the red hook
15 STORY BUILDING DENIED - PAGE 3
STAR REVUE
OCTOBER 2021
FREE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
The Queen of All She Sees Rock and Roll Priestess Patti Smith Returns to SummerStage by Kurt Gottschalk I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Patti Smith. On the street in the West Village one momentarily thrilling winter afternoon, but besides that, in concert, more than a half dozen times, and most of them outdoors. She gives to New York. The first was at Central Park Summerstage in 1995, in a then-rare appearance. She’d spent much of the previous 15 years away from the spotlight and had returned to performing only after losing her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith, and her brother. It was, no doubt, a difficult show for her, and she appeared vulnerable and unsteady. I chalked it up to checking one off the list and didn’t think much more about it. I don’t know
when the next one was, but I know it was great because every other time I’ve seen her has been impassioned, enthusiastic and exciting.
As great as each concert was (after the first, at least), it’s the covers that make them memorable. It’s in her performances of other artists’ songs that she reveals herself as the adoring fan, as one of us. When she’s singing, she’s the fierce shaman of her albums. Between songs, she’s all smiles and gray braids, spitting on the stage, waving to the audience and nearly giggling with delight as if, after all the decades, she’s still blissed to be the one on stage.
I saw her sing Hank Williams’s “Six More Miles to the Graveyard” during a sound check before a show outside the World Trade Center and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with bluegrass legends Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas sitting in at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. I took my girlfriend to another appearance at Damrosch Park, advertised as a read-
ing, and smiled when we walked up and saw a drum set on the stage. She played a full set, including the Stones’ “This Could Be the Last Time” (just after Mick Jagger announcing he was going to be a father again at age 74) and tore through a version of the Who’s “My Generation,” turning it into a sneering AARP anthem. My girlfriend (now my wife) later declared that Patti Smith should be president, not just because of her Abraham Lincoln bone structure. And on September 19, I saw her again, at SummerStage in Central Park. She sang Stevie Wonder’s “Blame it on the Sun” sweet enough to melt the autumn moon and Bob Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings,” bringing her love of music and poetry together once again. Waiting in the long line to get in, I read her boldly transparent and endearingly unpretentious Devotion, a book that contains a short story preceded by her thoughts and the events in her life leading up to
(continued on page 7)
Talking to our City Council candidates Yes, Carlos is done... either Erik or Alexa will be your next representative Interviews by Brian Abate In 2012, Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc in our community. Basements were flooded, cars destroyed and power was out for almost a month - mostly at the Red Hook Houses,NYC's second largest public housing project. That's when Carlos Menchaca came to the neighborhood, dispatched by Kathleen Quinn, at the time Speaker of the City Council. He made himself familiar at the Houses, connecting local needs with government help. A few months after the hurricane, he announced a run for the seat against Democratic incumbent Sara Gonzalez. He won a surprising victory, and has served the maximum two terms the law allows. He chose not to make any endorsement for his successor, instead he ran for Mayor and then, as his campaign faltered, he started working for Andrew Yang. In the meantime, Alexa Aviles, a program director for Scherman Foundation, a Manhattan non- profit, (currently on leave) dominated a large field of Democratic contendors, including the Chairperson of Sunset Park's community board (the District 38 Councilmanic District includes not only Red Hook but Sunset Park as well). She will face Erik Frankel, a Sunset Park business owner, in the general election next month. Q&A With Erik Frankel, Conservative Candidate For District 38
BA: How has your campaign been going and how have you balanced your campaign with being a father during the pandemic?
Erik Frankel (r), with his father Marty (Facebook photo)
EF: Raising my son without his mother, running a small local business (Frankel’s) and international social enterprises while campaigning for office during the pandemic has turned my days into long nights. People who say kids grow up so fast have not been doing all this with a toddler. I have personally hung up almost all of my posters, managed
(continued on page 8)
Q&A With Alexa Aviles, Democratic Candidate For District 38
BA: What are your thoughts and plans to address all the last-mile warehouses coming into Red Hook... Partially from a traffic safety standpoint with the kids in the schools and then also from a health and environmental standpoint. AA: I think I think the first place to start is that I’m really in opposition to the fact that these lastmile warehouses were granted as of right permission to build right off clusters in Red Hook. I
(continued on page 9)
Alexa Aviles (courtesy of her Facebook page)