Chelsea Now

Small Business Big Picture 02

Opioid Crisis Responses 08

The Year of Living Trumpishly 13

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

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VOLUME 09, ISSUE 38 | NOVEMBER 16 - 29, 2017

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

BIKE PATH TERRORIST ATTACK PROMPTS FAST TRACK FOR PROTECTIVE BARRIERS (see page 4)

Photo by Lincoln Anderson

A construction crew installing a second Jersey barrier on the bike path at the north end of Chelsea Piers on Nov. 7, a direct response to the terrorist attack of Oct 31. © CHELSEA NOW 2017 | NYC COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

VOLUME 09, ISSUE 38 | NOVEMBER 16 - 29, 2017

Town Hall’s Small Business Topic Speaks to City’s Big Picture Problems

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC The patient: Mom-and-Pop stores.

Symptom: High rents. The prognosis: Some on life support. Course of treatment: A town hall last week took a look at some prescriptions.

Applause greeted State Senator Brad Hoylman before he even kicked off the event — a town hall on the city’s small business crisis — at an auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology (227 W. 27th St., btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.) on Thurs., Nov. 9.

“We’re here to ask a few important questions,” he told the good-sized and engaged crowd. “What has happened to our beloved mom and pops? Why does it feel like more and more of our neighborhoods stalwarts are disappearing?

What can we do to save the New York we know and love?”

In May, Hoylman released a report — called “Bleaker on Bleecker: A Snapshot of High-Rent Blight in Greenwich Village and Chelsea” — that “examined the growing specter of vacant storefronts throughout Manhattan,” he said.

“In case after case, landlords pushed out local businesses, it’s perceived, in order to hold out for luxury retail or corporate chains capable of paying higher rents,” Hoylman said. “The result is a glutton of empty storefronts, chain stores, pharmacies and high-end national brands that lack local character.”

He added, “Bleecker Street is the cautionary tale of how high rents in the Village and Chelsea are pushing out longtime businesses.”

The report made some recommendations that Hoylman brought up at the town hall, which included creating a city

Photo by Dusica Sue Malesevic

L to R: Borough President Gale Brewer, State Senator Brad Hoylman, Tim Wu and Jeremiah Moss discussed different solutions to help Mom-and-Pop stores stay in business during a panel discussion last week.

File photo by Scott Stiffler

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These notices, posted on July 27, made it official: After 20 years, Garden of Eden’s W. 23rd St. location was closing its doors for good.

registry of small businesses that have been in operation for at least 30 years, zoning restrictions for national chain stores, and phasing out deductions for landlords with persistent vacancies.

Another solution is eliminating the commercial rent tax, “an onerous and outdated burden,” on small businesses, he said, that applies to many commercial tenants below 96th St. and north of Murray St. Manhattan Borough President Gale

Brewer, who spoke after Hoylman, explained that businesses that pay $250,000 or more in rent per year pay this commercial rent tax.

Councilmember Dan Garodnick sponsored a bill that those paying under $500,000 in rent do not have to pay the tax. It has yet to pass in the City Council, Brewer said.

Brewer and Councilmember Corey Johnson have sponsored legislation that would exempt grocery stores from the commercial rent tax.

“I’m afraid grocery stores in Manhattan might become endangered species, you know, like a bird or something,” she said. “But we have to have grocery stores. I’m not wanting to have FreshDirect on every single corner. I want my grocery store.”

On Mon., Nov. 13, Brewer, Erik Bottcher (Johnson’s chief of staff), and members of the National Supermarket Association had a rally in support of their legislation to nix the tax for supermarkets in Manhattan.

“Affordable supermarkets are lifelines for our communities,” Johnson said in a SMALL BUSINESS continued on p. 12 NYC Community Media

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After Attack, Blockers Installed to Broaden Protections on Narrow Bike Path

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON Following Tues., Oct. 31’s horrific attack on the Hudson River greenway that saw an ISIS-enthralled terrorist kill eight people as he gunned a truck for a mile down the path’s Lower West Side/ Tribeca section, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) scrambled to put protective barriers on the popular path.

It was, initially, a bit chaotic. At first, long Jersey concrete barriers were plopped down on the northern part of the path — running up to W. 59th St. — at an angle, significantly narrowing the bikeway, only allowing room for cyclists to pass single file on either side. On the path’s southern section, from the Village down to the Battery, smaller white concrete blocks — some stamped on their sides with “NYPD� in large blue letters — were added.

A mayoral spokesperson stated that 57 spots from W. 59th St. down would get “blockers.�

However, Streetsblog reported that after complaints by Mayor Bill de Blasio and cyclists, DOT — which oversees the bikeway — agreed to straighten out the Jersey barriers. That was occurring on the morning of Tues., Nov. 7, as work crews could be seen busy north of Chelsea Piers, placing and aligning the Jersey barriers so that they were parallel to the path. In many cases, three of the barriers are being installed at key intersections to block full-size cars from getting on the path: one barrier is on the median stripe, and two others are on the outsides of the path. At tighter spots, there are two Jersey barriers on the path’s edges or side by side in the middle of the path.

A crew of DOT workers, all wearing orange hard hats and vests, were

Photos by Lincoln Anderson

Near the W. 30th St. heliport, a cyclist passed through a gauntlet of barriers on Tues., Nov. 7.

Painting the ends of the barriers orange for visibility. The barriers were put side by side here on the median because the bike path is narrower along this section of Chelsea Piers.

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supervising the installation of side-byside barriers near the “S� curve at the northern end of Chelsea Piers around 11:30 a.m. “This is a temporary fix,� their chief told our sister publication, The Villager, regarding the Jersey barriers. He said they were going to install the long barriers “all the way down to the Battery,� but might also possibly keep some of the smaller white blocks.

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Central Park Dedicates First Site for Statues Honoring Women

BY TEQUILA MINSKY The Nov. 6 morning gathering of nearly 150 on the northwest corner of Literary Walk on the Mall in Central Park commemorated a momentous date: the 100-year anniversary of the law that granted women in New York State the right to vote.

City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver, along with a cadre of elected officials, women’s rights supporters, and members of Girl Scout Troops 3482 and 3484 dedicated the future site of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Woman Suffrage Movement Monument.

The monument — slated for a 2020 unveiling on the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution that extended the right to vote to all American women — celebrates two pioneering suffrage activists, but will honor all those who fought for the right to vote.

Performance artist Lulu Lolo, who conducts tours of statues across the city, continuously asks, “Where are the women?,” in referring to New York’s civic statuary. The number of statues that pay tribute to actual historical

Photo courtesy of New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

At the Nov. 6 site dedication ceremony, Heather Nesle, president of the New York Life Foundation, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Coline Jenkins of the Stanton and Anthony Statue Fund and great-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, East Side Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver, Pam Elam, also of the Statue Fund, City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal, and State Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell are joined by members of Girl Scout Troop 3484.

women number only five citywide, compared to more than 100 that commemorate men. (Alice, the fictional heroine of Lewis Carroll’s 1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, does have a statue in the park.)

Now, Stanton and Anthony will become the first women to join the ranks of 23 men honored in Central Park. And the monument will be the park’s first commemorative sculpture installed since 1965.

Stanton and Anthony met in 1851 at an anti-slavery meeting and forged a remarkable partnership that lasted for more than 50 years. Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments, in which she rewrote the Declaration of Independence to include women, was presented at the first women’s rights convention held in upstate Seneca Falls in 1848.

The Seneca Falls Convention was the beginning of a national, and later international, movement for women’s rights led by Stanton, Anthony, and others that continues to the present day around the world. Stanton and Anthony first published their newspaper, The DEDICATION continued on p. 10

On NYS Suffrage’s Centennial, Celebrating New Push to Honor Pioneers

BY TEQUILA MINSKY On the evening of Nov. 6, just hours after the dedication of a site in Central Park for a planned Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Woman Suffrage Movement Monument, supporters of the project held a celebratory reception at the New-York Historical Society on Central Park West and 77th St. Those attending represented a Who’s Who of women’s rights activists, whose accomplishments go back decades: Carol Bellamy, a former state senator who was the first woman elected president of the New York City Council, the first woman to get one million votes in the US, and a former head of the Peace Corps; former Borough President Ruth Messinger, who had earlier served on the City Council; Elizabeth Holtzman, a former member of Congress who served as Brooklyn district attorney and city comptroller; East Side Congressmember Carolyn Maloney; Lynn Sherr, a former ABC news correspondent who in 1992 wrote an op-ed arguing that statues should honor Stanton and Anthony; Rosie Rios, who served as treasurer of the US for seven years during the Obama administration; and Marisa Lago, director of the NYC Community Media

Photo by Tequila Minsky

Borough President Gale Brewer and Coline Jenkins of the Stanton and Anthony Statue Fund and a great-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

city’s Department of City Planning.

Borough President Gale Brewer got the program going with a brief history of the effort to honor two pioneering suffrage activists and the movement their lives symbolized.

“This is a really big day for New York,” Brewer said. “I want to thank everyone in this room because one way

or another you have been involved.”

She elaborated, “We started meeting with the [Central] Park Conservancy and Pam Elam and Coline Jenkins,” pointing to the two women who head up the Stanton and Anthony Statue Fund to raise money for the project. “Putting a new statue [in Central Park] has all of its challenges.”

Jenkins is the great-great-granddaughter of Stanton.

The borough president continued, “We sat in so many conference room and walked so many miles of that friggin’ park. What was the right location?...

The Mall is the right place to be. It came with a lot of heart, soul, discussions, and meetings.”

Brewer noted the way in which civic statues educate the public and celebrate past historical achievements.

“To have this statue, men and women, young and old, can go to this statue as we often go to Harriet Tubman [on W. 122nd St. in Harlem] on her birthday, Eleanor Roosevelt [in Riverside Park] on her birthday, now even more we can learn about a movement. It has all the educational aspects that are not discussed, unfortunately, in the public schools.”

Congresswoman Maloney talked about how the first demand that women be given the right to vote came out of the 1948 Seneca Falls Convention with Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments that incorporated women into the promise of the Declaration of Independence. She PIONEERS continued on p. 11 November 16, 2017

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As Demolition Looms, a Race to Preserve 1954 ‘Memory’ Mural

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC Preservationists, Councilmember Corey Johnson’s office, and a developer are looking to conserve a piece of 1950s New York: Julien Binford’s mural at a former bank on the corner of W. 14th St. and Sixth Ave. Binford’s mural — “A Memory of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue� — graces the lobby of a now-closed HSBC branch, according to websites GothamToGo and New York Songlines. Binford painted the mural in 1954 for what was then the Greenwich Savings Bank, according to Songlines.

Built in 1953, the one-story commercial building at 101 W. 14th St. — also known by the address 531 Sixth Ave. — is slated for demolition, according to the project developer, Gemini Rosemont, and streeteasy.com (city records show that in April, the building was sold for $42.4 million).

Brian Ferrier, vice president of development for Gemini Rosemont, said a timetable has yet to be set for demolition. The developer is still in the design phase, he said by phone, but, in general, there will be retail space and condos.

Photo by Christian Miles

BINFORD MURAL continued on p. 14

An effort to preserve artist Julien Binford’s mural, which dates back to the 1950s, is gaining steam.

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City Shelters to Guarantee Overdose Prevention Staffing

BY NATHAN RILEY A measure approved by the City Council on October 31 guarantees that homeless shelters across New York will be staffed by people trained to prevent fatal overdoses.

Three years ago, drug overdose became the leading cause of death among the homeless. The new legislation expands the city’s public health commitment to reduce fatal ODs. The bill, sponsored by Ritchie Torres, an out gay councilmember from the Bronx, requires that employees at city shelters and those at non-profit providers who operate single-room-occupancy hotels under contract with city agencies, such as the HIV/ AIDS Services Administration (HASA), be trained in the use of naloxone, which is sold under the brand name Narcan.

Torres told the Council that his bill “will save lives. The city will be required to train shelter providers and shelter residents in the administration of naloxone, which has been shown to reverse, in real time, the impact of an otherwise fatal opioid overdose.”

The device is injected into a person’s nose and sprays an opioid antagonist that revives a person’s breathing. The device is designed for use by lay persons and can be used after just one

Photo by Donna Aeceto

Bronx Councilmember Ritchie Torres led the drive to improve overdose prevention at city homeless shelters and other facilities servicing at-risk populations.

training session.

The new local law requires that in every city shelter and single-roomoccupancy hotels under its jurisdiction there be at least one trained person on duty at all times. It is expected that training will be offered to many shelter employees to ensure that a trained staff member is always on duty.

The legislation expands existing

programs and represents an extensive collaboration among advocates for the homeless, including VOCAL-NY and Torres. In an emailed statement, city Human Resources Administration Commissioner Steven Banks offered an upbeat assessment of the new measure, writing, “This legislation would take our comprehensive training efforts even further, expanding preparedness programming to additional facilities and offering new training opportunities to clients.”

Under the law, homeless shelter and SRO residents will also be trained in the use of Narcan, something that VOCAL-NY, which works directly with the city’s drug-using population, hailed as a step forward in public health responsiveness.

Jeremy Saunders, co-executive director at VOCAL-NY, was ebullient in telling Gay City News, “Passage of 1443 would not have been possible without Councilmember Ritchie Torres and Commissioner Steve Banks. But most importantly, it took shelter residents telling their stories and demanding that they be included into the legislation.”

Saunders then praised several homeless New Yorkers who pressed the importance of training shelter resi-

dents themselves in the use of Narcan, saying, “Thanks to people like Stevie Weltsek, Sarah Wilson, Jeffery Foster, and many others, the law was expanded to include the training of shelter residents and reporting to ensure it is really happening.”

Banks echoed that message, saying, “We remain committed to continuing to empower more New Yorkers to be overdose first responders, ready to save lives.”

Public health prevention of overdose deaths depends on wide distribution of Narcan kits so that a user gets immediate help from others during a crisis.

During an overdose episode, breathing is suppressed and while waiting for an ambulance a person might suffocate.

The city health department has long encouraged ordinary New Yorkers to become overdose first responders. This legislation creates a framework for helping drug users to help themselves in preventing fatal overdoses.

In his remarks to the Council, Torres summed the issue up saying, “One need not be a doctor to administer naloxone, and one need not be an emergency responder to save a life on a moment’s notice. All that is required is a basic training, a basic drug, and a basic show of compassion towards those in crisis.”

No New Money, No New Ideas in Opioid Response

BY NATHAN RILEY Donald Trump’s declaration of a public health emergency to end the epidemic of opioid overdose deaths wraps itself in virtue, but avoids the burning question about the nation’s drug policy: What works?

During the 1990s, Switzerland and Portugal were among the nations that experienced the growth in opioid use seen here in the US as well. In those two nations, however, the response was radically different than in the US. Switzerland and Portugal asked public health officials to solve the problem and minimized law enforcement activity in response. As a result, there, drug use seldom involves criminal sanctions and services are provided by health and social workers comfortable in working with drug users. The Swiss offered medically-assisted therapy with methadone, and for a smaller group of users medical heroin itself. Programs were geared toward aiding drug users in managing their habit. There were never grand declarations to “end” drug use.

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November 16, 2017

The Swiss program — designed by doctors in tandem with users — conflicts with basic American attitudes toward drug use. A cardinal principle is that the user picks their dose. Overdose levels, of course, bring intervention, but the program design is clear that the user must determine their comfort level.

After 20 years without a major backlash, heroin users, over the long run, tend to abandon their habit. And, crucially in the context of the link between drug use and other criminal behavior, most live without relying on illegal activity to pay for their habit.

Drug users have easy access to medically-assisted treatment. Those users permitted access to medical heroin in Switzerland must stop over a three-to10-year period. The number of Swiss narcotics-related deaths in 1995 was 376; by 2012, it had fallen two-thirds to 121.

These nations have housing and psychological services available to all, one of the key demands of drug reformers.

The presidential commission appointed

by Trump and headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie endorsed that idea, but there is no money in Medicaid for these services.

Donald Trump had two ways to go — finding more money for health services or making bold but empty promises. If he had declared a “national emergency” — as he initially pledged — it would have created claims on a $53 billion federal fund. For the “public health emergency” he declared last week, there is currently $57,000 in the kitty. Hence the Times’ headline: “Trump Declares Opioid Crisis a ‘Health Emergency’ but Requests No Funds.”

A swift warning came from Gay Men’s Health Crisis about the “potential efforts under the Public Health Emergency Declaration to redirect funding from HIV/ AIDS programs.”

The Daily News also voiced suspicion that money would be siphoned from AIDS/ HIV services.

But the biggest howl of fury came from the new executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, who blasted the

president’s speech saying it showed “a profound and reckless disregard for the realities about drugs and drug use.”

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, a human rights activist who replaced Ethan Nadelmann, challenged Trump, poopooing his recommendation that drug prevention programs revive the “just say no” evangelizing of Nancy Reagan and his faith that public service announcements would “prevent” drug use.

“He made a big deal” about taking a pharmaceutical opioid off the market, she scoffed, noting that such a strategy is years out of date. “The opioids involved in overdoses are mostly coming from the illicit market” today, McFarland Sánchez-Moreno said. Drug users have gone from the gray market to a wholly criminal underground market of drugs laced with fentanyl — a transformation that is a damning indictment of the prohibition and the criminalizing of drug use. Drug deaths have been rising for years. Last year, there were 64,000 OPIOIDS continued on p. 16 NYC Community Media

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Reading Glancing at an advertisement, updating a Facebook status or reading a book are all activities that should be avoided when driving. Even pouring over a traffic map or consulting the digital display of a GPS system can be distracting.

November 16, 2017

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DEDICATION continued from p. 5

Revolution, in New York in 1868, and founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, also in the city, in 1869.

But having carried out their activism in New York City was not sufficient to justify a monument to Stanton and Anthony in the park.

“During the approval process, we had to prove that Stanton and Anthony had ties to Central Park,” explained Pam Elam, president of the Stanton and Anthony Statue Fund who has worked for years on this project. “Anthony loved walking in Central Park and Stanton took carriage rides and her children there,” she discovered in her historical research.

That research also documents that between 1862 and 1902, Stanton and her family lived at four different West Side homes, in each of which Anthony had a room — at 75 W. 45th St., 464 W. 34th St., 26 W. 61st St., and 250 W. 94th St. Stanton died in 1902, at the age of 86, in an apartment only a few blocks from Central Park.

Four years later, Anthony died, also at age 86, in upstate Rochester. Sadly neither woman lived to see their dream of women’s suffrage become a reality in either the state or the nation.

Commissioner Silver overturned a moratorium dating to the mid-20th century on permanent installations within the park and, in May of 2015, the department granted the approval to erect statues of Stanton and Anthony.

Silver acknowledged that it is long past time to recognize the contributions New York’s women have made to the fight for gender equity. At the ceremony, he mentioned some of the other Americans the two suffrage pioneers will join in Central Park — including Frederick Douglass, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Webster, and General William Tecumseh Sherman.

“This monument will honor these women and the movement they stood for, and remind us of our shared, lasting values — justice and equity and persistence,” Silver said.

Elam, head of the Stanton and Anthony Statue Fund, said, “We are going to break the bronze ceiling in Central Park to create the first statue of real women in its 164-year history.”

She, along with Coline Jenkins, Stanton’s great-great-granddaughter, started the non-profit to raise money for the monument. The two are looking to raise one and a half million dollars for the statue, its upkeep, and its attendant educational component.

The group is about half-way there, having received, in additional to indi-

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November 16, 2017

Photo by Tequila Minsky

A rendering by the Stanton and Anthony Statue Fund of where on the Mall in Central Park the monument to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony will be located.

vidual donations, a capital funding grant from Borough President Gale Brewer and support from City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal. New York Life, which has close historical ties to Susan B. Anthony and her family, pledged a $500,000 challenge grant last year to the statue’s fund.

And then there are the Girl Scouts.

This year, Troop 3484 donated proceeds from its cookie sales — $1,920, the number representing the year of the 19th Amendment’s adoption — and Troop 3482 donated $2,000.

At the Central Park ceremony, Elam also announced the launch of the Statue Fund’s Design Competition for sculptors, which will be managed by the architecture and planning firm Beyer Blinder Belle.

In a written statement, First Lady Chirlane McCray, co-chair of the city Commission on Gender Equity, offered her view of how the choice for these first two women to be honored with statues in Central Park was appropriate.

“Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were uncompromising women’s rights leaders who revolutionized the political and social climate for American women,” McCray said. “It is necessary that we commemorate their contribution to society.”

Borough President Brewer emphasized the importance of a central, highly visible location inside the park for the monument, explaining, “We searched Central Park and walked so many miles!”

She added that in scouting for a location she had the strong support of Commissioner Silver, who, she said, couldn’t believe there were no statues of women in Central Park. With the support of both long-time and new supporters, renewed vigor has been infused into the project, with palpable excitement about this long overdue tribute.

NYC Community Media

PIONEERS continued from p. 5

described the fight for women’s right to vote as the largest non-violent revolution in history.

Inspired by the monument site’s dedication on the centennial of women winning the vote in New York State, Maloney said she is organizing a rally in support of her effort to revive the push for a federal Equal Rights Amendment for November 17 at 10:30 a.m. in front of the Fearless Girl statue at Bowling Green downtown.

“Many think she’s standing up to discrimination and trying to do something about it,” the congressmember said of Fearless Girl.

Maloney added, “We see all this sexual violence against women. One way to deal with this is to put women in the Constitution, so you can sue. With the ERA, we will put the force of law behind issues like equal pay for equal work.

I spend a lot of time in Congress fighting for what we already have.”

She specifically mentioned the constant efforts by conservatives to chip away at a woman’s right to choose as well as the federal Title IX guarantee of equality for girls in school sports.

The Statue Fund’s presPhoto by Tequila Minsky ident, Elam, a long-time Pipa, from Girl Scout Troop activist for recognizing 3484, closed the evening. the history of women’s achievements, said, “Tonight we celebrate the power of moving history forward. The fighting against misogyny never ends, and the battle for equality goes on. We honor the women who came before us. Two figures and many others names will be incorporated in the design.

With the unveiling of the monument in August 2020, an educational campaign will begin to tell the compelling, complex, and complete women’s suffrage story.”

Jenkins held a picture of her great-great-grandmother, Stanton, at age 32.

“You can be young and do great things,” Jenkins said. “A handful of women got together to tweak the Declaration of Independence to read, ‘All men and women are created equal.’”

Then pointing to the young man videotaping the event, Jenkins added, “He’s the great-great-great-grandson of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and he’s a women’s rights man.”

At that point in the evening, women began coming forward to make donations to the Statue Fund, with Brenda Berkman, who became the city’s first woman firefighter in 1982, donating $10,000 targeted for the educational component of the Statue Fund. Jenkins herself pledged $30,000 for the cost of the sculptors’ maquettes, which will lay out their vision for the monument in preliminary fashion.

The last to speak was one of the Girl Scouts.

“I’m Pipa with Troop 3484,” the girl said. “Last year, we were educated about how there were no statues of women in Central Park. We were very surprised. It’s sad when you think about it.”

Then, grappling with her words, Pipa added, “Women are not only half the population, we did make the men” — a comment met with a lot of laughter and applause — “and we need role models.”

NYC Community Media

MAX

November 16, 2017

11

SMALL BUSINESS continued from p. 2

press release, and the proposal “would give our neighborhood supermarkets a fighting chance for survival.”

“Every neighborhood needs a supermarket and access to affordable food, but even the most successful supermarkets operate with slim profit margins,” Brewer said in the release. “Ending this tax can and will make a big difference for these essential businesses.”

Rudy Fuertes, president of the National Supermarket Association, said in the release it is “no secret” that the industry is in crisis “with neighborhood grocery stores closing their doors regularly and leaving communities devoid of healthy food options.”

In Chelsea, grocery stores have been shuttering — most recently, Garden of Eden, which closed in August after two decades on W. 23rd St. At the town hall on Thursday, Brewer said she was hopeful to pass the legislation at the same time as Garodnick’s bill, but noted, “All of this is challenging.”

Like Hoylman’s office, Brewer’s office surveyed empty storefronts, with her saying that they walked from the bottom to the top of Broadway and found 188 vacancies. “It’s outrageous,” she said.

Brewer is also proposing some kind of registry for the vacancies, and, perhaps, a penalty for property owners who keep storefronts empty for a certain amount of time.

“We don’t have a real sense of the problem because the city doesn’t collect data on empty storefronts,” Hoylman said later during a panel discussion.

“They say you can’t manage what you don’t measure. We’re not measuring how deep this impact is, we feel it in our hearts and souls but the city isn’t registering in its database.”

Brewer also talked about the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, which she helped write when she was working for then Councilmember Ruth Messinger

Photo by Dusica Sue Malesevic

Sen. Hoylman also brought up recommendations from his office’s May report, titled “Bleaker on Bleecker: A Snapshot of High-Rent Blight in Greenwich Village and Chelsea.”

Photo by Andrew Goldston

On Nov. 13, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, center, rallied with members of the National Supermarket Association and supporters for legislation that would exempt grocery stores from the commercial rent tax.

and that has been pending since 1985.

Brewer also sponsored the bill when she was a councilmember.

“I cannot wait after 25 years,” she said. “We’ve got to find something that will pass and that will save the small businesses.”

After Brewer spoke, Hoylman introduced the evening’s featured speaker, Jeremiah Moss, whom he met during the campaign to save Cafe Edison in Times Square. Moss chronicles “the disappearance of longtime businesses

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November 16, 2017

in Manhattan and across every borough,” through his “Vanishing New York” blog, and, now, a book with the same name, Hoylman said.

“I know we’re here tonight to talk about the small business crisis in the city, which is close to my heart and we all know what it looks like,” Moss started off saying, noting the mass evictions and “overproliferation” of chain stores.

He added, “A city that is becoming homogenized. It’s looking like everywhere else and it’s becoming, in some ways, quite deadened, and we all know the reason, right?”

Moss told the audience his presentation was “really about history” and was going to focus on the “two engines that drive today’s hyper-gentrification, as I call it. And those two engines are racism and neoliberalism.”

In the late 19th, early 20th centuries, New York City went through a population shift with immigrants coming mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, African Americans fleeing Jim Crow South, and bohemians arriving from across America along with early LGBTQ people, Moss said.

“And this combination created what

I really think of as the soul of New York. … It was colorful and queer and creative, pushing for social justice, the labor movement. It was not perfect but it was a more progressive place,” he said.

City elites and the federal government pushed back, according to Moss, leading to deindustrializing as well as rezoning of the city. By the 1930s, the practice of redlining — red lines marked off areas of high risk — denied African Americans loans for homes and businesses, he said, and so “African Americans were also unable to access and accumulate wealth and these neighborhoods started to decline.”

People of color were placed in these grim housing projects or pushed into already overcrowded parts of town, like Harlem or Bedford-Stuyvesant, and disinvestment and decline continued, Moss said.

By the mid-1970s, the city is in crisis and this was exploited by this new economic philosophy of neoliberalism, Moss said.

“Liberal here really means to liberate the market,” he said. “The liberation of banks. It’s radical free-market capitalism. It’s a really a return to the Gilded Age of the 19th century before the progressive era.”

After describing waves of gentrification, Moss draws a line to the administration of Mike Bloomberg, saying that he “was the ultimate expression of the neoliberal philosophy in approach to governing the city.”

During the Bloomberg administration, 25,000 buildings were demolished, 40,000 buildings went up — Moss said a lot looked “like glass boxes that all look the same” — and 40 percent of the city was rezoned, he said.

“It may seem like I’ve gone way out there to talk about the small business crisis… but it really is all connected,” Moss said.

After his presentation, Moss, Brewer, Hoylman and Tim Wu, an author, professor and contributing writer to the New York Times, discussed additional solutions, and fielded questions from the audience. Moss said he would really like to bring back commercial rent control, noting that the city had such a mechanism in place after World War II for almost 20 years.

Wu, who has written about “highrent blight” in the West Village, said he was going to end an optimistic note.

“I believe we can save this city,” he said. “I believe a lot of people really care about this… People are talking about this right now… The city has shown a resiliency. It has saved itself before and it can save it again.”

NYC Community Media

Stress Test Confidential: The Year of Living Trumpishly

BY MAX BURBANK Here’s a kind of interesting thought I think you’ll enjoy: In preparing to write a column on Donald Trump’s first year in office (well, since his election), I was reminded of that time back in 2004 when the History News Network surveyed 415 prominent historians asking who the worst president in American history was. A significant majority agreed it was George W. Bush! Isn’t that cute? Oh my God, how was the world ever that young? It’s like looking at that Polaroid of myself in the ’70s with the puka shell necklace and bell-bottoms. More like that picture from the ’80s with the mullet, in that my nostalgia is tinged with revulsion and not a small amount of self-loathing.

It’s been a little over a year since I stayed up all night re-writing what was supposed to be my last regular feature for the NYC Community Media publications, such as this fine one you happen to be reading. I’d been hired to write a satirical column on the election called “Stump Speech.” For 11 months I covered it all — Iowa, Super Tuesday, the bizarre transformation of Donald Trump from sideshow attraction to nominee, the conventions, and the debates. At first it was easy and fun, like slamming cartoon villains with a frying pan and enjoying the way their heads would be frying-pan-shaped for a second before popping back to normal. When Trump won the nomination it was definitely unsettling, but I thought, you know, silver lining: A ringside seat to the collapse of the Republican Party.

My editor asked me to live tweet both conventions. My daughters had to set up my account and teach me how — because not only am I old, but I’m also something of a caveman when it comes to operating the computer machines. It was fun at first. I got up to speed, learned the Twitter ropes, and poked Twitter fun at Chachi (which is like shooting a tuna-sized Twitter fish in a very small Twitter barrel with a Twitter grenade launcher).

And then it got not fun.

I don’t even mean the Grand Old Party of Nuremberg’s “Down Home Convention Rally and Ol’ Time Flag-Fetishizin’ Tent Revival Medicine Show.”

All that dystopian dog-and-pony crap is to be expected. Melania’s uncanny valley teleprompter cover version of Michelle Obama was welcome comedy relief, and even Laura Ingraham’s spur-of-the-moment Nazi salute was funny in a sort of jaw-dropping, audience-at-the-opening-of-“Springtime for Hitler” way.

It was late when Trump finally lumbered out. I was wearing headphones so as not to wake my family. And his voice. That voice.

There’s a villain from the 1940s Captain Marvel comic, Mr. Mind, a chubby little talking worm. And Captain Marvel was a kid’s comic. Simple drawings, bright colors. “Shazam!” Light stuff, right? Mr. Mind was a goofy, silly villain. Except he NYC Community Media

wasn’t really. He was a repulsive, slimy little leech with glasses. He slimed into your ear while you slept, and scooched down right up against the drum like a sentient snot, and whispered directly to your brain.

He told you to believe terrible, evil stuff. And you didn’t want to. But you did.

Because of the headphones, Trump was in my damn head, and the speech lasted weeks! America as Hellscape, our lives a horror of relentless trauma, terrible savage brown people coming to tear our children to pieces as we watched, helpless — and he alone, HE ALONE could save us. Jesus President, deigning to descend a golden escalator into Armageddon to pull the white and righteous up from the mire!

When it was over, I was sick. Not metaphorically. For days afterward, I felt as if I’d been dragged behind a truck.

I haven’t listened to him since. Oh, sure, I hear snippets on the radio. I’ve read thousands of pages of transcripts. But I can’t listen to his voice. It’s like Pennywise talking out of the storm drain, if Pennywise was (and I’m quoting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson here) “a f**king Moron.”

So yeah, my column got harder, but it was all good, because I knew how the series would end. My last column was going to be about the election of America’s fi rst female president — a woman who, whether she was your fi rst choice or not, you had to admit was totally prepared, smart as hell about the kind of things a president needs to know, and who worked harder in a day than any of us did in a year. Well.

Harder than I do in a year, anyway.

A year ago I felt like I’d been given a hard shove and when I looked up, there was black-and-white TV Rod Serling talking to an invisible audience about how I was rewriting my column. Talking like I wasn’t even there.

“I can hear you, Rod! I’m right Illustration by Max Burbank here!”

I wanted to scream.

I didn’t. My family was asleep and I didn’t want to wake them up to the world I was writing my column in.

Pick your metaphor: A year down the rabbit hole? 365 days in The Upside Down? Like the “Annus Horribilis” season of “Star Trek: Voyager,” the only tolerable season the show had and, let’s face it, still not that great? We promised not to normalize any of this, but in the end if something goes on long enough, isn’t that the very definition of normal?

Think about this, though: The wall is unbuilt. Obamacare didn’t get repealed and replaced. Trump’s clearly racist travel ban has been knocked down by court after court. All that happy, crappy “on day one” Kool-Aid turns out to be bullshitflavored. And then of course there are the November 7th election results, a tiny little crack but one that, nonetheless, let’s us see a little Goddamn sunlight.

Without that, this column would have been so depressing I’d have recommended column euthanasia. Seems like when Trump said, “I alone can save you,” he meant, “As long as you slavishly do every single thing I tell you to.” Hell, he can’t even get his base to do that, let alone the remaining 70-some-odd percent of the rest of the country.

So maybe it’s time to stop saying, “This isn’t normal.” Maybe it’s time to start saying, “This normal blows. I hate this normal. This normal can kiss my resistant ass,” and we can fight like hell for a new normal where next year, at this very same time, the orange hue of a certain treacherous, elderly fat man isn’t the work of an ill-applied spray tan. It’s a damn prison jumpsuit.

November 16, 2017

13

BINFORD MURAL continued from p. 6

Regarding the mural, Ferrier said, “We’re investigating a couple different options.”

Andrew Cronson, a junior at New York University, said on his way from class to Penn Station to catch a train back to Long Island, he would pass by the abandoned bank.

“Peering in through the windows, the interior was mostly gutted, but this 150 [foot] mural stood out prominently among the gritty rubble and dust,” Cronson said by email, noting that the building was designed by Halsey, McCormack & Helmer.

In late October, Cronson said he reached out to a number of advocacy groups — including Laurence Frommer of Save Chelsea, who “has been instrumental in banding together a task force to address the preservation of this work.”

“We think it’s significant artwork,” Frommer said by phone. “It reflects the history of the area. It seems to capture the glory days of Sixth Avenue.”

Save Chelsea contacted Johnson’s office, Erik Bottcher, the councilmember’s chief of staff, said by phone.

Bottcher noted the developer has been asking galleries if they were interested in the mural, but got no takers, so they’re

Photo by Christian Miles

The former bank at the corner of W. 14th St. and Sixth Ave. will be demolished at some point, giving rise to retail space and condos.

considering preserving and keeping the mural for themselves.

Paul Groncki, also of Save Chelsea, suggested to Johnson’s office that Jamestown might be interested in taking the mural, Bottcher said. Bottcher has been in touch with the investment and management company, but, as of now, they are “waiting in the wings,” he said.

Jamestown declined to comment.

Frommer of Save Chelsea said that whoever takes the mural, he hopes that

“it is done properly with the right conservation mindset,” and preserved “in perpetuity.”

Binford was born in Virginia in 1908, and died shy of his 89th birthday, according to Wikipedia. He created artwork in both Virginia and New York, and “about 37 paintings for the Works in Progress Administration Federal Art Project” between 1938 and 1940, according to a 2015 Richmond TimesDispatch article.

Cronson said the mural at the former

bank “depicts a jovial street scene in panoramic form of what this area would have looked like in the late 1800s back when there was an elevated train and riders used horses as a mode of transportation.”

“It would be a tragedy if this mural is demolished,” Johnson said in an email statement. “Losing it would really be losing a piece of our history. We are working frantically to find a new home for it. We hope to succeed at this in the next few days.”

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NYC Community Media

BLOCKERS continued from p. 4

they will “assess it as they see it.�

The Jersey barriers’ ends are painted orange for visibility and, as seen in ones installed on the path in the W. 30s, they will also sport yellow lights at their ends for nighttime visibility.

A quartet of Belgians on Citi Bikes who had run in Sun., Nov. 5’s NYC Marathon were waiting on the path as a worker held a “STOP� sign as a crane was lowering one of the barriers into place. One of their countrywomen was among the eight killed in the Oct. 31 attack. Asked their thoughts about the new security measures on the path, they said it was the right thing to do. “It’s terrible,� one of them said of the attack, adding of terrorism, in general, “It’s all over.�

The hard hat holding the “STOP� sign said it’s obvious what should be done. “See those ballards [sic] that are sticking up,� he said, referring to some bollards along the north edge of the “S� curve. “That’s what you gotta do. They have ’em at the airport. They have ’em at the World Trade Center.�

Attorney Steve Vaccaro — who represents seriously injured cyclists and pedestrians — cycle-commutes on the Hudson River bikeway daily from his Upper East Side home to his law office in Lower Manhattan. Speaking the day before DOT started straightening out the Jersey barriers, he said, “I think they present an unacceptable level of danger and slow down traffic on the bike path.

Governor Cuomo rushed those in. They came from the state. This is the busiest bike path in North America, and to narrow it down to single file, you’re really asking for trouble. It’s a bike superhighway.�

He said he prefers the NYPD white blocks that were installed on the path’s lower section.

On the other hand, Vaccaro said, “Bollards present a hazard, but we may have to live with them.�

The key, he said, is to block sedansize cars and vehicles from getting onto the path, while still allowing smaller vehicles, like the ones Park Enforcement Patrol officers and Hudson River Park Trust staff use, to go through.

The bike attorney’s recommendation is to have bollards that can be remotely lowered to allow police cars and ambulances to get by, as needed. He suggested that a set of “master controls� could be manned at the Trust’s headquarters, at Pier 40, at W. Houston St., and people could call the person at the switch if they needed to get through.

Yet, some have pointed out that if terrorists really still want to attack the NYC Community Media

Photo by Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office

On Mon., Nov. 6, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, joined Argentinian President Mauricio Macri and his wife, Juliana Awada, in a tribute to the victims of the terrorist attack on the West Side bike path.

Photo by Lincoln Anderson

A “ghost bike� marks the spot toward the north side of Pier 40 where Eric Ng, an NYU graduate, was killed by a drunk East Village driver who steered his car into the bike path after a company party at Chelsea Piers. Despite Ng’s death 11 years ago, no security protections were added to the popular bikeway to keep unauthorized cars and trucks off of it — until Oct. 31’s terrorist attack that killed eight people.

path, they could simply drive over the grassy median that separates it at points from the highway.

BLOCKERS continued on p. 16

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Jeff Fischman, 77, a semi-retired plastic surgeon from the Upper West Side, was getting his daily exercise ride along the Hudson River Bike Path on Tues., Nov. 7 — as usual, wearing a skiing helmet for extra safety. He’s had several falls over the years, but can’t do without his cycling, he said. “From the bridge to the Battery is 11 miles,” he noted.

He was passing by W. Houston St., through the smaller-style “NYPD” white blocks that were installed along the lower part of the bike path, starting from the Village and going south, after the Oct. 31 terrorist attack. “It needed something,” Fischman said of the new barriers.

BLOCKERS continued from p. 15

“I don’t believe you can make the path 100-percent impervious to a terrorist attack,” Vaccaro admitted.

Although whatever is out there now is being called interim, he noted that often “interim” becomes “permanent.”

Speaking early last week, Assemblymember Deborah Glick said she preferred the smaller white concrete blocks over the long, angled Jersey barriers that were making it difficult for cyclists to get by the newly created pinch points.

“Hopefully, the Jersey barriers will be adjusted in a more appropriate fashion,” she said, adding, “We’ve reached out to the Hudson River Park Trust and appar-

OPIOIDS continued from p. 8

overdose deaths — roughly equal to all Americans killed in the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan conflicts combined.

Trump also showed his ignorance about how drugs enter the US, when he spoke lovingly of how his Mexican border wall would halt the inflow.

McFarland Sánchez-Moreno was unconvinced; the illicit drug trade, she said, “always” finds ways to “get around the walls and barriers the US has put up to block it,” with many drugs smuggled

16

November 16, 2017

Photos by Lincoln Anderson

A bike helmet at the W. Houston St. memorial bears the name of the eight slain by a terrorist.

ently they feel that it’s really state DOT that’s involved in this.”

State Senator Brad Hoylman initially refrained from discussing specifics of the bike path’s new security measures.

“At this point,” he said, “my thoughts are with the victims and their families, including our neighbor Nicholas Cleves who grew up as a Village kid and was just starting his life. It’s unimaginable that Nick and seven others would be murdered during such a simple and joyous activity as riding a bicycle at this beautiful location. I’m extremely grateful to the NYPD and other first responders who prevented a wider tragedy, and the staff of the Hudson River Park, who were immediately on the scene and deserve our deepest thanks for their pro-

fessionalism during this difficult time.

“As for the additional barriers being put on the Hudson River bike path, I think it’s appropriate to refrain from commenting on security measures, especially during an open investigation.”

Tobi Bergman, a former chairperson of Community Board 2, a longtime waterfront park activist and a big biker, also weighed in on the bike path situation, when asked about by The Villager.

“There is no doubt they are very ugly and I am worried they may cause accidents,” he said, responding to the initial diagonal placement of the Jersey barriers. “I understand the need for the authorities to deal quickly with what’s in front of them, but I don’t think weaponizing the city is the answer.

Fortunately, the technology exists to design and install systems that prevent cars and trucks from slamming into people, purposefully or not, and manufacturers should be motivated to respond to the public need.

“How about calling for a requirement that all rental trucks be fitted with breaking systems that stop the truck when an object, including a pedestrian, is at risk?” Bergman suggested. “The capability is there because some cars have it. I guess it would require federal law. Not sure.”

Bergman noted of the terrorists that they often like to attack “where people are having fun” — like the bike path.

inside freight containers as part of our heavy border commercial traffic with Mexico.

Pointing his finger at immigrants, she added, has a sinister motivation.

Trump blames “immigrants for bringing drugs across the border, ignoring that immigrants are overwhelmingly more law-abiding than US citizens,” McFarland Sánchez-Moreno said. The entire presidential declaration, she said, provided yet another excuse for “talking about criminal justice answers to a public health problem, even though the

war on drugs is itself a major factor contributing to the overdose crisis.” Trump is still trying to use a hammer to smash the drug problem, with immigrants hit with a special ferocity.

The president’s plan, McFarland Sánchez-Moreno charged, will spread pain and misery, “condemning even more people to death, imprisonment, and deportation in the name of his war on drugs.”

Sadly, as if on cue, Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the US Senate, answered Trump’s call, finding $12.5

million to fund a new DEA team to focus on the smuggling of fentanyl at Kennedy Airport. Look for the arrest of black and brown baggage handlers.

Nobody expects this one unit to make a real difference, but it points up drug reformers’ fears that in a nation that refuses to give up its belief that criminal law protects its young from drug addiction, law enforcement will get the bulk of any new funds identified. A public health approach, based on strategies that “work,” remains the low man on the budget totem pole.

BLOCKERS continued on p. 21

NYC Community Media

YouTube Space: The Free Frontier Slick facility feeds needs of hungry content creators

BY RANIA RICHARDSON High above Chelsea Market, YouTube Space New York is a hive of activity, as video makers working in a variety of genres take advantage of a rare opportunity: free resources.

YouTube is a video sharing website that allows users to upload, view, and share content. Along with large companies, independent creators contribute to the site and often gain a grassroots following for their online channel. Anyone with a YouTube channel that meets a minimum subscriber threshold can access the Chelsea production facility’s state-ofthe-art equipment, in-house experts, and educational programs.

“We have finite resources. So to democratize access, we ask for at least 10,000 subscribers,” said Adam Relis, head of YouTube Space NY, during a recent visit. “It’s a measure of concerted effort and consistency,” he noted, as opposed to counting “views” for individual videos, which could be in the millions, but occur without predictability. “It’s also a good milestone to reach,” Relis said of the 10,000 minimal subscriber number (1,000 for registered nonprofits), “and it motivates up-and-coming creators to hit the mark.”

The upside for YouTube, a Google company, is being right there with their content providers as they work in the space, taking risks and experimenting.

Google and the wider YouTube team contribute to the effort with new products and technology, such as updated live streaming.

YouTube Space NY is a full-service production facility for all levels, from emerging creators setting up a tripod and using the professional studio for the first time, to established ones who want access to expensive equipment and the latest technologies and knowledge in the field.

The wood bleachers in the hallways of the space resemble those of the nearby High Line, and loft rooms with exposed brick identify the location as New York City. All 20,000 square feet of the Chelsea facility are equipped for filming. Each of the 10 global spaces — from São Paulo to Berlin to Mumbai — include unique characteristics that reflect the local community.

NYC Community Media

Photos courtesy YouTube Space NY

L to R: Brook England, Dnay B. and Tiffany M. Battle co-hosted the Sept. 8 edition of “Did Y’All See?” (new episodes every Friday).

This aim is carried out in a rotating group of seasonal film sets that are easy to modify. A CBGB punk-rock club, a subway car, and a “Seinfeld”-like diner join non-New York City spaces such as a submarine and spooky cabin. During the 2016 election season, a White House Press Briefing Room and an Oval Office set The hallway at YouTube Space NY was designed to be a gathering place with seating that invokes the nearby High Line.

YOUTUBE SPACE NY continued on p. 18 November 16, 2017

17

Photos courtesy YouTube Space NY

Better than the best bedroom backdrop: YouTube Space NY’s production studios offer everything needed to create high-end programming.

YOUTUBE SPACE NY continued from p. 17

were used for news programs, humor, and even a beauty feature on candidate hairstyles. The Chainsmokers, a critically acclaimed and massively popular musical production duo, promoted voter registration with a stunt to see how many tacos they could assemble in the 1 minute and 34 seconds it takes to register to vote. (The answer is eight tacos, but guacamole may be missing in some; see (tinyurl.com/y8xm5qxa.)

A newly built talk show set enhances the “Did Y’All See?” program recorded Thursdays (episodes air Fridays at tinyurl.com/y9onk3tr). The sleek sofa, glass coffee tables, and backdrop of the Manhattan skyline signal a sophisticated production. An offshoot of MadameNoire. com, a lifestyle website of news and inspiration for millennial women of color, “Did Y’all See?” began organically with the site’s editorial team believing that their discussions of current events and trending topics could engage others, in the vein of ABC’s “The View.”

The first episodes, from early 2014, were filmed at the editors’ desks. Eventually the program built a core audience, and now has 151,000 subscribers. In June, they recast the show with new co-hosts that have backgrounds in style blogging, professional dance, video production and social media influence.

According to executive producer Raven Carter, via email, “We worked really diligently to build our audience and subscribers so that we could begin to film at Space NY. What we’ve gained is better production quality, access to state-of-the-art equipment, and now, an actual talk show set, not to mention the incredible staff at YouTube.”

In an empty room, where a digital image will replace a green screen, filmmaker Michael Della Polla sets up audio and camera equipment — including two high-end RED cameras — for Andy Mineo and Reach Records (youtube.com/user/reachrecords). Other assets on hand

18

November 16, 2017

The diner set is done in the Art Deco style and offers an “exterior” window view of either daylight or nighttime conditions.

are lights, electrical, and grip equipment. The soup-tonuts resources on offer include editing suites and voiceover recording booths.

A virtual film school is available through training workshops such as “Pre-Production and Narrative Structuring,” “Mics & Mixers: Recording Audio,” and “Advanced Gear Trainings and Post-Production,” in addition to individual customized consultations that can include mock presentations reviewed by technical experts.

According to conventional wisdom, there are fewer women video makers than men, so YouTube is proactively addressing the imbalance with initiatives for females in front of and behind the camera at Space NY, and around the world. One global production program for women includes mentoring as well as workshops, and a “supercharger” boot camp helps women get their original series

off the ground, from pitch packages to business models.

The types of channels utilizing YouTube Space NY run the gamut: “ScIQ” (tinyurl.com/yc8p4sz8) is dedicated to promoting scientific literacy; “TeamBackpack” (tinyurl.com/yaodp2ja ) spotlights underground and independent emcees; “Glove and Boots” (tinyurl.com/ ybw6g8ge) is a puppet series; and The Laurie Berkner Band (tinyurl.com/y9asydll) presents songs for preschoolers.

In addition to providing next-level resources, Space NY holds workshops and events that are open to the public at large. For more information, check out YouTube Space NY at youtube.com/yt/space/new-york.html. For online help, YouTube Creator Academy (tinyurl.com/ y9dgtwr9) tutorials can help the development of a creative process.

NYC Community Media

Buhmann on Art ‘Partners in Design’ at Grey Art Gallery

(Top) Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: Barcelona Chair, designed 1929 (Stainless-steel and leather, 30 7/8 x 29 1/8 x 30 in.). Produced by Knoll International, NY.

Photo by Richard P. Goodbody

(Left) Eva Zeisel: Cloverware Bowl, designed c. 1947 (Plexiglas, 2 1/2 x 12 7/8 x 11 in.). Produced by the Clover Box and Manufacturing Company, NY. (Below) Installation shot, “Partners in Design.”

Photo by Nicholas Papananias

NYC Community Media

Photo by Denis Farley

BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN Showcasing the beauty of common objects, textiles, housewares and furniture, NYU’s Grey Art Gallery explores the hugely influential collaboration between Alfred H. Barr Jr., MoMA’s first director, and Philip Johnson, its first curator of architecture.

By orchestrating a series of pioneering exhibitions at the museum in the 1930s and 40s, both men had been responsible for exposing American viewers to avantgarde European Modernist design for the first time. In addition, their revolutionary vision helped to inspire generations of museum professionals to come. Sparked by their passion, design slowly became understood as something that could be discovered everywhere. Suddenly, a chair or a table were deemed worthy of a museum display not because of their historic relevance, but due to their aesthetic qualities.

The precursor for Barr and Johnson, of course, was the Bauhaus, the famous art school founded by the architect Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, where crafts and the fine arts came together in the name of design. David A. Hanks, curator of “Partners in Design,” succeeds in pointing out the Bauhaus legacy, while also enabling visitors to explore the ultra modern interiors of “The Barr and Johnson Apartments” through 3D simulations of Johnson’s living room on E. 52nd St., for example. In fact, Johnson’s apartment (once described as “the most modern interior in America”) and Barr’s home (which for three years was directly above Johnson’s) served as laboratories where both men experimented with new designs and discussed them with each other incessantly.

“That Modern design became a dominant esthetic in North America,” noted Hanks in the exhibition’s press release, “wasn’t inevitable. Rather, it took the convergence of an emerging European design movement, a young museum, and a unique partnership — one that spanned fifty years, two continents, and countless conversations — to generate the modernism that to this day still says ‘home’ to millions of Americans.”

Through Dec. 9 at Grey Art Gallery (100 Washington Sq. East, btw. Waverly & Washington Places). Open Tues., Thurs., Fri., 11am–6pm; Wed., 11am–8pm; Sat., 11am–5pm. Thanksgiving week, closed as of 5pm Wed., Nov. 22, open again Tues., Nov. 28, 11am. Visit greyartgallery.nyu.edu or call 212-998-6780.

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Just Do Art

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

“YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN” The run of their show is only four days, but this one’s going to be EPIC — as in, another ambitious project from the EPIC Players Inclusion Company.

Back in July, when we last heard from the neuroinclusive troupe (comprised of artists and technicians both with and without developmental disabilities), they were about to present their inaugural production.

EPIC could have played it safe, but instead chose to set the bar very high indeed. Their choice of play was “Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead” — Bert V. Royal’s unauthorized, decidedly dark, speculative work that follows the “Peanuts” gang into their (to put it mildly) difficult teen years. At the time, “Dog” director David Bonderoff told us, of EPIC, “Our mission is simply to say, with the right amount of preparation, this population can put on a show that an audience will be invested in and impressed by.” Just a few months later, it’s mission accomplished: EPIC is now an “Anchor Partner” of The Flea Theater (whose spiffy new Thomas St. home ensures the prestigious Off-Off Broadway space will remain a Downtown destination for a very long time — preferably, forever).

As for EPIC’s first effort under the canopy of The Flea, they’ve pulled another savvy move that speaks to the source material of “Dog Sees God” while providing a show the whole family can enjoy.

Aubrie Therrien, the group’s artistic director, explained it thusly: “In our first production, we gave some of our actors the chance to explore topics they are normally shielded from, as adults living with developmental disabilities are often times infantilized. They got to talk about sex, drugs, loss, and love with depth and honesty. In ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,’ we get to explore innocence… And of course, who doesn’t want the opportunity to do a fun musical on a New York City stage as well — especially if you’ve never been given that chance before?”

That’s reason enough for us, but here’s one more: Seeing EPIC while they’re still in their formative years will give you “early adopter” status when the neuroinclusive troupe becomes every bit as iconic as The Flea (whose roots go all the way back to 1996). And, modesty aside, what could be more quintessentially New York than rock solid bragging rights?

At 7pm Thurs., Nov. 16 through Sat., Nov. 18; 3pm matinee on Sun., Nov. 19. At The Flea Theater (20 Thomas St., btw. Broadway & Church). For tickets ($25 general admission, $55 for VIP reserved seating) via theflea.org. Artist info at epicplayersnyc.org.

Facebook: facebook.com/epicplayersnyc.

“THE HISTORY MYSTERY” AT TADA! YOUTH THEATER A popular song of the bygone day told us, “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.” But here, we have a clear-cut case of time travelers going back into the past, in a show that’s come full circle.

With its original run having closed on President’s Day,

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Photo by Charlene Warner

L to R: Travis Burbee (Snoopy), Meghan Ellen Gilson (Marcy), Melissa Jennifer Gonzalez (Sally), Gianluca Cirafici (Charlie Brown), Andrew Kader (Franklin), Samantha Elisofon (Lucy), and Elizabeth Kotite (Peppermint Patty) in EPIC’s production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” Not in photo: Gideon Pianko as Linus, Brandon Looney as Schroeder, and Andrew Kader as Franklin.

ence members the chance to meet the cast, with the whole group engaging in a discussion about how show’s themes of equality and justice relate to modernday life.

Fri., Nov. 17 at 7pm, Sat., Nov. 18 and Sun., Nov. 19 at 2pm & 4pm.

At TADA! Youth Theater (15 W. 28th St., btw. Fifth Ave. & Broadway, 2nd Floor). Tickets start at $15. For reservations, visit tadatheater.com or call 212252-1619. More info at facebook.com/ TADAyouththeater and on Twitter: @ TadaTheater.

“EXPLORATIONS IN MUSIC/ART/DANCE” The weather outside might not be frightful (not yet at least), but the Washington Square Music Festival’s delightful summertime outdoor concert series is very far away, indeed, at this point. So warm up to the notion of getting cozy inside the confines of St. Photo by Chad David Kraus Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery for this TADA! Youth Theater’s “The History Mystery” takes its own trip into the celebratory afternoon of performanchistory books after Nov. 19’s final performance. es. Featured works include the world premiere of “Skyscrapers,” Heather TADA! Youth Theater recently brought “The History Schmidt’s string quartet that takes its inspiration from Mystery” back to its W. 28th St. boards fall — the first the Paul Klee painting “Composition 1914.” Dancers time they’ve ever revived a previous show for a fall from the Annabella Gonzalez Dance Theatre offer an production. Most of the young cast from this winter’s exploration of music by J.S. Bach and György Kurtág, run have returned, to once again tell the musical tale and the Washington Square Chamber Ensemble perof how good citizens through the ages have taken a forms selections by W.A. Mozart and Benedetto stand against injustice. Along the way, our intrepid Marcello.

Free. Sun., Nov. 19, 3pm at St. Mark’s Church-intime travelers meet the childhood versions of Ben Franklin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, the-Bowery (131 E. 10th St., at Second Ave.). For info, and other major game-changers. After Nov. 17’s 4 pm call 212-252-3621 or visit washingtonsquaremusicfesperformance, a Community Talk session offers audi- tival.org.

NYC Community Media

BLOCKERS continued from p. 16

As the Daily News reported, ISIS is now pushing vehicle attacks, saying vehicles — unlike, for example, knives when found on people — don’t arouse suspicion.

“It is for this obvious reason that using a vehicle is one of the most comprehensive methods of attack,” a sick article in an ISIS magazine pronounced last year.

On the morning of Mon., Nov. 6, Mayor de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, joined Argentine President Mauricio Macri and his wife, Juliana Awada, on the bike path at Desbrosses St. in Tribeca for a memorial tribute to the victims. Five of the slain were school

buddies from Argentina on vacation in New York.

“On Tuesday, we all felt a sense of shock, and you see this setting — this peaceful, tranquil setting — where good, innocent people were enjoying the beauty of this city,” the mayor said.

“And that’s what we understand about the horror of terrorism, that it is aimed at the innocent, it’s aimed at the unassuming, and it’s meant to change us and undermine us, to make us doubt ourselves and our values.

“But let’s be clear,” he said, “this was not just an attack on eight individuals, not just an attack on New York City [or] an attack on the United States of America, it was an attack on all of humanity.

“We will always be open and welcome to people of all backgrounds, to visitors from all over the world. And even in the depths of our grief, we will not stop being who we are and we will not change our values.”

Afterward, each couple laid a bouquet of white flowers wrapped with a blue ribbon — the colors of Argentina — on the bike path’s low stone wall.

An impromptu memorial to the eight victims is located near the bike path outside the entrance to Pier 40, at W. Houston St., the spot where the terrorist drove onto the path to start cutting his path of carnage. There are eight white crosses, some wrapped with blue-andwhite jerseys of Argentina’s national soccer team.

Photos by Lincoln Anderson

Argentinian Joaquin Iglesias and his friends from his country who had run in the Nov. 5 NYC Marathon were out getting still more exercise the next day, biking on the Hudson River greenway. They were expecting their country’s president to come to a memorial to the terrorist attack victims that was created outside Pier 40 at W. Houston St. But, in fact, the president was a bit farther south at Desbrosses St., paying tribute to the victims with Mayor de Blasio. Five of the slain were Argentinians.

At the memorial for the attack victims outside Pier 40 at W. Houston St., one of the murdered, a Belgian woman, AnnLaure Decadt, was remembered. Six of the eight victims were foreigners, showing the path’s draw as a fun tourist attraction.

NYC Community Media

November 16, 2017

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POLICE BLOTTER UBER DRIVER FATALITY AFTER WEST SIDE HIGHWAY ALTERCATION

PETIT LARCENY: Phone bolted to the Bronx

A 68-year-old Uber driver was killed in a single-vehicle collision on Sat., Nov. 11.

Police responded to a 911 call just before midnight, of a vehicle collision at West St. and Horatio St. Before the accident, 68-year-old Richard Tolk, of West New York, NJ, was driving his 2010 Toyota Camry south on 11th Ave. Kohji Kosugi, 39, tapped the hood of the car with his hockey stick after a close call in the crosswalk at W. 20th St. Tolk, a grandfather of three, got out of his car to confront Kosugi.

Kosugi then used the hockey stick to hit him on the head and — once Tolk fell — continued the assault. Kosugi fled on foot after the incident. Tolk got back in his car and drove south ultimately crashing into a cement barrier.

Once police came, Tolk was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 12:30 a.m..

Kosugi has since been taken into custody, with bail set at $500,000.

LOST PROPERTY: Ring quest her only hope for reunion She wasn’t bumped or jostled, and it doesn’t seem like it’s a crime, but a woman lost her very expensive ring. A 52-year-old woman reported to police that around 12:30 p.m. she was near the northeast corner of 10th Ave. and W. 19th St., on Wed., Nov. 8 when she realized it was gone. The Cartier ring is valued at $7,000.

Having way too much fun at the club can cost you your new iPhone. That’s what happened to a 24-year-old woman inside of the Marquee nightclub (289 10th Ave., btw. W. 26th & 27th Sts.) on Sun., Nov. 12 at 1:50 a.m.

She told police that she lost her phone inside of the club. She used the Find My iPhone app, and the phone was located at Boyton Ave. in the Bronx. She does not know if the phone was taken. The black iPhone 8 plus, 64 gigabytes, is valued at $1,000.

ASSAULT: Eye spy trouble at Tao Things got heated at the Tao nightclub (369 W. 16th St., btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). A man was punched in at around 2:30 a.m. on Sun., Nov. 12. The 32-year-old victim was punched by another 32-year-old, and the blow caused a cut above his left eye. The victim was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital for treatment.

LOST PROPERTY: An open invite to crime When you leave your bag open, your wallet is bound to go missing. That happened to a 53-year-old man on Sat., Nov. 11 just after 1:45 p.m. The man tells police that he was inside of 75 Ninth Ave. (btw. W. 15th & 16th Sts.) when he lost his wallet. He used the wallet at Chelsea Market’s Saxelby Cheesemongers establishment. He says he wasn’t bumped or pickpocketed. He cancelled his credit and debit cards, and there was no reported usage of said cards. The approximate value of lost items in the wallet, $610.

—Tabia C. Robinson

Extra!

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EDITOR Scott Stiffler ART DIRECTOR John Napoli

CONTRIBUTORS Lincoln Anderson Stephanie Buhmann Rebecca Fiore Dusica Sue Malesevic Winnie McCroy Colin Mixson Puma Perl Rania Richardson Paul Schindler Eileen Stukane

MIDTOWN SOUTH PRECINCT Located at 357 W. 35th St. (btw.

Eighth & Ninth Aves.). Inspector Russel J. Green, Commanding Officer. Call 212-239-9811. Community Affairs: 212239-9846. Crime Prevention: 212-2399846. Domestic Violence: 212-2399863. Youth Officer: 212-239-9817.

Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-239-9836.

Detective Squad: 212-239-9856. The Community Council meets on the third Thurs. of the month, 7 p.m., at the New Yorker Hotel (481 Eighth Ave., btw.

W. 34th & 35th Sts.). Visit midtownsouthcc.org.

THE 13th PRECINCT Located at 230 E. 21st St. (btw.

Second & Third Aves.). Deputy Inspector: Brendan Timoney. Call 212477-7411. Community Affairs: 212-4777427. Crime Prevention: 212-477-7427.

Domestic Violence: 212-477-3863.

Youth Officer: 212-477-7411. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-477-4380. Detective Squad: 212-477-7444. The Community Council meets on the third Tues. of the month, 6:30 p.m., at the 13th Precinct.

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.

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PUBLISHER Jennifer Goodstein

THE 10th PRECINCT Located at 230 W. 20th St. (btw.

Seventh & Eighth Aves.). Commander: Capt. Paul Lanot. Main number: 212741-8211. Community Affairs: 212-7418226. Crime Prevention: 212-741-8226.

Domestic Violence: 212-741-8216.

Youth Officer: 212-741-8211. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-924-3377. Detective Squad: 212-741-8245. The Community Council meets on the last Wed. of the month, 7 p.m., at the 10th Precinct or other locations to be announced.

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