The Paper of Record for East and West Villages, Lower East Side, Soho, Noho, Little Italy and Chinatown
November 13, 2014 • FREE Volume 4 • Number 26
Two Croman tenants keep up their constant fight against landlord BY GERARD FLYNN
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ary Ann Miller, a host on WBAI radio, recently recalled an encounter she had this year with landlord Steven Croman’s “private investigator” Anthony Falconite. As she was coming down
the stairs of her building on Prince St., Miller heard a terrible disturbance heading her way. “Someone was pounding really heavy with the flat side of his fist yelling, ‘I have to get in here. I’m an independent contractor. I have to check the plumbing,’ ” she recalled. CROMAN, continued on p. 3
Chin calls for safety study on truck routes after Canal St. deaths BY ZACH WILLIAMS
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ddressing the hazards of commercial trucking on Canal St. requires more than a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit, according to Councilmember Margaret Chin. The city Department of Transportation should study
how designating that street and other major thoroughfares as trucking routes affects pedestrian, cyclist and driver safety, asserted Chin, who will introduce a bill to that effect next month. In addition, the inequitable Verrazano Bridge toll situation continues to enCANAL ST., continued on p. 8
Phil Hartman, of Two Boots Pizza, a co-sponsor of the plaque initiative, held the umbrella as Lenny Kaye performed “Uncle John’s Band” at the Fillmore East plaque unveiling.
Fillmore East memories rock on with new plaque on 2nd Ave. BY TEQUILA MINSKY
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went to my first rock concert there. I was 11 years old,” said Neva Wartel, on hearing that a historic marker would be placed at the site of the Fillmore East. “I saw Jimi Hendrix, whose Band of Gypsies album was recorded live that night.” Neva is now an ethnomusicologist and DJ. Wartell was not the only one with fond memories of the short but very sweet
life of the East Village rock venue, on Second Ave. near E. Sixth St., created by rock promoter Bill Graham, for whom the street is conamed. The Fillmore East was the sibling to his Fillmore West in San Francisco. On a dreary drizzly autumn afternoon, denizens of the East Village and rock fans, most of them graying, joined the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s Andrew Berman to unveil a historical plaque at the site. The location’s ground floor
now is an Apple Bank, which, along with Two Boots Pizza, co-sponsored the event. Berman recounted some history of the building. In the 1920s it was a Yiddish theater — one of many on the avenue; then, it became the Loew’s Commodore movie house; and then the Village Theater. From March 1968 through June 1971, the Fillmore East rocked the spot. It was followed in the ’80s by The FILLMORE, continued on p. 10
L.E.S. kayak plan makes waves....................page 6 Former squatter’s true fish story..................page 15 Jerry Tallmer, newspaper legend, 93.............page 26 Bowery |Gallery: A look back........page 19 May 14, 2014
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