NOV. 27, 2014 East Villager

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

November 27, 2014 • FREE Volume 4 • Number 27

St. Mark’s Bookshop is starting another chapter at new E. Third St. home

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC

C

BOOKSHOP, continued on p. 13

Mendez is not sold on Chin’s 10-cent ‘tax’ on single-use bags

BY GERARD FLYNN

N

o doubt this Thanksgiving week, festive-minded New Yorkers will add significantly to the burden of the estimated 1,700 tons of plastic bags the city’s Department of Sanitation collects weekly.

But not everyone is buying into the proposal for a

PHOTO BY CLAYTON PATTERSON

an a business be at square one after 37 years? For Bob Contant and Terry McCoy, the owners of St. Mark’s Bookshop, now at its fourth location, the answer is yes.

“We’re really in a startup situation here,” Contant

said. “We moved out of our old neighborhood. This is an entirely different neighborhood and it takes time for people to discover you.”

The new store has been at its new location, 136 E. Third St. near Avenue A, since July 19. St. Mark’s Bookshop was forced to move from its pre-

10-cent fee on disposable plastic and paper bags in convenience stores, supermarkets and delis around the city, proposed recently in the City Council by co-sponsors Margaret Chin and Brad Lander. In fact, the proposal is causing progressive legislators to butt heads.

Dennis Phandular, for BAGS, continued on p. 3

Chanting “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” protesters decrying the decision on the Michael Brown shooting marched down East Houston St. Tuesday evening, blocking traffic — including a police car, which had to back out — at Avenue A. See pages 14-15 for more photos.

Chico loses Loisaida wall to Brooklyn/N.J. upstarts

BY SARAH FERGUSON

I

s RCN whitewashing Loisaida culture and history? Celebrated street artist Antonio “Chico” Garcia and the community group Loisaida Inc. are crying foul after the company nixed their plan to create a mural celebrating L.E.S. “heroes” on the RCN cable building on Avenue C. Chico says he’s been painting that particular wall for the last 25 years. But he ran afoul of the fiber-op-

tic service provider (which leases the property) back in 2008, when he threw up an unauthorized subtle endorsement of Barack Obama for president, with the phrase “America Make the Right Choice.” Obama was on the right in the mural, while his opponent, John McCain, was on the left, next to an exploding oil well.

After Obama won, Chico made the endorsement perfectly clear, changing it to read “America Made the Right Choice.”

Although it garnered plenty of news coverage, RCN execs didn’t appreciate the mural’s partisan sentiment and had the Obama mural painted over in 2010.

The blank wall quickly became an eyesore — covered in graffiti tags and grimy fliers. So last June, Chico came up with the idea for a new mural to memorialize 15 “pioneers” of art and activism on the Lower East Side.

“I wanted to paint the heLOISAIDA, continued on p. 23

Props for ex-cop ‘Pontius Pilate’.................page 2 Cooper admin, alum work it out?.................page 8 Clayton Swift kick for Taylor pick....................page 12 ‘Rollo Wild Oat’ revived...............page 21 | May 14, 2014

www.EastVillagerNews.com

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RS of SERVING 50 Y E A THE

in my archive at the Tamiment Library. One of the funniest things that I saw while he was at the Ninth Precinct was when we occupied an old school on E. Fourth St. on New Years Eve. Peter Missing was performing with a bullhorn inside the school, and even though the cops had barricaded the front door, people found a way in to the back door through the projects on E. Fifth St. In a short time no one was on the street in front of the school since everyone was inside. Julian with about 10 cops broke in the front door. But upon seeing how many people were inside by then, they took one look and turned around and left. This was the best New Years party I have been to, and the photos of Julian and the cops inside the front door are in my archive as well.” In his graphic novel about the East Village squatters, “War in the Neighborhood,” Seth Tobocman, Penley’s former roommate, drew Julian as a regal-looking Pontius Pilate, sporting a toga and Roman uniform, in the chapter “The Tragedy of 319 East 8th Street.” “Pilate was the guy who washed his hands and claimed innocence,” Tobocman explained. “That was my feeling about Julian, that he tried very hard to change policy, but he couldn’t. Julian’s role was to kindly and nobly talk us out of the buildings. He was put in after the ’88 riot. He was a good P.R. guy. He could talk to the media, he was good-looking, he was hip.

At 319 E. Eighth St., he talked the squatters out and said the building would be up till the court date, but it was demolished.” Although in Tobocman’s view, Bill de Blasio is the best mayor since the cartoonist moved to the East Village in the 1970s, it will take more than Julian to change the Police Department’s culture. “The problem is structural,” he said.

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November 27, 2014

Michael Julian as Pontius Pilate in Seth Tobocman’s “War in the Neighborhood.”

GOOD P.R. FOR POLICE: Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has brought Michael Julian — a former chief who served under him — out of retirement, appointing him the Police Department’s deputy commissioner of training. A former commander of the East Village’s Ninth Precinct, Julian left the force to run security at Madison Square Garden and Rockefeller Center. Activist John Penley recalls Julian well. “After the Tompkins Square Park 1988 riot, Julian was transferred from his job as head of the N.Y.P.D. Police Academy to the Ninth Precinct because he is a smart guy and looks like a GQ model,” Penley said. “On his first day at Tompkins Square he showed up at the park alone while people were attacking the Christodora House. Some squatters who recognized him jumped him and kind of beat him up. The attack led to a permanent knee injury.

I was there and photographed it and the photos are

CHARAS INSIDER: CHARAS supporters are putting on a push to persuade the city to take back the old P.S. 64, at 605 E. Ninth St., back from Gregg Singer and restore it as a community center. But if the developer is ever going to consider selling, it probably won’t be cheap. After the big victory rally two months ago after the Department of Buildings slapped a stop-work order on Singer’s dorm project, Councilmember Rosie Mendez told us that Singer has rejected two offers for the building in the past.

One was by a for-profit group that included a relative of NBC TV news reporter Lynda Baquero, who grew up in the neighborhood, and another was by a local nonprofit, which Mendez declined to name.

The offers ranged from $35 million to $40 million, which, according to Mendez, was the building’s assessed value in 2006 after it was landmarked. However, Singer was asking for $86 million at the time.

PAVILION WAITING GAME: Still no word from the Parks Department on whether the Union Square pavilion will see a return of the swanky Chef Driven Market cafe, or whether the eatery will be relegated to the pavement outside the historic structure. As The Villager first reported last month, state Senator Liz Krueger and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried each independently reported in their community newsletters that they’d been assured by the de Blasio administration that, after its first season in the pavilion, the restaurant would be getting booted outside.

But Parks is reportedly still studying the issue as to whether the eatery’s first season was a success or a failure, which could determine what happens next.

“The assessment has not yet been completed,” a department spokesperson told us. (Hey, c’mon, at this rate, the new turtle roof will be built on Tammany Hall before a decision is made!)

SCOOPY’S, continued on p. 6 EastVillagerNews.com

Mendez is not sold on Chin’s 10-cent ‘bag tax’ BAGS, continued from p. 1

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY GERARD FLYNN

one, an East Village building superintendent who was rushing home weighed down with plastic bags full of Thanksgiving fare, thinks the idea is “silly.” He also doubts the bill, Intro 209, will pass.

Phandular thinks that reducing that waste need not take a herculean effort by the city.

“Plastic bags are a pain in the ass,” he said. “We are told to take bags but don’t need them. They are given to us. If someone behind the counter asked, ‘Do you want a bag?’ we might think twice.”

At a City Council hearing on the subject last week, Chin and Lander said that single-use plastic bags are costly, not just to city for having to clean them up and dispose of them, but also to the environment, polluting rivers and creating floating islands of waste in the oceans.

A 10-cent surcharge, they said, has been shown elsewhere to dramatically reduce the consumption of plastic bags and their waste, in nations as far off as Ireland, where a fee on plastic bags has reduced their use reportedly by 90 percent.

The merchants would keep the 10 cents. The regulation would not apply to food carts, pharmacies, wine and liquor stores, restaurants — due to limited alternatives for takeout and delivery — or for produce, milk and bulk food bags, to protect food from contamination.

The issue is dividing the City Council’s normally tight progressive caucus.

Councilmember Rosie Mendez’s East Side district borders Chin’s Lower Manhattan district.

Mendez opposes the proposal as it stands and in a statement to The Villager explained why: the onerous effect a 10-cent levy might have on the poor, senior citizens who live on a fixed income, dog walkers who need plastic bags to clean up after their canines and religious shoppers who separate food according to custom.

Needless to say, the plastic-bag manufacturers of America also oppose the proposed fee, calling it a “regressive tax.”

Longtime de Blasio ally and leftist Bertha Lewis, formerly of ACORN, told the City Council at last week’s hearing that she also opposes the proposal.

Lewis is the founder of the Black Leadership Action Committee (BLAC), which, it was revealed following the hearing, is funded by the American Progressive Bag Alliance (A.P.B.A.), an industry-funded group that has challenged similar legislation in other parts of the country.

Though not available for comment,

Dennis Phandular said a 10-cent fee for plastic and paper bags is “silly,” and that merchants should instead just ask if shoppers want a bag.

her colleague LaMon Bland, a human rights lawyer, told The Villager the bag fee has not been adequately “thought through.”

“We are totally against it,” he said.

“New Yorkers are already taxed enough.”

On top of his populist concern for onerous tax burdens on the citizenry, he said little in the way of community outreach has been done to educate the community on alternatives to the proposal, such as improved recycling programs, a position the environmentally conscious A.P.B.A. also champions, in addition to “correcting misperceptions concerning litter and waste.”

Bland wants the city to “consider adding more trash receptacles” and described the bag fee as a proposal that “may be flawed because there is no clear evidence a tax would decrease plastic bag usage.”

He shared Mendez’s concern about the proposal’s impact on struggling New Yorkers and said the “regressive tax” will have a “disproportionate impact on those of lower income.

“These individuals are more likely to go to the grocer more often than the affluent,” he noted. “They are walking home with bags that are likely to be double-bagged.”

And then there is the evidence about such a tax’s environmental impact.

“This approach may be flawed,” Bland said, “because there is no clear evidence a tax would decrease plastic bag usage.”

In fact, he said, “In some jurisdictions plastic bag usage increased.”

When asked to give an example, he balked, then said, “I don’t know offhand the exact location. I believe the city of San Mateo [California].”

Speaking earlier this month, Chin

said, “While lobbyists for the plastic bag industry continue to attack our legislation with myths and misrepresentation, we’ve built a strong coalition of community-based environmental justice groups that are ready to help our city take a progressive step forward. Our coalition represents the working families that

make New York great, and that’s why they see the benefits of a bill that will save millions in taxpayer funding and reduce plastic bag litter in our parks and neighborhoods. Let’s not allow the voices of working families — particularly those in our low-income, minority communities — to be silenced by the big money of plastic bag lobbyists.”

The legislation is supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Citizens Committee for New York City, New York League of Conservation Voters, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, The Human Impacts Institute, Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board and Green Schools Alliance.

On Dec. 8, the Citizens Committee will do a bag giveaway in Mendez’s district opposite the C-Town, at E. 12th St. and Avenue C, the go-to supermarket for many Alphabet City seniors on fixed incomes.

“We will distribute 200 reusable large cotton tote bags to grocery shoppers,” said spokesperson Saleen Shah. “Councilmember Mendez is still not on board with what we feel is a progressive and reasonable bill that supports the city’s environment and economy. We are still trying to get Rosie to be there to distribute bags.”

November 27, 2014

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Trying to sell Clinton St. to new merchants

November 27, 2014

R

eacting to community concerns about the retail woes along Clinton St., where there are currently 19 vacant stores, the Association of Latino Business Owners and Residents (ALBOR) and the Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) community organization have partnered up to form a “business attraction program” in order to draw more small businesses to the struggling retail strip.

With $30,000 in funding from the city’s Department of Small Business Services, the hope is for the business attraction program to lure an initial seven to 10 stores to the three-block corridor between Houston and Delancey Sts. before the grant expires in July.

The coalition held its first of several scheduled community meetings on Tues., Nov. 13, at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk St., where the program’s organizers heard residents express their preferences for what kinds of businesses they would like to see open there.

Enrique Cruz, ALBOR executive director, and Yanni Deconescu, a GOLES representative, co-chaired the session.

Cruz said, once they can “pinpoint” the kinds of businesses local residents prefer, the program will work with real estate brokers to attract these to the commercial strip.

Cruz told the small turnout of about 15 residents that while foot traffic along Clinton hasn’t dropped, retail business has, in part due to rising rents.

“I would say that that it’s a result of the gentrification that has happened in the neighborhood,” Cruz said. “This corridor has been very important to us, and in the last five years a lot of businesses have left it. We’re at a 20 percent

vacancy rate and that’s unacceptable.”

Cruz said he has already met with various Clinton St. merchants and that the meetings have been “very productive.” He also said that in his initial contacts with several local landlords, they, too, have been receptive to the business attraction program’s goals.

“They tell me that they’re aware that rising rents is very much a concern in the neighborhood and that they’re willing to work with us,” Cruz said. “They said they’re willing to be flexible in adjusting their rental rates because they know that the community wants this.”

At the meeting, residents were given the opportunity to identify the types of businesses they want brought to the Clinton St. corridor. One of the major requests was for some type of walk-in medical facility.

Democratic District Leader Anthony Feliciano favored a walk-in or emergency medical clinic with an emphasis on serving the neighborhood’s growing senior citizen population.

“In the next five years, one out of every 24 people in our neighborhood will be a senior citizen,” he said.

Cruz, who serves on Community Board 3 and the board of Gouverneur Health, responded, “We are already talking about establishing emergency care and walk-in facilities in the neighborhood.”

Other suggestions ranged from an affordable family-style restaurant and a piano bar with an emphasis on poetry and the arts to a community-supported agricultural center that would accept food stamps, and a fitness center.

Longtime local resident Carolyn Williams said she would like to see a job-training and placement center opened along Clinton, especially one that catered to unemployed low-in-

come women.

“We need something to train and stimulate employment in the neighborhood,” she said.

Several residents also suggested the establishment of some type of storefront museum that paid homage to the neighborhood’s Jewish, Irish, Italian, German, Polish and Ukrainian immigrant past.

“It would be good to remember what was once here,” Feliciano agreed. “Remembering the past will help us go forward to the future.”

Maria Cortez, a GOLES member and owner of the El Maguey Y La Tuna Mexican restaurant, at 321 E. Houston St., said she would like to see a holistic center established on the street, offering everything from acupuncture to native healing arts.

Cortez added that her main concern was whether “landlords along Clinton St. will work with us.” She said that would be the key to attracting more retail businesses.

Cruz assured her that, so far, that support seems to be coming.

Another concern of hers, she said, was that the boutiques and hip cafes now operating along the corridor “open for six months and then close due to high rents. We need more stable businesses,” she said.

Named for George Clinton, a Revolutionary War general and U.S. vice president from 1804 until his death in 1812, Clinton St. has always been a street of many different faces. At the turn of the century, it was a main shopping strip for mostly Jewish Lower East Side immigrants. By the 1950s and ’60s, however, it had become a grim, graffiti-riddled stretch. Today, it’s home to hot restaurants along with several boutiques.

EastVillagerNews.com

EastVillagerNews.com

November 27, 2014

5

Anti-fascist group slams bands who played L.E.S.

BY CLARISSA-JAN LIM

D

id fascist punks play a show at a Lower East Side dive bar?

One group seems to think so. Fascism Watch NYC recently distributed a letter to businesses and the community around Chrystie St. expressing their opposition to certain bands playing Sun., Nov. 16, at Home Sweet Home.

The group singled out the frontmen of two acts, Death In June and Blood And Sun, and described the bands as “neo-Nazi” because of their alleged ties and sympathies with Nazi groups.

The letter read: “The project of self-proclaimed Nazi musician Douglas Pearce, Death In June is a widely popular band, and his shows sell out worldwide despite protest from anti-fascist groups.”

The letter also charged the band outfits themselves in fascist imagery, such as the SS Totenkopf skull symbol, and that proceeds from Pearce’s albums have benefitted fascists groups.

Death In June has been banned, to varying degrees, in Switzerland and Germany. A Chicago concert was canceled after an anti-racism group, Center for New Community, pressured the venue’s owner.

The letter also calls Pearce an outspoken opponent of multiculturalism.

Luke Tromiczak admitted some might see his clothes as “fascist chic.”

However, Death In June has performed in Israel and previously worked with Jewish musicians and club promoters. According to the Portland Tribune, Alhambra, a venue that hosted the band there in May, faced similar opposition from local anti-fascism groups.

Alhambra’s manager, Dyami Clement, told the Tribune that after considerable research, “We finally came to the conclusion that the symbolism [Pearce] uses is purely artistic, and

that he is not a Nazi.”

Pearce is openly gay and told Occidental Congress, an online zine on the folk music scene, that “being gay is fundamental to Death In June.” The musician also criticized anti-fascists who protest his band and authorities who have canceled Death In June shows as “ill-informed and ignorant.”

Pearce was previously in the far-left punk rock band Crisis, which performed at anti-racism and anti-fascism rallies.

Occidental Congress wrote that Pearce has “never bowed to criticism and rarely explained himself publicly, even when his concerts have been protested and canceled due to pressure from Anti-fascist / Anti-Nazi / Anti-Racist groups. Pearce is one of the very few contemporary artists who’s not only unafraid of being perceived as exactly that which most other artists are petrified of being seen as, but who’s even managed to use such perceptions to his own advantage.”

The Fascism Watch NYC letter also denounced Luke Tromiczak, Blood and Sun’s singer, for dressing like a “member of the Nazi Sturmabteilung,” or SA a.k.a. Brownshirts, and of having neo-Nazi connections in his native Minnesota.

Contacted by The Villager, Tromiczak denied dressing in uniform for

SCOOPY’S, continued from p. 2 J.T. CREW: A small group of family, close friends, Schwab House neighbors and colleagues gathered for an informal memorial for Jerry Tallmer at ’Cesca restaurant, on W. 75th St., on Fri., Nov. 14. The great newspaperman and writer died Sun., Nov. 9, at age 93.

Among them were Frances Monica Tallmer, his widow; her niece, Julie Monica, and her husband, Tommy Gannon; Jonathan Slaff, the theatrical press agent who was so helpful to Tallmer toward the end while Tallmer was at the Dewitt nursing facility; former Villager publishers Elizabeth Butson and John W. Sutter; Villager Editor in Chief Lincoln Anderson; John Martello, former executive director of the Players Club; and — in a theatrically apropos “six degrees of separation” — Amy Gross, an attorney representing Tallmer who is married to Mark Hasselberger, The Villager’s former graphic artist. Slaff read aloud Tallmer’s “A Bright Shiny Pin,” about G.G., the spirited maid who raised him and meant so much to him. (Read it on Page 12 of this week’s issue.) Sutter recalled Tallmer’s great column in The Villager about how he reported on the day that J.F.K. died — how a familiar newsvendor had sol6

November 27, 2014

performances, but conceded his Carey Grant haircut, boots and jeans could be misconstrued as “fascist chic.”

“However,” he noted, “these are matters of aesthetics not of politics.”

He also said the source of his “Minnesota neo-Nazi connections” that the anti-fascist group accused him of is a stalker there against whom he is seeking a restraining order involving “legal action for defamation of [Tromiczak’s] character.” The frontman declined to say more, citing legal issues.

Tromiczak, who is also currently pursuing an MFA at New York Academy of Art, said some of his paintings were inspired by the work of artist Kathe Kollwitz, who was targeted by the Nazis for supporting the 1932 Dringender Appell, a socialist party’s call to defeat the Nazis.

The singer added Fascism Watch NYC has never contacted him, though he is easily accessible.

“I cannot speak for every one of my many friends’ personal politics and do believe in a truly open discourse between individuals, not soapboxing by dogmatic ideologues and boycotts,” Tromiczak stressed. “Also as an artist I firmly believe freedom of expression is absolutely essential, even if found in bad taste by some.”

Home Sweet Home, at 131 Chrystie St., could not be reached for comment.

emnly told Tallmer, “It’s like a great tree that’s been cut down.” Butson, a jazz aficionado, recounted the story of how Billie Holiday was supposed to perform at the Village Vanguard one night but was a no-show. Art D’Lugoff, the Vanguard’s legendary owner, and Tallmer decided Tallmer would drive down to Philly and search for the singer, who he eventually found after searching high and low in all the bars. Tallmer drove the soused chanteuse back to the Big Apple and made sure to give her plenty of coffee so she was ready to go on when they got to the Vanguard. Anderson read the obituary he wrote about Tallmer — got a bit choked up at one point, downed a glass of wine and kept reading — and got a round of applause. Julie Monica and Tommy Gannon remembered their first impressions of Tallmer. “The pocket protector,” Monica said. “But he had a leather jacket, and the long hair. He was a cool nerd.” Gannon recalled being impressed. “He’s seen everyone,” he said. “Nobody can bulls--this guy.” Tallmer was cremated. “I’m happy to have his ashes in my home,” Frances said. As for a larger memorial, Slaff said something may be in the works at Theater for the New City. It would be free and organized by Martello, but no date has been set.

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November 27, 201411:24 AM 7 11/14/14

Cooper, alum association reach détente

BY ZACH WILLIAMS

T

he costs of implementing tuition at The Cooper Union have included an increasingly chilly relationship between the college administration and the school’s alumni association. But a bit of a thaw began last week between the two sides.

A 40-year-old relationship between the Cooper Union Alumni Association and the college will effectively end, following a Nov. 21 agreement under which the association will become an independent nonprofit responsible for its own funding.

Despite the split, representatives of the alumni association, the administration and board of trustees expressed optimism after a Nov. 18 meeting that relations among them would improve following the agreement.

Much remains up in the air as the larger college community awaits a State Supreme Court decision on a lawsuit challenging the legality of charging tuition at the school. But for now, CUAA can focus once again on its primary mission of engaging alumni, according to Karina Tipton, chairperson of the association’s communications committee.

“I won’t say this is a return to normalcy, but it has freed us up to continue to move forward,” she said.

In a Nov. 21 joint statement, the representatives said that CUAA could resume using alumni e-mail lists as well as campus meeting space after being denied use of such resources by the administration for months. CUAA and the campus Office of Alumni Affairs will also launch separate Web sites, though they will consider cooperating in the future on a case-by-case basis, according to the statement.

Discussions will continue at a meeting scheduled for Dec. 4.

Among the topics will be revising a 1974 memorandum of agreement, according to the statement. CUAA is responsible for alumni outreach as the official representative of all formerly matriculated students at the 155-year-old East Village institution, according to the memo.

That duty will now likely change as discussion among CUAA, the administration and trustees continues.

By agreeing to the memorandum four decades ago, the college assumed the costs of administrative support for the previously independent CUAA, which would represent the interests of alumni now estimated

at about 12,000 people worldwide. But as the years passed, these costs grew, as did disagreements between CUAA and administrators on how to engage alumni amid the school’s financial difficulties, according to Justin Harmon, the college’s spokesperson.

“While both sides agree on the primary purpose of their activity — to engage alumni,” Harmon said, “honest disagreements have ensued over the best use of scarce resources, particularly where institutional budgets and the allocation of staff time are concerned.”

For CUAA such differences eventually meant losing access to the online resources, as well as an effective ban from campus since the new semester began.

According to alumnus Barry Drogin, a prominent critic of the Cooper Union administration, such moves were part of a general campaign by the administration to discourage criticism of its handling of college finances.

“The administration has been in violation of the memorandum between CUAA and the college and has launched a war against the alumni that includes censorship, propaganda and denial of services,” Drogin said.

The administration has also strengthened its own Office of Alumni Affairs, which has organized its own outreach events in recent months, according to Harmon.

While both CUAA and the school administration pledged cooperation moving forward, the campus Office of Alumni Affairs will continue extending its own outreach, according to the joint statement.

“Regardless of the role played by CUAA, we will redouble our efforts to develop events and programs that encourage alumni to participate actively in the life of the institution,” Harmon said.

But the battle over the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of alumni has taken its toll, as has the ongo-

ing litigation, the spokesperson acknowledged.

“The lawsuit has led to a tremendous amount of misinformation, which in turn has caused some alumni to question their financial commitment to Cooper,” he said.

Critics meanwhile allege that something more profound is at stake for students, alumni and the East Village community if Cooper Union continues as a tuition-funded college.

“If Cooper Union becomes just another corporate moneymaking education venture, it’s going to lose its role, its agency and its primacy as an actual center for culture and intellectual conversation,” said alumnus Ben Degan.

Degan moderated a Nov. 13 panel discussion in Brooklyn accompanying a screening of the documentary “Ivory Tower,” which uses Cooper Union as one example of the purported corporatization of American higher education. This trend has for years fueled the friction between CUAA and the administration, Drogin wrote on Nov. 22 in a 3,000word history of the alumni association that he posted on his blog.

Relations deteriorated after the 2011 appointment of Jamshed Bharucha as Cooper’s president, according to Drogin. As anti-tuition sentiment grew within CUAA — including the 2013 write-in election of alumni trustee Kevin Slavin — the rift with the administration widened, he said.

Drogin argued that ongoing financial support for the Committee to Save Cooper Union — the plaintiff in the ongoing lawsuit — demonstrates how alumni sentiment remains firmly anti-tuition and, thus, anti-administration, as well.

“Despite the ‘embargo’ and temporary loss of direct communications between the CUAA Council and alumni, the Committee to Save Cooper Union raised over $300,000 before the joint statement was issued, most of that from alumni,” Drogin said.

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November 27, 2014

EastVillagerNews.com

Bloody Monday: Cyclist and ped killed by cars within 3-hour span

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

I

n the short period of just a few hours Monday evening, a bicyclist and a homeless pedestrian were both fatally struck by cars on the Lower East Side.

One of the drivers — who was reportedly going more than 60 miles per hour — was charged with criminally negligent homicide.

Around 10 p.m. on Nov. 24, Shan Zheng, 61, of Ossining, N.Y., was riding a bicycle northbound on Pitt St. when he was hit by a livery cab going eastbound on East Houston St. Zheng suffered severe head trauma. E.M.S. medics responded and transported him to Bellevue Hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead.

“He was not wearing a helmet,” a police spokesperson said.

The cab’s operator, a 50-year-old male, remained at the scene.

The police spokesperson said that, according to witnesses, the cab “had a steady green light and right of way.”

The driver was given a breathalyzer test, which came up negative.

Just before 7 p.m. on the same evening, a 57-year-old man crossing Bowery on foot between Rivington and

homicide.

“He has a very bad license,” the police spokesperson said. “He has 17 prior suspensions.”

Police did not immediately describe the nature of the license suspensions.

Lin passed a drug-and-alcohol test.

The investigation is ongoing.

Representatives of the Bowery Mission told The Villager that the victim was Robert Perry, and that he was a “community member” there. He had never been in the facility’s residential recovery program, but took advantage of its services, including meals, chapel services and, recently, a photography program. He had been a regular at the Bowery Mission for at least three years.

“We were in the process of having supper at the time” of the accident, a man who answered the phone Tuesday evening at the Bowery Mission said. “Everyone went outside. It was very shocking for us.”

The Bowery Mission released a statement that said, in part: “The news may report that a ‘homeless man’ was killed in a hit-and-run accident. It is true that Robert struggled with homelessness most of life, from the age of 12. Because he spent many days and nights at the Bowery Mission, we got to know Robert as a gifted man with a difficult story. Robert was a faithful participant in the Bowery Mission’s chapel services and activities. Most recently, Robert was a charter member of the Bowery Mission’s photography club, producing haunting photographs taken from his life’s perspective. In his artist’s statement, Robert reminded us, ‘I want people to hear my story, hear my cry… We are looked at like dirt, but we are somebody.’ ” Some examples of Perry’s photography work can be seen at www.oneglimpse.org. Captions on the photos describe how his mother left him at age 2, and how he would often get a night’s sleep on the A train while riding back and forth three times to Far Rockaway.

The Bowery Mission is attempting to contact Perry’s family in New Jersey, and is planning a memorial for him after Thanksgiving.

In addition, around 5 p.m. on Monday, a 76-year-old male was crossing West Houston St. when he was hit by a vehicle that had the right of way, police said.

The injured senior was transported to the Lenox Hill HealthPlex where he was reported in stable condition. The driver remained at the scene and was not charged, according to police.

‘He has a very bad license — 17 prior suspensions.’

Police spokesperson

Prince Sts. was struck by a speeding 2001 BMW sedan going northbound on Bowery.

According to police, the car was traveling 62 miles per hour. The man went up onto the car’s windshield and was “thrown more than 150 feet” before landing on the street, the spokesperson said.

After hitting the pedestrian, the driver, Danny Lin, 24, of Coney Island Ave., continued traveling north on Bowery for another block until striking a fire hydrant at Stanton St. where his vehicle came to a stop.

E.M.S. medics responded and transported the victim to New York Downtown Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Lin, the driver, was not injured and was taken into custody at the scene. He was charged with criminally negligent EastVillagerNews.com

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November 27, 2014

9

POLICE BLOTTER E.V. attorney sentenced

Radical attorney Stanley Cohen was sentenced to a year and a half in prison on Fri., Nov. 21, on tax obstruction charges.

Cohen was sentenced in Federal District Court in Syracuse. In April, he pleaded guilty to the charges.

Cohen, who lives on Avenue D, formerly represented the East Village squatters when they fought eviction in the 1980s. Among his more recent high-profile clients, he has represented Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, and Mousa Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader.

Cohen pleaded guilty because of the effort and cost of fighting the years-long case. He charged that the government wants to “silence” him because of who he represents.

Unhealthy incident A visitor did not want to leave the Lenox Hill HealthPlex around 12:01

a.m. on Mon., Nov. 24. Though a police report did not state the reason why, a 26-year-old man working there asked the woman to leave. She then snatched a box cutter from him as he attempted to escort her out of the lobby at 30 Seventh Ave. Police said Wanda Rosado, 35, then began menacing the man with the implement, making him fear for his safety. Police soon arrived and arrested Rosado, who was charged with criminal weapon possession.

Papaya rage Papaya Dog, at 333 Sixth Ave. near Cornelia St., suffered more than $350 in damage after a young man allegedly went berserk there. According to police, at about 12:30 a.m. on Sat., Nov. 22, the man began yelling and throwing store property. Then he picked up a table and attempted to hurl it at other people. Police arrested Faqir Palmer, 26, who was charged with reckless endangerment.

Where there’s smoke...

Police executing a search warrant at 2 p.m. on Nov. 19 found untaxed cigarettes and synthetic marijuana for the second time in recent months at a Village shop located at 200 W. 14th St. A raid there on Sept. 12 led to two arrests and the seizure of 28 packs of smokes, documents, real pot and synthetic marijuana, as The Villager reported on Sept. 18. This time around, police arrested Saddam Alsaidi, 24, and charged him with violation of tax law, a misdemeanor.

Bouncer beatdown

A 36-year-old man alleges that bouncers at the VIP Room, at 409 W. 13th St., refused him entry and beat him up to boot. Police said that about 1:15 a.m. on Fri., Nov. 21, the man got into a dispute with club security.

Three members of the staff were soon upon him, striking him multiple times with their hands and feet, according to a police report. A male witness cor-

roborated the victim’s account of the events, which led to lacerations and bruising to the victim’s head and face.

Video of the incident was not readily available due to an uncooperative manager at the business, police said.

Felix Arce, 35, Richard Tariuwa, 37, and Pedro Veliz, 25, were all charged with misdemeanor assault after turning themselves in to police on Nov. 22.

Illegal pole dancing Police arrested three men for dancing inside a train that was moving through the W. Fourth St. subway station. At about 5:50 p.m. on Thurs., Nov. 20, police said they observed Kenneth Miley, 29, Luis Candelario, 27, and James Gonzalez, 27, getting down with somersaults on a southbound D train. The trio were charged with reckless endangerment. A police report did not state whether they “flipped on each other” prior to arrest.

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November 27, 2014

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EastVillagerNews.com

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November 27, 2014

11

Swift as N.Y.C. ambassador is not welcome on the L.E.S. TALKING POINT

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON

T

he conflict now is not democracy versus fascism or communism. It is democracy versus corporate capitalism.

A stunning example of corporate capitalism dominating our democracy and freedom is the appointment of Taylor Swift — with her song “Welcome to New York” — as New York City’s cultural ambassador. Sure, she is hot right now, top of the pop charts, cute and yes, good for tourism. But is that enough to be our N.Y.C. cultural ambassador? A face of tourism, O.K. But what is her connection to the city?

Is tourism more important than history, opportunity, the right of a New Yorker to make it here? The old “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere” is now what?

Our history is being erased, the high rents have made it difficult to stay in the community, the small businesses are being pushed out. It is important to realize, using Ludlow St. from Delaney to Houston, as an example, that many of

the small family- and privately owned businesses were successful.

A partial list of business that have been forced out because of escalating rent includes the Pink Pony, Max Fish, Motor City, El Sombrero, Earth Matters and Spitzers — all closed.

Our area has become an entertainment zone oversaturated with bars, student dorms and tourism, and filled every weekend with spring break fever.

Change is inevitable, and, no, we don’t want the drugs and crime back.

But there has to be a happy medium between middle- and low-income people being allowed to live, work and own small businesses, and the takeover by people with full pockets.

It was affordable rent and the chance to live an inexpensive lifestyle that created the chance for genius to develop. The history of the Lower East Side is filled with people who came to the city with little and went on to make a serious contributions to the culture of America: Madonna, Charlie Parker, Steve Cannon, Philip Glass, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Weegee, Allen Ginsburg, Alan Kaufman, Ellen Stewart, Emma Goldman, Dorthy Day, Leon Klinghoffer, who invented the Roto-Broiler, a metal oven

that consisted of a rotisserie, and was killed aboard the Achille Lauro. The list is long.

The next generation of “Making It in N.Y.C.” is now imported talent like Taylor Swift. We have exported the jobs and imported the talent.

I cannot blame Taylor Swift for accepting this opportunity. The push to get her replaced by a N.Y.C. talent is not about her as a talent or a person. It is not about an older generation lamenting the loss of our past. I am working with a young up-and-coming band called DAMEHT, who I hope will become recognized and be able to survive as musicians. I too am in a position where the chances of my staying in N.Y.C. are slim. To save my photo archive and life’s work, I am working on moving to Austria.

The L.E.S. is a part of my being, of who I became. But what chance do any of us struggling artists have if the city is importing talent?

There is no question we have an overabundance of local pop and music talent that tourists would recognize as representing the city, as well, as New York songs written by local talent.

I have documented many of the changes caused by gentrification on

the L.E.S. But this next form of gentrification, importing creative talent, is a form I could never have imagined. I was sitting around discussing this problem with Rivington, DAMEHT’s singer and songwriter, and his editor, Jeff Hammer.

We decided the best source for material that we had quick access to was my biopic, “Captured,” directed by Ben Solomon and Dan Levin and edited by Jenner Furst. Since most of the material in this movie belonged to Elsa Rensaa and myself, we thought, “Rip it, use the material.” Jeff did an all-nighter and came up with the video in this link: youtube.com/ watch?v=ukxGWe18GOs It is not that we are saying GG Allin is the best example of an alternative to Taylor Swift, but he definitely represents a style of the ’80s and ’90s. So far, our youtube video has had more than 25,000 views: proof that people are disenchanted with being sold out.

It is time for a change. We need more than the Housewives and the Kardashians to aspire to.

I hope we can use this video to help make a change — to get the politicians to wake up and use a local talent as the face of tourism. Wake up, N.Y.C.!

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Labyrinth comeback?

To The Editor: Re “Lost without labyrinth” (letter, by George Jones, Nov. 13), in response to “Union Square pavilion restaurant could be cooked, local pols say” (news article, Oct. 16): As a designer and painter of the labyrinths formerly at the north end of Union Square, I mourn with Mr. Jones and assure him he’s not alone in regretting the loss. Besides individual labyrinth-walkers like Mr. Jones, whole families told me they made the largest of the three labyrinths a

IRA BLUTREICH

place where they’d walk together.

Many people wrote letters to this newspaper, The New York Times and other publications trying to save the labyrinths when new pavement was being planned for the north end.

Unfortunately, that campaign did not succeed at the time. But if the voices of labyrinth appreciators eventually prevail with Union Square Park planners and officials, I am more than willing to create a new labyrinth at the north end.

Meanwhile, people wanting to center their thoughts and energy away from the traffic sounds and city’s bustle (as Mr. Jones puts it so well) are

welcome at my East River Reflections Labyrinth, in the dance oval just north of the tennis courts in the East River Park.

Diana Carulli

Tallmer was one of a kind To The Editor: Re “Jerry Tallmer, Voice founding editor, legendary theater critic and Obies creator, is dead at 93” (obituary, Nov. 13): I was saddened to read about Jerry Tallmer. I know he had become important at The Villager, just as he had been at the Voice in its golden era.

Jerry reviewed my first play, “Hector at the Cherry Lane,” in the early ’60s, when it was done as part of a Living Theater series on a bill with Kenneth Koch’s “Pericles” and Jean Cocteau’s “Marriage on the Eiffel Tower.” He cited the actress Jean Bruno, stating that she gave “a magnificent performance,” to my delight.

Jerry was one of a kind and we will miss him and his writing. It would be nice — and pertinent as well — to see a new book of his reviews come to light.

Robert Heide

De Blasio puts a chill on ICE deportations.

12

November 27, 2014

EastVillagerNews.com

St. Mark’s Bookshop starts new chapter on E. 3rd BOOKSHOP, continued from p. 1

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC

vious spot at 31 Third Ave., which it occupied for 21 years, due to high rent.

At about 1,300 square feet, the current store is almost half the size of the last location, which was 2,700 square feet. But it boosts a unique and sleek modern design — tall white shelving that seems to undulate throughout the store — courtesy of Clouds Architecture Office, which did the work pro bono.

“I think what it does is it draws people in,” said Contant, who manned the cash register and the phone, and answered people’s book queries, while talking to a reporter earlier this month. “There’s a certain flow to the way the shelves are arranged, and rather than be the traditional kind of box store, this offers a different kind of aesthetic.”

Cloud Architecture contributed $500 to the Indiegogo campaign for the store’s relocation, Contant said, as the rain hit the pavement outside.

The new storefront is located in the New York City Housing Authority’s First Houses. It took a few months to find the location, he said, but the city, which owns the property, wanted them — in contrast with their former landlord, The Cooper Union, which wanted a different business, one that could pay higher rent.

Contant said one reason they’re happy with the new location is that they left Third Ave., which has become “corporate,” in his view, and is dominated

by New York University student housing.

It’s a far cry from the East Village scene in the ’70s.

Contant moved from Maryland to New York City in 1972 and was working at the East Side Bookstore on St. Mark’s Place along with McCoy, who had moved from Albuquerque in 1968. That bookstore had a certain notoriety because it sold the Whole Earth Catalogue and underground comics.

McCoy, Contant and three others worked at the bookstore, which had an absentee owner who came in and wrote checks, but did little else.

Once the chemistry of this group clicked, Contant recounted, they decided to open their own bookstore.

“We thought among ourselves, ‘Why do this for someone else? Why don’t we do it for ourselves?’ ” Contant said.

The five pooled their resources, which wasn’t much, $2,000 each. With that $10,000, the bookstore was born at 13 St. Mark’s Place. (Two of the former partners have since dropped out and one remains as an owner, but is not active in running the business.)

In the East Village in 1977, everyone was poor, Contant recalled.

“However, you could work a minimum-wage job, which was about $2.50 an hour. You could still have your own apartment,” explained Contant, whose place back then cost $63 a month. “And you could still eat out and you could have a drink at the bar and you could date — go to the movies, which were like 75 cents.”

Next door to their bookstore at 13 St. Mark’s Place, which rented for $375 a month, was Paul McGregor’s Haircutters. (Paul McGregor, who has been credited with inventing the shag, was a stylist to the stars and later owned clubs.)

“The street had a lot of cachet,” said Contant, referring to St. Mark’s Place.

However, it took awhile for the bookshop to establish itself since there were many bookstores on Eighth St., and along Fourth Ave. between Eighth and 14th Sts., which was at that time known as

Co-owners Terry McCoy, left, and Bob Contant at St. Mark’s Bookshop’s new location, on E. Third St. just west of Avenue A.

Book Row. “Bookstores were like Starbucks,” Contant said of that era. “They were everywhere in New York.”

After 10 years at that first location, Contant said, the bookshop was outgrowing it. Now there was a punk and art scene that had made the neighborhood vibrant.

“On Friday and Saturday nights the store would be so crowded that we would have someone at the door,” he said.

So when a larger location across the street was offered to Contant and McCoy, they took it and moved to 12 St. Mark’s Place.

“That was the first hard lesson we learned because we were undercapitalized to make the move and the cost overruns were significant,” Contant said.

But business did not really increase. At that time, in the ’80s, the book business was a different beast. Inventory was done by hand and the store carried a lot of overstock.

“We would have to order 10 copies of Camus’ book ‘The Stranger,’ for example, just to have enough to last us for awhile,” he said.

The bookshop developed a cultural critical theory section. Contant explained that somebody on staff was a post-structuralist philosophy professor.

The professor had a free hand to order, and it paid off, Contant said, as the store became known for its selections.

“It was probably the best situation we ever had,” said Contant, “to be a vital part of the community on St. Mark’s Place.”

There are too many stories to tell.

“William Burroughs would come in every Saturday and buy crappy science fiction books because he had a crush on one of the guys of that worked at the bookstore,” Contant recalled.

Then there was Ted Berrigan, a poet, who lived on the block.

“You could smoke in public places,” he said.

“And Ted was a chain smoker and he would go around the store with a cigarette and the ashes would just fall everywhere.”

Contant was always worried a book would catch

fire.

“You had to sort of watch to make sure he didn’t put a cigarette down somewhere,” he said.

But the business was not going well after the bookshop moved from 13 to 12 St. Mark’s Place.

Contant said they had put a “Going Out of Business” sign in the window, and The Wall Street Journal did an article about the store, which caught the eye of Robert Rodale, of Rodale Press. The article mentioned Susan Sontag, who Rodale happened to have met. Rodale loaned them money to keep the store afloat.

In 1989, St. Mark’s Bookshop moved to Third Ave. near Ninth St. In 2007, Barnes & Noble closed its Astor Place store and Contant said, as a result, they got a spike in business.

“We thought we would be O.K.,” he said, “until the economy crashed in 2008. The lack of discretionary income, stagnating wages, books being more expensive and outlets such as Amazon have all hurt the bookstore business.”

Rising rent at the Third Ave. location led to the move to the new site. Many supporters pitched in to help with the relocation, donating money, signing petitions and offering their services.

“We do have an identity in people’s minds,” McCoy said, when asked why he thinks so many people have lent a hand.

“We’re struggling again because...we’ve moved without being properly capitalized,” Contant said.

“We’ve had to borrow money. It makes it difficult to do what we would like to do, which is develop a lot more inventory in the store.”

But Contant and McCoy have been through this struggle before.

“When we moved from St. Mark’s Place to Third Ave, our business dropped,” Contant said. “Because we moved around the corner, people didn’t know where we went. It just happens in New York that way. People are addicted to certain blocks they walk on. If you’re not on their route, they don’t know you exist.

“It’s incrementally getting better,” he assured.

“There are slow days and there are good days.

That’s to be expected.”

November 27, 2014

13

PHOTO BY MILO HESS

Outrage on the streets after Ferguson decision After a grand jury declined to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal August shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, demonstrators filled the streets in New York City Tuesday night, chanting, Hands up! Don’t shoot!� Clayton Patterson photographed protesters blocking traffic on East Houston St., before they went on to block the F.D.R., and Milo Hess photographed them in Times Square. Donna Aceto photographed demonstrators in the West Village, where they headed up Seventh Ave. into traffic, turned onto Christopher St., then marched down to the West Side Highway, where they headed south, again in the middle of traffic.

PHOTO BY DONNA ACETO

14

November 27, 2014

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY DONNA ACETO

PHOTO BY CLAYTON PATTERSON

PHOTO BY DONNA ACETO

15

November 27, 2014

EastVillagerNews.com

Planned Service Changes

123 Dec 1 – 5, Mon – Fri 10PM to 5AM No 1 2 between 34 St-Penn Station and South Ferry/Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr. 1 runs between 242 St and 34 St-Penn Station.

2 runs between Dyre Av and 34 St-Penn Station.

3 service is suspended.

Travel Alternatives: • Free shuttle buses run to/from 3 stations at 148 St, 145 St, and 135 St. • 4 trains make all 3 stops between Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr and New Lots Av. • 5 trains make all 2 stops in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

• Use the ACE(Q)45 to/from nearby stations.

Stay Informed Call 511 and say “Current Service Status,” look for informational posters in stations, or visit mta.info – where you can access the latest Planned Service Changes information, use TripPlanner+, and sign up for free email and text alerts.

2014 Metropolitan Transportation Authority 16

November 27, 2014

EastVillagerNews.com

Re-imagining Tarot, from 0 to XXI Victoria Goldman’s moody photos further its mystery PHOTOGRAPHY VICTORIA GOLDMAN: MYTHICOS DIVINARE Through December 14 Wed.–Sun, 12–7 p.m.

At Robin Rice Gallery 325 W. 11th St. Btw. Washington & Greenwich Sts. Call 212-366-6660 or visit robinricegallery.com

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST & ROBIN RICE GALLERY

BY NORMAN BORDEN

E

ven if you’ve never seen a Tarot deck, visited a psychic to discover “what’s in the cards” or believed in the supernatural, the 24 photographs in Victoria Goldman’s latest exhibition will open your eyes to the imagery and mythology behind Tarot. Goldman’s misty, soft-focus interpretations may also help you understand why many people around the world use these cards for personal guidance. Still, if you want to better appreciate her work, it helps to know a little about the subject.

Tarot as a means of divination is said to have originated in fourteenth century Italy, but many diverse cultures claim some connection to it.

Tarot is a deck of 78 cards, divided into the major and minor Arcana. The major Arcana consists of 22 cards that

EastVillagerNews.com

“The World.”

use the imagery of archetypes like the Devil, the Fool and the World to represent the forces that influence our lives and the lessons that life teaches us.

The minor Arcana is more like a deck of traditional playing cards, with four different suits: wands, cups, swords and pentacles (representing the elements fire, water, air and earth).

These deal with the concerns of our

daily lives, while the archetypes in the major Arcana deal with the larger issues of life — from love to death.

These 22 archetypes, which are traditionally numbered from 0 to XXI, are the basis of Goldman’s exhibition.

The artist says, “The idea of the show is that these archetypes are in each one of us. My hope is that they will call to us to be more regal in our

lives and each aspect of life — birth, death, love, tragedy and humor — is to be honored.”

Goldman became fascinated with Tarot about 20 years ago after she received a deck as a gift and began using the cards while traveling and photographing in Asia. She says, “It was kind of a spontaneous journey so I would poll the cards and let them tell me what my next move and next best destination should be. I use the cards to help me focus on what’s most important to me.” Although there are a number of ways to read them, Goldman usually just pulls one card from the deck or else uses what’s called a ten-card spread.

The idea for re-interpreting the Tarot came to the artist back in 1999, but it took her more than a decade to conceive and create all 22 images. In fact, many were created just a few months ago.

Using a Polaroid SX-70 camera and film as well as a vintage twin-lens Rolleiflex, her soft focus interpretations of these mythical figures are reminiscent of the work of Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron, which Goldman considers to be important influences.

While there are undoubtedly countless interpretations of the archetypes, the ones that Goldman has created for her exhibition take them to another level.

A good example is the Fool, who is thought to be a young, naive person on the road of life, gaining new experiences and seeing new possibilities along the way, finally reaching the World or the end of the journey. ExTAROT, continued on p.18 November 27, 2014

17

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST & ROBIN RICE GALLERY

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST & ROBIN RICE GALLERY

“Wheel of Fortune.”

“Justice.”

Goldman’s eye sees imagery, mythology behind Tarot TAROT, continued from p. 17

plaining her interpretation, Goldman says, “The entire story of the Arcana is called ‘The Fool’s Journey.’ It’s all about trust. There’s this openness and willingness as shown by the trapeze and an openheartedness. It’s certainly an image open to interpretation, for all we can see is a figure on a trapeze against a black background.

In many of the photographs, Goldman uses a female model to represent a specific archetype. For example, in “The Wheel of Fortune,” she photographs the woman in a glamorous dress that shimmers from the reflected

light. Her back faces us as she spins the archetypical wheel of fortune that is hidden by the darkness. It represents the cyclical nature of life — where the wheel will stop, no one knows. I found it to be one of the more engaging photographs in the show, but its actual size also adds impact: the 30 x 40 inch Giclee print on the back wall of the gallery is the largest in the exhibition.

While some Tarot decks show the Devil as a satyr — half-man, half goat with wings of a vampire bat — in Goldman’s view, the “Devil” is not evil, but Capricornian. The model’s hair is tufted to resemble a goat’s horns and a real snake is wrapped

118thAnnual Annual 117th OpenExhibition Exhibition Open October 1 - October 25, 2013

December 2nd - 19th, 2014 Benefit Reception Friday,October December 12th, 5:30-8:00pm 111 TH ANNUAL Benefit ReceptionEXHIBITION Friday, 11th 5:30-8:00pm October 2–27, 2007 National Arts Club, Gramercy Park South, NYC AtAt thethe National Arts Club, 1515 Gramercy Park South, NYC

Monday through Friday 3-6 p.m., Sat &Metropolitan Sun 1-6 p.m.

Benefits The Museum of Art • Donation $25.00 Benefits The Metropolitan Museum of Art • Donation $25.00 SCULPTURE GALLERY Gallery Hours: Daily 1-6 p.m.Mon. - Fri., 12:00 - 6:00 pm Gallery Hours: Mon. Gallery - Fri., 12:00-6:00 pmpm Sat. & Sun. 1-6 pm • Sculpture open daily 1-6

Sat. & Sun. 1-6 pm PREVIEW RECEPTION

Sculpture Gallery open daily 1-6 pm

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November 27, 2014

around the model’s shoulders to symbolize this Devil’s earthiness. The soft focus makes the image feel dream-like and mysterious.

The end of the Fool’s Journey is “The World,” and here too, the artist offers her unique interpretation. The same model appears again, except here she lies half-naked on a blanket surrounded by roses and other flowers, embracing a globe. Goldman explains that this symbolizes the responsibility we have to protect the world.

This is an exhibition that demands your attention and your time. Look at “Judgment,” “The Empress,” “Justice” and the other major Archetypes, and

maybe you can see what’s in the cards.

Norman Borden is a New York-based writer and photographer. The author of more than 100 reviews for NYPhotoReview.com and a member of Soho Photo Gallery and ASMP, his image “Williamsburg” was chosen by juror Jennifer Blessing, Curator of Photography at the Guggenheim, for inclusion in the upcoming 2014 competition issue of “The Photo Review.” Seventy of his contemporary photographs are in “Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side,” which Fordham University Press just reissued as a trade paperback. Visit normanbordenphoto.com.

Theater for the New City • 155 1st Avenue at E. 10th St. Reservations & Info (212) 254-1109 For more info, please visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net

Two by Tavel A Tribute to the Power behind the Throne: Harvey Tavel

Tabula Rasa

Written By: Ricardo Sarmiento Gaffurri Directed By: Ramiro Sandoval

Bread & Puppet: Captain Boycott

The Life of Juanita Castro & Kitchenette

Thursdays - Saturdays: 8 PM Sundays: 3 PM

[Recommended for ages 13 & up]

Butterfly Hour

Written By: Ronald Tavel

Written By: Claude Solnik Directed By: Daniel Higgins

The Nothing is Not Ready Circus

Directed By: Norman Glick Thursdays - Saturdays: 8 PM Sundays: 3 PM

With: Christina Germaine, Paul Wallace, Scott McIntyre, Tom Ashton

Thursdays - Saturdays: 8 PM Sundays: 3 PM

& [Recommended for all ages]

Thursdays - Saturdays: 8 PM Sundays: 3 PM EastVillagerNews.com

Round three for Shadow Box film fest Curated with care for action beyond the bell THE SHADOW BOX FILM FESTIVAL Day and evening sessions on Dec. 5 & 6 At the SVA Theatre 333 W. 23rd St. (btw. 8th & 9th Aves) COURTESY OF NATASHA VERMA PRODUCTIONS

Tickets: $15 for day sessions, $18 for evening, $40 for festival pass Reservations: 1-800-838-3006 or brownpapertickets.com Visit shadowboxfilmfestival.com Twitter: @boxingfestival Instagram: @shadowboxfilmfestival Facebook.com/ShadowBoxFilmFestival

Heather Hardy, left, and filmmaker Natasha Verma will be part of the panel on women’s boxing, Dec. 5, as part of The Shadow Box Film Festival.

Following the panel, the documentary “Hardy” screens.

BY SCOTTT STIFFLER

W

hether it’s a primal act of brutality, a virtuoso display of artistry or both is a matter of personal taste — but that hasn’t kept skeptics and hardcore fans alike from cheering during the training montage of “Rocky,” wincing during “Raging Bull” slugfests or shedding tears during that deathbed plea in “The Champ.” Although Hollywood has made a killing by playing the sport’s victory/defeat dynamic for maximum effect, the narrative of those who devote their lives to boxing is rarely as clear-cut as what happens when two opponents touch gloves and come out fighting.

Now in its third year, The Shad-

ow Box Film festival is heavy on fight game action, but even more intensely committed to filling the screen with bruising accounts of what it takes to win.

Documentaries are the backbone of this two-day festival, whose afternoon and evening screenings contain both shorts and feature-length work.

Alan Swyer ’s “El Boxeo” is a broad study of the Latino experience in boxing, while Brin-Jonathan Butler ’s “Split Decision: The Story of Guillermo Rigondeaux” follows one boxer ’s journey from Cuba to the U.S. Set in the 1930s, “Babyface Goes to Hollywood: The Jimmy McLarnin Story” looks at the welterweight’s

world championships, then traces his post-boxing foray into acting.

This is a return for Irish director Andrew Gallimore, whose documentary on “Gentleman” Jim Corbett won Best Foreign Film at last year ’s festival.

Screening on both days as part of the shorts collection, director Chris Cassidy’s “Sunnyside” takes a 1947-1977 look at the Sunnyside Garden fight club, where hundreds of careers were launched.

Bobby Cassidy, U.S. Congressman Peter King, Harold Lederman, Lenny Mangiapane, Henny Wallitsch, Bob Duffy, Ron Ross, Gene Moore and many others from the fight game provide first-hand accounts and historical perspec-

tives. “Watching this movie,” says Shadow Box executive director David Schuster, “you can almost smell the cigar smoke and taste the water-downed beer.” Many fighters and trainers with a direct connection to Sunnyside will attend a special 1 p.m. screening on Sat., Dec. 6, to participate in a Q&A session directly following the 30-minute film.

Demonstrating a respect and enthusiasm that still eludes many promoters and fans, the festival’s lone panel event (7:30 p.m. on Dec. 5) is devoted to women’s boxing — bookended by screenings of “Last Woman Standing” and “Hardy” (directors and subjects from both films will take part in the discussion, with audience input welcome).

Directed by Juliet Lammers and Lorraine Price, “Standing” is an entry from Canada that follows two friends as they compete for a single slot to represent their country in the 2012 Olympics (the first time women’s boxing was included as an official sport).

Closer to home, Natasha Verma’s “Hardy” champions the fight for gender equality, in and beyond the ring. Drawn to boxing as a means of empowerment after a traumatic event, Heather Hardy trains at Brooklyn’s legendary Gleason’s Gym while raising her daughter and negotiating a uniquely layered — but typically intense — relationship with her trainer. In a manner that lives up to the best drama Hollywood fiction can offer, Hardy achieves a series of stunning victories while remaining both grounded and hungry for more.

CALL TO SUBSCRIBE 646-452-2475

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November 27, 2014

19

You simply must see Lypsinka

Epperson’s trilogy is deft, defiant and disarming THEATER LYPSINKA! THE BOXED SET THE PASSION OF THE CRAWFORD and JOHN EPPERSON: SHOW TRASH In rotating repertory through Jan. 3, 2015 At the Connelly Theater General Admission: $45 for one show, $80 for two, $105 for all three Premium Admission (reserved seating, plus beverage): $60 for one show, $100 for two $125 for all three Purchase tickets at 866-811-4111 or lypsinka.com

BY SCOTTT STIFFLER

See Lypsinka for Free!

You have a chance to win two tickets for the Dec. 8, 7 p.m. performance of “Boxed Set.” To enter, send an email to LypsinkaTix@TheVillager.com, along with your phone number (only enter once, please). A winner will be selected at

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November 27, 2014

random, and contacted by phone on Dec. 6. The show takes place at the Connelly Theater, 220 E. Fourth St. (btw. Aves. A & B). But why leave it to chance? Purchase tickets to any show (or all three) by calling 866-811-4111 or visiting lypsinka.com.

The old East Village spirit lives, in the ageless Lypsinka.

‘Butterfly’ charts military to civilian transition

COURTESY OF THE TEXTILE CO.

A

fter an absence of nine long years, a masterful melting pot of gender illusion, golden age Hollywood glam, highly skilled lip-synching and diva deification has returned to New York.

From Pyramid Club to Tompkins Square Park to Club 57, the East Village incubators that hatched Lypsinka in the early 1980s are either gone forever or tamed beyond recognition — and yet, the ravages of time have had no such luck chipping away at The Lyp’s alabaster skin or flawlessly executed acts of defiance in the face of adversity.

Although technically mute, this lady is no sphinx. She’s not even a lady, tech-

PHOTO BY AUSTIN YOUNG

220 E. Fourth St. (btw. Aves. A & B)

nically — but by moving her lips in perfect synchronicity to a skillfully woven soundtrack of films, musicals and concert recordings, the “supreme archivist of irony” towers above lesser drag acts, for whom the likes of Joan Crawford, Judy Garland and Bette Davis are little more than camp punchlines.

Throughout the furiously paced “Boxed Set,” the performer embodies dozens of nightclub entertainers and screen stars who hit their career highs long before Lypsinka was born. Sharing a love for these women will certainly elevate your own experience, although a surprising amount of the show’s humor is anchored in broad physical comedy, economic arches of the eyebrow and deeply expressive flourishes of the wrist — flawlessly executed, fleeting moments whose appeal exists independently of their source material.

“The Passion of the Crawford” works a lone persona and, for the most part, sticks to the sequential transcripts of two well-documented Joan Crawford interviews. Whether she’s riffing on a three-second sound bite or in it for the long haul, Lypsinka excels at contemplating the high cost of submission, defiance and perseverance — not by peeling back the onion, but by adding layer upon layer upon layer.

As much fun as Lypsinka is to be around, the trilogy’s greatest pleasure comes from the one who really wears the pants in the relationship between performer and persona (or does he?).

“Show Trash” is John Epperson’s amiable, soft-spoken take on that old cabaret formula: one man on stage, tinkling the ivories, reviewing his life from birth to present. The former American Ballet Theatre rehearsal pianist consistently amuses with insights set to cleverly reworded show tunes, yet the standout moments come from modest and revelatory anecdotes related to his upbringing in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Fans expecting Lypsinka’s origin story won’t leave the theater disappointed, though, as “Show Trash” has plenty to say about the glorious excesses that made the old New York so conducive to his demanding alter ego.

L to R: Paul Wallace as Oats, Scott McIntyre as Rick and Tom Ashton as Matt go plane spotting in “Butterfly Hour.”

Returning home to Florida from tours of duty in Iraq, three soldiers find themselves in a very different land of sun and sand that has little use for their skills. With big ambitions and no money, Matt, Rick and Oats get together for an “operation” that will either solve their financial problems or destroy their lives. With a focus on the complexities of rebuilding relationships strained by the transition from military to civilian life, “Butterfly Hour”

is the inaugural production from The Textile Co., named as a tribute to the small textile business founder (and “Butterfly” playwright) Claude Solnik’s father once ran in Brooklyn.

Dec. 4–6 & 11–13 at 8 p.m. Dec. 7 &14 at 3 p.m. At Theater for the New City (155 First Ave., btw. E. 9th & 10th Sts.). For tickets ($15 general admission, $10 for students & seniors), call 212-254-1109 or visit theaterforthenewcity.net.

EastVillagerNews.com

Scrambled plans and a screwball solution

Playhouse season progresses, after an unexpected setback

C

PHOTO BY STEPHEN LEONG

ast the talent, not the type, goes an old showbiz axiom — and so it went at Metropolitan Playhouse, when the East Village theatrical heritage hawks found themselves scrambling for a replacement production to match their already-hired ensemble.

Specializing in early American (almost always public domain) works, Metropolitan was set to revive George M. Cohan’s virtually unknown “Broadway Jones” — until artistic director Alex Roe discovered “that the darned play was re-published, with some edits, in the pivotal year of 1923. Anything published then, if the renewals were properly applied for, gets protection for 95 years. That would be 2018.” After a crash course in copyright law via numerous emails between himself and the Samuel French licensing agency, plans for “Broadway Jones” had to be scrapped — putting the literal brakes on Metropolitan’s 23rd season theme: Progress.

“Hamlet” gets murdered by desperate thespians, in “Rollo’s Wild Oat.”

Happenstance had other plans, helped along by a sympathetic nod from Actors Equity that allowed most of the rehearsal-ready cast to begin

memorizing “Rollo’s Wild Oat” — a progress-themed comedy that, Roe happily notes, “had parts that were just right for nearly every member of

the waiting cast.”

First produced in 1920 at the Punch and Judy Theatre on West 49th Street, Clare Beecher Kummer’s sparkling, screwball tale of economic entitlement and artistic pretense concerns a rudderless young man’s decision to sink his inheritance into an extremely ill-advised production of “Hamlet.”

Like the story of how it got onto the Metropolitan Playhouse stage, “Oat” has a narrative arc that’s both unexpected and satisfying (if a little hard to believe).

Through Dec. 20. Thurs.–Sat. at 7:30 p.m. & Sun. at 3 p.m. No performance on Nov. 27. Additional performances: Dec. 3, 10, 13, 17 & 20 at 3 p.m. At Metropolitan Playhouse (220 E. Fourth St., btw. Aves. A & B). Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 for students/seniors, $10 for those under 18. To order, call 800-838-3006 or visit metropolitanplayhouse.org.

—Scott Stiffler

These plays are totally ridiculous ‘Two by Tavel’ is theater beyond the absurd

I

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY NORMAN GLICK

n 1965, Ronald Tavel went from pitchman to playwright to papa of a new theatrical genre — when Andy Warhol took a look at the 22 scenarios he drafted for 16mm film adaptation by The Factory and suggested they be presented on the stage instead. Tavel recruited his younger brother Harvey to direct, then penned this brief, brilliant, self-prophesizing manifesto: “We have passed beyond the Absurd, our position is totally Ridiculous!”

Just under a half-century later, two works from the Theatre of the Ridiculous (“Two by Tavel”) are being directed by Norman Glick. A founding member whose collaboration with the Brooklyn-born Tavels predates that pivotal Warhol moment, Glick was involved in most of the brothers’ productions (he acted, stage managed and house managed for the movement and, even more notably, built its Theatre of the Lost Continent in the Jane West Hotel).

“It is a great honor for me to dedicate these two one-act gems to the memory of the wonderful Harvey Tavel [1937-2013]. He was my husband for four years, my family for decades,” says Glick, to whom Harvey Fierstein wrote, “Without Harvey [Tavel], there would have been no Ronald Tavel [1936-2009], no Harvey Fierstein, no Theatre of the Ridiculous and The Lost Continent and so much more.”

The cast for “Life of Juanita Castro” includes Agosto Machado and Ruby Lynn Reyner — two

From 1970, the second production of “Kitchenette.”

L to R: Mary Woronov, Fred Savage, Harvey Fierstein and Mary McCormick.

vets of the movement who play, respectively, Juanita and Fidel Castro. “Life” finds that brother and sister, along with Che Guevara (Jorge Acosta) and

Raul Castro (Kika Child), posing for a portrait as a director (fittingly played by Glick) feeds them lines from the script, which they butcher to comedic effect. Glick breaks with the original production by having Che Guevara played as a flamboyant gay man. Otherwise, it’s true to the Ridiculous movement’s traditional cross-gender casting.

In other casting news, actors Jorge Acosta, Kika Child, Richard Craven and Eva Dorrepaal are new to the Tavel canon. Together, they revive “Kitchenette” — in which Mikie frets over a litter basket while Jo applies her makeup. When they’re joined by a similarly named street hustler and blond bombshell, psychosexual ridiculousness ensues — occasionally at the instruction of a filmmaker who inserts himself into the kitchen sink drama.

Confused? Intrigued? Show up prepared (and only slightly less perplexed) by visiting ronaldtavel. com. Maintained by Glick, it has Tavel’s body of work in PDF form.

“Two by Tavel” is performed Nov. 28–Dec. 14. Thurs.– Sat. at 8 p.m. & Sun. at 3 p.m. At Theater for the New City (155 First Ave., btw. E. 9th & 10th Sts.). Tickets: $10. Call 212-254-1109 or visit theaterforthenewcity.net.

Also visit jsnyc.com/season/glick.htm.

—Scott Stiffler

November 27, 2014

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November 27, 2014

EastVillagerNews.com

Chico loses Loisaida wall to Jersey upstarts LOSAIDA, continued from p. 1

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY SARAH FERGUSON

roes that made Loisaida what it is today — the people who fought for this community,” Chico told The Villager.

Among the “heroes” to be featured were Nuyorican poets Bimbo Rivas and Pedro Pietri, Armando Perez of CHARAS, housing activists Mary Spink and Ernesto Martinez, and community organizer Doña Petra Santiago, who was known as the “first woman mayor of the Lower East Side” back in the 1960s.

“The concept was to make it a project with middle schoolers and other neighborhood youth, to help them learn about these people and their role in building our community,” explained Elizabeth Colon, a founder of Loisaida Inc., which sponsors the annual Loisaida Festival on Avenue C, and which honored Chico this year.

“On the Sixth St. side of the building, we were going to have the young people paint their visions and hopes for the future,” Colon added.

Community Board 3, the Ninth Precinct and other community leaders pledged support.

After the Obama mural fiasco, RCN had said it wanted nothing more to do with Chico. (The company went so far as to try to have cops arrest Chico for removing billboards from the wall in 2008.) But Councilmember Rosie Mendez went to bat for the “heroes” project and Colon said RCN officials initially seemed receptive.

Chico and Colon submitted sketches and bios of the proposed “pioneers” and lined up sponsors to pay for the project, which they planned to document online.

At one point, she said RCN even discussed paying for the mural. But officials at RCN also voiced concerns that the work might be too “political.”

Hoping to ease those concerns, in August, Mendez wrote to RCN Vice President Bruce Abbott requesting a meeting to discuss the “relevance of the mural” and its “importance to the community.” She never heard back.

Instead, on Tuesday her office got word that a new group of artists was already painting the wall.

“We were shocked,” said Colon.

“We have been waiting for a response from RCN for months. Why wouldn’t they even have the respect to communicate with the councilmember and all the people who worked on it.”

The new mural — a cartoonish alphabet design that plays on the area’s nickname, Alphabet City — is currently being painted by a pair of young Brooklyn artists known as The Yok and Sheryo, under the aegis of the Jersey City-based arts group Green Villain.

Founder Greg Edgell terms Green Villain a “creative marketing and de-

Greg Edgell of the arts group Green Villain standing in front of the new “Alphabet City” mural that he and collaborators The Yok and Sheryo are creating on the RCN building at Avenue C and E. Sixth St. RCN chose their mural over one pitched by Loisaida street artist Chico.

sign platform.”

“We seek out graffiti-ridden properties and then approach owners to create free public art on them,” he explained. In return, the artists get free exposure for their work (and the prospect of private commissions, for which Green Villain takes a cut.)

Property owners seem to like that deal. In just six months, Green Villain has completed 17 projects in New Jersey and Manhattan — including a vast Charlie Brown-themed mural by Jerkface overlooking a schoolyard on E. 12th St., and several other works gracing pulldown gates and walls on the L.E.S. and in Soho.

For the Avenue C site, Edgell said he approached RCN several months ago after seeing the tagged-up wall — “the worst we’ve ever worked on” — and got the go-ahead at the end of September. Although he’d been unaware of Chico’s proposal, Edgell said he had no qualms about edging out the iconic Lower East Side artist from his turf.

“I know the relevance and history of Chico,” Edgell said, pointing to a small Chico work on the side of a deli

across the street from the RCN building. “I personally think this mural has a lot more energy and relevance for the younger generation.”

He gestured to one of the whimsical letters: “It’s like SpongeBob,” he said. “We had some kids from P.S. 64 come by after school and they loved it!”

Passersby who stopped to watch the artists working seemed pleased.

“It makes me smile and laugh,” remarked Robert Gower, who lives on E. Sixth St. “At least something is being done to clean it up,” added Gower, who was particularly grateful they’d painted over the “Kill Whitey” tags that had cropped up there recently.

A cyclist who stopped to take photos agreed: “It’s different than what Chico does. It makes a nice contrast.”

But Chico and other L.E.S. veterans say having the wall painted by a group of “strangers” feels like a slap in the face.

“Is that what they think the community is, ‘A, B, C, D’?” demanded Colon. “When we were talking about representing 50 or 60 years of Lower

East Side history?”

RCN’s handling of the commission seems clumsy at best — particularly since the company backtracked at the last minute on a previous mural scheme pitched by the Lower East Side Girls Club to celebrate “Women Who Change the World.” (The Girls Club ended up painting that at the First St. Garden.)

Joseph Gonzalez, director of human relations for RCN, refused to discuss anything to do with the Chico proposal.

“Our entire plan was to help beautify the area and to make sure we had something that sets the right tone for the neighborhood,” he said.

“RCN is about helping build and create community,” Gonzalez added.

“So this is a way of giving back to the community.”

But Chico said it feels more like taking.

“That wall belongs to the community,” he said. “He’s disrespecting us and also the community. If he didn’t like our design, he should have said give me something else. Don’t say yes, yes, yes and then go get someone else.”

November 27, 2014

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H3328_FC 14141 CMS Accepted

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November 27, 2014

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