The Villager - September 20, 2018

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The Paperr of Rec Record co orrd r d for f o r Greenwich fo G ee Gr een nw w ic wic ich h Village, Vii ll V l l ag age e,, East E as a t Village, Lower Lowe East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown Soho o, U Un n io o n Sq S qu ua a re r e , Ch C h inat in na att ow w n and an a n d Noho, N o h , Since 1933 No Noho 193

September 20, 2018 • $1.00 Volume 88 • Number 37

L work already hell, East Side residents tell agency officials

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

A

t a town hall meeting on the city’s L train shutdown plan at Middle Collegiate Church Monday night, anxious East Villagers raised an outcry about a stationimprovement project currently underway at First Ave. that they said is already making their lives

hell. And they are even more worried now after recently discovering that the same spot will also be the main staging area for the 15-month-long renovation of the L line’s Canarsie Tunnel tubes.

In addition, Lower East Side and Little Italy residents voiced LTRAIN continued on p. 12

‘Cuomo ticket’ tops Nixon, left insurgents; Epstein, Li, Marte win

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON

V

oters in last Thursday’s Democratic primary for governor who backed Andrew Cuomo said they valued his experience and “strength,” while challenger Cynthia Nixon lacked experience.

Nixon supporters, mean-

while, touted her progressive positions on the issues, and said she represented a muchneeded “change” from politics as usual.

The race generated lots of excitement and enthusiasm — and high hopes among progressives for some real radical PRIMARY continued on p. 8

PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER

With clouds of Holi power, squir ting silly string and, of course, a unicorn head, the bachelorette par ty of Zeut Ryot in the park was a real riot. See Page 10.

‘No jail!’ Boos drown out hearing on prison

BY SYDNEY PEREIR A

A

t a packed town hall last Wednesday evening, Downtowners blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to build a 40-story jail in Chinatown as a part of the initiative to close Rikers Island.

City representatives gave a presentation on the borough-

Why Not Care serves it up.....p. 16

based jails plan — but it was largely drowned out by booing, shouts that the mayor is racist and chants of “No jail!”

After repeated efforts by city officials and local politicians to quiet the crowd during the presentation, the town hall was eventually opened up to public comments from dozens of Downtowners blasting the

plan.

Though many supported the idea of prison reform, and even closing Rikers, nearly everyone in the audience and who spoke opposed the plan for another Downtown jail.

“Closing Rikers Island, in my view, is a laudable goal,” JAIL continued on p. 6

Mystery of West Side bikeway bollards .............p. 2 Occupy seven! O.W.S. marks anniversary.......... p. 4 www.TheVillager.com

NEVER MIND THE BOLLARDS: Back in July, the state Department of Transportation installed the first bunch of new security bollards at a few points along the Hudson River bikeway, such as at W. 30th St., outside the heliport, and at W. 40th St., another spot with commercial traffic crossing the path. Signs posted along the heavily used pathway said the rest of the bike path would be getting the shiny-metal bollards in the coming weeks, installed during overnight hours. But cyclists and local politicians raised the alarm that the new protective posts — with only a 4-foot width between them — would create congestion on the path and actually make things more dangerous for bike riders. Well, in the two months since the initial batch of new-style bollards went in, we haven’t seen any more installed since — so what’s up? State Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Deborah Glick explained there was a meeting convened by Congressmember Jerrold Nadler a month ago on the issue with state D.O.T. As Hoylman told us, the pols expressed concerns to D.O.T. that the new security stanchions would “affect the flow on the path and create bottlenecks, and also impede the Hudson River Park Trust from using their vehicles on the bike path — including snow removal and other vehicles. We don’t know who would pay for that,” he added of the possibility the Trust might have to buy a whole new fleet of thinner vehicles to squeeze between the new barriers. Said Glick, “It was a big meeting, with various players, from state D.O.T., to N.Y.P.D. Anti-Terrorism...the Trust was there, local elected officials.” Both pols told us that, since that sit-down, there has not been any word back yet from D.O.T. A Trust spokesperson referred comments to state D.O.T. At any rate, the bike path is looking much better through the Village and Chelsea now compared to two months ago. A smooth surface of black asphalt has been laid down, pedestrian walkway areas have been opened up, as have sight lines. The out-of-control “S” curve blind spot at 14th St. has been straightened out and the path there is safe once again.

EYE ON THE CHAIR: Last we heard, Daniel Miller was definitely interested in running for chairperson of Community Board 2 in the board’s up-

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September 20, 2018

PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER

Andy Golub, known for his body-painting events, tried another medium and canvas — chalk and the Washington Square Park pavement — last week for the anniversar y of 9/11. “I’ve never done chalk ar t before,” he said. “I’m just freestyling.” The event culminated in a group sing-along of “America the Beautiful.” “It’s impor tant that we all look at each other with love in our hear ts,” Golub said. “That’s what this is all about.” Above, Anderson Mohawk, left, with Julia, 4, visiting from Egypt, collaborated on a color ful piece.

coming November election. However, veteran board member Doris Diether now tells us she also is now hearing another name: Erik Coler. Miller is the board’s first vice chairperson while Coler is its assistant secretary, along with being the president of the Village Independent Democrats political club. Playing it close to the vest, neither Miller nor Coler responded when we asked them how the chairperson race is shaping up. ... By the way, Diether, 89, tells us some rogue offshore outfit recently was foolish enough to try to pull a phone scam on her. Of course, she got all their info and is now thinking of passing it on to law enforcement. When will these knuckleheads ever learn?

BOYS CLUB BARRICADE: Local politicians will rally outside the Boys Club’s Harriman Clubhouse on the afternoon of Fri., Sept. 28, to urge the organization’s trustees to postpone the building’s planned sale until there is community input. Leading the rally outside the historic structure, at E. 10th St. and Avenue A, will be state Senator Brad Hoylman, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, City Councilmember Carlina Rivera and Assemblymember Harvey Epstein, who will also be joined by representatives of Community Board 3 and local parents.

The Boys Club contends that only half of the kids currently using Harriman hail from the East Village and Lower East Side, and that enrollment there is down from the 1980s and ’90s. Meanwhile, the sale proceeds could be used to create a new clubhouse in East New York or other needy city neighborhoods, their thinking goes. However, the East Village youth mecca’s use actually saw a dramatic spike in 2015, which the Boys Club downplays as due to stronger outreach to pump up sagging enrollment back then, the Daily News recently reported. Either way, Hoylman said, the

community must be consulted on this major move, and the club must “show the statistics” that justify jettisoning the building. Local real estate investor and developer Bob Perl previously told us that, if the 1876 clubhouse is, in fact, sold, it definitely would be renovated — with a new facade slapped on and added windows — since it’s “overbuilt” under current zoning; in other words, it wouldn’t be razed, since a new building there would, under current zoning, have to be smaller. However, Hoylman said of the venerable facility, “It’s nurtured generations of young men, and the last thing they need is condos or a fancy hotel at that location.”

WHY HE DID IT: We asked Hoylman why he endorsed Joseph Garba over well-known young activist Chris Marte in last week’s primary election for State Democratic Committee in the Lower East Side’s 65th District.

“Because Garba asked me and Marte didn’t,” Hoylman explained, simply. “I don’t endorse people who don’t ask me.

And I know Joe Garba and know that he would be a good state committeeman. But I’m excited that Chris Marte will be on the state committee.” Asked if the fact Garba works for powerful state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie influenced his support, Hoylman said, no, and added that he is in the state Senate, not the Assembly. Asked if he knew if Garba has lived in the neighborhood for any amount of time, Hoylman said he didn’t think it was very long. Similarly, Yuh-Line Niou, who is in the Assembly and also backed Garba, tweeted out her hearty congrats to Marte after his victory. Go figure. Politics!

VILLAGE FEST VEGA: Liz Thompson, the organizer of the first annual Village Trip festival, in an update, tells us that the fest’s free concert in the park, dubbed “Bringing It All Back

Home to Washington Square,” on Sat., Sept. 29, starting at 5:30 p.m., will now be headlined by Suzanne Vega. Vega’s career began more than 30 years ago in Village clubs and coffee houses. She burst on the scene with folk-inspired songs like “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner.”

(In another local connection, her late stepdad, the Puerto Rican novelist Ed Vega, was the executive director of the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, on Suffolk St.) “I am happy to be doing this show in Greenwich Village, where I spent a lot of time in the ’80s,” Vega said. “I first ventured down to Folk City, afraid to cross the threshold because I knew Bob Dylan had started there. But I was thrilled to be accepted by the gang of poetic songwriters I found. And it’s always good to be back.” As The Villager already reported, David “Spice Man” Amram will be the event’s artist in residence and will “add spice wherever it is needed.” The Village Trip will be tripping from Thurs., Sept. 27, to Sun., Sept. 30. For a schedule of events, visit thevillagetrip.com .

PARKS PROGRESS: The Jackson Square Park renovation project kicked off this past spring. But reader Gordon Minette says there doesn’t appear to have been much renovating of any sort going on lately — possibly for as long as the past couple of months — at the triangular park, at Eighth and Greenwich Aves. and Horatio St. However, Crystal Howard, assistant director of communications for the city’s Parks Department, said not all is as it seems to the eye. “We are working every day, on and off site, to complete the Jackson Square Park project on schedule — early 2019,” she said. Basically, the Jackson Square project is part of a “multi-site contract,” including the replacement of the Jane St. Garden’s old chain-link fence with a fancy new one. In the last few months, according to Parks, work at Jackson Square has included “underground air-compression tests of the water supply to the fountain and installation and painting of missing finials and horseshoe castings on the perimeter fence.” Also currently in progress is off-site fabrication of custom fencing; refurbishment of the fountain, which is almost completed; and preparation of custom-cut granite pavers, to be delivered this month. “The [project] is at the midpoint of the construction duration, and is currently on schedule,” Howard assured. “We have also made progress on the Jane St. project and have already installed the new sidewalk and curb; the fence is scheduled to be installed next month.”

CORRECTION: In Joseph Reiver’s article in our Aug. 30 Elizabeth St. Garden special section, the size of the Habitat for Humanity office space in the city’s proposed Haven Green housing project was incorrectly stated as 1,100 square feet. The correct size is 11,200 square feet.

TheVillager.com

POLICE B L O T T E R Rite Aid rough-up A 36-year-old man exited the Rite Aid at Charles and Hudson Sts. on Fri., May 25, at 1 a.m., when he got into an argument with a younger man, according to police. The stranger, 20, punched him in the face several times, tackled him to the ground, and took his Gucci backpack, which also contained expensive items, including a laptop, a Louis Vuitton wallet and Versace sunglasses.

The attacker fled east on Charles St. A canvass was conducted of the area with no results, but video was later available. The victim was described in a police report as uncooperative and intoxicated. On Sept. 10, Jonavan Feller, 20, was arrested for the incident and charged with felony robbery. None of the stolen items were recovered.

hind, removed her purse and fled east on 20th St. toward Third Ave. The woman sustained minor injuries and refused medical attention at the scene.

The suspect is described as lightskinned Hispanic, age 20 to 30, around 5 feet 8 inches tall and 170 pounds, with long brown curly/wavy hair. He was last seen wearing a white buttondown shirt, tan shorts, black-and-white shoes and dark-colored glasses.

Anyone with information should call the Police Department’s Crime Stoppers Hotline, at 800-577-TIPS, or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

Tips can also be submitted on the Crime Stoppers Web site, www.nypdcrimestoppers.com, or by texting them to 274637 (CRIMES) and then entering TIP577. All tips are confidential.

Wallet team Bodega ‘bat’-tery On Tues., Sept. 11 around 5:30 p.m., a man entered the Big Boy Gourmet Deli, at 244 W. 14th St., near Eighth Ave., and started arguing with a store clerk, police said. Two employees tried to remove the guy, 40, from the store, during which one of the employees, a young man, hit the unwanted man with a bat on his left wrist, causing pain and swelling. The victim refused medical treatment at the Sixth Precinct on W. 10th St. The employee, Alabeli Alabeli, 19, was arrested for felony assault.

Catch cab robber On Sun., Sept. 16 at 1:30 a.m., a yellow taxi picked up a man and three other passengers at LaGuardia Place and Bleecker St., according to police. The cabbie, 34, took them to Fifth Ave. and Eighth St., and as the passengers were exiting, the male fare tried to take the driver’s money from the center console.

The hack stopped the man, who then took the driver’s bag and fled. Stolen items included a $600 iPhone, credit cards and the bag, valued at $100.

The driver called police and tailed the robber, and identified him to responding police. The bag had been discarded and was not recovered. The credit cards were not used and the driver said he would cancel them. Jose Aguilar, 26, was arrested for felony grand larceny.

Gramercy goon A thug pulled a woman down from behind in Gramercy and robbed her early on Fri., Aug. 31, police said. The victim, 39, was walking in front of 7 Gramercy Park East around 3:10 a.m., when the man accosted her from beTheVillager.com

A male-and-female robber duo swiped a woman’s wallet inside the Dr. Smood cafe at 181 E. Houston St., at Orchard St., on Sun., July 22, at 4:30 p.m. The 26-year-old victim’s wallet — which was left unattended atop a table — contained a debit and three credit cards. Two days later, the same team, according to police, approached a 32-year-old straphanger on the northbound Q platform inside the 14th St. / Union Square station around 9:05 p.m., and stole her wallet, containing six credit cards, from her bag.

The suspects are in their 20s, around 5 feet 8 inches tall. The man was thin, the woman had a medium build with “a touch of blond” in her hair. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers.

Silver stealer A dapper robber strolled into the Versani jewelry store, at 308 Bleecker St. on Wed., June 20, at 1:50 p.m., and stole a pricey bracelet, valued at $1,200, from a display case, police said.

More recently, the same guy struck again — albeit far above 14th St. — at Tiffany & Co., at 57th St. and Fifth Ave. On Wed., Aug. 8, just before noon, he grabbed a sterling silver cream pitcher, priced at $3,500, from a display at the famed store and fled in an unknown direction. It was his second known robbery at Tiffany: Police said that on May 4, around 2:36 p.m., the same suspect filched a $2,000 sterling silver cigarette box from a shelf there and fled.

The suspect is described as white or Hispanic, with a medium complexion, and last seen wearing a dark blue suit, light-blue-and-gray tie and black shoes.

Gabe Herman and Lincoln Anderson September 20, 2018

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September 20, 2018

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‘No jail!’ Boos drown out hearing on prison plan JAIL continued from p. 1

said Nicholas Stabile, a board member of Chatham Green Cooperative, on Park Row. “But the process that the mayor employed to achieve this goal, it focuses only on half the equation: the people inside the jail. It ignores the other half of the equation: the people in the surrounding community.

“There was not a single slide up there about who’s in the community, how this affects the community, and what is going to happen,” Stabile said. “Like, honestly — what were you thinking?”

When the mayor announced plans to close Rikers and open a new jail in every borough except Staten Island, residents were told Downtown’s existing jail — the Manhattan Detention Center a.k.a. “The Tombs,” at 125 White St. — would be renovated for this purpose.

But last month, the city released scoping documents for a totally different site, at 80 Centre St., which currently houses the District Attorney’s Office, the city’s Marriage Bureau and some court-related services. Outrage ensued at an “emergency meeting” organized

by Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou.

Shortly thereafter, City Councilmember Margaret Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer organized the Sept. 12 town hall.

Local politicians, while all supporting the larger goal of closing Rikers Island, slammed the process thus far.

“I do believe that we need a different system than Rikers,” Brewer told the audience. “You have to have a process to get to a good end point. I listen but I am frustrated.

“I may disagree with you on whether or not there should be a jail,” Brewer said, “but I will never disagree that there should be a community process that has lots of time in order to have your input.”

The borough president said the city’s intention to hold one Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, for all four jails should be stopped through a zoning change in each borough to allow for four separate ULURPs. Councilmember Chin contended that the proposal “is not a done deal.”

“Right now, it’s so important to really hear what the community concerns [and] community needs are,” Chin said.

“And that’s what we’re doing now.”

The audience was then supposed to break out into workshop sessions after the public comments, but the comment period and protests ate up all the time the city had at the venue, P.S. 124, at 40 Division St., in Chinatown. Chin suggested perhaps smaller follow-up meetings would allow for further detailed dialogue and feedback.

Vidal Guzman, who said he spent seven years incarcerated at Rikers Island, including about one and a half years just waiting to go before a judge, spoke in support of closing Rikers —

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September 20, 2018

PHOTO BY SYDNEY PEREIRA

Signs amplified the boos at the hearing on the proposed Centre St. jail.

Other signs read, “Don’t Let Chinatown Become Prisontown,” “Realtors’ Rikers Land Grab,” “The ‘Margaret Chin Sell Out,’” “Margaret Chin selling out Chinatown,” “Chinatown is Overjailed,” “Margaret: No Concessions Chinatown Deser ves Better” and “Cit y Cancer Patients in Wards Criminals in Condos.”

asking the audience not to “demonize” incarcerated people.

‘We had no say...in this at all. No jails!’

Raymond Tseng

“I felt like they demonized people,” Guzman, a community organizer for Just Leadership USA, said after the town hall. “Everyone believes in saying ‘Well, we believe in prison reform.’ But one of the things we don’t want to say, is how do you make [it] that individuals actually detained or incarcerated are actually getting the help they actually need? And how do you make sure whatever the mayor actually builds, that the money is being put back into our community?

“We can’t keep incarcerating our way through problems,” Guzman added.

“We understand that Rikers is beyond reform. There’s no way you can reform Rikers Island. There’s no way you can reform a place that is torture, a place that has basically belittled people, the place that took family members away from people.”

Closing Rikers is part of a broader strategy to reduce the city’s jail population to 5,000 by 2027. This year, the jail population has averaged around 8,200 — the lowest in three decades and 12 percent less than last year.

The proposed facilities would each have around 1,500 beds, for a total of 6,000 prison beds citywide.

Scoping documents say The Tombs’ facilities are outdated, falling short of modern detention facilities, in terms of inmates’ space, sunlight and social spaces and, additionally, the Tombs doesn’t meet the need for 1,500 beds Downtown, currently falling 500 short of that number.

“The city hired a master planner earlier this year to help us identify sites and consider their merits,” Patrick Gallahue, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, said by email. “After considering 125 White St., as well as 80 Centre St., it was determined that the latter was a better option for a number of reasons, including the site layout and opportunities it would afford.”

Each borough’s jail is expected to include space for educational program-

ming, recreation, therapeutic services, publicly accessible community space and parking. Manhattan’s planned new prison could be as tall as 430 feet high, at the Centre St. location.

Some 20,000 square feet of community space would be a part of the community benefits under the city’s proposed plans. The north tower of The Tombs would also be set aside as a community benefit, possibly with affordable housing, senior housing or community space.

But many said that community space isn’t enough, in addition to slamming the engagement process so far.

“This process does not give the community enough time to be meaningfully engaged,” testified Raymond Tseng, the president of the Hoy Sun Association.

“Setting this location without community engagement — that is not what we want. … We had no say, and there was no community engagement in this at all. No jails!”

Community Boards 1 and 3 held a joint meeting about the new prison plan on Thurs., Sept. 6, and this month they are both discussing each board’s formal resolution on the jail plan.

Anthony Notaro, Board 1’s chairperson, said there are “two dimensions to the process.”

“First, how the Mayor’s Office has handled this has been poor,” Notaro said. “Communication has not been swift, and it’s been sporadic and they’re moving way too quickly.

“On the other level, C.B. 1 and C.B. 3 and Chinatown: We still need to coalesce to make sure we understand what are the needs [and] what are the impacts. And that needs to be discussed, rather than just simply saying ‘No.’ ” Local businesses also oppose building a new, larger jail Downtown, saying that people already bypass the existing Manhattan Detention Center.

“The Manhattan Detention Center, no matter what they want to talk about, is a dead zone,” said Jill Sung, the president and C.E.O. of Abacus Federal Savings Bank. “People basically want to avoid that area. … It’s very vacant.

It’s very desolate.”

She charged that the plan is an “experiment.”

“It’s a leap of faith, and I can’t afford that leap of faith,” Sung said.

The city’s public scoping meeting for Manhattan’s proposed jail at 80 Centre St. will be held Thurs., Sept. 27, at 6 p.m. at 1 Centre St. The public can also submit written comments at the meeting and until Oct. 15 to Howard Judd Fiedler, the administrative architect and director of the design unit at the city’s Department of Correction, at 75-10 Astoria Blvd., Suite 160, East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370 or at boroughplan@doc.nyc.gov.

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September 20, 2018

7

‘Cuomo ticket’ wins as do Epstein, Li and Marte PRIMARY continued from p. 1

changes.

But, in the end, it wasn’t that close.

Cuomo defeated Nixon by about 66 percent to 34 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, the primary between incumbent Kathy Hochul and Jumaane Williams for lieutenant governor was much tighter. But Hochul wound up pulling it out with 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent for the Brooklyn city councilmember.

In another hotly contested primary, Public Advocate Letitia James — who was also part of “the Cuomo ticket,” endorsed by the governor — won the four-way race for state attorney general, with 41 percent of the vote. Zephyr Teachout finished in second place with 31 percent, Congressmember Sean Patrick Maloney garnered 25 percent, and Leecia Eve was in last place with 3 percent.

(Teachout ran against Cuomo for governor four years ago, and lost by around the same margin as Nixon.)

In the primary for the East Side’s 74th Assembly District, incumbent Harvey Epstein easily won with 62 percent of the vote versus two challengers, Akshay Vaishampayan (19 percent) and Juan Pagan (18 percent).

In a hotly contested race for Civil Court judge in District 2, Wendy Li won with 52 percent of the vote to Robert Rosenthal’s 48 percent. Rosenthal boasted courtroom experience and the lion’s share of political endorsements, but lost by around 800 votes.

On the Lower East Side, Christopher Marte won the primary for Democratic State Committee in the 65th Assembly District, snagging 65 percent of the ballots cast versus a surprising challenge by Joseph Garba, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s secretary for intergovernmental affairs. Despite Marte’s strong record of community activism, Garba — thanks to his connection to the powerful Heastie — had the support of many local politicians, including state Senator Brad Hoylman, Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, Councilmembers Margaret Chin and Carlina Rivera and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

Exit and entry polling of Downtown voters earlier in the day by The Villager showed a wide range of voter opinion — and, in most cases, a lot of passion about the big races. Two poll sites were surveyed, the first in Stuyvesant Town, at E. 16th St. and First Ave., and the second at P.S. 41, the Greenwich Village School, at W. 11th St. and Sixth Ave. “I voted — of course, for Cuomo,” said Nadav Silberstein, 72, an accountant and Stuy Town resident. “Of course, for Cuomo — he’s strong. And Cynthia, she’s not strong — she doesn’t have experience.”

A flier sent to ultra-Orthodox Jew-

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September 20, 2018

PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY

Running mates Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul, marching in the West Indian Day Parade on Eastern Park way last month, marched on to reelection at the polls last Thursday.

ish voters right before the election by the State Democratic Party tried to tar Nixon as anti-Semitic — even though she is raising her two oldest children Jewish.

‘I voted — of course, for Cuomo. He’s strong.’

Nadav Silberstein

“I don’t care about that,” Silberstein shrugged, adding, “I’m sure she’s not.”

Again, he said, the main point for him was, “She doesn’t have experience.

We need somebody strong against the idiot Trump — to bring him down!”

Heading to the poll, Katwo Puertollano, 35, a Filipino immigrant, said it was her first time voting.

“I think I’m going to vote for Cynthia Nixon,” she said. “I know Cuomo’s going to win — but I just want to threaten him.”

She planned to vote Williams for lieutenant governor and Teachout for attorney general.

“I went with The New York Times endorsement on that one,” she admitted of those two picks.

One Stuy Town Nixon supporter, a retiree who worked in financial services and declined to give her name, said Cuomo was “not a Democrat” in her view. She backed James for A.G. — but noted she was impressed by Maloney’s TV commercials.

“I wasn’t really familiar with him before his ads started,” she said. “He’s got a good story.”

Another Stuy Town voter, Eugenie Chen, 58, who works in product development in the Garment District, said Cuomo has the experience to lead the state.

“I think he’s more of a politician than Nixon,” she said, meaning that in a good way. “She needs to have some experience to run for office.”

While backing the establishment

politician for governor, Chen nevertheless blackened the oval for Teachout for A.G., citing her “anticorruption” background.

“I think we need to clean up Albany,” she stated.

A retired Bellevue Hospital nurse, 65, who didn’t want to give her name also supported Cuomo.

“He’s a New Yorker. He’s tough,” she said. “At the hospital, I saw older people being let go and a lot of young people without experience brought in and put in charge. Let me tell you, it doesn’t work.”

She, too, first learned about Maloney through his TV ads.

“I was interested in this guy who has a lot of commercials,” she said.

Jax Richter, 36 — her head with close-cropped dark hair bent over her phone — approached the poll site still engaged in an intense texting debate with a friend about the governor’s race.

“Nixon, of course,” she said, when asked by The Villager how she was going to vote. “I’ve been on Facebook for hours — just having big arguments with everyone about ‘she has no experience.’

Somebody compared her to Trump and I just blew up at them.

“It’s not so much that I dislike Cuomo, but I just like her more,” she said. “[More funding for the] M.T.A. and [abolishing] ICE and more money for the school system and healthcare for all New Yorkers — just a whole array of topics that I’m more aligned with her on.”

A Chelsea native and real estate broker who plans to switch to coding — “I had an epiphany,” she quipped — Richter is gay. But she said Nixon’s sexual orientation — or her gender, for that matter — were not factors in her decision at all.

“Hillary — it was big that she’s a woman,” she acknowledged, referring to Hillary Clinton’s run for president two years ago. “When it came to Cynthia, her gender and her orientation were very much in the back seat.”

Instead, what mattered for Richter, were Nixon’s progressive positions on the issues.

“It’s all about that for me,” she said.

Earlier in the day, she also had been texting back-and-forth with another woman who argued that gays owed it to Cuomo to re-elect him for passing same-sex marriage in New York. But Richter disagreed.

“I’m not taking that away from him,” she said of Cuomo. “I’m more than just a gay person — let’s move forward.

Credit and gratitude, absolutely, to Cuomo. But that doesn’t mean I owe it to him for the next four years. There are so many things I care about as a human being — not just a gay robot. It is a perk that [Nixon] happens to be a PRIMARY continued on p. 23 TheVillager.com

TheVillager.com

September 20, 2018

9

PHOTOS BY BOB KRASNER

It was a real riot for Zeut Ryot at her bachelorette par t y in the park. Naturally, she got to wear the unicorn head of honor.

Bachelorettes shred at Wash. Sq. fantasia SCENE

BY BOB KR ASNER

W

hat do you get when 23 women in wedding dresses march into Washington Square Park armed with spray paint, silly string and Holi powder? The beginning of possibly the best bachelorette party ever, some might say.

Led by the bride-to-be — Zeut Ryot, a Philadelphia-based artist — the revelers picked their spot in front of the arch, enlisted the services of the BubbleMan for atmosphere and proceeded to set out on their mission.

As one participant explained, “We’re here to trash the dresses and get trashed.”

(Some might have suspected that things were not done in exactly that order.)

Once they had added sufficient color to the bride, they turned on each other before returning to Zeut to finish the deconstruction, this time with scissors.

Word had it the rest of the day would involve a bounce house and a rented mansion in New Jersey (and various refreshments). Alas, the photographer was not invited to the wedding.

10

September 20, 2018

The bride was stripped (almost) bare — and by her bachelorettes, even.

The irrepressible Zeut Ryot.

Ryot getting decorated with Holi powder and silly string.

TheVillager.com

Marilyn Moorcroft, 76, literary, active senior

OBITUARY

BY RICK HILL

L

ongtime West Village resident Marilyn Ann Moorcroft died Sat., Aug 18, at age 76 at the hospice of Manhattan’s Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home, at York Ave. and E. 71st St. She was cremated and a memorial service with the Rite of Christian Burial was performed by Father Edwin Chinery at the Church of the Ascension on Aug. 28.

Among those present at the memorial were friends from her Greenwich Village senior center and church, along with senior center staffers Roberto Roma, facilities coordinator, and Loretta Wilson, dining hall supervisor, along with her sister Margaret Blackford from California and Father Ed. Marilyn was born July 23, 1942, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the third of four children and second of two daughters.

She graduated there from George Washington High School before earning a B.A. in 1964 at the University of Iowa in nearby Iowa City.

Of German-Swiss ancestry, her parents Ralph and Emma Moorcroft were born in Iowa along with other generations. Her father was a mailman, her mother a homemaker.

Marilyn had lived in Manhattan and Greenwich Village since the 1960s, working mostly in publishing as a German-English translator.

In her recent years, she was active at the Center on the Square / Greenwich House senior center at 20 Washington Square North, between Fifth Ave. and MacDougal St., as well as at Church of the Ascension, an Episcopal church on Fifth Ave. at W. 10th St. Senior center friend Kyungja Lee visited her at the hospice two weeks before Marilyn’s passing, and recalled Marilyn’s friendship in her last years in sharing jokes and language books.

Senior center director Laura Marceca wrote of Marilyn, “She brightened up the center on a daily basis. She was a great singer and dancer and was a wonderful contribution to the Showtime group! She was a good person, a wonderful friend and was full of life!

She was on the center’s advisory board for the past year. She was very involved with the ‘Let’s Talk’ discussion group and enjoyed going on group trips. Marilyn was a nice and kind person and will be deeply missed.”

While Marilyn died of congestive heart failure, it was cancer, which had become especially aggressive, that brought her to the hospital and nursing home.

Village senior center friend Elizabeth Carnesecchi recalled Marilyn’s many kindnesses and how she “called the TheVillager.com

Marilyn Moorcroft.

numbers” at lunch there.

After Elizabeth nominated Marilyn to the seven-member center advisory board, Marilyn was elected and served extremely ably, many recalled.

Post-college, Marilyn taught for a year and lived in Germany, as well. While German wasn’t spoken at home in Iowa growing up, Marilyn was fluent in the language.

She lived at 23 Barrow St. in the heart of the West Village in a fifth-floor walkup apartment.

Friends and her lovely older sister Margaret recalled how Marilyn loved poetry, writing, literature, movies, small performances, knitting and activism.

Both Margaret and Marilyn were blessed with beauty and high cheekbones.

She often danced and sang in both German and English, often in costume, at the seasonal variety shows with the Showtime group at the senior center.

The consensus was that Marilyn led a quiet life, fiercely independent, living life on her terms and facing bravely her sunset years with their health challenges.

In the last year, she was often seen alone with her head down on the table, resting at the senior center, as well as at various Starbucks or at the McDonald’s at W. Third St. and Sixth Ave. A friend at the memorial remarked that others might have viewed her as a Village eccentric.

Others would see her at movies that showed at the church or senior center in her hoodie for warmth and sitting close to the screen for her hearing.

Marilyn is referred to in the Nov. 23, 1978, New York Review of Books in a piece by Nigel Dennis about the German language, Hitler and Gunter Grass.

Along with others, she copyedited and

proofread “The Goddess, A Moveable Feast,” by fellow senior author Andrew J. Da Silva of W. 11th St. And earlier, in 1981, she wrote a book for young people, “Investigative Report-

ing” (Franklin Watts, 1981).

Two of her lifelong close friends were Donna Herrbach and Rose Kalinsky.

She leaves her sister Margaret, a retired kindergarten teacher, from Menlo Park, California, in the Palo Alto area, along with two brothers, Ronald, in assisted living, and Lowell, also both in California.

After Marilyn and her sister retired, they became closer, and Marilyn grew active in the senior center, as well as the church.

Father Ed and Marilyn were close with their involvement in the Sunday service, the church barbecues and the Resistance Cinema series on the first Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m., featuring free hard-hitting documentaries on cutting-edge social and ecological justice issues.

After the funeral service, the two dozen assembled broke into an impromptu recollection from the pews of Marilyn as a cheerful, kind and good soul.

Shep, a church member, read an elegant op-ed piece by Marilyn intended for The New York Times bemoaning the loss of a bookstore, yet another vanishing part of Greenwich Village culture. It was unclear if it was published.

Father Ed and others recalled her moxie and her big-city no-nonsense front masking her big heart.

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11

L work is already hell, East Side residents tell ect’s extraction point. But the spokesperson said that people now have seven months’ advance notice, which is not short notice.

LTRAIN continued from p. 1

fears about their neighborhoods being inundated with convoys of buses as part of the project’s “alternative service plan” — which they blasted as poorly thought out — for when the L would be shut down west of Brooklyn’s Bedford Ave. The East Side town hall, at the historic church at E. Seventh St. and Second Ave., came about after a similar town hall on the L plan was held on W. 14th St. in May. Back then, City Councilmember Carlina Rivera reached out to agency officials to ensure that her constituents would have an equal chance to question officials and air their concerns about the massive project’s impact on their neighborhoods.

Responding to 150 of those constituents at Middle Collegiate Church Monday was a panel including Polly Trottenberg, commissioner of the city’s Department of Transportation; Andy Byford, president of the New York City Transit Authority; Eric Beaton, D.O.T. deputy commissioner for transportation and management; and Peter Cafiero, N.Y.C.T.A. chief of operations planning.

Pols monitoring, too City Council Speaker Corey Johnson was among the local politicians addressing the panel and audience.

“This is extremely important for both sides of the river,” he said of the proposed L project. “This is not going to be easy, even with the best mitigation plans. I know there are still serious concerns from folks that live around 14th St. and the side streets, from folks who live around Kenmare Square,” referring to Little Italy’s Petrosino Square, “and from folks who live around the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. ... We are all going to feel some pain,” Johnson said, before pointing at the panelists and vowing, “I want you to know I will hold you accountable during the process.”

On top of toll issue

‘It’s like Beirut’ Most of the audience questions during the Q & A period were from residents living near the L’s First Ave. station, where work has been going on since July 2017 to add entrances / exits at Avenue A and handicap-accessible elevators — and also apparently to prep it as the primary staging area for the tunnel repairs. Locals complained of clouds and plumes of dust — that are causing them headaches and throat pain — aggravating beeping from construction vehicles backing up, big trees being felled and the work site being “lit up like a movie set” throughout the night.

“I feel like I’m living in Beirut,” said Joan Steele. “I feel so sick in my apartment, the noise, the air quality. They’ve chopped down trees at will.”

Locals said they were worried about silica and asbestos dust from both the current project and the larger tunnel repair work, which is set to start in April 2019. They were livid at hearing that the work would allegedly be going on 24 / 7 outside their windows.

“Mesothelioma is almost always fatal,” said one young Stuyvesant Town resident, of the slow-developing lung disease connected to asbestos. “I have seen the workers wearing respirators.”

Byford: I’m on it But Byford said while there is indeed asbestos in the city’s subway tunnels, it is handled very carefully.

“You’re not asking if asbestos is present — you’re asserting that it is,” he responded, regarding residents’ concerns about the air and debris being taking out

12

September 20, 2018

PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER

At the nor theast corner of 14th St. and First Ave. — building for a better tomorrow, but what about today? A plume of dust drifts above construction debris from the First Ave. L station.

of the East Side work site.

He added they will “get something up on the Web site” to explain what is actually in the dust and debris.

Byford told them that the concerns they were raising were serious and that he would visit the project director on site the next day.

“I’m taking copious notes,” he said.

Laura Sewell, executive director of the East Village Community Coalition, added that the disruptive work has already driven five local stores out of business.

“We’re trying to get the M.T.A. to buy soundproof windows for us,” Kristen Oddo, a computer programmer who lives at 14th St. and Avenue B and works at home and has documented the disruptive work, told The Villager.

Street vs. tunnel work A Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesperson subsequently told The Villager that, yes, the spot where

new elevators are being added for the First Ave. station would be where all of the debris from the tunnel repairs would be removed and where all the new materials would be brought in. However, he said, while the tunnel repairs would go on 24 / 7, the street-level construction would not be round-the-clock. They are doing environmental monitoring at the site, including for dust control and PM 10 particulate matter in the air, he added — and will also be looking at PM 2.5, fine particulate matter, from “existing NY State Department of Conservation monitors.”

“We have also already made changes with community input on switching diesel-powered equipment to electric-powered where possible,” he added, “and requested that subcontractors use as many of their trucks outfitted with white-noise back-up beepers in their fleet on the job as are available.”

Residents and politicians are upset that they are only now learning that the First Ave. station will be the tunnel proj-

City Councilmember Margaret Chin said, “I just cannot imagine all those buses coming off the bridge,” adding she was skeptical about some of the proposed temporary bus routes being able to make the tight turn from Kenmare St. onto Cleveland Place. Chin added that if a two-way toll was restored on the Verrazano Bridge, it would go a long way toward helping ease congestion on Downtown’s streets over all.

“Hopefully, we’ll take back Congress and have that reversed [sic],” she said of the current one-way toll.

But state Senator Brian Kavanagh said of the Verrazano, “I don’t think we need to wait.” Basically, now that there is cashless tolling — meaning there would be no toll-plaza backups on Staten Island — it shouldn’t be a problem to quickly rebalance the bridge fee, he said, to audience from the crowd.

D’Amato’s legacy Trottenberg later said that it would take an act of Congress to rebalance the bridge toll since, in a highly unusual move, former Senator Al D’Amato was able to insert the toll change into a federal bill.

Other politicians spoke, too, and mostly said the right things that the audience wanted to hear. But what residents really wanted to do was voice their concerns directly to Byford and Trottenberg and get some answers and reassurances back from them.

“We’re still listening. We’re not just going through the motions,” Byford stated early on.

LTRAIN continued on p. 13 TheVillager.com

M.T.A. and D.O.T. officials at town hall meeting LTRAIN continued from p. 12

Tubes are corroding He said the L train tubes under the East River, though badly damaged by flooding with saltwater during Hurricane Sandy, are safe only because N.Y.C.T.A. took emergency action to shore up their systems.

“But corrosion is continuing,” he noted. “We would have to shut it down eventually.”

Worst damaged are the “conduits” — basically, concrete parts of the tubes through which electrical cables are threaded. Most of what’s in the tunnels now needs to be ripped out and removed — from the tracks to the corroded conduits — and replaced with new equipment.

Mitigation plan Byford acknowledged that during the anticipated L shutdown, about 70 percent of displaced L riders would switch to alternative subway lines. The G line would have longer trains. M service is being improved.

And, once the Canarsie Tunnel is repaired, Byford said, the authority would be able to run more trains on the tracks since new substations would be added to boost the line’s power.

He added that, earlier just that day, the city had agreed to have larger ferries — with 240 passengers versus 149 — on a new route to run between Williamsburg and Stuyvesant Town during the L shutdown. There would be a total of three of these ferries, with two running until the late hours, and one on standby.

High H.O.V. hopes The Williamsburg Bridge, meanwhile, would be totally converted to H.O.V. (High Occupancy Vehicle), with lanes for H.O.V.-3 cars (with a minimum of three passengers), and “busway” lanes.

The bridge, as Byford put it, would be “a very high-intensity H.O.V. and busway,” from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., with more than 80 buses per hour streaming into Manhattan.

“That’s more than a bus per minute,” he noted.

“Build a new tunnel!” a woman in the audience cried out in frustration.

But Byford said that wouldn’t work, and that the L tunnels are decaying.

“That would take six years,” he said.

“We don’t have six years — we don’t have two years.”

He later said that closing one tunnel at a time for repairs would double the project’s duration to three years, while doing overnight work only would be difficult

because of having to clean up silica dust from the work to allow riders to safely use the tunnel during the day.

Added Trottenberg, “We are really hoping this H.O.V. lane will do a lot and will...discourage people from driving into Manhattan during this period. ... A big part of the plan is to have less vehicles come into Manhattan. The more we have buses, the more we have people cycling, hopefully, it will get people out of cars.”

Pushing pedaling The mitigation plan would also see crosstown bike lanes added in Manhattan on 12th and 13th Sts. The lanes would be “protected” by buffer zones ranging from 4 feet to 9 feet wide, with flexible plastic “delineator” poles that motor vehicles — like fire trucks — can drive over, if need be.

“We do think cycling is going to be a big part of the solution,” Trottenberg explained, adding that the number of bike-share CitiBikes in Manhattan and Brooklyn would be increased, and that the new pedal-assist CitiBikes are making it easier for some people to bike over the Williamsburg Bridge.

She later added, “I think the bike lane we’re building potentially will be the fastest way to go from the East Village

to Williamsburg.” She later added, “Bicycles burn no gas and emit no carbon.

One of the things we heard in the community is that there’s a lack of protected east-west lanes.”

She noted there had been a number of cyclist fatalities in the past year on Chelsea side streets.

Want electric buses Both Chin and Kavanagh called for nonpolluting electric instead of diesel buses to be used during the interim plan.

Byford said that, of the 200 new buses that would be added to the streets under the plan, five would be electric and 10 would be electric / diesel hybrids, and that more such buses would be added moving forward to the greatest extent possible.

Byford said N.Y.C.T.A. would also be monitoring the air for dust, specifically, PM 10 particulate matter.

The ultimate goal is for the city to move to an all-electric bus fleet as soon as possible, he said.

“You will have a faster ride [on 14th St.] during the L shutdown than you normally have,” Trottenberg said of the Select Bus Service busway that would operate from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., under the plan.

LTRAIN continued on p. 21

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TheVillager.com

September 20, 2018

13

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Has some ‘gouda’ advice

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Call 718-260-2516 or e-mail pbeatrice@cnglocal.com

We cover “The Cube”!

To The Editor: Re “Family butcher keeping alive Little Italy’s old-time flavor” (news article, Sept. 13): Many years ago, I was shopping at Murray’s Cheese shop on Cornelia St. when the owner, Louis Tudda, mentioned he was going out of business and returning to Calabria, Italy. I felt compelled to try and “rescue” it — although it was always a viable business — as were so many others like it in our neighborhood: Faicco’s pork store; Ottomelli’s butcher shop; and Zito’s bread.

The reasons were my love of cheese, but also the fact that I had nostalgia for my immigrant grandfather’s original shop in Perth Amboy, N.J., which of course closed even before I was born.

But it seemed to me that many of these great old shops might survive with some new ideas, even with sky-high rents and new competition. And I was right. We made changes and Murray’s grew and prospered.

Last year, I sold Murray’s and retired. But I do believe that given the right actions, many of these old shops might continue on for many more years. I’d be happy to help any younger-generation family who want to give it a try.

Robert Kaufelt

Aargh! Too much business!

To The Editor: What’s going on here? Are you going out of business?

The Sept. 13 issue is filled with infomercials?

To wit: “Family butcher keeping alive Little Italy’s old-time flavor”; “Schneps Communications acquires CNG / NYCCM”; “D.I.Y. designer threads her way to sustainability”; “What a find: The P.E. Guerin foundry on Jane St.” It’s like a supermarket tabloid. Couldn’t you just sell ad space?

And did I mention, it’s really annoying and a waste of my time? I read the paper cover to cover. I skip over ads in which I am not interested, but I can’t do that with these “news” stories until I’m halfway through them. By then, I’m done.

IRA BLUTREICH

I start to not trust the real stuff, so I just throw the paper away. It’s a shame that that’s what The Villager has come to.

Stephen Levine Editor’s note: Thanks for your letter, Stephen. We appreciate your feedback and concern. “Family butcher,” we thought, was an interesting profile of an old-school neighborhood business. This type of article is known as a “feature” and — you are right — it’s not technically hard news per se. Our sense, however, is that a lot of readers actually enjoyed this article, as they do many feature articles about local merchants, particularly ones that have stood the test of time. Most newspapers include a mix of news and feature articles, and sometimes aspects of the two are blended together in the same story.

As for the article on Schneps — hey, they bought us, creating an even larger community-media company.

That definitely is news, an important New York City media story, and the sale needs to be announced.

The article on the Guerin foundry was pitched by one of our freelancers, who went on a tour of the place and found it fascinating. Many would say that a manufacturing business still operating — albeit, seemingly somewhat under the radar — in Greenwich Village, creating brass door handles, finials and the like, is newsworthy.

As for the article on Arielle Crawford, yes, admittedly, her place is a pop-up shop with a relatively short run.

But fashion is a major industry in New York City and something that, we think, many readers are interested in. Also, that Crawford’s fashion is based on sustainable, nonpolluting practices is in line with a growing trend of environmental responsibility in the industry.

You didn’t mention the article on Joseph Marra and the Night Owl (“Celebrating a birthday and the ’60s music scene”), but that was a profile of a business and its owner, too — though it also fell under the heading of “history / cultural.”

You are right, though: Admittedly, last week’s issue of the paper did have a lot of articles on local businesses.

Don’t worry, though, we will continue to have plenty of news stories!

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 MetroTech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published.

Cuomo lives up to his reputation as a “dirty fighter!”

14

September 20, 2018

TheVillager.com

Empty spot on the wall at our beach house NOTEBOOK

BY K ATE WALTER

T

here was no wall calendar hanging from the towel closet of our beach bungalow at the Jersey Shore. That was the first thing I noticed this spring. My mother always hung the customized one my niece gave her for Christmas in the same spot.

It was personalized with family photos and birthdays.

Last year, on Memorial Day weekend, my mother put up the calendar for 2017. Then she died on July 26 at 95 after a brief illness. She’d been swimming in the bay with her great-grandkids the same week she went into the hospital.

This summer, when I returned to the West Village after a trip to the beach, I rummaged through my apartment looking for a 2018 calendar to bring back to the shore. I couldn’t find one and stores were not selling or giving them away at this time of year.

Of course, I could locate the date on my phone but it wasn’t the same. My parents bought the cottage the year I was born. They were pioneers in this tight-knit beach community and Mom had become the unofficial local historian. For my entire life, my mother put this planner up when we opened the house. The empty spot was just another reminder that she was gone.

Mom’s essence will always be in the beach bungalow, but I sorely missed her laughter. I looked at her reading chair and expected her to be sitting there. When the house made noises at night, I thought she was getting up to go to the bathroom. I missed our trips to yard sales and to her favorite restaurant on the Manasquan Inlet, where we ate fresh flounder. I wished we could be sitting side by side on our beach chairs reading nov-

The writer’s family’s beach house and garden on the Jersey Shore.

els.

Mom was an avid Scrabble player, always asking me if I was up for a game. Not a big fan, I often turned her down. Now I’d give anything to sit across the counter from her, open up the board and pick out our tiles.

My mother was so attached to our home that when it had to be gutted after Superstorm Sandy, she insisted that the repair crew take out and reinstall the knotty pine paneling my late father put in decades ago.

My steely Irish Catholic mother epitomized “Jersey Strong.” When a crew of relatives tossed out furniture, rugs and appliances, my mother donned rubber boots

and supervised.

One night, stressed from dealing with insurance people and confusing messages from FEMA, she sighed, “I wish your father was here. He was good at this stuff.” We reassured her she was doing a great job.

Thankfully, she had flood insurance and our house was not condemned.

I was attached to the house, too. When my lesbian partner broke up with me after 26 years together, I retreated there to get comforted by my mother. It was my safe space away from the city. My mother totally got that I was devastated. She told me reading helped her get over the loss of her husband of 57 years. And so we read.

This year I was sharing the house with a niece who dumped a pile of fishing magazines on the coffee table.

I was neater than her, so I moved most of them into the magazine rack that I’d cleaned out last summer after my mother died. I’d tossed out her old copies of Arthritis Today and the AARP magazine, but I’d saved a few things.

I spied a wall calendar for 2018 from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I’m sure my mother had given them a donation. I hung it in the regular spot and flipped to August.

As Labor Day approached and I looked at the September page, I felt sad. An entire summer season had passed without my mother. That month featured an encouraging quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Mom admired. It felt like a message that I must carry on without her: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Finding this calendar felt like a gift my mother had left behind for us.

Walter is the author of the memoir “Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of Downtown Heartbreak and Healing”

Fixing schools, greening a triangle, cops, noise

FLASHBACK

BY GABE HERMAN

P

age One of The Villager on Sept. 21, 1972, featured an article on plans in School District 2 for construction of a new school and upgrading existing school buildings to address the area’s student overcrowding problem.

The article reported that education budget cuts would not affect the plans, including constructing a new school, P.S. 21, to help relieve the pressure on P.S. 130, which was 57 percent overcrowded.

P.S. 23 in Chinatown was also fighting a Central Board proposal to replace its old building, with parents who were helping to preserve the building requesting help for its maintenance instead.

P.S. 3 in the West Village also requested renovations. Two of its floors were closed off from school use, and toilets and other facilities were reported to be in need of repairs.

“So far, we have managed to keep every kid in the District on single session,” noted Gorden Gauthier, District 2 coordinator of new buildings. “At a time when some city schools are on double and triple split shifts...that’s a pretty good record.”

Also on the newspaper’s Page One were two photos of the “St. Vincent’s Triangle,” at GreenTheVillager.com

PHOTO BY THE VILLAGER

The St. Vincent’s Hospital-owned triangle at Greenwich and Seventh Aves. was being developed into green space back in September 1972 while the hospital was waiting to build on the site.

wich and Seventh Aves., showing its recent development from an empty lot into greenery with temporary recycling “until St. Vincent’s Hospital can secure funds to build.” The NYC AIDS Memorial Park at St. Vincent’s Triangle is now at the spot.

Other articles included a profile of the narrowest house in the Village, 75 ½ Bedford St., the home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay; an upcoming meeting of the Sixth Precinct Council, which would prioritize safer streets and securing more police protection, including on Village side streets where there were increased reports of muggings; and the city finally passing a tougher noise code that, it was hoped, would increase quality of life.

“For Villagers, one giant violator are the trucks which zoom through our streets and honk their horns like there was no tomorrow,” The Villager reported. “And there are always the clubs, whose jukeboxes are often still at ear-shattering volumes late into the night.”

Ads in the issue included one for the Candle Cottage, at 47 Greenwich Ave., with the sales pitch, “For every occasion, say it with candles”; O. Ottomanelli & Sons prime meat market at 281 Bleecker St., stating, “You name it, we’ll get it”; The Metro, offering cheese, wine and hot casseroles, at 188 W. Fourth St., which advised, “Don’t visit your psychiatrist this week, come to The Metro”; and The Waverly Theater playing “The Damned,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff?” and “The Night of the Living Dead.”

September 20, 2018

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Forget the politicians; Why Not Care is helping

TALKING POINT

BY CL AY TON PATTERSON

T

he part of the Lower East Side where I live is one of the most overlooked parts of the LES. Thanks to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and landlord Sion Misrahi, we got the Lower East Side Business Improvement District, now known as the Partnership.

The BID gets started, and the mass evictions of small business and affordable rent get escalated. One major prong that was used to make this real estate change was the bars. The bars would pay more rent money and would go on to create an almost unlivable environment for local families.

The real estate moguls — using the compliant community board and, in my belief, Silver, then one of the state’s most powerful politicians — worked closely with the State Liquor Authority to skirt the authority’s rules and regulations, which opened the door to the flood of bars.

As it turns out, the courts proved Silver is a crook.

Another form of gutting the neighborhood of its longtime residents and businesses is to take away our services.

In comes City Councilmember Margaret Chin and she allows the city to sell off Rivington House, plus is compliant in the overdevelopment of the community and allowing in too many bars. I am trying to think, what has she done for my area?

Sadly, while the rest of our politicians, I hope are not crooks, we do not have leaders, but have more the comealong-get-along types. In my opinion, the last powerhouses we had were Councilmembers Miriam Friedlander and Kathryn Freed. They were fighters and could carry the ball across the line.

Yes, I had my issues with them, but all in all, they were strong and their intentions were to serve the community and not themselves.

As it turns out, the real ones who have stepped forward to help our part of the community are not the politicians, but three conscientious community people: Martin Medina, Lilah Mejia, and Power Malu, of the organization envisioned and founded by Martin, called Why Not Care Inc. A 501c3 nonprofit organization, Why Not Care is geared toward providing beneficial resources for the homeless, the disenfranchised, everyday people or businesses and community organizations that are in need of supplemental assistance.

These resources range from the distribution of care packs filled with every-

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September 20, 2018

PHOTOS BY CLAYTON PATTERSON

Power Malu, right, and Hakki Akdeniz, of Champion Pizza, at the recent Lower East Side United Festival.

Cutting to the chase: Stanton Street Barbers gave free haircuts.

day essentials for homeless and unfortunate individuals, to providing creative and educational services for their partnering organizations. The group’s main focus is on people who make less than $33,000 a year.

The organization has also been dedicated to helping provide supplies and services to Puerto Rico after the hurricane and helping to take care of im-

pacted Puerto Ricans who were forced to move back to the city. For their recent festival in the LES, these three built a team made up of both adults and teenagers.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate the community work of and have taken photos of Martin and Power doing different kinds of service. Recently, I met Lilah when she and Power were

on my 8 Ball radio show talking about how much help Puerto Rico continues to need to get back to running normally.

I first came across Why Not Care last year when they took over the large schoolyard behind the Lower East Side Preparatory High School, at 145 Stanton St. They call the event the annual Lower East Side United Festival. For the event the first year, the schoolyard was full. With this second year, the crowds were overwhelming. For safety reasons, they had private and official school security, as well as volunteers manning the entrance gate and making sure everything was running smoothly. The yard would fill up to a safe capacity and then, as people left, more would be allowed in. At times, the waiting line was more than a block long. The line was a true mix of the LES: Chinese, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, whites and various ethnic people wearing traditional Muslim attire.

One of the main goals of Martin, Power and Lilah was to create one place where people could access all the different LES organizations. One group missing was the 10th St. Boys Club, although the Boys and Girls Republic, from Avenue D, was there, and so was the Lower Eastside Girls Club.

In the yard were tables with information on afterschool programs, tenants’ rights, immigration issues, health and wellness, financial literacy, daycare CARING continued on p. 23 TheVillager.com

No woman is an island Gabri Christa wrestles with her own heritage and her mother’s future

Photo by Kevin Yatarola

Gabri Christa confronts her mother’s fate in language and dance.

BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER Gabri Christa’s quiver holds many arrows. She dances, choreographs, writes, makes films, and teaches at Barnard. She was formerly a member of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, and later the artistic director of Staten Island’s Snug Harbor Cultural Center.

She’s also a wife and mother, concerned with issues of family and nurture. Right now, she’s fusing creative arts with a focus on dementia, the challenging illness that consumes the memories and emotions of increasing numbers of elderly people around the world.

Her new “Magdalena” tells the story TheVillager.com

of her mother, Josephina Magdalena Aleida de Jong, now in her 80s and living back in her native Netherlands.

The middle one of seven children, she survived a Nazi bombing in wartime Rotterdam, where she was injured by shrapnel and separated from her family.

She went to college to become a “teaching nun,” but in 1960 she married a black man from the South American country of Suriname — a less traumatic decision in Holland than it might have been at the time in the US, where “miscegenation” was still illegal.

Christa’s hour-long piece combines spoken narrative, old newsreel foot-

age, delicate films of her own making, and passionate, energetic dancing in an effort to evoke the anxiety and depression that have contributed to her mother’s current advanced dementia.

Magdalena’s disordered thinking seems to have begun in earnest when Christa and her older brother left home; the playwright/choreographer has collected personal testimony and scientific data to shape her story.

A tissue of fi ne and funny verbal detail, the piece takes us from Holland to Curaçao and finally back to Rotterdam, a journey of some 80 years, tracking the relationships and behav-

iors of three families: Christa’s mother’s clan, Dutch people who gave all of their daughters the same name; her father’s multi-racial Dutch-Caribbean family, better educated and of a higher social class; and Netherlands Antillesborn Christa’s own Staten Island-based household, which includes her husband, musician Vernon Reid, and a teenage daughter.

The white box theater is tiny, with perhaps 40 seats on three sides of a loft-like room. Christa begins sitting among the audience, talking quietly. A CHRISTA continued on p. 18 September 20, 2018

17

On deck for fall, a cornucopia of dance

© Jesus Robisco for Africa Moment, Barcelona, May 2017

Nora Chipaumire in her “#Punk 100% Pop*NIGGA,” at The Kitchen, Oct. 11-13 as part of the Crossing the Line Festival.

BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER Photo by Kevin Yatarola

Christa winds herself up in her past.

CHRISTA continued from p. 17

white sheet hangs on one long wall, and a string of footlights defines the performance space, surrounding an ancient valise. On top of it sits a tiny, black porcelain baby doll, a gift to Christa’s mother from her mother that seems to have prepared her to embrace the man she married. She opens the valise and carefully stores the doll. Projected on the inside of the valise’s lid are films about various friends and families.

She concludes with a poem she wrote in Dutch as a tribute to her mother (it’s translated for us in the program). And then she twirls herself up in the sheet that has backed

CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL the film projections, turning herself into a kind of dervish/mermaid — a testament to both the sturdiness and the fragility of her parents’ union.

Christa’s a product of the African diaspora, fascinated by her heritage, challenged by her mother’s illness.

“Magdalena” has its rough spots, trying to be both memoir and polemic, but it represents a sturdy effort to tell a complicated tale and bring attention to a looming medical and social crisis.

Wed.-Sat. at 8pm, through Sept.

22. At Theaterlab (357 W. 36th St., 3rd floor, btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.).

Visit theaterlabnyc.com for tickets ($20). Artist info at gabrichrista. com.

Sept. 18-Oct. 13 (crossingthelinefestival.org) | Produced by the French Institute/ Alliance Française, this eclectic festival with the slightly transgressive title foregrounds dance events across the city in its 12th season. It opened with American choreographer Trajal Harrell showing “Caen Amour,” a re-imagining of hoochie coochie, Sept. 18 & 19 at The Kitchen. Next up, Sept. 25 and 27-29 at Danspace Project, is “What Remains,” made collaboratively by choreographer Will Rawls, poet Claudia Rankine, and video artist John Lucas, responding to the violence of the “surveillance state.” Frenchman Boris Charmatz brings his dazzling “10000 Gestures” to NYU Skirball Sept. 27 & 28, and Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen shows “21 Pornographies” at Performance Space New York, Oct. 3-5.

French-Algerian artist Nacera Belaza performs at Gibney, Oct. 6-8 — and Nora Chipaumire, late of Zimbabwe, now of New York, returns with the three-part “#Punk 100% Pop*NIGGA” at The Kitchen, Oct. 11-13.

BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE COMPANY Sept. 22 & 23 (newyorklivearts.org/btj-az-company) | Storytelling has always been part of Jones’ arsenal of choreographic tools. Here’s a chance to see all three parts of his “Analogy Trilogy” — including the world premiere of its final section.

The work, in process since 2014, runs six and a half hours including a dinner break, and comprises “Dora: Tramontane” (which tells the story of Jones’s mother-in-law’s experience in World War II), “Lance: Pretty aka the Escape Artist” (based on an oral history conducted with a nephew engulfed by sex and drugs in the 1980s), and “Ambros: The Emigrant,” a fictionalized history inspired by the work of novelist W.G. Sebald. Nick Hallett composes the live score, and Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong and the company contribute to the process. At the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place, at Washington Square South). Visit nyuskirball.org.

RoseAnne SPRADLIN

Photo by Kevin Yatarola

The choreographer dances with film of her own making.

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Sept. 27-29 & Oct. 4-6 (newyorklivearts.org) | Last year she was part of Quadrille, The Joyce Theater’s four-sided fall season of experimental work. This season the always-startling choreographer, the current Randjelovi/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts around the corner, brings us a twoweekend run of “Y,” a new work for a cast of eight that asks what language a body speaks. Glen Fogel provides visuals and a sound score; Rick Murray designs the lights. Watch closely: Under all the abstraction are traces of swing! At New York Live Arts (219 W. 19th St., btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.).

TheVillager.com

An age-old metaphor whose truth hasn’t dimmed ‘James & Jamesy In the Dark’ casts a welcome light

BY TRAV S.D. “No darkness lasts forever,� wrote the late Ursula K. Le Guin in her 1972 young adult novel “The Farthest Shore� — “And even there, there are stars.�

This month a couple of stars have descended upon us from Canada to enact their own struggle against the night, inviting the audience to come along for the journey. “James & Jamesy In the Dark� has been playing at the SoHo Playhouse since Sept. 12, and is scheduled to stay on the boards through Oct. 14. In the popular piece, which the Canadian clowns have been performing on two continents since 2015, James (Aaron Malkin) and Jamesy (Alastair Knowles) are a couple of whitefaced creatures in three-piece suits who literally illuminate the world around them with the lampshades on their heads.

It’s an age-old metaphor, but that hasn’t dimmed its truth.

Malkin and Knowles met while performing with a community theatre in Vancouver, called Dusty Flower Pot Cabaret. Prior to trying their hand at performing, Malkin, from Toronto, had studied biology. Knowles, from Winnipeg, had been a business major.

Like their fellow company members, both men were drawn into studying with David MacMurray Smith, whom Knowles describes as “this under-theradar clown guru of Western Canada.�

Knowles says Smith’s training is about being “honest with yourself. Sharing who you are. It’s not about doing something funny but a willingness to be seen.�

Malkin and Knowles formed their comedy duo in 2012, with Smith, their former teacher, as their director. Their characters, including their whimsical names, and all of their material, have grown out of improvisational exercises.

There have been three shows prior to “In the Dark,� including “Two for Tea,� “High Tea,� and “O Christmas Tea.�

Touring annually, their shows have sold over 60,000 tickets and been performed over 500 times across North America and the UK. Jamesy, Knowles’ character, is the more eccentric, awkward and social one. James (Malkin) is more settled and standoffish, and more attached to his individuality. When asked which clowns they admire, the names Bill Irwin, Rowan Atkinson, and our old friend Red Bastard (Eric Davis) came up.

According to Malkin, the inspiraTheVillager.com

No dim bulbs here: With lampshades on their heads, James & Jamesy illuminate the world around them.

Photos by Thaddeus Hink

Canadian comedy duo James & Jamesy are at the SoHo Playhouse through Oct. 14.

tion for “In the Dark� came to them almost by accident. “We were invited to do some roving theatre at an outdoor music festival performance at night,� he explained. “We were told there would be no stage, no amplification, and no light. This sounded like a fun puzzle.

We wanted to be seen, of course, so we came up with idea to play with lights.

The grey three-piece suits came later.� “People kept coming up to us [at the festival],� added Knowles, “They were intrigued. They kept asking, ‘What are you? What are you supposed to be?’ We loved that we inspired these questions.�

In “In the Dark,� the two performers move about a completely unlit stage, the only illumination coming from the lights in their costumes. “This allows us meticulous control of the focus, both the light and the shadows,� Malkin said. “We stripped away all peripheral elements such as plot and location. Somebody said the show reminded him of Beckett as written by Douglas Adams.�

Because the characters can only see what they are looking at, and are blind

to everything they are not looking at, Knowles noted, “You get a sense of the characters being surrounded by the Unknown. There is an acceptance of the Unknown. The characters are both independent and alone, and then they meet and discover the concept of a ‘we.’ Eventually the concept gets expanded to include the audience.� “It’s existential but not on the nose,�

Malkin assured me. “You don’t have to

be a philosophy major to enjoy it. You can watch passively or get into layers of meaning.�

Having seen the live show, this correspondent can attest to its richness as a theatrical experience. Knowles and Malkin mix elements of improv and movement and, sometimes even it seems, animated cartoons, to tell their story, with no shortage of funny, crazy, facemaking to make their existential medicine go down merrily. Like all great clowns, they’re also great actors.

Seventy-five minutes in their company, like our time together on this earth, will fly by all too fast.

Through Oct. 14 at the SoHo Playhouse (15 Vandam St., btw. Sixth Ave. & Varick St.). Wed-Sun. at 7pm; Sat. & Sun. at 3pm. For tickets ($29), call visit SoHoPlayhouse.com or call 212-691-1444. Artist info at jamesandjamesy.com. Directed by David MacMurray Smith.

212.254.1109 / www.theaterforthenewcity.net / 155 First Ave bet 9th & 10th St.

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TheVillager.com

L work already hell LTRAIN continued from p. 13

Interim or lasting?

In addition, the Federal Transportation Authority recently issued a Finding of No Significant Environmental Impact a.k.a.

FONSI on the entire L shutdown plan, including the mitigation plan and the new bus routes with their scores of new buses that would be added.

Trottenberg responded that temporary changes would include the 14th St. busway, the 12th and 13th St. bike lanes. and a new bike lane on Grand St. in Brooklyn, while permanent changes would include a new Delancey St. bike lane and bike lanes in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Yet the D.O.T. commissioner did not rule out making the temporary changes permanent, noting, “If a lot of people like them, we’re going to have that discussion. I’d like to keep the door open.”

Added Byford, “I’ve learned, don’t box yourself into a corner — because you may like something about it!”

Make that 160 buses During audience questions to the panel, one Lower East Sider said that, actually, the correct number of buses rumbling to and fro at the Williamsburg Bridge would not be 80 but 160 per hour, when buses going in each direction are included.

“Where will the enforcement be done?” he asked of the H.O.V. requirement.

A police chief at the event said it would be done on the Manhattan side of the bridge.

Cradling her four-and-a-halfmonth-old daughter, Augusta, Georgette Fleischer, president of Friends of Petrosino Square, said the prospect of 48 diesel buses per hour coming around their corner at Cleveland St. was a nightmare.

“What are you going to say to this child if she gets asthma?” she said. “If you cared about the health of our children, you would have [zero-emission] buses in place. You need to get them by April 2019.”

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Daniel Loeb, an E. 11th St. resident, warned that the community would be inundated with Ubers and Lyfts during the L shutdown.

“Our neighborhood in the last 10 years, the demographics have changed,” he said. “Now we have million-dollar condos. These people are not going to wait on long lines for buses. And we have to deal with that for two years?”

Trottenberg said not to worry since people won’t be able to take Ubers across 14th St. or the Williamsburg Bridge.

There is also concern that the changes that D.O.T. would implement under the plan could become permanent.

One audience member asked the panel, “Can we have all of your commitment to put things back the way they were when you’re done? I would not like to see 14th St. closed to traffic,” he said, to audience applause.

Lawsuit update Village attorney Arthur Schwartz is representing the 14th St. Coalition and other plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the L shutdown project. He told The Villager that instead of the previous two-in-one lawsuit, he’s going to refile the state part of the lawsuit next week, and also may refile the federal part, as well.

After the town hall, The Villager asked Beaton, the D.O.T. deputy commissioner for transportation and management, about Schwartz’s assertion that N.Y.C.T.A., its parent agency, the M.T.A. and city D.O.T. left out a key point of their “Supplemental Environmental Assessment” for the project: Namely, that traffic would actually move faster on 14th St. with S.B.S. buses and not taking away any current traffic lanes in comparison to the much-hyped busway that the city is pitching, which would include extending the pedestrian space into the current parking lanes.

However, Beaton responded that “nothing was hidden” in the S.E.A., but that the agencies must “balance” various needs. In short, he said, it’s expected that there would be more pedestrians — up to double the current number — on 14th St. under the L mitigation plan, so bus speed on 14th St. isn’t the only consideration: Extra pedestrian space would be needed.

He gave the example of Bushwick residents who want to get to Union Square: Instead of taking the L to Union Square, they would take the M to Sixth Ave. and 14th St. and then walk the two blocks east.

Write a letter to the editor at news@thevillager.com September 20, 2018

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TheVillager.com

Cuomo & Co. win vs. insurgents JAIL continued from p. 8

woman and she happens to be gay. … And she’s not even gay — she’s bisexual!”

Though Nixon would go down to defeat a few hours later, Richter said there could be more in store for her politically in the future.

“I have heard a lot of buzz [about] Cynthia for mayor,” she said.

Across town at P.S. 41, Zach, 29, a software engineer, said he voted for Cuomo “because he has a strong record of support for college education for low-income students.” For attorney general, he backed Teachout.

Admitting to not knowing anything about Hochul, he said he voted for Williams for lieutenant governor “because he was a person of color.”

A middle-aged man who walked out of the poll briskly and seemed in a rush said succinctly: “I voted for the Cuomo ticket. I think they’re doing a good job — economy, law and order, social justice — I think New York’s doing good.”

A W. 12th St. resident, 49, who owns a textile design company and asked to remain anonymous, said, “To be honest, I voted for whoever

Bernie supported: Zephyr Teachout, Cynthia Nixon, Jumaane.”

Bernie Sanders technically never endorsed Nixon — some think because it wasn’t worth it for him to cross the heavily favored Cuomo.

But as the textile man noted, Nixon was allied with the other Berniebacked candidates.

“I voted for Cuomo,” said another Villager, Marla, 70. “I give her a lot of credit for running,” she said of the former “Sex and the City” star, “but I feel like we need someone who knows what they’re doing. She just needs to gain experience and just a little more chops. I’m not ready for her change yet.”

Marla didn’t want another political neophyte running things.

“We’ve got enough of that in the White House,” she said. “At least let’s have something solid here. They can’t be winging it. It’s a big job. She should have started in a smaller [political] office.”

“Nixon — not really enthusiastically,” reported Scotty Elyano, 48, when asked who he voted for, “because I think eight years as governor is enough.” But he added, “I’m concerned about her qualifications as a

leader.”

A Christopher St. resident and real estate broker, he also backed Williams for lieutenant governor.

“Jumaane, with reservations, because I don’t remember Kathy Ho…ch…ool — how do you say her name? — doing anything. It would be nice to have minorities up there in Albany.”

Meanwhile, Elyano said he has known James and “seen her for years, and she’s been on the right side on issues,” so voted for her.

Walking arm in arm as they left the school, an interracial husbandand-wife couple, both 40, went for the same slate of candidates: Nixon, Teachout and Williams.

“I think we need more women and less corruption,” stated Laura Guderian, a physician. “We need change.”

Tony Munyoro, who works in finance and immigrated here from Zimbabwe 10 years ago, agreed, “We just need change — more women, more minority people.”

He said they had talked together beforehand about who to vote for.

He was happy with their choices, noting, “It just made sense.”

Why Not Care makes a difference CARING continued from p. 16

sites, religious-based community programs, volunteer opportunities, senior centers and homeless shelters.

Congressmember Nydia Velasquez had a table, but did not show up.

Outside, Suffolk St. was blocked off with more tables. Chris Marte was soliciting votes for his state committee race, with an eye on the First District City Council seat in three years, when Chin will be termlimited out of office. No politicking was allowed inside the festival in the schoolyard.

There is a reason Chin lost our area. Why Not Care’s organizers had

reached out to the councilmember several times, but got no response — except the unwelcome move of Chin writing on her Facebook page, thanking the Grand Street Guild for the event. It took an e-mail from District Leader Daisy Paez to get that comment removed since the Guild had nothing to do with things.

Besides the tabling, there were the kids’ games like the bouncy house, D Great Drudeeni dressed as a clown making balloon animals and face painting. There was entertainment with legendary LES DJ Ralphie Ralph. Pistol Pete Dobson, a champion boxer and trainer at Overthrow New York on Bleecker St., gave the

kids boxing lessons. Bo Nixon, an ex-gang member and founder of the New Life of NYC youth center, was honored for his 45 years of service to the LES community.

There were more than 1,000 bottles of water handed out. Hakki Akdeniz, of Champion Pizza, made everyone’s day by giving out hundreds of slices of pizza. One of the biggest attractions of the day was the 2,000 book bags and 4,000 articles of clothing — sweatpants and T-shirts — given out. Off site, First Choice Barbers, on Stanton St., was giving haircuts. Everything was free.

For more information, visit https://www.whynotcare.com.

Sound off!

Write a letter to the editor news@thevillager.com TheVillager.com

September 20, 2018

23

Volume 2 | Issue 1

The Pulse of

Lenox Health Greenwich Village

Make no bones about it – prevention is key: 5 tips for maintaining strong and healthy bones Osteoporosis makes bones more susceptible to fractures and breaks. Bones naturally lose density with age, but you can still help keep them strong. May is National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month, so it’s a great time to take action.

1. Boost calcium consumption. Calcium helps give bones their strength. Maintain the recommended daily intake of 1,0001,200 mg with good sources of calcium including low-fat dairy products, dark green leafy vegetables and soy products such as tofu.

2. Don’t forget about vitamin D. For best absorption, pair calciumrich foods with those high in vitamin D, such as salmon, milk and orange juice. Adequate sunlight also provides your body with vitamin D. 3. Pump up the protein. Protein is one of the essential building blocks of bones. Eat plenty of protein-rich foods like eggs, Greek yogurt, lean chicken, beans and nuts.

4. Cut back on the alcohol and avoid smoking. Smoking and heavy alcohol consumption restrict your body’s ability to absorb essential nutrients, which can decrease bone density and increase the chance of fractures.

Did you know…

52 million Americans are affected by osteoporosis and low bone density. If you think you may be at risk, see our specialists, who offer bone density tests to assess and diagnose this condition.

Did you know…

Only 35 percent of American adults consume the recommended daily intake of calcium. If you find it difficult to get enough calcium from your diet, consider taking a calcium supplement.

5. Make exercise a priority. People who spend a lot of time sitting have a higher risk of developing osteoporosis. Combine strength training, weight bearing and balance exercises (such as walking, running, skipping rope and stair climbing) to benefit bones.

Our advanced Imaging Center is dedicated to meeting the radiology needs of the entire Greenwich Village community.

Learn more at Northwell.edu/LenoxHealthImaging or call (646) 846-1452.

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TheVillager.com