Menu: Wild Olive Market wildly popular

This isn't exactly today's news, but it IS good news, so it's worth repeating.  Wild Olive Market, located at 10 East 125th Street, has finally opened after teasing us with new awnings and seemingly never-fast-enough progress on the interior build-out.

So is it the most amazing grocery store I've ever been in?  No, but it is pretty great and I have stopped in 4 or 5 times since it opened last Friday.  And I couldn't help but smile each time I walked in.

And it's not just me - I've witnessed folks walking in for the first time and squealing with delight, pumping fists in the air and otherwise spontaneously celebrating the fact that this grocery had opened.  I overheard a young lady tonight telling people - anyone who would listen, it seemed - that she was fighting back tears, she was so happy about this store.  Not kidding.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, clean store, well stocked, friendly staff, wonderful meat and fish counter - all fill a great unmet need.  And the owner, Tasos Mastakours, is virtually always there and eager to speak to his customers about what they want to see stocked in the store.  Smart guy, in my estimation.  He and his brother have owned Mani Market Place on the UWS for almost 20 years, so they know what they're doing.

I may still endure the crowds and the lines at Pathmark once a month just to stock up on dry goods, because their prices are so cheap.  But Wild Olive Market is my new spot for everything else.  BTW, they're open every day from 7am (Sundays, 8am) to 9pm.

Menu: Fruits of Life juice bar closed by police for marijuana sales

The funky and independent Fruits of Life juice bar at 57 East 125th Street (on the north side, near Madison Avenue) has apparently been closed by police and for sales of marijuana.  At least that's what the sign posted on the front of the establishment said yesterday.

So, where will rappers Capone, Noreaga and Styles P hang out now?  The guys hanging out on the steps of Marcus Garvey Park's northwest entrance seem to have enough ganja for a party.

ALERT: Homeless Man Stabs 3, Flees to Park

Several reports from early this morning indicate that a homeless man stabbed 2 people near the 4/5/6 subway stop on 125th Street, then another in the back at East 120th Street and Fifth Avenue.  He then fled into Marcus Garvey Park.  All 3 victims were taken to nearby hospitals; one is in critical condition and the other two are listed as stable.  Events occurred around 5:30am and each attack appears to be random.

The corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue is one of the worst on Harlem's main thoroughfare.  I know when I walk past that corner, I see more "characters" than elsewhere and more trash strewn about.  The owner of Famiglia's, the pizza joint that opened on that corner last year had this to say:

Frank Grecco, a 22-year NYPD officer who worked as a detective in East Harlem, now owns a Famiglia pizzeria just steps away. He wasn’t there at the time, but he said the intersection — “the Times Square of East Harlem” — attracted the best and worst of the neighborhood.

From sunrise to midnight, the corner teems with commuters, shoppers and business people, he said. But after that, drug dealers do a brisk business, selling “everything from loose cigarettes to marijuana to pills.”

Many of their customers are addicts getting treatment at nearby methadone clinics, he said. The corner is also populated by people who are emotionally unstable.

The police do a good job of keeping crimes in check, Grecco said. But the strongest police presence is during the day, and a second shift from 4 p.m. to midnight.

Bottom line: be aware of your surroundings, particularly on "known" trouble spots.  And as an aside, what's with suspects running into Marcus Garvey Park?  It's not Sherwood Forest, folks!

UPDATE:  It's probably too vague to be helpful, but the suspect has been described as a black man in his 20s, who was wearing a black Polo shirt and blue jeans.