DOWNTOWN EXPRESS, NOVEMBER 9, 2011

downtown

TEMDER MUSCLES, P. 24

®

VOLUME 24, NUMBER 26

express THE NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

NOVEMBER 9 - 15, 2011

Peck Slip School expansion insufficient, says residents

Downtown Express photo by Milo Hess

Veteran folk rockers visit Zuccotti On Tuesday, Nov. 8, David Crosby (above) and Graham Nash brought their voices and musical talents to Zuccotti Park to support and promote the Occupy Wall Street encampment, now entering its eighth week.

O.W.S. adopts new decision-making model

BY ALINE REYNOLDS As Occupy Wall Street enters its eighth week, members of the movement who continue to camp out in Zuccotti Park are testing out a new way to come together and make decisions. The O.W.S.’s new, consensus-based model, dubbed “Operational Spokes Council,” is meant to address the logistical needs of the park’s inhabitants that members say are being neglected by the nightly

General Assembly meetings.

The Spokes Council, intended to be “non-hierarchical” and “directly democratic,” is supposed to facilitate discussions solely among “operational” working groups, or groups directly involved with the encampment at Zuccotti Park, according to a written proposal of the model posted on O.W.S.’s website.

A talking point of several recent

O.W.S. meetings, the model was initially proposed in mid-October, after the nightly G.A. became too large and diffuse to meet day-to-day operational demands of the park.

On Friday, Oct. 28, the Spokes Council was voted into implementation by the G.A. Gregory Schwedock, a member of

BY ALINE REYNOLDS Though Lower Manhattan parents rejoiced about last week’s announcement of the Peck Slip elementary school expansion, it is hardly proving to be a solution to school overcrowding Downtown.

When Peck Slip opens in 2015, the neighborhood’s overall school capacity will be four years behind its demand, according to Eric Greenleaf, a professor of New York University’s Stern School of Business and an active member of NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s School Overcrowding Task Force.

Not counting Peck Slip, Community District Two needs a total of approximately 1,200 new elementary school seats — the equivalent of twice the planned elementary capacity of P.S. 276 plus the Spruce Street School, according to Greenleaf’s latest overcrowding analysis.

Greenleaf presented his startling calculations to Community Board 1’s Youth and Education Committee at

its Monday, Nov. 7 meeting.

“You can go and overcrowd the schools in the Village, Chinatown and Chelsea, and it’s not going to get you anywhere close to 1,200 seats,” said Greenleaf, in light of a recent iteration of the city’s proposal to rezone School District Two. “What we’re seeing is the fastest growing part of Manhattan,” said Greenleaf.

“What’s needed is more schools.”

Greenleaf factored the district’s overall birth rate numbers into his enrollment projections, which according to his reports, rose by 27.6 percent between 2006 and 2009, and are likely to go up by 35 percent from 2006 to 2010. (The cityissued report on birth rates for last year, he noted, is due for release in the coming weeks).

Greenleaf’s presentation seemed to test the nerves of Lorraine Grillo, the Department of Education’s School Construction Authority President, who attended the committee

Continued on page 14 Continued on page 15

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November 9 - 15, 2011

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Mixed forecast for One W.T.C., says leasing exec

BY ALINE REYNOLDS Tara Stacom, vice chairperson of the global commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, and a member of the firm’s global advisory board, has taken on one of Lower Manhattan’s most eminent office leasing projects: 1 World Trade Center, formerly dubbed the “Freedom Tower.” In a Nov. 2 interview, Stacom remarked on the building’s current and prospective tenants in light of the economic downturn, the building’s distinguishing characteristics and day-to-day activity at the site.

DE: What is so appealing about 1 W.T.C., from the perspective of an office tenant?

It’s truly a chance for a company to get on a global stage. The tower is a global icon — it’s going to be the largest, tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

It’s only up to 86 stories in steel, yet it makes an extraordinary impression. For many companies I’ve represented, from the smallest to the largest, the letterhead address is very significant in assisting to transform their identity around the world. When Rockefeller Center was built, and tenants put on their letterhead, “Rockafeller Plaza,” they got instant recognition. The W.T.C. site will do that in a far greater way, because it’s more iconic, it’s more discussed and talked about, and it’s architecturally renowned.

DE: Talk about the tenants you’ve secured thus far.

international presence as we get closer to renting. We’re also looking for diversity [in size] and are ready to lease smaller spaces than your million-square-foot tenants — like one-to-two floors — so that we have a truly diverse, global building in every respect. We do have serious prospects currently from the Downtown community, and we want to attract other Midtown tenants, of course.

The first tenant which signed is Vantone, for about 190,000 square feet on floors 64 to 69. The second is Conde Nast, which took just over one million feet on floors 20 to 41.

DE: What kind of company is Vantone?

It’s actually a division of Vantone called China Center New York, a Chinese entity that houses companies from China coming to the U.S. to do business. It’s going to be a terrific asset for the bluilding. It’s owned by a renowned individual in China who hired a renowned architect to construct an extraordinary premises that the other tenants will benefit from, including a conference space and a club facility.

DE: How do you think Conde Nast’s lease-signing is continuing to influence the office market in 1 W.T.C. and Downtown in general?

Conde Nast is a global brand with cache.

For many tenants in New York City, it shined a light on a Downtown that was thought to be solely for financial services and investment banking, which it has been for quite some time.

Everyone jokes and smiles when saying how the young Goldman Sachs guys will wonderfully mix with the Conde Nast employees.

DE: Are there any other office tenants you’ve lined up that we don’t know about yet?

Conde was unusually out of the box early!

There are more than a dozen that we’re tracking, including a creative firm and a law firm.

Their brokers would prefer that I not mention their names. There are millions of feet of potential there — we have been touring actively and are having active dialogue with very large users as well as two-floor users.

Photo courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

Tara Stacom, chief leasing agent for 1 W.T.C.

DE: In sealing new leases, are you targeting specific types of business or industries?

Yes, in that we’re looking at getting a very diverse roster within the building — not just from a size perspective but from an industry category perspective, and from a geographic perspective. We are [searching] for further

DE: Describe these tours to prospective tenants. How long do they typically take?

We can tour anywhere from four to six prospects in a week. What’s interesting in touring 1 W.T.C. is that, unlike a normal building, where a tour will last 35-to-45 minutes, a tour can last easily three hours; because it’s a sixteen acre site with so much to understand, whether it’s the Calatrava train station, the

Continued on page 19

O.W.S. finds space for bathroom facilities In an attempt to address quality-of-life issues in and around Zuccotti Park, which for the last two weeks have been the focal point of the debate over Occupy Wall Street, the protesters on Friday, Nov. 4 announced they found space for off-site, 24-hour bathroom use.

In a statement released by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, State Senator Daniel Squadron, and Councilwoman Margaret Chin, the elected officials announced that O.W.S. secured space on a loading dock connected to 52 Broadway to install three portable bathrooms. The statement also said there would be a trained security guard at the location 24-hours-a-day.

“We reiterate our call on the City to take a ‘zerotolerance’ approach to public urination and other such behavior, and to enforce laws prohibiting excessive noise,” said the statement. “The fact that both the city and O.W.S. are making progress in addressing serious quality-of-life issues signals that there is a path for solving these and other emerging concerns. We strongly encourage the parties to continue to communicate and we ask that the park remain open and accessible for emergency personnel.”

The building at 52 Broadway is the headquarters for the United Federation of Teachers. The U.F.T. has been providing the demonstrators with storage space in their building for the last month.

The Occupy Wall Street website states that the three port-a-potties will be “maintained by a professional service” and that O.W.S. volunteers are “blanketing” Zuccotti Park, distributing fliers that direct people to the facilities.

— John Bayles

Downtown Express photo by Cynthia Magnus

The three portable toilets placed on a loading dock connected to the United Federation of Teachers’ headquarters at 52 Broadway are being monitored by a trained security guard on a 24-hour basis.

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November 9 - 15, 2011

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OWNTOWN DIGEST

OVERCROWDING TASK FORCE REQUESTS TWEED TOUR Members of NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s School Overcrowding Task Force have requested a tour of the Tweed Courthouse’s six ground-floor classrooms.

Specifically, task force member Paul Hovitz asked the NYC Department of Education’s Portfolio Planning director, Elizabeth Rose, to facilitate a tour of Innovate Manhattan, a charter school that is temporarily sited at Tweed this year until the school finds a permanent home elsewhere; as well as a tour of the rest of the four-story building that houses D.O.E.’s headquarters.

“I’d be happy to arrange for the executive director to meet with folks,” said Rose in response. “I’m sure the executive director of Innovate would be delighted to have guests come.”

At the task force meeting, Rose also relayed details about the Peck Slip School expansion. The elementary school will incubate at Tweed next year, at two classes per grade, and have four classes per grade when it moves into One Peck Slip in 2015.

When asked whether there is additional classroom space for the Peck Slip students at Tweed, Rose said, ‘No.’ “The seventh room on the ground floor is now used as the Chancellor’s conference room, and receives pretty heavy rotation,” said Rose.

NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-9, 12-21 EDITORIAL PAGES . . . . . . . . . . 10-11 YOUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 ARTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 - 27

Even if the conference room was converted into a classroom, she noted, Tweed would run out of space for incoming students by the year 2014, and a grade of the school would have to be located elsewhere.

“It wouldn’t even add enough space for truly expanding the sections per grade in the course of the incubation,” said Rose. “We know sending children to two different schools [has the] real potential to have complexity for families.”

ADVOCATES FOR JUSTICE HONORS 11 COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS A new public interest law firm representing 9/11 victims commemorated 11 community leaders on Friday, Nov. 4 at Albert Shanker Hall, at 52 Broadway.

The fall awards reception marked the firm’s first fundraising event, whose guests included NYC Comptroller John Liu, NYS Assemblymembers William Colton and Joan Millman and Councilmember Robert Jackson.

Awards for courageous advocacy on behalf of local communities were granted to John Feal, founder and president of the FealGood Foundation; Community Board 1 Chairperson Julie Menin; Occupy Wall Street members; union presidents Anthony Wells and Santos Crespo, Jr., and local community residents, among others. Recognition was also given to the Lin Sing Association and WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

CLASSIFIEDS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

M

C.B. 1 EE TING S

A schedule of this week’s upcoming Community Board 1 committee meetings is below. Unless otherwise noted, all committee meetings are held at the board office, located at 49-51 Chambers St., room 709 at 6 p.m.

ON WED., NOV. 9: The State Liquor Authority process review task force will convene at 5 p.m.

After, at 6 p.m., the Tribeca Committee meeting will meet.

ON THURS., NOV. 10: Committee meeting will meet.

The Landmarks

ON MON., NOV. 14: The World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee will meet.

ON TUES., NOV. 15: The Seaport-Civic Center Committee will meet.

November 9 - 15, 2011

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POLICE BLOTTER Good Samaritan victimized A woman having lunch at Au Bon Pain at 80 Pine St. left her bag at her table for a few minutes when she went to help an elderly man who collapsed near her at 1 p.m.

Tues., Nov. 1. After she returned to work, she received a phone call from her bank that $834 had been charged on one of her credit cards. She discovered that her wallet and been stolen from her bag and $3,096 in more unauthorized charges had been made on her credit cards at various locations.

Assault and battery Police stopped a man identified as John Doe at 12:20 a.m. Tues., Nov.1 who was butting his head against a door of a building at the northeast corner of Cedar St. and Trinity Pl. He was charged with disorderly conduct after he spit at and shoved the arresting officer.

White St. between Church St. and Broadway at 1:20a.m. Sat. Nov., 5 and returned a half hour later to find the front passenger side window broken and his jacket, a knee brace valued at $2,000 and his GPS charger had been stolen.

Occupier arrests Of the 20 people arrested in connection with Occupy Wall St. demonstrations last week, two were New York City school teachers, police said. David Suker, 43, of Sayville, L.I. was arrested in Soho at Thompson and Prince Sts at 4:40 p.m. Wed., Nov. 2 and charged with blocking traffic with a shopping cart and knocking a police officer to the ground by pushing the cart against the officer’s motor scooter.

At Centre and Pearl Sts. in Foley Sq., Joshua Wiles, 27, was arrested for disorderly conduct around 3:30p.m. Sat. Nov. 5, after a march up from Zuccotti Park, police said.

Auto violations

Gunpoint robber

A Washington D.C. visitor who parked his 2005 Hundai on John and South Sts. at 11 p.m. Fri., Nov. 4 discovered when he returned to it at 6:30 p.m. the next day that it had been stolen.

A man parked his car in front of 50

A man holding what the victim believed was a handgun inside a white plastic bag walked into Lex and Jades boutique at 193 Prince St. around 4:10p.m. Tues., Nov. 1, demanded money and told the employee to hurry up. He fled east on Prince St. on foot with $120.

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Mugging couple

Credit card fakes

A man and a woman robbed a victim who was talking on her cell phone around 6 p.m. Fri., Nov. 4 on the southwest corner of Howard St. and Broadway. The male suspect pushed the victim; the woman grabbed her cell phone and the two thieves fled into the subway station on Canal St. at Broadway.

Police arrested two suspects on Thompson and W. Houston Sts. around 7:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 5 and charged them with using fake credit cards to pay $2,344 for a car. Johnson Mosquito, 22, and Michael Johnson, 21, were charged with larceny.

Shoppers ripped off A woman visiting from Sweden was shopping in a department store on Spring St, and Broadway around 5 p.m. Fri., Nov. 4 when she felt someone jostle her. She discovered that her wallet had been picked from her bag.

A woman, 55, visiting from Hawaii, was trying on shoes at the David Z boutique, 561 Broadway near Prince St. around 4 p.m. Sat., Oct. 29 when she discovered that her bag, which she had placed on the floor beside her, was gone along with the $500 in cash, jewelry valued at $600 and her iPhone.

Shoplifters A man and a woman who walked into the TSE boutique at 120 Wooster St. around 3 p.m. Sun., Oct. 30 managed to take a cashmere cape from a display manikin and walk out without paying for it. The shop manager noticed three days later that the item was missing and called police after viewing the surveillance tape that recorded the theft.

Untended handbags A Brooklyn woman, 21,left her bag on the back of her chair with her jacket over it in Greenhouse, the club at 150 Varick St., around 3 a.m. Sun., Oct. 30 and went to the powder room. She returned five minutes later to find that a thief had made off with the bag but left her jacket.

A Queens woman, 19, left her handbag unattended at her table at Diva, the club at 331 W. Broadway at Grand St., around 1 a.m., Sat., Nov. 5 and returned a few minutes later to find it had been stolen.

A woman patron of Tolani, the club at 144 Franklin St., left her bag unattended for five minutes while she went to the ladies’ room at 1 a.m. Sat., Nov. 5. She returned to find it had been stolen.

Forgot his wallet A Brooklyn man left his wallet on the counter of the Dunkin Donuts at 100 Chambers St. after he paid for his order at noon on Sun., Nov. 6 and returned a short time later but it was gone.

— Alber t Amateau

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Squadron’s town hall occupied by O.W.S.

BY JOHN BAYLES New York State Senator Daniel Squadron came into the community room at Southbridge Towers on Monday night, took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

“It’s like getting ready for a fight,” joked Squadron. “But I’m sure that’s not what we’re doing tonight.”

It was Squadron’s annual community meeting, at which he invites his constituents to ask questions about practically anything concerning life in the 25th Senate District.

Approximately 100 people were in attendance and Squadron fielded questions on everything from rat control in local parks to school rezoning to helicopter noise. But it was Occupy Wall Street that garnered the most questions and took up much of the meeting.

Catherine McVay Hughes, vice chair of Community Board 1, brought up the qualityof-life issues that have been at the center of the O.W.S. debate over the last few weeks.

Squadron, in turn, asked the audience if they thought the noise and sanitation issues concerning the encampment at Zuccoti Park had improved, noting the removal of some of the barricades along Wall Street and the fact that the demonstrators had found space for three portable bathrooms.

The audience responded with a resounding “no.”

Linda Gerstman said she believed public support and support from elected officials

such as Squadron was “encouraging” the demonstrators to “push the boundaries” in terms of the park’s “rules.” As for the First Amendment right to protest, Gerstman said

“When you have a $2 billion deficit, it’s not a great time for tax cuts, especially for those who can most afford it,” — Daniel Squadron

it does give the demonstrators the right to be there, but “it does not allow for breaking the rules.”

“You have to start advocating for us and not for out-of-towners,” said Gerstman.

Squadron then began to explain how he and other elected officials had been both advocating for the demonstrators as well as the community, citing a letter he, with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and NYC Councilmember Margaret Chin sent to Mayor Bloomberg last week specifically asking for such issues to be addressed and

Downtown Express photo by Cynthia Magnus

An Occupy Wall Street activist shows off some the items that have been pouring in via donations to make sure the demonstrators stay warm during the winter.

Occupiers prepare for the cold

BY CYNTHIA MAGNUS With winter approaching Occupy Wall Street camp organizers are working to ensure an adequate supply of needed materials as well as viable means to keep the movement going as weather becomes an issue.

The Occupy Wall Street “shipping, inventory, and storage” group started out of the back of a U-Haul on Oct. 4 when volunteer Saum Eskandani with two others saw a need to unpack and organize the donations that

had begun to flow into Camp Zuccotti from all over the country. Within 48 hours they acquired their space at 52 Broadway through a connection with the United Federation of Teachers.

The space now holds a surplus of some items that the group would like to send to other “occupy” groups to share the wealth and promote “inter-occupation” communi-

Continued on page 20

enforced.

“Neither issue is a small issue,” said Squadron.

Another audience member piped in and accused Squadron of not directly answering the question about the rules of the park, specifically pertaining to tents. Before Squadron could offer an explanation, he was again interrupted as other members of the audience brought up his involvement with stopping the planned “cleaning” of the park by its owners, Brookfield Properties, some four weeks ago.

The intervention occurred, said Squadron, “Because that event in that moment would have turned and gotten very ugly, very quickly.”

As for the question about the park rules, Squadron said, “If those rules came out after the protests started, then the burden is very high.”

On Tuesday, Squadron said, “There are different standards applied to rules that are promulgated in direct response to First Amendment speech. That’s one of the [issues].”

Squadron said the other issue is the city’s role in enforcement.

“The city’s role is to enforce the issues that we’re pushing them on,” said the Senator.

Squadron noted that he has asked the city to publicly acknowledge whether or not they are indeed enforcing rules concerning noise resulting from drumming and other issues

like sanitation.

As of press time, the city did not return calls for comment on enforcement of such rules.

“I certainly knew [O.W.S. would come up] and I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to raise that issue,” said Squadron after the meeting.

Other issues were addressed at the meeting, such as the “Millionaire’s Tax.” Squadron said the NY State Senate Democrats, on Monday, released an analysis of the state’s projected expenses and revenues. Squadron said the analysis showed “a $200 million deficit for the rest of this fiscal year and a $2 billion deficit for the following year.”

The Senator plans to support legislation, along with Speaker Silver, which come January when sessions in Albany resume, would extend the tax cuts to people making between $250,000 and $1 million per year.

Anyone making over $1 million would not benefit from a tax cut come 2012.

“When you have a $2 billion deficit, it’s not a great time for tax cuts, especially for those who can most afford it,” said Squadron.

At the end of the meeting, which lasted almost two hours, Squadron said, “This was a classic town hall. A lot of community frustrations came out. Please keep coming back, keep complaining. It really does make a difference.”

November 9 - 15, 2011

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downtown express

It’s full steam ahead for Seaport Museum’s new director

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER The banner outside the museum at 12 Fulton St. still says “Seaport Museum New York,” but it is no longer accurate. On Nov. 2, the name of the museum reverted to the “South Street Seaport Museum” — the name by which it had been known for most of the 40 years since it was founded. The museum’s old logo depicting a sailing ship and the early 19th-century buildings of Schermerhorn Row was also resurrected.

“The name was legally changed by my predecessors but it was a very short-lived passage and everybody that we run into feels that the earlier name — South Street Seaport Museum — has the greater meaning and connection with the buildings and the ships and the mission that they know from before,” said Susan Henshaw Jones, Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum of the City of New York and for the last month, also the director of the South Street Seaport Museum.

In an agreement signed in two parts — the first on Sept. 29 and the second on Oct. 6 with the New York City Economic Development Corp., the Museum of the City of New York agreed to take on the management of the foundering museum at the Seaport for up to 18 months.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has allocated $2 million to the museum to help fund the first year. Jones

Downtown Express photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Susan Henshaw Jones, Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum of the City of New York, is now also director of the South Street Seaport Museum, which has reverted to its original name after having briefly been called Seaport Museum New York.

said that additional funding for the next six months of the provisional period was “yet to be discussed.”

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.

“We’ve done a lot in a month,” Jones said. “We’ve reopened Bowne & Co. [at 211 Water St.], we’ve hired two archivists

to reorganize the library, which they will do with the assistance of Norman Brower [former curator and historian at the museum], and we’ve hired a waterfront director. He is the first step to getting the public back on the boats and getting them repaired.”

Jonathan Boulware, the newly hired director of ships, comes to the South Street Seaport Museum from Sound Waters, a maritime non-profit organization based in Stamford, Conn., that specializes in environmental education and marine studies.

He will be responsible, in part, for getting the South Street Seaport Museum’s working vessels — the Pioneer, the W.O. Decker and the Lettie G. Howard — in condition so that they can once again carry passengers beginning in April, 2012. They were sidelined this past season because of the museum’s management and financial difficulties.

Boulware joins a staff at the Seaport that now numbers 15 people, some of them, also employed at the Museum of the City of New York.

“We’ve committed in the first year over a million dollars in donated staff services including me and lots of other people,” said Jones, who splits her time between the two museums.

Franny Kent is also among those with responsibilities at both museums. At the

Continued on page 17

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November 9 - 15, 2011

Tower 7 reaches capacity; artists to vacate by 2012

BY ALINE REYNOLDS For years, real estate developer Larry Silverstein has allowed artists to paint, draw and photograph on the 48th floor of 7 World Trade Center free of charge — a tradition dating back the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s artists-in-residence program in the former Twin Towers.

The time has come, however, for the artists to vacate their beloved studio space due to the recent acquisition by global investment firm M.S.C.I., which signed a 20-year lease in September for floors 47 to 49 of 7 W.T.C. With the the M.S.C.I. lease, Silverstein’s state-of-the-art tower has reached full occupancy. The six artists that have set up shop in the makeshift studio can remain there until the new year when M.S.C.I. will begin laying out its offices starting in January. The firm expects to move into the space by mid-2012, according to Dara McQuillan, senior vice president of marketing and communications at Silverstein Properties.

“We did have a lot of success with the program — not just with artists but with photographers documenting the [W.T.C.] site for many, many years,” said McQuillan at last month’s Community Board 1 World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee meeting.

Since the building opened in 2006, the 48th floor has been used for C.B. 1 meetings, P.S. 89’s “Rafflemania” and other community fundaisers, as well as photo, television and

Downtown Express photo by Aline Reynolds

Marcus Robinson and five other working artists must vacate the studio space at 7 W.T.C. by January.

film shoots — some of which will continue to take place on the 10th floor, Silverstein’s marketing center.

“If we’re approached by the right organization,” said McQuillan, “we’ll happily work

with them to make whatever event they want to do there a success.”

Meanwhile, McQuillan is hoping to help the artists find another temporary studio at the site or elsewhere in the neighborhood,

380 2nd Ave. (at 23rd St.), Suite 303 111 Broadway (near Wall St.)

since “we risk having this interruption in the way the projects are being documented,” he said.

Silverstein said of the forthcoming transformation of the 48th floor, “Art played a hugely important role in the city’s catharsis after 9/11…I was thrilled to be able to provide space at the top of 7 W.T.C. to [all of the artists]. They have each done an incredible job documenting not only the skyline of New York, but the new skyline of a rebuilt World Trade Center.”

Representational artist Todd Stone, for one, is racing against the clock to complete three of his large oil paintings — two that illustrate 1 W.T.C.’s glass curtain wall and its kaleidoscopic reflections; and one that depicts ant-sized visitors strolling around the National Sept. 11 Memorial plaza from the vantage point of the the 7 W.T.C. studio, which rises 650 feet into the air.

“It’s been an unbelievable opportunity to be there as the 9/11 Memorial took shape in the rush to the 10th anniversary of 9/11,” said Stone.

While at the studio, Stone also completed his series, “Witness / Downtown Rising,” a collection of 20 watercolor paintings that chronicle Lower Manhattan’s shifting skyline since 9/11.

Stone, who painted the events of Sept.

11 from his fifth floor walk-up apartment on

Continued on page 15

80 Fifth Ave. (at 14th St.), Suite 1601 165 West 46th St. (at 7th Ave.)

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Women’s Healthcare Services Returns to Tribeca Following the closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital, many physicians came to New York Downtown Hospital so they could continue to serve their patients on the West Side.

With the opening of a new Center on 40 Worth Street, we are pleased to welcome two exceptional physicians back to the community. They will be working in collaboration with physicians from Weill Cornell Medical Associates.

Photo by Albert Amateau

Chocolatier Jacques Torres enthusiastically supports the Trinity Real Estate rezoning plan.

Hearing it on Hudson Sq.; It’s all in the heights Dr. Zhanna Fridel and Dr. Vanessa Pena are board certified obstetricians and gynecologists utilizing leading diagnostic and treatment methodologies across a broad spectrum of women's health issues.

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BY ALBERT AMATEAU The Department of City Planning heard from the public last week on Trinity Real Estate’s proposal for a Special Hudson Square District intended to encourage mixed-use, residential and commercial development.

The proposal would cover an 18-block manufacturing district, roughly between Canal and W. Houston Sts. and between Greenwich St. and Sixth Ave., in an area where changes are running far ahead of land-use rules.

Current regulations prohibit new residential, school and most cultural uses, and impose no height restrictions in the area, which includes the square-block entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

In addition to complications related to the tunnel entrance, the sizes of blocks in the district vary greatly.

The rezoning would set height limits on new buildings, allow new residential construction and some conversion of commercial buildings.

At the same time, the proposal attempts to protect current commercial uses and light manufacturing.

Business and residential neighbors at the Oct. 27 scoping session on the environmental impact statement (E.I.S.) for the new zoning welcomed the proposal and said that new rules were vital for the fast-changing area.

But the devil is in the details and some owners, along with Community Board 2, called for the E.I.S. to consider revisions or alternatives regarding height limits, residential conversions, open space and other concerns.

On the positive side, Ellen Baer, director of Hudson Square Connection, the recently

organized business improvement district, supported the rezoning, stating, “The lack of existing residential density has inhibited the market for the retail needed for a vibrant business district.”

Jacques Torres, owner of a chain of chocolate shops who has a manufacturing and retail location at 350 Hudson St. in the district, agreed.

“On weekends nobody comes here because almost nobody lives here, while a few blocks north, the Village is packed,” he said. “We have a five-day business week until five or six o’clock and then there’s nobody on the street. The change is going to come sooner or later, like it did in Tribeca. We have a chance to get together here to see that it happens the right way,” Torres said.

Intended to encourage affordable housing through the city’s voluntary Inclusionary Housing Program, the district would also require ground-floor retail uses to enliven the streetscape.

At the now-vacant lot that Trinity owns in the southeast corner of the district with frontages on three wide thoroughfares, Varick and Canal Sts. and Sixth Ave., the zoning would permit a 430-foot-tall, residential building, the district’s tallest, with space for a 420-seat public elementary school on the lower floors.

The zoning would allow as-of-right, residential conversion of buildings up to 50,000 square feet, but several groups and residents wanted residential conversions allowed for larger buildings in the district — of 70,000 square feet or more.

The performing arts space HERE has been at 145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St. since

Continued on page 18

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November 9 - 15, 2011

Transit Sam

The Answer man

A busy weekend of traffic tribulations begins Friday with Veterans Day and a visit from Vice President Joe Biden. Mr. Biden is hitting the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden mid to late afternoon Friday to attend the unveiling of the “Horse Soldier” Statue that was created to honor our special forces. As the V.P. is likely to be escorted down FDR Drive from LaGuardia Airport and around to West St., Downtown drivers can expect security delays and heavy turbulence into the afternoon rush hour.

Major construction begins at the Battery Tunnel this weekend with one tube fully closed from 10 p.m. Friday night to 5 a.m. Monday morning. Two-way traffic will be maintained in the other tube, leaving only one lane open in each direction. Several full weekend closures of one of the Battery Tunnel tubes will occur through the end of 2012, including the weekends of November 18th and December 2nd of this year.

From the mailbag: Dear Transit Sam, I frequently use the Bleecker Street 6 Train Station near SoHo, NoHo and the West Village. For the past several weeks, I’ve noticed that a portion of the northbound uptown platform near the entrance is constantly dripping and covered with water. If you need to head to the front of the train once you enter the station or make your way from the front of the train if you get off at Bleecker, there’s a good chance you’ll get wet since the water is in a very narrow location along the platform. I tried avoiding it by walking on the edge

of the platform, and I almost slipped onto the tracks. I hope the MTA fixes this as soon as possible. What’s going on?

Trent, East Village Dear Trent, My spanking new suit got soaked coming back from a meeting because of the partially flooded platform. It’s slippery and dangerous. The MTA is currently reconstructing the station to provide a direct connection between the northbound 6 train and the B, D, F and M trains. As part of their construction, they’re replacing the sidewalk above, which is the source of the flooding. When they demolished the sidewalk, they also removed the waterproofing materials underneath it. This allowed rain to seep onto the platform along with the water that was used to wet the concrete when the sidewalk was being removed. Since you wrote me, the MTA finished removing the sidewalk (no more water from wetting the concrete). In addition after hearing from Transit Sam, the MTA told me they have since put back the waterproofing that was in place before the sidewalk construction (in case of inclement weather). I checked the platform the other day and noticed it was much better. I’ve asked the MTA to finish the clean up tout-de-suite.

Transit Sam Confused about ever changing traffic regulations and transit operations? Need help navigating around lower

Photo courtesy of Joshua A. Knoller

The northbound platform at the Bleecker Street 6 Train Station near SoHo, NoHo and the West Village floods on a regular basis.

Manhattan? If so, e-mail TransitSam@downtownexpress. com or write to Transit Sam, 611 Broadway, Suite 415, New York, NY 10012.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Soho BID needs work

O.W.S. pros outweigh cons

In general, we support business improvement districts. But, at this point, we can’t support the effort to create a BID along Soho’s Broadway corridor.

In short, the steering committee of major property owners that has pushed for the creation of a Broadway Soho BID hasn’t won sufficient community support. Unlike the Chinatown and Hudson Square BIDs, which had strong support from Community Board 2, this BID was overwhelmingly rejected by C.B. 2. And it has generated fierce and widespread opposition in the Soho community.

There are also issues with the property owners’ vote that raise questions about whether it accurately represented community sentiment. For example, all 40 condo owners at the luxury building at 40 Mercer St. were counted as “yes” votes based on the signature of a single sponsor of the condo. These 40 votes were an important percentage of the total votes in support of the BID. The city’s Department of Small Business Services tells us that’s considered kosher — but it doesn’t pass our smell test. Many of these condo owners are reportedly absentee.

Meanwhile, longtime, full-time residents who have seen Soho “malled” over the years — turned from a world-renowned artists’ enclave into a shopping mall — have recoiled from the BID plan.

Assemblymember Deborah Glick recently withdrew her support for the BID. Citing the 40 Mercer St. residents who aren’t here full time, she called their contribution to the community “questionable,” especially when compared to the far higher number of permanent Soho residents who oppose the BID. If there is a formal vote to authorize or deny the BID, however, it will be in the City Council. Margaret Chin, who represents Soho in the Council, wrote a talking point that appeared in this paper in February, in which she stated: “I have said from the beginning that I will not support a Broadway Soho BID unless I see substantial support from residents in the proposed BID catchment area, including from Community Board 2.”

Clearly, that “substantial support” just isn’t there.

Admittedly, the Broadway Soho BID Steering Committee, with Chin’s help, worked to scale back the BID’s scope and budget to try to meet the community’s wishes. A complicated reimbursement formula was scrapped in favor of a flat $1 annual fee for residential condo and co-op owners. Yet, in the end, most Soho residents remain unconvinced this BID is in the neighborhood’s best interests.

Nevertheless, what the BID is offering are basically benign things, like snow and trash removal and improvements in pedestrian safety. ACE, which had been providing supplemental sanitation services, was having trouble raising funds from local property owners and merchants to continue its operations, which resulted in the BID proposal.

If the BID isn’t approved, then the ball would be back in the court of the BID’s opponents. Without a BID, where will the money come from to fund ACE’s efforts to clean Broadway? The reality is that Broadway is hammered by droves of shoppers and tourists every day. It could use the help that ACE provided or a BID would provide.

But the proposed BID’s time has not yet come. The best solution is for the BID backers and community groups to take a step back and, together, go back to the drawing board and try to find a solution with broader support. The Hudson Square BID failed in its first iteration years ago, and came back with a model that now enjoys strong community support.

One thing is for certain, though — a BID without the community’s backing simply won’t fly.

To the Editor: Last Thursday night I went down to an off-site sustainability meeting for Occupy Wall Street. Our community garden needs compost and they have it. It’s a win-win.

As I walked to the bus I passed young adults in my neighborhood partying in a bar and at a well-heeled gallery opening.

When I got to the meeting area there was an atrium full of young adults — and people of other ages — gathered in clusters strategizing about media, sustainability, sanitation, facilitation, education, etc. on behalf of O.W.S. Did you know that after their generators were taken they hooked up bikes to batteries to power their electricity? Did you know they are looking into solar power and building a model wind generator? They are creating power-generation models that we might all need to know how to build someday. They are figuring out recycling. (City parks are not required to recycle.) They are composting, they have a gray water reclamation model.

They are building possibilities for sustainability that as community gardeners we’ve been working toward for more than 30 years now.

On the Lower East Side, we still have a vibrant neighborhood: diverse, interesting and rich in culture and uniqueness. I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.

But in my neighborhood another teenager was murdered a few weeks ago, despite the courageous attempts by his parents to organize against youth violence. One of the few remaining lowincome senior homes was sold for luxury condos. Those longtime residents were scattered away from friends and families.

More unemployed workers and fewer housing options for this community’s elderly resulted. I wish we had thought to “Occupy Bialystoker.”

As a parent, I know it’s hard to live next to noise and crowds. We’ve been subjected to an unending barrage of luxury construction on the Lower East Side and a high-end bar scene that has generated noise, murders and not a few wasted evenings spent trying to rein this scene in.

We have seen a burgeoning of mindless wealth accumulation and the required mind-numbing activity that accompanies it. We have seen the despair in our low- and middle-income youth over the realization that they will never be a part of the American Dream while witnessing the relentless economic decline of their parents. Over-the-top wealth inequity is not news here.

If I had a choice between living with the (loud) sounds and inconveniences of youth organizing for a better world, trying to take charge of their futures, as well as the future of all of us, or living with the status quo — I know what my choice would be.

They are welcome next door to me.

Bring it all. Drums too. Because I think it

may be past time to end our silent consent to the travesties going on around us.

K Webster

Chin and the one percent To the Editor: Re. “‘Occupy’ Movement signal to D.C.” (guest editorial, by Margaret Chin, Oct. 12): For The Downtown Express to designate Margaret Chin as a speaker for Occupy Wall Street is like awarding Donald Rumsfeld the Nobel Peace Prize. The councilmember’s land-use policies in Soho, on the Bowery and in Chinatown completely favor the 1 percent.

Yes, the “anger is palpable” — everyone in Soho detests Chin’s support for the business improvement district that is being forced down our throats by the 1 percent.

Chin continues that O.W.S., “however hazily defined, demands more transparency.”

She must be talking about the Chinatown BID vote that claims 97 percent of the property owners voted for this private government, even though 600 small property owners registered their official opposition with the City Clerk. Even Gaddafi or the ayatollahs of Iran never dared to claim 97 percent of the vote in their dummy elections.

Ultimately, Chin calls for “responsible banking.” She must be talking about the 1 percent at First American International Bank, the foreign-owned bank she generously helped by overturning the landmark designation of 135 Bowery.

Yes, the anger of the 99 percent is palpable and Madame Chin will taste it in the 2013 election. You betcha!

Carl Rosensteins

The Doors — think about it To the Editor, Re. “Uncivil and dangerous” (letter, by Bill Weinberg, Nov. 2): Mr. Weinberg provides an extreme example of hostile selfishness. Actually, two examples.

I could match that with the callous indifference manifested by an exiting motorist who flung his car door open and caused me to crash into his door violently.

I suffered multiple fractures in my wrist and forearm.

But I wonder if what really hurts America the most is the absence of small gestures of courtesy and goodwill in ordinary, daily life.

Some 45 years ago I recall a man holding open a door for a woman in a bustling Grand Central Station. That kind of a small act of courtesy, alas, seems largely gone in today’s “every man for himself, dog-eat-dog” society.

P.S.: I don’t believe dogs eat other dogs.

Michael Gottlieb

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November 9 - 15, 2011

TALKING POINT ‘Just say no’ to BID isn’t a workable alternative

BY BRIAN STEINWURTZEL The residents and business owners who serve on the BID Steering Committee (www. sohobid.org) and the other supporters of a business improvement district for Soho’s Broadway are very disturbed and disappointed with The Villager’s editorial “Soho BID needs work” in your last week’s issue.

The editorial calls on BID supporters to gather more support. In the specific BID service area — Broadway between Canal and Houston Sts. — the majority of property owners (residential and commercial) support the BID. Under New York’s BID law, created by our elected representatives, that’s what it takes to form a BID. Denying the people who live and work on Broadway the BID they want because of opposition outside the BID area flies in the face of the law and democratic principles. It cannot simply be a case where those who yell the loudest are right.

If BID advocates must win support of their neighbors outside the BID area, where do you draw the line?

The editorial recognizes the urgent need to implement solutions along Broadway, solutions that seek to manage the “success” of this major retailing destination; mitigate its negative impacts and bring to the forefront what makes historic Soho special.

The editorial acknowledges that a BID is

the workable alternative that provides the democratic decision-making structure and the necessary funding to bring focused, persistent attention to the challenges faced by Soho’s Broadway.

The BID Steering Committee has appreciated the reporting by The Villager and its sister paper Downtown Express on this important neighborhood planning issue since its public presentation in April 2010.

The initiative taken by Mr. Henry Buhl, resident of Soho and founder of ACE, was the start of the formation process of the proposed BID and it is still underway as the legislation awaits approval by the City Council.

The BID Steering Committee, Community Board 2, the Department of City Planning and City Council all have followed the BID Law, and we look forward to the completion of this democratic, legislative process.

Yes, the clumsy, outdated legal name, “business improvement district” is misleading and does not define the intentions of this specific BID for Soho’s Broadway. This may be why so many wrongly assume that the BID plan intends to “promote only business, attracting more crowds, tourism, etc.”

The role of the BID Steering Committee as an initial planning group has succeeded in crafting a BID plan with services and improvements that reflect the areas of con-

cern expressed by the many constituent groups served by the BID. The BID plan speaks of the same issues that: 1) the “Broadway Residents Coalition” has brought to the attention of city officials; 2) the BID area’s 800 businesses and 12,000 employees talk about; and 3) are experienced by residents and commercial property owners each and every day. The BID plan does not “need work.” It is at the best it can be, and will be better if given a chance to prove itself.

At every turn, the BID Steering Committee has made a genuine effort to address community concerns, and to reconcile Community Board 2’s resolution with the merits of the BID district plan. As demonstrated by the BID plan’s mission statement and by the commitment of BID area residents participating in BID committee meetings and by the encouragement of Councilmember Margaret Chin, it is clear that working together to improve the quality of life of a neighborhood “under siege” while seeking to strike a balance between resident and commercial interest is indeed possible.

The BID Steering Committee remains committed to working with everyone, supporters and opponents alike.

You cite the case of 40 Mercer St. where five members of the condo board voted unanimously to commit all 40 condo units

in support of the BID. That board vote is accepted common practice of condo boards everywhere and of the BID formation process. That vote happened more than a year ago and so far no condo owner in 40 Mercer St. has objected; and, in fact, the board will reaffirm its support along with other property owners who voted for the BID. Moreover, the total number of residential condo units at 40 Mercer St. is not significant enough to change results, since there remains an overwhelming majority of respondents in support of the BID. That being said, even if you removed 40 Mercer St. from the tally, 72 percent of property-owner respondents support the BID (versus 80 percent with 40 Mercer St.).

We regret that this doesn’t pass The Villager’s “smell test,” but those are the rules. We respectfully suggest you check the facts and take another sniff.

The BID structure provides certainty of annual funding, flexibility to respond to neighborhood issues, and a private-public partnership that succeeds because it reflects active, informed participants. The response of “just say no” is not a workable alternative to the special needs of Soho’s Broadway.

Steinwurtzel is chairperson, Broadway Soho Business Improvement District Steering Committee

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR How to suppress a movement: Dictators write to Bloomberg

BY MICHAEL LUONGO Dear Mayor Bloomberg: Hello from my current location. I’ve seen what happened to some of my colleagues so I am not going to tell you too many details. I will have to tell you who I am because no one seems to remember me, even if I’m the dictator who started it all, thank you very much! It’s Ben Ali of Tunisia. Remember, it was my cruelty that started this whole Arab Spring fling.

Tunisia in case you’re wondering is like Saudi Arabia but with a French touch, though some of us are a little more touched than others. Hey I even allowed a Club Med, bringing topless French women to our beaches, so I don’t know why my people think they had anything to complain about.

But all I can say is, if you do suppress your people, and I am not saying I actually did, don’t go too hard on your sidewalk vendors. They have more power than you think. I don’t care if they sell pretzels, hot dogs, or coffee, whatever. And what is this I keep reading on Concierge.com about luxury food trucks? Only in New York, right? Maybe people whine for no reason where you are. Just keep them away from gasoline and matches and public squares.

Sincerely,

promise not to lock you up for several years. But I digress as I often do. This isn’t the United Nations or Columbia University I am addressing, it’s the mayor of New York! As you know Mike, few rulers in the Middle East know more about suppressing movements and getting away with it than I do, so I hope you’ll listen to me. I think the number one thing is making sure people really know you mean business by taking a very beautiful girl who is more or less a bystander, have one of your security people shoot her in the head, and make sure there are plenty of camera phones around to video her. Make it go viral, so that she becomes the symbol of your oppression. Look, your Republican Guards are already great at pepper spraying beautiful women protestors who show too much skin anyway and don’t have veils to protect their faces, so shooting them in the head is only the logical next step. Then these Wall Street Occupiers will know you are serious.

that won’t make you think it’s Frank Sinatra writing to you, ‘cause he’s dead, and I don’t think he is doing too much singing anymore. Still, I always agreed with him New York, New York, is one hell of a town, so you have a grave responsibility to the world to make sure it stays exactly as it is. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my father, it’s how to crush rebels and the places where they live. Drive tanks over them, destroy where they are protesting. It’s working in Damascus, it’s worked in Homs and Google Hama and you’ll really know how successful my Dad was with that. Teach these Occupy Wall Street people a lesson they will never forget and their children’s children will never forget! Drive tanks through Zuccotti Park and bulldoze everything. It’s so close to Ground Zero which is still a disaster area anyway that I think no one will notice if a few more blocks of buildings go up in smoke. Trust me on that. Remember without 9-11, you wouldn’t be Mayor, so use the Ground Zero location to your advantage.

Sincerely, Sincerely, Your partner in oppression, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (think, “I’m a Dinner Jacket,” to pronounce it, just trying to be helpful again!)

President for LIFE, and I mean it!!!

Bashar al-Assad Damascus, Syria

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, formerly of Tunisia.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg: Hello from Tehran! It’s beautiful here, you should come visit. There’s great hiking in the mountains nearby and I

Dear Mayor Bloomingdales: Hey Mikey, that’s my beautiful wife’s nickname for you, because she just loves shopping so much when we’re there!

And we both know, you’re like no other Mayor in the world.

Especially now. Anyway, it’s me, Old Blue Eyes, but I hope

Dear Michael Bloomberg: People will never be happy, no matter how benevolent you are to them, no matter how fatherly you have been to them!

Continued on page 12

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November 9 - 15, 2011

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How to suppress a movement: Dictators write to Bloomberg It’s true, give them something, and they will always want something else. Next thing you know, these Occupy Wall Street people will want subway tokens brought back again, just to feel the jingle of something in their pocket since they don’t have any money.

But you can never look back! New York is the Cairo of the Century 21 and you must always look ahead! Keep reminding them who’s Pharaoh, it’s your third term and they should understand that by now, and always have your white shirt generals at the ready.

Zuccotti Park, Tahrir Square, nonsense.

However, if you ever do charge on them and the Hudson River opens up an escape route, don’t fall for the trap.

Sincerely, (Formerly,) President Hosni Mu-Barack Obama Cairo, Egypt

Dear Mr. Bloomberg News: Hi it’s me Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Kaddafi.

We’re all the same person. I know you prob-

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ably don’t want to listen to me because I am dead, and so my advice might not seem so useful. But praise Allah and my Ukrainian nurse for making it possible for me to write to you from the grave. You should have a Ukrainian nurse, Michael. In the words of another dictator, Mussolini, who once ruled Libya from a distance the way you like to rule New York, Va Va Va Voom, what a woman! Anyway, just as an aside, I love your Brooks Brothers outfits. It’s always great to be smartly dressed as a ruler, but you need to do more, like own the media! Oh you do already. Well then fight all the protestors like a mad dog! Ok maybe that didn’t work so well for me. Don’t listen to advice from a dead man.

Sincerely, The Late President Muammar Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Kaddafi Meatlocker in Tripoli, Libya

Dear Michael, Hey, it’s Bibi here. Let me make this simple. I’m not a dictator but I sure like to look like one on TV. Look if anybody knows about occupation it’s me, so listen up. After all, you Americans are used to me dictating policy for you. Nu, this Zuccotti Park. Since it looks like a refugee camp

Let’s do something together

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 10am Practicing the Presence of God: Through the Book of Common Prayer A 12-part series that explores how to feel God’s love in the thick of a complex world. This week: The Psalter, led by Dr. Julian Wachner, Director of Music and the Arts.

74 Trinity Place, 2nd Fl, Parish Hall MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1pm Bach at One The Trinity Choir and Trinity Baroque Orchestra present a weekly service of J.S. Bach’s music, accompanied by poetry readings.

St. Paul’s Chapel TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 6pm World/Global + Poetry + Reading/Slam Mark Bozzuti-Jones reads poetry from around the world and invites audience members to read their favorite poems/ rap. Open to all ages so respectful language is required.

Charlotte’s Place

anyway, it’s the perfect place to build a settlement. Move some bankers into there.

You want an occupation? We’ll show you what an occupation really is! You can build the banker settlement on the hilly part of Zuccotti Park, close to Broadway so everyone can see it and marvel from afar, and know you’re the one dominating, the one in control. And walls, that’s another thing I know something about. Make Wall Street live up to its name again and build a wall and then another. With lots of checkpoints.

Extend it into the Bowling Green Line. All your problems will be solved. Until they aren’t. Sometimes the things you think are in your best interest aren’t, but you just have to keep believing. You don’t want to end up on the wrong side of history, do you, Michael?

Sincerely, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Jerusalem, Israel Michael Luongo is a freelance travel writer and photographer based in New York.

He recently won the Grand Prize in Travel Journalism from the North American Travel Journalist Association largely for his travel work in the Middle East, including within countries currently undergoing the Arab Spring. www.michaelluongo.com

trinitywallstreet.org

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

Watch online webcast

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

Leah Reddy

Continued from page 11

Compline, a service of music and meditation, takes place every Sunday at 8pm at St. Paul’s.

ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL Broadway and Fulton Street CHARLOTTE’S PLACE 109 Greenwich St, btwn Rector & Carlisle The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, Rector The Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, Vicar

an Episcopal parish in the city of New York

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November 9 - 15, 2011

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The George Gee Orchestra provided the musical entertainment for Manhattan Youth’s 25th Anniversary Gala.

Downtown Express Photos by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

In attendance were local school principals (from left to right) Terry Ruyter of P.S. 276, Maggie Siena of P.S. 150, Lisa Ripperger of P.S. 234 and Anna Swtizer, former principal of P.S. 234

The night honored not only Manhattan Youth founder Bob Townley, but also the founding board, administrators and staff.

Nicole Bartelme with Chef David Bouley who catered the event.

In salute and support of Manhattan Youth Bob Townley founded Manhattan Youth in 1986. On Thursday, Nov. 3 the nonprofit held a gala at the Bogardus Mansion on Murray Street to celebrate its silver anniversary and to encourage the community to continue supporting the organization, which has played a pivotal role in the growth and transformation of Lower Manhattan over the years.

In attendance were numerous elected officials, such as NY State Senator Daniel Squadron, NYC Councilmember Margaret Chin and Community Board 1 Chair Julie Menin.

Former youth that benefited from the organization’s after school programs, parents, educators and supporters all enjoyed the food, atmosphere and entertainment.

Paul Goldstein (left), district office director for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, presented Bob Townley with a proclamation in honor of Manhattan Youth’s dedication and service to the Lower Manhattan community.

14

November 9 - 15, 2011

downtown express

Tiny gallery at Poets House features huge exhibit

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER The exhibition gallery at Poets House in Battery Park City isn’t large, but the letters and poems of Emily Dickinson currently on display there are monumental.

Jen Bervin, a poet, artist and teacher, who curated the exhibit said of Dickinson, “She was a force, an absolute force. There’s a vastness to her work that is comparable to how you might feel in an extraordinary landscape.

It makes you feel very small and very humble in relation to it.”

Dickinson, who was born in Amherst, Mass. on Dec. 10, 1830 and who died there on May 15, 1886 never strayed far from home, never married and became increasingly reclusive in the last years of her life but her correspondence was voluminous and she left behind almost 1,800 poems that were discovered by her younger sister, Lavinia, after the poet’s death. Fewer than 12 of Dickinson’s poems were published in her lifetime.

“With Dickinson, it’s quite a blurred line between a letter and a poem,” said Bervin.

“A lot of her letters – and you’ll see this in the show – read just like poems. I think she never stopped thinking in poetry.”

The primary collections of Dickinson’s work are at Harvard and at Amherst College (which was founded by one of Dickinson’s grandfathers.) Donald and Patricia Oresman have one of the larger holdings of privately owned Dickinson manuscripts. They have lent their entire collection to Poets House, where many of the manuscripts are on public

view for the first time. They will be there through Jan. 28, 2012.

“It’s very meaningful to me that people get to see these manuscripts in person,” said Bervin. “That’s really rare. I can’t overstate how rare that is. If you go to the archives where they have the bulk of the manuscripts, you rarely see more than this number of manuscripts. They’re not on display. You have to go as a researcher and have a very good reason to see them in any quantity and to see this many together in a public setting is really unusual.”

Dickinson’s poetry was also unusual, so much so that it would have been a rare reader among her contemporaries who could have grasped her syntaxes and the ways in which she placed letters, words and lines on a page. After her death, her first editors “corrected” her punctuation and her rhymes. It wasn’t until 1955, that versions of her poems were published that were close to what she intended, but even there, said Bervin, “In the [Thomas H.] Johnson and [Ralph] Franklin editions of her poems, all of her line breaks are changed.”

Bervin said that Dickinson’s visual sense would have made setting her poems in print difficult before the advent of modern technology. She worked throughout her life “with a very strong sense of visual composition,” Bervin said, “but in the late fragments [from 1870 to 1886], it’s absolutely stunning. The text is multidirectional. She’s composing on envelopes that are then sometimes shaped in particular ways.

Downtown Express photos by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

A letter from Emily Dickinson written in her distinctive handwriting are among the rare documents by and about Emily Dickinson on display at Poets House through Jan. 28, 2012.

I don’t know of anything like them. The texts on those envelopes are pretty mind-blowing.

Sometimes you see them in letters. Sometimes you see them in poems. Sometimes they exist only in that fragmentary form, but they’re just extraordinarily beautiful.”

Bervin explained that Dickinson would place “crosses” in her poems that correlated

to words or phrases grouped at the end that could be substituted within the poem to create different meanings. Bervin compared Dickinson’s methods to hypertext.

“She chose not to publish,” Bervin said.

“Her readers were very carefully chosen.

She sent her poems in letters to specific recipients and she would send out different choices for different recipients and then in her own private draft, she might have even more choices. So it’s a very complex system. Our idea of a poem is that it’s one thing but her idea of a poem was that it seemed to be many things. She used words according to who was listening. I think it’s utterly fascinating that one of our major American poets chose to compose in this particular way.”

Bervin was inspired to make quilts depicting Dickinson’s unusual compositional method. Three of them are on exhibit at Poets House.

The late fragments, which are among the most radical of Dickinson’s writings, have been published in a book called “Open Folios” by Marta Werner, who will be giving a talk at Poets House called “Like the Wheels of Birds: Emily Dickinson’s Itinerary of Escape” on Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. It will be about Dickinson’s fragments, including canceled writings, pinned texts and envelope poems. Poets House is at 10 River Terrace in Battery Park City. It is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Occupy Wall Street institutes new rules Continued from page 1 O.W.S.’s alternate banking working group, compared the Zuccotti Park encampment to “a town that seems to be overflowing.”

“The General Assembly is a great body, but it’s not conducive to getting logistics handled at the speed that they need to,” said Schwedock.

The Spokes Council is poised to solve that problem by becoming “an extremely effective body to get work done,” according to Nicole Carty, a member of the structure and facilitation working groups.

Carty stressed that the council is not a forum of discussion for the movement’s overall vision or ideals, which are handled

by O.W.S.’s “movement” groups.

“It only has to do with , ‘wWho’s going to clean the park,? wWho’s going to make the tents…? tThings like that,” she said Carty.

According to the proposal, the Spokes Council.C. will also address issues brought up by caucus groups, or groups of O.W.S. members that feel mutually marginalized with respect to race, gender, sexuality, age or ability.

Democratic movements dating back to the1936 Spanish Revolution have benefited from the S.C. model to streamline the process insurgencies, as have more modern

groups including the aAnti-nNuclear movement of the 1970s and ‘80s, and the gGlobal jJustice movement of the ‘90s and 2000s, according to the proposal.

“The reason why we did this, is so we’re not micromanaging operational groups,” said Ryan Hoffman, who wrote O.W.S.’s initial declaration that spread to dozens of countries worldwide.

The food working group, for example, shouldn’t have to report to the G.A. every time members seek to raise their budget; while the medical working group shouldn’t require G.A. approval to solicit additional funds, according to Hoffman..

“This ‘100 percent consensus, everybody in a giant room’ approach, especially when you can’t use any microphones or P.A. systems or bullhorns, is becoming just patently absurd,” echoed Lucius Ringwald, a member of O.W.S.’s mental health and safety working groups.

“We need to actually have some level of delegation, some level of people being identified as a point person, with the consent of those they’re representing.”

Approximately 150 O.W.S. members convened for an Spokes Council orientation meeting last Friday, Nov. 4 in the public atrium of 60 Wall St. to brainstorm ideas for discussion topics for future councilS.C. meetings. Carty and a couple other lead

working group members led the meeting.

Demonstrators spouted out ideas that they believe warrant ongoing dialogue, such as the use of park space, Internet access, safety, supplies and food.

Next came the “mock proposals” session, when participants jokingly proposed to abandon Zuccotti Park for an indoor space, and spoke sardonically about Mayor Michael Bloomberg supplying sleeping bags tagged with the message, “Corporations are People” to the occupiers.

Spokes Councils are organizationally structured like the spokes of a wheel, in that each operational working group is supposed to select a “spoke,” or an individual that represents the groups’ wishes, according to the proposal. While the “spokes” are the only individuals that are supposed to speak during the cCouncil meetings, they rotate, can be recalled by their group at any time, and do not make decisions or voice opinions without a consensus ofin their respective groups.

Typically, “spokes” will bring forth proposals to the council only if 90 percent of members within the respective working groupcaucus support it. Working groups and caucuses may block or table proposals introduced at the council meetings if the groupsa consensus is not reached among the groups — unlike in the G.A., where individuals can

block proposals.

“It’s called ‘modified consensus’ — we aim for consensus first, which is 100 percent,” said Carty.

While all decisions made by the Spokes Council will be discussed during the G.A. meetings, they don’t require G.A. ratification, noted Carty.

Occupy Wall Street held its first official Spokes Council meeting Monday, Nov. 7 in the school cafeteria of Murry Bergtraum High School at (411 Pearl St.), where an estimated 60 working groups requested to become a part of the council.

Of the 60, about a dozen working groups were chosen. However, Carty and other representatives were only able to get through less than one-third of the proposals.

“We literally had pieces of paper for each group to register, and we spent most of the time putting these groups in different stacks,” said Carty.

“The ‘no discussion’ stack were groups that were pretty clearly operational groups [that would automatically accepted into the council],” explained Carty. “Movement groups warranted more discussion if they had operational needs.”

Carty reported a handful of disruptive moments during the meeting, such as when

Continued on page 20

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November 9 - 15, 2011

More work needed to fight school overcrowding Continued from page 1 meeting but had to step out early because of another appointment.

Just before leaving, Grillo interrupted Greenleaf halfway during his presentation to point out a fundamental difference between his analysis and the S.C.A.’s. She said the D.O.E. doesn’t measure school seat projections based on Community Districts, but rather by the city’s established school districts.

Manhattan’s District Two, which includes Downtown, for example, also encompasses portions of Midtown-West and the Upper East Side.

“I don’t want these folks to walk away from this thinking that our methodology is wrong,” said Grillo.

Addressing Greenleaf directly, Grillo said, “I’ve always had a lot of respect for your numbers, if we were judging apples to apples — [but] we’re not, and you know that.”

“Please understand the situation right now,” Grillo said to the committee. “Just like the rest of the country, we have a certain, limited amount of space. Come to [School] District 24 [in Queens], and you’ll understand their serious overcrowding today.”

Grillo’s words were hardly reassuring to Jeffrey Mihok and other committee members.

“I’m kind of livid right now… We’re in a school crisis because of the [D.O.E.] numbers,”

said Mihok. “You’re working on a model where our kids would go further [away] to elementary school.”

Committee co-chair Anne DeFalco emphasized the D.O.E.’s need to reallocate funds toward the creation of new neighborhood schools.

“We can’t put the priorities of youth at risk by putting them in other neighborhoods,” said DeFalco.

“I hear you,” replied Grillo. “And, if I had all money in the world, I’d love to do that for you.”

The D.O.E. is exploring alternate methods besides new school capacity to address elementary school overcrowding — particularly district-wide rezoning, according to Grillo.

“It’s not just new seats all the time,” said Grillo. “There are other opportunities to deal with the need.”

But this explanation only added fuel to the committee’s fire.

P.S. 234 parent Tricia Joyce, for one, contended that neither rezoning nor throwing money the D.O.E.’s way is going to solve the area’s more basic dilemma of the shortage of school seats.

“We understand the budget issues, but… no matter how you re-slice the pie, we have hit the wall,” said Joyce.

“We could have a pile of money up to the ceiling, and it wouldn’t get us the site,” said committee member Peter Braus. “I work with

developers all the time — you need a 200-by200 [square] ft. lot. I don’t think you see too many of those around.”

School sites are indeed becoming “very difficult” to find, according to Greenleaf, who added, “It took almost a year to find the Peck Slip site.”

Joyce vouched for a modification of the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (U.L.U.R.P.), so that residential real estate developers would be forced to take into account the need for sufficient school seats.

Braus seemed to agree.

“I think we should ask [City Planning Commission Chair Amanda] Burden to come to our next meeting, if [the City Council members] are willing to originate something,” said Braus.

The committee subsequently voted in favor of drafting of a resolution urging the city to require an adequate amount of public amenities such as schools and other basic infrastructure before a residential real estate development receives the green light.

The resolution will also purportedly suggest a revision of the tactics the D.O.E. currently uses to project student enrollment, according to committee co-chair Paul Hovitz, who along with Greenleaf objects to the department’s current enrollment methods.

“I am not blaming Lorraine. She is following orders from the Mayor, the Chancellor and the higher-ups at Tweed to follow procedures in this fashion.” said Hovitz. “All of this stems

from the fact that their planning… is flawed and doesn’t accurately project [enrollment] for years down the road.”

The D.O.E. has hired two “respected” consulting firms, Grier Partnership and Statistical Forecasting, to make enrollment forecasts, explained Greenleaf. Both firms utilize the “cohort survival” method, a widely-used strategy to calculate enrollments based on anticipated population growth and birth rates.

The problem, Greenleaf pointed out, is that the D.O.E.’s forecasting is done on a boroughwide level — which assumes that all Manhattan neighborhoods are growing at the same average rate and that the survival rates themselves are the same.

Neither assumption, however, is true, Greenleaf said. Whereas Manhattan’s population increased by 8.2 percent between 2000 and 2010, Downtown’s overall population rose by 100 percent over the decade; and there is a difference of more than 20 percent between District Two’s overall cohort survival rate, on the one hand, and Downtown’s cohort survival rate, on the other.

The D.O.E.’s method also assumes that fertility rates are the same for all of Manhattan, Greenleaf said.

“We hope these differences can be resolved — and very soon,” he said.

Questioned about his reaction to Grillo’s comments after the meeting, Greenleaf said, “I remain optimistic but realistic.”

Tower 7 full; artists to vacate by January Continued from page 7 Thomas Street in Tribeca, feels privileged to have had what he calls a “God’s-eye” view of the site while working in Tower 7 since 2009.

As a longtime Downtown resident having endured 9/11, painting in the “jewel” of studio space, Stone said, proved to be an especially cathartic experience.

“I never thought I’d feel anything but sad walking Downtown,” said Stone. “When I walk up to the 48th floor, it makes me feel good. I’ve reconnected here with the great strength and resilience of the city.”

And, even though he hasn’t yet secured a new work studio for the new year, Stone is resigned to vacate the place he has worked so intensively in for the last six months.

“The day was always coming,” he said of leaving Tower 7. “I’m being blown out of there, and there’s nothing I can do about it, but I’ll land on my feet.”

Former Downtown financiers Robert and Victoria Zoellner purchased Stone’s pieces from “Witness / Downtown Rising” with the intention of putting the art series on public display, according to Stone.

“My goal is for it to be a traveling exhibit hosted by the [National Sept. 11] Memorial, so the story could be told around the country,” said Stone.

Prior to working in the 48th floor stu-

Downtown Express photo by Aline Reynolds

Views like the one above have made the 48th floor at 7 W.T.C. an ideal studio space for artists over the years.

dio beginning in 2006, Marcus Robinson, an urban-focused painter, videographer and photographer, documented on canvas and camera the construction of Tower 7.

Little did Robinson know that his subject would become the artist’s full-time workplace a few short years later.

Robinson’s W.TC. film, “Rebuilding,”

brings the Ground Zero construction zone to life with a slideshow of animated drawings and time-lapse footage of workers in action.

“The film essentially wants to champion the spirit of the working people — something quintessential in all of us,” mused Robinson. “It’s like an ancient tale about

the amazing spirit overcoming adversity, and setting it against the backdrop of something like the Great Depression.”

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum commissioned Robinson to do a film installation, “Tribute in Light,” for its permanent collection — which will be on view at the museum following its opening next fall.

Robinson hopes to find homes for “Benediction” and his other large-scale paintings in lobbies of Lower Manhattan buildings, but hasn’t yet reached out to interested parties to realize his wish.

“Part of the excitement is not totally thinking of the end result, but just enjoying the process of drawing and painting,” said Robinson.

Robinson, who lives in an apartment that overlooks the W.T.C. site, has his eyes on a ground-floor, live-work apartment on Washington Street. Asked what he felt of parting ways with space in 7 W.T.C., Robinson replied, “I’m quite a nostalgic person, but I think it’s good to be in the flow of life.”

However no conventional artist studio, Robinson admitted, could create the same, visceral effect as does the raw, unadulterated concrete walls of his current studio space.

“Marks like this inspire me for the painting,” said Robinson as he glided his fingers along a surveyor’s mark etched into the concrete wall of the 48th floor. “This space is, beyond any shadow of doubt, I think, one of the most amazing spaces in the world.”

16

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER B.P.C.A. REPORTS ‘GOOD NEWS BUDGET:’ “Every once in a while you get to report a good news budget,” Battery Park City Authority president Gayle Horwitz said at the B.P.C.A.’s last Board of Directors meeting on Oct. 25. “Essentially, our revenues are up, our expenses are down. Our excess revenue for 2011 is going to be over budget as well. We’re sending the City more money than we anticipated.”

The Authority’s Chief Financial Officer, Robert Serpico, filled in the details. The fiscal year for the B.P.C.A. ends on Oct. 31, so his numbers were based on 11 months of activity. “Overall revenues are up $1.6 million over budgeted revenues based on a budget of $217 million,” he said. “The reason for the overages is that the sublease revenues had a net increase of $2.4 million.”

He said that commercial revenues, which represent about 49 percent of the overall revenues for the Authority, were $811,000 more than budgeted.

Serpico said that on the residential side, “we had some ups and downs, as we usually do.” Sites 23 and 24, where the Milstein

November 9 - 15, 2011

organization has built Liberty Luxe and Liberty Green, had a 421A tax abatement that had not been considered when drawing up the 2011 budget and had to be factored in, But, said Serpico, “non-recurring and contingent revenues on the sublease side were up $2.4 million. Again, net net, the sublease revenues went up $1.2 million.”

Operating expenses had been budgeted at $28.4 million for fiscal year 2011. “We’re coming in just a smidge over $27 million – a favorable variance of $1.4 million,” Serpico said. He added that the B.P.C.A. would be sending the City $12.5 million more than expected.

Looking toward the 2012 budget, Serpico said that there would be increased revenues of $10 million coming from Goldman Sachs, which had a tax credit that just ended. On the expense side, he anticipated $603,000 less in expenses than in fiscal year 2011.

BROOKLYN BATTERY TUNNEL GETTING AN OVERHAUL: Motorists who use the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel on the eastern border of Battery Park City should take note of the Metropolitan Transportation

A bridge spans West Street at Rector Place in Battery Park City. Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee would like to have monitored security cameras on the bridge but thus far the committee has not found a way to have them installed.

downtown express

Downtown Express photos by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

The Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel is getting a $43.5 million electrical upgrade to replace 1950’s era equipment. For 21 weekends beginning Friday, Nov. 11 through Monday, Nov. 14, one lane of the tunnel will be closed all weekend long in order to do the work. The MTA says that motorists should expect delays and try to use alternate routes during the weekend closures.

Authority’s plans for the next five months or so. The tunnel, which opened on May 25, 1950, is getting an overhaul. The M.T.A. is spending $43.5 million to replace electrical switches and feeder cables that are now more than 60 years old. The work will require one of the two tubes of the tunnel to be closed for 21 weekends beginning on the weekend of Nov. 11-Nov. 14.

The M.T.A. says to “expect delays” and to use alternate routes if possible.

The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel has been a fixture of Lower Manhattan for so long that most people probably don’t give it a second thought, but maybe they should.

For one thing, at 9,117 feet long, it is the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in North America. For another thing, it almost didn’t get built. Robert Moses, the chairman of the Triborough Bridge Authority, who remade New York City’s landscape, wanted to build a bridge between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

It would have destroyed Battery Park and altered the majestic vistas of Lower Manhattan as seen by those who approach it from the ocean. The bridge would have been built had President Franklin Delano Roosevelt not intervened. He had the War Department declare that a bridge in that location, seaward of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, would have been vulnerable to attack, so Moses had to settle for a tunnel. It was designed by a Norwegianborn engineer, Ole Singstad, who also worked on the Holland Tunnel and who designed the Lincoln Tunnel and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Roosevelt was present at the groundbreaking in October 1940. The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel was supposed to be finished by 1943, but work on it stopped because of World War II and was not resumed until late in 1945. It took more than one million pounds of dynamite to bore through the rock and earth under New York harbor.

An estimated 60,000 cars a day go through the tunnel, however, some people will undoubtedly be more impressed with a different factoid. The tunnel’s Manhattan ventilation station on Battery Place figured in the 1997 film, “Men in Black” as the location of a secret alien immigration terminal.

RECTOR PLACE BRIDGE SECURITY: In late spring, Community Board 1 member Jeff Mihok started talking to C.B. 1’s Battery Park City Committee about his concern that the Rector Place bridge spanning West Street was not safe. “That bridge allows anyone on foot to come and go to and from the neighborhood very rapidly,” he said. “A year ago, a Battery Park City teen got beaten with a pipe on Rector Place by some other teenagers. I don’t know how those people got away but I can’t imagine any better escape route than over that bridge.”

Mihok would like to see monitored security cameras installed on the bridge, and the Battery Park City Committee concurred.

However, the committee has not been able to figure out how to make that happen. Julie Nadel, a representative of the New York State Department of Transportation told the committee at its most recent meeting that the D.O.T. is not able to install and monitor cameras. The next step, the committee decided, would be to appeal to the New York Police Department’s First Precinct.

“I find it a little creepy to walk across that bridge,” Mihok said, “even when it’s not dark out. I have a 12-year-old kid. My 12 year old moves around the city on her own, as any 12 year old would do. I tell her never to take that bridge, but if there were a camera, I might reconsider.”

To comment on Battery Park City Beat or to suggest article ideas, email TereseLoeb@ mac.com.

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November 9 - 15, 2011

Changes ahead for South Street Seaport Museum Continued from page 6 Museum of the City of New York, she heads the Schwartz Children’s Center. At the South Street Seaport Museum, she is organizing programs for school groups and for the public. The first of the school groups will arrive on Nov. 21. “We have 40 booked for the next few months,� Kent said. A program called “Mini-Mates� for children aged 18 months to three years will start on Nov. 17 and meet on Thursday mornings.

Kent said that the school programs will utilize the Seaport museum’s collections including “objects that students can touch to teach them about New Amsterdam history in addition to the kinds of jobs and responsibilities that a sailor would have had on one of the large ships just outside the windows.

Right now our plan is to show them the ships and then use objects to teach them about what would have been happening on the ships.�

Mini-Mates for young children and their caregivers will teach about boats, water and animals utilizing arts and crafts, movement and free play. Pre-registration is required.

(Email reservations@seany.org or call 212748-8786 for more information or to participate.)

Jones said that the galleries at the South Street Seaport Museum will reopen at the end of January, 2012 with “an open house of activities.� She said that details will be forthcoming in about a month.

The museum’s collections, she said, “are in good shape� as are the Schermerhorn Row buildings that the museum occupies. The museum’s ships are a “challenge,� however. “There are too many vessels out there for Pier 16, which is the only pier that we have jurisdiction over,� she said. “The Wavertree is in the worst shape and that’s an important boat that we need to preserve. It has a history with New York. That is definitely a priority. The City had appropriated $3.3 million for the Wavertree. It won’t be anywhere near sufficient. I think we need about $20 million total to get it back into shape and maintain the historic character of the ship throughout.�

Jones said that the Peking, which was

Downtown Express photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

The Schermerhorn Row buildings that the South Street Seaport Museum occupies are in good shape, according to Susan Jones, the museum’s new director.

one hundred years old this year, is another matter. “The Peking doesn’t have any history with this port.,� she said “The Peking is a real issue. There’s no question about that.

That’s the largest challenge and it has to be addressed in the next seven months or so.�

On Nov. 2, Jones and several members of her South Street Seaport Museum management team met with the grassroots group, Save Our Seaport, which has been working since May to bring public awareness to conditions at the museum and its ships and to

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lobby for management changes and public financing. “We recognize that it may be necessary [for Peking to leave the Seaport],� said Capt.

Mike Cohen, a member of the group and a part-time captain for the working ships at the museum.

In general, Cohen said, the Save Our Seaport group responded enthusiastically to Jones’ presentation. “It really was a very good meeting,� he said. “We feel that we’re on the right track.�

“We’ve made great strides uptown,� said Jones, reflecting on conditions at the Museum of the City of New York and what she has taken on at the South Street Seaport Museum, “and that gives us some small window to think about other responsibilities, but we never would have sought this opportunity. It came to us. It’s another history museum. Our missions are fairly concentric and we wanted to see the Seaport Museum be part of New York’s cultural scene. We want it to thrive. We don’t want it to disappear.�

18

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November 9 - 15, 2011

Hearing it on Hudson Square; It’s all in the heights Continued from page 8 1993 when the neighborhood to the west of Sixth Ave. was a no-man’s land after 5 p.m.

Amanda Cooper, HERE’s general manager, is a strong supporter of the project.

“For an organization like ours, it’s really important to have an attendance base and supporters right in the neighborhood, particularly in tough economic times,” she said.

Cooper joined others at the hearing, including Community Board 2, in urging that the E.I.S. consider a limit of up to 70,000 square feet for residential conversions.

Russell Roberts, a condo owner in a nearby 70,000-square-foot building with photo, filmmaker, artist and designer studios, also said he wanted a larger limit on residential conversions.

“We’ve already created the kind of community that the zoning has as its goal,” Roberts said. “Because of the nature of our work — artisans and designers who work long hours — the dividing line between work and living space has become blurred, and we’ve become a livework community.”

Indeed, the Hudson Square Connections BID suggested an as-of-right residential conversion limit of 80,000 square feet, Baer said.

“The E.I.S, should study this change because it will further the mixed-use nature of the district without undermining its central character as a creative business center,” she said.

Community Board 2 and the BID both called for the E.I.S. to include the possibility of development bulk waivers in blocks that do not conform to the city grid.

The proposal calls for downzoning short residential blocks on Watts, Broome and Dominick Sts. near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, but David Reck, who presented the Community Board 2 submission last week, said residential property owners on those blocks say the downzoning is unwarranted.

“The neighborhood character already is dominated by traffic conditions related to the tunnel,” the board resolution says.

C.B. 2 suggested that Watts, Broome and Dominick Sts. be eliminated from a proposed subdistrict for buildings of reduced bulk and be treated the same as the rest of the special district. The board added that preservation of individual buildings with architectural or historic significance on the three streets should be left to possible landmark designation.

The proposed district does not ban hotels but includes a requirement for a special permit for hotels with 100 or more

rooms However, the large-hotel special permit provision would expire when the district achieves its goal of 75 percent residential.

The community board wants the hotel special permit to be a permanent feature of the new district with no expiration. The board also wants the E.I.S. to consider eliminating dormitories and fraternity and sorority houses from the district.

Except for the 430-foot limit at the southeast corner of the district, the zoning calls for a height limit of 320 feet on the wide streets of Canal, Greenwich, Hudson and Varick Sts. and Sixth Ave. On the narrow streets, the height cap would be 185 feet.

Edison Properties owns two Manhattan Mini Storage loft buildings in the district, one at 157 Varick St. and the other at 260 Spring St., with a total of 485,000 square feet, plus a 16,250-square-foot parking lot between Spring and Dominick Sts. Anthony Borelli, Edison vice president for real estate, said the 185-foot height limit on narrow streets would inhibit residential growth on several sites and would leave little incentive for affordable housing under the Inclusionary Zoning Program.

Borelli said the E.I.S. should consider an alternative of buildings with open space in the midblock to increase open

space in the district.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation said the 320-foot height limit on wide streets in the district is too high, even though it’s lower than the no-limit present zoning. G.V.S.H.P. wants the E.I.S. to consider a 185-foot height limit for wide streets and strongly advised that the 430-foot cap for the southeast corner of the district should be cut back.

The society also said it was against the higher height limits that owners want on Watts, Dominick and Broome Sts. G.V.S.H.P. was very concerned that the zoning intended to expand development potential in Hudson Square would have a big impact on the low-rise South Village area east of Sixth Ave. The society has been vainly seeking historic district designation from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to preserve the South Village’s southern end.

The society’s resolution states, “We therefore believe that the E.I.S. must study the impact of increased development pressure on the South Village to the widest scope possible — at least a radius of 1,000 feet from the boundaries of the proposed rezoning — and recommend mitigation to protect the historic resources of this neighborhood.”

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downtown express

Mixed forecast for 1 W.T.C. Continued from page 2 9/11 Memorial Museum, the Vehicle Security Center, the other buildings being constructed on the site, and retail and connectivity down below. People really want to understand how it all relates to one another. They’re not just leasing in one building, they’re leasing into a new environment that’s all connected.

DE: So, what asking rent have you set for 1 W.T.C.?

It’s now at $75 per [square] foot — up to the 64th floor Sky Lobby, a double-height floor with a large atrium, where you’ll be able to transfer to two elevator banks that service floors 65 to 90, the highest floor. We’ve only priced an asking rent below the Sky Lobby.

When you deliver a building, you’ll deliver it from the bottom up — therefore the leasing prospects will follow in that way.

DE: How is Tower 1 faring at the moment, in terms of leasing activity?

The 9/11 Memorial opening created a very interesting dynamic of [newly interested companies] considering 1 W.T.C. The tower is new, and obviously green and attractive, financially, which is driving their interest — because companies today want to change their culture. With a new environment at 1 W.T.C., companies who are challenged today with their balance sheet and trying to find ways to increase revenue and reduce expenses, [can] occupy space much more efficiently than in any of the older [building] stock.

DE: But, how ready and willing are the companies to shake hands and sign a lease?

Now, with the economic uncertainties and with what’s happening in Europe, people are not as quick to make decisions. In times like this, obviously, the dialogue can potentially be longer than we would have had in the earlier part of this year, since times were more certain earlier this year.

DE: Does that make your job tougher?

Yes, I suppose. But we don’t feel it the same way the older [building] stock does.

Selling this building is easier than selling some of the city’s older buildings I represent, because [prospective tenants] realize there’s very little of this product and this supply in the time frame many of these companies are currently seeking space in. Presently, there is 400 million square feet worth of office space in Manhattan and, in 2014-15, only three new office buildings [are scheduled to come on line], including 1 W.T.C. and 4 W.T.C. DE: Do you fret a potential double-dip recession will make prospective tenants hesitate even more?

Yes, it concerns me. But because of its unique attributes, 1 W.T.C. will fare far better than much of the older stock in

19

November 9 - 15, 2011

Manhattan. The last time we dipped out of a recession, we came back very quickly and very strong. I expect the same will happen — because again, the lack of supply, really, will create the speed with which this market will recover when we come out.

DE: When do you expect to set a price for the top half of the building?

That’s a good question. I was on the phone this morning with [tenant] prospects interested in space above the Sky Lobby. When queried, we said, ‘we don’t have an asking rent, but we’re going to line up the tours.’ If someone insists on us considering their renting above those floors, we’ll negotiate, obviously. But right now, unless calls come into us, we’re focusing on the floors down below.

DE: What is your projected time frame of the leasing of Tower 1?

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It’s a little too early in the leasing stage, I think, for that dialogue to occur. Those entities would take smaller amounts of space, and that leasing would take place in 2015.

The Durst Organization, the tower’s developer and co-leasing and marketing agent, is very involved in arts organizations and cultural aspects of New York City — having been a very big, early supporter of The High Line. I could easily see Durst considering utilizing vacant floors that aren’t rented [for that purpose].

DE: From a personal standpoint, what’s it like to work on such a nationally and internationally recognized project?

When I took this project on in 2007, I believed in it. I was very, very bullish. I’m charged and energized and renewed anytime I go down there.

DE: Describe a recent day at the site.

It’s humbling to talk with the construction workers. Two days ago, I was in an elevator with a steel worker who is leading the Irish group, and talked to him about his job.

In some way, I’m standing next to him and [it occurred to me that] I’m leasing it, but he’s building it — which is so much more meaningful, in many respects. The workers ares all so proud, as am, I to be associated with this building. There’s nothing more magnificent than I’ve ever been involved in, or probably ever will be, as this asset is to this city and this country.

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VOLUME 24, NUMBER 20

SEPTEMBER 21 - 27,

2011

THE NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN

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BY ALINE REYNOLDS his team to review a 9/11 Cancer is still not covcancer study published ered under the James in the Sept. 3 edition of Zadroga 9/11 Health The and Lancet medical journal as Compensation Act, per a soon as possible rather decision by the law’s health than wait a year as planned. program administrator, The Dr. resolution, which follows a John Howard. In July Dr. Congressional petition Howard determined also there requesting Dr. Howard’s was insufficient evidence immediate review of linking the disease to expothe data in the Lancet study, sure to Ground Zero toxins. is scheduled to go before the City politicians are now full City Council on Wed., urging Dr. Howard to reconSept. 21. sider his decision based on a “New persuasive evidence recent scientific study that has been compiled [indisuggests such a link indeed cating that] first respondexists. ers who were at ground On Mon., Sept. 19, the zero are getting cancer City Council’s Committee at a much higher rate than On Sunday, Sept. 25, over 30,000 runners took part in the annual Tunnel to Towers Race in honor of Stephen on Civil Service and Labor ones who weren’t,” said Council Siller, the fallen firefighter who ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in full-gear on 9/11 to get to the World voted unanimously in Member and Committee Trade Center site. Turn to page 16. favor of a resolution call- Chair James Sanders, Jr. ing on Dr. Howard and Scientific data reveals

BY JOHN BAYLES there is at least one constant.

If there’s one booth at the Feast of “This is the original cannoli,” San Gennaro that needs said no name, no Diaz on Monday evening. “It’s sign on the front, no marketing still material the feast’s best whatsoever, it’s the booth seller. They’ll invent a on the south- new one, but they can’t reinvent east corner of Spring the and Mulberry original.”

Streets. What it sells and what Across the street from the its display counter is enough graces Rimesso’s to make booth is Chachi’s any passerby stop on Hot Sausages. Like a dime: fresh the Rimesso baked cannoli. operation, the Chachi booth has remained, The booth has been at the since 1975, at same loca- the same location and is still “all tion for 32 years. It’s one in of the oldest the family.”

Before it became known booths that still takes part as in the feast Chachi’s, it was simply known as and was started by the the Rimesso family. best sausage the feast had to It continues to remain offer. “in the family” Joe Lacorazza is currently to this day, run by Nancy running Rimesso and the booth.

But, like his neighbor across Rob Diaz. While much has changed the street, he never really had a choice; since the feast started 85 years ago, it was a family duty. The name came

as a result of Joe’s older brother’s striking resemblance to Scott Baio, who played Chachi in the old sitcom “Happy Days.”

Joe’s father lived above Rocky’s on the corner of Spring and Mulberry and his mother lived one block north at 278 Mulberry. The way Joe’s mother, Louise, tells it, the Monsignor from the old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street came to her father and uncle one day, back when the church still allowed gambling and when beer and wine were sold at almost every booth. At that time, the block in front of old St. Patrick’s had no streetlights, and they needed some

Continued on page 2

Photo exhibit at future site of Park51 showcases children of the world

Continued on page 19

BY ALINE REYNOLDS Pristine white walls splashed with photographs of playful children now make up the 4,500-square-foot remodeled space at the future site of the proposed Islamic community center known as Park51.

The art exhibit, entitled “NYChildren,” features a series of 169 photographs of first-generation or immigrant youths ages 12 and under that now live in New York City. The youngest child is a 34-day-old toddler from Ethiopia, who is shown sleeping peacefully on her parents’ bed in their New York home.

The exhibit has been showcased Folk singer Tom Chapin headlines “Harmony on the Hudson.” Turn to page 16

at a dozen other locations domestically and in Denmark, according to the photographer, Danny Goldfield, who has 24 children left to photograph to complete his project. When finished, there will be one child from every country in the world. The inspiration behind Goldfield’s project was Rana Sodhi, brother of Balbir Sodhi, a Sikh in Arizona who was shot and killed in front of his family-owned gas station four days after 9/11. Sodhi’s death was one of the first post-9/11 hate-crime murders in the country, Goldfield noted.

It was Sodhi brothers’ innovative and good-hearted spirit that inspired

Goldfield to take on the daunting project, the photographer said in a speech he made at the exhibit’s opening at 45-51 Park Place on Wednesday, Sept.

26. Goldfield described Balbir as a generous individual who gave away candy to customers and their families and, hours before he was murdered, emptied his pockets at a local fundraising drive for 9/11 victims’ families.

Goldfield admired Balbir’s brother, Rana, who despite his loss, had a desire to open his heart to others.

“He had this simple prescription of making the world better by meet-

Continued on page 12

PG. 24 QUEEN OF HEARTS,

SEPTEMBER 28 - OCTOBER 4, 2011

Chinatown B.I.D. 23 opponents vow VOLUME 24, NUMBER to keep fighting

Running in a hero’s footsteps

Rob Diaz, who has been serving up cannoli at the Feast of San Gennaro puts another smile on for 32 years, serves a customer’s face. another pastry and

STEAMPU NK

town express down express

City Council wants cancer added to Zadroga law

Two booths at San Genn aro serve food, with a side of history

PROTEST GROUPS OCCUPY WALL ST., PG. 2

BY ALINE REYNOLDS After a highly contentious debate among community members, the City Council unanimously voted in favor of the Chinatown Business Improvement District at its meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 21. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s signed the legislation on Tuesday night.

More than three-quarters of the B.I.D.’s first-year budget, which totals $1.3 million, will be allocated to supplemental sanitation services, while the remaining funds will finance holiday lighting, maintenance of street lampposts and furniture and other area services.

Assessment fees range from $1 for condominium owners

THE NEWSPAPER

TTAN OF LOWER MANHA

to up to $5,000 for large property owners, the majority of whom will pay $700 annually. Approximately three-quarters of the district’s 2,300 property lots will owe $1,000 or less per year.

With respect to trash, the Council advised the future B.I.D. to increase garbage collection prior to 8 a.m. based on concerns raised by local business and property owners. “The B.I.D. will enhance and retain business in Chinatown by supplying very significant sanitation services within the B.I.D.’s boundary,” said Council Speaker Christine Quinn at a Sept. 21 press conference announcing the City Council vote.

ter of the world Occupying the cen protestors A month in, O.W.S. ng to coexist and community tryi

Continued on page 15

as on Saturday Times Square people invaded second month.

Over 6,000 is now in its The movement Wall Street.

initiated by Occupy call to action part of a worldwide

OCTOBER 19

- 25, 2011

h; After a soldier’s deat full community wants investigation

a “We’re conducting S in-depth thorough and

BY ALINE REYNOLD investiga- very n into Private A criminal to trace investigatio Grey said. tion is underway Chen’s death,” to mysterious be premature the cause of the U.S. “It would that hapdeath of 19-year-old Chen, discuss anything Danny [in order] to protect Army Private found on pened, whose body was the case.” guard tower elected officials Local Oct. 3 in a Afghanistan community organizain Kandahar, wound to and are now demanding a with a gunshot tions sive and comprehen the head. was not timely Chen’s death, which of The fatality accord- study correlate combat related, Criminal they believe might the ing to U.S. Army with racial harassment y experiCommand Investigati on private purportedl Christopher Spokesperson enced while overseas. s are thereknow the “We want to Grey. Speculation Chen, who happened to fore swirling that truth of what no raised on the Chen. No lies, was born and was either Danny just the truth,” Lower East Side, officer or cover-ups, OuYang, fellow a by Elizabeth shot suicide. said New York that he committed president of the comment on Organization Grey refused to branch of the . either speculation 6 Continued on page

President Manhattan Borough daily for with Stringer, NYS Sen. Daniel twelve hours Scott as other dents for up to Chin, as well told the assemSquadron and month. Moore rs, to MAGNUS its almost a

BY CYNTHIA their movement, representatives and stakeholde with Street enters that she supports As Occupy Wall neighbor policy” ors con- bly develop a “good and demonstrat many of her neighbors. second month, elected as do added, “But please O.W.S. in Zuccotti Park, according Moore, however, tinue to reside stakeholders and One of the challenges, initially us some relief.”

Chin officials, communityattempting to find give ber Margaret was that the person of are City Councilmem issue is the drum- to Menin, relaying the concerns the protestors for biggest responsible said, “The single back to O.W.S. been unable to ways to coexist. od of workcommunity board far, O.W.S. has that she the drum- the “This is a neighborho people you ming. So so — a problem drumming. I know the com- was not doing the same the people, limit resolved. ing class chair of of stress for OH, THE HORROR! said has now been proactively said Pat Moore, mers are a source within O.W.S.” Frightening prospects for Downtown Halloween represent,”y Board 1’s Quality of Life “We are addressing to us,” and for people Street munity has agreed to Communit as they are brought happenings. See page 23. the Occupy Wall Chin said O.W.S. and they have concerns on Committee, at in Zuccotti Park said Menin. limits on the drumming, enforce those General Assembly through and on page 14 follow to 15.

Continued Oct. was a reducThe topic of discussion by the drum rules.

Julie Menin worked caused C.B. 1 Chair tion in the noise area resihas disturbed circle, which

Why they occupy

come from varied “occupiers” Page 12 Wall Street with many stories. grounds and

back-

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downtown express

Donations to O.W.S. pile up Continued from page 5 cations. The S.I.S. group recently received a $5,000 export budget from the O.W.S. General Assembly for this purpose.

Eskandani estimates that the group receives over 100 boxes daily, with a steep increase accompanying the cold weather. He said the camp’s “comfort” station was overwhelmed during the Oct. 29 nor’easter when donors brought hundreds of cold-weather items to the park. He also proposed to the O.W.S. general assembly that the group share surplus items with the wider New York City community, “in solidarity with the15 million unemployed workers” in America.

The distribution will be handled by the outreach working group, and would alleviate some of the storage space shortage, as well as make room for needed items.

Among the items in short supply, according to S.I.S. co-coordinator Justin Strekal, are boots, non-cotton thermals, tarps, cold weather sleeping bags, and non-perishable food.

“We appreciate everything they’re sending, but some items being received are more appropriate for other climates,” said Strekal.

S.I.S. volunteer Nick Thommen added, “We have a lot of stuff. People are sending us stuff when they should be supporting their local occupation.”

Eskandani said, “We have been given a great deal of wealth. Let’s show Wall Street how we handle our stock.”

In addition to the 6800 sq. ft. storage space at 52 Broadway that O.W.S. rents for $1 per month, an anonymous donor recently came forward with an offer to pay for office space at the U.F.T. building at 50 Broadway. The 2500 sq. ft. space that O.W.S. began using this month will be used by official O.W.S. working groups and comes with heat, electricity, and internet access, and costs “about $5,000 a month,” according to a U.F.T. spokesman.

The space also has phone service, which O.W.S. is responsible for paying, and they are using desks and tables left by a former tenant, said the spokesman. The lease is held by a nonprofit that handles the rent payment on behalf of the anonymous donor.

Some members of O.W.S. are concerned about other “occupy” groups coming to rely too heavily on Occupy Wall Street, which is seen as the flagship group. Several recent general assemblies have featured requests for funds from other occupations, such as Occupy Oakland, which recently received a $20,000 allocation from O.W.S. and various groups in the city who identify with the movement but are not officially part of it.

Pete Dutro with the O.W.S. finance working group said, “Winter will become expensive.”

Instead of having funding requests from outside groups coming through the G.A., Dutro said the finance group would welcome representatives coming down to Zuccotti Park to discuss their needs so that O.W.S. could make referrals to financing tools.

Among other winter-related concerns is the layout of the camp, and the clutter of small tents and personal items that inhibit movement within the park. Last week camp planners began to install large army tents, which can accommodate more people and promote safer spaces. A challenge to establishing the large tent set-up is that some occupiers are resistant to giving up their personal tents.

These tents have been a problem because they can block egress from the park in emergencies. Several power generators have been brought back into the park following last month’s confiscation by the FDNY of six generators and several containers of fuel.

Incentives to get people to give up their “real estate” and allow the installation of large group tents is the promise of a space, which would be better insulated, include cots and provide better security for people and their possessions.

O.W.S.’s new rules Continued from page 14 the Direct Democracy working group sought to disband the Spokes Council altogether.

Members of this working group weren’t immediately available to comment.

Hoffman attributed the contention that arose at Monday’s meeting to “growing pains.” “Everyone is nervous of [the Spokes Council.C. being] something resembling a power structure,” said Hoffman.

“It’s just a sorting-out of the egos.

Next time, it’ll be a lot easier.”

Depending on the model’s success, the Spokes CCouncil might multiply into several cCouncils.

“It’s a tool for developing conversation,” said Carty. “Any group that feels like they’ve grown too big to have an easily-facilitated meeting can have a Spokes

Council.”

Hoffman, however, cautioned that multiple S.C.scouncils could create the same inefficiency problems the G.A. has been grappling with.

“It would create sectarianism and overlap — and that’s exactly what the Spokes [Council] was created to prevent,” said Hoffman.

Meanwhile, Carty and fellow structure and facilitation working group representatives are already planning the S.C.’s Wed., Nov. 9next Spokes Council meeting in hopes that it will run smoothly.

“We’re going to give five minutes for each group,” said Carty. “If we can’t come to a consensus at the end of five minutes, we’ll drop them down to the next round.”

At some point, Carty said, “We have to draw a line as to when we’re going to just start doing work.”

downtown express

21

November 9 - 15, 2011

COMPILED BY NIKKI TUCKER

YOUTH ACTIVITIES

Each session ($22 per family of three) ends with music and story time. Museum hours: Mon. and Wed., 12-5pm; Thurs. and Fri., 12-6pm; Sat.-Sun., 10am-6pm. Admission: $10; Pay as you wish on Thurs., 4-6pm. At 103 Charlston St. (btw. Hudson and Greenwich Sts.). Call 212-274-0986 or visit cmany.org. For group tours, call 212-274-0986, ext. 31.

NEW YORK CITY FIRE MUSEUM Kids will learn about fire prevention and safety through group tours, led by former NYC firefighters. The program — which lasts approximately 75 minutes — includes classroom training and a simulated event in a mock apartment, where a firefighter shows how fires can start in different rooms in the home. Finally, students are guided on a tour of the museum’s first floor. Tours (for groups of 20 or more) are offered Tuesdays through Fridays at 10:30am, 11:30am and 12:30pm. Tickets are $3 for children and $5 per adult — but for every 10 kids, admission is free for one adult. The museum offers a $700 Junior Firefighter Birthday Party package, for children 3-6 years old. The birthday child and 15 of their guests will be treated to story time, show and tell, a coloring activity, a scavenger hunt and the opportunity to speak to a real firefighter (the museum provides a fire-themed birthday cake, juice boxes and other favors and decorations). The NYC Fire Museum is located at 278 Spring St. (btw. Varick and Hudson). For info and reservations, call 212-691-1303.

Photo courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History

HOW DID DINOSAURS GET SO HUGE? Walk inside the giant body of a 60-foot-long, 11-foot-tall Mamenchisaurus at this exhibit about some of the biggest creatures to ever roam the planet. Long-necked and long-tailed sauropods could grow to be 150 feet — but what made them so huge? “The Largest Dinosaurs” explores this question with up-close views of how the extinct giants moved, ate and breathed — and offers insight into why these functions are linked to the creatures’ size. At the end of the exhibit, learn how dinosaur fossils are discovered in an interactive replication of a dig site. Through Jan. 2, 2012. At the American Museum of Natural History (79th St. and Central Park West). Museum hours: 10am-5:45pm, daily. For museum and dino-exhibit admission: $25 for adults, $19 for seniors and students, $14.50 for children ages 2-12. Call 212-769-5100 or visit amnh.org.

JIM HENSON’S FANTASTIC WORLD Meet Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog and Bert and Ernie at an exhibit dedicated to creative genius Jim Henson — creator of The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street. Puppets, drawings, storyboards, props and many other Henson artifacts are on display. Even more fantastic is the program of events. At the Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave., Astoria). Until Jan. 16, 2012. Museum hours: Tues.-Thurs., 10:30am-5pm. Fri., 10:30am-8pm. Sat./Sun., 10:30am-7pm. Admission: $10 adults, $7.50 college students and seniors, $5 children under 18 (free for members and children under three). Free admission for all on Fri., 4-8pm. For info and a full schedule of events, visit movingimage.us or call 718-7776888.

BATTERY PARK CITY PARK CONSERVANCY’S STORIES & SONGS This multi-week program of participatory music and stories is for young children accompanied by an adult. By introducing musical performance and creative storytelling to children, “Stories & Songs” develops active listening, socializing and cultural literacy in a joyous, warm environment. Space is limited and advanced registration is required. To pre-register, call 212-2679700 ext. 366 or visit BPCPC’s office at 75 Battery Place. Payment can be made by check to BPCPC, or by Visa or Master Card. Battery Park City Parks Conservancy offers 20 percent discounts to siblings enrolled in “Stories & Songs.” Mondays, through Dec. 12 or Wednesdays, through Dec. 7. Located at 6 River Terrace (South end of River Terrace by the Irish Hunger Memorial).

BMCC TRIBECA PERFORMANING ARTS CENTER Highlights of the 2011-2012 family season includes family favorites such as “Clifford, The Big Red Dog” (celebrating its 50th Anniversary), “The Magic Schoolbus” (celebrating its 25th Anniversary) and will continue its partnership with Theatreworks USA with

four productions (including “The Yellow Brick Road” on Sun., Nov. 20, at 3pm). Single tickets are $25 (10Club members enjoy $14 tickets). A 10Club Membership enables you to purchase 10 admissions for $140 (parents save more than 40 percent off the cost of each ticket). To purchase a 10Club membership, call 212220-1460 or visit Ticketing Services (Tues.-Sat., 12-6pm; located in the lobby of the Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.). Visit tribecapac.org for single tickets.

SATURDAY AFTERNOONS AT THE SCHOLASTIC STORE Every Saturday at 3pm, Scholastic’s in-store activities are designed to get kids reading, thinking, talking, creating and moving. At 557 Broadway (btw. Prince and Spring Sts.). Store hours are Mon.-Sat., 10am-7pm and Sun., 11am-6pm. For info, call 212-343-6166 or visit scholastic.com/sohostore.

POETS HOUSE The Poets House Children’s Room gives children and their parents a gateway to enter the world of rhyme — through readings, group activities and interactive performances. For children ages 1-3, the Children’s Room offers “Tiny Poets Time” readings on Thursdays at 10am; for those ages 4-10, “Weekly Poetry Readings” on Saturdays at 11am. Filled with poetry books, old-fashioned typewriters and a card catalogue packed with poetic objects to trigger inspiration, the Children’s Room is open Thurs.-Sat., 11am-5pm. On Sat., Nov. 12, 11am, Richard Lewis and the Touchstone Center Ensemble presents a program based on Lewis’ new book, displaying various aspects of a river, bringing it to life through dance and song. After the performance, children make their own “river books.” Free admissions.

On Sat., Dec. 3, 11am, join Homer-in-residence Mike Romanos for a retelling of this epic tale, complete with all the angry gods, flailing monsters and cunning heroes of the original. Free admissions. (at 10 River Terrace and Murray St.). Call 212-431-7920 or

visit poetshouse.org.

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF THE ARTS Explore painting, collage and sculpture through self-guided arts projects at this museum dedicated to inspiring the artist within. Open art stations are ongoing throughout the afternoon — giving children the opportunity to experiment with materials such as paint, clay, fabric, paper and found objects. Drop in with wee-ones (ages 10 months to 3½ years) for the museum’s “Wee-Arts” program every Mon. and Fri., 9:15-10:30am; Wed., 4-5:15pm; Wed.-Thurs., 10-11am, through Dec.23. Start the morning with Playdough, paints, glue and drawing — in an intimate and stimulating environment where experimentation, exploration and creative thinking are encouraged.

THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE MUSEUM At “Junior Detective Day,” kids will use Crime Scene Investigation techniques, observation experiments and fingerprinting to solve a mystery.

This event is great for families with children ages 5-14. Sat., Nov. 19, 11am-2pm. Admission is free. Ongoing, the Junior Officers Discovery Zone is an exhibit designed for ages 3-10. It’s divided into four areas (Police Academy, Park and Precinct, Emergency Services Unit and a Multi-Purpose Area), each with interactive and imaginary play experiences for children to understand the role of police officers in our community — by, among other things, driving and taking care of a police car. For older children, there’s a crime scene observation activity that will challenge them to remember relevant parts of city street scenes, a physical challenge similar to those at the Police Academy and a model Emergency Services Unit vehicle where children can climb in, use the steering wheel and lights, hear radio calls with police codes and see some of the actual equipment carried by The Emergency Services Unit. At 100 Old Slip (btw. Front and South Sts.). For info, call 212-480-3100 or visit nycpm.org. Hours: Mon. through Sat., 10am-5pm and Sun., 12-5pm. Admission: $8 ($5 for students, seniors and children; free for children under 2).

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE YOUR EVENT LISTED IN THE DOWNTOWN EXPRESS? Send information to scott@chelseanow.com. Please provide the date, time, location, price and a description of the event. Information may also be mailed to 515 Canal Street, Unit 1C, New York City, NY 10013. Requests must be received at least three weeks before the event. Questions?

Call 646-452-2497.

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November 9 - 15, 2011

22

downtown express

DOWNTOWNEXPRESSARTS&ENTERTAINMENT The desire to win, at the expense of others Terrence Rattigan revival gets to the heart of our DNA

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE Could there be a better time to revive “Man and Boy,� Terence Rattigan’s obscure amorality tale from 1963 about an international businessman in the final spasms of brinksmanship as his empire collapses?

Probably not. Could there be a better actor than Frank Langella to embody the ruthlessness, desperation and strategizing all with an impeccable sang-froid? Decidedly not.

Under the precise and thoughtful direction of Maria Aitken, Rattigan’s play — a combination of thriller, family drama and social commentary — is vibrantly alive and wonderfully understated. It is a wellmade play in a well-mounted production, but beyond that, it’s also entertaining and thought-provoking.

The play is set in 1934, and Langella plays Gregor Antonescu, a wildly successful businessman credited with saving Europe after World War I. If his means are shady, the ends have justified them –– at least until the opening of the play, when it seems the health of the global markets rides on his ability to forge an unlikely merger.

THEATER MAN AND BOY Written by Terence Rattigan Directed by Maria Aitken Presented by Roundabout Theatre Company Through Nov. 27 At American Airlines Theatre (227 W. 42nd St.) Tues.-Sat. at 8pm; Wed., Sat., Sun. at 2pm For tickets ($67-$117), visit roundabouttheatre.org or call 212-719-1300 Gregor seeks refuge from the media and arranges a meeting with the man he must come to terms with, Mark Herries, at the down-at-the-heels Greenwich Village basement apartment of one Basil Anthony. This seemingly incongruous meeting place makes sense when we learn that Basil is actually

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Frank Langella, as Gregor Antonescu; Adam Driver, as Basil Anthony‌or is he?

It’s tempting to see this play through the lens of our own time, and it certainly resonates. Still, it’s more chilling to realize that while the trappings may change, the desire to win — at the expense of others — is as old as civilization.

Vasily Antonescu, Gregor’s estranged son.

There is no happy reunion in this story, however.

Basil abhors the actions that allowed his father to grow rich while others suffered, and yet he allows him to meet there. Gregor repays the filial favor by attempting — there’s no delicate way to put this — to pimp Basil out to Herries, a closeted homosexual, as the strategy for closing the deal.

Conventional thinking would find this shocking, but Gregor is anything but conventional. In fact, he’s a sociopath (one who has made people a great deal of money). No one wants to look too closely at his actions, and what might in other circumstances be seen as

depravity is here considered a quirk.

Gregor cares about nothing but winning, and the people in his life find him at once irresistible and repellant. They are unable to disentangle themselves from him, but he engages with them only when they are useful to him. Rattigan’s investigation of the bargains people make and the games they play is fascinating.

Langella is at the height of his game in this role. He is perfectly in control, and every moment is rich in detail –– from the way he holds his hand in his jacket pocket to his gesture flicking a folder to the floor to the subtlety of Gregor’s unfolding plan.

He’s so charming and persuasive it’s easy to see how an entire continent could fall under Gregor’s spell, blind to his pathological narcissism.

The supporting cast is very good as well.

Zach Grenier is fascinating as Herries, a man who has the upper hand until Gergor finds his fatal flaw. Adam Driver is compelling as Basil, maintaining a strong sense of morality despite his seeming weakness.

Michael Siberry, as usual, turns in an accomplished performance as Sven, Gregor’s right hand man, and Brian Hutchinson is appealing as Herrie’s accountant, David Beeston, Gergor’s first victim as the game unfolds.

It’s tempting to see this play through the lens of our own time, and it certainly resonates. Still, it’s more chilling to realize that while the trappings may change, the desire to win — at the expense of others — is as old as civilization. It is in our DNA, this drive to survive. We may be shocked at Gregor’s actions, but we can’t really be surprised.

And against all odds, part of us wants him to win.

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November 9 - 15, 2011

Drama of an Orchard St. cantor’s son returns Metropolitan’s ‘Jazz Singer’ first NYC production since 1925 REVIVAL

tentative than that. “The story, the play and the movie are three different things,� says director Livingston, whose “day job,� as she puts it, is improvisational theater.

A native of Oak Park, Illinois, she was waiting tables at Second City, Chicago, when her admission to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School came through and whisked her off to England, leaving the unknown awestruck Second City improvisers (Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Candy, et al.) gaping in astonishment. “Went to England, studied at the Bristol Old Vic, came back, turned on the television — and there they all were.�

Nowadays, she lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband, Michael Durkin, the actor who plays Jack Robin’s no-nonsense Broadway producer in the Metropolitan’s “The Jazz Singer.� Jakie Rabinowitz’s mama and cantor papa are played by Nona Pipes and Charles Gerber, Al Jolson left us in 1950, but his excitement carries on. One incidental: When young Judy Garland wanted to break away from Louis B. Mayer and strike out on her own as a singer, she went to her beloved Oscar Levant and asked him what should she sing.

The acerbic Oscar uttered two words: “Sing Jolson.� And that’s just what she did.

Oh Judy. Oh Swanee. Oh Mammy. Oy, oy. oy‌.

THE JAZZ SINGER Written by Samson Raphaelson Directed by Laura Livingston Nov. 12-Dec. 11 Wed.-Sat., 8pm; Sun., 3pm through Saturdays at 8pm; Sundays at 3pm Pay-What-You-Will performance on Mon., Nov. 14, at 7:30pm Additional 3pm matinees: Sat., Nov. 26, Dec. 3 & 10 No performance on Wed./Thurs., Nov. 23/24 At the Metropolitan Playhouse (220 E. 4th St., btw. Aves. A & B) Tickets: $22; $18 for students, seniors; $10 for those under 18 For reservations: 212-995-5302 or metropolitanplayhouse.org

BY JERRY TALLMER On April 25, 1917, a college student named Samson Raphaelson went to see a show called “Robinson Crusoe� at a theater in Champaign, Illinois.

Nineteen days earlier, the United States had entered World War I — but what more immediately stunned young Raphaelson (a Jew from the Lower East Side of New York) was, as he would later recall, the astonishingly passionate “velocity� and “fluidity� of an unknown performer also from the Lower East Side of New York. It was as if a cantor in a synagogue had put on blackface to dig into the soul of a congregation during the High Holy Days.

The unknown actor/singer was Asa Yoselson, born in Russia on or about (by his own later guesstimate), May 25, 1886 — brought at age 6, along with mama and the three other surviving kids, to that same Lower East Side (where papa served as a cantor and occasional rabbi).

Asa Yoselson grew up to be Al Jolson. And since the show that Raphaelson saw in Champaign, Illinois, had been “Robinson Crusoe� — and Jolson had appeared in it in blackface — one hazards that the role was that of “Friday,� the dark-skinned native who becomes castaway Crusoe’s savior, protector and manservant.

This is not irrelevant.

In 1922, five years after seeing “Robinson Crusoe,� Sam Raphaelson wrote a short story about an up-and-coming young Lower Eastsider named Jakie Rabinowitz who as “Jack Robins� is on his way toward stardom on the musicalcomedy stage — much to the fury of his father, an aging and ailing Orchard Street cantor who would have his son abandon such low class junk and follow in papa’s footsteps. After the story appeared in a national magazine, Raphaelson was encouraged to turn it into a play called “The Jazz Singer,� in which the climax has Jack/

Photo by Alex Roe

Justin Flagg as Jack Robin, Nona Pipes as Sara Rabinowitz and Michael Durkin as Harry Lee.

Jakie torn between his make-or-break opening night on Broadway and his father’s simultaneous deathbed.

It is this all but forgotten 1925 play that became the 1927 Warner Bros. talking (and singing) motion picture that — making a worldwide star of Al Jolson — put to rest the silent-film era. It is this same stage play that is now back in being at the Lower East Side’s Metropolitan Playhouse.

It is also this city’s first professional production since the 1920s of Raphaelson’s original script.

The prime mover at Metropolitan Playhouse is founder, lead producer, artistic director, “and everything else� Alex Roe — a Harvard graduate who from time to time had seen fragments of the Warner Bros. movie but had never heard of Raphaelson’s play until a friend told him about it last summer.

Laura Livingston, who had done some acting as well as directing at Metropolitan Playhouse, had never heard of this play either, much less the short story that had preceded it.

It is not every script that has a Jew putting on blackface to sing “Mammy� songs that deeply stir an audience’s mixed emotions.

One imperiled minority doubling as another.

And not easy to cast.

Ms. Livingston: “I had some people say to me: ‘I can’t audition for that. It’s too distasteful.’ �

Mr. Roe: “I had people saying the same thing when I did ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ last year. So I had a little trepidation this year.�

It might be noticed, says this noticer, that some white actors have been putting on blackface for upwards of five hundred years. To play Othello.

Neither Roe nor Laura Livingston are, if that matters, Jewish.

There are three moments in the play when, with the actors’ backs to the audience, we hear the offstage voice of Jack Robin (Justin Flagg) raised in wrenching song — the movie’s big production numbers. (If we hadn’t seen Jolson and

Co. doing those numbers, Hollywood would still be in the silent era.)

What’s in the short story but not in the play is, in Ms. Livingston’s words, that “Jakie’s father has thrown him out of the house when Jakie reveals his engagement to a shiksa.� Jack Robin’s relationship with his costar, Mary Dale (Christine Claiborne Bullen) is a good bit more

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November 9 - 15, 2011

24

Just Do Art! COMPILED BY SCOTT STIFFLER

THE SUGAR HOUSE AT THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS When dad dies, mom goes on a “grief pilgrimage” and leaves Chinese adoptees Greta and Han in the quasi-capable hands of their ex-rock star uncle and his considerably younger girlfriend…and that’s just the beginning of Carla Ching’s new play. Shipped off to the wilds of New York, Greta and Han do mom one better in the grief-stricken soul-searching department — when Greta runs afoul of the law and Han runs away to become a street musician. Live music, and a live Twitter feed, put a very contemporary spin on the familiar rites of passage that come from growing up fast and finding yourself. Presented by the always ambitious, Ma-Yi Theater Company — a Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning collective that consistently delivers challenging, entertaining new works by Asian American playwrights.

Through Sun, Dec. 4; Tues.-Fri. at 7:30pm; Sat. at 2pm/7:30pm; Sun. at 3pm. At The Connelly Theater (220 E. 4th St., btw. Aves. A & B). For tickets ($25), call 212-3523101 or visit ma-yitheatre.org.

Photo by Web Begole

Ali Ahn (left) and Christopher Larkin. See “Sugar House.”

Photo by Margaret Fox

The Bond Street Euterpean Singing Society. Left to right: Anthony Bellov, Jane Rady, Rosalind Gnatt and Dayle Vander Sande.

CHANT MACABRE: SONGS OF DEATH AND ENCHANTMENT Halloween has come and gone. But before you succumb to visions of sugarplums and holiday merriment, spend a little more time contemplating mortality — 19th century style. “Chant Macabre: Songs of Death and Enchantment” is the latest from the Bond Street Euterpean Singing Society (BSESS), a talented ensemble with a (vocal) flair for the dramatic. As the arts group-in-residence of the possibly/probably haunted Merchant’s House Museum, BSESS concerts have been known to attract the attention of the museum’s deceased Tredwell family members, servants and caretakers. Why? The 19th century, BSESS tells us, “is replete with gothic stories and melancholic poetry. This heritage, rich with beautiful lamentations, gothic ghouls and otherworldly tales touches the heart to its core with either compassion or dread.” So come mourn your cares away, as the BSESS pour their voices into harrowing musical tales and expressions of sympathy for the dearly departed. Then, and only then, should you begin penning that letter to Santa.

Photo courtesy of Charles Fairbanks

Irma Gonzalez displays strength, charm and muscles. See “Tender Muscles.”

Fri., Nov. 18, 7pm. At the Merchant’s House Museum (29 E. 4th St., btw. Lafayette and Bowery). Admission: $25 general, $15 for museum members. Proceeds benefit Merchant’s House (a non-profit). For info, call 212-777-1089 or visit merchantshouse.org.

TENDER MUSCLES: FIVE FILMS BYCHARLES FAIRBANKS Filmmaker and wrestler Charles Fairbanks will be there in person — when Anthology Film Archives screens a few of his popular short films. From his home base in Mexico, Fairbanks wrestles (with a camera built into his mask) as “El Gato Tuerto” (“The One-Eyed Cat”). Fairbanks promises to show up with 2009’s “Pioneers,” a self-portrait that finds the director returning to his roots in Lexington, Nebraska.

“The Men,” from 2010, is a three-minute video offering the fighter’s perspective in submission wrestling (“an immersive experience between intimacy and violence,” according to its creator). “Wrestling with my Father,” also from 2010, needs no further explanation — and the 2010 video “Irma” reveals the strength, humor, feminine charms and masculine strength of Irma Gonzalez — the former women’s professional wrestling world champion. Finally, 2010’s 23-minute “Flexing Muscles” delivers some of Fairbanks’ cats-eye-view footage from his own Luca Libre wrestling matches.

Thurs., Nov. 17, 7:30pm. At Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Ave., at Second St.). Tickets: $9 general; $8 Essential Cinema (free for members); $7 for students, seniors, & children (12 & under); $6 AFA members. For info, call 212-505-5181 or visit anthologyfilmarchives.org. Also visit charlesfairbanks.info.

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November 9 - 15, 2011

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Lineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; occupies same philosophical space as O.W.S. John Doe concerns are timeless, contemporary THEATER ON THE LINE Written by Joe Roland Directed by Michael Tisdale Through Nov. 19 Wed.-Sat., 7:30pm At Canal Park Playhouse 508 Canal St., btw. Greenwich & West Sts. For tickets ($18), call 866-811-4111 or visit canalparkplayhouse.com

Photo by Jim Baldassare

Striking workers ponder their future over drinks, in â&#x20AC;&#x153;On the Line.â&#x20AC;?

BY ALINE REYONLDS Exploitation. Dissatisfaction. Revolution.

These underlying themes of the Occupy Wall Street (O.W.S.) movement are also the central concerns of â&#x20AC;&#x153;On the Lineâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; playwright Joe Rolandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intriguing tale of three lifelong buddies who become embroiled in a months-long strike against a company that all but destroys their hometown.

We never find out the name the town (or even the region) the story takes place in â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nor are we told the time period or which industry the characters work in.

That â&#x20AC;&#x153;John Doeâ&#x20AC;? gesture, says the playwright, is meant to cement the notion that the discontent weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re seeing at Zuccotti Park, and on the stage of the Canal Park Playhouse, â&#x20AC;&#x153;can take place anywhere,â&#x20AC;? explained Roland.

Despite this lack of critical information, â&#x20AC;&#x153;On the Lineâ&#x20AC;? successfully exposes the grim realities of men and women victimized by large industries â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and, specifically, by the merciless corporate heads who hoard the wealth.

That phenomenon, of course, predates the current protests at Zuccotti Park and elsewhere. Roland, who wrote the play in 2003, deems the playâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s correlations with O.W.S. a â&#x20AC;&#x153;happy accident.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;When I wrote the play, I was probably as pissed off as the people down at

O.W.S. are now about the pressure on working people,â&#x20AC;? said Roland (referencing President Bushâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s slashing of veteransâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; benefits around that time). Diverging from O.W.S., the play underscores the fragility of communities that are wholly dependent on the success of their signature industries. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[The company in the play] really is the beating heart of the town, financially and in many other ways,â&#x20AC;? said director Michael Tisdale. In recent decades, he noted, Americans have witnessed these types of meltdowns in cities like Cleveland and Detroit.

When the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s owner, Dolan, breaks the good faith negotiations with the union that represents his workers, the workers go on strike â&#x20AC;&#x201D; presenting a fork in the road for Jimmy, Mikey and Dev that ultimately tests their longstanding friendship. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These guys are trying to hold down jobs and make a living wage to provide a living for their families, and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re being threatened on some level by management,â&#x20AC;? said Tisdale. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Once they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t escape into that â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;remember the good old daysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mode anymore, because things are so different in the present reality, it pulls their relationship apart at the seams.â&#x20AC;?

The demands of adult and family life particularly wear on the friendship between

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Dev and Mickey, after Mickey accepts a job in the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s corporate division (which Dev and others in the town consider to be an unforgivable betrayal of trust).

Tisdale interweaves the disparate work and bar scenes in seamless fashion. He and Roland also succeed at compensating for the theaterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s diminutive stage space. Their use of lockers, stools, video projection and a bar table allows the audience to clearly visualize the diverse settings.

While actor Matt Citron (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jimmyâ&#x20AC;?) is a

good storyteller, his colleague, Jacob Knoll, does a phenomenal job playing Dev. Though his emotions often get the best of him, the characterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rebellious tendencies are channeled into stalwart activism during the strike.

A combination of history, life experience and family inspired Rolandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s play â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which references Reaganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s supplanting of air traffic controllers in the early 1980s following a union strike that was deemed illegal. A decade later, Roland found himself amid an employeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strike while working for upscale east side hotel (part of a citywide strike that threatened the tourist industry).

Both the playwrightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grandfathers were blue-collar men â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one a teamster, and the other, a security guard at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Tisdale, raised in Lorain, Ohio, is also from a blue-collar family, and recently spent three years interviewing working-class people whose loved ones perished during combat in Iraq. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There must be something in my brain that keeps putting me in contact with bluecollar stories,â&#x20AC;? said Tisdale wryly.

Little did Tisdale know that he would embark this summer on a show that touches on such a seminal, class-related movement in our nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history.

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Ongoing, upcoming, closing soon Essential shows to see

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER This year’s presentation of Bread and Puppet Theater is sponsored by the number “40.” Appropriate, considering this is the 40th year that Peter Schumann’s nonprofit, self-supporting, puppet-centric theatrical company has made the pilgrimage from their Vermont home base to the Lower East Side’s Theater for the New City. Also of interest to their sponsoring number: One of their upcoming performances (“Attica”) is a revival of a piece created 40 years ago as a response to that infamous prison massacre (and first performed in Bread and Puppet’s Coney Island theater). Over the course of a little over two weeks, B&P will present works for both adult and all-ages audiences — including the family-friendly “Man = Carrot Circus” and the just-forgrownups “Man of Flesh and Cardboard” (about PFC Bradley Manning, the soldier incarcerated for supplying restricted material to WikiLeaks). As for “Carrot Circus,” it’s based on the revelation (or theory, or tall tale) that an upright man rooted in dirt was created in the image of the upright carrot rooted in dirt.

Dec. 1-18. At Theater for the New City (155 First Ave., at E. 10th St.). For tickets (12; $6 for children 12 and under), call 212254-1109 or visit theaterforthenewcity.net (where you can also find a complete schedule of performances). Also visit breadandpuppet.org.

THE LYONS Thanks to an extension of its run through November 20, the world-premiere production of Nicky Silver’s “The Lyons” (his seventh play at The Vineyard Theatre) continues to surpass the box office record it broke for the venue. That means you still have a brief window of opportunity to see the show and secure bragging rights (“I remember when I saw….”) for years to come. Mark Brokaw directs. Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa star as parents who finally bond with their children on the sad occasion of dad’s impending death. As the fractured family gathers to say goodbye, they make one last (well, first) attempt to forge a real human connection before death removes that procrastinator’s task from the table.

Through Nov. 20. Tues. at 7pm; Wed.Sat. at 8pm; Sat./Sun. at 3pm. At the Vineyard Theatre (108 E. 15th St., btw. Park and Irving). For tickets ($70; premium seats, $100), call 212-353-0303 vineyardtheatre. org.

MONETTE: I LOVE MY LIFE Talk about your forced transitions.

Her only child just left for college. Her divorce is looming. Suddenly, Kennedy “Monette” faces an empty nest, an empty bed and an uncertain future. Jasmine

Eileen Coles plays the title character, and more than ten others — including Monette’s smooth African-American father, her folklore-obsessed Caribbean mother and her high-strung best friend.

Together, the combined forces of these eccentrics might give Monette the attitude adjustment she needs in order to laugh in the face of despair.

Through Nov. 27. Thurs.-Sat. at 8pm; Sat./Sun. at 3pm; Sun. at 7pm. At Walkerspace (46 Walker St., btw. Church St. and Broadway). For tickets ($30), call 212868-4444 or visit smarttix.com. Also visit kmjproductions.com

DANCING AT LUGHNASA The Irish Repertory Theatre’s 24th season continues, with this 20th Anniversary production of Brian Friel’s “Dancing at Lughnasa” (which opened on Broadway in October 1991 and won the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play). Set in a modest cottage in Donegal as the autumn of 1936 approaches, the play finds five unmarried sisters entwined with the fate of eight-year-old love child, Michael, and the Mundy brother priest, Uncle Jack (recently returned from 25 years in a leper colony in Uganda). Ancient tribal customs and Christian beliefs clash, as the sisters dance in a wild, final celebration of their way of life before it changes forever.

Through Dec. 11. Wed-Sat., 8pm; matinees on Wed., Sat., Sun. at 3pm.

At the Irish Repertory Theatre (132 W. 22nd St., btw. 6th & 7th Aves.). For tickets ($65, $55), call the Irish Rep box office at 212-727-2737 or visit irishrep. org.

Photo by Greg Cook

Bread and Puppet Theater’s “Man = Carrot Circus” (from a performance in Glover, VT).

Photo by Carol Rosegg

Daddy’s dying: Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa as Ben and Rita Lyons, in “The Lyons.”

CELEBRITY CHARADES: LABYRINTH THEATER GALA Charades: No other game in history (with the possible exception of Monopoly) has inspired more frustration, power plays and bitter grudges. But in the capable hands of gifted actors, charades can be a thing of beauty — and should it turn ugly, at least the proceeds go to a good cause.

Labyrinth Theater Company’s annual signature benefit event (“Celebrity Charades 2011: Down and Derby”) has four celebrity teams miming their way to the Winner’s Circle in a speed charades competition to support Labyrinth’s 2011/12 season. At press time, the amiable players (and, perhaps, future bitter enemies) included Bob Balaban, Bobby Cannavale, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz, Chris Rock, Cynthia Rowley and Kristen Wiig.

Mon., Nov. 14, at the Highline Ballroom (431 W. 16th St., btw. 9th & 10th Aves.).

The VIP reception starts 6:30pm; event begins at 8pm. For info on tickets and tables, visit labtheater.org, call 212-5131080.

Photo courtesy of KMJ Productions

Jasmine Eileen Coles as Kennedy “Monette.”

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November 9 - 15, 2011

downtown express