“Fuckin’ hot!” are the first words out of Sam Nivola ’s mouth when I meet him in the back of a small Japanese restaurant.

I’ve just asked him “How are you?” and it’s a fair response, considering it’s the hottest day in New York City since 2012. We’re on St. Mark’s Place, where the triple-digit temperature has caused even the crust punks, a mainstay of this stretch of the East Village, to slither toward refuge in tattoo parlors and liquor stores.

“I walked two blocks to get down here, and I’m pouring with sweat already,” says Nivola, clad in a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” T-shirt and a baseball cap concealing his boyish brown curls. I omit the fact that I arrived 15 minutes early for the sole purpose of drying my face with paper towels in the restroom.

“This weather is gnarly,” he sa

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