THE VILLAGER, JUNE 19, 2014

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

June 19, 2014 • $1.00 Volume 84 • Number 3

N.Y.U. plan foes say run is a park, doggone it, as appeals are filed

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

I

n the ongoing legal slugfest over N.Y.U.’s superblocks plan — which has been left reeling on the ropes after a judge’s ruling — last Friday, a coalition of opponents threw another punch, filing a “cross-appeal” in state Appellate Court.

In January, Justice Donna Mills ruled in State Supreme Court that the city had violated state law by allowing New York University to take over three public parks for construction-related purposes during the school’s 20year South Village expansion project.

N.Y.U. LAWSUIT, continued on p. 2

BY CLARISSA-JAN LIM

H

urricane Sandy wreaked havoc on Westbeth’s basement space and many of the artists’ works and equipment housed there, but these artists now face another conundrum: the possibility of their former workspaces

being rented out to commercial tenants, effectively denying their return to the very spaces they toiled and stored their work in for decades.

The likely change came as a shock to some Westbeth tenants who had rented spaces in the basement before it was deluged by WESTBETH, continued on p. 9

Health workers turn up heat...page 5

PHOTO BY MILO HESS

After Sandy’s flood, Westbeth artists find studios floated for rent

At the Bubble Battle in Union Square on Saturday, a “combatant” launched a soapy volley.

Society honors butcher, boats, bookstore, B.B.C., burial ground

BY ALBERT AMATEAU

A

South Village butcher, a community boathouse on the Hudson River and an East Village cemetery were among the neighborhood icons that were honored this week at the 34th annual meeting of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

More than 400 Villagers filled the art deco auditorium of the New School, at 66

W. 12th St., on Mon., June 16, to celebrate the people, places and institutions that make the Village — West, East and South — so beloved by residents and by visitors from all over the world.

The Village Awards event, held at the past 24 annual society meetings, this year bestowed the Regina Kellerman Award, named for the first executive director of the society, to Kathy Donaldson, a founding member and longtime president of the Bedford-Barrow-Commerce

Block Association. Donaldson, who spends 800 to 1,000 hours a year on various community projects, paid tribute to her late parents, Kay and Richard Donaldson, who instilled in her the commitment to community service.

The following six other 2014 awards were presented

by Calvin Trillin, the longtime Village resident and humorist who writes for The New Yorker and The Nation.

La MaMa E.T.C, the groundbreaking theater AWARDS, continued on p. 4

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N.Y.U. plan foes say run is a park, doggone it N.Y.U. LAWSUIT, continued from p. 1

PHOTO BY THE VILLAGER

The park strips are located on N.Y.U.’s two jumbo-sized blocks between Houston and W. Third Sts. N.Y.U. and the de Blasio administration filed notices of appeal after Mills’s ruling, and N.Y.U. filed its appeal several weeks ago. The city filed its appeal in May. The coalition includes more than 20 community members and groups.

Their legal brief maintains that the lower court “got it right” in finding that the three city-owned parcels — Mercer Playground, LaGuardia Park and LaGuardia Corner Gardens — are public parks, since the city treated them as such and the public has used them as parks for decades.

The coalition is now asking the Appellate Court to require the city and N.Y.U. to “halt the project, re-examine the building plans and city approvals that were based on the illegal alienation of public parkland, and conduct a proper environmental review that takes the protected status of these parks into account.”

Mills ruled that the state Legislature must first “alienate” the park strips — removing their park status — before they can be used as con-

Roger, a friendly Italian Spinone, 5, lounged in the Mercer-Houston Dog Run on Wednesday.

struction staging areas.

The coalition is also asking the Appellate Court to rule that the Mercer-Houston Dog Run is parkland, too. Mills stated that this open-space strip is not a public park, partly because it charges a nominal membership fee and N.Y.U. maintains it.

However, the opponents will argue that the city “openly intended the [dog run] land to be used by the public for recreation, and it has been used in exactly that way for over 40 years.”

If N.Y.U. is to get its paws, so to speak, on the dog run, to use its footprint for its new “Zipper Building,” then this strip, again, must first be alienated by the state Legislature, the coalition says.

The university’s “N.Y.U. 2031” project called for 2 million square feet of development on the two university-owned superblocks, which N.Y.U. considers part of its “campus core” area. N.Y.U. maintains it can still at least build the “Zipper” — including about half of that space — based on Mills’s ruling.

Responding to the coalition’s cross-appeal, N.Y.U. stressed that the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP — the city’s official approval process — for the full, four-building project remains valid.

However, Mills’s ruling effectively blocks construction of at least two, and possibly three, of those planned buildings.

In a statement, the university said, “N.Y.U.’s core plan that provides for the university’s academic space needs was overwhelmingly approved by the City Planning Commission and the City Council in 2012 as part of the city’s ULURP process. That process included an extensive environmental review. Justice Mills, in her decision, upheld the ULURP process and the environmental review… . The status of the Department of Transportation strips — whether or not they are determined to be ‘implied parkland’ —

has no impact on the validity of these ULURP approvals.

“Similarly, Justice Mills ruled that the strip of land that includes the Mercer dog run was not ‘implied parkland,’ so there are no legal impediments to construction on the site of the current Coles gym… .

“As for the...other three D.O.T. strips,” N.Y.U.’s statement continued, “the university respectfully disagrees with Justice Mills’s decision that these strips are ‘implied parkland’ and has asked the Appellate Division to overturn this part of the justice’s decision. … We believe the city should make land available for recreational and other uses without having to permanently dedicate it as parkland. ...”

In its own brief to the Appellate Division, N.Y.U. said, “The lower court failed to appreciate the legal significance of the fact that these [D.O.T.] parcels are mapped as streets… .

New York City streets are held in trust for the public, and cannot be permanently dedicated for another use — whether as parkland or anything else — without a public review process and legislative action.”

Oral argument is expected in September.

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June 19, 2014

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he still presented a good target, and the heroic SEAL blasted the lethal shot right into his head.

SIDEWALK

FLEA MARKET PHOTO BY SCOOPY

CONGRESSIONAL SUMMIT: We had a sitdown this week with Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, who isn’t facing a Democratic primary challenger. But there is a Republican aiming to run against her, Nicholas S. Di Iorio, under the catchy slogan, “Nick for New York.” Anyway, Maloney brought us up to speed on everything she’s been up to. Of course, we had to ask her about House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s stunning primary loss to Tea Party candidate David Brat. “You could hear the ground shake,” Maloney said. “His loss, I think, is a tremendous one. I would say that [a deal on] immigration is now completely dead. It was shocking — and that none of the polls saw it.”

Maloney just got back from Normandy, where she was commemorating the D-Day anniversary with President Barack Obama. She also participated in last weekend’s moms’ anti-gun march across the Brooklyn Bridge. “I was the only politician invited to speak at that, I was very honored,” she told us.

Gun reform must happen, she stressed. “I thought it would come after Gabby Giffords was shot in Arizona — it didn’t,” she said. “There have been 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook. What more do you need?” We pumped her for her thoughts on the 2016 presidential election and Hillary Clinton’s potential candidacy. “I think the nomination is hers, if she wants it,” Maloney said. “I do not think she’ll make a decision before the midterm elections.” In fact, she was going to a Clinton fundraiser that evening. What about Governor Andrew Cuomo? “Cuomo got us gay marriage,” she said.

“He passed the toughest gun laws in the country.

He’s got this women’s agenda. And the economy is improving in New York. You can get a decision out of the governor. And I think getting on-time budgets is great. Do I think he’ll run against Hillary?

No. Will he run? Possibly.” The veteran congressmember also tipped us off that the Navy SEAL who fired the shot that killed Osama bin Laden may be giving his military shirt, complete with its American flag patch, to the 9/11 Museum in July.

Maloney said she met with the super-SEAL, who told her how it went down. Basically, as Maloney related it to us, as the SEAL and a comrade entered bin Laden’s room, three of his wives jumped in front of the terrorist mastermind. The other SEAL somehow grabbed the trio and threw them to the side — not knowing whether they had been rigged up with suicide bomb belts. Then bin Laden took his youngest wife and used her as a human shield, but — oops! — too bad for him, he was so tall that TheVillager.com

IN FINE TRIM: We stopped by the other day to see how Astor Place newsstand vendor Jerry Delakas, above, is doing. He’s feeling better, he said, and is still waiting on the results of a recent medical test. “Nice haircut!” a passing woman called out. In fact, he just got his once-yearly cut, Delakas said. Surprisingly, he didn’t go to Speedy at Astor Hairstylists, but another place between Third and Second Aves. “The camera like me,” he quipped as we took his photo. With that sharp new do — definitely! What a stud!

IN WITH CHIN: Sam Spokony, who did two stints as a reporter with The Villager and NYC Community Media, has moved on to a new position as communications director for City Councilmember Margaret Chin. Meanwhile, Spokony’s predecessor in Chin’s office, Amy Varghese, has gone to work for City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, as has another former Chin staffer, Matt Viggiano, who was the councilmember’s land use advisor. Best of luck, Sam! We’ve already noticed a vast improvement in Chin’s press releases — but they’d be even better if they were accompanied by some audio clips of improvisational “free jazz” (one of Spokony’s passions).

CORRECTION: Stained-glass artist Patti Kelly, who was profiled in last week’s Villager, called to say that some things in the article she never said, nor would ever say. Kelly, who was a member of the fighting Committee to Save St. Brigid’s, said she personally would never use the word “payback” to describe why she believes she will never see any more work on churches. She also said she would never say she was “putting out an appeal” for work — such as commissions or restorations.

(Those words were not in the original article, written by Heather Dubin, but were added during the editing.) Kelly is facing a rent increase, and fears she might not be able to stay in her beloved East Village. While she herself is not putting out an appeal, we will! Kelly’s work is simply amazing, and anyone who loves stained-glass artistry should check out her work and also her classes, which she teaches at her studio.

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condition, police said.

A police spokesperson said the woman had the green light. The bus had been turning left from westbound 14th St. onto Seventh Ave. The bus driver did not leave the scene after the accident.

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Awards for butcher, boats, bookstore, burial ground AWARDS, continued from p. 1

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

founded by the late Ellen Stewart, and located at 74A E. Fourth St. since 1969, is still going strong producing plays by new playwrights. Ozzy Rodriguez, La MaMa archives director, who accepted the award, said the theater has presented 4,000 productions over the past 52 years, and mounts, on average, a new show each week.

New York Central Art Supply, was opened in 1905 by Benjamin Steinberg and is currently run by the third and fourth generations of Steinbergs.

Starting as an “odd lot” store, the shop moved to its present location on Third Ave. at E. 11th St. about 100 years ago, and by 1940 was selling mostly art supplies to customers including Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. Doug Steinberg accepted the award.

The New York Marble Cemetery, organized in 1830, with a gated entrance at 41½ Second Ave. but not visible from the street, has had more than 2,000 burials in 150 underground marble vaults under its halfacre landscaped lawn. The cemetery is available for private events and is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the fourth Sundays of the month from April through October.

Carolyn Du Boise, a cemetery trustee, said engineers for the Second Ave. subway were about to plan a

but I’m still here,” Pino said.

The Village Community Boathouse, berthed on the south side of Pier 40 on the Greenwich Village waterfront for the past 15 years, has allowed visitors to row reproductions of classic Whitehall gigs. The original boats were 25-foot-long rowboats that ferried passengers to and from ships (and the New Jersey shore) in the 18th and 19th centuries. Volunteers run the boathouse Andrew Berman, director of G.V.S.H.P., left, and built the boats in their with neighborhood activist Kathy Donaldson, Pier 40 space during the winpresident of the Bedford-Barrow-Commerce ter. Sally Curtis, a boathouse Block Association, who won a Village Award. director, accepted the award.

The boathouse is the sucstation stairway in the middle of the cessor to Floating the Apple, an orgacemetery. nization founded by Mike Davis, who “It would have given our occu- died in 2008, which began building pants a quick route downstairs to copies of Whitehall boats in the 1990s. haunt the whole subway system,” Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Barshe quipped. gain Books, at 34 Carmine St., was anAnother Village Award winner other Village Award honoree. The store was Pino Prime Meats, located in the was founded in 1992 by Jim Drougas old Italian South Village at 149 Sulli- and his wife, Indiana, who run it with van St. There has been a butcher shop the help of their children. The couat the spot for nearly 100 years. Pino ple takes an active part in organizing Cinquemani, an immigrant from Sic- around neighborhood issues. ily, and his sons have been running “We started the store before our the shop since 1978. children were born,” Indiana re“When I came here on my honey- called. moon 40 years ago, it was cold and Before the awards were presented, snowy and I said I was going back, Andrew Berman, G.V.S.H.P. exec-

utive director, spoke about the triumphs and setbacks in historic preservation over the past year.

“We won a huge victory earlier this year when State Supreme Court Judge Donna Mills agreed with us and our co-plaintiffs that the city illegally gave away public park space to New York University as part of the approval of N.Y.U.’s massive 20-year expansion plan,” Berman said.

“The ruling made much of the 2-million-square-foot expansion impossible and should force the plan back to the drawing board,” Berman continued. “But, unfortunately, N.Y.U. and the city filed an appeal to the judge’s ruling. G.V.S.H.P. is filing a counter-appeal and the case is expected to go before another judge later this year.”

Another preservation victory in 2013 was the city’s approval of the second phase of the G.V.S.H.P.-proposed South Village Historic District, including 13 blocks and 250 buildings south of Washington Square down to Houston St. But the Bloomberg administration declined to move on the third phase of the society’s plan for the district — from Houston St. to Watts St. between Sixth Ave. and just west of West Broadway.

The society inducted three new directors at the Monday meeting: Richard Blodgett, Keung Choi Bordes and Anita Isola.

Q & A with Corey Johnson on Pier 40 air rights

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

T

he Empire State Development Corporation — the state’s development agency — is now saying that an “expedited ULURP” is what will be done for the process under which Pier 40’s unused development rights will be transferred to the St. John’s Center site across the West Side Highway, and also for the new project that will then rise on that site. A still-unseen memorandum of understanding, or M.O.U., signed

by E.S.D.C., Atlas Capital Group (a St. John’s Center co-owner) and the Hudson River Park Trust, called for the transfer of $100 million worth of air rights from Pier 40, and for the whole project to be done under a state-run General Project Plan, as opposed to a city-run Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. ULURP involves more local community review, plus binding votes by the City Planning Commission and City Council. The sale proceeds will be funneled back into Pier 40 for its repair. As the councilmember whose district includes Pier 40, at W. Houston St., Corey Johnson will be the lead negotiator on the ULURP. The Villager asked John-

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June 19, 2014

son his thoughts on the upcoming review process — which reportedly could be completed by December 2015 — as well as about the secret M.O.U. What exactly is an “expedited ULURP”? Does that mean the project’s application will be rushed through, skipping some of the usual required steps? Or rather will the project simply be prioritized — as in moved up in the queue of applications for review, allowing it to be dealt with more quickly?

Creating the mechanism to transfer air rights from Pier 40 won’t happen overnight. There is a precertification process that must take place before the project goes through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which is the public process by which land use matters are determined in New York City. Once the project has been certified, it takes a maximum of 150 days to wend its way through that process. The work that is done beforehand — studying the site, doing an environmental impact assessment, solic-

iting public input — is something that I and elected officials involved with this project are going to prioritize to make sure Pier 40 is a focus to ensure its current uses are maintained and guarded.

In your understanding, exactly what kind of project is being conceived for the St. John’s Center?

We have yet to see the M.O.U., even though a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request was sent to retrieve it — which was a rare step for my and other elected officials’ offices to have to take to retrieve an M.O.U. from a public entity. Pier 40 needs serious repairs, and to do so will require a significant amount of money. Right now, residential development generates significantly more income for developers than commercial. Considering the history of this site, a mixed-use development would be appropriate, and certainly the residential component must include affordable housing in various income bands.

This project presents an oppor-

tunity to open up the streets that were closed long ago to create the multiblock-long St. John’s building.

Should that be done?

Opening up the streets makes sense and will improve access to the waterfront and the amenities at Pier 40. If the community is in favor, it is certainly something I can support and advocate for.

How tall should a new development at the St. John’s Center site be?

The St. John’s terminal is a huge building and is located in a part of town that could accommodate a substantial development. I am open to hear what the owner would like to build there, and compare that with what the community thinks would be appropriate for the site, understanding that I also have a responsibility to Pier 40, its maintenance and use.

How do you feel about the whole PIER 40, continued on p.5 TheVillager.com

PHOTO BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Very vocal outside VillageCare Union members from SEIU 1199 loudly picketed outside the VillageCare rehab facility on W. Houston St. on Wednesday. “No contract! No peace!” they shouted. The action was part of a larger effort over negotiations with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Nursing Homes, affecting more than 100,000 employees. According to SEIU 1199, the workers previously had free healthcare and no co-pays. The league recently offered a contract with $250 monthly premiums, plus co-pays, but it has since pulled it off the table. The current contract expires July 15. Wednesday’s event — described as an “informational picketing, not a protest” — was a one-day-only action, with picketing at 100 healthcare facilities around the city. The action was intended “to keep the public informed,” a spokesperson said. Calls for comment from VillageCare were not returned by press time.

Lincoln Anderson

MEN HAVE NEEDS TOO.

and ‘expedited ULURP’ PIER 40, continued from p. 4

secret M.O.U. process that transpired?

Madelyn Wils, the Trust’s president, kept publicly assuring everyone that the whole process would be governed

by ULURP — even as the M.O.U. called for a G.P.P. The M.O.U. signed in December by E.S.D.C., the developer and the Hudson River Park Trust came as a total shock. It was also stunning to learn that such an action was done behind a curtain of secrecy. The Trust spent a lot of time assuring the community that nothing would be done without its consultation, and then, boom — they go and sign a deal with the state and the developer without telling anyone.

That’s not O.K., and the M.O.U. ought to be officially revoked.

Is the Trust ratcheting up fear excessively about Pier 40’s condition?

A new engineering study the Trust commissioned, to be released soon, reportedly will say the pier could sink into the river in just two years TheVillager.com

from now.

I’m not an engineer or a pier expert.

But from the reports I’ve seen issued by the Trust, I have serious concerns about the condition of the pier, and believe it is in dire need for repairs in order to stay in use.

What about the fact that Michael Novogratz, chairperson of Friends of Hudson River Park, is a principal in Fortress Investment Group, which is one of the three partners that co-own the St. John’s Center? Is it “self-dealing” that his company stands to handsomely profit off any development at the St. John’s site and will more than recoup their share of the $100 million spent buying air rights from Pier 40?

We have to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest that exist as their project moves forward, and I take that very seriously.

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Interview

by Lincoln Anderson June 19, 2014

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PHOTOS BY MILO HESS

At Saturday’s Bubble Battle in Union Square, participants used all kinds of ways to blow, shoot or swoosh bubbles. Despite the chaotic “conflict,” there were no reported injuries.

Tennis court petitioners get ball rolling

BY SERGEI KLEBNIKOV

T

he East River tennis courts are in lamentable condition,” writes Joe Hanania, a Grand St. resident, at the start of his petition to resurface the courts. Started several years ago, the petition now has 970 signatures combined on both its written and online copies. It goes on to describe the courts’ bad condition, and asks the Parks Department for help.

Despite renovations to the rest of the East River Park, its tennis courts have been neglected, Hanania asserts. The petition cites several glaring problems: Many of the courts have long cracks in their surface, are easily susceptible to flooding and have no lights at night. They look like “something out

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of the Third World,” according to Hanania, who frequently uses the courts.

“These are possibly the worst courts in all of Manhattan,” he declared. “Others are substantially better.”

Frustration among locals who use the court is understandable, considering there have been talks of resurfacing for almost three years now. In addition, the courts require a hefty $200 annual pass to use, with a $15 fee for guests.

Eventually, Hanania received word from Parks, which wanted to help with the project but lacked the funds. Working with Steve Simon, chief of staff for Parks’ Manhattan office, Hanania reached out to Councilmember Rosie Mendez, since the project funds will have to come out of the City Council budget. Mendez’s office agreed to help support the petition.

“We have been hearing about this issue for years,” said Vanessa Diaz, Mendez’s chief of staff.

Diaz said, if there is more capital funding available, the project can be prioritized. However, the councilmember’s office is “still looking for support,” as budget negotiations between the City Council and the mayor continue. Yet, even if there are budget cuts, Mendez is “committed to supporting the resurfacing of the East River tennis courts,” Diaz said.

The project has gained ground, with Parks installing new nets on the courts several months ago.

Improved conditions give the petition’s supporters hope.

“We are building up momentum,” Hanania said.

“We are hoping to keep the pressure up.”

TheVillager.com

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Last Saturday, at 3:20 a.m., a police officer at W. 11th and Hudson Sts. observed a car “moving recklessly at a high rate of speed” in and out of traffic, and flashing its high beams at other cars. The driver was pulled over, and police noticed the smell of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle. When asked if there was anything in the car, Raheem Hammad, 31, replied, “I have weed and a pocket knife.”

The man attempted to justify having the knife.

“Sometimes fists don’t work for protection,” he explained.

Police also found a stack of 29 different gift and debit cards laid on the car’s center console. Hammad was unable to produce proper receipts, and upon arresting him, police found that he had three active warrants. He was charged with criminal possession of forged instruments, a felony offense.

Cocaine in plain view

Also last Saturday, at 2:55 a.m., police said, two men were caught with cocaine on the northeast corner of Greenwich and Jane Sts. Police observed James Cifelli, 27, in possession of alleged cocaine on the sidewalk in public view. He then passed it to Matthew Pfarr, 27, in the open.

As they were approached, Pfarr reportedly tossed the bag of alleged drugs down a stairwell in an attempt to prevent police from seeing it.

The two men were reprimanded for having dangerous drugs, and were charged with a misdemeanor for criminal possession of a controlled substance.

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Two completely naked men reportedly held up traffic at Sixth Ave. and Bleecker St. last Friday evening.

Karl Geiger, 49, and Paul Nocera, 52, were seen at 8:30 p.m., riding their bikes in public and “showing their private parts.”

They then stopped the bikes at two intersections, causing traffic to back up while they “danced and cheered in a lewd manner” at stopped cars,

according to police.

Officers arrived on scene to arrest the two men, who were charged with a misdemeanor for public lewdness.

Tagger loses swagger

On Tues., June 10, a man was spotted making graffiti in the subway at Eighth Ave. and W. 14th St. Police observed Michael Cabon, 23, at 10:08 p.m. writing “Sive” on a subway platform pillar with a red marker. Upon a search, Cabon was reportedly found to have a small amount of marijuana in a ziplock bag. Police said they also found another bag, with 3 ¼ pills of Xanax, on his person.

Cabon, who had two open warrants, was charged with a misdemeanor for criminal mischief.

Soda can attacker

Policed said a victim has decided to press charges against Che Roacher, 37, who assaulted him using a soda can as a weapon last Saturday in the early morning.

The two men were involved in a verbal argument, before Roacher brandished a soda can, and allegedly hit the other man in the chin, causing “physical pain and injury,” according to a police report.

Officers arrived on scene shortly afterward, at 4:45 a.m., and discovered Roacher to be carrying marijuana on his person. He was arrested for felony assault.

Choking victim

Last Sunday, at 5:14 p.m., an off-duty New York City employee was arrested and charged at the Ninth Precinct for “criminal obstruction of breathing.”

Courtney Daniels, 45, a heating plant technician at the New York City Housing Authority, was involved in a domestic dispute with her mother, before the verbal argument “turned physical,” according to police.

Sergei Klebnikov

TheVillager.com

In Sandy’s wake, artist studios might wind up swept away, too WESTBETH, continued from p. 1

Sandy’s floodwaters, damages from which required a year and a half and $5 million in repairs.

Anthony Moreno, a jazz musician who has practiced drums in his Westbeth basement studio for the past 42 years, said that the artists complex’s management, run by the place’s board of directors, had initially promised studio artists that they would be able to return to the basement.

“I received a personal letter from Carmi Bee [president of the Westbeth board of directors] saying everything was on schedule, things should be happening. And then for a year, I didn’t hear back,” said Moreno.

Then, at a recent meeting of Westbeth’s Artists Residents Council, Moreno learned that management had hired Denham Wolf Real Estate Services to study uses for the basement space and locate potential tenants.

However, Steve Neil, Westbeth’s managing executive director, denied that the artists had ever been promised anything. As soon as the storm hit, management informed the artists that they might not be getting back their basement spaces, he said.

Denham Wolf is tasked with finding potential tenants for close to 70,000 square feet of space in the building — 60,000 square feet of which in the basement (about three-quarters of the entire floor) and 10,000 square feet on the first and second floors.

In addition, according to Moreno, the handful of studios that were not affected by the flood and are still in use have seen their leases reduced from one, two, or three years long to month-to-month leases.

The basement space has always been a commercial property, rented out to artists for storage space. It also housed, among other things, the boiler room and a sculpture studio. However, according to Neil, artists and musicians had also been using the space for rehearsals and late-night powwows, without authorization, plus a lack of decent lighting or ventilation for such functions.

“When we cleared out after the flood, we saw exactly what had been going on down there,” Neil said.

“Many of the little rooms and rental spaces had locked doors on them. It didn’t seem to be that urgent a problem at that time, because we didn’t realize the extent of the use down there. It turns out that there were a TheVillager.com

number of people who turned what were supposed to be storage spaces to full-blown rehearsal rooms without adequate ventilation, without adequate signage. It was not supposed to be a space used for parties or after-hour gatherings. As soon as we found out we put a stop to it.”

John Silver, a painter and Westbeth resident, said that the basement was intended to be rented out to commercial tenants to help supplement the rent that residents paid. Renting out the space to commercial tenants, he said, “in a way, is what should be done,” since it allows Westbeth to keep its residents’ rent low.

But the alternative solution of creating an endowment fund has been brought up many times to management, according to Silver, yet no action has been taken.

“If you had an endowment, you can use it for the purpose of paying the rent on artists’ studio spaces,” said Silver, who is also on the Westbeth Preservation Committee.

Moreno said he suspects the move is part of management’s trying to cash in on the rapid gentrification and exorbitant real estate prices of the nearby Meatpacking District.

“The last building standing in that area that is worth an enormous amount of real estate is Westbeth,” he said.

However, Neil said the reassessment of the basement’s use is a fulfillment of Westbeth’s mission to provide affordable housing for artists in all disciplines and to be a center for the arts.

“We’re a responsible, nonprofit organization and we need to evaluate our resources at regular intervals,” he explained. “We’re trying to assess the best use of the basement. We haven’t made up our minds — nothing has been rented yet.”

For his part, Moreno said that, in his many attempts to reach out to management, he has gotten little or no response.

“They say, ‘Maybe, maybe, maybe,’ but everyone is just dragging their heels,” he said. “It’s just been going on and on and on, and you reach a point where you’re reaching out to the media and the politicians, and you realize it’s consuming every day of your life. And all of a sudden, you stop being an artist, and all you’re doing is trying to deal with all the paperwork and all the research needed, just to fight for your return [to your studio]. And it’s been a hard one, it’s been a real hard one.”

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June 19, 2014

9

Until C.B. 3 is fixed, L.E.S. has no democracy TALKING POINT

BY DIEM BOYD

A

vigorous democracy is what we deserve but not necessarily what we get. These days, our democracy is slipping away, skating perilously close to a full-blown plutocracy.

As wealth and power narrow political options, people have become increasingly alienated and have even dropped out of the political process entirely. Yet, the lifeblood of any healthy democracy is civic engagement, i.e., the right of ordinary citizens to determine the public good, set policies that seek the good, and reform institutions that stifle that pursuit. This right is the cornerstone of a democratic society.

New York City’s 59 community boards serve as our most immediate and local form of government. These boards were envisioned as a mechanism to empower communities — and, by definition, they must give ordinary citizens a real voice in shaping the development and character of their own neighborhoods.

Setting aside the fact that community boards are comprised of individuals appointed by the Manhattan borough president and city councilmembers, community boards were intended to be the most effective and available structure for local citizens to participate in the political process in a significant way. However, when residents feel that they have no place at the table at this most entry level of the body politic, they must find alternative ways to participate in the political process, or continue to call for substantive reform.

Many people living on the Lower East Side have become frustratingly disconnected from their community board process and have been obliged to redirect their concerns to their elected politicians, who, while often sympathetic, are more removed from and less engaged with the actual burning issues that affect community residents’ lives. Essentially, citizens have been bumped back one step in the pecking order — in a sense, one step removed from the actual structure that should enable them to participate in the full expression of their own community.

Elected politicians have been able to address issues that have been of concern to individual community residents. Earlier this year, Coun-

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cilmember Margaret Chin helped a resident settle a Department of Environmental Protection nuisance problem and helped press for the correction of major street-condition issues outside a property falling into disrepair. She also helped a small business owner quickly get back into operation by intervening with the agency that had been unreasonably holding up permits.

Another example is when, at the request of residents, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver convinced the Police Department to return the streets to community residents by reopening Ludlow, Essex and Rivington Sts. to traffic in the late evenings.

Each of these interventions occurred as a result of swift action taken by our local elected leaders.

Unfortunately, the sheer number of constituents makes it an impossible task for our representatives to address every person’s individual concerns.

An exemplary instance of the way democracy should function is when, on April 27, state Senator Daniel Squadron hosted a well-attended Community Convention. Here, residents of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn had access to and dialogue with a key political representative.

That afternoon, many residents were able to voice their concerns and suggest solutions to a host of urgent problems in their community. The essential benefit of this kind of public forum is the promotion of an active democracy — one more complicated and perhaps less predictable, but one that holds a directly elected representative accountable to his or her individual constituents.

The April 27 convention not only gave a voice to those already active though previously unheard, it was also a call for all citizens to actively engage in their communities rather than stand idly by until the next election or give up hope in the political system entirely. More opportunities for in-person interaction — following the example of the Squadron’s Community Convention — will help to bring elected officials closer to their constituents.

Any impediment to direct political access breaks the connection between voter and representative. In this city where a layered governmental system empowers appointed, non-elected representatives as the most powerful link between voters and elected officials, it is essential that the operation of that intermediary body be scrutinized to ensure transparency, integrity and bona fide community representation.

When these intermediary bodies — community

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boards — become entrenched with insulated operations, such as the manipulation of both community district bylaws and board composition, all efforts to challenge the status quo, no matter how justified or pressing, are rendered DOA. This serves to concentrate the power of the board at the expense of the community at large.

The end result is that the a priori function of government — to serve the public interest — has basically evaporated.

Wall St. might seem an unlikely place to dig for a solution, but a recent trend there is instructive.

So-called activist investors have been effective in shaking up stagnant, entrenched corporate boards.

The activists have taken control of boards at several major publicly traded companies. These reinvigorated companies have yielded more competitive returns by virtue of having made tough decisions that replaced those people and practices that had stunted the companies’ growth and bottom line.

Activist investors have justifiably rebranded themselves as shareholder advocates. Playing the “shareholder watchdog” role, they press for change among the boards of directors of underperforming corporations. These bad boards have arranged the corporate bylaws and capital structure so as to perpetuate their own vested financial interest at the expense of broad shareholder interest. Activist investors challenge these entrenched boards and ultimately dislodge them.

With income gaps continuing to widen across the nation, it is hard to be a cheerleader for hedge funds and Wall St., but the private-sector lesson here shouldn’t be ignored. Substitute communities for corporations, community boards for corporate boards and active community residents for activist investors and we have a template that might reverse the ossification of insulated community boards, therein reconstituting these bodies as the true advocates for the communities they represent.

The failures seen on the Lower East Side are not inherent to the nature of community boards. Rather they result from practices and vested interests unique to this neighborhood. Other community districts have shown that a community board can function as a powerful body that advocates solely on behalf of community residents.

It’s clear that the raison d’être of each district’s community board is to heed and respect the voices of the community, so that neighborhood issues from “A” to “Z” are settled most beneficially for all — not in a way that benefits a particular special or vested interest.

Put another way, appointed, non-elected boards must represent the community instead of elected officials or special interests, especially financial ones.

With entrenched policies and an exclusive rather than inclusive culture, Community Board 3 has been unable to exert a balanced representation of this community.

C.B. 3 must focus on rebuilding trust with the public by encouraging robust, innovative ways to give citizens a way back and access to decision making within the existing system. An imperfect system has to be made better in order to restore democracy to the Lower East Side.

Boyd is founder, LES Dwellers TheVillager.com

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June 19, 2014

11

Named best weekly newspaper in New York State in 2001, 2004 and 2005

by New York Press Association PUBLISHER JENNIFER GOODSTEIN

EDITOR IN CHIEF LINCOLN ANDERSON

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Buzz-alujah! Last call for Reverend Billy’s Bee-in This Sunday is the finale of Reverend Billy’s “HoneyBeeLujah!” show at Joe’s Pub. The gospel-style review features Reverend Billy evangelizing about the link between mass die-offs of bees worldwide and the widespread use of “neocotinoid” pesticides in factory farming. The show also features the most evolved performances yet by the 40-member Stop Shopping Choir and their Not Buying It Band — who bring foot-stomping fervor to songs about climate change and species loss. During the show’s eight-week run, Billy has honored local activists and beekeepers on stage. Last Sunday, he “cannonized” the Cooper Union students who staged a 65-day occupation of the president’s office to protest the imposition of tuition fees. The Rev. also invited members of the Lower Eastside Girls Club Choir, above, to perform their own ode to bees. This Sunday, he’ll be conferring sainthood on Ronnie Cummins, founder of the Organic Consumers Association and a “legend” in the safe food movement. Afterwards, Billy’s inviting folks to join the choir for an after-party/fundraiser at Swift’s Hibernian Lounge, on E. Fourth St. They’re mustering funds for another theatrical “invasion” of Harvard’s Microrobotics Lab — where researchers are developing a “Robobee” to replace the real bees that our pesticides are killing. It’s a Dr. Strangelove-like travesty that Billy says can only be defeated by public exposure and “magic surrealism.”

Sarah Ferguson

MARVIN ROCK

PUBLISHER EMERITUS JOHN W. SUTTER

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Shirley Hayes be praised

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The Villager (USPS 578930) ISSN 0042-6202 is published every week by NYC Community Media LLC, 515 Canal Street, Unit 1C, New York, N.Y. 10013 (212) 229-1890. Periodicals Postage paid at New York, N.Y. Annual subscription by mail in Manhattan and Brooklyn $29 ($35 elsewhere). Single copy price at office and newsstands is $1. The entire contents of newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2011 NYC Community Media LLC.

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June 19, 2014

To The Editor: Re “Finally! Officials and kids cut ribbon in renewed park” (news article, June 12): There is no doubt that Jane Jacobs was a charismatic leader who inspired others to engage in activism, not just in Greenwich Village, but in communities all over the United States and probably Canada. She was the undisputed leader here in the fight to keep Robert Moses from bulldozing a large section of the far West Village as part of a Title I “slum clearance” initiative and in the campaign to stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway.

But the decade-plus years that started in the late ’50s and went through the ’60s and beyond were full of major changes in Greenwich Village. There

was the saving of the Jefferson Market Courthouse; the effort to stop the building of Verrazano St. that would have meant the bulldozing of houses on Carmine, Bedford and Downing Sts.; the campaign to designate the Greenwich Village Historic District; the effort to stop Westway; the sponsorship of the moderate-income West Village Houses; and, of course, the killing of the roadway through Washington Square Park.

Jane participated in these efforts — even led the West Village Houses campaign — but she was not the woman who killed the roadway through Washington Square Park. The woman who started it all, who organized playground mothers, who galvanized the community, who screamed out loud and made others listen, who was so successful that some men sought to

take over the campaign, saying she was too strident — that woman was Shirley Hayes, aided by Edith Lyons.

I don’t like to see history omitting Shirley Hayes’s valiant and successful efforts. There ought to be a plaque in the park honoring her activism. Anyone interested in joining the Shirley Hayes campaign?

Carol Greitzer

We deserve much better To The Editor: Re “C.B. 3 problems loom large in chairperson race” (talking point, by Anne Johnson, June 29): As a lifelong Lower East Side resiLETTERS, continued on p. 16 TheVillager.com

Can the Hudson River Park Trust still be trusted?

TALKING POINT

BY TOM FOX

B

y continually stating that Pier 40 is in imminent danger of falling into the Hudson River and destroying recreational opportunities for a generation of children, the leadership of the Hudson River Park Trust has lobbied for new state legislation to transfer underutilized air rights to adjacent inboard properties and is requesting that the city expedite the rezoning of the St. John’s Center to provide funds to rebuild the pier.

Pier 40 has certainly deteriorated from 20 years of mismanagement and neglect, and the concept of using air rights to generate much-needed park funding has a lot of potential. However, the way the Trust’s leadership has pushed legislative initiatives at the very end of the session and negotiated secret agreements to transfer air rights has created a growing disillusionment with the Trust.

The lack of candor and communication is causing many to question this park agency’s commitment to public participation and consultation.

There have been letters of protest by elected officials and threats of lawsuits. There’s a good chance that the legal and political battles that stymied West Side redevelopment in the past could resurface. It would be wise to reduce the rhetoric, broaden the scope of the investigation into funding for the overall park, including Pier 40, and use the “crisis” to solve the systemic problems of the park, and the Trust once and for all.

The creation of the Hudson River Park was the result of a long and bitter battle between local elected officials and community organizations versus the city and state government. After 15 years of lawsuits, public protests and media battles, the city and state agreed to build a worldclass waterfront park on Manhattan’s West Side.

The park was established to protect the marine environment, create new recreation opportunities for the adjacent underserved neighborhoods, support maritime commerce and enhance the quality of life and image of the city. But, just as important, the park was expected to spur West Side redevelopment by increasing the desirability and value of property in adjacent neighborhoods.

Attempting to make the park financially self-sufficient — though not requiring it to be — the park legislation allowed limited maritime and recreational development at several locations, such as Chelsea Piers and Pier 40, at W. Houston St. Mechanisms to capture a portion of increased taxes resulting from the appreciation of inboard real estate values were proposed to provide the park with long-term maintenance, operations and capital replacement funding.

The Hudson River Park Conservancy — the Trust’s predecessor — was established to ensure transparency, accountability and public participation in the process and overcome the lack of trust in government resulting from the previous battle. For quite a while, it worked well. Involving local elected officials, community boards, neighborhood organizations and residents in an open public planning process created trust, and resulted in a consensus agreement on a park master plan, the redevelopment of the Chelsea Piers, the passage of the Hudson River Park Act in 1998 and the completion of the first segment of the park in

TheVillager.com

Greenwich Village in 2003.

But the Trust, the city and the state failed to secure the necessary funding for the park. The “crisis” at Pier 40 is a result of the park being systematically starved of the funding that was initially planned to provide long-term support. The Hudson Yards, West Clinton and Hudson Square were rezoned without providing any long-term support for the park that’s expected to provide open space and recreation for new residents. The Trust leadership constantly misstates the enabling legislation by saying that the park was supposed to be self-sufficient instead of insisting on city and state funding for maintenance, operations and capital items.

At the same time, the city directed its capital funding to other projects — from the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park to Governors Island.

Without adequate funding, the Trust was forced to scramble to meet its mission. For example, Pier 40 has generated roughly $100 million since the park’s creation, but those funds have been used for construction, maintenance, programming and operations throughout the entire 4.5-mile-long waterfront park.

In the last few years, the train has started to come off the tracks. Friends of Hudson River Park formerly was an effective advocacy organization.

It generated more than $200 million for the park by fundraising and challenging the actions of government agencies that harmed the park. However, Friends was reorganized solely as a fundraising organization, turning the watchdog into a lapdog.

And the Friends initiative to form a Neighborhood Improvement District, or NID, was shelved.

It’s time to get back to the basics, and rebuild trust in the Trust.

Hudson River Park is a regional park, and balkanizing decision-making about park funding will allow those who might exploit the situation to do so. When it comes to financing the stabilization and redevelopment of Pier 40, the decision affects the entire park. Revenues from Pier 40 have supported and will support the operation of the entire park.

We should refrain from spot zoning and instead develop an overall funding mechanism for the park that will keep the Trust from running from

one “crisis” to the next. There’s no question that Pier 40 is in trouble. Sections have already been closed to the public because the roof is in such disrepair. A new report, soon to be released by the Trust, indicates that 57 percent of the 3,500 steel pilings on which the pier sits are suffering severe deterioration, up from 38 percent five years ago.

However, past misrepresentations by Trust leadership have hurt the park authority’s credibility. Reputable engineers have refuted the Trust’s estimates of the pier’s problems, as well as the cost and urgency of the needed repairs, in the past. When the new study is released, it should be reviewed and analyzed by someone other than the Trust, to ensure its veracity.

A number of people who’ve been involved in the process of creating the park are joining together as Protectors of Hudson River Park. We will advocate for a renewal of an open public planning and decision-making process; work to ensure that there is a comprehensive approach to securing the funding for the entire park; and make sure that government agencies in the park meet their responsibilities.

Crafting an agreement on financing will require a multipronged initiative. The Trust’s efforts to fundraise and encourage volunteer participation in the park are critical. The Neighborhood Improvement District should be revisited. The value of the air rights should be looked at in the aggregate and decisions about their allocation made in a way that benefits the entire park.

It’s urgent that we stabilize and redevelop Pier 40, fund the completion of the entire park and develop a dedicated revenue stream for long-term maintenance, operation and capital replacement.

Doing anything less would be putting a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound.

Fox was a citizen appointee to the West Side Task Force in 1986, and the West Side Waterfront Panel from 1988-’90; the first president of the Hudson River Park Conservancy (which completed the Hudson River Park’s concept and financial plan) from 1992-’95; a member of the Hudson River Park Alliance (which supported the Hudson River Park’s founding legislation) from 1996-’98; and a board of directors member of Friends of Hudson River Park until 2011.

EVAN FORSCH

June 19, 2014

13

A new model for building the Morton St. school MORTON REPORT

BY SARA HENDRICKSON

A

t a March 25 town hall meeting hosted by City Councilmember Corey Johnson, the Department of Education’s newly minted leadership was quick to thank the community for advocating so relentlessly to open a new middle school at 75 Morton St. in the West Village.

“This school would not have been possible without your advocacy,” proclaimed Sadye Campoamor, the schools chancellor’s special assistant.

It was, coincidentally, the same day that the city finally took ownership (a year behind schedule) of the massive 177,000-square-foot, seven-story building.

D.O.E. promised a new collaborative approach in designing the school.

Campoamor’s commitment that the agency would be in “lockstep with the community…in an inclusive process” was followed up by action, as senior D.O.E. staffers across departments were soon mobilized to work closely with the various community groups: the 75 Morton Task Force (formed by Community Board 2 and the Community Education Council District 2), the 75 Morton Community Alliance, local elected officials and community boards across the sprawling School District 2.

BRICKS AND MORTAR MATTER “We don’t want the building design presented as a fait accompli,” worried a member of the Alliance, a broadbased group of parents from elementary schools in District 2. Alliance members spent hours in meetings over the last two years developing a shared vision for the new school’s facilities and programming. As the sister agency to D.O.E., the School Construction Authority is in charge of the “bricks and mortar” and is the de facto general contractor for all D.O.E. schools. It was critical that the community have input on the building design, so inextricably linked to the programming that goes on inside.

The Alliance had coalesced around some must-haves. At the top of the list were a full gymnasium and an auditorium with a stage that could seat the whole school community.

Given New York State’s physical education requirements, there might not be any periods left in the school

14

June 19, 2014

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, left, at a May 19 town hall meeting, told the 75 Morton Task Force, “Yes...you can have a seat at the table.” To the right of her were C.E.C. members President Shino Tanikawa, who is also on the 75 Morton Task Force, and Eric Goldberg.

day to even use a hybrid “gymnatorium” for an auditorium. It sounded like new Chancellor Carmen Fariña was on the same page in her 100-day speech espousing her vision of a robust middle school education, when she said: “Team sports can hook kids into school when other things may not. There is no better incentive to stay in school than to stand before an audience and share your talent!”

Book” that dictates formulas for enrollment capacity and school space allocation. That task force will likely propose major changes to alleviate overcrowding and better balance classroom space with other space, such as gyms and art rooms, which are just as essential in providing a “sound basic education” — every child’s right under the New York State Constitution.

BEYOND THE SARDINE CAN

A SEAT AT THE TABLE

One of the community’s concerns was how to avoid the “sardine can model,” since S.C.A. had hinted at an enrollment of 1,000 students, which would squelch any hope for an enriching learning environment. The community called for a 600-to-700seat middle school, right-sized for a cohesive and intimate community of adolescents, along with a 70-to-100seat District 75 school for children with disabilities, such as autistic spectrum disorder. The C.E.C. and C.B. 2 passed resolutions endorsing the Alliance’s comprehensive vision, which included elements like well-equipped science labs and alcoves for smallgroup work among students.

Thankfully, cramming students into city school buildings may become a problem of the past. Early in her tenure, Fariña formed a task force (with wide representation, including parents) to scrutinize D.O.E.’s “Blue

With the community unsure whether ink was drying on blueprints for the building, local politicians (Johnson, Glick, Hoylman et al.) helped ratchet up pressure to make room for a community seat at the planning table.

Fortuitously, a town hall meeting with Fariña was also coming up at the May 19 C.E.C. meeting. Michael Markowitz, a 75 Morton Task Force member, as well as a civil engineer experienced in school construction, stepped up to the mic at that town hall with “one urgent request — we need a place at the table with the S.C.A.” The chancellor did not hesitate to respond.

“The answer is yes,” she said. “You can have a seat at the table.”

But what does a real seat at the table look like?

“It is not the model where a city

agency makes a presentation at a big public meeting, and the public can say something at the meeting or submit something in writing,” explained Shino Tanikawa, a task force member and president of C.E.C. District 2.

“We want an iterative process where they give us something, we give feedback, revisions are made, they come back for more feedback, and more compromises are made. It’s a collaboration we are looking for.”

David Gruber, a task force member and Community Board 2 chairperson, has a consistent refrain at every task force meeting: “We need transparency. We need a dialogue.”

The community is thrilled that S.C.A. kicked off the conversation by sharing its draft plans at an Alliance forum on June 16 to gather feedback from the community. Ongoing community meetings have been promised by S.C.A. to finalize the building design. Hot topics for discussion at the forum included a full-size gym versus a “gymnatorium,” keeping student enrollment below 1,000, and ensuring “flex space” in hallways and alcoves for students to work together in small groups, a widely used approach in suburban and private schools that is particularly effective with middle schoolers. The tug between a traditional versus a progressive approach to education will likely filter into future planning sessions.

75 MORTON ST., continued on p. 24 TheVillager.com

OUR BRAND-NEW EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT IS NOW OPEN. AND WE HOPE YOU NEVER GET TO SEE IT. INTRODUCING THE RONALD O. PERELMAN CENTER FOR EMERGENCY SERVICES. 570 FIRST AVENUE AT 33RD STREET. We’ve completely rebuilt our emergency department since the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. State-of-the-art improvements have been made, and it’s now triple the size of the former ED, with treatment areas that have room for families at bedside. We provide experts in virtually every specialty to handle emergencies for both adults and children, and specialized teams on call for stroke and heart attack. But to truly appreciate our new emergency department at Tisch Hospital, you have to see it in person. And we hope you never get to do that. To learn more, visit nyulmc.org/emergency

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June 19, 2014

15

A rendering — shown without the standardized tree guard — of the Hudson Square Standard tree pit.

BID has built a better tree pit

BY SERGEI KLEBNIKOV

B PHOTO BY PATRICK O’REILLY

Tibbie X and her new band, GASH, played at Puke Island 2014 in Tompkins Square Park on Sun., June 8.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Continued from p. 12

dent and an L.E.S. advocate, I have applied to become a member of Community Board 3 for the last five years. I have helped leaders of this community on more projects than I care to remember. Yet, I have not been given the opportunity to serve on the community board, as a resident who has stood up against the current practices within C.B. 3.

As a community advocate, I’m certainly happy to hear that these practices are currently being looked into by our Borough President’s Office. May divinity be her guide.

Furthermore, after reading Anne Johnson’s column, I can say from firsthand experience that the practices that are alleged at the community board do exist, and, yes, there is

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June 19, 2014

a lot of backroom politics occurring that will hinder the true diversity of this great, historic community.

This problem needs to be addressed and corrected, now! I certainly feel that C.B. 3 needs more minority leadership, and, yes, that more minorities need to be appointed to the board. There have been many upstanding residents who have helped the community’s struggles over many years to keep this wonderful community’s diversity alive. Yet their work will have been in vain if this practice by C.B. 3 is not legally addressed now. Has the time come for real change? I will continue to observe from the outside.

Samuel Vasquez

usiness improvement districts are known for helping keep neighborhoods cleaner and safer by providing extra sanitation and security. Now, one BID is breaking new ground, so to speak, by taking on another thorny issue: tree pits.

The Hudson Square Connection is standardizing tree planting around its west-of-Soho neighborhood, implementing a unique method that’s new to the city, plus, better for the trees. The tree pits create both a more sustainable environment and more pedestrian-friendly sidewalks.

In short, the new method, called the “Hudson Square Standard,” focuses on increasing the trees’ lifespan and reducing the neighborhood’s carbon footprint, as well as providing much-needed relief for the overburdened sewer system.

At the end of last month, two dozen Hudson Square Standard trees were planted around the neighborhood. Most were installed along Hudson St., as well as Freeman Plaza (near the Holland Tunnel entrance) and along Varick St. The Hudson Square Connection plans to continue planting trees around the district, with 30 new ones every planting season for the next three years, for a total of 180 trees.

The BID will partner with the Parks

Department and the New York Tree Trust for the project. In addition, the BID will work with property owners of new buildings, in order to install 120 additional trees using the standard style.

The new standard differs from the common city standard for tree planting — the latter, basically, a small tree pit. The Hudson Square Standard sports an expanded tree pit, permeable paving, structural soil and distinctive, raised, metal tree guards. The enlarged tree pits allow the roots more room to grow, and are connected by a subsurface trench that is filled with structural soil and covered by permeable pavers, helping to prevent excess flooding. The water gets captured underground, relieving the city’s overburdened sewer system and helping reduce flooding.

“Our concern is making Hudson Square a greener, more resilient and pedestrian-friendly neighborhood,” said Ellen Baer, Hudson Square Connection’s president and C.E.O. She said the small changes to the sidewalks’ design and structure represented by the better tree pits — plus the trees themselves — will have big environmental and health benefits for the community.

The trees, she said, will benefit the neighborhood by attracting more people, thus, strengthening local retail, all the while improving area health by reducing air pollutants.

L.E.S. living levee To The Editor: Re “ ‘Living barrier’ will protect East Side from storm surges” (news article, June 5): We are very pleased that the construction for this area will take place very soon and that it will be completed in less than four years!

Elisabeth Kennedy

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager. com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 515 Canal St., Suite 1C, NY, NY 10013.

Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. The Villager does not publish anonymous letters.

TheVillager.com

A story as American as his music New play brings Irving Berlin to life with empathy and economical skill

BY MICHAEL LYDON

THEATER

(michaellydon.com) My ambition is to reach the heart of the average American, not the highbrow nor the lowbrow but that vast intermediate crew which is the real soul of the country. My public is the real people.

—Irving Berlin

TheVillager.com

Written & directed by Chip Deffaa Assistant Director, Peter Charney Music Direction: Richard Danley Choreography: Tyler DuBoys & Scott Thompson Produced by Chip Deffaa & Sandra Nordgren Sundays: June 22, 29 & July 6 Monday: June 30 PHOTO BY JONATHAN M. SMITH

Through the 20th century’s first decades, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin were three scrappy Tin Pan Alley competitors, each battling to catch the American public’s ear. All succeeded with masterful, still beloved songs, but Gershwin and Kern never doubted who was the winner and alltime champion. Said Gershwin, “I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter who ever lived.” Jerome Kern put it this way: “Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music.”

From 1911’s foot-stomping “Alexander ’s Ragtime Band” to the contrapuntal duet, “You’re Just in Love” in the 1950s musical, “Call Me Madam,” Irving Berlin was a one-man jukebox, pumping out hit after hit in Broadway shows and Hollywood movies.

They were songs that America danced to (“Cheek to Cheek”), complained to (“Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning”), laughed to (“Anything You Can Do I Can

IRVING BERLIN’S AMERICA

The vet and the triple threat: “Uncle Floyd Show” alum Michael Townsend Wright and “Newsies” hoofer Giuseppe Bausilio bring dozens of Irving Berlin tunes to life.

Do Better”), cried to (“When I Lost You”), sighed to (“Always”), cheered to (“God Bless America”), and celebrated to (“White Christmas” and “Easter Parade”) — all sung by a pantheon of pop singers including Al Jolson, Ethel Waters, Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Bing

Crosby, Nat “King” Cole, Billie Holiday, Doris Day, and Barbra Streisand — and by every cabaret vocalist from Maine to California who hopes for a full tip jar at the end of the night.

Berlin’s success tells a story as American as his music. Born in Belarus in 1888 as Israel Beilin, son

Thursdays: June 19, 26 & July 10 All performances at 8 p.m.

At The 13th Street Repertory Theater 50 W. 13th St. (btw. Fifth & Sixth Aves.)

For tickets ($18), 13thstreetrep.org or 212-675-6677 Original cast recording available at cdbaby.com/cd/chipdeffaa4 Visit chipdeffaa.com for more info

of cantor Moses Beilin, he fled, aged five, with his family after Russian soldiers burned their village to the ground. With only the clothes on their backs, they emMUSIC, continued on p. 18 June 19, 2014

17

L.E.S. roots grounded Irving Berlin ible!” In the Great American Songbook, Berlin songs stand out for a plainspoken simplicity surprisingly dotted with striking images:

MUSIC, continued from p. 17

18

June 19, 2014

How many times a day do I think of you?

How many roses are sprinkled with dew?

PHOTO BY JONATHAN M. SMITH

igrated to America — and when their ship docked in New York harbor, Israel’s mother Lena kissed the ground. “This is America,” she said, hugging each of her eight children, “your new country.”

The Beilins found a windowless cold-water basement on the Lower East Side’s Cherry Street, but Moses couldn’t find work as a cantor and, after teaching Hebrew to support his family, died when Irving was thirteen. Nothing daunted, Izzy left school and sang popular ballads for pennies in Bowery saloons, sometimes making up off-color lyrics. Plugging songs at Tony Pastor ’s restaurant on 14th Street near Union Square marked a big step up, but his meteoric rise began when his first hit, “Alexander ’s Ragtime Band,” sparked a national dance craze (and the careers of Vernon and Irene Castle).

“Berlin’s life makes a fascinating tale. But oddly, he was fanatical about his privacy, blocking all attempts to dramatize his life,” says Chip Deffaa, a former New York Post cabaret and theater reporter who fell in love with old-time showbiz when growing up in suburban New Jersey.

As a playwright, Deffaa has made a specialty of portraying showbiz legends. He’s written six shows about George M. Cohan, including “George M. Cohan Tonight!” — originally produced by the Irish Repertory Theater and by now in theaters from London to Seoul. His “Johnny Mercer Jamboree” premiered at Rochester ’s Downstairs Cabaret Theatre. “One Night with Fanny Brice,” (one of three shows he wrote about her) was an Off-Broadway hit, and has had numerous regional pro-

Something to sing about: Michael Townsend Wright and Giuseppe Bausilio pay tribute to the man Gershwin called “the greatest songwriter who ever lived.”

ductions. “The Seven Little Foys” recently premiered at the Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury, Connecticut (it’s among the three shows he’s written about Vaudevillian Eddie Foy and his troupe of seven children). Now, Deffaa has put Berlin’s life on stage. “Irving Berlin’s America” is a two-man show starring stage/screen veteran Michael Townsend Wright and Giuseppe Bausilio (who currently appears on Broadway, in “Newsies”).

“The play’s plot is simple,” says Deffaa. “In his old age, Berlin meets a young man who asks him about his life and music. Berlin answers with intimate memories, and the two sing a couple dozen or more of his fifteen hundred songs. By the end Berlin sees that, all in all, he lived a good life. Then the two go out for coffee. But I put mystery around the edges of the plot: who is this young man, and why do the two meet on September 22, 1989, the night that Berlin died at 101?”

Wright plays Berlin with a warm understatement, and Bausilio is youth incarnate, eager and curious. “I wrote the play with Wright in mind for Berlin,” says Deffaa.

“We’ve known each other since he was a regular on television’s ‘Uncle Floyd Show.’ And Giuseppe is a true triple-threat, a singer, dancer, actor. We’re working around his availability from ‘Newsies,’ for this tryout run.”

Deffaa’s play brings Berlin to life with empathy and economical skill, but the playwright is the first to admit that it’s Berlin’s music that makes “Irving Berlin’s America” soar: “ His songs are irresist-

A true pro, Berlin wrote many show songs after productions had started. “I did most of my work under pressure,” he told one interviewer. “I’d attend rehearsals daytimes, then after dinner write a new song until dawn and bring it in the next day.” He could only play the piano in one key, but when he asked composer Victor Herbert whether he should study composition, Herbert advised against it: “You have a natural gift for words and music. Learning theory might cramp your style.”

Nor did Berlin ever lay down any rules for writing lyrics: “If I don’t have rules, I can do as I like.”

Asked the age-old question, which comes first, the music or the lyrics, Berlin answered, “Usually I compose my tunes and then fit words to them, but sometimes it’s the other way. The lyric makes a song a hit, but the tune makes a song last.”

Berlin wrote songs on many subjects, but his best songs are deeply personal, poignant ballads like “Always,” written for his first wife who died young, or “How Deep is the Ocean,” written for Ellin Mackay, the society woman who became the love of his life. Berlin wrote the joyful “Blue Skies” in 1926 after his first daughter ’s birth. It became an evergreen, recorded by dozens of singers (in 1978, Willie Nelson made the song a #1 country hit, 52 years after Berlin first banged it out).

“One secret of Berlin’s success,” says Deffaa, “is that throughout his life he had a habit of returning to his old haunts in Union Square, Chinatown, and the Bowery — spots not so far from the theater where we’re trying out this show!

One thing about New York: no matter how far up or down you go on the ladder of success, you can reach the opposite by walking a few blocks. Berlin always remembered his childhood sleeping under tenement steps, eating scraps, and wearing secondhand clothes, as hard but good. ‘Every man,’ he’d say, should have a Lower East Side in his life.’ ” TheVillager.com

Thumb Drive The salacious, unseemly sage of Baltimore takes to the road

CARSICK: JOHN WATERS HITCHHIKES ACROSS AMERICA

By John Waters Farrar, Straus and Giroux $26 336 pages

BY GARY M. KRAMER

J

ohn Waters is out to shock again. The filmmaker’s latest book, “Carsick: John Waters

Hitchhikes Across America,” chronicles his recent experiences hitchhiking west along Route 70 from his home in Baltimore to his apartment in San Francisco.

But before the author describes his life “on the road,” he offers readers two novellas. One depicts the “Best That Could Happen,” the other the “Worst.” And boy, is the worst that can happen bad! Nauseatingly so, with disgusting bodily fluids and functions that remind folks why Waters has been dubbed the Prince of Puke.

(Spoiler alert: Waters does not get kidnapped or killed on his travels).

Welcom

e To The

R I NN A E Est. ����

in the James Brown House

A LANDMARK FOR FINE FOOD AND GROG The Ear Inn is inside The James Brown House, one of the very few Federal Houses left in the city, and a designated Landmark of the City of New York on the National Register of Historic Buildings of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

It is largely in the original condition it was when it was built two centuries ago and features a wood post construction with a Flemish brick bond facade.

The noted architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable writing of Federal houses in her book Classic New York, notes, “Their value is... a sudden sense of intimacy scale... evocative of another century and way of life.

The Ear Inn hopes you enjoy its historicity and home cookin’.

Please tell us if you see any ghosts!

326 Spring Street, New York City 10013 • (212) 226-9060 TheVillager.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX

BOOKS

“When I was young I hitchhiked a lot,” he said. “But never that far.

I drove across country five times. I thought that might be a good book, but what would that be like? So I fantasized about the good, the bad, and what I was going to do.”

Waters mentioned that he often hitchhikes in Provincetown, and “got into it, even inviting dates to go hitchhiking.” He added with a laugh, “Those were my training wheels.”

His real experiences, recounted in the book, were “all good,” he effused. “It was an optimistic journey.

There was not one bad person. They were all kind and helpful. One woman wouldn’t leave until she gave me money. She thought I was a homeless man.”

While many people Waters encountered on the road did not recognize the filmmaker behind “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray” — though some folks, like the band Here We Go Magic, did — Waters was amused that some drivers knew him only from his role in the “Seed of Chucky” film.

“With the celebrity I have, the only ones who recognize you are the ones you want to,” he said.

Still, Waters had moments where he hoped using his fame would help him get a ride.

“As soon as I was out there not getting a ride, I was flashing my mustache,” he admitted. “You’ll do anything to get a ride. You’ll get in a car with anybody.”

Sheepishly, he added, “You do what you have to do to get to the next place.”

The non-fiction section of “Car-

sick” is full of fascinating encounters.

Waters bonds most and best with a 20-year-old, sandy-haired straight young Republican driver he calls “the Corvette Kid,” whom he recalls fondly.

“He was just on an adventure,” he recalled. “He didn’t know who I was. We had fun. It was a bromance, and we understood what it looked like. Friends texted him: ‘Way to go!

You’re in a hotel with a gay man in Reno when you were on your way to a lunch at a Subway!’ We stayed [together] for three days in San Francisco. It really looked…”

He let that thought dangle as if not daring to finish it.

While the stories of the real rides are fun, Waters’ “Best” and “Worst” novellas are equally entertaining. They play like extended riffs on Waters’ “Puff Piece (101 Things I Love)” and “Hatchet Piece (101 Things I Hate)” from his book “Crackpot.”

The fictional essays feel like short stories that could be made into films.

In fact, one episode, set at a carnival, was a movie idea for Waters at one point, he explained.

“All the good/bad chapters were like my movies,” he said. “I could picture them as movies. I could be extreme, and hopefully I wrote it like I’m just telling you the story when I got out of the car.”

Waters treats the tales’ sexual episodes with humor.

“You can’t write a hitchhiking book without sex,” he said. “I tried to have humorous fantasies about what would happen.

Still, he acknowledged, “No one will jerk off reading ‘Carsick.’”

John Waters, being who he is, supplements the book’s pleasures with some very nasty episodes.

“I take the worst that can happen seriously,” Waters insisted, but added,

“I think the gross stuff is so ridiculous. The tapeworm thing — I heard that as a child. I used to tell that at summer camp. And with hitchhiking, the paranoia is: Where am I going to eliminate? You can’t say ‘pull over.’

All those things were my fears. And hopefully they can be funny, too.”

A scene involving a goiter shows off Waters’ ability to be shocking, gross, and funny all at the same time. Fans of the filmmaker’s work will likely be more amused than put off.

That’s not to say that Waters doesn’t surprise himself with all that he went through.

“Even when I read the book in proofing, when I read the real parts, I’m shocked I did them,” he said.

He is daunted that while on the trip he would wake up in a hotel only to have to go out and thumb another ride.

“Usually when I stay at a hotel there’s a car picking me up, a limo,” he said. But while he worked on “Carsick,” Waters confessed, “I felt guilty that I got a cab on my night off to go to a movie. I felt like a pussy when I took a bus.”

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

THE FALLS Directed by

Daniel Higgins Written by

Claude Solnik July 10-12 & 17-19 at 8pm July 13 & 20 at 3pm Tickets $15 $12 Students & Seniors

Yangtze Repertory Theatre production of

“The Story of Yu-Huan”

BIKE SHOP A New Musical Created by

Written & Directed by

Elizabeth Barkan

Thursday - Saturday June 18 - June 22 Thurs - Sat at 7:30pm, Sun at 3pm Additional performance Wednesday, June 18 at 7:30pm All Seats $25 $20 Students & Seniors Wed. & Thurs: Pay-What-You-Can (Available at the Box Office Only)

Gretchen Cryer

Joanna Chan

Directed by

JUNE 20 - JULY 6TH Mon - Sat at 7:30pm Sundays at 3:00pm

No shows on Sunday June 29th & July 4th

Tickets $15

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

June 19, 2014

19

Just Do Art

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

10 HAIRY LEGS

An hour prior to the June 28 performance from 10 Hairy Legs founder Randy James will lead a workshop (pictured, James’ “Closing the Glass Door”).

Meet some of the contributors to “Still Practicing,” at their June 25 book launch event.

dancer. Before the June 28 performance, James will lead a workshop about the relationship between live music and dance (register in advance, via the 10 Hairy Legs website).

June 26 – 29, Thurs./Fri./Sat. at 7:30 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. At New York Live Arts (219 W. 19th St., btw.

Seventh & Eighth Aves.). For tickets ($20, $15 for students, seniors), call 212-024-0077 or visit 10hl.org.

SAGE (305 Seventh Ave., btw. 27th & 28th Sts., 15th Floor). For info, visit nywriterscoalition.org and sageusa. org.

reimagined version of David Parker ’s physically intimate “Friends of Dorothy.” Tiffany Mills’ “Work for Five Dancers” is a recurring dream that begins with the same image, and then diverges according to the quirks and personalities of each

NY WRITERS COALITON: WRITING ALOUD READING SERIES

Now in its tenth season, the Writing Aloud Reading Series gives the public a chance to discover what’s been developed during the free creative writing workshops offered by the NY Writers Coalition. This month’s Pried-themed installment features established poet and playwright Joan Larkin reading from her newest work (“Blue Hanuman”), alongside Writers Coalition alum who’ve just been published.

Available for purchase at the event (which also serves as the official book launch), the material in “Still Practicing: Writing from the SAGE Center” is culled from those with ties to the Chelsea-based organization, SAGE (Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Elders). The collection takes its name from a line in Bill Weimer ’s work-in-progress memoir (“Still Practicing”), excerpts of which you’ll hear at the Writing Aloud event.

Free. Wed., June 25, 7 – 9 p.m. at

20

June 19, 2014

IMAGE COURTESY OF NY WRITERS COALITION

PHOTO BY STEVEN TRUMON GRAY

With the go-go boys of Rawhide and Splash long gone, where exactly does one go to see well-defined men in various states of undress, dancing up a storm? Through June 29, some of those crumpled up singles you used to keep handy for “entertainment purposes” will gain you entry to New York Live Arts. That’s where 10 Hairy Legs celebrates the tremendous technical and emotional range of the male dancer. While not identifying as a gay company, founder Randy James notes, “We perform some gay-themed work, by gay choreographers. We also perform work by heterosexual men and women.

Some of that is gay-themed, and some not.” That being said, James let us know that, like most current members of the company, he is openly gay (and there are two couples among the dancers).

Now that they’ve got your attention, try focusing back on the best reason to be there: a rotating program with pieces including a

GERTRUDE STEIN SAINTS!

With no plot to follow, no characters to identify with and no dramatic conflict to be resolved, “Gertrude Stein Saints!” more than makes up for its lack of theatrical structure with its breathlessly paced, intensely sung, and joyfully danced pop-opera adaptation of Stein’s text from “Four Saints in Three Acts” and “Saints and Singing.”

In a successful Kickstarter campaign prior to its run at the 2013 New York International Fringe Festival (for which its music and directing won Overall Excellence awards), Theater Plastique Artistic Director Michelle Sutherland described the work as “part concert, part séance, and all party.”

Critics were even more generous, with David Kennerley’s review (in our sister publication Gay City News) assuring prospective audiences that the “rarefied and curiously accessible…astounding, genre-busting masterwork…is like nothing you’ve ever seen…Let’s hope the troupe comes back to New York soon for a bona-fide run.”

Kennerly got his wish — which means you get your chance to see this updated production, currently playing through June 28 at Abrons JUST DO ART, continued on p. 21 TheVillager.com

Just Do Art JUST DO ART, continued from p. 20

PHOTO BY JORDAN HARRISON

Arts Center. Directed by Sutherland with original music composed by the ensemble, “Saints!” uses rap, bluegrass, hollerin’, spoken word, jazz, hip-hop, Motown, doowop, soul, and more to expand on Stein’s fascination with the sound of American language.

Next up for Theatre Plastique is the second entry in a triptych of shows celebrating American Poetry. “Emily Dickinson OUTER SPACE!” will premiere at Brooklyn’s The Bushwick Starr theater in September. No word on the final installment’s featured author — but it’s a safe bet the title will end in exclamation point!

Through June 28, Thurs. – Sat. at 8 p.m. with an additional performance on June 17, at 8 p.m. At Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand St. at Pitt St.).

For tickets ($20, $15 for students and seniors), call212-351-3101 or visit abronsartscenter.org.

They did the mash: “Gertrude Stein Saints!” uses everything from Shaker music to hip-hop, as it explores the essence of American language.

Gender role rebels become comic book heroes Tale of costumed vigilantes has sass, spandex, substance

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

THEATER THE ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF ALL AMERICAN GIRL & THE SCARLET SKUNK Wednesday, June 25 at 9 p.m.

At The Brick 579 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn Subway: Take the L to Lorimer or the G to Metropolitan Tickets: $18 To order, visit bricktheater.com Call 212-352-3101 For artist info: charlesbattersby.com Visit pressxy.com (co-founded by Battersby, devoted to exploring transgender issues in gaming)

TheVillager.com

PHOTO BY ISAIAH TANENBAUM THEATRICAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Written & Directed by Charles Battersby

W

ell-rounded vigilantes don costumes, embrace their true identities, and risk their lives patrolling the mean streets of a square city unable to embrace their unconventional lifestyle — while twisted villains lurk in the shadows, hiding behind masks.

That’s just one of the thrilling, action-packed aspects of this sassy, daffy, heartfelt, spandex-filled parable about self-acceptance. Part of The Brick Theater’s annual Comic Book Festival, both of the title characters from “The Astonishing Adventures of All American Girl & The Scarlet Skunk” do their crime fighting in heels — but look closer, intrepid viewer, and you’ll see that one of them has an Adam’s apple!

Playwright and director Charles Battersby plays the non-lethal gas-spraying Scarlet Skunk — whose uneasy alliance with a Jiu Jitsu-savvy, World War II vet-turned-underappreciated-secretary-turned-nocturnal-hero (aka All American Girl) might just blossom into an epic romance.

Golden Age comics, post-war gender roles, serial cliffhangers, women’s rights, “moral panic,” and transgender issues all get worked over like the henchmen who lob hurtful words and deeds in the direction of our fisticuff-friendly, titular couple.

“You Freudian types can’t stand anything that you can’t classify,” says The Scarlet Skunk, while confronting an unenlightened adversary. It’s a super observation made powerful because it flows from the glossy red lips of a man who champions the right to present himself as a woman.

Alex Gray as All American Girl (left) and Charles Battersby as The Scarlet Skunk. Their astonishing adventure unfolds at The Brick’s Comic Book Festival.

June 19, 2014

21

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NOTICE OF FORMATION OF PREVIEW STYLES, LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 05/15/14. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. The address to which SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC is to: SIYUAN WANG, 1 UNION SQUARE SOUTH SUITE 11K, NEW YORK, NY 10003. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 06/19 - 07/24/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF TICO INVESTMENT VEHICLE IV, LP Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 6/3/14.

Office location: NY County. LP formed in DE on 5/14/14. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 590 Madison Ave., 35th Fl., NY, NY 10022, principal business address.

DE address of LP: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/address of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 06/19 - 07/24/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 2065 WALTON AVENUE MANAGING MEMBER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 6/16/14. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o B&B Supportive LLC, 419 Park Avenue South, 18th Fl., NY, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 06/19 - 07/24/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF WEEN & KOZEK, LLC, A PROFESSIONAL SERVICE LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (PLLC).

Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 6/4/14.

Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 150 Broadway, Ste. 1920, NY, NY 10038, principal business address. Purpose: practice law.

Vil: 06/19 - 07/24/2014

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that an on-premise license, #TBA has been applied for by 98 Rivington Restaurant LLC d/b/a Galli Restaurant to sell beer, wine and liquor at retail in an on premises establishment. For on premises consumption under the ABC law at 98 Rivington Street NY, NY 10002.

Vil: 06/12 - 06/19/2014 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a license, number #1277191 for on-premise liquor has been applied for by the undersigned to sell beer, liquor and wine at retail in a restaurant establishment under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 5025 Broadway Store #3, New York, NY 10034 for on premises consumption. The Laser Restaurant Group, LLC. Vil: 06/12 - 06/19/2014 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that an on-premise license, #TBA has been applied for by 19th Street Hospitality Partners, LLC to sell beer, wine and liquor at retail in an on premises establishment.

For on premises consumption under the ABC law at 225 Park Avenue South NY, NY 10003.

Vil: 06/12 - 06/19/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF NEWYORK.COM ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, LLC App for Authority filed with Secy of State (SS) of NY on 8/21/12. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 1/5/12.

SSNY designated as an agent upon whom process may be served. PO address to which SSNY shall mail copy of process against LLC: 19495 Biscayne Blvd, Ste 600, Aventura, FL 33180, which is also the FL address of LLC. Cert of LLC filed with SSDE located: 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 06/12 - 07/17/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF TICKETSATWORK – PLUM BENEFITS, LLC App for Authority filed with Secy of State (SS) of NY on 4/17/14. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 1/31/14.

SSNY designated as an agent upon whom process may be served. PO address to which SSNY shall mail copy of process against LLC: 19495 Biscayne Blvd, Ste 300, Aventura, FL 33180, which is also the FL address of LLC. Cert of LLC filed with SSDE located: 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 06/12 - 07/17/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF AR NEWYORK 1, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/2/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1430 Spring Hill Rd., Ste. 300, McLean, VA 22102. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 06/12 - 07/17/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF CCATT LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 11/20/13.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1220 Augusta Dr., Ste. 600, Houston, TX 77057. LLC formed in DE on 11/14/13.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served.

DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 06/12 - 07/17/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF POLYPLEX USA LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 3/25/14.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in AL on 7/19/11. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. AL and principal business address: 3001 Mallard Fox Dr. NW, Decatur, AL 35601. Cert. of Org. filed with AL Sec. of State, 100 N. Union St., Ste. 770, Montgomery, AL 36104. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 06/12 - 07/17/2014 HOK 2 LLC Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 6/4/14. Off. Loc.: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY to mail copy of process to The LLC, c/o Lisa Lou, 95 Colon Ave., Staten Island, NY 10308. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 06/19 - 07/24/2014 MACNEE LLC Arts. of Org filed NY Secy of State (SSNY) 5/09/14.

OFC in NY Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail process to 119 Bank St, #3H, NY NY 10014. Purpose: any lawful act.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 340E24 JV LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/25/13. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Benjamin Shaoul, 594 Broadway, Ste. 1010, NY, NY 10012.

Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF FIREMON, LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/22/14. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Missouri (MO) on 10/01/03.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: National Registered Agents, Inc., 111 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10011.

Address to be maintained in MO: 120 S. Central Ave., Clayton, MO 63105 . Arts of Org. filed with the MO Secy. Of State, 600 W. Main St., Rm. 322, Jefferson City, MO 65102. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014

PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, PURSUANT TO LAW, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, July 02, 2014 at 2:00 P.M. at 66 John Street, 11th floor, on a petition for MEXMA, LLC to continue to maintain, and operate an unenclosed sidewalk cafe at 305 CHURCH STREET in the Borough of Manhattan for a term of four years. REQUESTS FOR COPIES OF THE REVOCABLE CONSENT AGREEMENT MAY BE ADDRESSED TO: DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, ATTN: FOIL OFFICER, 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10004.

Vil: 06/19 - 06/26/2014

22

June 19, 2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 95TH STREET REALTY COMPANY LLC Cert. of Conversion filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/19/14, converting 95TH STREET REALTY COMPANY to 95TH STREET REALTY COMPANY LLC. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 55 Fifth Ave., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Robert Kantor, c/o Cityprop Management Corp., 55 Fifth Ave., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10003. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF FTI CONSULTING TECHNOLOGY LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 2/18/14.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in MD on 1/11/05. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. MD and principal business addr.: 909 Commerce Rd., Annapolis, MD 21401. Cert. of Org. filed with Custodian of Records, MD Dept. of Assessments & Taxation, 301 W. Preston St., Baltimore, MD 21201. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 102-116 EIGHTH AVENUE ASSOCIATES LLC Cert. of Conversion filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/11/14, converting 102-116 EIGHTH AVENUE ASSOCIATES, L.P. to 102-116 EIGHTH AVENUE ASSOCIATES LLC. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, c/o The Brodsky Organization, LLC, Attn: Daniel Brodsky, 400 W. 59th St., NY, NY 10019.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF GOLDENTREE PARTNERS LOAN FUND LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/12/14.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 3/31/14. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Attn: General Counsel, 485 Lexington Ave., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10017, principal business address.

DE address of LLC: 615 S. DuPont Hwy., Dover, DE 19901. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF UB LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/22/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 228 W. 47th St., NY, NY 10036. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Hotel Edison at the princ. office of the LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 451 TENTH AVENUE MEMBER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 3/31/14.

Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 666 Third Ave., NY, NY 10017, Attn: Jeffrey Moerdler, Esq. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF HONDA AVIATION FINANCE COMPANY, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/20/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 20800 Madrona Ave., Torrance, CA 90503. LLC formed in DE on 1/21/14. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CT Corporation System, 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801.

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

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014 ORTAGGI LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 03/18/2014.

Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 304 Hudson St., # 507, NY, NY 10013. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF ACF FINCO I LP Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/20/14. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/25/14. Princ. office of LP: 245 Park Ave. - 44th Fl., NY, NY 10167. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: c/o CSC, 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, New Castle Cnty., DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF 21 CROSBY STREET LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/22/14. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/21/14. Princ. office of LLC: c/o Corigin, Attn: Spencer Romoff, 505 Fifth Ave., NY, NY 10017. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of the State of DE, Corp. Dept., Loockerman & Federal Sts., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF PING GUI LLC Articles of Organization filed with Secy. Of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/4/14.

Office location: QUEENS County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 1824 COLLEGE POINT BLVD, COLLEGE POINT, NY 11356 Purpose: Any lawful act Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF ALVAREZ & MARSAL ASSET MANAGEMENT SERVICES, LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/15/14. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/12/14.

Princ. office of LLC: 600 Madison Ave., 8th Fl., NY, NY 10022. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BRONX FOOD PROCESSING AND DISTRIBUTION CENTER FUND, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/15/14. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: c/o NY City Regional Center, LLC, 99 Hudson St., 15th Fl., NY, NY 10013. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF QUAL. OF COBBLE HILL HEALTH AND WELLNESS PARTNERS LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 3/19/14. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 3/19/14. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to NRAI, 111 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10011, the Reg. Agt. upon whom proc. may be served. DE off. addr.: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901.

Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF QUAL. OF COB 3420 BROADWAY LLC Auth. filed Sec’y of State (SSNY) 2/19/14. Office loc.: NY County. LLC org. in DE 2/12/14. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of proc. to NRAI, 111 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10011, the Reg. Agt. upon whom proc. may be served. DE off. addr.: 160 Greentree Dr., Ste. 101, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. on file: SSDE, Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901.

Purp.: any lawful activities.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014

PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, PURSUANT TO LAW, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, July 02, 2014 at 2:00 P.M. at 66 John Street, 11th floor, on a petition for CARAPINA LLC to establish, maintain, and operate an unenclosed sidewalk cafe at 233 BLEECKER STREET in the Borough of Manhattan for a term of two years. REQUESTS FOR COPIES OF THE REVOCABLE CONSENT AGREEMENT MAY BE ADDRESSED TO: DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, ATTN: FOIL OFFICER, 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10004.

Vil: 06/19 - 06/26/2014

TheVillager.com

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF MAJESTIC ACQUISITIONS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/8/14. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 721 Fifth Avenue, Ste. 45C, NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 15BUNP LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/14/14.

Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Solomon Blum Heymann LLP, 40 Wall St., 35th Fl., NY, NY 10005, principal business address. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF THE RICHMAN GROUP OF CONNECTICUT, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/14/14.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in CT on 10/24/94. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: National Corporate Research, Ltd., 10 E. 40th St., 10th Fl., NY, NY 10016, regd. agent upon whom process may be served.

CT and principal business address: 340 Pemberwick Rd., Greenwich, CT 06831.

Cert. of Org. filed with CT Sec. of State, 30 Trinity St., Hartford, CT 06106. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF SOHO-LUDLOW TENANT, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/12/14.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in DE on 12/26/12. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o Andy Childs, 515 W. 20th St., NY, NY 10011, principal business address. DE address of LLC: c/o The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801.

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

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF SPG MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES III, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/13/14.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in IN on 1/29/14. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. IN and principal business addr.: c/o Corporate Paralegal, 225 W. Washington St., PO Box 7033, Indianapolis, IN 46207-7033. Cert. of Org. filed with IN Sec. of State, 302 W. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN 46204.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF LINDSAY GOLDBERG IV L.P. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/6/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 630 5th Ave., 30th Fl., NY, NY 10111. LP formed in DE on 4/2/14. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: National Corporate Research, Ltd. (NCR), 194 Washington Ave., Ste. 310, Albany, NY 12210. DE addr. of LP: NCR, 615 S. DuPont Hwy., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. #3, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF LINDSAY GOLDBERG IV - A L.P. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/6/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 630 5th Ave., 30th Fl., NY, NY 10111. LP formed in DE on 4/2/14. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: National Corporate Research, Ltd. (NCR), 194 Washington Ave., Ste. 310, Albany, NY 12210. DE addr. of LP: NCR, 615 S. DuPont Hwy., Dover, DE 19901. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. #3, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/29 - 07/03/2014

E&L EPICERIE LLC Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 02/05/2014. Off. Loc.:New York Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY to mail copy of process to The LLC, c/o Laurent Baud, 37 West 26th Street, Suite 302, New York, NY 10010. Purpose:Any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 05/22 - 06/26/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF ERICA SILVERMAN INTERIORS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/6/14. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Capitol Services, Inc., 1218 Central Avenue, Ste. 100, Albany, NY 12205. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 05/22 - 06/26/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BROADWAY BUILDERS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/6/14. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 826 Broadway, 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/22 - 06/26/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF NEST FILM PRODUCTIONS LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/7/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 100 Universal City Plz., Universal City, CA 91608. LLC formed in DE on 3/20/14.

NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served.

DE addr. of LLC: c/o The Corporation Trust Co., 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 05/22 - 06/26/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF ONVOY, LLC Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 4/21/14.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in MN on 3/10/14. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. MN and principal business address: 10300 6th Ave. N., Plymouth, MN 55441. Cert. of Org. filed with MN Sec. of State, 60 Empire Dr., Ste. 100, St. Paul, MN 55103. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 05/22 - 06/26/2014 SW10 PICTURES LLC Art. Of Org. Filed Sec. of State of NY 10/04/2013. Off. Loc.: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY to mail copy of process to The LLC, c/o Guy Godfree, 67 E 2nd St, Unit 43, New York, NY 10003. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014 AVERAGE HUSTLE PUBLICATIONS, LLC a domestic LLC, filed with the SSNY on 1/22/14.

Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o United States Corporation Agents, Inc., 7014 13th Ave., Ste. 202, Brooklyn, NY 11228. General Purpose.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 92 HENRY FULTON LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/01/14. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 299 Park Ave., NY, NY 10171.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Fisher Brothers, Attn: General Counsel at the princ. office of the LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014 NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF RUBY FRESH LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/30/14. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/10/14.

Princ. office of LLC: 333 7th Ave., 18th Fl., Ste. 2, NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts. of Org. filed with DE Secy. of State, Corp. Div., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BRO PLUS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/05/14. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 158 W. 29th St., 3rd Fl., NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BIG TIME LEARNING LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/22/14. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: Jeffrey de Vito, 59 W. 12th St., 16th Fl., Ste. A, NY, NY 10011. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 451 TENTH AVENUE OPERATING LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 3/31/14.

Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 666 Third Ave., NY, NY 10017, Attn: Jeffrey Moerdler, Esq. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 06/05 - 07/10/2014

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF MUSICAL THEATER CHINA, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 4/25/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: Rm 2005, Block 17, Hopson Intl Garden, Beijing 100022, China. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it

TIME TUNNEL HERITAGE SERVICES LLC a domestic LLC, filed with the SSNY on 5/2/14.

Office location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to The LLC, P.O. Box 1126, Gracie Square Station, NY, NY 10028. General Purpose.

Vil: 05/22 - 06/26/2014

may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served.

Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014 NOTICE OF FORMATION OF PALLI CAFARELLI, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 4/30/14.

Office location: NY County. Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: Marco Antonio Palli Cafarelli, 200 Mercer St., Apt. 4D, NY, NY 10012, principal business address. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF SCCP SALINA II, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 4/17/14.

Office location: NY County. Princ. bus. addr.: 1075 W. Georgia St., Ste. 2600, Vancouver, BC C6E 3C9, Canada. LP formed in DE on 6/19/13. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o CT Corporation System, 111 8th Ave., NY, NY 10011, regd. agent upon whom process may be served. DE addr. of LP: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Name/addr. of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

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HANCHUK KHEIT LLP a domestic LLP, filed with the SSNY on 3/13/14.

Office Location: New York County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLP may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLP, 258 St. Nicholas Ave., No. 8A, NY, NY 100275353. Purpose: Law. Vil: 05/15 - 06/19/2014

PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, PURSUANTTO LAW, that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a Public Hearing on Wednesday, July 02, 2014 at 2:00 P.M. at 66 John Street, 11th floor, on a petition for LEGENDARY NIGHT SPOTS INC. to continue to maintain, and operate an unenclosed sidewalk cafe at 61 CHRISTOPHER STREET in the Borough of Manhattan for a term of two years. REQUESTS FOR COPIES OF THE REVOCABLE CONSENT AGREEMENT MAY BE ADDRESSED TO: DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, ATTN: FOIL OFFICER, 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY 10004.

Vil: 06/19 - 06/26/2014

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June 19, 2014

23

A new model for building the Morton St. school 75 MORTON ST., continued from p. 14

Community vision for a middle school

TIMELINE TO OPENING DAY Design plans for the building should be completed by late summer or early fall by S.C.A. and its chosen architectural firm, John Ciardullo Associates, whose portfolio includes the Beacon School, on W. 61st St., a 1,200-student high school. Beacon School offers a “dynamic, inquiry-based curriculum,” with a 400-seat performing arts theater, regulation-sized gym, science labs, art and music rooms and blackbox theater — almost a mirror image of what the community has asked for in the Morton St. school.

By early 2015, the project — a gut-rehabilitation of the existing building — would be put out to bid, with the lowest-bidding contractor selected as required under city regulations. Construction could take 30 months, up through mid-2017, but the community has not given up on a fall 2016 opening and will propose ideas on how time can be saved.

On a parallel path, planning for the school’s programming will begin this fall with what D.O.E. calls a community mapping and needs as-

sessment. Jackie Lee of D.O.E. says of this groundbreaking approach, “We are trying to develop new processes in big foundational ways because we’re trying to do this across the city — have real communication with communities.”

Through a series of neighborhood meetings throughout School District 2, a “map” of the district would be created showing student population, demographic information, middle school locations and, importantly, the programming that middle schools currently offer. Given the chancellor’s laser focus on a middle school curriculum filled with physical activity and the arts, this exercise might reveal, for example, that more dance studios are needed in new middle schools coming online. Or, given the needs of District 2 children, more sensory gyms for special-needs students might have to be built.

The Alliance and C.E.C. are already working hand in hand with D.O.E. in sketching out this district mapping and needs assessment process.

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MORE NEXT STEPS Anticipation of construction crews arriving next year has made Alliance parents and community members more energized than ever.

Future topics for school advocates will include the job description and hiring process of the new middle school’s principal, and identifying local organizations — like the Downtown Whitney and Google — that could partner with the school to bring the curriculum even more alive. The Alliance is hopeful to receive a grant from Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer’s Office to pay for a professional facilitation firm, NYC Public, to orchestrate its ongoing meetings, a tactic that was effective for consensus building in past meetings.

The local C.E.C. will continue its work on proposing to D.O.E. an overhaul of the middle school admissions process. The dysfunction of three simultaneous systems — lottery, selective screen and zones — has created an agonizing process for parents and their fifth graders. Tanikawa sees this as an opportunity to also achieve more diversity in District 2 schools.

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June 19, 2014

LIBRARY HEALTH CLINIC (WITH PRIVATE SPACE FOR ADOLESCENT TREATMENT / ADVICE) CAFETERIA TO SEAT 50 PERCENT OF STUDENTS AT ONCE BREAKOUT SPACES FOR SMALL-GROUP WORK COMMUNITY ACTION ROOM FOR CIVICS, STUDENT COUNCIL, SCHOOL NEWSPAPER PARENT RESOURCE ROOM ENLARGED WINDOWS FOR NATURAL LIGHT COMMUNITY ACCESS TO SCHOOL FACILITIES AFTER SCHOOL

“Diversity has to be done through the admissions process,” she said.

“We need to weigh the opinion of all parents, and it’s a huge discussion that needs to happen.”

BREAKING NEW GROUND In planning the new Morton St. school, early signs are encouraging that it is not business as usual at D.O.E. and S.C.A. The school has become a catalyst to roll out a new model of community collaboration for creating schools.

Keen Berger, the task force’s chairperson, is an author of bestselling textbooks on child psychology and the mother of four graduates of P.S. 3 in the Village 20 years ago.

When asked why it was critical that parents and the community be so involved, Berger responded, “There’s a mantra in developmental psychology that parents are children’s first teachers and have to be involved in their education every step of the way.”

Alliance member Heather Lortie chimed in, “The old administration planted new schools. We want to grow our own.”

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HE

PHOTO BY SERGEI KLEBNIKOV

The redone Jane St. Triangle now sports granite blocks — set right into the soil — intended only for brief seating, and lots of foliage.

Jane St. Triangle more leafy but new seats not too comfy

BY SERGEI KLEBNIKOV

T

he little intersection at Jane and W. Fourth Sts. and Eighth Ave. has had a long and interesting history, and now, following the end of its latest makeover, the tiny triangle has yet another new identity.

Three years ago, Community Board 2 voted to approve the Department of Transportation’s plan to redesign the small traffic island into a small park.

Going back further, the Jane St. triangle was created in 1998, when concerns about safety at the three-way intersection got D.O.T. to install a raised cement traffic island with a tree, plus a fence around the island. The one block of W. Fourth St. on the triangle’s north side was closed to traffic. The ad hoc fence — made of gleaming metal bike racks, added by then-D.O.T. Commissioner Chris Lynn — was soon removed due to public outcry. The site is in the landmarked Greenwich Village Historic District.

In 2011, D.O.T. moved to make the intersection a small parklike area.

Originally, Jane St. residents liked the idea, as D.O.T. began presenting plans for the design in multiple hearings at C.B. 2. However, some worried that installing benches would encourage bar patrons to loiter there noisily after hours.

In the end, the full community board overwhelmingly approved the project.

“We felt the concerns weren’t justified,” explained Shirley Secunda, chairperson of C.B. 2’s Traffic and Transportation Committee.

However, because of the local concerns, D.O.T.’s designer replaced the planned benches with rough-hewn granite blocks, in order to limit people sitting down. The reasoning was that having granite blocks instead of benches would encourage only temTheVillager.com

porary seating, where people can stop and rest for a while rather than for a lengthy stay.

Construction on the triangle recently finished. The intersection now sports added bushes, trees and mulch.

D.O.T. also installed safety cones and crash barriers around the space.

Secunda said there were modifications made “each step of the way,” and that various commissions oversaw the process.

Meanwhile, residents and local business owners have felt the effects of the ongoing construction.

“The project had been going on way too long,” said Michael Stewart, an owner of Tavern on Jane. He said it was nice to finally have parking in the area again, and hopes, with the construction staging gone, that D.O.T. will reinstall Muni-Meters.

Similarly, Sandeep Mohabir, manager of Li-Lac Chocolates, called the construction “extensively long.”

Yet, now that the project is finished, most are happy for the addition to the intersection.

“People generally like the triangle,” Stewart observed.

Mohabir said the small park “makes the area look more homey,” and that it’s much better than having an empty sidewalk.

In addition, the granite blocks seem to have addressed the concerns raised by neighbors several years ago.

“People don’t really loiter; they more often just stop and admire the park,” Stewart noted. The granite blocks “give some kind of aesthetic” to the intersection, he added.

Mohabir said there is “nothing suspicious around the park” whenever he closes up shop and leaves for the night.

“You can’t have enough green space around here,” Stewart added.

“It’s an improvement that’s going to serve the community,” Secunda said.

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June 19, 2014

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PHOTO BY ERIC RATKOWSKI

New York Outrigger members paddling up the Hudson River. Club members often go for paddles of up to 15 miles.

N.Y. Outrigger brings spirit of Hawaii to the Hudson SPORTS

BY LAUREN VESPOLI

D

espite living on an island, few Manhattanites think of the Hudson and East rivers as prime locations for water sports.

However, the members of New York Outrigger, the city’s only Hawaiian-style outrigger canoeing club, are trying to change this perception.

One Saturday afternoon in early June, nine novice paddlers gathered at N.Y.O.’s Pier 66 boathouse, at W. 26th St., for a tutorial in outrigger technique and a session on the water.

N.Y.O. coach Will Chang explained the sport’s history and basic technique, as well as the Hawaiian terms for the canoe — the “wa’a” — and the outrigger — the “ama.”

The style of outrigger canoeing practiced by N.Y.O., in which the rigger is lashed to the left side of the boat, descended from a traditional form of Polynesian transportation.

Historically, the boats were used to explore and eventually settle the islands of Southeast Asia, Polynesia and the Pacific. Now, the N.Y.O. team explores the waters of New York in six-person, double- and single-hull boats. Club members go for paddles as long as 15 miles, and occasionally pause to enjoy some of New York’s waterfront delights, such as lobster in Red Hook, Chang said.

There are two keys to mastering the outrigger paddling technique:

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pulling with your core, rather than your arms, and closely following the paddling rhythm set by the stroke, or the person in the first seat. And if you’d rather not swim in the Hudson, leaning left — toward the outrigger — is also crucial.

However, those basic tenets were easy to forget once we were out on the water. After crashing through the swells that had accumulated by the pier, once we were out on the Hudson it was hard to keep from staring up at Manhattan’s glittering towers.

But any reverie was quickly broken by the demands of moving the boat.

The successful movement of the boat relies on the synchronization of everyone in the canoe. All paddlers follow the stroke, while the sixth seat controls steering, and a designated caller signals when to switch paddling sides. In our boat, the signal was “Hi, hi, ho!” with the switch on “ho.”

New York Outrigger, founded in 1996, now boasts about 60 active members, according to club member Julie Ran. Ran, a public health professional, has been paddling with N.Y.O. for three years since discovering the club through a friend.

“In New York, it’s sort of a fascinating process,” Ran said. “We don’t know what day jobs we all have, but we are all working together [in the boat]. It’s a very equalizing sport.”

Chris Chan, who has paddled with N.Y.O. since 2010, discovered the club after reading about it in Time Out New York.

“I saw the article, and decided to

come check it out,” he said.

Member dues, at $350 a year, provide the club’s funding. In the years that Chan has been with the club, he says membership has been relatively steady.

“But we’ll always welcome new people,” he said.

Most new members are introduced to the club through novice sessions like the one I attended, run by N.Y.O. volunteers from June to September.

“It’s our way to give back to the community,” Ran said. The novice session I participated in was a part of New York Outdoorfest, a 10-day festival that opened a variety of outdoor club activities across the city, in order to raise awareness of the surprising diversity of outdoor opportunities in New York.

When N.Y.O. is not paddling recreationally or leading novice sessions, some of its members race competitively, both on the East Coast and all over the world. In March, N.Y.O. members represented the club at an Australian race in Sydney Harbor.

Outrigger canoeing is an endurance sport. Races are long — 15 to 20

miles — and take around two hours to finish.

However, Ran noted, “Most of the paddlers are recreational. They’re interested in the community aspect.”

New York Outrigger’s main mission is a simple one.

“For New Yorkers to feel more comfortable and to take advantage of the water,” he said. “Our longterm goal is to create a community of safe watermen.”

For those who’d like to learn more about the sport and culture of outrigger canoeing, N.Y.O. will host its own annual race, the Hawaiian Airlines Liberty Challenge, on Sat., June 21, at Pier 26. Crews from around the world will race on a 15-mile course that includes views of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. In addition to the race, N.Y.O. and Hawaiian Airlines are sponsoring a festival of Polynesian and Hawaiian culture, which will include dance and storytelling performances. If the spirit of ho’olaule’a (celebration), moves you, N.Y.O. will also be offering its popular free novice sessions.

Vipers are making hisss-tory

T

he Greenwich Village Little League U12 (age 12 and under) girls softball team, the Vipers, are champions of their league, after defeating the Yorkville All-Stars 12 - 5 in Central Park on

Sat., June 14.

The Vipers (8 - 2) will move along to the sectionals of the International Little League Tournament, the softball portion of which starts on or around Sun., June 29.

June 19, 2014

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June 19, 2014

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