0
15465
10500
9
The T Th he P Pa Paper ap ape pe e r of o f Record R ec e co co orrd r d for fo o r Greenwich Greenwicc h Village, Viill V i ll ll a ag g e, ge e , East E Eas ass t Village, Vii llag V llll ag a g e, Lower Low East Side, Soho, Union Chinatown S o ho So ho, U Un n iio o n Square, Ch h in i n at inat a t ow o w n and an n d Noho, N o ho, No h o , Since ho S i nce 1933 Si 19
March 8, 2018 • $1.00 Volume 88 • Number 10
Silver lining in Shelly retrial not very likely, some pundits predict BY MARY REINHOLZ
A
bout five months before former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested on a criminal complaint and later indicted on corruption charges that included extortion, money laundering and theft of honest services, this reporter spotted
the then-powerful Lower East Side pol looking for a bargain at the P.C. Richard & Son store on E. 14th St. It was a sweltering September afternoon in 2014. “My air conditioner broke,” Silver explained, looking like a rabbi in his dark suit and SILVER continued on p. 8
Eco City pageant will celebrate wide array of local green efforts BY SAR AH FERGUSON
F
or artist Felicia Young, the process of making art is as important as the outcome. Twenty-seven years ago, she envisioned a pageant to help save the Lower East Side’s community gardens. The annual “Rites of Spring Procession to Savee Our
Gardens,” which wended its way around the neighborhood from 1991 to 2005, helped tell the story of these communally-tilled spaces. During the Giuliani administration, which wanted to sell off the gardens to developers, the pageants took on a sense of even greater urgency. ECO continued on p. 10
PHOTOB BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
After a meeting at P.S. 41 last Thursday at which agenc y officials presented the city’s mitigation plan for a possible L train shutdown, bic ycle activists showed their suppor t for both the “PeopleWay” plan for 14th St., which would turn the street into a “busway,” and a related plan for a new t wo-way crosstown bike lane on 13th St.
What the ‘L’? No E.I.S. could derail shutdown BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
H
and over the E.I.S. — or else! In its “tunnel vision” for its L subway shutdown scenario, the city may have failed to do a critical Environmental Impact Statement, or E.I.S., for the planned closure of the Canarsie Tunnel — and it could put the whole project on hold, says a Village attorney. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to
Tompkins love triangle .......... p. 13
close the L train’s East River tubes — known as the Canarsie Tunnel — for 15 months of repairs, starting in April 2019. During that period, no L trains would run between Brooklyn’s Bedford Ave. and Manhattan’s Eighth Ave. But District Leader Arthur Schwartz, who is representing the ad hoc 14th Street Coalition — a broad group of 20 Village and Chelsea block associations and co-op and condo boards — said that because the tun-
nel’s repairs would be federally funded, under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, an E.I.S. is required. To date, though, Schwartz said, he has been unable to find any evidence anywhere of such a study having been done. Speaking to The Villager, the attorney said, his experience has been that the M.T.A. always posts an E.I.S. online for pretty much every project it does that includes federal E.I.S. continued on p. 6
‘Russiagate’: Scoopy Soup to WikiNuts..............p. 2 Expert: Don’t use diesel buses for L crisis ...... p. 15 www.TheVillager.com