Downtown Express October 22, 2015

VOLUME 28, NUMBER 10

OCTOBER 22 - NOVEMBER 04, 2015

BARKING OVER DOG LEASH RULES IN BATTERY PARK

BY YANNI C RACK hen Joseph Zaccaria leaves his apartment in the Financial District to take his boxer, Bailey, for one of her daily walks, he heads south to The Battery. But instead of letting his pooch run free in the park, he walks straight through to the East River waterfront and never even takes the leash off.

“If I want to take her off the leash, I get in the car and take her to Brooklyn, to Prospect Park,” Zaccaria said, adding that he makes the trip once or twice a week, depending on his work schedule.

Driving to walk your dog may seem extreme, but the city Parks Dept. has a strict policy against off-leash activities in

W A young Spider-Man enjoying Halloween last year at Brookfield Place, one of many Downtown venues hosting children’s Halloween events this year.

Get spooked! Lots of children’s events this Halloween B Y YA N NIC R A C K all has officially started, and with it comes the season of pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating.

All those searching for some spooky fun or creepy horror, look no further: here are some of the best Halloween kids events haunting Downtown Manhattan in October.

F

WASHINGTON MARKET PARK PUMPKIN-CARVING CONTEST For the first time this year, Washington Market Park is hosting a pumpkin-carving contest, with ribbons awarded in three categories: scariest, funniest and most creative. You can bring your own pumpkin to enter, or just stop by with your family to enjoy the festive display. Note there’s no actual carving permitted at the event.

Sat., Oct. 24; 5-6:30 p.m.; Washington Market Park Gazebo; www.washingtonmarketpark.org; free.

Continued on page 12

FIRST HE MOVED HERE, THEN IT BECAME TRIBECA

FAB KIDS BOO-TIFUL HALLOWEEN BASH Dress up for the most fashionable kid’s Halloween party in Manhattan. For ages from 6 months to 5 years, there’ll be crafts, snacks, a Monster Mash dance, family portraits, face painting, goody bags, manicures, and more. Of course costumes are encouraged.

Mon., Oct. 26; 6-7:30 p.m.; 100 Reade St.; facebook.com/fab-

BY DUSI CA SUE M ALESEVI C al Bromm can’t stay seated.

The gallery owner was compelled to get up and show the art featured in his 40th anniversary show that was created by former and current Tribeca neighbors.

“Jody Pinto still lives on Chambers St.,” said Bromm, pointing to her 2015 watercolor “Rescue” — a swirl of dark and light browns and blue featuring what appears to be a man.

During a recent interview at Hal Bromm Gallery, he reeled off other artists featured in “40: The Anniversary Exhibition” — Keith Sonnier, Linda Francis, Jene Highstein and Suzanne Harris — that

Continued on page 20

Continued on page 21

WASHINGTON MARKET PARK HALLOWEEN COSTUME PARADE AND PARTY Get lost in the hay maze or dig up bones in the sandbox, at Washington Market Park’s annual Halloween bash. The parade starts at 12:45 p.m. near CitiGroup Plaza (Greenwich St. at N. Moore St.) and travels south along Greenwich St. to the park.

Strollers are not allowed inside the park for the event, but there will be a free stroller-check at Duane and Greenwich Sts. Sun., Oct. 25; 1-3 p.m.; Washington Market Park; www. washingtonmarketpark.org; free.

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SWEENEY & TRUMP What Downtown Democratic politico keeps a Donald Trump book on his coffee table and has good things to say about the presidential candidate’s immigration views?

None other than Sean Sweeney, the Soho Alliance leader who has also been one of the powers of Downtown Independent Democrats for decades.

Before we go further, we should say that Sweeney also loves Bernie Sanders’ socialist views, and would enthusiastically support Sanders for president, if the Vermont senator wins the Democratic nomination.

But Sweeney won’t vote for Sanders or Trump though. He’s not a U.S. citizen.

Huh? Sweeney calls Trump a “blowhard,” but we were tipped off that Sweeney and Trump are somewhat sympatico on immigration from a recent Washington Post article examining Trump’s N.Y.C. history — BTW, the national press has apparently learned what we here at UnderCover have known for some time — Sweeney gives good quote.

The immigration line was only a passing reference so we wondered if the reporter got it right. He did.

“You’re waiting in line at a movie and someone cuts,” Sweeney told us.

“I don’t understand why people feel sympathetic for migrants who cut ahead of the line.”

Sweeney does not think everyone here illegally should be actively rounded up and deported, nor does he say there are many Mexican rapists crossing the border, as Trump maintains, but he is concerned about who is coming in from Mexico and how easy it is, particularly when there are so many persecuted people in Africa and Asia who can’t get into the country.

Sweeney was 3 when he came to the U.S. from Scotland with his par-

ents, who he says had to show they had money in the bank before they got a Green Card.

Sanders would bring some much-needed Glasgow-style socialism to the U.S., Sweeney said, but he also thinks Hillary Clinton would be a “great president.”

“Hillary or Bernie — I would be happy with either.”

Oh yeah, about Sweeney’s copy of Trump’s 2008 book, “Never Give Up.” Trump devotes a whole chapter to his fight to get the Trump Soho hotel built, and we presume it was his ghostwriter who acknowledged the developer “had a few more problems than expected” which caused “a lot of unnecessary anxiety.”

“I have caused Donald Trump ‘unnecessary anxiety,’ and I want that on my gravestone,” Sweeney told D.C.’s Post, which gave Sweeney the kicker, a.k.a. the last quote.

“Look at the top of that building,” Sweeney told Post reporter Paul Schwartzman as they looked at the jumbled lines on the hotel roof.

“What’s going on with it? What is that thing? It looks like his hair, you know?”

FIDI ART Despite at least two decades of on-and-off efforts, the nabe now known as FiDi is still not thought to be part of the Downtown art scene.

But those efforts got a big boost last week with the opening of Anderson Contemporary at 180 Maiden Lane, which opened with a reception featuring the photography of Russell James.

The gallery’s director, Ronni Anderson, used to own Mayson Gallery on the L.E.S.

Downtown Express photo by Milo Hess

Ronni Anderson in FiDi’s new Anderson Contemporary gallery.

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SIX MEN ATTACK, ROB STUDENT Half a dozen men attacked, cut and robbed a B.M.C.C. student last week, making off with $2,000 worth of his stuff, police say.

The 36-year-old man had left class at the Borough of Manhattan Community College at 199 Chambers St. in Tribeca at 9:45 p.m. on Tues., Oct. 13, police say.

One man lurking outside of the school on Murray St. spied the victim and said, “What’s up, dude?”

The student crossed the street, but the suspect followed and pulled a black handgun from a bush, police say. But the suspect changed his mind, according to cops, put the gun back into the bush and pulled out a switchblade, cutting the victim on the left wrist. The student ran to a nearby deli, Corner Gourmet, at 66 W. Broadway, and asked for for someone to call 911.

Then another man came into the deli, said something in Spanish and everyone else left, according to the police report.

Four more men and the first suspect entered and they all attacked the student, pushing him into a glass counter and stealing a $300 Burberry tan wallet, $400 in

cash, two credit cards, a $1,300 Andrew Marc black jacket and a Bullhead backpack, police say.

The student chased the first suspect who had pulled the knife to a 7-Eleven at 140 Church St. The student got him to drop the backpack. The victim described two of the six suspects — one as 18, 5’8” and 155 pounds and the other as 19, 6’0” and 180 pounds.

MAN TARGETING WOMEN ON 1 TRAIN STILL AT LARGE Police are still looking for a man who has now threatened to cut three women, punched one and robbed all four on the 1 train in Lower Manhattan. Police have released a sketch.

In two incidents last month, the man — described as early 40s, between 5’10” and 6’0,” with a thin build and pock marks under both eyes — threatened to cut two women, stole money from both and punched one of the victims in the face.

This month, on Mon., Oct. 12 at 1:15 p.m., a 26-year-old woman who lives in the Financial District was making the switch from an express train to a local at

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The theft happened late last month, on Sun., Sept. 27 at the Club Quarters Hotel, World Trade Center at 140 Washington St., between Albany and Cedar Sts. in the Financial District. At around 3 p.m., the two suspects, who had stayed at the hotel and checked out earlier, convinced hotel staff to take three bags out of storage.

The thieves took the bags, which contained various electronics and a credit card, and went to a Starbucks in the Marriott Hotel at 85 West. St., where they used the credit card to make a purchase, police say. That hotel security director told police he thought the two were “casing” the front desk, but they then left. One

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the Chambers St. stop in Tribeca, police say. She noticed a man on the platform with her before they both boarded a northbound 1 train.

Police say the man then approached her and asked for money. When the woman told him, “I have no money,” the suspect demanded her wallet. He cleaned it out and handed the empty wallet back, but police did not specify what he took.

The man got off at Franklin St. and fled, according to the police report.

Almost a week earlier, at 8:45 a.m. on Tues., Oct. 6, a woman, who works in the Financial District and lives in Staten Island, was on a southbound 1 train at South Ferry when the suspect came up to her and said, “I need some money. I can cut you, you know.” The 40-year-old woman gave him $15, but that wasn’t enough for the thief who said, “I need more than this.”

The woman handed over $20 bill. He made her go to the next train car with him and then fled at Chambers St.

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The three victims were all tourists, two from Florida and one from Texas.

UNJUST DESSERTS Is it possible to steal over $1,300 worth of ice cream? Apparently, yes.

A team of five stole the pints from a Duane Reade at 305 Broadway in Tribeca, police say.

On Fri., Oct. 9 at around 4:50 p.m., a female employee told police that the five stole six Delish 16-ounce ice creams, valued at $24, and $1,286 worth of Häagen Dazs 14-ounce tubs out of the store’s freezers. The employee told police one of the five was a man, but there were no descriptions of his accomplices, according to the police report.

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Harley, a rebel with a cause: Hogging the plaza

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC The Harley-Davidson store at 376 Broadway in Tribeca has been rolling over public space by parking its motorcycles on the plaza outside its store.

On a visit to the store last week, several bikes could be seen lined up on the plaza. A manager for the store, who did not give her name, told Downtown Express it was a “crack row when we moved in” and that they are 10 percent owner of the building.

She said it was “cleared” with the city that the motorcycles were parked there.

At Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee meeting on Wed., Oct. 14, Michael Levine, the board’s land use consultant, said that the city’s Dept. of Planning had confirmed that the plaza at 376 Broadway is what is called a POPS, or privately owned public space.

In exchange for a developer receiving a bonus to build bigger, explained Levine, a POPS is created.

The space is to be permanently used by the public and there are several rules and regulations that govern it, he said.

“What we know is [this is] an illegal use of public space,” Levine said.

The 1990 building at 376 Broadway, between Franklin and White Sts., is in the Tribeca East Historic District. The plaza fronts White St. between Broadway and Cortlandt Alley.

On Tues., Oct. 20, at around 10 a.m., a female employee was seen opening the White St. doors, before gingerly backing the motorcycles out of the store onto the plaza.

Veronica Wong of Bethel Management, which manages the building, said in a phone interview

Downtown Express photos by Dusica Sue Melsevic

Harley-Davidson motorcycles parked on the public plaza outside its Tribeca store.

that when the store’s owner purchased the unit, he knew that it was a public plaza. She would not answer any other questions, including why the company did not ask the store to remove the bikes.

Employees at the store identified the owner as Asaf Jacobi, who did not return calls for comment.

When the store first opened two years ago, several news reports said his uncle, Avi Jacobi, was the owner.

A national Harley-Davidson spokesperson said in an email that dealers are independent business owners.

A Dept. of Buildings spokesperson said in an Oct. 19 email that there were no “active violations for a POPS violation at the site.” A complaint had been called in on Oct. 14 regarding illegal usage and an inspector will visit to assess compliance, he said.

A fine will be issued if there is a violation, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

He would not speculate on how much the fine would be, but did say that the Trump Tower at 725 Fifth Ave. recently violated their POPS agreement and was fined $2,500.

A city Dept. of Planning spokesperson, in an email Monday, also on background, said that the agency would work with the Buildings Dept. to resolve any issues concerning the plaza.

At the C.B. 1 meeting, a resident, who asked that his name be withheld, said, “They do whatever they want.”

Want More visit downtownexpress.com.

Downtown Express photo

The store at 376 Broadway in the morning before it had put out its bikes on the plaza.

DowntownExpress.com

October 22 - November 04, 2015

5

What’s the nastiest Downtown subway station?

B Y DUS ICA SU E M A L E SE V IC The Canal St. station of the 1 train is a gutter, according to a new report.

It’s the filthiest in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, said State Sen. Daniel Squadron, whose office surveyed every subway station in his district.

“Looking at the subway stations in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, we found the good, the bad and the downright ugly,” Squadron said at a press conference at the dubious station on Oct. 9.

Over the cacophony of Canal St., Squadron detailed the seven conditions that his office checked both inside and outside each station — leaking water, graffiti, broken stairs, deteriorating walls, rodents, trash and pooling water.

The Canal St. 1 train station had six of those conditions inside and five outside. The best that could be said of the stop at Varick St. was that its interior stairs weren’t broken, water wasn’t leaking through its exterior walls, and it wasn’t disgorging rats onto the street.

Other Downtown stations did not fare much better. Of the nine

Downtown Express photo by Dusica Sue Melsevic

State Sen. Daniel Squadron announcing the finding of his survey of Downtown subway stations.

worst stations, six were in Lower Manhattan: the R train station at Rector St., the Broad St. J and Z station, the A,C,E station at Canal St., the Franklin St. 1 station and the Wall St. 2,3 station.

Community Board 1 chairperson

Catherine McVay Hughes said the report simply confirmed what many Downtowners already knew — the district has some of the “worst subway stations in the system: deteriorating, dirty and in urgent need of repair and maintenance.”

Squadron, whose 26th district covers Lower Manhattan and parts of waterfront Brooklyn, conducted the study in response to constituent complaints, dispatching a team of 15 interns in the heat of July and August to survey the 53 stations in his constituency.

The results showed that 70 percent of the stations were filled with litter, 68 percent had pooling water, 43 percent had deteriorating walls and 42 percent had graffiti, On Fri., Oct. 9, Squadron and transportation advocates called on the state and city to fully fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s capital plan — which at the time faced a funding gap of almost $10 billion.

The next day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio reached an agreement, with the state pitching in $8.3 billion, and the city $2.5 billion.

The five-year capital will total $26.1 billion and is the largest infrastructure investment in its history, according to the agency.

Nearly half of the stations in Squadron’s district are slated to receive capital improvements under the plan.

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With canopy gone, Pier 17 wins Landmarks approval

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC It has taken two years and two recent go-arounds at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but Howard Hughes Corp. has got its final plan for Pier 17 in the historic South Street Seaport approved.

The corporation had modified the pier’s 2013 design, which was presented to the commission in August.

At that meeting, several testified against a proposed rooftop canopy, and it was a sticking point for the commissioners as well.

Hughes got rid of the controversial canopy and at the L.P.C. meeting on Tues., Oct. 20, its application was approved in less than six minutes.

L.P.C. Chairperson Meenakshi Srinivasan said this week that the canopy was a “significant size” and “there was concern that it added height.”

The Seaport Working Group, which was comprised of community leaders, elected officials and Hughes executives, had suggested the canopy. Later on, some community members feared the canopy, which was to protect during inclement weather, would mean non-stop events. In July,

Rendering courtesy of Howard Hughes Corp.

Rendering of the approved design for Pier 17.

Community Board 1 passed a resolu- buildings. The Tin Building was not tion against it. discussed at the Tuesday meeting and Another change was the material will come before the commission at that would be used for a roadway, another point in time, presumably as which will be used to service the one part of Hughes’ revised plans for building, from asphalt to concrete the New Market Building, just outside pavers. Commissioner Adi Shamir- of the historic district. The firm is Baron said the pavers would have a reducing the height of its proposed “design relationship” with the adja- 500-foot tower, but has not finalized cent East River Esplanade. its plans.

The commission approved the After the commission’s approval of demolishing of the Link BuildingB:8.75”Pier 17, George Giaquinto, vice presiand the headhouse, two non-historicT:8.75”dent of development for Hughes, gave an

update to C.B. 1’s Seaport Committee.

Giaquinto said that after taking into account the commission’s comments about the canopy, they had decided to go forward without it.

They also reduced the size of the mechanical screen and added rooftop lighting, he said.

Some committee members wanted to know if a traffic study hadh been conducted for the roadway, which will be extended to the rear of the building and will be used by delivery trucks.

Chris Curry, the Hughes executive in charge of the project, said a traffic study will be completed as part of the ULURP, or Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, and they would come back to the board to present it.

City Council approved Hughes’ ULURP for the redevelopment of the pier in 2013 and work on the pier started later that year. The L.P.C.’s approval clears the way for Hughes to start another ULURP. At the L.P.C. meeting, one commissioner remarked about the Hughes representatives: “The people seem to be the same…They just look happier,” to laughs.

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*** Household earnings includes salary, hourly wages, tips, Social Security, child support, and other income for household members. Income guidelines subject to change.

How Do You Apply?

Apply online or through mail. To apply online, please go to: www.nyc.gov/housingconnect. To request an application by mail, send a self-addressed envelope to: Bridge Land West LLC, 1357 Broadway, Box 438, New York, NY 10018. Only send one application per development. Do no submit duplicate applications. Do not apply online and also send in a paper application. Applicants who submit more than one application may be disqualified.

When is the Deadline?

Applications must be postmarked or submitted online no later than December 14, 2015.

Late applications will not be considered.

What Happens After You Submit an Application?

After the deadline, applications are selected for review through a lottery process. If yours is selected and you appear to qualify, you will be invited to an interview to continue the process of determining your eligibility.

Interviews are usually scheduled from 2 to 10 months after the application deadline. You will be asked to bring documents that verify your household size, identity of members of your household, and your household income.

Español

Para recibir una traducción de este anuncio y la aplicación en español, envíe un sobre con su dirección a Bridge Land West LLC, 1357 Broadway, Box 438, New York, NY 10018. En la parte posterior del sobre, escribir en inglés la palabra "SPANISH".

Las solicitudes llenas deben enviarse por correo a más tardar el December 14, 2015.

简体中文

若要获取此广告和申请表的中文翻译，请将回邮信封发送到：Bridge Land West LLC, 1357 Broadway, Box 438, New York, NY 10018。请在信封的背面书写英文单词 “CHINESE”。填写好的申请表必须在 December 14, 2015 当天或之前加盖邮戳。

한국어

이 광고문과 신청서에 대한 한국어 번역본을 받아보시려면 반송용 봉투를Bridge Land West LLC, 1357 Broadway, Box 438, New York, NY 10018 (으)로 보내주십시오. 봉투 뒷면에 “KOREAN”이라고 영어로 적어주십시오. 작성된 신청서에는 늦어도December 14, 2015 까지의 날짜 소인이 찍혀 있어야 합니다.

Kreyol Ayisyien

Pou resevwa yon tradiksyon reklam sa a ak aplikasyon an nan lang, voye anvlòp ki gen adrès pou retounen li a nan Bridge Land West LLC, 1357 Broadway, Box 438, New York, NY 10018. Dèyè anvlòp la, ekri mo, “HAITIAN CREOLE” nan lang Anglè. Ou dwe tenbre aplikasyon ou ranpli yo anvan dat December 14, 2015.

Русский

Для получения данного объявления и заявления на русском языке отправьте конверт с обратным адресом по адресу: Bridge Land West LLC, 1357 Broadway, Box 438, New York, NY 10018. На задней стороне конверта напишите слово “RUSSIAN” на английском языке. Заполненные заявления должны быть отправлены по почте не позднее December 14, 2015 Mayor Bill de Blasio HPD Commissioner Vicki Been HDC President Gary D. Rodney

www.nyc.gov/housingconnect DowntownExpress.com

October 22 - November 04, 2015

9

A future returns for typewriters, and their repairmen

BY ZAC H WI L L I A M S Business is booming at the 83-year-old Gramercy Typewriter Company, as a new generation discovers the staccato pace and simultaneous printing of a 19th-century innovation. This new clientele joins longtime customers who never gave up on the personal touch only a manual typewriter can provide.

The father-son business is one of the last of its kind in Manhattan — just ask the “new guy” in the shop, located at 174 Fifth Ave. (btw. E. 22nd & E. 23rd Sts.).

They are busier than ever with the tasks of fixing and selling manual typewriters, said Justin Schweitzer, 47, who began working with his father Paul, 76, more than 20 years ago.

“Due to this wave of new technology that we have nowadays, people just want to get away from the screen and go back to basics,” Justin said. “Certainly it is a way to get away from all of the distractions that you find sitting in front of the computer.”

Justin started in the business as a kid, just like his father. There were the early childhood memories watching dad tinker with the machines, and then a gradual apprenticeship at his side. In this line of work, winding ribbons and buffing the body

Downtown Express photo by Zach Williams

One piece of classic tech deserves another: Justin Schweitzer on a landline, at the thriving Gramercy Typewriter Company.

of a fine typing machine are the long ago, seniority remains elusive UND O entry-level tasks until the correct through a paradox inherent to R A habits become second nature. any son who learns from his Summer vacations during elefather, Justin said with a chuckle. mentary school were for work rath“Oh my goodness, listen, you er than lounging around the house know with my dad around, no watching cartoons, his father told Justin matter how long I stay or how many as a kid. Forgetting the whereabouts of little years I put in, I’m always going to be the bolts and springs or inadvertently damaging new guy,” he said. the carriage, instilled a sense of organization His childhood coincided with the rise necessary to hack it as a reliable professional of the personal computer and printers beginning in his early 20s, he said. that began supplanting the once-ubiquiThough such rookie mistakes occurred tous typewriter in the 1980s and 1990s.

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In the old days, large companies would have more than 500 typewriters in their offices. Nowadays they might still have 20 or 30 left for specific tasks such as filling out forms that are not easily recognized by computer programs, Paul said.

He saw the writing on the wall about 25 years ago and expanded the business to include the repair of Hewlett-Packard printers. By the turn of the century, companies churned out the last of the electric typewriters, and it seemed that manual typewriters would be relegated to a mere curiosity of the past, something for the eccentric antique enthusiast or people of older generations unwilling to change.

But in the last few years typewriter repairs and sales have bounced back to about a quarter of the overall business that relies on the printer repair side. A certain pushback is underway against the dominance of the computer screen, as teenagers and twentysomethings begin to appreciate that the old way of putting words onto paper has an irreplaceable value, said Paul.

“You are able to get a lot of work done. It’s very enjoyable to see the results once you’ve sat at the machine Continued on page 15

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DowntownExpress.com

Pier 26 a blank slate for Downtown residents

BY YANNIC RACK Dozens of Tribeca residents turned out this week to give their ideas for the park slated for Pier 26.

“Anything is on the table,” said Madelyn Wils, the president and C.E.O. of the Hudson River Park Trust, at a public forum hosted by the trust and Community Board 1 on Mon., Oct. 19.

Currently no more than a slab of concrete stretching out into the Hudson River between N. Moore and Hubert Sts., the revamped landing will eventually include a 20,000-sq-ft maritime education center and a City Vineyard restaurant — joining the Downtown Boathouse that already offers free kayaking there.

The remainder of the pier will be a public park, and last Monday’s forum was an effort to let local residents help design it — finalizing a plan two decades in the making.

“This is finally the moment that many of us have been waiting for,” said Wils. “I certainly know that I have been waiting for this for over 20 years. And it looks like we’ll be able to move forward with the design for Pier 26.”

park.

But Sanders’s remark came with a quick disclaimer from Wils, who noted that there are only about 1.8 acres available on the pier itself and a small stretch between Piers 25 and 26.

“Please realize that we’re going to do our best and get your feedback, but we do have restrictions in the size of this pier. I know that everyone’s hopes and wishes would be for

Continued on page 14

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The event attracted around 30 local residents to the Downtown Community Center on Warren St., eager to pitch suggestions for facilities and programming at the site.

“The rest of the pier is fair game,” said Lucinda Sanders, the head of OLIN, a landscape architecture firm whose past projects include both Bryant Park and Wagner Park in Battery Park City and was was recently tapped to design the pier’s

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Downtown Express photo by Yannic Rack

Landscape architect Lucinda Sanders, left, listened to suggestions from Wendy Chapman and dozens of other local residents at a community forum on Oct. 19.

a lot more,” she said.

Suggestions ranged from expanding the play area on nearby Pier 25 and offering water sports, to having research vessels dock at the pier and using wind and solar energy to power the estuarium, the planned riverine research and education complex.

Residents clashed on the question of “active” versus “passive” recreation, with some asking for sports facilities while others wanted open green space that they felt would be more in line with the educational mission of the estuarium.

“I do think that we have to consider that a large portion of our community is families and young kids — the new, emerging Tribeca,” said Elizabeth Lewinsohn, the chairperson of Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee. “I think a lot of these families will want active recreational space, and we do need to give some thought to it.”

C.B. 1 Andrew Zelter, a father of four who also runs the Downtown Little League, said his 1,100-player league is chronically starved for

October 22 - November 04, 2015

11

Dog fight over leash rules in The Battery Continued from page 1

The Battery (formerly Battery Park).

That’s why, earlier this month, Zaccaria appeared before Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee to make the case for a trial period of off-leash rules in the park. He was supported by over a dozen fellow dog owners sporting the bright orange T-shirts of Downtown Dog NYC, a neighborhood group whose online petition for the cause has garnered over 400 signatures so far.

“We’re trying to bring this back and really show that the neighborhood has changed a lot,” Zaccaria told the committee members. “The number of families in the neighborhood is up, families with dogs.”

The Parks Dept. permits off-leash activities during specified hours at almost 80 green spaces throughout the city, but not The Battery.

“We’re not asking for anything unusual or out of the ordinary,” Zaccaria said. “Just what everybody else has privilege to.”

Ro Sheffe, the committee’s chairperson, welcomed Zaccaria’s pitch.

“You’re going to be preaching to the

R4K 2 0 1 5

Photo by Downtown Dog NYC.

Members of Downtown Dog NYC at a cleanup event in the Battery.

choir,” he said even before the discussion had started. “We’ve gone on record supporting this initiative in the past, and we will do it next month,” he added later, a nod to the next committee meeting on Nov. 4, when the group is expected to make its plea directly to Bill Castro, the Manhattan borough commissioner for the Parks Dept.

This is the second time that dog owners have pushed the issue before the board. In November of 2010, another group, the Downtown Dog Owners Association, was successful in getting a

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12

October 22 - November 04, 2015

resolution passed that recommended a trial period in the park, but nothing ever came of it.

Zaccaria said that, then as now, residents had let their dogs run free on the park’s main lawn for years before they started getting tickets.

“Although off-leash activities in Battery Park have never been officially permitted, until June 2010, such activities on the Big Lawn were not generally the subject of the issuance of summonses, even though Parks Enforcement Police officers were often present during times of off-leash activities,” the C.B. 1 resolution read five years ago.

According to Zaccaria, the whole process essentially reset itself after Hurricane Sandy wrecked havoc to the park in 2012.

“We had historically used it and we had no issue. It was kind of an unwritten rule that before 9 a.m. nobody really gave you a problem,” Zaccaria said. After two undisturbed years, he stopped using the park around 10 months ago, when enforcement resumed.

The Battery Oval, a three-acre lawn in the center of the park, is currently closed.

“I’m going to be frank with you, we are never going to want dogs on that lawn,” Hope Cohen, The Battery Conservancy’s chief operating officer, told the dog owners at the committee meeting.

Although she was more open to a potential compromise in the Woodland, the main area of the park where residents used to take their dogs, Cohen nonetheless expressed concern that it would turn into a dog run if off-leash rules were established —potentially ruining the experience for the millions of visitors enjoying the park every year.

“There are certain kinds of things that you don’t want to happen to a lawn that you want to make accessible to the rest of the public,” she said. “Keep in mind, the very same reason that you’re making this plea, the limited space – that’s limited space for people, too.”

Downtown Express photo by Yannic Rack

Mike Picardo walking a client’s dog in the Battery. In the background, the fenced off Woodland.

Cohen said the maintenance problems caused by dogs trampling flower beds and digging “mud holes” would fall to the conservancy. But she said the Parks Dept. nonetheless has the last word on issues in The Battery.

“This is a Parks decision, but I’m happy to say that we fully support the Parks position that there is no space in The Battery to segregate off a dog run,” Cohen said.

A Parks spokesperson said the agency is “reviewing the request for dog off-leashing in The Battery.”

The seven-acre Woodland, which also contains an urban farm and bikepath, has been fenced off since this spring while the conservancy, which manages the park, is making renovations. The grassy sections are expected to reopen by next summer, according to Warrie Price, the conservancy’s founder and president, who declined to comment on the off-leash issue.

Price said the last sod of the Oval was planted in August and will need a year to settle, although she hopes to reopen it by next May. The lawn will then host occasional concerts but will otherwise be publicly accessible – just not to dogs.

The dog owners say that this leaves them with few options.

Of the seven dog runs in C.B. 1, only one — the Fish Bridge Park Dog Run on Dover St. — is operated by the Parks Dept. The members of Downtown Dog NYC argue that it is the smallest out of all the 123 dog runs and parks with offleash access in the city. They also say that capacity at the six privately run facilities is limited to an average of less than a dozen dogs, which is not enough with population growth in the area of almost 250 percent from 2000 to 2010 alone.

Zaccaria said he’s close to the dog run located under the F.D.R. Drive, but Continued on page 13

DowntownExpress.com

TRANSIT SAM Thursday, October 22 – Wednesday, October 28 ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING RULES ARE IN EFFECT ALL WEEK Downtowners, closures on the Hudson River crossings mean a slow return to Manhattan on Thursday night! One tube of the Lincoln Tunnel will close 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday, sending inbound traffic south to the Holland Tunnel.

Meanwhile, one New York-bound and one New Jersey-bound lane of the Holland Tunnel will close during the same time.

The Giants play the Cowboys 4:25 p.m. Sunday at MetLife Stadium.

Expect slowdowns before and after the game. Fan traffic will jam the Lincoln Tunnel to a crawl and send drivers down to the Holland.

On West St./Route 9A, one southbound lane will close between West Thames and Vesey Sts. from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.

The annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade won’t close any streets, but the event keeps growing in popularity and size each year, so it’s sure to slow down traffic on Avenues A and B around the park from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday.

An early Halloween Parade and Party will close Greenwich St. between Beach and Chambers Sts. 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

The Beats 1 Run will close South St. between Fulton and Broad Sts. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

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will close Pike St. between Cherry St. and East Broadway, East Broadway between Pike St. and Chatham Sq., Chatham Sq. between East Broadway and Worth St., Worth St. between Chatham Sq. and Broadway, and Broadway between Worth and Murray Sts. 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday.

All Manhattan-bound lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge will close 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Thursday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.

The Stone Street Pedestrian Mall will close Stone St. between Hanover Sq. and Broad St., and Mill Ln. between Stone and South William Sts. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day this week.

Contest You still have the chance to win an autographed copy of Transit Sam’s new book Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and The Fall of Cars by being the first to provide the best answer to the following: QUESTION: What is the correct pronunciation of Vesey Street and why? Is it pronounced Veezee Street as in easy or Vessey as in vessel? You must include justification for your answer. Answers MUST be submitted by October 28th. You can submit your answer either on Twitter @GridlockSam or by email at info@gridlocksam.com For the most up-to-date Gridlock news, follow me on Twitter @GridlockSam and check the website GridlockSam.com.

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doesn’t like to use it because it is asphalt and well maintained. Without off-leash rules in The Battery, he plans to keep taking Bailey to Brooklyn “to give the dog the exercise that she needs so she doesn’t destroy my apartment. “[My wife and I] met three of our best couple friends via dogs, so it’s not just a dog thing, it’s … one of the few places where we have a sense of community.”

And pet owners are not the only ones that would appreciate the offleash rules.

On a recent Monday afternoon, DowntownExpress.com

Mike Picardo was walking Jackson, an energetic Cockapoo, through the park, snapping pictures of the pooch on his phone as they went.

Picardo lives Downtown and works as a dog walker for Paws on Pine, a pet service agency on Pine St. He said he walks about a dozen dogs from the Financial District every day.

“I don’t always take them off the leash since I’m not the owner and there’s just certain safety measures I take,” he said. “But I’m all for off-leash rules, especially in the early morning.

I don’t see the harm, as long as people are responsible. It seems like there’s plenty of space here.”

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Pier 26 Continued from page 11

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space and asked to include a baseball field on the pier — but not everyone wanted to play ball.

“We need to teach kids about marine science, not about Babe Ruth.

We can’t do it all,” one resident said.

A mother of three said her kids are interested in science but also play sports, so she would like to have it both ways. “The population in this neighborhood, in Downtown, is exploding. We really need both,” she said.

“It wouldn’t be New York if you didn’t ask for that,” Sanders quipped.

Pier 26 was rebuilt with funds from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. in 2009. The Downtown Boathouse has already returned with its free kayaking program and now occupies the eastern end of the pier. The same building will house the City Vineyard restaurant, expected to open next summer.

The $20 million estuarium, which will have two floors and cover a 10,000-sq-ft footprint, will be designed pro bono by famed architect Rafael Viñoly.

For almost two decades before Pier 26 was demolished in 2005, the River Project ran a popular estu-

arium at the site. The group now operates a temproary field station at Pier 40, near W. Houston St., but currently doesn’t have a role in the new estuarium, which will be run

by Clarkson University, in Potsdam, N.Y., along with the New York Hall of Science in Queens and the Hudson River sloop Clearwater. Wils said the trust is in discussions with the River Project about playing a role in the new river science center.

The trust recently announced that Citigroup, which is returning its global headquarters to a nearby site on Greenwich St., is contributing $10 million towards the $30 million needed to finish the pier. The trust has also secured $10 million from the city and has applied for an additional grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

The pier could be open as soon as late 2018, according to Wils, but she expects to have a design concept ready in just a few months. Asked how a compromise could be reached between active and passive uses, she was vague.

“I won’t say right now, we’re going to have to start designing some concepts,” she said. “But I would like to see that we can make it work for different people.”

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October 22 - November 04, 2015

Part of this building at Pier 26 will host a City Vineyard restaurant, expected to open next summer. In June, the Trust tapped restaurateur Michael Dorf, founder of City Winery in Tribeca, to run it.

Do you remember when ______________ happened downtown? ...We do.

Visit Our Archives At Downtownexpress.com

DowntownExpress.com

Typewriters still going strong

Downtown Express photos by Zach Williams

A cache of old parts acquired over the years makes repairs happen at Gramercy Typewriter Company where Justin Schweitzer (above) works with his father Paul.

Continued from page 10

for a while typing away and all the work you can accomplish,” said Justin.

“You feel more in control of what you’re doing. Plus you’re able to use a machine that, because of the craftsmanship and how they were made, will continue to work for decades to come.”

Each week, dozens of customers bring old Remingtons, Olympias,

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DowntownExpress.com

Underwoods, and IBMs up to the fourth-floor business. Others pay $150 to more than $500 to buy restored models from the first half of the 20th century. A pink Royal grabs the eye, but connoisseurs of older vintages also have options among the many models for sale.

Unlike almost any other business in New York City, there is no computer and not a smartphone to be

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seen within the small office, which has a cramped workshop in back.

Invoices and receipts are typed, and the old-fashioned approach extends to the dress code: a collared shirt and tie.

A generational gap, though, sometimes means that customers know what they want even if they cannot describe it in proper terms, said Justin. Luckily for them, the “new guy” in the typewriter business has

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a keen sense for when to lend an increasingly rare expertise.

“Customers have called up asking if we sell ‘those old things, those old computers.’ I say, ‘No, we don’t sell those.’ They say, ‘sure you do, I saw the photos,’” he said. “I says, ‘Wait a minute, I says, do you mean typewriter?’ They say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what I mean, typewriter.’

I says, ‘Oh yeah, those we have.’”

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October 22 - November 04, 2015

15

After 2nd Ave. explosion, a slow return to normal

BY YAN N I C RA CK When Yvonne Collery returned to her apartment for the first time after the explosion that rocked her block in the East Village in late March, she didn’t immediately grasp how bad the damage really was.

“At first I thought it was just the plaster hanging down,” she says of the ceiling in her apartment of 30 years, which had collapsed almost entirely.

“It wasn’t until I tapped it, I said ‘Holy crap, that’s the walls from the apartment [above] sticking through, pushing through my ceiling’. They had to go from the bottom and chainsaw them out.”

Collery’s apartment on the fourth floor of 125 Second Ave. was among the most damaged, but at least it was still standing. The explosion, which was caused by an illegal gas main tap at a Sushi restaurant two doors down, and the subsequent fire, had leveled three buildings and claimed two lives by the time the situation was under control the next day.

Now, more than six months later, some tenants have still not been able to return to their apartments in Collery’s building, including her. She has been staying with friends and family since the tragedy that uprooted her life, but she says she never expected to be gone for this long, despite the destruction.

“I keep changing the date for the moving company,” she says. “It’s been pretty grueling, but at least we know we’re coming back, unlike the people in the three buildings [that were destroyed]. That keeps me in perspective.”

The feeling is echoed by others in her building.

“People lost way more than I did.

There’s still an apartment for me to go back to, some people lost everything,” says Jennifer Porto, who shared a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate on the building’s sixth floor. Her roommate is not moving back.

Their unit suffered especially because it was reached by the flames from the burning building next door.

“It was pretty burnt. The entire living room area was completely burnt, my roommate’s room was the same,” Porto says. “My room was not as bad with the fire damage, but the water and smoke damage ruined all my clothes and everything.”

Porto, who moved into the apartment two years ago and works at a digital media company in Midtown, still vividly remembers the day of the

16

October 22 - November 04, 2015

Downtown Express photos by Yannic Rack

The Lipsky family in front of the vacant site at E. Seventh St. and Second Ave. where three buildings were leveled and two men died after a gas explosion and fire on March 26. Their building, 125 Second Ave., survived the blast.

explosion. She was at work and first saw footage of the fire on Periscope, a live video streaming app.

“All that we saw was just the disaster unfolding, it was so sad and so scary to be watching it,” she says. “I mean I’m glad that I wasn’t home but it was also so weird to just be watching, not knowing what you would come home to. And then that night no one was allowed to go over there. I tried to go home after work, but the fire fighters wouldn’t let me through.”

She initially stayed in hotels after the explosion but soon switched to couch surfing with friends on the Lower East Side and living with her boyfriend in the Bronx.

“I think they’re in the process of refurbishing it and they’re probably another month or two away from finishing,” Porto said of her apartment last month, adding that she hasn’t been back in the building since April.

“Whenever I’m in the area, I pass by and it makes me sad that I’m not there.

I say to people, ‘can we go down First Avenue, or can we go down this way?’

I just don’t want to pass by because I loved living there,” she says.

Although most of the tenants have moved back into 125 Second Ave., there is still no cooking gas. At 41 E. Seventh St., the other building around the corner that was also damaged by the blast, the gas was only turned back on at the end of August.

In that building, the remaining tenants are currently trying to get rent abatement from their landlord, according to Steve Herrick, executive director of the Cooper Square Committee, which provided temporary housing to

Diane McLean and her three children lost their apartment in the disaster and had to relocate.

here every day,” his wife, Kayoko, says. around seven households from the three “Eventually it became okay.” buildings that collapsed.

He also mounted movable metal According to Herrick, many tenants grates onto the windows, as protection at 41 E. Seventh St. waited for a few against burglars. There used to be a weeks until the air quality got better, narrow airshaft outside, but since the while some didn’t return at all even buildings collapsed there has been an though their apartments were empty lot next door – empty largely unharmed. except for two symbolic graves UND “Overall, people told me that are regularly tended to by O R A almost half the apartments the families of the men that got vacated, and people just died in the explosion. didn’t bother to come back,” “We’re the crypt masters he says. “In a way, the landlord now. The parents still come every benefitted from this – they have other day,” Stu says, adding that to resolve their insurance claims, but he sometimes lets them in through their I’m sure they get a vacancy increase on building, which has a backdoor that all those apartments.” leads onto the lot.

Herrick thinks all of the building’s The Lipskys didn’t know either of original tenants – the ones who were the men personally (one of them was there before the explosion – are back in a customer at the restaurant; the other their homes now. worked there) but they still grieve their Stuart Lipsky has lived on the own loss: one of their two cats, Rice, second floor of 125 Second Ave. since has been lost since March.

1980 and he and his wife Kayoko When the explosion happened, raised their 13-year-old daughter none of them were at home, but Stu Hannah in the building. Three months arrived even before the firefighters did. before the explosion, they had put in a Contrary to everyone else, he ran back new kitchen. into his building, to try and save the The family moved back in late June two cats. He managed to find only one after Stuart, a retired chemistry teacher, by the time the apartment was filled had fixed up the whole apartment for with smoke so thick that he couldn’t three months, replacing the windows, see his feet. cleaning out mold and broken furniture “Everyone said it was stupid to go and painting the walls. He still has to back for the cat,” he says now. “I’m replace the floor. just sad I left when I did. But it was “If I was waiting, I would have time to go. I wanted to see my daughbeen just sitting here, sucking my ter’s Bat Mitzvah.” thumb,” he says, sitting in the living Both Stuart and Kayoko say that room of the apartment, under a set of their daughter, who goes to school at landscape paintings made by his late NEST on the Lower East Side, was the father, which were unharmed safe for key to moving on – with the planning a few chips of paint.

“During three months, Stu came Continued on page 17 DowntownExpress.com

Continued from page 16

around her Bat Mitzvah, in June, there was barely time to stop and reflect on what had happened.

“It’s like when a boat sinks, and you’ve got three people just holding each other in the water,” Stu describes the aftermath of the disaster. “You just manage to stay afloat.”

One of the many people that did not have a home to return to after the explosion is Diane McLean, a single mother who lived with her three young kids in a four-bedroom apartment at 45 E. Seventh St., one of the three buildings that were reduced to rubble by the early morning of March 27.

McLean had lived in the apartment almost her entire adult life, for 35 years.

“My three children were born into that apartment and it was the only home they’ve ever known,” she says.

“All of my roots are in the East Village. I have neighbors in my building who I’ve known for 45 years.”

She says her job as a child psychiatrist at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx enabled her to live at the apartment comfortably because it was rent-stabi-

Downtown Express Photo By Yannic Rack

The shapes of two graves have been marked out with stones and memorials left at the explosion site, in memory of Nicholas Figueroa and Moises Lucan, who both died in the fiery explosion at Second Ave. and E. Seventh St. on March 26.

lized, but it proved essentially impossible to find a similar home in the area at market rate.

The Cooper Square Committee offered them housing (McLean says two of her co-residents took advantage of the offer), but all that was available was a studio, way too small for four people.

She eventually found an apartment

in Bushwick at the end of April. It is actually larger than their old place, but also far more expensive. “That’s an issue of course. And it isn’t in our old neighborhood,” McLean says, adding that her kids still attend the Children’s Workshop School on E. 12th St. She also emphasizes how much support her family received from teachers,

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parents and students at the school, who raised money and donated clothes and, most importantly, emotional support.

“We are walking around in clothes that friends have given us. We’re wearing people’s care. That’s actually pretty wonderful,” she says.

McLean, along with everyone interviewed for this article and many others, started an online fundraiser to get by.

Most of them are collected on a dedicated Web site, helpeastvillage.com, and all of them have not reached their funding goals yet.

Without exception, everyone still praises the help and kindness of strangers and friends alike.

McLean lost things that “can’t be replaced”, like portraits of her grandmother’s family from the 1920s and 30s.

“I think we’re really lucky, I’m grateful every day,” she says. “But every day it’s sad at the same time. My older daughter can’t sleep at night. She still worries that anywhere we are we’ll have a gas explosion and a fire. She won’t go near that block.

“You build a life, piece by piece, and fabric by fabric. To have that destroyed in a day is devastating.”

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October 22 - November 04, 2015

17

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Ahoy, dolphin?

The Hudson River may now be more welcoming to aquatic life, but this dolphin spotted recently was of the inflatable variety.

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October 22 - November 04, 2015

“9/11 lessons in kindergarten” (POSTED, OCT. 8) 9/11/2001 was my son’s second day of kindergarten at PS 234. This was an extraordinarily life changing event for all of us and I am still amazed by how brave my son’s teacher was that day. We had no choice but to step up with unprecedented integrity and our community was strengthened. …Your son’s reaction about the ‘bad guys’ hitting the tower was exactly the same reaction my son and all his friends—now college sophomores—had.

Kudos to your son’s school for taking this on.

Momma Bear

I lost my son because of his work on 9/11. As much as I want him to be remembered because of his work that

day and the months thereafter... I do not want young children to be given the details of that horrible day. I am sad that we couldn’t protect our children from the events of that day... Let’s not be zealous in our teaching about it to young children.

Please continue to advocate for your son and all children...

guys” attacked, thereby denying it. Good for this teacher; good for her students.

Michael B To be honest I am not sure as to why they would teach this in kindergarten. I mean what will it really teach, fear? I find it rather weird.

Deborah Thompson Vinny The teacher nailed it; a near perfect summation. And we cannot be too zealous in our commitment to teach the truth — because the effort to obfuscate and deny has been working overtime since about Sept. 12, 2001. Hell, today the NY Times won’t print a letter that called the terrorists “bad guys.” There are college courses that deny the simple facts she stated. The billion-dollar, eight-acre WTC memorial doesn’t even recognize “bad

“Nastiest Downtown subway station found” (POSTED, OCT. 14) How on earth did the Chambers Street J/Z station not make it as the worst station and not even appear on the list???

DTNYC Continued on page 19

DowntownExpress.com

Even ‘free-range kids’ could use help with recess

BY LENORE SKENAZY Since lately there’s almost no aspect of childhood that isn’t bewailed, it should come as no surprise that the existence of “recess consultants” is evidence to many that the apocalypse is at hand.

But it isn’t. Despite articles, editorials, and Tweets like, “Oh good dear sweet God in heaven, save us from ourselves,” the consultants do not strike me as helicoptering killjoys. And I say that as the founder of Free-Range Kids, an entire movement devoted to more freedom and less adult supervision of kids.

How does that square with a program that places young adults outside at recesses across the country — including 30 schools in New York State — teaching kids how to play some age-old games?

It is because I think of Playworks, which trains and provides these consultants, as something akin to Lady Bird Johnson.

What?

Lady Bird Johnson was President Lyndon Johnson’s wife and she had a pet cause: Wildflowers. Thanks to development and pollution, these were dying out. So she set about deliberately planting some of the wildflowers that were disappearing. In other words, she used completely artificial means to bring back the natural landscape.

That’s what the Playworks coaches are doing.

They are artificially reviving a natural part of childhood that has been dying out: Playing.

I have no idea who taught me kickball as a kid.

But there was a game of it in front of my suburban house every night, so I just kind of absorbed it. Who taught me four square? Hopscotch?

Jacks? Chinese jump rope? Who taught me “Miss

Continued from page 18

The Chambers Street J/Z is connected directly to the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station and that may have been the reason for its being overlooked. Also, why do you call it the worst station? Because it’s shabby and decrepit? It’s certainly not dangerous, and personally—and I use this station a lot—I like it a lot.

I love the old stations; if there’s no danger posed, I prefer seeing the original glass tiles—even broken and cracked. Some renovation jobs on stations have been remarkable, and others have been horrific—such as the 14th Street/8th Avenue A platform in which they removed all the original mosaics and replaced them with sterile all-caps block lettering.

Other stations use vinyl panels to cover over the old tiles; I don’t find DowntownExpress.com

Mary Mack, Mack, Mack – All dressed in black, black, black? ” Or even the double-Dutch rhyme, “Cinderella, dressed in yella / Went downtown to meet her fella / On the way her girdle busted / How many people were disgusted? ” I may be middle-aged, but even when I was a kid, girdles were on their way out. Way out.

Which means that the rhymes I was learning came from long ago, handed down older sister to younger, to neighbor, to kid down the block.

Until there were no kids playing on the block anymore.

One recent study found that the number of kids age 9–13 playing outside, unsupervised, for even one hour a week is six percent. The number of kids walking to school is about 11 percent.

So all those games, rules, and songs we learned by osmosis are not being learned by an entire generation of kids. We may like to think of play as innate, but what’s innate is the desire to play.

It isn’t innate to come up with the rules of four square, or a rhyme about a wardrobe malfunction. Those are things handed down from generation to generation.

When they’re not, it is like a lost language. If a parent speaks Spanish, but not to her kids, the kids don’t automatically learn it. Likewise, just because we all knew how to organize a game of “Mother May I? ” doesn’t mean today’s kids will, if they haven’t been taught by the older kids, or even just watched them play it.

Enter the Playworks coaches. They are trying

to bring back childhood games because those games were not coming back on their own.

I was invited to a Playworks conference at Columbia a few years back, because I, too, had ridiculed them. Then the organization’s founder, Jill Vialet, told her story. She’d come to an Oakland school to talk about starting an art program. But when the principal emerged from her office trailed by three 9-year-old boys who looked like they’d just been chewed out, she snapped at Jill, “You know what I really need? I need someone to fix recess.”

Too many of the kids weren’t playing. With no experience in organizing their own games, or solving the inevitable conflicts, the kids resorted to an even more basic behavior: They walloped each other. And got in trouble. And started to think of themselves as bad kids.

So Jill decided to see if she could bring back some of her childhood — the fun she’d had playing every day after school.

Lady Bird re-seeded the hills with wildflowers. Playworks is trying to re-seed the playgrounds with joy.

Their goal is to let the kids take over, once they learn some games, and some quick techniques for solving conflicts, like “Rock-PaperScissors.”

As far as I can tell, Playworks is not about micromanaging recess, or forcing participation, or insisting “Everybody wins!” It’s about giving kids back that precious thing we took away from them: time with their friends outside, on their own, learning games as old as girdles.

And probably older.

Lenore Skenazy is a keynote speaker and author, and founder of the book and blog FreeRange Kids.

Apology and Correction

this to be a solution that works. @franklanguage

“Downtown is losing out on new crossing guard money” (POSTED, OCT. 8) I’ve got a little boy and he just started school (not location in this article). And it’s clear that for a pedestrian if you only follow the law/lights scrupulously, you’re risking getting hit by a turning car across a crosswalk. Some drivers bully their way through and/or cut it way too close. It might not be a majority of drivers but it’s way way too many. We need crossing guards but we (the city and maybe the country) need a completely new attitude among drivers and law enforcement. jt_

LETTERS POLICY Downtown Express welcomes letters to The Editor. They must include the writer’s first and last name, a phone number for confirmation purposes only, and any affiliation that relates directly to the letter’s subject matter. Letters should be less than 300 words.

Downtown Express reserves the right to edit letters for space, clarity, civility or libel reasons. Letters should be emailed to letters @ downtownexpress.com or can be mailed to 1 Metrotech Center North, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

Regarding an article published last issue, “Jewish Museum leader is resigning,” Downtown Express would like to apologize to anyone who was offended by our wording choice describing Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp located in Poland. Poles and Poland were not responsible for the war crimes committed by Nazi Germany and we never intended to suggest otherwise.

There were also incorrect facts in the article. David Marwell, the museum’s outgoing C.E.O. and director, was not the founding chief executive and he has worked there 15 years, not 18. Although he did work on the Joseph Mengele case, it was after Mengele was already dead. The museum started construction on its new wing at the end of 2001, not the beginning of 2002.

October 22 - November 04, 2015

19

Downtown Halloween events for children St.; www.churchstreetschool.org; $10 children and seniors, $25 adults, $50 families.

Continued from page 1

kidsnyc; $40 for adults, $10 for children.

SEAPORT HALLOWEEN PARTY Join the Old Seaport Alliance and the Seaport District for a night of Halloween festivities including a family costume parade and district-wide trick-or-treating. Look for the pumpkin symbol in the local shop and restaurant directories for participating trick-ortreat locations. Prizes for best costumes will also be doled out.

Sat., Oct. 31; 6 - 8 p.m.; Peck Slip Plaza; www.southstreetseaport.com; free.

A HAUNTED (POETS) HOUSE If you’re looking for fun with a side of education, drop in all day long to listen to classic spooky poetry, make a monster mask, and write a spell or incantation on “ancient” paper. All ages are welcome.

Sat., Oct. 31; 11a.m. -5 p.m.; 10 River Terrace; www.poetshouse.org; free.

FIDI FAMILIES HALLOWEEN FESTIVAL To get in the mood for trick-ortreating, come and try your hand at pumpkin decorating (11 a.m. for

Pirate Mike Romanos will be reading Halloween poems at Poets House Oct. 31.

BROOKFIELD PLACE HALLOWEEN PARTY Celebrate All Hallow’s Eve with the family-friendly Halloween Party at Brookfield Place (formerly the World Financial Center). This year the event will feature live performances, handson activities with Carmelo the Science Fellow, a costume catwalk with Fashion Emcees Tracey and Mason, and lots more.

Sat., Oct. 31; 12-3 p.m.; Brookfield Place (Near West & Vesey Sts.); www. brookfieldplaceny.com; free.

the first 200 children) and snap fun HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR pictures of your family in costume Princesses, ninjas, zombies and everyat a photo booth (11:30 a.m.). The one in between are invited to Church day of events will also include a Street School’s all-ages family party. sing-a-long by Music for Aardvarks There will be a costume parade, art (11:30 a.m.), as well as a kids cosprojects, pumpkin painting, Kooky tume parade around the Seaport Karaoke, as well as a spooky maze (12:30 p.m.) and haunted hallway. Tickets are Sat., Oct. 31; 11 a.m.-1 p.m.; 19 available online and at the school’s Fulton St.; www.fidifamilies.com; front office.

T:8.75” Free, but R.S.V.P. required.

Sat., Oct. 31; 11 am-3 pm; 74 Warren

HALLOWEEN KIDZ KARNIVAL The spooky fun returns to Tribeca at Hudson River Park’s Pier 26, which will be transformed into “Halloween Central” with fun-filled attractions like magic by Kid Ace, interactive storytelling with the Story Pirates, face painting, cotton candy, rides and a costume contest.

Sat., Oct. 31; 12-5 p.m.; Pier 26 at N. Moore St.; www.hudsonriverpark.org; free, $2 select activities.

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October 22 - November 04, 2015

DowntownExpress.com

Hal Bromm, a Tribeca pioneer, 40 years later Continued from page 1

used to live on Chambers St. near his eponymous gallery at 90 W. Broadway.

His roots in Tribeca — both for art and preservation — run deep. Bromm has lived in the neighborhood since the ‘70s, before it earned the acronym of “triangle below Canal.”

A New Jersey native, Bromm first moved to Brooklyn to attend Pratt.

Originally a fine art major, he shifted to environmental design, which was a program that melded architecture, art, photography, lighting theory and engineering; as well as other disciplines.

“Then I came to Tribeca in the early ‘70s,” he explained. “I was working for a big architectural firm before I started my own business and they had an office in Manhattan. And the commute from Pratt to work everyday got to be tedious. I was very lucky — found this great loft in a former cheese warehouse at Beach St.” At his Beach St. loft, he held his first art show in 1975. Although Bromm had grown up drawing and was artistically inclined, he said, “At a certain

point, I had more fun looking at other people’s work than creating my own.”

That first exhibition featured young artists living and working in London and was called “New London in New York.” Bromm pointed to a piece above him — blond wood surrounding what looks like a chalkboard etched with shapes — by Derek Jarman, a filmmaker who introduced him to the group.

Other shows were staged at his loft and a real estate friend told Bromm he should get a “proper space that’s just a gallery” and talked him into renting at 114 Franklin St. Next door, was the Franklin Furnace — now in Brooklyn — founded by Martha Wilson. Bromm pointed ahead to Wilson’s 2009 “Mona/ Martha/Marge” — Wilson’s face sporting a striking blue bouffant and bright pink pearl necklace superimposed on the Mona Lisa’s body.

“We became good friends,” he said.

“We were both really pioneers in the Tribeca art scene. She in the nonprofit world, me in the theoretical for-profit world.”

At Franklin St., the first show was titled “Moving” and “invited artists to

Downtown Express photo by Dusica Sue Malesevic

Hal Bromm in his self-named gallery in Tribeca.

create works around the idea of movement, relocation,” said Bromm.

After a year at the Franklin St. building, Bromm decided to move the gallery to 90 W. Broadway in 1977.

Initially, the gallery was on the top floor, but when the building turned residential it moved to the second floor, where it is now located.

In the ‘80s, the gallery also had an

outpost in the East Village on Ave. A and E. 11th St. “That was a lot of fun,” he said. “It was very different from here because it was on the street level so anybody could just walk into the door, including people who had been up for three days Continued on page 24

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

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

They were asking for a donation to the P.S. 110 P.T.A. Family Giving Fund.

The fashion label last month paid big bucks to rent the parking lot next door to the school for its New York Fashion Week after-party. Givenchy emptied out the lot and closed off the sidewalk leading to the school for its celebrity-studded soiree.

Walking to Deee-Lite’s song “The Power of Love” — the after-party’s theme — 110 kids walked a runway made from pallets donated by Key Food, which were very similar to the wooden staircases constructed for the actual fashion show.

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

The video was shot by P.S. 110 parent and director Chris Roberson.

The final cut is being sent directly to designer Riccardo Tisci and others at the House of Givenchy.

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

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October 22 - November 04, 2015

DowntownExpress.com

Activities LONG-RUNNING

and hear stories too.

ART TIME: Nelson A Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City; (212) 267–9700; www.bpcparks.org; Thursdays, 10:30 am–noon, Now – Thurs, Oct. 29; Free.

Young artists are introduced to paper, clay, paint and other supplies.

“IF YOU LIVED HERE YOU’D BE HOME”: Children’s Museum of the Arts, 103 Charlton St. at Hudson Street; (212) 274–0986; www.cmany.org; Mondays, Noon to 5 pm, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, closed, Thursdays and Fridays, Noon to 6 pm, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 am to 5 pm, Now – Sun, Jan. 17, 2016; $12 (Free for members and children under 1).

This exhibition takes cartography and mapping as its starting point and includes contemporary artists whose work references maps and mapping.

ART AND GAMES: Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City; www.bpcparks.org/event; Thursdays, 3:30–5:30 pm, Now – Thurs, Oct. 29; Free.

Create a fun project, make friends and play games. For children 5 years and older.

ART AND PLAY: Robert F. Wagner Park, Battery Park City; (212) 267– 9700; www.bpcparks.org; Mondays – Wednesdays, 10 am–noon, Now – Wed, Oct. 28; Free.

Preschoolers drop-in and play with other toddlers, in this interactive play time on the grassy lawn. Sing

BLOCK PARTY: Battery Park City, 6 River Terrace; (212) 417–2000; www. batteryparkcity.org; Mondays, 10 am to 11 am, Now – Mon, Nov. 23; $210 (10 sessions).

Young children develop and refine motor skills and lay the foundation of math, spatial relations and sequencing with building toys. For children ages 3 years to 4 years old.

SUN, OCT. 25

CHESS: Battery Park City, 6 River Terrace; (212) 417–2000; www.batteryparkcity.org; Tuesdays, 3:30 pm to 4:15 pm, Now – Tues, Dec. 15; $300 (15 sessions).

An experienced tutor instructs the ins and outs of the game. For children 5 to 7 years old. Pre-registration required.

Beginners.

MJH KIDS: Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place at First Place; (646) 437–4202; www.mjhnyc.org; 10:30 am – 12:30 pm; $8 (children of members free).

Cool programs for young audiences for children 4 to 8 years old and their siblings. Blast off into Fall with Tim Kubart & the Space Cadets.

PLAYTIME: Teardrop Park, Battery Park City; bpcparks.org; Wednesdays, 3:30–5:30 pm, Now – Wed, Oct. 28; Free.

Staffers teach children the value of play and create fun projects in drawing, sculpting and murals. For children 5 and older.

WED, OCT. 28 STORY TIME: Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place at First Place; (646) 437–4202; www.mjhnyc.org; 3:30 pm; Free.

Museum staff read from favorite stories, sing-alongs and and an afternoon snack.

BASKETBALL CLINIC: Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City; www.bpcparks.org/event; Mondays, 3:30–5:30 pm, Now – Mon, Oct. 26; Free.

Staffers teach children of all ages the basics of the sport.

SOCCER CLINIC: Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City; bpcparks.org; Tuesdays, 2:30–3:15 pm; 3:30–4:15 pm and 4:30–5:30 pm, Now – Tues, Oct. 27; Free.

Children learn the fundamentals of the game and pre-schoolers have fun kicking, running and being part of a team. Drop in. For ages 3 to 11 years old.

YOUNG SPROUTS GARDENING: Nelson A Rockefeller Park (Children’s Garden), Battery Park City; (212) 267–9700; http;//www.bpcparks.org; Tuesdays, 3:15 – 3:45 pm, Now – Thurs, Oct. 29; Free.

Little ones 3 to 5 years old learn about simple gardening projects. Space limited first come, first served.

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Bromm Gallery celebrates 40 years Continued from page 21

on crack or something.”

He added, “One time, someone came in and picked up our IBM typewriter and threw it on the floor and ran out.”

Also in the ‘80s, Bromm started thinking about the preservation of the neighborhood.

“In 1984, a bunch of us who had been here awhile became aware that the neighborhood was becoming attractive to developers who sensed that this was a neighborhood full of artists and design people and young creative types and that it had a good vibe,” he said.

It was interesting, he said, because when he first moved to Tribeca, “the neighborhood was nothing” and he had called it, in another interview, a “marvelous no man’s land.”

“There were very few of us down here and people who were pioneers got to know each other,” he said.

“The rents were cheap. There was one restaurant [Delphi], which was the Greek restaurant at the corner of Reade and W. Broadway.”

If you wanted to go food shop-

ping, he said, you had to go to the Village. He pointed out the irony, as Tribeca used to have Washington Market, an area that was also known as the Butter and Egg District.

Bromm had always loved old buildings — their character and architectural richness — and when he and the other tenants were offered a chance to buy 10 Beach St., he said it was a “no-brainer.”

“We love being here,” he said.

“It’s a good building. And the people in the building were overwhelmed by that idea. I was young enough and foolish enough to be fearless and I said, ‘Come on, let’s just buy the building.’ ” He said he borrowed money from everyone he knew, “including people who said, ‘Hal, New York’s going bankrupt; you shouldn’t be buying anything.’ Fortunately they turned out to be wrong. But, you know, they could have been right.”

The building at Beach St. was six stories and Bromm started noticing buildings in the neighborhood sprouting two- or three-story additions, cornices ripped off and, he

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You can apply in person Saturdays and Sundays, October 3-25, 2015. You can also request a home visit. Find out how and where to apply at www.nyc.gov/HRA or call: 929-221-0047

24

October 22 - November 04, 2015

said, “really bad, ugly stuff.”

“We got together and we started a group called the Committee for the Washington Market Historic District to preserve what was left,” he said.

“Keeping in mind that blocks and blocks had been demolished at the end of the ‘60s by New York City, which was a horrible loss.”

The group went to the Landmarks Preservation Commission around the mid-1980s to request that it evaluate the entire neighborhood as a potential historic district, he said. They asked Andrew Dolkart, an architectural historian, to figure out what the boundaries of this potential district should be, said Bromm.

Underfunded and understaffed, the commission was already considering the neighborhood and enlisted the group’s help for research and photography, said Bromm.

Out of their work — Dolkart, Oliver Allen, Carole DeSaram and others — a book called “The Texture of Tribeca” was published in 1989.

It turned out to be a beautiful book, said Bromm, and it was an important lobbying and educational tool.

In the early ‘90s, Tribeca got four small historic districts designated instead of one big one, said Bromm.

“It’s affected [Tribeca] badly because we have things like 56 Leonard,” said Bromm. “A building that might have been not out of place in Lower Manhattan or on the Upper East Side…but that building in Tribeca is grossly inappropriate.

Right on the edge of one of the historic districts towering over everything.

“And it’s a ‘look-at-me’ building,” he continued. “It’s a look at me, I’m rich, I’m trendy, I’m buying this glamorous over-the-top condo because I want to be in trendy Tribeca. But it’s nothing to do with Tribeca. It’s nothing to do with the old Washington Market. It’s a denigration of what the districts are meant to convey.”

After the designation of the four districts, Bromm helped start a new group called Committee for the Expansion of Historic Districts, which has had meager success, he said. But the Tribeca Trust, he said, has taken up the mantle.

Lynn Ellsworth, chairperson of the Tribeca Trust, said Bromm and DeSaram provided leadership to get the neighborhood’s designated districts and “stepped up to the plate to

Image courtesy of PPOW Gallery

“Mona/Martha/Marge,” by Martha Wilson, founder of Franklin Furnace is on display at the gallery.

do all the work that it takes to make something like this happen.”

“Hal is a hero,” she said in a phone interview. “In my world that’s heroic civic engagement and Hal did it.”

Bromm is an advisor for the Trust, and Ellsworth said he and DeSaram have been kind, helpful and unstinting with providing advice and guidance.

Roger Byrom, chairperson of Community Board 1’s Landmarks Committee, said he has known Bromm since the early ‘90s and praised his “tremendous contribution” to the neighborhood — both for art and preservation.

“He took the time, trouble and initiative to spearhead the first effort [for designation],” Byrom said in a phone interview.

Bromm still lives in Tribeca and after looking around his gallery, he realized the preponderance of artists that do or did live in the neighborhood — like Marja Samsom. Her 2015 “Endless Egg” — a close-up of an egg oozing its yolk and screaming for a piece of bread — greets visitors in the gallery’s doorway.

For Bromm, who declined to give his age, it is hard to believe that his gallery is celebrating its 40th year.

“What’s that old expression, time flies when you’re having fun,” he said.

“It sounds kind of corny but, you know, 40 years is a helluva long time, it simply doesn’t feel like 40 years.”

DowntownExpress.com

Haunted by Houses

Night and day, odd occurrences at Merchant’s House and Bartow-Pell

BY SCOTT STIFFLER In the dark and stormy pages of fiction; in movies, when heirs to a fortune must brave a creepy old mansion from dusk to dawn; and on TV shows whose jumpy investigators wear infrared goggles as they navigate narrow catacombs: these are the scenarios popular culture tells us are necessary to have a paranormal encounter.

But why would a spirit need, or even want, to wait until the sun goes down in order to materialize? That witches’ brew of nighttime shadows and nervous tension says more about our own fleshly insecurities than it does about the world that awaits us when we draw our last breath and give up the ghost.

Rest assured, strange things do happen in the stark light of day — and year-round, at two of New York’s most lovingly preserved, historically significant homes, you can roam the grounds, climb the stairs, and quite possibly join the ranks of those who are confident they’ve seen, heard, or spoken with the dead.

MERCHANT’S HOUSE MUSEUM In 1835, having made his fortune as a NYC hardware merchant, patriarch Seabury Tredwell moved his brood to a lavishly decorated, recently built row house in the swanky Bond Street neighborhood.

Over the next nearly 100 years, dozens of family members and Irish servants would live at 29 East Fourth Street. Along the way, eight family members died in the house, including spinster daughter Gertrude (18401933). The youngest Tredwell child shuffled off her mortal coil while occupying the very same bed she was born in — also where Seabury met his maker in 1865.

First opened in 1935, the Merchant’s House Museum remains accessible to the public five days a week. Self-guided tours afford history buffs and paranormal enthusiasts the opportunity to walk among the furniture, artwork, clothing, tools, DowntownExpress.com

Courtesy Merchant’s House Museum

Members of the Tredwell family lived here over a period of 100 years. Some say they never left.

and everyday items that have been here since the mid-19th century — along with, many believe, former residents whose lack of a pulse doesn’t stop them from making playful, protective, or sociable appearances.

“It’s safe to say that each year we average roughly a half-dozen documented reports of occurrences to staff, workers, or visitors,” says board member Anthony Bellov, whose inexplicable experiences are among the “over one hundred reported incidents [during the course of the Museum’s life], since we started

seriously archiving them about fifteen years ago.”

One of the most-witnessed sightings in Merchant’s House history, which you can hear about on their upcoming Ghost Tour (and can read about in Bellov’s “Some Say They Never Left” gift shop booklet), took place in broad daylight — and makes a convincing argument for the notion that certain Tredwell family members didn’t fly the nest once they crossed over.

“It’s a very famous story involving neighborhood children playing

in front of the House,” Bellov says of the 1933 summertime incident.

“Gertrude came rushing out the front door to chase them away. Many neighborhood people saw it, and the long-timers on the block all recognized Gertrude. The only problem is, Gertrude had been dead for several weeks at that point.”

Another daytime incident, this one from 1995, was reported by a visitor who had a top position in the NYS Judicial Department. Unaware of the building’s haunted reputation, she gave an account of a tattered and musty gentleman who engaged her in conversation, upstairs, while they perused old family objects in a display case. “He spoke at length about what it was like to live in the house,” Bellov recalls of the eyewitness account. “She turned away from him for just a moment, and he was gone.” Minutes later, there was another sighting on the main floor — where he told her to come back for another visit. Presented with a book of photos after reporting the event to staff members, the woman identified her new acquaintance as black sheep son Samuel Tredwell (1825-1917).

Although sightings of head-totoe apparitions are rare, even by Merchant’s House standards, plenty of other odd and possibly otherworldly incidents take place — so many, in fact, that Bellov says “almost everyone involved with the Museum has had at least one unexplainable thing happen to them. The noteworthy thing is that people have experiences separated by several decades that are identical in every way.”

Those experiences include hearing phantom notes from a piano that long ago ceased to function, and the sound of light snoring coming from a sofa (incidents taking place in the front Greek Revival parlor — replete with Tredwell family furnishings, some of which date back to before Gertrude was born). The Grecian sofa, notes Bellov, is now in Continued on page 28

October 22 - November 04, 2015

25

Poe Cottage is a Bronx trip worth pondering He of limitless imagination was a man of modest means

BY T RAV S.D .

I’ve only lived in New York for over 25 years — without ever getting around to visiting the Edgar Allen Poe Cottage, the home of one of my favorite writers. New Yorkers, you know the reason why. All together: “It’s in the Bronx!” Not because the Bronx is bad, but because it is far.

From my house in Brooklyn, it’s nearly two hours away. It takes longer to get there than it takes to tour the museum.

One strategy is to double your trip up with another nearby destination. I bundled my recent visit up there with a stop at the star-studded Woodlawn Cemetery. I highly recommend it.

New York is one of four cities which have a Poe House Museum — the others being Philadelphia, Baltimore and Richmond. I intend to visit them all.

The Edgar Allen Poe Cottage is maintained by the Bronx Historical Society.

It’s where Poe lived and wrote from 1846 through his death in 1849, along with his child bride Virginia Clemm and her mother (who also happened to be his aunt

— you do the math). Sadly, Virginia only lived there for a few weeks. Stricken with T.B., she perished on the premises. The bed where she expired is on view at the Poe Cottage. Most of the furniture, while historically appropriate, wasn’t part of the house when Poe lived there.

Poe only outlived his wife by less than three years. It’s safe to say he never ceased mourning. A lot of his time was spent wandering around the still-rural Bronx, traipsing the High Bridge, and walking to Fordham (then St. John’s College) to rap with the Jesuit priests. It’s melancholy to contemplate. His modest house was surely the farthest thing from a distraction — more like the lifestyle of a monk. (Yes, I know this was Poe — a certain amount of his time was no doubt spent at taverns!)

Still, I found the little cottage surprisingly bright and cheery, although I happened to be there on a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon. But if you go there at night, who knows? There could be ghosts.

The tour guide at the little museum was terrific: enthusiastic, animated and

knowledgeable. Much of what I’ve already included in this article came from him. He also pointed out some other cool stuff: • A mysterious blemish in a period mirror in the shape of, I dare say, a raven.

• The house’s last remaining original pane of glass. Believe it or not, it’s fascinating, and the difference is noticeable (older glass is much less uniform and sheer, and full of swirls).

• An ironic newspaper clipping announcing Poe’s intention to start a new literary publication, The Stylus. The clip was from Oct. 7, 1849, the day Poe died while on a speaking tour in Baltimore.

Fans of Poe’s writing will be interested to know that this is the house where he wrote the poem “Annabelle Lee,” about his deceased bride, and the impressionistic short story “Landor’s Cottage,” which some critics think may have been partially inspired by his home in the Bronx.

Above all, your main takeaway is that this man of limitless imagination, this national treasure, was a man of very modest means, and that is instructive. It’s

Courtesy Historic House Trust

This cottage in the Bronx is where Poe lived and wrote from 1846 through his death in 1849.

been said that Poe was one of the first Americans ever to make his living entirely from writing. He was clearly just about able to eke it out. Support your artists while they live, ladies and gentlemen! That is the lesson I draw from the Poe Cottage.

The Edgar Allan Poe Cottage is owned by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, and operated by The Bronx County Historical Society, and is a member of the Historic House Trust.

Hours: Thurs.–Fri. 10 a.m.–3 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.–4 p.m. and Sun. 1 p.m.–5 p.m.

Admission: $5 ($3 for students, seniors, children). Visit bronxhistoricalsociety.org and historichousetrust.org.

October 22 - 24, 2015

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DowntownExpress.com

October 22 - November 04, 2015

27

Where history comes alive, the dead may roam Continued from page 25

the downstairs family room, where “there have been no further reports of invisible nappers.”

Are these occurrences merely sounds once made in the house, that play on a loop and can be perceived when the certain atmospheric or psychological conditions are just right? If so, that in and of itself is pretty impressive proof of…well, something beyond what we experience in day-to-day life.

And how, then, to explain how several people can be in a room, yet only some will be certain that they see, smell, or hear things?

Such events took place with startling regularity during monthly visits throughout 2011 by the Sturges Paranormal team of veteran investigators, uninformed newbies, certified mediums, and this curious but sometimes less than brave reporter — who, in addition to finding similarities in the team’s accounts (during post-investigation one-onone interviews), logged hundreds of “hits” on TriField Natural EMF (electromagnetic field) Meters.

EMF fluctuations often corresponded with requests that any “spirit” present manipulate the device, via “once for yes, twice for no” responses to questions. Many times over the course of the year-long investigation, this reporter observed positive responses to the team’s request that anyone (or anything) present but not observable travel from meter to meter, thereby eliciting the buzzing sound that indicates a fluctuation (three meters were typically placed in various locations around the room we were in). Proof of a sentient, otherworldly force interacting with us? No. But another possible explanation, that investigators themselves cause EMF meters to move by a psychic extension of wishful thinking, is every bit as provocative.

Also experienced by some — but not all — of the group (five or six at any given time), as we were within feet of each other: a strong scent of tobacco in the bedroom of Seabury Tredwell, and disembodied Christmas carolers who were heard in the front parlor, accompanying the living. Discovered on audio or video upon leaving the house were bells, voices, and footsteps (most of which were not heard at the time of the recordings). Two investigators (Bellov and a purported psychic)

28

October 22 - November 04, 2015

Courtesy Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum

The living aren’t the only ones free to walk around the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum.

both described, in their exit interviews, the same blue mist snaking its way down the staircase — at the top of which a family member is believed to have tumbled, sustaining injuries that would soon cause her death.

The official Merchant’s House take on all of this, says Bellov (who was present during all of the Sturges investigations): “We’ll never say the Museum is haunted until we have actual, incontrovertible proof, whatever that may wind up being. All we can say is, ‘Strange things we can’t explain happen here very often.’

If it’s the Tredwells, we’re happy they’re still watching over their home, and we hope they approve of our own efforts to preserve it for future New Yorkers.”

Tidbit-packed guidebook in hand, you can tour the house and court your own daytime encounter with the Tredwells or their servants — or take your chances during one of the atmospheric Candlelight Ghost Tours, during which many have reported brushes and tugs while surrounded by nothing but thin air.

With the house decorated in 1865 funeral parlor chic (black crepe, coffin in the parlor, mourning attire on display), living history will come back to haunt you, as the guides give a room-by-room rundown of ghostly encounters through the years.

The 50-minute tours begin every half hour, 6:30–9:30 p.m. on Oct. 23–24 and 28–30. Prices vary ($25- $35) according to tour time and a “Super-Spooky” option that includes a visit to the fourth floor servants’ quarters. For reservations

(required) and more info on the Oct. 24 “Parlor to Grave” funeral reenactment/graveyard procession and a Halloween night dramatic reading of Gothic literature, visit merchantshouse.org or call 212-777-1089.

Open Thurs.–Mon., noon–5 p.m.

Admission is $10 ($5 for students & seniors, free for children under 12). Merchant’s House Museum is located at 29 E. Fourth St. (btw.

Lafayette & Bowery).

THE BARTOW-PELL MANSION MUSEUM Constructed over an eight-year period beginning in 1836 in order to accommodate the family of Thomas Pell (then an English doctor from Connecticut), the Grecian-style stone Bartow-Pell Mansion and the 220-acre estate it sits on opened to the public in 1946 — providing a rare glimpse into upscale 19th century country life in the Pelham Bay Park area.

Many of its original occupants are still on site, in a graveyard filled with the remains of six Pell family members. Visitors can tour the garden and grounds, and explore the house (either on their own, or on guided tours). Either way, you might not want to go it solo — unless you have the intellectual curiosity and intestinal fortitude to find out what it’s like to be “alone” when you get the distinct feeling that you’re being watched, followed, or brushed up against (all things experienced by the public as well as staff members).

In her decade at Bartow-Pell (first

as a volunteer, then as Education Director and Curator), Margaret Highland can’t claim an unexplained encounter of her own — but she’s heard the stories. The upstairs, she notes, is prime real estate for paranormal occurrences.

“When Dan [Sturges, of Sturges Paranormal] was in the bed chamber of George Bartow,” Highland recalls, “one of the psychics said he [George] had a disappointment in love.” Later, in a sound bite not heard by the group at the time, “Dan’s [tape] recorder picked up a voice saying it wasn’t the girls’ fault. The psychic said that George’s fiancée broke off their engagement.”

In addition to sightings of a child’s ghost on the third floor (described similarly by witnesses through the years), indentations are frequently discovered on the Lannuier bed.

Highland, who has seen them, speculates that it’s “probably the down settling, but who knows? ” When Sturges asked the person responsible for sitting on the bed to identify themselves, he “picked up a voice that sounded like ‘Nathan Walker.’

We don’t know who he was, but we do have a piece of [19th century] embroidery made by an Abigail Walker.”

Elsewhere in the Mansion, music, (absent the presence of instruments) has been heard, and “a tour guide thought he saw a person in a long skirt disappearing quickly,” Highland says, adding that others “have heard footsteps in the attic when we knew nobody was up there.” Short of claiming that the Bartow-Pell Mansion is haunted, Highland doesn’t hesitate to supply this explanation: “What I say is, ‘Anything’s possible.’ ” A “Cemetery Walk and Tombstone Talk” will take place on Thurs., Oct. 29, at 6 p.m. — first, with a candlelit trek to the Pell Cemetery, then inside for a lecture by tombstone expert and carver Robert Neal Carpenter. Cost: $20 ($15 for seniors and students).

Registration required. The garden and grounds are open daily from 8:30 a.m. to dusk (free). Mansion hours are Wed., Sat. & Sun., noon–4 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors & students, free for children under six. At 895 Shore Road, Pelham Bay Park, The Bronx. Call 718-885-1461 or visit bartowpellmansionmuseum.org DowntownExpress.com

DowntownExpress.com

October 22 - November 04, 2015

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Nightmare Horror Show brings terror to the theater Seven deadly shows scare on Suffolk St. B Y S E AN EGAN “This actually isn’t a haunted house, it’s a performance. It’s a theater festival this year,” the woman running the box office at the Clemente explains to an inquisitive couple drawn in from the street. It will not be the last time she will recite some variation of this spiel.

Visitors to the Nightmare Horror Show could be forgiven for making that mistake. Psycho Clan, the creative team behind the festival, are also responsible for the Nightmare New York haunted house, which has been a Halloween staple in this location for years.

This year, however, Psycho Clan chose to mount a theater festival comprised of short, original horror works.

The switch is not such a stretch for Timothy Haskell, Psycho Clan leader and Nightmare New York creator, who explains that he always saw Nightmare New York as a kind of link between theater and haunted house.

“My roots are in theater, but I love horror, so putting them together is the perfect combo,” Haskell says, noting that theater hasn’t really attempted something like this before. “We’re growing, we’re learning, we’re figuring out what horror theater really is.”

It’s a different and ambitious project to be sure, but one Haskell sees as being worth it, and ripe with unexplored potential for delivering “visceral and effective” scares.

“Films are quite successful at it, haunted houses are very successful at it,” he elaborates. “I felt like theater, live theater, where you’re sort of entrenched for however long and forced to watch this thing, whatever it is, and feel the sweat and the vibrations of the screams — you know, all that — I was like, ‘It’s gotta be more terrifying than any of it!’ ” Haskell, for his part, is exceedingly busy, wearing multiple hats to ensure things are terrifying — curating the festival’s submissions, keeping everything running smoothly behind the scenes and at the box office, creating and directing his own piece, and, now that the festival’s in full swing, making trips to the laundromat around the corner to clean bloodstained clothing (he’s got the “really high quality” fake blood that makes washing out of costumes a cinch). Despite the stresses of running

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October 22 - November 04, 2015

Photo by Michael Blase

In Timothy Haskell’s “Smile,” society’s most primal fears are prodded — including a visit from monsters under the bed.

the festival, he still remains enthusiastic about the whole undertaking.

“The thing about horror in general, as an artistic form, is that it has the fewest rules and restrictions artistically,” he asserts. “Whatever the medium, it can be as creative as you are.”

The festival’s lineup certainly supports that thesis, as it features an eclectic program of seven shows, which run the gamut of horror subgenres and theatrical styles. “Eddie” is an unnerving sketch about real-life serial killer Ed Gein’s internal dialogue, which employs a gorgeously macabre puppet as its central figure, while “Me_irl” is a wordless piece involving a man eating lunch near a disconcertingly interested crow, brought to life via metallic, steampunk puppet (both puppets were created by “War Horse” alums, Haskell notes).

“Broken” is a haunting and beautifully choreographed dance piece that chronicles a woman’s unraveling mental state to a layered, pulsing score.

Elsewhere, the zombie flick sendup “Night of the Touching Zombies” provides a respite from the chills, as does “Necromancer,” whose audience-participation séance serves some dark humor. Meanwhile, “Bane” is a tense and fully realized character-based living room drama, which examines the relationship between a married couple in the aftermath of an accident.

Best of all, however, is Haskell’s own piece, “Smile.”

An immersive “4-D” work (inspired, in part, by Dario Argento), “Smile” tells the story of a deranged photog-

rapher who goes to great lengths to capture disturbing pictures. This brief description does little to prepare the viewer for the insane, overwhelming sensory experience of the piece — which features, amongst other things, killer clowns, flying viscera, and an eerie Dresden Dolls cover.

It also takes full advantage of another benefit of theater Haskell cites: the ability to take its time to create tension and ambiance that heighten fear.

“I think that theater can play on the anticipation of fear, if they do it, better than a haunted house or anything else,” he says — and the scares found while held captive here are a different beast from any other horror experience.

Still, with the festival, Haskell has his sights set on more than just scares.

“I’m hoping that I can introduce a non-traditional theater-going audience to an art form that I know that they’ll enjoy, and that might turn them into theater-goers, theater lovers,” he says.

“I think when they come, they’ll realize, ‘Wow, this really is entertaining.’ ” And judging by the gasps and screams emanating from audiences, it seems highly likely that he’s accomplished just that.

The Nightmare Horror Show runs through Fri., Oct. 30 at the Clemente Soto Vélez (107 Suffolk St. btw.

Rivington & Delancey Sts.). Tickets are $25 for each program (and $15 at the box office for any subsequent program).

For the full schedule of shows and artist info, visit nightmarenyc.com.

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