DOWNTOWN EXPRESS

downtown ®

VOLUME 24, NUMBER 46

ABBY SPILKA, P. 12

express THE NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

APRIL 4 - 10, 2012

Despite rezoning, wait lists persist

Downtown Express photos by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Female survivors of the Titanic who were traveling in steerage were taken to the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary at 7 State St. in Lower Manhattan. Today, the mission is known as the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary and shares space with the St. Elizabeth Seton Shrine at 8 State St., which will soon house an exhibit about the mission and its work.

BY ALINE RYENOLDS The last thing Karen Behrens thought she’d have to worry about when her family moved to Battery Park City in December 2001, was getting her child into a local elementary school.

“Everyone was leaving, and we said, ‘You know it’s not right – the whole area’s going to die if everyone just deserts it,” said Behrens.

“Even though rents are much higher [than elsewhere], I decided to stay in the area, ‘cause I wanted her to go to a great public school.”

But as fate would have it, Behrens’s daughter, Victoria, ranked 23 out of 26 on the P.S. 276 kindergarten waitlist for the 2012-2013 school year.

“This is a bit of a shock,”

said Behrens. “It’s outrageous.”

Behrens joins close to 100 Downtown parents whose youngsters have been waitlisted at P.S. 276, P.S. 89, P.S. 234 and the new Peck Slip School.

This year, the families have banded together to petition the seat shortage, which in recent years has triggered the unwelcome annual trend of waitlists at the schools and is only expected to worsen. Though the waitlists are supposed to let up between now and the fall due to attrition and gifted-and-talented offers, the parents still fear having to send their children to schools outside of Downtown.

In just 48 hours, Behrens and fellow parents collected more than 200 signatures

Continued on page 18

Lower Manhattan’s Titanic trail

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER It will be 100 years come April 15 since the opulent ocean liner Titanic hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland and sank at 2:20 a.m., killing more than 1,500 people. But not all vestiges of that tragedy are at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Some are in Manhattan.

The arched ironwork at the entrance to Pier 54 on the Hudson River near West 13th Street still bears the words “Cunard White Star Line” in faded paint. This was the pier to which the Cunard ship, Carpathia, brought the survivors of the Titanic, docking there on April 18, 1912. A few blocks north, at Pier 59 in what is now the Chelsea Piers sports complex, the Carpathia stopped off at the White Star moorings to deposit the lifeboats that had saved

the lives of 705 people.

Then around 100 members of the bedraggled, exhausted crew of the Titanic were taken down Manhattan’s west side to the American Seaman’s Friend Society, now The Jane hotel at 113 Jane St., where they received clothing, food and lodging.

The exterior of The Jane probably looks much as it did then. The interior has been revamped, but two items in the lobby recall the Titanic and its time — an ornate, marble fountain that was there when the survivors arrived and a metal plaque that was subsequently placed in front of it, so worn that the inscription can no longer be read.

What is now the ballroom and bar of the hotel on the right side of the lobby was at that time a little assembly hall. The

surviving crew gathered there on April 19, 1912 to pray for those who had been lost. An article in The New York Times published on April 20, described the service. The men cried as they prayed. Then, accompanied by Miss Josephine Upham on the piano, they sang “Nearer my God to Thee” and “Rock of Ages.”

Afterward, over coffee and sandwiches, some of the crew talked about their experiences. They said that they had never had a dress rehearsal with the lifeboats since the ship left Southampton, England on April 10. In fact, it emerged subsequently that there were only enough lifeboats for one-third of the people on board and many of these weren’t filled to capacity before

Continued on page 16

New take on classic Broadway play. Page 23.

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April 4 - 10, 2012

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On Sunday, April 1, over 100 households took part in an event aimed at helping to rid the environment of unwanted electronic waste. The second annual “E-waste Recycling” event collected an estimated 8,000 pounds, or 4 tons of e-waste, including used computer monitors, printers, batteries and television sets.

“It was great to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our state’s electronics waste recycling law,” said Silver. “By requiring manufacturers to recycle e-waste we are preventing toxic chemicals from entering our landfills. As the number of electronic devices that people buy continues to go up, it is essential that we act in an environmentally responsible manner. Together, we can help leave our children a greener, more sustainable world.”

The speaker hosted the event in conjunction with the Lower East Ecology Center.

- John Bayles

Committee decides on cancers related to 9/11

BY ALINE REYNOLDS Former NYC firefighter and 9/11 first responder Jeff Stroehlein was diagnosed on March 18, 2011 with lymphoma of the brain.

In the coming months, Stroehlein, who now receives medical treatment at a cancer center in Suffolk County, Long Island, could be eligible for federally funded cancer care under the James L. Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. Stroehlein, however, won’t believe it until he sees it.

“It’s just talk right now – who knows whatever is coming,” said Stroehlein. “This was 2001 that this all happened. People are still suffering and dying.”

Per the request of Dr. John Howard, the health administrator of the Zadroga Act, the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee has decided to recommend including approximately 30 cancers that likely correlate with Ground Zero exposure, including cancer of the lung, stomach, mouth and thyroid.

Cancer patients and elected officials, however, are anxious to find out exactly when the cancers would be added to the bill, and when those who are sick could expect to start receiving treatment at the World Trade Center Centers of Excellence.

On Mon., April 2, the S.T.A.C. sent its recommendation to Howard, who has until early June to decide which cancers are worthy of federally funded medical care at the World Trade Center Centers of Excellence.

Once Howard makes his decision, the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention will open the proposal for public comment.

“Once that is done, we look at the comments and decide if we still want to move forward with rule-making,” said C.D.C. Spokesperson Christina Spring. “If we do, then we enter the federal rule making process, which can take several months.”

Spring continued, “Once that process is complete and a new condition is added to the list, the program will still need to certify that an individual’s cancer is associated with their exposures.”

In a March 30 letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Carolyn Maloney, Jerrold Nadler and other members of Congress requested to meet with Howard to discuss the next steps.

Howard’s determination about adding cancer to the bill could also have an impact

Continued on page 21

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NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-9, 12-21

OWNTOWN

EDITORIAL PAGES . . . . . . . . . . 10-11

DIGEST

YOUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 ARTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 - 24, 26-27

P.S. 276 HAS A CASE OF ‘LINSANITY’

POWER SYSTEM TURNED ON AT W.T.C.

The students at P.S. 276 in Battery Park City have taken it upon themselves to court a keynote speaker for their graduation ceremony. Last Thursday, members of the school’s senior class recorded a special message for Jeremy Lin, the Harvard University graduate and New York Knicks point guard, pleading for the budding NBA superstar and icon to deliver the commencement speech at their upcoming graduation.

In the video, which immediately was posted on social media websites like Youtube and Twitter, Senior Class President Eric Han told Lin, “You’re an intellectual we all look up to… and here are all your fans.”

Han waved his hand to reveal a bleacher full of students that cheered for Lin and begged him to speak at the ceremony. As of Monday, a spokesperson for Lin relayed a message saying that he was considering the students’ request and would be in touch.

The World Trade Center’s power has been turned on, according to an NBC report.

On Tues., March 27, workers switched on a large power system at the W.T.C., which will eventually power One W.T.C., the center’s signature skyscraper, the W.T.C. Transportation Hub and the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the system will supply 100 megawatts to the site, enough energy to power 64,000 New York City apartments, according to the report.

HUDSON SQUARE LANDS HUGE LEASE According to the Wall Street Journal, Hudson Square will soon be home to the French advertising firm, Havas.

The deals marks one of the biggest office leases of the year, as the firm prepares to take over 260,000 feet at 200 and 205 Hudson Street.

Hudson Square is quickly becoming a haven for upand-coming new media companies and technology firms.

The move by Havas will consolidate its NYC operations into one neighborhood. Previously the firm had offices in the Flatiron building on Fifth Avenue as well as at 195 Broadway.

C.B. 1 EE TING S

M

A schedule of this week’s upcoming Community Board 1 committee meetings is below. Unless otherwise noted, all committee meetings are held at the board office, located at 49-51 Chambers St., room 709 at 6 p.m.

FIRST TRIAL IN CHEN CASE POSTPONED The U.S. Army has decided to table the trial of Sergeant Travis Carden of Fowler, Indiana, who has been implicated in the suicide of Private Danny Chen.

Carden, a 25-year-old from Fowler, Indiana, was set to go on trial Wed., April 4 for charges of maltreatment, assault, reckless endangerment, and violating lawful general regulation.

Since Chen’s unit is being redeployed to the United States, however, the Army is considering trying Carden in a court-martial in Alaska, the unit’s domestic base.

“The Carden case… has been withdrawn to assess ultimate location of trial,” said Carden. “The location and date of the trial is now being reconsidered in light of the unit’s upcoming redeployment.”

Liz OuYang, president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, said she was pleased with the news.

“In order for there to truly be transparency,” said OuYang, “public and family should be allowed to attend and have access to the proceedings.”

Community Media NYC honors Community Media NYC racked up 27 awards at the New York State Press Association’s 2011 Better Newspaper Contest, held in Saratoga Springs last weekend. Community Media finished in fourth place for the state’s group or chain newspapers with a total of 325 points.

Community Media Publisher and Editor John Sutter said, “It feels good of course to be recognized by our newspaper colleagues for doing good work. But the real satisfaction in this business comes from trying to write honestly, fairly, and independently every week about local issues that have meaning in the lives of our readers.”

The Downtown Express earned first place for spot news coverage of the NYPD’s overnight raid of Zuccotti Park, which ended Occupy Wall Street’s two-month-long encampment there, and second place for its editorials.

The N.Y.P.A. judges praised Downtown Express’s O.W.S. story, saying it was “Good work on an emotionally charged subject” and described its editorials as “well-written” and “clear.”

Downtown Express’s sister papers, The Villager, Gay City News and Chelsea Now,

CLASSIFIEDS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

took home the rest of the awards, including first place in photographic excellence for The Villager, first place in arts coverage for Chelsea now, and first place in best color ad created by a newspaper for Gay City News.

The Villager, which ranked fifth in total editorial contest points, also won first place for headline writing, first and third place for art photos by Bob Krasner and Milo Hess, first place for picture story, first and second place for spot news photos, first and third place for editorial cartoon, second place for best column by Jerry Tallmer, and third place for best editorial cartoon. The paper also received honorable mentions for its 9/11 special section and its coverage of health, health care and science, and won third place for best small-space advertising campaign.

Gay City News, which finished second overall for advertising awards, also ranked second place in graphic illustration, third place in best editorial page, third place in headline writing, third place in arts coverage, first and second place in best large-space ads and first and second place in best small-space ads.

In addition to best arts coverage, Chelsea Now also won third place for coverage of the environment.

ON WED., APRIL 4: The Financial District Committee will meet.

ON THURS., APRIL 5: The Planning and Community Infrastructure Committee will meet.

ON MON., APRIL 9: The W.T.C. Redevelopment Committee will meet at the NYS Assembly Hearing Room, on the 19th floor of 250 Broadway.

ON TUES., APRIL 10: The Youth and Education Committee will meet.

A spokesperson for Chen’s family wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Carden is one of eight soldiers that have been charged in connection with Chen’s death.

Milestone for Fiterman Hall Borough of Manhattan Community College students will be greeted with 54 new classrooms and 44 new laboratories when the 2012-2013 school year commences. Fiterman Hall, located at 30 West Broadway between Barclay and Park Place, had to be demolished following the 9/11 attacks. Debris from the neighboring 7 World Trade Center damaged the building’s south façade. As a result, the accumulation of W.T.C. dust and mold caused officials to deem the building uninhabitable.

Since 1993 the office building, which dated back to the 1950’s, had been used as an extension of the B.M.C.C. Chambers Street campus.

Last week, the construction hoist used to construct the new Fiterman Hall, which will also include 160 offices, was removed. Work to install the electrical, mechanical plumbing for the 16-story building continues. All façade panel construction and window installation is also now complete.

- John Bayles

Downtown Express photo by John Bayles

April 4 - 10, 2012

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in Brooklyn holding a bloody cloth to his nose around 5:45 p.m. Sat., March 31.The injured man said someone attacked his with a box cutter in a train at Chambers St. in Manhattan.

POLICE BLOTTER Murder conviction A Manhattan jury convicted Joseph Pabon, 27, of second degree murder and first degree kidnapping on Mon., April 2 in connection with the 2009 murder of Eridania Rodriguez, a mother of three and a fellow employee in the office building at 2 Rector St. On the evening of July 7, 2009, Pabon was working as a freight elevator operator in the building where the victim also worked as a member of the cleaning staff. He attacked her on the eighth floor of the building and bound her mouth with tape so tightly that she smothered. Pabon then took the body in the freight elevator to the 12th floor and stuffed it into an air duct where the victim’s body was discovered four days later.

Sentencing is scheduled for May 11 when Pabon is expected to receive 25 years to life in prison.

Sentence Chinatown burglar Kenneth Harden-Smith, 24, who pleaded guilty to 12 counts of burglary in Chinatown as a hate crime on February 1, was sentenced on Wed., March 28 to eight years in prison plus five years of supervision after release.

Harden-Smith admitted that he targeted Chinatown apartments on Madison, Catherine, Eldridge, Forsyth, Monroe and Henry Sts and East Broadway because of his strong dislike of Chinese people, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Harden-Smith broke into the 12 apartments in October and November of 2010 when many of the victim were asleep

downtown express

and a few woke up during the break-ins. Entering buildings with open front doors, he entered apartments with unlocked doors and opened locked doors by using plastic credit or ATM cards. He stole electronic equipment as well as credit cards and cash.

Motorcycle theft A man parked his 2009 Honda motorcycle valued at $14,000 in front of 108 Charlton St. near Greenwich St. at 2:30 p.m. Thurs. March 29, went to a business meeting and returned at 5:45 p.m. to find it stolen.

Southbridge child abuse Residents of 90 Gold St. in the Southbridge Towers complex told Downtown Express this week that police questioned them on the night of Sat., March 31/Sun., April 1 about the parents of a boy and a girl between 11 and 13 years old who were severely beaten. One upstairs neighbor said police took the parents for booking and an Emergency Medical Service team took the children to a hospital. A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said on Tuesday that the parents were not yet in the Criminal Justice System.

Sentence Tribeca thief Mihaly Kovacsezics, 62, was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for stealing paintings and jewelry from two residents of 427 Washington St. were he worked as superintendent. He also stole jewelry from a friend and business associate and was arrested trying to leave the country, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Kovacsezics stole paintings valued at $13,365 from one resident of the Washington St. building and jewelry valued at $23,380 from another resident. He pleaded guilty to all charges on Feb. 22.

BPC bicycles A resident of 375 South End Ave. in Battery Park City told police that two bicycles with a total value of $1,020, that she chained and locked in front of her residence on Mon. March 19 were stolen

Beaten on subway

Leather jackets Police arrested a man on Mon., March 26 who was wanted in connection with the Oct. 21 theft of a leather jacket from the John Varvatos store at 315 Bowery near E. Second St. The suspect, Troy Cooper, 32, had walked into the shop with a leather jacket over his arm, replaced it with one he took from a rack and walked out with it. Police tracked him from the DNA on a wad of chewing gun found in the jacket he left behind, according to a New York Post item.

A man who walked into the Agnes B boutique at 50 Howard St., near Mercer St. around 6:30 p.m. Wed., March 28 took two leather jackets with a total value of $3,500. rolled them up and walked out with them under his coat, police said. A surveillance camera recorded the theft.

Lost it while shopping A woman visiting from Mechanicsburg, Pa. went shopping in a few Soho boutiques on Saturday morning March 31 and stopped for lunch around noon at a restaurant on Broadway at Spring St. where she discovered that her credit cards were gone. She learned later that two unauthorized charges of $350 and $373 had been made at two nearby stores, Guess and Armani Exchange.

A California visitor, 18, shopping at Aldo Shoes, 579 Broadway on Friday afternoon March 30 put her bag down for a moment and discovered when she looked again that it was gone, along with her wallet, $50 in cash, her driver’s license and her University of California Santa Barbara ID. She learned later that an unauthorized charge of $11 had made at Staples nearby.

April Fool When the staff of King Diner, 5 King St., near Sixth Ave. opened for business on Sunday morning April 1 they discovered that eight café tables, with a total value of $1,600, were gone from the front of the place.

Watch out An employee of the Jack Spade store at 56 Greene St told police that a $2,595 Rolex watch that she knew was in its display case at 11 a.m. Sun., April 1 was gone when she looked again at 2 p.m. Police said there were no working surveillance cameras in the place.

— Alber t Amateau

An MTA employee questioned a man sitting on a train

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April 4 - 10, 2012

Downtown Express photo by Aline Reynolds

Port Authority announces reforms, new security arm

BY ALINE REYNOLDS In the wake of a scathing financial audit of the agency released in February, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is gearing up for a massive overhaul of its operations that entail cutting back on employee benefits and centralizing its security force.

The bi-state agency’s Board of Commissioners voted in favor of the sweeping reforms at its monthly board meeting last Thurs., March 29. The changes, purported to generate more than $14 million in savings this year and upwards of $26 million in 2013, will require Port Authority employees to pay for part of their health insurance, eliminate their bonuses and other add-on compensations and trim their vacations.

While he doesn’t foresee layoffs, Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye does expect some Port Authority personnel to retire early due to the cutbacks.

“This is a painful exercise,” said Foye. “It does constitute an actual pay cut for many people here at the Port Authority.”

The reforms mark a “critical juncture” in the life of the Port Authority, which aims to adopt a culture of meritocracy rather than one of tenure, according to Board of Commissioners Chairman David Samson.

“It’s a major course of correction for the Port Authority,” said Samson. “Ongoing review has led us to conclude that [employee] compensation and benefits… have ballooned out of proportion.”

The Port Authority also has plans to create a centralized, free-standing security department by late September, as recommended by former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who the agency hired last year to conduct a top-to-bottom study of its security operations. At a press conference following last week’s Board of Commissioners meeting, Samson called Chertoff “the person who knows more about

security than anyone else on the planet.”

The agency is launching a nationwide search for a chief security officer who will be tasked with overseeing security at its various sites and facilities.

The initiative will involve “a fundamental transformation” of the agency’s bifurcated security structure that dates back to the 1950s, two decades prior to the opening of the former W.T.C. At the time, security wasn’t a top priority of the agency, since terrorism and other contemporary threats didn’t exist at the time, according to Chertoff.

“It’s easy to understand this. Sixty years ago, we were mainly worried about Soviet missiles,” said Chertoff. “Sixty years later, security has a much, much more complicated set of challenges.”

The proposed consolidations of security weren’t triggered by a new terrorist threat, Chertoff noted.

“When coming upon the 10th anniversary of September 11th, I think the Board of Commissioners widely decided to step back and take a look at security from a holistic standpoint,” said Chertoff. “It was a [decision to] take a calm look at what has worked and what hasn’t worked.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how exactly the new security department would interface with the New York Police Department in implementing the NYPD counterterrorism bureau’s safety plan for the W.T.C., though Foye maintained that the site would be jointly manned by the Port Authority Police and the NYPD. Asked about the initiative, Foye stressed that the objectives of guaranteeing safety at the site and keeping Downtown accessible to the local community must be balanced.

“We share the concerns of Downtown, because we’re going to be a large landowner

Continued on page 20

Sunday, April 8, 12:30-2:30pm Trinity Churchyard, Broadway at Wall Street Come celebrate with Easter egg and scavenger hunts, puppets, live music, a visit from the Easter Bunny ...plus lots of other family fun.

trinitywallstreet.org | 212.602.0800

April 4 - 10, 2012

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downtown express

Downtown Express photo by John Bayles

Community Board 1 hopes to convince the city to develop housing on the lot adjacent to their offices.

C.B. 1 committee sets sights on housing, seniors and schools Fighting to make Lower Manhattan the greatest place to live, work, and raise a family.

Assemblyman Shelly Silver If you need assistance, please contact my office at (212) 312-1420 or email silver@assembly.state.ny.us.

BY ALINE REYNOLDS Downtown is in for more affordable housing along with a new school and senior center, if Community Board 1’s Housing Committee has its way.

The committee is formulating a pitch to Mayor Michael Bloomberg to find a developer that would convert a soon-to-be-sold property on Chambers Street into affordable housing apartments and a school. The committee is also ironing out the logistics of creating “Manhattan Seniors,” a nonprofit poised to provide domestic care to the local elderly that wish to age in place.

The grim outlook on the future of affordable housing that city housing officials presented at the group’s monthly meeting in February inspired the committee. Since then, committee members have took to the streets and begun to scour the neighborhood for sites that could potentially house low- and middle-income families.

“I think this is an easy victory for the board to actually get affordable housing,” said Committee Chair Tom Goodkind of the parking lot and 15-story building at 49-51 Chambers St. The find coincides with Bloomberg’s wish to possibly sell the building at 49-51 Chambers along with 22 Reade St. and 346 Broadway to private developers. Currently, the building at 49-51 Chambers is home to C.B. 1’s offices in addition to the city Board of Correction, the Department of Education, the NYPD and the Department of Parks and Recreation. The parking lot next to the building is reserved for city officials and is

underutilized, according to board members.

C.B. 1 will be drafting a letter to the Mayor in the coming days requesting that the city choose a developer that would guarantee at least some affordable housing on the site.

“We might have a better chance of convincing the city to make affordable housing a part of the deal if the two parcels are packaged,” said Michael Levine, C.B. 1’s director of land use and planning. “It’s a better incentive to a developer to get two pieces of property instead of one.”

The committee envisions another 15-story building to replace the parking lot.

“It could have school seats on the ground floor with a separate entrance,” said Levine.

Meanwhile, the committee is brainstorming a development plan for “Manhattan Seniors,” a nonprofit organization that would offer Downtown senior citizens affordable medical aid, cleaning, activities and other services.

The committee invited Maggie Goloboy, a graduate of Harvard Business School who works for McKinsey & Company, to its March 26 meeting for advice on how to get the ball rolling in developing a business proposal for the organization.

“A business plan is a way to communicate your vision for what you’re doing,” Goloby told the committee. “But you also want to say what problem you’re trying to solve and how you’re going to solve that problem. Everyone, I’m sure, recognizes the

Continued on page 20

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Masaryk fire hits 3 apartments A fire that broke out in a 16th-floor apartment in a Masaryk Towers building at 89 Columbia St. on Wednesday morning March 28 spread to the 17th and 18th floors of the 21-story building. Four firefighters and two residents were taken to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries, a Fire Department spokesperson said. The first alarm came in at 11:18 a.m., and by 11:30 a third alarm brought a total 33 units and 138 firefighters to the scene. The fire’s cause was still under investigation by press time on Wednesday. In controlling the blaze, firefighters threw smoldering items out of one of the apartments’ windows, as seen in the photo at left. Photographer Clayton Patterson said he witnessed a headboard and mattress, as well as a chest with drawers thrown out a window.

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Hero auxiliaries remembered Auxiliary police officers bowed their heads in a moment of silence on Sullivan St. earlier this month as a prayer was read at the fifth anniversary memorial for slain Sixth Precinct Auxiliaries Nicholas Pekearo and Yevgeniy “Eugene� Marshalik. On the evening of March 14, 2007, the unarmed volunteer auxiliaries pursued crazed gunman David Garvin, 42, who had just slain Alfredo Romero Morales, 33, a pizzeria restaurant worker at Houston and MacDougal Sts. The frustrated filmmaker then mortally wounded both Pekearo, 28, a Village native who was an aspiring horror/sci-fi writer, and Marshalik, 19, an N.Y.U. student.

The killer was then felled in a hail of bullets by police officers as he emerged from the Village Tannery store on Bleecker St., where he likely had been reloading his firearm. In 2009, honorary signs with the auxiliaries’ names were added next to the street signs at Sullivan and Bleecker Sts. Joining auxiliaries at the fifth anniversary memorial were Sixth Precinct officers, family members, local merchants and community board members. Flowers and other tributes were affixed to the light poles at the corners of Bleecker and Sullivan.

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downtown express

Downtown Express photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Architect and Battery Park City resident Jordan Gruzen speaking at Community Board 1’s full board meeting on March 27, in opposition to the NYPD’s planned barricades and street closures around the W.T.C.

Architects criticize W.T.C. security plan

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER Jordan Gruzen, partner in the award-winning firm of Gruzen Samton Architects, doesn’t often make an appearance at Community Board 1 meetings, but he felt strongly enough about the N.Y.P.D.’s proposed World Trade Center security plan to show up at C.B. 1’s full board meeting on March 27 to speak against the plan.

Gruzen is co-chair of New York New Visions, a coalition of 21 architecture, planning and design organizations that first met a week after 9/11 in a pro bono effort to address the issues surrounding the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan. At the Community Board meeting, Gruzen said he was speaking on behalf of New York New Visions.

“We are very concerned that the World Trade Center plan that has taken thousands of hours of individuals’ input to make it a vital, beautiful and fabulous urban place that people visit from all around the world, not be spoiled,” he said.

He referenced the Police Headquarters plaza, which his firm designed, and called conditions there “atrocious.” After 9/11 it was barricaded and blocked off from vehicle access.

“It’s a vital piece of the city that’s been allowed to fall into disrepair and we don’t want that to happen to the World Trade Center. There’s too much thought [put into it] and it’s too central to our culture and to our city’s vitality.”

In a telephone conversation after the Community Board meeting, Gruzen elab-

9

April 4 - 10, 2012

orated.

He said that for years, the members of New York New Visions had been privy to the plans for the World Trade Center site and had played an important role in formulating them. “We were treated as trusted confidantes who would put our best minds at it,” he said, “and we had some of the best names in the New York professional offices – notable architects who have a lot of integrity. At this point, we’ve been pushed aside and told [by the N.Y.P.D.] ‘it’s our decision. It’s our decision alone.’”

Gruzen said that New York New Visions concurred with Community Board 1, which has drafted a resolution spelling out the ways in which the proposed security plan would create unacceptable logistic problems for residents and businesses in the World Trade Center vicinity.

There would be checkpoints around a “superblock” and streets connecting the World Trade Center site with the rest of Manhattan would be essentially closed to traffic.

“The taxi drivers have said this isn’t going to work,” Gruzen said. “Lower Manhattan won’t be serviced the way it should be. There will be backups. I think the N.Y.P.D. is trying to be very responsible. I think they feel an obligation to the country and to the world. But the way they’ve interpreted that responsibility is having a consequence.”

Gruzen said that the members of New

Continued on page 19

Holy Week & Easter trinity church st. paul’s chapel

Tenebrae Wednesday, April 4

Easter Eve Saturday, April 7

Trinity Church, 6pm (audio webcast only)

The Great Vigil of Easter with Holy Baptism

Maundy Thursday Thursday, April 5

St. Paul’s Chapel, 8pm

Holy Eucharist Trinity Church, 6pm

All-Night Vigil Before the Blessed Sacrament All Saints’ Chapel in Trinity Church Thursday, April 5, 8pm to Friday, April 6, 11:30am

Good Friday Friday, April 6 Liturgy of Good Friday and Veneration of the Cross

Easter Day Sunday, April 8 Festive Eucharist St. Paul’s Chapel, 8am and 10am Trinity Church, 9am and 11:15am

Easter Fun Fest Trinity Churchyard, 12:30-2:30pm Easter egg and scavenger hunts, a visit from the Easter Bunny, and lots of other family fun. Free and all are welcome.

Watch live webcast at trinitywallstreet.org

Trinity Church, Noon-3pm

Good Friday with Children, Youth & Families Trinity Church, 4:30pm

trinity church Broadway at Wall Street

st. paul’s chapel Broadway and Fulton Street

trinitywallstreet.org | 212.602.0800

Water Lilies, Evening by Claude Monet (1840-1926) · Musée Marmottan, Paris, France © Bridgeman Art Library, London / SuperStock

April 4 - 10, 2012

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EDITORIAL PUBLISHER & EDITOR John W. Sutter ASSOCIATE EDITOR John Bayles ARTS EDITOR Scott Stiffler REPORTERS Aline Reynolds Albert Amateau Lincoln Anderson SR. V.P. OF SALES AND MARKETING Francesco Regini RETAIL ADVERTISING MANAGER Colin Gregory ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Allison Greaker Julius Harrison Alex Morris Julio Tumbaco BUSINESS MANAGER / CONTROLLER Vera Musa ART / PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Troy Masters SR. GRAPHIC DESIGNER Vince Joy GRAPHIC DESIGNER Christina Entcheva CONTRIBUTORS Helaina N. Hovitz • Terese Loeb Kreuzer • Jerry Tallmer PHOTOGRAPHERS Milo Hess • Jefferson Siegel • Terese Loeb Kreuzer

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Downtown Express is published every week by Community Media LLC, 515 Canal St., Unit 1C, New York, N.Y. 10013 (212) 229-1890.

The entire contents of the newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2012 Community Media LLC. PUBLISHER’S LIABILITY FOR ERROR The Publisher shall not be liable for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value of an advertisement. The publisher’s liability for other errors or omissions in connection with an advertisement is strictly limited to publication of the advertisement in any subsequent issue.

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downtown express

LETTERS

Tired of the D.O.E.’s same old story

Bloomberg and Occupy

Birds would take a beating

It’s an all too familiar scenario that doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Each spring families in Lower Manhattan with a four-year-old ready to start school are receiving letters in the mail telling them there are not enough classroom seats in their neighborhood schools to accommodate their child.

This year the trend is even more disturbing because the wait lists are still long, even in light of a new elementary school opening up in the Tweed Courthouse, the Peck Slip school. In its first year, the school already has a wait list.

The NYC Department of Education sent out an estimated 99 letters to families last week informing them that their child would be unable to attend the school of their choice.

Parents, rightly, are mobilizing by starting groups and initiating petition drives. They are particularly infuriated since they are fresh off the heels of a rezoning battle last fall that was intended to lessen the overcrowding problem and decrease the likelihood of wait lists.

What is so alarming about the situation is that the demographic data are out there, they’re easy to find, and have been at the D.O.E.’s disposal for quite some time.

Since 2005 there has been a 46 percent increase in births in Lower Manhattan. In 2009, one thousand babies were born. Furthermore, 2010 saw another 25 percent increase in birth rates in Lower Manhattan from 2007. This statistic is a clear indication of the need for more kindergarten seats since it represents a four-year window. Data also suggest that even with the Peck Slip school incubator opening this fall, Downtown public schools can only take in 400 kindergarteners per year, which would prompt a shortage of 182 kindergarten seats and an overall shortage of 388 elementary seats come 2014.

The city D.O.E. should be using such statistics to guide its forecasting methods. The solution, when you look at the numbers, is quite simple: identify more school seats, build more schools, and build them fast.

Since 2009 Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has maintained a school overcrowding task force that has repeatedly warned the D.O.E. of the crisis and stressed the need for a new method when it comes to forecasting future enrollment numbers. There is a representative from the D.O.E. at each of the Speaker’s monthly task force meetings and yet it appears as if the data behind the crisis and the ideas to fix it are falling on deaf ears.

When NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott took the helm from Cathy Black last year, he appeared at one of the Speaker’s task force meetings. He acknowledged the expertise in the room and made a verbal commitment to utilize their data and knowledge concerning the crisis confronting the Lower Manhattan community. However parents in Downtown have yet to see that acknowledgement materialize in the form of adequate, additional classroom seats.

Lower Manhattan has witnessed an incredible boom in its residential population in the last decade: Over 30,000 new residents have decided to call the neighborhood home.

One thing is certain: Those families with children that moved to the neighborhood would not been less likely to do so if they knew the headaches they would confront assuring school seats for their children.

Schools cost money and we are beyond the point where the current D.O.E. capital plan can be amended. What must be done now is to plan ahead and start thinking about the 2014 capital plan.

Current data suggest that even when the Peck Slip school opens at its intended site, it will be at full capacity.

The D.O.E. must promise to take full advantage of the data that are more than accessible and to start investigating new sites for schools in the community. Such a promise might restore a little of the faith that is lost every year when families are told there’s no room for their child in their neighborhood school.

To The Editor: The Bloomberg administration shows its true disdain or disregard for the First Amendment by the hostile way it engages Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. (This seems to evince a pattern exhibited with the Republican National Convention demonstrators and the Critical Mass bike rides.)

The administration could find and offer any number of public parcels in proximity to Wall St. — in spots that would not significantly disrupt life or business — to the Occupiers for overnight use. Encampments, a historic form of American protest, send a different message than other types of protest, or place a distinct emphasis on a protest. The First Amendment is supposed to accommodate the full spectrum of political messages and peaceful protest accentuation.

The New York Police Department should show zero tolerance for continual drum banging or other noise invading people’s premises or for other illegal activity within an encampment. But if demonstrators conduct themselves quietly and lawfully, the city that never sleeps should conduct itself according to the spirit — and many would argue the letter — of the nation’s highest law of the First Amendment: by accommodating a demonstration which never sleeps.

To The Editor: Re “City spins idea for wind rotors atop buildings” (news article, Feb. 29, 2012): I oppose the positioning of these 55-foot wind turbines on top of buildings. These turbines can pose a danger to the community in the event of storms and hurricanes. These turbines pose a hazard to our rapidly declining birds. Large numbers of these passerines, hawks and other birds would be mutilated and killed by these turbines. Warblers, swallows, vireos, flycatchers and other birds eat vast numbers of mosquitoes. Hawks eat rats. These large turbines are very noisy and disturbing.

There are plans for the Spectra gas pipeline to cross the Gansevoort Peninsula and bring methane, also called natural gas, to the city. There is no indication that these turbines are going to cancel that project.

I believe solar is a better way to go. There are projects underway to produce solar panels without the use of rare metals. There are also companies working on small units of wind-generated energy that will not kill birds or put the community in danger of an inevitable, tragic accident.

Alan J. Gerson

Awaiting Weinberg’s book To The Editor: Re “Reflections of an old freak in the new East Village” (talking point, by Bill Weinberg, March 14, 2012): This was a great column expressing deep personal reflections, impressions and history of the East Village. Like Mr. Weinberg, I grew up in a rather provincial town on Long Island, graduating high school a year later than him in 1981, and was a weekend bridge-and-tunnel tourist. I never had the balls to actually live in the East Village, only moving to Manhattan in the early ’90s, and when I did, it was on the Upper East Side.

You had to have a certain mettle and ambitious spirit to move to the East Village, even in the early ’90s, which I did not possess at the time, and probably still don’t.

The talking point, though, was something I feel that a lot of people our age (late 40s) can probably identify with, and I applaud its accuracy and the personal feelings he expressed in it. The rest of Manhattan has now gone the way of the East Village — check out Harlem and Manhattan Valley, and now the same thing is happening in Washington Heights and Inwood. Even Downtown Brooklyn has become a luxury, bourgeois destination!

Anyway, time marches on, and there is nothing anybody can do to stop these neighborhood transitions and changes.

Perhaps Mr. Weinberg can expand his reflections and anecdotes into a full-length book.

(Remember? Those bound paper things!) If he did, I would be the first on line to buy it!

Ann Lazarus

The truth about wabbits To The Editor: Re “Hoppy ending as Soho rabbit rustlers return boutique bunny” (news article, March 28): After recognizing the thieves who stole the rabbit, named Miss Cooper, out of the Soho boutique window, a “good Samaritan” called a man who knew the rabbit-napers.

They retrieved the rabbit that very evening since they felt it was important to get her back to her owner A.S.A.P. On the way to bring Miss Cooper to the Sixth Precinct they passed a restaurant that was advertising its “rabbit special.” How ironic that so many factory-farmed rabbits end up as dinner while news outlets focused on the welfare of this one stolen rabbit.

Unfortunately, keeping Miss Cooper in the window might encourage people to buy a bunny. At Easter many baby rabbits, chicks and ducks are sold. These frail babies, taken away from their mothers for the sake of profit, require very specific care in order to survive. These animals do not belong in the city and few survive.

Please, if you must have a rabbit, adopt it, as well as any pet, from a shelter or rescue organization. (Most pet rabbits end up in shelters and are euthanized.) If you really love animals, spay and neuter your pets — including rabbits — volunteer at a shelter, and if you can, foster a rabbit, cat or dog on death row.

And make sure that the products you buy are not tested on animals; many rabbits are used for this purpose. The choices we make create a big difference in the lives of animals.

Lynn Pacifico

Glenn Krasner

downtown express

April 4 - 10, 2012

11

NOTEBOOK

Visions of J.R., Tastee Tacos and a Visionary Award

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON In actuality, having a film out is a job. A job that requires a lot of work, and there is the small glimmer of hope for some kind of payoff.

I am still out there pitching “Captured,” my biopic, and in doing this kind of work, one at times ends up in some unexpected situations. It is a little like being in a rock ’n’ roll band.

I just returned from one of those unexpected gig situations, which turned out to be an amazing adventure with a multilevel payoff. And my payoff was not in money, but in possibilities, respect, consideration, honesty, goodwill, learning, sharing, good food, good vibes, good treatment and a whole lot of fun and adventure. I was a guest of the first-ever Victoria TX Independent Film Festival.

It all started over a year ago when Dan Levin, co-director of “Captured,” was in Texas screening “Dirty Old Town” — featuring Billy Leroy, formerly of the Houston St. antiques and props tents — and he met Anthony Pedone. They talked about a festival, and Anthony, as executive director, pulled it off in Victoria, Texas.

“Over the four days at the screening, I was lucky enough to see a number of great films, as well as be able to hang out with a number of filmmakers, plus locals”

At the Victoria TX Independent Film Festival, back row, second from left, director Dan Levin, festival organizer Anthony Pedone and L.E.S. documentarian Clayton Patterson; front row, Rupin Frels, a seminal figure in Victoria’s early film history.

“Dirty Old Town,” by Jenner Furst, Dan Levin and Julia Naso, and “Captured,” by Dan Levin, Ben Solomon and Jenner Furst, both back by Blowback Productions, were invited to be screened at this year’s inaugural festival. Dan also represented the new Blowback feature documentary film “Hard Times: Lost on Long Island.”

After a three-hour flight we landed in Houston, and got driven to Victoria in a stretch Hummer limo by Rosie Moraida, who is an excellent host, as well as driver.

The next pleasant surprise was our lodgings. We stayed at the Spirit Inn, a little way out of town. It looked like one of the ranch houses in the TV show “Dallas.” I kept expecting J.R. Ewing to walk onto the porch as we sat in our white wicker chairs.

My favorite memory of the hotel was sleeping in a room that Bonnie and Clyde had slept in.

I was definitely pleased to meet Mark Bell, the new owner/publisher of Film Threat magazine. Chris Gore was the origi-

nal thinker and passionate film-buff owner who started to publish the magazine in 1985.

At first, Film Threat was like a fanzine and then slowly moved to a magazine. It’s one of the only resources for 1980s underground film history, including the mid-’80s Lower East Side Films of Transgression movement, which is the time I was involved with the magazine.

Over the four days at the screening, I was lucky enough to see a number of great films, as well as be able to hang out with a number of filmmakers, plus locals, ranging from Mayor Will Anderson to a retired bull rider.

Friday and Saturday nights before going back to the ranch there were after-parties with a band, D.J., plenty of drink and an art show.

At Dan’s suggestion, at the Tastee Taco stand I had an incredible sandwich, though I don’t even know what my order was called. It was like a pita sandwich, except the wrap was homemade from corn, then

Photo by Dusti Cunningham

smothered with a layer of steak, next corn, overlapped with cheese, some hot spice, then a generous pile of grilled, browned potatoes. It was delicious.

“Captured” was nominated for a few awards, but lost Best Documentary to “This Way of Life,” directed by Thomas Burstyn. I am not disappointed to have lost to such an excellent documentary. This is a real adventure movie about the life and, at times, death struggles of a family living the pioneer lifestyle and surviving on what little money the horse-wrangler father makes breaking horses in rural New Zeeland. Peter Karena, the father, and his son, Llewellyn, were in attendance. I was inspired to have met them.

Let’s not forget this was Texas. I was in die-hard Bible Belt Republican territory and I was coming from New York City and talking about the plus side of Occupy Wall Street. Of course, most of my politics center on local, community and neighborhood concerns. What do I really know about national and international politics? I have

trouble getting to the bottom of many local political conundrums.

Yet, we found much common ground to shake hands on, like being disturbed by the level of greed, which has taken over too many of our leaders’ consciousness. We agreed on bringing the manufacturing, the money, the jobs back to America. But we also had our differences.

Yes, most of the films at the festival won’t make it to the big market, but that’s the benefit of the digital world with the chance of finding them on Netflix or HBO, or maybe seeing them for free on SnagFilms.

It was a pleasure to watch the films on the big screen at the Leo J. Welder Center for Performing Arts, a beautiful, welldesigned theater.

In the end, “Dirty Old Town” won Best Soundtrack, though Nicholas De Cegli lost Best Actor, and “Captured,” Clayton Patterson, Dan Levin, Ben Solomon and Jenner Furst got the Visionary Award. All in all, we made some solid connections.

April 4 - 10, 2012

12

downtown express

Volunteering to be there until the very end NATIONAL VOLUNTEER MONTH SPOTLIGHT

BY HELAINA N. HOVITZ One could argue that, technically, everyone ultimately dies alone, but what is certain is that no one wants to.

To walk a slow, painful, and lonely march toward death is a cruel fate. Most people desire at the least a hand to hold, or eyes to look into when the inevitable happens.

Abby Spilka, 45, firmly believes that nobody deserves to die alone, and does everything in her power to make sure that elderly and sick downtown residents won’t have to.

By day, Spilka is the Associate Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City, but in her free time, she volunteers with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, visiting patients in their Lower Manhattan homes. Soilka is also a “Vigil Volunteer,” called specifically to sit with patients who have only hours to live.

The core responsibility of both jobs is, “to bear witness to a life lived,” according to Spilka. The task is a familiar one to her, as her day job is to help keep the memories of those tragically lost during the Holocaust alive. Before that, in 2001, she worked in an office six blocks from the World Trade Center and watched the events of 9/11 unfold from her office window.

To say the least, Spilka possesses a unique kind of firsthand knowledge of the ways in which war crimes have affected millions of people who died alone and in pain, many without being given a chance to say goodbye.

The first new project to break ground after 9/11, the Museum of Jewish Heritage is a celebration of life rather than death, “a living tribute to memory.” Several walls are papered with the faces of 3,000 children deported from France to various concentration camps. These photos, says Spilka, are all too reminiscent of those found on the “missing” posters that appeared after 9/11.

“Every generation says, ‘Never forget’ and ‘We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ but then…” said Spilka.

While putting together a special exhibition on World War II veterans, Spilka met a former marine named Pearl Scher, one of the first residents to take up assisted living in Battery Park’s Hallmark retirement home.

Scher was a diligent Downtown activist in her later years, serving on Community Board 1, lobbying on behalf of a children’s playground, fighting for a bus route to accommodate Hallmark seniors, co-founding the Downtown Synagogue and walking through the neighborhood to make sure people were registered to vote.

The two quickly bonded over their shared experiences of 9/11 and struck up a friendship. When Spilka found out that Scher had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March of 2006, she started visiting her at home twice a week.

“For someone who was suffering, she looked great,” Spilka recalled. “When I told

Downtown Express photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

her so, she said it was because she was in hospice care.”

That’s when Spilka decided to train to become a volunteer with V.N.S.N.Y. A hospice volunteer provides many different kinds of support: reading, socialization, respite or support for a caregiver or a family member, helping the patient write goodbye letters, taking trips to the grocery store, assisting with the organization of household materials, even something as simple as fluffing a pillow. More skilled support can include programs like Bedside Yoga, Arts at the Bedside, and Life Review.

As Spilka sat with Scher the night before she died in September of 2006, it was hardest, she said, to see the once feisty woman so vulnerable and helpless.

There are certain signs that a person is near death—according to Spilka. They tend to get restless and claim to “see angels that we can’t.” That’s where Vigil Volunteers come in. When it becomes apparent that a person has less than 48 hours to live, doctors call V.N.S.N.Y., who send out a message to their volunteers.

“Since the patient is imminently dying, the goal is to let them know they are not alone and they are safe,” Spilka said of her duties. “At this point in their lives, they are touched clinically, but not necessarily in a warm and caring way. Human connection is very important at the end of life.”

Spilka often reads meditations and poems to her patients, but sometimes she just holds their hand and tells them that they are safe.

The trained volunteers learn that sounds like humming and singing can be quite soothing, and that it’s important to eat first to ensure that a rumbling stomach isn’t the only sound in the room.

“Watching a patient take their last breath is like watching a butterfly fall asleep, its wings fluttering progressively more slowly until they become motionless,” said Spilka.

“I’m like a spiritual guide who wishes them a safe journey.”

When her own mother became sick and her family decided against hospice care, Spilka promptly dropped out of college to be by her side. Now, Spilka trains new volunteers on how to actively listen, perform “compassionate touch” techniques, and connect with their patients.

V.N.S.N.Y. refers a dedicated core group of staff and volunteers to people with limited life expectancy. Among the team’s many members are a spiritual counselor who “helps you feel ready to go,” a nurse and physician who provide pain management through medication and treatment, a volunteer to keep the patient company, and a bereavement counselor to help the patient’s loved ones cope after the patient passes away. Providing care to 800 patients every day in nursing homes, hospitals, assisted living facilities, and, most commonly, those still living at home, V.N.S.N.Y.’s hospice model was designed to help manage the physical and emotional needs of those reaching the end of their lives. It’s a proven model, yet only 13 percent of New Yorkers use it, even

though hospice care is covered by most Medicaid and Medicare plans, as well as private plans.

No matter what, though, the organization never turns a person away.

“If the patient doesn’t have insurance or is unable to pay, we’ll provide charity care, which we budget for those who need it,” said Jeanne Dennis, Vice President of V.N.S.N.Y. “I wish I were called more often, that more doctors knew to use this service.

People don’t get put on it soon enough to benefit from the resources,” said Spilka.

Outside of the museum is an installation called the “Garden of Stones,” featuring 18 hollowed-out boulders that each house a growing oak sapling. The living memorial garden is a metaphor for the ways in which the tenacity of the human spirit is able to thrive in the most inhospitable of places.

In Judaism, Spilka explains, the number 18 has spiritual significance, loosely meaning, “to life.”

There is, arguably, another number that has been of spiritual significance to countless New Yorkers: 300, the number of volunteers who take time out of their own busy schedules to visit with someone who is sick, suffering, and nearing the end of their life.

By offering patients one last hand to hold and diligently working to keep their memory alive, volunteers like Abby Spilka bear witness to the fact that inner strength can, indeed, prevail through the very worst of circumstances.

downtown express

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April 4 - 10, 2012

Hudson Sq. heights too high, residents say on zoning

BY ALBERT AMATEAU Residents of Hudson Square’s low-rise blocks voiced their concerns on Tuesday on a proposed 20-block district that would encourage a mixed commercial/residential district active 24 hours, seven days a week.

The proposed new development rules for the current Lower West Side manufacturing district between Canal and Houston Sts., would impose height limits where none now exist, impose rules for new and converted residential uses and allow a new high-rise residential building in Duarte Square at Canal St. at Sixth Ave. with a 420-seat public elementary school on its lower floors.

Although the rezoning, proposed last year by Trinity Real Estate — which owns 40 percent of the property in the district — would impose height limits, residents of Charlton and Vandam Sts. said at the Tues., March 27, forum that the limits were too high.

Height limits for new development would be 320 feet on the wide streets of Varick and Hudson Sts. and Sixth Ave.; 125 feet on Broome and Watts Sts.; and 185 feet on Dominick, Spring, Vandam, Charlton and King Sts. The proposed height limits are intended to achieve the goal of transforming the district, currently dominated by warehouses and commercial lofts, to 75 percent residential.

But Sylvia Beam of the Vandam St. Block Association and Dick Blodgett of the Charlton St. Block Association, said the proposed 320-foot and 185-foot limits were not low enough to ensure the quality of life in the low-rise blocks.

Tobi Bergman, a Community Board 2 member who lives in the proposed Hudson Square zoning district, agreed.

“So far, there has been no explanation for a 320-foot height limit,” Bergman said.

“You don’t need 300-foot-tall buildings to achieve a 9 or 10 F.A.R. [Floor Area Ratio],” he added. F.A.R. refers to the ratio of allowable developable square feet in relation to the property’s footprint. The board will be focusing on the lack of open space as well as height limits.

The Department of City Planning has yet to officially certify plans for the proposed district, starting the six-to-nine-month-long uniform land use review procedure (ULURP).

Increased traffic resulting from new residential development was another major concern at the Tuesday forum. More traffic to the area where the entrance to the Holland Tunnel already brings bumper-tobumper auto traffic on Varick St. would overwhelm the district, residents said.

“I can’t imagine building a school at Duarte Square triangle with all that traffic,” said one resident.

However, Carl Weisbrod, real estate consultant for Trinity, said the school entrance and exit would be on the Grand St. side of the triangle to separate it from the heavy traffic of Sixth Ave.

Weisbrod said that Trinity would bear the cost of building out the shell and core of the school and turn it over to the School Construction Authority and the Department of Education to install classroom, program and office furnishings and run it as a public school.

“We want to make sure there will be a school for the new families in the district, and we hope it will relieve the school overcrowding in adjacent areas,” Weisbrod said.

Responding to one resident who complained that Trinity has not leased space to shops and services that the neighborhood needs, Weisbrod said the area has not had enough residents to attract retailers.

“There’s going to be development anyway. We’re trying to create a balance,” he

Some neighbors said they would miss the relatively quiet atmosphere. added.

Another resident praised Trinity for its role in bringing the Children’s Museum to Charlton St. “We have families with children walking on the block now,” he said.

Nevertheless, a few residents said they would miss the relatively quiet atmosphere of the past.

Indeed, the quiet atmosphere has been changing in the past few years, especially with the completion in 2010 of the 450-foottall Trump Soho condo hotel at Varick and Spring Sts., which preservation and neighborhood activists opposed in vain.

The rezoning is intended to prevent more extra-large hotels like Trump Soho in the district. In addition to height limits, the proposed district would allow new hotels with more than 100 rooms only by special permit.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, a co-sponsor of the Tuesday meeting, was concerned that a new mixeduse, 24/7 Hudson Square district would focus development pressure on part of the proposed South Village Historic District on the east side of Sixth Ave. across from Hudson Square.

“Would Trinity join us in supporting landmark designation for the South Village?” he asked. Weisbrod replied that he would raise the issue with Trinity Real Estate.

In addition to G.V.S.H.P., sponsors of the Tuesday forum included the Vandam St. and Charlton St. block associations, Soho Alliance, Greenwich Village Community Task Force and Greenwich Village Block Associations.

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April 4 - 10, 2012

downtown express

Anti-N.Y.U. plan coalition demands hearing by Stringer

BY ALBERT AMATEAU More than 150 opponents of New York University’s plan to redevelop the two superblocks south of Washington Square occupied the steps of City Hall last week to demand that Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer vote no on the project.

The March 22 rally, organized by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, included preservationists, N.Y.U. faculty and students, union organizers and residents of the Village, Soho and Chelsea.

The proposal to add 2.5 million square feet of development in the coming 20 years to the superblocks between LaGuardia Place and Mercer St. from Houston to W. Third Sts. is in the midst of the city’s uniform land use review procedure (ULURP).

The six-to-nine-month review, which involves hearings by Community Board 2, the Department of City Planning and a final decision by the City Council, must also include a recommendation by the Manhattan borough president.

Demonstrators shouted their demands directly to Stringer as he passed through the City Hall plaza on his way to his office in the Municipal Building at the end of the rally last week.

“We have to be able to expand universities without overwhelming communities,” Stringer replied.

The borough president will make his recommendation to City Planning on April 12. City Planning has 60 days from then to act, and the Council has another 50 days, with a possible 15-day extension, for a final vote.

While the borough president is not required to hold a public hearing, Andrew Berman, G.V.S.H.P. executive director, told the rally last week that Stringer could choose to hold one.

Berman told the rally that he delivered more than 2,500 petition signatures urging Stringer to reject the plan that would add the equivalent of the Empire State Building’s square footage to the two superblocks.

“This expansion would be a disaster for the university, Greenwich Village and for the city,” Berman said.

Patrick Deer, an N.Y.U. tenured professor of English agreed.

“The Sexton plan would endanger the Village and the university,” Deer said, referring to N.Y.U. President John Sexton. “It could easily bankrupt N.Y.U. and keep potential faculty away. No one will want to live on a construction site for 20 years,” he added.

Deer went on to say that a faculty poll on whether to back a compromise plan for the superblocks was “a unanimous and uncompromising ‘No’.”

Peter Rea, associate professor at the N.Y.U. Tisch School and a resident of Silver Towers on the south superblock, was also concerned about living in a construction zone for 20 years. Rea charged that the expansion would “turn the Village into Midtown Manhattan.”

Photo by Albert Amateau

Anne Hearn, Washington Square Village Tenants Association co-president, said the N.Y.U. plan’s impact on young children growing up on the superblocks would be unthinkable.

Democratic District Leader Jenifer Rajkumar told the rally that Stringer had to

“The Sexton plan would endanger the Village and the university,” Deer said, referring to N.Y.U. President John Sexton.

“It could easily bankrupt N.Y.U. and keep potential faculty away. No one will want to live on a construction site for 20 years,” he added.”

“decide whether to give in to greed or stand up with us and do what is right, not what is easy.” She charged the university wants to “strip away years of zoning that protected Greenwich Village from exactly the kind

of development that N.Y.U. is proposing now.”

Scott Sommer, a United Auto Workers union official seeking N.Y.U. recognition for unionized graduate student instructors, questioned the funding for the expansion.

“We are concerned that it will be built on the economic backs of N.Y.U. faculty, students and workers,” he said.

Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, said that plans to change zoning and cancel deed restrictions that were imposed when the superblocks were created during the Robert Moses era would lift longstanding neighborhood protections and open-space requirements.

The preservationist noted that the three high-rise I.M. Pei-designed buildings on the south superblock are designated city landmarks.

Although this landmarked complex is just outside the proposed development site, high-rise construction on the superblocks would decrease the landmarks’ architectural impact and make them “just another bunch of tall buildings,” Bankoff said.

Anne Hearn, co-president of the Washington Square Village Tenants Association on the north superblock, said that if the plan were approved, “a baby born now would spend the first 20 years of his life in a construction zone.” The uni-

versity has other expansion options — in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn — Hearn said. “We have none,” she said.

Also giving remarks were Corey Johnson, chairperson of Community Board 4, who spoke as a member of the Council of Chelsea Block Associations, and Lesley Doyel, co-president of Save Chelsea. They said that removing zoning protections in the Village superblocks would set a precedent that would threaten Chelsea to the north.

Dave Keerl, speaking for the Soho Alliance, Edith Charlton, a member of the Union Square Community Coalition, and Georgette Fleischer, a founder of the Friends of Petrosino Square in Little Italy, also said the N.Y.U. redevelopment would have a negative impact on their neighborhoods.

A Stringer spokesperson two weeks ago told this newspaper that Stringer did not intend to hold a hearing on the N.Y.U. plan. She noted that C.B. 2 recently held 16 public hearings on the plan, plus the Borough President’s Task Force on N.Y.U. Development previously held more than 50 meetings on it, so the mega-project has received a thorough public review and comment.

The spokesperson said that Stringer, instead, was “meeting with community members — stakeholders and community leaders — on an individual basis.”

downtown express

April 4 - 10, 2012

15

Downtown Express photos by Milo Hess

Occupy says ‘We’re here to stay.’

On Thursday, activists from the Occupy Wall Street movement took over Foley Square to send a message that they have no plans of leaving Lower Manhattan. On Sunday, April Fools Day, hundreds of protesters marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to mark the six month anniversary of the day when the movement found itself in the national media spotlight thanks to a clash with the NYPD that resulted in 700 arrests. However, Sunday’s saw no one arrested and was relatively peaceful.

16

April 4 - 10, 2012

downtown express

Monuments to the Titanic abound in Downtown Continued from page 1 they were lowered into the ocean.

They also talked of horrors beyond the sinking of the ship itself. “One told of hearing as many as twenty shots fired amid all the groans and cries that rose as the Titanic went down,” the article said. He thought the shots were suicide shots. “One told of a frantic swim for the raft that was soon so crowded that they had to beat men off. One who climbed aboard had on a soldier’s uniform.

He lay down on the raft and died and they pushed him off to make room for the living.”

Among those who survived the sinking was J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, who secured a place for himself in a lifeboat and was socially ostracized for the rest of his life because of that. Only one-third of the men traveling in first class were saved. They elected to give their places to the women and children. Col. John Jacob Astor, one of the richest men in the United States if not the world, was among those who drowned. He is buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church on Broadway at Wall Street.

Others who drowned included two Catholic priests. They boarded the Titanic in Queenstown, Ireland, and spent most of their time in steerage, ministering to the Irish immigrants on the ship.

The Times reported, “George M. McGough, an able seaman on the Titanic who manned one of the lifeboats, told yesterday [April 19, 1912] at the Catholic Seamen’s Mission at 422 West St.” that the two priests “spent their last two hours consoling the people of the steerage and finally went down with the ship.”

Some of the people in steerage survived.

The women were taken to the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary at 7 State St. in Lower Manhattan. Among the Irish immigrants was a young woman named Ellen Shine. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is her granddaughter. Today, the mission is known as the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary and shares space with the St. Elizabeth Seton Shrine, which will soon house an exhibit about the mission and its work.

Stories about the Titanic are a mixture of horror and heroism. The heroes would have to include Harold Bride and Jack Phillips — the Marconi (wireless) operators aboard the ship. Wireless radio was relatively new at that time, and of course, the Titanic was equipped with the newest technology. When the Titanic’s captain, Edward J. Smith, realized that the ship was sinking, he told Bride and Philips to send messages to neighboring ships to ask for help. Between 12:15 a.m. and 2:17 a.m., the increasingly desperate messages went out and then abruptly ceased.

Bride was saved. Phillips perished.

A memorial in Battery Park to maritime wireless operators who died in the line of duty is inscribed “Jack Phillips, S.S. Titanic, April 15, 1912, Atlantic Ocean.” Because of extensive construction in the park, the memorial is currently in storage, but it will return to the park.

The first reports of the sinking of the Titanic said that all aboard were saved. Soon it became clear that this wasn’t true. Aching for

Downtown Express photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

At the corner of Fulton and Water Streets, is a lighthouse that once stood on top of the Seamen’s Church Institute on South Street. It was erected by public subscription in 1913 as a memorial to those who died on the Titanic.

news, thousands of people swarmed around the White Star office at 9 Broadway, across from Bowling Green park. The news came in by wireless radio. One of the receiving sites was on top of the tall John Wanamaker department store at Eighth Street and Broadway, where American Marconi had a station. A young man named David Sarnoff was the manager. As he later told the story, “It happened that I was on duty at the Wanamaker station in New York and got the first message from the Olympic, 1,400 miles out at sea, that the Titanic had gone down.” He said that he stayed at his station for 72 hours as the news emerged. “I passed the information on to a sorrowing world.” Sarnoff, himself an immigrant from Belarus, was promoted after the Titanic disaster — a stepping stone in a career that culminated in the presidency of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

At the corner of Fulton and Water Streets in the South Street Seaport, is a lighthouse that once stood on top of the Seamen’s Church Institute at the corner of South Street and Coentie’s Slip. It was erected by public subscription in 1913 as a memorial to those who had died on the Titanic. From 1913 to 1967, a ball at the top of the lighthouse dropped down a pole every day at noon to signal the time to the ships in the harbor.

The time ball was activated by a telegraphic signal from the National Observatory in Washington, D.C. In July 1968, the Seamen’s Church Institute moved to 15 State St. and the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse was donated

The White Star Line, owner of the Titanic, had an office at 9 Broadway, where a Subway and a Radio Shack are now. On Aug. 15, 1912, when news emerged that the ship had sunk, thousands of people waited outside the White Star office to learn who had survived and who had drowned.

to the South Street Seaport Museum. It was erected on its present site in May 1976.

On April 10 — 100 years to the day from the Titanic’s departure from Southampton, England, on her maiden and only voyage, the South Street Seaport Museum is opening an exhibit that will be in its Melville gallery

on Water Street through May 15. It will feature rarely seen historic documents from the Titanic and her passengers and will also show how the sinking has been interpreted and remembered in popular culture.

No matter how many times the Titanic story is told, it doesn’t lose its haunting power.

downtown express

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER

B.P.C.A. HOLDS SECOND TOWN HALL MEETING: On March 29, Gayle Horwitz, president of the Battery Park City Authority, conducted a second quarterly town meeting so that B.P.C. residents could ask questions and air complaints. Many people commented on the hazards of speeding bicycles.

“After repeated complaints about bicyclists speeding on the esplanade, the Battery Park City Authority has engaged an engineer to investigate the possibility of installing speed bumps or another mechanism to slow things down,” Horwitz said.

She also said that the Authority has created an email address, streets@batteryparkcity.org to which residents could write “in response to the increasing number of tour buses and street safety issues that came up at the last meeting.” She said that this address could be used to send emails to the B.P.C.A. about any quality-of-life issues.

Battery Park City’s Parks Enforcement Patrol has been ticketing tour buses, Horwitz said, to keep them from idling or parking illegally on Battery Park City streets. And to help with the canine waste issue that has bothered many residents, P.E.P. launched an

education and awareness campaign that will be followed up with enforcement. In addition, building managers have been apprised that they are responsible for power washing the sidewalks around their buildings.

Several parents spoke about their frustration and disappointment in having their children waitlisted for kindergarten in the neighborhood. Horwitz was sympathetic, but said the Authority doesn’t have any decision-making power over that issue.

“I’m happy to advocate as best I can,” she said. She urged the parents to send her letters that she could forward to the proper agencies and to get in touch with New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s office, where staff members have been “very involved” in school overcrowding issues.

In answer to a number of questions, Horwitz explained why the Battery Park City Community Center is still unfinished.

“For anyone who has had a kitchen or a bathroom done, there always seems to be something else,” she said. “In our case it had to do with the City of New York and the permits we needed for our boiler inspection which then allowed us to contact Con Ed to get a gas meter. The reason a boiler and a gas meter are important is so that you can have heat in the building. We

Downtown Express photos by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Elena Parkhomenko, whose child has been waitlisted for kindergarten, voiced her concerns at the Battery Park City Authority’s second Town Hall meeting, which was held on March 29. B.P.C.A. president Gayle Horwitz said that the Authority can be a “bully pulpit” but doesn’t have any decision-making power to resolve the schoolovercrowding problem.

have continued construction throughout the winter without heat.”

She said that the Community Center is “unique” because it is a green building and also a building within a building. “Every time the Department of Buildings would look at our boiler application, they would look at the boiler for the base building – high rises 23 and 24 — and they kept mixing up whose boiler they were looking at. Four different departments of the Department of Buildings have to sign off and so this all had to be explained over and over and over again. We just recently had our boiler inspection and the boiler was approved, which then means that you have to battle Con Ed to get your actual gas meter.”

Horwitz said that the Authority has been working on everything in the Community Center that didn’t require heat. “But,” she continued, “in order to lay the gym floor down, the wood has to acclimate in a conditioned environment. The temperatures have to be the appropriate temperature so that the wood can expand appropriately and you don’t have buckling. You get one shot to get it right and we want to be sure that we get it right the first time.”

“Can you personally commit that Asphalt Green will be open for summer camp in June?” a parent asked. Horwitz replied, “I think it would be very irresponsible for me to make a promise about summer camp. I would hate for somebody to promise me something and something doesn’t happen. I anticipate it will be open for summer camp, but I can’t promise that.”

DOWNTOWN SENIORS’ CHORUS:

Grape hyacinth blooming on Rector Place.

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April 4 - 10, 2012

The Church Street School for Music and Art has a grant from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council Member Margaret Chin to start a second Downtown Seniors’ Chorus in Battery Park City and is inviting seniors to sign up.

Church Street already runs a chorus at the

Hallmark residence for seniors on North End Avenue and a chorus at Southbridge Towers in the Seaport.

Rehearsals and performances for the newly formed chorus would take place at the Community Center on North End Avenue. “We were hoping to start the first week in May,” said Betsy Kerlin, director of programming and development for Church Street. But since the Community Center is unfinished, that date is uncertain.

Kerlin said that the music to be rehearsed and performed would depend on the interests of the participants. The seniors in the other choruses “have a lot of fun,” she said. “The music they sing reminds them of times in the past, and it builds community.”

No singing experience is required to participate. For more information, call the Church Street School at (212) 571-7290 or email info@churchstreetschool.org.

BATTERY PARK CITY IN BLOOM: “There’s so much to look at in the gardens right now,” said Eileen Calvanese, horticultural foreperson for the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy. “The crazy weather has got everything going at once!”

Among the eye-catching blooms are carpets of diminutive, blue-violet grape hyacinths, whose botanical name is “Muscari,” referring to their musk-like odor. A lovely spread of them is growing on Rector Place near the esplanade.

This particular species is “Muscari armeniacum.” It originated in the eastern Mediterranean, growing wild in Greece and Turkey and in the Caucasus. It was first introduced to European gardens in 1871.

There are around 40 species of Muscari.

Examples of species other than “Muscari armeniacum” are growing on the esplanade.

To comment on Battery Park City Beat or to suggest article ideas, email TereseLoeb@ mac.com

April 4 - 10, 2012

18

downtown express

Wait lists persist, parents angered Continued from page 1 in support of the message, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Uprooting children out of their community is detrimental to their development and is clearly not the answer! We want real change for the future of our children! We demand a real solution!â&#x20AC;?

In the petition, the parents also voice their opposition to Mayor Michael Bloombergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plan to sell the city-owned buildings, 49-51 Chambers St., 22 Reade St., and 346 Broadway, and are requesting that the city Department of Educationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School Construction Authority consider them as possible sites for a new public school.

In a statement issued last week, Council Member Margaret Chin urged the S.C.A. to set its sights specifically on 22 Reade St., which houses the offices of the Department of City Planning.

Chin called the overcrowding situation â&#x20AC;&#x153;unacceptableâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;heart-wrenching.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Overcrowding in our elementary schools has reached a critical level,â&#x20AC;? said Chin. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The D.O.E. is aware of the hardships faced by Downtown families, yet they refuse to address this problem in a proactive manner.â&#x20AC;?

The D.O.E. didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t respond to requests for comment.

The Department had warned late last year that the rezoning plan would lead to waitlists. But NYU professor Eric Greenleaf, who has extensively researched Downtown overcrowding, insists that the two have nothing to do with each other. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Every single school either has a waitlist or has no room. We know that,â&#x20AC;? said Greenleaf. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So that means collectively, no matter how you do the zones, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot more kids than seats.â&#x20AC;?

The cost of the D.O.E.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s refusal to plan ahead is huge, according to Greenleaf. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s distressing here is that families living Downtown

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P.S. 234 in Tribeca is one of the numerous Downtown public schools with wait lists.

and wanting to send their kids to school here, are likely to move, and people who are thinking of moving Downtown because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great community, are now not going to move here.â&#x20AC;?

P.S. 89, which has waitlisted 26 children, has never seen this amount of overcrowding before, according to Parent Coordinator Connie Schraft. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hoping thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be movement on the waitlist, but we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what will happen,â&#x20AC;? said Schraft.

Schraft plans to begin accepting waitlisted children as soon as the other families start to decline their seat offers between now and Fri., April 20, marking the registration deadline for next yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kindergarten classes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll do it as quickly as we can,â&#x20AC;? said Schraft.

In the meantime, local parents such as Stephanie Dauge are scrambling for other options in the event that their children arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t offered a seat at their zoned schools.

But the prospects of sending their children to private schools or to public schools in Chinatown or the West Village, arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t all that appealing, according to the parents. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re worried,â&#x20AC;? said Dauge, whose son is number 13 on the waitlist. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even think about private schools, since we have a public school one block away from our home.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Busing isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t appropriate for a five-year-old,â&#x20AC;? said Elena Parkhomenko, whose daughter, Victoria, has also been waitlisted at P.S. 89. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we wanted her to go to a private school, we would live elsewhere.â&#x20AC;?

P.S. 276, which also didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a waitlist last year, now has 27 surplus kids itching for seats.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had parents yelling at me and some parents crying with me,â&#x20AC;? said the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parent coordinator, Erica Weldon. P.S. 276, which was built to accommodate only three classes per grade, housed five kindergarten classes this year to avoid a waitlist. Next year, however, the school only has room for four kindergarten classes, since it will be expanding to include fourth and eighth grades. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The city hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t made plans for this â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really set up enough infrastructure,â&#x20AC;? said Weldon. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The only grade weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re missing next year is fifth grade. Then, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be even fuller.â&#x20AC;?

The additional classes per grade might force P.S. 276 to do away with its pre-kindergarten program. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll really be a shame,â&#x20AC;? said Weldon, â&#x20AC;&#x153;because thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a lot of public pre-K programs Downtown anymore.â&#x20AC;?

Marcia Smithwick, whose daughter, Kaya, is number 12 on the waitlist, now cringes at the sight of P.S. 276 from her apartment, since she might no longer be able to send her daughter to school there. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s devastating. My daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already in the school, and I have to reapply to get into kindergarten,â&#x20AC;? said Smithwick. â&#x20AC;&#x153;At this point, I have no school for her.â&#x20AC;?

Responding to the situation, NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who heads the Lower Manhattan School Overcrowding Task Force, said the waitlists are indicative of the need for more school seats.

Silver added, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our excellent schools are a primary reason that so many families choose to live in Lower Manhattan, and it is essential that children attend schools in their neighborhood.â&#x20AC;?

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downtown express

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April 4 - 10, 2012

W.T.C. security plan criticized Continued from page 9 York New Visions did not have enough information at this point to make specific recommendations as to what should be done. “We need all the facts and we need

“If we wait for publication of the final draft Environmental Impact Statement, we have no idea what they will consider. They could ignore everything we’ve said.”

— Michael Levine

to be treated as insiders,” he said. “We have been, for 10 years. Lately it’s been more and more difficult to access information and data, so one naturally draws

the conclusion that the game is being played by the strictest and most extreme rules. That might be O.K. or it might not be. I don’t think we have the answer.

All we’re saying is that with something as serious as this, we ask for a citizens’ design board to participate and be trusted and be allowed to at least express ourselves and hopefully find solutions that might lead to a ‘reasonable’ amount of risk in a high security area.”

Community Board 1 has a similar agenda. “We’ve asked for the creation of a citizens’ advisory committee so that we can work with [the N.Y.P.D.] as the study is being done to make sure that they consider the things that concern us,” said Michael Levine, director of planning and land use for Community Board 1. “If we wait for publication of the final draft Environmental Impact Statement, we have no idea what they will consider. They could ignore everything we’ve said.”

C.B. 1 chairman Julie Menin concurred. “Technically, we don’t have a right to block the plan but I think we’ve been able to show at Community Board 1 for many years that when we have an idea, and we make a lot of noise, we can get things done,” she said. “This is our time. Now is our time to try to change the plan.”

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downtown express

Port Authority has C.B. 1 committee pledges new security branch to find more housing Continued from page 5 and we’re going to have our own office there, so we’re going to have thousands of Port Authority people at the site,” said Foye.

Maintaining the W.T.C. as the safest office, transportation and retail complex in the world, Foye added, is “a priority of the organization… that we’re well on the way to attaining.”

Foye also spoke to the additional financial controls the Port Authority has adopted since he took the helm last fall, including a zero-tolerance policy on scope changes to W.T.C. construction involving third parties.

Foye forcefully denied allegations that the agency is behind on payments to W.T.C. construction contractors and subcontractors. During last week’s meeting, the Board of Commissioners authorized $15 million covering their invoices through February.

“I didn’t hear any contractors at today’s public meeting complain about not being paid,” said Foye.

Addressing reporters’ questions about the standoff between the Port Authority and the National Sept. 11 Memorial Foundation, Foye reiterated that recent discussions

with the Mayor’s office and the Foundation have been “fruitful,” and that the Board of Commissioners discussed the matter during its closed-door executive session at last week’s meeting. In the meantime, construc-

“We share the concerns of Downtown, because we’re going to be a large landowner and we’re going to have our own office there.”

— Patrick Foye

tion of the National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum continues at a reduced rate, according to Port Authority Spokesperson Steve Coleman.

“We’ll come back to you with a specific announcement at the right time,” Foye told the reporters.

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Continued from page 6 problem of aging in place, but how does that affect all of you?”

Goloby suggested such strategies as asking seniors via survey if they’re well enough to stay in their homes to begin with and what they think of the program.

A vision alone doesn’t suffice, agreed Victoria Mbithi, a banker who lives in Battery Park City.

“It’s good that it has a social aspect but, financially, your numbers have to make sense in order to get the check [from sponsors],” said Mbithi.

One of the things the committee has already figured out is that “Manhattan Seniors” will be a nonprofit venture, according to C.B. 1 public member and nonprofit founder Amy Sewell, who has already put together a draft of the business plan.

“It’s the only logical way when you’re working with populations in need, otherwise, you’d have a conflict of interest with service providers,” said Sewell.

All seniors that live in the C.B. 1 district would be eligible for the services, according to Sewell.

“Ideally, we’d like to have as many neighborhood seniors registered as possible,” said Sewell. “The more people we get involved, maybe the better pricing we can get for some of the service providers and the more group discounts we can get.”

“It’s the only logical way when you’re working with populations in need, otherwise, you’d have a conflict of interest with service providers.”

— Amy Sewell

The staff of the nonprofit, Sewell said, would act as a clearinghouse to provide such services as medical care, dog walking, and house cleaning.

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April 4 - 10, 2012

S.T.A.C. recommendation on 9/11 –related cancer Continued from page 2 on which 9/11 survivors are eligible for financial paybacks through the Zadroga Act’s Victim Compensation Fund, the politicians noted.

“This is solid progress for all those sick and struggling with care,” said the Congress Members of the S.T.A.C.’s recommendation.

The S.T.A.C. chose the 30 or so cancers based on approximately 70 known and potential carcinogens found in the dust, smoke and other contaminants identified at the World Trade Center. While the committee continues to acknowledge evidential gaps for tracing any particular cancer to Ground Zero exposure, members relied on the available data to draw conclusions, she said.

“All of these decisions were tough,” said S.T.A.C. Chair Elizabeth Ward. “But I think in general, people felt there was substantial enough evidence to list those cancers.”

While providing treatment to the eligible cancer patients could take several months, it might be years until other forms of cancer seen in 9/11 first responders are added to the Zadroga Act. During a teleconference last week, the committee voted against adding brain, pancreatic and prostate cancer to the 9/11 health bill.

The scientific ambiguities in identifying a link between cancer and Ground Zero toxins are precisely why W.T.C. survivors’ representative Kimberly Flynn and a few other S.T.A.C. members were inclined to recommend that all cancers be added to the 9/11 Health Bill.

“We will never have the kind of narrative that we would need to come to some kind of detailed judgment about all the substances to which people were exposed,” said Flynn.

“I’m wondering if a truer path wouldn’t be to presume all cancers are linked, unless there’s definitive evidence demonstrating that a given cancer should not be linked.”

But several committee members including William Rom, director of environmental medicine at New York University’s School of Medicine, said that recommending all cancers would be overreaching.

Only five percent of all cancers is associated with occupational and environmental exposures, Rom noted.

“We need to try to make this scientifically rational,” said Rom. “If we think all cancer is caused [by Ground Zero exposure], then every other disease should be causal.”

The committee ultimately decided to include breast cancer, citing evidence of polychlorinated biphenyl (P.C.B.) exposures to W.T.C. responders and survivors based on air and window film samples.

Other cancers that they felt weren’t suf-

ficiently backed – or backed at all – by scientific rationale, were left out of the committee’s recommendation.

“Nobody presented data for the brain,” said committee member Julia Quint, a retired toxicologist from the California Department of Public Health.

“Just because we don’t have the data, doesn’t mean [there isn’t a link],” I think we were as liberal as the science would let us be.”

— Julia Quint

The choice, Quint said, was nevertheless a difficult one.

“Just because we don’t have the data, doesn’t mean [there isn’t a link],” she said. “I think we were as liberal as the science would let us be.”

The committee’s decision about brain

cancer offered little solace to Jacques Capsouto, the brother of former Community Board 1 member Albert Capsouto, who in early 2010 died just nine weeks after being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Together, the brothers ran Capsouto Freres, a restaurant in North Tribeca, which became a haven for youths and other 9/11 survivors in the months following the Sept.

11 attacks.

“He used to spend all his time going by bicycle to Ground Zero,” said Capsouto, tearing up. “He deteriorated so fast, we didn’t even have time to communicate.”

Stuyvesant High School graduate Lila Nordstrom, who leads Stuy Health, the school’s 9/11 advocacy group, knows at least six former classmates who have come down with cancer, including cases of lymphoma, leukemia and thyroid cancer.

“Environmental studies showed that levels of particulate matter outside Stuyvesant were often higher than they were at Ground Zero,” said Nordstrom, noting that the garbage barge used to hold the debris neighbored the Tribeca school.

Many of the Stuyvesant alumni, including Nordstrom herself, have been denied medical care due to 9/11 pre-existing conditions, or are uninsured altogether, she said.

“It’s really important that we have somewhere to go where we can get treated for these conditions,” said Nordstrom.

April 4 - 10, 2012

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COMPILED BY SCOTT STIFFLER

FAMILY FRIDAY PIZZA & MOVIE NIGHT Trinity Wall Street continues its series of free family movie and pizza nights at Charlotte’s Place (a gathering space operated by Trinity), with “Finding Nemo.” As most kids can already tell you, it’s about a clownfish who gets taken from his home by a scuba diver. His father sets out to find him, making new friends and exploring the great blue ocean along the way. Free. Fri., April 20, 6-7:30pm.

At Charlotte’s Place —109 Greenwich St., rear of 74 Trinity Place, btw. Rector & Carlisle Sts. For info, call 212-602-0800 or visit trinitywallstreet.org.

THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE MUSEUM The Junior Officers Discovery Zone is designed for ages 3-10. It’s divided into four areas (Police Academy, Park and Precinct, Emergency Services Unit and a Multi-Purpose Area), each with interactive play experiences designed to help children understand the role of police officers in our community.

For older children, there’s a crime scene observation activity that challenges them to remember relevant parts of city street scenes, a physical challenge similar to those at the Police Academy and a model Emergency Services Unit vehicle in which they can hear radio calls with police codes and see some of the actual equipment carried by the vehicle. At 100 Old Slip (btw. Front and South Sts.). For info, call 212480-3100 or visit nycpm.org. Hours: Mon.-Sat., 10am-5pm and Sun., 12-5pm. Admission: $8 ($5 for students, seniors and children; free for children under 2).

THE NEW YORK CITY FIRE MUSEUM Kids will learn about fire prevention and safety through group tours, led by former NYC firefighters. The program, which lasts approximately 75 minutes, includes a guided tour of the museum’s first floor, classroom training and a simulated event in a mock apartment (where a firefighter shows how fires can start in different rooms in the home). Tours, for groups of 20 or more, are offered Tues.-Fri. at 10:30am, 11:30am and 12:30pm. Tickets are $3 for children and $5 per adult (for every 10 kids, admission is free for one adult). The museum offers a $700 Junior Firefighter Birthday Party package, for 16 children, ages 3-6. They’ll be treated to story time, show and tell, a coloring activity, a scavenger hunt and the opportunity to speak to a real firefighter (a firethemed birthday cake, juice boxes, favors and decorations are provided). At 278 Spring St. (btw. Varick and Hudson).

For info, call 212-691-1303 or visit nycfiremuseum.org.

downtown express

YOUTH ACTIVITIES THE SKYSCRAPER MUSEUM The Skyscraper Museum’s “Saturday Family Program” series features workshops designed to introduce children and their families to the principles of architecture and engineering — through hands-on activities. On April 21, “Body Buildings” challenges kids to work together to make a city skyline with their bodies. You’ll learn about all the different shapes of skyscrapers, then use poster paper and your silhouette to make your very own building! All workshops take place from 10:30-11:45am, at The Skyscraper Museum (39 Battery Place). Registration required. Call 212-945-6324 or e-mail education@skyscraper.org. Admission: $5 per child, free for members. Museum Hours: Wed.-Sun., 12-6pm. Museum admission: $5, $2.50 for students/seniors. For info, call 212-945-6324, visit skyscraper.org or email education@skyscraper.org.

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF THE ARTS Explore painting, collage and sculpture through self-guided arts projects at this museum dedicated to inspiring the artist within. Open art stations are ongoing throughout the afternoon — giving children the opportunity to experiment with materials such as paint, clay, fabric, paper and found objects. Regular museum hours: Mon. and Wed., 12-5pm; Thurs.-Fri., 12-6pm; Sat.-Sun., 10am-6pm. Admission: $10; free for seniors and infants (0-12 months). Pay as you wish on Thurs., 4-6pm. At 103 Charlton St. (btw. Hudson and Greenwich Sts.). Call 212-274-0986 or visit cmany.org. For group tours, call 212-274-0986, ext. 31.

Photo by Kelly Marsh

ALICE IN WONDERLAND, THE MUSICAL Featuring music by Michael Sgouros and Brenda Bell, Literally Alive Children’s Theatre puts its own stamp on “Alice in Wonderland.” Once you follow that cotton-tailed creature down the rabbit hole, you’ll spend 60 minutes of wild, wacky, whimsical, marvelous mayhem. Just don’t forget to bow to the Queen of Hearts — or she’ll chop off your head! Before the show starts, the one-hour “Pre-Show Workshop” explains how Literally Alive turned the original book into a musical. After discussing the book’s themes, kids and

their families will make a special art project that can be taken home as a souvenir. This show is appropriate for all ages, recommended for 3 and up.

Through May 20. Sat. at 11am and 3pm; Sun. at 11am (no shows April 1 or 8; additional show, April 12). At The Players Theatre (115 MacDougal St., btw. 3rd & Bleecker). For tickets ($40 first three rows, $35 for second three rows, $25 for all other seats), call 212-352-3101, visit ovationtix. com or purchase at the box office (opens 11am daily). For more info, visit aliceinthevillage.com and literallyalive.com.

POETS HOUSE The Poets House Children’s Room gives children and their parents a gateway to enter the world of rhyme — through readings, group activities and interactive performances.

For children ages 1-3, the Children’s Room offers “Tiny Poets Time” readings on Thursdays at 10am; for those ages 4-10, “Weekly Poetry Readings” on Saturdays at 11am. Filled with poetry books, old-fashioned typewriters and a card catalogue packed with poetic objects to trigger inspiration, the Children’s Room is open Thurs.-Sat., 11am-5pm. Free admission. At 10 River Terrace. Call 212-431-7920 or visit poetshouse.org.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE YOUR EVENT LISTED IN THE DOWNTOWN EXPRESS? Please provide the date, time, location, price and a description of the event. Send to scott@chelseanow.com or mail to 515 Canal St., Unit 1C, New York City, NY 10013. Requests must be received at least three weeks before the event. For more info, call 646-452-2497.

Photo by Joel Dexter

Moving Visions’ Murray Street Studio A Wise Choice for your child’s dance education!

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THE LITTLE MISS ANN BAND Parents and kids alike will “Stand Up” and clap for the Little Miss Ann Band — at Tribeca’s 92Y BYOK (Bring Your Own Kid) concert series. With classic renditions of “This Little Light of Mine” as well as originals such as “Clap For Love,” Ann Torralba (also known as “Little Miss Ann”) performs a charming and unique folk-rock concert that is accessible to the whole family. Hailing from Chicago, she was voted one of the Windy City’s “Most Influential Kids Musicians” by readers of

Time Out Chicago. Miss Ann is both a parent and a music teacher, and her music inspires kids to believe in themselves and love others. For more information, visit littlemissann.com. Award-winning Brooklyn children’s musician Suzi Shelton will be opening. Sun., April 15, 11am, at 92Y Tribeca Mainstage (200 Hudson St., btw. Desbrosses & Vestry Sts.). For tickets ($15, free for children under 2), visit 92y. org/Tribeca or call 212-415-5500.

—Kaitlyn Meade

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April 4 - 10, 2012

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DOWNTOWNEXPRESSARTS&ENTERTAINMENT Underwood latest fella to yell ‘Stella’ Current Broadway incarnation of timeless ‘Streetcar’ still stabs at heart THEATER A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Emily Mann Previews begin April 3 Opening night, April 22 At the Broadhurst Theatre (235 West 44th St., btw. 7th & 8th Aves.)

Tuesday and Thursday at 7:00 PM; Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM; matinees Wednesday at Saturday at 2:00PM and Sunday at 3:00 PM For tickets ($49.50 - $199), visit telecharge. com or call 212-239-6200 For more information, go to StreetcarOnBroadway.com or facebook.com/ streetcar2012

BY JERRY TALLMER This guy walked out on stage and I swear to God he was Eddie Szemplenski and John J. Wodarski all rolled into one.

Edward Szemplenski, from Hamtramck, Michigan — not the Polish town of Thornton Wilder’s great play, but Polish nevertheless. Eddie Szemplenski, roughhewn, six-foot-three or four, mottled complexion, big-fisted, ready to laugh or to fight at the drop of a dime — a hardboiled “dese and dose” roughneck who dragged me through every Polish bar and one or two miscellaneous whorehouses (I was unready for that) in East St. Louis, Illinois, the nearest civilization, of a sort, to where the U.S. Army Air Corps was sorting and disposing of us at Scott Field, Illinois.

John J. Wodarski, likewise PolishAmerican — no taller than myself, but 30 or 40 pounds heavier — we’re talking now, not about East St. Louis, but an airbase in the jungle 30 miles up the Demerara River from Georgetown, British Guiana (as it then was), where the Air Corps (as it then still was) has sent me to operate and repair the odd protuberances of black magic radar affixed to the noses of slow-moving obsolete rupturedduck B18B’s on anti-submarine patrol in the Caribbean.

John J. Wodarski, from someplace or other in New Jersey. “Whitey” Wodarski, so nicknamed because of his ample shock of white-gold hair; not at all a “dese and dose” type roisterer who would hurl a

radio out the window in boozy anger or rip the fancy clothes off his wife’s nutty sister — and then take her by force — but a tough enough customer for all that.

What I most vividly remember is John Wodarski — just like Prew in James Jones’ superb postwar “From Here to Eternity” — going under the upraised squadron barracks to beat the bejeezuss out of a bullying non-com who had called Brooklyn’s brash Isadore Lieberman “a fucking kike.”

Cut, cut, cut.

In the colored bar, here in New Orleans, on a street called Elysian Fields, where the streetcar has dumped Stella’s sister Blanche, someone is singing “Paper Doll,” the Mills Brothers’ hit.

I’m going to buy a paper doll that I can call my own, a doll the other fellows cannot steal….

It is 1947. The four-year WWII is a thing of the recent past, and I am sitting in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, watching a play by this new young writer, Tennessee Williams — who’d already knocked the socks off me with his very different “The Glass Menagerie” a year earlier while I was still in uniform.

From that one I could still hear — today, 65 years later, still hear — the great Laurette Taylor at 6am braying: “Rise and shine! Rise and shine!” to her grown son and daughter. In this one, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the star would seem to be the unknown young man playing Stanley Kowalski, Stella’s husband.

Suddenly the play bangs open and here he is: loud, intense, Polish-to-the-core, Eddie Szemplenski, John J. Wodarski and Stanley Kowalski all wrapped together in a storm cloud of masculine pride and anger, hungry for bowling and poker and beer and nooky, sizing up the visiting Blanche in one burning look and hurling that radio out the window in a rage before sobbing in his wife’s arms like a baby.

And I know him! I served in a couple of places with him! All America, all the world, will soon know him. And because I know him so well, it legitimizes this whole extraordinary drama set forth by a poetic sensibility and a sexual engine exactly the opposite of Stanley Kowalski’s.

I look at the program. The name is Brando — Marlon Brando. What kind of a name is that? Well, no more Polish than will be miraculous Meryl Streep, some years later, in a film called “Sophie’s Choice.”

Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski is the kind of portrayal that, for better and

Continued on page 24

Photo by Jeff Fasano

It’s 1947 all over again: the cast of 2012’s ‘Streetcar’ is (L to R): Wood Harris, Nicole Ari Parker, Blair Underwood, Daphne Rubin-Vega.

24

April 4 - 10, 2012

downtown express

Rubin-Vega puts her stamp on Stella Continued from page 23 for worse, reshapes America’s idea of maleness for three or four generations to come, amplified and softened by his befuddled Terry Malloy in the 1954 “On the Waterfront” that will be directed by the same Elia Kazan who has crafted this “Streetcar” on stage, and will do so again — a good deal less sensitively — on screen.

Still and all, I had not thought of Stanley Kowalski as being a man of color — with Stella and Blanche likewise as agents de couleur, French Huguenot descendants of mixed blood — which is the whole idea of the interracial “A Streetcar Named Desire” that comes to us under Emily Mann’s direction.

Well, why not? I mean, we now have an American president who is himself a mixed-blood man of color. And for that matter, a beau ideal. We also have had, seven years ago come August, Hurricane Katrina that devastated a great many people of color in New Orleans, not foreseen by the Tennessee Williams who left us in 1983. “ ‘Streetcar’ is maybe my favorite play but I’ve never directed it,” says Emily Mann, the artistic director of Princeton’s esteemed McCarter Theatre, who on and

off campus — and on and Off Broadway — would seem to have directed almost everything else in the world. “I’ve been wanting to do an interracial ‘Streetcar’ since 1990 or ’91. Ntozake Shange [playwright, poet, actress] said she’d for love me to do ‘Streetcar’ with her as Blanche, but we never got it together.

“But the idea germinated, and a year and a half ago I read that Stephen C. Byrd and Alia M. Jones, the, producers of a black-cast ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,’ wanted to do an interracial ‘Streetcar.’ So I looked them up and said: ‘Here I am.’ ” “New Orleans has an intricate culture,” says Ms. Mann, who went down there with her Blanche and Stella — Nicole Ari Parker and Daphne Rubin-Vega — to research the piece and take a look at Belle Reve, the DuBois sisters’ lost-to-debtand-death family mansion.

“Blanche and Stella are of white French Huguenot, black and some Spanish blood, but in marrying Stanley, a Pole of mixed blood, Stella had ‘married down’ — or at least Blanche thought so.”

“When I got the role of Stella,” says slim café au lait Daphne Rubin-Vega, whose name and birth in Panama indicates her own mixed parentage, “I picked up the play with Brando’s picture on the cover. Then I downloaded the movie on my computer, but the movie turned out

Photo by Jeff Fasano

Blair Underwood and Daphne Rubin-Vega steam up the stage, as Stanley and Stella.

to be totally sanitized by the elimination of Stanley’s rape of Blanche” — a hand wobble, indicating Marlon Brando doing something vague to Vivien Leigh — “as well as the homosexuality of Blanche’s young husband,” who kills himself after Blanche walks in on him in bed with a boyfriend.

Emily Mann, born in Boston, is the daughter of the late historian Arthur Mann, author of the two-volume “La Guardia: a fighter against his times.”

When the 1960 Broadway musical “Fiorello!” came through Boston, her father took her backstage to meet its star, Tom Bosley. “I was 6 or 7 and I was thrilled.” She has been what they call stage-struck ever since.

“My father,” she says, “was always

talking about the multi-ethnicity cultural pluralism of the United States.”

Ms. Mann has found her Stanley in Blair Underwood and her Mitch, Stanley’s buddy, in Wood Harris — two black men with a strong track record. It is Mitch, not sneering Stanley, who forces Blanche to look at herself without the benefit of paper light bulb shade — the cruelty that ultimately drives Blanche over the brink.

I once heard, or read, that Tennessee Williams, who liked to laugh at his own stuff — giggle at his own stuff — thought that one of his great comedic lines was Blanche’s fade-away “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

Maybe so, but it can still stab you in the heart, black or white, white or black.

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April 4 - 10, 2012

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Just Do Art! COMPILED BY SCOTT STIFFLER

LEGACY: A STEPHEN HALL SOLO EXHIBITION The colors, shadows and light sources that give Stephen Hall’s canvases their neon-like intensity seem as if they’ve been rendered with the perfect, precise assistance of zeroes and ones. Not so. “There are no digital prints, photographs, collage, airbrush or projections involved in my work,” Hall vows. Instead, he achieves this distinct look through hand painting “rows and rows of acrylic colors or tones, going from dark to light in countless layers.” That layered technique extends to the subject matter. The world citizens who populate his work are given skin made of hypnotic patterns, and armed with objects that belong on the totem poles of other cultures. The end result is one of comfort by way of chaos — where information overload delivers the sublime message that all is, if not well, then at least strikingly similar across cultures, space and time.

Through April 15. Tues.-Sun., 1-6pm.

At Westbeth Gallery (55 Bethune St., btw.

West and Washington Sts.). For more info, visit stephenhallart.com.

Image courtesy of the artist

Photo by David Rodgers

Stephen Hall’s “Self Portrait of Congolese Woman in Drag.”

A biblically epic lady, for our troubled times: Charles Busch stars in “Judith of Bethulia.”

JUDITH OF BETHULIA

time, because we need him in the here and now. Last seen on the stage working a nun’s habit in the long-running “The Divine Sister,” the playwright’s latest work makes its world premiere at Theater for the New City (as did the funny, frothy, intrigue-filled “Sister”). This time

For services rendered to comedy, and for sending up religion while dressed in a dress, Charles Busch is either going to get a heavenly reward or a hellacious punishment on the day he meets his maker. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen for a very long

around, Busch stars as the striking redhead “Judith,” in a spoof of Hollywood Biblical epics. That genre’s fascinating blend of excesses and reverence is a perfect match for a man who’s built an empire on satirizing and celebrating those very qualities. Carl Andress (the deft director of “Sister” and “Die, Mommie, Die!”) is at the helm. The cast includes Jennifer Cody, Dave August, Christopher Borg, Mary Testa and Jennifer Van Dyck.

Through April 28. Wed.-Sat., 8pm and Sun., 3pm. At Theater for the New City (155 First Ave., at 10th St.). For tickets ($25), visit smarttix.com or call 212868-4444. Also visit theaterforthenewcity.net. Follow “Judith” on Facebook, at facebook.com/judithbethuliaonstage. For Twitter: @BBBway.

Need more arts?

Read the archives at

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The spinning world of Balint Zsako Paying homage to the tradition of storytelling ART BALINT ZSAKO: APPETITE Through April 21, at Mulherin + Pollard End of Freeman Alley, off Rivington (btw.

Bowery & Chrystie Sts.) For info, call 212-967-0045 or visit mulherinpollard.com April 14 to May 27, at The Proposition Gallery 2 Extra Place, at First St. (btw. Bowery & 2nd Ave.) For info, call 212-242-0035 or visit theproposition.com

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN Looking at the work of Balint Zsako compares to reading a novel or studying a map. In his exploration of complex narratives by means of figuration, the eye travels from detail to detail, from color accent to definite form.

Born in Budapest in 1979, he immigrated with his family to Canada in 1988 (growing up in Hamilton and studying in Toronto). After graduating with a BFA from Ryerson University, he settled in Brooklyn

in 2007. In the context of these geographic changes, art was always a constant. Both of his parents are artists (his mother, Anna Torma, works in embroidery — while his father, Istvan Zsako, is a sculptor). For Zsako, thinking in visuals is natural.

This month, his recent drawings are the subject of two solo exhibitions in the Lower East Side. Sharing the subtitle “Appetite.”

Mulherin + Pollard and The Proposition Gallery feature a selection of work that introduces a unique world spinning with layered storylines.

Although Zsako’s art practice encompasses sculpture and photography, he currently works primarily on, and with, paper.

In the past year, he has focused on creating drawings and collages that are rich in minute detail — reflecting an ongoing investigation of formal and psychological relationships that can form between unlikely characters and objects.

His drawings are populated with single or multiple figures that engage in eclectic actions, ranging from everyday to somewhat plausible, obscure and utterly bizarre. They hold, carry and pull at each other, draw themselves or shed tears into another person’s mouth. They fly, explode, turn within themselves, drag skeletons and carry trees that are chained to their head.

While the figures always take center stage in each composition, it is nature in the form of animals, plants or trees (as well

as mechanical objects) that fill out the fantastical landscape. The resulting images are hybrids — part science fiction-earth song and part remnant from the machine-age.

A kneeling woman holding a flock of birds in flight while light bulbs dangle from their necks like overripe crops fits as naturally in Zsako’s democratic realm as a Frankensteinian monster made of wooden planks and trapped inside a vehicle that is pulled by a green-skinned woman. Sirens, nymphs, men from whose amputated limbs’ tree branches grow and figures made entirely out of hair are among this enchanting group of unusual protagonists.

Each revels in his or her individuality, accentuated by a wide spectrum of skin colors (translucent or opaque pink, brown, blue, yellow, green and purple). The figures’ ethnicity is non-descript, insinuating that in this dreamscape, it is of no importance.

Though heritage does not matter, their emotional temperature and general mood does.

These characters can be curious, tentative, red with aggression, ambiguous, evil, warm or cold. “I want to be as broad as possible and show body types as different as possible,” explains Zsako, who views them as strong personalities. “Like in this world, my figures sometimes do good things to each other, some do their own thing, and some are difficult.” Zsako is not illustrating the world but rather reflecting on it, which bestows a sense of symbolic abstraction

upon his work. He is not a portraitist, but a storyteller of various aspects of the human psyche.

Zsako’s renditions, which can include spectacular obsessive patterns made of leaves, birds or machine parts, evoke an array of references. Western fairy tales, folkloristic illustrations, Indian Ledger drawings, Greek pottery, Medieval illumination, Hieronymus Bosch, Brueghel and Inuit art, are immediate associations. He might distill elements from sources past and present, but it is his concern for finding unique connections between elements that reveals his contemporary urban outlook.

When asked if city life has had an impact on his work, he replied that though his approach is not literal, the daily experience of sheer masses of people, “when taking the subway and being smashed against them,” surely resonates in his new work.

In the past two years, Zsako’s drawings have increased in scale and complexity. The Proposition Gallery will present “Untitled (Appetite).” his largest drawing to date.

Made of nine sheets of paper mounted together, it will measure 66 x 90 inches.

“For ten years,” he explains, “I’ve been making small works because I did not want to be the person who simply works big because he is expected to do so.”

As Zsako works close to the surface,

Continued on page 27

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April 4 - 10, 2012

Two galleries have ‘Appetite’ for Zsako’s art Continued from page 26 allowing him to pay attention to each detail, it took him a while to work large. He did not want to lose the integrity or precision of his work by simply blowing up figures and details. One big challenge was to create density without altering the rhythm of positive and negative space, another, to accept the characteristic confines of his materials (translucent watercolors and matte opaque inks would run if applied while standing up). Zsako found a solution by assembling several panels into one cohesive epic. He worked the panels separately, carefully pondering how one thing could lend itself to another. They grew one after the other, as well as with each other side by side. None was completed before being reviewed in context — which allowed for various storylines to evolve, span out and morph.

While browsing Zsako’s encyclopedic tour de force, one slowly traces recurrent

themes. A group of large figures is sprawled throughout the composition. One is made of birds, another of wood; one consists of geometric patterns and one of negative space. Light bulbs dot the composition like musical notes, some switched off while a few illuminate their environs. There are several spaces within spaces. There is a tree in a box, for example, that is buried underneath a tree with plants growing underneath. Things can be free-floating, or contained, boxed and encapsulated. There are birds and a group of outstretched arms that lift skyward like eager birds. Growth, death and sex function as a hotbed for people’s relationships, which can be loving, indifferent, submissive, dominant or outright violent. One couple is connected through their hair, another through their touching tongues. In another place, a yellow woman has a head growing out of her stomach, which she is promptly feeding. Here, touch and taste are as definitive a connection as eye contact or a link of chains. Zsako’s

stories might be rich in operatic drama and include a sense of tragedy, but they are always invigorated by the lighthearted humor of an optimist.

Zsako’s moves are never arbitrary. Each compositional element is thoroughly contemplated. He often paints the figures without their hands first, allowing himself to decide on what they should be holding later. As watercolor is unforgiving when fixing mistakes and one can only add but not subtract color, this paced process is crucial. “I am happiest when I figure out a problem. You add a character and another and you have to figure out how they can relate and what they engage in. It is the most satisfying part to find that connection and missing link. At least 50 percent of the work is figuring out color and geometric problems.”

In addition to compositional concerns, it is important to Zsako that the narrative makes sense. “If a tree is buried underground it needs to have water. It has to

function logically.”

In “Untitled (Appetite),” one can choose to focus on sections and chapters, or the overall whirlwind of life. There are many things to discover, among them some tongue-in-cheek moments and witty art historical references. The latter include tributes to Abstract Expressionism, Agnes Martin’s lines or the blue women of Yves Klein. Furthermore, on the upper left, we find an abstract, gestural triangle made of many colors. It was the actual painting palette that Zsako had on his desk while creating this particular work. By making it part of the final composition, he allows a bi-product of his process to become part of the work itself.

As we absorb the language that Zsako is setting forth, our minds become entangled in the intricate narratives of a world rich in spun tales. Paying homage to the tradition of storytelling, they sprung from an imagination that seems boundless and were captured with evident joy.

Image courtesy of the artist

Image courtesy of the artist

Untitled (Appetite), 2012 (detail). Overall: 66x90 inches; Ink and watercolor on paper.

Untitled (Appetite), 2012 (detail). Overall: 66x90 inches; Ink and watercolor on paper.

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April 4 - 10, 2012

downtown express