The Villager • Oct. 29, 2015

The Paper of Record for East and West Villages, Lower East Side, Soho, Noho, Little Italy and Chinatown

October 29, 2015 • FREE Volume 5 • Number 18

Praise for Stuy Town sale but also concern about use of air rights

BY YANNIC RACK

I

STUY TOWN continued on p. 8

E.V. school kids fuming over Styrofoam reversal

BY YANNIC RACK

W

hen a judge struck down the city’s ban on plastic foam food containers late last month, among the many environmentally conscious New Yorkers who disapproved were a group of East Village public school students who had cam-

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

t didn’t take long for the much-heralded multibillion-dollar sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village to raise some official eyebrows.

Comptroller Scott Stringer and other local politicians are already probing the “sweetener” of the deal — the right

to sell off the unused air rights of Manhattan’s largest apartment complex — days after it was announced that the Blackstone Group is paying $5.4 billion for the more than 11,000 units spread out across 80 acres east of First Ave., between 14th and 23rd Sts.

paigned for the ban as part of their mission to achieve zero-waste school cafeterias.

“The students and teachers were so disappointed and shocked, because they had worked so hard on this.

I don’t think anyone expected that this was not going to go through,” said Debby Lee STYROFOAM continued on p. 16

Dr. Lonnie Smith caressed the keys on his Hammond B3 organ at the Village Jazz Alive event last Thursday night. For more photos, see Page 10.

Police-brutality marchers demand a more just society

BY ZACH WILLIAMS

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helsea resident Eileen Feldman was two blocks from home on Sat., Oct. 24 when hundreds of marching #BlackLivesMatter protesters blocked her path at the intersection of W. 23rd St. and Sixth Ave. The delay irritated her and she was not reluctant to say so out loud.

Activist Hannah Raytaylor heard Feldman and confronted her. Protesters were about halfway through the

police-permitted march from Washington Square Park to W. 42nd St. as a small group of people stopped to watch Feldman and Raytaylor debate the merits of protesting police brutality on a sunny autumn afternoon.

The hottest point of contention between them was whether the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and other people of color represented the mistakes of just a few police officers or whether law enforcement as a whole protected a

system of racial inequality.

Neither convinced the other, but their conversation succinctly covered the ground that defines the ongoing national debate on how to address ongoing discrimination against people of color.

“The country is more divided now than ever,” Feldman said about the #BlackLivesMatter movement in an interview. “Protesters are making it sound like cops are evil. ... There is so much PROTEST continued on p. 6

Joe Budnick, Wash. Sq. music man, 68..........page 12 Toledano tells ‘his side of the story’...............page 13 P.S. 110 kids strut for Givenchy bucks............page 23 He took me out to the ballgame..page 15 | May 14, 2014

www.EastVillagerNews.com

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ocrats slate of judicial delegates did awfully in the recent election in the 65th Assembly District, Newell, who was one of the candidates, said, “I am very proud of how we did. It was one club against four clubs. It was the first time we did a judicial delegate race in that district.”

Paul Newell and pal.

MONUMENTAL REMARKS: Although we caught up with Paul Newell as he was standing next to a sphinx sculpture in the Elizabeth St. Garden on Saturday at the garden’s Harvest Fest, the district leader left no mystery that he is interested in running for Sheldon Silver’s Assembly seat, should it become available. “There’s a trial starting next week,” he said, referring to the fallen speaker’s trial on corruption charges.

“I’m preparing for any eventuality. I think there’s no question that Lower Manhattan is entering a new phase of leadership.” His co-district leader, Jenifer Rajkumar, is also interested in the seat.

Asked his position on the Elizabeth St. Garden, Newell also was forthcoming, saying without hesitation, “I think open space is extremely important in a community like this.” As for those howling that the Downtown Independent Dem-

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STRING(ER) THEORY: At the end of last year, as Mayor Bill de Blasio was struggling to regain his footing amid the police crisis — which was spiraling out of control after two cops were executed in Brooklyn — we couldn’t help but notice that Scott Stringer and Christine Quinn, too, were suddenly prominently being featured in the news and on the ’Net. Were they raising their profiles for a potential primary election challenge in 2017? Stringer at least is definitely seen as someone who is ready to run for mayor again if the moment is right. Back then, we asked political consultant Hank Sheinkopf what he thought about it all. But he said for an incumbent mayor to be unseated it would take a perfect storm, a tsunami, of problems, such as a combination of both crime and the schools being out of control at historic levels. “People don’t care if the mayor and police aren’t getting along,” Sheinkopf said. “They just want to feel safe.” We asked around to local progressive politicos then, and even at that dark moment for de Blasio, they mostly all said he had nothing to worry about. “It is very rare for anyone who is out of office for years to make a political comeback,” Sean Sweeney of Downtown Independent Democrats said of Quinn, adding, “It is no secret Stringer seeks the mayoralty some day. However, he is doing well and is secure in his position as comptroller. Mayor de Blasio would have to really slip in popularity for a Democrat in a secure office to risk challenging him.” Added Chad Marlow of Coalition for a District Alternative, “I think Scott Stringer will definitely be running for mayor...in 2021. The bottom would really have to drop out for de Blasio for Stringer to enter early. He’s a leading candidate for 2021, and there is no need to upset party insiders in order to try to get the job four years earlier.” But John Quinn, the Lower East Side State Democratic Committeeman, asked if he thought an incumbent mayor could be toppled, thought about it briefly, then blurted out, “David Dinkins!” Stringer, though, certainly seemed to send a message when, in a recent meeting with the editorial staff of NYC Community Media, he said he plans to host an “urban town hall” the same day de Blasio holds his an-

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nounced progressive presidential forum for the Democratic candidates in Iowa. Stringer said his forum would cover issues like education, housing for homeless families, public housing, economic development and more, and would be held in Brooklyn. “I think you should do town hall meetings, not just in Iowa, but in New York City,” the comptroller stated, adding, “Yes, I’m going to do it the same night. I still think the big story is New York City.” Meanwhile, the police crisis has been replaced by the homeless crisis.

On another subject, asked by The Villager how he feels about the N.Y.U. 2031 mega-project today, several years after some of his proposed recommendations as then-borough president for the project were nixed by the City Council, Stringer reflected, “I would say this process was not good for the community. I would say the N.Y.U. outcome was not fair to the community.”

As for de Blasio’s defense against the political pushback on his out-of-town trips, his press office referred us to his comments to Brian Lehrer.

“I think if you look at the history of New York City mayors, starting with Fiorello LaGuardia, who was one of the founder of the U.S. Conference of Mayors...,” de Blasio told Lehrer. “And Fiorello was one of the people who actually helped to push some of the ideas that became the New Deal, and helped to turn around the economy of the country, and certainly New York City. ... And I think it is my job as well to try and get the bigger policy changes that will help address income inequality in this city. Forty-six percent of New Yorkers are at or near the poverty line because our minimum wage is too low, because our benefits are not guaranteed, because we don’t have progressive taxation on the federal level, and therefore there aren’t the resources to invest in things that would employ people and make the infrastructure changes we need.”

EXPRESS YOURSELF: Speaking of Stringer, he’s on the cover of NYC Community Media’s newest publication, Manhattan Express, a bimonthly newspaper covering Manhattan north of 34th St. Since Villagers “never go north of 14th St.,” you might want to pick up this fine new paper (or read it online) to find out what’s going on up there — quite a lot, from the look of it! It’s edited by Paul Schindler, who also edits Gay City News. Check it out!

S.B.J.S.A. ALL THE WAY! Support for the Small Business Jobs Survival Act is gathering steam — and sponsors — in the City Council. In a major pickup, Carlos Menchaca, chairperson of the Council’s Committee on Immigration and a leading new Latino political voice, has now thrown his support behind the S.B.J.S.A. The bill, which would help small merchants negotiate new leases after their old ones run out, has sat dormant in the Council for decades as the powers that be have refused to let it come up for a vote. But with 26 sponsors, the bill now has a majority of support in the 51-member Council.

At the end of May, as first reported by The Villager, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito pledged that the Council would hold hearings on small business, covering the issue of lease extensions, among other things, and all possible legislative solutions.

SCOOPY’S continued on p. 3 EastVillagerNews.com

SCOOPY’S continued from p. 2 FIRE FUNDS: We heard from East Village activist Ayo Harrington, who has been hired as the coordinator of survivors’ assistance for L.E.S. Ready at GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side), about how the disbursement of funds to victims of the catastrophic Second Ave. gas explosion has been going.

Basically, Harrington said, GOLES received around $125,000 from the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.

“We have distributed much more than that,” Harrington said, adding that there was also the money from various other sources, such as the benefit concert at Theatre 80, organized by Alan Kaufman, which raised $50,000.

First priority for the funds are the permanently displaced tenants from 15 apartments that were destroyed, as well as the “long-term vacates” from severely damaged apartments at 125 Second Ave., according to Harrington.

Alicia Hurley.

‘SPEAR TIP’ HURLEY SET TO FLY: Last week, Lynne Brown,

N.Y.U. senior vice president for university relations and public affairs, in an internal memo to “The University Leadership Team,” announced that Alicia Hurley, the university’s vice president for government affairs and community engagement, will be leaving the school at the end of December. After 20 years with N.Y.U., Hurley will be starting her own project management firm focused on private residential development and renovations. During her tenure, Hurley, “working across all levels of government,” Brown said, has helped bring in tens of millions of dollars in grants for N.Y.U. projects, from a groundbreaking asthma study in the South Bronx to an array of health initiatives, like a mobile dental van, and a large haul for the new nursing, dental and bioengineering facility on First Ave. Hurley has also been helping the newly renamed Tandon School of Engineering to flourish in Downtown Brooklyn and beyond. Villagers, however, know Hurley more for her more recent work negotiating approvals for a series of developEastVillagerNews.com

ment and infrastructure projects that Brown called “vital to N.Y.U.” These include the E. 12th St. Dorm (now renamed Founders Hall), at the former St. Ann’s Church site, which Brown described as “a needed but controversial student residence”; N.Y.U. Law School’s Wilf Hall on MacDougal St., which includes a rebuilt Provincetown Playhouse, which Brown noted, “faced intense scrutiny from preservation advocates”; the expansion and upgrade of N.Y.U.’s cogeneration plant; and most notably the socalled N.Y.U. Core Plan, a.k.a. N.Y.U. 2031, which, Brown said, “allowed us to add much-needed academic space to our Washington Square campus.”

As Brown put it, “Alicia was (in the words of Crain’s) at the ‘tip of the spear’ in the five-year planning process that led to the city’s approval of the N.Y.U. Core Plan in 2012.” (And yes, many Villagers — particularly those living on the two South Village superblocks — will definitely say they were speared — gored? — by N.Y.U. 2031. Ouch!) “On a personal note,” Brown’s memo continued, “I have watched Alicia grow over these last two decades, moving from a parttime graduate assistant in the government relations office to...ascending its ranks to lead the office during some of the most exciting but difficult times for the university. And, oh, she earned an N.Y.U. Ph.D. along the way!” Starting her own business has been a long-term goal of Hurley’s.

OH, NAUX! Everyone else is shocked and dismayed by it, so it’s not surprising that Councilmember Corey Johnson also is “naux” fan of the M.T.A. NYC fauxcade for its emergency exhaust-fan plant at Mulry Square, at Greenwich Ave. and Seventh Ave. South. The bizarre Brutalist-mashup with empty windows has left everyone asking, “Is it finished?” Unfortunately, yes, it is. “The M.T.A. has spent so much time and money on this project, and it’s caused a lot of disruption to the neighborhood,” Johnson told us. “For them to leave the building looking like it does now is really quite disrespectful to the Greenwich Village community. We’re talking about a historic district, so we need to make sure the fan plant fits in with the aesthetic of the neighborhood. Community Board 2 has put forward designs that would weave this building into the fabric of the Village. The M.T.A. should take another look at those plans. It’s pretty confounding that they went ahead with the current designs despite very reasonable objections from the community.” The design can’t be sent back to the Landmarks Preservation Commission because the M.T.A., as a state agency, doesn’t have to answer to the city agency.

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Green thumbs call for ‘Garden District’

BY CODY BROOKS

CIRCULATION SALES MNGR.

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The members of the female drum group Batala and a marching band with some cool D.I.Y. instruments provided music for the day.

October 29, 2015

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ostumed marchers paraded through the East Village and Lower East Side on Sat., Oct. 17, holding large vegetable-themed banners and playing music to raise awareness for the community gardens in the area.

The festival, dubbed the “2015 East Village Cavalcade for More Gardens!” began at La Plaza Cultural on E. Ninth St. and Avenue C and was hosted

by More Gardens!, a community organization hoping to pressure the city into classifying the neighborhood as a “Garden Community District.”

The area is known for its grassroots gardens and makeshift parks, but these green spaces’ long-term survival has always been at risk. In a hopeful development in January, local garden activists convinced Community Board 3 to support making the area’s 46 gardens permanent by designating them as parkland. Officials are already behind the movement, including state Senator Brad Hoylman and Councilmember Rosie Mendez. Currently, the gardens are zoned as vacant lots and can still technically be purchased by a developer and bulldozed.

Parade leader Jeff of Honk NYC, one of the groups playing at the event, said that events like this are bringing back “the spirit, energy and love” that the East Village and Lower East Side used to have. He remarked that gardens are an important place for the community to connect, offering the festival as an example.

“If this garden wasn’t here, this wouldn’t happen,” he said of La Plaza and the festival itself.

For more information on More Gardens! visit http:// www.moregardens.org .

EastVillagerNews.com

EastVillagerNews.com

October 29, 2015

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Police-brutality marchers demand a just society PROTEST continued from p. 1

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October 29, 2015

PHOTO BY ZACH WILLIAMS

hate and moronic stuff coming out now. This county’s got to pull together.

That’s why I was so pissed off.”

Raytaylor, in an interview, said disrupting daily life by marching provides a forum to push for progress on racial issues in a society resistant to change.

“I think that inequality is f----d up and it should be slowing down and coming to a halt, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen any time soon so this is very necessary, very necessary,” said Raytaylor, a senior at Bard College. “I told her that if she is annoyed it is a little more than annoying to have your families murdered constantly. People being murdered, that’s not annoying. It’s infuriating.”

A common sense of urgency prevailed among the activists throughout the event known by the hashtag #RiseUpOctober and organized by philosophy professor Cornel West and Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. The event — billed as a “National March in NYC,” with the slogans “Stop Police Terror!” and “Which Side Are You on?” — drew hundreds of activists from around the country.

More than a dozen family members of victims of police shootings attended.

The organizers urged the crowd to press for police reform as the means to reach a more equitable society. The absence of criminal charges against police who have killed people of color factored heavily into their rhetoric.

“Police are killing us all over this country. Those of us who thought we lived in a region where we thought we were safe got a wakeup call,” said Reverend Jerome McCorry. “We will ask the question, ‘Have you ever seen a good policeman?’ and I will say ‘No’ because I don’t see them testifying against each other.”

No indictments were issued in the cases of Garner and Brown. In addition, a U.S. Department of Justice probe also cleared Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Brown, of any federal charges.

A sense of justice eludes Cephus Johnson, whose nephew Oscar Grant was shot in the back in Oakland, California, on New Year’s Day 2009. The police officer who shot Grant served a two-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

Johnson invoked a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he told the crowd why he had come to New York City in memory of his nephew.

“Cowards ask, is it safe? Expediency asks, is it political? Vanity asks, is it popular? But conscience asks, is it right?” he said. “There comes a time when neither safe, political or vanity is why you stand. You stand up be-

“Pulp Fiction” director Quentin Tarantino, right, spoke at the “Stop Police Terror” march at its start in Washington Square Park on Saturday.

cause it is right. Rise up!”

West added that the rally and march were about “love.” But filmmaker Quentin Tarantino told the crowd that he had to call “murderers the murderers.” The crowd cheered.

The timing of the “Pulp Fiction” director’s comments sparked a furor since Police Officer Randolph Holder — a third-generation cop and immigrant from Guyana — had been fatally shot just days earlier while trying to arrest a career criminal in East Harlem. New York and Los Angeles police unions promptly called for a boycott of Tarantino’s movies.

There was room for further vitriol toward law enforcement as the march made its way north. A few people among the activists hurled aspersions toward the police, such as “pig,” or “The only good cop is a dead cop.” But the march as a whole peacefully made its way through the West Village and Chelsea.

“Shut it down!” the marchers chanted, as police contained the march to one lane of Sixth Ave. to keep traffic flowing.

The point of marching is to express frustration that, despite some progress, black and brown people still face entrenched racism in America, explained Rahim Mcillwain, a Harlem resident, who was marching with his daughter Ablessin, 10.

“I think that today should bring about an understanding and let-

ting the people as a whole know what we’re going through,” he said.

“There’s a lot on my mind. Words can’t really express how I really feel.”

After rallying again at the intersection of W. 42nd St. and Sixth Ave., a group of about one hundred activists moved on to Times Square. A woman scaled the statue of playwright George Cohan just before a ruckus erupted between police and the protesters. A black man with a child on his shoulders had been standing on a nearby bench and was suddenly thrown to the ground by police and swiftly taken away. The remaining crowd jeered stone-faced police, who arrested several other protesters that day.

White people among the marchers said that they couldn’t know on a personal level the sentiments of their black and brown counterparts who say they feel targeted by police on a daily basis. Twenty blocks to the south, Hannah Raytaylor made that case to Eileen Feldman, but the #RiseUpOctober march was as much about self-improvement as spreading the word, Raytaylor said.

“It’s not my experience,” Raytaylor said. “I am of privilege. I have never really had real struggle in my life and I’m aware of that and I want to be able to raise my awareness as much as possible, be as conscious of a human as I can.”

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Signs, words and worlds all merge in a classroom RHYMES WITH CRAZY

BY LENORE SKENAZY

P

eek into any school on any day, and chances are you will see a little magic. Or a lot. I peeked into P.S. 347 on E. 23rd St. in Manhattan last week and who should be there but Gregory Jbara, star of stage (Billy Elliott’s dad) and screen (he is on “Blue Bloods”), reading out loud about some very scary carrots.

Next to him stood an interpreter signing every word, because this is the American Sign Language and English Lower School.

“Jasper knew his parents were wrong. Creepy Carrots were real!”

Jbara intoned as a group of about a dozen first graders sat at his feet on the rug, wriggling a bit, of course, but wide-eyed with interest.

“Where are the carrots?” Jbara asked the kids, pointing to a page of tombstones.

“In the deadness!” yelped a little boy.

“In the graveyard, yes,” Jbara nodded.

So what brought a Tony Award winner to a school where all the kids are deaf, hard of hearing, or “deaf-allied” (that means children of deaf adults)?

Facebook and fandom.

Gary Wellbrock, the kids’ teacher, has always been a Broadway fanatic.

He was a performing arts major back in the day. Now he has a doctorate in deaf education. But if you’re a theater fan and you work in New York City and you’re active on Facebook, after a while, your worlds merge. So on July 3, just to see what would happen, Wellbrock posted about an idea he’d been percolating. He called it “Broadway Books First Class.”

His idea was to invite Broadway performers to come to his first-grade class and read aloud a book. Why not? The city’s budget for arts education had been dwindling. So here was a way to give the kids a glimpse of the theater world, and a hint of the gift that belongs to all New Yorkers: We live in the capital of the arts.

Drink it in!

“I just posted, ‘Is anybody interested?’ And within hours, he was like, ‘Yes. I’m in,’ ” Welbrock recalled, nodding at Jbara. “I typed back, ‘That would be cool,’ but I was really running around like, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ ” EastVillagerNews.com

The two had never met, but here was Broadway royalty saying, “See you soon!”

By the Fourth of July, Wellbrock had four stars signed up. And now his growing list includes drag legend Charles Busch (should be a great class!), actress Alison Fraser (the stripper Tessie Tura in “Gypsy”), as well as Brooklynite Eden Duncan-Smith, age 15, who starred in “The Lion King” on Broadway. She’s also in the movie “Meadowland” with Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson. And she also happens to be a former student of Wellbrock’s.

Like I said, if you’re in New York and love Broadway, your worlds will eventually merge.

“Let’s thank Mr. Jbara,” said Wellbrock, as the actor closed his book. In addition to a chorus of audible thank yous, there were many hands waved in the air — the deaf equivilant of clapping.

“Some of the kids want to grow up and become actors, too,” Wellbrook told him.

“I want to be a doctor!” shouted one boy.

“I want to be a slapper of things!” shouted another, proceeding to slap himself in the face until everyone told him to cut it out.

“Do we have any questions for Mr. Ibara?” Wellbrock jumped in.

“Have you danced on TV?” one kid asked.

“I have.”

“How do you make movies?” asked another, to which Jbara gave a kid-friendly description of a typical filming day.

“Did you always want to be an actor?”

Bingo! That question sent Jbara back to the time he was exactly the same age as these kids.

“We learned a song called ‘Frosty the Snowman,’ and the teacher decided she wanted one of the students to dress as Frosty,” he told them. “Everybody wanted to be Frosty, but the teacher decided it was actually going to be me.”

He looked a little misty, recalling his first gig. After all, it set the stage — as it were — for the rest of his life.

The kids seemed to understand, and one came over wearing a bunny puppet on his hand, which he hopped up and down Jbara’s arm.

“What’s this?” Jbara asked.

“A lion,” the boy replied.

First grade can be a magical time.

Especially if there’s a teacher who makes sure it is.

Skenazy is a keynote speaker and author and founder of the book and blog “Free-Range Kids”

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Stuy Town has huge amount of unused air rights STUY TOWN continued from p. 1

8

October 29, 2015

ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

“The deal outlined earlier this week is a positive step toward preserving affordable housing at ST/ PCV and we are glad that Blackstone has made a firm public commitment not to build on any of the open space in the complex,” read a joint letter by local politicians sent to Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate, on Mon., Oct 26.

“However, we must express our concern regarding your intention to pursue transferring air rights from ST/ PCV to the surrounding communities.

This component of the agreement has not been disclosed in any detailed way either in the public documents or in our conversations about the deal.”

The letter, signed by Stringer, Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, state Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, seeks clarification on the actual amount of air rights at stake in the sale, which they warned could have a staggering impact on the area’s infrastructure.

It was widely reported in the media that only 700,000 square feet of air rights are available on the site. But the officials note that Department of City Planning data show the unused air rights on the two massive superblocks could amount to more than 10 million square feet when community facility uses are included.

“New York’s communities are keenly aware of the potential impacts associated with air rights, and any plan to radically change the zoning of a large parcel of land must include the community’s voice,” the pols demanded in their letter.

Air rights usually have to be sold to a project in the immediate vicinity (though the allowable distance of the transfer can be stretched through creation of special zoning districts), but the letter notes there are few neighboring developments that would qualify.

Although the parties will officially close the deal at the end of the month, the officials requested that the details be discussed with the complex’s residents before the agreement is finalized.

In a response to Stringer and the other officials on Tues., Oct. 27, Blackstone did not address the amount of air rights involved, but said that currently the company has no plans to transfer them anywhere.

“We indicated our willingness to commit not to build and to maintain the important open spaces in the complex, and we simply asked for the city’s support if we sought to transfer air rights to another site,” the letter, signed by Gray, read.

Gray added that Blackstone was aware that any such air-rights sale plans would require a full ULURP

Mayor de Blasio, along with local politicians and tenant leaders, announced the sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village at a press conference at the complex on Tues., Oct. 20.

(Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) public review, including votes by the affected community boards, borough president and City Council, and that the company would “come and discuss with you in detail at that time.”

Susan Steinberg, president of the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association, said that most of the residents felt relief at the sale, and that worrying about the air rights was jumping the gun at this point.

“I personally am not worried about it,” she said. “My impression is that there’s a lot of worry going on very early in the game.”

She also emphasized the requirement of a ULURP in the case of any future plans by the new owner to sell air rights.

“They can’t just willy-nilly go and transfer their air rights without a lot of weighing in by a lot of people,” she said.

Local officials initially praised the sale at an announcement on Oct. 20 at Stuyvesant Town, where City Councilmember Dan Garodnick, himself a resident of Peter Cooper Village, said that the tenants at the complex had found “a true partner” in Blackstone.

Under the deal, Blackstone and partner Ivanhoé Cambridge (the real estate arm of a Canadian pension fund manager) pledged to keep 5,000 apartments — just under half of the units — affordable to middle-class families for at least the next 20 years. Many of the remaining apartments are already at or above market rate, according to the tenants association, which welcomed the deal in a press release.

Blackstone also agreed to cap annual rents for roughly 1,400 so-called “Roberts” units, named after a 2009 court settlement that awarded damages to tenants whose apartments had been illegally deregulated. Rent increases on those units will now be capped at 5 percent per year over a five-year period once the J-51 tax abatement expires in 2020, at which point they would have otherwise been subject to high rent increases.

Blackstone representatives attended a meeting for residents of the complex at Baruch College on Sat., Oct. 24, where Mayor Bill de Blasio and Senator Chuck Schumer, as well as a range of local politicians, praised the deal before opening the floor to public comments and questions.

“There had been a lot of uncertainty before the public meeting on Saturday,” Steinberg said. “But they clearly said that they were not interested in evicting people, so I think tenants are feeling a huge sigh of relief.”

But even though Blackstone has been responsive, additionally setting up a dedicated hotline and Web site on which residents can submit questions, some remained wary.

“They were basically just congratulating each other on what a great job they’ve done,” one longtime resident, who declined to give his name, said of the politicians after the meeting.

He also said that the sale’s terms were so complex that many of his neighbors were struggling to wrap their heads around the fine print.

“I have an M.B.A. from N.Y.U. and I don’t understand all of this,” he said.

“Why don’t they just make it crystal

clear so that a layman can understand it?”

Other residents raised common complaints about noise, the complex’s student population and the management company tasked with the development’s daily maintenance, issues Blackstone pledged to look into.

“The company is extending its hand to tenants and we should meet that hand,” noted a post on the Stuyvesant Town Report blog after the meeting. “Of course we have to be vigilant, and the future may show that Blackstone’s currently stated attitude will dissipate. I hope not, for all of our sakes.”

Stuyvesant Town, a middle-class enclave since it was built in 1947, continues to be a home for nurses, teachers and firefighters. Residents over the past decade have fought owners’ attempts to turn the complex upscale by pushing out longtime tenants and raising rents.

CWCapital, the previous owner, decided not to entertain a bid from tenants who wanted to purchase the complex, and Steinberg said there were still some lingering hard feelings about that plan’s failure.

“Is this the ownership that we originally wanted? No,” she said. “But I think there was a combination of forces that meant it didn’t happen,” she said of the failed bid for tenant ownership.

“The mood is mostly very upbeat, people feel that at last they know where they’re going to be for the next 20 or so years. I think this outcome with Blackstone is as good as it gets.”

EastVillagerNews.com

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9

Village Jazz Alive organizer Elizabeth Butson and Dr. Lonnie Smith.

PHOTOS BY TEQUILA MINSKY

Dr. Lonnie caresses the keys on his Hammond B3.

Accepting the chamber’s Village Jazz Alive Award.

Dr. Lonnie takes Chamber cats on a musical journey

T

Jamming with the members of his trio.

10

October 29, 2015

he Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce honored the great Dr. Lonnie Smith at its sixth annual Village Jazz Alive event on Tues., Oct. 20, at the Metropolitan Room, 34 W. 22nd St. Village Jazz Alive promotes and supports the unique music culture of the Village by honoring outstanding musicians who have helped create and sustain it.

“The Doc is an amazing artist, a seminal figure in the soul/jazz movement,” Elizabeth Butson, The Villager’s former publisher and an organizer of the event, said of the turbaned and bearded legend. “He has played with most of the

great jazz artists, among them the great Lou Donaldson. He has won many awards for his ability to get unique and mysterious sounds out of his Hammond B3 organ! There is a mystical quality to his music. When the Doc plays a set, you just don’t know where he is going to take you — from sweetness and light to rain and thunder...to total exuberance. Dr. Lonnie Smith has always been ahead of the curve.”

Speaking afterward, Smith said he enjoyed playing before the appreciative audience. “It was beautiful, a great room,” he said. “You could hear a pin drop.”

EastVillagerNews.com

POLICE BLOTTER

A surveillance-camera image of the alleged suspect in two gunpoint robberies.

Armed-robbery pattern On Sat., Oct. 17, at 3:50 a.m., a man armed with a gun followed a woman, 26, into her building on Hudson St. and demanded her bag, according to police. The suspect then hit the victim in the head with the handgun, removed her bag and fled the building. The woman refused medical attention at the scene.

Fifteen minutes earlier, according to police, the same suspect approached a man, 18, in front of 35 E. Ninth St. after the suspect had exited the passenger side of a small, light-colored S.U.V. The suspect engaged this second victim in conversation, then

displayed a silver fi rearm and demanded his property. The suspect removed the victim’s LG cellphone and fled westbound on E. Ninth St. in the S.U.V. Police described the suspect as age 18 to 25.

Anyone with information is asked to call the New York Police Department’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. Tips can also be submitted by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Web site, www.nypdcrimestoppers.com, or texting them to 274637(CRIMES) and then entering TIP577. All tips are confidential.

Phone fracas

port. The boy grabbed the phone and tried to run away. But the woman hit him and threw him into two store stands before he fell to the floor. She then struck the storeowner as he came to the boy’s rescue, causing a laceration to the older man’s chest.

Both the man and the boy refused medical attention. Police arrested the woman and charged her with misdemeanor assault.

Thunder punch A stranger punched another man on Thurs., Oct. 22, inside Thunder Jackson’s bar at 169 Bleecker St. Police did not say the cause of the altercation that left the victim, 34, with a cut-up face just after midnight.

Jason Trent, 47, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault.

Police said that on Wed., Oct. Beaten up to the beat 21, they arrested a woman who attacked a 14-year-old boy at about A 30-year-old man allegedly 8:15 p.m. over a cell phone. brought his friends along on Sat., According to cops, the youth Oct. 24, to confront a 33-year-old man dropped his phone inside a sta- who had argued with him inside Cietionery store at 474 Sixth Ave. and lo, a dance club at 18 Little W. 12th St. soon found that someone else was The group of three men started playing fi nders keepers. punching the victim at about 2:50 A 25-year-old woman claimed a.m., resulting in a cut to the back that the boy was actually taking her of his head. Police arrived and arB:8.75” friend’s phone as her friend went back rested Oron Tanami, 30, Moti Atais, to retrieve it, according to a police re-T:8.75”21, and Elad Ben-Kimon, 32, on mis-

demeanor assault charges.

Coke, not the real thing An arrest came easy for police who spotted a man peering around the corner of W. 14th St. and Tenth Ave. They approached and asked him what he was doing and whether he was carrying anything illegal.

“I got this coke but it’s fake. I just got it from John around the corner,” Trent Patterson, 50, allegedly told police.

They searched Patterson and found an alleged butterfly knife in his right rear pants pocket. A police report added that he concealed his true identity as they arrested him for felony possession of a weapon.

Thief gets bagged Police said a man swiped a handbag containing makeup and $20 inside 470 Sixth Ave. Two witnesses told police they saw him take the purse at about 10:10 p.m. on Thurs., Oct. 22. The victim, 30, got her bag back.

Roderick Bishop, 26, was arrested and charged with felony grand larceny.

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October 29, 2015

11

Joe Budnick, 68, a mentor for singer-songwriters OBITUARIES

BY ALBERT AMATEAU

T

FILE PHOTO BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

he music scene in Washington Square Park lost a much-loved voice on Oct. 10 when Joe Budnick, who for 45 years led impromptu groups of singers and guitarists drawn to the park by his warmth and enthusiasm, died at the age of 68.

Absent from his usual northeast corner of the park in recent weeks because he was hospitalized, Joe had heart problems since his youth and had undergone bypass surgery at one time, according to Skip Mitchell, a longtime friend.

“I think his father had a heart condition and died when Joe was young. A brother died of heart disease, too,” Mitchell said.

For the past two decades, Joe (Ernest Joseph Budnick) ran UMO.com, “The Official Site for Acoustic Music and Singing in Greenwich Village, USA since 1995.” He ran the site (UMO stands for Underground Music Online) while conducting open-mic sessions on Sundays during the winter at Bagott Inn, a Village venue that closed a few years ago, and later at Limerick House, a club in Chelsea that also closed.

In 2003 and 2004 Joe produced CDs of “The 14 Best Singers and Songwriters of Greenwich Village,” compiled from a juried selection of open-mic performers.

From April to November, Joe and his friends played and sang in the park, welcoming newcomers who often became regulars. It was strictly acoustic; Joe was a stickler for the park ban on amplified music and boom boxes. He didn’t like loud drumming, either. The emphasis was on “free.” Joe never solicited donations, but he vigorously solicited people to play and sing.

“I have so many happy memories of Joe in the park,” said Lori Behrman, a singer and songwriter who performs at various clubs in Manhattan and Brooklyn. “He was an amazing, supportive person, encouraging my songwriting — nagging, actually.

He was a good nagger,” Behrman said.

“Joe hasn’t been in the park much over the past year since he’s been sick,” Behrman said. “He

Joe Budnick playing guitar in Washington Square Park in May 2011.

brought such positive energy to the park. It won’t be the same anymore.”

Margie Rubin, a Village resident and regular at Joe Budnick’s Washington Square gatherings, recalled one Sunday-in-the-park session when about 175 people gathered round to listen. She also recalled being urged to sing, but resisted.

“I was happy to be a listener,” Rubin said.

Village park activist Sharon Woolums said it was Artie Stewart, a well-known Washington Square musician, who urged Budnick to start playing music in the park. “Joe had been very shy about it,” she said, “and Artie sort of pushed him onto the stage, and the rest is history.” Stewart died in April 2013.

Joe’s death has been especially hard for Skip Mitchell. Joe was best man at Mitchell’s wedding 15 years ago.

“Joe was always the life of the party. He loved people. We all became his friends — really fam-

ily,” said Mitchell, a songwriter and keyboard artist who has performed at various venues, including the old Village Gate. “Joe was a brother to me,” Mitchell added.

Joe had worked as a tech employee of Salomon Brothers, the Wall St. firm.

“He was involved in computers there in the 1970s,” Mitchell said. “I remember him telling me that computers would change the world one day. I told him it sounded like it would be a pretty cold world.”

According to Mitchell, Joe was raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and moved to W. 14th St. more than 20 years ago.

Joe met Susan Swingle, who later became his wife, while both were working at Salomon Brothers.

She died in September.

Mitchell and Lori Behrman plan a memorial service for Joe Budnick at a date and time to be announced.

Joe always enjoyed seeing other musicians shine

BY B. STEWART

E

rnest J. Budnick, known to most of his friends as “Joe,” was a musician and a major presence to those who would frequent Washington Square Park. But he was also a man of many other talents and accomplishments.

He was a writer (author of a book on business technology), a video producer (Bernard Friedman Video Rock — a cable music program that debuted around the same time as MTV), an entrepreneur (in the early 2000’s he hosted an open mic at the Baggot Inn on W. Third St. in Greenwich Village that led to the release of several compilation CDs by many of the artists who performed there). Joe was inquisitive,

12

October 29, 2015

well read and knowledgeable on a variety of subjects. As one friend put it, “He knew a lot of stuff.”

“He was one of the kindest human beings that ever was,” said Bernard Friedman.

Joe started playing in a band as a teenager in Brooklyn. He later went on to form groups — Full Moon being one — with various singers and musicians he met while hanging out in Washington Square Park. Another one of his groups, Just Friends, held a residency at the legendary Village Gate. An earlier incarnation of Just Friends recorded a 45 single, “Keep On Playing.”

“We always had a lot of fun together...going out to different places, with Joe always being the upbeat,

sometimes goofy guy that made everyone around us laugh,” recalled Skip Mitchell, a singer with both Full Moon and Just Friends.

In later years, Joe could be found playing in the park on any given day.

He would always be inclusive and encouraging, welcoming other singers and musicians, beginners or professionals, to join in. He also loved to interact with both the tourists and local members of his audience — taking photos and posting them on his Web site at umo.com.

“Joe had the unique quality of truly enjoying seeing other people shine, prosper and most importantly have fun,” said Lori Behrman. “It was largely because of his constant encouragement and nagging I start-

ed singing in Washington Square Park, started a band, played in clubs, and wrote songs. He instilled in me the importance of surrounding yourself with positive and life-affirming people, and that life was too short to spend unhappy and unfulfilled. Even though he’s gone, the lessons I learned from him will stay with me forever.”

Joe had health issues for many years but they never hindered him from rocking out with exuberant performances to the delight of onlookers.

On many occasions he would be asked by people who would stop and listen, if he played in the park often.

His reply usually was “I’m here seven days a week.”

He will always be here seven days a week.

EastVillagerNews.com

The East Village is home; I want to improve it TALKING POINT

BY RAPHAEL TOLEDANO

O

ver the last year, I have had the incredible good fortune to take an ownership stake in a number of residential and commercial buildings in the East Village. The reason I chose to grow my business in this beautiful neighborhood is simple: I believe in the East Village. I am not here to transform this community, rather I am determined to become a part of the fabric of the neighborhood that so many wonderful New Yorkers call home.

As a business owner I learned early on that treating customers — in my case, tenants — with respect and decency is most important in order to gain their trust. Over the last few months, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know my new tenants in this community and it has been an extremely rewarding experience. By understanding their needs and concerns, I will be able to form a personal bond with the residents and better serve them.

There are always going to be doubters and cynics, people who wonder what my motivations are.

But I invite you to look at my track record.

Recent press reports about one of the buildings I acquired, 444 E. 13th St., do not paint an accurate picture of the effort I have made to work with residents. In the last four months since I took

Last month, Raphael Toledano, above, purchased a portfolio of 16 East Village buildings for $97 million.

over managing that property, open violations have fallen by 70 percent. For those tenants who remain skeptical of our management, we are continuing to work with them to ensure that every issue they are facing is resolved.

As evidence of my commitment to the East Village and its community, I acquired an additional 16 properties last month and have received very encouraging feedback from the tenants. By having an open dialogue, my team is in a better position to provide superior tenant-relations services.

My plans for these buildings are simple. We want to renovate the apartments and common areas, improve the outward appearance and take suggestions from tenants for how to make the East Village the ultimate live / work / play community.

Beyond that, we are committed to making meaningful contributions to improve the welfare of the community. I have been engaged with a number of organizations to find out what we can do to help, and I look forward to announcing new partnerships in the next few weeks. But in the meantime, what you need to know is that my company is here to make the East Village a better place.

My team is taking the time to get to know our neighbors, and we invite all of you to get to know us.

I know that you will find we are here for the right reasons.

Toledano is president and founder, Brookhill Properties

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October 29, 2015

13

Save Gansevoort St.; Iconic block under threat EDITORIAL

T

he proposal by William Gottlieb Real Estate and Aurora Capital Associates to redevelop a block of Gansevoort St. is nothing short of an assault on the city’s Landmarks Law. The Gansevoort Market Historic District, designated in 2003, is truly one of New York City’s most unique historic districts.

What makes it so special is that it has preserved the unique built fabric of the once-teeming Meat Market.

Yes, as representatives of the developers repeatedly stated at an Oct. 15 special meeting of Community Board 2, the district’s history is one of flux, of buildings being cut down and repurposed.

But when the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated this small district — and despite its outsize significance, it is a very small district — what it was aiming to preserve was, obviously, the landscape at that moment, in 2003. It’s simply ridiculous — and a threat to the very spirit of the city’s Landmarks Law — for the developers to argue that much of this block, between Greenwich and Washington Sts., should be rebuilt to the

height it was in the 1800s. What L.P.C. instead landmarked was the street as it has largely appeared since the mid20th century, when the Meatpacking District was in its heyday.

Yes, the meatpackers are mostly gone now, save for those left in the city-owned Co-op building, which is protected by a deed restriction for market use dating back to when the Astors owned most of the Meat Market. But the built fabric that the meatpackers created — a unique assortment of modified buildings that were perfectly suited to their uses — remains. And again, that is what was landmarked.

Everyone knows about the district today, of course, as “Meatpacking” has become one of the city’s premier nightlife destinations. Though neighbors aren’t so happy about that transformation (you can read about all the bar fights in our Police Blotter), they at least are glad that it wasn’t rezoned to allow residential use, which would have ratcheted up development pressure.

However, as Zack Winestine, a leader of Save Gansevoort, put it, this block of Gansevoort St. is among the world’s most prime real estate. The developers can certainly make ample profits by finding conforming uses for the existing structures. The Gansevoort Market food court, for one, has been a hit.

This block, in short, is the last one in the district that features the historic low-scale one- and two-story structures with overhanging metal canopies that the district was once famous for. Many uses have come and gone: the meatpackers for the most part, the transgender hookers (who now mostly find their customers online), the sex clubs, the underground parties. But the built fabric remains. And that is what we must preserve.

This low-rise feeling is what makes the Meatpacking District, and the Village, in general, so appealing.

And this one spot is really the iconic block of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Was it any surprise that a photo of 52 Gansevoort St. was the cover image of the designation report?

The developers say they would save some of the buildings they deem aesthetically pleasing, including the Moderne-style one at the corner of Greenwich St. and the Gansevoort Market building, the latter which they concede was skillfully and gracefully cut down from its former height.

However, community residents, preservationists, Community Board 2 and Assemblymember Deborah Glick all counter that the entire block — as a whole — is beautiful. And they’re right! First of all, the very low-scale nature of it is soothing and pleasing.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Amen, Rev. Jen!

McD egg pledge a small step

To The Editor: Re “Rev. Jen: Straight outta Bellevue” (arts article, Oct. 15): I was wondering just exactly what was happening with you. Thank you for sharing such personal stuff in a painfully witty and honest way. But after all, that is your thing, Ms. Miller, and the reason I am one of so many people that feel a kinship and admiration for you, despite never having met.

To The Editor: McDonald’s recent pledge to start using cagefree eggs is only a small step in preventing the staggering suffering endured by millions of birds.

Hatcheries that annually supply 200 million female hens for U.S. egg production, including cage-free, also kill the same number of male chicks at birth by grinding them up alive in industrial macerators or suffocating them slowly in plastic garbage bags. The female laying hens endure a lifetime of misery, crammed with five to

John Jude Ragazzo

IRA BLUTREICH

More to the point, these cut-down former tenements — in their small size, architectural detailings and subdued colors — are simply gorgeous in their own unique way. One speaker at the meeting was spot on in likening them to an Edward Hopper painting.

Admittedly, a row of former purpose-built meat lockers on Washington St. in the historic district was replaced by a modern, industrial-looking building with angular exposed beams — playing off the girders of the neighboring High Line — and is now the headquarters for Samsung.

But Gansevoort St. is different. Its buildings, because they were formerly tenements, are more beautiful.

That they were lowered over the years makes them that much more unique, and again, reflective of the historic market. That they have grittiness, again, evokes the old Meat Market. A sterilized replacement is the last thing we want.

In sum, the developers’ plan would, as Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation put it, “obliterate” this block and its history.

L.P.C. will hold a hearing on the application on Nov. 10. Save Gansevoort and G.V.S.H.P. are urging a huge turnout to demonstrate the opposition. To approve this plan would be a travesty.

six others in small wire-mesh cages that cut into their feet and tear out their feathers.

Eggs are common carriers of food-borne bacteria, including salmonella, campylobacter, listeria, and staphylococcus. The U.S.D.A. estimates that salmonella alone accounts for 1.3 million U.S. illnesses and 500 deaths annually.

Eggs contain saturated fat and cholesterol, key factors in incidence of heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes. They are a common cause of allergies in children.

Waste from millions of egg-laying hens ends up in waterways, rendering vast areas unsuitable for recreation or water supply.

The good news for compassionate, health-conscious, eco-friendly consumers is that our local supermarkets offer a number of delicious egg substitutes and egg-free food products. Entering “eggfree” in a search engine returns tons of recipes.

Nelson Yancy

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-2292790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 Metrotech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel.

Anonymous letters will not be published.

Hillary goes trick or treating!

14

October 29, 2015

EastVillagerNews.com

He took me out to the ballgame; Let’s go, Mets!

NOTEBOOK

BY HARRY PINCUS

I

wish my father was here, to see the Mets play in the World Series.

He was a Brooklyn Dodger fan who took me to Ebbets Field, and gave me the gift of a team to follow.

Baseball is about generations, players who hold our attention for a season, and fathers who hand the game over to us forever. Teams that are a birthright, and a religion.

The Mets are the direct descendants of the Brooklyn Dodgers...“Dem Bums”...and their loyal fans. Dodger fans were the schlumps who worked in the factories, the post office and the sewers. We rightfully claimed more spirit than the pinstriped rich kids who rooted for the Yankees, though far less success. On the rare occasions when we won, the world seemed to stop and take notice.

The Yankees march to the field beneath a quote from General Douglas MacArthur, “There’s No Substitute For Victory.” The Mets have a whole circus of substitutes for victory. If the Yankees are somehow militaristic and organized, the only religion attached to the Mets must be the irregular lurch of anarchy, and a required belief in miracles. Ya gotta believe! In this special year, we’ve won something significant.

It still moves me to think of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson, who broke the racist system, a few blocks from where I grew up.

I met Robinson once, when he was a soul caged within the Corporate Beast, working for Nelson Rockefeller. He was a Republican by then, and so sad. Had he lived as a free man, he could have joined his Rachel when his number 42 was placed in the Jackie Robinson rotunda of the new Mets ballpark. He could have had a hot dog at Nathan’s in Coney Island, and strolled over to the bronze sculpture commemorating the moment Pee Wee Reese put his arm on the second baseman’s shoulder, and welcomed him to the team.

Like everyone, my father, Irving, was devastated by the loss of the Dodgers in 1957. What could he, a poor subway conductor, a Coney Island handball player, do but bring his 5-year-old son to one of the last games?

So it is that I remember standing outside of Ebbets Field, beneath the big awning, as my father bought two tickets “for a buck” from a kid on a bicycle who said he was ready to give them away. Sure enough, the seats were two rows behind the Dodger dugout, and the best seats Irving EastVillagerNews.com

“My Father,” a portrait by Harry Pincus.

had ever had. The legendary ballpark didn’t look like the old grainy newsreels; it was full of color and sound.

Guys in white walked around the stands with enormous coffee urns on their backs... “Your mother should have one of those,” my father joked.

And then, there they were, emerging from dugout, right before my eyes...

THE BROOKLYN DODGERS! When they built Shea Stadium, Irving took me there in the winter to watch the steel going up. There was a World’s Fair opening just across the street, and we believed in the future, then.

My father and I always sat behind home plate, high up in general admission. The $1.65 seats. Perhaps heaven is general admission, or perhaps Irving has an even better seat. We saw Jim Bunning pitch a perfect game on Father’s Day, and Lou Brock hit an insane home run into the center field bleachers at the Polo Grounds.

But nothing could surpass the miracle of game six in the ’86 World Series. The Mets were down to their last

strike over and over again, until a little squibbler went through the wickets of Boston’s sorry first baseman. The evening had already been distinguished by a nut who parachuted onto the field in the middle of the game, but the miraculous ending, with the entire stadium shaking, was a thousand times better than Woodstock.

Of course, Irving, then in his 70s, had never been to a World Series game. There are so few of them for Mets fans; they’re like the most significant rings on an old tree. Markers of youth and middle age, drought and abundant rainfall. Anyway, World Series tickets are just for rich guys.

Well, in 1986, Irving’s “goilfriend” worked for a magnate in the toy industry, who gave her two tickets to game six. This was going to be a night for the ages. We decided to prime for the game with a fine dinner at Luna, in Little Italy.

As befit the evening, a large fellow in a tweed jacket with a horseshoe of platinum hair sat down next to me, and I realized that it was Divine,

in his street clothes. I tried to alert my father to the celebrity dining amongst us, but he barely noticed. As we left the restaurant, he asked me what I was gesturing about.

“We were eating next to Divine,” I said. “Do you know who Divine is?”

Of course he didn’t: “Who’s Divine?”

“He’s an underground film star,” I explained.

“Underground where? What’s he famous for?”

I didn’t have time to explain. We were outside the restaurant now, and on our way to what turned out to be the greatest World Series game in the history of New York.

“He’s famous for eating dog s--- in a movie, O.K.?” I answered, nervously.

At that moment, the large, glowing figure of Divine himself appeared in the doorway, just behind my father.

“WELL IF HE EATS DOG S---, WHAT’S HE GOTTA EAT HERE FOR?” shouted my father, over the din of traffic. “THIS IS TWENTY BUCKS!” My father’s final season was more than 20 years ago, a rotten summer when the Mets stunk, and the players went out on strike. He’d just reached his 80th birthday, and I tried to boost his spirits by talking about the upcoming Ken Burns “Baseball” series.

By then, he was hospitalized, and in pain. I promised him that there was going to be an entire episode about baseball in New York, featuring the Dodgers. I held his hand, watching the glorious story of “The Capital of Baseball,” but I knew he was slipping away. The next day, Irving was gone.

It was the last day of summer.

Years later, I brought my 7-yearold son to his first baseball game at Shea Stadium. P.S. 41 had latched on to some $2 tickets, and I thought it would be fitting, in the tradition of Irving, to bring his grandson to the general admission.

The seats were near the farthest corner of the very last row of the upper deck. I decided we should scooch over a few seats and sit in the absolute most-distant corner of the vast ballpark. Somehow, I had begun with the best seats at Ebbets Field, and here was my son beginning with the worst seats at Shea Stadium.

Isaac looked adorable in his Mets cap and long blond hair. We gamely climbed to the top of the nosebleed section, and arrived, huffing and puffing, to look out over the entire enormous stadium.

My little boy rose and threw out his arms.

“Dad,” he proclaimed, “THESE ARE GREAT SEATS!” Pincus is an award-winning illustrator and fine artist. He lives in Soho.

October 29, 2015

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E.V. school kids are fuming over ’foam reversal STYROFOAM continued from p. 1

October 29, 2015

On the People’s Climate Movement Day of Action, Wed., Oct. 14, two volunteers carried the giant Styrofoam puppets up to Flatiron Plaza, where the out-of-control environment-destroying monsters turned against each other, as a woman tried to break up the clash.

PHOTO BY ATSUKO QUIRK

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PHOTO BY YANNIC RACK

Cohen, the executive director of Cafeteria Culture, a grassroots organization that works in partnership with schools across the city.

Cohen said the fifth-grade students at P.S. 34 in Alphabet City, among other area schools, had played a role in helping to achieve the unanimous City Council vote that banned the use of polystyrenes, more commonly known as Styrofoam, citywide.

“There’s often a lack of art and environmental funding for those schools,” Cohen said. “So it’s very cool that the kids in this school helped us — they learned to be advocates and we held debates on whether polystyrene should be banned or not.”

In November 2013, the fifth graders stood on the steps of City Hall with councilmembers from across the city, advocating for a ban with the help of giant puppets made out of Styrofoam food trays.

The “data puppets,” so called because they visually show the massive amount of polystyrene products previously used in the schools, were built by community members young and old at the Sixth Street Community Center.

“Our whole goal was to get people to laugh first and then go, ‘What is this?’ so we could give our elevator pitch,” Cohen said.

The ban, which was proposed by former Mayor Mike Bloomberg and implemented by Mayor Bill de Blasio this July, was overturned in State Supreme Court on Sept. 22.

Justice Margaret Chan, in her ruling, called the ban “arbitrary and capricious” and denied the city’s claim that recycling used polystyrene containers was neither environmentally effective nor economically feasible.

The judge ordered the Department of Sanitation to reconsider the ban in light of a proposal by the Dart Container Corporation, one of the biggest manufacturers of plastic foam products for the food industry. Dart said that it would pay for better machines to clean and sort the material and keep most of it out of landfills.

A group of manufacturers and recyclers, including the Restaurant Action Alliance, had sued the city in April to stop the ban, arguing that it was actually possible to recycle the containers and even save the city money in the process.

Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia determined last December that the material was not recyclable.

But Dart claims that it can recover more than 90 percent of the foam. In addition, a recycler in Indiana said he would buy the Styrofoam waste for

A student from East Village Community School looking at the giant Styrofoam puppets in the Dinosaur Hill toy store window on E. Ninth St., their permanent home.

the next five years.

The judge accused the city of ignoring these options when making the decision to ban the material, but the mayor immediately announced that he was not backing down.

“We disagree with the ruling,” a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office wrote in a statement. “These products cause real environmental harm, and we need to be able to prevent nearly 30,000 tons of expanded polystyrene waste from entering our

landfills, streets and waterways. We are reviewing our options to keep the ban in effect.”

The ban, passed in January and effective since July, includes a sixmonth grace period, so businesses would have until Jan. 1, 2016, to comply. After that, violations would be punishable by fines, though the city says that for the first year it would only hand out warnings.

Some proponents of the ban say that the court challenge comes too

late anyway because the administration’s efforts already pushed the city’s businesses over the line.

Ron Gonen, a former deputy sanitation commissioner, told Crain’s New York that the vast majority of food-serving businesses in the city had already stopped, or never started, using Styrofoam products — a list that now includes the city’s two biggest former offenders, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts.

The city’s school cafeterias, including those in the East Village, are already Styrofoam-free, which Cohen said won’t change, no matter what happens with the ban. In May, six of the nation’s largest school districts, including New York City, ditched polystyrene trays for eco-friendly compostable plates.

“Technically, [the ruling] doesn’t affect it at all,” Cohen said of the absence of Styrofoam in the city’s schools. Polystyrene trays are around one-third the cost of compostable ones — about 4 cents apiece, compared to about 12 cents.

“It’s a five-year contract and who knows who the mayor will be then,” Cohen said. “But they now have a product that’s not quite cost-neutral, but almost, and prices will come down. The main reason for not doing it was the cost, and now it’s dropped down, and will continue to go down.”

The Styrofoam puppets made at the community center recently made an appearance as part of the People’s Climate Movement Day of Action on Wed., Oct. 14, when two volunteers carried them from their permanent home in the storefront of toy store Dinosaur Hill, at 306 E. Ninth St., to the Flatiron Plaza, at E. 23rd St. and Fifth Ave. Artie Athas, one of the volunteers, said his son Hudson, a fifth grader at The Earth School on E. Sixth St., was one of the kids involved in advocating against polystyrene.

“He participated in spreading the word among his fellow classmates and his teachers. He just wanted to make a positive effect in his school,” Athas said, in between shouting “Happy Climate Action Day!” to passersby.

“It’s about keeping the ban, keeping it going,” he said. “It doesn’t look like it will affect the schools, but we certainly don’t want it to get that far.”

As for the rest of the kids at P.S. 34 and elsewhere, Cohen didn’t rule out taking further action, adding that she was hopeful the ban would prevail in the end.

“We are still deciding what to do.

We’re considering doing some sort of petition or boycott,” she said.

“But we might not need to, because there’s a lot of energy and momentum around this.”

EastVillagerNews.com

Dandy Darkly’s bloody tales have real guts ‘Trigger Happy’ targets horror, American-style

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

C

apering about the stage dressed in cowboy/disco chic, with pursed red lips and a face caked in corpse-meets-Kabuki makeup, Dandy Darkly is a mincing, lilting, alliteration-spouting avenger whose signature look screams horror — but it’s no mere Halloween gimmick.

What you’ll see at the UNDER St. Marks theater on October 29, 30 and 31 is what you get all year long.

That’s both disturbing and reassuring — effects that, while seemingly at odds, are twin pillars supporting a solid philosophical foundation.

Birthed in 2010 on the stage of the Stonewall Inn and developed through a series of guest appearances on Gotham’s cabaret and storytelling circuit, Darkly is the “Southern fried sissy” creation of Brooklyn transplant Neil Arthur James.

Trained from childhood in “the art of Georgia ghost stories,” his work stays true to that narrative backbone, while grafting onto it elements of pop culture, satire, and sexual transgression. It’s as if an unexpected ill wind has blown across a campfire session of one-upsmanship tales, burning eyes and leaving a thick layer of soot in its wake.

With this upcoming Halloween gig marking his fourth collection of original material (joining well-polished gems like the anti-misogyny “Pussy Panic” and the pro-homo “Glory Hole”), Darkly has amassed an impressive body of meticulously constructed supernatural morality tales packed to the gills with Vaudevillian one-liners that induce groans, horrific images that elicit gasps, and psych profile character sketches that expose motives both sinister and pure.

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Joining the Crypt Keeper, Svengoolie and Elvira in the pantheon of creepshow hosts who delight in executing campy framing devices, the actual stories that give a Darkly show its pulpy marrow snake their way toward karmic comeuppances straight out of an Aesop fable or a “Twilight Zone” shocker. Everybody gets what they deserve, and nobody emerges unscathed — except in rare instances when, for example, Darkly provides his own spin on ’80s teen slasher flicks. Unlike the victims stalked by Jason Voorhees or Freddie Krueger, it’s a lack of sexual activity that puts his characters in harm’s way. Excess is rewarded, but only if it’s in the service of staying true to your nature.

That’s one of the hard-earned lessons in Darkly’s new show. Thoroughly enjoyed by this reviewer over the summer (at a Dixon Place world premiere just before its well-received Edinburgh Festival Fringe run), “Trigger Happy” is a four-story collection cut with winks and nods that only slightly dilute the potency of outrage directed at America’s weakness for violence, excess, and complacency. Time-honored boogeymen like werewolves and ghosts spread fear and mayhem alongside more recent horrors like mass shootings and Reality TV. Throughout, Darkly recites long observational and narrative passages at a breakneck pace, gliding with ease through the alliteration-heavy text (an acquired skill that owes as much to the actor’s work ethic as it does to Ian Bjorklund’s corset-tight direction).

“Their disco dancing became a bloody ballet, a spray of crimson confetti and tracer fire the color of clarTRIGGER HAPPY, continued on p.18

PHOTO BY BOBBY MILLER

Dandy Darkly is a straight shooter with the mouth of a sailor and the mind of a psycho.

October 29, 2015

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Dandy is dark, bothered, and just fine TRIGGER HAPPY, continued from p. 17

et,” he says in the opening story “Silver Dollar” (in which a self-loathing ex-military man’s PTSD figures into the tale of “lycanthropy, anxiety and southern fried sodomy!”).

Elsewhere in the show, “Final Girl” begins with the discovery of a once-vivacious starlet in her final role (as a headline-making corpse!), then provides the backstory — a cannibalistic tale in which Hollywood and the insatiable viewing public feed on one of their own.

The plucky heroine of “American Apparel” is a drag queen rat named Bidet, who temporarily reclaims an iconic gay bar that’s fallen victim to changing times. “Craigslist, Manhunt and Scruff,” notes Darkly, “took cruising off the barstool and on to the Internet and abruptly, unexpectedly, the Poppycock was padlocked.” When the titular retail behemoth moves in, it does so as a “corporate cancer” growing “inside the hollowed husks of hallowed LGBT hostelry.” The real terror comes when

former bar patrons return as gentrified zombies, marching “one by one, to a massive meat grinder where rag dolls chewed them into commercial chum.”

Destined to walk the earth with a sweet tooth for underdogs and a short fuse for ambivalence, Darkly uses these blood-soaked tales of horror and revenge as a vehicle for his own eccentric (but righteous) brand of social, political, and sexual activism. With a singsongy voice that chugs its way toward the falsetto range and dissipates into a breathy vapor once it reaches that peak, we’re invited to laugh at his fey nature, even mock it on occasion — an effective ruse that comes back to haunt, when sudden bursts of violent imagery transport the audience into an unsettling realm where nervous laughter is the only sane response.

At 8 p.m., Thurs.–Sat., Oct. 29–31 at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place, btw. First Ave. & Ave. A).

For tickets ($25, $20 for students), visit horsetrade.info.

Artist info at dandydarkly.com.

PHOTO BY LAURA PARDO

Sit a spell, and enjoy the dirty tales of Dandy Darkly.

These Halloween reads transcend horror Suspense, speculation and satire Halloween-minded readers who have the guts to go beyond bloody lit picks will be rewarded with brain candy they can gnaw on all year long. We asked Zyad Hammad and the rest of the Bluestockings Bookstore staff to suggest a few unconventional choices, and they responded with four literary selections that draw their strength from suspense, speculation, and satire.

CHANGERS

by T Cooper and Allison Glock-Cooper What happens when, after getting through the terrors of middle school as a boy named Ethan, you wake up on your first day of high school as a girl named Drew? This sci-fi series for young adults centers on a little-known race of ancient humans who live out each of their four years of high school as someone new — specifically, as someone of the opposite gender. After living life through four different sets of eyes, which life will they choose for themselves?

THE HANDMAID’S TALE

by Margaret Atwood With the unification of church and state, a militaristic, bigoted ruling class sets up a new government in the United States. As global health declines due to pollution — and infertility rises — women are put into bondage, where they are kept in existence only to be used by men. Will equity be regained,

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October 29, 2015

and who will join hands to make it happen? You’ll have to read to find out!

SEVENEVES

by Neal Stephenson The Earth is doomed, with a meteor shower imminently wiping out all of existence. As the human race scrambles to save what natural life it can, scientists work to create a future for our planet. This title uses the fictional progeny of humanity to explore what it means to engage with one another. Sacrifice and hardship pour out onto these pages, and what it means to be “human” is redefined.

SISTERS OF THE REVOLUTION edited by Ann & Jeff Vendermeer This new feminist speculative fiction anthology — including works from celebrated authors Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin and Vandana Singh — presents us with politically charged works of science fiction, horror, and satire. Content from around the globe, sometimes stretching back several decades, makes this collection a great find for the reader who seeks a challenge.

These books are available for purchase at Bluestockings Bookstore is located at 172 Allen St. (btw. Stanton & Rivington Sts.). Call 212-777-6028 or visit bluestockings.com.

COURTESY AKASHIC BOOKSR

In the sci-fi “Changers” series for young adults, high school students live out each grade as someone new.

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‘Dora’ harvests the present to mine the past Part one of ‘Analogy’ trilogy is Dora’s story

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

L

ike the apex of a dancer’s leap, each action we take has its moment in time, then becomes subject to interpretation — by those we share our stories with, and by ourselves, as the decades accumulate and perspective evolves.

Twelve years ago, prolific choreographer Bill T. Jones (with a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in the rearview mirror and a Tony Award in his future) began contemplating legacy — not his own, but that of his French-Jewish mother-in-law, Dora Amelan. Now 95, she sat down for a series of interviews with Jones, the man she has come to regard as her third son.

These reflections would chronicle Dora’s early years in Belgium through the time of her mother’s death, as the Germans were marching into that country — then proceed to her time spent assisting the underground arm of OSE (Organization for Saving the Children), as a nurse and social worker operating inside France’s Gurs and Rivesaltes internment camps.

Premiered by the New York Live Arts-based Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company this past June as part of Montclair State University’s Peak Performances series, “Analogy/Dora: Tramontane” is comprised of 25 vignettes that blend dance, dialogue and singing, as performed by a multiracial, multicultural ensemble.

On, Nov. 4, the Museum of Jewish Heritage will host an evening of video performance excerpts, discussion, and questions from the audience. Moderated by Julie Burstein (author of “Spark: How Creativity Works”), the event will provide a firsthand look at the project’s

themes, backstory, and creative process. Appearing on the stage of Edmond J. Safra Hall will be Jones, Dora Amelan and her son, Bjorn Amelan (Jones’ husband and longtime collaborator, he designed the flats for “Analogy/Dora,” which move in accordance with shifts in location and perspective).

Part one of a trilogy, its self-contained narrative will be bookended by 2017’s “Analogy/Ambrose: The Emigrants” (inspired by a story within author W.G. Sebald’s 1992 collection).

The middle installment, “Analogy/ Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist,” is set to premiere on July 1, 2016, at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. Based on an oral history conducted in a similar manner to the “Dora” project, it draws upon the life of Jones’ nephew, a dancer, during a tumultuous period in 1970s San Francisco.

“They all have a strong connection to war,” said New York Live Arts spokesperson Kyle Maude of the trilogy, in an Oct. 26 phone interview conducted as she was en route to pick up her mother at the airport. Due to give birth any day at that point (baby August has since arrived, healthy and adorable), Maude noted that all of the “Analogy” works explore variations of “a war happening in the world…how each person is affected by that, and how they deal with it on the inside.”

Later that same day, as Maude was anticipating the arrival of a new life, Jones also spoke with this reporter, while on the way to address a family concern of his own. Lance, currently living in Florida, is “in recovery after having lost the use of his lower limbs due to certain medical circumstances not quite understood,” according to a press statement.

PHOTOS BY PAUL B. GOODE

The ensemble brings their contemporary perspectives to the recollections of Holocaust survivor Dora Amelan.

Absorbing both of these events, and the willingness of Maude and Jones to make themselves available in the midst of such upheaval, puts one in mind of the “Dora” project’s imperative to layer the past, present and future, along with its function as a way to preserve the experiences of a rapidly disappearing generation, for the benefit of generations to come.

“Dora is much more fragile than when we did the oral histories. Any day could be her last,” says Jones, who regards the Nov. 4 event — indeed, any time spent with his mother-in-law — as “something very precarious; us sitting on that stage and talking. It’s very DORA, continued on p.20

The 25th Anniversary of Jamie deRoy & friends and Jamie’s 40th Annual 30th Birthday WITh

Joy BehAR RoBeRT CuCCioli lARRy gATlin JAy JohnSon DAiSy JoPling miChele lee luBA mASon aNd More!

Monday, November 9th, 7:30 pm The Gerald W. Lynch Theatre SeATing: $75/$100/$150/$250 PRemium SeATing: $500 Includes premium seating, post-show reception (by phone only) 212.221.7300 ext. 133.

aLL Proceeds beNefIT

Flats designed by Bjorn Amelan are moved in accordance with shifts in location and perspective.

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www.actorsfund.org/jamie October 29, 2015

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‘Dora’ has a contemporary take on living history Although firmly set in the past, Jones emphasizes that “Analogy/Dora” was not created to simply preserve that era, or serve only those interested in exploring it. “What we’re making is not [just] about the Holocaust. It’s about making theater with the people you have now.”

Nor is it simply about the word-for-word interviews, he asserts. A book could do that just, if not more, effectively. Instead, on the stage, “There’s a system at work,” says Jones, which articulates itself in “the way we handle the flats, the repetition of certain tableaus. When you ask yourself what is being said, it’s almost like the question of right and wrong [that Dora asks, when responding to a question about the difference between cooperation and collaboration]. Is it shifting? Is it lucid? Will it change in your memory over time?”

As for how time will impact the “Dora” project, Jones notes that for artists (in general, and certainly specific to himself), “there is a tendency to collect experiences from the world, make your work, and move on. This work, because of how it has landed in the hearts and minds of people, it is not so clear as to what its future will be.”

DORA, continued from p. 19

urgent that I don’t take any day for granted with her.

She’s very much alive right now, so this is a privilege.”

This upcoming conversation, like the work it references, functions in part to contemporize Dora’s wartime experiences.

“From the very beginning, the piece [“Analogy/Dora”] was conceived to not be totally backward-looking,” says Jones, who wanted his performers “to feel the questions they had in their youth reflected in a time sixty to seventy years prior,” when Dora was in her late teens and early twenties.

Rather than asking them to fully comprehend the external conditions of that era or interpret the internal process of “a woman whose first language is French, who speaks Hebrew and German when you sit with her,” the source material arrived with the expectation that it would be “interpreted through their basic knowledge, instincts and skills. They are the contemporary world,” says Jones, whose “gender partitioned” casting has men asking the questions he once posed, and women giving voice to Dora’s responses. “They’re not trying to imitate Dora. That’s why they are themselves,” notes Jones, who counts among his ensemble “a young woman from Taiwan, an African-American woman, and a white woman.

Their very bodies represent what is meant when you ‘read the stage.’ To look at them, there is a kind of dissonance when you realize the story being told is from the 1940s.”

”

”

Wed., Nov. 4, 7 p.m. at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Place). For tickets ($15, $10 for Museum members, $5 for students with valid ID), call 646-4374202 or visit mjhnyc.org. Access more info about The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at newyorklivearts. org (where Jones serves as artistic director).

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE BERGER

Flip the script on choreographer and oral historian Bill T. Jones, when he answers the questions: Nov. 4 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Downtown Music Productions THE DOWNTOWN CHAMBER & OPERA PLAYERS COMPOSERS & POETS Mi mi Stern-Wolfe, Director & Conductor

St. Marks in the Bowery 1 31 East 10th Street (2nd Ave. & 10th St.) Info: 212 477-1594

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Buhmann on Art

‘Nuevos Colores’ at Robert Miller Gallery

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN

T

his extensive and rather timely group exhibition presents a cross-generational group of artists who all live and work in Havana, Cuba. The range of media is eclectic — including site-specific installations, sculptures, paintings, works on paper and photographs, among others.

In order to enter the exhibition, visitors will have to pass underneath a site-specific installation by Arlés del Rio, which is comprised of multi-colored, elongated snorkels. Hanging just out of reach, they generate a sense of visceral yearning for what lies beyond. Holding up a piepan embroidered with thread and beads in her self-portrait photograph, Aimée García also expresses her longing to be freed from the everyday, and her hope to find magic in the mundane.

Elsewhere, Ariamna Contino’s hand-cut and meticulously layered three-dimensional paper images contrast the paper’s inherent fragility with the subject matter: deadly weapons used to commit mass murder.

What these works have in common, aside from their shared cultural background, is that they reference a Cuban socio-political context. Here, oppression, yearning, dichotomies, and alternate realities are recurring themes.

Through Nov. 14 at Robert Miller Gallery (524 W. 26th St. btw. 10th & 11th Aves.). Hours: Tues.–Sat., 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Call 212-366-4774 or visit robertmillergallery.com.

COURTESY ROBERT MILLER GALLERY

Carlos Quintana: “Intriga en el Monasterio” (2015 | 78 11/16 x 86 9/16 in; 200 x 220 cm).

COURTESY ROBERT MILLER GALLERY

Arlés del Rio: “La Necesidad de Otros Aires” (2015 | installation: silicone, nylon, plastic and metal no. 2, 3, and 4 [300 plastic tubes] | dimensions variable).

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COURTESY ROBERT MILLER GALLERY

Aimée García: “Constelaciones” (2010 | digital photograph on canvas embroidered with thread and beads | 31 7/16 x 20 13/16 in; 80 x 53 cm).

October 29, 2015

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October 29, 2015

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P.S. 110 kids work it — and hope it works!

O

n Tues., Oct. 13, on the basketball courts of P.S. 110, the Florence Nightingale School, on Delancey St., students came out in force and with enthusiasm to shoot a video plea directed to the French fashion label Givenchy.

They were asking for a donation to the P.S. 110 P.T.A. Family Giving Fund. The fashion label last month paid big bucks to rent the parking lot next door to the school for their New York Fashion Week after-party. Givenchy emptied out the lot and closed off the sidewalk leading to the school for its celebrity-studded soiree.

Walking to Deee-Lite’s song “The Power of Love” — the after-party’s theme — 110 kids walked the runway, which in-

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cluded pallets donated from Key Food, which were very similar to the wooden staircases constructed for the actual fashion show.

The students wore deconstructed and embellished P.S. 110 T-shirts, styled by the wardrobe department of “Law & Order: SVU,” as they each held up poster boards detailing the reasoning for their “ask.”

The video was shot by P.S. 110 parent and director Chris Roberson. The final cut is being sent directly to designer Riccardo Tisci and others at the House of Givenchy.

“I don’t know how they are going to say no to these bright, talented and deserving kids after they see this video!” said Kathleen Keene, P.S. 110 P.T.A. president.

October 29, 2015

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