East Villager by Schneps Media

A Meaty supplement, pp. 19 - 26

Volume 2, Number 49 FREE

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

August 30 - September 12, 2012

Landmarks finds Bialystoker ‘eligible for consideration’ BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER There’s no need to ask directions to the Bialystoker Center & Home for the Aged at 228 East Broadway. The Art Deco building’s distinctive geometries, executed in warm orange brick, are visible from blocks away. But with the Lower East Side becoming gentrified and real estate increasingly expensive, the Bialystoker nursing home may not be there much longer unless the Landmarks Preservation Commission intervenes.

Photo by William Alatriste/NYC Council

Councilmember Rosie Mendez, chairperson of the Council’s Committee on Public Housing, asked John Rhea, commissioner of the New York City Housing Authority, a question at the Aug. 16 public hearing on NYCHA and security cameras. Following recent exposés by the Daily News about millions of dollars having been allocated for cameras several years ago still sitting unspent, the heat is on the authority to show better transparency — and to speed up the installation of safety and security improvements. In the end, after being pushed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, sitting to the right of Mendez above, Rhea agreed that NYCHA would provide the Council with quarterly reports on how it is spending its capital funding.

Unified Village, Asian-Latino districts hot topics at hearing BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Advocates turned out to testify about the shape of City Council districts covering Greenwich Village, Chinatown and the Lower East Side at the New York City Districting Commission’s first Manhattan public hearing. Greenwich Village political activists called for “unifying the Village district,” which is now shared by three Council districts — Districts 1, 2 and 3. Meanwhile, an ongoing, 20-year debate continued to flare over whether to merge Chinatown and the Lower East Side to create a “minority district,” or to keep the current district

lines basically intact. The Aug. 16 hearing was held at New York Law School, 185 West Broadway, in front of the 15 appointed members of the Districting Commission. The commission is starting the process, which happens every 10 years, to ensure that the city’s 51 Council districts contain equal numbers of voters — around 160,000 each — and that “protected minorities” are given the chance to elect candidates of their choice. Among those speaking in favor of a unified Village district was former City Councilmember Carol Greitzer, who represented the Village, Chelsea and part of Midtown from 1969 to ’91.

She was joined by Frieda Bradlow, a longtime political activist and a member of Village Independent Democrats club, who said she felt redistricting had been used to punish the Village for its organized resistance in the 1950s and ’60s to despised urban renewal projects. Noting she had lived in the CharltonKing-Vandam Historic District since 1958, Bradlow said, “What I can tell you is that in those days the Village was described as going from Canal St. to 14th St. from the Hudson River to the Bowery — that makes a logical district. “A decision was made that we were

Built during the Depression by poor, immigrant Jews from Bialystok, Poland, the 10-story structure sheltered the aged and infirm of the Lower East Side for 80 years. On opening day — June 21, 1931 — thousands of people gathered on East Broadway to celebrate, and there were congratulatory telegrams from New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and other elected officials.

Continued on page 14

Silver under scrutiny in sex harass cover-up for top Brooklyn pol BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is in hot water after it was revealed that the state Assembly paid a secret settlement of more than $100,000 to a female intern of Brooklyn Democratic Party boss Vito Lopez after she alleged that Lopez sexually harassed her.

Continued on page 4

This week, Governor Cuomo asked his Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) to launch a probe into the situation surrounding the payout. Subsequent to the date of the secret settlement, Lopez last week came under fire after he was publicly censured by the Assembly in connec-

Continued on page 10

EDITORIAL, LETTERS PAGE 12

JUST DO ART! PAGE 15

August 30 - September 12

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Photo by Bob Krasner

Subway was really sluggish… Rats in the subway, we’ve seen — but giant killer slugs? Playwright Colby Day was recently toting around this pair of mutant gastropod mollusks from his play named, yes, “Giant Killer Slugs.” Likened to “Little Shop of Horrors,” it’s running through Sun., Sept. 2 at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., Wed. to Fri., at 9 p.m.; and Sat. and Sun., at 8 p.m.

THE KOCH FACTOR: Former Mayor Ed Koch will be stumping for Obama. “I’m campaigning for him in Florida after Labor Day,” Hizzoner told us. The Democrats also want him to visit other states beyond the key Florida battleground and Koch is game. “I’ll do whatever they want me to do,” he said. Although Koch bucked his own party in 2004 to endorse George W. Bush over John Kerry — feeling Bush was better on national security — he’s firmly behind the Democratic president this time around. Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan as his running mate has its pros and cons, he said. “The Republicans gain something by getting Catholics — who I think are 25

percent of the vote. The Democrats gain something where they can tear into the Republicans on adopting Ryan’s position [on social issues].” A staunch defender of Israel, Koch said Romney’s courting the Jewish vote by meeting with Netanyahu doesn’t sway his position on the U.S. presidential race. “Both parties and both candidates are roughly in the same ballpark supporting Israel,” he told us. “It’s not an issue any longer.” For him, he said, the main issue is Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare and how the Republicans would gut these vital programs. In short, Koch said, “The Republicans have raped the country and the middle class’s safety.”

August 30 - September 12

To redraw, or not to redraw, Council district lines Continued from page 1 too cohesive and too well-organized — and then the split began,” Bradlow asserted. “I watched it happen to the point we are represented by three councilmembers. The cohesiveness is gone.” Bradlow said she felt this fracturing of the traditional Village district was “retaliation” for residents having beaten back Planning Czar Robert Moses’ attempt to bulldoze and rebuild the northwest corner of the Village with an urban renewal project and also build a cross-Manhattan expressway along Broome St. This segmentation has weakened the ability of Village activists to fight back harmful projects, she said. “We most recently coalesced as a community against the intent of N.Y.U. expansion,” she said. “But we lost out on that one because we were represented by three different councilmembers — that doesn’t work so well.” Bradlow urged the commission to keep in mind one of the key points on districting from the City Charter, namely, that districts should keep intact “communities of interest” — meaning neighborhoods with shared concerns. “And that certainly is the Village,” she stated. Jonathan Geballe, president of V.I.D., also advocated for a unified Village district.

VILLAGE SPLIT 3 WAYS Currently, the western portion of the Village is in District 3, represented by Christine Quinn. The northern and eastern section of the Village east of Fifth Ave. and north of Eighth St. is represented by Rosie Mendez. And Washington Square and the area south of it, plus Soho are represented by Margaret Chin. However, activist Jim Fouratt offered an alternative idea — for a West Side district stretching from Canal St. to 50th St. west of Broadway. “You have the theater community, you have the gay and lesbian community, you have the fashion industry, you have the digital industry,” he said of the communities of interest such a district would unite. The Lower West Side needs effective, unified representation in the City Council, but currently lacks it, he stressed. “We have no hospital,” he said. “We have a pipeline going in with a potential gas explosion. We have N.Y.U. gobbling up everything, and other issues that are not being addressed... .”

Photo by Lincoln Anderson

Chris Kui of AAFE, left, testifying before the Districting Commission on Aug. 16

district lines are doing what they were intended to do: elect an Asian-American councilmember in District 1 and a Hispanic councilmember in District 2. Meanwhile, District 3, known as the “gay Council seat,” is currently represented by openly lesbian speaker Quinn, and several openly gay candidates are expected to vie for her seat next year when Quinn faces term limits and is anticipated to run for mayor.

TRACKING THE TRENDS 2 DISTRICTS OR 1 FOR CHINATOWN AND L.E.S.? Meanwhile, a debate that began during redistricting two decades ago continued to simmer at last Monday’s hearing, showing the ongoing split in the Chinatown and Lower East Side community over how best to shape district lines to ensure minority representation. On one side, Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, argued for creating a single district that would help ensure an Asian-American or Latino councilmember would be elected for the foreseeable future. But Chris Kui, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality, said the current district layouts are working, since there is currently a Chinese-American candidate, Chin, representing Lower Manhattan and Chinatown’s District 1, while a Latina, Mendez, is representing District 2, which includes the East Village, as well as the public housing housing projects on the Lower East Side along the East River, which have a heavy Hispanic population. Chin used to be Kui’s deputy director at AAFE, a local housing and social services organization. Obviously, with Chin’s having won election three years ago, they feel the

But Fung said, at least as far as Districts 1 and 2 are concerned, the model is not sustainable if minority representation is to be continued. Due to so much development of new housing, in fact, both districts have seen a loss of minority population and an increase in white residents, which Fung said, could lead to the prospect of electing white candidates in both districts. “That’s the future,” Fung said in a phone interview this week. “There’s going to be a lot of changes. I think it would be better to have a stronger minority district.”

CENSUS SHOWS CHANGES Currently, in District 1, the Asian voting-age population is 36 percent, while the white voting-age population, according to the 2010 Census, has grown to 46 percent. In addition, Chinatown residents simply have more in common with Lower East Side residents — in terms of such issues as housing, fair wages, zoning and concerns about development — than they do with wealthier residents in Tribeca and Battery Park City, Fung added. “I think it’s indisputable that Chinatown residents and Lower East Side residents have strong community interests, and that’s one of the criteria of redistricting,” she noted.

Twenty years ago, Fung said, the advocates for creating the current district lines, including AAFE, felt there should be an Asian district and a separate Latino district. However, she said, the landscape has changed, noting, “What was a 43 percent Asian population in District 1 in 1991 is now 36 percent Asian.” And in Mendez’s District 2 — which Fung noted, “was definitely intended be the Latino-opportunity district” — the Hispanic population has also dipped, according to the Census, now standing at only 18 percent, while that district’s white population is 59 percent, Fung added.

‘LOSING MINORITY POPULATION’ “What I’m concerned about is that both districts are losing minority population,” the AALDEF director said, “and I think there’s the possibility of creating a strong minority district, and they have common concerns that would constitute a ‘community of interest.’ ” Kui and AAFE, though, see it differently. “Right now we have two very, very good members of the City Council who are actually Asian and Latino,” he said, referring to Chin and Mendez, “and District 3 [with] the Village and gays and lesbians...kind of connecting all minorities together. We have three progressive voices in Lower Manhattan.” Yes, admittedly, it took 20 years to elect an Asian candidate, but it finally did happen, and things are working, he said. And District 2 has had Latino representation in its past three councilembers: Antonio Pagan, Margarita Lopez and now Mendez.

Continued on page 27

August 30 - September 12

Guerrilla garden action as Stanton lot is taken over BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL A small parcel of land on Stanton St. that has stood vacant for more than 30 years has the potential to become a battleground between garden activists and developers. As gentrification continues apace on the Lower East Side, on Sun., Aug. 19, a group of neighbors and activists decided to push back. Recently, locals were alarmed to find a sign reading, “Lot For Sale, Residential Development” on the “L”-shaped plot facing Stanton and Attorney Sts. In a presentation to Community Board 3 earlier this year, plans were unveiled for a five-story building with 14 apartments on the 5,000-squarefoot lot. Though residents in an adjoining building had been making surreptitious forays into the lot for years through a ground-floor window, the construction of a building that would practically abut the walls and windows of 141 Attorney St. and 179 Stanton St. spurred neighbors and local activists to action. Claire Costello, whose window overlooks the lot, approached the chain-link fence on Stanton St. Waiting for her outside the gate were five people from the group “Made In LES.” “I tippled the gate,” she said in her Irish-accented voice, pointing to a narrow entryway under the fence that was now ajar at a 45-degree angle, providing just enough room for the garden-minded activists to squeeze under. A half-dozen volunteers from the Times Up! Gardening Committee followed them into the lot. In addition to worries about a new building blocking light and air, there was the fear of losing the chance to create a new community garden for the neighborhood. “I’ve spoken to all three schools on the street, P.S. 140, P.S. 142 and the Manhattan Charter School. They were interested in a ‘learn to grow’ program,” in a garden, she explained. Costello also envisions a community garden providing space for artists to exhibit work. During several hours, volunteers piled rotted lumber against a wall and filled a pile of garbage bags with pieces of concrete slabs. Dodie Shepard, 9, lifted a shovel bigger than she was as her sister, Scarlett, 6, planted flowers. “We had an idea, let’s do a simple cleanup to gauge the interest of the community,” said John Donahue, a graphic designer and 25-year resident of the block, as he stacked debris against one wall of the lot. “Various groups and community people are interested in open space. Today was kick-started by the proposed development,” Donohue explained. “It is in the interest of the community to have green space. Our garden will add some lungs to the asphalt of the city playground.” The parcel consists of three lots; two and a half lots are owned by the city while the other half lot is owned by William Gottlieb’s estate. The Gottlieb family controls a sizable real estate portfolio in the West Village and East Village. Sunday’s action, which was planned in a month, garnered support from several groups. Green NYC delivered tools and a wheelbarrow for the cleanup. A page on the web site 596acres.org lit up with conversations from interested parties. Wendy Brawer, founding director of the global Green Map System, was a driving force in the Aug. 19 activity. “Many of us have been dreaming of this space for years,” she said while watching soil emerge from under the rubble and weeds. “Today’s cleanup is the staring point of a community space. “Stanton Street is on fire,” she continued, pointing out all the new buildings and businesses on the block. “The neighborhood is becoming a convergence point of all kinds of social innovators who want to create green jobs in a healthier community.” “More of this needs to happen,” said Susan Howard, another longtime L.E.S. resident, as she watched hardy perennials and leadwort being planted alongside an existing apple tree. “Unlike Bloomberg’s vision of green space, which is pavement and planters, this is a place where people can get their

Photos by Jefferson Siegel

Helping clear the lot, local residents Laura and Jared Williams hauled a slab to the garbage.

hands into the dirt and grow things to eat, to bring light and air to this urban environment and reduce the heat-island effect,” Howard added. Across the street from the lot is the century-old Stanton Street Shul, where an early planning meeting for the cleanup took place. “We are very happy that neighbors on this block are taking responsibility for cleaning up two derelict lots which attracted garbage on the streets. How could you be against that?” said shul member Esther Malke. “Having a green space will make this block into what shul members and neighbors need.” During the past month, Costello posted fliers throughout the neighborhood announcing the Sunday action. Petitions left in bars and restaurants garnered dozens of signatures. During Sunday’s cleanup, 250 more passersby signed petitions calling for the garden’s creation. Costello plans to submit the petitions to C.B. 3 and to GreenThumb, which provides support to community gardens throughout the city. Another cleanup is planned in a month. Over the next six months, Costello hopes to remove the last of the gravel and find organizations willing to donate plants and soil. She also envisions a fundraiser in the lot featuring local artists. The creation of the first community garden in 1974, the Bowery Houston Community Farm and Garden, founded by Liz Christy, sparked a rush to claim and convert weedravaged vacant lots into pocket parks throughout the East Village and Lower East Side. With less than a dozen community gardens now in the Lower East Side, the data-sharing collective Oasisnyc.net lists only four vacant lots with the potential to become gardens. “It’s now or never,” warned Brawer. “If we don’t take action now, the potential for community space is lost forever.” Volunteers put a flower in a planter.

For information on how to help, e-mail Claire.Stanton. Info@gmail.com

August 30 - September 12

POLICE BLOTTER returned from her workout, all her property had been stolen. She lost an iPod Nano, valued at $200, a Samsung Galaxy 3 cell phone, valued at $400, her car and apartment keys, $400 cash and three credit cards, which she cancelled before any unauthorized use could take place. The place’s general manager told police that no one had been allowed into the gym without proof of membership.

‘Untimely’ bike loss

Photo by Clayton Patterson

Police responded to the scene on Orchard St. Monday after Carlisle Brigham, 29, died after an apparent accidental fall down the stairs.

Rape suspect sketch

Bra and panty thief

Police released a sketch (above) on Fri., Aug. 24, of the man they believe raped a woman in a Greenwich Village massage parlor the week before. The suspect entered the Body Work massage parlor, at 85 Washington Place, around 10 a.m. Fri., Aug. 17, according to police. After pretending to be a customer, he allegedly beat a 41-year-old woman unconscious and then raped her. He also stole property from the business before fleeing the scene, the report states. The suspect is described as black or Hispanic, 20 to 25 years old and about 6 feet tall. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS. Tips can also be submitted at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or by texting to 274637, then entering TIP577.

Police are looking for a man who stole more than $2,000 worth of lingerie and clothing from the Victoria’s Secret Pink store at 565 Broadway on Sun., Aug. 26. A female employee of the store said that the thief, whom she could only describe as a black man, walked through the front door around noon carrying a large black shopping bag. He proceeded to fill the bag with 30 bras, valued at $1,185 total, 30 pairs of panties, valued at $435, eight sweatshirts, valued at $372 total, and eight T-shirts, collectively valued at $140. Once he was finished, the man exited through the front door, then fled in an unknown direction.

Hudson St. arson Freak fall eyed in death A Manhattan socialite and daughter of New York City’s former budget director was found dead in a Lower East Side apartment stairwell on Mon., Aug. 27, after what authorities believe was a freak accident. Carlisle Brigham, 29, had reportedly been drinking and partying with friends the night before, and ended up at the apartment of a male friend at 191 Orchard St. She was found at the bottom of the building’s stairwell around 10:30 a.m. the next day with blunt-impact injuries to her head and neck, as well as a gaping slash across her throat that left her covered in blood. She was immediately pronounced dead. In a report released the next day and reported in the press, the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that Brigham’s death was accidental. A police investigation is ongoing, but authorities believe she may have tripped and fallen down the steep staircase due to the high heels she was wearing.

Morgan Greenburger, 19, was arrested for arson on Sat., Aug. 25, after he started a fire inside a third-floor apartment at 525 Hudson St. The apartment’s 58-year-old tenant reported the blaze at 4:50 p.m., about 45 minutes after it was first sparked, and Greenburger was apprehended nearby before he could flee. The fire did some damage to the building but it was mostly confined to the single apartment, according to the police report. A fire marshal arrived at the scene, determining that the flames had likely been the result of criminal intent. It was unclear in the report why Greenburger chose the location. It wasn’t immediately clear how the fire was ignited.

Flower bouquet robbery Police arrested two women and a man for robbery on Fri., Aug. 24, after they stole flowers from a Soho grocery store and

attacked the store’s owner. At around 7 a.m. that day, Justine Rodriguez-Furlong, 20, Nicole Hippe, 18, and Willy Koysume, 19, entered the H&H Grocery, at 471 Sixth Ave. at Prince St., and grabbed a bouquet of flowers without paying. The owner, a 49-year-old woman, who had just opened the store, tried to take back the stolen property — but when she did, the thieves began punching her and then attempted to flee. All three were caught later that morning, after the store owner called 911 and police canvassed the area.

Punched and bashed Turham Britton, 22, was arrested in the early morning of Thurs., Aug. 23, after he brutally assaulted a teenager in the West Village. The victim, a 16-year-old boy, had been walking along Christopher St. between Bleecker and Hudson Sts. at around 3 a.m., when Britton approached and began repeatedly punching him in the face, according to the police report. While the teenager was trying to recover, Britton then picked up a brick from the sidewalk and smashed him over the head with it. The attack left the boy bleeding, dizzy and in pain, and he was rushed to Bellevue Medical Center after police heard the commotion and arrived on the scene.

Didn’t lock locker A woman, 27, told police that she had been a victim of grand larceny while working out at the New York Sports Club gym at 503 Broadway on Sun., Aug. 26. She said that, before exercising at around 11 a.m. that day, she left her belongings in a gym locker — but didn’t place a lock on it. When the woman

Police are looking for a thief who stole a bicycle from the corner of Prince and Greene Sts. on Sat., Aug. 25, and who, in doing so, made off with a valuable wristwatch. The bike’s owner said he had locked it against a gate outside the Greene St. building where he was shopping at around 11 a.m. When he returned 15 minutes later, both the bike — a Marin valued at $450 — and the lock had been stolen. The thief also ended up with the bag attached to the bike, containing an Audemars Piguet watch. The victim told police he had been planning to take the timepiece, valued at $12,000, to a repair shop later that day.

Phantom phone theft A woman, 28, told police that while she was walking past the corner of Spring St. and Sixth Ave. on Fri., Aug. 24, she realized her phone had been stolen. The woman said that she was sure she had secured the iPhone 4S, which she valued at $650, in her purse. But at around noon, after walking up Sixth Ave. for about 20 minutes, she discovered the phone was gone, though no one had bumped into her and she didn’t see a suspect at any point. Using the “iFind” app, the woman was able to track her phone to its last known location, at 500 Eighth Ave., but neither perpetrator nor phone has been found.

Suitcase gets swiped Police are looking for an unknown thief who stole a suitcase with more than $1,000 in property from the front of a Hudson St. apartment building on Sun., Aug. 19. A tenant of the building, at 282 Hudson St., said she left the suitcase outside unattended while walking up to her apartment. When the woman, 54, returned 15 minutes later, it was gone, along with the belongings inside it. The stolen property included an iPad, valued at $500, several shirts, valued at $275, various jewelry items, valued at $175, plus the suitcase itself, valued at $160. The woman attempted to track the thief using her iPad, but it had already been turned off, and could not be found.

Sam Spokony

August 30 - September 12

Helen Iannello, 89, political and community activist Iannello also was part of the effort to save the castle-like Jefferson Market Courthouse and convert it into a public library. Her son Mark Iannello, speaking at her funeral Mass at St. Joseph’s Church, at Sixth Ave. and Washington Place, said, “She was a special person for a special time in Greenwich Village. “My mom helped to keep sightseeing buses off the streets of Greenwich Village,” he said. “She also stood up for the rights of homeless people. She was a proponent of affordable housing. “She was a devout Catholic, and yet when she differed with Rome, she did what she thought was the right thing and created the Catholic Women for Abortion Association,” her son recalled. “She fought for gay rights issues, and the installation of statues depicting gay lovers embracing in the West Village,” he said, referring to George Segal’s “Gay Liberation” statues in Christopher Park. The plan for the sculptures — to mark the 10th anniversary of the Stonewall riots — drew strong opposition from some local residents when the idea was hatched in 1979. Eventually, the statues were installed, 13 years later. Her son noted his mother also helped to save The James Children Center on the Lower East Side. With the help of many, including Art D’Lugoff of the Village Gate, her son recalled,

OBITUARY BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Helen Iannello, a fixture in the politics and struggles of Greenwich Village in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, died on Aug. 18 at age 89. A Greenwich Village native, she was born and grew up on Thompson St. She attended P.S. 3 and New York University. She rose to become an early president of the Village Independent Democrats club, later becoming a charter member of the offshoot Village Reform Democratic Club, formed by Ed Koch’s backers when V.I.D. backed Mario Cuomo for governor over Koch. “She was a tough lady and a very smart lady,” Koch said. “She was a very good friend — especially when you were under attack, she’d be there standing up for you.” She was an original member of Community Board 2 — on which she served for many years — and was also on the community advisory board of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Among the many causes she championed, Helen Iannello fought to block Westway. The proposed mega-project would have added landfill in the Hudson River along the Lower West Side, through which a highway tunnel would have run, with new housing built above it. Westway was defeated and eventually the Hudson River Park was built in its place.

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she battled the city to change the Fifth Ave. bus route, so that buses would no longer drive around the Washington Square Park fountain. She helped push for the renovation of the Carmine Street Recreation Center, on Seventh Ave. South, now known as the Anthony Dapolito Recreation Center. Along with fellow V.I.D.’ers, Helen Iannello marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights battles of the ’60s. “She fought — it seems like constantly — for the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as for Planned Parenthood and the A.C.L.U.,” Mark said. “She even locked horns with the developers of the complex across the street to prevent them from building disproportionately taller buildings,” he told those gathered at St. Joseph’s in memory of his mother, regarding the development across Sixth Ave. from the church. “Helen also did a lot to save this very church,” he said, “by bringing into the fold so many open-minded people — and, as a result of all their hard work, they have changed St. Joseph’s from a stodgy old place, to a vibrant, forward-looking congregation.” Helen Iannello served in the Navy WAVES

during World War II and “was quite a Jitterbugger in her day,” he recalled. “She received last rites three times in her life, and now for the fourth time, and whenever the subject of death came up she often said, while shaking her finger, ‘I’m sticking around, just for spite.’ She was quite a feisty character,” her son said. In her earlier career, she worked at Macy’s in the advertising department for many years. In a letter of recommendation, William F. Hilz, director of broadcasting and advertising for R.H. Macy Co., said, “Helen is one who has honesty, integrity and a sense of pride in doing more than is ever asked. She will get the job done.” After her V.I.D. ally Koch was elected mayor — “she could pick her job at that point,” Mark noted — she worked for the city administration, overseeing contracts above $50,000 for the Department of General Services, to ensure that women and minorities were not being left out of the agency’s work force. She married an electrical engineer from Virginia who she met in Brooklyn, who worked on the space shuttle and the first computer, according to Mark. They divorced in 1960, and he died two years ago. In addition to Mark, she is survived by another son, Anthony. Perazzo Funeral Home, 199 Bleecker St., was in charge of arrangements. In 2007, Ed Gold, writing for The Villager about V.I.D. and its historic upset of powerful District Leader Carmine De Sapio (“The club that toppled Tammany turns 50”), recalled, “Very few Italians joined V.I.D. But one, Helen Iannello, was conspicuous before John LoCicero, who became Koch’s top political aide in City Hall, came aboard in the mid’60s. Iannello, who was very outspoken, ran for Executive Committee in 1963 and contended that, ‘It’s very hard to get elected to the Executive Committee if your last name ends in a vowel.’ A man jumped up in the rear of the room and shouted: ‘I haven’t had any trouble.’ “ ‘What your name?’ Iannello asked. “ ‘Shapiro,’ he shot back. It eased the tension. She got elected, and later would be president of the club.”

August 30 - September 12

Shulamith Firestone, radical feminist, wrote best-seller, 67 OBITUARY BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Shulamith Firestone, a pioneering feminist who shot to fame at age 25 with her best-selling book, “The Dialectic of Sex,” was found dead in her East Village apartment on Tuesday. She was 67. Alerted by neighbors, who had smelled a strong odor from her apartment, her superintendent peered in through a window from the fire escape and saw her body on the floor. Her landlord, Bob Perl, said she had probably been dead about a week. He said her one-bedroom unit included rows of books, including Greek classics. Suffering from mental illness, she had shut herself off from contact with other people. Perl said the cause of death is unclear at this point — police said it wasn’t starvation — and that the coroner’s report should provide an answer. Perl purchased the building, 213 E. 10th St., in 1993, and figures Firestone lived there, on the fifth floor, for about 30 years. “She was not well for many years,” Perl said, noting that her family members and “strangers” would pay her rent when she was unable to. “She was a prodigy. But she had been ill for so many years, she lost contact with the outside world.” Firestone grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Ottawa, Canada. According to Perl, she leaves at least two sisters, one of whom, Tirzah Firestone, is a rabbi in Boulder, Colorado. Published in 1970, her “The Dialectic of Sex” was a key feminist work that presaged today’s issues surrounding birth and science. The book influenced her feminist contemporaries as well as those who followed behind her. “No one can understand how feminism has evolved without reading this radical, inflammatory, second-wave landmark,” said Naomi Wolf. According to Amazon.com, “The book synthesizes the work of Freud, Marx, de Beauvoir and Engels to create a cogent argument for feminist revolution. Identifying women as a caste, she declares that they must seize the means of reproduction — for as long as women (and only women) are required to bear and rear children, they will be singled out as inferior.” According to Wikipedia, “She advocated the use of cybernetics to carry out human reproduction in laboratories as well as the proliferation of contraception, abortion and state support for child-rearing; enabling [women] to escape their biologically determined positions in society. Firestone described pregnancy as ‘barbaric’… . Among the reproductive technologies she predicted were sex selection and in vitro fertilization.” Firestone wrote in “The Dialectic of Sex”: “…[J]ust as to assure elimination

Shulamith Firestone.

of economic classes requires the revolt of the underclass (the proletariat) and, in a temporary dictatorship, their seizure of the means of production, so…the elimination of sexual classes requires the revolt of the underclass (women) and the seizure of control of reproduction... . The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least the option of) artificial reproduction: … [T]he dependence of the child on the mother (and vice versa) would give way to a greatly shortened dependence on a small group of others in general… . The division of labour would be ended by the elimination of labour altogether (through cybernetics). The tyranny of the biological family would be broken.” One of her few friends in her later years was Lourdes Lopez, who met her about 10 years ago through a mutual friend. Lopez, a Lower East Side native, is a human resources administrator at Columbia. She said she enjoyed going to movies and museums with Firestone. “She was very down to earth,” she said, noting that Firestone painted people who were close to her. “She was isolated at the end and had changed her locks,” Lopez said. “We tried to get Mobile Crisis in there. She pretty much, because of her illness, cut off people. I was really pretty much the only person she trusted at the end as her illness took over. Between hospital stays, we would hang out for a few months until she went off her medication,” and then the process would repeat, Lopez said. She said Firestone was paranoid-schizophrenic, as far as she knew, and had been hospitalized many times over the years. Nevertheless, “She did write two other books and continued to paint,” she said. Lopez is openly lesbian. As for Firestone, she said, “Honestly, she was never really tied to anyone,” and never spoke of her own sexual orientation.

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August 30 - September 12

Silver is facing scrutiny for sex harass cover-up Continued from page 1

tion with two other cases where female interns of his also alleged that he had sexually harassed them. Silver initially said the first sex-harassment claim was handled quietly — and not referred to the Assembly’s Ethics Committee — because the woman making the complaint wanted to guard her privacy. However, attorney Gloria Allred, who represented the woman, is saying that wasn’t the case and that she would never squelch a government investigation. The Daily News editorialized on Wednesday that the payout of New Yorkers’ taxpayer dollars to settle the initial Lopez harassment complaint may well have exceeded the reported $103,800 — since that’s only apparently what Allred was paid for what were indicated as “legal services.” The News has filed a Freedom of Information Law request for all documents pertaining to the “cover-up” of the secret settlement — a settlement for which a staff member of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman gave advice on and for which State Controller Thomas DiNapoli O.K.’d the payment. In a statement released on Tuesday, Silver said, “In July 2012, two employees

in Assemblymember Vito Lopez’s district office filed a complaint about sexual harassment in the assemblymember’s office. We referred the complaint promptly to the bipartisan Assembly Committee on Ethics and Guidance and acted swiftly on their recommendations last Friday. “However, it has been the opinion of Assembly counsel, which I endorsed, that if an employee or employees represented by counsel request a confidential mediation and financial settlement, the Assembly would defer to the employees’ desire for mediation and confidentiality and that this precluded referring their complaints to the bipartisan Committee on Ethics and Guidance. “While that opinion is both legally correct and ethical and can result in a resolution sought by complaining employees, I now believe it was the wrong one from the perspective of transparency,” Silver said. “The Assembly (1) should not agree to a confidential settlement, (2) should insist that the basic factual allegations of any complaint be referred to the Ethics Committee for a full investigation and (3) should publicly announce the existence of any settlement, while protecting the identity of the victims. “I am deeply committed to ensuring that all of our employees are treated with respect and dignity and I take full responsibility in not insisting that all

cases go to the Ethics Committee. Going forward I will work with independent experts and our counsel’s office to ensure that we put in place policies that both protect the interests of victims and provide adequate transparency and accountability to the public.” Meanwhile, most local legislators have been declining to comment on the latest story about the secret settlement. Last week, however, many of them were happy to call for Vito Lopez’s being stripped of his committee chairpersonship — or even more, for his resignation from the Assembly. But to say anything against the speaker — the state’s second-most powerful Democrat after Governor Cuomo — is another matter entirely. “No comment,” said Kelly Magee, Councilmember Margaret Chin’s spokesperson, on Wednesday. Chin’s Lower Manhattan district overlaps with Silver’s. Others simply did not respond to requests for comment, including Assemblymembers Brian Kavanagh and Dick Gottfried, and Borough President Scott Stringer. Congressmember Nydia Velazquez, who has no love lost for Lopez — whose handpicked candidate she recently defeated in a primary race — also did not return calls for comment. Brad Hoylman, who is running for Tom Duane’s state Senate seat, also did not respond to requests for comment. Asked for a comment from Council Speaker Christine Quinn, her aide Jamie McShane sent Quinn’s statement from last Friday, which referred to the two publicly known cases of sexual harassment by Assemblymember Lopez: “There must be zero tolerance of sexual harassment in all workplaces, always,” Quinn said. “Chairman Daniel O’Donnell and the Assembly Committee on Ethics and Guidance have conducted a serious, thorough investigation and Speaker Sheldon Silver’s actions [stripping Lopez of his committee chairpersonship] are warranted and appropriate. Because of the seriousness of these findings, Vito Lopez should immediately resign from office and step down as chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.” However, asked for a statement by Quinn on the secret settlement, McShane did not respond by press time. Matt Borden, Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s chief of staff, said Glick was “unavailable for further comment” but “has been quoted in a few other places,” and said to feel free to use those statements.

Glick told the Albany Times Union that Silver seems to have done everything he could, even if settlement payments were made for some victims of Lopez. “We spend a lot of money to settle claims against public employees,” Glick said. “Men behaving badly is not limited to Albany and that women in the workplace continue to face these things, it’s disgraceful.” According to the Times Union, Glick said the Assembly offers an open path for reporting incidents of harassment and regular training for staff and members is conducted. “We cannot change individuals without a brain transplant or something,” Glick said. New York taxpayers shelled out big bucks five years ago to settle a case against Michael Boxley, Silver’s then counsel, by a woman who claimed Boxley had raped her in 2003. The woman charged that Boxley was a “known predator” within Silver’s office. She sued Silver for negligence and accepted a $507,500 settlement and a promise of reforms to remove any peril from the workplace. However, taxpayers ultimately paid about $500,000 of that bill. Boxley pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual contact. Joseph Santora, a retired litigator, later sued to have Boxley and Silver foot the bill. But State Supreme Court justice Emily Jane Goodman ruled that because state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer authorized that the payment be borne by taxpayers, Silver and Boxley should not subsequently be forced to repay the money, and that voters could express their view when they cast their ballots. “If in representing State officers in their official or individual capacities, the Attorney General errs in judgment in the conduct of the litigation, the remedy lies not before the Supreme Court, but at the polls,” Justice Goodman wrote. In addition, Governor Cuomo this week said it’s the state’s responsibility to try to settle these cases. Arthur Schwartz, the Village’s State Democratic Committeeman, was one of the only local elected officials to openly criticize Silver over the latest developments. Speaking Wednesday, Schwartz told this newspaper, “I think that Lopez should resign, and I am greatly disappointed that Assemblymember Silver participated in covering up the first incident and then using public money to pay damages to the complainant. Lopez should have been forced to pay.”

Mic check! Read The Villager and East Villager!

August 30 - September 12

Landmarks Commission nixes bid to save key gay history site BY DUNCAN OSBORNE After the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Landmarks Preservation Commission refused to landmark a Spring St. building that was home to early gay rights leaders in New York City, openly gay elected officials and longtime L.G.B.T. activists gathered outside the building last week to denounce the decision. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I question their integrity and their lack of respect for our history,â&#x20AC;? said Allen Roskoff, the president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, at a Wed., Aug. 22, press conference held outside 186 Spring St. Beginning in the early 1970s and into the early â&#x20AC;&#x2122;80s, the building, constructed in 1824, was, at various times, home to Jim Owles, who was Roskoffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s partner, as well as to Arnie Kantrowitz and Bruce Voeller. Other leading gay political figures are known to have spent time in the building. Owles, who died in 1993, was a founder of the Gay Activists Alliance (G.A.A.), an early political group, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), and the Gay & Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID), a political club. His 1973 run for City Council made Owles the first openly gay candidate to run for political office in New York. Kantrowitz, now 71, was a G.A.A. officer and a GLAAD founder. Voeller, who died in 1994, was a founder of what is now the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He ran the group from 1973 to 1978. He was also in the leadership of the gay communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response to AIDS. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is a history that we should be honoring,â&#x20AC;? said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which has led the fight to save the building. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is a history we should be protecting.â&#x20AC;? In 2006, G.V.S.H.P. asked that a large part of the South Village be designated a historic district. Only about one-third of that proposed area has, in fact, since been landmarked, with 186 Spring St. in the unprotected section. On Aug. 15, the L.P.C. wrote to Berman saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Although the events and figures associated with 186 Spring Street are historically significant, the building lacks the requisite architectural integrity to warrant recommending 186 Spring Street to the full commission for consideration as an individual landmark.â&#x20AC;? Nordica Development wants to build â&#x20AC;&#x153;luxury loft-style condominiumsâ&#x20AC;? on the site, and would demolish 186 Spring St. for the project. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was an integral part of the gay rights movement,â&#x20AC;? said Tom Duane, the openly gay state senator whose Manhattan district runs from Canal St. to the Upper West Side and comes within a block of the Spring St. building. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There would be no Tom Duane elected to anything if not for the people who lived in this building,â&#x20AC;? he

Photo by Tequila Minsky

Activist Allen Roskoff spoke at the Aug. 22 rally outside 186 Spring St., which is facing demolition.

said. Duane was the first openly gay person elected to the City Council and to the state Senate. A host of other elected officials and gay groups have written the L.P.C. asking it to preserve the building. Openly gay City Councilmember Daniel Dromm, who represents part of Queens, said that too many people in the queer community did not know their own communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history or its early leaders. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Most people in the L.G.B.T. movement donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even know who they are,â&#x20AC;? Dromm said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why we must preserve this building.â&#x20AC;? The Firehouse, G.A.A.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Wooster St. headquarters, was roughly two blocks away, so it was not uncommon for G.A.A. members to stop by the Spring St. building after political or social events at the Firehouse. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was here...that all of the early leaders resided,â&#x20AC;? said Steve Ashkinazy, a member of the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, who spent time in the house. The city has not noted or protected any building or other location expressly because of its place in queer community history, according to Berman. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the entire city of New York, there is not a single site that the city has recognized because of its importance to L.G.B.T. history,â&#x20AC;? he said. The Stonewall Inn bar on Christopher St. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the site of the 1969 riots seen as launching the modern gay rights movement â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is a state and federal landmark, but New York City has not protected it. The L.P.C. did not respond to e-mails seeking comment. Reached by phone by this reporter, StĂŠphane Boivin, Nordicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s president, said he was occupied and could not speak.

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August 30 - September 12

EDITORIAL The NYCHA crisis At one point during last Thursday’s City Council hearing on the New York City Housing Authority and security cameras, Council Speaker Christine Quinn asked John Rhea, the authority’s commissioner, to commit to providing better accountability on how NYCHA is using the capital funding it gets from the Council. Rhea hedged, saying he needed more “clarity” from the Council. Stunned, Quinn laughed, and said she didn’t understand. It was a telling moment — pointing to NYCHA’s issues around transparency. Eventually, Rhea relented, saying NYCHA would give the Council quarterly updates on how it’s spending these capital funds. That’s a major step forward for a city agency that has come under fire for sitting on $1 billion in funding that should be going to repairs and safety improvements. Daily News exposés have blown the cover off NYCHA’s dysfunction. The News reported the authority has $42 million earmarked for installing security cameras, but which instead has gathered dust for eight years. Councilmembers testified at the hearing that their housing developments critically need cameras to combat crime and gun violence. James Sanders, who represents the Rockaways, said that, over multiple years, he allocated $7 million total for cameras and security for his NYCHA developments. But he stopped, he said, after seeing zero results, feeling the money was going “into a black hole.” In his defense, Rhea said NYCHA tenants approved his “layered access” plan, which includes better front-door locks, cameras and better lighting. But it seems to us Rhea should instead be implementing security improvements more incrementally, as the money comes in — rather than studying, designing, waiting…and ultimately not doing enough, rapidly enough. The News has called for the ouster of Rhea and NYCHA’s two other highly paid commissioners, Margarita Lopez and Emily Youssouf. And the mayor has responded, saying he now wants to eliminate Lopez’s and Youssouf’s paid positions and move to a nonpaid board, similar to what exists at other city agencies. As of now, Lopez and Youssouf remain on NYCHA’s board, each with a nearly $200,000 annual salary — plus paid drivers — since changing the authority’s structure may require state action. Councilmember Rosie Mendez, who chairs the Council’s Public Safety Committee, feels the authority actually has been improving. For example, instead of having a backlog of 500,000 repair requests from residents, that number has dropped to around 300,000. Percentagewise that’s impressive — but the number is still staggering, and it simply shouldn’t take years to get basic repairs. Also, in a smart move, NYCHA “federalized” 21 of its developments last year, becoming eligible for an immediate $400 million in federal money, plus up to $75 million in federal funds annually forever. Mendez also told us that having paid board members at NYCHA is part of the reason for any of its successes. Of course, Lopez held the East Village City Council seat before Mendez and was her political mentor. In fact, they also live in the very same East Village walk-up building. Let’s hope Mendez’s association with Lopez is not coloring — even ever-so slightly — her judgment of an agency that must be looked at with a very critical eye. Meanwhile, Borough President Scott Stringer has issued a report, “Reforming NYCHA,” that blasts the agency for “managerial dysfunction” and having an overpaid board, while senior staff positions are left unfilled. He also supports having an all-volunteer board. As a Bronx pastor said at last week’s hearing, the mayor has focused on things like transportation and public safety, but NYCHA remains “the elephant in the room.” It’s time the administration address the NYCHA crisis with the same vigor it has put into other initiatives.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR So grateful for Berman

I’ll tell you about change…

To The Editor: Re “Top 10 outrageous things about N.Y.U. plan approval” (talking point, by Andrew Berman, Aug. 16): Andrew Berman is this generation’s Jane Jacobs and I am so grateful that he fights for the Village. Thank you, Andrew. Even if we lose this battle you will always be remembered for your effort in doing what was right.

To The Editor: Re “Here today, gone tomorrow” (letter, by Bernard McElhone, Aug. 16): I haven’t read Bill Weinberg’s talking point (“Gentrification, genocide and the shadow of Bialystok,” July 12), although it was interesting to read Bernard McElhone’s response to it. To use his own words, I believe McElhone “fails to acknowledge the realities” of gentrification as they played out on the Lower East Side. Mr. McElhone paints a pretty and fairly accurate picture of immigration and assimilation. However, spatial deconcentration and gentrification are two entirely different processes, and have nothing to do with wanting “a lawn and a garage,” as McElhone says. The L.E.S. is the neighborhood where landlords used thugs to force tenants from their homes. Then they hired arsonists to burn the buildings down, so they could collect on the insurance. This is the neighborhood where the city turned its back as drugs ravaged every block. Instead of “moving on,” to again quote McElhone, this is a neighborhood where almost a generation of black and Latino youth either went to prison or died in the gutter. No, Mr. McElhone, they never had a chance “to become Americans.” McElhone is right about one thing, though: “No one remembers.” I can’t think of a clever or subtle punch line here; but having “lived through the several waves of crime” that McElhone refers to, I can assure him that many of the current changes in the neighborhood indeed were “effected through the violence of police nightsticks.” As the Mollen Commission, appointed by former Mayor David Dinkins, and the Knapp Commission, appointed by former Mayor John Lindsay, proved, the Police Department was rife with corruption and abuse of authority. While “genocide” may be too strong a word, it is hard to find a word that embodies the moral equivalent of what happened, not only in the L.E.S., but in Harlem, East New York and, yes, even in McElhone’s childhood neighborhood, the South Bronx. Personally, I find it more reprehensible that anyone as educated and articulate as Mr. McElhone appears to be so willing to gloss over the uncommonplace occurrence of atrocities that he calls “New York neighborhood change.”

Laura Bong

You’ve got to be kidding! To The Editor: Re “Hot Stuff! Park benches are unfit to sit, hit 125 degrees” (news article, Aug. 16): According to its spokesperson, the Parks Department is relying on future tree growth to shade and cool the black, hot-seat benches in Washington Square Park. However, most exposed hot seats are nowhere near the tree lines, especially on the eastern part of the park. This is more pablum that the Bloomberg administration feeds the public, and is not much better than its deafening silence on the disappearance of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Vahe A. Tiryakian

Just gimme that shimmy To The Editor: Re “Burlesque will be on the menu with stripped-down poetry club” (news article, Aug. 2): Aww, honey. … Does K Webster think that we make money off this job? Do you think that we do burlesque to pay the rent and feed our babies? This is my hobby that I look forward to every week. It’s a highly expensive hobby. I actually would be rolling in dough if I wasn’t spending so much money on my awesome costumes. Some of us ladies simply love our bodies and love the stage. Are you going to tell me that my “DragonBall Z” act in which I spend most of my stage time transforming into a Super Saiyan is a result of being exploited by a male-dominated society? We are artists. Just because it isn’t your same definition of art, doesn’t mean you should pity us and discriminate against us. We do what we do because we love it.

Jerry The Peddler

Stella Chuu

Continued on page 28

EVAN FORSCH

August 30 - September 12

An ‘Objective’ look at Ryan and his abortion stance TALKING POINT BY JERRY TALLMER Wonder of wonders. Who could have foreseen that not just one but two Off Off Broadway farces about Ayn Rand, the High Priestess of Selfishness, would be headed our way even as her most talked-about political acolyte, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, had been selected as baggage-carrier for a presidential hopeful named Willard Mitt Romney? Well, maybe those strange people could have foreseen it who believe — no, would have us believe — that Barack Obama’s mother could have planted his birth notices in Hawaiian newspapers and places of record a full 50 years before the actual birth, in Hawaii, of her son the actual president. I doubt if Ayn Rand disciple Paul Ryan is going to squeeze in a quick educational trip to Off Off Broadway just as the Republican National Convention is closing in on him and us, so here, Mr. Ryan, is what you’re going to miss: 1. “Ayn Rand in Wonderland,” a triple ill of short, dirty and very funny plays by and starring actress / writer Hildy Brooks of Hollywood and Greenwich Village, September 6-8 at the American Theater of Actors, 314 West 54th Street, (212) 581-3044.

“Wonderland” takes Ayn Rand from a raucous, basedon-fact appearance before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities to an even more raucous, sex-andsneering, fictional encounter with Ernest Hemingway as he and she are waiting in a TV green room to go on the Johnny Carson show.

‘A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born.’ Ayn Rand Payoff line, incredulous Hemingway to Rand, on her boast about “Fountainhead” star Gary Cooper: “You f----the Coop?” I once tried to read “The Fountainhead,” by the way, long, long ago. Turned to the rape scene, like everybody else. Thought it trash. Whole book trash. Just last night, on the tube, Ron Reagan, son of Ronald Reagan, spoke of Ayn Rand’s “turgid banalities.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. Back to Off Off Broadway:

2. “Song of a Convalescent Ayn Rand Giving Thanks to the Godhead,” an entertainment written by Michael Yates Crowley and performed by him and Michael Rau, September 13-20 at IRT (Interborough Repertory Theater), 154 Christopher Street, Apt. 3B, (212) 627-8098. The only thing I can tell you about this show is that it’s tied to quite a lot of loud music — the kind I believe Paul Ryan goes for. I know he also goes for strict bans on all forms of abortion — for rape by ultrasound — and has sponsored a nationwide bill giving the fetus (every fetus everywhere) “personhood” at the instant of conception, thus making all post-coitus birth control liable to prosecution for murder in the first degree. What would Ayn Rand have said? Here, Mr. Ryan, is what she did say (in The Objectivist): “An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, but only too an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not yet living (or the unborn). “Abortion is a moral right — which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved. Morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be involved. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?” Not I. Not you, Mr. Ryan. Not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. We know better than that, Off Off Broadway.

Campaign for city as 51st state; Antiwar activist on hunger strike FLASHBACK The Sept. 2, 1971, issue of The Villager (10 cents) reported that The Committee to Make New York City a State was out in full force over the weekend, trying to collect 45,000 signatures needed to put the statehood issue on the ballot in November. On The Villager’s press day, Bob Tendler, head of the Village Independent Democrats and the statehood drive’s organizer, said another 5,000 signatures of registered Manhattan voters had to be collected by that day. “The Statehood Committee is also eyeing the financial gain that the city would reap by becoming the 51st state,” the paper reported. “Tendler said that if the

proposal became a statehood referendum in November, the city would stand a chance of getting $1.5 billion in former state taxes and ‘fairer representation.’ ” Elsewhere, Villager David Malament, 23, a Columbia honors graduate and Fulbright scholar, was leading four other conscientious objectors in a hunger strike at Danbury Federal Penitentiary in Connecticut, in support of parole for antiwar protesters Fathers Philip and Daniel Berrigan. Malament, jailed for refusing to join the Army, had first been imprisoned at the Federal House of Detention, at West and 11th Sts. There, he said, he watched the other convicts “eyeing” him. Finally one of the men approached him and said, “You know, I’ve been watching you, but I’ve decided you are not weak or soft… you are a gentle man.”

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Nowadays, a coal delivery, down the chute, is a rare sight in New York City. But a Bushwick, Brooklyn, company that gets its coal from Pennsylvania still delivers to 26 restaurants, all pizza places, 16 of which are in Manhattan. The pizzerias — like John’s Pizza on Bleecker St., getting supplied, above — use it for their coal-burning ovens.

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August 30 - September 12

Landmarks: Bialystoker ‘eligible for consideration’ Continued from page 1 The building closed on Nov. 1, 2011. Now the entrance is shrouded in scaffolding and the glass on the locked door reflects the empty lot across East Broadway where the Young Israel buildings used to be before they were sold to a developer who knocked them down and then ran out of money. In the nursing home’s once-pretty garden, rotting fruit from a peach tree lies on the ground. A sign on a piece of paper by the front door says, “The Bialystoker Center is officially closed. There are no longer any synagogue services being held here.” The note ends with the words, “Goodby to one and all.” Since October 2011, a battle has raged between the nursing home’s board of directors — who would like to sell the property to a developer for demolition and conversion of the site to luxury apartments — and a group of individuals and community organizations that would like to save the building. The building’s advocates, organized as the Friends of the Bialystoker Home, have flooded the Landmarks Preservation Commission with letters, postcards and petition signatures. As the first step to landmarking, they have asked that the building be placed on the L.P.C. calendar for a public hearing on its merits. In April, Community Board 3 endorsed landmarking the building. Organizations such as the Tenement Museum, the Art Deco Society of New York and the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council are also on board.

Photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

The Bialystoker nursing home and its three-story annex on East Broadway.

On July 6, City Councilmember Margaret Chin entered the fray by writing a letter to Landmarks on the building’s behalf. She said that the building has architectural and historical significance for the Lower East Side community. “The Bialystoker Home is part of the fabric of this neighborhood and I could not allow it to be sacrificed for monolithic luxury residential development,” she wrote. As of Aug. 14, Chin’s office had not received a reply from the L.P.C., but Kelly Magee, a spokesperson for the councilmember, did not find this worrisome. “We have discussed this project with them

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extensively and do not anticipate any problems,” Magee said. Finally, on Aug. 16, there was some news. In response to an inquiry from the East Villager, an L.P.C. spokesperson e-mailed to say, “The Commission staff have determined the building is eligible for landmark consideration, and is working with the owners and elected officials to discuss next steps.” Mitchell Grubler, one of the founders of the Friends of the Bialystoker Home, said he found this response encouraging. “This means that the building qualifies under L.P.C. standards to be a landmark,” he said. “That’s something that I have not heard from them before.” However, as of Aug. 21, the building had still not been placed on the commission’s calendar, which is the first step in the landmarking process and would buy the Bialystoker home a 40-day reprieve during which it could not be sold or altered in any way. “I’m glad they’re working on it, but it doesn’t really get us to action,” said Linda Jones, a founder of the Friends of the Bialystoker Home and a member of C.B. 3’s Landmarks Committee. “I hope their statement means that they’re getting close to calendaring.” She believes that the Landmarks Preservation Commission intends to do it, but, she said, “It is really a matter of doing it before something happens to the building. We’ve had a lot of experience on the Lower East Side of owners doing damage to buildings to make them less eligible for landmarking. We don’t want to see that happen.” Jones lives in the Seward Park co-op behind the Bialystoker nursing home, which she can see from her window. “We have a lot of people watching that building,” she said. “If we saw workers doing damage to it, we would call the police.” The Bialystoker nursing home is millions of dollars in debt. The owner, Bialystoker Center and Bikur Cholim, Inc., owes up to $14 million to New York City and New York State and to the union, 1199/SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, whose members worked in the home. Bialystoker’s six-member board of directors, headed by Ira Meister, who owns a real estate management firm, says that it is necessary to sell the historic building to the highest bidder in order to pay off the debt. According to Magee, the board received

between 10 and 15 proposals for the property and selected the Aegis Group, which would pay $17 million for the purchase, tear down the existing building and erect luxury condominiums. But, Magee said, “Aegis has issues with landmarking” and would not buy the property if it were landmarked. Aegis claims that the nursing home’s floor plates would not be suitable for residential development and that the building isn’t structurally sound, Magee said. She added that 1199/SEIU “has come to some agreement with Bialystoker to cover pension, job placement, health benefits and back pay for their workers. The workers are taken care of,” which, she said, was a concern for Chin. When the building is sold, the New York State Attorney General’s Office would have to sign off on the sale because the current owner is a nonprofit organization. The A.G.’s Office is also said to be looking into allegations of financial improprieties on the part of board president Meister. In 2010, Meister bought a three-story building from the nursing home that stands on an adjoining lot. He paid $1.5 million in cash for the building, in a no-bid, closed deal. Meister said that he did the transaction to shore up the Bialystoker home’s finances. Others have pointed out that he profited from buying the building at a price well below market value. The Attorney General’s Office will not comment on whether it is investigating this deal and, if so, where the investigation stands. A mural painted in 1973 extolling the Lower East Side Jewish community and the ILGWU, which built the nearby Seward Park co-op, ornaments the side of the building that Meister bought. The mural says, “Our strength is our heritage.” In addition to appreciation for the Bialystoker building’s architecture, the loss of much of that heritage is what fuels the Friends of the Bialystoker Home’s fight. “I’m tired of big, high-rise buildings,” said Marcia Iconompolous, who is part of the group. “I understand the profit motive. I understand that real estate on the Lower East Side is cheaper relative to other areas, but we’re losing so much of what this neighborhood was about.” Across from the Bialystoker home, there are still some small Jewish shuls and community service organizations in run-down, 19th-century houses. But on the ground floor of the six-story walk-up on the corner of East Broadway and Clinton St. there are now cute stores selling Stumptown coffee and gourmet cheeses. Down the street, at 175 East Broadway, the landmarked building that once housed the Jewish Daily Forward, was converted into condos in 1999. Ironically, considering the portrait busts of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and other Socialists on the front of the building, apartments there now sell for millions of dollars and rent for as much as $15,000 a month. “The Bialystoker home was constructed by working people who, in the Depression, raised $40,000 to construct this building to take care of the elderly poor of the neighborhood,” said Joyce Mendelsohn, one of the founders of the Friends of the Bialystoker Home. “The building stands as a reflection of the culture of caring, which is part of the legacy of the Lower East Side.” For that reason alone, were there no other, she believes that the Bialystoker home must be saved.

August 30 - September 12

Buying organic: A manifesto for us and our planet CONVERSATIONS WITH HEALTH BY CHRISTOPHER HASSETT I’m continually hearing from family and friends that I should only be buying organic. For the difference in price, is organic really that much better? — Mitchell, Wall Street Buying organic is worth the difference in cost, since in doing so we support an entire range of practices that benefit not only our bodies but the long-term health of the planet. We are living in a time when the global agribusiness is consuming and destroying every aspect of our environment, from our soils to ground wells to rivers and gulf waters, our few remaining woodlands, to the very air we breathe. The immediate consequence is that we ourselves, our bodies and minds, are similarly being compromised: Our body tissue, blood and respiratory system, all of which have correlatives in the soil, water and air of our earth, are now in a general state of imbalance and decline, and this has everything to do with the mounting impacts of industrial farming. When the environment we move through begins to fail we should absolutely be concerned, and things are indeed failing all around us. Consider, for instance, the massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an area as large as 7,000 square miles, which is annually killed off by agricultural pollutants washed out from the Mississippi River, itself now wholly poisoned by a slurry of pesticides, fertilizers, animal wastes and an enormous yearly runoff of toxic soils from commercial farms. And this one dead zone replicates numerous others around the world, all rendered lifeless by a corporate agri-complex that profits handsomely in the ruin. Consider as well the produce in our markets that is now as contaminated with pesticides as the groundwater used to cultivate it. Consider farmers who breathe in these pesticides, pesticides they are forced to buy lest they be promptly muscled out of the business, only to die at alarmingly high rates from respiratory disease, organ failure and cancer. Consider the animals on these industrial farms who we in turn eat as chicken breast or filet or pork loin or pâté — these animals are routinely shovel-fed their own waste along with the minced bodies of other animals who commonly drop midstep from organ failure or disease or from the sheer exhaustion of a lifetime of abuse and fear. These same animals are pumped regularly with arsenic (yes, arsenic!) and antibiotics to help cut down on parasites and infections (with the bonus from arsenic of adding an appetizing color to the flesh) and growth hormones that work so incredibly well that the animals’ legs tend to snap under the freakish weight of their synthetically swollen bodies. The solution for this trifle annoyance? Chop off the legs and let the beast

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languish in its own excrement until, no hurry, it’s ready for slaughter. And there is no better word, for they are indeed slaughtered in ways that would, were they human, be considered crimes against humanity; in other words, their deaths are unimaginably more inhumane than was their entire existence on “The Farm.” Yet all of this is supported in the marketplace by our dollar, which in turn is supported by our unique expectation, culturally speaking, for cheap produce, dairy and meat. No other country has such unrealistic expectations, but then no other country has so contentedly given over its power, principles and pristine lands as we have in the last half century, all for the luxury of having low-cost eggs and two dollar burgers.

A conventional apple is laced with 40 different pesticides. On the skins of celery, strawberries and peaches await 60 different pesticides ready for our consumption. Spinach has 50.

There are alternatives to this mad-cow system, and buying organic is an excellent first choice. Despite the regulating fiasco for conventional farming, organic practices are fairly well monitored in the U.S. Animals raised under organic guidelines cannot be fed antibiotics or growth hormones, nor can their DNA be genetically re-engineered to produce more desirable, i.e. profitable, traits; excrement and dead bodies cannot be mixed in with the feed; access to the outdoors must be allowed for all animals, including access to pastureland for grazing. A mere few decades ago this was considered normal practice; today it is called enlightened farming, and it is one we should support. Produce grown organically cannot be chemically fertilized, cannot be genetically modified, cannot be irradiated for longer shelf life. Raw sewage can’t be pumped onto the soil. Needless to say, food grown organically tastes better and is substantially more nutritious than conventionally grown crops. It is higher in vitamins, minerals and higher even in actual weight. Perhaps the cost difference in your question is perfectly addressed here, for when dried, organically grown crops weigh as much as 95 percent more than their conventional counterparts, which means more actual food content. So if you’re spending 50 percent more on an organic apple and getting 95 percent more apple, then the differences in cost will often even out. But if the dollar remains your fixed bottom line, and I understand how this is the reality for many of us

today, then not everything you buy need be organic. For purely ethical reasons I still strongly encourage all animal products be purchased organic, no matter the difference in cost. Go a step further and look for labels that say “pasture raised” or “grass fed,” since these more specific labels let us know that the animal has indeed spent a good portion of its life in a more spacious outdoors. Some health food stores now help us in making better choices by rating how well an animal has lived, how well it’s been cared for during its time on the farm, which beyond the euphemism is time spent in preparation for our plates. Consider that one idea alone when weighing the price of your meal: This animal you are buying for dinner lived its entire life for that single purpose, for that moment when you will cook it and eat it. So is the life of that chicken worth eight dollars or twelve? Eight dollars equates to a life of cruelty and absolute misery; twelve to some standard far better. Your four dollars changes everything, including the energetic value of what you will be putting into your body. With produce, however, you can shop more thriftily and traditionally while still being aware of what tends to be harmful on the conventional shelves. A conventional apple, for instance, is laced with 40 different pesticides, many of which cannot be washed off. You will eat those pesticides, absorb them, and years later there will be a greater potential for things to go amiss. Celery, strawberries and peaches sit in our stores like art in their perfection, yet on their skins await 60 different pesticides ready for our consumption. Spinach has 50. These five top the dozen or so foods (all listed online) that you should definitely avoid when selecting conventional. Buy them organic without any hesitation. Avocados, on the other hand, along with lemons, oranges, watermelons, onions, garlic and anything else that peels away to a protected inner flesh, these you really don’t need to buy organic if money is of concern. It’s time for us all to take a stand against the noxious practices of industrial farming, not only to protect our own vulnerable bodies, which are notably larger and sicker than ever before in history, but also to protect the irreplaceable resources of this earth, which each day vanish before our very eyes. Hassett is a holistic health practitioner who specializes in restoring energy and mental clarity, losing weight naturally, and alternative approaches to health and well-being. You can contact him through his Web site: www.threeperfections.com. Do you have a question you’d like Christopher to respond to in his column? E-mail him at conversations@threeperfections.com.

August 30 - September 12

Beal pleads guilty, but med defense not up in smoke PAUL DERIENZO Dana Beal, the patriarch of Village potheads, appeared before Judge Mary Gilibride in Saunders County, Nebraska, this week for a perfunctory bench trial — at which he pleaded guilty to possession of about 150 pounds of pot. The Yippie activist is a longtime resident of 9 Bleecker St. and the organizer of the annual Million Marijuana March for pot legalization. It was the second appearance before a judge in a year for Beal. About a year ago, he was sentenced to five years in jail — with two and a half years of that under probation — after he admitted possessing another 160 pounds of pot in Wisconsin. He has about 18 months still left on that jail term. But because Beal had been already arrested in 2009 in Nebraska, he faced bail-jumping charges as well as pot charges and was extradited to Saunders County. Beal will be formally sentenced in Nebraska on Nov. 19. He faces one to 20 years. In both arrests, Beal was driving low-cost pot cross-country from California, according to him, to supply medical marijuana buyers’ clubs. Prosecutors are asking for what attorney Glenn Shapiro calls a “heavy-handed” prison sentence. Meanwhile, Shapiro, who is representing Beal in Nebraska, is asking for a sentence of time served, which would send Beal back to Wisconsin to finish his term there. The Mon., Aug. 27, hearing is termed a “stipulation bench trial,” which was requested by the defense so that Beal can appeal an adverse rul-

Dana Beal at a rally for medical marijuana in New York last year.

ing by Judge Gilibride preventing him from raising the defense that he was transporting medical marijuana to sick people in New York when he was arrested. Shapiro said the real purpose of this past Monday’s trial was to show that Beal is a “good guy who just works on the other side of law enforcement.” In effect, Beal’s guilty plea was a technicality so that he can, hopefully, launch a medical marijuana defense. Shapiro said the prosecutor “has it out for

Dana.” But he hopes the judge will look at the case for what it is and recognize Dana’s “true mission,” which Shapiro said is to “help those who don’t have funds to buy high-grade marijuana” to treat their medical conditions. Shapiro is asking Beal’s friends and advocates to mail letters in support of Beal and medical marijuana to his office at: Glenn Shapiro, Attorney at Law, Schaefer and Shapiro, LLP, 1001 Farnam St., Suite 300, Omaha, Nebraska, 68102.

These letters will be used in Beal’s appeal of the denial of his right to raise a medical marijuana defense. In 2000 the Nebraska courts ruled against allowing a medical use defense of pot possession. But lawyers think that public opinion has substantially changed over the past decade and it might be the right time to revisit the courts’ prohibition. A medial marijuana defense does not legalize marijuana, but it does allow a defendant to raise the argument that the pot was being used for a good purpose and not just to get high. In a recent letter to his judge, Beal complained he was not receiving adequate medical care in jail, including treatment for a hernia. He also complained that he hasn’t been getting the fish oil he said a doctor recommended for his high cholesterol, nor supplies of the supplement melatonin that Beal claims helps his chronic insomnia. While being held in jail in Wisconsin in 2010, Beal suffered a massive heart attack and had had to undergo bypass surgery; after the surgery, he was allowed to return to New York for three weeks before beginning his formal sentence in Wisconsin. According to Shapiro, the co-defendants in Beal’s case have all been released after serving sentences similar to what Beal has already endured. Plus, Shapiro pointed out, the average sentence of the last 200 people busted for similar amounts of marijuana in Nebraska was about 16 months. Using this formula, Shapiro said, Beal should be freed based on the jail time he’s already served.

August 30July - September 5 - 18, 2012 12

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August 30 - September 12

Photos by Lincoln Anderson

The Whitney Museum — shown in a rendering with the view from the north on the High Line — is slated to be completed within three years from now.

With the Whitney, another transformation is on track BY LINCOLN ANDERSON As the Whitney Museum’s new home is starting to rise at the High Line’s southern end, with completion slated for 2015, major changes are in store for the everevolving Meatpacking District. Lauren Danziger, executive director of the Meatpacking District Improvement Association, said she has been told the museum’s estimated visitor figures, and they’re huge — which is exactly what the Whitney’s impact will be. “Absolutely,” she said, “it brings culture Downtown in a big way — not that we don’t have culture right now. But it will change the face of the neighborhood.” For one, the museum crowds will mean more shopping, she said, in a district that is currently nightlife-heavy. The smaller, adjacent High Line maintenance-and-operations building is farther along than the Whitney project, with its steel structure already built, while the museum is only now starting to rise above its foundation level. In more immediate happenings, a temporary outdoor retail and food market by Urban Space is set to open on Sat., Sept.

1, at the corner of Washington and 13th Sts., which should be another neighborhood draw, Danziger noted. Momofuku Milk Bar, known for its decadent “compost cookies” and “crack pies,” will be among the market’s vendors. Taking it down to the street level, as for the district’s stiletto heel-grabbing, uneven, cobblestone roadways, Danziger said the city unfortunately doesn’t plan to reset and level the side streets, as she had hoped. However, a major water-main and sewer-line project will affect Ninth Ave. from 16th St. to Gansevoort St., after which the city will fix up the avenue as well as 50 feet in on the side streets. But Danziger said that won’t happen for a couple of years. Meanwhile, she slammed the “flak” that the district has faced for its rising rents, calling it unfair and exaggerated. “Property values are higher — but not as high as Soho,” she said. “I’m sick of hearing that. The prices are similar. The rents are higher than 10 years ago, when they were $20 a square foot — and rightly so. “It’s like any neighborhood that goes through a rebirth,” she said. “There’s

always a backlash against a district when it achieves extreme success. Look at Williamsburg — it was cutting-edge, and now people are knocking it.” While some high-fashion flagship boutiques have indeed departed, there’s still a fashion presence of “incredible depth,” she noted. Plus, she added, the new, mainstream stores that are coming in are “a little different” than the usual fare. For example, at the new Levi’s store, there is a tailor who will customize jeans, and people can also bring their jeans in for repair. “The retail environment is definitely changing,” she said. Basically, the Meatpacking District has it all, according to the M.P.I.A. executive director. “The Standard is like the height of cool,” she said. “There’s everything from the low-key Brass Monkey bar to high-end Catch — it’s one of the hottest restaurants in the city. And Bagatelle has the most famous brunch in New York City. There’s more to do here than ever. It’s so much fun to be here during the day — and at night.”

A new A.T.M.-ready outdoor market is opening at Washington and 13th Sts.

August 30 - September 12

Photos by Lincoln Anderson

Art is a part of the scene Galleries are one of the uses that the new Meatpacking District has become known for. In the case of “Crazy 4 Cult NYC,” a recent show of artwork inspired by cult movies, like “Edward Scissorhands,” the gallery was actually a pop-up at 64 Gansevoort St., near Washington St. It was put on by Gallery 1988, which had held the show in L.A. the past four years. A rep for Gallery 1988 said they could have gone to Brooklyn for less money, but wanted more exposure. And if they’d gone to Chelsea, they would have been “stuck on the third floor somewhere.” The Meatpacking District, on the other hand, offered a ground-floor space, plus good foot traffic. Despite the district’s entertainment boom, this section of the south side of Gansevoort St. has never had bars or restaurants, due to a use restriction.

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SEPTEMBER 6

SEPTEMBER 20

Steven Stucky, 2005 Sonate en forme de preludes

Kevin Puts, 2012 Einstein on Mercer Street

Zhou Long, 2011 Dhyana

Yehudi Wyner, 2006 The Second Madrigal: Voices of Women

Paul Moravec, 2004 Tempest Fantasy Ornette Coleman, 2007 SEPTEMBER 13 Jennifer Higdon, 2010 wissahickon poeTrees David Lang, 2008 these broken wings

SEPTEMBER 27 John Adams, 2003 Son of Chamber Symphony Henry Brant, 2002 Four Skeleton Pieces Steve Reich, 2009 Daniel Variations

John Corigliano, 2001 Winging it an Episcopal parish in the city of New York

August 30 - September 12

A hip and happening day in the life of The Standard

Photo courtesy of The Standard

A sculpture by Erwin Wurm called “Big Box Man” will grace The Standard’s front plaza until November. CK

ING D IS

MPIA

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Continued on page 26

Meatpacking District. Eat. Play. Shop. Stay.

Spacious rooms offer free-standing bathtubs and glass-walled showers without walled-in bath “rooms.” Toilets have doors but they also face floor-to-ceiling windows and it’s your choice whether to pull the curtain or not. You also will find a black bathrobe in the closet. Whether you are a hotel guest or not, starting at 2 o’clock in the afternoon until about 11 p.m., you can take an elevator to the 18th floor while watching Marco Brambilla’s video installation “Civilization” pull you into the experience of ascending to heaven or descending into hell. Exit the elevator and walk through the golden doors of The Top of the Standard (formerly the Boom Boom Room, but a copyright dispute resulted in a name change). The Top of the Standard, and the nightclub LeBain, both on the18th floor, are such exceptional nightspots that Madison Moore, a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University who taught a class last fall called “The History and Culture of Night Life,” brought his students to both venues to observe the architecture and understand the flow of these spaces. “What’s great about The Top of the Standard is that you can take anyone up there and they will be wowed, whether it’s 2 o’clock in the morning or 2 in the afternoon,” Moore said. “The view is wonderful, as is the architecture.” The golden-blonde wood “tree” that emanates from the floor of the bar and reaches up to the ceiling, spreading beams, like branches, across the bar is the centerpiece of the room itself, but the real focus of attention is the view. Again, those special, floor-to-ceiling glass windows bring the sunset above the Hudson River from far down the Jersey coastline, past

IMP

BY EILEEN STUKANE The Standard has fashioned itself as a center of invention, a place to meet any mood any time. While 337 rooms on 18 floors make this free-standing, concrete-and-glass creation that reigns over the High Line a hotel, the Meatpacking District’s Standard at Washington and W. 13th Sts. (not to be confused with the latest Standard in the East Village) has evolved into both anchor and launchpad for the area. Start with what’s on the street. Visitors and locals alike can begin a day stepping from sidewalk to a floor of 480,000 pennies in the Standard Grill, slipping into a booth, and having a 7 a.m. stack of pancakes. Outdoor seating for The Standard Grill spills into a vine-covered area that separates it from The Standard Plaza, a new summer restaurant with dining al fresco until Sept. 30, when it will likely revert to the ice-skating rink it was last winter. “The Standard is committed to this community,” said Lauren Danziger, executive director of the Meatpacking District Improvement Association. “It engages with the community, whether it’s an Easter petting zoo or an iceskating rink that is open to the public. It welcomes everybody.” The Standard Plaza opens as a brunch spot at 11:30 a.m. and goes until midnight, Sunday through Thursday, and until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Here chef Seamus Mullen (of Boqueria and Tertulia) specializes in Mediterranean, especially Spanish-influenced, cuisine, using fresh herbs and produce from The Locusts, the Upstate Staatsburg farm of The Standard’s creator, hotelier Andre Balazs. The menu of large and small plates has offerings from a wood-burning grill and an outdoor oven. Grilled shrimp, grilled bread with tomatoes, or grilled swordfish with summer squash can be accompanied by a delicious sangria. This is all before setting foot inside The Standard Hotel itself. “Openness” is key, said Daniela Maerky, marketing coordinator of The Standard. The golden-yellow revolving front door is opaque except for the clear “O”’s at eye level. The inside/outness of The Standard became apparent to the West Village while the hotel was still under construction. Several floors were available to guests before the hotel’s official opening in 2009. Every room of The Standard boasts floor-to-ceiling windows of a nonreflective glass so crystal clear it seems as if it is not even there. The spectacular Hudson River and city views no matter what room you are in — the building itself is narrow, only the width of two rooms and a corridor — caused people inside to stand at the glass agape. Soon those insiders were engaged in naked activities at the glass. Men and men, men and women, women and women gave outsiders, the meatpackers, those walking the High Line in its early days, a lot to see. New York City’s voyeurs had no complaints and The Standard Hotel’s reputation as an anything-goes, hip, exhibitionistic venue could not be debated. Today more curtains are pulled across the glass and there’s more talk about what goes on in The Standard’s nightclub, LeBain, than in its windows, but one feels the pull to be anything but “standard” at The Standard, which reminds us of its contrarian ways in its upside-down, backward logo.

E NT ASSO

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August 30 - September 12

The Meatpacking District is refashioning itself again BY EILEEN STUKANE The Meatpacking District is growing up. Right now, walking the cobblestone streets you can feel that the neighborhood is experiencing a moment in time. It’s still the chic, not-to-bemissed destination with visionary trendsetters like Jeffrey, the earliest pioneer on W. 14th St. in 1999, and Diane von Furstenberg, who established herself across the street from Jeffrey in 2001, firmly in place. Alexander McQueen also remains a presence. A sense of change is in the air, however, as certain name designers with their own stores, like Stella McCartney, who recently left the district for Soho, are starting to give way to more familiar national brands like Levi’s, Sephora and Intermix. With its maturity, the Meatpacking District is starting to shed some of the youthful upstarts who pioneered the area and gave it that fashionable “edge” when rents — which today average $400 to $600 a square foot — might have been as low as $25 a square foot. Just last month Yigal Azrouel, the fashion designer who opened his store on W. 14th St. in 2003, announced that he is heading uptown for Madison Ave. This Lower West Side hot spot is doing a bit of shape-shifting. “There definitely is a change, but what that change is, is that the Meatpacking District is coming into a new phase,” said Lauren Danziger, executive director of the Meatpacking District Improvement Association. “It has new elements, top-of-the-line hotels, the Whitney Museum coming. Larger businesses are locating here, I believe, because they want to be where the culture, and some of the hottest fashion, hottest nightlife and hottest food are located. “Most of the people who own the properties are families whose fathers and grandfathers were meat-cutters and they want to be true to the district,” Danziger said. “At the same time, they have to pay for their needs as a landlord and charge market rate, but these are people who really care. They’ve put roots down here, so to speak, and they invest money not only in the property, but in their tenants and in the public space, the cleaning, the beautification.” Danziger also points out that what the name brands like the cosmetics chain Sephora and Levi’s bring to the district are special concept stores, unlike any of their other stores. “We will never be an outdoor mall,” Danziger emphasized. Sephora, for example, has a rotat-

Photo by Jefferson Siegel

Back in May, after marrying at City Hall, David Rose and Ariane Hendrich (at left) were strolling on Gansevoort St. when they found themselves being serenaded by musicians playing French standards, including Benjamin Ickies on accordian, Rebecca Schlappich on violin, and vocalist Myriam Phiro. They played “La Vie En Rose” with Phiro (at right) channeling Edith Piaf.

ing art exhibit that aims to reflect the district’s culture and a remnant of edginess. Levi’s has only one other store like the one in the Meatpacking District, on the West Coast, which also carries the brand’s premium collections. A high-end denim store that left the area was Ruben & Chapelle’s custom jeans, with pants selling for four figures. When asked about the commercial spaces vacant on W. 14th St., Kelly Gedinsky, associate director of the Winick Realty Group, said, “I’d rather not be specific about who’s coming in, but I can tell you that I’ve heard of over four different retail leases being signed. So that vacancy is going to be filled by credit-signature national brands.” Ugg, the ubiquitous sheepskin boots (which even has a bridal collection) will be opening a store on W. 14th St. at the end of October. Rumors abound that brands such as Patagonia,

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Coach and J. Crew have shown interest in the area. Gedinsky is representing space at 420 W. 14th St., current home to the Heller Gallery, which will be leaving. Since 1999 when Jeffrey Kalinsky took a chance and moved his Jeffrey store of high-end designer clothes and accessories to W. 14th St., the Meatpacking District, which then was known by everyone in the neighborhood as the Meat Market, has evolved with great speed. In those early days, the art scene in Chelsea had already emerged and galleries were bringing in upscale-clientele collectors. It did not take much to get in a Town Car and have the chauffeur stop at Jeffrey, which was close by. The area’s grittiness gave visitors a sense of risk and adventure. After all, there really was blood on those cobblestones, along with visible carnage from an active meat wholesale and retail industry. Those loading docks sent out a deathly aroma along with an air of mystery that wafted through the streets both night and day. By night, transgender hookers prowled the streets, as a smattering of remaining clubs — both gay and straight — with names like Mineshaft, Hell and Hellfire, raged. There was no place like it. After stopping at Jeffrey, getting something to eat usually meant stepping into the French bistro Florent on Gansevoort St., where colorful denizens of the night often remained in the early morning, and Florent Morellet himself infused the place with an anything-goes optimism and energy. Soon Pastis, another French venue, by restaurateur Keith McNally, established itself in the area and more people began to hear the buzz. The Meatpacking District was a happening place in 1999 when the Friends of the High Line

was founded by local residents. The combination of young designers who moved into the Meatpacking District to launch themselves into the fashion world, and the campaign to create a special open space, a park on the High Line’s elevated railway that runs from Gansevoort St. to W. 30th St., had the area’s metabolism churning. What was not high then were the rents. Brokers confirm that 10 years ago, space could still be leased for anywhere from $50 to $80 a square foot. Today those same spaces are going for an average of $400 to $600 a square foot. Gedinsky confirmed that a number of leases back in the day when square footage was in the two-digit range have expired or are due to expire. An evolution is inevitable since a single designer may not want to, or be able to, afford these latest rates. So it is understandable for fashion designers such as Yigal Azrouel, Stella McCartney, Jusarra Lee and Shelly Steffee, to name a few, to move on, and for high-end brands to replace them. It may be a final season for a lot of the Meatpacking District’s early retailers, but with the High Line in full operation today as an elevated park coursing through the district’s western edge, and the nightlife still ruled by the exclusivity of the clubs, the area will continue to be a magnet. “While the tenure of the retail may be changing and will continue to do so when leases come up, the tenure of the district remains cutting-edge, dynamic and in itself constantly changing,” Danziger said. “The Milk Studios, the High Line Stages, have amazing creativity. There will always be a dynamic here that flourishes and fosters what’s hip and happening.”

August 30 - September 12

Photos by Lincoln Anderson

Development and dreams of After a long, drawn-out construction process, 450 W. 14th St., a.k.a. The High Line Building, above, is reportedly enjoying 100 percent occupancy. The 11-story office building â&#x20AC;&#x201D; rising above Diane von Furstenbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;jewelâ&#x20AC;?-topped skylight â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was developed by Charles Blaichman. Meanwhile, Novac Noury, the disco eraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Arrow Keyboard Man turned hopeful developer, is still searching for a partner to develop his now grass-covered lot on Little West 12th St., right, near The Standard Hotelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Biergarten. The city tore down his building two years ago, deeming it structurally â&#x20AC;&#x153;compromised.â&#x20AC;? Noury â&#x20AC;&#x201D; inventor of a wireless keyboard he wore on a shoulder strap like a guitar while boogieing on the dance floor â&#x20AC;&#x201D; had an afterhours club there called RSVP during the Studio 54 days. The mini-inn he envisions on the lot would also have RSVP, as in Rechargeable Solar-Powered Venetian blind energy, another Noury first. At this rate, though, his mini-inn might take even longer to build than the High Line Building. An arrow of glass blocks on the sidewalk marks â&#x20AC;&#x153;Arrow Way,â&#x20AC;? up which Noury would drive his white stretch limo directly into the RSVP clubâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s garage.

WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;VE GOT THE CORNER ON THE MEAT MARKET

LOCATED IN THE HISTORIC GANSEVOORT MEAT MARKET

August 30 - September 12

Photo by Liz Ligon, courtesy of Friends of the High Line

Meanwhile, down on the High Line, the real party’s going on Friends of the High Line offers a full slate of free, fun summer events for children, teens and adults. These range from studying the elevated park’s horticulture and wildlife to art projects, musical and dance performances — like the one above, underneath The Standard’s span — and movies. F.O.H.L. staff and volunteers survey park users to get their feedback. “We saw that kids wanted a little more free play and an opportunity to imagine and create,” said Danya Sherman, F.O.H.L. director of public programs, education and community engagement. “Many people expressed a lot of interest in films for families.” Free walking tours of the park are available every night at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays around dusk, there’s free stargazing with telescopes. “We really gear our programs to our neighbors and New Yorkers,” Sherman said. There are activities year-round. For the event calendar, visit the High Line’s Web site, www.thehighline.org.

A hip and happening day in the life of The Standard Continued from page 23 the Statue of Liberty, along the piers, and right into your Lady Lavender cocktail. Turn your head and through the windows

behind you, the Empire State Building is glistening. The Top of the Standard, which also has live music, becomes a private club at 11 p.m., but until then anyone can sink into the vanilla leather banquettes. “I love the old Hollywood feel, so creamy, as if you could eat it when you walk in,” said Moore. Across from the Top of the Standard is LeBain, as dark as the Top is light. Black leather banquettes, black vinyl floor, a diamond-shaped, 4-foot-deep jacuzzi with an overhead swing nearby. Early in the evening, before the true devotees of the night appear, anyone can walk through LeBain, make a right and go up the staircase transformed into a painted passage filled with graffiti-like images of man and nature by the artist Lady Aiko. Outdoors starting at 2 p.m. on the rooftop in summertime, one of the specialties of the open-air bar, a cucumber lemonade (really a vodka cocktail) can be enjoyed on a circular, pink-covered waterbed, or sitting at one of the tables. The incomparable view of river and sky can take one’s breath away. Hungry? Have a Nutella crepe or sample another offering from the crepe shack. Doorperson approval is needed for the parties that begin at LeBain about 11 p.m. Among other attractions, the popular On Top parties of Susanne Bartsch on Tuesday nights bring out the outrageous in people, the latex, leather-wearing, the club kids, the cross-dressers, the scenesters, all want to be there for the

underground music, the electricity of the moment. Swimwear can be purchased in a vending machine but people may wear nothing at all in the jacuzzi. Party nights at LeBain are hot nights for those “on the list” and those who are granted entry to be among them. For continuing into the night without doorperson approval (until 2 a.m. on Thursday and Friday, until 1 a.m. other days), the Biergarten rocks. It’s hard to believe that so much energy and hard-driving ping-pong can come from serving only three kinds of German beer. The Biergarten is a year-round outdoor, open-air space on the street level with a ceiling that is the steel structure of the High Line. The Standard is a world unto itself that has set a standard of creativity for the Meatpacking District. “I think The Standard is at the top of its game, always reinventing itself, and I think it is a reflection of the neighborhood, which is always reinventing itself, whether it be food, nightlife, landmarking,” said Danziger. To find The Standard Hotel on the corner of Washington and W. 13th Sts., look for Austrian artist Erwin Wurm’s amusing, aluminum/pink-enamel “Big Kastenmann” (or “Big Box Man”) an 18-foot-tall, 1.6-ton, headless suit that will be out in front of the hotel until November. In the virtual world, you can find out what’s happening at The Standard on Facebook and Twitter.

August 30 - September 12

Unified Village, Asian-Latino districts hot topics at hearing MENDEZ: IT WORKS NOW Continued from page 4

‘FIGHTING FOR 1 SEAT’ If, on the other hand, a new AsianLatino district were carved out, Kui said, he could foresee negative scenarios. The first would be “Hispanics and Asians fighting against each other for one seat,” he noted. “We have two already,” he said of Chin and Mendez. “Why create a situation where you put them against each other and have only one? We don’t want to go backwards.” Even worse, staking everything on a single district could lead to a candidate from neither minority group winning, but a white candidate coming in and possibly taking the seat, defeating the whole idea of the district. “Then you have nothing,” he said.

CLAIMS CENSUS WAS OFF Furthermore, he disputed the recent Census figures, asserting, “There has been a lot of undercounting” of the Asian population in Chinatown. According to AAFE, many families are living doubled- or tripled-up in apartments. However, people are reluctant to be counted, because Kui said, there’s so much development going on, people fear for their homes. “The Asian population is there — just undercounted,” he stressed. “They didn’t want to be counted because there’s so much eviction taking place.”

CHINATOWN HAS EXPERIENCE What’s more, as seen with Chin’s election, Chinatown voters are more politically savvy and engaged now, according to Kui. “There’s a lot more maturity,” he said. “We have to look at the experience and what’s on the ground, not intellectualize it.” That newfound political maturity won’t evaporate, he assured, saying, “The current representation will continue.” Also important, he said, AAFE simply does not endorse the idea of “separate but equal,” as he put it, that is, the creation of a low-income, minority district. “We don’t like that idea that you concentrate all the poverty, and low-income people — all Chinatown and public housing” into a single district, Kui explained. Bottom line, the district hasn’t changed that much since Chin was elected three years ago, so there’s no need to change things now, he stated. As for it taking two decades to elect an Asian candidate since the 1992 redistricting, Kui framed it in the larger context of Chinatown’s historical underrepresentation. “That’s why we need to preserve the gain,” he stressed. “It’s not 20 years — it’s 160 years.”

For her part, Mendez said she’s “all in favor of keeping the current district boundary lines. And we work well with the other district,” she noted of Chin. Ironically, Mendez noted, 20 years ago, her political organization, CoDA (Coalition for a District Alternative), was created to advocate for an Asian-Latino district, to counter Pagan’s faction, which backed a district similar to the current lines. Both Lopez and Mendez are products of CoDA, whose candidates have now held the District 2 Council seat for close to 15 years.

‘WHERE DOES TRIBECA GO?’ At the Districting Commission hearing, V.I.D.’ers Bradlow and Geballe both spoke in support of creating an Asian-Latino district. Geballe thought it could be achievable, while also unifying the traditional Village district, without too much difficulty. However, after the hearing, Bradlow — while discussing her preferred solution of a unified Village district and an Asian-Latino district — did wonder aloud, “Where does Tribeca go?” Asked what district Tribeca and Battery Park City would go into, Fung said AALDEF is still working on its maps to show how it all can be done, but hasn’t drafted anything final yet.

Photo by William Alatriste/NYC Council

Mendez, councilmembers grill housing head Councilmember Rosie Mendez, chairperson of the Council’s Committee on Public Housing, asked John Rhea, commissioner of the New York City Housing Authority, a question at the Aug. 16 public hearing on NYCHA and security cameras. Following recent exposés by the Daily News about millions of dollars having been allocated for cameras several years ago still sitting unspent, the heat is on the authority to show better transparency — and to speed up the installation of safety and security improvements. In the end, after being pushed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, sitting to the right of Mendez above, Rhea agreed that NYCHA would provide the Council with quarterly reports on how it is spending its capital funding.

THE BERMAN WATCH Meanwhile, redistricting could also affect the District 3 race, specifically whether Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, decides to toss his hat in the ring versus expected candidates Corey Johnson and Yetta Kurland. Specifically, if the N.Y.U. superblocks — where Berman has been actively fighting the university’s 2031 development plans — were redistricted out of District 1 and into District 3 it would be a major boost for a potential Berman candidacy. Add in Soho to District 3, as well, and a Berman run would look increasingly strong. However, Kelly Magee, Chin’s spokesperson, said while District 1 did have a significant population boom in the last decade, its numbers still fall within an acceptable range for districting purposes. That is, District 1’s population of 169,225, according to the 2010 Census, is only 5.3 percent above the mean for the city’s 51 Council districts. There isn’t supposed to be more than a 10 percent population deviation between the city’s largest and smallest districts. Because District 1 falls in the middle of that spread, it wouldn’t warrant a significant redistricting, according to Magee. She said she could see Chin’s district losing a small triangular sliver along East Houston St. to District 2, but not much more than that. The commission is slated to produce its initial district maps by Sept. 5. Another round of public hearings is scheduled for October.

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.

August 30 - September 12

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Continued from page 12

The true taste of resistance To The Editor: Re “New beer tries to tap squatters’ ‘defiant rawness’ ” (news article, Aug. 16): Thank you for your recent profile of the new beer, Doss Blockos, truly the taste of defiance. Here is one of the last photos of the entrance to the squat, taken on the April morning in 1999 just before the police came and arrested us. That’s Fran in the curlers chained to the couch. It was a long night in Central Booking, but full of sentimental memories for many us who stood with squatters, community gardeners and homelessencampment dwellers over the years. A resident of Dos Blockos whose memory is very dear to us is Ellen Glick, who died in 2005 at the age of 64. Wherever people in the neighborhood were under attack, Ellen was there, and on the phone trees to let us know it was time to get out there and block the bulldozers again. Except in 1995, when instead of bulldozers the city chose to bring out a refurbished military tank to clear the way to the 13th Street Squat. Another long night in Central Booking. But it’s nice to know that the beer that resulted from that (“Tank up with Tank beer!”) is doing well in foreign countries. That’s also us on a rainy morning in 1997 in front of Chico Mendez Garden, getting dragged out from under a

huge sanitation truck. A cold beer for a cold day, “Chico” is a hearty Brazilian brew. Michael Shenker, whose death two years ago I still find hard to accept, led us in a campaign at the U.N. 10 years ago, against the upcoming war and occupation of Iraq. For Michael the struggle for the world and the struggle for the neighborhood was all one struggle. That’s us getting dragged off to jail for the million, billion, zillionth time. “Fallujah” is the beer that was inspired by the ferocious resistance of the people of Iraq to the U.S. onslaught, but it has a nasty, metallic aftertaste, probably something to do with all the chemicals that were used in the destruction of that city. So, for years and years all we did was protest and go to jail? Wrong. The last photo is of Michael Shenker the musician, who played piano for our Catholic Worker Christmas concert of 2004, and sang as well. A special memory, a happy memory, a wonderful spirit…that has not yet become a drink, because if it did it would taste more like champagne! Felton Davis

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.

August 30 - September 12

VILLAGER ARTS &ENTERTAINMENT Fall firsts...and one second At Downtown galleries, debuts and returns

Image courtesy of the artist and Team Gallery, New York

Sam Samore: “The Murdered Brother #16” (1973, Gelatin silver print, 14 x 22 inches).

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN

SAM SAMORE: “1973” AND “LIBRARY OF APPEARANCES” The first solo presentation of Sam Samore by Team Gallery will consist of two separate exhibitions installed in the gallery’s two separate spaces. While Wooster Street will house “1973,” an exhibit of small-scale black and white photographs by the American artist, Grand Street will feature new large-scale color photographs and recent short films. Samore explores notions of privacy and myth in contemporary society, not shying away from employing photo-techniques that are favored by private detectives. While containing fetishistic qualities and at times evoking film noir, his work also remains illusive and open to interpretation. “The Murdered Brother,” one of the series to be displayed, portrays a partially inflated rubber glove in positions that are suggestive of a crime scene in a conventional suburban household. Sept. 12-Oct. 27. At Team Gallery (83 Grand St. and 47 Wooster St., btw. Grand & Broome Sts.). Call 212-279-9219 or visit teamgal.com. Hours: At 83 Grand, Tues.-Sat.,

10-am-6pm & Sun., 12pm-6pm. At Wooster, Wed.-Sat., 10am-6pm & Sun. 12pm-6pm).

QUERELLE — PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROBERT FRITZ This will be the first New York exhibition of Fritz’s production photographs taken on the set of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic and final film, “Querelle” (1982.) One hundred and nineteen color images by Fritz — a photographer, producer and performer — will be on display. In the case of “Querelle,” he worked daily on Fassbinder’s set as both an actor and production documentarian. Originally shot as color transparencies, these images were previously known to exist only as “Querelle — The Film Book” (Schrimer/Mosel-Grove, 1982). Unlike film stills, which are sourced directly from filmed footage, these photographs capture re-enactments. Here, the action was re-staged for the still camera. Sept. 7-Oct. 14. At White Columns (320 W. 13th St., enter on Horatio, btw. Hudson & 8th Ave.). Hours: Tues.-Sat., 12-6pm. Call 212 924 4212 or visit whitecolumns.org.

Continued on page 29

Courtesy of the artist, VeneKlasen/Werner, Berlin and Michael Werner, New York

Roger Fritz: “Fassbinder’s Querelle Nr.82” (1982/2011. Digital C-print, Ed. of 5, +1 AP 19 3/4 x 29 1/2 in.). See “Querelle — Photographed by Roger Fritz.”

August 30 - September 12

Fall Downtown for gallery debuts Sep. 5-Oct. 7. At Feature Inc. (131 Allen St., btw. Rivington & Sts.). Hours: Wed.-Sun., 12-6pm. Call 212-675-7772 or visit featureinc.com.

ALEX OLSON: PALMIST AND EDITOR This will be Olsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second exhibition with Lisa Cooley and the first in her new space (the former popular music venue Tonic). Olsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paintings focus on surface appearance and treatment. She scratches,

scrapes, and scars her composition, pushes her materials and applies multiple layers to establish heavy impastoe. This technique provides the viewer with a sense of time and of the aging of the work itself â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which adds an organic, almost humane quality to an otherwise abstract vocabulary. Sept. 9-Oct. 14. At Lisa Cooley (107 Norfolk St., btw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.). Hours: 10am-6pm,Wed.-Sun. Call 212-680-0564 or visit lisa-cooley.com.

Courtesy of the artist, VeneKlasen/Werner, Berlin and Michael Werner, New York

Andrew Gbur: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Untitledâ&#x20AC;? (2012, gouache and screen printing ink on canvas, 68 x 84 inches; 172.1 x 213.4 centimeters).

Continued from page 29

ANDREW GBUR The painterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s solo gallery debut will include two bodies of work spanning the galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two LES locations. Concerned with paintingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reliability as a mode of communication, Gbur favors a highly graphic, formal and material visual vocabulary that reveals characteristics of post-war painting. Influenced by the works of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Gburâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s technique involves collage, silkscreen, gouache, inks and acrylic â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and allows for handmade irregularity. Autobiographical and iconic imagery, ranging from self-portraits to signs and symbols, add to a dense webs made of personal code. Overall, Gburâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work reads as a complex synthesis of the demands and stresses of contemporary life. This quality crescendos in the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so-called â&#x20AC;&#x153;face paintings,â&#x20AC;? in which

an abbreviated language of color, material and shape depict the mere remnants of the human visage. Through Sept. 30. Reception: Sept. 9, 6-8pm. At Eleven Rivington (195 Chrystie St. and 11 Rivington St., btw. Bowery & Chrystie). For fall gallery hours and more info, call 212982-1930 or visit elevenrivington.com.

GINA MAGID Born in New York City in 1969, Magid received her MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. While the subject matter of her paintings and works on paper is usually derived from popular culture, her use of form springs from her interest in the abstract layering of imagery. Striving for a feeling of transcendent beauty and mystery, Magid creates works that provide a sense of underlying psychological complexities and the connections between all things, the negative ones as well as the positive.

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BRINGING THE ARTS TO LIFE SINCE 1894

2 3 5 E A S T 1 1 T H S T R E E T â&#x20AC;˘ N E W YO R K , N Y 1 0 0 0 3 2 1 2 -7 7 7 - 3 2 4 0 â&#x20AC;˘ w w w. t h i r d s t r e e t m u s i c s c h o o l . o r g

Image courtesy of the artist and Feature Inc., New York

Gina Magid: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hwy 1, Big Surâ&#x20AC;? (2012; oil paint, charcoal on satin; 45 x 39â&#x20AC;?).

August 30 - September 12

Just Do Art! BY SCOTT STIFFLER

FACEBOYZ FOLLIEZ Dirty minds shine and freak flags fly exceedingly high — when the “Faceboyz Folliez” crew lets loose with its somewhat disturbing, shamefully compelling, always entertaining version of burlesque, variety and sexualized audience participation. With Bowery Poetry Club closed for renovations both aesthetic and stylistic, “Folliez” moves to the stage of Bar 82 until further notice. Expect whip smart antics (courtesy of skilled body work from Amanda Whip), profane literary readings from St. Rev. Jen Miller, short films from ASS Studios (directed by Courtney Fathom Sell), gay comedy shenanigans from Dick and Duane and select naughty bits from the likes of Scooter Pie and Reverend Mother Flash. Cast members Velocity Chyaldd and Stormy Leather are expected to make an appearance via video. Also on the bill, the “incredibly confident and ridiculously nervous” Keyke is the musical guest…and fetish model Maggie Mauvaise will present her very first Burlesque act! Lord knows what train wreck of a concept Faceboy has cooked up for the audience participation part of the evening — but safe to say the winner will walk away with a valuable prize, considerably less pride and more than one body part red beyond recognition. Sat., Sept. 8, at 9 pm. At Bar 82 (136 2nd Ave., btw. St. Marks Place & 9th St.). Admission: $10. For info, call 212-228-8636 or visit bar82nyc.com. Also visit faceboyzfolliez.com and facebook.com/faceboyzfolliez.

Joanna Rush, in “Asking For It” (see “All For One”).

THE 2012 ALL FOR ONE THEATER FESTIVAL One more installment and it’s officially a fall tradition…but first, they’ve got to get through the second season of “All For One” — a festival of solo performances written by the onstage talent and directed by equally formidable veterans of the New York boards (think BD Wong and Colman Domingo). Curated with an eye towards premiering works that will go on to tour theaters and campuses across America, this year’s crop of 10 includes the world premiere of “What I Thought I Knew.” Elizabeth Margid directs this account of mid-life pregnancy, performed by Alice Eve Cohen and based on her memoir. Making its New York premiere, Emmy-winner Leslie Jordan’s “Fruit Fly” ponders whether gay men are destined to become their mothers (David Galligan directs). Lynne Taylor-Corbett directs “Asking For It” — Joanna Rush’s account of being raised in a strict Catholic household, then running off to NYC with dreams of making it as a dancer…and Eliza Gould holds the reigns when Aizzah Fatima embodies six Pakistani-American women with sex, politics and religion

Photo by Ann Bettison Enzminger

Your best Bud: St. Rev. Jen Miller, elfin elixir in hand, might read something dirty when “Faceboyz Folliez” makes its Bar 82 debut.

on their minds — in “Dirty Paki Lingerie.” Sept. 14-20. Wed.-Sun. at 7pm; Sat./Sun. at 2pm & 4:30pm. At the Cherry Lane Theatre (30 Commerce St., w. of 7th Ave. South, 3 blocks s. of Christopher St.). For tickets ($25; $15 for student rush, $20 for seniors, $200 for festival pass, $15 per for groups of 10+), visit afofest. org or call 212-352-3101. A full schedule, and info on workshops, special panels and audience talk-backs can be found at afofest.org.

Leslie Jordan, in “Fruit Fly” (see “All For One”).

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August 30 - September 12

Bringing out ‘the pain underneath all that luster’ Director banking on a clean sweep of Monkhouse’s ‘Broome’ THEATER MARY BROOME

Written by Allan Monkhouse Directed by Jonathan Bank At the Mint Theater (311 W. 43rd St., btw. 8th & 9th Aves.) Sept. 10-Oct. 14 (currently in previews) Tues.-Thurs., 7pm, Fri. & Sat., 8pm Matinees: Sat. & Sun. 2pm For tickets ($27.50-$55), call 866-8214111 or visit minttheater.org

BY JERRY TALLMER A photograph of Leonard Timbrell — a glittering young man in his late 20s — has disappeared. It is discovered in the hands of Mary Broome, the demure, attractive Timbrell housemaid who has been shocked by finding several packed suitcases in Leonard’s room. When Leonard's father (an old-school Manchester businessman) demands an explanation of the lost and found photograph, the discreet housemaid says: “I had the right to it if anyone had.” “You took it from his Mother’s room?” Mr. Timbrell thunders. “Well, I shall be a Mother soon,” Mary Broome quietly replies. And thus begins a very beautiful play indeed, the 1911 “Mary Broome” by Manchester’s own Allan Noble Monkhouse (1858-1936), now rediscovered for America by Off-Broadway’s Mint Theater. That is what the Mint does — rediscovers lost or forgotten plays, most recently “Love Goes to Press,” by Martha Gellhorn

and Virginia Cowles. “Mary Broome” is a very different cup of tea. Though it was billed by its author as “a comedy in four acts,” it is a very leathery comedy indeed and will leave you — as it left me — with an ache, not a laugh. Leonard Timbrell, you see, for all his wit, charm, insight, lightness of touch, pity for his own mother, hostility toward father, contempt for older brother Edgar (a square who has equal and opposite scorn for Leonard) — for all that, Leonard, in his own words, is a brute and a rotter and in anyone's words, a no-goodnik who runs away (on a three-week fishing trip!) when the milkman and grocer demand payment, the baby is looking peaked and needs a doctor, and Mary is putting up a brave face to her own working-class mother and father, an unemployed cabman after 29 years, what with those damned motorized taxis making horse and carriage cabs obsolete. Allan Monkhouse was an all-purpose writer and playwright and for many years a columnist on the Manchester Guardian. He was born two years after Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), and Shaw’s immortal “Pygmalion” opened in London in 1912. I see an identity in spirit and some detail — even the horse-drawn cab — though Jonathan Bank, I think, does not. But certainly Mary’s father Mr. Broome (the “e” tacked on by him for gentility) and Alfred Doolittle are brothers under the skin. Mary Broome the housemaid has had advantages street flower girl Eliza Doolittle never had till Henry Higgins came along. On the other hand, Eliza, so far as we know, never got herself knocked up. One of the most appealing aspects of Mary’s character is, indeed, that she doesn’t just blame Leonard. “I’m to blame too,” she keeps saying. Takes two to tango. But “Mary Broome” rings far more bells than just “Pygmalion.” I think of all those plays-into-movies — plays of manners — that I loved in the 1940s, '50s, and since: “Holiday,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “Hobson's Choice,” “Sabrina Fair,” “I Know Where I’m Going” and

Photo by Carol Rosegg

Domestic dispute: Janie Brookshire and Roderick Hill, as Mary Broome and Leonard Timbrell.

on and on. Even that French-Viennese classic of inter-sexual social classes, Max Ophuls’ and Arthur Schnitzler’s: “La Ronde.” “Mary Broome” last played New York in 1919 at the Neighborhood Playhouse, then down at Grand Street on the Lower East Side. It can now be seen through October 14 at the Mint Theater. Leonard Timbrell is played by Roderick Hill, brother Edgar by Rod Brogan, Mr. Timbrell by Graeme Malcolm, Mrs. Timbrell by Kristin Griffith, Mr. Broome by Douglas Rees, and Mary — lovely, lonely Mary Broome — by Janie Brookshire. It wasn’t Jonathan Bank who discovered “Mary Broome” (although Bank was familiar with the work of Allan Monkhouse). It was Bank’s friend Sam Walters, artistic director of suburban London’s Orange Tree Theatre. Bank and his wife, actress Katie Firth, were at a production there in 2001 of “Mary Broome.” Halfway into it, Mrs. Bank turned to Mr. Bank and said: “You’re going to do this, aren’t you?” Her husband said: “Wait a minute. Let’s see if he [playwright Monkhouse] can keep it up.” He could and did — particularly in the scenes where unemployable Leonard, cut off by his enraged father from any income whatsoever, tries to scrabble 50 pounds, 20 pounds, 10 pounds, a sovereign, any spare change, from his mother, his detested brother, Mary’s unemployed father, anyone. Leonard is really a rotter, isn’t he, this

journalist remarked. “Yes he is,” said the director. “I hope our production will bring out the pain underneath all that luster.” George Truefit, milkman, a character whom we meet only through the eyes and words of Mary, enters the picture this way: MRS. TIMBRELL: Didn’t you tell me you were ‘keeping company’ with someone? MARY: I was walking out, ma’am, I wasn’t keeping company. LEONARD: I'm afraid I don't appreciate the difference. MARY: There is a difference. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, you square Don Juan. We shall hear more of George Truefit anon, as my mother would have said. Jonathan Bank, born Columbus Day 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio, came to New York from Western Reserve University in 1986, took over the Mint Theater from a classmate in 1996, has presented some 46 shows there since — “plays that people didn’t know how they ended, neglected plays.” Of this one, he says: “It’s certainly a tricky play. I think it can be shocking in a way. That it turns in a way the audience is not expecting. Our job is to make that possible.” I don’t think housemaids handle brooms, but a new Broome sweeps clean.

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August 30 - September 12

Expect to get schooled! After a summer’s worth of festivals, Downtown theater gets back to basics BY TRAV S. D. Hello, and welcome to our special “Back to School” edition of the Downtown Theater Column. Many bargains here, but more importantly: Expect to get schooled! August 30 through September 15, No Tea Productions will be presenting “SPACE CAPTAIN: Captain of Space,” a multimedia spoof of 1930s science fiction serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Though it sounds more than a little like “Spacemen from Space” (a multimedia spoof of 1930s science fiction serials which I performed in a couple of years ago), my mind is open to the possibility that it could pass muster, or even jet into uncharted territory. For example, the current production claims that it is entirely “in black and white” — which would be quite a feat for a live stage show. Just how they accomplish that trick is enough to intrigue me! I don’t know this company’s work, so I can’t promise that this show will be up to my high standards for low entertainment. But at least it’s a chance to watch grown men run around in feety pajamas shooting toy ray guns at one another, and that’s not to be sneezed at. “Space Captain” will be playing at the Kraine Theater. More info can be found at noteaproductions.com. August 31, the Bats (the resident company of The Flea Theater) will open “Job.” This version of the Old Testament story about the most put-upon man in history is written by controversial AfricanAmerican playwright Thomas Bradshaw — who’s been raising the hackles of audiences and critics for years with provocative, politically incorrect plays like “Purity,” “Burning,” “Southern Promises” and “Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist.” While the marketing material promises that his take on “Job” is “honest” and “uncynical,” one still can’t help wondering what outrages he will commit upon it. And I mean that in a good way. “Job” will be playing through October 7. Info and tickets at theflea.org. September 3 through October 1, the Origin Theatre Company will be presenting the fifth annual addition of First Irish, billed as the world’s only theater festival dedicated to Irish playwrights. The month-long festival features plays and musicals by 11 contemporary Irish playwrights (plus Eugene O’Neill), in productions from Belfast, Dublin, Boston and New York — as well as a number of scholarly panel discussions, readings and film screenings. First Irish will be taking place at several theaters throughout the city, including the Irish Rep, 59E59 Theaters, the Irish Arts Center, the National Arts Club and The Drilling Company Theatre. It runs through October 1. More info at 1stirish.org. Here’s a bit of welcome news. Circus Amok — the radical anarchist circus run by “woman with a beard” (never “bearded lady”) Jennifer Miller — returns after a long hiatus, with a four-borough tour of their new show, “Moo.” The 12-member troupe of clowns, acrobats and musicians mixes traditional big top feats of derring-do with some kind of crazy narrative about cops, creditors and a cow on the loose (hence the title). The citywide tour launches September 8, with the Downtown Manhattan shows taking place on September 23, at 1 and 4pm in Tompkins Square Park. Circusamok.org for more details. September 11-16, an outfit named Gobsmacked Productions is offering a revival of their 1996 show “Sicks: An Evening With Six of the Most Notorious

Photo by Jeremy Mather

The multimedia spoof “SPACE CAPTAIN: Captain of Space” promises a theater experience that’s strictly black and white.

Women in History.” The villainous sextet consists of Lizzie Borden, Bonnie Parker, Catherine the Great, Ma Barker, Queen Mary I and Squeaky Fromme. I think they left out a few notorious women, including some I know personally. Be that as it may, I look forward to spending an hour or two with such interesting conversationalists as these. The show promises to “walk you through life from their sick and twisted perspectives as they tell their own versions of what really happened to land them in the spotlight.” I’m so there! The limited run will be presented at Walkerspace, which also houses Soho Rep. Tickets can be purchased at brownpapertickets.com or by calling 800-838-3006. September 12-22, the Workshop Theater Company is presenting a “Play-in-Progress” production of a musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi,” at the Jewel Box Theater. Anyone who knows the book will be highly curious as to how such a thing can be made stageworthy (it’s part memoir, part rambling tall tale, part travelogue, part history, part instructional manual and no “story”). Still, stranger things have happened. Both “Oh! Calcutta!” and “Cats!” ran for years. For more info, go to workshoptheater.org. And if you haven’t been hearing enough about Ayn Rand lately, this show by Michael Yates Crowley and Michael Rau of the company Wolf 359 should put you over the top: “Song of a Convalescent Ayn Rand Giving Thanks to the Godhead (in the Lydian Mode).” Playing a myriad of characters, the team previously responsible for “The Ted Haggard

Monologues” and “Righteous Money” mash up comical songs, sketches and poems all revolving around the original evangelist of the church of selfishness. The show runs at IRT September 15-29. Tickets are free or pay-what-you-can, and can be reserved at brownpapertickets.com. September 21-30, a highly unique theatrical performance event will be taking place in the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. An entire fourwalled, fully furnished and functional ranch house is being built inside the space — in which a trio of actors will be performing a 90-minute play on a loop all day, every day, from 1 to 9pm. The actors will be improvising their movement throughout the house. Spectators can watch the free event through the windows. The script, called “Habit” was written by Jason Grote, long a Downtown indie theater stalwart who has gone on to great success as a television writer. It’s all part of the Crossing the Line festival, co-presented by Performance Space 122 and The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF). For more info, fiaf.org/ctl. September 22, 1-8pm look for a bevy of fine free performances along East Fourth Street, as Fourth Arts Block puts on its annual Fab! Festival. The schedule is not yet posted, but one thing I can promise you’ll see is a co-presentation by yours truly and the Innovative Theatre Awards Foundation. I’ll be hosting and presenting an afternoon of Freak Fiction featuring me, the Lady Aye, Dandy Darkly, Steve Bird, Bobby Oahu (aka Josh Hartung), et al. Full schedule and locations TBA, at gabnyc.org. See you there, I hope!

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August 30 - September 12

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Here’s mud in your…river The Masters of Succession (MoS) Collective has recently been teaching people in the East Village and Lower East Side how to make — and then, even more fun, throw! — beneficial mud balls to help clean up polluted waterways. The collective’s Dee Dee Maucher led a workshop at M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden, in S.D.R. Park at Rivington and Chrystie Sts., last Friday evening. These balls would later be tossed into Brooklyn’s toxic Gowanus Canal. The balls pack EM, developed in Japan in the 1960s, which powers away pollutants. “They cleaned up Penang Bay in three years — they put in millions of mud balls,” Maucher said. Resembling oversize Dunkin’ Donuts chocolate munchkins, the cleansing clumps must be air-dried and fermented for two weeks before using. The event was part of the S.D.R. Park Sustainability Series on Friday evenings in which Time’s Up! and Green Map System are teaming up with the garden. In addition to the mud balls, the environmentalists have also been throwing oyster shells into the East River at Sixth St., to help recreate the city’s once-flourishing oyster banks.

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