June 12, 2013 Chelsea Now

VOLUME 5, NUMBER 20

THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER

JUNE 12 - 18, 2013

from prison to prime real estate: Bayview’s future in flux

BY WINNIE McCROY As Superstorm Sandy filled Bayview Correctional Facility with 14 feet of water, the medium-security prison’s 153 female inmates were evacuated to three upstate facilities.

A skeletal staff maintains the 550 West 25th Street building, whose inmates never returned from their October 2012 evacuation.

With the state likely to sell

Chelseahenge!

Photo by Pamela Wolff

Whether it’s finding a soul mate or winning the lottery, you can wait your whole life for the stars to align. But once in a blue moon, our favorite mass of incandescent gas falls into perfect alignment with the buildings of West Chelsea — as it did this past Saturday, June 8. That’s when our freelance shutterbug Pamela Wolff captured this fleeting 21st Street phenomenon (which is not to be confused with July 12’s upcoming, midtown-friendly Manhattanhenge).

Wolff has taken to calling this hyperlocal June version “Chelseahenge” — and as chair of the Community Board 4 Landmarks Committee, that moniker just might stick!

at CB4, different spokes for different folks

BY YANAN WANG Noise pollution, the need for an affordable supermarket in Hell’s Kitchen, worker’s rights and concern for those who ride (and park) twowheeled vehicles — of two different varieties — were all on the 29-item agenda of June 5’s Community Board 4 (CB4) public meeting.

When Superstorm Sandy hit West Chelsea hard, the storm’s winds and waters left many homes — and job sites — in ruin. One such location was the High Line Hotel (HLH).

Formerly known as the General Theological Seminary’s Desmond Tutu Center, the HLH laid off over a dozen of its employees when the storm required the relatively new facility to close for repairs. But the move came only after the workers helped the hotel recover from the worst of the damage. After months of waiting to be called back, they were recently told they don’t measure up to the standards of employment.

Several former HLH workers were

at the June 5 meeting to testify during the public comment session. Over the course of the meeting (which took place at the Hotel Trades Council (305 West 44th Street), discussion continued along this vein — with community and board members alike touching upon the difficulty of maintaining a balance between the development of emerging commercial enterprises and the preservation of local neighborhood mainstays.

Bayview to the highest bidder, Community Board 4 (CB4) and local electeds are involved in efforts to save the prime piece of 11th Avenue real estate from destruction — and ensure that affordable housing and community use play a part in any future scenario.

“We want to have the facility there, so it’s important to

Continued on page 3

Council, anti-violence agency announce self-defense push

BY PAUL SCHINDLER In response to a wave of anti-gay violence that included the May 18 murder of Mark Carson in the West Village, the New York City Council has announced a series of free self-defense trainings to be held in at least three boroughs in coming weeks.

The sessions were announced by the Council’s four out LGBT members at a press conference just prior

Continued on page 4

5 15 CANAL ST., U N IT 1C • MAN H ATTA N , N Y 10 013 • C OPYRIG HT © 2013 N YC COM M U N ITY M ED IA , LLC

to the annual Queens LGBT Pride Parade in Jackson Heights on June 2. They will be led by the Center for AntiViolence Education, a Park Slope-based group that provides self-defense education primarily to women, members of the LGBT community and youth.

“Our free self-defense classes will teach violence

Continued on page 5

editorial, letters PAGE 8

sUMMer MUsic iN chelsea PAGE 13

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June 12 - 18, 2013

ps 11 farm market still fresh, in season six

Your doctor retired to where?

Another reason to call.

Photo by Scott Stiffler

There’s not a fresh veggie or a knowledgeable salesperson anywhere to be found in this photo — but that’s only because the shot was taken before the sixth season debut of our favorite local greenmarket. As of June 12, the PS 11 Farm Market will be held every Wednesday, from 8am-10am, in front of the school’s front steps (320 W. 21st St., btw. 8th & 9th Aves.). The third graders who run the market will have lots of facts, cooking tips and recipe suggestions to share with you, having recently returned from their first field trip to Stoneledge Farm in South Cairo, NY (the 90 acre, certified organic farm where all the good stuff comes from). For more information, visit ps11chelsea.org and stoneledgefarmny.org (or send an email to ps11programs@aol.com ).

You want an outstanding doctor and we can connect you with one who’s right for you. Whether near your home or office, doctors affiliated with Continuum Health Partners hospitals – Beth Israel Medical Center, Beth Israel Brooklyn, Roosevelt Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital, New York Eye & Ear Infirmary – are conveniently located throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Our doctors participate in all major insurance plans.

Need a great doctor?

Call 877.996.9336. w w w. c h p n y c . o r g

OF SANITATION

WORKERS

June 12 - 18, 2013

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Landmark Efforts, as State Slates Bayview for Sale Continued from page 1 try and avoid having the building be sold by the state,” said Community Board 4 Landmarks Committee Chair Pamela Wolff. “The governor has wanted to do this long before Sandy came along and gave him the opportunity. But most of the voices in the neighborhood say they want it to continue to be a prison. It’s been there for 35 years. We’re used to it.”

Back in 1931, the facility was constructed by the firm of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon (architects of the Empire State Building), as the Seaman’s YMCA — complete with athletic equipment, a pool and numerous tiny rooms for temporarily landlocked sailors.

The building has art deco massing, a distinctive corner entrance and many polychrome terra cotta medallions, window surrounds and string courses featuring nautical themes.

When Sandy hit Manhattan last fall, the inmates were moved to three correctional facilities upstate. Work release inmates were transferred to Taconic Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills. But there was no such luck for the 35 inmates participating in Bard College’s Prison Initiative accredited college courses, or the Department of Corrections’ counseling services that 40 inmates accessed. Many also left behind their children and families, hampering their re-entry into society.

“All of the prison residents were just yanked out by their roots and tossed to the wind,” said Wolff. “Their support programs and jobs vanished, as did their education and connection with their families.”

A representative for the Department of Corrections affirmed that the damages from the storm have been repaired. But the prison is now empty, save for a skeleton crew of correctional facility staff that provides maintenance and security — and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo says that’s how he’d like it to stay.

Cuomo: Must Close Bayview, to Balance Budget

“It's not right. We can’t afford it,” said Cuomo of Bayview during his January budget meetings. Calling the prison “poorly run,” the governor requested it be closed within 60 days, despite the fact that prisons require a one-year notification to shut down.

According to his executive budget, the total staff cost per inmate at Bayview is $74,385, as compared to the state’s benchmark of about $34,000. Cuomo projects that the prison closures would eliminate more than 432 beds, saving the state $18.7 million in 2013-14 and $62 million in 2014-15 if Bayview Correctional Facility is closed and sold.

But the real value of Bayview lies in the real estate it occupies. Overlooking the Hudson River in the upscale neighborhood of Chelsea, the facility that once existed “on the backside of hell,” as Wolff put it, is now one of the most desirable areas in the city, right between the High Line and Chelsea Piers.

“The governor’s problem with Bayview is that it is expensive to maintain, and in truth it does cost more per prisoner than most by double,” said Wolff. “And there it sits, in the hottest real estate plot in Manhattan.”

Photo by Scott Stiffler

Public or Private…and landmarked? Bayview’s future is uncertain, although it’s certainly up for sale.

The prison is currently owned by the New York State Urban Development Corporation, the state’s chief economic development agency, doing business as the Empire State Development Corporation (ESD). The area is zoned for a mix of development, including offices, hotels, retail, entertainment and residential apartments. Bayview also lies within the rezoned Special West Chelsea District, which provides incentives for developers who create affordable housing at the site.

“There are a number of provisions that we would very much want included in any RFP for the facility,” said State Senator Brad Hoylman. “The focus is affordable and/or supportive housing — possibly with a reentry component to make up for the loss of this facility — re-use of recreational areas by community groups, and preservation of this historically significant building.”

Bayview sits next to a new luxury condo building that sold at a record high for the area of about $1,850 per square foot early last year. One apartment in the building, designed by award-winning French architect Jean Nouvel, hit the market at a whopping $16.9 million.

With the governor’s decision to shutter Bayview, community board members, block

associations and neighbors are resigning themselves to the fact that the prison is gone for good. Now, they are trying to preserve the historic building from being razed by luxury developers.

In a June 10 email, a spokesperson from Governor Cuomo’s office told Chelsea Now, “The decision for an appropriate re-use of Bayview Correctional Facility, a state-owned building, will ultimately lie with the State.

Empire State Development will work with a number of other state agencies and stakeholders to identify the best way to transform this facility into an opportunity that will create jobs and economic opportunity or better serve the community.”

CB4 Wants Landmark Status for Historic Seamen’s YMCA

CB4 has drafted a letter for the building’s façade to be protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), and elected officials are eager to be part of the decisionmaking process about the building’s future.

“I understand that the building is to be decommissioned by September 1. That means shutting off the gas, water and electricity, thus starting a new chapter for the building,” said Hoylman. “I and other

elected officials have urged Empire State Development to include us and CB4 in the discussion about the future of the building.”

Hoylman’s office organized a recent tour of the facility for CB4 members and elected officials, including representatives from the offices of Speaker Christine Quinn, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried and Borough President Scott Stringer.

Among the CB4 members who attended the tour was Housing, Health & Human Services Committee Co-Chair Joe Restuccia.

In addition to Wolff at Landmarks, he lent the support of his committee to Agenda Item 28, which was discussed by the full board at its monthly June 5 public meeting.

The draft of the letter, meant for LPC chair Robert Tierney, forcefully urges that the site be designated as a New York City Landmark as soon as possible, noting that, “If ESD goes forward with the sale, current development pressures in Chelsea will almost certainly result in demolition of the building and its replacement by as large a building as zoning will permit on the site.”

The letter cites the excellent condition of the exterior and the historical value of the building as “a significant reminder of the era when the Port of New York was one of the world’s busiest and the section of the Hudson River between Christopher and 23rd Streets was the heart of the busiest section of the Port of New York.”

“We voted to ask the LPC to consider it for Landmark status, and it was placed on the Housing committee’s agenda for June,” said Wolff. “Some board members expressed the hope that it could stay a correctional facility. They seem to think it was well run and, amazingly enough, they liked it being there. It is not often that people who live next to a correctional facility want to keep it.”

That outcome seems highly unlikely, as the state will ultimately decide what becomes of the property. “The closure of this facility,” Hoylman noted, “was included in the budget that passed in March, and that will not be undone.”

If the LPC agrees to consider the building for Landmark protection, the interior can still be converted as developers wish — but the exterior will remain the same.

“The façade of the building has not been modified since 1931, except for the addition of fencing on the rooftop recreational area for prisoners,” said Wolff. “So the state can sell it and do whatever they want to the interior, but they can’t mess with that facade. Landmarking it will freeze it in place. If we can do that, there is a chance that some public good will come of whatever the building gets turned into.”

Bayview’s Closure Affects Marginalized Women and Families

Bayview Correctional Facility was the only women’s prison inside New York City, and now 40 percent of these women prisoners are currently housed at Albion Correctional Facility — located eight hours from the city.

Continued on page 6

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June 12 - 18, 2013

former High line Hotel staff shares stories with CB4 Continued from page 1

puBliC Comment session

Of the former HLH workers who spoke, many recalled that they had been employed at the seminary (180 Tenth Avenue) since before part of it was sold as a hotel six years ago. After the employees were initially laid off, The Brodsky Organization — the hotel’s management as of last October — came before CB4 pledging to return the jobs after the re-opening in May. It was under this condition that the board granted the establishment approval for their liquor license application.

“They gave us their word,” said Patricia Sims, a former employee. “They gave us hope that we would get our jobs back.” She added that during the storm, the employees worked in a variety of harsh conditions: “We had to go down to the basement in hazmat suits. We cleaned up all the mess.” The four former workers who testified iterated that their team had become “like a family.” At the meeting, they exchanged supportive glances as each person approached the microphone to speak.

Miguel Acevedo, a former CB4 member and the current president of Fulton Houses Tenants Association, noted that while CB4 does not have the legal authority to force HLH General Manager Osama Aduib to rehire the employees, he is hopeful Aduib

Photo by Yanan Wang

David Czyzyk, of BP Stringer’s office, announces the LGBTQ Pride Celebration and Changemakers Award Ceremony, to take place at Macy’s Herald Square on June 25.

will at least offer an explanation for his behavior on June 11, when he is set to speak before the board’s Business Licenses and Permits Committee.

“He used Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to let these people go,” said Acevedo. “These people got awards for the courtesy that they were giving their patrons. You can’t just tell me that across all the departments these people belonged to, there wasn’t a single one out of the 20 who was qualified for their job.”

The only possible explanation for the

move, Acevedo guessed, was that Aduib’s new employees were working for lower pay (an accusation HLH has refuted). Acevedo expressed disappointment at having been deceived by the manager’s initial promises, and another worker, Angel Cortes, accused the establishment of putting up a “smoke screen” in order to gain a liquor license.

Later in the night, Agenda Item 29, a letter in support of the laid off workers, passed unanimously — with agreement across the board to strengthen the language and to forward it to National Labor Relations, as well as elected officials on the municipal, state and federal levels.

Council members expressed disappointment at the misconduct of HLH’s new management. CB4’s Walter Mankoff said he would like there to be some financial repercussions to their actions: “I hope that [the workers] are collecting employment insurance, because it’s going to cost the employer a pretty penny down the road.”

reports from reps of eleCted offiCials

Several of the representatives from elected officials began their reports by condemning the recent slew of hate crime targeting LGBTQ individuals in the area, iterating the need to remain vigilant particularly as the city enters Pride month.

From the Manhattan Borough Office of Scott Stringer, David Czyzyk announced the LGBTQ Pride Celebration and Changemakers Award Ceremony to take place at Macy’s Herald Square on June 25.

The office of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, represented by Harriet Sedgwick, outlined its five-point plan for combating hate crime: Increased police presence in LGBTQ neighborhoods, a city-wide anti-hate crime initiative in schools, Friday Community Safety Nights Out, a public awareness campaign instituted by the city council and a Speak Out Against Hate Interfaith Weekend, in collaboration with 50 houses of worship.

Sedgwick added that in collaboration with Park Slope’s Center for Anti-Violence Education, the New York City Council will

be holding free self-defense classes in a number of locations, where participants will be trained in violence prevention strategies.

Speaker Quinn attended the first session (held on June 8, at West 13th Street’s LGBT Community Center) — and as Chelsea Now went to press, another was expected to take place on June 12, at the Hudson Guild Elliot Center. For more information, and to attend future sessions (reservations required), call 212-788-5613 or email events@council.nyc. gov.

As for the status of the hate crime cases themselves, Edgar Yu of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said he could not comment about open investigations. He stated, however, that it is important for all citizens to be aware of their rights.

“Most of the people in this room are protected under the hate crime law,” Yu said.

Jeffrey LeFrancois of State Assemblymember Richard Gottfried’s office cautioned community members to “stay safe during a month that is usually celebratory.” Given the “rash of hate crimes,” LeFrancois said, it is necessary to stay informed about recent events and to remain connected with friends.

In his report, LeFrancois also announced that the use of medical marijuana in the state of New York passed in the assembly by a wide, bipartisan margin, including support from a Republican senator who, after having been arrested for possession, is now in favor of decriminalization. The statement was met with chuckles from the crowd.

CB4 District Manager Bob Benfatto provided an update on the Chelsea Flatiron Coalition’s lawsuit against the Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC). After three years of legal and fundraising efforts to decrease the size of the BRC’s 328-bed residency, the New York Supreme Court dismissed the coalition’s appeal for changes.

On a lighter note, Benfatto added that the musically-inclined members of the community board will be performing “My Big Fat Irish Wedding,” in honor of (and featuring) former State Senator Tom Duane (June 13, 7pm, at the Irish Arts Center, 553 West 51st Street).

Christine Berthet (who moderated part of the evening) spoke about planned changes to the city’s phone booths, which will soon be Wi-Fi-enabled. The bad news, Berthet noted, was that the bulky design of the booths may be harmful to the sidewalks. She said the Transportation Planning Committee hopes to make the removal process similar to that which is currently in place for newsstands, allowing for easy movement of the booths in inappropriate locations.

To end the committee reports, CB4 Chair Corey Johnson announced the resignation of Evangeline Gomez, who is having a baby.

In light of her absence, Delores Rubin will be filling Gomez’ role as co-secretary of the board.

“This is a glamorous, sexy position,” Johnson joked to Rubin. “I appreciate you taking it.”

Continued on page 15

June 12 - 18, 2013

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after Homophobic violence, park slope training Center to offer free workshops Continued from page 1 prevention strategies to New Yorkers and will provide the community with the tools they need to stay safe,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said at the press conference.

Daniel Dromm, the Council member who represents Jackson Heights, added, “As an openly gay elected official representing a district with one of the highest LGBT populations in the city, I urge everyone in the community to attend these potentially life-saving self-defense trainings.”

The trainings, designed as one-time workshops, began on June 8, with a 4pm session at the LGBT Community Center (208 West 13th Street). A second session will take place on June 12 at 7pm at the Hudson Guild Elliot Center (441 West 26th Street).

For information on other upcoming trainings (and to reserve a space), call 212-7885613 or email events@council.nyc.gov.

According to Tracy Hobson, CAE’s executive director, the group is planning at least one free LGBT-focused training in Brooklyn and one in Queens in the near future, and hopes to do one in each of the five boroughs.

She emphasized that the one-session training is intended as an introduction to basic self-defense tools, and that CAE can provide more intensive training at its space at 327 Seventh Avenue, second floor, at Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn. The fees charged by the group for

Photo by Donna Acceto

At the June 2 Queens LGBT Pride Parade, elected officials, including State Senator Brad Hoylman, Comptroller John Liu and Councilmembers Letitia James, Daniel Dromm, Christine Quinn and Jimmy Van Bramer, paused for a moment of silence to commemorate the recent victims of anti-gay violence.

its classes are based on a sliding scale pegged to income.

CAE, Hobson said, first began offering selfdefense trainings to the LGBT community in the 1980s in tandem with the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP). The group offers workshops specifically geared to transgender people, as well as ones structured more generally for anyone who is LGBT. That second group draws mainly gay men, Hobson said, since

many of CAE’s other offerings serve women.

Over the years, CAE has partnered with more than 80 organizations with programs tailored to the needs of specific communities, according to Hobson.

As incidents of anti-gay violence mounted in May, many in the community began to talk about the need to protect themselves in public places.

After Eugene Lovendusky, a member of the grassroots group Queer Rising, was punched in

the face in an anti-gay attack in Times Square late in the evening of May 24, he said he discussed the launch of self-defense training with Quinn’s office. A week later, the Council’s LGBT caucus made its announcement.

Demands for community self-empowerment have popped up in social media as well. Desmond Cadogan recently announced the launch of Faggots Fight Back (FFB) on Facebook and has garnered about 300 followers. According to the group’s Facebook page, an FFB contingent will march in the June 20 LGBT Pride Parade in Manhattan.

In a more traditional response, Quinn’s office announced the deployment of additional police officers, cruisers, mounted personnel and plainclothes units throughout the West Village, at least through the end of Pride Month. AVP and the City Council are planning an LGBT Community Safety Forum for later in June.

On May 29, the Council also acted to provide greater protection for LGBT youth housed in city juvenile facilities created under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s new Close to Home Initiative. The program allows juvenile detainees to be housed in non-secure or limited security facilities in the city so that they can be closer to their families and communities. The Council measure, passed 48-0, requires the Administration for Children’s Services to collect data on LGBT youth in such facilities who are targeted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity if they voluntary disclose that information to authorities.

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June 12 - 18, 2013

Effects of Closing Bayview Reverberate Continued from page 3 The relocation of these medium-security prisoners to facilities upstate has not only resulted in an end to the rehabilitative work, education and counseling programs, but also caused a great strain for the families of these women.

In her testimony during a state budget meeting, Tamar Kraft-Stolar, director of the Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York, said that being incarcerated close to home can make or break a family’s ability to stay connected.

The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision estimates that there are 2,300 women incarcerated in New York state prisons. Nearly half of them (48 percent) are from New York City and its suburbs, and 70 percent have children. An estimated 2,000 New York City kids have mothers in a state prison.

“For children, frequent visiting and strong family connections can reduce the trauma of having an incarcerated parent and provide the support they need to become healthy adults,” wrote Kraft-Stolar. “For mothers, not receiving visits means not only the devastation of losing touch with their children, but also sometimes losing parental rights to their children forever.”

Although Kraft-Stolar and Hoylman support closing down prisons, they also agree that closing Bayview will create hardships

for families of inmates.

“I’m strongly opposed to our State’s Prison Industrial Complex, and I support the Governor’s efforts to rightsize our prison network,” said Hoylman. “But I am concerned about the impacts of Bayview’s closure on the underprivileged, marginalized women who were incarcerated there. Pulling them farther away from their families and their support networks will increase the rates of recidivism.”

Those upset about the closing of the prison include the corrections officers who were hired to work there.

Closing Impacts Local Economy and Employees

After Bayview inmates were evacuated, hundreds of thousands of dollars were dedicated toward cleaning up the mess — and corrections officers thought it would reopen.

Discovering that it would remain shuttered didn’t go over well with the state’s prison guards’ union, which has sided with prisoners’ rights advocates in praising Bayview’s rehabilitative programs, warning of the dangers of warehousing inmates in crowded facilities and expressing skepticism at the governor’s plan to close the facility in 60 days.

“Both Beacon and Bayview provide critical alcohol and substance abuse treatment programs as well as work release initiatives,” Donn Rowe, the president of the New

York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, wrote in a statement.

“Closing Bayview would also mean shutting down the only women’s correctional facility south of the Tappan Zee Bridge, making it harder to incarcerate women in facilities near their homes,” he added. “Since the vast majority of inmates return to their home communities after serving their sentences, we think that would be a mistake.”

Rowe said that a mere 60 day warning to workers before transferring them isn't enough time to prepare, noting the burden of uprooting officers from the seven other facilities Cuomo has shuttered since he took office.

“You don’t want someone working in a stressful job like a correctional facility with these type of burdens on the backs,” said Rowe, who warned of returning to the bad old days of warehousing inmates in prisons that were already past acceptable inmate-toofficer ratios.

He added that the burden of uprooting officers is compounded because the proposed closures in the governor’s executive budget come on the heels of seven other facilities being shuttered since Cuomo took office.

“They are unionized workers, so the fact that the state isn’t giving them inmates doesn’t mean they should be paid,” said CB4 District Manager Robert Benfatto. “They should put them somewhere else.”

With the shuttering of Bayview and Beacon, correction officers will get reas-

signed. Sadly, more than 500 of these officers will be pushed further away from their families and communities, and relocated to facilities with a much longer commute.

According to Benfatto, although the closing of Bayview hasn’t resulted in any significant impact to the local economy, some impact could come from the influx of those women who participated in the work program, as well as the lack of patronage of corrections officer to local eateries and small businesses. All concede that the next iteration of the building will have a significant economic impact in Chelsea.

Building Offers Rec Area Opportunity

All that remains for the Bayview Correctional Facility is the potential for a unique opportunity, as Hoylman put it. This “gorgeous historic building” has almost 100,000 square feet of floor area, and includes a basketball gym in great condition, a rooftop basketball court, a historic tiled pool and a stunning historic chapel used by the seamen.

Hoylman has joined with other elected officials in urging ESD to include them and CB4 in discussions about the future of the building.

“Frankly, we want the building to remain publicly owned, whether by the state or sold to the city,” said Hoylman. “But if that’s not happening, the community must be included in plans for future of the building.”

June 12 - 18, 2013

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former B.p. fields gives kurland a ‘very good’ chance

BY GERARD FLYNN When Yetta Kurland, 43, a civil rights attorney, ran for the City Council’s Third District in 2009 she was up against a political powerhouse: the incumbent Christine Quinn, who has held the so-called “gay seat” since 1999.

Quinn’s win was no doubt helped along by key support from powerful unions and local politicians like then-state Senator Tom Duane, her mentor and former boss, calling it a “slam dunk.” But Kurland put up a surprisingly strong challenge for the mostly West Side district, which spans the length of Hell’s Kitchen and extends through Chelsea and the Village down to Canal Street.

The second time around, the “Yetta Kurland Live!” radio show host faces another Duane favorite, Corey Johnson, 31, the chairperson of Community Board 4 (Chelsea/Clinton), who, like Kurland, is openly gay. (Kurland actually had to suspend her radio show due to her campaign, with her last broadcast airing on May 22.)

It’s shaping up to be a dynamic contest between the self-described “poor kid” from Upstate New York and her opponent and fellow activist, who made a name for himself when he became the nation’s first out high school football team captain. A lesserknown candidate, Alexander Meadows, is also in the race, though he is trailing the other two candidates in the fundraising stakes.

While Kurland and Johnson both talk “progressive” views on issues like healthcare, gay rights, education and affordable housing, Johnson has been getting the lion’s share of endorsements.

With support from Duane, Congressmembers Jerrold Nadler and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, new state Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, as well as powerful labor unions, like the United Federation of Teachers and 1199 SEIU, Johnson is seen by some as the front-runner.

“Corey Johnson is a progressive, proven leader who gets results — on affordable housing, access to quality education, preventing overdevelopment and protecting civil rights,” Nadler said. “He has been a thoughtful and valuable partner on a variety of local matters, and I’m very proud to endorse him for the City Council’s Third District.”

Johnson has also been sweeping the endorsements of local Democratic political clubs, including Village Independent Democrats, Downtown Independent Democrats, Chelsea Reform Democratic Club and Village Reform Democratic Club, plus also has the support of the Working Families Party.

In addition, in a recent New York Times article that announced Duane was supporting him, Johnson came out as HIV-positive.

But to guests at a fundraiser for Kurland on Monday evening, her election campaign is very much in the running, with three months to go before the September 10 primary.

Photo by Gerard Flynn

Yetta Kurland with C. Virginia Fields, right, and Erica Vargas, a political and legislative analyst for District Council 37, left, at a June 3 fundraiser for Kurland.

The fundraiser was organized by the Women’s Democratic Club and held at the loft of Virginia Davis in the West Village. A buoyant Kurland described her campaign as going very well, and said she was excited following the first day of a petition drive to get her name on the ballot.

Kurland was remembered for her work during the recovery from Hurricane Sandy and the fight to stop the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital. She said that of all the issues facing the next city councilmember, a new hospital should figure prominently.

Calling Johnson the “establishment figure,” Kurland’s supporters said his connections and endorsements are certainly helping, but added that noteworthy labor and political support was also getting behind their candidate’s campaign. For her part, Kurland has garnered endorsements from the New York Metro Area Postal Union and more importantly, District Council 37, the city’s largest public workers’ union.

A union representative, who asked not to be named, said Kurland’s leadership in attempts to save St. Vincent’s had garnered her “great respect” and was part of the reason for their support, as well as her commitment to low-wage employees.

In formally announcing her endorsement, C. Virginia Fields, the former Manhattan borough president, was joined by Betsy Gotbaum, the city’s former public advocate.

Fields described Kurland’s chances of taking Quinn’s seat as “very good.”

She praised Kurland’s record on affordable housing and healthcare and added that while name-brand support from the establishment is “always good,” it doesn’t necessarily mean victory.

“I think today people are making decisions independent of the establishment,” Fields said.

Recalling a prior political victory of hers, the former borough president said, “In my case, I ran against an incumbent

and we went to the voters and made our case. Running against recognition makes you work harder but it is not something not doable.”

Even if Johnson is ahead in the endorsements race, it wouldn’t be the first time that Kurland has been playing catch-up. In

terms of campaign funds, Johnson quickly raised his maximum spending limit by last July. According to the most recent data from the Campaign Finance Board, he has raised $176,000 as of May 15, with almost $100,000 remaining for the race’s homestretch.

Kurland, on the other hand, is trailing in dollars, with total receipts of more than $133,616, leaving her with a remaining balance of just under $50,000, as of last month.

For his part, Johnson bristled at the idea of Kurland’s supporters trying to portray him negatively as the “establishment” candidate, simply because he is winning the vast majority of endorsements.

“I’ve spent the past decade as a community activist on the West Side working with residents and community leaders on affordable housing, fighting against overdevelopment and advocating on behalf of middle-class New Yorkers,” Johnson said.

“Congressman Jerry Nadler, former state Senator Tom Duane, Assemblymember Dick Gottfried, state Senator Brad Hoylman, the Village Independent Democrats, the Village Reform Democratic Club and many others have endorsed my campaign. These leaders are not the establishment — they are progressive champions on the West Side, and I’m deeply honored to have received their support.”

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June 12 - 18, 2013

editorial A Great Start: Protecting Us From Storms If you go all the way back to 1900, three of the 10 worst storms to hit the Battery occurred after 2009.

That’s one of the more staggering things revealed in the Bloomberg administration’s comprehensive analysis of the growing threats from climate change.

The most memorable — and overwhelmingly the largest of the 10 storms — of course, was Superstorm Sandy, which devastated chunks of Lower Manhattan as well as other parts of the region.

In Southern Manhattan, defined as south of 42nd Street, 73 percent more buildings are now in the flood plain, representing 10,000 more homes, even though the flood zone has not expanded significantly in Manhattan.

The 430-page report, “A Stronger More resilient New York,” by Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his team are full of short-, medium- and long-term solutions to better protect the city.

The need is obvious.

We are pleased that the $20-billion plan is bolder than we and many others were expecting, given that Bloomberg had been so dismissive of river surge barriers. He is now proposing a few and is open to studying others.

That debate with the public, scientists and politicians needs to continue. We are far from consensus on that issue, but even if there was agreement, we’d still be a long way from building this protection.

That is why the shorter-term solutions like movable barriers along Lower Manhattan’s vulnerable East Side are important. Also critical was is the level of attention paid to protecting utilities, hospitals and communication networks.

One reason Sandy hit Downtown so hard was because it was high tide here, but the city has also looked at protecting critical areas that made out fine — most notably our food supply, which comes in large part from Hunt’s Point.

The mayor has set up ambitious yet achievable goals for 2013 before he leaves office and he has given his successor a good framework to build on and change, where needed. The dialogue with the mayoral contenders on this issue should begin now.

We do have some concern about the amount of communication so far between the city, state and some of the other critical players, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Having watched the many years of delays redeveloping the World Trade Center, we know all too well the perils of competing jurisdictions and egos. The subways and transportation network are critical and there needs to be more coordination.

Lastly, the idea to build a Battery Park City on the East River, the so-called “Seaport City,” is very long-term, and we can already imagine the scoffing to come.

But we hope the idea gets a chance to breathe because it is worth exploring. We recognize the potential downsides — overdeveloping the waterfront, forever marring historic South Street Seaport by taking it away from the water — but these are not impossible obstacles to overcome.

While Battery Park City made out well after the storm, the Seaport and the rest of the East Side is clearly vulnerable. The plan would not only provide protection, but it would also add desperately needed park space.

It’s something for us and our future leaders to consider.

In the meantime, let’s do what we can now to protect our lives, our homes and our livelihoods.

letters to the editor Bike share detractors dining on crow?

To The Editor: Re “Wheels in Motion, as Citi Bike Rolls Out” (news, May 29): My wife and I have just had a wonderful day using bike share! What a fantastic way to travel around the city.

How amazing that this reporter was able to find so many ill-informed detractors and worry-warts. I have no doubt that they are already eating crow, seeing the success of the program just in its first days. Everywhere we traveled today we only encountered curious and positive neighbors.

Saying that bike share is not bike share, but bike rental, only underscores how small-minded and unaware these poor souls really are. They need look no further than their own neighborhoods to see that car sharing already exists right here — and how it differs from “car rental.”

And did no one notice that these racks replaced walls of private vehicles emblazoned with Chevy or Cadillac advertising? Oh, I see, those are historic, while bright blue bikes that happen to be partially underwritten by a bank are not?

Ian Dutton

Up with bike share (and exclamation points!)

To The Editor: Re “Wheels in Motion, as Citi Bike Rolls Out” (news, May 29): The Citi Bike program is fantastic! This is the best thing to happen for Chelsea — and New York City — in ages! The press is giving way too many column inches to the Negative Nellies. The negative voices in this article have been negative commenters on pretty much everything to have taken place in this neighborhood for the past 25 years. This program makes it possible for people to move around the city at a ridiculously low price, on a non-polluting, healthful form of transportation and it ensures that we have something besides cars on our streets, the largest and most central part of NYC’s public realm. Bikes, pedestrians and transit are the lifeblood of this city! This is a program to celebrate!

Joshua David

Much griping, little listening To The Editor: There will almost certainly be valid concerns that are raised by any new program of large size introduced in New York City.

That said, most of the concerns I’m hearing voiced about this program [Citi Bike] involve airing out petty gripes and engaging in wild speculation, and a critical component of this exchange is missing: listening.

The Department of Transportation’s efforts at PR, across the board, are as puzzling as they are incompetent and incomplete. But that is a problem that does not extend to the staff of the NYC Bike Share corporation — the entity running the program, separate from DOT and Alta Bicycle, and not a ward of Citi, the banking cor-

poration — and does not apply to their deployment of the program. They’ve gotten a lot of work done on 300-plus sites in less than two months, and no essential city service or significant activity has been disrupted in the process.

DOT has been — slowly — receptive to concerns where people have been inconvenienced, and made adjustments when the concerns were reasonable. DOT has done appropriate community outreach, and can’t be expected to pursue the direct permission of every person who lives or works in New York City for every change it plans to make. The worst of the changes from this program have extremely mild effects on the neighborhoods in which they were placed, and it’s worth adjusting to those changes in order to gain the benefits of the program.

This is the story that has been repeated constantly, but the opponents are not interested in listening.

They just want their personal demands met in full, after they’ve had a turn at airing their grievances at whatever length suits them. We have yet to hear the reasonable concerns about bike-share. This makes sense, because so far the racks have been deployed, innocuously, in public space that belongs to the city.

NYC Bike Share has not overstepped its bounds at all.

Anything it does to modify rack placement in the upcoming weeks to sort out territorial disputes (which are mostly misguided and sometimes dishonest) will be for the sake of addressing politics. Which is good.

It means DOT and NYC Bike Share are listening. But are the people listening back? Or are they just thinking about more ways to argue for their anti-bike-share worldview to receptive ears in the media?

Brian Van Nieuwenhoven

Correction

After publishing May 29’s “Wheels in Motion, as Citi Bike Rolls Out,” we heard from Christine Berthet, of Community Board 4 (CB4) — who responded to Carolynn Meinhardt’s assertion that her calls to the board had gone unanswered. “As the Co-Chair of the Transportation Committee,” Berthet wrote in a reader comment posted on chelseanow.com, “I responded personally the same evening.” Berthet also sent us an email noting that, “Ms. Meinhardt reached Erica Baptiste, Community Associate at CB4 on May 7 at 4:30pm. She received an email from Erica the next morning.” Responding to our email request for clarification, Meinhardt confirmed that she received a response. “I don’t think I scrolled all the way down to see the CB4 bit at the very end,” Meinhardt said of the email, noting that at the time of her phone interview with us, she “didn't put it together at the time…But technically, I guess I was mistaken.” Chelsea Now regrets the confusion.

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

June 12 - 18, 2013

Community Contacts To be listed, email info to scott@chelseanow.com.

Community Board 4 (CB4) CB4 serves Manhattan’s West Side neighborhoods of Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen. Its boundaries are 14th St. on the south, 59/60th St. on the north, the Hudson River on the west, 6th Ave. on the east (south of 26th St.) and 8th Ave. on the east (north of 26th St.). The board meeting, open to the public, is the first Wednesday of the month.

The next meeting is Wed., July 31, 6:30pm, at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital (1000 10th Ave., btw. 58th & 59th Sts.). Call 212-736-4536, visit nyc.gov/mcb4 or email them at info@manhattancb4.org.

Community Board 5 (CB5) CB5 represents the central business district of New York City. It includes midtown Manhattan, the Fashion, Flower, Flatiron and Diamond districts, as well as Bryant Park and Union Square Park. The district is at the center of New York’s tourism industry. The Theatre District, Times Square, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building and two of the region’s transportation hubs (Grand Central Station and Penn Station) fall within CB5. The board meeting, open to the public, happens on the second Thursday of the month. The next meeting is Thurs., June 13, 6pm, at Xavier High School (30 W. 16th St., btw. 5th and 6th Aves., 2nd fl.). Call 212-465-0907, visit cb5.org or email them at office@cb5.org. tHe 300 west 23rd, 22nd & 21st streets BloCk assoCiation Contact them at 300westblockassoc@prodigy.net. tHe west 400 BloCk assoCiation Contact them at w400ba@gmail.com.

CHelsea garden CluB Chelsea Garden Club cares for the bike lane tree pits in Chelsea. If you want to adopt a tree pit or join the group, please contact them at cgc.nyc@gmail.com or like them on Facebook. Also visit chelseagardenclub.blogspot.com. lower CHelsea allianCe (loCal) This group is committed to protecting the residential blocks of Chelsea from overscale development. Contact them at LowerChelseaAlliance@gmail.com. tHe greenwiCH village-CHelsea CHamBer of CommerCe Call 212-337-5912 or visit villagechelsea.com. tHe meatpaCking distriCt initiative Visit meatpacking-district.com or call 212-633-0185. penn soutH The Penn South Program for Seniors provides recreation, education and social services — and welcomes volunteers. For info, call 212-2433670 or visit pennsouthlive.com. tHe Bowery residents’ Committee: Homeless Helpline If you know of anyone who is in need of their services, call the Homeless Helpline at 212-533-5151, and the BRC will send someone to make contact. This number is staffed by outreach team leaders 24 hours a day. Callers may remain anonymous. For more info, visit brc.org. tHe lesBian, gay, BiseXual & transgender Community Center At 208 W. 13th St. (btw. 7th & 8th Aves.). Visit gaycenter.org or call 212620-7310. gay men’s HealtH Crisis (gmHC) At 446 W. 33rd St. btw. 9th & 10th Aves.

Visit gmhc.org. Call 212-367-1000.

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The proposal includes a $100 million increase for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a $5 million dollar increase in the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS

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Member of the National Newspaper Association Chelsea Now is published biweekly by NYC Community Media LLC, 515 Canal St., Unit 1C, New York, NY 10013.

(212) 229-1890. Annual subscription by mail in Manhattan and Brooklyn $75. Single copy price at office and newsstands is 50 cents. The entire contents of newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2010 NYC Community Media LLC, Postmaster: Send address changes to Chelsea Now, 145 Sixth Ave., First Fl., New York, N.Y. 10013.

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.

Hudson guild Founded in 1895, Hudson Guild is a multi-service, multi-generational community serving approximately 14,000 people annually with daycare, hot meals for senior citizens, low-cost professional counseling, community arts programs and recreational programming for teens. Visit them at hudsonguild.org. Email them at info@ hudsonguild.org. For the John Lovejoy Elliott Center (441 W. 26th St.), call 212-760-9800. For the Children’s Center (459 W. 26th St.), call 212-7609830. For the Education Center (447 W. 25th St.), call 212-760-9843. For the Fulton Center for Adult Services (119 9th Ave.), call 212-924-6710. tHe Carter Burden Center for tHe aging This organization promotes the wellbeing of individuals 60 and older through direct social services and volunteer programs oriented to individual, family and community needs. Call 212-879-7400 or visit burdencenter.org. fulton youtH of tHe future Email them at fultonyouth@gmail. com or contact Miguel Acevedo, 646-671-0310. west side neigHBorHood allianCe Visit westsidenyc.org or call 212956-2573. Email them at wsna@ hcc-nyc.org.

CHelsea Coalition on Housing Tenant assistance every Thursday night at 7pm, at Hudson Guild (119 9th Ave.). Email them at chelseacoalition.cch@gmail.com. friends of Hudson river park Visit fohrp.org or call 212-757-0981.

Hudson river park trust Visit hudsonriverpark.org or call 212627-2020. save CHelsea Contact them at savechelseanyc@ gmail.com.

PUBLISHER Jennifer Goodstein ASSOCIATE EDITOR / ARTS EDITOR Scott Stiffler REPORTERS Lincoln Anderson EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Sean Egan Maeve Gately Yanan Wang

PUBLISHER EMERITUS John W. Sutter

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City CounCil speaker CHristine Quinn Call 212-564-7757 or visit council.nyc. gov/d3/html/members/home.shtml. state senator Brad Hoylman Call 212-633-8052 or visit bradhoylman.com.

CHelsea reform demoCratiC CluB The CRDC (the home club of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Assemblymember Richard N. Gottfried) meets monthly to exchange political ideas on protecting the rights and improving the lives of those residing in Chelsea. Visit crdcnyc.org or email them at info@crdcnyc.org. tHe sage Center New York City’s first LGBT senior center offers hot meals, counseling and a cyber-center — as well as programs on arts and culture, fitness, nutrition, health and wellness. At 305 Seventh Ave. (15th floor, btw. 27th & 28th Sts.). Call 646-576-8669 or visit sageusa.org/ thesagecenter for menus and a calendar of programs. at 147 w. 24th st. (btw. 6th & 7th aves.) tHe sylvia rivera law proJeCt

works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression without facing harassment, discrimination or violence. Visit srlp.org.

fierCe (Fabulous Independent Educated

Radicals for Community Empowerment) builds the leadership and power of bisexual, transgender and queer youth of color in NYC. Visit fiercenyc.org.

Queers for eConomiC JustiCe is a progressive organization committed to promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation. Visit q4ej.org. tHe audre lorde proJeCt is a les-

bian, gay, bisexual, two spirit, trans and gender non-conforming people of color center for community organizing. Visit alp.org.

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June 12 - 18, 2013

Police BLOTTER Robbery: Gun drawn, wallet removed His first mistake was walking home from XL Nightclub — unaccompanied and intoxi-

The $50 switcheroo

A cab driver fell hard for one of the oldest tricks in the book — when he picked up a fare at the northwest corner of Seventh Ave. & W. 28th St. at around 2am on Wed., May 29. When the cab reached W. 18th & Seventh, the passenger told the driver to stop — at which point the fare (hereafter referred to as the “perp”) handed the driver (aka the “victim”) a real $50 bill. As the victim was getting change, the perp asked for the bill back, then handed the victim a counterfeit $50 while pocketing his change ($40 in genuine U.S. currency). Before the victim could discover the ruse, the perp had fled eastbound on 18 St., into the night.

Officers from the 10th Precinct canvassed the nearby area, with negative results.

Street scam cost her 7K

The Pigeon Drop — a classic weapon in the confidence man’s arsenal — was deployed with great skill on the streets of

cated, at the height of last call. That’s when (at 3:45am on Wed., May 29) a 25-year-old man was accosted by three males as he passed 411 W. 42nd St. (Ollie’s Noodle Shop, which had been closed since 11pm). One member of the group (who approached the victim

Chelsea, by two women. The drop went down just before noon on Sat., June 1.

That’s when a 30-year-old female from Queens was approached on W. 28th St. (btw. 8th & 9th Aves.) by two females unknown to the (soon-to-be) victim. The woman was shown a wallet full of money, then told by the tricksters that they would split the cash with her. The only thing the victim had to do was withdraw half the amount from her bank (as a sign of trust and confidence). Then, they promised, she’d get double the amount given to them. Convinced she’d stumbled into a fast money-making opportunity, the victim proceeded to her bank (Chase, at 475 W. 23rd St. and 10th Ave.) and withdrew $7,000. The perps, who were waiting in a car parked outside the bank, took the money and sped off. The victim soon realized she’d been had — but didn’t come to that realization in time to note the car’s plate number, or even its make.

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from behind) slammed him against the wall, while another perp held a black handgun to the victim’s chest and demanded his wallet.

Perp #2 removed $150 from the wallet, then threw it back to the victim. The perps fled eastbound on 42nd Street, then onto Ninth Avenue. Police canvassed the area, but were unable to locate the men. They did, however, obtain video from a camera on 42nd St. and Ninth Avenue — allowing them to verify that the victim indeed emerged from XL.

Criminal Possession of Stolen Property: Soap dope We’ve all heard that crime is a dirty business. But how many of us know that it takes six packs of soap to wash away the shame that comes from knowingly breaking the law? A 43-year-old shoplifter will just have to live with the stench emanating from his foul deeds — because police arrested the man before he could make off with his Dove brand booty (retail value, $98.77). The soap dope was caught as he attempted to exit a CVS (500 W. 42nd St., at 10th Ave.).

Grand Larceny: Revenge of the roommate?

Maybe it was their version of coming to get the security deposit. In a W. 14th

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St. incident that played out like a “Three’s Company” episode gone horribly wrong, a male and female told police that they both left for work one recent morning, only to return to the apartment to find $1,830 worth of property removed from the premises (including a Tiffany watch worth $1,000 and a $530 gold ring). There were no signs of forced entry, so the two chalked it up to a third — that recently departed roommate who left in a huff over a “financial argument.” The gloomy roomie bailed without bothering to return their copy of the apartment keys — securing their place as prime suspect.

—Scott Stiffler

THE 10th PRECINCT Located at 230 W. 20th St. (btw. 7th & 8th Aves.). Commander: Captain David S. Miller. Main number: 212-741-8211.

Community Affairs: 212-741-8226. Crime Prevention: 212-741-8226. Domestic Violence: 212-741-8216. Youth Officer: 212-741-8211. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-741-8210. Detective Squad: 212741-8245. The Community Council meeting, open to the public, takes place at 7pm on the last Wed. of the month. The Council is currently on summer hiatus, and resumes on Sept. 25.

THE 13th PRECINCT Located at 230 E. 21st St. (btw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.). Deputy Inspector: Ted Bernsted. Call 212-477-7411. Community Affairs: 212-477-7427. Crime Prevention: 212-477-7427. Domestic Violence: 212477-3863. Youth Officer: 212-477-7411.

Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-477-4380.

Detective Squad: 212-477-7444. The Community Council meeting takes place at 6:30pm on the third Tues. of the month. The Council is on hiatus, and resumes Sept. 17.

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chelsea: arts & ENTERTAINMENT Brick Up Your Ears Brooklyn theater hosts festival of sound design THEATER sound scape A Festival of Theatrical Sound Design

Through June 29 At The Brick 579 Metropolitan Ave. At Lorimer St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn (btw. Lorimer St. & Union Ave.) Tickets: $15, online at bricktheater. com or call 866-811-4111 Photo by Gyda Arber

BY TOM TENNEY The Brick Theater produces a lot of festivals — it’s kind of their thing. But festivals at the Williamsburg experimental venue aren’t your garden-variety observances of artist or genre: they’ve become the theater’s way of exploring aesthetic and cultural intersections. Sure, some of the dozens of festivals produced during the theatre’s first decade have had a chimerical bent (The Antidepressant Festival comes to mind). But just as often they examine critical connections between live theatre and other arts or performative elements. Their annual Game Play festivals, for example, present works that probe the relationship between performance and video gaming. Others, like the Comic Book Theater Festival, bring divergent artistic forms to the theatrical table.

It’s what Co-Artistic Director Michael Gardner calls “hybrid theatre,” and it makes one wonder what took them so long to come around to sound design. But come around they did — and through June 29, the Brick Theater will present sound scape: a festival of 11 productions that celebrates the sound designer as a driving creative force.

“I’m a huge fan of sound design,” Gardner said. “It’s an unsung art form, and needed a spotlight. In this festival, the sound designer is the primary artist, and sound design, typically in the background in most theatrical

Sound designer Ryan Holsopple’s revival of Alvin Lucier’s 1969 recording, “I Am Sitting in a Room,” presents the avant-garde composition as a concert-style performance using 2013 technology.

Photo by Chris Chappell

Chris Chappell’s “ELE↓↑TOR” takes place in an elevator in the Empire State Building, slowly ascending through a sonic spectrum on its way to the 80th floor.

shows, is foregrounded."

While sound and theatre aren’t exactly incongruous forms — sound, of course, is an integral element in theater — the aural is normally relegated to the role of servile valet to the mighty image, and this is precisely what makes it cry out for a festival of its own.

Scanning the roster of performances, it’s hard to miss the fact that over half the productions in sound scape are based on past works — a fact that is thrilling to Gardner, who also curated the festival.

“There’s a lot of classic text in there, and it spans a wide swathe of time,” he said.

“You’ve got Homer, Dante, Beckett and Virginia Woolf. It wasn’t intentional, it’s just how it fell out.”

One of the most intriguing of these is a performance of Alvin Lucier’s 1969 recording, “I Am Sitting in a Room.” A classic among aficionados of avant-garde composition, Lucier’s piece is as much a scientific experiment as it is a work of art. In the original, Lucier recorded himself speaking into a tape recorder in an isolated room. The tape was then rewound, played back and re-recorded onto a second machine. This process repeated through several generations, each producing resonant frequencies which harmonized with each other — until the artist’s voice was obliterated, and all that remained were reverberating tones. This was groundbreaking stuff in 1969, and sound designer Ryan Holsopple’s revival as a concert-style performance using 2013 technology (the multimedia program Max/MSP) may be considered a scientific experiment in its own right.

Holsopple will employ the Brick’s new 5.2 surround sound system, but his use of modern tech is aimed towards maintaining the original piece’s simplicity. “It’s very stripped down and simple at its core,” he explained, adding that a public performance allows the possibility of the audience becoming part of the composition itself, in the tradition of John Cage. “If people get up to go to the bathroom, cough, move around, or if a siren goes by, every sound becomes a part of it because the room is constantly being recorded.”

Chris Chappell also plans on exploiting the Brick’s new sound system to its fullest.

His piece, “ELE↓↑TOR”, was developed specifically for the kind of theatrical spa-

Continued on page 12

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June 12 - 18, 2013

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Continued from page 11 cialization that a surround system can provide. The play takes place in an elevator in the Empire State Building, slowly ascending through a sonic spectrum on its way to the 80th floor.

Elevators are awkward and uncomfortable, and Chappell sculpts his sound to evoke this feeling in the audience.

“We’re trying to create a feeling of being pushed into the confinement of a closed space,” he explained. Chappell cites two disparate sonic inspirations for the piece — elevator music, and the “noise instruments” developed by Futurist Luigi Russolo a century ago. He views the former as “a really empty kind of music, with a flattening quality that dampens the sharper emotions” — a perfect soundtrack to the social awkwardness of elevators.

Russolo’s influence is a bit more opaque, with pounding, electrical zapping and the sounds of “unfathomable technology” providing a counterpoint to the corporate, anxiety-mitigating quality of elevator music. Chappell says this theatrical noise “is not about soothing the modern man, it’s very loud and threatening and unpredictable.”

Another interesting sonic play on the past is “Commotion Collage,” which

appropriates elements from the Dadaist simultaneous poem — a form pioneered in 1916 by Tristan Tzara at the Cabaret Voltaire, in which multiple voices and other sounds combine in a singular sonic composition.

Director Roger Nasser’s appropriation liberates the original form from its historic cultural context, and yokes it into service as a building block for a more contemporary version of the acoustic collage. “I’m going to take fragments of the original poems and weave them throughout, as part of the background,” he explained. He’ll also include contemporary sounds, such as answering machine messages, white noise and a riff from the “Family Ties” theme song — artifacts from an electronic culture that didn’t yet exist in 1916.

Given the number of ways the festival’s producers are demonstrating that a focus on sound can spur theatrical innovation, it’s unlikely that sound scape will be merely a one-off festival, and may even become a staple of the Brick’s annual offerings. “I like the idea that theatre began as an auditory experience,” Gardner said, adding that, “Today, one thinks of going to see a play. But we want to remind the audience that they’re there to listen. I hope this is an opportunity for audiences to reinterpret what the stage is to them, and to re-imagine what a theatre-going experience can be.”

June 12 - 18, 2013

13

Just Do Art!

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

Photo courtesy of Summer Music in Chelsea

Jiwon Evelyn Kwark is the soloist in New Amsterdam Summer Orchestra’s July 18 Summer Music in Chelsea concert.

SUMMER MUSIC IN CHELSEA

The next installment of St. Peter’s Summer Music in Chelsea concert series features an all-Mozart program that nourishes the soul of those in the pews, while raising much-needed funds to benefit the church’s Food Pantry outreach program.

Matthew Oberstein will conduct the New Amsterdam Summer Orchestra, with violinist Jiwon Evelyn Kwark as the guest soloist. The selections include Mozart’s Violin Concerto #5, K. 219 A Major (Turkish) and Symphony #38, K. 504 D Major (Prague).

Thurs., July 28, at 7:30pm. At St. Peter’s Church (346 W. 20th St., btw. 8th & 9th Aves.). The suggested donation is $10 ($5 for students/seniors). For more info, visit stpeterschelsea.com, or call 212929-2390.

CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL

Running three years in a row is an admirable achievement — but the upcoming fourth installment of the Chelsea Music Festival elevates the annual event to its rightful place as an official local tradition. CMF 2013 is poised to deliver another imaginative, unconventional fusion of music, art, cuisine and familyfriendly programming. This time around, the British-Italian theme pays tribute to three composer anniversaries: Benjamin Britten (100th), Arcangelo Corelli (300th) and Carlo Gesualdo (400th).

Performances will showcase existing and newly commissioned works in the classical, jazz, folk, art song and early music genres. The featured artists include Germany’s Ensemble Amarcord, musicians from London’s Guildhall School of Music, Mexican visual artist Nacho Rodriguez Bach, Momenta String Quartet and The

Photo courtesy of St. Regis Doha, by Amara-Photos.com

June 22, at the Chelsea Music Festival: Vivaldi, Dowland and Duke Ellington receive new jazz arrangements, by Aaron Diehl (performed by his trio and an all-star ensemble of festival musicians).

Declassified. Designed to stir your soul while stimulating your intellect, CMF’s lectures, festival talks, collaborative visual art exhibits and post-concert receptions encourage dialogue between artists and audiences.

June 14-22, at various venues — including Dillon Gallery (555 W. 25 St., btw. 10th & 11th Aves.), the Leo Baeck Institute (15 W. 16th St., btw. 5th & 6th Aves.) and the General Theological Seminary Chapel (440 W. 21st St., btw.

9th & 10th Aves.). Tickets range from $25-65. Purchase at chelseanusicfestival. org — where you’ll find a complete schedule of events. Students and seniors receive a $10 discount, per concert (must show ID at the door). The CMF@Noon outdoor concerts are free. Following the festival on Twitter (@cmf_nyc) and Facebook (facebook.com/chelseamusicfestival).

THE PENALTY

Like a rundown carnival’s dark ride attraction, Clay McLeod Chapman packs his monologues, short stories, novels and plays with the unnerving sense that serious danger is lurking just around the bend. But unlike promised Midway thrills that rarely materialize, Chapman’s characters always deliver when it comes to crossing the line that separates sinister impulse from violent action. That makes him particularly well-suited for this musi-

Continued on page 14

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June 12 - 18, 2013

Just Do Art! Continued from page 13 cal version of “The Penalty.”

Chapman’s stage adaptation (with music and lyrics co-written by Robert M. Johanson) is inspired by the Gouverneur Morris novel and the Lon Chaney film version. Set in 1920 New York City, a legless beggar’s plea for spare change is ignored

by Lower East Side passersby — who are blind to the fact that the seemingly helpless derelict is actually an underworld kingpin obsessed with executing a macabre revenge plot against the prominent doctor who deformed him. “The Penalty” stars Gregg Mozgala as Blizzard, along with an ensemble that includes actors from Mozgala’s The Apothetae theater company (dedicated to the production of new full-length plays about the “Disabled Experience,” and the only NYC-based company to be run, owned and operated by people with disabilities).

Fri. & Sat., June 14, 15, 21, 22, 28 & 29. At 7:30pm, at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie St., btw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.). For tickets ($15 in advance, $18 at the door; $12 for students/seniors), call 212-219-0736 or visit dixonplace.org.

Photo by Sara Buffamanti

Photo by Anne Kristoff

Gregg Mozgala as Blizzard the underworld kingpin. See “The Penalty,” p. 13.

See and hear Frances Ciotta — at Soho Gallery for Digital Art, through June 15 (and forever on the web, at lastoftheitalians.com).

THE LAST OF THE ITALIANS

Once dominant and now dwindling, South Greenwich Village’s Italian community has been captured for the ages — in vibrant and loving detail — by New Yorkbased photographer, writer, installation and mixed media collage artist Anne Kristoff.

In “The Last of the Italians,” Kristoff uses expressive photos accompanied by brief interview excerpts to tell the story of a changing neighborhood’s casualties, stubborn survivors and enduring traditions. At its best, as in the case of Frances Ciotta, the exhibit’s combination of visual and audio beautifully conveys both the crystalized essence of a particular person and their universal desire to retain that which they hold near and dear.

“We celebrated everything in that place,” says Ciotta of an old haunt. Refusing an invite to join her daughter in the outer boroughs, she insists, “I’m going from here to the cemetery. I’m my own boss. I like it that way.” True to her word, Ciotta passed away in 2012, exiting this world as a Village Italian. Her sense of defiance endures, alongside other exhibit participants — such as 43-year-old Tommy Cannella (who’s been praying in front of the blessed mother at St. Anthony’s for decades) and 16-year-old Christina Auricchio (who admits to spending most of her time out of the neighborhood, yet daydreams about what life would have been like to grow up with dozens of kids her age on the block).

Free. Through June 15, at Soho Gallery for Digital Art (138 Sullivan St., btw.

Houston & Prince Sts.). For info, call 212-228-2810. Visit lastoftheitalians.com to view exhibit photos and listen to their accompanying audio clips.

Photo by Steven Schreiber

Kathreen Khavari, in the Transit Lounge production of “You Are Dead. You Are Here.”

YOU ARE DEAD. YOU ARE HERE.

The debut production from playwright Christine Evans, director Joseph Megel and media designer Jared Mezzocchi’s Transit Lounge theater company shifts between the past and present, telling the story of a charged encounter between an American soldier and an Iraqi girl blogger.

The project came about in 2010 when Megel commissioned Evans to write a script about a U.S. veteran haunted by video game-style flashbacks to Iraq.

What ultimately became “You Are Dead.

You Are Here.” has been evolving ever since, most recently under the auspices of the HERE Artist Residency Program.

Inspired by the ever-blurring line between video game environments, interactive technology and military research, the play incorporates animated landscapes from “Virtual Iraq” — a virtual reality program used in military training, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder therapy and rehabilitation. Dr. Skip Rizzo, the cre-

ator of Virtual Iraq, worked with Transit Lounge to retool his cutting-edge software for the stage.

Tues.-Sun. at 8:30pm, Through June 22, at HERE (145 Sixth Ave., just below Spring St., entrance on Dominick St.). For tickets ($10 in advance, $18 one day prior, $20 day of show), call 212-352-3101, visit here.org or purchase at box office (5pm to curtain, on day of show). Student rush tickets free with ID.

June 12 - 18, 2013

15

CB4 Supports Local Supermarket, Integration port. The motion for a “beefed up” letter passed with one member opposed — Brad Pascarella, who was wary about pinpointing one company for the site.

“We don’t need another Duane Reade,” Restuccia concluded.

Continued from page 4

BEEFING UP BIG APPLE

There were 29 agenda items up for review that evening — but the issue that ignited the greatest amount of discussion arrived at the tail end of the agenda, on Item 26: a letter regarding the relocation of Big Apple Meat Market (529 Ninth Avenue, between West 40th and 39th Streets). In line with residents’ desires, the Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen Land Use Committee hopes to encourage the Port Authority to secure the currently empty Project Find site (Ninth Avenue, between West 40th and 41st Streets) for the grocery store, which board members identified as offering “affordable, local” products.

In response to concerns that the language in the letter was not strong enough, CB4’s Joe Restuccia suggested that they “Western’ beef it up,” making reference to Western Beef — a supermarket under the same owner.

The board members discussed the letter’s singling out of a specific retailer to fill the Project Find space. Johnson acknowledged that the move is “not typical,” as the board generally avoids advocating for specific businesses. However, J.D. Nolan pointed out that in this case, it is appropriate to identify Big Apple because of its history within the community.

IN THE INTEREST OF INCLUSION

Photo by Scott Stiffler

CB4 supports Big Apple Meat Market’s desire to relocate into the former Project Find space (Ninth Ave., directly across from Port Authority).

“It’s not about singling out a tenant,” Nolan said. “It’s about supporting a longterm resource and community asset.”

Kathleen Treat, chair of the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association, called the grocery store “a constant friend to the community,” noting that it would benefit greatly from a larger space. The current location, Treat said, cannot accommodate

wheelchairs or strollers, and the steep staircase makes entry very difficult for seniors and disabled shoppers.

Treat added that residents in the neighborhood have been rallying around the cause, as demonstrated by the signatures she showed the CB4. Given the community activism around the issue, Rubin suggested that the letter mention residents’ sup-

The Housing, Health and Human Services Committee’s Item 16, a letter concerning a lower income housing plan application for the development at 551 Tenth Avenue, caused many board members to speak up in favor of more inclusionary housing. The letter recommended that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development deny the application unless certain stipulations, outlined by the board, were met.

Discussion centered around the opportunities the new housing development could offer its low-income tenants, as well as equal access to the various amenities within the building. As 551 Tenth Avenue will include both affordable housing units and retail units, the board requested in its letter that — contrary to Extell Development Group’s original intentions — all bathroom finishes be made the same, and that certain amenities, such as the rooftop deck and pool, be available to all residents in the spirit of integration.

Continued on page 17

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June 12 - 18, 2013

June 12 - 18, 2013

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CB4 tackles variance variables Continued from page 15 Ambiguity in some of the letter’s language stirred debate among board members. Some argued that the need for identical bathroom finishes should be more explicit.

“Don’t we usually advocate for parity across the board?” Johnson asked. In response, Restuccia suggested that the board should tread carefully with its requests, so as not to alienate an applicant who has already made a few concessions. The item passed with the agreement to make the letter’s tone consistent throughout.

David Pincus introduced Item 14, a letter on After-Hours Variances (AHVs), by thanking Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, as well as CB4’s Paul Seres and Berthet, for “adding meat and potatoes” to the letter. While one board member pointed out that a meeting has already been held in Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office on the same issue, Johnson interjected that given the severity of the problem, it would not be inappropriate for CB4 to request a meeting with the Department of Transportation as well.

“I think it’s a very important movement going on,” Lee Compton agreed. “It’s been the bane of our existence for a long time.”

After-Hours Variances, which allow developers and landlords to perform construction work late at night, early in the mornings or on the weekends, have been the cause of “a del-

uge of complaints over the last two years,” the letter said. It noted furthermore the health risks of extended noise exposure, including high blood pressure, migraine headaches and consequences for children whose mothers were pregnant under the circumstances.

The item passed unanimously, with a friendly amendment to include mention of the ongoing development of Hudson Yards and West Chelsea — two areas of the neighborhood that may likely suffer the most grief as a result of after-hours variances in coming years. “[AHVs] should only be issued for emergencies,” said a representative of the 50-51 Block Association. “If they can’t get the work done in five days, then hire more people, and they’ll get the same amount of work done in five days that they would otherwise do in six or seven.”

CurBing noise, traffiC

In the Business License and Permits Committee’s bundle of letters recommending stipulations for liquor license applications, Item 2 stirred some discussion among council members regarding the status of noise complaints for XL Nightclub (512 West 42nd Street). Lisa Daglian announced that the establishment’s parties and festivities have raised a number of noise complaints from people who live or work in the area, including concerns about long line-ups outside of the club. The letter passed with a motion to make the language stricter.

Where noise-makers are concerned, up for debate were Items 22 and 23 — both regarding parking reserved for motorcycles.

Pamela Wolff said she sent out the letter in support of “motorcycle only Parking” signs to her constituents, and has received a number of positive responses. Considering the disruption created by the vehicles, Wolff said, the proposed corner location would contribute to curbing the noise.

Brett Firfer took issue with the letter’s aim to “encourage more commuting by motorcycle instead of cars.” Firfer pointed out that motorcycles have a tendency to “bleed into” pedestrian areas, and because few of them are quiet, it becomes a quality of life issue for residents. He questioned whether increased motorcycle use would have a positive effect on the neighborhood.

The letter passed with council members agreeing to add that the proposal would prevent motorcycles from invading the pedestrian areas.

The board also discussed the newest — and seemingly most contentious — form of transportation: the now-ubiquitous Citi Bike.

Johnson recognized Berthet for the work that she has put into responding to complaints regarding the placement of docking stations, recalling that she had remained on call by her phone and email during “the initial days of people having strong reactions.”

Item 21, which requested the relocation of six different Citi Bike racks across Chelsea,

had already been sent to the Department of Transportation due to the letter’s associated immediate concerns. Johnson noted that it would not be difficult, however, for the board to re-send the letter, with the modifications discussed at the meeting.

After other board members pointed out that many bike racks in the neighborhood were empty (a sign of the program’s success), Frank Holuzbiec noted that while Citi Bike has been generally well received, little work has been done towards creating a public awareness program that serves to instruct cyclists on the rules of the road.

“I see people in the bikes pulling out of bike lanes when a red light comes on,” said Holuzbiec. “This has caused a lot of serious safety issues.”

COMMUNITY BOARD 4 serves Manhattan’s West Side neighborhoods of Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen.

Its boundaries are 14th St. on the south, 59/60th St. on the north, the Hudson River on the west, 6th Ave. on the east (south of 26th St.) and 8th Ave. on the east (north of 26th St.). The board meeting, open to the public, is the first Wednesday of the month.

The next meeting takes place on July 31, 6:30pm, at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital (1000 10th Ave., btw. 58th & 59th Sts.).

There is no August meeting. Call 212-7364536, visit nyc.gov/mcb4 or email them at info@manhattancb4.org.

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June 12 - 18, 2013

giving the public a real say on nyCHa infill plan talKiNG PoiNt

BY BRAD HOYLMAN AND BRIAN KAVANAGH Leasing off the basketball courts of low-income New Yorkers to build luxury apartments might sound extreme, but that’s among the proposals by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to raise revenue.

Earlier this year, NYCHA announced it was targeting 14 sites, including parking lots, playgrounds and even a community center, in eight Manhattan public housing developments for so-called “infill development,” in order to raise about $50 million annually and help close gaps in its capital budget. Subject only to the approval of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the authority plans to lease the sites to private developers for the construction of new high-rise apartment towers in which 80 percent of the units would be market rate.

There’s no doubt that NYCHA is in financial trouble. The authority predicts that its unmet capital needs will more than double to $13.4 billion over the next five years. Its operations budget has been underfunded by $750 million in the past decade. And we’re already seeing the effects — in staff layoffs, youth and

community center closures and multi-year lag times in critical apartment repairs.

Residents regularly call our offices seeking help in cutting through red tape on maintenance requests; certainly NYCHA needs to manage its resources better and expedite critical repairs, but there’s no denying that money plays a role in these issues.

Is the infill plan the best option for ameliorating NYCHA’s financial problems? It certainly isn’t the only option.

Currently, the city requires NYCHA to pay

ning of the year, NYCHA officials have met with elected officials, tenant associations and the broader public to pitch the proposal. But these pitches have been scant on details and heavy on emotional appeals. Rather than discussing specifics about the proposed new residential towers, the presentations have focused primarily on the housing authority’s dire need for cash.

NYCHA officials have also made informal promises to residents of affected developments, saying that revenue collect-

Any disposition of the housing authority’s land or buildings should undergo the city’s ULURP review. $100 million a year for police, sanitation and property taxes that are not imposed on other public agencies or low-income housing providers. Whether or not infill development goes forward, these payments — twice the amount of revenue the proposed infill might generate — should be eliminated.

And on its own terms, the infill development plan raises many questions that have yet to be answered. Since the begin-

ed from infill development would be used to make repairs to their developments before being allocated to public housing in other parts of the city, though no funding ratio has been defined. There have also been promising ideas about improving security and energy resiliency for residents — an issue that especially resonates on the Sandy-ravaged Lower East Side — but again, there are as yet no details available about how this would be accomplished.

What’s missing in the infill process is a public forum in which fundamental questions can be addressed and authoritatively answered. Do New Yorkers believe that infill development with mostly marketrate housing is the best use of scarce public land? Would public housing residents, and New York as a whole, get the best possible deal under current plans?

What would be required of developers to ensure that any new residential towers are designed with the concerns of the surrounding communities in mind? Even if we conclude infill can go forward at some sites, which ones make sense and with what conditions or limitations?

Residents have alternately crowded into community rooms seeking answers at so-called “engagement meetings,” and boycotted these same meetings upon hearing from others that the authority isn’t approaching them as an honest broker truly interested in resident input. Many have complained that direct questions to the housing authority have either been ignored, or worse, challenged. For example, one NYCHA official responded to a question at a recent Campos Plaza meeting with this retort: “Come up with a better idea or shut up.”

Continued on page 19

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nyCHa Continued from page 18 We have suggested improvements to this process, such as it is, and NYCHA has accepted some of them. And the Assembly and the City Council have both held public hearings that have been informative. But here’s a big idea for NYCHA: Subject the infill plan to New York City’s formal land use review process, which ensures transparency and accountability and results in proposals that are better for both developers and the communities in which they build — if and when projects are approved.

The Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) includes many checks and balances for major land use actions, including environmental impact studies, a formal role for community boards, the borough president and the City Planning Commission and a binding decision by the City Council approving or disapproving each project. In fact, any redevelopment of public land owned by a city agency is already subject to ULURP. But because NYCHA is not technically a city agency — it was created by state law — the authority is not currently bound by the same requirement.

That is why we are sponsoring the “NYCHA Real Property Public Review

Act,” which would require that any disposition of land or buildings by NYCHA be subject to ULURP. With the leadership of Assembly prime sponsor and Housing Committee Chairperson Keith Wright, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Council Public Housing Committee

engagement from the ground up. The ULURP process will also enable public housing residents to avail themselves of the same community planning resources that residents of private housing use to evaluate and weigh in on major land use actions. It will bring NYCHA in line with

NYCHA will only score a win for the communities it serves by giving them a say and adhering to the standard public review process required of every other developer in the city.

Chairperson Rosie Mendez and the support of other local officials who have played an active role in the infill debate (like state Senator Daniel Squadron and Councilmember Margaret Chin) this legislation would help ensure that residents of public housing and surrounding communities can help shape the future of their neighborhoods through a fair and transparent process.

With both clear timelines and requisite opportunities for public input, ULURP would provide the authority with a clear and well-trodden path for community

other mayoral agencies, and ensure that the City Council has binding authority in this extremely consequential privatization of publicly owned land.

The need for this legislation is clear.

According to an August 2008 report

by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer entitled “Land Rich, Pocket Poor,” there are 30.5 million square feet of unused development rights in NYCHA developments throughout Manhattan alone. In other words, there might not be any plan for infill development in your backyard yet, but with all those unused air

rights, such a plan may not be too far off.

With 630,000 public housing residents and Section 8 recipients, NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in the country, and the largest landlord in New York City; it is also one of the oldest, with some buildings nearing 80 years old. To serve all of these people, and maintain these aging buildings, there’s no question that NYCHA needs more money. But it also needs the support of residents, and the partnership of their communities, to tackle the challenges of preserving and expanding affordable housing in the 21st century.

Infill development has the potential to generate some revenue to pay for long-overdue capital projects — but at what cost to NYCHA’s relationship with its residents and neighborhood stakeholders? NYCHA will only score a win for the communities it serves by giving them a say and adhering to the standard public review process required of every other developer in the city. It’s about more than just basketball courts, playgrounds and community centers. The integrity of community-based planning is at stake.

Hoylman is state senator for the 27th District; Kavanagh is assemblymember for the 74th District.

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June 12 - 18, 2013

June 12 - 18, 2013

Photo by Lincoln Anderson

new whitney right on track The Whitney Museum’s new Downtown building is rising fast on Gansevoort Street next to the High Line’s southern end, just east of the Hudson River Park. Designed by architect Renzo Piano, it is slated to open in 2015. The new building will include more than 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries and 13,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space on a series of rooftops facing the High Line. The building will also sport a huge space for temporary exhibitions — roughly 18,000 square feet — which will be the city’s largest column-free museum gallery.

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and never correctly guess why the testy temp stopped your sessions cold. Speculating about the motivations of others is a thankless, and almost always fruitless, task. So why work yourself into a tizzy, Helena?

I’ll just bet the bee that’s set up shop in your bonnet stems directly from an inappropriate amount of time and energy spent trying to figure out “why” — and then constructing an exquisite tale of betrayal and woe, to unspool like a tight ball of nanotech yarn, once your regular therapist breezes back into town. My advice is to forget about the wrong that’s been done to you, and focus on addressing — with candid honesty — the problems that drove you to a therapist in the first place. Good luck, dear…and keep me updated on your progress!

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Contact her via askauntchelsea@chelseanow.com, and feel free to end your pensive missive with a clever, anonymous moniker (aka “Troubled on 23rd Street,” or “Ferklempt in the Fashion District”).

Gemini Next Wednesday’s carefully woven plan for the day will quickly unravel. Be flexible, and embrace the ensuing adventure. Lucky shape: Octagon.

Cancer Stop pursuing that hobby for which you have no natural gifts. You were better at that other thing, and happier doing it. Lucky sash color: Yellow.

Leo Don’t get so freaked out by streetlamps that go dark as you walk under them. Not everything is an omen! Lucky Apocalypse Horseman: Third.

The New & Improved

Dear Aunt Chelsea: My therapist left me high and dry. She said she would treat me until my permanent therapist got back to work — which isn’t so. She stopped the sessions for June. This left a sour taste in my mouth. I used to trust therapists. Now, I feel they are a dime a dozen. There is only one therapist who I trust, and I hope he comes back again real soon.

in old haunts, with good friends. Frankie says relax!

Lucky source of stimulation: Magic Fingers mattress.

OKER CEBOSP AP N FAA OW.NEW US /O ELSE .N CH ADbD ook.com face

Libra Resist the urge to go off on a subway busker who butchers a favorite song from your youth. Tip well and receive karmic rewards. Lucky pattern: Tweed.

Scorpio You will be distracted from an important project by that YouTube clip of a lovelorn Yukon moose. Focus! Lucky bird/habit: Humming.

Cynical Helena, in Chelsea Dear Cynical Helena: Although it’s been years since Aunt Chelsea muscled in on the local lemonade merchants by hanging her shingle on a wobbly wooden stand and charging a nickel for psychiatric help, she’s well aware that her status as this newspaper’s resident advice columnist more than qualifies her to make sweeping judgments based on little, if any, real information. No extensive backstory for THIS gal, thank you very much — a bare bones description of the problem is all I need to flush out the festering emotional wound and wrap it up in TLC (Tough Love, Cupcake!). So thanks for the vote of confidence by writing in, hon. Now, let’s get down to the business of shrinking your head.

Anyone who uses the word “trust” twice in one paragraph clearly has what is commonly referred to as, well, “Trust Issues.”

So I trust you’ll take my advice when I tell you to not write off all of humanity (or, at the very least, all single therapists) just because old faithful went away for a month and placed you in the care of a crackpot colleague.

You can wrack your brain from here until next Thursday

Virgo The new moon heralds an age of time spent

US FOLLOW NowNYC a e @Chels

P T SIGN U E-BLAS om U O R ott at scRott@chelseanow.c FO ail Sc Em

Check out our new website! www.ChelseaNow.com

Sagittarius A refreshing breeze upon exiting your

apartment deceives you. Accept the humidity and plan accordingly. Lucky form of madness: Reefer.

Capricorn You never tire of telling others that life is too short for mediocre toast — so think twice before skimping on that discount brand jam. Lucky ice state: Shaved.

Aquarius An eccentric moves into that apartment with high turnover, staying for years and filling your life with wacky next door neighbor antics. Lucky dimension: 2x4.

Pisces You have more strong opinions this week than there are grains of sand on all the beaches.

Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.

Lucky Rogers: Kenny.

24

June 12 - 18, 2013

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