. He is survived by his younger brother Emo and his sister, Balkan-infused Pop. Memorial Drinks and canapés will be served at Whole Foods Bowery. [NYP]

We were saddened by the loss of East Village bar Midway's liquor license. Not only because losing a place to drink is like losing a limb but because it meant yesterday's goodbye party for now-defunct zine The Crier was off. Happily for alcoholics, Dave the head booker has good news, "Midway has not lost its liquor license. The last one expired and the new one has been tied up in Albany & Community Board red tape that allows them to wait until 10/12 to object to our license before the State Liquor Authority can issue it. We are expecting to be renewed in time for CMJ next week. The Crier party has been postponed to 11/6, not canceled." Can the same be said for The Crier? Bilious Crier editor Doree Shafrir says, "I hope so."

Eater predicts that in 18 months Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, as well as Jack Lamb's sushi spot Jewel Bako and his stab at French cuisine, Degustation, will all be dead and gone. Are these the waning days of East Village's restaurateur boy-king Jack Lamb's empire? If so, bring on the dormice and vomitoria! It's time to party.

Rod Townsend (aka our commenter Momo), sometimes receives telephone calls from The Past, a mysterious entity that remembers where things used to be in New York before Starbucks and Whole Foods came to town.

We're not exactly sure which "downtown hipsters" are going to work themselves into a lather over the closing of an East Village club that has been around for a little more than two years, but the Post reports that performance space/crappy restaurant Mo Pitkin's is up for sale at the tidy sum of $5.5 million. We guess you'll just have to catch Murray Hill's "transgressive" performances at one of forty other overpriced and poorly ventilated establishments. [NYP]

For some time now, the number of bank branches in the city has been rising like the Dow. It's not that we don't like being able to overdraw at every street corner from our depleted checking account. It's just that the city is becoming a giant, badly-designed ATM—and the East Village is getting it bad.