The Villager • April 7, 2016

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The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933

April 7, 2016 • $1.00 Volume 86 • Number 14

Outrage about AIDS facility’s sale to private developer boils over

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

I

ncensed local politicians and the chairperson of Community Board 3 gathered across the street from the former Rivington House on Forsyth St. Wednesday morning to decry a stealth deal that has seen the former Lower East Side nonprofit AIDS hospice

sold to a private developer for market-rate conversion.

The story has exploded in the past two weeks, with coverage in all the major print media, so it wasn’t surprising that the politicians were encircled by a large scrum of reporters.

To allow the deal, a deed RIVINGTON continued on p. 4

Assembly hopefuls are grilled on issues, take shots at Silver at forum

BY YANNIC RACK

F

our candidates vying to fill the seat of former state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver presented their platforms in a public forum last week, providing a thorough look at each of their priorities ahead of the special election this month for Lower Manhat-

tan’s 65th Assembly District.

The discussion, organized

by The Villager and the League of Women Voters of New York, gave the contenders a chance to make their case for why they are best suited to fill the seat recently vacated by Silver after the longtime representative was FORUM continued on p. 10

PHOTO BY SARAH FERGUSON

Bernie Sanders speaking in Mott Haven, the Bronx, last Thursday, kicking off his campaign for the critical April 19 New York presidential primary.

Bernie bombs da Bronx; Starts N.Y. primary push

BY SARAH FERGUSON

N

ew York — it’s on. Suddenly the New York primary on April 19 is being played as a critical contest for who will get to head the Democratic ticket.

And Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is making headway into former New York Senator Hillary Clinton’s “home” base.

Whereas Clinton chose to jumpstart her New York campaign with a packed pep

rally at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem, Sanders drew more than 16,000 people to his open-air rally at St. Mary’s Park in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx.

“If we win here in New York, we are going to make it to the White House,” Sanders told the boisterous crowd, underscoring the importance of the New York primary to his underdog campaign.

Though Hillary can lay claim to two terms as senator here, Sanders emphasized deeper roots.

“My father came to this country at the age of 17 from Poland without a nickel in his pocket, so I know a little bit about the immigrant experience,” Sanders told the enthusiastic, multiracial crowd.

“You are the heart and soul of this revolution,” added Sanders, who grew up in a three-and-a-half-room rent-controlled apartment in the Midwood section of Brooklyn.

Sanders’s voice was hoarse SANDERS continued on p. 8

IFC expansion a horror show?.........................page 3 L.E.S. hairdresser found dead.........................page 6 Schwartz and Glick on April 19.......................page 18 Califórnia love at Tribeca Film.....page 21

www.TheVillager.com

TO-DO OVER NIOU NODS: Winning some more key endorsements in her campaign for Assembly, Yuh-Line Niou last week received the backing of state Senator Daniel Squadron, whose Senate district includes more than 95 percent of the 65th Assembly District, and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, who represents the adjoining district to the north. Niou, who is running on the Working Families Party line, is one of four candidates in the April 19 special election for former Speaker Sheldon Silver’s seat. “Yuh-Line Niou has the energy, progressive ideals and focus on reform to make a big difference in the district and in Albany,” Squadron said. Added Kavanagh, “Yuh-Line will be exactly the kind of legislator we need to join the fight for affordable housing, stronger rent laws and proper maintenance and security in public housing. We know that corrupt landlords were at the heart of the scandal that created this vacancy; we need to change the way Albany works and nothing would be more appropriate than electing a truly pro-tenant reformer to fill this seat.” Niou called Squadron and Kavanagh “models of what we should expect from all our legislators.

I’ll be proud to stand with them as we work to make Albany more effective, transparent and responsive to the people of this community,” she said. The endorsements definitely ruffled the feathers of local Democratic politicos, among them Sean Sweeney of Downtown Independent Democrats. He accused some politicians of making the crass calculation that it’s better for their careers to back Niou since it would help them win Asian votes in the future if they run for higher office. The reasoning, Sweeney said, is that “there are more Asian voters in the city than Downtown voters.” Sweeney is also suspicious

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April 7, 2016

of Brad Hoylman backing Niou, wondering if the reform-minded state senator — as some rumors are saying — would want to run for state attorney general if — make that when — Eric Schneiderman runs for governor. “I’m pretty annoyed by this,” Sweeney told us. “They’re ignoring the people who put them into office and gave them a job in the first place, and are pandering to advance their own career and secure their next job. Unlike a lot of the Democratic electeds who are not loyal,” he declared, “the local Democratic rank and file are loyal to the Democratic nominee and the Democratic Party,” meaning they’ll vote for Alice Cancel come April 19. Told of Sweeney’s angry comments, Matt Rey, Niou’s campaign spokesperson, fired off a blistering response: “Insulting Lower Manhattan’s leading progressives is a sad tactic from a desperate campaign trying to deflect attention from their decades of support for Shelly Silver. Senator Squadron and Assemblyman Kavanagh are supporting Yuh-Line because she’ll stand up to wealthy special interests and reform Albany’s broken ethics laws, while Alice Cancel calls Shelly Silver a hero. Lower Manhattan voters are smarter than that.”

IT’S A GO-GO FOR GIGI: We’ve been hearing from reliable sources that Gigi Li will be running in the Democratic primary election for the 65th Assembly District in September. On Wednesday, after the press conference on Rivington House, the Community Board 3 chairperson confirmed, with a broad smile, that she will be. “I fully intend to run in the primary,” she assured, adding, “I think I have a track record that speaks for itself.”

THE GANG’S ALL THERE: Among those spotted at last Thursday’s candidates forum for the 65th A.D. special election on April 19 was Ti-Hua Chang, the veteran New York City TV news reporter. Chang, who seemed to be listening quite intently to what Yuh-Line Niou was saying, is known to be supporting Don Lee, who, like Li, also plans to run in the September primary. Some say Chang is actually Lee’s campaign manager. Also checking out the special-election candidates at the forum were District Leaders Jenifer Rajkumar and Paul Newell. They, too, both plan to run in the Assembly primary in September. Is anyone not running in that primary? Newell was smart, leaving no butts about whether people would see his campaign literature: He put his trilingual fliers on all the audience seats.

We saw Rajkumar stand up and listen very carefully when Niou was asked about the Democratic County Committee vote in February, when Niou — calling it a “flawed” process — dropped out of the running

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

Could this be... yet another candidate for Assembly?... . Actually, no, it was just E.T. in Washington Square Park a couple of weeks ago amid plastic trash from a presumed Easter egg hunt. But we hear he is putting out feelers...

when it was clear Alice Cancel would win the nomination. Asked if she would have accepted the nomination if she had won the vote, Niou basically said she wouldn’t have been able to because, well, at that point, she wasn’t in the running anymore.

SOLDIERING ON: Speaking of Niou, she is still showing some visible effects of the scary February accident when she was riding in an Uber car to pick up her mom at the airport and it was rear-ended.

Last week, Niou was sporting a big black brace over her right knee, and she told us that she is still wearing makeup to camouflage a large black bruise — her face hit the back of the driver’s pushed-back-toofar seat — that goes across her forehead and down her face along the side of her nose to the corner of her mouth. After she mentioned it to us, we could faintly see it through the makeup. But she was in her usual good spirits during the event — perhaps because she was getting a contact high from pro-pot Green Party candidate Dennis Levy sitting next to her? Just kidding!... We think!

COMMITTEE CREW: A race is also shaping up for Democratic State Committee in the West Side’s 66th Assembly District, where incumbent Buxton Midyette, who was elected last year to fill the seat left vacant by Alan Schulkin, is not running for re-election. The candidates include former District Leader John Scott, Deley Gazinelli, Dodge Landesman and Ben Yee. The Village Independent Democrats club might have a tough choice in this one. One would expect leading V.I.D.’er Assemblymember Deborah Glick to push for Scott. But Yee, who is the club’s treasurer and also the vice president of Young Democrats of America, is being honored by V.I.D. at its 59th Annual Awards Reception on Thurs., April 28, at Tio Pepe on W. Fourth St. And don’t count out Landesman, who previously was outmaneuvered for the state committee seat by the veteran labor honcho Schulkin. V.I.D. will also be honoring Steve Herrick, executive director of the Cooper Square Committee, for his work on behalf of affordable housing, and Soffiyah Elijah, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.

TheVillager.com

Attack of the 60-foot theater? Locals hope not

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

C

ut! Don’t roll it!

Villagers are having mega-fears that a Times Squarestyle movie megaplex will materialize at the site of the current IFC Center, if the property owner’s plans are approved by the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals.

On March 18, Friedland Properties, the owner of the indy moviehouse, at Sixth Ave. and W. Fourth St., applied to the B.S.A. for a variance to allow eight changes, among them increasing the theater’s current number of seats from 480 to 948, plus adding two more stories aboveground and a cellar level, as well as converting an empty residential lot into an indoor waiting area and space for more seats.

The existing IFC Center has five theaters ranging in size from 35 seats to 210 seats. The building was originally constructed as a church in 1853. After an interim period as a factory, in 1938 it opened as a movie theater and has operated that way since.

“However, the limited size and footprint of this 160-year-old building imposes significant restrictions in terms of theater layout and operation,” the application states. “The footprint...is also extremely inefficient in terms of patron circulation.”

The proposed expansion would create “an optimum size and layout to present a varied film product,” the application contends.

The current cinema lacks sufficient space for indoor queueing, forcing moviegoers to line up on the sidewalk outside, the owner notes. Under the proposal, part of the property — a residentially zoned open lot on Cornelia St. behind the theater — would be rezoned to allow commercial use, and would be developed, on the ground floor, as an 1,865-square-foot indoor waiting area for ticket holders. This rezoned section of the property would also have more than 200 theater seats.

The scheme would see the Cornelia lot sport a five-story windowless brick wall. Movie patrons would continue to enter and exit the theater on Sixth Ave. The Cornelia St. part of the property is landmarked as part of the Greenwich Village Extension II Historic District. However, in November, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission issued a certificate of appropriateness for the design plan for the Cornelia lot, saying, “the proposed building will fill a gap which currently disrupts the continuity of the street wall.”

To win B.S.A. approval for the changes, Friedland must prove financial hardship.

The IFC did, though, have a smash hit in 2011 with Werner Herzog’s 3-D documentary on historic cave paintTheVillager.com

PHOTO BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

An application has been submitted to expand the IFC Center by two stories and add 500 more seats.

ings, “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” With nearly $700,000 in ticket sales, the film generated more box office from one screen at IFC than any other film generated on a single screen in America in the past decade.

However, neighbors say the proposed expansion is way too big, and that there are too many unanswered questions. They have formed an ad hoc group, Friends of Cornelia St. Coalition, and hired top attorney Stu Klein to represent them. On Monday night, they held a fundraiser at Palma restaurant on Cornelia St. “They need to show hardship,” said David Gruber, head of the Carmine St. Block Association, part of the coalition.

“We think it’s a real estate scam. Friedland also owns a lot of property on Eighth St. “Our fear is it will become a big Trojan horse, especially if we give them 1,000 seats, up from 500 seats,” he added. “They could have gone to City Planning for a waiver. Instead they took it over to B.S.A., which has enormous power.

“If you can’t fill 480 seats, how does 1,000 seats make it easier?” Gruber asked. “They portray themselves to be a neighborhood art house, and here they are building something that’s so different from everything else,” he said of IFC. “Something doesn’t feel right in this whole thing,” Gruber said, “like we’re being taken for saps.”

Musician Leif Arntzen of Cornelia St., another leading member of the new group, said a serious concern is that, if the property gets expanded, it could

then get turned into a retail use.

“If you look at the drawings, they go down a full floor,” he noted of the plans.

“The lobby is designed to go all the way from Sixth Ave. to Cornelia St. You’ve IFC continued on p. 7

April 7, 2016

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April 7, 2016

RIVINGTON continued from p. 1

restriction on the Rivington House property — requiring it to be used as a nonprofit nursing home — first had to be lifted by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. The deed restriction had been in place since 1992, when the former public school was taken over by VillageCare, which turned the building into the country’s first residential AIDS treatment facility.

However, the deed restriction was quietly lifted this past November. The only notice was a small listing for an opportunity for public comment in the City Record.

The city received a $16 million payment from Allure Group in exchange for lifting the deed restriction, after which Allure then went on to flip the property mere months later, selling it to a luxury developer for $116 million.

At Wednesday’s press conference Borough President Gale Brewer, Councilmember Margaret Chin and Gigi Li, the chairperson of C.B. 3, called on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration to “compensate” the Lower East Side community for the loss of Rivington House.

They were joined by state Senator Daniel Squadron, Councilmember Rosie Mendez and local low-income seniors who are struggling to find adequate housing in their golden years.

In light of the shocking sale, Brewer and Chin are calling for reforms to prevent similar losses of community assets by creating transparency requirements for when the city is considering lifting any deed restriction. They said advance public notice must be given to local community boards, borough presidents and city councilmembers in these cases.

In addition, they said, a searchable online database of all properties subject to city-imposed deed restrictions must be made available.

“Mayor de Blasio has said he’d have blocked the city actions that led to the loss of Rivington House if he’d known about them, and I take him at his word,” Brewer said. “But admitting to a mistake is only the first half of owning up to it. If this deal is not reversed, we want the money in the community, to create a new community facility and replace the beds lost in the sale of Rivington House. And we must all work together to reform how the city handles deed restrictions, so this never happens again.”

The community had been aware that VillageCare was trying to lift the deed restriction before the building’s sale.

However, many were under the impression that it would become a for-profit nursing home — not a luxury condo project. A for-profit nursing home was something the community, in fact, supported.

Before Allure Group’s sale of the building to Slate Property Group was announced, Brewer, Chin and C.B. 3 all

PHOTO BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

Councilmember Margaret Chin, speaking at Wednesday’s press conference outside the former Rivington House, said she wants to know why and how the building’s sale to a developer went down.

expressed concerns to de Blasio administration officials regarding the lifting of the deed restriction — wanting assurances that it would not allow market-rate residential development.

The former AIDS facility is in Chin’s Council district and she spoke passionately about her disappointment about the secret real estate deal.

“At the beginning of last year, we were celebrating,” Chin said. “We thought we had kept Rivington House. To hear now that Rivington House [has been sold to a developer]... . The community has the right to know why and how this happened.”

Chin and Brewer have called for the city to give them all documents relating to the lifting of Rivington House’s deed restriction and the circumstances surrounding the sale. City Comptroller Scott Stringer previously subpoenaed all of these documents, and is now doing an investigation. In addition, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the Department of Investigation have opened their own investigations.

Brewer and Chin say they just want the same documents that have been pro-

vided to Stringer. So far, however, they have been stonewalled.

“I will continue to fight for the answer,” Chin vowed, of her efforts to find out how the shady deal went down. “But I am also focused on getting back what we lost. We don’t need an apology! We need action! That’s why I am introducing legislation to make sure this never happens again,” she said, referring to the reforms she is proposing.

Brewer and Squadron both stressed that this certainly didn’t have to be an “either or” situation, where the only options were a nursing home or high-end housing.

“You can sell it to another nonprofit or a for-profit that could have beds for others uses,” Brewer explained. “It could be for assisted living, not just people with AIDS.” “The idea that it’s that or this — it just doesn’t pass the laugh test,” Squadron said, referring to the AIDS hospice and the expected market-rate development.

Squadron said that, yes, he and C.B. 3 had supported lifting the deed restricRIVINGTON continued on p. 30 TheVillager.com

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TheVillager.com

April 7, 2016

5

Two die of possible OD’s inside L.E.S. apartment

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

I

t’s speculated that an overdose or perhaps a bad batch of a drug, possibly heroin, may have killed two people who were found dead inside a Lower East Side building a few weeks ago.

Police responded to 155 Ridge St., Apartment 6D, on Mon., March 21, and found the victims at 12:30 p.m.

The pair were declared dead at the scene at 12:55 p.m. by E.M.S. medics.

Police identified the two as Loren Kirby, 59, who was living in the apartment, and Julio Fabian, 47, of 930 E. Fourth Walk in the Lillian Wald Houses, in the East Village.

One of them was found lying face up, the other face down. It was not a case of homicide, according to police.

It was unclear how long the two lifeless bodies had been there. Linda Griggs — a friend and neighbor of Kirby’s in the building who tipped The Villager off to the story — said her understanding was it might have been a day or more. She said Kirby’s roommate had grown worried and opened the door to check on them, only to find the grim scene.

Rumors immediately swirled, one saying heroin was involved.

Griggs said Kirby was a “hairdresser to the stars” with a national

Loren Kirby’s profile photo on Facebook, where he went by Mckinley Kirby.

clientele.

When The Villager called the police press department to confirm the two individuals’ deaths and their identities, a spokesperson did so — yet gave Kirby’s gender as female.

Told of that, Griggs said she always knew him only as a man.

Subsequently asked if police had gotten Kirby’s gender wrong — and what led them to jot it down as female — the police spokesperson said he could not offer an explanation. He suggested calling the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

However, Julie Bolcer, a spokesperson for the medical examiner, in

turn, responded, “O.C.M.E. can provide the cause and manner of death, which are currently pending further studies for both decedents. We cannot provide other information about decedents due to privacy reasons.”

Bolcer said the medical examiner had been in touch with Kirby’s next of kin.

Again, Griggs said, she always knew Kirby as a man, who was possibly gay.

“He seemed completely comfortable in his body,” she said. “He was so much a man that he would never be somebody else...and very handsome.

“He was an extraordinarily gracious neighbor and a kind person,” she said. “He showed up with a pile of books when I had surgery — thoughtful like that — and they were good books, too. And he was a very humble person.”

She said Kirby did go by some other names, including Max McKinley — she knew him as Max — and McKinley Kirby, the latter which was the name on his Facebook page (though spelled Mckinley Kirby). One entry on his social-media page shows a photo of him with country singer Tanya Tucker and the caption: “Get well soon we love you! McK/NYC.” Kirby’s other recent Facebook activity included anti-Trump posts and

photos of Kirby standing next to the artistic signpost at First Park, at E. Houston St. and Second Ave., that sports directional signs for “Love,” “Sadness,” “Sleep” and “Lust,” among other emotional and physical states.

Kirby’s final Facebook entry was Fri., March 18, at 9:39 p.m., when he shared a post by Lady Bunny — the famed New York drag queen and Wigstock founder — citing a 1981 quote by Nancy Reagan: “It is appalling to see parades in San Francisco and elsewhere proclaiming ‘gay pride.’ What in the world do they have to be proud of?”

Like Lady Bunny, Kirby was from Tennessee.

In another Facebook entry, from February, Kirby referred to a conversation he apparently had with Jackie Onassis: “I said to her ‘Mrs. Onassis, this is my friend Mary Steenburgen’ she turned to her longtime companion and said ‘Murice [sic], you know Mary from the movies’ then she turned back to me and said ‘and you are?’ I answered ‘Carly’s hairdresser.’

She said knowingly ‘Of course you are.’ I could never call her Jackie, to me she was Mrs. Onassis.”

Griggs said an informal memorial was held at an East Village restaurant and that there will be another one in Tennessee.

Ferrara job’s sweet ’72 Easter haul netted $55K FLASHBACK

BY YANNIC RACK

T

hey grabbed the cash but left the candy.

On an Easter weekend more than 40 years ago, Little Italy was shaken by a brazen team of safecrackers, who bagged $55,000 in weekend receipts from Ferrara, the famed pastry shop on Grand St.

According to an article in The Villager from April 6, 1972, merchants and residents alike were stunned by the break-in at the local landmark.

“Stealing from Ferrara’s is like vandalizing a shrine, and the incident shocked the community,” the article reported.

The robbers bypassed the shop’s pastries and candies, which the article noted were sold all over the world, and instead went for the office safe, busting it open with a crowbar and acetylene gas torch.

A creative menu brought to you by Chef Franco Barrio with locally sourced produce serving New York style food in the heart of the West Village.

Apparently the establishment’s owners wouldn’t comment on the daring burglary, though one manager shrugged off the crime with a dramatic comparison — which served to underscore the shop’s standing in the neighborhood.

“Like a kid who chomped too hard on a piece of nougat candy, Ferrara’s was keeping its mouth shut this week,” read The Villager’s report. “[But] before caution took hold,” the article continued, “Mauro Magnani, the general manager, told a

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newsman, ’They desecrate Grant’s Tomb. Why not this place?’ ” The article noted that the loot reflected a busy Easter weekend at the shop, with tables heaped high with Easter candies, including a huge Easter egg that sold for $75.

In the end, the cafe recovered and the burglars didn’t succeed in robbing the community of its treasured cannoli and pasticciottos. Today, Ferrara still stands at the same spot between Mulberry and Mott Sts. where it opened in 1892.

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Locals fear IFC expansion got a street-to-street, enormous retail space. You’ve got five floors.”

Gruber said one negative scenario would be if the IFC became a 2,000-to3,000-square-foot restaurant, for example. He added that another concern is the length of IFC’s lease.

“If they have a short lease, what are we doing?” he asked of the expansion plan.

Perhaps the biggest fear of all is that IFC’s parent company is AMC Networks, which conjures up nightmare visions of the massive AMC theater on 42nd St. But Gruber and Arntzen both said they were a bit unclear about what exactly fell under the umbrella of AMC Networks. It may well not be AMC Theatres, they admitted — yet the mere name AMC is enough to give them horror movie-like chills.

Gruber conceded, “We could be off on all of this. Maybe they need 1,000 seats. Maybe they need to expand. They may get what they want — but we’re gonna get some answers.”

For starters, John Vanco, the Village theater’s senior vice president and general manager, gave some answers in response to The Villager’s questions.

Asked if, with the expansion, IFC’s programming would feature more blockbuster-style pictures, he said no.

“Independent films are at the core of IFC Center — they’re in our DNA,” he said. “In our 10-plus-year history, we haven’t opened a single Hollywood studio picture, and we have no plans to alter that policy. We bring smart, engaged audiences a wide range of independent and foreign films, classics and documentaries, and we’ll keep on doing just that. Cinemas in the Village have always championed new voices in independent cinema, and we’re very proud to share that history and responsibility. Both our current design and the plans for the expansion explicitly reflect the needs of our public and of the independent film community — intimately sized theaters offering the great variety of cinema that New Yorkers demand.

“Second,” Vanco stressed, “please note that the IFC Center’s parent company is AMC Networks — which is dedicated to producing quality original television programming, and owns and operates several award-winning brands in cable television, including AMC, IFC, SundanceTV and WE tv. The IFC Center and AMC Networks are not related in any way to AMC Theatres. The IFC Center is the only cinema owned or connected to AMC Networks.”

Asked how doubling the number of seats would help the place turn a profit, Vanco said the problem actually isn’t filling seats — but rather that the theater cannot currently accommodate everyone who wants to see flicks there.

“IFC Center’s diverse programming TheVillager.com

draws consistently large crowds who are clamoring for more great cinema,” he said. “The greater number of theaters and the large new lobby — nearly 10 times as big as our current lobby — will allow our patrons a much better experience while waiting to attend a broader offering of films, with fewer people turned away from sold-out shows.”

Asked what exactly IFC Center’s financial hardship is, he said, in fact, it’s a “textbook example.”

“Zoning variances are intended to alleviate the ‘financial hardship’ for properties that cannot generate a reasonable return on their value because they are burdened by unique physical conditions,” he explained. “The IFC Center property is a textbook example of this kind of site. Its shape is highly, and singularly, irregular; it is divided by a zoning district boundary; and it is occupied in part by a 160-year old building in a historic district that has been used as a theater since 1937. Moreover, the existing building is sited in a way that precludes obtaining a positive return from development of the vacant portion of the property in accordance with the applicable zoning controls. The requested variance would relieve IFC of the burden of carrying this partially developed property and allow it to utilize its entire site in a way that produces the ‘reasonable return’ that is the goal of the variance process.”

Asked how long the IFC Center has left on its lease, Vanco said they hope to stay there for the long run.

“We are in the middle of a long-term lease with our landlord and the fixed costs represented by the vacant portion of our lot are a major concern,” he answered. “There is significant demand for the film programs that IFC Center presents, and this expansion project is crucial in order for us to continue our commitment to be the West Village’s neighborhood art-house theater for decades to come.”

Asked if the expanded theater, in fact, could be swiftly transformed into a retail space, Vanco said such a bait-andswitch is not IFC’s plan at all.

“The B.S.A. variance is exclusive to this specific use — the property must be used in accordance with the approved plans,” he said. “Any change to the approved plans would require a new public process. Further, the IFC Center is investing millions of dollars to create a facility that specifically serves the needs of the independent film constituency, a facility we believe will be the finest independent film center in the nation. Our investment speaks to our commitment to this use, to our very existence.”

The application will be considered by the Community Board 2 Land Use and Business Development Committee at its Wed., April 13, meeting at 6:30 p.m., at the Scholastic Building, 557 Broadway, 11th floor conference room.

Photography courtesy of Enrico Varrasso. See more at www.enricovarrasso.com

IFC continued from p. 3

LOIS RAKOFF, COMMUNITY DIRECTOR OF THE POE ROOM, AND NYU ANNOUNCE

OPEN CALL TRYOUTS FOR “VISIONS OF POE” Creative individuals of all ages are encouraged to audition for the chance to illuminate the life and legacy of Edgar Allan Poe through mediums such as dance, drama, music, painting, sculpture, readings, performances, or other forms of expression.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis until Monday, April 18. Make your submission online at goo.gl/N2QitB or call 212-998-2400.

And save the date for “Visions of Poe,” on Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 6:00 pm at the NYU School of Law, Furman Hall, 245 Sullivan Street, Room 216 (between West 3rd and Washington Square South). RSVP today at www.nyu.edu/nyu-in-nyc or 212-9982400.

Community members and NYU come together and partner on the Poe Room event each fall and spring.

April 7, 2016

7

Sanders and Berners put on push for N.Y. primary SANDERS continued from p. 1

as he cycled through the many themes of his campaign, from our “broken criminal justice system,” to the exploitation of immigrants, crushing student debt, and the clear and present threat of climate change.

“Instead of spending trillions of dollars on wars that never should have been fought, we are going to reinvest in the South Bronx,” Sanders vowed. “There is no reason that people should be paying 40 to 50 percent of their limited income for housing.

What this campaign is about is telling Wall Street and the billionaire class that they cannot and will not have it all.”

People waited for more than three hours to pass through the elaborate Secret Service screening in order to enter the cordoned-off section on the south end of the park, with a large overflow crowd watching from big monitors in an adjacent baseball field.

Warming up the crowd, actress Rosario Dawson, who endorsed Sanders last week, sought to debunk the criticism coming from the Clinton camp that Sanders had dismissed the concerns of women when he declined to lambaste Trump over his comment about “punishing” women who obtain illegal abortions.

(Sanders called the proposal, which Trump later reversed, “shameful.)

Dawson said Sanders had merely been urging the media to stop giving Trump so much free airtime and instead focus on more important issues than the latest Trumpism.

“Shame on you, Hillary,” she said.

Dawson pulled no punches when it came to taking on Clinton’s record.

“Two million people were stopped because of [the N.Y.P.D. program] stop and frisk when she was senator, and she said nothing,” Dawson said.

“I’m a New Yorker… We’re not interested in being divided. We don’t have to vote for the lesser of two evils.”

Also turning out for Sanders was movie director Spike Lee, who told the crowd: “We have to speak to our parents. The older generation, they’re on this Clinton thing. We got to get their minds right! Bernie’s gotta win New York — even Staten Island!”

Sanders was introduced by Grammy-winning rapper Residente of the Puerto Rican group Calle 13, who called Sanders “the most honest candidate there is.”

Residente, whose real name is René Pérez Joglar, took Clinton to task for praising the work of Henry Kissinger — the former U.S. secretary of state whose policies helped prop up Latin dictatorships that

8

April 7, 2016

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

A diverse, multicultural crowd came out in support of Sanders in the Bronx.

“disappeared thousands of people,” Joglar said.

“That alone is enough for me not to support her,” added Joglar, who has 2 million Twitter followers.

“Hillary does not deserve my vote.”

It was a feeling expressed by many at the rally. Anathea Smuckler, a Marine veteran from Goshen, N.Y., stood at the entrance waving people in.

“Bernie is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate,” said the 26-year-old mother of two who has already traveled to South Carolina and Massachusetts to help spread the word.

“I don’t want to vote for someone who is going to have to apologize in 20 years for what they did in office,” said Smuckler, taking a stab at Clinton’s Iraq War vote and the Libya debacle. “We saw how pointless that war was already. I haven’t met a single serviceperson who supports Hillary.”

At her side was Ada Vargas, a 23year old Mexican-American from Bushwick, who became a Berner after hearing Sanders speak at a little rec center in Iowa City, when she was attending the state university there. Vargas, who became a U.S. citizen three weeks ago, has been tabling on weekends in Bushwick, Brooklyn, in order to reach Latino voters, many of whom she said are

being misled by the Spanish media into thinking Clinton already has the nomination wrapped up.

“Bushwick is traditionally a low-priority area because of low voter turnout, but that’s exactly who we want to reach,” Vargas said. “Once people hear who Bernie is and what he stands for, they support him.”

Spike Lee rallied the crowd and told them to “do the right thing.”

Denise Sharp, a schoolteacher from Throggs Neck, said she was impressed that Sanders chose the South Bronx to rally the troops, in contrast to Clinton’s choice of venue at the Apollo — which she felt smacked of cliché.

“He picked a place like the South Bronx to get in the middle of us, the real people,” she said.

It was far from the stereotypical white “Bernie bro” crowd. Luis Sepúlveda, the state assemblymember for Mott Haven, drew big cheers when he said: “I am proud to be a Democrat, but I am not part of the Democratic establishment.

“They say Bernie is only supported by white men,” he added. “What I am seeing here is a beautiful mosaic of people from all different backgrounds.”

Sepúlveda also spoke on behalf of his home country of Puerto Rico.

“Right now, our island is being

choked by the debt crisis that was created by the hedge-fund managers,” he said. “Sanders has provided the best plan to deal with the problems of Puerto Rico. Many have given lip service, but he’s said he would contribute $1 trillion to create 140,000 new jobs. That is real — that is how you solve a crisis.”

Nor was the crowd overwhelmingly young, as in past rallies. Ellen Saltzberg, who is 78, brought her 95-year-old mother, Leona Richman, and two other 60-plus friends from City Island in the Bronx.

“I like Hillary but I love Bernie,” said Richman, a former occupational therapist, her eyes twinkling. “I want a revolution. This country needs it.”

There were also many children.

Melissa McKay, a yoga and meditation teacher from Williamsburg, came with her 11-year-old son, Phoenix, who was dressed in a blue suit jacket, tie and glasses, so he could look like Bernie. McKay said it was Phoenix who made her question her support for Hillary Clinton.

“I was going to support Hillary all throughout the fall, until I actually heard what he is talking about — the issues that I believe in,” she said. “It makes me excited again about the political process. It feels unbroken.”

TheVillager.com

Hoping Sanders campaign soars in the Big Apple

In a continuation of a rhyming mash-up that was sparked when a sparrow landed on Bernie Sanders’s podium in Minnesota, Sanders supporters in Union Square recently shared the plaza with a flock of little arts-and-crafts birdies.

PHOTO BY Q. SAKAMAKI

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RSVP at (212) 867-3520 or by e-mail at burnerlaw12@gmail.com TheVillager.com

April 7, 2016

9

Candidates are grilled on issues and slam Silver; FORUM continued from p. 1

convicted on corruption charges last year.

Facing off were Alice Cancel, the Democratic nominee selected by a closed County Committee vote; YuhLine Niou, a Democrat running on the Working Families Party line; Dennis Levy, the Green Party candidate running on a marijuana-legalization platform; and Lester Chang, the Republican candidate, who will also be on the April 19 ballot on three other lines besides the G.O.P. — the Reform, Independence and Clean Up the Mess party lines, the latter which he created for this election.

The winner of the special election will take office in May, but will have to fight to keep the seat come September, when an expected packed field of candidates will run in the Democratic primary election.

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

Topics at the event, which was held at the Downtown Alliance’s LMHQ space at 150 Broadway and was moderated by Villager Editor in Chief Lincoln Anderson and Laura Altschuler, the L.W.V.’s special projects coordinator, ranged from charter schools and admissions tests for specialized high schools to nuclear power and affordable housing.

But Silver, a Democrat who represented Lower Manhattan in Albany for four decades, also loomed large, with all candidates evoking him to drive home a key point — how they would prioritize working to “clean up” the state Legislature if elected in two weeks.

“Most people right now want change, they want reform, they want to make sure that we can move forward,” said Niou, who is currently chief of staff for Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim and lives in the Financial District.

“People are too comfortable up there,” agreed Cancel, a Democratic district leader for more than 20 years.

She previously worked for Silver, as well former state Senator Martin Connor, and currently works for City Comptroller Scott Stringer as a community liaison.

“My vision for going to Albany is actual reform,” Cancel stated.

Niou emphasized that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s budget once again ignored the topic of ethics reform and, like her fellow candidates, she invoked measures like campaign finance reform and instituting term limits for politicians.

“We’re at ground zero of corruption down here,” she said. “Term limits are

10

April 7, 2016

PHOTOS BY YANNIC RACK

From left, candidates Yuh-Line Niou, Dennis Levy and Alice Cancel listened while it was Lester Chang’s turn to answer a question.

Yuh-Line Niou answering a question. Lester Chang, who could only stay for about half of the forum, had by that time departed for another event.

only one tool in the tool box [to fight it].”

“We need some type of ethics reform, we’re in a crisis in New York State,” agreed Levy, an H.I.V.-positive grandfather whose main issue is marijuana legalization. “We really need to do serious housecleaning in Albany.”

Chang, who agreed to attend the debate at the last minute but had to leave about halfway through, said he was the only one seriously committed to bringing about change — as evident in the name of his party.

“If everybody votes for ‘Clean up the Mess,’ that gives us a direct mission,” said Chang, who works in global logistics and is a Navy veteran. “We have to create a critical mass.”

However, while the other candidates made sure to distinguish themselves from the powerful Assembly speaker as much as possible, Cancel actually had kind words for Silver when asked about his legacy.

“He was a hero in our community,” she said defiantly, remembering how Silver worked to remove the Bibby Resolution, a temporary prison

barge, from its dock in the East River

by Montgomery St. in the early 1990s.

“We worked together to get that removed,” she said.

Among the other candidates, the sentiment evoked little sympathy.

“To me, [Silver] represents everything that’s wrong with Albany,” said Levy, to a big round of applause. “He was a wheeler and dealer. I would use him as a template for what not to do.”

But later, when asked about the Essex Crossing development currently being built in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), Cancel went the other way and said that she fought against Silver, who has been accused of delaying the mega-project for decades.

“I myself, with community leaders like Margarita Lopez and Rosie Mendez, at the time said to Shelly, ‘These are people that are being displaced,’ ” she said. “So if you think of me as a Shelly puppet — we fought because I was against the fact that this was not being developed for the people that had lived there for 40-plus years.”

On the subject of education, Chang

stood out as an ardent supporter of charter schools, which Levy also supports to a limited degree.

“Each charter school has its own unique characteristics,” Chang said.

“And that choice is what parents want.”

Everyone agreed that the city’s public schools need a serious overhaul, and Levy also advocated for moving control of them from the mayor to local districts.

“I think we can turn around the public schools by bringing control to the community,” he said. “We know best what our kids need.”

Asked about her position on admissions tests for the city’s eight specialized high schools, Cancel said the current system was “working” but that there was room for improvement, while Niou questioned today’s overall testing culture — which Chang vigorously defended.

“Repetition is the mother of learning,” he said. “You have to learn the basics first, so just put more resources at the bottom.”

Members of the Chinese press could be seen furiously taking notes on Chang’s remarks on the admissions tests, and a Niou supporter later confirmed that this a very important subject in the Asian community.

On the topic of affordable housing, each candidate (save for Chang, who at this point had left for a prior appointment) brought up different points. Cancel called for repealing the Urstadt Law that she said has brought a “shadow over the community.” Niou advocated for strengthening rent laws and union labor for local construction projects. Levy said that he would impose a “moratorium on luxury buildings” if elected — though he did not specify how he would bring that about.

A contentious topic for Cancel and Niou was the Democratic County Committee, whose members had overwhelmingly backed Cancel with their vote in February.

Calling the nominating process “flawed,” Niou had dramatically dropped out of the race at the last minute, a move that was thought to be strategic but which she herself framed as a protest.

She reiterated her position at last week’s debate, and emphasized that the four local Democratic clubs that rule the process also came to power under Silver’s tenure.

“I would definitely look into changing the current special election system,” she said.

“I went through the process to take a look at it,” she said, “and I decided that it wasn’t a democratic process. I spoke up against it and used my time FORUM continued on p. 11 TheVillager.com

Cancel also praises him FORUM continued from p. 10

at the committee as a platform to talk about the process.”

Cancel called the committee a “sleeping giant,” saying that it is called on in circumstances like this, when a candidate is convicted of a felony or dies in office. She implied that if she was chosen through a flawed process, then so would have been Scott Stringer — who has endorsed Niou — when he was elected to the Assembly in 1993.

“These people were elected by the community,” she said of County Committee members. “It’s a democratic process.”

All three remaining candidates also said they support shutting down the accident-plagued Indian Point nuclear plant, which has come under increased scrutiny in light of recent failures and forced shutdowns. In addition, environmentalists fear that a proposed gas pipeline that would run next to the plant could leak and lead to a shutdown — or worse — at the reactor.

“Shut it down immediately,” Levy said of the power plant. “Let’s look at clean energy sources instead.”

Asked what kind of development they would support at 5 World Trade Center, the tower project currently on standby at the W.T.C. site, Niou and Cancel mentioned schools — to alleviate the chronic school overcrowding in Lower Manhattan — while Levy emphasized that local residents should be trained for and employed in the building’s construction.

On the subject of restoring the commuter tax for Manhattan, everyone agreed it was a good idea to ease congestion and raise additional funds for local projects — though co-moderator Altschuler had to chime in and clarify that a commuter tax would only apply to out-of-town drivers, after Cancel said she would only support it with an exemption for Manhattanites.

The candidates had the chance to focus in on their personal issues when asked by co-moderator Anderson what they would introduce as their first three bills in the Assembly, should they be elected come April 19.

Cancel named “affordable housing,” “schools” and “senior developments” as things she would want to bring to her district.

Levy said there wouldn’t be a need to introduce new legislation, because there are already plenty of good laws that just need better enforcement. He also declared that he would work to legalize marijuana.

“Quite frankly, people don’t realize that if we legalize marijuana in this state it will mean thousands of jobs,” Levy stressed. “It’s a $50-million-to$100-million industry that we can TheVillager.com

Does It Have The Apple Logo?

We Can Fix It.

Alice Cancel speaking with someone from the audience after the forum ended.

bring to New York,” he said. He also mentioned the need for creating more open space in the district.

Niou, who emphasized her experience in drafting bills in Albany as Kim’s right-arm person, offered three specific proposals: eliminating credit history scores in awarding car insurance, and increasing financial literacy and asset building programs.

She also couldn’t resist taking a swipe at Cancel for her attempt at coming up with a list.

“When you’re talking about housing and education — those are issues and committee titles, those are not particular bills or legislation,” she said.

After answering two questions from the audience — about using tax money for religious schools and creating an adoptee rights bill in the state Legislature — the candidates had a chance to drive home their positions during their closing statements.

All of them, once again, put heavy emphasis on creating change after the tumultuous end to Silver’s long reign.

“It is time now to do some things, to make some changes in our state,” Levy said. “And change doesn’t start from the top to the bottom, it starts from the bottom to the top. So here I am, at the bottom. If you send me to Albany, I’ll make some real change,” he said.

“To be able to change the system, you really need to know how it works,” Niou said, invoking her immigrant roots and her career in public service.

“This is what drives me every day,” she said. “I want to make sure we have a voice and that our government is accessible to us.”

Cancel said she has been an advocate for her community for more than 40 years and knows the issues and concerns of the district.

“I feel that I can bring that experience to Albany, along with the voices that are here today,” she said.

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April 7, 2016

I

ndian Point — the nuclear power plant 45 miles north of New York City that has been beset by numerous operating headaches over the past year — delivered more bad news to its owner Entergy Corporation last month.

Hundreds of bolts, part of a key component of Indian Point 2, were found to be missing or damaged.

The discovery of the missing bolts was the result of a voluntary “reactor vessel internals aging management program” inspection that was voluntarily undertaken by Entergy as part of its license-renewal program.

New York State has been concerned with the safety of the aging nuclear plant since Entergy asked to renew its licenses to operate Indian Point for 20 more years. The inspection included the first-ever examination of the “baffle-former bolts” that surround the radioactive core of the reactor. Corrosion of the bolts has caused trouble in other nuclear power plants around the world.

The Indian Point 2 license expired in 2013 and the license for Indian Point 3 expired last December. Entergy filed for license renewal in 2007.

The inspection occurred during the biannual shutdown and refueling of the Indian Point 2 reactor. Indian Point 3 was refueled during a planned 23-day shutdown last year.

these programs work as designed.”

But Dave Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the missing bolts raise troubling questions that “should be answered,” including about the condition of bolts at Indian Point 3 — which is an identical reactor with the same operating history — why the damage wasn’t discovered during previous inspections, what happened to the pieces of broken metal from the bolts and whether they would be recovered.

“Since I.P. 3 is virtually identical in design as I.P. 2,” said Gary Shaw of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, “I.P. 3 should be shut down immediately to examine the integrity of the reactor core liner.”

In a statement, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, “For years, my office has raised serious concerns about the aging of components of the Indian Point nuclear plants, including ‘baffle-former’ assembly bolts… . Our concerns have been repeatedly dismissed by Entergy and the N.R.C.” The state has 35 legal challenges lodged against Indian Point and Governor Andrew Cuomo has supported closing the plant throughout his political career.

According to Schneiderman, the recent series of ongoing problems at Indian Point “underscores real and present safety issues related to continuing to operate this aging nuclear facility in close proximity to more than 17 million people.”

In December, a short circuit at Indian Point 3 was linked to bird poop, called “bird streamers.” The company said the bird excrement damaged insulators and caused an “electrical disturbance,” which “tripped” the reactor, forcing it to shut down. There was no release of radiation from that incident.

Entergy has also reported the leaking of the radioactive contaminant tritium into groundwater beneath the reactors in a separate incident.

There have been seven major incidents at the plant over the past year, including in May when an explosion at a transformer leaked oil into the Hudson River.

Entergy has reported that the problem bolts will delay the restart of Indian Point 2 and increase the cost of the shutdown.

‘I.P. 3 should be shut down immediately.’

Gary Shaw

Entergy reported to the Atomic Licensing Board that about 227 of 832 bolts were “indicated” — meaning “missing bolts, and bars meant to hold them in place, and other degradation requiring replacement of the bolts.” The bolts hold the removable liner that surrounds the reactor core and acts as a baffle, directing the immense flow of cooling water that passes through the reactor.

Entergy said the power plant is safe and no radiation was released. Larry Coyle, the site vice president and top official at Indian Point said, “The hundreds of inspections performed over the last few weeks demonstrate

TheVillager.com

Rev. wrestles over Roundup with conservancies

BY COLIN MIXSON

A

TheVillager.com

PHOTO BY CATHERINE TALESE

O.K., where’s the Roundup? Reverend Billy and his choir in Central Park last October on their way to the Arsenal, the Parks Department’s headquarters, to demand release of information about the use of Monsanto Roundup in city parks.

that Talen and his flock requested, saying only that the request is “under review,” according to the preacher of the gospel of anti-consumerism.

“All we know is that the conservancies are not giving us that info,” he said. “Their official stance is they’re still under review.”

Talen, along with his director of performances Savitri D and music director Nehemiah Luckett, sent their initial FOIL request to the Parks Department in September last year, which yielded a response from the city agency in December.

When the conservancies didn’t provide the requested information, however, Talen and Co. submitted a second request in February, which again, yielded the reply of “this request is under review,” he said.

A Parks spokesperson said that Talen’s second FOIL would be answered in late May. Although, she added, due to the specificity of the submission, only the Central Park Conservancy and the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn would be providing information.

The spokesperson, however, could not provide any information for why the initial request was not answered by the conservancies.

In city parks, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is applied by experts licensed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, or their apprentices.

Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and D.E.C. regulate such products and their use, and they approve the use of Roundup in public parks.

From 2012 to 2013, there was a 47 percent decrease in the use of glypho-

sate products by city agencies.

Recent studies, including research published in 2014 by Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a scientist at M.I.T., demonstrated how glyphosate residues, especially if found in common food

products, “enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease,” according to a Mercola.com report.

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s part of their efforts to spread the word on the devil’s ill of cancer-causing herbicides, the God-fearing, music-based anti-consumerism group Reverend Billy Talen and the Stop Shopping Choir have submitted several Freedom of Information Law requests, calling on the city to divulge information on when and where it sprays the Monsanto company’s glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide.

The Parks Department was fairly quick to spill the beans on where it spreads weed killer. But, five months after the group’s initial request, various park conservancies — nonprofit organizations that raise money for and maintain parks throughout the city — have yet to fess up, raising questions of accountability when it comes to the semiprivate caretakers of New York City’s cherished green spaces.

“At this point, we can draw no other conclusion,” said Reverend Billy, real name Bill Talen. “We must believe that the privatization of the parks alters the reports that come to the public about the spraying of toxins. The parks have the same name, the same trees, the same bushes and flowers, and invite the same mixture of locals and tourists into those parks. But because of some kind of manipulation of the governments of those parks, the information of what is coming into our bodies, which may threaten our bodies, is not forthcoming.”

Glyphosate herbicides have been banned in cities across the country, including Chicago and Seattle, following studies that linked the noxious chemical to cancer and other diseases, as well as birth defects. Yet the substance is routinely sprayed in parks throughout New York City.

As part of their anti-consumerist agenda, Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir have taken aim at Monsanto, the agricultural and biotechnology giant responsible for genetically modified foods, along with the herbicides and pesticides, such as Roundup, that protect them.

Toward that end, the reverend has devised an interactive map on his Web site, revbilly.com/maps, which, with blood-red skull and crossbones, points out where the city has sprayed the glyphosate-based weed killer.

On the map, the outer boroughs are flush with hundreds of the Jolly Roger-esque markings. But the warning symbols are conspicuously absent form the Big Apple, which only features a handful of the ominous markings.

And that’s because many of the major parks located in Manhattan, such as Central Park, The Battery and Riverside Park, are operated by conservancies, and none of those mentioned have provided the information

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April 7, 2016

13

Village, tiny pad still have a draw on illustrator SPACES

BY BOB KRASNER

R

obert Richards is any number of clichés, all of them fabulous. The 79-year-old illustrator is a raconteur, night owl, writer, model, bon vivant, loner, music lover and most certainly the quintessential New Yorker.

So far beyond stylish that he has only his own rules to live up to, he has called the Village his home for much of his adult life.

As a young man, he moved to the city with not much in his pockets and settled in on the Upper East Side. He began his career as a commercial illustrator and has managed to live all this time with only that job on his résumé. Clients have included Esteé Lauder, Revlon, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Liza Minnelli, Peggy Lee, Lena Horne and so many others that it strains Richards’s memory to recall.

As the result of being robbed at gunpoint Uptown, he headed Downtown and has lived there ever since.

After living in a few other Village locations, he settled on Mercer St. 27 years ago in an apartment that he

describes, laughing, as “tiny.” But, he adds, “It’s got 12½-foot ceilings.”

There’s a sleeping loft, but it’s only used for storage since Richards is “afraid of climbing those stairs.” The stairs have nonetheless found a practical use, as a combination bookcase and shoe rack.

Posters, movies, CD’s, records, photos, memorabilia, magazines and more books fill the space. Paper has begun to pile up and cover the Warhol Marilyns, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“I bring something in every day, but I never throw anything out,” he explained. “The apartment belongs to the artwork — I just live here.”

One wonders if he sleeps there, as well, since there doesn’t seem to be a bed in sight. As it turns out, the couch is a pullout that, when in use, completely fills the only cleared spot in the apartment.

“I am forced to fold the bed back in every morning,” he said. “Although, if I am working on something big, I will just work on the bed.”

But not actually in the morning.

“My energy peaks at 11 at night,” he said. “And I realized 25 years ago that nothing that happens in the morning really interests me.”

Chances are that as he’s drawing at the small table tucked behind the couch, he’s listening to one of the

POLICE BLOTTER He’s no pen pal

A man sleeping on the sidewalk had a frightful wakeup on Sun., April 3, at 2:40 a.m. Two witnesses told police they saw another man attack the slumbering man in front of 31 Washington Place. The assailant stabbed the victim in the face with a pen multiple times, resulting in pain and lacerations to the nose and chin. The victim was removed to Lenox Health Greenwich Village, at Seventh Ave. and W. 12th St., for treatment.

Abdoul Ilboudo, 25, was arrested for felony assault.

Cops bottle him up Police said a man was attempting to break up a large dispute in front 86 University Place on Sat., April 2, at 4:20 a.m. when another man swung a broken glass bottle at him. The victim was struck in the left hand with the bottle, causing a laceration to the finger. The attacker then fled north on University Place but was stopped in front of 125 Uni-

14

April 7, 2016

versity Place by an officer. The victim was able to identify him.

Police arrested Luis Guitarrero, 41, for felony assault.

A call for help A daughter called her mother about her boyfriend while in her apartment at 34 W. Ninth St. around 6 a.m. Mon., March 21, police said. The daughter told her mom she needed help with her bipolar boyfriend, who was having a psychotic episode.

While the mother attempted to calm him down, the boyfriend pushed her to the ground and kicked her, causing pain and swelling to her right wrist, police said.

The mother refused medical attention, and the boyfriend was taken to Bellevue Hospital for medical and psychological evaluation.

The mother did not wish to press charges due to the boyfriend’s altered state.

Andrew Dunn, 37, was arrested for misdemeanor assault.

Emily Siegel

PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER

Robert Richards, wearing a hand-painted jacket by Scooter LaForge, standing in the spot where he will later be sleeping. Apart from the bathroom and tiny kitchen, this is his entire living space.

great women jazz singers, many of whom were his friends. When he was a teenager in Maine, the sound of Sarah Vaughn singing “Black Coffee” “exploded in my head,” he said, when a friend played the record for him. He has loved music ever since and eventually Sarah Vaughn became his “best friend for 27 years.”

Close companions also included Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day and Dinah Washington, among others.

“My work is more influenced by music than visual art. They made music that was meant to be played forever,” Richard said of his favorite crooners.

While he is still quite busy doing commercial illustration, a different kind of visual art has provided some income lately. His elegant persona has led him to a new career as a model, doing print ads for, among others, Dior and Kate Spade.

He lives down the street from the former site of one of his favorite haunts, The Bottom Line.

“It should have been landmarked,” he said of the club, which is now a New York University space.

Although he feels like N.Y.U. has taken over the neighborhood, he still loves the area — especially Washington Square Park.

“It’s very important to me,” he mused. “I love to draw and write

there. I love to sit and watch people — I’ll count the number of people wearing real shoes — not sneakers — the number of blue jeans, the number of devices.

“Sometimes,” he added, “I’ll pick out an imaginary boyfriend.”

And in the winter, if there has been an evening snowstorm, he will venture out in the middle of the night to the park to enjoy the untouched stillness of the scene.

Though he has plenty of friends and goes out frequently to socialize and enjoy the nightlife, “I’m a loner,” he admitted. “I’ve always lived alone, and my work requires solitude.”

Not that he minds company — but “Call before you come over!” — and his endlessly engaging stories make it difficult to leave. (To be fair, the obstacle course in the hallway does, as well.)

Although Richards admitted, “If I had another room, I’d be deliriously happy,” he’s not complaining.

“I love the neighborhood and I’m a slave to my rent-stabilized lease,” he said, adding, “And I live in my thoughts.”

Richards will be appearing at Pangaea, 178 Second Ave., on April 25, telling stories of his “Improbable Life.” His latest book, “Seduction — Erotic Drawings by Robert W. Richards” (Bruno Gmuender GMBH, February 2016) is now available.

TheVillager.com

L.E.S. gang book’s snub is a punch to the gut

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

L

.E.S. documentarian Clayton Patterson is ready to rumble after his local independent bookstore declined to sell a new street-tough tome he co-authored with the former leader of the notorious Satan’s Sinner Nomads gang.

Photographer Patterson teamed up with Jose “Cochise” Quiles on the book, “The Street Gangs of the Lower East Side” (Clayton Books).

The book tells the story of Quiles, or as the back-cover copy reads, “one bad--- gangbanger’s struggle to break the cycle of violence and poverty since birth through creativity and compassion for others.”

The Satan’s Sinner Nomads were the last L.E.S. gang to wear colors — displaying the gang’s name on the back of their leather and jean jackets. Quiles went on to do 24 years in prison — including an 18year stint for attempted murder — recently emerging from jail with a newfound artistic ability and an urge to teach a positive message to local youth, “to concentrate on poetry not thuggery.”

But Patterson said this Monday he got the brushoff from Bluestockings at 172 Allen St., when he walked the three blocks from his home on Essex St. to find out if they would sell the book. Opened in 1999, Bluestockings is an all-volunteer, collectively owned feminist and radical bookstore and self-described activist center.

“Imagine, Blue Stockings bookstore will not sell the book,” Patterson fumed. “When I went to pick up the copy I left, I asked the person what street he is on. He said Allen. This is the street the Allen

TheVillager.com

Too raw for Bluestockings? “The Street Gangs of the Lower East Side” was rejected by the Allen St. feminist bookstore. The book’s cover photo,

by Clayton Patterson, is of Jose Quiles a.k.a. ex-gang leader Cochise.

Boys came from. Look out this store’s window, see the project across the street — some old Allen Boys still live there. One block over is Forsyth St., which the Forsyth Boys ran. Not to forget, in the commu-

nity there are still Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, Latin King Bad Boys and crews and posses.

“Is it because the book is an L.E.S. Hispanic history that Blue Stockings will not carry it?” he asked accusingly. “Anyway, they have no respect for where they are or the history of the area.”

However, Maria Herron, the consignment titles coordinator at Bluestockings, said the gangs book — at least at first glance — did not mesh with the store’s general focus.

(The store also has another buyer who focuses on titles from traditional publishers, as opposed to authors and small presses, like Clayton Books.)

Actually, she had told that in an e-mail to Patterson on Sunday, the day before he picked up his review copy.

“I looked over the review copy...and we are going to hold off for now,” she wrote him, adding, “Did you try Mast Books or McNally-Jackson?”

“I will be by. tx,” Patterson curtly responded.

After getting rejected, rather than just “turn the page,” Patterson posted an angry statement on Facebook, which someone from the ABC No Rio arts collective brought to Herron’s attention. Herron — saying she was shocked by the level of Patterson’s anger over the snub — wrote a response to that person, and, in turn, shared the e-mail with The Villager.

“The title was left at Bluestockings for consignment review and I was the one who declined it,” Herron wrote. “The book was presented as a history of gangs and gang violence in the Lower East Side. While we carry titles on many different BOOK FIGHT continued on p. 30

April 7, 2016

15

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

At Bernie Sanders’s rally in the Bronx, kicking off his critical New York campaign.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Pillow-fight facts, not fluff To The Editor: Re “Hoylman not ‘down’ with no-permit pillow fight in Wash. Sq. Pk.” (news article, March 31): Thanks to Colin Mixson for his fair reporting on this issue. First, can we all have a laugh at how absurd all this is? Are you laughing? Good.

Next let’s look at some numbers: The average person pillow fights for just 15

EVAN FORSCH

minutes.

There are 20,000 children in the New York City shelter system.

Our goal this year was to collect 2,000 gently used pillows.

Some children in shelters sleep on folded-up dirty clothes.

If 2,000 people grabbed pillows at Sleepy’s for this event and then donated them, that’s new, high-quality pillows for 10 percent of all children in the city’s shelters, and $6,000 to the charity

that helps these kids get basics, like toothpaste and soap.

With all due respect to state Senator Brad Hoylman, we can’t let the cynicism of Albany cloud the reality that children in New York City shelters do not get the basics they need. The pillow fight is part of a massive effort by hundreds of charities to relieve this.

Nikki Sparks Sparks is a leader, Urban Playground Movement

Honored to know Balzac To The Editor: Re “Sweating the loss of Coles gym, my workout haven” (talking point, by Kathryn Adisman, March 24): Coles opened on my first day at N.Y.U. Having transferred from an A.C.C. school in the South, Coles always seemed small and dark. But I will miss one thing — Bill Balzac. He’s a really great guy and seemed to work there forever. I only wish I could find him now.

Ralph Lewis LETTERS continued on p. 31

16

April 7, 2016

TheVillager.com

Speaker admits crisis but offers no solutions TALKING POINT

BY KIRSTEN THEODOS

W

hen it comes to the true state of our city’s small businesses, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, in her State of the City Address last month, got it right by drawing attention to the growing crisis faced by long-established small businesses being forced out by exorbitant rent increases when their leases expire.

“Mom-and-pop shops are the economic heart of our city,” Mark-Viverito said. “But skyrocketing real estate prices mean that when small businesses have to renew their leases, they often face significant and unaffordable rent increases — forcing many to relocate, or close completely.”

But what Speaker Mark-Viverito says and what action she is taking are at odds. The action behind her stated solution is to continue the failed policy of her predecessor, former Speaker Christine Quinn, and study the problem while pursuing a policy of inaction as our small businesses continue being destroyed.

The speaker’s solution to study this crisis is a reflection of her continued endorsement by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), whose goal is blocking a vote on the Small Business Jobs Survival Act while keeping the status quo of commercial tenant exploitation.

“So this year the Council will launch a planning study to develop recommendations for strengthening our small business community through land-use policy and other tools, such as tax incentives,” she said. Yet, how can the speaker acknowledge “unaffordable rent increases” as the core problem and then not address it in her solution?

The speaker is blocking true progressive lawmakers — 27 thus far, a majority of the City Council — from having a chance to vote on and pass progressive legislation while correcting the most antidemocratic and anti-immigrant act committed by a City Council speaker’s office in modern times. In 2009, prior to a vote on the S.B.J.S.A. by the Council’s Small Business Committee, a claim was made by then-Speaker Quinn’s office that the bill had “legal problems” and so could not be voted on. The bill was certain to pass with 32 sponsors, including the entire Small Business Committee.

Small business advocates cried foul TheVillager.com

FILE PHOTO BY WILLIAM ALATRISTE / NYC COUNCIL

Last June, while on a “small business crawl” to support merchants impacted by the Second Ave. gas explosion, City Council Speaker Melissa MarkViverito said that the Council would hold hearings on the larger issue of small business survival. Approaching a year later, there still have been no hearings. Instead, Mark-Viverito has called for yet another study.

and correctly pointed out that the powerful real estate lobby made no such legal challenges to the bill at the public hearing — not even in writing — and that there was a long history of court rulings on the measure that upheld its constitutionality every time. This vague legal challenge was a roadblock created by REBNY in collusion with the speaker’s staff to stop a vote on the S.B.J.S.A. That unsubstantiated legal roadblock was proven to have no legal merit by a special legal review of the bill sponsored by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. in 2010. Even after being disproven, the phantom legal roadblock continues to be the only claim by the speaker’s office for denying even a hearing on the S.B.J.S.A. The speaker’s office has made no effort in seven years to recommend amendments to the S.B.J.S.A. that would satisfy their legal concerns.

The speaker’s call for yet another study to address this crisis is what Sung Soo Kim — former chairperson of the Mayor’s First Small Business Advisory Board, appointed by Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani — calls another Trojan horse from City Hall created by REBNY to keep the status quo. Kim is not surprised by the speaker’s call for another study at a time of crisis and record closings of small businesses.

“Small business owners, and especially immigrant owners, were marginalized by city government and a deprived social class that has no

voice in making economic policy in New York City,” Kim said. “What is clear to any true progressive legislator is that the absolute essential component of any law to stop the closing of businesses is the right to renewal of the lease, without which all proposals will fail and all independent owners in New York City will eventually be forced to close.”

Small business advocates say that Speaker Mark-Viverito’s call for another study is redundant and an insult to desperate business owners struggling to survive. Another study is not necessary because Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, recently completed a huge multiyear study that started in May 2014 and involved 21 government agencies, small business organizations and several small business roundtables to gain the facts. From this extensive study, Brewer made several recommendations, one of which is now being turned into proposed legislation for the Council to consider.

Furthermore, City Comptroller Scott Stringer formed a “Red Tape Commission” to advocate for small business owners and identify their major problems and recommend solutions to address them. He held town hall meetings in five boroughs to listen to community activists and business leaders. The commission’s final report will be released very soon.

Instead of another study benefiting REBNY with the goal of keeping the status quo, the Council speaker

must begin public hearings on all proposed solutions to address this crisis and stop the closing of our city’s small business owners. In fact, Mark-Viverito told The Villager in June 2015 that she would hold hearings on the issue — yet, to date, has failed to follow through on her word.

Small business advocates hoped Mark-Viverito would keep her campaign pledge to take the Council in another direction than it had been under former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and encourage more progressive legislation like the S.B.J.S.A. Small merchants hoped she would be the same leading progressive councilmember who testified at the public hearing on the S.B.J.S.A. before the Small Business Committee.

Testifying at the 2009 hearing on the bill, Mark-Viverito stated, “I’m very proud of the fact that we’re having a hearing on this legislation. I’m very proud of the fact that Robert Jackson has introduced this. I’ve signed on as a sponsor, as many of us here have.

I’m not on this committee but I felt compelled to come because it really is an important proposal. We obviously have intent on passing this. We’re [the City Council] going to be very firm and very strong. As a Council we have a responsibility to represent all sectors in this city and not just a select few, which I believe is what has happened with this administration. We are here to also represent the tenants, to represent the small business owners and to do what we can to preserve this vital backbone in this city… . It is important and we’re very much committed to that.”

In short, the speaker’s call for another study is the opposite position she took when she was just a councilmember. Before she became speaker, she called for the City Council to be “firm and strong.” As speaker, she calls on them to be silent and study the problem. As a councilmember, she recognized that the Council has a responsibility to represent all sectors in this city and not just special interests. As speaker, she allows the real estate lobby to define the problems of our small business community and propose the solutions to those problems. Her obvious flip-flop has only worsened the crisis.

Today in New York City, the commercial courts issue warrants to vacate businesses an average of 542 times per month. An estimated 1,000 small businesses close each month in New York City. Another study is the last thing that will preserve small businesses. Why does Speaker Mark-Viverito continue to fail small business and hold the Small Business Jobs Survival Act hostage?

Theodos is spokesperson, Take Back NYC April 7, 2016

17

Substance over slogans: Join Bernie’s revolution!

Hillary is a proven leader Vote Sanders on April 19

BY DEBORAH J. GLICK

BY ARTHUR Z. SCHWARTZ

illary Clinton puts substance over slogans. She is the best choice in the April 19 Democratic primary, and the Nov. 8 general election. I urge you to join me in voting for her.

As first lady, senator and secretary of state, Hillary has been a strong ally on many issues of importance to New Yorkers, such as women’s rights, paid family leave, universal healthcare and L.G.B.T. rights. Hard-fought victories today are the result of years of her trailblazing and leadership.

Hillary has proven governance under the direst circumstances. As New York’s senator on 9/11, she showed unwavering leadership. She pushed the Bush administration for $20 billion for recovery, introduced legislation to speed up benefits for families of public safety officers who died in the line of duty responding to 9/11 attacks, and helped steer funding to start a medical screening program — the James Zadroga Act — for Ground Zero workers and responders. Due to its success, the Zadroga Act was renewed for 75 years last year, ensuring that first responders will receive the health benefits they deserve.

As first lady, Clinton pushed for universal healthcare. In the ’90s, she proved herself too progressive for her time. It took more than 20 years to fulfill her vision, when the Affordable Care Act finally became law, guaranteeing all Americans access to healthcare. As president, Hillary has pledged to expand the Affordable Care Act. Many populations, such as women, people of color and the L.G.B.T. community, have historically experienced barriers when accessing healthcare services. These same populations have unique health disparities. Clinton has the political savvy and experience to fight Republican efforts to repeal the law and ensure that all have access to culturally competent healthcare.

Hillary has been a champion of a woman’s right to choose for her entire career. Attacks on reproductive healthcare are widespread and dangerous. Planned Parenthood acknowledged how high the stakes are by making their first-ever primary endorsement — for Hillary Clinton.

Women’s lives cannot be bargained away. Clinton understands this and, as president, she will stand up to Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. Defunding would restrict access to critical healthcare services, like cancer screenings, contraception and safe, legal abortion.

Secretary Clinton has also been a

ince last July, I have been arguing to my constituents that “presumed” Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was anything but a shoo-in. I have kvetched about the media’s refusal to cover the Bernie Sanders phenomenon, except for a week after the New Hampshire primary.

I daresay that the Sanders campaign has been as profound as that of Donald Trump. In fact the general election poll averages are amazing.

Hillary beats Trump by 11 percent; Bernie beats him by 17.5 percent. Hillary beats Cruz by 2.9 percent; Bernie beats Cruz by 8.4 percent. Hillary loses to Kasich by 6.5 percent, while CNN has Bernie beating Kasich by 6 percent. Unless you believe that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee, the Democratic Party is in trouble with a Hillary candidacy.

The other telling poll? On average, 57 percent of the American people have an unfavorable view of Hillary; 65 percent have a favorable view of Bernie. So, just for practical reasons (unless you want a Republican in the White House), Democratic voters must give Bernie a serious look.

Electability was once the reason for not considering Bernie. Now, after nine months on the campaign trail, he is the most electable Democrat in this bizarre election year.

Then there are the politics underlying the race. Bernie is about getting corporate money out of politics.

He is about expanding our healthcare system, and our safety nets, like Social Security. He is about making higher education a right, just like kindergarten through 12th grade.

And he believes in a non-interventionist foreign policy. Hillary’s interventionist policy is responsible for major problems in the world.

Bernie is about opening up the political system. Bernie is about reaching for the stars. Hillary is about more of the same. Bernie calls for a “political revolution,” something our corrupt system badly needs.

Hillary says she opposes money in politics, and then takes it.

Can Bernie win the nomination?

He can certainly win a majority of the elected delegates. Two weeks ago he won Washington State’s caucus with 72 percent of the vote. He won Hawaii’s with 70 percent of the vote. And he won Alaska’s with a whopping 82 percent of the vote.

This follows victories in Idaho and Utah, where Sanders beat Hillary Clinton with 60-point margins. As of this Monday, according to CNN,

S

H

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April 7, 2016

Hillary Clinton and Deborah Glick.

proven leader when L.G.B.T. rights have been under attack. She championed hate-crimes legislation that would protect all minority groups, fought for federal nondiscrimination legislation to protect L.G.B.T. Americans in the workplace, and advocated lifting restrictions blocking L.G.B.T. couples from adopting kids. Hillary also worked to defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The recent Supreme Court victory overturning the Defense of Marriage Act was possible because of pro-L.G.B.T.-rights leadership over the years, including from Hillary.

Hillary Clinton has always stood up for the dignity of all people regardless of their race, religion, economic status, gender, sexual orientation or national origin. Our strength as a country has been based on our diversity. Hillary Clinton, like all New Yorkers, champions that diversity.

Education starts in preschool, and Clinton has a comprehensive plan to ensure that children ages 4 through college have access to quality, affordable education. Her proposals include expanding programs like Head Start, training teachers and establishing mentorship programs for educators. As chairperson of the New York State Assembly Committee on Higher Education, I am especially excited

by Hillary’s thoughtful and realistic proposal to make quality higher education affordable.

Finally, and in this dangerous world, perhaps most important, America needs a strong, experienced and smart commander in chief, one with a full grasp of international affairs. There is only one person running for president that fills this bill and that person will be the first woman president of the United States: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Glick is assemblymember, 66th District; She was first elected to the Legislature in 1990

Bernie Sanders and Arthur Schwartz.

Hillary had 219 more elected delegates than Bernie, out of about 2,341 elected to date.

The night before this column went to press, the returns were coming in from Wisconsin. Bernie was winning with 55.5 percent to Hillary’s 44.4 percent. This will narrow the gap by about 14 delegates.

With just less than 2,000 pledged delegates left in the contest, Sanders needs 55 percent of the remaining delegates to win a majority of the pledged delegates. And, as a party leader, I do believe that if Bernie went into the convention with a majority of the elected delegates, the “superdelegates” would dramatically shift in order to avoid a political disaster that would be felt for a generation.

To get a majority of the elected delegates, Bernie has to win majorities in most of the upcoming states: Oregon, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, California and New York, and Bernie has massive campaign operations in most of these states. Given his recent success, his fundraising and the sheer enthusiasm for his campaign, it’s easy to look at his recent surge and believe that Sanders is on the cusp of a new dawn — that soon he’ll turn a corner toward victory.

“Don’t let anybody tell you we can’t win the nomination or win the general election,” he told supporters on the Saturday of the Washington, Alaska and Hawaii wins. “We’re going to do both of those things.”

New York matters a lot. And the 10th and 12th Congressional Districts, where we live, matter a heck of a lot. So if you want change, and you want to see a win over the horror show that any Republican is sure to present, get out to vote on Tues., April 19, and vote for Bernie.

Schwartz is New York counsel for Bernie Sanders 2016, and is a candidate for state Assembly in the 66th District, covering the Village, Soho and Tribeca TheVillager.com

Screening Soon at the

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

Do the math: Tribeca Film Fest x 15 = 2016

Vexed by ‘Vaxxed,’ TFF preps for scheduled slate, minus one

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

S

et to take over a multitude of Downtown screens and scenes from April 13–24, the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), now in its 15th year, is already making headlines with an embarrassingly adolescent misstep: its declaration that one previously announced selection won’t be seeing the flicker of a single TFF projector. “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” a documentary taking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to task for suppressing information linking the MMR vaccine to autism, was pulled from the schedule after a brief but messy public outcry from those who said the film’s very presence would give credence to ill-advised parenting and medical quackery.

“My intent in screening this film,” said festival co-founder Robert De Niro, “was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family. But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for. The Festival doesn’t seek to avoid or shy away from controversy. However, we have concerns with certain things in this film that we feel prevent us from presenting it in the Festival program.

We have decided to remove it from our schedule.”

That was it for “Vaxxed,” as well as any further discussion on the matter. “We commented over the weekend,” said a TFF press representative, when asked to expand on why such a carefully curated festival — whose post-screening Q&As don’t shy away from robust discussion — would make the unprecedented move of launching a preemptive strike against one of its own.

No amount of steak pressed against that black eye will soon restore the festival’s well-earned reputation for championing provocative work — TheVillager.com

PHOTO COURTESY MAURIZIO CATTELAN ARCHIVE

Maurizio Cattelan kicks a burning baby carriage in Milan, in “Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back.”

and the fact that “Vaxxed” is currently screening at the Angelika Film Center further magnifies the perception that De Niro and his programmers were both asleep at the wheel and too quick to pull the kill switch.

That said, we’re still proceeding ahead with our annual genre-structured preview of TFF flicks (all of them still booked as of press time!).

So consider taking a chance on the following 21 films — a number that, unlike 15, references an age of maturity at which the stage is set for a lifetime’s worth of integrity and good judgment. Zing!

GOING HOME, GETTING REAL & LETTING GO

A powerful strain of melancholy seems to have gripped the programmers of this year’s TFF, who’ve curated a festival with a robust quotient of films that task their main characters with returning to old haunts and — by choice, force, or circumstance — growing up.

UK writer/director Rachel Tunnard parlays her British Academy Film Awards-nominated short into a full-length comedy about almost-30 Anna’s fits-and-starts attempt to acquire “Adult Life Skills.” After the death of her twin brother, she moves back to her rural hometown — and into a dead-end job, and an even more depressing living situation (the shed in her mother’s back yard). A chance meeting and growing friendship with a troubled young boy in desperate need of personal growth has her contemplating serious changes in her own state of fantasy world complacency. From Denmark, “Parentis” has empty nest couple Kjeld and Vibeke reacting to the absence of their son by moving back into the apartment they shared while students. That nostalgic flight of fancy takes a surreal turn, when they greet the dawn of a new day to discover they’ve become 30 years younger.

A underappreciated master of slow burns and exasperated expressions, everyman actor Jason Bateman has

his sophomore directorial effort with “The Family Fang,” in which a brother (Bateman) and his sister (Nicole Kidman) come back to their childhood home and embark on a search for their missing parents. Argentinian director Daniel Burman’s “The Tenth Man” is a gently comedic, affectionately observed, homecoming tale taking place over the seven days of Purim. Called back to the Jewish neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Ariel seeks to reconcile how his childhood dynamic with a caring yet often absent parent was shaped by his father’s acquiescence to the requirements of their religion.

WARFARE, PAST AND PRESENT

In “The Fixer,” an exiled Afghan journalist lands a job at a small North Carolina town’s newspaper. Applying those war correspondent skills to TRIBECA FILM FEST continued on p. 20 April 7, 2016

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I dream of genre: Tribeca films have style Murray’s formative years as an early feminist and mother of two, through a lung cancer diagnosis at the apex of her career. The film’s world premiere takes place on Sat., Apr. 23, 4:30 & 7:30 p.m, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with another TFF screening on Sun., Apr. 24, 7:15 p.m. at Regal Cinemas Battery Park.

TRIBECA FILM FEST continued from p. 19

the humdrum police blotter beat, his pursuit of one particular item leads down a familiar, yet foreign, rabbit hole of conflict, danger, and intrigue.

Pursuing a stable relationship and resolving to make a new life for himself as a real estate agent, “The Loner” — a former child soldier in 1980s Iran — struggles to shake his opium addiction and gambling habit. This visually intense and artfully violent debut feature from Daniel Grove (who also wrote the screenplay) bathes the mean streets of Los Angeles in neon, pitting the title character (Reza Sixo Safai, seen in the 2014 Iranian vampire tale “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”) against both sides in a feud between the Iranian and Russian mobs. Executive produced by Wim Wenders and Errol Morris, the documentary “National Bird” assesses the collateral damage — physical, psychological, moral — experienced by three military veterans of America’s predator drone program.

LGBTQ

PHOTO BY ALISON ROSA

In “The Family Fang,” Jason Bateman and Nicole Kidman, as Baxter and Annie Fang, launch a search for their missing parents.

ART ON FILM

Furniture designer, taxidermist, subversive satirist, defiant outsider, and art world darling: Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has been all of this and more over the decades, managing to elude categorization. Charting the journey from scrappy upstart to his rightful place in the contemporary art canon, Maura Axelrod’s documentary “Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back” takes a playful approach to its search for the real story behind Cattelan’s public persona and diverse body of work. A Sun., Apr. 24, 6:30pm screening at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a homecoming, of sorts, as the Guggenheim’s 2011 Cattelan retrospective cemented his place in the contemporary art canon. TFF seems to have a sweet tooth this year for art docs with a weakness for colons. Case in point: Matt Pizzano’s “Becoming: Bradley Theodore” (Apr. 15, 9pm) is an eight-minute short about how the titular artist turned his life around over the course of two years, through self-education, self-promotion, and sheer dedication. In “Burden,” directors Timothy Marrinan and Richard Dewey survey the 45-year career of Chris Burden, whose self-analysis and philosophical musings are interspersed with footage and commentary that recall projects infused with danger and personal sacrifice — literally. Besides having been crucified to a VW bug, Burden’s been shot at, and confined to

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April 7, 2016

PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA LOPEZ

In “The Tenth Man,” Alan Sabbagh, as Ariel, drives around his old Buenos Aires neighborhood between bouts of navigating a complex relationship.

a 2x2x3 locker for several days.

The viral darling of stealth street art could be toppled by an upstart rival, in this debut feature from directors Ian Roderick Gray and Dylan Harvey. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, “The Banksy Job” is a frenetic art world heist caper tale told by AK47 — a former porn star and acid rave promoter who assumes the villainous role of art world spoiler by setting out, in broad daylight,

to swipe a piece of Bansky’s work located in Central London.

A more grounded (but no less affecting) portrait of an artist unfolds in “Everybody Knows...Elizabeth Murray.” Using vérité footage, exclusive interviews with art world luminaries, and excerpts from the painter’s private journals (as voiced

by Meryl Streep), production designer Kristi Zea’s directorial debut is an intimate documentary following

Weaving together footage from recently discovered home movies and unflinching excerpts from contemporary interviews, the act of contrition referenced in “Memories of a Penitent Heart” applies as much to the stigmatizing behavior of Cecilia Aldarondo’s family as it does to her uncle Miguel’s bid to reconcile his Puerto Rican/Catholic upbringing with his sexuality, in the days leading up to his death from AIDS in 1980s NYC. The subsequent shunning of his lover, Robert, comes to a head when Aldarondo tracks him down 25 years later, and begins to ask questions about keeping secrets, second chances, and what we cling to in times of crisis. The long shadow of Madge hovers over the men who went from obscurity to worldwode scritiny and back again, as the dancers who accompanied Madonna on her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour.

“Strike a Pose” reunites seven of the artists 25 years later, to reveal “the emotional truth behind the glamorous façade” — not just of life on the road, but of the further scrutiny they faced as stars of the tour documentary “Truth or Dare.”

The documentary “Check It” follows a group of Washington D.C. gay and trans teens of color who respond to bullying, rape, and abuse by forming their own gang and sending a message that acts of physical aggression against one of their own will be met with equal, or greater, force. Three members of the group are focused on in particular, as they pursue careers in fashion as an alternative to the cycle of gang violence.

Journeys of personal growth also figure into “King Cobra,” a selection in TFF’s Midnight series that documents the rise, so to speak, of gay porn actor Brent Corrigan (aka Sean Paul Lockhart, who later became a gay-centric and “mainstream” actor/ director of some note). “Cobra” coils around Corrigan’s formative years, and the bitter break with the producer who made him famous.

Garrett Clayton and Christian Slater star, respectively, as the feuding pair, TRIBECA FILM FEST continued on p. 23 TheVillager.com

‘Califórnia’ dreaming boosts Brazilian bildungsroman Marina Person brings 1984’s sights and sounds to the screen

BY SEAN EGAN

Y

ou kind of plan everything,” says Marina Person, a Brazilian writer/director, on independent filmmaking. “But a lot of unpredicted things happen as well, and you have two ways of dealing with it. One: to get desperate and cry in the sidewalk, saying ‘I’m not gonna make it because we’re not gonna have the scene I really needed.’ Or you can [go] like, ‘Ah! What can I do?’ and invent something else. That happened a lot in ‘Califórnia,’ because we shot with so little money.”

That wonderful, personal comingof-age film, which Person co-wrote and directed on a shoestring budget, will receive its US premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival against the odds of budgetary constraints.

“If something goes really wrong, just relax, and try to look to the sides.

The solution may be right in front of you,” she advises.

From filming largely indoors to keep costs down, dealing with inclement weather, and shooting guerrilla-style on the street without permits, Person employed her own wisdom against numerous obstacles.

However, most difficult (and important) of all for Person, a former MTV Brasil VJ, was the process of acquiring music rights. Set in early-80s São Paulo and centering on Estela, a music-obsessed teen, “Califórnia” firmly establishes its tone through the use of choice cuts from alternative and new wave artists — including Echo & the Bunnymen, Cocteau Twins, and New Order.

Most tricky in Person’s long quest

PHOTO BY ALINE ARRUDA

Every frame of “Califórnia” bursts with lovingly assembled ’80s accouterments. Pictured: Clara Gallo as Estela and Caio Horowicz as JM.

to curate the perfect soundtrack was securing the rights to The Cure’s “Killing an Arab.” The song, inspired

by Camus’ “The Stranger,” has been mired in controversy since its release, due to racist misinterpretations of the song’s lyrics. Because in “Califórnia” it accompanies a particularly moving sequence and helps to define a major character, Person reached out to The Cure’s people before filming to receive tentative permission to use the song. However, by the time she was in post-production months later, and had the cash to secure the rights, she was greeted with an altogether different reaction.

“The answer was like, ‘What?! You cannot use it! What?! Who told you you could? You know [Cure frontman] Robert Smith wants to forget he

wrote a song called “Killing an Arab.” ’ They were really upset,” she reveals, postulating that the Charlie Hebdo attacks may have rendered parties more wary of giving the go-ahead.

Nonetheless, she did not give up.

“I said, ‘No, you know, you have to! I’m going to London and, like, go on strike. I’m going to do a hunger strike in front of Robert Smith’s house; he must let me use it!’ I was kind of desperate,” she recalls.

Following this rejection came a weeks-long process, during which Person scribed several extensive emails detailing her reasoning behind wanting to use the song, which found their way to Smith — who tried to convince Person to use a different Cure track in its place instead. After much debate and handwringing, she was eventually granted permission, which brought Person some much-needed relief.

“I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I

was totally obsessed with it.”

She was similarly obsessed with (and troubled by) getting the rights to David Bowie’s simultaneously melancholic and triumphant “Five Years.” This time around, Person was able to snag the rights to the composition, but was rejected in her efforts to secure the studio recording.

After another desperate, weekslong process appealing to the powers that be and receiving radio silence, Person got creative and made due with the resources she had. She recruited Clara Gallo, the actress who plays Estela, to record a simple acoustic guitar-based cover, which was used for most of the film’s early festival screenings in lieu of the original recording. Then, out of the blue, the label changed their tune.

“Somehow, in November, somebody said, ‘Oh, do you want to use “Five Years?” We have this version that is in “Ziggy Stardust.” ’ I said, ‘Version?! Yes! What?! This is the original! This is the one I want!’ ” she explains, confirming that it would be present in the Tribeca cut. “I don’t know what happened, really I don’t.

It was like a miracle.”

Visually, the film bursts with a love of music and ’80s culture — from stacks of records in a local shop, to posters of Estela’s musical idols lining her wall. Ever budget-conscious, Person helped keep costs down by providing resources from her own personal collection whenever possible.

“Most of the records that appear, that stand out in the music store, are mine. I kept them from my youth,” she says. “Some of the Bowie photos that are cut from magazines are mine.

I still have, you know, an archive with all the Bowie things I collected.”

CALIFÓRNIA continued on p. 23

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

Quick Time

PHOTO BY ALINE ARRUDA

Writer/director Marina Person hustled hard to bring her film to the big screen.

TheVillager.com

The Wendy Osserman Dance Company’s 40th Anniversary Clebration April 20, 21,22 and 23 at 8:00 PM Tickets: $18

A Night Without a Blanket

by Ghassan Kanafani a portrayal of the political and social realities of the Palastinian people Playing April 7 - April 24 Thursdays - Saturdays at 8PM Sundays at 3PM Tickets: $15

Cleopatra

by: Charles Busch original, outrageous, majestic and bawdy interpretation of the fabled Egyptian queen Playing April 7 - April 24 Thursdays - Saturdays at 8PM Sundays at 3PM Tickets: $15

Young Benjamin Banneker

by: Juan Villegas Two days in the life of the first African man of Science Playing April 7 - April 24 Thursdays - Saturdays at 8PM Sundays at 3PM Tickets: $15

April 7, 2016

21

New worlds for an audience of one

VR at TFF delivers 360 degrees of exploration

BY CHARLES BATTERSBY

W

hen the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) began in 2002, video games and interactive entertainment were still struggling to be taken seriously.

In recent years, TFF programs like Tribeca Games and Games for Change have done their part to recognize the cultural impact and artistic legitimacy of these forms. This year, the festival takes another step further by augmenting its roster of films with events that take audiences out of the screening room and into new, immersive worlds.

Storyscapes (a collection of interactive installations) returns to TFF this year, with several new virtual reality (VR) options. The Apr. 14–17 programming includes “DEEP VR,” a deep sea simulator that allows players to control the experience through their breathing, a documentary (“The Ark”) that puts the audience face to face with a nearly extinct species of rhinoceros, and “Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness.” Guided by the original audio-diary recordings of John Hull after losing his sight in 1983, a “binaural sound” headset helps users empathize with the way a blind person perceives the world.

Another Storyscapes project represents the first VR game based on a graphic novel (Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s “S.E.N.S.”). Marie Blondiaux, a producer at Red Corner (the makers of “SENS”), describes what players will find when they put on their VR headseats: “An anonymous wanderer roams in a stripped down yet mysterious universe,” she explains. “You have to find a way within a maze without walls, with only arrows to guide you.” Those arrows manifest themselves in manners both obvious and hidden, often creating optical illusions. Players will control their character within this work, by looking where they want to go, with a motion-sensing helmet.

The Virtual Arcade is a new event for the festival. It also uses VR experiences, and is open from Apr. 18–20.

Among the virtual adventures is “Dragonflight,” an aerial combat simulator from Blackthorn Media, which allows players to fly on the back of a dragon.

Although “Dragonflight” has plenty of action, Michael Conelly, Creative Director of Blackthorn Media, says, “There’s a collective hunch that [VR] is a medium that’s here to stay, and that

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April 7, 2016

PHOTO COURTESY TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

This year’s Tribeca Film Festival ups the ante of its interactive dare, with new VR tech and storytelling experiences.

it matters from a storytelling standpoint.” Conelly assures that players who try “Dragonflight” at the arcade “are going to have a hell of an experience meeting our dragon in person.

He drops down out of the sky and lands with a THUMP, and looks right at you from just a couple of feet away.”

One of the films making its world premiere at TFF is the horror film “Holidays.” A selection in the Midnight series, the anthology puts a grim and occasionally bloody spin on various occasions for celebration during the calendar year. “Holidays: Christmas VR,” was conceived and executed by Scott Stewart, who also did the honors for the Christmas-themed segment of the film.

“In VR,” notes Stewart about the difference between this new medium and traditional cinema, “the viewer is dropped into a 360-degree world

wherein they have the freedom to look in any direction at any time. So as a storyteller, you need to view your composition as the ‘world surrounding your viewer.’ It’s more like staging an event around a single audience member.”

Luis Blackaller, the Creative Director at Wevr, the VR production studio behind “Christmas VR,” points out that the narrative experience they provide is “closer to a vivid memory or a lucid dream. When telling a story in VR, it is important to figure out ways to make things come across around the viewer, regardless of what they are looking at. They might be browsing a bookshelf in a studio while the unexpected murder happens just behind their backs, and, yes, they might miss that moment. But they will get what happened because they were there.”

Some of the VR projects in the Vir-

tual Arcade will involve murder and horror. “Killer Deal,” the story of a machete salesman, is a humorous take on classic slasher films. Fans of horror/comedy will recognize its director, Anthony C. Ferrante, from the “Sharknado” films, along with leading man Ian Ziering.

Irad Eyal, writer and producer of “Killer Deal,” says the lighthearted feel of this project will provide the viewer with an experience unique to this new form. “A lot of the VR that you see now is pretty serious,” he notes. “And there’s a place for that. I think VR is really good for documentary film making...but it’s also very heavy. We wanted to give you an alternative to that, with something that’s campy, ridiculous, over the top, funny, and fun.”

VIRTUAL REALITY continued on p. 24 TheVillager.com

Tribeca Film Fest navigates its mid-teen years TRIBECA FILM FEST continued from p. 20

alongside an ensemble whose marquee names include James Franco, Alicia Silverstone, and Molly Ringwald.

DO YOU LIKE GOOD MUSIC?

Two childhood pals — one who grows up to be a comedian, the other, a folk-rocker — take to the road and split the bill on whatever hardscrabble gigs they can book, in “Folk Hero & Funny Guy.” The documentary “Bad Rap” profiles the outsider quest of four Asian-American rappers struggling for artistic recognition. Hip-hop also exerts a pull on the young Palestinian protagonists of “Junction 48,” whose charged lyrics chafe against their conservative community and outside forces.

In Arabic/Hebrew with English subtitles.

“SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock” is a documentary that surveys the prolific career of music photographer Mick Rock, who gives a first-hand account of capturing iconic shots of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Queen, and other famous names. In “Geezer,” Green Day member and Broadway composer Billie Joe Armstrong stars as the former lead singer of a punk band who, at 40, finds himself married, living in the suburbs, parenting two children, and

PHOTO BY LISA GUARNIERI

L to R: Kevin Stea, Gabriel Trupin and Oliver Crumes III, circa 1990. “Strike a Pose” is a look at life during and after touring with Madonna.

pining for more of the glories he amassed from a misspent youth.

Person, on snagging songs and shooting guerrilla-style CALIFÓRNIA continued from p. 21

Every detail of the scenic design feels similarly lived in, in order to recreate 1984 — a “very special year in Brazilian history,” according to Person, due to the downfall of the military dictatorship, the rise of a new rock scene, and the emergence of AIDS. “The movie’s not about AIDS, the movie’s not about politics, the movie’s not about any of that,” she quickly notes. “But those things were important to me, and I wanted them to be present. The movie is essentially about a girl becoming a woman.”

This use of a very specific socio-economic period as a backdrop for a simple story — along with its slice-of-life vibe and Person’s gentle, matter-offact directing style — recalls Richard Linklater’s work. Person also cites Francois Truffaut, and John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club,” as inspirations in her filmmaking.

“I guess I’m influenced by everybody — all the filmmakers I love,” she comments of these touchstones.

“Nothing seems to be happening, but this is life, right? You know, TheVillager.com

there’s nothing special here, there’s no turning point; but life is made of these moments, right? I like that kind of film.”

Ultimately, the strength of “Califórnia” is not derived from any amount of art direction, song choice, or inspiration; it’s from the elegant universality at its core.

“Essentially, we talk about things that everybody has gone through, or will go through if they are younger.

You know, the teenage rites of passage,” Person says. “All the time you are asking yourself ‘Where am I? Where am I supposed to be? Is it here? What kind of person do I want to be?’ And so, these things, I hope people can connect to that.”

“Califórnia” screens Sat., Apr. 16 at 6 p.m., Mon., Apr. 18 at 9:15 p.m., and Fri., Apr. 22 at 7:15 p.m. at Regal Cinemas Battery Park (102 North End Ave., at Vesey St.). Screens Thurs., Apr. 21 at 3:45 p.m. at Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea (260 W. 23rd St., btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). Visit tribecafilm.com or call 646-502-5296 for tickets ($20 plus $3.50 phone or web processing fee; $10 for the Apr. 21 matinee, plus processing).

For tickets and schedule info, visit tribecafilm.com or call 646-502-5296.

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IMAGE COURTESY NIKI SMIT

Control your experience by controlling your breath, in the underwater word of “DEEP VR.”

Tribeca Film Fest ventures into virtual reality

IMAGE COURTESY MARC-ANTOINE MATHIEU

The character of the graphic novel meets its avatar in VR, in “SENS.” VIRTUAL REALITY continued from p. 22

Eyal also discusses how audiences respond to the narrative in an interactive VR story, noting how the viewer is “naturally going to follow the action, the same way you would if you were in a room with a monster or a serial killer. You’re going to keep your eye on him.”

Eric Darnell is known for directing animated films like “Madagascar,” but he also wrote and directed the VR project “Invasion,” which makes its debut at the Virtual Arcade. “Invasion” is the story of two cute bunny rabbits who repel an alien attack, with players inhabiting the body of one of those bunnies. VR, says Darnell, “is not just an advancement of cinema. It’s its own medium, with its own language that’s just barely being developed right now.

It’s going to take time to realize all of the potential that VR has to offer.”

The Tribeca Film Festival is also hosting its Games and Media Summit for the third year. This Apr. 18 event

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will feature hands-on play with new VR games, as well as panel discussions with game makers whose topics include how to create games for VR, new “biometric” technology for interacting with games, and using VR for empathy and journalism.

As VR makes strides in being accepted as a form of legitimate storytelling, it is also becoming a more accessible experience to people who might have been turned off by early VR projects. Conelly, of “Dragonflight,” boasts of the refined control scheme to his game, which is intended to help people who are prone to motion sickness. “We don’t want Robert De Niro getting on our dragon and getting queasy,” he jokes.

All events mentioned in this article take place at the Festival Hub (Spring Street Studios, 50 Varick St., btw. Beach & Laight Sts.). Tickets to Storyscapse and Virtual Arcade events are $40 each, with discounted packages available. For more info, visit tribecafilm.com or call 646-502-5296.

IMAGE COURTESY MICHAEL CONELLY

Azhdaya approaches the tomb of Vermithrax in “Dragonflight,” an aerial combat simulator that puts you on the back of a dragon.

IMAGE COURTESY BAOBAB STUDIOS

“Invasion” lets you inhabit the body of a bunny, then join the fight against an attack from outer space.

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Outrage over AIDS facility’s stealth sale RIVINGTON continued from p. 4

tion — but with modifications, so that the property would not become market-rate housing.

“VillageCare was working with us,” Squadron noted.

Press reports indicate that both de Blasio officials and state officials believe they were misled by Allure Group, which apparently made representations that it planned to run a for-profit healthcare facility at the Rivington House site — before it flipped the property.

De Blasio, however, has been criticized in the press for not seeming to be sufficiently outraged about what transpired.

Asked about that, Brewer said, “I hope he’s outraged — particularly in this neighborhood, where gentrification is so rampant.

“It’s essentially affordable housing,” Brewer said of the former 200bed AIDS hospice. She added that a public-private partnership also could have been an option to preserve a community use at the property.

K Walter, president of the Sara Roosevelt Park Community Coalition, said her group — which includes local nonprofits, residents and businesses — had worked diligently on the Rivington House issue.

“The building was given to VillageCare with the understanding it would continue this mission,” she said. “That’s why you have a deed restriction.”

She said it was her understanding that VillageCare wanted to sell to the highest bidder.

Walter said that during Wednesday’s press conference, an elderly local man who has dementia walked up and listened in.

“He’s getting kicked out of his apartment. We thought he was going to live here,” she said of Rivington House. “He helped build up the community in the 1980s, when the Parks Department didn’t even want to come here.”

Walter said it was tough seeing the AIDS patients moved out of the facility toward the end of its operation.

She’s often in the park, where she is an active member of the M’Finda Kalunga Garden.

“The AIDS guys used to come to the turtle pond,” she said of the garden. “They have a plot in there.”

Also in the crosshairs of the viral news story has been Jim Capalino, City Hall’s top lobbyist and a friend of de Blasio’s. Capalino was hired

by VillageCare to get the city to lift the building’s deed restriction.

In an interview with The Villager, Capalino noted that the building had been underused. Due to advances in AIDS treatment, the place was only filling about one-eighth of its beds. VillageCare also wanted him to get the city to waive a payment in return for lifting the deed, he noted. The normal procedure is for the city to require a payment, since the property’s value soars af-

ter the restrictions are lifted. This money, in turn, goes toward the city’s general finances.

Meanwhile, 100 percent of the money VillageCare reaped from the property’s sale would be used to deliver health services throughout the Lower East Side community, Capalino explained.

However, he was unable to get the city to lift the restriction before the end of the Bloomberg administration, leading VillageCare to become frustrated with him and end its contract with him on Oct. 31, 2014, he said.

Capalino told The Villager that after that date, he had no involvement whatsoever with the Rivington House property, its sale or the lifting of the deed restriction.

“If I don’t have a contract with you, the engagement comes to an end,” he explained of how he operates. “And we did not have any engagement afterward.”

Capalino said he was as much in the dark about the building’s sale as anyone.

“I read about the sale in the newspaper,” he said.

The property’s new owner, Slate, has been a Capalino client, though involving Brooklyn properties.

“We have had three separate engagements with them,” he said.

“None of them involved properties in Manhattan. We were never involved with Slate with this building.”

Gang book’s snub is a punch to gut BOOK FIGHT continued from p. 15

topics, we generally curate the different sections through a lens of intersectional feminism, to which this title did not seem related, as it seemed like a book only on the history of violence of our neighborhood. Also, our consignment roster is pretty full.

“The store receives between four to 10 books every week for consignment review. We generally only say yes to books that make the most sense to carry at Bluestockings.”

Herron added that when Patterson picked up his review copy on Monday, it was “not without getting into a verbal altercation with the volunteer staffing at the time.”

However, Patterson said, “I did not get into an argument. I took the book and I left.”

Herron said she personally did not appreciate Patterson posting on Facebook, in “a polemic full of accusations against us,” that the store did not want to carry the

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April 7, 2016

book because it concerned L.E.S. Latino history.

“As a Cuban-American woman of color myself, this was of course saddening to me,” she said, adding, “I also try and work with authors that can demonstrate that they are able to interact with me in a safe and professional manner.”

That said, she added, “I actually spent some time with a friend last night who was able to fill me in on Clayton and his contributions to the L.E.S., so I can understand, though, why he may have felt hurt.”

Herron added that they haven’t necessarily “closed the book” on the matter, either.

“This is not like a hard ‘no’ to his book,” she told The Villager. “Again, if he wanted to have a conversation about it, and was willing to do so in a calm and safe manner, there is always space for one to reconsider, if he really wants us to carry it.”

For his part, Patterson sees the book’s rejection as merely another chapter in the hood’s gentrification.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am still shocked by where the yuppie gentrifiers attitude comes from,” he said. “The part of the L.E.S. I live in used to be one of the most overlooked, forgotten parts. First night Elsa and I moved into our space, looking out the window, we saw a guy get shot and killed in front of P.S. 20. We had 24-hour drug sales outside our front door. The streets were controlled by drug crews, posses and gangs like the Allen Boys.

“In jail, Cochise turned his life around and now works counseling young gangbangers about the problems of being in a gang,” Patterson said. “He was always interested in L.E.S. street gang history. In jail he talked to many old L.E.S. gangsters and wrote down the information, which he turned into a book.

“The people who now have moved to the neighborhood have no interest in the actual past,” Patterson bitterly complained, “only a commoditized representation of the past.”

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PHOTOS BY CLAYTON PATTERSON

Action star gets into the action at Bleecker gym

W

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Continued from p. 16

hile Will Smith was shooting a new movie, “Collateral Beauty,” on Bleecker St. last week, he dropped in at No. 9 to check out Overthrow Boxing.

He struck a fighter’s stance with Daniel Coleman, Overthrow’s trainer, then did some energetic gloveless sparring with Alicia “The Empress” Napoleon, who recently won the W.B.C. superwelterweight title.

Smith also posed for a photo with Justin Tompkins, the place’s diminutive floor general. Also watching the action with Overthrow’s Joey Goodwin was June Leaf. She and her husband, Robert Franks — whose “The Americans” is considered perhaps the 20th centu-

No ‘tricky street art,’ please!

Is this Bangladesh?

To The Editor: Re “Triangle memorial is a wedge issue in Village” (news article, March 31): Caterina Maltese was 38. Roserio and Lucia were her daughters. The three of them perished in the tragic Triangle Fire. They and the other 143 victims are buried in 16 different cemeteries. This landmarked building site is where they are all honored on the anniversary of the fire every year.

To complete this annual tribute we must have a dignified list of their names readable and at eye level. The proposed tricky street art with the names falling down in reflection is a dishonor to these young lives. R.I.P.

To The Editor: Re “Triangle memorial is a wedge issue in Village” (news article, March 31): The speech by the president of the memorial group ended with a rousing, “We will change the world.” How does that describe a tribute to the victims of the fire?

Lara Gregor TheVillager.com

Ann Conway

It’s more about the artists To The Editor: Re “Triangle memorial is a wedge issue in Village” (news article, March 31):

ry’s most influential photography book — are neighbors of the Yippie headquarters-turned-boxing gym.

“At first, Frank was grumpy as he is not keen on all the gentrification that is taking place on the Lower East Side,” said photographer Clayton Patterson. “But now that he has met Joey and the folks at Overthrow, they are good friends. Often June, Robert and Joey hang out. Robert goes into the gym and watches the fighters practice.”

A retrospective show of Leaf’s drawings, “June Leaf: Thought Is Infinite,” will be opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art, at 99 Gansevoort St., on April 27 and running through July 17. No doubt, it’s sure to be a knockout!

The coalition made no effort to work with the community in developing plans for a memorial.

What they are proposing is more of a personal statement by the artists than a suitable memorial for the victims.

Howard Negrin E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-2292790 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.

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