East Villager News, August 2, 2012

Rock around the park, p. 23

Volume 2, Number 47 FREE

East and West Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Noho, Little Italy and Chinatown

August 2 - 15, 2012

Burlesque will be on the menu with stripped-down poetry club

N.Y.U., affordable co-op reach deal on long-term lease

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Some might think the Bowery Poetry Club’s scaling back its presence on the Bowery — largely giving way to a swank and sexy new restaurant — is just the latest sign of the famously gritty boulevard’s gentrification.

But to hear both Bob Holman, the poetry club’s founder and proprietor, and the restaurant’s ownership tell it, the space’s new incarnation will be firmly in keeping with the Bowery’s historic identity.

Bowery Poetry Club closed last month and the space, at 308 Bowery between Houston and Bleecker Sts., is now undergoing renovation to become the new home of Duane Park, a Tribeca restaurant featuring nightly live entertainment.

Duane Park’s Web page describes it as “New York Burlesque & Live Jazz,” with the motto, “Always an evening of dreamy elegance, hot dancers, cool jazz or moonlight magic.”

Featured performers on its August calendar include the likes of Jo Boobs, Gal Friday, Hazel Honeysuckel and Stormy Leather.

But the restaurant’s operators stress it’s not fair to pigeonhole it as a burlesque club, since the dancing is just part of what they do.

“Burlesque is mixed in,” explained Billy Melillo, one of the club’s coowners. “It’s more of a mood.”

Other performers at Duane Park include Albert Cadabra, a.k.a. “The Great Deceiver,” a sideshow-style magician, and Motown-inspired singer Aaron Marcellus, formerly of “American Idol.” Duane Park has even had opera and poetry readings.

The restaurant was started by Marisa Ferrarin four years ago.

Melillo soon came in as a partner.

As Melillo explained it, only people in their 20s really go out dancing in clubs nowadays.

“The club scene is totally gone,” said Malilo, who was a part owner of the Sound Factory dance club in Chelsea in 1989 and ’90. “For people

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON New York University on Tuesday said it has reached an agreement on the land lease with the co-op that owns the building at 505 LaGuardia Place, one of the three residential towers on the N.Y.U.-owned South Village superblocks.

Under the deal, the term of the co-op’s current land lease will be extended in perpetuity as long as the building remains in the Mitchell-Lama or other approved affordable housing program. The agree-

ment also limits future rent increases under the lease to allow the building to continue to be affordable.

The co-op’s current lease with N.Y.U. provides for an annual rent payment to the university of $28,400 per year for the land on which the co-op is built. Under that lease, the rent would have been reset in 2014 at 6 percent of the market value of the land, which would have resulted in a substantial rent increase due to

Continued on page 21

The Villager is sold to I.T. executive Jennifer Goodstein The parent company of The Villager has been sold to a business executive with experience in information technology and e-commerce.

“I was looking for something in New York that had quality and integrity behind it,” Jennifer Goodstein said of purchasing Community Media, LLC, effective July 31.

The award-winning newspaper chain also includes the Downtown Express, Gay City News, Chelsea Now and the East Villager, and was owned for the past 12 years by John

Members of the Plume Review, one of the acts at Duane Park. The dancers come out and perform one by one, not all at once.

in their 30s, 40s, 50s, this is the new nightlife — dinner and a show.”

Duane Park added burlesque to the menu to draw out people after the economy tanked. According to Melillo, it was his idea.

“We actually started it when the stock market crashed,” he said.

“Marisa had started the restaurant.

We incorporated burlesque into the

Continued on page 12

5 1 5 C A N A L STREET • N YC 10013 • C OPYRIG H T © 2012 N YC COMMU NITY M ED IA , LLC

W. Sutter.

“John has maintained, over the years, a very strong reputation of having a place where people can find a trusted source of what’s happening,” Goodstein said. “I do feel that, looking at the condition of the papers –– I think the hard work is done.”

Goodstein was a key e-business executive at MetLife for 10 years. Prior to that, she was director of information technology for instruction and curriculum at a Maryland school district.

Continued on page 6

EDITORIAL, LETTERS PAGE 10

‘THE OTHER LA LIZ’ PAGE 15

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August 2 - 15, 2012

Director has music festival hitting on all the right notes

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BY ALBERT AMATEAU From Mozart and Beethoven to the music of West Africa, the Washington Square Music Festival, the city’s second-oldest free outdoor classical concert series, concluded its 54th consecutive year on Tuesday.

The festival has become a Village institution since it was founded by the late Alexander Schneider, violinist with the renowned Budapest String Quartet, and sponsored by the Washington Square Association, the city’s second oldest civic organization.

The festival’s annual July concerts in Washington Square Park (or in St. Joseph’s Church on Washington Place on rainy evenings) have ranged over the familiar classical repertory and the notso-familiar sounds of jazz, avantPhoto by Sally J. Blair garde and world music.

Peggy Friedman, head of the Washington Square “We’ve always had great musicians,” said Peggy Friedman, exec- Music Festival, announcing the door prizes at the utive director of the Washington festival’s annual benefit at Le Poisson Rouge on Square Music Festival for more Bleecker St. in May. than 30 years. “Wynton Marsalis played Friedman, since 2001. with the festival chamber ensemble when “We used to play hopscotch on the he was 17. Of course, he was classically sidewalk and everyone knew who their trained,” she observed. neighbors were,” she recalled.

“Sasha Schneider, who founded the fesFriedman studied theater at Northwestern tival, often played in Washington Square outside Chicago after she graduated from in the early days,” she noted. “The soprano the Brearley School in 1956, but she came Marilyn Horne performed in a concert back to New York as an actress before getwith her husband Henry Lewis in 1960; ting a degree. and the Charles Mingus Orchestra played “I did finally graduate — from Hunter the music of the late great jazz master in College — in 1977. It was a great experithe festival several times in recent years,” ence going to school as an older underFriedman said. graduate,” she said.

“Lutz Rath, the current leader of the Under the stage name of Courtney festival chamber orchestra, is a distin- Campbell, she took part in the Off guished cellist with a special sensitivity to Broadway theater scene of the 1960s. She the human voice,” Friedman added. was a member of the Actors Repertory She noted with pride The New York Theater, founded by Wendell Phillips, a Times review of the July 17 performance Broadway actor, playwright and director. in which the reviewer, Allan Kozinn, said A highlight of her theater days was takthe Franz Schubert Quartet in C minor for ing part in Peter Schuman’s astonishing two cellos was “a luminous performance,” Bread and Puppet Theater. She acted with and the Gustav Mahler piano quartet was the late writer and political activist Grace “played with intensity.”

Paley in 1965.

In the same program, Arnold “One of the most influential things in Schoenberg’s “Ode to Napoleon” for piano my life was working for Emeline Paige, quintet and speaker, Rath was the speaker who was still editor of The Villager in of the text by Byron. the early 1960s,” Friedman said. Paige, Fittingly, Friedman speaks with intensity the creator of Scoopy’s Notebook, was whenever referring to the festival and to part of The Villager from 1934 (the year Greenwich Village where she lived as a after it was founded) until 1967. “She was child on W. Ninth St. a free spirit years ahead of her time — “In a way, the festival is who I am — I proper, strong-willed and unconventional,” grew up with it,” Friedman said. “My Friedman recalled. mother, Peggy Campbell, helped organize The same could be said of Friedman, it in 1953 and was the first director of the who was described as “the heart and soul festival.” of the Washington Square Music Festival” Back then, Greenwich Village was still by Anne-Marie Sumner, president of the a low-rent, low-rise, brownstone neighbor- Washington Square Association. hood, according to Friedman, who has “She is the glue that holds it all together, been living in Upstate Sullivan County raising funds and making sure that everywith her husband, the sculptor Robert thing works,” Sumner said.

August 2 - 15, 2012

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We will be closed July 16-30 but up the block you can dine at our sister restaurant Montes. (97 MacDougal)

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Photo courtesy the Lower Eastside Girls Club

Members of the Lower Eastside Girls Club’s New York Marathon team, front row, from left: Ann Mathews, Jenny Mathews, Alissa Landorf, Glynnis MacNichol, Coriander Smyth and Adriana Pezzulli. Back row, from left, Elizabeth Benjamin, Nicholas Spadaro, Daniel Spadaro, Justin Grotelueschen and Kerry Gaertner.

Girls Club team is in the running

BY ERICA RAKOWICZ For the third year in a row, a team from The Lower Eastside Girls Club will be running for a worthy cause in the New York City Marathon this Nov. 4.

The Lower Eastside Girls Club began in 1996 as a way to rebuild the community after the urban malaise of the 1960s and ’70s.

Providing space and programs for girls and young women ages 8 to 23, the Girls Club functions as a safe haven for girls and young women who want to make a difference.

The team of runners not only helps the Girls Club by raising funds, but also by providing positive role models, showing that goals — even ones as daunting as running a marathon — can be achieved with focus and hard work.

Each Girls Club marathon runner dons a T-shirt with a logo and must raise or donate $3,000 to $5,000 before running in the famed race.

SCOOPY’S

NOTEBOOK WASN’T USED SO URGENTLY: North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System closed its urgent-care center at 121 W. 20th St. on Fri., June 13, after just 16 months of operation because it was “clearly underused and unnecessary,� a spokesperson for the medical group said.

The center, which operated at night and on weekends in a 4,000-square-foot basement on the lower level of the VillageCare Adult Clinic, had an average of two patients a day since in March of last year. The VillageCare clinic, which is open weekdays during business hours, continues to serve the community, a VillageCare spokesperson said last week. The closing of the North Shore-L.I.J. service on W. 20th St. does not stop the medical group from proceeding with its $110 million plan for a free-standing, 24/7 emergency department and comprehensive community healthcare facility in the former St. Vincent’s Hospital O’Toole Pavilion on Seventh Ave. at W. 12th St. across from the former hospital property. North ShoreL.I.J. spent $2.3 million to open its the 20th St. center in

“Our runners meet the goal every year,� said Kate Sease, the club’s development associate. “We provide each runner with guidance and a personal fundraising page,� she added.

The team, without a coach, trains a few times a week with the Orchard Street Runners. “It’s an option to run with a group, which some people really like,� Sease said.

The team is comprised of people who were or are currently involved with The Lower Eastside Girls Club. “It’s a really incredible way to see our supporters take on the challenge physically while supporting us,� Sease said.

Along with the upcoming marathon, next year, the Girls Club plans to open its doors at its new clubhouse on Avenue D. There are still two spots left on the team of 20 runners. If you or someone you know is interested in running with The Lower Eastside Girls Club team in the New York Marathon, visit www. girlsclub.org.

response to the outcry over the closing of St. Vincent’s eight blocks away, a spokesperson for the group said. The round-the-clock emergency department and comprehensive health center in the O’Toole building is scheduled to open in 2014.

STICKING WITH THE BEAN: The East Village’s nocturnal “sidewalk gum artist,� James Wechsler, who we profiled in April, might not have gotten his wish yet — a gallery show. But he might have done even better by getting an exhibit in the new Bean coffee shop on First Ave. at Ninth St. The super-popular cafe is hosting a small exhibition of Wechsler’s series of paintings based on 19th-century scientific engravings. He hung his artwork there in June through an organization called Indiewalls. Congrats!

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August 2 - 15, 2012

Council O.K.’s N.Y.U. plan; Antis booted before vote

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON According to Judith Callet, former resident chairperson of the Bleecker Area Residents’ and Merchants’ Association, they were supposed to start chanting after the vote.

“Many of us put hundreds of hours in on this and we wanted to be there,” she said.

“Let’s just say, we would have had a reaction to the vote.”

Instead, as Council Speaker Christine Quinn started to speak in support of New York University’s superblocks mega-development plan on Wed., July 25, opponents sitting in the balcony began to hiss and call out, at first only a few.

“Shame!” and “Shame on you!” they spat out.

“We’re going to ask for quiet one more time, and then we’re going to clear the balcony,” Quinn warned.

But the cries only came faster and louder, and Quinn didn’t hesitate.

“All right, sergeants, please clear the balcony,” she ordered.

Police officers and Council security quickly moved to herd out the 75 or so opponents — though it took about 10 minutes to clear them all out of the balcony.

Angrily brandishing their yellow “N.Y.U. is Wrong for the Village” signs, the opponents unleashed a barrage of jeers as they shuffled out.

“Democracy is dead!”

“Corruption and greed in City Hall!”

“Shame on Quinn!”

Quinn said the N.Y.U. plan that the Council was about to vote on represented a 27 percent reduction in square footage to the plan that was originally presented.

This, however, refers to the space the project would add aboveground. When new underground space is also included, the final project was cut more than 20 percent from the original.

In total, the university’s plan now is to add 1.9 million square feet of new development to its two South Village superblocks, between Houston and W. Third Sts. and LaGuardia Place and Mercer St. Quinn and Councilmember Margaret Chin, whose district contains the superblocks, both said the plan, in its final form, “strikes a balance” between allowing N.Y.U. to grow and flourish while ensuring that the surrounding community isn’t overwhelmed.

At a press conference before the vote, the East Villager asked Quinn to reconcile the Council’s approval of the project with the fact that Community Board 2 had voted an “absolute no” on it.

“I understand — as does Margaret — why the community board voted ‘no,’ ” Quinn answered. “This plan is different from the original plan,” she said, noting the squarefootage reduction.

Asked if this would be the end of N.Y.U.’s expansion of its facilities in the Village, Quinn said she wouldn’t anticipate seeing any more growth in the neighborhood by the university anytime soon.

After the press conference, speaking on the Council Chambers floor as the Council was getting ready to vote, Quinn said the

Photo by Tequila Minsky

After the vote, Councilmember Charles Barron, the only councilmember who weighed in against the N.Y.U. 2031 plan, spoke with the plan’s opponents, including Miriam Kaplan, the director of research and data analysis for the Superblocks Coalition, center.

N.Y.U. project would help make the university an “even greater force to bring people to New York to study.”

She noted that both the planned Boomerang Building and the Zipper Building, both on Mercer St., had been significantly modified in the review process.

‘I’m very conflicted by my vote — but “yes.” ’ Rosie Mendez

“I think when all is said and done in 2031, this will be seen as a fair process,” Quinn added.

“It’s really a plan for 20 years, so the community knows what N.Y.U. is going to do,” Chin said in her remarks, adding that the agreement the Council negotiated with the university includes dedicated funds and protection for the superblocks’ open spaces.

Referring to the reduction of aboveground space by more than one-quarter from the original, Chin said, “This is significant, and it reflects N.Y.U.’s willingness to engage in the public process. I modified this proposal to directly address concerns expressed by my constituents, namely, by reducing building heights and preserving open space. I am proud of the victories that have been achieved. This modified proposal meets N.Y.U.’s academic needs while providing new amenities and improved green space for Greenwich Village residents. As this plan comes into being over the next 20 years, I am confident that it will not outpace growth in Greenwich Village.”

She urged her fellow councilmembers to vote in support of the university’s plan.

Chin added that she had “met with every group that asked for a meeting” about the contentious project.

The councilmember also noted that she stressed to N.Y.U., “No more broken promises.”

Leroy Comrie, chairperson of the Council’s Land Use Committee, also spoke in support of the plan. Noting that “nothing stays the same,” Comrie said the idea of a quaint, quiet Village is a thing of the past. Just the other night, he said, he had taken his daughter to SOB’s at Houston and Varick Sts. and the Village had been jumping.

“It’s not a quiet area. It’s not a passive area,” he stated. “It’s not the Village of the ’60s or ’70s when people are going to bed at 8 o’clock at night. The Village is a very active place” where people can go out to get a meal or see entertainment, he said.

Once again, Charles Barron — a frequent foil of Quinn in the Council — was the only member to vote against the N.Y.U. plan.

He had done so the previous week at the Council’s Land Use Committee vote.

Even under the modified version, there would still be several large towers in the plan — “a 17-story tower, a 15-story tower…,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said, C.B. 2 had “an extensive response” to the N.Y.U. 2031 plan — in the form of a resolution completely rejecting it.

“This is not a body that is supposed to be defending N.Y.U. turning its neighborhood into an extended campus,” he chided the Council.

Barron also objected to the ejection of the opponents from the Council Chambers.

“You don’t put them out because they’re frustrated with a plan for where they have to live,” he scolded.

Gale Brewer, speaking before the vote,

told a photographer that everyone knew Barron would vote “no” but that all the other members would vote “yes.”

“We did it out of respect for Margaret Chin,” she said, referring to how councilmembers typically defer to the councilmember in whose district the specific project in question is located.

Councilmember Rosie Mendez referred back to her comments before the Land Use Committee vote, when she had said “the easy thing to do would be to vote ‘no.’ ” Yet, she noted, she had “stood shoulder to shoulder” on Chin with so many local issues.

“You’re an awesome colleague, you’re my sister,” she said.

On the other hand, Mendez said, she wants N.Y.U. to let its graduate students hold a union election.

“Today, while a lot of my constituents are going to be unhappy — and I’m very conflicted by my vote — ‘yes.’ Thank you, and this is for you,” Mendez said to Chin.

“I vote ‘aye.’ ” Alicia Hurley, N.Y.U. vice president for government affairs and community outreach, in a release after the vote, said, “Today’s City Council vote in favor of N.Y.U.’s 2031 core plan marks the culmination of over five years of planning, hundreds of hours of meetings with our N.Y.U. and external communities, and successive iterations of our plans that were designed to strike a balance between allowing the university to meet its critical academic needs while being sensitive to our surrounding community.

“The university will now have the ability to plan for growth on its own property in Greenwich Village, complemented by expansion that is taking place in Downtown Brooklyn and near our health facilities on Manhattan’s East Side.”

Ann Pettibone, who lives on Houston St. across from the superblocks, said Comrie is right, the Village is active — but adding a 1,000-bed freshman dorm in the Zipper Building will be too much.

“Yes, it is a hopping place. And we love it because it’s a hopping place,” she said. “But we don’t want another 10,000 students hopping through it.”

Afterward, members of N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan and Berman announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the project.

Berman noted, “In the 32 years of G.V.S.H.P.’s existence, we’ve never even considered, much less taken, legal action.

But these circumstances are extraordinary, both in terms of the impact that the plan would have and the flaws in the process.”

Assemblymember Deborah Glick issued a statement headlined, “New York City Council to Greenwich Village: DROP DEAD: Approval of N.Y.U. 2031 Plan Shows Complete Disdain for the Community.”

Slamming Quinn, Glick said, “Today’s decision once again signals the Council’s deaf ear to the community’s concerns about huge development schemes. Sadly, this has been a hallmark of Speaker Quinn’s leadership.”

August 2 - 15, 2012

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Dining with a side of va va voom not poetry to her ears TALKING POINT

BY K WEBSTER I like the Bowery Poetry Club. I wrote about this important arts space recently on my local blog, Bowery Gals.

I’m very concerned, however, about the club’s impending merger with Duane Park, a Tribeca restaurant with burlesque shows.

Apparently, the Poetry Club has featured artists’ versions of burlesque acts before. Artists try to reinvent old forms hoping to find a fresh edge, though you’d have to work pretty hard to transform this from hackneyed titillation/tired joke into a new thought.

Still, artists can try, and fail, and have it be an honest effort. But the idea of being treated to a steady diet of burlesque shows as part of a high-end dining experience is kind of creepy. It’s just different when you try to make something normal or hip or “just good fun,” when it actually exploits a group of people, in this, case women.

As money speaks louder and louder, the deluge of the sexual exploitation of women and girls grows in direct proportion: Beauty pag-

eants that sexualized 5-year-old girls, millions of trafficked women around the world (and here), the pornography industry, billboard advertising provocatively posed young women (and boys) selling underwear (or anything), prostitution (trafficked women, poor women, child brides, addicted women, abused women, Village Voice ads for escort services, etc.), and all the other overt and subtle ways women’s bodies are sold for off-the-charts profit.

For those of us with children nearby (girls or boys) advertising as if it’s no big deal to have women taking off their clothes as part of the paying customers’ dining experience signals that it’s O.K. for women to be used like a side of parsley.

It’s depressingly archaic and stupid, but no less damaging to any hope for a future of relaxed connection across gender.

I don’t blame women — however we figure out to survive sexism will be imperfect. I modeled in art school — for money — and was no less exploited because it had “art” attached to it.

I’m also married, which is an institution begun out of the slavery of women.

I don’t think there is an individual solution that gets any of us out of this mess. But I don’t think we want to pretend that agreeing

Gay rights ‘landmark’ faces demo

BY ALBERT AMATEAU The new owner of an 1824 Federal Period house on Spring St. has applied for a demolition permit, prompting the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation to ratchet up its demands for a South Village Historic District.

The demolition application for the vacant four-story building at 186 Spring St. near Thompson St. was issued July 2. A Department of Buildings spokesperson said last week that the application was under review but that she could not say when a decision would be made.

Andrew Berman, G.V.S.H.P. executive director, in a July 13 letter to Robert Tierney, chairperson of the city Landmarks Preservation Commission, urged the agency to protect the immediately threatened 186 Spring St. and designate a 35-block area within which the building is located as a city historic district.

In the early 1970s, the Spring St. house was the home of several key figures in the early gay rights movement.

Jim Owles, founding president of the Gay Activists Alliance, one of the earliest gay advocacy organizations in the post-Stonewall era and the first openly gay candidate for political office in the city, lived in the building in the early 1970s. In 1973 he became the first openly gay candidate for the City Council.

Owles, who died in 1993, was a founder of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID) in 1974, and in 1985 was a founder of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), now a nationwide group influencing media coverage and depiction of gays and lesbians.

Dr. Bruce Voeller, a pioneer in the fight

against AIDS and a specialist in human sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases, also lived at 186 Spring St. in the early 1970s and 1980s. Voeller is said to have changed the early terminology from Gay Related Immune Defense Disorder (GRIDD) to the more accurate Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Voeller, who died in 1984, was a founder of the Mariposa Education and Research Foundation, which commissioned George Segal’s “Gay Liberation” sculptures at Sheridan Square to commemorate the Stonewall rebellion.

In 2010, L.P.C. designated one-third of the proposed South Village Historic District, but the rest — between Sixth Ave. and Broadway from Bleecker to Canal Sts. — is unprotected.

An L.P.C. spokesperson said last week that after a visit to 186 Spring St. three weeks ago, L.P.C. determined that the building did not rise to individual-landmark level.

Although the structure still has its original gable roof and some Flemish-bond brickwork, no original fabric remains on the ground floor, and lintels and sills have been replaced, according to L.P.C. “However, subsequent to this determination we have received information about the building’s connection to the gay rights movement,” the spokesperson said. “We are going to weigh those associations in the context of the building’s architectural characteristics and will make a decision as soon as possible on whether to recommend it to the full commission.”

But the spokesperson said designation of the entire district is not L.P.C.’s immediate priority, “because of the many other historic districts we are pursuing throughout the city.”

to have female bodies used as commodities is a real choice or a choice without consequence for women. The offer of pseudo-power to manipulate men’s loneliness while being taken advantage of is not agency. There just isn’t a level playing field in gender dynamics. We live in a context of the economic domination of women by men, driven by men (no matter who fronts it).

And men have to take an unflinching look at their participation in the sex industries — i.e., porn has real victims. You don’t want to settle for counterfeit closeness or momentary relief when it comes at the expense of someone else. It is hurtful to women and to men to have the human need for closeness tied to money.

In a culture that increasingly targets anything and anyone for profit, we can’t — in the comfort of liberalism — claim that asking women to sell their bodies isn’t harmful. It has to be challenged for what it is: the sexual exploitation of a vulnerable group for the profit of others.

Until women earn the same as men, find employment and respect in any field, are in positions of power in proportion to our numbers, walk down the street without getting surveyed like a piece of meat, are free from the threat of rape or trafficking, until it’s O.K. for men and boys to be close without being ridiculed, until gay oppression ends… enterprises, even those with a posh veneer, that cash in on exposing women’s bodies for profit, just aren’t O.K. Poetry Club, please rethink this.

Photo by Puma Pearl

Fly was sad to take her PEOPS down from the wall at the Bowery Poetry Club as the club closed for renovations, in preparation for opening with a new format. The former East Village squatter’s exhibit was the last art show at the club before its transformation.

Fighting to make Lower Manhattan the greatest place to live, work, and raise a family.

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

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August 2 - 15, 2012

The Villager newspaper is sold to Jennifer Goodstein Continued from page 1 Commenting that New York City is “anything but vanilla,” Goodstein said that “the diversity” of the neighborhoods and the issues the group’s newspapers cover are compelling factors in her interest in assuming control of the properties.

Asked what he was most proud of during his tenure, Sutter, who is 62, said, “Working with a group of committed professionals who believe in community journalism. Covering the best neighborhoods in the entire world. Trying to write fairly, forcefully, and independently about events that have meaning in the lives of our readers, week in and week out.”

Goodstein, 47, is married to Les Goodstein, who is a senior vice president at News America Inc. They live in Manhattan and have a collegeage son, Steven.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Villager started publishing in April 1933, four years after Wall St. crashed and a few years into the Great Depression.

The paper was founded by Walter Gregory Bryan — a newspaperman who started an advertising agency — and his sister, Isabel Bryan, who both moved to the Village from the Midwest to launch the new publication.

The rise of political reform, the preservation of the Jefferson Market Courthouse, the dawning of gay and lesbian consciousness, the transforma-

Jennifer Goodstein is the new publisher of the NYC Community Media newspaper group, which includes The Villager, the East Villager and Lower East Sider, Downtown Express, Gay City News and Chelsea Now.

tion of the waterfront, the world-changing terror of Sept. 11, 2001 — all have been in the pages of The Villager from a neighborhood point of view.

In the late 1950s, The Villager — thanks to the influence of staff reporter William Honan — for the first time became a fighting paper, taking on powerful District Leader Carmine De Sapio, the head of Tammany Hall, helping hasten his downfall.

In January 1992, however, amid a tough economic climate, the newspaper was closed.

Six months later, Tom Butson, a retired New York Times assistant news editor, and his wife, Elizabeth Margaritis Butson, a former marketing vice president at Philip Morris, bought The Villager and resumed publishing, saving it from vanishing from existence.

Sutter purchased The Villager and Downtown Express from the Butsons in 1999. Sutter took the Downtown Express weekly for the decade after 9/11 because, as he said, “People in a disaster zone desperately need information.”

Sutter’s tenure at Community Media was a dynamic and active one, during which he substantially expanded the community newspaper franchise in Lower Manhattan. He launched three more papers: Gay City News in 2002; Chelsea Now in 2006; and the East Villager/Lower East Sider in 2010, all of which are thriving today.

Under Sutter, Community Media publications garnered their share of awards, with the papers regularly being acknowledged as among

the top five newspaper groups in New York State. Over the past 12 years, Community Media has won more than 200 awards for excellence in the New York Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest across a wide range of categories, including The Villager’s three times winning the Stuart Dorman Award as the best community weekly in the state.

Among the most memorable, big stories during his ownership of the papers, Sutter said, were “9/11; the recovery and rebuilding of Lower Manhattan after the attack; N.Y.U.’s expansion; the building out of Hudson River Park and its trials and tribulations; St. Vincent’s plan to build a new hospital tower and its ultimate bankruptcy and collapse; the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York State; the school crisis; the dynamic expansion of influence of our local community boards; real estate developments; the rezoning of the East Village and Lower East Side; new faces in politics — Margaret Chin and Daniel Squadron — and familiar faces, too — Christine Quinn, Tom Duane, Jerrold Nadler, Carolyn Maloney, Rosie Mendez, Sheldon Silver and Deborah Glick; the redevelopment of Washington Square and a dozen other parks. The list goes on and on.”

Sutter has agreed to stay on at the newspapers as Publisher Emeritus, although he quipped that sounds “really old.” He will assist the new leadership in the transition.

Mugger wanted in 16 robberies on East Side

BY ALBERT AMATEAU Police are looking for a suspect involved in 16 robberies in the past two months, at times with a knife or gun, in the East Village and in other Manhattan neighborhoods. He last struck Fri., July 27, holding up a couple at 9:55 p.m. at 801 E. 14 St., stealing an iPod from the man, 19, and an iPhone from the girl, 16.

Described as being about 30 years old and having a dark complexion with a thin mustache and beard, the suspect approaches his victims either displaying a weapon or simulating one, and demanding their property. None of the victims have been injured.

On Fri., July 20, he robbed a man, 56, at

8:30 p.m. in front of 11-15 F.D.R. Drive in the Jacob Riis Houses at E. 12th St. On Fri., July 13, at 12:05 a.m. he robbed the headphones and cell phone from a man on E. 23rd St. On Mon., July 2, he held up a man, 46, at 1:30 a.m. at the corner of East River Park at Montgomery St. and tried but failed to get any property.

On Wed., June 27, he held up a man, 22, at 1:10 a.m. at 312 Avenue C in Stuyvesant Town and took unspecified items.

On Tues., June 5, he held up a woman, 22, at 12:20 a.m. at the corner of F.D.R. Drive and E. 10th St. in the Riis Houses and fled with her

A surveillance camera image of the robbery suspect provided by the New York Police Department.

cell phone.

On Mon., May 28, also at F.D.R. Drive at E. 10th St. he held up a man, 19, at knifepoint at 11:10 p.m. and fled with his cell phone.

On Tues., May 22, he held up a man, 23, at knifepoint at 11:20 p.m. but failed to get anything before fleeing. Two hours earlier at East River

Park and Grand St. he held up a man, 26, simulating a gun and fled with the victim’s cell phone.

On Mon., May 21, he held up a man, 19, at gunpoint at 9:15 p.m. at the corner of East River Park and E. Houston St. and fled with his cell phone.

On May 17, he held up two young women walking together at 11:45 p.m. in East River Park at the corner of Jackson St. on the bike path, displayed a knife and made off with their property.

On May 15 he held up a man, 40, at knifepoint inside 643 E. 13th St. at Avenue C in Tanya Towers at 11:25 a.m. and took his watch, cash and a camera.

On May 11 he held up at man, 20, in the elevator of 11-41 F.D.R. Drive in the Riis Houses at 1:30 a.m. and stole his wallet, cell phone and cash.

On May 8, he simulated a gun and held up a man in the elevator of 205 Avenue C in Tanya Towers at 11:55 p.m. and fled with the victim’s cell phone and charger.

On May 5, he simulated a gun and held up a woman, 59, in the elevator at 205 Avenue C at 7:20 p.m. and fled with her gold neck chain.

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Peter Ottomanelli, 65, of famed family meat market on Bleecker OBITUARY

BY ALBERT AMATEAU Peter J. Ottomanelli, a partner with three of his brothers in O. Ottomanelli & Sons, the meat market founded by their late father that has become a Greenwich Village institution, died June 1 at the age of 65.

He died of cancer in Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island after a brief illness.

Born and raised in Greenwich Village, Peter Ottomanelli learned his trade as a boy working in the family business founded by Onofrio Ottomanelli in 1956 on Bleecker St. Pete and three of his brothers, Jerry, Frankie and Joey, became principals in the business after their father died at the age of 83 in 2000. Two other brothers, Michael and Nicky, were also part of the business but left to work elsewhere in the industry.

In 1998, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation gave Onofrio and his sons one of its annual awards honoring the people, places and institutions that make the Village the beloved neighborhood that it is.

Peter graduated from St. Leonard High

School in Brooklyn and joined the family businesses as a young man. He married the former Joan De Palma 38 years ago. They lived in Staten Island where they raised their daughter, Teresa.

A fan of Elvis Peter Ottomanelli.

Presley, Peter also loved boating and was a Dallas Cowboys football fan. He was a parishioner of Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Huguenot, Staten Island.

In addition to his five brothers and his wife and daughter, his son-in-law, Anthony Treglia, and grandchildren, Giovanna Elaina and Christopher Anthony Treglia, also survive. A sister, Fran Ciringione, predeceased him.

The John Vincent Scalia Funeral Home of Eltonville, Staten Island, was in charge of arrangements. The funeral Mass was June 5 in St. Clare’s Church, in Great Kills, Staten Island, and burial was in Holy Savior Cemetery, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Postal activists send message, hope to put stamp on Charlotte

BY LIZA BÉAR Wearing T-shirts with the message, “Congress is Starving the Post Office,” the 10 postal activists who took part in a hunger strike from June 25 to 28 in Washington, D.C., demonstrated at congressional offices to educate recalcitrant representatives. In solidarity, Debbie Szeredy, president of the American Postal Workers Union local, fasted in New York City, and others fasted in Washington State, Oregon and Texas.

Among the D.C. strikers’ actions were a press conference at the Capitol with Representative Dennis Kucinich, a “Stop the Robbery” march from postal headquarters to the Capitol, and a “Tell the Truth” protest at the Washington Post.

“We could easily protect the Postal Service if Congress would address the agency’s overpayment into its retiree health benefits program,” said Kucinich.

Retired city letter carrier Jamie Partridge, the Community Postal Workers Union national spokesman, participated in the four-day fast.

“The hunger strike energized frustrated and despairing postal workers and members of the public,” Patridge said.

In an e-mail letter, Partridge said that judging from the national press response, including CNN, NPR, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Fox Business News, the hunger strike was “a huge media hit. It got our message about the 75-year prefund mandate and pension surplus out there to tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands,” he said. “Congress also received calls

from constituents about the prefund mandate.”

However, the hunger strike did not spur Congress to act on two bills languishing in the House. And on Aug. 1, the United States Postal Service was poised to default on a mammoth $5.5 billion prepayment on pension funds due the Department of the Treasury.

Of the two opposing bills, the Community Postal Workers Union supports HR 3591, the Postal Service Protection Act of 2011, introduced by Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon). DeFazio has called for the postmaster general to be fired.

Rather than calling it a default, Partridge said, “Postmaster General Donahoe has agreed to suspend payments on the prefunding mandate — so he has no excuse for going forward with closures and cuts. He’s sending the U.S.P.S. into a death spiral.”

On July 14, retired Staten Island letter carrier John Dennie was holding an “Occupy Labor Alliance” sign at a Con Ed lockout protest in Manhattan. For Dennie, the hunger strike was largely symbolic. He attempted a citizen’s arrest of Donahoe, was briefly handcuffed but released because the postal police would not arrest him at Postal Headquarters at L’Enfant Plaza in D.C. With 48 mail-processing plants slated for closure in August, including one in Monmouth, N.J., and 13,000 post offices facing cuts in services, postal activists have their hands full.

They’re now part of a coalition planning a major March on “Wall Street South” in Charlotte, N.C., during the Democratic National Convention.

Advertorial

International AIDS Conference: Cautious Optimism

By Emma DeVito It was one place where people from all over the world came together with a singleminded purpose.

No, I’m not talking about London and the Olympic games.

I’m referring to Washington, D.C., and the 19th annual International AIDS Conference (IAC), where I spent much of last week.

The IAC was replete with news and inspiration – from Elton John’s appeal for the end, once and for all, of AIDS stigma, to a report that two more HIV-positive individuals may have been “cured” through bone-marrow transplants.

There was a fair amount of talk as the successes in combating AIDS in Africa were recounted, giving former President George W. Bush much of the credit.

This may have been what prompted Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson to write that Bush’s greatest legacy is the creation of PEPFAR – the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

While many of those at the conference certainly couldn’t be called fans of the Bush administration’s body of work, they certainly recognized that millions of lives have been saved by Bush’s initiative to fight AIDS in Africa. Robinson wrote in the Post, “This is a moment for all Americans to be proud of the single best thing George W. Bush did as president.”

Both Clintons addressed the conference, but it was Hillary who set the goal of creating “an AIDS-free generation.” She described this goal as reaching “a time when, first of all, virtually no child anywhere will be born with the virus.”

Clinton said that more of the goal would be for children and teenagers, as they become adults, to be at significantly lower risk of ever becoming infected than they would be today no matter where they are living. She also called for access to treatment for all those with HIV “that helps prevent them from developing AIDS and passing the virus on to others.”

Another topic heard around the conference was about the aging of persons living with HIV/AIDS, with estimates that by 2020 more than half of the HIV population will be over 50. An AP report during the conference stated that “even in developing countries, more people with the AIDS virus are surviving to middle age and beyond.”

Those of you familiar with VillageCare’s AIDS care network know that already of those we serve more than half are over 50 and that we’ve been dealing with the impact of aging on HIV-positive individuals for several years now. We’ve recognized and worked to address the specific problems confronting older adults with HIV, including that they are often beset with aging-related issues much earlier than such issues confront others.

We shared what we’ve learned in a conference on AIDS and aging that we sponsored a few years ago.

There was no more evidence of people from all over the world coming together to address the AIDS epidemic than the Global Village, which was an amazing array of 120 booths from 90 countries.

In the Global Village people talked about and debated their ideas about the epidemic, and also displayed artwork and gave dance and music performances, much related to the impact of AIDS on individual lives and nations.

Many from Asia and Africa and developing countries related how they are dealing with AIDS, and there was particular attention paid to the difficulties women face in access to care and treatment.

Sometimes, displays and information presented in the Global Village were heartrendering, such as how the AIDS epidemic is affecting so many children. The sex workers in the Ukraine, where many have AIDS, was a difficult pavilion to visit, especially with the graphic depictions of the toll that AIDS is taking in the Ukraine.

There were, on the other hand, reasons at the IAC for some optimism.

It was great to see so many people – more than 20,000 – gathered in one place to advocate for AIDS resources.

And it was wonderful to see those with AIDS who are surviving longer and doing well, some as long as 20 years after being infected.

The key to their survival clearly is their access to treatment medications and care, underscoring the final thoughts as the conference closed: We need to provide more treatment, keeping those living with HIV/AIDS healthy and helping curb the spread of the disease.

As former President Bill Clinton, who addressed the closing session, put it: “All of you have created the possibility that we could have an AIDS-free generation. We just have to keep pushing the rocks up the hill.”

(Ms. DeVito is president and chief executive officer of not-for-profit VillageCare, which serves more than 12,200 persons annually in community-based and residential care programs for older adults and those living with HIV/AIDS.)

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August 2 - 15, 2012

POLICE BLOTTER Meatpacking mayhem

Subway chases

Sixth Precinct police who responded to a call about a brawl in front of 1 Little W. 12th St. at 7:17 p.m. Sun., July 22, had to subdue a man and a woman who jumped on top of two officers and punched and kicked them. Shivi Kakar, 27, and Kavita Kakar, 29, were charged with assaulting the police officers.

A Transit Bureau detective spotted a suspect on an L Train at the 14th St. station at Eighth Ave. going through the pockets of sleeping passengers around 5:50 a.m. Sat., July 14, and apprehended him as he was lifting a wallet from one victim.

The suspect violently resisted, fled from the car and ran down the northbound tracks.

The suspect, Frederick Carter, 51, known to police, was later arrested on Tues., July 17.

In another incident, Transit police followed a suspect who jumped the turnstile in the 14th St. subway station at Eighth Ave. around 10:56 p.m. Tues., July 17, and caught him, after chasing through four cars, on the last car of a train. The suspect, Irwin Samuels, 24, was charged with possession of forged instruments for having four MetroCards bent to provide toll-free swipes.

MacDougal mugging Police arrested Leah Mulzac, 23, around 2:50 a.m. Sun., July 22, for grabbing a woman in front of 114 MacDougal St. and taking her cell phone. An accomplice in the robbery was not apprehended.

Stop-and-frisk find

Simply smashing

Observing a knife handle in the right front pants pocket of a suspect around 12:40 p.m. Wed., July 18, a Sixth Precinct officer made the stop-and-frisk and found a gravity knife. Evan Holder, 21, was charged with weapon possession.

Police arrested Anthony Hall, 23, and charged him with felony assault for pushing a man into the glass door of the lobby at 126 W. 11th St. and smashing it. The victim, 45, sustained a laceration to his head.

Tracked cell swiper A suspect pointed a gun at a woman who was smoking and playing games on her iPhone in front of 20 Vandam St. around 8:50 p.m. Mon., July 23, police said. “Gimme your phone and you won’t get hurt,� the gunman said. He grabbed the phone and fled on a bicycle, but was tracked by the Find my Phone app.

Arrested a day later, Manuel Tull, 44, who was known to police, was charged with robbery.

Didn’t need an app A victim of a cell-phone snatching at Charles and Washington Sts. around 1:50 a.m. Tues., July 31, chased the suspect, shouting, “He stole my cell phone!� Police apprehended Carlos Rivera, 20, and found the stolen phone on the suspect.

Vehicle break-in A woman who parked her car in front of 50 Vandam St. around 4 a.m. Fri., July 27, returned two hours later to find the driver’s-side window smashed and her Gucci bag and Michael Kors wallet with $155 in cash had been stolen. She learned later that someone had tried but failed to use one of her credit cards in Brooklyn.

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Police arrested Shawn Henson, of Wisconsin, for using a stolen credit card

Bag grabber Police charged a 30-year-old woman with attempted robbery for trying to steal a handbag from a victim in front of 725 Greenwich St. around 12:50 a.m.

Wed., July 25. The suspect, Charlton Brown, inflicted injuries to the victimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arms when she held on to her bag, police said.

Village assaults Police arrested Edward Gonzalez, 46, and charged him with aggravated assault for hitting a victim several times in the neck with his umbrella around 2:40 a.m. Fri., July 27.

In another incident, an argument that started at 106 Seventh Ave. South around 7:20 p.m. Mon., July 30, continued onto the sidewalk in front of 76 Christopher St. where the adversaries resorted to blows. Beto Sala, 26, and Reynaldo Rivas-Garcia, 21, were charged with assault and both were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, police said.

Separately, police arrested Darnell Jones, 23, around 8:15 p.m. Sun., July 29, and charged him with assault for punching a victim, 51, in the face at Washington and Christopher Sts.

Restaurant rip-off The owners of the building at 33 W. Eighth St. told police on Fri., July 27, that they had leased the groundfloor restaurant to a man on May 17 of this year and discovered that he had removed two walk-in refrigerators, hood fans, sinks and grills with a total estimated value of $250,000. The suspect, Richard Lusardi, 36, was charged with grand larceny.

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Police have charged eight young women accused of beating and stabbing a man, 63, on a southbound No. 6 train at the 23rd St. station around 6 a.m.

Sun., July 29.

The attack came after the suspects overheard the victim comment to someone about their rowdy behavior. The victim was taken to Bellevue hospital where he needed seven stitches to close a stab wound in his left shoulder.

The suspects, between the ages of 17 and 20, were charged with gang assault, riot and weapons possession. A 15-yearold was charged as a juvenile.

to rack up charges of $8,800 on Tues., July 24, at the W Hotel at the northeast corner of Union Square at 17th St. When the suspect left the next day, the hotel discovered that he took electronics valued at $5,000 from the room, according to reports. After the W Hotel, he went straight to the St. Regis on E. 55th St. where he booked a room with the same stolen credit card, sources said.

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In an unlikely fusion, jazz vibes with ping-pong

BY SAM SPOKONY When tenor saxophonist Asaf Yurai stepped up to the microphone to take his first solo on a recent Saturday night, he wasn’t just playing over the piano, bass and drums of the rhythm section. A chorus of tipsy revelers filled the room with shouts, laughter and the persistent clicking of ping-pong balls, most of them failing to notice the musician’s melodies or even his presence.

Some strangely layered form of collective improvisation then took place, as the sound from Yurai’s horn countered and danced over an audience whose noise level might have shocked unfamiliar jazz fans or musicians.

But there were no complaints from the few diehards sitting in front of the bandstand, and no outbursts from the musicians akin to what the bassist Charles Mingus once told patrons of a noisy nightclub: “Isaac Stern doesn’t have to put up with this s---!”

At Fat Cat, it was just another gig.

“Yeah, sometimes it can be rough when people get loud, but it’s never stopped me from enjoying it here,” said Yurai, who has been playing at Fat Cat for about five years as a member of various ensembles. “And it’s somewhat rewarding to know that the music we play is something that most of the people here would never have been exposed to.”

Founded in 1992, Fat Cat, at 75 Christopher St. at Seventh Ave., originally consisted of two individual spaces: a pool hall and a tiny music venue, the latter serving mainly for shows booked through Smalls Jazz Club, which sits about a block away at 183 W. 10th St. In 2007, the wall separating the rooms was knocked down, allowing for an innovative integration of the two environments.

Now, the space attracts hordes of pleasure seekers each night, with diverse activities that include chess, Scrabble and foosball, as well as ping-pong and pool. And for the few jazz fans left, Fat Cat’s $3 cover charge for concerts is much lower than that of the city’s more traditional venues.

Although the size and loud climate do have their drawbacks, plenty of dedicated swing and bop lovers return weekly to lounge on the half-dozen couches that make up Fat Cat’s audience seating area.

“The overcrowdedness is kind of a downside,” said jazz fan Vlad Novakovich, as a foosball player bumped into him while scampering around the table. “There’s not the chamber atmosphere that you get from a place like the Village Vanguard or the Blue Note.”

But he’s been returning over and over again for years, he explained, because Fat Cat’s nontraditional atmosphere lends itself to such a wide range of both performers and concertgoers.

“The variety of the jazz experience is just enormous, and that mixture of personalities and tastes actually creates an incredibly unique vibe,” said Novakovich.

That’s not to say that the blend of the space’s users doesn’t create some awkward situations. As Yurai and his fellow musicians — a quartet led by drummer Billy Kaye — dropped the volume to begin their first ballad

Photo by Sam Spokony

Asaf Yurai played with the Billy Kaye band at Fat Cat on a recent Saturday night, spreading his good musical vibes to all the folks busy playing ping-pong in the back.

of the night, several college-age males accidentally meandered toward the bandstand, visibly confused. The group quietly backed away, but not before looking as if they were ready to skip out and spend their Saturday night somewhere with a D.J. For all of jazz’s old-fashioned connotations, though, some younger people welcome the change in genre, even if they’re not hardcore fans of the music. Yagil Kadosh, one of the only 20-somethings not at a game table or the bar, had an urge to bring his girlfriend, Kasia, to Fat Cat even though he’d only been there a couple of times before.

“It just felt like a jazz night. It also doesn’t hurt that they have cheap P.B.R.’s,” he said.

“And jazz tends to be kind of inaccessible

‘The music we play is something most people here would never have been exposed to.’

set, looking peaceful, like a monk.

“Everybody’s just coming to do their own thing,” he said. “And even if they aren’t aware of it, the music surrounds them, and the

vibrations touch them. If the intention behind the vibrations is positive, it will create a positive effect even if they don’t realize it. You know, even if they just came to play pool.”

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Asaf Yurai to the younger generation these days — so if putting a bunch of ping-pong tables up helps bring them here, I guess that’s not so bad.”

In the end, Asaf Yurai didn’t care why anyone came to Fat Cat to hear him play. He didn’t even care if they were listening. When the band took a break between sets at around midnight, Yurai walked quietly off the bandstand. He sat down on a couch off to the side of the drum

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EDITORIAL John Sutter says goodbye I sold my newspapers yesterday. I found someone who believes in community journalism — its challenges and opportunities — who is willing to buy into the business of producing high-quality, original, local news reporting. The new owner is Jennifer Goodstein, and you will be hearing directly from her in coming weeks.

It’s been a great 13-year run, but it’s time for me to step down and explore some other interests. It was surely the best job that I ever had.

What extraordinary communities to write for!

No shortage of debate, dissension, volatility, creativity. Overflowing with big and small stories, colorful characters, and sharp local opinion.

I relished the mission, which was to try to write honestly, independently, fairly and forcefully, about events that have meaning in the lives of individuals and families in our neighborhoods.

I have lots of thanks to pass around. First I thank my family for putting up with more than 2,000 deadlines. They have watched me leave vacations early, or be on the computer during evening time together, or scream for them to quiet down as I tried to concentrate on finishing up a late-night editorial. They supported me, or at least tolerated me, throughout this entire journey. I love them dearly and owe them everything.

And what a staff at Community Media! If they were in this for the money they would be elsewhere.

They believe in the mission and work their hearts out to produce comprehensive and fair local news, week in and week out.

And to our loyal readers, where would we be without you? We were always proud to boast that you were at the top of any scale of political and cultural sophistication, and that you knew good writing. We did our best to provide you every week with local news that you can trust, both in print and online.

I have agreed to stay on as Publisher Emeritus.

I will have strong moral suasion, but no power. I want to do everything I can to ensure a smooth transition to the new leadership, and the success of these newspapers and Web sites. I believe that our communities are enriched when there is a vital local press where stories are covered fairly, where issues can be vetted in some depth, and where the paper has a strong editorial voice.

I will no longer be leading that editorial voice.

I actually look forward to being a reader, and perhaps not even having an opinion on an issue. I would love to be able to say, “It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other,” an approach I never permitted in an editorial.

But you can bet I will get worked up by certain stories. After all, I too live in the community, shop here, breathe the air, hear the jackhammering, ride my bike, send my kids to school, visit art galleries, etc. My life is Downtown, embedded in local, deeply local, patterns and rituals.

And I look forward, maybe more than ever, to reading my hometown papers in the big city.

John W. Sutter

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR We won’t be fooled again To The Editor: Thanks, Mr. Charles Barron. Thanks to the tireless, honest, factual communications and shared information from all of the opposition forces. Don’t feel sad — feel empowered.

Anyone trying to run for office who wants our votes in the future will be subjected to some hard questions, like “Who do you represent now?” and “Who will you represent when elected?”

Do not seek revenge, but seek justice for the superblock residents, for our citywide neighbors who are and will be subjected to greedy developers.

We should work for recall laws in New York City to get rid of elected officials who do not represent us.

Sorry kids and trees and plants, and small businesses and residents, and students and faculty and Key Park Playground and Sasaki Garden and LaGuardia Corner Gardens and the dog run and Adrienne’s Garden. Your vote has been disenfranchised, taken away, robbed by the City Council.

Maybe next time we will be proactive enough to see the future and change it.

Judith Chazen Walsh

City Charter finds the boards losing more and more say so, as well as funding.

We should do away with the City Council, which apparently only votes according to what the speaker desires à la the mayor. Think of all the money we could save. The community does all this research, works, organizes to be heard, and then is shut out. Shut down to the point of being removed from the halls of power because of some murmurs in the gallery at the time of the so-called vote of the Council that might bring a sense of shame into the hall. Then, to come out in the sunshine and find that a press release touting the vote outcome had been already printed!

Barbara Ruether

The last straw — and a biggie To The Editor: Chin and Quinn.

Never again.

N.Y.U. will assimilate you

Lawrence White

To The Editor: N.Y.U. has been growing and buying up spaces and building new gigantic buildings for years and years. No mayor or City Council has ever stopped the university, nor slowed it down very much. N.Y.U. is a constant generator of change and building in the Village. The only way it will stop is if the school itself stops growing.

I know people are angry with Quinn and Chin right now. I believe that anger is misplaced. Quinn and Chin did reduce the size of the new construction and won other concessions as well. It is not like they gave N.Y.U. carte blanche to do whatever it intended to do in the first place.

Politics is the art of the possible. I believe Quinn and Chin achieved what was possible.

What a complete charade

Sheri Clemons

Abolish the City Council!

To The Editor: Community boards should be the most relevant voices in our democratic process. Instead, every revision of the

To The Editor: The City Council’s decision was breathtaking in its violence and disregard for the community’s and faculty’s wishes. What is the point of a democratic charade if Chin and Quinn and her henchmen rode roughshod over the wishes of the community and the faculty — the people who live in this community, and need and use its playgrounds and gardens — and illegally gave over everything to Sexton’s Folly?

Vote out the interlocking power elite of Chin-QuinnBloomberg-N.Y.U. trustees. The only hope, slim as it is, is legal action.

And shame on all of you who knew better and just wanted to appease a colleague, i.e. Margaret Chin and Christine Quinn, who sold their own constituents — the constituents they purportedly represent — down the river.

Rhoma Mostel

Continued on page 20

Getting into the spirit of the Summer Olympics New Yorkers practice synchronized schvitzing.

August 2 - 15, 2012

11

Lesson of the N.Y.U. vote: City Hall is unreachable TALKING POINT

BY GEORGETTE FLEISCHER The year began for many of us with Community Board 2’s hearings on the gargantuan New York University expansion plan. On Jan. 9 there was a scene uncannily prescient of the one that transpired at City Hall last Wednesday, July 25, when City Council Speaker Christine Quinn ordered gendarmes to clear the upper gallery of 100 plan opponents, of which I was one.

In January, 100 opponents had been locked out upstairs of the A.I.A. Center for Architecture because the space had been filled to capacity, and were pounding on the doors in order to be let in. Then C.B. 2 Chairperson Brad Hoylman led the unanticipated army to Our Lady of Pompei Church at Carmine St., where, testifying before C.B. 2’s Land Use and Business Development Committee, each of us gave our best two minutes against the plan. How did we get from there to here?

Hundreds of hours of painstaking research and public hearings led C.B. 2 to vote unanimously on Feb. 23 to reject the university’s plan. The uplift among board members and the community was palpable. We were engaged in a democratic process, and it was working.

Or should I say, we were working it. On March 22, led by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and N.Y.U. FASP (Faculty Against the Sexton Plan), we gathered on the steps of City Hall for a press conference and rally. I was the last of the scheduled speakers, and before I could finish my remarks, the camera was wrenched away in order to pursue the emerging Borough President Scott Stringer, whose support we were there to beseech.

“We have to be able to expand universities without overwhelming communities,” was all he would say in the drive-by.

Two days after Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced on April 9 his support for the plan (surprise, surprise), the pale presence of our borough president fell in line, pending modifications, only some of which were ultimately delivered. So much for backbone in representing your constituents.

Meanwhile, Councilmember Margaret Chin, the linchpin in the ultimate outcome, because the coveted “superblocks” fall within her district, remained mum, except for repeated vague statements, many issued through her spokespersons, to the effect that she would “be there” for us. Whatever that means.

At the April 25 City Planning hearing at the Museum of the American Indian, I wondered whether the city might be willing to compensate us, with a Museum of Greenwich Village. We waited 10 hours to give the committee our best two minutes, strictly timed. In the end, all but Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s appointee, Michelle de La Uz, would vote in favor of a slightly modified plan.

Meanwhile, while reading student papers out in the hallway during my long wait to speak, I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye Councilmember Chin’s land use director, Matt Viggiano, each time in conversation with N.Y.U. representatives. Finally, after I noticed enough times, he came over to sit by me while he ate his late lunch, and chatted with me briefly about my students’ papers. I did not feel it was a good sign.

In advance of the City Planning vote on June 6, The New York

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Times ran a puff piece on Bloomberg-appointed City Planning Chairperson Amanda Burden. Her greatest accomplishment? By the end of her tenure, 40 percent of New York City will have been rezoned. Understand, that means upzoned. As one to-the-point, recurring protest sign put it: “No More Rezoning/Stop It!” Still we held out hope. Bloomberg had been a no-brainer, Stringer disappointing but not entirely a surprise, City Planning a Bloomberg no-brainer again, though the 12-to-1 vote had hurt. Surely, we thought, our elected representative in the Citadel would hear thousands of constituents and either persuade the development corporation arm of N.Y.U. to scale back in a way we could live with, or she would reject the plan. Again and again we said: Councilmember Chin, reject this plan; send it back to the drawing board!

In retrospect, the City Council hearing on June 29 was the unkindest cut of all. There we were, basking in the shimmer of Matthew Broderick, who sat on a panel with an 8-year old who stole the show when she wondered into the microphone why students at least 10 years older than she were incapable of tak-

Collecting: Military and ‘mendicants’

‘Democracy is dead!’ one of the opposition shouted from the Council Chambers’ balcony last week as we were being hustled out. Let’s hope not.

FLASHBACK

ing a subway down to the Financial District for a class or two when she takes the subway to school every day.

When Councilmember Chin spoke of the plan being “out of scale” and its intention to rob us of green park space as unacceptable, our spirits rose, though not too much, because we have been through this kind of bait-and-switch before.

Leroy Comrie, the powerful chairperson of the Land Use Committee — and not coincidentally, I think, the councilmember whose discretionary funds in Queens for 2013, allocated by Speaker Quinn, double the second highest and quadruple the lowest — grilled C.B. 2 Chairperson David Gruber, along with Tobi Bergman and Terri Cude, the chairperson and vice chairperson of C.B. 2’s Land Use Committee, about whether the board had provided an alternative design plan for N.Y.U. Cude is also co-chairperson of CAAN (Community Action Alliance on N.Y.U. 2031).

“That’s not fair,” Bergman said.

Neither, if we listen to lone dissenter Councilmember Charles Barron, was throwing us out of the gallery at the vote hearing a month later. Barron was nice enough to meet with us outside, a refreshing experience for constituents who, close to three years after Chin took office, feel we do not know our local councilmember, nor do we know for certain what motivated her to betray us in this spectacular fashion.

A Republican councilmember also came out to speak with Member of the New York Press Association

PUBLISHER Jennifer Goodstein

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us, and expressed regret that he had not been able to register his intended vote of abstention, after receiving a personal telephone call from Christine Quinn. I later found out this was Dan Halloran Then we have the words still ringing or should I say stinging in my ears of Jessica Lappin’s assistant, who when I called to urge a “no” vote, stated that the councilmember would have “Margaret’s back.” Is that what Rosie Mendez was doing when she voted yes for her “sister” Margaret?

Why all this solicitation for a well-paid councilmember?

Frankly, what about us?

Is it not fundamentally wrong for a governing body — whose function is to ensure, through its 51 members’ consciences, the wisdom of its decisions for the public good — to fall in line and do the bidding of a mayor whose power that separate body should balance, and of a speaker who has been called that mayor’s Mini-Me? “Democracy is dead!” one of the opposition shouted from the Council Chambers’ balcony when we were already being hustled downstairs and out. Let’s hope not. Not yet.

The front page of the July 30, 1942, issue of The Villager featured several articles relating to World War II. One, “Organize Village Salvage Corps,” discussed a new group that was rounding up “Vital to Victory” materials “for immediate diversion into the channels of war industry…scrap metal, rubber, rags [and] every useful material including newspaper.”

Meanwhile, the new captain of the old Eighth Police Precinct “in the easterly section of the Village,” had declared war on “mendicants,” vowing “a cleanup of panhandlers in the area between Washington Square South and W. 14th St.” Captain William O. Jones was booking a dozen mendicants a day at the precinct, “greatly alleviating the situation,” The newspaper reported. “We shall keep on,” the captain vowed, “until the nuisance is eliminated as far as possible in this fine old residential section. These derelicts and ‘moochers’ don’t belong here, and they won’t be allowed here. There is no reason or excuse for giving them a ‘hand-out,’ which nine cases out of ten is not for the purposes they ask it. The city and numerous organizations are ready and willing to provide for their worthy needs with funds provided through taxes and contributions from the same citizens these panhandlers approach unlawfully on the street.”

Six additional officers from the “mendicant squad” from Police Headquarters had been assigned to help with the situation.

BUSINESS MANAGER/ CONTROLLER Vera Musa SR. V.P. OF SALES AND MARKETING Francesco Regini RETAIL ADVERTISING MANAGER Colin Gregory ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Allison Greaker Julius Harrison Alex Morris Julio Tumbaco

Lincoln Anderson ART / PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Troy Masters SENIOR DESIGNER Michael Shirey GRAPHIC DESIGNER Arnold Rozon

CIRCULATION SALES MNGR.

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Patricia Fieldsteel

Tequila Minsky

Bonnie Rosenstock

Jefferson Siegel

Jefferson Siegel

Clayton Patterson

Jerry Tallmer

Marvin Rock CONTRIBUTORS Ira Blutreich Doris Diether

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August 2 - 15, 2012

Burlesque will be on the menu on Bowery once again Continued from page 1 dining experience.”

At first the exotic-dancing performances were free, with a two-drink minimum.

Gradually, they started to build them into part of a larger show. It’s “classic burlesque,” noted Sophie Charlston, the restaurant’s general manager.

However, some think reviving burlesque on the Bowery — its birthplace in America — would be sending the wrong message. On the blog Bowery Gals, K Webster lamented the loss of the full-time Bowery Poetry Club at 308 Bowery, plus expressed concern about bringing in burlesque, calling it sexist and demeaning.

Melillo disagrees, though he conceded some people are strongly against burlesque.

“A lot of people are — because they think it’s degrading to women,” he acknowledged. However, he noted, more women than men actually come to their burlesque shows, with the ratio sometimes 2 to 1, partly because of the women’s interest in the costumes. All the dancers make their own, he noted.

The dancers come onstage individually, not in a sort of Folies Bergère or Cotton Club extravaganza, he added.

Speaking of performance art, Melillo used to manage Lady Gaga — not as a singer, but when she was 18 and worked as a waitress at Palma restaurant on Cornelia St. She came to see a show at Duane Park a couple of years ago.

“She’s still the same girl,” he said of Gaga, now 24.

Duane Park will be closing in Tribeca, where its lease is expiring, and will open in the new Bowery space in October or November.

Duane Park isn’t open for business on Sundays and Mondays, so the poetry club will continue to use the space those days, as well as on Saturday afternoons. But Duane Park will be paying the rent, which had been the poetry club’s hurdle.

On Monday, The East Villager reached Holman on his cell phone in Wales, where he’s filming a PBS documentary he’s making on endangered languages. He had just finished rehearsing for a performance later that night for the latest installment of what he called “the world’s oldest poetry slam,” which has been held in Wales since 1172 and is called “Stomp.”

His documentary also explores Aboriginal languages in Australia and indigenous languages in Hawaii.

“Half the languages on Earth are supposed to die this century,” he noted.

Holman said his interest in the roots of hip-hop is what ultimately led him to threatened tongues.

Getting back to the poetry club, however, he said, “We had a great 10-year run trying to do it our way as poets. I think the poetry that we’ve done has been amazing and community-oriented. But we

Photo by Clayton Patterson

Bob Holman, right, and Taylor Mead at a benefit for Tuli Kupferberg at Bowery Poetry Club in March 2010.

haven’t been viable the last few years.”

Holman said the only way the Bowery Poetry Club could have survived as a full-time operation was to be run by “an obsessive — someone who would volunteer their life to make this work.”

When Holman’s wife fell ill several years ago, his caring for her took him

‘Burlesque and vaudeville were born on the Bowery.’

Bob Holman away from the poetry club, which added new expenses as he had to pay for others to manage and run the place.

A nonprofit, the poetry club mainly relied on its bar proceeds. About five years ago, it actively started seeking grants, but it still wasn’t enough. Various uses for its front space — from a juice bar to a Lower East Side Girls Club cafe — never quite panned out.

“In the past we just tried to break even,” Holman said. “And they weren’t drinkin’ enough to pay the rent. … They say you can’t go broke running a bar in New York — but we gave it a run.”

As for the deal with Duane Park, the papers still aren’t signed, but Holman said he expected that would happen this week.

He said the plan “passed a hurdle” recently when they got a “C of O” — a certificate of occupancy for the whole building — as well an assembly permit.

On the liquor license, he said the hope is that the poetry club’s license would be extended to include Duane Park, without the restaurant having to go through a completely new application.

“They have a really nice menu,” he said of Duane Park’s “modern American”-style fare.

The restaurant offers brunch and dinner, with dinner entrees such as baconwrapped trout ($23) and herb-crusted leg of spring lamb ($24).

The Friday and Saturday jazz-andburlesque shows include a three-course dinner, all for $75 (drinks and tip not included).

Holman described Duane Park’s programming as “contemporary vaudeville and burlesque — and poetry readings.”

“Marisa — her shows are right in line with the feel of the old Bowery,” he said, adding, “It’s also representative of the new Bowery.

“She’s one of the world’s great hosts,” he said of Ferrarin. “It’s like Elaine’s the way she runs the place. It’s going to be a potpourri of arts — populist entertainment.”

He called the $75 show price “reasonable” when compared with other upscale entertainment-and-dining venues, such as the B.B. King club on W. 42nd St. Meanwhile, the Bowery Poetry Club will continue to offer a “free open mic and $3 P.B.R.,” Holman said.

The poetry club won’t have to put on

30 to 35 shows per week like before to try to make ends meet, though. Instead, it will probably do up to 10 shows at 308 Bowery weekly.

The plan is to “still have it be a safe space for creativity, poetry, Occupy Wall Street, Faceboy and Rev Jen,” Holman explained of how the space will be used on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and Mondays.

The poetry club will also benefit from the place’s renovation, he noted, calling the new décor a “New Orleans, turn-ofthe-century, rococo setup inside.”

For other shows that can’t be accommodated there, he said, he’s hoping to use the upstairs space at 45 Bleecker St. as a sort of satellite location. The POEMobile is also taking the poetry club’s mission on the road around the city.

Realizing he couldn’t operate the poetry club as a one-man show, he has hired Jamie Tannenbaum as executive director and David Brouillard as managing director.

Holman will return in the fall to help celebrate Bowery Poetry Club’s 10th anniversary. He’s planning an “endangered language series,” the first of which will include poetry in Garifun (a hybrid of Arawak and African dialects) and Breton.

To those who blast burlesque as sexist, Holman responded, “Feminism is going through all of its growth changes. I certainly respect the feelings. I just have been hanging around this part of the world long enough to know that people like Chi Chi Valenti and the World Famous Bob — not me,” he quipped, referring to the burlesque artist. “I know the show Chi Chi does at the end of HOWL! is always a highlight for me. I just see it as part of the fabric of the neighborhood.

“I have heard from women that it can be a liberating experience,” Holman added of the dance form.

More to the point, the type of entertainment Duane Park offers is an integral part of the Bowery’s history.

“Burlesque, vaudeville were born on the Bowery,” Holman said. “The ‘penny dreadful museum,’ punk, CBGB — the Bowery is home of the populist arts. It’s great that the Bowery Mission, B.R.C. [Bowery Residents’ Committee] are not being run off as the big gentrifiers come in. The Bowery Poetry Club holds down a position of the populist tradition of the Bowery. It’s 2012, folks — and this is what the Bowery looks like.”

Jim Flynn, 34, a public school teacher, writer and performer who lives in the East Village and enjoys the Bowery Poetry Club, is hopeful things will work out under the new setup.

“It’s a good place to try out new material for storytelling. My feeling is it’s a good place to talk with other artistic-minded people,” he said of the poetry club. “I’m sure that Bob has to do what he has to do to keep the place open.”

And who knows? he said, the new partnership “might provide some diversity.”

August 2 - 15, 2012

13

Photos by Tequila Minsky

Garden is fertile soil for nourishing young minds

BY ALBERT AMATEAU East Village youngsters with capes and painted faces recently gathered for three afternoons as “Superheroes for Peace” at an E. Fourth St. community garden. Some kids just came as, well, “Civilians for Peace” — without costumes but with lots of energy and curiosity.

The July 11-13 event at the Generation X Cultural

Garden, between Avenues B and C, was part of the Festival of Learning, organized by ATD Fourth World Movement, an international agency advocating for poor families and active in the neighborhood for more than 40 years.

Edwin Albert Salazar, who helped reactivate the garden in 2000, recalled that in 2002, after the

attack on the World Trade Center, Muslim residents joined hand with Hasidic Jews and danced together in the garden.

“We’ve been doing cultural events like that in this garden for more than 10 years,” said Salazar, who was born and raised in the neighborhood and is currently president of the co-op adjacent to the garden.

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August 2 - 15, 2012

Keeping it real with some old friends on the L.E.S. CLAYTON

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON John Lockwood is a neighborhood character who I have known and photographed many times over the years. Anyone who has spent any time on Avenue A is familiar with John. He makes his living washing windows. He owns and runs his own company, Rose Window & Awning Cleaning.

John is getting to be one of the last of the old school, independent, go-to street guys who knows who is who, and what is what, as far as the goings-on in the hood.

That said, he is not a gossip, but if there is a need to know, good chance John can give an insider’s tip. John earns his money, is hard-working, honest and a stand-up guy.

Kim Charles Turim is the new night worker at Ray’s Candy Store, and like John, we have known and interacted with many of the same people. I first met, photographed and got to know Kim in the

mid-’80s when he ran Penny’s General Store, a basement space at 97 E. Seventh St., between Avenue A and First Ave. Penny’s General Store was one of those unique, one-of-a-kind, only-in-New York, fascinating places. When you walked through the door, you felt like you were entering a different world. Kim sold a wide variety of local and imported fresh and preserved herbs, tinctures, incense, obscure and difficult-to-find books and pamphlets on subjects like home remedies, hand-printed deity prints from India, a variety of licorice — salted or sweet — from Denmark, throat lozenges from Holland and so on.

Kim is a serious person who has spent years learning about the products he sells.

The General Store was not a hippie place to hang out, smoke weed and talk about finding the fountain of youth. It was a place to get information and organic products related to health and wellness.

Kim keeps telling me we are getting to be the last of the L.E.S. characters, the last of the old school, and I guess maybe

Photos by Clayton Patterson

Kim Charles Turim is helping on the nightshift at Ray’s Candy Store.

he is right. We have been around long enough to have earned that title. Not sure if that title is good or bad. But I love to reminisce with Kim.

Kim keeps telling me we are getting to be the last of the L.E.S. characters, the last of the old school.

Not sure if that title is good or bad.

John Lockwood knows who’s who and what’s what in the hood.

In our last conversation we remembered our friend Phil who worked at the Pyramid Club. Phil, thin as Sid Vicious, always dressed in black, wore a tightfitting leather motorcycle jacket, was a cross between punk rock and metal, and gave off the vibe of a street guy not

to mess with.

Phil loved useful small gadgets, like flashlights, butane lighters and knives, that fit into his tight-fitting pockets and could be quickly pulled out when needed.

Kim and Phil lived in the same crumbling tenement, which was right next door to the underground landmark the Laundromat.

The Laundromat was a real business, but it was the nighttime heroin activity in front of the spot that made the location infamous. The drug operation was run by a Vietnam vet who went by the name of JR. JR was an expert martial artist who ran the White Tiger dojo on Avenue B. Phil was an expert on the subject of Bag in a Bag, which was another drug spot next to Laundromat. I’m not sure if he worked in the business, but he was a customer and studied the block.

Another aspect that made this spot unique was it was on the same block as St. Brigid’s School. JR sent his kids to that elementary school. His drug business conformed with school hours — it opened after 6 p.m. and closed at 6 a.m.

August 2 - 15, 2012

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EASTVILLAGERARTS&ENTERTAINMENT FringeNYC: likely propects and sure things The deeper you dig, the more treasure you'll find

BY MARTIN DENTON Okay, so the New York International Fringe Festival (August 10-26) is about a week away — and if you’re one of the 75,000 or so people who plan to take in the city’s most mammoth theater event, you’re probably starting to get itchy. What shows should I see? Which of the 187 offerings is this year’s sleeper hit? Who’s getting the most interesting buzz?

Fret not: I am here to help. I’ve been covering FringeNYC ever since it started back in 1997. The website I founded and edit (nytheatre.com) has been the only media outlet to review every single show in every festival since 2002. We’re doing it again this year, and we’ve asked the artists participating in FringeNYC to tell us about themselves and their shows — so please check out our extensive FringeNYC Previews section, which will be online throughout the festival.

And if you’re interested in hearing one reasonably well-informed guy’s opinion about what looks exciting this year, read on.

SOME SURE(-ISH) THINGS Most of the shows in FringeNYC are brand new, but some have had earlier incarnations. “Quest for the West: Adventures on the Oregon Trail!” was seen at FRIGID New York in 2011 and subsequently at the Capital Fringe and Kentucky Repertory Theatre; this interactive musical comedy from No.11 Productions takes a light-hearted look at the pioneers who ventured west in the early 19th century against amazing odds to settle the American Northwest. Annie Worden’s solo show “Misadventures in the Art of Movie Making,” seen for one night only at United Solo last year, is an extremely funny piece about indie filmmaking at its most off-kilter and eccentric. Another onewoman play, D'yan Forest’s “I Married a Nun,” also played the FRIGID festival; nytheatre.com’s Ed Malin said this autobiographical comedy from this life-embracing 78-year-old (the oldest FringeNYC participant, we hear) was like “a cabaret evening with Betty White.”

“Finding Elizabeth Taylor” has had a few engagements in NYC; I didn’t see it, but I met its star/author, who really is named Elizabeth Taylor and who conjures quite uncannily the more famous woman of the same name; I’m feeling very high on her solo, in which she explores why her parents gave her that name. I’m also expecting good things from “We Crazy, Right?” — Jeff Seabaugh’s autobiographical account of his life as gay dad to three diverse children, which was featured in an earlier show that I loved (“How to Make an American Family”).

Two plays that I’ve read but not yet seen are getting NYC debut productions in the festival: “American Midget” by Jonathan Yukich, which is a timely, powerful satire on contemporary American values, and “Ticket to Eternity” by Matthew Ethan Davis, whose delightful premise is that a successful young actor wants to pursue the job he really loves — as a waiter.

NEW WORKS BY OLD FAVORITES And when I say “old,” I really mean FringeNYC veterans — folks who have done the festival before, know their way around the theater and whose work I always look forward to. Maggie Cino, who has been part of FringeNYC since it began, is presenting her first full-length play as a writer, “Decompression,” with a cast headed by the always expert Michael Criscuolo; Cino is a writer of astonishing versatility and imagination, and I can’t wait to see this.

Pamela Sabaugh’s solo play “Immaculate Degeneration” chronicles some of her own experiences as a person whose disability (she’s legally blind) is invisible to most people. She’s a splendid writer and actor (and her show’s director, Fred Backus, is a FringeNYC veteran himself, having acted in several shows over the years); expect this to be entertaining and insightful.

Depending on your personal taste, you’ll want to sample works by these outstanding playwrights whose work has graced previous FringeNYCs: Alex DeFazio, author of “Alice & The Bunny Hole” and Mariah MacCarthy, who wrote “Magic Trick,” are both young, adventurous authors who tend to explore issues of sexuality and gender in works that are often surreal and non-traditional. Amy E. Witting’s “FALLING” and Nat Cassidy’s “Songs of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape” tackle love and relationships in very distinctive styles. Gary Morgenstein, meanwhile, takes on contemporary American politics in his new satirical play “Right on Target.”

And the excellent actor Matthew Trumbull offers an autobiographical story about his father — specifically his final request to have his body donated to science — in “The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children.”

Finally, let me mention “The Apocalypse of John,” a play from The Serious Theatre Collective that played uptown briefly earlier this year. It’s about an ordinary guy charged with saving the world from all manner of menaces, and the actor who plays that ordinary guy is Michael Mraz. You may have seen him in indie shows all around NYC lately (he’s pretty prolific), or you may recognize him as one of nytheatre.com’s reviewers; he’s seen dozens of FringeNYC shows for us over the years, and he definitely knows the territory!

Photo by Gary Weingarten

That “other” Elizabeth Taylor stars in “Finding Elizabeth Taylor.”

THESE SOUND INTERESTING Of course, you don’t want to limit your FringeNYC experience to artists and works you know. I mean, the whole point of FringeNYC is venturing out of your comfort zone, taking in theater that you wouldn’t get a chance to sample or may not have ever heard of. Dozens of artists who have done preview Q&A articles on nytheatre.com have really whetted my appetite to see their work.

For example, Terry Joan Baum and Carolyn Myers, who are bringing “A Coupla Crackpot Crones” from San Francisco to NYC this month, come across as a pair of very smart, very insightful and very funny ladies and I’d be more than willing to spend 90 minutes in their company.

The author of “Chain Reaction,” Jonathan Alexandratos, seems like a very witty guy from my interactions with him. His play is a comedy/drama about the building of the atomic bomb. I’m getting a good vibe about “WOULD,” by David Marx, about a teenager serving a life sentence in prison who invents an alternate life via correspondence with a pen pal — and Emma Dean and Jake Diefenbach have made me intrigued to see “An End to Dreaming” — the show they’re bringing to FringeNYC from Brisbane, Australia that they describe

“as a modern-day Hansel and Gretel tale.”

Plus: Did you realize that Lee Meriwether (who was Miss America and then co-starred with Buddy Ebsen on “Barnaby Jones” years ago) is starring in a FringeNYC show this year? (“The Women of Spoon River: Their Voices from the Hill”). Or that D’Jamin Bartlett, who introduced “The Miller’s Son” in the original Broadway production of “A Little Night Music,” is doing the festival thing with her new musical “MisSpelled”? Or that scholar/author John Feffer, whose day job is being the co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., is bringing his show “The Pundit” to FringeNYC? You know, the deeper you dig into this year’s festival program, the more exciting it gets. I’ve only just scratched the surface in this article. I encourage you to keep your ears, eyes and hearts open as you stroll through the East and West Villages over the next few weeks in search of theater that will enlighten, enlarge and entertain you. If you do, you’re sure to find just what you’re looking for!

Check nytheatre.com for reviews and previews, updated daily throughout the New York International Fringe Festival.

Also visit fringenyc.org.

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August 2 - 15, 2012

More than a mere keeper of the flame Hallie Foote takes her dad's legacy, makes it contemporary THEATER

HARRISON, TX: THREE PLAYS

BY HORTON FOOTE

Directed by Pam MacKinnon Presented by Hallie Foote & Jayne Houdyshell Through September 15 At Primary Stages (59 E. 59th St., btw.

Park & Madison Aves.)

For tickets ($70), call 212-279-4200 or visit primarystages.org

BY JERRY TALLMER Some people get up in the morning and go to Wall Street. Or to their job in a department store. Or a supermarket. Or a newspaper office. Or to fly an airplane.

Horton Foote gets up in the morning and writes plays.

But what plays!

The above is what I once wrote about the pro of pros — who had learned his craft writing short and tight for good people like Fred Coe (in television of the 1950s).

One of those small screen one-act plays — and I think I caught it with my own two eyes and ears — was “The Midnight Caller,” about a pathetic alcoholic in his 30s who pierces the Texas night with his cries to the lovely girl who once loved him but, out of exhaustion, does so no more.

It was first staged in the 1950s, as a matter of fact, at The Neighborhood Playhouse — the esteemed acting school on East 54th Street — in a production directed by the equally esteemed Sanford Meisner (with an unknown named Robert Duvall as the pitiable drunk).

“My mother and father saw that production,” says Hallie Foote, actress daughter of Lillian and Horton Foote, “and that's how Robert Duvall got into ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’” — the movie that won

Horton Foote an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

“My father always loved the one-act form,” says Hallie — for its discipline, compression, synthesis, vivacity — “and I always loved ‘The Midnight Caller.’ ” Hallie Foote and her husband Devon Abner are, along with actress Jayne Houdyshell, the prime movers of “Harrison, TX” — the triple bill of short, biting one-act plays by Horton Foote, at Primary Stages through September 15.

The three plays are “Blind Date,” a farce of sorts about the most disagreeable young woman you ever came across in your life; “The Midnight Caller,” which replaces farce with pathos; and “The One-Armed Man,” a slow but sure little shocker that seems all the more terrifying in the light of recent events in Aurora, Colorado.

All three plays are set in Harrison, Texas (the pseudonym for Horton Foote's real-life hometown of Wharton, Texas), in the oil and cotton territory of the lonesome worked-out lands around Houston and Galveston and the Gulf.

The director of all three is Pam MacKinnon, who is having a busy season, with “Harrison, TX” coming immediately on the heels of “Clybourne Park.”

“Blind Date” is set in a boarding house for unmarried ladies — a sort of Horton Foote specialty. Hallie Foote is one of those ladies. The plum role of super-bored young Sarah Nancy — who hates everything, including music and dance and men who just want to take her to the movies — goes to Andrea Lynn Green.

Hallie's husband Devon Abner is one of Sarah Nancy's unfortunate would-be suitors.

“So,” says Ms. Foote, “one of these plays is very funny, and one is very dark” — “The One-Armed Man,” set in the cotton mill that has destroyed a workman's arm — “and one (‘Midnight Caller’) is…how to put it?…sad but lyrical.”

She lets it dangle there, then adds, “I never know how to describe that play.”

She stops, thinks, thinks some more…lets it go. So would her father, if he were here.

The three principals in the current

Photo © 2012 James Leynse

Evan Jonigkeit and Hallie Foote.

“Midnight Caller” are Jenny Dare Paulin as the emotionally exhausted Helen, Alexander Cendese as the pitiable lush who calls and calls her name in the night and Jeremy Bobb as the fellow who catches her on the rebound. Hallie plays the worried landlady.

Cendese and Bobb are the soft-soaping boss and the enraged, physically wrecked employee who confront one another in “The One-Armed Man.” Well, the insulted and injured mill worker confronts. The gladhanding mill owner tries to fluff him off.

Hallie Foote lost her mother 20 years ago and her father 40 months ago. The Foote children — Horton Jr., Hallie and playwright Daisy — are children no longer, but they do not forget their heritage.

When she met Casey Childs, founder and executive producer of Primary Stages, Hallie told her “that I had the desire to do some of the plays of my father and a play called ‘Him’ by my sister Daisy. It's all about the land where she grew up, in southern New

Hampshire” — where Horton Foote had taken himself and his family out of the New York/Hollywood rat race for some 15 lost yet unlost years.

That's next at Primary Stages — Daisy Foote's “Him.” Daisy's play is, says her sister, “You know, like my dad's stuff. It's all a combination” of names, places, people, events, emotions.

“The One-Armed Man” and “Blind Date” were done long years ago at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the H.B. [Uta Hagen/Herbert Berghof] Studio on Bank Street, but, says the playwright's oldest daughter, never in New York since then. Until now.

The thing about Hallie Foote is that she not only keeps her father alive, she kept him alive when he was alive and working (“Dividing the Estate,” “The Orphans' Home Cycle”) and reaping late-life honors like the Pulitzer Prize.

You could write a one-act play about it.

Theater for the New City 155 1st Ave. at 10th St. Reservations/Info 254-1109 TDF Accepted For more info, please visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net

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Written, Directed and Lyrics by CRYSTAL FIELD Music Composed & Arranged by JOSEPH VERNON BANKS

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The First Four Shows are: Sat, August 4th, 2pm - TNC, East 10th Street at 1st Avenue, Manhattan Sun, August 5th, 2pm - St. Mary s Park, 147th Street & St. Ann s Avenue, The Bronx Sat, August 11th, 2pm - Jackie Robinson Park, W. 147th St & Bradhurst Ave, Manhattan Sun, August 12th, 2pm - Bed-Stuy, Herbert von King Park & Lafayette & Tompkins, Brooklyn

August July 5 2 - 18, 15, 2012

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Music for all and free PBR for 25 Dixon Place to make LES Music Fest an annual happening MUSIC

DIXON PLACE PRESENTS THE FIRST ANNUAL LOWER EAST SIDE MUSIC FESTIVAL

August 9-26, Thurs.-Sun. At Dixon Place 161A Chrystie Street (btw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.) For reservations ($15) dixonplace.org.

At the door, tickets are $18 ($15 for students/seniors) For a full schedule of performances, visit lesmusicfest.tumblr.com (podcasts available for download) Photo courtesy of Dixon Place

Acoustic indie folk band More Than Skies takes the genre into a dynamic new direction (August 16).

BY SCOTT STIFFLER You know how it is. All day long, the August sun broils and bakes the steamy concrete of the Lower East Side — and by the time you arrive at that sweaty dive bar, you barely possess enough energy to navigate the punk rock moshing frenzy that precedes the contemplative acoustic act you showed up for.

Cover charges, short sets that leave you wanting more, drink minimums and bills full of musicians with wildly contrasting styles: It’s not so bad if you’re feeling adventurous, pleasantly buzzed or on a mission to support a friend’s band. But imagine how much better your summertime music experience would be in an air-conditioned concert setting with comfortable seats, great acoustics, likeminded performers and the promise of free booze for early birds (the first 25 to show up get a free Pabst Blue Ribbon).

This isn’t a theoretical scenario. It’s about to happen. From August 9-26, Dixon Place will host the First Annual Lower East Side Music Festival.

Having long functioned as a Downtown theater and dance incubator, Dixon Place’s 2009 move from the Bowery to its current Chrystie Street incarnation occurred at the tail end of a decade-long seismic shift that rocked the Lower East Side performance circuit.

As the formerly dicey area became highly desirable, skyrocketing rents caused many longtime venues to shutter or move to Brooklyn (as did The Knitting Factory). With Dixon Place’s new digs came a larger space and better equipment — which inspired more music programming.

Curator of the Dixon Place series “Writer’s Bloc,” which pairs songwriters up and tasks them with finishing each other’s uncompleted works, Jonny B. Goodman has brought that same flair for unconventional thinking to his role as Director of the Lower East Side Music Festival.

“The Lower East Side,” notes Goodman, “has a very high concentration of music venues; Pianos, the Living Room, Arlene’s Grocery.” The economic necessity of packing in as many customers as possible on any given night almost always translates into a long list of acts performing a short list of songs. “You might play for a handful of friends and fans,” says Goodman. “You’ll be an indie folk band that goes on at 9pm.

Then you have a death metal band at 10, and none of your friends stick around for that.” Good news for the folk act…

‘At Dixon Place, what they’re trying to do is create a setting where people pay attention to your music. They’re doing their best to market this as an intimate space where people will see the band they came for, and also stick around.’

—Jonny B. Goodman

but for the death metal band, having a full house exit the room as their set begins is a demoralizing experience (and bad business; bands who can’t draw aren’t likely to be asked back).

“At Dixon Place,” says Goodman, “what they’re trying to do is create a setting where people pay attention to your music. They’re doing their best to market this as an intimate space where people will see the band they came for, and also stick around.”

To retain audiences, the festival evenings are programmed with stylistic consistency in mind. So whether you gravitate towards jazz, folk, pop/rock, R&B/ soul, indie or alternative classical, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. Although scheduled by genre, says Goodman, “Within that, we’re trying to represent a true spectrum. On the folk night [August 17], we’ve got Sarah Banleigh who has, over the last few years, sung modern original arrangements of ancient British Isles folk music. This will be her debut as a songwriter. She’s followed by Stacy Rock, whose influences include Tom Waits and Tori Amos. But there’s a very folk narrative to her lyric writing. Personally, as a musician, I’m very motivated by strong lyric writing. So some of the curation of these lesser-known performers is based on my taste, my

opinion that they are really stellar songwriters.”

Asked what accounts for so many under the radar performers in a festival whose talent comes from the city’s most music-friendly neighborhood, Goodman says that “some if it is their work ethic. They’re so perfectionist about their craft that they’ve not gotten out [to play live] much, because they’ve been at home honing their craft; sometimes for years.”

Noise & Rhythm (August 18), Mary Westlake (August 10) and A.C. Lincoln (August 16) all fit that profile. “He’s very craft-driven,” says Goodman of Lincoln. “And Danny

Continued on page 18

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August 2 - 15, 2012

LES Music Fest offers complimentary beer, bill Continued from page 17

Chait [August 23], too. He’s recently been honing the same catalog for years and all of a sudden he’s starting to get noticed.”

Firmly established festival acts that have a solid following include Corn Mo (August 24) and The Nat Osborn Band (August 25). “And some of the alternative classical acts,” notes Goodman, “have already had their Carnegie Hall debuts.” Although they’ve got bills of their own to pay, Dixon Place isn’t as interested in their bottom line as they are expanding their creative boundaries.

“We want to have folks who can bring their own draw,” admits Goodman, “but we don’t want to be 100 percent business about that.”

In a further nod to altruism, Goodman didn’t require much prodding to rhapsodize about other LES venues worth patronizing. “The one that I most frequently cite as an example of a place that’s really committed to quality programming,” says Goodman, “is Rockwood Music Hall.

They’ve set themselves up in a great way by working with artists regularly and giving them residencies. You can go there any night and be pretty sure you’re going to see a great show.”

Photo courtesy of Dixon Place

Rising trombonist and music personality Emily Asher (August 9).

Just Do Art!

invites a group of artists from around the globe to use their own artistic processes and aesthetic traditions to explore topics such as subjective versus objective truth, the power of objects to embody cultural memory and…the humbling fact that our greatest achievements are, at best, tenuous and temporary things.

Representing China, Jin Shan’s “Retired Pillar” is a silicon device that continuously inflates and deflates, at a rate simi-

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

TWO NEW YORK DOCUMENTARIES Tribeca Grand Cinema screens two documentaries — both of which ask, “Are the things that make New York unique vanishing forever?” Exploring the luxurification of Gotham at the expense of neighborhood identity, “The Vanishing City” (directed

by Jen Senko and Fiore DeRosa) digs into the policies and philosophies behind a finance-dominated economy. Then, “A Home in the Theatre” charts the battle fought by 93-year-old Edith O’Hara to protect her 13th Street Repertory Company from an unscrupulous real estate developer. Founded in 1972, the Greenwich Village theatrical venue (still going strong at 50 West 13th Street) is one of the lucky ones. While making the 2010 documentary, director Melodie Bryant notes, “Nearly 40 indie theatres in New York were lost or destroyed.”

Sat., Aug. 18, 7pm. At the Tribeca Grand Hotel Cinema (2 Sixth Ave., btw.

Church & White Sts.). For tickets ($10), visit brownpapertickets.com. Also visit tribecagrand.com.

ART: “A CITY SORROW BUILT” From clever Facebook postings to initials drawn in wet cement to that granite depiction of four great American presidents: Nothing lasts forever. The

lar to a breath. “So,” explains Masters, “the pillar looks like it’s on a death bed struggling to breathe, hence the title. It’s pretty funny in person.” Hey, laughing at an empire crumbling beats fiddling while Rome burns.

“A City Sorrow Built” is on view through Aug. 31 at Masters & Pelavin (13 Jay St., btw. Greenwich & Staple Sts.). Hours: Tues.-Fri., 11am-6pm. For more info, visit masterspelavin.com.

Photo courtesy of the filmmaker

Don’t tread on me: “A Home in the Theatre” documents Edith O'Hara’s fight for her hard-won slice of Greenwich Village.

pleasant illusion of permanence — and our delusion that the things we construct afford us some level of power or immortality — is one of the contemplative messages that hover over “A City Sorrow Built.” Curated by Todd Masters, the group exhibition takes its inspiration from the final work in “The Course of Empire.”

Painted by Thomas Cole from 1833-1836, the series concludes with “Desolation” — the final straw in his romanticized depiction of an imaginary city’s rise and fall. Informed by Cole’s image of a man-made landscape being reclaimed by nature, “A City Sorrow Built”

Images courtesy of Masters & Pelavin and the artist Retired Pillar

Metaphor for a fallen empire: Jin Shan’s “Retired Pillar.”

August 2 - 15, 2012

Edgy August offerings not just flowing from FringeNYC With 200+ shows at two dozen venues, Fringe still looms large

BY TRAV S.D. I’ve just started to climb out of my hidey hole to begin seeing shows again following a six month book-writing jag. And we’re off to a good start! I managed to catch Untitled Theater Company #61’s adaptation of the Ursula K. Le Guin classic “The Lathe of Heaven” at 3LD. It was a thought-provoking experience, the highlight of which was Robert Honeywell’s measured, affecting performance as a man whose dreams have the power to change reality. Also entertaining (although it didn’t provoke any thoughts) was Tribeca Lab’s “TITANIC! A Folk Rock Opera” in the undergroundzero festival, which was more tuneful than factual. (Who knew that British sailors were so laid back?) Heading into August, I foresee no icebergs on the horizon (how could there be?).

August 2-18, The Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot series will be presenting their version of “Coriolanus” — Occupy Wall Street style. Transplanted from ancient Rome to an American presidential election (hmm…kind of like ours), the production, as always, will be presented in the Municipal Parking Lot at the corner of Ludlow and Broome Streets. Best of all, it's free. Which is surprising — think what they could charge for standing outside in a paved parking lot for two hours in August.

Snarkiness aside, “Coriolanus” is on my short list of Shakespeare-I-have-not-yet seen, so I intend to attend. Find more info at shakespeareintheparkinglot.com.

Now for the new shows this month. August 1-4, Soho Think Tank’s Ice Factory will be presenting “The Girl of the Golden West” — the latest adaptation of David Belasco’s 1911 Western novel, which was subsequently turned into a stage play by the author, and later into an opera by Puccini. The new version is a musical by the team of Brian Rady and Jeremy Bloom.

I’m intrigued by what sort of modern spin can be given to this tale of the only eligible girl in a mining camp full of lusty men. My version would stress the camp in “camp,” but something tells me they’ve gone in an earnest direction. Still, it’s interesting. For tickets and more information, go to newohiotheatre.org.

August 4 is the opening day of Theater for the New City’s annual street theater production “99% Reduced Fat” — which they describe as a “rip-roaring musical” and “a little operetta for the street.” Something tells me it’ll have a little something to do with Occupy Wall Street and the upcoming elections. TNC’s free street theater presentation has been going strong for about four decades now and is one of the last holdovers of the heyday of political protest theater. Without Vietnam, Nixon or even Reagan to rail against, the show tends to be a Mulligan Stew of progressive causes (but I haven’t missed one in eight years).

Written and directed as always by TNC’s founder Crystal Field, the community-spirited show always has plenty of sweetness and charm. It’ll be touring all five boroughs through September 16. For a complete schedule, see theaterforthenewcity.net.

The second big event at TNC this month is the return of their new annual Dream Up Festival. Curated by Michael Scott-Price, the festival features “theatrical visions embracing drama, poetry, music and dance,” presenting two dozen shows in TNC’s four spaces from August 19 through September 9. All they’ve released at press time are the show titles — but I must say that’s more than enough to intrigue. Shows include “Fat Fat Fatty,” “Giant Killer Slugs,” “Pornography for the People,” “Love in the Seventh Kingdom of Wrath,” “The Love Junkies of Hell’s Kitchen” and “The Ukulele Orchestra of Greater Brooklyn Presents ‘Missionary in Manhattan’ a Mormon Musical.” For a schedule and tickets, go to dreamupfestival.org.

That festival will, of course, have an avalanche of competition from the granddaddy of summer theater events, the New York International Fringe Festival, now in its 16th year. Over 200 productions at two dozen venues take part in the festival, which runs from August 10-26. Get the full schedule at fringenyc.org.

Nowadays, no one actually dies — their spirits simply inhabit the bodies of tribute act impressionists. August 12, 7pm at The Duplex, don’t miss “A Night at the Sands: Music, Laughter & Drinks with Dean Martin.”

Michael Patrick Dominick stars as the titular crooning inebriate in this re-enactment of the Las Vegas musical variety comedy acts of the 1960s. We can’t have Dino anymore, but this is liable to be just as weird. Visit theduplex.com for more information.

On August 18, Epic Win Burlesque will be presenting “CLOCKtease! A SteamPowered Scientific Exhibition of Professional Ecdysiasts.” Run by magician Nelson Lugo, Epic Win bills itself as “one of the nerdiest burlesque shows in the city” (there are OTHER nerdy burlesque shows in the city?). Mixing elements of nerdcore and burlesque, they’ve done previous girlie shows using themes like the TV shows “Star Trek” and “Firefly.” It’s a niche, one would imagine, they have all to themselves! In their new steampunk edition, they promise to present such “miracles of modern science” as Hazel Honeysuckle, Moxie Kat, Mary Cyn, Minnie de Moocha and Kobayashi Maru (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Nasty Canasta). Host Nelson Lugo promises to break out his Blade Box O’Death. He threatens to dismember one of his girls, but something tells me it’s all talk. It’s at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe: nuyorican.org.

See you next month!

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August 2 - 15, 2012

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Pot education group on A Continued from page 10

Only Barron stood up To The Editor: Councilmember Chin and Speaker Quinn can spin it all they want, but the fact remains that the behemoth N.Y.U. 2031 expansion plan is a blatant giveaway of public land, open green space, playgrounds and gardens to N.Y.U. and corporate interests.

Christine Quinn excelled in her job as consigliere to Mayor Bloomberg, and Chin and the City Council excelled at cowering under Quinn’s strong-arm tactics and forgetting who they truly represent.

Many thanks to Charles Barron for being the sole city councilmember who stood up for the people of New York.

Charles Barron for mayor.

A.S. Evans

N.Y.U. — too big to fail?

To The Editor: Is N.Y.U. too big to fail — and is The Cooper Union too small to survive? N.Y.U. insists on gobbling up real estate and building during a recession, gaining the support of construction unions. Meanwhile, Cooper sold off real estate and built when construction prices were high, against the wishes of its faculty union.

Will N.Y.U.’s growth lead to anything but further rises in the price of higher education?

As a Villager, I value both institutions, their students, their faculty, their graduates. But is preservation the only perspective to take to persuade the politicians to rein in N.Y.U. — and how about saving The Cooper Union?

If N.Y.U. is not stopped, it will become too big to fail, and soon enough New Yorkers will be asked to bail it out. And rather than demonizing Cooper for the financial failure of the St. Mark’s Bookshop, how about looking at the reasons for its financial failure?

When will overpaid college presidents be called to account?

Barry Drogin

Putting on the purple spin To The Editor: Re “N.Y.U. is giving back already” (letter,

by John Beckman, July 19): In his role as vice president for public affairs for N.Y.U., I cannot fault Mr. Beckman for doing his due diligence as a representative of the university by co-opting the true meaning and spirit of my letter of July 12 (“High time N.Y.U. gave back”), and using it as his launching pad to spin slick and misleading P.R. in typical N.Y.U. fashion.

Unfortunately, the full City Council did not do its due diligence and vote against the usurpatory and encroaching N.Y.U. 2031 plan.

As constituents we will need to come to

terms with the fact that the majority of our City Council electeds, who are supposed to be our representatives, our protectors and defenders of our communities — and who are empowered by us, and not by developers — are sadly either dupes, or lacking in the courage and integrity that we expect of them and that their office requires.

Robin Rothstein Rothstein is a member of Community Board 2 and its N.Y.U. Working Group and Social Services & Education Committee

Help save Bialystoker Home To The Editor: Re “Gentrification, genocide and the shadows of Bialystok” (talking point, by Bill Weinberg, July 12): What a sad story about the fate of Bialystok, Poland, and the impending destruction of the Bialystoker Center and Home by rampant gentrification! But as Bill Weinberg reports, there could be a happy ending on East Broadway if the Landmarks Preservation Commission would designate the 1931 Art Deco building.

Although the center is still standing, there is talk of negotiations with a tear-down developer who would replace it with a luxury condo.

When the Bialystoker board closed the home in November 2011, it revealed a debt of $13 million, including $4 million owed to union workers. Even so, the board hired two high-priced P.R. firms to lobby elected officials, Community Board 3 and L.P.C. to oppose landmark designation.

Our grassroots group, Friends of the Bialystoker Home, is leading the campaign to landmark the building that reflects the immigrant and Jewish legacy of the Lower East Side. Sixteen sponsoring organizations have joined the fight. Hundreds of individuals have written letters, signed petitions and postcards and sent e-mails to L.P.C. In April, C.B. 3 voted for a resolution in favor of landmarking. The New York State Attorney General’s Office is investigating the Bialystoker board for possible financial irregularities.

You can help to save this historic building.

Sign a petition at www.friendsofthelowereastside.org . Send an e-mail to L.P.C. at rtierney@ lpc.nyc.gov and cc Friends of the Bialystoker Home at friendsoftheles@gmail.com so that we can keep in touch. Spread the word.

Joyce Mendelsohn

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to lincoln@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.

is waging a war on fungus

BY PAUL DERIENZO Kenny Toglia is on a mission to legalize medical marijuana in New York State and save marijuana users from the devastating affects of what Toglia calls “one of the few things not good about marijuana.”

The blue-eyed, 46-year-old with a ponytail and soul patch claims the threat doesn’t come directly from the intoxicating THC or even the smoke from a joint.

The problem with New York City street pot, says Toglia, comes from a cancercausing fungus with the tongue-twisting name Aspergillus fumigatus, found commonly in soil and rotting vegetable matter and alarmingly in pot that’s been stored a long time before smoking.

To combat the threat, which Toglia claims affects one-third of relatively low-cost city pot, he has formed a nonprofit with the major purpose of educating marijuana smokers, especially those with compromised immune systems. Each Thursday at 6 p.m. Toglia and his crew will inspect your pot for the dangerous fungus for no cost at 130 E. Seventh St., at Avenue A. The location is known as the Muhammad Salahuddeen Memorial Jazz Theatre, named after a late East Village legend who combined squatting, jazz and community service in his University of the Streets near Tompkins Square Park.

According to Toglia, the Medical Marijuana Association of New York will act in the spirit of Salahuddeen, both organizing to combine a sense of community with a sense of larger political purpose.

On a recent warm afternoon a greenand-brown marijuana bud was presented to Toglia for inspection. He subjects the cannabis sample to what he calls a “threeway scientific test.”

The first way, according to Toglia, is to smell the marijuana, looking for “a wholesome marijuana-like odor with nothing bitter or vinegary” — sure signs that the pot is going bad.

Then Toglia pulls out a small backlight purchased from a Halloween supply store for $10. He says the light will “reveal the fungus as small white spots,” adding that, “you don’t want to see white spots.”

Finally, Toglia uses a 40X microscope he bought from Radio Shack for $20.

With this instrument he searches the pot sample for telltale gray hairs associated with Aspergillus.

Toglia insists he’s not setting up another marijuana club like the one in 1999 — in the same location — that had 600 members and was raided by police. Toglia was arrested that time despite what he says was an “agreement” with then Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Two pounds of cannabis were confiscated, according to Toglia, as well as several dozen oatmeal and cannabis-oil cook-

Photo by Paul DeRienzo

Kenny Toglia screening pot for fungus at Seventh St. and Avenue A.

ies for patients with lung problems. The cookies, he added, disappeared in police custody prompting him to file an official complaint. The cookies never turned up and charges against Toglia were dropped.

Toglia said his primary goal is a patientmembership drive, providing medical marijuana-eligible patients with special ID cards and lobbying for passage of a medical marijuana law in New York State.

He does say that legitimate pot patients, those suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and depression, will be referred to a “self-help line where patients can get help to find their medicine.”

Asked if he fears intervention by the police, Toglia a former social worker with Catholic Charities, said the cops “will understand we are performing an important public health service.”

According to Toglia “pot is the new gay,” because he added, “If you’re gay and someone calls you a homophobic name, the police will arrest them for a hate crime. But if you get beat up for pot it will probably be by a cop.”

Whether or not Toglia’s words are rhetoric or a prophesy remains to be seen.

DeRienzo produces “Let Them Talk,” every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Manhattan Neighborhood Network

August 2 - 15, 2012

21

N.Y.U., 505 LaGuardia Pl. agree to extend land lease the high value of land in the Village.

The new lease agreement will limit future rent increases to keep the building affordable to residents that qualify for Mitchell-Lama housing.

The university did not release specific terms of the lease amendment.

However, a source close to the negotiations, requesting anonymity, told the newspaper, “The rent remains $28,4000 until 2014. It then goes up to $35,400 until 2039. After 2039 it increases by 3 percent per annum for 10 years — until 2049. Then it increases annually by a percentage of cost of living in perpetuity. It is an evergreen lease, meaning that it automatically renews every 25 years in perpetuity absent a disqualifying event, such as leaving Mitchell-Lama.”

Patricia Albin, board of directors president of 505 LaGuardia Place, said on Tuesday, “After a long and difficult process, 505 LaGuardia Place and N.Y.U. have reached an agreement that will guarantee permanent affordability, protect the most vulnerable and remain true to the historic mission of Mitchell-Lama housing.

“The generous terms of this arrangement were arrived at through skillful negotiation and serious compromise,” Albin said. “Thanks for the favorable outcome are due to those outstanding negotiators and to the dedicated elected officials who honored their commitment to support and preserve affordable housing now and into the future. We are grateful to

all of those who worked so hard to achieve this remarkable result.”

According to a release issued by N.Y.U., the agreement reflects the university’s commitment to preserve 505 LaGuardia as affordable housing. The lease negotiations were not part of the land use approvals for the N.Y.U. 2031 development plan that will add 1.9 million square feet of new facilities to the superblocks.

The building at 505 LaGuardia Place was constructed in 1964 as part of a three-building complex on the southern superblock along Houston St., which N.Y.U. acquired in 1960.

‘505 LaGuardia is one of the last bastions of middleclass housing in the Village.’

Scott Stringer The buildings were designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Two of the buildings, Silver Towers I and Silver Towers II, house N.Y.U. faculty; the third, 505 LaGuardia, became a co-op under the Mitchell-Lama program and was reserved for affordable housing.

“This agreement preserves 505 LaGuardia as

Trinity Wall Street THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 5:15pm Summer Evensong When Evening Prayer is sung it is called Evensong, the service that closes the day. During the summer Trinity offers a simplified version of Evensong, sung by the congregation.

All Saints’ Chapel, Trinity Church THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 5:45pm Summer Discussion Group Following Evensong, study the history and meaning of hymns, including the hymns for the following Sunday and the favorite hymns of those who are present.

74 Trinity Pl, 2nd Fl, Parlor

affordable housing into the foreseeable future and demonstrates N.Y.U.’s commitment to work with its neighbors to preserve and improve the Greenwich Village neighborhood,” said Lynne Brown, N.Y.U. senior vice president.

“The importance of protecting and preserving affordable housing cannot be underestimated,” said Councilmember Margaret Chin, who represents the superblocks and part of Greenwich Village. “It is not just a valuable public policy, but is integral to the long-term health and stability of our communities. New York University understands this. I want to thank the university for striking a deal with 505 LaGuardia to ensure that this Mitchell-Lama building remains affordable in perpetuity.

“This is a huge victory for Greenwich Village,” Chin continued. “It guarantees, for all of our lifetimes, that working families and the middle class will have a place to call home in this community. I want to thank New York University and the leadership at 505 LaGuardia for all the hard work, time and effort that went into crafting this arrangement. This is a wonderful example of what can be accomplished when we work together; and it is truly a day for N.Y.U. and the Greenwich Village community to stand tall and be recognized for this substantial achievement.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, “I am pleased a deal has been reached and muchneeded affordable housing has been preserved in Greenwich Village. This agreement guarantees that 505 LaGuardia can maintain affordability and that the working-class families who currently

Let’s do something together

SUNDAY, AUGUST 5, 10am Community Bible Study A weekly, summer Bible study open to all.

74 Trinity Pl, 2nd Fl, Parlor SUNDAY, AUGUST 5, 10am The Gospel, Times, Journal, and You A discussion group that reads the editorial pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the assigned Gospel for the day. Led by the Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones.

74 Trinity Pl, 3rd Fl, Parish Library TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 5pm Trinity Knitters Knitters and crocheters and those who wish to learn are encouraged to attend.

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74 Trinity Pl, 3rd Fl, Library

reside there will be able to continue to live in the neighborhood they have long called home.”

Congressmember Jerrold Nadler added, “This agreement preserving affordability in perpetuity at 505 LaGuardia is a tremendous victory for the entire Village and for the low- and middle-income residents of the community. I commend N.Y.U. and 505 LaGuardia for working together with my office, Councilmember Chin and Speaker Quinn to achieve this important goal. I am thrilled that we now have an agreement that will protect residents and preserve this vital affordable housing in the heart of Manhattan.”

Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, said, “505 LaGuardia is one of the last bastions of middle-class housing in the Village. I am pleased that the residents of 505 LaGuardia have reached a deal on extending their land lease and hope this deal will ensure their continued affordability in perpetuity.”

Added state Senator Tom Duane, “I applaud Councilmember Chin for negotiating this commitment. I have long held that N.Y.U. must help preserve 505 LaGuardia Place as affordable housing both for the current residents and future generations because of the significant contributions that economic diversity has made to the fabric of the Village and New York City as a whole. I appreciate the university’s decision to ensure that future lease terms with the co-operative, a state-sponsored MitchellLama development, are such that affordability may be preserved.”

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worship SUNDAY, 8am and 10am St. Paul’s Chapel Holy Eucharist SUNDAY, 9am and 11:15am Trinity Church Preaching, music, and Eucharist Child care available MONDAY – FRIDAY, 12:05pm Trinity Church Holy Eucharist MONDAY – FRIDAY, 5:15pm All Saints’ Chapel, in Trinity Church Evening Prayer, Evensong (Thurs.)

Watch online webcast

TRINITY CHURCH Broadway at Wall Street 74 Trinity Place is located in the office building behind Trinity Church.

Leah Reddy

Continued from page 1

Learn to knit or crochet with the Trinity Knitters the first Tuesday of every month.

ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL Broadway and Fulton Street

All Are Welcome All events are free, unless noted.

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CHARLOTTE’S PLACE 107 Greenwich St, btwn Rector & Carlisle The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, Rector The Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, Vicar

an Episcopal parish in the city of New York

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August 2 - 15, 2012

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August 2 - 15, 2012

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Photos by Bob Krasner and Liza Béar (O.W.S. T-shirt)

Rock, art…and religion?

Blending performance art and punk, the band Transgendered Jesus recently headlined a free rock concert in Tompkins Square Park. Emceed by Stiletto from the band Roma!, the event also included Miss Guy and Transistor Radio’s mix of glam and pop. Meanwhile, last Sunday, hardcore punk bands rocked the park to commemorate the Tompkins Square riot of 1988. Top right, a woman’s T-shirt linked Occupy Wall Street with artist Peter Missing’s “The Party’s Over” upside-down martini glass, which Missing graffitied all over the neighborhood in the ’80s. Missing was one of the leaders in the fight against imposing a curfew on the park, which ultimately sparked the clash with police. He now lives in Germany because he said people appreciate art more there than in the U.S.

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August 2 - 15, 2012

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