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Life during wartime: It was a tough week in the dailies for CBGB, the Bowery punk mecca facing eviction at the end of this month. On Thursday, an article in the New York Post, “It rocked, but CBGB should RIP,” said the club is past its prime and should be let die. The next day, a New York Times article said essentially the same thing, noting young fans are going to Brooklyn clubs nowadays to see the hottest bands. Hilly Kristal, the club’s owner, denied CBGB is no longer musically relevant. “In the last five years I’ve had more bands signed [who’ve played here] than all of the ’70s — but do they care?” he said of his detractors. “I don’t care if we don’t get all the newest bands, if they go to Williamsburg. Some of the clubs in Williamsburg have money behind them — that’s what they tell me.” Meanwhile, Kristal is having benefit concerts to raise funds for a Save CBGB Fund. If they get a new lease from Bowery Residents’ Committee after Aug. 31, they’ll give the $100,000 they hope to raise to an organization helping the homeless; if not, they’ll use it to fight their eviction in court. A rally for CBGB in Washington Square Park on Aug. 31 is also planned.

Dorm denouncers: Opponents of Gregg Singer’s 19-story dormitory on the old P.S. 64 (CHARAS/El Bohio) site on E. Ninth St. and Avenue B are putting out an urgent e-mail call to one and all to come oppose Singer’s appeal to the Board of Standards and Appeals next Tues., Aug. 16, at 10 a.m. at 40 Rector St. Singer is appealing the Department of Buildings’ rejection of building permits for the project, which D.O.B. has said lacked a clear connection with an educational institution. Lawyers from the East Village Community Coalition will argue against the appeal.

Goodnight for PM cafe: City Councilmember Christine Quinn recently put the kibosh on Meat Market nightclub PM’s application for a sidewalk cafe permit for 12 tables and 29 seats. Quinn said she opposed the permit and used her influence in the council to get the Zoning Committee to oppose it. She said the Gansevoort St. club apparently did do some sound muffling, but then failed to follow up for a soundproofing check that had been scheduled. “It’s a privilege to have a sidewalk café — you have to earn that privilege,” Quinn said. Kate Seely-Kirk, a Quinn aide, said noise outside the club has lessened, but there are still problems with the music and bass affecting neighbors.

Long ballad: Karen Kramer’s “The Ballad of Greenwich Village” documentary has been held over yet again at the Quad, at least until Aug. 18. “Village audiences seem to really respond to it,” Kramer said.

Challenge me, please! Just in case you were wondering, Christopher Brodeur will be on the ballot as a Democrat running for mayor this November. It seems no one considered to try to knock him off for not having enough petition signatures. “I’m a little hurt — I guess they don’t take me seriously,” he said.

Drugs? What drugs? We hear Jerry “Jerry the Peddler” Wade is planning to sue rocker Michelle Shocked over comments she made in a recent New York magazine article in which she called his squat drug infested. “I’ve been in some amazing squats that had a real communal sense. But Jerry the Peddler’s was just a drug den,” Shocked said. Wade denies it.

Blank tribute: The fourth anniversary of 9/11 is coming up. And so is the first anniversary of The Cooper Union’s painting over the “Forever Tall” public art mural of the twin towers on Third Ave. and Sixth St. The last time we walked past Sixth St. there was still no new advertising billboard up — the wall was blank.

Local lighter: Word has it the lighting engineer for the new Jim Jarmusch movie “Broken Flowers,” opening Fri., Aug. 5, at the Angelika Film Center, Jonathan Michael Hope Lumley, is a longtime Villager. “His friends are proud of him,” an e-mailer reports to us.

Corrections: A Scoopy item last week about St. Vincent’s Hospital’s bankruptcy plans to rent or sell some of its properties incorrectly stated that the hospital’s O’Toole building is on Sixth Ave. It is on Seventh Ave. between 12th and 13th Sts…. Also in the article “Manolos replace meat, as trend is more trendiness” in our June 13 Meat Market issue, the name of the company Debauve and Gallais was misspelled.

Getting wacker, yo: First we reported about neighbors’ fears of a triple-story hip-hop club run by a super-bling rap star at the site of the Pink Elephant on Eighth Ave. at 13th St. Then, the next week, our source — a concerned neighbor — said he met the manager of the new place and found the guy to be thoroughly “Brooks Brothers” and “Wall St.,” in other words, not phat in the least. Now — get this — we hear from another source who was at a recent New York Nightlife Association bash that this place really is going to be a dope club (as in cool, not as in pot puffing) and that the Wall Streeter is “a front.” Since Tim McDarrah from Us Weekly called us to check out the rap star rumor, maybe we’ll leave it to him to track this one down. We’ve tried to call Jon Posner, the building’s managing agent/landlord, numerous times to nail this one down, but we cannot get a callback. Posner has e-mailed us, though, saying the rap rumors are all lies.

Double trouble: According to a source, two white male attorneys are gearing up to challenge State Senator Martin Connor in next year’s election. One lives in the East Village, the other on the Lower East Side.