East Villager • Feb. 18, 2016

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

February 18, 2016 • FREE Volume 5 • Number 26

E.V. graffiti artist has been in jail for 5½ years for murder, without trial

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

A

n East Village graffiti artist arrested for killing a rival tagger more than five years ago still hasn’t had a trial and remains locked up on Rikers Island to this day.

According to police, around 5:30 a.m. on Mon., Oct. 25, 2010, Jairo Pastoressa, then

25, stabbed another graffiti writer, Christopher Jusko, 21, with an 8-inch kitchen knife in the stairway of a squatter building at 272 E. Seventh St. outside Pastoressa’s second-floor apartment. Slashed in the neck and stabbed in the back, Jusko staggered down the stairs and out of the buildARTIST continued on p. 6

John Farris, bohemian poet who chronicled life on Lower East Side

BY SARAH FERGUSON

I

t’s hard to fathom a Lower East Side without John Farris. The beloved, if notoriously cantankerous, poet was found dead of a heart attack in his one-bedroom apartment at the Bullet Space artists’ homestead on E. Third St. on Jan. 22. He was 75.

PHOTO BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL

Athanasios Ioannidis, center, and Andrew Trombettas, right, try to hide their faces while being walked into their arraignment last Thursday. Trombettas is accused of “renting” his plumber’s license to Ioannidis, an unlicensed plumber who is accused of twice rigging illegal gas-siphoning systems at 121 Second Ave.

With his sharp wit and abrasive personality, Farris was for decades an integral part of the Downtown literary and jazz scenes. He performed at a wide range of venues, reading wry, lyrical poems and densely crafted prose that both celebrated and satirized the people of FARRIS continued on p. 26

Resnick gets provocative...............page 20 | May 14, 2014

‘Gas House Gang’ indicted in deadly 2nd Ave. explosion

BY YANNIC RACK

A

lmost a year after a gas explosion rocked the East Village, killing two men and leveling three buildings, four people were indicted last Thursday for manslaughter and other charges in connection with the blast.

Maria Hrynenko, 56, who owns the building at 121 Second Ave. where the blast occurred, her son Michael Hrynenko, 30, contractor Dilber Kukic, 40, and plumb-

er Athanasios “Jerry” Ioannidis, 59, were also charged with criminally negligent homicide and assault in the second degree, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

In addition, Andrew Trombettas, 57, was charged with “renting” his master plumbing license to Ioannidis so the latter could get work on the property approved, prosecutors said.

Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance said last week that the defendants set up an elaborate ille-

gal gas line and hid the setup from inspectors, causing the explosion and subsequent fire on March 26, 2015, that claimed the lives of Moises Locón and Nicholas Figueroa and injured and displaced dozens of others.

“The seven-alarm fire that killed two people and engulfed three buildings in March 2015 was caused by a foreseeable, preventable and completely avoidable gas explosion,” Vance said.

All five defendants pleadGAS HOUSE continued on p. 12

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DORIS LOVES BOB: One of the great mysteries of Scoopy’s Notebook has finally been solved.

Bob Gormley, district manager of Community Board 2, used to tell us that, for a few years running, every Feb. 14 he would get a card, always unsigned, wishing him a happy Valentine’s Day. There were no leads to go by, and — as you know, if you’ve ever seen him sing on the mic at the end of board meetings — the man is a stud...so the mystery endured. Gormley recently told us he finally was able to figure it out by the handwriting. It was, in fact, none other than veteran board member Doris Diether.

GREENTHUMBS-UP! Congrats to Bill LoSasso of Community Board 3, who, earlier this month became director of the city Parks and Recreation Department’s GreenThumb program. “I’m excited to get to work with gardeners across the city,” he told us. Previously, he worked at the Port Authority, where he was manager of planning and project development, working on various economic development projects. Closer to home, LoSasso also served as executive director of La Plaza Cultural community garden, at E. Ninth St. and Avenue B, until “retiring” last fall. He played a key role in securing the Gardens Rising project, and its funding, for the East Village and Lower East Side’s green oases.

ALL-AMERICAN DANTE: Local tipster par excellence Gary Shapiro tells us that he recently spotted Dante de Blasio, the mayor’s son, at the Strand Book Store browsing in the Americana section. Shapiro also reports that both Film Forum and Anthology Film Archives have raised their ticket prices.

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At the Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown, a monkey was hamming it up with selfies. And why not? The Year of the Monkey only swings around every 12 years.

FARRIS MEMORIAL: Steve Cannon and David Hammons are planning a memorial for poet John Farris at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, on Fri., April 29, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. His friend, fellow Lower East Side poet Cannon, said, “The date is set. The music, food, etc. is unknown.”

GETTING NOTICE: L.E.S. Dweller activist Diem Boyd tells us her hard-hitting talking point on Mayor Bill de Blasio in The Villager back in December (“De Blasio’s L.E.S. / Chinatown tale of two cities”) definitely has gotten some notice.

Her column took the mayor to task for his failure to rezone Chinatown and much of the Lower East Side to protect it from overdevelopment.

Her piece concludes, “This all begs the question, Mayor de Blasio — are you a true beacon of the new left, like Sanders and Warren, or just another right-leaning centrist, bought by big real estate interests, cloaked in progressive rhetoric?” Soon after her talking point came out, a Washington Post reporter jumped on the story and did a walkaround through the neighborhood with Boyd, and

is now reportedly doing the same with disgruntled activists in other parts of the city who also feel the mayor has “sold them out.”

LIGHTS! CAMERA! MENIN! As recently reported by one of our sister papers, Downtown Express, Julie Menin has taken over as head of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, which issues permits for location shoots across the city and also works with Broadway and Off Broadway theaters. “Julie has shown time and again that she is a highly effective leader who has the skills and passion to get the job done for New Yorkers,” the mayor said in a statement. Most recently, Menin spent two years as commissioner of the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs, where she launched projects including promoting the paid-sick-leave law, and the Small Business Relief Package, an initiative to reduce fines on businesses. She was chairperson of Community Board 1 from 2005 to 2012, helping lead Lower Manhattan’s rebuilding after 9/11, before leaving to run unsuccessfully for borough president in 2013. “I am honored to take on this new role within the de Blasio administration,” Menin said.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to drive economic growth with this new and expanded portfolio — from film to music, TV to advertising — and as commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, I look forward to supporting the 130,000 New Yorkers who are employed through this industry and to strengthening the city’s engagement with the media and entertainment sector.”

CORRECTION: Bill Weinberg reports that his column last week, “Berber New Year in an E. Village Ukrainian church,” incorrectly stated that the Kabylia provisional government was demanding autonomy under Algeria’s constitution. In fact, they have taken the decision to move toward independence from Algeria.

“It’s worth the trip down the street!”

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February 18, 2016

EastVillagerNews.com

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February 18, 2016

BY COLIN MIXSON

B

eloved literary haven St. Mark’s Bookstore has entered the final stage of its terminal money woes, and the proverbial book will soon close on Manhattan’s oldest independent bookshop.

But owner Bob Contant is still clinging to hope that current talks with investors will result in a new bookstore emerging from the ashes of St. Mark’s, albeit, with a new name, new operators and none of the debt.

“We’re basically going out of business at this point,” said Contant. “There may be a continuation of a bookstore at this place, but it won’t be St. Marks. It will be a start-up and we’re not sure if we’ll be involved.”

St. Mark’s Bookshop has been in business for 38 years, in four different locations.

Contant has been struggling to satisfy debts owed to wholesale bookseller Baker and Taylor, to which he was “about $30,000” in arrears around the time when St. Mark’s moved to its current location on E. Third Street in 2014.

Following the move, Contant said he was able to pay off something close to half that debt, but struggled with follow-up payments. He was subsequently brought to court by the juggernaut bookseller in a suit that left his accounts frozen and a U.S. marshal auction scheduled, which was set to clear the store’s shelves on Feb. 10.

But then the auction was suddenly canceled and rescheduled for a later date, and Contant suspects that Baker and Taylor called off the sale in response to a scathing article by Publishers Weekly, a trade publication that the bookstore owner described as “the only thing the book business pays attention to.”

“They thought they could write us off and forget it, but now that it’s been mentioned and written up in Publishers Weekly, they realize they look really bad,” he said. “They’re putting an independent bookstore out of business.

I think whoever in the credit department doing this was trying to set an example. And then somebody higher up said, ‘Wait a minute, this is the wrong approach.’ So they came back to us in a more solicitous manner and we’ll see what happens.”

Contant has since made a new offer to the book wholesaler to settle his debts, and is awaiting word from Baker and Taylor on whether they’ll accept the deal. But, whatever happens, Baker and Taylor isn’t the only creditor knocking on Contant’s door. And for the East Village book seller — who also owes thousands in back rent to his landlord, the New York City Housing Authority — even bankruptcy is a luxury he can’t afford.

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

St. Mark’s Bookshop owner Bob Contant this past Tuesday in front pretty barren shelves at the E. Third St. store. The store is holding a 50 percent clearance sale. Asked by the photographer if he had any “parting words,” he paused for a second, chuckled and said, “To books and reading.”

“We can’t do Chapter 11, because we’re not going to reorganize anyway, and the debt is there,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter whether we file for bankruptcy — it’s expensive to do, and the debt’s not going away. So, basically, we’re just going out of business.”

Ada Calhoun, author of “St. Mark’s Is Dead,” grew up on St. Mark’s Place, which is where the bookstore started out — hence, it’s name. Writing in the New Yorker last week, she said that the bookstore had stubbornly shunned ideas to change its business model to try to increase its profitability.

“St. Mark’s Bookshop has...seemed frustratingly unwilling to seek out new streams of revenue,” Calhoun wrote.

“The former employees I’ve spoken to have mentioned various innovations that were floated over the years by friends of the store: offering deeper discounts, as the thriving Strand does; investing in advertising, or opening an in-store cafe like McNally Jackson. (‘Cafes are an enormous headache,’ Con-

tant told me.) There was a push at some point to host more regular events, but Contant says that they weren’t a moneymaker. When I asked him about the possibility of selling used books, which tend to have more generous profit margins than new ones, he said, ‘Strand is a few blocks away, and who wants to compete against them there? It’s a whole different kind of business.’ ” To this day, the storefront, owned by The Cooper Union, at Stuyvesant St. and Third Ave. that St. Mark’s Bookshop was forced to vacate due to rent remains empty. The store had been hit hard by the 2008 crash, and even with a reduced rent that Cooper conceded to in 2011 — in the face of intense community pressure — St. Mark’s couldn’t hang on at the high-profile location.

The new space, located just west of Avenue A, is smaller and more affordable, but not as good for business in terms of visibility, walk-in traffic and proximity to transportation as the former Third Ave. spot.

EastVillagerNews.com

EastVillagerNews.com

February 18, 2016

5

E.V. graffiti artist has been in jail for 5½ ARTIST continued from p. 1

ing and died on the sidewalk in front.

Pastoressa turned himself in to police the next day and was arrested for second-degree murder.

The two men had reportedly been feuding over a woman.

Antonio “Chico” Garcia, the legendary Lower East Side graffiti artist, had been working with Pastoressa back then, doing street murals, and saw him as someone who could be a worthy heir to his work, carrying on the neighborhood’s graffiti tradition. Garcia at the time told The Villager that while Pastoressa was gentle he was also “a jealous guy.”

An ex-girlfriend, Alice a.k.a.

“Cuba,” also told The Villager back then that Pastoressa had been controlling and abusive during their relationship, and that she had once had him arrested for assaulting her.

She claimed that Pastoressa sometimes was physically abusive to his pit bulls, as well.

Meanwhile, his mother, Anna Pastoressa, recently called the paper to express her outrage about the lack of a trial, and also to vouch for her son’s character.

“My son acted in self-defense,” she stressed, adding, “He has a lot of support from the community.”

Over the years, court dates have been set, but then pushed back, over and over.

“This is the story that has now been going on for five years,” she said. “The prosecutor always says they aren’t ready. He is taking his sweet time, and the judge has allowed it. Jairo had a pretrial hearing in 2012 — that was three years ago. My only thought is, they don’t have a case — why would you wait five-and-a-half years if you have a case?”

Anna said that as Jairo described it to her, on that fateful night, he had three people over at his place — a man and a woman who were lifelong friends of his, plus a second woman.

“Jairo wasn’t dating [her],” she stated of this other woman.

“They were eating, smoking pot, drinking and chatting. Whatever,” Anna said. “They were having a good time.”

There were a number of phone calls back and forth to Jusko, who eventually showed up at the building. Jusko was bigger, around 6 feet tall, while Jairo, his mom noted, “is a shrimp.” She said threats had been made that gave Jairo reason to fear for his life. According to reports at the time, though, it was Jairo who issued a challenge to Jusko.

There was a confrontation be-

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February 18, 2016

A pair of blue Vans-style sneakers that Jairo Pastoressa customized with bleach.

VILLAGER FILE PHOTOS BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL

Jairo Pastoressa being arraigned in court in October 2010 for second-degree murder in the death of Christopher Jusko.

tween Jusko and Jairo in the hallway. Jusko wound up stabbed, then staggering out of the building, before dying on the pavement outside.

Anna said, as Jairo explained it to her, the two had struggled over the knife, which left Jairo with a deep cut on his left finger. She said he claimed to have called 911 but there was no reply.

Covered in blood, and with the knife stuck in his pants waist, Jairo walked down to her home on Delancey St. He eventually turned himself in at the Seventh Precinct and was arrested and then taken to the Ninth Precinct.

After the fatal fight, Jairo “lost his mind for months,” his mother said.

Initially, according to her, he was on a suicide watch during his first few weeks at Rikers.

“His defense lawyer said he was delusional,” she said. “He called for a ‘730’ — not fit to stand trial.”

Two court-appointed psychiatrists diagnosed him as bipolar, she said.

For three months, he was incarcerated at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Wards Island, where he was put on psychotropic medications, including Depakote and Risperdal. He slowly calmed down.

After three months, Anna said, he was transferred back to Rikers.

But he became sluggish and overweight due to the medication. They later got his dosage lowered, and Jairo eventually stopped taking the meds entirely because he found it was zonking him out too much.

Fast-forward to the present and Jairo is now halfway into his sixth year behind bars without having had a trial. His mother said he has suffered “physical abuse by other inmates and mental abuse by correction officers.” He gets beaten up by inmates about four times per year, she said.

The latest beatings came just a few weeks ago at breakfast, after he questioned why everyone else had been served a muffin except for him. Later, she said, as he was recovering in the “intake area” — where new prisoners are brought in — he was beaten up again.

Jairo’s artsy personality and appearance simply annoy some fellow inmates and guards, she said. Barring certain colors, prisoners at Rikers can dress how they want, and his look apparently offends some of them.

“He wears a sweater, jeans — he doesn’t wear baggy jeans — and shoes, not sneakers. He wears eyeglasses. He looks like a nerd,” she said. “He gets beaten up because he’s not black and he’s not white.

They want him to pick a category — black, white or Hispanic. He’s an interracial child.”

Anna is originally from Italy.

Jairo’s father, who has remarried, is originally from Brazil. She is an international real estate broker and still co-op president of a building on E. Seventh St. where she owns a unit and where Jairo grew up. Jairo’s father, with whom she is not in contact, is a musician.

She said her son, after being in the system for so long, could write a book about all the drugs, violence and corruption inside Rikers, but that right now is not the time for him to tell everything he knows, since obviously he could suffer retaliation. Although Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed to reform Rikers, she said she hasn’t seen that.

“De Blasio is not doing anything,” she scoffed. “Bloomberg did one thing — he changed the visitors’ lockers. I don’t see any changes.

“The buildings leak when it rains and snows. The whole thing needs to be wiped out. That island should not exist. It needs to be redone from scratch.”

Indeed, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has recently called for shutting down Rikers and replacing it with separate jails in each borough. De Blasio calls the idea “impractical,” but his chief nemesis, Governor Andrew Cuomo, supports it.

Anna talks on the phone with her son twice every day. For privacy, they speak in Italian, so that others can’t understand what he’s saying.

Despite it all, Jairo continues to produce art behind bars, right in his cell or in common areas, although working with a very limited range of materials. He fashions pigments from things like pink Kool-Aid powder, tea bags and even newspaper — soaking the paper to extract the black ink. Once in a while, a friendly guard might give him some colored pencils, and this “is like a million dollars” to him, she said. He’ll mix the pigments into body wash to create a kind of paint.

When making collages, toothpaste is his glue.

For canvases, he rips up Department of Correction bedsheets. The original “D.O.C.” stamp logo can be seen in some of his works. For paint brushes, he uses toothbrushes. He uses straws to blow paint to achieve more abstract effects. He has made soap sculptures, even soap rings. He also creates flowers out of crumpled and rolled-up toilet paper, she said.

“He’s done incredible artwork with nothing,” she said. “I can fill up maybe two galleries with what he has done at Rikers.”

Every week, she brings him a fresh pack of white Hanes T-shirts that he decorates with his art. Some of them he makes for his mom and sister, Cassia, and his friends on the outside. Inmates and correction officers also place orders with him for the shirts, and in return he gets money from them to buy things at the commissary, like coffee, creamer, sugar packets or salt. The prisoners must buy all these things for themselves, and sometimes also buy supplemental food, like beans or tuna, she said.

She takes all of his finished work home with her and photographs it, then posts it on a Tumblr blog site she created for his art, “FreelinkARTIST continued on p.7 EastVillagerNews.com

years without trial; Meanwhile creates art ARTIST continued from p. 6

slicka.” (When he graffitied on the streets, his tag was “Link” and his crew was “City Slickaz.” Some of his artwork also says “Sixers,” since his crew referred to the Lower East Side as “the sixth borough.”) As an artist, it’s important to him to have his work out there and for it to be seen.

His mother then sends the items on to the girlfriends or mothers of the inmates or guards who have ordered them, or to Jairo’s friends and others.

In one particularly impressive work, using bleach, which prisoners have access to for their laundry, he bleached out a pair of Vans-style blue sneakers, leaving a blue “C” on the top of one and an “S” on the other — for “City Slickaz” — while creating a New York skyline along the shoes’ sides. (His mom liked these so much, she kept them for herself.)

She also brings him copies of photos he shot of subway trains and city scenes, which he then uses as backdrops for his artwork. None of the T-shirts are washable, since they weren’t done with fabric paint.

However, some of his fellow inmates and guards resent Jairo’s artistic abilities, according to Anna.

“They’re jealous — they’re pissed!” she said. This can sometimes just lead to more abuse.

Again, she said, there is support for Jairo in the community where he grew up. He attended St. Brigid’s School, LaSalle Academy and SUNY New Paltz, though didn’t graduate. A community petition on his behalf garnered 450 signatures.

At the time of his arrest, he had been hoping to do silkscreening at the Lower Eastside Girls Club.

Lyn Pentecost, the Girls Club’s executive director, wrote a letter to the presiding justice of the State Supreme Court - Criminal Term on Jairo’s behalf more than four years ago.

Three days after The Villager contacted her for this article, she wrote another letter to the court on Feb. 11: “I have known Jairo Pastoressa since he was a young boy and watched him grow up in our community,” Pentecost wrote the court.

“He has always been a model youth — sweet, talented and respectful from grammar school through high school.

“As he developed his career as an artist, he has always gladly donated his time and talents to a wide range of community endeavors. This has included assisting my organization, the Lower Eastside Girls Club, in a variety of mural painting projects.

“From what I have learned through my community sources, Jairo Pastoressa was threatened on EastVillagerNews.com

An A and a C train connecting in a heart, for his mother, Anna, and sister, Cassia done on a torn prison bedsheet.

A piece he made for his sister, Cassia, who is an actress.

numerous occasions and ultimately feared for his life,” she wrote, in apparent reference to the slain Jusko. “It is my hope that you will take his history of community service and the testimony of people like me who have known him for years into account as you consider this case.

“Please note, I wrote a similar letter in October 2011 and am disturbed to learn that there has been no action on this case.”

Pentecost told The Villager: “While there is no doubt that Jairo was involved in some sort of crime — the facts of which have never been heard in a court of law — it is now compounded by the crime of our government denying him his civil and human rights. This is an important story and I hope you will continue to follow it.”

According to Anna, earlier this month, the prosecution wanted to call as a witness the woman who Jairo and Jusko were allegedly feuding over, but she was in Europe. Ac-

cording to her, that was the reason for the latest delay in the case.

Anna also recently dumped the defense lawyer and has retained a new one, who asked the judge for a six-month delay so he could get up to speed on the case. However, the judge — now apparently eager to move things along — opposed the delay. The new attorney was also planning an effort to try to bail out Pastoressa. That attorney, an older man, however, subsequently got sick and dropped the case, and Anna has now retained a female attorney, who seems very good, she said.

A new court date has been set for April 20.

Patrick Muncie, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney, said, “While this case has required multiple extended adjournments — largely not in the People’s control — none are related to the strength of the evidence.”

According to a D.A. source, in addition to Jairo’s having been held at

Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center for several months after his arrest, the defense attorney, in mid-2014, alerted the court that he intended to present a “psychiatric defense.”

Preparations were made for interviews of Jairo by psychiatric experts, but then the defense “abruptly withdrew its psych notice” in late 2015.

In addition, a delay of the better part of a year occurred when the first judge on the case was appointed to a federal post, and time then had to be allowed for the new judge to familiarize himself with the case.

At the most recent court date, the prosecution reportedly said it was ready to go to trial, but, again, the new defense attorney asked for a six-month adjournment.

The source said that just switching defense lawyers is not a significant enough change to warrant a new bail hearing.

But Jairo’s mother was having none of the excuses.

“I am appalled to hear all of that,” she said, told of the D.A.’s response.

“The psychiatric defense, that was being used — what? — for five-anda-half years? Nonsense! They just like to blame one another. They are just a bunch of lazy people, including the judge.

“If he has to be sentenced, sentence him. If he’s innocent, let him out,” she stressed. “To hold someone that long, it’s unconstitutional.

The fact that you are delaying the trial, you are exposing people to a very bad environment [in jail at Rikers].”

However, unlike other offenses, New York’s criminal code actually does not mandate a speedy trial when it comes to murder.

“My son is not a murderer,” Anna reiterated. “My son acted in self-defense. He didn’t purposely kill the guy.

“My son is a very reserved person. He’s the type of person who was at home, doing his work. He didn’t go to parties, he didn’t go to bars and clubs. He doesn’t like to be in crowds, exposed. He doesn’t like confusion. When the chaos came to his door, he had to defend himself, he had no choice. Besides, this guy was bigger than him. All this madness came to him.”

His mother said she doesn’t feel that Jairo, who is a private person, would be up for a jailhouse interview right now.

The victim, Christopher Jusko, grew up in Stuyvesant Town but was living in Bushwick at the time of his death. The Villager was not able to reach Jusko’s family members for comment by press time.

February 18, 2016

7

POLICE BLOTTER Not so cozy

Sharp words led to broken glasses at the Famous Cozy Soup ’n’ Burger diner at 739 Broadway early last Friday morning. At around 2 a.m. on Feb. 12, a restaurant employee was involved in a verbal dispute with a man, police said. The man intentionally damaged three drinking glasses valued at $20 total, according to police.

Colin Harrington, 33, was arrested for misdemeanor criminal mischief.

out her consent, police said. The victim’s two friends witnessed the occurrence at around 10 p.m. Sun., Feb 14.

Police arrested Kelson Jones, 31, for misdemeanor forcible touching.

Missing from L.E.S.

There’s no good time to trade weapons in public. Around 4 a.m. on Sat., Feb. 13, a police officer observed two men on the southwest corner of Eighth Ave. and W. 14th St., according to a police report. The officer saw the two men holding brass knuckles and a billy club and exchanging them.

The pair, Louis Lumpkin, 39, and Steve Hollie, 29, were arrested for misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon.

Jordan Rojas, 19, has been reported missing. He was last seen around 10 a.m. on Thurs., Feb. 11, at 70 Baruch Drive in the Baruch Houses, the Lower East Side public housing complex south of E. Houston St. by the East River.

Rojas is 5-feet-6, 240 pounds and is reportedly in good physical condition. When last seen, he was wearing a green Army jacket, blue jeans and black shoes. As of this Tuesday evening, police said he was still missing and that the investigation is ongoing.

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

Thunder blunder

Citi Pharmacy

Not a good way to beat loneliness on Valentine’s Day. At Thunder Jackson’s bar, at 169 Bleecker St., a stranger forcibly touched a woman’s buttocks with-

Police observed a man forcefully rock and pull a Citi Bike out of its docking station and walk away with it in front of 135 Christopher St., according to a

Brothers in arms

Jordan Rojas, 19, is reported missing.

report. At 10:30 p.m. on Tues., Feb. 9, police arrested the man at the scene and found a clear bag of alleged marijuana in his right hand.

At the Sixth Precinct stationhouse, upon a search, police found a clear bag with white powder in it, empty clear gel caps, empty clear zip bags and a prescription pill bottle containing 68 alleged alprazolam tablets (also known by the brand name Xanax).

The man told police, “I was just joking around. I’ll put it back. That’s sugar.”

Police arrested Ryheenme Bell for criminal possession of a controlled substance.

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BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

O

n Sunday afternoon, longtime District Leader Alice Cancel was overwhelmingly nominated by County Committee members to be the Democratic nominee in the April 19 special election to succeed former Assemblymember Sheldon Silver.

The vote was held at the Educational Alliance, at 197 E. Broadway.

Although predictions had been that there would be several rounds of voting, Cancel won on the first and only round of balloting. About 185 County Committee members weighed in.

Known as “weighted votes,” which are based on a formula, the final tally was 5,772 for Cancel, 1,770.5 for Paul Newell, 605 for Jenifer Rajkumar, 93 for Yuh-Line Niou and zero for Gigi Li. The weighted vote was determined by the level of turnout in the 65th A.D.’s various election districts for Governor Andrew Cuomo in his general election in 2014. For example, two committee members who both live at 77 Fulton St. in Southbridge Towers, but are in different election districts, had different weighted votes. One’s vote sheet was worth 24.5 weighted votes, while the other’s was worth 93 weighted votes.

The district includes Lower Manhattan, Chinatown, Little Italy and the Lower East Side and stretches up into Soho and a small part of the East Village.

Calling the nominating process “flawed,” Niou dramatically dropped out of the running after concluding her five-minute speech to the members.

“I am withdrawing from this flawed process — and look forward to sharing my vision for Downtown in April and in September with all those who have no voice here, but who need and deserve so much from their assemblymember,” Niou said, emphatically punctuating her statement by raising her hand straight up in the air above her head. There were some gasps and “oohs” from the crowd at the surprising twist.

Most understood, though, that she withdrew because she didn’t have the votes to win, and that it was thus strategically smart, so as not appear a loser. Niou recently was endorsed by the Working Families Party and intends to run as a third-party candidate in the special election on the W.F.P. line, and will run in the September Democratic primary election, too.

Meanwhile, Lester Chang, a businessman and Navy reservist who lives in Nolita, will also be on the ballot on the Republican line for the special election.

10

February 18, 2016

VILLAGER FILE PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

Alice Cancel is the Democratic nominee for the April 19 special election to fill the vacant 65th Assembly District seat.

Before throwing in the towel, Niou, who is chief of staff for Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim, touted her Albany experience, saying she would know exactly how to allocate the $85,000 staff budget that a freshman assemblymember gets. Losing Silver’s seniority will be a big “hit” for the district, she noted.

“Silver had a huge budget,” she said. “I know how to work [a much smaller] budget. …

“I may not be by birth, but I became by choice, a Downtown New Yorker,” she added.

Rajkumar, similarly, in her remarks to the crowd slammed the process as “undemocratic.”

“Indeed, many of us came here today with our marching orders handed to us,” she said.

Some in the crowd cynically noted that if Rajkumar or Niou had had the votes to win, they would not have condemned the process.

Both Li and Newell, in their five-minute speeches, spoke about growing up in the district. Li said that, from now on, including a school in any large development needs to be considered, adding that she pushed for a school to be part of Essex Crossing in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area project.

“She’s a good speaker,” one impressed audience member commented after Li had finished.

Newell said Lower Manhattan has “an aging infrastructure” of public housing, Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 buildings, “housing an aging population, which is the only thing keeping people here,” and that this housing stock should be preserved and expanded.

Rajkumar also gave polished remarks. Quoting former New York

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, she said, “ ‘There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?’

“Today,” she said, “let us, from the East Side to the West Side, set aside our marching orders and vote for the best candidate. … Let us vote for the candidate capable of moving our district and its people forward into a bright new tomorrow. Then we once again can be a shining beacon to the entire city and state.

“I have been in the trenches with you many times,” she told the crowd, noting she had fought, in particular, for improved bus service.

In her remarks before the vote, Cancel — her voice filled with passion, even a bit of defiant anger — said she has been a resident of the district for 40 years and a district leader for 22.

“I raised three sons here,” she said.

“I worked side-by-side with Eddie Garcia to create Sol Lain ballfield. I was a P.T.A. president and currently sit on the board of Sophie Gerson Healthy Youth. I worked to prevent the eviction of thousands of people from this community — whether they live in private or public housing.

I’ve been living in this community through 9/11, through the untimely floods and blackout of Superstorm Sandy. I am a grassroots activist, a mother, a neighbor, and I will be proud to be your next representative in the New York State Assembly.”

In her brief acceptance speech after the result was announced, Cancel told the committee members, “It’s going to be a great challenge. This is just a hurdle. There is still more to go.”

Afterward, speaking to The Villager, she said, “I’ve been a district leader for many years. I will now have to do it on a bigger level. I’ll have a bigger district to cover.”

She said that housing, the environment and schools would be among her top issues.

Cancel defended the nominating process, saying, “The people that came in this room are all community people.”

After Silver’s conviction, Cancel’s husband, State Committeeman John Quinn, had told The Villager that she didn’t want to run for Assembly.

Asked on Sunday what changed her mind, Cancel said, “Because the community reached out to me and said that I would be the perfect candidate — I had already been doing this for 20 years — that the people coming out of the woodwork would not be the best candidates because they hadn’t been here that long.”

For his part, Newell said he had turned down an offer by the Independence Party to run as a third-party

candidate on their line in the special election.

“This is never a process that’s good for a reform candidate, but I participated fully,” he said of the County Committee vote. He noted that of the district’s four Democratic clubs, only his, Downtown Independent Democrats, is a so-called reform club.

Setting his sights on the September primary, another candidate, Don Lee, did not participate in the County Committee process and did not address the members at Sunday’s gathering. He had earlier issued a statement slamming the special-election process.

The vote’s timing was tough for the Chinese-American community, since it was the day before the Chinese New Year, a day when families get together and have dim sum.

In the days before the vote, Niou had come under attack on several fronts. Opponents charged that she did not have long enough legal residency in New York to run for office — which Niou’s team vehemently denied — plus that she never voted until age 30.

As to the claim about when she first voted, Matt Rey, her spokesperson, said before Sunday’s vote, “I’m not going to get into that right now. This is not the venue.” He did not respond to a follow-up request for an answer by press time.

One thing is for certain, Niou’s candidacy has attracted the strong interest and support of many in the city’s Asian-American community. Her boss, Assemblymember Kim, was at Sunday’s vote, dressed casually in a sweatshirt and jeans. Chris Kui, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality, was also seated in the audience, though he is not a County Committee member.

“I like Yuh-Line,” Kui said. “I’m just here to show moral support. I knew her even when she was in Seattle — we were both part of a national coalition of community development.”

How about Don Lee as a candidate? he was asked.

“I haven’t seen him for a while,” Kui shrugged.

Diem Boyd of the Lower East Side Dwellers said the bigger contest is yet to come — the primary election, when the Democratic candidates will go head-to-head at the polls.

“I’m looking forward to September when democracy really can shine through,” she said.

In fact, Boyd said, it would have made sense just to forgo the special election, since Cancel will be in office for less than two months before the state Legislature breaks for its annual CANCEL continued on p.11 EastVillagerNews.com

Beats out 4 others CANCEL continued from p. 10

six-month recess.

Councilmember Rosie Mendez endorsed Cancel in the run-up to the vote. Speaking last Sunday, Mendez, asked her thoughts on Niou, said, “Yuh-Line seems very smart and she’s very personable. But, for me, the big factor is that she doesn’t have the experience and the history in this district. At the end of the day, there are three candidates I know very well — Gigi Li, Paul Newell and Alice Cancel. Alice knows every part of this district. She has to learn Albany, but I think she’ll figure that out and hit the ground running.”

District Leaders Newell and Rajkumar both hail from the same club, Downtown Independent Democrats, and neither would defer to the other in their hunger for higher office.

Allan Schulkin, commissioner of the Manhattan Board of Elections, who also was on hand for the vote, offered, “D.I.D. should have chosen the candidate. The two candidates should have decided who’s going to run. I think it was a mistake to split the vote.”

Judy Rapfogel, Silver’s longtime former chief of staff and a member of the Truman Democratic Club, also cast a vote as a County Committee member.

“It’s a process that has to happen,” she said of the County Committee selection. Asked who she would vote for, she said, “The person who will do the best for the community,” though didn’t specify.

As for the latest on Silver, she said, “He believes, on appeal, he will be vindicated. He is very upbeat, very determined.”

Ultimately, Truman threw its support behind Cancel, who already had the backing of her Lower East Side Democratic Club.

L.E.S.D.C.’s Quinn said Virginia Kee, president emeritus of the United Democratic Organization, had really been “twisting arms,” trying to work the vote for Niou.

Kee later said that U.D.O. saw the writing on the wall the morning before the vote, at which time the decision was made for Niou to withdraw.

“When we went in, we only had 12 percent of the vote,” she said. “You have to have 20 percent, otherwise you’ll be dropped [out of the running]. We knew that D.I.D. would be supporting Newell or Rajkumar. We were hoping for Truman’s support, and when we were told they were not, we said, it’s not a level playing field. So it’s really heartbreaking for us. Chinatown and Grand St. have been friends for a very long time. …

At this point, I really don’t want to talk about it. It was very disappointing. I believe firmly, and we all do at U.D.O., that we have the best candidate and the one that will deliver for the 65th Assembly District.”

As for those who say Niou is too new to the district, Kee retorted U.D.O. likes that.

“She’s new,” she said. “Why do you want somebody who’s been here forever? She would help reform Albany.”

Kee thanked The Villager for having first “introduced” Niou to the broader community in an article last December.

Former District Leader John Fratta, who voted on Sunday, offered, “The primary in September is going to be an interesting race, depending how many Chinese are in it. I think Alice will be the front-runner — Alice has been working the district a long time — unless people put together some kind of coalition.”

District Leader Jenny Low, who is Kee’s goddaughter — Kee was her teacher in public school — said C.B. 3 Chairperson Li’s petition fiasco over this past summer was very damaging. Li abandoned her planned run against District Leader Rajkumar amid accusations of fraudulent petition signatures.

“The petition scandal is a huge handicap for anybody,” Low said.

“We always go for the most qualified candidate.”

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EastVillagerNews.com

February 18, 2016

11

E.V. ‘Gas House Gang’ indicted in deadly blast GAS HOUSE continued from p. 1

ed not guilty to the charges at an arraignment in State Supreme Court in Manhattan last Thursday. Bail was set at $1 million for all the defendants — except Trombettas, who must post $100,000.

This week, tenants and restaurant owners on the block who suffered in the aftermath of the explosion, expressed mixed feelings about the indictments.

“It’s a very empty feeling. These guys got indicted, so someone’s going to do a few years,” said Stuart Lipsky, whose second-floor apartment at 125 Second Ave. now abuts an empty corner lot.

“I’d be pleasantly surprised if they all went to jail,” he said. “But I don’t have much faith in the system.”

Lipsky, who has been in the apartment for more than 35 years and now lives there with his wife and teenage daughter, said the gas in their building was only restored three weeks ago.

The family also lost one of their cats in the explosion, and their home suffered extensive fire damage.

Lipsky said the charges alone didn’t bring him any closure.

“How are you going to make them feel the pain that they’ve caused everyone else — the poor father [of Figueroa], who’s still coming to cry by the fence?

“Justice will be served when I can go visit these bastards in jail,” he said.

For others, the news of the indictments brought some long-awaited sense of relief.

“Of course the charges are great.

This is what they deserve,” said Fawzy Abdelwahed, standing behind the counter at B&H Dairy, the kosher restaurant he owns with his wife at 127 Second Ave. The blast almost put him out of business. The restaurant had to stay closed for almost five months after the explosion, while Abdelwahed struggled with the red tape of city bureaucracy and had to install costly upgrades to his facilities that were mandated by Con Edison.

Despite two successful fundraisers that brought in more than $50,000, Abdelwahed said he was still forced to take out a loan for the same amount.

The Stage restaurant, another neighborhood staple across the street, wasn’t so lucky, though — almost a year on, its storefront remains shuttered.

Vance said the indictment should be a warning to building owners and others that might be tempted to

12

February 18, 2016

PHOTO BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL

From left, handcuffed behind their backs at their arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thurs., Feb. 11, from left, landlord Maria Hrynenko, Athanasios Ioannidis, Michael Hrynenko, Dilber Kukic and Andrew Trombettas. They were all indicted in last year’s East Village gas explosion.

PHOTO COURTESY MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE

The first illegal gas hook-up installed at 121 Second Ave., where prosecutors allege the landlord’s practices led to a fatal explosion last March.

After Con Ed workers found this first scofflaw system and shut off the gas, a second illegal jury-rigged setup was then allegedly created — and concealed from view behind a locked door — prosecutors said.

cut corners in the city’s real estate boom.

“Development, construction and renovation is happening across the city at breakneck speed,” he said.

“In this market, the temptation for property owners, contractors and managers to take dangerous — and, in some instances, deadly — shortcuts has never been greater.”

Last week, prosecutors described an illegal scheme that involved the landlord, her son, the contractor and an unlicensed plumber, who allegedly twice installed unsafe gas systems in the basement of the building — hiding the second one from inspectors after the first was found and shut off by Con Edison.

According to the indictment, Maria Hrynenko informed Kukic in July 2014 that gas for the apartments at 121 Second Ave. should be taken from the meter of the building’s ground-floor restaurant, the Japanese eatery Sushi Park.

Shortly thereafter, Ioannidis, the plumber, illegally connected flexible hosing to the restaurant’s meter in order to provide gas to the residential tenants, who were not informed of the source of the gas, according to the D.A. But an inspection by Con Ed and the Fire Department in August 2014, triggered by residents smelling gas, revealed the setup to be unsafe and likely to disconnect, break or leak,

according to prosecutors. Con Ed then shut off the gas supply, leaving both the restaurant and the upstairs tenants without gas.

But instead of hiring a licensed plumber to fix the situation, investigators said the defendants then constructed another unsafe gas delivery system by installing a series of pipes and valves connecting the residential units in 121 Second Ave. to an uncapped, commercial-grade gas meter in the adjacent, vacant property at 119 Second Ave., which Hrynenko also owned.

“When Con Ed came in and shut this illegal system off with the hoses, what then happened was the creation of an alternate delivery system behind a locked door in the very same room,” Vance said at a press conference.

After Ioannidis filed paperwork with Con Ed, the company restored gas to the restaurant by mid-August, while upstairs tenants continued to receive gas by way of the defendants’ illegal gas delivery system, according to Vance.

On the day of the explosion, inspectors from Con Ed came to check the system at 119 Second Ave., but found no signs of leaking gas because Kukic and Ioannidis had temporarily turned the illegal gas line off.

After the inspectors left, officials said, Kukic and Hrynenko, the owner’s son, turned the gas back on — but failed to close several valves in the basement of 121 Second Ave. that had been opened for pressure tests by Con Ed, causing them to leak.

Shortly after, the manager of the Japanese restaurant allegedly called landlord Hrynenko and told her that he smelled gas.

Surveillance cameras show Kukic and Hrynenko entering the basement and then swiftly sprinting out of the restaurant without warning any of the patrons or workers, and running around the corner toward the E. Seventh St. entrance, where the illegal gas delivery system was set up, according to prosecutors.

When the gas caused an explosion moments later, Locón, an employee of Sushi Park, and Figueroa, a diner, were killed. The ensuing fire quickly spread to neighboring buildings 119 and 123 Second Ave., and all three structures eventually collapsed.

“The individuals involved in the East Village gas explosion showed a blatant and callous disregard for human life,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “These indictments will hopefully bring Mr. Figueroa and Mr. GAS HOUSE continued on p. 13 EastVillagerNews.com

‘Gas House Gang’ indicted GAS HOUSE continued from p. 12

Locón’s families some closure following this tragic event.”

City Councilmember Rosie Mendez said last week that she hoped the landlord would be held accountable for her “reckless actions.”

“The events from last year are still very much with us in the East Village,” she said. “Every day, the people of the East Village have been waiting for justice. Today we are one step closer.”

At B&H Dairy, business is largely back to usual, although Abdelwahed fears Maria Hrynenko’s insurance will be depleted before any of the businesses and residents can claim compensation for their losses.

For him and his family, the ex-

plosion also left more permanent marks. At the time of the blast, his wife, Ola, was three months pregnant with their first child together.

(The couple also have two children from previous relationships.)

A few weeks after the explosion, she had a miscarriage, which Fawzy blames on the acute stress that followed.

“I will never forget it,” Abdelwahed said. “It was a tough experience.”

“I don’t feel sorry for no one. Not even one of them,” his wife said of the indictments.

She added that now, after they barely managed to get back on their feet, the chance to start a family had passed for the time being.

“Do we deserve this? No,” she said. “Nobody did.”

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February 18, 2016

13

Children’S denTal healTh MonTh

Why growing teeth need a specialist

By Dr. Tanesha Francis

As someone who specializes in the treatment and care of little people’s teeth, parents often ask me how important it is to take children to a pediatric dentist. In fact, many don’t realize that this is an option in the first place.

Yes, there are options! There are dentists, like me, who specialize in the unique needs of infants, children, and young teens’ teeth. Alternatively, there are family dentists who are qualified to care for patients of all ages.

Naturally, I believe that pediatric dentists are the way to go when parents have the option, and here are my reasons:

Teeth development in children Think 6 plus 6! Generally speaking, a baby’s first teeth will begin to break through at 6 months; those teeth will stay put until about age 6, when they begin to fall out and be replaced by permanent, adult teeth. Although children lose

their first set of teeth, poor oral care in those early years can lead to issues and disease that lasts throughout life.

A pediatric dentist specializes in instructing families on how to care for teeth before there are even teeth!

Parents often think of troublesome sicknesses such as asthma and allergies; however, dental problems such as early childhood caries (an in-

fectious disease also known as baby bottle tooth decay or bottle rot) are five times as common.

What sets pediatric dentists apart Pediatric dentists have a lot to learn! Unlike general dentists, pediatric dentists are required to complete up to three additional years of specialty training in the unique needs

of children’s teeth.

Some of the topics we study that are unique to working with children include behavior management, pediatric pharmacology, interceptive orthodontics, speech, minor oral surgery, sedation, traumatic injuries, dental care for children with developmental disabilities, and more.

Since the dental journey includes growing a first set, losing them, and then growing an adult set, there’s a lot to keep up with during each stage.

We specialize in helping families make it a healthy journey from the start. We also offer key advice on maintenance through those critical candyand-sweets-eating years.

Specialized treatment options Parents know that taking care of children — especially health exams like regular dentist visits — can be stressful at times. Pediatric dentists are great at knowing how to make visits as painless and pleas-

ant as possible. Our offices are full of color, activities, and warmth that can make kids’ experiences fun and educational, too. Dentists often recommend dental appliances and corrective treatments during the childhood and adolescent years.

We also have the most upto-date knowledge about treatment options and advancements in the field for children.

And in the end, children and teens are all about the “cool factor” with a pediatric dentist, our finger is on the pulse of colorful and engaging tools and appliances that will keep them interested in their own dental health.

We all want the best for children. When it comes to keeping their mouths, teeth, and gums healthy for the long haul, a pediatric dentist just makes sense!

Dr. Francis can be found at Park Slope Kids Dental Care [150 Fourth Ave. between Douglas and Butler streets in Park Slope, (718) 488–0200].

Bespoke Kitchen: Local food, expertly prepared

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

A

re you a locavore? Would you love delicious food — locally sourced — and prepared by one of the city’s premier chefs? Do you maybe have some food allergies — let’s face it, who doesn’t nowadays? But most important, do you pine for fine cuisine, prepared in a style that’s not heavy, but savory and tantalizing to the palate?

If so, add Bespoke Kitchen to your bucket list of new restaurants to visit.

Located in an intimate 1,600-squarefoot space at 615½ Hudson St., Bespoke Kitchen was opened in September by longtime West Village resident Nicolas Bustamante. After working in real estate for years, Bustamante, who is originally from Peru, decided at midlife that it was finally time to fulfill his dream and open his own restaurant.

Bustamante brought on board renowned chef Franco Barrio, another Peruvian native. A past winner of the Food Network’s “Chopped,” Barrio is an alum of top New York City restaurants, including Casa Mono, Picholine, Momofuku and Boqueria Flatiron, among others. Having honed his culinary skills in Barcelona, his specialty is tapas.

14

February 18, 2016

Chef Franco Barrio is famed for his tapas and his refined cuisine, honed in many of the city’s top restaurants.

At Bespoke Kitchen, the top chef has now put his culinary talents and spin on a locavore-inspired menu that allows the diner to custom order protein (fish, poultry, meat or vegetarian), sauces (or “flavor profile,” as in light or rich) and various cooking

techniques — hence the restaurant’s name.

In addition, before you order, waiters or Barrio himself — if you are seated in front of him at the chef’s counter, which you should be to get the full experience — will ask if you have any food allergies (such as nuts, gluten, shellfish or dairy), so that dishes can be customized for you.

For starters, Bespoke Kitchen boasts a delicious house-made charcuterie platter, featuring sausages, meats and pate. Ducks are not force fed to create the pate, a mousse, Barrio said.

On a recent visit, another “small plate” starter included grilled octopus with purple and gold potatoes and squid ink vinaigrette, also excellent. There is also ceviche — known as Peru’s national dish — featuring raw fluke, octopus and Hawaiian shrimp in a piquant sauce.

On any given week, the main dishes may be focused on whatever animal the restaurant has on hand. For example, young pigs were slated for the following week’s menu when The Villager recently visited. Barrio and his staff will use the entire animal throughout the week. Other dishes, from week to week, include succulent burgers on a brioche bun, fried

or roasted chicken, a short-rib melt, pork belly ramen and gourmet-style pizzas.

There is a full wine list, plus an eclectic range of flavorful cocktails, featuring house-infused spirits, including a pumpkin rye martini, among others.

Bespoke Kitchen recently added a lunch menu, including soups, salads, ribeye chili and sandwiches — Cuban, turkey croissant, pastrami melt, burgers, figs and brie and the BK Veg (herbed cream cheese, cucumber, carrots, red peppers, red onion and spinach on wheat bread).

They are also offering a special Valentine’s Day wine-pairing menu for $50, with Kumamoto oysters as an amuse-bouche, smoked salmon, seared duck breast, a choice of either Chilean sea bass or filet mignon, a cheese course and chocolate mousse for dessert. The meal includes a glass of champagne and two glasses of wine, each paired with a different course. They will also have a special Valentine’s cocktail, the “Apple of My Eye,” made with apple vodka and an apple slice.

For more information about Bespoke Kitchen, visit http://www. thebespokekitchen.com/. For reservations, call 212-989-3155.

EastVillagerNews.com

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EastVillagerNews.com

February 18, 2016

15

Schwartz challenging Glick for state Assembly

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

I

n the past, District Leader Arthur Schwartz has often said he wanted to run for office, but he always held back, usually citing the fact that he had young children — and he has had two sets of kids. Now, at last, he’s finally taking the plunge.

Last month, Schwartz, who is Bernie Sanders’s New York campaign lawyer, announced he plans to challenge longtime incumbent Deborah Glick this September in the 66th Assemblymember District.

The two have always had a testy relationship, and it’s only worsened in recent years. Schwartz has lately attacked Glick’s close ties to former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was convicted in December on federal corruption charges.

A top union lawyer, Schwartz has served as general counsel to the Transport Workers Union since 2001. His specialty has been helping dissident factions take over unions. Two years ago, he was treasurer for Zephyr Teachout’s campaign against Governor Andrew Cuomo. A former member of Community Board 2 for many years, Schwartz is also well known in the Village for his work on Hudson River Park, having previously led the Hudson River Park Advisory Council. He helped push through the Hudson River Park Act in 1998, the park’s founding legislation — and that, he said, he is where his beef with Glick began. Glick opposed the legislation, she said, because it created an “unaccountable” state-city authority to run the park.

“I don’t care,” Schwartz told us. “She voted ‘no’ on the bill to build the park. She was one of a small handful of people who voted against it. The entire environmental community supported it. The community board was for it. The youth recreation organizations were for it — and she voted ‘no.’ We had a break over Hudson River Park,” Schwartz said, “and since then we’ve had an antagonistic relationship.”

Glick fired back, regarding Schwartz, “For 20 years he has been a critic and is best known for his distortions and outright lies.”

Schwartz is now slamming Glick for not supporting a plan to develop the St. John’s Center; the developers would buy 200,000 square feet of air rights from Pier 40, in return for which they would pay the Hudson River Park Trust $100 million, which would then be used to repair the ailing W. Houston St. pier. Thirty percent of the project’s apartments would be affordable.

However, Glick said that, again, Schwartz is mis-

CALL TO SUBSCRIBE 646-452-2475

16

February 18, 2016

From left, Arthur Schwartz, Bernie Sanders and former state Senator Tom Duane at a recent Sanders event in New York. Duane has endorsed Sanders, but has not endorsed Schwartz.

characterizing her position. Her statement was part of the public comment on the project’s “scoping.”

“What Arthur doesn’t say — and this is a distortion — is I presented testimony on behalf of all the elected officials — Corey Johnson, Brad Hoylman, Jerry Nadler, Daniel Squadron, Gale Brewer — that represent the area. My testimony was the testimony of all the elected officials, and it was testimony that raised a range of concerns. It was the start of a discussion. And Arthur, as he has done in the past 20 years, will spend the next several months engaging in distortion.”

Glick, of course, is a pioneer in her own right, having been the first openly gay person elected to the New York Legislature, and is currently “one of only three women in Manhattan in the Assembly, and there are 12 Assembly seats in Manhattan,” she noted.

Schwartz, who has always been a political maverick, has been endorsed by Teachout, who won a stunning 68 percent of the vote in the 66th A.D. in her race against Cuomo, her highest margin of victory anywhere in New York State.

“Arthur was my treasurer, is a friend and great collaborator over many years and, yes, I support him! I think he’d be terrific in the Assembly,” Teachout told The Villager.

Glick shrugged it off, saying Teachout’s nod was predictable.

“Well, she was his campaign treasurer,” the assemblymember said. “I never met the woman, I’ve never spoken to her. It would seem odd that she chose to endorse this early — but it seems very typical political payback.”

As for Silver, Glick said, “I wouldn’t run away from the fact that Shelly did a lot of good things over the years.” He stopped the West Side stadium, supported expanding pre-K and always fought for education, among other things, she noted. “People are not one-dimensional. I think Shelly did lots of things, and I think the things that were raised during the trial were obviously deeply disturbing.”

Glick noted that, unlike Silver and others, she is a “full-time legislator,” with no outside jobs or income, and that she has called for this to be the norm for all state legislators.

Glick added of Schwartz’s trying to tar her with her association with Silver, “I think it’s shocking that someone who calls themselves a civil rights

Deborah Glick, right, with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand has not endorsed Glick.

attorney would engage in a campaign of guilt by association.”

Schwartz fired back: “That’s bulls--t. The Daily News editorial said she was his enabler — what does that have to do with civil rights? She was part of the club.”

Schwartz blasted Glick for not opposing the hush-money deal Silver set up with women who accused former Assemblymember Vito Lopez of sexual harassment when they worked as his staffers.

“As a civil rights attorney, I was grossly offended by that,” Schwartz said. “You want to pay the women, that’s fine. But you want to pay them to keep silent — against a public official? That’s outrageous. She never spoke out against that deal.”

However, Schwartz said, “I am going to spend little time talking about Deborah Glick — I actually learned that from her — because it’s free publicity for the opponent. The campaign I’m going to run is going to be all positive about what I’ve done.”

In one concession to Glick, Schwartz said, “I think she probably played a good role around [getting a middle school at] 75 Morton St. I give her credit for that.

“I want to deal with some of the issues Bernie is talking about, like student debt,” he said. “I would promise to do some dramatic things. I have thought about doing a hunger strike over campaign finance or the schools funding, and invite people to join me,” Schwartz said, referring to the city getting its fair share of state education funds.

“I could lose a few pounds,” he quipped.

“I am not going to engage in a weekly Villager debate with Arthur’s trash-talking,” Glick emphatically stated. “I’m going to be doing my job, working for the people of the 66th Assembly District.”

But could Schwartz beat Glick? One local activist and former political staffer, requesting anonymity, said anything is possible.

“With the way things are in Albany today, who knows?” he said. “And Arthur is a formidable campaigner.”

EastVillagerNews.com

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February 18, 2016

17

PHOTO BY RAYMOND LIANG

Better health is a walk in the park — or the gym during his recent visit to the McBurney YMCA on W. 14th St., Surgeon General Vivek Murthy took a brisk walk on the jogging track with, from left, Paul Groncki, Rita Fischer and Ruth Gursky, as they discussed the benefits of walking.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Honored...in a way To The Editor: Re “Conservative mag attacks Catholic Worker as lefty extremists; Who wrote it?” (news article, Feb. 4): During the past four-and-a-half years, The Villager has, at least three times, referred to me as a Zuccotti Park Occupy Wall Streeter. Now, in this new article, I’m described as being cast in a “William Buckley” mold.

I must regard, I guess, both appellations to be

compliments. So, thank you. However, one can’t imagine that the late founder of National Review would, as I do this election season, wear the political button: “Bernie Sanders for President.”

The article reports that I said there was “no stir,” after a Catholic Worker representative is quoted telling The Villager there was a buzz just “for a moment.” That’s not a big difference in perception, and surely not a matter that rose to a level of newsworthy Sturm und Drang.

Robert Reiss

IRA BLUTREICH

C.W. critic doesn’t get it To The Editor: Re “Conservative mag attacks Catholic Worker as lefty extremists; Who wrote it?” (news article, Feb. 4): I’ve attended quite a few Catholic Worker Friday night meetings at which Mr. Reiss has spoken up from his seat, and he consistently proves that he misunderstands the nature and history of nonviolence and nonviolent direct action in the American peace movement.

He also has a very confused misunderstanding of what is going on in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians and within the movement to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel.

Over the years, I have always wondered why in the world he associates with the Catholic Worker movement. I have been since 1973 active with the secular War Resisters League, located around the corner from the Catholic Worker, and the two groups work very well together, joining together to co-sponsor anti-war actions that attract both secular and religious activists.

Join whichever of the two groups you feel more comfortable with! Out of the meetings and into the streets! Power to the peaceful!

Mike Levinson

Obscene: City Council raises its pay by 32 percent!

18

February 18, 2016

Continued on p. 31 EastVillagerNews.com

Forget County Committee; We need to look ahead TALKING POINT

BY CHAD MARLOW

I

am not a bit surprised the County Committee selected Alice Cancel to fill the 65th Assembly District seat of disgraced former Speaker Sheldon Silver. Truth be told, I am more surprised that anyone is surprised by how the election operated or what its results were. While people may justly criticize the process for being less than democratic (with a small “D” — it was very much Democratic with a big “D”), that is the process we have chosen for filling such vacancies. If people are truly offended, I suggest trying to change the process for the next time, starting now. It is very hard to achieve change in the midst of an election, where supporting or opposing change inevitably feels political.

vacated by Steve Sanders. Friedman held the position for just seven months before she was defeated in the 2006 Democratic primary by current Assemblyperson Brian Kavanagh. This is not to say I am predicting defeat for Alice in the September primary — I am merely pointing out that a far more important and decisive election is around the corner.

All that said, should we even care about what happened at County Committee on Feb. 7? The answer, albeit on a different level, is yes.

While I do not live or vote in the 65th Assembly District, I have a daughter who attends public school on the Lower East Side and I serve on Community Board 3, which covers that area, so I very much consider myself a member of that community. I also understand a bit of history, so I know that the Lower East Siders have benefitted from having two of the most powerful and influential members in the history of the state Assembly representing them in Albany: Shelly Silver and, before him, Al Smith.

The voters of the Lower East Side — including those who vote on the County Committee — need to accept a very unfortunate fact; namely, that whoever they send to represent them in Albany will not have nearly the influence that Silver or Smith had. They may have it several decades from now or, more likely, never will again. This will have a direct and profoundly negative impact upon the community.

So, is there anything the 65th Assembly District can do about this unfortunate state of affairs? Yes, there is. The voters of the district can do everything in their power to elect a new assemblyperson with the intellect, leadership abilities, accomplishments and gravitas to command the respect of his or her new colleagues in Albany — or at least as much as a freshman legislator can hope to muster. Over time, perhaps such an impressive person will rise in the ranks, like Smith and Silver did.

This leads me to an unavoidable fact voters in the 65th Assembly District need to accept: a person who has been a district leader and government employee for decades is not going to be that person. No offense to Alice Cancel, but she is exactly the type of obvious, uninspiring selection that will garner a collective yawn in Albany. I am not certain any of the candidates who presented themselves for election before the County Committee fit the bill, but Alice surely does not.

Of the other candidates who presented themselves on Feb. 7, one was a young woman who seems to have garnered support based on identity politics, and not her paper-thin accomplishments. Two of the other candidates have been dogged by ethical controversies over the years and, as such — be those allegations fair or unfair — would be a particularly bad choice to succeed Silver.

A lot of positive things can be said about the Lower East Side and 65th Assembly District, and here is one of them: The community is a hotbed of highly progressive, highly talented, highly accomplished individuals, many of whom are also highly ethical. If the community’s residents want to recover from the severe damage Shelly Silver inflicted upon them, they must join together and identify

a candidate to elect in November 2016 that will cause Albany to collectively stand up and say, “Wow! The Lower East Side may just have sent us another assemblyperson for the ages.”

The people of the Lower East Side and 65th Assembly District, if they truly search their consciences, will know that type of person when they see him or her, and they should accept that such a person may not be active in local politics. Giants of the private, public and nonprofit sectors live in your midst. Go out, find that person, and send him or her to Albany to begin repairing the damage that has been done and restoring our community’s unrivaled Albany legacy.

Marlow is a member, Community Board 3 and Coalition for a District Alternative

Alice Cancel is exactly the type of person County Committees tend to elect.

So let’s talk about Alice Cancel.

Although I know very little about her, it seems this much is clear: Alice is a good person, a dedicated government employee who works for a Democratic elected official, and has served as a district leader for decades. (Parenthetically, I can’t believe this position still even exists, since it really hasn’t meant much since the days of Carmine DeSapio). This is exactly the type of person County Committees tend to elect.

While the wives of Shelly Silver and William Rapfogel may have voted for Alice — which was certainly poor form — in the end, that’s really much ado about nothing.

Nevertheless, if I were Alice, I wouldn’t sign a long-term lease in Albany just yet. The last time one of our local County Committees followed this pattern, it chose Sylvia Friedman, a good person, a dedicated government employee who worked for a Democratic elected official, and served as a district leader (sound familiar?), to fill the Assembly seat EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER

A photo of St. Mark’s Church, at E. 10th St. and Second Ave., in the style of a daguerreotype.

February 18, 2016

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PHOTOS ©PMC

Linda Troeller, left, with photographer Marcia Resnick, at the opening night for Resnick’s show. Troeller’s 2015 book “Living in the Chelsea Hotel” is a “photo journal” of the historic hotel.

‘Punks, poets & provocateurs’ at HOWL! Happening

H

From left, Chosei Funahara, Puma Pearl, Vito Bruno, Marcia Resnick, Clayton Patterson and Elyn Kuznetova.

Dina Jordan Pattillo, center, and David Pattillo, right, beside Resnick’s shot of John Belushi.

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February 18, 2016

OWL! Happening gallery is currently hosting a month-long exhibition of Marcia Resnick’s photographs of counterculture heroes, “Punks, Poets and Provocateurs: New York City Bad Boys 1977–1982.”

The show features signed contemporary silver prints and large archival pigment prints from Resnick’s photographic tour de force of what some call the counterculture’s final climax, with portraits of rockers Johnny Thunders, Joey Ramone, James Brown, Iggy Pop, David Byrne, Brian Eno and Mick Jagger; Beat poets and writers Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs; and provocateurs and raconteurs John Waters, Steve Rubell, Gary Indiana, Abbie Hoffman and Norman Mailer, plus Andy Warhol and the incomparable John Belushi. The show runs through March 2. For more photos of New York City events by Patrick McMullan, go to http://www.patrickmcmullan. com/site/index.aspx .

Fly was in fine style.

EastVillagerNews.com

Discover a new state of Tennessee

Late Williams works embrace ‘bigger than life, juicy characters’

PHOTOS BY ANTONIS ACHILLEOS

L to R: Patrick Darwin Williams, Kate Skinner, Declan Eells and Jade Ziane in “The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde.”

BY TRAV S.D.

I

t’s been over 30 years now since the great American playwright Tennessee Williams passed away.

Little did anyone (least of all him) suspect in 1982 that the early 21st century would be a time of reevaluation and elevation of his late works. Most efforts from his last two decades were uncelebrated, to put it mildly. Most were unproduced in his time. Those that did see the light of day were panned by critics, unfairly compared to his early masterpieces like “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” But that has been steadily changing. In recent years, New York has seen critically acclaimed productions of such late Williams works as “In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel,” “Green Eyes,” EastVillagerNews.com

“Clothes for a Summer Hotel” and “In Masks Outrageous and Austere.”

One key player in this Williams Renaissance has been Romanianborn stage director Cosmin Chivu.

Among his credits are a revival of the 1981 play “Something Cloudy, Something Clear” in the 2011 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, and his 2013 hit production of Williams’ 1966 oddity “The Mutilated,” starring Mink Stole and Penny Arcade.

Two years ago, Chivu sat on a Tennessee Williams panel sponsored by the Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company. This lead to his directing a Sept. 2015 staged reading of John Guare’s “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven” for the company, which resulted in Playhouse Creatures hiring him to direct “Tennessee

L to R: Ford Austin, Kate Skinner in “A Recluse and His Guest.”

Williams 1982.” The production — which features the late-career oneacts “A Recluse and His Guest” and “The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde” — is running at Walkerspace through Mar. 13.

“A Recluse” is a Scandinavianflavored parable about an outcast woman who briefly finds love and safety in the arms of a half-witted, skittish hermit. “The Remarkable Rooming-House” is a punk-era black comedy, with detectable overtones of Samuel Beckett, Joe Orton, John Waters, and Derek Jarman.

Miraculously, Chivu and his set designer Justin West have built a space for both plays to live in that is at once warm, cluttered, elemental, and timeless.

“These two plays work together on stage surprisingly well,” says Chivu.

“Though set in very different worlds they have extraordinary things in common. ‘A Recluse and His Guest’ is unique and unprecedented, unlike anything else Tennessee Williams has written. It may surprise the audience.

It’s written like a fable or a folk tale, set in an unspecified Northern Europe — we’re imagining it somewhere north of Norway. ‘The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde’ is a rough political commentary, seen through the eyes of characters in an attic in London in the 1980s.”

Each work is set in a location that, Chivu notes, is “unusual for Williams,” with a tone that is “far from realism. Both plays have the recurring theme of life in imposed exile and fear of accepting love. And TENNESSEE continued on p. 22 February 18, 2016

21

Exile and survival are key in two by Tennessee TENNESSEE continued from p. 21

at the bottom of both is a familiar theme from Williams’ work: how a woman survives. Each of the two plays complements the other. They are like windows into Tennessee Williams’ soul.”

With European training in the experimental theatre and a master’s from the Actors Studio, Chivu sees the late work of Tennessee Williams as “a perfect combination requiring both approaches. It’s written with experimental precision, but very well-structured. It’s full of ideas and free imagery, which excites me as a director. All these challenges. You read it on the page and you say to yourself, ‘How am I going to do this?’ He has a character hanging from a hook for 45 minutes and then falling down. How do you do that without compromising the voice of the playwright? As a director, I think hard about how to honor what the playwright wants first and try to stay focused on that. At the same time, I’m not afraid to make changes that bring his visions to fruition, to create a three-dimensional experience, to give it flesh and bones.”

Chivu also embraced an opportunity to explore “these bigger than life, juicy characters” found in the pair of one-acts that comprise “Tennessee Williams 1982.” That element was always to be found in his plays, says Chivu, “but he stopped apologizing for it in his later work and just went for it.”

Two of the actors to watch out for in the present production are Ford Austin and Kate Skinner. Austin recently fought his way back from a near fatal accident and a prognosis of total paralysis in 2013, to give an amazing, moving performance as Ott, the titular “Recluse.” Skinner demonstrates tremendous range as both Ott’s sweet, needy “Guest,” as well as the sexy, serial-killing Mme. Le Monde, underlining the evening’s thematic throughline.

It’s a thought-provoking and moving evening of theatre, and this observer intends to continue watching Chivu’s work with great interest.

“Tennessee Williams 1982” plays through Mar. 13. Preview performances Thurs.–Sat., Feb. 18–20 at 7:30 p.m.

Opening Sun., Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. Regular performances Wed.–Sun., Feb. 24–28, Mar. 2–6 & Mar. 9–13 at 7:30 p.m. Sat., Feb. 27, Mar. 5 & Mar. 12 at 3 p.m.

At Walkerspace (46 Walker St., btw.

Broadway & Church St.). For tickets ($40 general, $50 premium), visit playhousecreatures.org or call 800-838-3006.

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February 18, 2016

PHOTOS BY ANTONIS ACHILLEOS

Kate Skinner demonstrates tremendous range as a sweet, needy visitor in “A Recluse and His Guest” and as the sexy title character in “The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde” (seen here).

Ford Austin (seen here in “A Recluse and His Guest”) overcame a prognosis of total paralysis, to give a moving performance as Ott — the titular “Recluse.”

EastVillagerNews.com

In the land of pages, gamers stage this

Jefferson Market Library hosts live-action roleplay true love at the ball, but they don’t know who that is until the end of the game. Players only know the details about their own character, and have to mingle to learn about the others.

All of the dialogue and interaction is improvised. Character have unique personality traits, and abilities like magical spells and/or sword fighting skills. These can be used to vie with one another for the favor of a particular dance partner, or to learn clues about the backstory of the game’s setting and characters.

“Dance” uses a format similar to speed dating, where Ladies can choose a Lord to dance with, and converse while waltzing. The dancing is real, and each performance of “The Dance and the Dawn” involves a brief lesson on how to waltz. The event lasts four hours, with players dancing, then taking breaks to mingle and converse. Tusk says this format “shepherds the players through each moment of their experience, rather than leaving them to putter around unguided and find their own interactions.”

Tusk designed the game so that characters have ideal “pairings” in which every Lady has a specific Lord who is ideally suited to her. Ending up in the right pair might seem like a way to win the game, but Tusk doesn’t see it that way. According to him, “The player’s goal should be to experience the most compelling story, and that can certainly happen whether or not the character finds true love.

I’ve had PCs [player characters] undergo devastating romantic tragedies and walk out feeling like it was a really cool thing to witness from the inside. For that matter, I’ve had players deliberately forgo true love because they were so attached to the ‘wrong’ PC romances that they developed over the course of the game. It would be incredibly foolish to say that those people ‘lost.’ ” “Dance” has been produced in a variety of locations, including college classrooms, Off-Off Broadway theaters, and a games cafe in Beijing, with the most recent NYC proGAMERS continued on p. 24

THE NEW SOUND OF

IMAGE BY GONZALO ORDONEZ

Game designer Warren Tusk’s “The Dance and the Dawn” is a gothic fairy tale for 15 players who waltz and duel while searching for true love.

BY CHARLES BATTERSBY

A

generation ago, “Dungeons & Dragons” redefined the word “game” to many people. In D&D, players created roles for themselves, and Dungeon Masters told stories that starred those characters. However, this sort of “roleplaying game” doesn’t have to be about killing monsters, or played sitting around a table.

Some people take their games away from the table and do live-action roleplaying, or LARP. Paracelsus Games creates and publishes a form of LARP called “Theatrical Experiences,” which have elements in common with games and improvisational theater. They recently presented one such LARP called “The Dance and the Dawn,” in conjunction with the New York Public Library (NYPL).

The term LARP is often associated with people running around in parks, with foam swords (this is EastVillagerNews.com

what players call “boffer” LARP).

“The Dance and the Dawn” does have some swordplay, but the focus is on character interaction between its 15 players. These players take on the roles of noble Ladies and Lords at a midnight ball, where everyone is seeking out their true love. Each player is assigned a role in advance by the person hosting the game. In this case, the event is hosted by representatives from the NYPL and Paracelsus Games, but anyone can buy a copy of the game and host their own performance.

Warren Tusk, the Creative Director at Paracelsus Games, is the author of “The Dance and the Dawn” — which he describes as being “different from boffer LARPs, in that it focuses on heavy roleplay with no physical-sport combat element, and different from ‘Nordic’ LARPs, in that it works largely with elaborate pre-created plot and characters.”

Every character in “Dance” has a

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23

Gamers bring ‘Ice and Ash’ to life, in library

PHOTOS BY LIZ SUSMAN KARP

The Prince (Eduardo Perez) and Lords (Kristen Hendricks, Stefan Huber, Brian Farr and Steve Chang) watch an unusual twist of events as Lady Jade (Nicole Orabona) challenges Lord Paleos Kalbrock (Jeff Wirth) to a duel.

GAMERS continued from p. 23

duction having taken place on Jan. 30 at the Hudson Park Library. This unusual venue, Tusk says, “provides useful gaming spaces, and helps us reach out to potential players that we wouldn’t have a way to reach on our own.”

Miranda Murray, the Library Manager at Hudson Park, notes that staging a LARP was a new experience for her. “I’m always looking for new and exciting programs and new things to attract people to our library,” she says. “We’re in

the West Village, and we certainly have lots of cultural institutions in the neighborhood that are exciting for our patrons, and I was looking for something to compete with that, and have something new.”

Just about any LARP will involve NPCs or “non-player characters.”

They portray characters, just like players do, but the NPCs are part of the staff hosting the show. In “Dance,” the NPCs are the Queen of Ice, and the Duke of Ash. Players compete to earn the favor of the Queen and Duke, and can even unravel a mystery about their backstory, which might affect

The Queen (Aili Klein) rebuffs the advances of Lord Paleos Kalbrock (Jeff Wirth) during a recent run of “The Dance and the Dawn,” whose sequel will come to Jefferson Market Library on Mar. 4.

how the game plays out.

At the Hudson Park Library show, we spoke with the people who played the NPCs, David Kotsonis (the Duke of Ash) and Aili Klein (the Queen of Ice). Both of them first experienced the show as players in past productions, but volunteered to play NPC roles. “I watched the Duke and the Queen have their very dramatic moment, I was like ‘Wow! I want to do that!’ ” said Klein of her earlier experience as a player.

Kotsonis explained that players are allowed to read the game documents about other characters after

the game, and he was “struck by the Duke and Queen’s backstory, and the Duke’s side of it,” so he asked to play the role himself in the recent production.

Interested players who missed the Jan. 30 production can participate in the sequel to “The Dance and the Dawn,” called “Dreams of Ice and Ash.” The action unfolds at Jefferson Market Library (corner of Sixth Ave. & W. 10th St.) on Fri., Mar. 4, from 6–10 p.m. The event is free, but interested players must register before Fri., Feb. 26. To do so, visit paracelsus-games.com.

Buhmann on Art

Richard Aldrich at Gladstone Gallery

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN

B

orn in 1975, New York-based Richard Aldrich creates paintings and sculpture that range in scale, material, and technique. He works with printed dibond and ceramic appliqué, for example, as well as with the traditional oil on canvas.

Believing in the free mixture of forms and materials without being restricted by a particular style or context, Aldrich focuses on layering information and inspiration sourced from everyday life. Here, motifs reoccur and evolve, allowing objects from the artist’s life to become symbolic protagonists in a deeply personal narrative. As is reflected in its title, “Richard Aldrich: Time Stopped, Time Started” will explore notions of time and memory, both philosophi-

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February 18, 2016

PHOTOS COURTESY GLADSTONE GALLERY

Installation view, “Richard Aldrich: Time Stopped, Time Started.”

“Time,” said Richard Aldrich, “can be used as a medium, just like oil paint.”

cally and as a visual tool. In fact, Aldrich has stated: “Time can be used as a medium, just like oil paint.”

Through Mar. 5 at Gladstone Gallery (515 W. 24th St. btw. 10th & 11th Aves.). Hours: Tues.–Sat. 10a.m.–6p.m.

Call 212-206-9300 or visit gladstonegallery.com.

EastVillagerNews.com

Just Do Art

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

FRIED CHICKEN AND LATKES

“I grew up Black and Jewish,” recalls Rain Pryor, “which means I’m proud, but I feel guilty about it.”

That’s more than enough material to build a comedic persona around, if not an entire career — but for Rain, daughter of Richard, tales of her struggle with racial and religious identity in the ’60s and ’70s are springboards from which to leap toward contemporary truths, not crutches that keep her tethered to the past. Pacing the stage and occasionally mimicking her father’s cadences with genetically impeccable precision, Rain’s searching eyes, skeptical tone, and well-parceled expressions of exasperation are unmistakable products of her paternal legacy — but the daughter distinguishes herself with observational material that dad simply wasn’t built to ponder, let alone fathom with such nuance and depth.

Riffing on the West African dashiki garment, Rain likens it to a caftan, then shifts gears for those in the audience who might not grasp either reference (“If you don’t know what a caftan is, it’s a housecoat with flowers.”). Expect plenty of likeminded cross-cultural outreach at Pryor’s autobiographical solo show, “Fried Chicken and Latkes,” in which she recalls her Beverly Hills upbringing, retraces her father’s path, and finds her own identity — as a woman, an artist, and a mother. Not enough for you?

There’s also material from her days as a sitcom actor, a stand-up comic, and a cabaret singer. To paraphrase kindred spirit Gilda Radner: You don’t have to be Black and Jewish to like it, but it wouldn’t hurt.

Wed., Feb. 24, 7 p.m. at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Place). For tickets ($35, $25 for Museum members, $15 for students with valid ID), call 646-437-4202 or visit mjhnyc.org. Artist info at rainpryor.com.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY’S 13th ANNUAL LOVE N’ COURAGE FUNDRAISER

An East Village treasure you can always bank on, Theater for the New City (TNC) has spent three decades discovering new talent, keeping ticket prices affordable, and fighting the EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTO BY CHRISTINE JEAN CHAMBERS

Guilt, pride and punchlines: Rain Pryor performs her autobiographical show “Fried Chicken and Latkes” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

PHOTO BY PETER RAD

Gonna make you sweat: Megan Hill puts a select group through their paces, during “The Last Class: A Jazzercise Play.”

Mon., Feb. 22. Cocktails at 6 p.m., dinner at 6:45 p.m., performance and presentation at 8 p.m. At the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South, btw. Irving Pl. & Park Ave. South). For tickets ($175 each, $150 each for tables of 10 to 12), call 212-254-1109 or visit theaterforthenewcity.net.

THE LAST CLASS: A JAZZERCIZE PLAY

COURTESY TNC

Betsy Von Furstenberg, as she introduced Edward Albee the year he was honored at TNC’s Love N’ Courage benefit.

good fight by giving the green light to countless projects that advance the causes of social justice, sexual liberation, and limitless silliness. But putting their money where their mouth is costs a lot of green. That’s where this annual fundraiser comes in, which helps shore up TNC’s bottom line while paying tribute to key figures in the arts community who support the development of new works for the stage.

This year’s Love N’ Courage event, which will raise funds for TNC’s emerging writers programs, salutes the actress and philanthropist Betsy Von Furstenberg (19312015), along with sculptor and painter Donn Russell. Among those offering tributes will be David Am-

ram, Phoebe Legere, KT Sullivan, the Yip Harburg Foundation Rainbow Troupe, TNC’s Street Theater Company, dancer Cha-Lee Chan and Eric Yves Garcia. Downtown performers Phoebe Legere and Matt Morillo will emcee. Cecilia Johnson and J. Seward Johnson, Jr. will also be acknowledged (their Johnson Theater is one of four TNC stages on which countless writers, directors, actors, designers and producers have presented new work). So turn off the idiot box, venture into the night, and find yourself transported to a time when — says TNC Executive Director Crystal Field — “theater was what television is today. It was the place to go, where art was created.”

If you haven’t quite gotten around to making good on those New Year’s resolutions to exercise more and support the arts, the sweaty multitaskers at newly formed DODO: A Theater Collective are here to help. At each performance of “The Last Class: A Jazzercize Play,” two ticketholders will be able to join playwright Megan Hill on stage, as she assumes the persona of Kelsea Wiggan — a deeply insecure instructor who refuses to surrender herself to Zumba, even as that trendy exercise regimen threatens her reign at the Chikatawnee Valley Community Center. With meltdowns that number higher than her heart rate, even ever-patient co-instructor MJ (Amy Staats) can’t keep things from deteriorating, as Wiggan leaps about the stage in a brave but misguided attempt to marry ’80s-style aerobics with the music of Adele, Macklemore, and Imagine Dragons.

Wed.–Fri. at 8 p.m., through Mar. 5, at TheaterLab (357 W. 36th St., third floor, btw.

Eighth & Ninth Aves.). For tickets ($18) visit dodotheater.com. To “take the class,” send an email to askadodo@gmail.com.

February 18, 2016

25

John Farris, 75, bohemian poet who was integral FARRIS continued from p. 1

the Lower East Side. He insisted that you listen to him — whether you wanted to or not.

Though he was constantly writing, Farris didn’t actually publish much — a single novel, “The Ass’s Tale,” put out in 2010 by the Unbearables collective, a slim volume of poetry, “It’s Not About Time” (Fly By Night Press, 1993) and some chapbooks — along with numerous poems, short stories and essays he contributed to magazines, art journals and anthologies.

Yet his influence extends far beyond what ended up in print: In 2008, the Howl! Festival named him poet laureate of the Lower East Side, and in 2013 he won an Acker Award for his novel, and in recognition of his life spent performing and mentoring other writers and artists — many of whom went on to achieve national prominence.

“His work was extraordinary. He plucked these gorgeous, surreal and very funny poems out of thin air,” said writer Darius James, who first encountered Farris in 1983 when Farris was living in the back room of Life Cafe on Avenue B and running a weekly reading series there.

James credits Farris with helping school him in his artistic roots.

“John was definitely part of the black bohemian scene that’s been in existence and largely undocumented since the 1840s,” said James, author of “Negrophobia” and “That’s Blaxploitation.”

“He knew all the black musicians, writers and artists who were prominent in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. He knew them from hanging out in places like Slug’s,” James added, referring to the old jazz spot on E. Third St. “So you had a sense of continuity from John.

He was part of the Lower East Side bohemian spirit.”

“He was a great poet. He owned the streets. He really was of the neighborhood. A fixture,” said Bob Holman, founder of the Bowery Poetry Club.

“He was also a synesthete, someone who could see sounds and hear colors, for whom the senses mix. You can hear it in a lot of his jazz poems. They are filled with crazily imaginative language that is like synesthesia.”

Though fiercely political — he was at one time a bodyguard to Malcolm X — Farris eschewed any inkling of black nationalism, hewing instead to a more universal aesthetic.

“John was the first black poet I met who didn’t talk about the black experience in his poetry, and I was impressed with that,” said renowned conceptual artist David Hammons, who considered Farris a muse.

“He had a sense of humor and I really liked that,” Hammons continued.

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February 18, 2016

PHOTO BY HISASHI

John Farris on the roof of Bullet Space, circa 2000.

PHOTO BY MAGGIE WRIGLEY

John Farris in 2015 in the vestibule at Bullet Space, a former squat on E. Third St.

“Wherever he went he could seduce the bartenders to give him free drinks.

I watched him go from place to place — Life Cafe, Vazac’s, 2A, NuBlu. Everywhere he went, he’d sit at the corner of the bar and hold court. He would, like, own the bartender because of his mouth.” (Of course, that same mouth got him 86’d from most places, too.)

He also was a ladies’ man and a “prolific father,” joked his daughter Sienna, who lives in Brooklyn. He was married four times and fathered six daughters “that we know of,” she said.

A high-school dropout, Farris was remarkably well-read and would have enjoyed wider acclaim were it not for his determinedly outsider status and obstinate personality.

Part of that owed to his difficult upbringing. He was born in Far Rockaway in 1940 and raised by a single mother who was part Seminole and from the South. They lived with his two sisters and brother in a small apartment with a shared bathroom down the hall.

“The library was my refuge,” Farris said in an interview. He left home when he was 17 and began hanging around the coffeehouse scene in Greenwich Village.

I was born in 1940 on Manhattan, “Island of Hills”, “Place of Inebriation.” placer of muskrat, beaver and mink. My ancestors built a wall for the Dutch to keep them contained, out like a line in the sand, being thereby kept both in and out, effectively dividing themselves against themselves for the patroons…

— from “Heritage,” 1999 (for Amadou Diallo) “He was one of the original Beats in his way. He came of age among the Beats,” said Dalton Anthony Jones, an associate professor of cultural studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, who considers Farris his stepfather. “When I was kicked out of school at age 13, he took me under this wing and mentored me,” said Jones.

If Farris found freedom in the counterculture, he quickly ran up against its double standards. In 1959, he was smoking a joint with a couple of white Beatniks on Bleecker St. when he got busted for trafficking marijuana. Farris said his friend asked him to pass

a paper bag of pot to some guys, who turned out to be undercover cops “I didn’t know what was in the bag, it wasn’t even my reefer,” Farris later said. Yet, unlike his white counterparts whose families could afford lawyers, Farris was sentenced to three years.

While in prison, his mother passed away on the day of his 21st birthday.

“It was a big turning point in his life. He talked about that a lot,” said Jones. Another setback was the heroin overdose of his older brother, Philip, an artist and jazz musician.

Released from jail in 1961, Farris moved to a friend’s apartment on Avenue A, where he met his first wife, Chinyelu, a dancer for Babatunde Olatunji. They moved to Harlem, where he fathered two daughters and helped raise Sai, Chinyelu’s son from a prior relationship with actor Morgan Freeman.

According to Chinyelu, they lived off her dancing and Farris’s poetry.

“He’d go to jazz shows or stand on the streets of Greenwich Village and recite poems, and people would give him money for it,” she recalled.

Though never a Muslim, he was inspired by Malcolm X and served briefly as one of his bodyguards. On the night of the assassination, Farris was in the Audubon Ballroom, assigned to guard Malcolm X’s wife, Betty Shabazz. Farris’s wife, Chinyelu, then pregnant, was sitting in the front row with their first daughter and Sai. “When Malcolm was shot, the gunFARRIS continued on p. 27 EastVillagerNews.com

part of the Downtown literary and jazz scenes FARRIS continued from p. 26

shots were going and they were all running from the stage to the back of the ballroom, and John was running after the shooters,” recalled Chinyelu. “I know he later felt guilty that he hadn’t done more, though he shouldn’t have. They were shooting like crazy. It was total chaos.”

Phoebe Farris, his second wife, said John related the story differently: “John saved his first wife and their two children, who were in the front row during the shooting,” she said.

“His first instinct was to save his own family, and he felt guilty later.”

Disgusted by all the political infighting in the black militant scene in the wake of the assassination, Farris migrated to the Black Arts Movement, then under the orbit of Amiri Baraka — though again he found himself on the outskirts.

“During that period of black nationalism, he never succumbed to the easy answers of racial essentialism, even though that often put him at odds with some of the figures of that period,” said Dalton Jones. “He always maintained his own center of gravity.”

In the early ’70s, he taught poetry to kids at the Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem, where he worked with Phoebe.

“He invented a poetry board game for children and the kids loved it,” she recalled. “But he was not able to get funding to market it.”

They had a daughter, and Farris sought to make a name for himself on the poetry circuit, reading at jazz and dance performances and literary events alongside people like Quincy Troupe, Steve Cannon, Ntosake Shange, David Murray and Don Cherry.

His family describes Farris as a loving father, but quintessentially narcissistic and difficult to live with.

“He wanted to have the luxury of just writing and have others deal with the real world of paying the rent, etc.,” said Phoebe, who went on to become a professor of art and women’s studies at Purdue University.

“He was a creative genius and artist, but he made it clear to me he was devoted to his poetry and art first,” added their daughter, Sienna. “For him, it was like he had to make that decision.”

Following the breakup of his second marriage, Farris returned Downtown and assumed the role of poet full time. He had a remarkable knack for living rent-free. He lived with jazz great Ornette Coleman for six months in the early 80s. (“I was the doorman,” he quipped. “I let the ladies in.”) He also lived in back of the after-hours bookstore Neither/Nor on E. Sixth St., where he held a weekly reading series that fans say was not to be missed EastVillagerNews.com

John Farris in a costume of bones in “Barkelot,” a feminist performance piece.

A sculpture by John Farris made out of masking tape.

— hosting cutting-edge writers like Baraka, Kathy Acker, Miguel Pinero, Joel Rose, Catherine Texier and Patrick McGrath.

When Neither/Nor closed in 1986, he took up residence in a squat at 539 E. 13th St., where he held readings at the second-floor Alchemical Theatre. (Drunks, crackheads and other vagrants from this period turn up in writings, morphed into animals — including Farris himself.) He also lived in the basement of the Living Theatre

on E. Third St., where he served as a caretaker, staged plays and ran a midnight poetry series.

Dancer Patricia Winter recalled performing with Farris in her feminist performance piece “Barkelot” — she on a leash and Farris in a costume made entirely of cow bones.

“John was such a trooper,” she said.

“He was naked in this bone costume that weighed like 50 pounds, and he was already kind of crippled then, so he was limping, but he loved it. It was just

such a bizarre piece. [Painter] Al Loving did the set design and Frank Lowe, the saxophonist, played with us.”

When the Living Theatre closed in 1993, the artists at Bullet Space took him in.

“Bullet Space was a godsend for John,” said Jones. “He really did a lot of writing and readings there.”

In the 1990s, Farris also helped out at poetry workshops at the East Village’s Tribes gallery, and was an editor for the literary journals “Peau Sensible” and “Sensitive Skin,” deeply influencing that close-knit circle of writers.

“He was our loa, our Papa Legba,” said writer Norman Douglas, referring to the Vodou spirit trickster and elocutioner.

Still, friends say his obstinate personality often got in the way of more worldly success.

“He was definitely an antagonist.

He was a difficult man. He ended up burning a lot of bridges,” remarked Jones.

Darius James recalled the time he persuaded Bob Guccione, editor of Spin magazine, to allow Farris to interview Sun Ra, with whom Farris was tight.

“The interview was great,” James said. “It still gets quoted in academic circles. But John got mad when Spin didn’t pay him in a timely fashion. So he went up to the office and was like, ‘Mo’f--kas, give me my money!’ So Guccione had them cut him a check right there, but that was it,” James said, meaning Farris had blown up a good connection.

Similarly, Tribes impresario Steve Cannon said that shortly after he published Farris’s first book, “It’s Not About Time,” he arranged for Farris to guest lecture at Rutgers University, where Nuyorican poet Miguel Algarin was teaching.

“Rutgers was going to pay him like $1,500 and buy 60 copies of the book,” Cannon recalled. “But when we went back in the storage room, we found all the books were gone. Farris sold them all to buy drinks at [the bar] 2A. “He was constantly getting in fights with people,” laughed Cannon, a close friend. “Not only was he mean, he would kick someone’s ass if he got into a disagreement with them. I used to have to throw him out of Tribes all the time because he would antagonize these young poets I had helping me here. He got thrown out of the Nuyorican [Poets Cafe] for berating the poets there.”

Farris made no apologies about such behavior. He reveled in the flaws of others, and himself.

Two years past fifty & I’ve got a pot belly.

My teeth, demolished bridges I can’t FARRIS continued on p. 30 February 18, 2016

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February 18, 2016

EastVillagerNews.com

PHOTOS BY ROBBIELEEPHOTO.COM

A Seward Park player flying in a for a layup during a regular-season game.

Bears lose tough one to Wadleigh SPORTS

BY RICHARD KUSHNER

W

rapping up their regular season, the Seward Park High School boys varsity basketball team edged out a victory versus LaSalle Academy, 52-51.

Although it was not a high-scoring game, it was still extremely entertaining. In the past, Seward Park might have lost a close game like this one. But this year’s seniors are much more mature now and were

able to hold on for the win. D’Andre McLamb hit two foul shots to win it.

Next, the Bears went to Washington Irving High School on Irving Place on Feb. 4 and had one of their better games of the season, winning, 88-73. Everyone played well in that one, especially junior Dean Laboy, the team’s 6-foot-5 center, who found a dunk, his first of the season and his first of his varsity career. Dean has an opportunity to be a real star next season if he works hard in the classroom and on the court.

The team then traveled uptown

on Feb. 9 to Wadleigh High School for the Manhattan divisional championship.

Seward Park, however, lost a very tough game to Wadleigh, 57-51, and was knocked out of the Manhattan playoffs. The Lower East ballers had cut a 10-point lead down to one with 15 seconds left. But the game ended in some controversy, as the Bears got hit with three technical fouls, the first one coming when Coach Wallace Simpson protested his players were repeatedly getting hacked while shooting.

Citywide championships are up next.

Seward Park Coach Wallace Simpson has his “X” ’s and “O” ’s down.

EastVillagerNews.com

February 18, 2016

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John Farris, bohemian poet who chronicled L.E.S. FARRIS continued from p. 27

cross anymore; the abutments list in weak gums — from “Bridges,” 1993 Farris was also stubborn about not pushing to get his stuff in print “It was a willful choice not to publish,” said Douglas. “Like Socrates, he felt it was more important to reach somebody through his voice in person, to imprint oneself via the oral, than through the written word.”

Drafts for Farris’s phantasmagorical novel, “The Ass’s Tale,” circulated around the Lower East Side for years before Ron Kolm of the Unbearables collective persuaded Farris to let them publish it. The book, which won a PEN Oakland Award in 2011, is a satirical play on the ancient Latin novel “The Golden Ass,”

by Apuleius. It’s also a shaggy-dog tale about a down-and-out drifter who turns into a dog, suffused with punning references to jazz, mythology and pop culture.

“He mixes in all these pop references but the dude is actually a classicist,” noted Kolm, who said he was “in awe” of Farris’s writing.

Farris loved the Lower East Side; he said he found “everything” he needed there. His work captured the life and cadence of the neighborhood with meticulous detail. He found wonder in the most mundane, with funny puns that get inside your head and tug at you. “Sightings,” a chapbook he published in 2004 with Sisyphus Press, is made up of poems about sitting at his window watching a new building go up.

“He had a very photographic eye,” noted poet and publisher Steve Dalachinsky. “He told me he only wrote stoned. His drug of choice was weed.

He smoked weed constantly, and he would smoke before he gave readings.”

You can google videos of him reading alongside jazz musicians that should be preserved on vinyl for future generations to venerate. “Flatting Third” — a film poem produced by Ed Montgomery in 2008 — features the voice of Farris juxtaposed against panoramic views of Loisaida, accompanied by the searing trumpet of Jumaani Smith.

Partly on the suggestion of Hammons, who thought it would be a good way to earn money, Farris took up drawing in his latter years, producing scores of self-portraits and sketches that blanketed his walls, and sculpting heads out of plastic bags and masking tape. He had his first show in 2010 at Bullet, and sold several pieces to collectors.

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February 18, 2016

PHOTOS BY SARAH FERGUSON

Artwork that was on the walls of John Farris’s room when he died.

I draw like a precocious ten-year old. I draw blacks and make vivid color in black graphite, use self-portraits to suggest blue, anger say, to suggest red.

If I am brown, it is only in the context of the context, a wink to suggest the bright, the clever.

— from “Drawing,” 2015 But over the past decade, his health and his mobility declined markedly. Friends said he stopped drinking in 2000, after he suffered a minor stroke — or that’s what his family believes — it was never fully diagnosed.

“John always refused to go to the doctor. You could threaten to call 911, but he wouldn’t budge,” said Bullet Space co-founder Andrew Castrucci.

He had trouble walking and climbing the stairs to his fourth-floor apartment, so his fellow artists at Bullet helped care for him. Photographer/ writer Maggie Wrigley frequently brought him meals.

“He was one of the most creative, challenging and inspiring people I have ever met,” she said.

“He was like our grandfather,” added Castrucci.

“I saw him the week before [he died] on Avenue C,” said Holman.

“He was hobbling down the avenue on a double cane set, bent over like some kind of crazy happy beast. We joked about his getting back up on the bicycle. He loved to ride the bicycle.

He would ride it even when he had trouble walking. I don’t know why he grew so old so fast.”

“He got more isolated in the last year,” Castrucci said, “especially after Tribes [gallery] closed. He’d spend weeks up in his apartment without leaving.”

A drawing of a reader covered the screen of a Mac computer in his room.

… All my musician friends are dying Diz, Miles, Clifford Jordan, Philip Wil son; Sun Ra is in Alabama helpless with a stroke (O black world, I never imagined this life without Sun, without the stride piano, his sequined dance).

— from “Bridges,” 1993 Nevertheless, Castrucci believes he died happy.

“He didn’t die in the hospital. He drew every day. Right before he died, he was working on a new wave of poetry — some of his best stuff. It was all about drawing,” Castrucci said, sifting through the detritus of handwritten poems, sketches and loose tobacco mixed in with old bills and correspondence that littered the floors of his apartment.

“I’m finding unfinished novels in here.”

Farris’s ashes will be scattered under the maple tree in the backyard of Bullet, in accordance with his wishes. A celebration of John’s life and work will be held on April 29 at Judson Memorial Church, in the Village, at 55 Washington Square South, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There will be a retrospective show of his art and ephemera at Bullet Space in May. ********** At last I am Making Self-portraits I can Get myself Arrested for.

The bridge of the nose will finally take me to Brooklyn.

I’m back on

A memorial tribute on the front door of Bullet Space, at 292 E. Third St.

Positive Identification. It Balances The sneer of the lips The eyes Look you straight in the face With Pure arrogance. Yes, I confess — again, I did that I’m bad. ********** I had tried being born again in 1940: no fanfare (flash photographs of the Child-Me-Asleep, Under the Madonna’s Adoring Gaze, Magi), nothing fancy (halo, my first shoes, bronzed, made into bookends) — from “Born Again,” 1993 EastVillagerNews.com

LETTERS Continued from p. 18

The costs of child abuse To The Editor: As a survivor of child abuse from birth by parents, family and nonfamily, including nuns and priests, I want to thank you for publishing these articles about Adam Purple, child abuse and incest.

The Centers for Disease Control published a report in 2008, stating that, for the year, child abuse cost U.S. taxpayers $128 billion.

Child abuse affects everybody.

John Thompson

17 8th Avenue (between 12th and Jane)

Sarah Palin’s opportunism To The Editor: It was the 1950s and ’60s and I was being raised in a family of “spare the rod, spoil the child” Southern Baptist types. I have often said that the only sage words of wisdom my father imparted to me was when he raised his right hand over his left shoulder, and said, “Shut up, boy!”

If I did not shut up, he would backhand me across the room.

So when I hear Sarah Palin say her son is suffering from PTSD, I see a mother defending her child, as well as a woman who could very well be a victim of domestic violence herself.

And as a kindred spirit, my heart goes out to her.

However, another side of me sees an opportunist who claims to have high family values, yet tried to introduce unwed teen pregnancy to the White House; and is now defending domestic violence, and is using it as an excuse to attack the president over a war that she and her ilk started and couldn’t finish.

Jerry The Peddler E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager. com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 Metrotech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes.

The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published.

EastVillagerNews.com

www.leftbankbooksny.com leftbankbooksny@yahoo.com instagram @leftbankbooksny

Library is saving bits of Village and all of The Villager archives

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

E

veryone always says that the Village as we’ve known it is vanishing, a little bit more day by day. Well, The Jefferson Market Library will be helping to hold on to a bit — make that bits — of the historic Village through its new Greenwich Village Ephemera Project.

As Corrine Neary, the library’s senior librarian, explained the concept, “We’re collecting personal objects and mementos that tell a story, along with a short written narrative, from Village residents.”

She already put out notice of the project and has been receiving submissions, which so far have included things like postcards, photos and pins from Gay Pride and political events.

The display cases are small — around 13 inches by 13 inches by 2 inches deep. The opening will feature 15 objects.

“The items will be displayed all together at the opening, then on a rotating, ongoing basis in a display case in our lobby,” Neary said. “I will be returning them to their owners once the item has had its month in the display, but we are going to photograph the

212.924.5638

items, and hopefully compile a book with each object and story.”

Right now, the project will run for at least 15 months, but it could be extended if there’s interest.

“We could keep it going in perpetuity, if there’s interest,” Neary said.

The Ephemera Project will kick off with an opening reception Fri., April 1, at 6 p.m. at the library, at 425 Sixth Ave., between W. 10th and Christopher Sts. The 15 objects’ owners will be there to meet people and share the items’ stories. There will be light refreshments.

In other library news — literally — Neary reported some encouraging developments in the Jefferson Market branch’s ongoing digital archiving of The Villager’s back issues dating back to April 1933. First, it looks like the library will be able to complete the scanning of all the microfilm of The Villager’s back issues for digitizing within this year.

In addition, the New York State Historic Newspapers database is going to host The Villager’s archives on its own Web site, which is free, and the New York Public Library is working to put them on the library’s site, as well, according to Neary.

February 18, 2016

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