Chelsea Now by Schneps Media

YOUR WEEKLY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SERVING CHELSEA, HUDSON YARDS & HELL’S KITCHEN

Proposed Zone Has No Tolerance for Hate BY WINNIE McCROY New Yorkers are standing up against hate crime, with Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen eager to designate their area as a “hate-free” zone. Responding to the March 20 domestic terrorism slaying of Timothy Caughman by white supremacist James Harris Jackson, community members sought to send a message to elected officials in Washington, HATE -FREE ZONE continued on p. 3

Rainbow Flag Creator Leaves Legacy of Pride BY ANDY HUMM Gay pioneer and artist Gilbert Baker, who died in his sleep at age 65 on March 31 at his home in Manhattan, did not just create the iconic Rainbow Flag, but gave it away freely to the world where it was embraced in every corner — from its origins in San Francisco GILBERT BAKER continued on p. 4

The Quad Turns a Corner

The renovated Quad Cinema is ready to pass its screen test. See page 16.

Photo by Sean Egan

A view of the shuttered Associated supermarket at W. 14th St. and Eighth Ave., which was forced out in 2016 after facing a massive rent hike.

Food Desert Residents Hunger for Change BY SEAN EGAN With skyrocketing rents, last year’s closure of the Associated supermarket on W. 14th St., and the stalling of the Small Business Jobs Survival Act in City Council, the struggle to find affordable, quality groceries in Chelsea has become greater than ever before. For many facing the dual challenge of limited finances and mobility, the situation can often feel as if it’s insurmountable. However, not all hope is lost: A new task force of the Hudson Guild Neighborhood Advisory Committee (NAC), armed with grassroots passion, is setting its sights on fixing this pressing issue. Spearheaded by Italo Medelius, a NAC Community Access Committee

member, the task force was officially approved by the Hudson Guild NAC mid-March, but had been working on the grocery issue since January. Currently, its ranks consist of Medelius, Larry Littman, Merle Levin, and Alix Birdoff (Assistant Director of Mental Health Services at Hudson Guild; 459 W. 26th St., btw. Ninth & 10th Aves.; hudsonguild.org). “There were a lot of different community members that were focusing on issues like dogs and rats and potholes, things like that,” Medelius explained of the task force’s early goings. “We decided that we were going to work on three topics: Grocery affordability, restaurant

affordability, and police relations. Initially we were going to tackle all three at the same time, but then as soon as we started diving into this whole supermarket thing, and grocery affordability, we decided this was an enormous issue that nobody was really shining a light on in the community.” The task force has hit the ground running with new short- and longterm efforts to help turn the grocery situation around for Chelsea. As reported in Chelsea Now last month (March 8; “Mission Affordable: Survey a Start for Better Grocery Shopping Options”), just before the FOOD DESERT continued on p. 2

VOLUME 09, ISSUE 13 | APRIL 13-19, 2017

Hudson Guild Task Force Advocates for Affordable, Accessible Groceries FOOD DESERT continued from p. 1

task force’s official formation, the group circulated a survey to gather information about Chelsea’s grocerybuying landscape. The survey was posted online (still accessible for participation at goo.gl/vCd6YR), and physically at a number of community locations, and Medelius said that they are continuing outreach to community leaders and local businesses to get it out to the public. Thus far, with approximately 50 respondents, the survey has revealed unsurprising, if concerning, results. Sixty percent of those polled reported that they used more than one grocery option in their shopping, and a further third of survey takers reported that they do not shop at area Chelsea supermarkets — instead opting to travel far and wide for cheaper options, like the Park Slope Food Coop (foodcoop.com) or the Walmart in New Jersey. Even factoring in bus costs, “It’s a lot cheaper than just shopping at the Gristedes at home,” Medelius noted. Additionally, 80 percent reported that affordable options and highquality food — or the lack thereof —

Via usda.gov

An interactive map on the USDA’s website shows the locations of all areas designated as food deserts.

is a high-priority issue to them. Since these statistics were tabulated, however, Medelius’ team has

Holy Week and Easter Services at St. Peter’s Chelsea Episcopal Church

Holy Week Services: 4/8 Saturday Sacred Music 7:30pm La Compagnia Amarilli Free Concert

4/14 Good Friday 12:00pm Good Friday Liturgy

4/15 The Great Vigil of Easter 7:00pm Sung Eucharist

4/9 Palm Sunday 9am Family Service 10:00am Liturgy of the Palms & Holy Eucharist 6:00pm Evening Prayer 8:00pm Compline

4/10 Monday 4/11 Tuesday 4/12 Wednesday

4/16 Easter Sunday 9:00am Family Service 9:30am Toddlers Easter Egg Hunt in Rectory Garden 10:00am Festal Eucharist 11:15am Easter Egg Hunt in Rectory Garden 6:00pm Evening Prayer

8:00am Holy Eucharist

4/13 Maundy Thursday 5:30pm Community Meal 7:00pm Maundy Thursday Liturgy 9:00pm All-Night Vigil at the Altar of Repose

346 W. 20th St. (8th & 9th Aves.) 212-929-2390 | stpeterschelsea.org All are welcome here! 2

April 13-19, 2017

translated the survey into Spanish (Mandarin forthcoming), and is focusing on getting the survey to residents of Penn South and the Elliott-Chelsea Houses — “We want to make it so that everybody in the community can have a say.” He hopes gathering even more accurate information that will come in handy for their next short-term project. “We decided that we were going to take on a project to illustrate our living in a food desert for seniors and disabled,” Medelius explained to Chelsea Now via email after an April 4 task force meeting. “We’re going to build a map with grocery stores marked on them and show walking distance as for seniors and disabled. We would also color code affordability of supermarkets and those who accept WIC and SNAP for deliveries,” he went on, noting that no major chain supermarkets fit those criteria, and that the west side of Chelsea is a particular problem area in this regard. The hope is that the map will be able to be used as a handy graphic at a forthcoming town hall meeting — which Medelius hopes to be set up in the next month or so, in order to bring the community at large into their efforts. And, as mentioned, Medelius thinks that the map could help aid in the case in trying to designate the area a food desert — one

Photo by Sean Egan

L to R: Italo Medelius, Merle Levin and Larry Littman of the Hudson Guild Neighborhood Advisory Committee task force, which is working to ameliorate the issues facing seniors trying to access affordable, quality groceries.

of their primary long-term goals. The USDA is the government agency that keeps track of food deserts — neighborhoods that lack healthy food sources. One metric by which they determine food deserts is whether an area is “low access,” defined as “if at least 100 households are more than a half-mile from the nearest supermarket and have no access to a vehicle; or at least 500 people or 33 percent of the populaFOOD DESERT continued on p. 10 .com

Photo by Winnie McCroy

City Councilmember Corey Johnson speaks on the Midtown terror attack.

Photo by Sean Egan

A memorial for Timothy Caughman, on W. 36th St. & Ninth Ave., the site of his March 20 murder.

CB4 Moves to Make Area a ‘Hate-Free’ Zone HATE-FREE ZONE continued from p. 1

DC, and the rest of the country: New York City will not tolerate hate. So, at the April 5 Community Board 4 (CB4) full board meeting at Mt. Sinai West (1000 10th Ave.), the Board unanimously voted to approve a letter to the NYC District Attorney Cy Vance and NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill regarding hate crimes and terrorism. They thanked the men for their swift arrest of Jackson, and asked what strategies were in place to prevent future acts of terrorism in their community. They also expressed concern that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had refused to condemn the murder “as a white supremacist hate crime and terrorist act,” as Mayor Bill de Blasio has done. “He was attacked because of who he was, plain and simple. And don’t think for a moment it was an attack on one stray man, because it was an attack on all of us,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio at Caughman’s April 1 funeral. “It was a racist attack. It was an act of domestic terrorism; we have to call it what it is. But it was also an attack on all of us, because this city stands for something. So, it’s no surprise that evil came calling here.” Meant to address this “evil,” the letter ended with a call to “find ways to prevent assassinations of innocent people on the sidewalks of our Midtown community by violent extremists of all stripes.” .com

Calling it a “masterful letter,” CB4 Chair Delores Rubin said it had generated a very fruitful conversation within the Executive Committee about how none are immune to hate, adding, “someone lost their life because someone did not like that they were black. We would hope we were at an age where we didn’t have to see that.” “I felt this was very important, because this man was a member of our community who was stabbed by a sword so big it went right through his back,” said the letter’s author, CB4 Member JD Noland. “It was murder by an act of terror; a terrorist act in our neighborhood by a man who came up from Baltimore specifically to kill black people. He was a member of a white supremacist group who went on websites just like Dylann Roof, who killed those nine parishioners in a church in South Carolina.” Noland said the board should speak out not only because Caughman was a member of the community, but because Jackson came to New York City because it is the media center of the country, and he thought he could get more publicity for his crime. “This was an attack on diversity by a man who came up here to kill black people, and it’s important that we say that,” said Noland. “If he had come up here to kill white women, they would not characterize it as an ‘attack on diversity.’ But it is important for us to speak up for our lost community member to the White House, who of course

won’t respond. When Sean Spicer was asked, he would not call the attack an act of terror.” City Councilmember and former CB4 Chair Corey Johnson stopped by the

meeting to speak about standing up to hate crimes like this. “The world seems crazier every day, HATE-FREE ZONE continued on p. 14

JOIN US FOR

HOLY WEEK At The Church of St. Luke in the Fields Saturday— April 8

Good Friday — April 14

7:30 pm The Seven Last Words of Our 9:00 am Morning Prayer Savior on the Cross—Eduardo Bellotti, 1:00 pm Good Friday Liturgy organist 6:00 pm Stations of the Cross Palm Sunday — April 9 7:30 pm Meditations on the Blessing of the Palms and Holy Eucharist Passion of Christ—Music and Readings 8:00 am Said Eucharist 9:15 am Choral Eucharist* Holy Saturday — April 15 11:15 am Choral Eucharist* 8:00 pm The Great Vigil of Easter 1:15 pm Service of Healing The Paschal Vigil and First Eucharist of Easter with Baptism, Con rmation, Mon. Tues.— April 10, 11 Reception and Rea rmation 6:15 pm Said Eucharist of Baptismal Vows.

Wednesday — April 12

6:15 pm Stations of the Cross and Holy Eucharist

Easter Sunday — April 16

8:00 am Said Eucharist 9:15 am Choral Eucharist* 6:30 pm Choral Eucharist with 10:30 am Easter Egg Hunt Foot Washing, Agape Supper, Strip11:15 am Choral Eucharist* ping of the Altar, and Vigil at the Altar 12:45 pm Healing Service of Repose. Overnight Watch until 1pm

Maundy Thursday — April 13

Good Friday.

*Child care is available for children ages 6 and under

The Church of Saint Luke in the Fields | Corner of Hudson and Grove Streets 487 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014 | 212.924.0562 | www.stlukeinthe elds.org April 13-19, 2017

Gilbert Baker, Whose Rainbow Flag Sewed LGBTQ World Together, Dies at 65 GILBERT BAKER continued from p. 1

to Russia and Uganda and Kathmandu — as the universal symbol of LGBTQ liberation and the diversity that characterizes our community. Gilbert’s untimely death — due to a heart attack —came as a shock to his many friends, fellow activists, and admirers and reverberated around the world as his creation did and always will. Gilbert was not just the Betsy Ross of the community, sewing versions of the flag small to massive, but one of the community’s foremost front-line revolutionaries who made and carried protest banners for actions protesting the homophobia of Vladimir Putin, the once exclusionary St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and Donald Trump — to name just a few targets in recent years. Duncan Osborne, a comrade of Gilbert’s in Queer Nation, said, “He created a global movement by giving us a common symbol. You see the Rainbow Flag around the world and it has a common meaning.” At Queer Nation actions, Osborne said, “we would get a banner from him and suddenly a group of 20 people would look like a hundred. You can walk past a few people holding posters, but a 60-foot banner you couldn’t ignore. His contribution was extraordinary, and done with a simple tool that you would normally look at and say, ‘What’s that going to do?’ ” The answer was always that Gilbert’s work made these actions pop — and he was almost invariably on hand to unfurl his banners and to join in holding them up. Gilbert’s Rainbow Flag was the only flag ever to have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, which first displayed it in 2015. Immediately after the debacle of the 2016 election, MoMA moved it to their grand entrance hall to wave over visitors and welcome them all. When the anti-LGBTQ then-VicePresident-Elect Mike Pence moved to a suburban Washington neighborhood during the transition last fall, many of his new neighbors tried to send him a signal of who they were by festooning their houses with Rainbow Flags. Gilbert’s Rainbow Flag has been projected on iconic buildings from the Empire State to the Eiffel Tower in celebration of LGBTQ pride. President Barack Obama lit up the White House in rainbow colors on the evening of June 26, 2015, when marriage equality triumphed at the

April 13-19, 2017

Courtesy Jay Blotcher

Gilbert Baker with President Barack Obama at the 2016 White House Pride Celebration.

Photo by Donna Aceto

The Gays Against Guns contingent in last year’s Pride March.

Supreme Court. And Donald Trump, who has surrounded himself with anti-LGBTQ activists and is gutting LGBTQ rights, appropriated one to hold up at a campaign rally in a deceptive effort to soften his reactionary image. The flag is also flown by merchants around the world to signal that they are LGBTQ-friendly — or at least want the business of LGBTQ people and our allies. When the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion was marked in New York in 1994, Gilbert stitched together a Rainbow Flag that was literally a mile long to mark the occasion monumentally. It took 5,000 people to carry it up First Ave. past the United Nations. For the 2003 Key West Pride Parade — the year the Rainbow Flag was 25 years old — he exceeded his own world record for “world’s longest flag” by making one that extended across that resort town from the

Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. At the time of his death, he was active in the preparations for Stonewall 50 in 2019. A vigil was held in Gilbert’s memory on Friday, the day of his death, in San Francisco’s Harvey Milk Plaza where Gilbert’s huge Rainbow Flag has flown for 20 years on a 70-foot pole. Gilbert never wanted the Rainbow Flag to fly at half-staff — even for himself. (Gilbert submitted a similarly tall display of his flag in a design competition for a memorial in Hudson River Park to those who were victims of the 2016 Orlando Pulse massacre and other hate crimes. The decision of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Task Force on that memorial’s design has yet to be announced.) Gilbert’s first created an eight-color rainbow flag (including hot pink and turquoise in addition to the six primary and secondary colors) in San

Francisco in 1978 in those heady days when Harvey Milk had been elected the town’s first out gay supervisor. (In November of that year, Milk was assassinated at City Hall along with Mayor George Moscone by former Supervisor Dan White.) Gilbert’s activist friend Cleve Jones, an aide to Milk, helped him dye the fabric. “I knew right away this was the most important thing I would ever do,” Gilbert said in 2013. Gilbert said he got the idea in 1976 during the US bicentennial. “American fl ags were on everything,” he recalled. “It gave me the idea that we could have a flag because even though we’re not a nation, we’re a people.” “Flags are torn from the soul of the people,” Gilbert said in 2007. “That day when he raised the fi rst Rainbow Flag [to fly over City Hall on Gay Freedom Day], he knew that was his life’s work,” Jones told the San Francisco Chronicle. “And for every march, every protest, every celebration, every memorial, he was always sewing and sewing and sewing. For generations to come, people will know that flag. It’s an example of how one person can have an amazing and brilliant idea that reaches not just millions, but hundreds of millions of people.” Gilbert never “patented” his flag design and it remains in the public domain, as all flags apparently do. He wanted the world to have it and was active in its promotion. At World Pride in Rome in 2000, he mounted his fi rst exhibition of photographs and fi ne art celebrating his flag. Gilbert’s longtime friend Charley Beal, a gay activist who was also art director on the film “Milk,” said, “Gilbert just fi nished 39 nine-color Rainbow Flags adding the color lavender for diversity for the 39th anniversary of the Rainbow Flag to be shown at a gallery in San Francisco during Pride Month. He got up and made art every day. He was relentless. He put all his passion in the stitches. One of his greatest accomplishments was when he unfurled the mile-long flag in 1994. He cut the flag into large pieces that were given to delegations from Pride organizations around the world and within a year those pieces were showing up at Pride celebrations from Brazil to China to Cuba — in effect internationalizing the flag as a symbol of the LGBT community. It was a semGILBERT BAKER continued on p. 12 .com

CB4 Bids Adieu to Longtime Members BY WINNIE McCROY Community members gathered at Mount Sinai West (1000 10th Ave.) on Wed., April 5 for the monthly full board meeting of Manhattan Community Board 4 (CB4). Despite a busy agenda, many were there to testify against granting a liquor license to a new business not to the liking of residents at London Terrace Towers (a co-op) and London Terrace Gardens (rental buildings). The Board also examined the progress of the new Chelsea Health Center, and bade a fond farewell to exiting members. “This is a bittersweet meeting because it marks the end of several people’s time serving on the Board,” said CB4 Chair Delores Rubin. “Tonight we are honoring Walker Mankoff. We appreciate his decades of work as a former chair. Also, Sarah Desmond is leaving, and Ambur Nicosia, who remains a voice in education. Big thanks to all.” City Councilmember Corey Johnson arrived, framed Proclamations in hand, to declare April 5 a Manhattan “Appreciation Day” for Walter Mankoff and Sarah Desmond. Mankoff was grateful, sharing reasons he believed CB4 was great, including that they “favor worthwhile ideas and programs, follow proper procedure, do research to support their arguments with facts, and come up with real creative solutions. They compromise when we need to negotiate, be sure localized solutions don’t hurt the whole board, involve the community, listen respectfully, work with other boards, and share the work. These are a few things that made our board great; remember them and use them going forward.” Desmond, who has spent 24 years working with Housing Conservation Coordinators and 14 on CB4, called her service, “some really remarkable years in which we accomplished amazing things,” adding, “I will miss all the characters on the West Side.”

CHELSEA HEALTH CENTER REVAMP ON TARGET CB4 shared an update on the Chelsea Health Center at Ninth Ave. and W. 29th St., which, which they noted was “almost complete.” In a letter to the New York State Department of Health (DOH), CB4 stressed that “in its last full year of operation, the clinic had over 19,000 patient visits” and “visits to its sexual health clinic represented almost a quarter of the New York City total.” CB4 District Manager Jesse Bodine .com

Photo by Winnie McCroy

City Councilmember Corey Johnson (center) proclaimed April 5 Walter Mankoff Appreciation Day (Mankoff, to the left of Johnson). Sarah Desmond received similar honors.

said that CB4’s Burt Lazarin and Maria Ortiz toured the site, and although the planned community space was “a little smaller than we thought it would be,” it looked great. “We have little concern that the state DOH will work very well with the city to get this opened on deadline,” said Bodine. “We don’t want to get caught up with a minor snag and then not get another review for three months, so we are taking a proactive approach to start the ball rolling on state licensing.” They urged project managers to work with the DOH and the NYC Economic Development Corporation to “expedite this process so the clinic can reopen on time and again serve the healthcare needs of our community.”

Licenses & Permits (BLP) Committee recommended denying a liquor license to Stefkov as “contrary to the public interest,” citing “the cavalier attitude that this

applicant has shown toward the community and its concerns.” CB4 continued on p. 14

CB4 SAYS NO MORE RUBBER-STAMPING LIQUOR LICENSES Nearly a dozen residents from London Terrace Towers and London Terrace Gardens testified during the public session, requesting that CB4 not recommend the granting of a liquor license to a restaurant at nearby 461–463 W. 23rd St. Calling applicant Emil Stefkov a “bad actor,” residents cited his poor record of relations with neighbors, his loss of liquor license, and problems of noise, trash, and cigarette smoke. In an April 5 letter to the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA), CB4’s Business April 13-19, 2017

Mural Targeting Misogynistic Language Doesn’t Mince Words BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC Imagine, if you will, a category on Jeopardy devoted to the things that politicians say about women. I’ll take things politicians say about women for 500, Alex. “Some girls, they rape so easy.” Who is Roger Rivard, a Republican and former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly? “Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.” Who is Clayton Williams, a businessman who ran for governor of Texas and lost? “Moral of story: women in military, bad idea.” Who is Mike Pence, our current vice president, pontificating about 1998’s “Mulan?” All correct, Trebek would say. A recently unveiled art installation — a mural titled “We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident” (more on that later) — is taking a cold, hard look at what politicians say about the female population, and is on display at New York Live Arts’ lobby until early September. New York Live Arts — a nonprofit that produces and presents dance and is the home of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company — often commissions artists to design work for the space’s lobby, Bjorn Amelan, the organization’s creative director, said in an email to Chelsea Now. Amelan said he approached artist Natalie Frank (natalie-frank.com) late last summer about creating a mural. “At first, she didn’t feel that she’d be able to find the time to create a mural, but following then-candidate Trump’s outrageous comment about grabbing women, she called me back saying that she had an idea she felt for the creation of a work in collaboration with her friend, Zoë Buckman, [zoebuckman. com] that would be timely and doable,” he said. Buckman said she and Frank had known each other for a couple of years. “She thought it was the perfect marriage if we worked on [the mural] together,” Buckman said in a phone interview. When the two artists got together before the election, they would “lament” and express disgust about statements politicians were making about women’s rights, Buckman said. “It made sense that we use the collection of these statements about women,” she said. Once they decided on compiling statements, they got to work, researching, finding quotes, and then double and triple checking them, Buckman explained. “This is the first work of

April 13-19, 2017

Photos by Dusica Sue Malesevic

A mural exploring politicians’ quotes about women and their bodies will be on display at New York Live Arts’ lobby until early September.

The mural’s title is a nod to suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments, which she modeled after the Declaration of Independence.

art [for me] where it’s been research heavy,” she said, noting she usually takes a personal approach to her art. “It was important to us that we included Democrats. The vast majority of the statements were made by Republican men,” she said, adding that they also included quotes from two women. Spending their days looking at hateful and misogynistic things said about women, was “infuriating,” Buckman said. “The process was maddening.” Buckman and Frank Googled “American old boys’ club” for images and decided to use one of “old white

dudes sitting around a mahogany table with a roaring fireplace,” she said. They liked it because some of the men were looking at the camera, she said. “We wanted to get the balance of information and something that was art — something that was visually appealing to the eye to draw the audience in,” she explained. They then dropped a raspberry-colored inlay over the image to make the white text pop, said Buckman, noting the reddish hue’s association with women and their vaginas. Buckman said that many women have found the mural triggering. Near

the large mural, there is a sheet of paper with information about resources for rape, domestic violence, reproductive services and sexual assault as well as a folder with each quote and its context. Amelan said, “The mural addresses the issue of respect for the female body/ person. Disrespectful statements have been made by politicians representing both sides of the isle, and this mural calls them on it. While its aim is not limited to the present administration, statements made at the highest level of the current administration make it extremely timely.” The mural’s title is a nod to suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who along with Lucretia Mott organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, which pushed for women’s rights and the right to vote. At the convention, many signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which Stanton wrote and modeled after the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal… .” Buckman said, “We’re trying to encourage [people] to look at the messages that our society is perpetuating and giving voice to. If one is affected by that, what are you going to do about it? The answer is simple: Vote.” New York Live Arts is located at 219 W. 19th St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.). For more info, visit newyorklivearts.org. .com

Some Actually Like Our Ludicrously Long Headlines, And, Also, All That Awesome Alliteration BY SCOTT STIFFLER Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not often we contemplate leaving the comfy confines of Chelsea. Indeed, venturing anywhere beyond this particular patch of our beloved borough requires a really good reason â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and we can cite at least one. Over the weekend, our publishers, editors, designers, and sales force made the trek upstate to attend the New York Press Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual spring convention. There, in comparatively sleepy yet strangely soothing Saratoga Springs â&#x20AC;&#x201D; between bouts of cocktail hour shoptalk and thought-provoking seminars â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Better Newspaper Contest winners were announced. Dozens upon dozens of ink-and-paper mom-and-pops submitted nominations in categories covering layout, advertising design, editorial content, and photography â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all judged by our peers (this year, from North Carolina). Chelsea Now and its NYC Community Media sister publications (Gay City News, The Villager, Downtown Express) were recognized for excellence, as were publications from our sister company, Community News Group (the companies are owned, respectively, by Jennifer and Les Goodstein). Chelsea Now won a Division 3 First Place award for Best Front Page. It was a combined win for editor Scott Stiffler, photographers Richard Hillman and Daniel Kwak, and the paperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s longtime Senior Designer, Michael Shirey (who recently left NYC

Community Media to work in the nonprofit sector). The judgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s note read, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Strong content, great photos, nice layout. Well done.â&#x20AC;? Editor Scott Stiffler won First Place for Headline Writing (a statewide category cutting across all divisions). â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chelsea Now said its headlines used literary references and alliteration,â&#x20AC;? wrote the judge based on our submission letter, â&#x20AC;&#x153;which made the headlines fun. It was mostly easy to catch the meanings. The headlines also w ere accurate, succinct and creative.â&#x20AC;? This paper has occasionally received lukewarm to hostile feedback for its extremely long headlines and all-too-often invocation of alliteration â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but the validation weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve received from this award ensures youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be swooning at, or suffering through, that style for the foreseeable future (and far beyond). And why not? Only the coldest heart would be hard-pressed to feel the love for our prize-winning doozies, among them: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Such Sweet Sorrow: Romeo Parting With West 22nd Streetâ&#x20AC;? (about the departure of beloved mail carrier Romeo Guy from 20 years on the same route) and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Formerly of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Fiddler,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Finkel, 93, Far From Final Actâ&#x20AC;? (about Fyvush Finkelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s March 2016 show at the Metropolitan Room; sadly, Finkel passed away several months later). Also contributing to the win were â&#x20AC;&#x153;Google Neighbor Searching for Some Peaceâ&#x20AC;? and the presidential election headline, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Herstory Denied As Red Tide Floods Hill.â&#x20AC;?

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Words to describe the unexpected defeat of Hillary Clinton won Chelsea Now the first place award for Headline Writing.

Chelsea Now also received a Division 2 Honorable Mention for Coverage of the Arts. Sean Egan was recognized for his roundup of the Rubin Museum of Artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s AWARDS continued on p. 15

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POLICE BLOTTER THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER

PUBLISHER Jennifer Goodstein

EDITOR Scott Stiffler

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sean Egan

ART DIRECTOR John Napoli

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Cristina Alcine

CONTRIBUTORS Lincoln Anderson Stephanie Buhmann Jackson Chen Sean Egan Bill Egbert Dennis Lynch Dusica Sue Malesevic Winnie McCroy Puma Perl Paul Schindler Eileen Stukane

ADVERTISING Amanda Tarley

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Chelsea Now is published weekly by NYC Community Media LLC, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. (212) 229-1890. Annual subscription by mail in Manhattan and Brooklyn $75. The entire contents of newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2017 NYC Community Media LLC, Postmaster: Send address changes to Chelsea Now, One Metrotech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

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April 13-19, 2017

ASSAULT/CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: Girls’ ﬁght out A meal at Chelsea Square Restaurant (368 W. 23rd St., at Ninth Ave.) transformed into real “dine-’n-smash” kind of situation in the early morning hours of Sun., April 9. The problems began around 4:30am when, for reasons unclear, a fight broke out between three guests (all female) dining at the restaurant, who started fighting and smashing flower vases and drinking glasses — along with the diner’s front picture window. Perhaps foolheartedly, a 38-yearold Washington, DC man, heretofore entirely uninvolved with the situation, attempted to intervene and de-escalate the altercation. He was promptly shut down, however, when one of the women chucked a glass jar candle at his face, causing substantial bruising, swelling, and pain. Soon thereafter the assailant — a 25-year-old woman from Arizona — was arrested for assault and criminal mischief. The two other women (one 25 and from Manhattan, the other 31 and from upstate) were also arrested for criminal mischief. The damage they caused exceeded $1,000.

LEAVING THE SCENE OF PROPERTY DAMAGE: Parking pushback

vehicle collided with it, causing frontend damage to the car, and making it slide backwards into a rolling gate at 521 W. 21st St. (which also sustained damage). A canvas was conducted, but yielded negative results.

crack pipe with alleged crack residue inside his rear pocket, which he was promptly arrested for.

HARASSMENT: Pharmacy phreakout

Most moochers simply swipe a friend or relative’s password to gain access to streaming services — but in this case, an unknown party decided to up the ante by stealing identities to facilitate their high-tech couch surfing. As reported to police on Fri., April 7, a W. 19th St. resident said that he had been charged $47.88 for an Amazon Prime account that was opened using his credit card information in Dec. 2016 without his permission or authority to do so. Further compounding the issue is the fact that a relative of his — a 31-year-old woman living on W. 16th St. — also had an Amazon Prime account opened in her name with her info without permission. Thus far, there are no leads in this case.

In lieu of receiving “service with a smile” at a Duane Reade (455 W. 37th St., btw. Ninth & 10th Aves.), one man took the less-traveled route of getting “service with a police report.” According to an employee, a man walked into the store at around 11:35am on Fri., April 7, and, after taking some merchandise off of a shelf, proceeded to berate the employee for no particular reason. “I am going to f**k you up,” the man proclaimed, amongst other profanities he yelled during the argument. Though eventually he left — without taking anything illicitly — and was not arrested, the encounter still caused the 64-yearold Brooklyn worker enough annoyance and alarm for her to file a police report in case he returns.

CRIMINAL POSSESSION OF A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE: Obstinate incontinence

On Sun., April 9, a Brooklyn man parked his gray 2007 Saturn sedan on the 500 block of W. 21st St. (btw. 10th & 11th Aves.). When he returned to the parking spot at about 4am, he found it damaged — and a short distance from where he left it. Judging by the tire treads on the ground, it seems another

At about 4pm on Sat., April 8, police observed a man urinating out in the open, in front of 511 W. 35th St. (btw. 10th & 11th Sts.). As soon as officers approached the man, he started to run, though he was soon apprehended — at which point he refused to put his hands behind his back and flailed his arms about. A search revealed why the 31-year-old was so cagey: There was a

THE 10th PRECINCT: Located at 230 W. 20th St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.). Commander: Capt. Paul Lanot. Main number: 212-741-8211. Community Affairs: 212-7418226. Crime Prevention: 212741-8226. Domestic Violence: 212-741-8216. Youth Officer: 212741-8211. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-924-3377. Detective Squad: 212-741-8245. The Community Council meets on the last Wed. of the month, 7pm, at the 10th Precinct or other locations to be announced.

MIDTOWN SOUTH PRECINCT: Located at 357 W. 35th St. (btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). Inspector: Russel J. Green. Call 212-2399811. Community Affairs: 212239-9846. Crime Prevention: 212239-9846. Domestic Violence: 212-239-9863. Youth Officer: 212239-9817. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-239-9836. Detective Squad: 212-239-9856. The Community Council meets on the third Thurs. of the month, 7pm, at the New Yorker Hotel (481 Eighth Ave., btw. W. 34th & W. 35th St.). Visit midtownsouthcc.org.

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CASH FOR GUNS $100 cash will be given (no questions asked) for each handgun, assault weapon or sawed-off shotgun, up to a maximum payment of $300. Guns are accepted at any Police Precinct, PSA or Transit District.

THE 13th PRECINCT: Located at 230 E. 21st St. (btw. Second & Third Aves.). Deputy Inspector: Brendan Timoney. Call 212-477-7411. Community Affairs: 212-477-7427. Crime Prevention: 212-477-7427. Domestic Violence: 212-477-3863. Youth Officer: 212477-7411. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-477-4380. Detective Squad: 212-477-7444. The Community Council meets on the third Tues. of the month, 6:30pm, at the 13th Precinct.

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tion live more than 20 miles from the nearest supermarket.â&#x20AC;? Medelius believes that Chelsea qualifies as a food desert for its senior population, and is looking to present research to the agency to try to get it classified as such. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chelsea has become kind of a food desert for seniors and disabled. They canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get fresh produce; they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get affordable food,â&#x20AC;? noted Medelius. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We realize that Chelsea is very, very specific and very different than other food deserts, because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a food desert for a specific population,â&#x20AC;? he went on. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we have it classified as a food desert, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to get a little bit more attention than it is nowâ&#x20AC;Ś maybe a little bit more manpower to get this movement going.â&#x20AC;? Another longer-term attentiongetting endeavor Medelius advocates is using a bus service to bring locals to New Jersey en masse to shop for cheaper groceries. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Because the bus service to New Jersey is going be more of a political statement, or a statement to be able to get a little more attention, somebody bounced around the idea that we could actually have a rally at a Gristedes,

Photo by Yannic Rack

March 18, 2016: Chelsea residents looking to save the neighborhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (ultimately shuttered) Associated supermarket rally in front of landlord Pan Am Equitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Midtown headquarters.

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and from there put everybody on a bus and head over to New Jersey,â&#x20AC;? Medelius elaborated. Further future, on-the-grounds efforts include the hopeful founding of a volunteer crew that will help deliver groceries to WIC and SNAP recipients regularly. Medelius also revealed another â&#x20AC;&#x153;very, very long term thing,â&#x20AC;? that the task force has been percolating: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in talks right now with Park Slope Food Coop, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to take a tour with them; theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to come speak to our organization and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to see if we can maybe

start setting up a food co-op in Chelsea.â&#x20AC;? Overall Medelius has high hopes for the task force, the awareness they will raise, and the grassroots work theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll do â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and with the progress theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve made in their short time together, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reason for the community to have high hopes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying to give these people a voice and try to advocate for them as best as we can,â&#x20AC;? explained Medelius. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re only a threemonth-old group, but I think weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re making a lot of great strides. So Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m excited to see where it goes.â&#x20AC;?

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TALKING POINT

Do Something Meaningful For Supermarkets BY KIRSTEN THEODOS For the past two years, I have dedicated my free time — when I’m not raising my two young children — advocating for the City Council to pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (SBJSA), a bill that would stop in excess of 1,000 small businesses from closing and save 8,000 jobs each month in New York City (court data shows that 500 businesses get evicted every month, and it can be assumed that for every one evicted, another probably walks). The SBJSA is a simple solution to a serious crisis: Give business owners the right to renew their leases and rights to negotiate equally with landlords for fair lease terms. My advocacy has included helping organize and participate in small-business town halls in four boroughs and meeting with councilmembers seeking their support for the SBJSA. Living in the East Village, I was sick and tired of losing my favorite shops and restaurants that, in almost every case, shuttered because of an exorbitant rent hike or because they were denied a lease renewal. Now, I am about to lose my affordable supermarket. The Stuyvesant Town Associated supermarket’s lease is up at the end of this year. Even though they are a good tenant and are willing to pay a rent increase, their landlord, Blackstone, has communicated they will not get a lease renewal. I spoke to the store’s owner, Joe Falzon, last week and asked what he needed in terms of legislation in order to survive. “A tax cut isn’t going to help,” he told me. “It won’t help get you a new lease and it won’t make any difference to your bottom line. Something where you can agree to reasonable rent that the landlord has to offer you something — a 10-year lease would help tremendously so businesses can plan… . Right now, if they say you have to go, you have to go.” I have heard this many times before from small-business owners who attended our forums. Falzon used to own three supermarkets in the area. The one on Third Ave. shuttered two years ago; it still remains vacant today. Last year, Falzon’s Associated on W. 14th St. near Eighth Ave. in Chelsea closed due to a 300 percent rent hike, and that space also currently remains vacant. Recently, at Mayor Bill de Blasio’s March 15 town hall, moderated by Councilmember Corey Johnson, a woman asked about help for small businesses that face skyrocketing rents. As reported by Chelsea Now (“A Tale of Two Hours at a Town Hall,” March 23, 2017), Councilmember Johnson said commercial rent regulation, which has been proposed in the city for years via the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, can’t happen without Albany’s support. However, the SBJSA is not commercial rent control and would not need to involve Albany — this was settled decades ago. In October 1988, when the original Jobs Survival Act was introduced by then-Councilmember Ruth Messinger, it was fiercely opposed by Mayor Ed Koch and Speaker Peter Vallone Sr. prior to a scheduled vote by the Economic Development Committee of the City Council. So a special Council public hearing was held. The topic of that hearing was exclusively on the legality of the bill and the city’s authority to enact it. At .com

Chelsea Now file photo by Yannic Rack

March 18, 2016: Chelsea residents rallied in Midtown to protest the imminent closure of one of the neighborhood’s last remaining affordable supermarkets — the Associated at 225 W. 14 St.

the hearing’s conclusion, the Economic Development Committee was in full agreement with New York City’s Law Department that the bill was fully constitutional and that the city had “home rule” authority to enact it, and the bill was scheduled for a vote for Dec. 1, 1988. It’s these types of “alternative facts” that originate from the powerful real estate lobby — i.e., the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) — that enable the rigged system that repeatedly has denied a hearing and a vote on the SBJSA. Councilmember Johnson should be promoting the SBJSA, a bill that would have saved the Associated market in his district and all the businesses whose leases expired and were either renthiked or denied a renewal. Instead, Johnson questions the “legality” of the bill. A March 24, 2016, article in Chelsea Now (“Locals Rally to Extend Supermarket’s Shelf Life”) reported: “Johnson, who is a sponsor of the Act [SBJSA], said there were doubts about the legality of the bill in its current form, but added that he was committed to resolving the issue.” And Johnson misinforms the public that New York City does not have home rule to regulate commercial rents. So what have our electeds been doing to save mom-and-pop shops and their employees’ jobs? Councilmember Dan Garodnick is introducing a bill to provide tax cuts for small-business owners; a bill by Johnson would ensure affordable supermarkets are included in Garodnick’s tax cut; and a bill by Councilmember Margaret Chin requires annual reports on the tax. Meanwhile, two months ago, the Met Food supermarket in Little Italy shuttered because it was denied a lease renewal. Ironically, the two Associateds and the Met Food are in Councilmembers Garodnick, Johnson and Chin’s dis-

tricts. Instead of promoting the SBJSA that would have saved all three of these affordable supermarkets that are vital to their communities, these politicians are pushing tax cuts that won’t save a single small business or job in their district. In short, what good is a tax cut if you don’t have a lease? I’m not sure what is more shameful: pretending like you care that your constituents are losing the only affordable supermarket in their neighborhood by holding showboat rallies; deliberately steering the public in another legislative direction and disingenuously telling them it will save our supermarkets; or promoting REBNY’s “alternative facts” to ensure that the real solution — the SBJSA — doesn’t get an honest hearing and reach the floor for a vote. I am writing this talking point because no one at City Hall is fighting for Joe Falzon and the 90 people he employs. Nor are they fighting for the thousands of Stuy Town seniors who live on a fixed income and depend on the Associated because it’s affordable and nearby. Are we to believe the commitment of these three lawmakers is sincere in wanting to serve the will of the people and find real solutions to these supermarket closings — or are they influenced by special interests’ campaign funds and political ambition? Every New Yorker knows our hard-working momand-pop shop owners are at the mercy of their landlords when their leases expire, and that they desperately need legislation that would give them rights so they can survive. And yet our elected officials work together to introduce bills that wouldn’t save a single business or New Yorker’s job. This is the litmus test of where a lawmaker really stands on passing legislation to save our soon-tobe-extinct supermarkets. Kirsten Theodos is co-founder, Take Back NYC (takebacknyc.nyc). April 13-19, 2017

Photos by Donna Aceto

In the 2016 Pride March, Gays Against Guns protesters take on the Republicans. GILBERT BAKER continued from p. 4

inal moment for our community.” Richard Ferrara, another close friend, said, “In 1985, Heritage of Pride [HOP] brought the Rainbow Flag from San Francisco to New York. There were not Rainbow Flags here before that. I was the merchandizing chairperson for HOP for two years starting in 1986, promoting the flag and our Keith Haring logo.” Matt Foreman, then with HOP, said, “We just embraced it instead of the Christopher Street West version with the lambda in the upper left corner.” “I lived, slept, and breathed that flag,” Ferrara said. He first met Gilbert at the UN press conference announcing the mile-long flag for Stonewall 25 in ’94, and they became close friends. “We spoke twice a day and there was never a conversation where he didn’t end it by saying, ‘I love you,’” Ferrara recalled. In 2013, when Queer Nation was protesting the awarding of the Sochi Olympics to the anti-LGBTQ regime of Putin, the group picketed outside a conference on US-Russian trade at the Princeton Club in Manhattan with a Gilbert-created big “PUSSY POWER” banner that incorporated tiger stripes — highlighting Princeton’s mascot — and drew attention to Putin’s repression of the radical women’s band Pussy Riot. Lesbian activist Ann Northrop, Gilbert’s friend, borrowed the banner and paraded it with friends through Manhattan during the Women’s March on Jan. 21, hanging it from the overpass on 42nd St. at Grand Central Terminal to the cheers and delight of hundreds of thousands protesting

April 13-19, 2017

Gilbert Baker, at center in black shirt, holds up a banner at the vigil outside Stonewall the day after the Orlando massacre.

President “Grab-’em-by-the-Pussy.” “Gilbert’s death is a huge and shocking loss for me and all who knew and loved him, and to the whole LGBT community,” Northrop, my co-host on “Gay USA” said, praising him for “his vision and generosity. He never copyrighted the flag or made a penny off it, and he lived very simply. He loved calling himself a seamstress who spent his days slaving over a sewing machine. His enormous, beautiful, cheeky banners were a crucial element in the success of Queer Nation actions in the last few years, increasing our impact geometrically.” Gilbert gave a tremendous boost to the 25-year protest against the exclusion of Irish LGBTQ groups from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York. While hundreds protested the exclusion of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization in the 1990s, he supported the smaller continuing protest of Irish Queers in 2014 with a

“BOYCOTT HOMOPHOBIA” banner that took up half a city block and delivered a message to all who disrespected the boycott. It was held aloft by a larger group in 2015 and the next year — for a variety of reasons — parade organizers relented and allowed the LGBTQ group Lavender and Green to participate under their own banner. Gilbert showed up to New York’s 2002 Pride Parade as Betsy Ross and made it a point to march right next to the new, buttoned-down Mayor Mike Bloomberg, adding a note of liberation to the mayor’s more sober contingent and attracting numerous press photographers. He always knew what he wanted the picture to be, and made it happen with his visual artistry. He wasn’t about attracting attention to himself, but to the cause. Gilbert was born in Chanute, Kansas, on June 2, 1951, his father a judge and his mom a teacher. He served in the Army from 1970 to 1972

and was honorably discharged, an account of which he described to the late Randy Shilts for his 1993 book about gays in the military, “Conduct Unbecoming.” Like many gay veterans before him who passed through or were stationed in San Francisco, Baker settled there. “I went from being a pretty dumb kid in Kansas growing up in the ’50s and all of the bomb scares and Eisenhower and everything very Republican and always feeling outcast… to a place of liberation in San Francisco at the very moment gay rights was exploding,” he said in 2013. Gilbert taught himself how to sew and was commissioned to create flags for visiting dignitaries and, at the behest of his friend Harvey Milk, banners for anti-war and gay rights demonstrations. Gilbert was an artist and a philosopher in his creation of the flag in ’78, assigning meanings to each of its original eight colors: hot pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic and art, blue for serenity and harmony, and violet for spirit. The number of stripes and colors changed over the years, but never its overall call for LGBTQ liberation and inclusion. Irish gay and AIDS activist Father Bernárd Lynch, who with Gilbert’s “beloved friend Richard Ferrara” cosigned the authenticity of the Stonewall 25 flag for the Guinness Book of World Records — wrote, “Gilbert, through your Rainbow Flag you gave the world a New Covenant of Love, Peace, Freedom & Joy. We are forever GILBERT BAKER continued on p. 13 .com

GILBERT BAKER continued from p. 12

in your debt.” Gilbert was a featured character in Dustin Lance Black’s dramatization of Cleve Jones’s memoir “When We Rise” on ABC-TV, a recent four-part saga of the history of LGBTQ liberation in San Francisco. When I saw Gilbert on the street just two weeks ago, he talked about how he was happy with his portrayal by Dylan Arnold when he was young and Jack Plotnick when he was older, but he was also full of dish about how he had to intervene at one point about what the Gilbert character was wearing because it wasn’t him — it wasn’t “fabulous” enough. “Anyone can be an activist,” Gilbert told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in a 2013 interview, “but it’s not easy… . You have to be free yourself, you have to have your own core values, and you have to have some courage and some steel, and that’s really hard for a lot of people. They can’t come out because of their family situation. To whatever degree that people can be fi rst of all honest with themselves, that’s the beginning of being an activist, it’s knowing who you are. You bet it’s dangerous, and that’s why it takes a lot of love… . You can’t do it by yourself. You have to build bridges, you have

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to have a loving environment, loving friends, people that you trust and support to work together to achieve it. I don’t think individuals are able to achieve as much as the mass.” Gilbert is survived by his mother, Patricia Baker of Conroe, Texas, and sister, Ardonna Baker Cook of Cypress, Texas, and a worldwide LGBTQ community inspired by him and his work. In a written statement, Baker and Cook said, “He will be dearly missed by his family, friends, the art world, as well as the entire LGBTQ community. He led a bold and inspiring life by bringing the Rainbow Flag to the world and teaching others about the beauty in diversity. We are working alongside Gilbert’s friends and the community to plan a public memorial service in the near future.” We’re all less fabulous without Gilbert. There are not too many people in our movement who are indispensable. Gilbert was surely one. Inside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the epitaph to its great architect Sir Christopher Wren says, “Reader, if you seek his memorial — look around you.” No one has to look far to see the memorial to the great artist and activist Gilbert Baker. It flies everywhere LGBTQ people seek to be free.

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CB4 continued from p. 5

Tenants rejected the request to add eight outdoor tables in an area where two were already seen as problematic, with late weekend closing hours and loud music being concerns. The BLP said 30 people testified against this at their March 21 meeting at Yotel, with only Stefkof speaking in support. “Thank you for rejecting [the liquor license for] 461 West 23rd Street,” said Andy Humm. “The applicant has a bad track record, and as head of the London Terrace Tenants Association, I hope the full board will reject this application.” Humm was joined by several neighbors, including London Terrace board member Lloyd Van Praagh, who said he had a fiduciary duty to “think about how much this is going to cost us to control or evict this operator, while a tremendous number of homeowners and renters suffer over a protracted length of time.” Longtime London Terrace Gardens residents Adrienne and Frank Fallino said past operators, including Barchetta and La Traviata, had served up a “clatter of dishes, smoking, fights, laughing and loud talking.” “It was a terrible hardship. And this

Photo by Winnie McCroy

London Terrace Towers resident Ann Northrop testified against granting a liquor license.

new applicant has a track record,” said Frank Fallino. “We are not unreasonable; it’s not like we don’t want a restaurant there. We just don’t want a disturbance.” Carolyn Dobbs echoed this sentiment, saying, “A restaurant can add a lot to our neighborhood, but when you operate outside the law or are loud, it’s a nuisance. Mankoff said to support my argument with numbers, so here are some: Zero is for DOB permits they got for building their bar and bathroom. One is for liquor licenses cancelled. Two is Community Boards with whom he’s

had terrible relations. Five is for ECB [Environmental Control Board] violations for illegal benches, and 52 are the number of 311 complaints in one year for loud music. We have real concerns he won’t operate within the parameters of the law with this place, either.” London Terrace Towers resident Ann Northrop bemoaned having to “go down this road again.” She then read a statement from London Terrace Gardens resident Inge Ivchenko, which said that while neighbors would welcome “a nice vegetarian restaurant with beer and wine and no sidewalk cafe,” the owner’s insistence on late hours, a liquor license, and outdoor seating seemed to indicate the business was “a front for a late-night lounge or club with smoking and loitering, as Emil has done in other places. He’s been a bad actor in the past. If he shows he is a friend to the neighborhood, we can loosen some restrictions, but we have been down this road and been burnt before.” London Terrace Towers resident Harry Hines spelled out the crux of the situation. Many community members were concerned that the SLA was “rubber-stamping” liquor licenses for business owners who were clearly not good operators.

HATE-FREE ZONE continued from p. 3

and hearing about this kind of hatred is a nightmare for some of us,” said Johnson. “But the silver lining to this is that New York and the West Side are one of the biggest epicenters of the resistance, fighting anti-democratic actions. I am proud to represent a district with such activism, that is engaged, organized, and fighting back. I ask all of you to keep doing that.” “One big lesson to take from this election is that democracy is not a spectator sport,” said Johnson. “Civic participation is required, not just posting on Facebook. You need to be out there door knocking, phone banking, educating friends and neighbors, and working to make sure elected officials aren’t just serving the wealthy — or the Russians.” The Chelsea Now Police Blotter of March 30 covered the fatal stabbing of the 66-year-old African American New Yorker, stabbed at 11:25 p.m. near the corner of W. 36th St. and Ninth Ave. Jackson plunged a 26-inch sword through Caughman’s chest, puncturing vital organs. The 28-year-old Baltimore resident later turned himself in at the Times Square subway station, telling police that he came to New York City for the “express purpose of killing black men.” On Thurs., March 23, Jackson was

April 13-19, 2017

Photo by Winnie McCroy

CB4’s JD Noland reads from his letter decrying the murder of Timothy Caughman.

arraigned for murder as a hate crime, and later charged with murder as an act of terror, in addition to assorted weapons-related charges. The attack is part of a surge in hate crimes in New York City, and around the country, since Donald Trump was elected to the presidency. A Dec. 1, 2016 article in Chelsea Now (“Tracking, Reporting, and Responding to Hate Crimes”) noted that the NYPD had logged 25 percent more bias crimes that year than in the year before, rising

from 260 to 350 — the worst in the past eight years. Rebecca Teitel, producer/director of the film “Hate in America: Stories From the Files of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” told the audience at a Jan. 29, 2017 Town Hall sponsored by State Senator Brad Hoylman that, in the current political climate, “It’s really unlikely you’re going to get the Department of Justice investigating hate crimes.” However, the spike in hate crimes did

“We understand that a liquor license is a valuable thing, but it’s not a right that anyone has to have, it’s a privilege that the city gives,” he said. “If someone with such a bad record can succeed in getting one, what’s the point of even having hearings about it?” The full membership of CB4 voted to recommend denial of the new liquor license for Maldon, LLC, further stipulating that if the SLA considered granting the license, it would be under the stipulations that the restaurant closed at 11 p.m. daily, played background music only, and had no sidewalk cafe. UPDATE: Just before we went to press, Andy Humm emailed us: “The applicant we were opposing, Emil Stefkov of Maldon LLC, does not ‘plan’ to go forward with his application to the SLA according to his attorney. We are now dealing with a new applicant for the same space, Marco Britti, and have met with him and we are in the process of formulating our stance towards him as he goes before the BLP on Tues., April 18 at the Yotel.” The next full board meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Wed., May 3 in the Dan Carpenter Room at Hudson Guild (441 W. 26 St., btw. Ninth & 10th Aves.). Visit nyc.gov/mcb4.

prompt Governor Andrew Cuomo to create a New York State Hate Crimes Unit comprised of investigators trained as “bias crime specialists” that will assist local district attorneys to prosecute hate crimes. And now, citizens are eager to team up with legislators to designate the West Side a “hate-free zone.” “I want us to ask the DA and NYPD what can be put in place in the center of Manhattan to protect the community,” said Noland. Maarten de Kadt spoke about the impassioned nature of the letter, and while he didn’t offer an amendment against hate, he did note that it was a prime opportunity to position CB4 as an organization that “declares ourselves to be against hate, in an area that hates hate.” After voting unanimously to send the letter to the DA and NYPD, CB4 Chair members echoed the calls to designate their area as a “hate-free zone,” with Rubin noting that the board would have conversation at an upcoming Arts, Culture, Education and Street Life Committee (ACES) on the proposed adoption of making the West Side a “hate-free zone” on April 17. The next full board meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Wed., May 3 in the Dan Carpenter Room at Hudson Guild (441 W. 26 St., btw. Ninth & 10th Aves.). Visit nyc.gov/mcb4. .com

AWARDS continued from p. 7

Brainwave festival; Nicole Javorsky, for her profile of several area art classes where booze accompanies the brushwork; Scott Stiffler, for his look at the Irish Repertory Theatre’s return to a gloriously restored W. 22nd St. facility; and Puma Perl, for her look at a documentary filmmaker’s project focusing on Chelsea Hotel resident Gerald Busby. This was Perl’s second consecutive win in the category, having shared a 2015 NYPA Second Place award for The Villager’s arts coverage (Perl’s contribution was a profile of the Guerrilla Girls’ 30th anniversary exhibition). Of this year’s Honorable Mention win for Chelsea Now, the judge said, “Nice diversity of arts topics, including spiritual and intellectual arts rather than just music, stage and visual. Nice focus on the people and players behind the arts scene, not just the events.” Our NYC Community Media sister publications were also honored this year. Downtown Express editor Bill Egbert won Second Place, Division 4, for In-Depth Reporting. The series on garbage pick-ups and pile-ups south of Canal St. was hailed as “very well reported and written” and declared to be a “probing look into an issue that must have an impact on most people… a good submission in showing both research and policy exploration… it did a great job of consolidating the issue to a few stories. Gay City News’ Division 2 Coverage of Election/Politics was awarded Second Place, shared by editor Paul Schindler, Andy Humm, and Duncan Osborne. “Gay City News is clear about who it serves and how to best serve those readers,” said the judge. “The storytelling is lively, the reporting excellent. This publication does a fantastic job of finding the appropriate balance in its political coverage, which can be difficult when serving a targeted audience. Impressive!” Schindler was also recognized with a Third Place win in the statewide category of Community Leadership, specifically for the 2016 inaugural edition of Gay City News’ annual Impact Awards. “Informative from front to back,” said the judge of this “slick publication with lots of names and faces.” Best Editorial Page, a statewide category, recognized Gay City News with an Honorable Mention, which was shared by Schindler, along with Susie Day, Kelly Cogswell, and Ed Sikov. “Well written. Well organized. Plethora of information,” read the judge’s note. Gay City News was given an additional Honorable Mention (Division 2) in .com

Layout by Michael Shirey

Chelsea Now won Best Front Page in its division. “Strong content, great photos, nice layout,” said the judge.

the Photographic Excellence category. The publication’s look at guns won an Honorable Mention in Division 4, for In-Depth Reporting, which the judge called “wonderfully comprehensive, with a variety of reporting opinion, local and national perspective, including a look at guns. The locally reported stories help make the coverage.” In a Division 2 Honorable Mention in the category of Photographic Excellence, Gay City News was praised for its “cool” use of “black and white on the Bronx Heroes page.” Under the leadership of editor in chief Lincoln Anderson, The Villager won a Division 1 Best News or Feature Series Second Place honor, which went to Anderson for his ongoing series of articles on Adam Purple, the late legendary Lower East Side urban gardener, who — as Anderson first reported in 2015 — was convicted of sexually abusing his own children while living in Australia. “An emotionally difficult story to get through but I couldn’t stop until the end,” said the judge, adding, “Wow.” Also in Division 1, Third Place honors went to The Villager’s freelancer Milo Hess, for Art Photo. His “unique framing and creative positioning” of the annual 9/11 Tribute in Light display was further praised as doing “what a photographer does best: capturing a different perspective of a subject to tell a story.” The Villager also won Second Place in Division 1’s Picture Story category, for Q. Sakamaki’s photos of Fukushima, Japan, five years after the nuclear disaster there. “This entry had strong storytelling images, and had a diversity of images that truly added to the storytelling dimension,” said the judge, who further noted, “The detailed images greatly added to the overall package.” The Villager also garnered a Division 1 Honorable Mention for

an Editorial Cartoon by Ira Blutreich, for his two-panel drawing depicting Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as identical monsters, save for a tie and orange hair on Trump and lipstick and pearls on Clinton — the candidates as the opposing parties saw them. Chelsea Now’s Community News Group sister publications representing the borough of Queens also made a strong showing. A First Place award in Division 3 went to Patrick Donachie of the Bayside Times, for Coverage of Education. The series of articles covering an embattled interim high school principal at Townsend Harris, noted the judge, “show the reporter was staying on top of issues in schools and holding administrators accountable for finances and effective leadership. The feature story on the prom helped round out the entries with positive things students are doing.” Bayside Times’ Bill Parry and photographer Naeisha Rose shared a Third Place Division 3 win for their Spot News Coverage of an anti-Trump march from Queens to Manhattan, which was “challenging to cover,” said the judge. “I felt the coverage of this protest was top-notch. From the start of page one, the pairing of the photos and the article gives the reader a real sense of what the event was like and what drew people to the streets. Well done!”

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Second Place wins, in Divisions 6 and 3 respectively, went to the Bayside Times for Feature Story and Picture Story. Sadef Ali Kully’s feature on Johnny Hincapie, whose murder conviction was reversed after he served 25 years, was hailed as an “excellent report” covering “the whole story in a digestible amount of space. Kudos for taking me to his crime, his time in jail and his hope for life after jail.” Michael Shain’s photos of a Golden Gloves boxing tournament, said the judge, did “an excellent job telling a story through the images.” A Second Place award for Photographic Excellence in Division 2 went to the TimesLedger for two separate editions. “This paper has some really great photography,” the judge observed, “and the photos are used well considering the limitations of the tabloid format and the current economic climate requiring front page advertisements that hamstring layout options.” Lest that comment seem a bit too “inside baseball” for you, dear general reader, the judge concluded with, “Every page inside has a photo to accompany the stories. Use of multiple photo pages put this entry to the top.” Congratulations to all of our colleagues, and we’ll see you next year in Saratoga Springs! SAME DAY SERVICE AVAILABLE

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April 13-19, 2017

Renovated Quad Cinema Corners Its Niche Bold programming vows to push forward, reﬂect on past

Photo by Caleb Caldwell

Courtesy Kino Lorber

An interior view of the Quad’s “red theater” space, illuminated by a giant neon “U” on the ceiling.

Opening April 21, Bruno Dumont’s “Slack Bay” is but one of the “exciting and vibrant” first-run movies programmed at the Quad.

BY SEAN EGAN “You go back and look at listings in New York Magazine from the late ’70s of movie theaters, and you’ll see there were dozens of movie theaters Downtown, and none of them are around anymore,” explained film programmer C. Mason Wells. “They’re all practically gone — but the Quad remains. The Quad has always persevered and somehow eked through in very different time periods in New York exhibition, and kind of changed with the times, and adjusted and showed all different kinds of movies, and I love that. The theater is a fighter. It always has been; it will continue to be.” The latest chapter for the veritable, long-operating theater begins on April 14, when the Quad Cinema (34 W. 13th St., btw. Sixth & Fifth Aves.; quadcinema.com) reopens after a two-year renovation process, under the new ownership of Cohen Media Group. Since being founded in 1972 as the city’s first multiplex, the Quad built up a reputation as a go-to neighborhood moviehouse, as well as a haven for cinephiles looking for top-quality independent, arthouse, foreign, repertory, and queer cinema. This eclectic slate made the theater both a local gem and a respected cultural destination in its own right; no less than Andy Warhol was a frequent patron.

April 13-19, 2017

“Keeping those strands alive is a crucial aspect of this,” elaborated Wells, an IFC Center veteran who has been tapped to be the renovated Quad’s Director of Repertory Programming. “We have two managers who’ve worked there for decades who are still going to be our managers. But at the same time it’s a brand new space, and we’re going to be kind of building on what the theater has always been and represented, and kind of adding these new ideas, new programs, new exciting things. So it’ll kind of bridge that gap between something that has this history that a lot of other spaces in New York don’t.” The renovation has ensured the Quad is well equipped for this gap-bridging mission. In addition to standard features like a popcorn-stocked concession, the space will feature funky modern touches — like the huge, rectangular arrangement of 32 screens on its back wall, which will be programmed to play unique video content year-round. Their four theater spaces are colorcoded (red, black, blue, and gray) and each is outfitted with a sleek neon-light letter; when taken collectively, they spell out “QUAD.” And, most importantly, their screens are outfitted with the tools to screen in 4K digital, 3D, and from 35mm and 16mm prints. “There are still so many films that aren’t available in a digital format that if you want to

program them, there’s no choice but to play a print,” commented Wells, who asserted that “there’s something very special and magical” about watching movies on film — especially older titles, which, as in the past, will be screening plentifully at the Quad. “We’re doing something that’s an ongoing series called Quadrophilia, which will look at the great films that screened at the theater in the past,” said Wells, noting that due to the deep roster of quality films that fit that bill, it will be an ongoing series. “Both as a reminder to older New Yorkers who had been to the theater maybe in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, about incredible films they saw back in the day, but also to kind of educate younger cinephiles who might not know some aspects of the theater’s illustrious history.” Early highlights include director John Sayles in-person at a screening of 1980’s “The Return of the Secaucus Seven” (April 22) and the April 14 screening of a special IB Technicolor print of Busby Berkeley’s “The Gang’s All Here” — the very first repertory film screened at the theater in 1972, Wells noted. In its first month, Quadrophilia will also be complemented by another Quad-centric series, the cheekily-named Four Play, featuring numeric titles like “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Quadrophenia,” and “Rocky IV.” But

the new programmer’s commitment to the theater’s legacy cuts far deeper than amusing wordplay. “The LGBT programming is really important to me, because for decades it was a go-to place for those types of films in the city,” revealed Wells. “We’re going to be doing a monthly series devoted kind of lost queer classics that have kind of fallen into the cracks over the course of history that aren’t as well known.” This series will kick off on May 19 with a new restoration of James Ivory’s “Maurice,” a 1987 gay romance Wells described as “a really fantastic and unfortunately lesser-known film in queer cinema history.” But then, bringing unheralded, movies to the fore has always been an endeavor the Quad has excelled at. In fact, its first major retrospective program (April 14–May 1) focuses on Italian director Lina Wertmüller, whose taboo-busting ’70s films nabbed her the first-ever Best Director Academy Award nomination for a woman, but whose films fell out of the public eye in the ensuing decades. “She has never had a comprehensive retrospective in New York, which is unthinkable to me. But somehow that’s the case, and now we have restorations of several of her classic films,” QUAD continued on p. 18 .com

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April 13-19, 2017

Photo by Sean Egan

Final touches were being made to the Quad’s marquee and entrance in the days before its opening. QUAD continued from p. 16

said Wells, noting “Seven Beauties” and “Swept Away” have been given 2K polish. “To be able to bring her films back to audiences and show them in the proper context is very exciting to me.” Then there’s Wells’ “lifelong dream” program, First Encounters. “We invite filmmakers and authors and painters and curators to select a film that they’ve never seen before and then watch it for the first time with us and with an audience, and then they react live to it immediately after,” he explained. Thus far, Kenneth Lonergan (“Yi Yi”), John Turturro (“Pather Panchali”), and Noah Baumbach (“Withnail and I”) are amongst the New York notables that have signed up for the ongoing series to rectify some of their cinematic blind spots. “They’re entertaining people under any context,” noted Wells, “but I think they’ll be especially entertaining in this live and raw context of watching these films. It kind of gives a real portrait of a person’s cinephilia.” Of course, as Wells pointed out, “There’s more films being made now than ever before,” and he and Senior

April 13-19, 2017

Photo by Caleb Caldwell

A neon “Q” lights up one of the Quad’s theaters. Taken collectively, the lighting fixtures in the theaters spell out “QUAD.”

Photo by Caleb Caldwell

Each of the four screening rooms has a distinct color: blue, black, gray, and, seen here, red.

Programmer Gavin Smith have ensured there’ll be no shortage of quality firstrun movies. “It will be independent, foreign, documentary, arthouse titles that will be in the same adventurous vein as our repertory programming,” said Wells. He highlighted early-weeks offering like Terence Davies’ “A Quiet Passion” and Bruno Dumont’s “Slack Bay” as examples of the challenging, “exciting and vibrant,” premieres the Quad will be home to. It’s in this balance of the classic and cutting-edge, and sophisticated and neighborhood-y vibes that Wells sees the Quad’s strengths. “[The Quad] is something that’s been part of the fabric of the moviegoing landscape in one way or another for over four decades now, so when you’re stepping into the Quad to see a movie, you’re participating in that history,” Wells concluded. “It almost feels romantic to me in a certain way, in the way that going to the movies should be. That is the feeling I want a Quad viewer to have when they’re at the theater, when they’re leaving the theater, when they’re thinking of coming back: that the Quad is a place where movies still matter.” .com

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April 13-19, 2017

A Slice of Village Art Psychedelia Exhibit highlights Tyler’s potent output BY DENNIS LYNCH Chelsea’s Printed Matter bookstore is running a career-spanning exhibit of works of one of the Lower East Side’s fiercest, but one of its least-known, antiestablishment artists, Richard Tyler. “The Schizophrenic Bomb: Richard Tyler and the Uranian Press” examines Tyler’s work as an artist, thinker and co-founder of the Uranian Phalanstery, a spiritual and pseudo-mystic art collective that sought to merge life with art and challenge societal norms. The exhibit takes its name from one of Tyler’s many hand-pressed treatises, which in this case addressed nuclear holocaust. As he did with many of his writings, Tyler expounds his worldview in the “The Schizophrenic Bomb” with epic, proselytizing language conveyed in a highly unique visual style. The exhibit spans his entire career, from his earliest works in the mid-1950s, to his founding works for the Phalanstery in 1974, to his last work detailing his battle with cancer before his death in 1983. Tyler got his start as a woodblock-print artist and was a “star” at his Chicago art school — good enough to have his early works included in Smithsonian collections, according to Max Schumann, the executive director of Printed Matter (231 11th Ave., at W. 26th St.). He arrived in New York in the late ’50s with his wife and fellow artist, Dorothea Baer, worked as a commercial graphic artist, including for Playboy magazine, and helped found the famous Judson Gallery at Judson Memorial Church, on Washington Square South. Even though he was deeply involved in the art scene at the time, Tyler never aspired to ascend in the fine-art world, according to Schumann. The Printed Matter owner first met Tyler as a family friend of his father, Peter Schumann, who founded Bread and Puppet Theater on the Lower East Side in 1963. Tyler’s disinterest in fame is perhaps why he’s not more well known, Schumann said. “Very few people knew about Richard Tyler,” he said. “But the people that did know about him, he had a big impact on. He was a real outsider, as he had no interest in fame and fortune with galleries and stuff like that.” The exhibit includes almost everything the still-functioning Phalanstery has kept of Tyler’s, including his signature pushcart, from which he would sell his and others’ artworks and treatises. Tyler

April 13-19, 2017

Photos by Dennis Lynch

Richard Tyler’s street pushcart, from which he would sell his hand-printed Uranian Press treatises — such as “The Schizophrenic Bomb,” about nuclear war and LSD — as well as calendars, among other things.

An original hand-printed book done by a young boy who apprenticed with Uranian Press in 1959.

could be seen wheeling the cart each day from his East Village basement to Judson Church to sell his wares. The group was based in two adjacent buildings on E. Fourth St. near Avenue D, buying them in 1974. The younger Schumann admits that he is personally “still trying to figure out” Tyler’s philosophy and work. Tyler was a “madman” and a “violent freak in many ways,” he said, yet also a person with charisma, which attracted artists to his little arts collective. He was dedicated to DIY, doing all his pressing and printing in-house. The artist often hired young neighborhood kids to teach them pressing methods and to help press Uranian Phalanstery materials.

Tyler, who spent time in Japan immediately after World War II, was strongly influenced by the imagery and philosophies of astrology, as well as Eastern religions. He incorporated those themes in all of his works, long before the “New Age” movement exploded in Western culture. Tyler’s interpretations were noticeably darker and more mystical than the themes in that later movement, Schumann noted. “It’s totally not hippie-dippie New Age,” he said. “There’s this sort of dark, death current that runs from the very beginning of his work to the end of it.” Schumann hopes that people will walk away with a new appreciation for Tyler and his collective’s works. Tyler was a man “whose life was really his art prac-

tice,” explained Schumann, calling him almost a “case study” in that regard. “It’s the mash-up and the art-life practice,” he said, “where art, death, creativity, community, a lifestyle of living outside the system, and not only not being engaged or aspiring to high art or the institutions of arts — just completely not recognizing the values. So, it’s a refusal of the culture values that the rest of us are working within. He was a real renegade and anti-authoritarian, so I think that’s an interesting model. Someone who, they aren’t pissed because they aren’t in it, they just totally don’t give a s**t. It doesn’t register as anything meaningful or important to be in a gallery.” But now Tyler’s work is in a gallery. The walls feature blown-up photos of what his basement studio at 326 E. Fourth St. looked like. Because the two East Village brick buildings were in deteriorating condition, the Uranian Phalanstery relocated Uptown in 2010 to Hamilton Heights, where it continues today. Printed Matter, which specializes in artists’ books and small-press publications, also started out Downtown, in Tribeca in 1976, and after a 20-year stint in Soho on Wooster St., moved to Chelsea in 2001 and to its current location in 2015. The exhibit will be on view at Printed Matter through Sun., April 16. For more info, visit printedmatter.org. .com

Free and Public Event

Poe: Animated Lois Rakoff, Community Director of the Poe Room, and NYU present “Poe: Animated.” Join us for a screening of animated short films based on Poe’s short stories. This event is free and open to the public and an RSVP is required. RSVP by calling 212-998-2400 or by filling out the online form at bit.ly/2nVSQxc. Community members and NYU come together and partner on the Poe Room Event each fall and spring. When: Friday, April 21, 2017 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Handm a in Bro de oklyn

Where: NYU School of Law 245 Sullivan Street Room 216 (between West 3rd Street and Washington Square South)

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April 13-19, 2017

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Rhymes with Crazy

Kids and the High Cost of Not Wasting Time BY LENORE SKENAZY Every day after school, and all day on weekends, kids run outside… to get to their soccer league, or ballet lesson, or origami boot camp. It’s all good, but here’s what it isn’t: Play. Playing is something else entirely, a chance for kids to make up games, run around, paint a rock, or climb a tree. And it is this kind of open-ended, unstructured “just goofing around” that is not only pleasant, but absolutely critical to healthy child development. If we want kids to become problem-solving, socialized, self-controlled people — and we do — we can’t keep filling all their free time with adult-led activities. Why not? Because when adults lead an activity, kids become followers. But when kids lead an activity, they get practice becoming adults. Leaders. Doers. Entrepreneurs, not cogs. That’s the idea behind the “Genius of Play,” an initiative of the Toy Industry Association to raise awareness of play’s importance, and the topic of a recent panel discussion at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, moderated by the former editor of Parents Magazine, Dana Points. While many parents think of playtime as empty calories and believe that even preschoolers should spend more time being instructed on math and reading skills, Points said, “More play time at age three is directly related to better vocabulary in kindergarten.” What’s more, she added, “Active play not only helps develop coordination and motor skills, it’s also connected to better sleeping and eating habits. Researchers in Germany found a significant correlation between ample free time [in childhood] and adult social success.” What’s the connection? Nancy Schulman, former head of the 92nd Street Y’s pre-k program and now head of the Early Learning Center at the Avenues school, put it bluntly: “Everything about play benefits kids. Curiosity, inventiveness, self-esteem, and resilience are the four things that kids really get through play.” Think about what you see when you watch a kid playing. “They will try something over and over and over again and keep failing but keep trying because they are setting the agenda,” said Schulman. They want to make the cat’s cradle, or kick the ball harder. That’s the kind of intense focus they will need in school — and life — but the classroom is a tough place to breed it. When kids are self-motivated, as they are in play (nobody’s forcing anyone to jump double Dutch), they get the experience of hard work and practicing without balking at, well, the hard work and practicing. They also get the experience of making something happen. To get a game going, even a game of “I’m the princess; you’re the frog,” .com

you need to convince someone else to play with you. This involves all sorts of social skills, said Leslie Bushara, deputy director of guest services at the Museum: “You’re negotiating, you’re listening.” And if what you hear is that your friend doesn’t want to be the frog, you have to absorb that and adjust or you may not be able to play at all. So you come up with a workable solution: Let’s both be princesses. In the workplace, Bushara added, this is called “leadership.” In Little League or hip-hop class, kids learn certain technical skills, and teamwork, but they are not making something happen. What’s more, they are being judged, so they’re not totally free to make up a new game or dance. Free play doesn’t have an authority watching and grading, which means kids get to use their imaginations. If they come up with something that doesn’t work — who cares? It’s just fun. You can’t run the bases backwards at Little League, but you can if you’re “just” playing. Voila: the seeds of innovation. This is the first generation to be deprived of the chance to just hang out with their buddies, getting all those good things going. “Only a quarter of our kids six to 15 are getting 60 minutes of play a day,” said Kim McCall, executive director of New York/New Jersey Playworks, an organization that sends play instructors into schools to teach kids the playground games their older siblings no longer teach them. And, she said, many schools take even the meager 20-minute recess away from kids as a punishment, when recess is probably what those kids need the most. How can we give kids back their right to play when parents and schools face so many time constraints and fears? Actually, it’s surprisingly easy. After school, just keep the gym and/or playground open for free play. Maybe have an adult in the corner, for insurance reasons. But otherwise, just throw out some balls, jump ropes and cardboard boxes and let the kids at it. A mind is a terrible thing to waste — by “teaching” it all the time. Lenore Skenazy is a keynote speaker who authored the book, and founded the blog, Free-Range Kids (freerangekids.com). April 13-19, 2017

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April 13-19, 2017

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