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July 19, 2018 • $1.00 Volume 88 • Number 28
Verrazano study verifies: 2-way toll would slash traffic BY SYDNEY PEREIR A
A
report commissioned by the Hudson Square Connection has revealed what Downtowners have long known: A two-way toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge would drastically reduce traffic congestion in Lower Manhattan.
Sam Schwartz Engineering’s report, headed by the transit expert known as “Gridlock Sam,” revealed that up to 137 vehicles per hour could be removed from westbound Canal, Watts and Houston Sts. with a two-way bridge toll. “This is really some lowTOLL continued on p. 4
Soho group is still preaching, quietly, the principles of Eli BY GABE HERMAN
T
he nonprofit Aesthetic Realism Foundation has had its home in Soho for decades, promoting its artbased ideas about finding happiness, through the resolving of opposites, that come from its founder, the late poet and art critic Eli Siegel.
The group has always been small, with estimates never going above a few hundred members and recently hovering around 100 mostly older locals. Some neighbors describe the group as harmless and are happy to let them be. But some former members have AESTHETIC continued on p. 22
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Bodypainting Day saw people bare their all for ar t in Washington Square Park. See Page 14.
Fear L shutdown will be ‘Nightmare on Kenmare’ BY SYDNEY PEREIR A
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he Department of Transportation presented some fine-tuned details of the L train shutdown plan to Community Boards 2 and 3 last week. Complaints about the project’s accompanying mitigation plan that have been raised for months from
Dershowitz on Don impeach....p. 2
community groups from the Lower East Side to the West Village were raised yet again — but this time, D.O.T. was ready with more specifics on a few key parts of the plan. Regarding one particular street corner, D.O.T. presented two options for Board 2 to consider for Kenmare St. — where, under the plan, two of the four
new bus routes in Manhattan will transport 17 percent of displaced L train riders. Soho and Little Italy residents are concerned about a tight turn from Kenmare St. onto Cleveland Place. An unavoidable reality is that Delancey St. — a six-lane crosstown corridor — LTRAIN continued on p. 9
Johnson saves day for Barrow St. seniors......... p. 6 Bruce Davis, Filomena Vitrano, Alan Whelan...p. 10 www.TheVillager.com