JANUARY 9, 2014, THE VILLAGER

The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933

January 9, 2014 • $1.00 Volume 83 • Number 32

Judge says city broke law when it O.K.’d N.Y.U. plan

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

I PHOTO BY SAM SPOKONY

The second time is twice as nice: At her inauguration for her second term in office, Margaret Chin got a strong show of support from prominent politicians, including, from left, Councilmember Brad Lander, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and new Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. See Page 4.

Johnson’s staff chief a surprise choice

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

I

n a surprising turn of events, two days after taking office as the new city councilmember for the Third District, Corey Johnson named Jeffrey LeFrancois as his chief of staff. It had previously been widely thought that R.J. Jordan already had the job nailed down — or, at least, so

it seemed.

LeFrancois was Assemblymember Richard Gottfried’s deputy chief of staff for five years, also serving as his community liaison and L.G.B.T. liaison. LeFrancois recently left his job with Gottfried and was traveling in South America, before returning to the city just two weeks ago.

Political observers got the news when, slightly after noon last Friday,

Gottfried tweeted out: “Congrats to @ jlef423 Jeffrey LeFrancois, my former Deputy COS — Councilmember @ CoreyinNYC’s new COS. Great news for all of us!”

However, it had been assumed that Jordan, Johnson’s campaign manager and close friend, would be his number one after Johnson took office.

JOHNSON, continued on p. 6

n a devastating blow to New York University, on Tuesday, State Supreme Court Justice Donna Mills ruled that the city and state broke the law by O.K.’ing the university’s plan to use three parkland strips for construction of its hotly

contested South Village expansion scheme.

It was a stunning victory for a community lawsuit filed by a first-of-its-kind coalition made up of N.Y.U. faculty, preservationists, activists and dozens of Village residents and community organizations.

Mills ruled that what N.Y.U. PLAN, continued on p. 12

Muscle-headed gym keeps flouting regs with illegal signage

BY SAM SPOKONY

E

quinox made them do it — but now two city agencies are making them undo it.

The trendy gym on Greenwich Ave. at W. 12th St. is being forced to take down a massive advertising sign that covers nearly the entire side of its four-

story building, which lies within the Greenwich Village Historic District.

Responding to complaints from both neighbors and preservationists, the Landmarks Preservation Commission ruled on Jan. 7 that the sign must come down, since the gym never received the neces-

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EQUINOX, continued on p. 11

Top cop says special unit, outreach can cut thefts

BY SAM SPOKONY

T

PHOTO BY SAM SPOKONY

he commanding officer of the Police Department’s Sixth Precinct said last week that she believes the Village could see a decrease in thefts this year, even after they rose by more than 10 percent in 2013.

In a Jan. 3 interview, Inspector Elisa Cokkinos explained that efforts to work more closely with bar and nightclub owners, especially in the Meatpacking District, could bring those numbers down.

“If everybody is accountable for their small piece when it comes to crime prevention, I think we’ll see decreases,” she said.

Both grand and petty larceny — thefts of property totalling more and less than $1,000, respectively — surged in 2013. Grand larceny increased by around 12 percent and petty larceny by 8 percent compared to the previous year, according to police statistics.

Trendy Meatpacking clubs were hot spots for both thefts and assaults throughout 2013, though those crimes also rose in bars along Christopher St. and around New York University’s South Village campus.

Cokkinos took over at the Sixth Precinct this past May after being transferred from Chelsea’s 10th Precinct, which she had commanded since 2010.

At that point in the year, it was already clear that grand larceny was a growing problem in bars and clubs. Cokkinos responded in June by putting together a new team to deal specifically with nightlife establishments. That unit, including a sergeant and six police officers, communicates directly with the clubs regarding inspections and crime prevention. The special unit also supplements the general work of officers already assigned to the midnight shift.

Sixth Precinct Community Affairs officers also held sessions with bar and club staff members last year, instructing them on ways to cut down on crime inside the venues.

“We went over some key issues with them in terms of what to look out for, and how to make their interactions better, and I think it was very successful,” said Cokkinos.

But while the commanding officer asserted that a decrease in thefts is a realistic possibility for 2014, the fact remains that this past year’s efforts did not quell the overall rise. Yet, other felonies, like robbery and burglary, dropped in the precinct in 2013, and overall arrests in the Sixth rose by 11.5 percent compared to 2012.

Cokkinos stressed that, aside from keeping her new nightlife unit in place for the coming year and continuing to do community outreach, there would be no strategy changes in terms of dealing with thefts in the area.

Inspector Elisa Cokkinos has commanded the Sixth Precinct since May, when she was promoted from deputy inspector to inspector.

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PHOTO BY SCOOPY

Councilmembers Jumaane Williams, left, and Rosie Mendez were all smiles on stage together at Councilmember Margaret Chin’s inauguration last Sunday.

FRIENDS AGAIN? There may be — at least publicly — no hard feelings after openly lesbian City Councilmember Rosie Mendez blasted her colleague Jumaane Williams for his stance against marriage equality and abortion rights during his recent unsuccessful bid to become the next Council speaker. The two briefly shared the stage on Jan. 5 at the inauguration ceremony for Councilmember Margaret Chin, who is now entering her second term. Although Williams, after giving his congratulatory remarks, left the stage almost immediately once Mendez began her speech, she started off by making a rather friendly reference to Williams’s musical talent. “Did Jumaane sing?” Mendez asked the crowd, smiling. “Oh, he didn’t? That’s a real treat, you know, hearing Jumaane sing.” Mendez, who represents the East Village and part of the Lower East Side, took a public shot at Williams, of Brooklyn, in late November when she said she wouldn’t support him in the speaker’s race because he opposes same-sex marriage and abortion. “As an out lesbian, it’s problematic for me that the person who would be representing this body is anti-gay marriage, anti-a woman’s right to choose,” Mendez said then in an interview with Capital New York. “Those are two really fundamental progressive issues.” Williams is, in fact, a member of the Council’s Progressive Caucus, though many in the city certainly do not consider his views on marriage and choice to be progressive in nature. Mendez, for her part, has declined to join that caucus, while she is generally regarded as one of the city’s most liberal elected officials. While praising Chin on Sunday, Williams highlighted Chin’s role as a founding member of the Progressive Caucus

as a reason for his continued support of her. “We’ve been doing a lot of good things in [the Progressive Caucus], and I’m looking forward to serving with her for another four years,” he said. A day after the inauguration, in response to our question about his relationship with Mendez, Williams released a terse statement in which he did not allude to anything that went on during his bid to become speaker. “Councilmember Rose [sic] Mendez and I have a great relationship, and I look forward to continuing our work together,” he said. Mendez’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. Moments after Williams and Mendez spoke on Sunday, a political staffer, speaking anonymously, said that Williams simply can’t afford to lash out against critics of his socially conservative views. “If he still held grudges against anyone for that, he wouldn’t have any friends left,” the staffer said.

RIDERS ON THE STORM? Bike-share stayed up and run-

ning last week through winter storm Hercules, but one had to wonder how many people were out there cycling on bikes of any kind. We tried one of the Citi Bikes around 10:30 last Thursday night as an inch or so of snow had already fallen, and it was way to slippery to ride for anyone other than Evel Knievel. As the storm was bearing down on the Big Apple, Dani Simons, a rep for NYC Bike Share, LLC, along with spokespersons for the city’s Department of Transportation, told us the plan was to start removing some of the cycles from on-street bike stations on major roadways and temporarily relocate them to stations on sidewalks and in plazas.

“We anticipate leaving the system open but are prepared to

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shut it down if the storm worsens overnight,” Simons said.

Seth Solomonow, a D.O.T. spokesperson, added, “Workers will shovel out bike stations promptly.” If necessary, Solomonow added, NYC Bike Share would install “snow flags” to indicate on-street bike-docking stations. In the end, the system was never shut down. As for how many people actually used bike-share during the peak-snow period, Nicholas Mosquera, a D.O.T. spokesperson, on Friday afternoon, told us, “There have been more than 3,000 rides [on Citi Bikes] in the less than 24 hours since snow first started falling.” Snow, in fact, was on elected officials’ minds this summer, when, on July 1, a month after bike-share launch, a posse of local politicians wrote a joint letter to Janette Sadik-Khan, then commissioner of D.O.T., expressing concerns about bikeshare and snow removal. While they noted they support bike-share, the elected officials said the agreement between D.O.T. and bike-share’s operator was unclear on who would plow snow near the bike-share stations. They noted that at one community meeting, “a D.O.T. representative raised concerns that the Department of Sanitation should not be plowing near bike-share stations, as it would cover the bikes in snow.” The pols also expressed concern that plows would smash into the bike-share docks if they were hidden in snow piles. In addition, they asked “what is the protocol” regarding shoveling snow for building owners who have bike-share stations directly in front of their buildings? “Are these owners supposed to shovel the snow into the [bike-share] station itself?” they asked. Signing the letter were Assemblymembers Deborah Glick and Brian Kavanagh, Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, state Senators Brad Hoylman and Daniel Squadron, Councilmembers Mendez and Chin and former Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Sadik-Khan answered them on July 17, saying, in part, “Guidelines for snow removal will be similar to those for trash. Property owners should make piles along the sidewalk, and if there is a bike-share station on the SCOOPY'S, continued on p. 4

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Among powerful friends, Chin enters her second term

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sidewalk, they should pile snow at the ends of the station or at any breaks in the station.”

As for garbage and snow in and around Citi Bike stations sited in the street bed, SadikKhan wrote, “NYC Bike Share is required to remove debris or snow for a six-foot radius around a station. This will help to provide an adequate buffer around which street clean-

ers and plows will be able to navigate. … If snow is pushed up against a bike-share station [by a city plow], NYC Bike Share will remove it, and in cases of predicted severe storms, bikes will be removed and stations will be deactivated in advance.” SadikKhan added that, at the Department of Sanitation’s request, NYC Bike Share, LLC was working to create station-identifying markers, i.e. the flags. “In most snowfalls,

PHOTO BY SAM SPOKONY

SCOOPY'S, continued from p. 3

BY

A

fter winning a tough re-election campaign against a much younger opponent with little political experience, Councilmember Margaret Chin showed off her strong political ties as she entered a second term at her inauguration on Jan. 5.

Chin, who defeated Jenifer Rajkumar by 17 points in the Democratic primary and then ran unopposed in the general election, celebrated her second swearingin alongside key figures in the city’s new administration, as well as local, state and federal officials.

Newly elected Public Advocate Letitia James and Comptroller Scott Stringer — who had worked closely with Chin in their previous roles as councilmember and Manhattan borough president, respectively — led the event off with strong words of support for Chin.

“She’s a powerhouse, and that’s why I love her dearly,” James said of Chin.

They were later joined on stage by Emma Wolfe, the newly appointed director of intergovernmental affairs for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who extended congratulations.

In other remarks at the event, Chin was also praised — always professionally, but sometimes on a deeply personal level —

by U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, Congressmembers Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viver-

ito (who was elected Council speaker on Wednesday — and whom Chin proudly announced she had supported for speaker) and state Senator Daniel Squadron, along with numerous others.

“What we can say about Margaret is this: No one put a silver spoon in her mouth, and no one plucked her up and put her into high office,” said Schumer, who, among other things, would go on to describe Chin as a “tiger” when it came to her persistence in securing disaster recovery aid after Hurricane Sandy.

“Margaret, you have earned all this,” Schumer declared.

In her own remarks after being sworn in, Chin proclaimed her support for de Blasio’s universal pre-K plan — although its accompanying tax hike may now have trouble getting the green light from Governor Cuomo. She further pledged to create more affordable housing, and also to continue pressuring the city to deal with public school overcrowding issues Downtown.

“We have to build more schools so that our children will not have to be on a waiting list for kindergarten,” Chin said.

Since the inauguration took place at P.S. 130, on Baxter St., Chin noted that she had, in many ways, come full circle in her career. A half century ago, she attended the school as a young girl.

“And now here I am, at P.S. 130, where I first learned English and graduated in 1965,” she said. “I truly could not have imagined then that I would someday be lucky enough to represent this district that I love.”

ER

BY SAM SPOKONY

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver showed his support for Councilmember Margaret Chin at her swearing-in for her second Council term after a competitive primary election.

however,” she wrote, “the Department of Sanitation should have no more difficulty seeing bike-share stations than it currently does seeing parked cars.” However, in the end, Hercules didn’t leave massive mounds of snow in its wake. On Monday, Glick reported, “We did not receive complaints regarding the clearing of the Citi Bike stations or people being able to clear the sidewalks.” As for the pols’ concerns when they anxiously wrote Sadik-Khan back in the summer, Glick said, “We were thinking more of a foot and a half of snow rather than 6 inches.” Riding a bike — a Citi Bike, actually — early Monday morning, we did spot, at Grand and Greene Sts., one of the tall red flags that NYC Bike Share, LLC put out to mark a docking station, but there was only a negligible amount of snow left. … More to the point, we wondered, who among the politicians who signed the letter has ever actually ridden a Citi Bike? Kavanagh, as we recently noted, and Hoylman, too, are annual members of the program.

Amy Varghese, Chin’s spokesperson, told us the councilmember actually does not know how to ride a bike. (O.K., in that case, she should not be doing bike-share — yet.)

Glick told us, “I haven’t taken a Citi Bike ride yet. I have my own bike, which I ride infrequently. I walk a lot. But in the spring, I will do what Brad does — and carry a helmet — so I can avail myself of Citi Bike.”

We hope Glick, who is a big Twitter fan, will tweet out a picture of that! … David Gruber, chairperson of Community Board 2, told us the bike-share station on Carmine St. that he has complained should not be there, since he feels the street is too narrow to begin with, had its bikes removed as Hercules hit town. He told us to mention the Bicycle Task Force meeting that C.B. 2 will be holding on Mon., Jan. 27, at 6:30 p.m., at Grace Church School, 86 Fourth Ave., at E. 11th St. Enforcement and bike safety will be the big issues, he said. “Seriously, there’s a lot of emotion with this bike issue,” he told us. “I think bike-share has started to quiet down, but there’s still a lot of concerns about bikes.” The task force includes, among others, Two Boots Pizza (which, of course, has a fleet of bike deliverymen) and Village activist Zack Winestine, presumably a serious cycling advocate, based on the fact we almost always see him carrying a bike helmet.

TheVillager.com

POLICE BLOTTER Rapist gets 11 years

A man convicted of raping a 33-yearold woman inside her Greenwich Village apartment building three years ago has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced on Jan. 7.

Last March, a State Supreme Court jury found Garis Ortega, 33, guilty of both first-degree and third-degree rape, as well as first-degree sexual abuse.

On the early morning of Nov. 5, 2010, Ortega approached the woman as she was walking back to her Thompson St. home, began speaking with her and then walked with her to the building, according to court records.

Once they reached the building, Ortega followed her into the vestibule and forcibly raped her, the D.A. said.

After the attack, the woman fled into the street and ran until she found someone to call 911. Ortega was later caught after investigators recovered his DNA from the victim’s rape kit, the D.A. said.

In addition to the prison term, Ortega was sentenced to 10 years of post-release supervision.

Subway slammer

Police arrested Hakeem Lockett, 36, on Jan. 1 after he allegedly attacked a woman on a subway train.

The woman, 35, told cops she got on a northbound F train at W. Fourth St. around 5:15 a.m., alongside Lockett, who entered the same car. The two individuals reportedly got into an argument as the train began to move again.

Their dispute continued even after she walked forward to the train’s front car as Lockett followed her there, police said.

After the train stopped at 14th St., Lockett reportedly exited alongside the woman, and then grabbed her by the collar and threw her against a wall, causing her to hit her head and suffer minor pains. Police said she later refused medical treatment. The alleged aggressor was apprehended by cops moments later inside the station.

Once officers hauled him upstairs, Lockett also reportedly kicked out the window of a police cruiser. Based on that and his other actions leading up to his arrest, he was later taken to Bellevue

TheVillager.com

Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, police said.

Lockett was charged with attempted assault, attempted criminal mischief, harassment, disorderly conduct and obstructing government administration.

The next day, while in police custody, Lockett was also charged with attempted assault for an incident in Queens that took place in January 2012, according to court records.

Missing coat, busted door

Ivan Osoianu, 25, was arrested on Jan. 1 for allegedly breaking the door of a West Village nightclub after trying to retrieve his lost coat and being denied entry.

Employees for Le Poisson Rouge, at 158 Bleecker St., told cops that Osoianu showed up outside the venue around 7:30 a.m. and claimed that he’d left the coat inside, presumably at New Year’s Eve festivities. But there were two problems — he didn’t have a coat-check ticket to prove it, and the club was closed at that time anyway.

Osoianu was told to come back another time. Instead, he became enraged and kicked the glass front door repeatedly until it cracked, police said. He was charged with criminal mischief.

Purse snatcher

Police arrested Norman Gillard, 57, on Jan. 1 after he allegedly snatched a woman’s purse while she was chowing down in a West Village pizza joint.

The woman, 20, told officers she was having a slice in Perry’s Pizza, at 190 Bleecker St., around 7:45 p.m. when she realized that her bag, which she had hung off the back of her chair, was gone.

But another customer spotted Gillard swipe the purse, and, after informing the woman, quickly dashed outside to confront the thief, according to police.

Realizing he was caught, Gillard reportedly admitted to the crime and revealed the stolen bag, after which the heroic bystander held him at the scene until cops arrived.

Gillard was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.

Historic tagger takedown

Alexander Raspa, 30, was arrested Jan. 3 after he allegedly sprayed graffiti on a landmarked residential building on Horatio St. The super at 2 Horatio St., which first opened in 1931, reported the situation to police, who then caught Raspa in the act around 1:30 a.m. as he was tagging “RAWSPA” on the building’s service entrance, according to the police report.

Once he was cornered, the vandal reportedly admitted to officers that he’d been making the graffiti.

Raspa was charged with criminal mischief.

Spicey stolen goods

Police arrested Jamal Lynch, 28, on Jan. 3 when he was spotted with allegedly stolen goods after trespassing in a Meatpacking District restaurant.

Employees for Spice Market, at 403 W. 13th St., called the cops after they caught Lynch wandering around the restaurant

around 2:30 a.m. When officers arrived and searched him, they found that Lynch was carrying two cell phones that apparently didn’t belong to him, as well as a credit card that had been reported stolen on Dec. 11.

Lynch was charged with criminal possession of stolen property and criminal trespassing.

Bouncer busted

A bouncer for a Village nightclub was arrested on Jan. 5 after police found that he was carrying brass knuckles.

Hubert Merchant, 36, was working security for Pink Elephant, at 40 W. Eighth St., around 1:15 a.m. when police showed up to do an inspection. After checking his ID and discovering that Merchant had an open warrant, officers apprehended him and quickly found the metal hidden in his jacket’s inside pocket.

Merchant was charged with criminal possession of a weapon.

Sam Spokony

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5

Johnson taps ex-Gottfried aide as his chief of staff JOHNSON, continued from p. 1

PHOTO BY SAM SPOKONY

It was Jordan’s expectation, as well, as he reportedly posted so on Facebook and was recently signing his e-mails with a “chief of staff” address.

When he was the councilmember elect, Johnson, in fact, had publicly stated that he intended to name Jordan his head staffer.

Just last week, The Villager’s front-page photo was of Johnson being sworn into office on Dec. 27 with Jordan and another top aide, Louis Cholden-Brown, by his side as the smiling, newly minted representative raised his hand and took the oath of office.

At least one thing is clear: The well-liked Jordan was a tremendous campaign manager.

On Sept. 1, he posted on his Facebook page: “I’ve logged just over 3000 hours to help make Corey Johnson our next City Councilmember. There are 8 days to go till I cast my vote. This has all hit me very deeply. I really believe that we will do a lot of good for our neighborhoods.”

However, apart from running Johnson’s successful Democratic primary race — a bitter contest against Yetta Kurland — Jordan lacks political experience. He previously worked in catering.

On the other hand, LeFrancois is a seasoned political aide, well known in the community for his work for Gottfried.

According to Johnson, Jordan has decided to pursue acting, which he previously studied at N.Y.U. And acting runs in his family. His grandfather, in fact, was Bobby Jordan, one of the Dead End Kids of Hollywood fame in the 1930s. (Pointing to his new direction, on Jordan’s Facebook page, his main photo shows Bobby Jordan wearing a fedora and mugging for the camera with the other Dead End Kids.)

In a phone interview with The Villager last Friday, Johnson had nothing but positive things to say about Jordan.

“I wouldn’t have been elected without him, and I hold him in high regard,” he said. “I respect him and people in the community respect him. I consider R.J. to be the best campaign manager on a local level in the entire city.

He decided he wanted to pursue things he was pursuing before the campaign.”

As for LeFrancois, Johnson, who served as chairperson of Community Board 4 for the previous two and a half years, said he knows him well through their frequent interactions on community board issues.

Nevertheless, Johnson readily admitted that, until very recently, he had been planning to name Jordan as his chief of staff.

“Yes, and that was the plan,” he said. “[But] R.J. told me he wanted to pursue other opportunities. There’s nothing nega-

Corey Johnson, left, was sworn in on Dec. 27 as the new District Three city councilmember, as two of his top aides, Louis Cholden-Brown, center, and R.J. Jordan, looked on. Until last week, it was thought Jordan — who managed Johnson’s campaign — would be his chief of staff.

tive about this. … But I’m thrilled about Jeffrey — he’s a rock star in the community. … R.J.’s fantastic, Jeffrey’s fantastic — and R.J. decided to pursue other opportunities.”

Asked when he made the decision to tap LeFrancois to be his chief of staff, Johnson

‘I’m thrilled about Jeffrey — he’s a rock star in the community. … R.J.’s fantastic. He decided to pursue other opportunities.’

6

January 9, 2014

Corey Johnson

said it was only a week ago.

Wendi Paster, Assemblymember Gottfried’s longtime chief of staff, had high praise for her former colleague LeFrancois.

“He’ll be terrific for Corey,” Paster said, “because he knows the district and the community very well. He knows city government very well. And he’s going to be a

great asset for Corey and the community.

Everyone who knows Jeffrey engages very well with him — he’s very smart, he’s personable.”

Asked if Gottfried had lobbied for LeFrancois to be Johnson’s chief of staff, Paster responded, “That is absolutely untrue.

I have no knowledge of why R.J. is pursuing other things, but I think he would have been an excellent chief of staff to Corey. I think very highly of R.J., and so does Dick.

Dick had absolutely no hand [in this], and would never interfere with an elected official hiring. There were no phone calls or conversations [about LeFrancois] between Corey and Dick, ever — ever,” she stressed.

However, Paster admitted that until the recent surprising news, “As far as I knew, R.J. was going to be Corey’s chief of staff.”

She noted that Jordan, to prepare for the job he expected he would have, was making a real effort to learn everything he could about it.

“He was talking to a lot of other chief of staffs of local legislators and councilmembers,” she said.

According to a source, Jordan posted on Facebook about three weeks ago that he would be Johnson’s chief of staff.

Similarly, Johnson reportedly announced at a meeting of the Village Independent Democrats club in November, after his win in the general election against Richard Stewart, that Jordan would be his chief of staff.

For his part, in response to a phone message and an e-mail from The Villager ask-

Jeffrey LeFrancois, here in his LinkedIn page photo, is City Councilmember Corey Johnson’s chief of staff.

ing why the sudden change of plans, Jordan e-mailed a succinct statement: “I am proud of my work on Corey’s campaign for City Council. I have decided to go back to school and pursue other opportunities. I believe Corey will be an outstanding councilmember and I wish him the best.”

TheVillager.com

De Blasio seems on same page with evicted news vendor

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

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he news could be looking much better for embattled Astor Place newsstand vendor Jerry Delakas under a new administration.

Arthur Schwartz, Delakas’s attorney, reported that Mayor Bill de Blasio was very sympathetic to Delakas’s plight when the vendor met him at a “public open house” the mayor recently held at Gracie Mansion.

According to Schwartz, Delakas and Kelly King, an East Village artist and journalist, waited patiently in line to see the mayor.

They brought along with them a small-scale model of Delakas’s newsstand as a “housewarming gift.”

The actual newsstand was recently padlocked by the Department of Consumer Affairs in the waning days of former Mayor Bloomberg’s administration. D.C.A. charged that Delakas, though he had been operating the stand for decades, never formally held the license. But Delakas says the license’s last owner willed it to him.

“This is Jerry Delakas,” King reportedly told the mayor. “He had a newsstand on Astor Place for 27 years and was beloved of the neighborhood, and it’s been taken away from him by the Department of Consumer

Affairs.”

De Blasio reportedly responded, “I know the stand, it’s great. And I know the issue well — it’s a great injustice.” He then shouted to an aide, “It’s most important. Get on this right away.”

Kelly presented the aide with the docket number and a press kit with an article on Delakas.

On Tuesday, The Villager reached out to de Blasio’s press office for comment on whether the popular senior vendor, 64, has a chance, under a new administration, to return to his longtime newsstand.

The answer sounded encouraging.

“We are working to reach a better outcome,” responded De Blasio’s press secretary Phil Walzak.

Delakas and Schwartz appeared in court Wednesday morning to request that Delakas be allowed to operate the newsstand once again while his appeal proceeds.

But the court proceeding was delayed 15 days.

On Tuesday night, Schwartz and Marty Tessler, a former Community Board 2 member who lives near the newsstand and has championed Delakas’s cause, filed a new application at D.C.A.’s licensing bureau for Delakas for the newsstand — since Schwartz now thinks that may be the best way to proceed. Schwartz said, at first, the D.C.A. staffers refused to accept the materi-

Jerry Delakas has operated the newsstand at Astor Place and Fourth Ave. for 27 years.

als, claiming they couldn’t.

“You would have thought we were handing them a radioactive packet,” he said.

Earlier, Schwartz spoke to two top D.C.A. attorneys who for the past four years have been fighting to evict Delakas from the Astor Place stand. Schwartz noted to them

community

music

THURSDAYS, JANUARY 9 & 16, 6pm The 12 Steps of Recovery for Everyone This group will follow the 12 Steps and connect participants with an opportunity to experience healing and recovery for a variety of issues in life.

74 Trinity Pl, 3rd Fl, Room 2

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 5pm Angel’s Bone Angel’s Bone follows the plight of two fallen angels whose nostalgia for earthly delights finds them far from heaven—and victims of human trafficking. Told through composer Du Yun’s eclectic music: part chamber music, theatre, pop music, opera, cabaret, and involving visual arts and noise, forming a harmonious and moving piece.

Tickets are $15. For more information, visit prototypefestival.org. Immediately following this performance, join composer Du Yun, librettist Royce Vavrek, and three human trafficking activists—Shelia Simpkins McClain, the Rev. Mike Kinman, and Rachel Lloyd–in a discussion about this work and the issue of human trafficking.

Trinity Church

SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 10am-3pm Spa for the Soul: Couples Re-Connecting Couples in committed relationships take time to re-group and share, away from demands of work and family. $25, includes lunch. RSVP to christianformation@trinitywallstreet.org.

74 Trinity Pl, 2nd Fl, Parish Hall

education

worship SUNDAY, 8am & 10am St. Paul’s Chapel · Holy Eucharist 8pm · Compline by Candlelight SUNDAY, 9am & 11:15am Trinity Church · Preaching, music, and Eucharist · Sunday school and child care available MONDAY—FRIDAY, 12:05pm Trinity Church · Holy Eucharist MONDAY—FRIDAY, 5:15pm All Saints’ Chapel, in Trinity Church Evening Prayer Watch online webcast

Leah Reddy

SUNDAYS, JANUARY 12 & 19, 10am Discovery: Revelation Prophecies that Provoke Jan. 12: Elaine Pagels: “The Book of Revelation and its Time” Jan. 19: Mary Callaway: “Of Dragons, Whores and Saints: The Story behind the Images in the Book of Revelation” 74 Trinity Pl, 2nd Fl, Parish Hall

that de Blasio clearly seems supportive of the ousted vendor.

“I told them, ‘You know, he’s your boss,’” Schwartz said. “It’s hard for lawyers to switch positions in midstream. But they’re going to have to — these are career positions.”

an Episcopal parish in the city of New York

TheVillager.com

January 9, 2014

7

A victory for parks, and for the community Named best weekly newspaper in New York State in 2001, 2004 and 2005

by New York Press Association PUBLISHER JENNIFER GOODSTEIN

EDITOR IN CHIEF LINCOLN ANDERSON

ARTS EDITOR

SCOTT STIFFLER

REPORTERS

HEATHER DUBIN SAM SPOKONY

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ART / PRODUCTION DIRECTOR TROY MASTERS

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PUBLISHER EMERITUS

EDITORIAL

L

ike everyone else, we were simply bowled over by Judge Donna Mills’s extraordinary ruling, handed down Tuesday, on New York University’s 2031 expansion plan for its South Village superblocks.

What it all means will be sorted out in the weeks and months to come. But it’s clear that Mills’s decision throws a major monkey wrench into N.Y.U.’s development designs on the South Village.

It’s been clear from the very start that the university’s plan was a colossal overreach. Trying to wedge so much development — nearly 2 million square feet of new space — onto the two superblocks was far too much, simply an affront.

At the heart of the judge’s decision, was the assertion — as argued in the landmark community lawsuit — that the four open-space parcels along the edges of Mercer St. and LaGuardia Place have, for decades, been used — and treasured — as community parkland in an area, the Village, that is, in fact, starved for park space.

We said as much in our editorial on Feb. 28, 2013, emphatically entitled, “Not strips — but parks,” in which we detailed how N.Y.U. has blocked the transfer of these park properties to the city’s Parks Department over the years, so that it could protect its development plans.

As Community Board 2, former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern and others have always maintained, Mills similarly agreed that simply because these properties were technically under Department of Transportation jurisdiction doesn’t mean they are not de facto parks. Property that is used for decades and decades as parks, that has official Parks Department signage, that is listed on Parks’ own Web site as a park — is parkland.

One of the parcels, Mercer Playground, was

even formally transferred to the Parks Department.

As Randy Mastro, an attorney for the community plaintiffs, stated repeatedly, “If it walks like a park, and talks like a park and looks like a park — it’s a park.”

In short, Mills ruled, the state Legislature must formally “alienate” these parcels —decommission them as public parks — if they are to be used as staging areas for and access ways into N.Y.U.’s construction projects. And Assemblymember Deborah Glick, one of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, stated that, as long as she’s in the Legislature, it never will be done.

Mills’s ruling was right on target.

Again, what does it all mean for N.Y.U. 2031?

It’s hard to conceive how two infill buildings can now be erected on the north superblock without the university being able to use the two parkland parcels on that block’s edge to facilitate its construction. Would the university really think to try to bring in gigantic cranes and an endless convoy of building supplies under the low entranceways of Washington Square Village? It’s not even clear if that could physically be done — and, if it could, what an incredible nightmare that would be for the W.S.V. tenants, most of whom are university faculty, graduate students and other N.Y.U.-affiliated personnel.

The northern superblock plans appear — for now — to be dead in the water.

From what we hear from N.Y.U., they still think they can build on the Morton Williams supermarket site, not by coming in through the LaGuardia Corner Gardens, as previously planned (and which would have devastated that iconic garden), but now through Bleecker St. It remains to be seen how realistic that idea is.

However, Mills, in her ruling, did not find that the open-space parcel along Mercer St. between Houston and Bleecker Sts. was a park.

The basis of her decision was that the dog run there doesn’t have Parks signage and has been

maintained not by Parks but by N.Y.U. Yet, she failed to mention the playground and seating area just north of the dog run that N.Y.U. has allowed to become a sunken, closed-off eyesore — even though, under an agreement made decades ago, the university was obligated to maintain this as a community space. Originally, an area atop Coles Gym was earmarked for the community, but this (conveniently, perhaps) soon became inaccessible.

It remains to be seen whether the plaintiffs will challenge the “not a park” ruling on this southern Mercer St. strip. And it remains to be seen whether the city — with a new mayoral administration and a new City Council leadership — will actually appeal Mills’s ruling.

In her ruling, Mills indicates her belief that the “Zipper Building,” which would partly extend onto the southern Mercer St. strip, can be built. The community plaintiffs’ attorneys dispute this, saying the entire plan must be sent back to the drawing board and cannot now be implemented partially, in segments.

But it will truly be hard for anyone to overturn Mills’s ruling on the three strips that she declared parks. Her reasoning is rock solid.

N.Y.U. also is not even sure what exactly it would put in the “Zipper Building” — which we’re told is no longer being called that anymore. The entire justification for N.Y.U. 2031 was to increase the university’s classroom space to catch up with the school’s student population boom in the last decade-plus.

If the building formerly known as “The Zipper” is not to be used for classrooms, then N.Y.U. must justify that. In that sense, the project indeed should go back to the drawing board. N.Y.U. says it will work with its faculty on what would go in the building.

For now, at least, the community can celebrate a tremendous victory — a victory for livability, for open space and for the protection of our treasured parks.

JOHN W. SUTTER

IRA BLUTREICH Member of the New York Press Association

Member of the National Newspaper Association

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8

January 9, 2014

You win some...and you lose some!

TheVillager.com

Trying to find a survival job that I could survive TALKING POINT

BY TOLLY WRIGHT

I

n October, Condé Nast — the publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker — announced the end of its internship programs, as a result of former interns suing for fair pay. I hope this will start a trend in companies relying less on unpaid labor, which would be good news for soon-to-be graduates, like me, since the unemployment rate has hovered near 10 percent the past few years. Yet, for now, Craigslist and other sites are still overrun with listings for positions with little or no compensation.

As a senior at The New School, with negligible financial assistance from my parents, I have thought of turning to a job in the service industry to pay the rent and those hefty student loans. Unfortunately, an expensive college degree doesn’t make it any easier to find an elusive restaurant gig.

If I checked the listings in the food and hospitality section on Craigslist, on any given day, I was bound to see the same requirement: “MUST have at least two years New York City experience.” Fair

enough if the restaurant was Zagat reviewed, but is it really necessary to wait tables at a nameless sandwich dive off Seventh Ave.?

I couldn’t blame these places for wanting people with stellar résumés — the industry has its share of inadequate wait staffs. If a potential employee has been at a similar job for years, then competence can be presumed.

My problem was, if I wanted work in Manhattan or many places in Brooklyn and Queens, I needed experience in the city. Yet, I couldn’t get experience without work.

Even if I had been a waiter for years in my hometown — not a particularly small city — managers might still be inclined to stick up their sophisticated noses at my presence.

I asked other twenty-somethings I knew living in the city how they found their opportunity. Each time I asked, I was met by exasperation at my naïveté, followed by the answer that was obvious to each of them: “You just make up your résumé.”

This was accepted as common knowledge. I heard it from my two high school classmates, roommates, cast members in rehearsals, and even a mother for whom

I babysat. It was the easy solution they had all either subscribed to — or had known someone else to have done. The other way in was to know somebody already working at a restaurant.

I was not willing to embellish my résumé to such an extent. I turned to my friends to ask for help getting me in at their jobs — some of them great jobs at bars on Christopher St. or on Greenwich Ave. They were almost always willing to help. But then they would follow up by

The advice was always the same: ‘You just make up your résumé.’

warning about all the people they didn’t like at their work: “We have so much fun, but don’t get on the owner’s bad side.

She’ll fire you for having frizzy hair,” or “The cook is going to try to feel you up,

but he’s harmless.”

I thought about it for a month, and decided I was better off babysitting children. If I’m working at a restaurant and don’t meet customers’ demands fast enough or mix up their orders, my pay is directly affected. But if one of the kids says something mean to me or tries to get fresh, they’re the ones in “timeout,” and I am not at risk of being fired.

I chose the right survival job for me, yet I can’t help but sometimes think about the other choice and be annoyed. Something should be done about the faulty hiring system that seems to reward liars and nepotism, and doesn’t allow for otherwise qualified people, including those with high G.P.A.’s and strong interpersonal skills, in for an interview.

Had I picked that path, two years from now — after either having lied or charmed my way into a job — my past work history would finally be up to restaurant standards. I would be able to get an interview on the strength of my résumé alone.

Of course, by then, I would have spent months in an over-glorified diner and nowhere near the desired careers I hoped my college degree would get me. No, instead of spending time fighting for the right restaurant job, I’ll be fighting for one of those paid internships that should start cropping up any day now.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR De Blasio’s horse sense?

To The Editor: Mayor DeBlasio is concerned for the safety of the carriage horses in New York City. Will his concern extend next to the police horses? Will they be the next to be taken out of service?

Another question is what will happen to the stables across from the Javits Center that house the carriage horses, which are now prime real estate property near the end of the new No. 7 subway line extension and Hudson Yards?

I just wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention since I am concerned about de Blasio’s real motives.

Ruth Kuzub

Hoping for hot dogs To The Editor: Re “Conservancy to give update” (news article, Jan. 2): I don’t know much about the

TheVillager.com

Washington Square Park Conservancy.

But as a parent of a whole passel of kids, I appreciate the (cheap) hot dogs. And the kids sure do, which is more to the point.

Brendan Sexton

Gardens, going forward To The Editor: Re “Magical mystery buy: New owner purchases former garden lot” (news article, Dec. 26): It’s great that Sarah Ferguson is covering this story for The Villager. The danger to community gardens in New York is real and present as witnessed also last week by the bulldozing of the Coney Island Community Garden.

It’s a shame that Bloomberg would sully his reputation as an eco-activist and put such a capstone on his reputation as a pro-business bully.

I hope the new mayor and the new borough presidents can bring the com-

munity gardens under Parks Department control in a comprehensive way that includes real democracy (unlike what Roland Chouloute and GreenThumb practice), and that they also place the gardens on New York City maps as permanent park space (which they currently are not).

Jeff Wright

Still savoring the food To The Editor: Re “Lamenting the loss of a community vibe; Savoring the vestiges” (news article, Jan. 2): I lived in the East Village from 1975 to 1997. I missed it a lot when I first moved across town, but now I’m really glad I don’t live there anymore. But I still love the East Village’s restaurant selection.

Porn warrior

Kate Walter

To The Editor: Re “Al Goldstein, 77, porn pioneer, free-speech advocate” (obituary, Jan. 2): Al was a knight in rusty armor. I’ll never forget the year he attended the Adult Film Society Awards dressed as a gladiator. I didn’t know he was in such dire straits, and I am sorry about that. I only met him a few times, but he could not have been more gracious on those occasions. I toast a true warrior.

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 515 Canal St., Suite 1C, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. The Villager does not publish anonymous letters.

Georgina Spelvin January 9, 2014

9

Poets House is a free literary oasis for everyone

BY HEATHER DUBIN

C

10

January 9, 2014

PHOTO BY LEE BRICCETTI

old weather should not be a deterrent for a visit to Poets House. The journey is worth the effort to reach this literary gem tucked away near the Hudson River in Tribeca.

Poets House is a writer’s delight with a library of 50,000 volumes of poetry and a well-lit space to work with a view of the river. Open to the public and free, the “green” building is also host to exhibitions and programs for readings and writing workshops.

Previously located in a Soho loft, and a home-economics classroom at Chelsea’s High School for the Humanities before that — where cabinets were packed to the brim with slim poetry books — the 29-year-old cultural institution continues to grow and reach a wider audience at 10 River Terrace.

In a recent interview, Suzanne Lunden, publicity and marketing coordinator, led a tour of the duplex, followed by an extensive talk with Lee Briccetti, Poets House executive director. Both women are poets, and Briccetti, author of “Day Mark,” is coming up on her 25th anniversary at Poets House.

“I’m not a founder, but I’m a mommy,” Briccetti said, as she acknowledged the many people who worked together to bring the literary center to its new space, which opened in September 2009. Poets House was founded by Elizabeth Kray, an arts administrator, and Stanley Kunitz, an awardwinning poet, in 1985.

Poets House has signed a rent-free lease with the Battery Park City Authority through 2069. As part of the agreement, the literary center raised $11.2 million over seven years for construction, from public and private sources. Its 18-member board of directors donated $2.2 million, and the city put up $3.5 million.

To help fundraising, Poets House reached out to artists listed in Kunitz’s maroon leatherbound journal, where he kept track of attendance, seating arrangements and food consumed at dinner parties over 13 years. On New Year’s in 1967, Kunitz recorded “John Ashbery, the Lowells, Rothkos, Gustins and Lee Pollock” at a party with two cases of champagne for 51, scotch and gin, and cake, cookies and tangerines.

“He had a lot of cultural capital,” Briccetti said.

“In 2069, the lease of Battery Park City reverts back to the city,” Briccetti said.

“Will they renegotiate to be a separate entity or will the city take over?”

Meanwhile, Poets House has 55 years to concentrate on what they do best, which is making poetry accessible.

“It’s the whole history of the human voice that we’re trying to invite people into,” Briccetti said. “It’s a wide smorgasbord, and you will find something you will like to eat.”

This is a lot easier to do, in terms of events, in the 11,000-square-foot, custom-designed interior by architect Louise Braverman.

Claryssa Santana and Julio Pena, 16-year-olds from the South Bronx, reading a poetry book together at Poets House.

“We can do four to five things at a time.

We couldn’t in the last space, it was one room before,” Briccetti said.

Kray Hall, named for its founder, holds 90 people for readings and talks. The beechwood floor is from a local forest in Pennsylvania, and yellow velvet curtains cover glass garage doors that lead to large rocks outside for summer overflow of patrons at Poets House.

A children’s room has some books, and beanbags — but the real draw is three vintage typewriters for use, including a Smith Corona and two Royals, one black and one electric blue, which sit on old-time school desks. Poets House has many class visits, and children may be inspired by poetry dioramas stored in the drawers of a card catalog from another era.

For an older crowd, there are exhibits up-

stairs in the main space, where letters from poets and original works can be seen under lock and key in museum-grade containers.

Additionally, there is an extensive library of poetry books to peruse.

“We have all the new poetry journals on the shelf. It’s our goal to have them accessible to young writers, they are pricey,” Lunden said. The noncirculating material entices people who spend the entire day at Poets House amongst five tables, two sofas and a quiet reading room.

Poets House also has the only open stack of chapbooks, small volumes of poetry.

“If you’re doing research, it’s good to go back and flip through the archived journals,” Lunden said. “ ‘Oh, this was when Billy Collins [U.S. poet laureate] was getting big,’ and you go back, and it’s his first work.”

A multimedia center contains tapes, CDs and records, with some dating back to the 1930s. The next corridor displays the writing desk of the poet E.E. Cummings, where you can touch the place he sat down to write, and rifle through the drawers.

Offices in the back are for 12 full-time and part-time staff, and where the special collection of first editions and rare books are kept, along with founder Kunitz’s assortment of treasures, such as chess pieces and a salt box.

“This place is gorgeous. It’s a snow day, but people come, Briccetti said, speaking last Friday. “Usually it’s packed.”

She had her reservations about the location, thinking it was too far west, however, foot traffic has tripled since their move.

The affluent community was also a consideration. “The first part of our mission is to serve poets. They aren’t wealthy,” Briccetti said, “It was really a commitment.” Together, poets and stakeholders made sure the center would serve everyone.

Last year, Poets House expanded beyond the neighborhood by introducing 14,000 students, parents and educators to the center for class trips and otherwise. Many teenagers are repeat returners.

“We don’t think poetry should just be for people with PhDs,” Briccetti said. “Every culture has poetry. This place has access to all these books, and many points of entry to kids and adults.”

Poets House excels at teaching librarians how to make poetry come alive. They conduct training sessions and help libraries implement changes to entice readers.

Poets House also built a bridge between libraries and zoos by establishing a poet in residence at six American city zoos.

“Language can really bring people together,” Briccetti said. “Five million people have seen the poems in various cities, and the zoos tested the results, which made people think more deeply about what they were seeing.”

From this success, Poets House is using the same idea to spread poetry of the Muslim world. Five cities with a high Muslim population were chosen, and the program — Poetic Voices of the Muslim World — will expand to four more cities.

“We were the only nonacademic library to get this award, along with our partner City Lore, from the National Endowment for the Humanities because poetry is so loved in the Muslim world,” Briccetti said.

“It brought people in who have never been in libraries before.”

Briccetti is hopeful that New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, who is a published poet, will help spur a revitalization in poetry.

“Her interest would mean so much,” Briccetti said. “It would be great to meet and work with her.”

And, yes, that is an invitation.

“We believe art can help you comprehend more about yourself,” Briccetti said.

“I feel poetry is like opera and baseball — you need to be invited in. We want to invite people in.”

TheVillager.com

Village is exercised over illegal Equinox gym sign EQUINOX, continued from p. 1

PHOTO BY SAM SPOKONY

sary permission for its installation within the historic district.

According to an order from L.P.C. Chairperson Robert Tierney, the 97 Greenwich Ave. building’s owner — Almi Greenwich Associates, which leases the space to Equinox — will have to pay a $5,000-per-day fine as long as the gargantuan ad remains up.

Prior to that, the Department of Buildings on Jan. 3 issued the building a violation for intalling the sign without a permit, following an inspection that was prompted by 311 complaints. Neither the building owner nor Equinox representatives ever filed an application to put up the signage, according to city records.

D.O.B. also issued a stop-work order on Jan. 6 as a result of the inspection.

Both Almi Greenwich Associates and Equinox’s corporate office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Equinox, which has several gyms in New York and a total of 64 around the world, installed the advertising on Jan. 2 as part of a new marketing campaign.

The text of the sign — which reads, “Dear Greenwich Village, Equinox Made Me Do It” — refers to the campaign’s message that, apparently, working out at an Equi-

Neighbors and preservationists are waiting for Equinox to “undo it” and remove this huge, illegal sign on Greenwich Ave.

nox gym allows everyday people to live an uninhibited, “more provoked” life, according to a Dec. 30 company press release announcing the marketing scheme.

“The ads connect the cause and effect of an Equinox workout, asserting that a good workout can be a bad influence,” the release stated.

But in this case, the “Dear Greenwich Village” message was particularly enraging to residents and preservationists, because that very same gym was forced by the city to remove a similar oversized sign — for the same reason — back in 2010.

“Clearly, there’s a problem with Equinox in terms of their wanton disregard of the rules,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, in a Jan. 7 phone interview. “They’re simply thumbing their nose at the law and the correct public process, and that’s not the way to be a good neighbor.”

When this newspaper visited Equinox’s Greenwich Ave. location on Jan. 8 to ask about the sign — which was still in place as of press time — one gym employee mocked complaints about the advertising eyesore.

“Is it about the marketing again?” the female employee said, with a laugh, to her co-worker behind the counter, in response to an initial question about the sign. She apparently thought, at first, that this reporter was a block resident filing a complaint.

When this reporter identified himself as a member of the press, that same employee said, in a particularly sarcastic tone, “Oh, that’s even better!”

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Judge rules that open-space strips are clearly parks NO STRINGS ON ‘ZIPPER’ BUILDING

N.Y.U. PLAN, continued from p. 1

FILE PHOTO BY ELISABETH ROBERT

is known as the “common-law public trust doctrine” was violated when the plan was approved without the required step of the parkland strips first being “alienated” — or removed as parkland — by the state Legislature.

Under the N.Y.U. plan, led by President John Sexton, the university sought to construct four new buildings — a total of nearly 2 million square feet of new development — on its two superblocks, which are bounded by Houston and W. Third Sts. and Mercer St. and LaGuardia Place.

The city and university argued that the four narrow park strips — running along the superblocks’ edges on Mercer St. and LaGuardia Place — have always been mapped as streets, and thus have been under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation, ever since the streets were widened in 1954 for an aborted Lower Manhattan highway project.

The LaGuardia Corner Gardens — seen here in glorious full bloom — have been flourishing along a strip of city-owned land on LaGuardia Place at Bleecker St. since 1981. On Tuesday, a State Supreme Court judge ruled the garden is not a street — but a park.

‘IMPLIEDLY’ PARKS

DOG RUN GIVES JUDGE ‘PAWS’ However, she determined that the same cannot be said for the strip with the Mercer-

12

January 9, 2014

FILE PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

But Mills ruled that three of the parcels have been “impliedly” used as parks for decades. In her decision, she cited affidavits given by former public officials — including former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, former City Councilmember Kathryn Freed and former Transportation Commissioner Chris Lynn — stating their firm belief that the strips were always de facto parkland.

Stern and Lynn further testified in their affidavits that N.Y.U. was constantly blocking the strips’ formal transfer from D.O.T. to Parks because it wanted to protect its development rights — even though it was clear that the strips would never again be used as streets.

That the sites sport regulation Parks Department signage and are mentioned on the department’s Web site is more proof that they are indeed parkland, Mills stated in her 78-page decision. She further cited other precedent-setting cases involving similar park situations that support her decision.

“The court…concludes,” Mills stated, “that land may become parkland by implication even, for example, where the land remains mapped for another purpose, as here.”

The judge ruled that LaGuardia Park (on LaGuardia Place between W. Third and Bleecker Sts.) Mercer Playground (on Mercer St. between W. Third and Bleecker Sts.) and LaGuardia Corner Gardens (on LaGuardia Place south of Bleecker St.) are all clearly parks.

Last July, before the City Council voted nearly unanimously to approve the N.Y.U. 2031 plan, Council Speaker Christine Quinn cleared the Council Chamber’s balcony of protesters, who had started hooting and hissing. Above from left, Ruth Rennert, a Washington Square Village resident, and Paul and Marianne Edwards, 88 Bleecker St. residents, shouted their displeasure over the Council’s anticipated vote as they were ejected from the Council Chambers.

Houston Dog Run (on Mercer St. between Houston and Bleecker Sts.) because it doesn’t sport any Parks Department signage, and also because N.Y.U., not Parks, has maintained and repaired the dog run. (Ironically, on the same block, just north of the dog run, is a sunken children’s playground and a seating area that are closed to the public precisely because N.Y.U. has let them fall into disrepair and done nothing for their upkeep.)

Mills noted that her ruling doesn’t mean the N.Y.U. plan can’t go forward — just that if the university wants to use the three parkland strips, they first must be alienated by the state Legislature. N.Y.U. wants 20-year “easements” for these three strips, which

would allow it to run construction vehicles over them and use them as staging areas during the lengthy, phased construction on the superblocks. In N.Y.U.’s plan, after the project’s completion, the strips were to be taken over by the Parks Department as permanent parkland.

Under the 2031 plan, two “infill” buildings are called for on the northern superblock, while the southern superblock would see the Coles Gym rebuilt with a new so-called “Zipper Building” and the Morton Williams supermarket site rebuilt with a new N.Y.U. dorm that could contain a public school or, more likely, a community use, possibly a senior day facility, in its base.

Under Mills’s ruling, the “Zipper Building” project can proceed. N.Y.U.’s plan is to shift the current Coles Gym footprint to the east, taking over part of the Mercer strip for the new replacement building. The dog run would be relocated to the west of the new Zipper Building.

But N.Y.U. would have to figure out some other way — without easements on the three other parkland strips — to build the other three buildings in the plan. (In the case of the Morton Williams-site project, N.Y.U. planned to build an access road through the LaGuardia Corner Gardens to the construction site. But an N.Y.U. source told The Villager, “There’s some flexibility there,” that the construction workers and machines could just “come in through the Bleecker St. side” instead of through the garden.)

While Mills upheld the plaintiffs’ first argument — that the strips (or at least three of the four) are implicitly parks — she shot down five other arguments in the suit: namely, that N.Y.U. and the city failed to examine feasible alternatives to 2031; that the university’s plan violates the Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation Law; that there was insufficient environmental review; that the city's ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) was faulty; and that there were violations of the Open Meetings Law by N.Y.U. and elected officials during the plan’s review process.

VICTORY! Meanwhile, the plaintiffs were celebrating their amazing victory after Mills’s decision.

Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who joined the suit, hailed the ruling, calling it “as important as it is exciting.” She vowed that she would never support alienating the parkland strips, though warned that the N.Y.U. fight probably isn’t over yet.

“The court’s rejection of this attempt to usurp parkland without proper approval by the state Legislature reaffirms a crucial tenet of parkland protection,” Glick said. “This decision is a huge victory after years of work by the community as we united together to protect the Village from the overdevelopment proposed by N.Y.U.” However, she added, “I do not expect that this will be the end of our development concerns, or even our legal battles over the N.Y.U. 2031 plan, but this is a huge victory nonetheless.”

‘A CLEAR VINDICATION’ Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, called the decision an affirmation N.Y.U. PLAN, continued on p. 20

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Four cool fests bring the heat Under the Radar, Other Forces, PROTOTYPE and Gilded Stage

PHOTO BY SHINSUKE SUGINOU

PHOTO BY RULER

London sensation Kate Tempest (at right) brings her “Brand New Ancients” to St. Ann’s Warehouse, as part of the Under the Radar Festival.

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

BRAND NEW ANCIENTS

South East London resident Kate Tempest’s raps are vivid, meticulously weaved observations that mine the divine from life’s unpleasant realities. For Tempest, who cut her teeth as a writer during a “wayward youth living in squats, hanging around on picket lines, rapping at riot cops and on the night bus home,” it’s the “everyday odysseys” that give an epic glow to this tale of multiple generations from two families. “See, there’s always been heroes and there’s always been villains,” says Tempest in a YouTube excerpt from the

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show. “And yes, the stakes may have changed, but really there’s no difference. There’s always been heartbreak and greed and ambition and bravery and love and trespass and contrition.”

All shifting shoulders and closed eyes that give way to forceful stances and contemplative squints as she stalks the mic, Tempest’s delivery can come across as blunt to the point of curt — but her mashup performance style (hip hop rhythms, poetic rhymes, classical music riffs) is anchored by a deep, rageleavening empathy for “the plight of the people who have forgotten their myths.” It’s what elevates her characters from the murk of everyday routine into the realm of “Brand New Ancients.”

Taeko Seguchi, in “The Room Nobody Knows” — at Japan Society (an Under the Radar Festival presentation).

The show plays St. Ann’s Warehouse after earning a Herald Angel Award, from its run at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The 27-year-old Tempest also drew critical accolades during an “Ancients” tour of prestigious London venues (including the Royal Court Theatre, the Young Vic and the Royal Opera House). Joined on stage by a live quartet (Raven Bush on violin, Natasha Zielazinski on cello, Jo Gibson on tuba and Kwake Bass on percussion and electronics), Tempest more than lives up to the hype that precedes her arrival in the states.

Also part of The Public Theater ’s citywide Under the Radar festival (spotlighting new theater from the U.S. and

around the world): Performed in Spanish with English supertitles, “El Año en que Nací” (through Jan. 13, at La MaMa) features 11 Chileans born under Pinochet’s dictatorship, who don their parents’ clothes and reconstruct photos, letters and recordings. Playing at Japan Society through Jan. 12, “The Room Nobody Knows” (in Japanese with English supertitles) has Kuro Tanino’s Niwa Gekidan Penino theater company performing his tale of two brothers inhabiting a mysterious, dreamlike Tokyo apartment. “Helen & Edgar” (through Jan. 18, at the Public Theater) is written by, and stars, The Moth (storytelling slam) founder George Dawes Green.

FESTIVALS, continued on p.14

January 9, 2014

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Choice cuts from four prime rib festivals FESTIVALS, continued from p. 13

Four decades after her game-changing victory over Bobby Riggs in 1973’s “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, “She is King” assesses the far-reaching impact of Billie Jean King on media, gender, sports culture, sexuality and celebrity. The staged reenactment of three interviews (conducted at the height of King’s athletic prowess and pop culture reach) also plays out, in real time, on nine extremely retro cathode ray tube television sets. Recreated by the cast are verbal volleys with CUNY-TV cable host James Day (1973), an appearance on Toni Tennille’s talk show (1980) and a 1981 sit-down with Barbara Walters (just before King was outed as a lesbian). King is portrayed

by Laryssa Husiak, a member of the Obie Award-winning Two-Headed Calf and a founding member of its Dyke Division. A group of middle school students, who serve as the production’s run crew, underwent a workshop covering topics relevant to the play — including the history of women’s tennis and King’s efforts on behalf of equality and social justice.

“She is King” is part of Incubator Arts’ annual Other Forces festival, running through Jan. 26. Created to showcase innovative independent theater artists, its other productions include “Take Me Home,” an interactive live performance (for three audience members only) that takes place inside a cab, as it navigates the city streets. “I am an Opera” is a collection of arias drawn from creator Joseph Keckler ’s accidental trip on hallucinogens. “#aspellforfaining” encourages audience members keep their smart phones on, then

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January 9, 2014

PHOTO BY CARL SKUTSCH

SHE IS KING

PHOTO BY KATHERINE BROOK

Helmed by longtime Moth artistic director Catherine Burns, it’s Green’s hilarious/heartbreaking tale of he and his sister ’s strange childhood in Savannah and their mother ’s struggle with madness.

“Brand New Ancients” is part of The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival (now through Jan. 19). Performances take place Jan. 10-11 and 15-18 at 8pm, Jan. 12 at 5pm and Jan. 19 at 7pm. At St. Ann’s Warehouse (29 Jay St. in DUMBO, Brooklyn). For tickets ($20), call 866-811-4111 or visit stannswarehouse.org. Also visit katetempest.co.uk. Find a full schedule, and info on “5 for $75” festival ticket packs, at undertheradarfestival.com.

She battled sexism, and won: Light is shed on Billie Jean King’s personality, and persona, through the reenactment of three classic TV interviews. See “She is King,” in the Other Forces festival.

The opera-theatre work “Thumbprint” has its world premiere, as part of the PROTOTYPE festival.

use them to tweet photos and videos — as a solo performer, a sound artist and a video artist draw on everything from “Hamlet” to “American Idol” to investigate the chaos of creation.

“She is King” is performed at 8pm on Jan. 10, at 5pm on Jan. 11, 18/19, 25/26 and at 7pm on Jan. 14/16 & 23/24. At the Incubator Arts Project (St. Mark’s Church-in-theBowery, 131 E. 10th St., corner of Second Ave.). For tickets ($18), call 866-811-4111 or visit incubatorarts.org.

fame. Based on classical world’s notion that different body fluids were linked to personality type (melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic and choleric), the Sky-Pony troupe delivers unique sets on consecutive nights, each inspired by one of the Four Humors. Beats and live looping mix with opera, pop, jazz and soul — in “Elizaveta,” an evening of stylistic shifts meant to unite the 19th and 21st centuries, via musical means.

“Thumbprint” is performed Jan. 10, 12, 14-18 at 7pm and Jan. 11 at 4pm. At Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Ave.; enter on 25th St., btw. Lexington & Third Ave.). For tickets ($25, or $16.30 & $15, through PROTO pack festival pass), call 212-352-3101 or visit prototypefestival.org. For info on the PROTOTYPE cofounders, visit bethmorrisonprojects.org and here.org. PROTOTYPE productions also take place at HERE (145 Sixth Ave.), Brooklyn’s Roulette Theatre, Tribeca’s Trinity Church and The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub (both at 425 Lafayette St.).

THUMBPRINT

First presented at Galapagos Art Space in 2009 as a song-cycle, then further developed in 2011 at The Kitchen, “Thumbprint” has its world-premiere as one of seven productions in the second annual PROTOTYPE: Opera/ Theatre/Now festival (which presents fully realized chamber-sized pieces).

Indo-American composer Kamala Sankaram (whose score features traditional Hindustani and Western classical music) sings the lead role of Mukhtar — the survivor of a 2002 gang rape committed as an act of retribution for her brother ’s alleged “honor crime.”

Based on interviews with Mukhtar, the libretto by Susan Yankowitz explores how family ties and tribal traditions influenced Mukhtar ’s evolution from an illiterate, impoverished peasant to the human rights crusader (she was the first Pakistani woman to bring her attackers to justice) to founder/presi-

dent of her own school. Following the Jan. 11 performance, Peter McCabe will moderate a panel on International Human Rights — whose members include “Thumbprint” creators Sankaram and Yankowitz as well as Maitreyi Das (Lead Social Sector Specialist, World Bank), Mohammed Naqvi (director of the 2006 Mai documentary “Shame”) and Shantha Rau Barriga (Director of Disability Rights, Human Rights Watch). Mukhtar Bibi joins the conversation via Skype.

Also featured in the PROTOTYPE festival (which is co-produced by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE): “Have a Good Day!” peers behind the chirpy, robotic greetings of shopping center cashiers to reveal their inner lives and personal dramas. “Paul’s Case” traces the defiant title character ’s escape from repressive turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh to glamorous (but not necessarily nurturing) NYC. Auditory hallucinations and paranoia deceive and derange, in “Visitations.” The first part of that double bill, “Theotokia,” has a man’s consciousness assailed by the mother of God. In part two, “The War Reporter,” Pulitzer Prize-winning combat journalist Paul Watson is haunted by the voice of an American soldier whose corpse he photographed in the streets of Mogadishu. Elsewhere in the festival, two fallen angels pining for earthly pleasures are rescued — then held captive — by a middle-class couple who see the winged creatures as their ticket to wealth and

EDISON’S ELEPHANT

Rub their face in too much wretched excess, and the people (plus an occasional elephant) will rebel — or at least become deeply resentful. That’s what prompted co-authors Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner to pen a novel whose title (“The Gilded Age”) was quickly co-opted as snarky slang for an FESTIVALS, continued on p.15

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Gilded Stage fest serves sweet justice FESTIVALS, continued from p. 14

PHOTO BY ANTHONY P. PENNINO

JT Wait as Thomas Edison, Rik Walter as Johansen and CJ Trentacosta as Albert, in “Edison’s Elephant” (part of the Gilded Stage Festival).

PHOTO BY ANTHONY P. PENNINO

America whose industrial czars, crooked politicians and newly minted leisure class enjoyed the fruits of cheap, plentiful, immigrant labor. Subtitled “A Tale of Today,” the 1873 satire of avarice could just as easily be an e-book with a 2014 copyright and a cover shot of Bill “Tale of Two Cities” de Blasio pledging a tax on the rich to feed the needs of the 99 percent.

Although he didn’t program the Gilded Stage Festival with the new mayor in mind, it’s not lost on Metropolitan Playhouse artistic director Alex Roe — whose socially conscious, history-centric East Village theater is poised to further stoke the flames of its 20132014 theme: Justice in America. “This period,” says Roe of the eerily familiar Gilded Age, “is one of extreme wealth and success for some people — and, following immigration and the Civil War, a time of real struggle for others, before progressives made social changes.” Serving as the ninth entry in their ongoing Living Literature series, the festival showcases nine new works by emerging artists dedicated to exploring the lives and times of American writers and creators.

No entry captures the era’s greed and cold calculation quite like “Edison’s Elephant.” A new play by David Koteles and Chris Van Strander, it centers on the ghastly, agonizing 1903 electrocution of a Luna Park pachyderm. When beloved Coney Island circus elephant Topsy responded to repeated abuse by killing his handler, famed inventor Thomas Edison, says Roe, “saw it as a chance to promote his reputation and knock other commercial purveyors of electricity” by executing the animal. Adding insult to injury (in the name of profit),

Jack London goes all Mary Shelley, in a scene from “A Thousand Deaths” — part of Metropolitan Playhouse’s Gilded Stage Festival.

Edison filmed the whole thing, and then released a short called “Electrocuting an Elephant.” Roe says the play’s “Rashomon”-like take on this dark, largely forgotten incident “captures the hubris of the age, and how it might go awry.”

Two Edith Wharton works are also featured in the festival: Michèle LaRue will present a dramatic reading of “Roman Fever.” A staged reading of Linda Selman’s new adaptation of the Wharton novella “Bunner Sisters,” notes Roe, showcases plenty of “excess wealth and social splendor, but set against the real perils of poverty, in a time that seemed to define itself by social success and the accrual of riches.”

The premiere of Peter Judd’s “Gilt on the Gold” finds an aged Frederick Law Olmstead looking back at his life, and relating the “particular accidents” that led to his design of Central Park. Recalling “Frankenstein” in its gothic tone, Anthony P. Pennino’s adaptation of the 1899 Jack London short story “A Thousand Deaths” concerns a man who — believing he’s found the cure for death — tests his theory (over and over) on a single human guinea pig.

“It’s London responding in his own way to a disconcerting world of industrial discovery,” says Roe, alluding to what is perhaps the Gilded Age’s most damaging legacy — the arrogance that comes from using technology to hold sway over others.

“Edison’s Elephant” plays Thurs., Jan. 16 at 7pm, Sun., Jan. 19 at 9pm, Fri., Jan. 24 at 9pm and Sat., Jan. 25 at 1pm. The Gilded Stage Festival plays daily, Jan. 1328, at the Metropolitan Playhouse (220 E. Fourth St., btw. Aves. A & B). For a full schedule of festival event, and to order tickets ($18, $15 for students/seniors, $10 for children 10 & under), call 800-838-3006 or visit metropolitanplayhouse.org.

Theater for the New City • 155 1st Avenue at E. 10th St. Reservations & Info (212) 254-1109 For more info, please visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net

UGLY IS A HARD PILL

Written by ANDREA J. FULTON Directed by LESLIE DOCKERY

Thursday - Sunday, January 9 - 12

Thu-Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm All Seats $18 Studt’s & Srs $15

PARKER & DIZZY’S FABULOUS JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE RAINBOW Book & Direction by PETER ZACHARI Music and Lyrics by DAMON MAIDA and PETER ZACHARI

Thursday-Sunday, January 9 - 26

Thu-Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm All Seats $15 Students & Seniors $12/tdf

ISLAND GIRLS

Written by BARBARA KAHN & NOELLE LUSANE Directed by BARBARA KAHN & ROBERT GONZALES, JR

Thursday - Sunday, January 9 - 26

Thu-Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm All Seats $12/tdf

TNC’s Programs are funded in part by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts

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January 9, 2014

15

Just Do Art

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

THE CAROLE BAYER SAGER PROJECT: ALBUM ONE

January 9, 2014

After suffering the month-long indignity of being bumped from the schedule in favor of running those horrendous, holidaythemed movies, “The Golden Girls” are back on Hallmark Channel — but the real returnto-form news is playing out live, on a stage near you. Not-so-hot on the heels of sold-out runs in 2009 and 2010, “Thank You For Being A Friend” makes the great leap from its former East Village digs (at The Kraine Theater) to within walking (or walker?) distance of Broadway. Booked for a six-week run at W. 42nd St.’s Laurie Beechman Theater, this unauthorized musical parody suits up three original cast members in their best 80s fashions, for another go as thinly veiled versions of the iconic 60+ Miami roommates.

Luke Jones is towering, brainy Dorothea, Chad Ryan is prolific vixen Blanchette and Nick Brennan (who wrote the book and also directs) is lovable airhead Roz. Joined by wisecracking elder Sophie, the four dead ringers must negotiate a plot as thin as the set’s twodimensional wicker furniture. Emboldened, perhaps, by his recently announced divorce, next door neighbor Ricky Martin is casting a pall over the Girls’ cheesecake-scarfing gabfests with his noisy outdoor sex parties.

A musical variety solution presents itself, in the form of the upcoming Shady Oaks Retirement Home Talent Show. If the women win, the parties stop — and if the gays take the crown, the gals become the party’s cleanup crew. High culture it ain’t — but for lovers of the cult TV show who like a little good, clean, gayfriendly raunch, this one’s a Hump Day must.

Wed., at 7pm, through Feb. 12. At The Laurie Beechman Theater (407 W. 42nd St., at Ninth Ave.). For tickets ($20, plus $15 food/drink minimum), call 212-3523101 or visit spincyclenyc.com.

Note-for-note perfection: Carole Bayer Sager’s 1977 album is recreated, in chronological order.

PHOTO BY MAX RUBY

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THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND: A GOLDEN GIRLS MUSICAL PARODY

ALBUM COVER DESIGN BY CLAUDE MOUGIN

Whether you don’t recognize the catchy name or have had her albums on rotation for decades, this chronological onstage performance of the “ten perfect pop songs” from Carole Bayer Sager’s 1977 debut album is poised to make the argument for her relavance and legacy while serving up a generous portion of nostalgia.

Creator and director Thom Fogarty, who’s been active in the Downtown theater scene since 1977, calls the evening a “loving recreation of a particular time in the lives of those who came to NYC in the era of Studio 54 and punk music. The vibe of this album was a rite of passage into love, surviving love and love lost.” Crystal Rona Peterson stars as Carole, with Jenny Selig and Micah Bucey as The Carolettes.

Michael Conley provides the musical direction. Old fans and new converts can take some comfort in a telling word within the evening’s title: “Project” implies that after this tribute to 1977’s self-titled debut, Fogarty and crew may return with gavelto-gavel coverage of 1978’s “Too” and 1981’s “Sometimes Late at Night.” And why stop there? Apart from her three solo efforts, Bayer Sager found great commercial success (along with pop song immortality) for her collaborative efforts — most notably, 1987’s Grammy Award-winning Song of the Year (“That’s What Friends Are For,” written with then-husband Burt Bacharach) and 1981’s Oscar-winning “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” written with Bacharach, Peter Allen and Christopher Cross.

Free. Fri., Jan. 17 at 8pm. At Judson Memorial Church (55 Washington Square South, btw. Thompson & Sullivan Sts.). Then, Sat., Jan. 18 at 7pm — at The Duplex Cabaret and Piano Bar, 61 Christopher St., at Seventh

Ave.). $15 cover, two-drink minimum. For reservations: 212-255-5438 or theduplex.com.

Guys will be gals! The unauthorized “Golden Girls” musical parody pits four 60+ Miami roommates against noisy neighbor Ricky Martin.

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Here he is, Mr. Lower East Side Boozy annual pageant objectifies dudes, celebrates the weird

BY REV. JEN (rev-jen.com)

Matthew Silver: Your Mr. Lower East Side, 2014 (center, flanked by Faceboy on the right).

PHOTO BY WALTER WLODARCZYK

TheVillager.com

PHOTO BY WALTER WLODARCZYK

Fifteen years ago, I noticed a disturbing trend in the world of Downtown performance art: lots of female nudity and almost no male nudity. Boobs were flappin’ in the breeze on practically every stage below Houston Street, but there was nary a male pectoral to be found. For a lady to see a male striptease back then, you either had to go to a gay bar where the gents were unattainable or shell out your life savings at an “official” strip club in order to watch a mullet-haired, ‘roided up man shake his spray-tanned gluteus.

I wracked my brain wondering how to make up for the clear dearth of entertainment involving the objectification of men. Eventually, I decided to remedy the situation by creating The Mr. Lower East Side Pageant. It would be similar to the Miss USA Pageant, if all the performers were hairy and liked Budweiser. Even better, any woman or gay man in attendance would get to vote on the winner. Straight men often complain about this, but I remind them that women in this country didn’t get the right to vote until 1920 — so I’m just making up for lost time.

The pageant has three main categories: a one-minute talent competition, a swimsuit competition and evening wear combined with question and answer. To compete, contestants need not live on the Lower East Side — because honestly, who can afford it anymore? In fact, last year’s winner, Johnny Bizarre actually lives on the F Train.

Competitors must simply possess qualities which would make them the proper representative of the LES (what those qualities are, I am not quite sure of).

The chosen monarch gets a crown (complete with detachable bong), a slice of pizza from Rosario’s and the knowledge that he has been chosen by the people.

Runner-up receives the dubious honor of “Mr. Tribeca” and gets to wear a smaller, vagina-shaped crown throughout the year.

Other prizes are given for “Best Male Tits,” “Congeniality” and “Best Nutsack.” There is even a “Susan Lucci Award” for most consecutive losses.

In my years as the pageant’s “Bob Barker,” I have seen many things. Moonshine Shorey, the pageant’s only triple-crown winner (who now has “Mr. Lower East Side” tattooed on his arm) once rescued a Barbie doll from a kiddie pool to the “Baywatch” theme song during swimwear.

Two years ago, the crown went to Jason “J-

He left his shirt at home — but Raven Solano, who came equipped with a “Pageant Dad,” nabbed the title of “Mr. Tribeca.” In background: Rev. Jen and Faceboy.

Boy” Thompson — who, for evening wear, made his entrance to ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” wearing nothing more than an extremely long beard and sunglasses.

John Ennis won in 2002 via video from Los

Angeles. This he did by handing out informative brochures about the Lower East Side along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“Maybe not so many stars on the sidewalk,” he quipped, “but lots of Art Stars

passed out on the sidewalk.” A few years ago, a rescued kitten named Pickles even entered the race. You will never hear me say, “I’ve seen it all” because just when I think I have, another Mr. LES Pageant rolls around and I see a grown man do something with a vegetable and an orifice that dumbfounds me.

Also dumbfounding have been the changes I’ve witnessed in the neighborhood. The first several pageants were held at former Ludlow Street art hole, Collective Unconscious, which was razed in order to make room for luxury condominiums. For several years, it was then held at Bowery Poetry Club, which is now an upscale supper club. The pageant eventually moved back to Ludlow Street and found a home at music venue, Cake Shop. Despite all the changes, one thing has remained the same: Downtown is still full of eccentric artists. Anyone doubting this claim clearly wasn’t at this year’s pageant, which witnessed full throttle weirdness and an audience that, after a few beers, turned into the Roman Colosseum. A plethora of brave dudes took the stage as the crowd shouted a battle cry of “Show us your balls!”

Former two-time winner, Mike Amato, who this year placed third, made onstage love to a blow-up doll and wore bloody pants as evening wear. Raven Solano, who came equipped with a “Pageant Dad,” nabbed “Mr. Tribeca” — despite answering the Q&A question, “Are you happy?” incorrectly (he answered “sure,” while the correct answer is always “no”). Despite this, he swung a mean pair of ass-tassels and sported tuxedo-themed lingerie while yet another contender named “La Bouchette” sported Octopus tentacles for arms. When all was said and done, ballots were collected and handed to filmmaker Kat Green, who sat at her computer (“The Ballsack 3,000”) and began to tally the votes. When the Ballsack abruptly began to malfunction, she was forced to hand count the votes, which only added to the anticipation.

Finally, winners were announced. Johnny Bizarre, who last year drove a nail into his “member” while speaking highly of his mother (and therefore took the crown), did not place. It was a tight race — but it was performance artist Matthew Silver who careened onstage aboard a little child’s car whilst wearing a Speedo during swimwear (and who dressed as a “Number 2 Pencil” for evening wear) who took home the crown. In an official statement, he declared: “As the 15th Mr. LES, I will use my fart heart power to destroy the idea of the economy and have people welcome back their hearts. Because in a tough city everybody needs love and in reality, love is the only thing that’s real!”

The Mr. Lower East Side Pageant: Keeping the Lower East Side Weird for Over 15 Years.

January 9, 2014

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Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF CAMMACK HEALTH LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/21/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 2 Rector Street, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10006, Attn: President.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BLISS INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/19/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Richard Sutliff, 500 5th Ave., Ste. 300, New York, NY 10110. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF DDC RTB, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/17/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1 Howard St., Burlington, VT 05401. LLC formed in DE on 1/20/09. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/14

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF FREEDOM III INVESTMENTS I, LP Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/18/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus.addr.: 1185 Ave. of the Americas, 30th Fl., NY, NY 10036. LP formed in DE on 10/10/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP: Incorporating Services, Ltd., 3500 S. DupontHwy., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF EVENTILATION, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Sec’y of State (SSNY) on 11/1/13.

Office loc.: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served and shall mail copy of any process against LLC to: 15 W. 139th St. #15L, NY, NY 10037. Purpose: Any lawful activities.

Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF GSNMF SUBCDE 12 LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/19/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 200 West St., NY, NY 10282. LLC formed in DE on 7/25/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: CT Corporation, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011. DE addr. of LLC: The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that license #1275390 has been applied by the undersigned to sell beer at retail in an eating place under the alcoholic beverage control law at 22 E 49th Street, New York, NY 10017 for onpremises consumption. 22 E 49TH ST FOOD CORP d/b/a LIBERTY DELI AND PIZZA Vil: 01/02 - 01/09/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF AMERICAN BLUE COLLAR, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/04/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, c/o RG Apparel Group Corp., 1400 Broadway, 31st Fl., NY, NY 10018. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/02 - 02/06/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF UES WINDSOR RESTAURANT, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/17/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/02 - 02/06/2014 NOT. OF FRMN OF ACTIVITY EQUITIES LLC Art. of Org. f w/ Secy of STA of NY (SSNY) 11/14/13. OFC LCTN: NY Cty. SSNY is DA upon whom PROC AGA it may be served. SSNY shall mail a CY: Activity Equities LLC - 1500 Broadway 22nd Fl, NY, NY 10036. The Prin. bus. add. :1500 Broadway 22nd Fl, NY, NY 10036. PUR: any lawful act or ACTY. Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF YASHIMA USA LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/19/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Tennessee (TN) on 01/09/12.

Princ. office of LLC: 69 Tiemann Pl. #25, NY, NY 10027.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Ai Hayatsu at the princ. office of the LLC. TN addr. of LLC: 14203 Crowne Brook Circle, Franklin, TN 37067.

Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State, 312 Eighth Ave. North, 6th Fl., William R. Snodgrass Tower, Nashville, TN 37243. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/02 - 02/06/2014

PUBLIC NOTICE Notice is hereby given, pursuant to law, that the NYC Dept. of consumer affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday January 15th, 2014, at 2:00pm at 66 John Street, 11th floor, on the petition from Noho Star Inc. to continue, maintain and operate an unenclosed sidewalk cafe at 330 Lafayette St., in the borough of Manhattan, for a term of two years. Requests for copies of the proposed Revocable Consent Agreement may be addressed to: Department of Consumer Affairs, 42 Broadway, New York, NY 10004, Attention Foil Officer.

Vil: 01/02 - 01/09/2014

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January 9, 2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF DW EMPLOYEE FUND, LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/16/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/13/13.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of DE, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/02 - 02/06/2014 22 E 14 LLC a domestic LLC, filed with the SSNY on 11/12/13. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to C/O Sutton, 41 E. 57th St., 28th Fl., NY, NY 10021. General Purpose.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF SKMTDOT, LLC AMENDED TO SKMTDOC, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/12/12. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., New York, NY 10011, the registered agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/02 - 02/06/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF KEHE DISTRIBUTORS, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State: 11/25/13. NYS fict. name: Kehe Distributors of Delaware, LLC. Office loc.: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 12740 Gran Bay Pkwy W #2200, Jacksonville, FL 32258. LLC formed in DE: 1/29/10. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 01/02 - 02/06/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF VALECHA ENTERPRISE, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/02/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/26 - 01/30/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF ASSUREDPARTNERS OF MISSOURI, LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/20/13. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Missouri (MO) on 08/26/13.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. MO addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 221 Bolivar St., Jefferson City, MO 65101.

Arts. of Org. filed with MO Secy. of State, 600 W. Main St., Jefferson City, MO 65101.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/26 - 01/30/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 495 QUINCY LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/22/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 38 E. 29th St., 5th Fl., NewYork, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 01/09 - 02/13/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF COURTNEYGRAF. COM LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 10/30/2013 Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: COURTNEYGRAF.COM LLC, 353 LEXINGTON AVENUE #600, NEW YORK, NY 10016. Purpose:To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 12/26 - 01/30/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 737 PARK UNIT 1C LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/12/13.

Office location: NY County.

Princ. bus. addr.: c/o 737 Park Unit 1C LLC, 737 Park Ave., NY, NY 10021. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 12/26 - 01/30/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF ABBOTT CAPITAL PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTORS 2014, L.P. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/10/13.

Office location: NY County.

Princ. bus. addr.: 1290 Ave. of the Americas, 9th Fl., NY, NY 10104. LP formed in DE on 12/9/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP: c/o The Corporation Trust Company, 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 12/26 - 01/30/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF BOP MW RESIDENTIAL LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/16/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 250 Vesey St., 15th Fl., New York, NY 10281. LLC formed in DE on 12/10/13.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o Corporation Service Company, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014

MONTY FOUR EAST 86TH STREET ASSOCIATES LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/22/13. Office location: NY Co. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/15/13 SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to 90 State ST Ste 700 Office 40 Albany, NY 12207. DE address of LLC: 16192 Coastal Hwy Lewes, DE 19958. Arts. Of Org. filed with DE Secy. of State, PO Box 898 Dover, DE 19903.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 EXCELSIOR CONSULTANTS HOLDINGS LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY a domestic LLC, filed with the SSNY on 10/2/13. Office location: NewYork County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process toThe LLC, 431 W. 37th St., 7G, NY, NY 10018. General Purpose.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 NOTICE OF QUAL. OF TOTEM POINT (GP), LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 5/31/13. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 5/29/13. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to Att: Darren Dinneen, 900 Third Ave., Ste. 200, NY, NY 10022. DE off. addr.: CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 NOTICE OF QUAL. OF TOTEM POINT PARTNERS, LP Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 5/31/13. Office loc.: NY County. LP org. in DE 5/29/13. SSNY desig. as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to Att: Darren Dinneen, 900 Third Ave., Ste. 200, NY, NY 10022. DE off. addr.: CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of LP on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of each gen. ptr. avail. at SSNY. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014

PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, PURSUANT TO LAW, that the NYC Dept. of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, January 29, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. at 66 John Street, 11th floor, on a petition for P. M. W. INC. to continue to maintain, and operate an unenclosed sidewalk café at 62 SPRING STREET in the Borough of Manhattan for a term of two years.

REQUEST FOR COPIES OFTHE PROPOSED REVOCABLE CONSENT AGREEMENT MAY BE ADDRESSEDTO: DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, ATTN: FOIL OFFICER, 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10004.

Vil: 01/09 - 01/16/2014

TheVillager.com

NOTICE OF QUAL. OF SOMA SPECIALTY MANAGEMENT LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 9/17/13. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 7/19/13. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to Att: Gen. Counsel, 390 Park Ave., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10022. DE off. addr.: CTC, 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 NOTICE OF QUAL. OF WATCHTOWER LEASING LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 10/1/13. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 9/12/13. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to 666 Fifth Ave., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10103.

DE off. addr.: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904.

Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF SHE + LO, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/11/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Kane Kessler, P.C., 1350 Avenue of the Americas, 26th Fl., New York, NY 10019, Attn: Darren S. Berger, Esq. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 530 PARK RESIDENTIAL MANAGER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/4/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o RFR Holding, LLC, 390 Park Avenue, 3rd Fl., New York, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 530 PARK RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/4/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o RFR Holding, LLC, 390 Park Avenue, 3rd Fl., New York, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014

TheVillager.com

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF HERITAGE HOME GROUP LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 11/21/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1 N. Brentwood Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

LLC formed in DE on 9/30/13.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF POST CAPITAL EQUITY PARTNERS III LP Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/3/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 805 3rd Ave., 8th Fl., NY, NY 10022. LP formed in DE on 10/9/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP:The CorporationTrust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF ESE ENTERTAINMENT NY LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/27/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF POST CAPITAL GENERAL PARTNER III LP Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 12/3/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 805 3rd Ave., 8th Fl., NY, NY 10022. LP formed in DE on 10/9/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP:The CorporationTrust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 12/19 - 01/23/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF FEIL WHITESTONE LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/04/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 7 Penn Plaza, Ste. 618, NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF THE KAMAGE GALLERY, LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 07/05/2013. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: the Kamage Gallery, 248 Sherman Ave. Apt 3 NY, NY 10034. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF MULBERRY STREET COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/3/13. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o EVO Real Estate Group, 462 Seventh Ave., Fl. 12A, NY, NY 10018. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF MGG UK, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 7/2/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Marian Goodman Gallery, Inc., 24 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019, Attn: Marian Goodman Elaine Budin. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF CHAMPION PARKING MIDTOWN LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/12/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 655 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

Purpose: any lawful purpose.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 BEDFORD-WEBSTER COMMERCIAL LLC a domestic LLC, filed with the SSNY on 11/25/13. Office location: New York County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to The LLC, 40 Fulton St., 21st Fl., NY, NY 10038. General Purpose.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF UNIVET OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES NORTH AMERICA LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/15/13. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 1745 Broadway, 17th Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o BCRA CO., Attn: Shelley Clifford, 161 N. Clark St., Ste. 4300, Chicago, IL 60603. Purpose: Distribution of dental devices.

Vil: 12/05 - 01/09/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF TWO TWO FOUR WEST 18, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/19/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Fitapelli Kurta, 475 Park Ave. South, 12th Fl., NY, NY 10016. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/05 - 01/09/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 22 BEAVER ST LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 11/19/2013. Office location: 22 Beaver St, NY, NY County.

SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: 22 Beaver St LLC, 3430 208th Street, Bayside, NY 11361. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 12/05 - 01/09/2014 LIBERTY ENDO, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 08/22/2013. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 535 Fifth Ave. 4th Fl, NY, NY 10017. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Vil: 12/05 - 01/09/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BGCH ALEMBIC LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/21/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Alembic Community Development, 11 Hanover Square, #701, New York, NY 10005. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/05 - 01/09/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BGCH APARTMENTS MM LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/21/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Alembic Community Development, 11 Hanover Square, #701, New York, NY 10005. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/05 - 01/09/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF INNOVA IMPORTS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 9/24/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 1370 Broadway, Suite 540, New York, NY 10018. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF SULLIVAN RUVOLDT PLLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/3/13. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 1700 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Purpose: practice the profession of law.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF MULBERRY STREET MANAGER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/3/13. Off. loc.: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o EVO Real Estate Group, 462 Seventh Ave., Fl. 12A, NY, NY 10018. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 12/12 - 01/16/2014

January 9, 2014

19

N.Y.U. ruling came five days into de Blasio mayoralty N.Y.U. PLAN, continued from p. 12

of what the plaintiffs always knew.

“The judge agreed with us that the property could not be alienated without action at the state level,” he said. “This is a clear vindication of our assertion that the city and the City Council did not act appropriately, and the N.Y.U. plan is not legal.”

Regarding the alienation argument that Mills agreed with, Berman said, “This is the one that we were most confident we would win on, and really speaks to the heart of our assertion that the city acted completely inappropriately.

“This is the decision, in many ways, we were hoping for,” he said. “It’s sad that it had to come to this, but it’s really important that the system of checks and balances is working in this case.”

Berman noted that “now there is a new mayoral administration and a new City Council,” which bolsters the plaintiffs’ chances that the city might not appeal Mills’s decision.

When Bill de Blasio was public advocate, his appointee to the City Planning Committee, in fact, notably voted against the N.Y.U. plan during ULURP, though, at the end of the day, de Blasio — an N.Y.U. alumnus — did support the megaproject.

CAAN DO — HARD WORK PAYS OFF Terri Cude, co-chairperson of Community Action Alliance on N.Y.U. 2031, or CAAN, noted that her group wasn’t a party to the lawsuit, since some member groups within her umbrella organization couldn’t sue N.Y.U. (For example, the tenants of 505 LaGuardia Place, a CAAN member, were negotiating a lease with N.Y.U. at the time the lawsuit was filed, and CAAN didn’t want to “break up” the coalition, Cude said.) Naturally, though, she was ecstatic at the news of Mills’s decision.

“I am thrilled that the judge agreed in large part with what CAAN and Community Board 2 have said all along — that the open-space strips on the superblocks are parks,” Cude said. “We held so many community meetings, and the joint CAAN / C.B. 2 rally that featured speeches from all of our elected officials, all stating that obvious point.”

C.B. 2 voted a unanimous “No” against N.Y.U. 2031.

“I am, however, disappointed,” Cude added, “that the judge did not include the land in front of Coles Gym, currently home to the dog run, plus the water playground and reflecting garden that N.Y.U. was required to maintain but are sunken, unusable and locked by N.Y.U. That still leaves the possibility of the enormous, inappropriate, superblock-long Zipper Building.”

David Gruber, Board 2 chairperson, said, “It is very gratifying that the court has agreed with the C.B. 2 resolution that the

20

January 9, 2014

park area surrounding the superblocks cannot be absorbed by N.Y.U. into their plan 2031 development scheme.

QUESTIONS COLES VERDICT “I do not understand, however, why the parkland in front of Coles Gymnasium was not included under the same legal reasoning of ‘park alienation,’ ” Gruber added. “That area would have been fully and actively used had N.Y.U. maintained it under their contractual agreement with the community, rather that fencing it off and padlocking it.

In any event, I have to assume that this court action will trigger a new ULURP review.”

‘GO BACK TO SQUARE ONE’ Mark Crispin Miller, a leader of N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, one of the main plaintiffs, lives on the northern superblock in Washington Square Village. His apartment overlooks the complex’s tranquil Sasaki Garden, which, under N.Y.U.’s plan, would have been bulldozed for two new infill buildings that would have been shoehorned into the block. Many faculty live in the airy complex, which was a driving force behind the creation of N.Y.U. FASP. “We’re delighted [at the ruling],” Miller said. “We think that the most appropriate thing for N.Y.U. to do would be to drop the whole thing and go back to square one with the faculty as partners in any future expansion.”

(In fact, The New York Times reported that Randy Mastro, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said that, based on the case’s outcome, the 2031 project should not be allowed to proceed piecemeal — and that, for example, all the environmental reviews for the whole project must be done again. But N.Y.U. says that was not Justice Mills’s order.)

RETURN FROM ‘LUXURY CITY’ Miller emphasized that N.Y.U. FASP members aren’t just concerned about the impact the 20 years of construction would have on them personally.

“It’s time to move past Mayor Bloomberg’s ‘luxury city’ paradigm,” said Miller, a media studies professor. “We’re doing this out of a deep concern not only for ourselves but for the neighborhood. [N.Y.U. 2031] is too expensive. Our future students will not be able to afford it. The faculty will be driven away. There’s no good argument for it. The only good argument we heard for it is that: ‘Great institutions must grow.’ But that’s not an argument, that’s a mantra — and it’s false, dramatically false. Big universities mean more part-time faculty, more students per class. It’s already the most expensive university in the country.”

Is the fact that Mills made her ruling just five days after de Blasio became mayor sig-

nificant?

“We’ve asked ourselves that question — ‘Did the judge wait till now to make the decision?’ ” Miller said. “We’ll never know for sure. It is a clear sign of changing times.

People will see it as an indication of tremendous change.”

As for N.Y.U. FASP’s recent star-studded auction in support of the litigation, Miller said it netted $40,000. The suit is largely pro bono, but there are still some costs.

N.Y.U. STAYING POSITIVE Nevertheless, N.Y.U. put an optimistic spin on the case’s outcome.

“This is a complex ruling, but the judgment is a very positive one for N.Y.U. — five of the six petitioners’ claims were dismissed, and most importantly, the judge’s ruling allows us to move forward with our first planned project — the facility to provide new academic space on the site of our current gym,” said spokesperson John Beckman, referring to the Zipper Building.

That building would contain about half the total space of the 2-million-square-foot project as proposed by N.Y.U. (However, Miller observed that there was actually relatively little academic space slated for the Zipper Building. In previous iterations of the plan, at least, it was to include a gym, ground-level retail spaces, a student dorm and faculty offices.)

Beckman pointedly added, “The petitioners and their lawyers are wrong and overreaching in the claims they are now making that this ruling would stop us from building on the gym site, or that the proposals must be resubmitted to the City Council through another ULURP. The court did not vacate the City Council’s ULURP approval, and specifically rejected the petitioners’ claim that the street adjoining the gym site is a park.

“Our decisions about that facility will be guided by the faculty-led University Space Priorities Working Group, which in its draft report affirmed the need for additional academic space. Its final report is expected in the coming weeks,” Beckman added.

“The decision reaffirms the ULURP approval by the City Council,” he continued.

“Once we have a chance to thoroughly review the decision with our planning team and determine the precise impact of the ruling on our ability to implement other elements of the plan, we will work with the city, as lead respondent, to determine our next legal steps.”

N.Y.U. was not technically sued by the plaintiffs in the "Article 78" lawsuit but joined the city and state as a so-called “necessary party” in their defense of the project.

Asked if the city would appeal Mills’s decision, senior counsel Chris Reo, of the city Law Department’s Environmental Law Division — speaking for both the de Blasio administration and the Law Department — responded, “We just received — and are reviewing — the decision.”

G.V.S.H.P.’s Berman gave tremendous

credit to the law firm of Gibson Dunn, whose attorneys Mastro and Jim Walden won the historic case.

‘SEXTON PLAN IS DEAD’ Walden told The Villager, “We are thrilled with Justice Mills’s decision to protect three of our parks against development, as the law requires. With the Sexton plan now dead, we look forward to a more meaningful public review, which will certainly — with a new, progressive, community-minded mayor — result in a more inclusive public process.”

Asked if the plaintiffs would challenge the decision allowing N.Y.U. to develop on the Mercer-Houston Dog Run open-space strip, Walden said, “We are looking into it, but I can’t say yet.”

CHIN LED PUSH IN COUNCIL The N.Y.U. 2031 site is in Councilmember Margaret Chin’s district, and she approved the plan. Other councilmembers — such as, notably, Rosie Mendez — said they voted for the scheme out of deference to Chin, since she was “the lead” on it, in that the project was in her district. Mendez, as she cast her vote, acknowledged that many of her constituents opposed the N.Y.U. plan, but that she was doing this for Chin, who she fondly called her “sister.”

Former Council Speaker Quinn herself even tried to put the onus on Chin — telling The Villager near the end of her unsuccessful mayoral primary bid that the local councilmember ultimately is the one responsible for the vote.

On Wednesday, The Villager asked Chin’s office for comment on Mills’s decision. “Preserving green space is one of my utmost priorities,” Chin responded in an e-mailed statement. “I am glad that Tuesday’s decision creates the opportunity for the LaGuardia Corner Garden and Time Landscape to enjoy the same protections as other parks in our community. Throughout the N.Y.U. 2031 negotiations, I worked to ensure that any construction is respectful of the residents that call this neighborhood home — and minimizing impacts on community green space was and continues to be an essential part of that goal.”

(The Time Landscape is the long, fencedin plot south of the LaGuardia Corner Gardens, and is intended to represent Manhattan’s pre-Colonial foliage in its natural state.

However, N.Y.U. has never expressed any interest in using the Time Landscape for its development plans.)

The Villager, in turn, asked Chin if she is equally glad that the open-space strips on the north superblock will now — as a result of Mills’s ruling — enjoy park protections.

Again, N.Y.U. would like to use these strips to help construct its 2031 project, but now cannot based on Mills’s decision. Chin did not respond by press time.

TheVillager.com

Father is sending out a message of spiritual rebirth

BY ALBERT AMATEAU

F

ather Walter Tonelotto, pastor of Our Lady of Pompeii Church since July 2013, brings to the church in the heart of Greenwich Village the experience of 40 years as a priest who has been serving in places near and far.

He has led parishes in Canada, Mexico and Haiti, and closer to home on Staten Island, in Queens and most recently at St. Joseph’s Church in Chinatown.

Father Walter told a visitor last week how he discovered the strong attachment that Villagers have for Our Lady of Pompeii.

“A school crossing guard stopped me and said, ‘Oh Father, welcome to our church. My grandfather was married here, my father was married here and I was married here. Now my daughter is getting married here.’ This church is really family for parishioners,” he said.

Former Villagers often come back to their home parish for Sunday Mass and point out the memorials.

“They say, ‘That’s my uncle, that’s my grandfather.’

This is where their roots are,” Tonelotto said.

The church is in the process of reaching out to worshipers via the Internet. As part of its Web site, Our Lady of Pompeii will be streaming Sunday services and other events.

“We streamed our beautiful Christmas Mass online,” Tonelotto noted.

As befits the shrine church of the Missionaries of St. Charles — Scalabrinians, who are dedicated to serving migrants and refugees — on Nov. 28, Our Lady of Pompeii opened an office of the Scalabrini International Network for Migrants.

“We have on staff a lawyer and two legal representatives who are certified in immigration law,” Tonelotto said. “We also have five or six volunteers who will be doing intake. This is especially important as immigration reform comes in,” he added.

In addition to English speakers, the immigration center will help clients who speak Italian, Tagalog, Portuguese and Spanish.

Tonelotto recalled when he himself was an immigrant, arriving in New York on July 4, 1970, a 22-yearold seminarian from Italy. He attended St. Joseph’s Seminary, in Dunwoodie, N.Y., and a year later transferred to the University of Toronto’s Divinity School, graduating in 1974.

“I went back to my hometown to be ordained,” he said. Sant’Eulalia is a hamlet of about 600 souls in Treviso, north of Venice. “The ordination was supposed to be at 6 a.m., but they had to reschedule it for 8 because the farmers who wanted to come to the ceremony had to milk the cows first,” he recalled.

His desire to become a priest started as a child. When he was 11, a priest asked him if he wanted to go to a seminary. Father Walter’s father, the village cobbler, said the family would be able to afford the expense if he went to the Scalabrinians because “they wouldn’t cost too much,” he recalled.

Father Walter’s first parish was in Hamilton, Ontario.

He then served a parish on Staten Island and later one in Jamaica, Queens.

“I lived in the chapter house here on Carmine St. for three years when I was in the Italian Apostolate Office of the New York Archdiocese,” he said. The office coordinated Italian-speaking parishes in the region. He began L’Italiano, an Italian-language magazine, and also produced Italian-language radio and television programs during that period.

A parish in Guadalajara, Mexico, came next — “a beautiful experience,” he said.

A church in Montreal was perhaps the biggest responsibility of his career.

“There was a vibrant community of Italian immigrants, almost 8,000 families and more than 30,000 people,” he recalled. “We had two choirs. The church was packed on Sundays, people came early to get a seat and we had a summer camp.”

Father Walter recalled one event in a Montreal park that attracted thousands of people.

“The police were anxious about crowd control,” he said. “But I told them, I knew my people and they knew me. The police were amazed that it ran so well.”

A parish in Haiti where he served for three years beginning in 2005 was a different sort of challenge. Tonelotto recalled that the church ran a medical clinic where the doctors worked 12 hours a day.

“It was the only place in the area for people to get medical attention,” he said. Father Walter Tonelotto’s voice is a familiar presence on Radio Maria, a When he discovered that some neigh- Christian-based radio station that broadcasts in English, Spanish and Italian. borhood children were not going to the Tonelotto is the director of Italian Radio Maria. local school because it was too costly, he organized a free school, raised the the Chinatown parish on Monroe St. between Catherine money for it and found teachers. and Market Sts. “I had $10,000 and paid the salaries for seven teachTonelotto is the only priest at Our Lady of Pompeii ers,” he said. but he has two lay assistants. He has been trying to get He also located a source of powdered milk and bis- another priest assigned to help, but the shortage of clercuits to provide lunch for the students. gy makes the prospect uncertain.

For the past six years, before replacing Father John “I think there is a purpose to the crisis of priests and Masari at Our Lady of Pompeii, Tonelotto was the pas- the crisis of the Church,” Father Walter told The Viltor of St. Joseph’s Church. lager. “People have lost the beauty of spiritual life and “We came to love each other very much,” he said of we have to restore it.”

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PHOTOS BY SAM SPOKONY

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