The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
January 30, 2014 • $1.00 Volume 83 • Number 35
St. Luke’s project rekindles debate on drop-in center BY SAM SPOKONY
F
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Pete Seeger, the iconoclastic conscience of America, who co-wrote “If I Had a Hammer,” — above, performing at Cooper Union a year ago — died Monday at age 94. See Page 6.
He had a hammer
earing the same rise in crime that began in the ’90s around an L.G.B.T. youth drop-in center on Christopher St., some Villagers are opposing a local church’s plan to construct a new mission building that could be used as a similar dropin center.
BY HEATHER DUBIN
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aying they want to “extend an olive branch” and finally “end this war” with N.Y.U., the plaintiffs in a historic community lawsuit against the university’s superblocks megadevelopment plan gathered at a victory press conference last Thursday. The setting was the E. 11th St. head-
quarters of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which was one of the plaintiffs in the suit. Joining them in a unified front were a phalanx of local politicians — including Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who was a party to the suit — and actor and Village resident John Leguizamo. Also, during his own press conference the same day, Mayor de Blasio, when asked about the N.Y.U. ruling, said he wants to work closely with the
community moving forward to reach a resolution. Specifically, de Blasio was asked if the whole N.Y.U. plan should be “reset” now and the cityʼs review of it start all over again. De Blasio responded that he felt the university’s earlier version of the plan was “too expansive,” and that as the then public advocate, he called for it to be scaled back, which is what happened. He said all lawsuits have larger
ST. LUKE'S, continued on p. 4
Local Ukrainians roll out awareness campaign on revolt
‘End this war’: N.Y.U. antis D BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
The proposal by the Church of St. Luke in the Fields to build the new mission center — which would be located at the corner of Christopher and Hudson Sts. — is still in an extremely early stage, and does not yet even have a set timeline for construction. That’s
ozens of protesters waving blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags packed a double-decker bus parked in Union Square earlier this month to bring attention to civil unrest in the Ukraine. New York Activists, a group started in Novem-
ber which fundraises for people in Ukraine and raises awareness about the current revolt there, chartered a bus that drove from Battery Park throughout the city. Many Ukrainian locals have been following the developments overseas with great concern — Mykola Azarov resigned UKRAINE, continued on p. 23
N.Y.U. LAWSUIT, continued on p. 12
Park ‘Hot Dog-gate’ still on low boil................page 13 Bank gives out fake 50, then filibusters..........page 23 www.TheVillager.com
LaChapelle’s Land Scape...page 3