The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
April 13, 2017 • $1.00 Volume 87 • Number 15
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Unbowed Bharara jokes, warns about Trump at Cooper U. BY R AINER TURIM
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ore than 900 people packed The Cooper Union’s Great Hall last Thursday to hear Preet Bharara, the recently axed U.S. attorney general for the Southern District of New York. But the crowd figure was in dispute — well, not really, but Bharara
couldn’t help but take a poke at the new president who unceremoniously fired him. Bharara, who served from 2009 until last month, started his lecture off by declaring the East Village audience was actually “1.25 million,” referencing Donald Trump’s inauguraBHARARA continued on p. 6
East Villager has ‘El’ of a show of photos of 3rd Ave. rail demo BY LESLEY SUSSMAN
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id Kaplan was just a 17year-old kid and a photography major at the High School of Industrial Art when he began documenting the dismantling of the Third Ave. elevated railway line. That was back in 1955. Now,
62 years later and with Kaplan age 78, many of those images are on display at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store, in Grand Central Terminal. The exhibit will continue until July 9. With a camera in hand and a penchant for photography, he KAPLAN continued on p. 8
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Reading some serious ink — and showing some, too — in Tompkins Square Park amid the beautiful — at last! — spring weather.
Politicians, public demand survey, input on Beth Israel BY LESLEY SUSSMAN
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ount Sinai Beth Israel officials at their latest community forum on the proposed downsizing and relocation of the historic Beth Israel Hospital, once again heard local residents and public officials express fear and loathing — along with some moments of fi re and fury — over the plans for the 128-year-old
medical facility. Beth Israel will abandon its present location, at E. 16th St. and First Ave., in four years and move into a new, scaled-down version at E. 14th St. and Second Ave. on part of the site of its New York Eye and Ear Infi rmary. The 799-bed hospital — including 150 behavioralhealth beds — has already begun “phase one” of its $500 million plan to rebuild
Beth Israel Hospital and create a new Mount Sinai Downtown Healthcare Network. Some services will be relocated within the Downtown network, except for the most complex cases and delivery of babies, which will be cared for in other hospitals within the network. At the Thursday night forum at 10 Union Square, Dr. HOSPITAL continued on p. 22
David Peel, 74, a true rock ’n’ roll original....... p. 11 The joys of community rowing at Pier 40 ......... p. 13 Beam us up! Villager wins!......p. 4
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