Our Town Downtown - June 27, 2019

The local paper for Downtown wn ONCE UPON A TIME IN NEW YORK ◄ P.20

WEEK OF JUNE-JULY

27-3 2019

THE DEMS’ MANHATTAN MONEY CHASE POLITICS As the Democratic presidential candidates court wealthy donors, an early look at who’s ahead in NYC’s dollar derby

BY STUART MARQUES

The Democratic Dash for Cash is in high gear as presidential candidates — from frontrunners to likely also-rans — are courting mega-rich Manhattan donors as the race for the nomination heats up after the first round of debates.

Former Vice President Joe Biden swung through Manhattan on June 17 and June 18 for big-bucks fundraisers, one of which was held at the Upper East Side home Jim Chanos, the founder of Kynikos Associates, a prominent short-selling investment firm. According to pool press reports, guests mingled in the din-

Sen. Kamala Harris. Photo: Gage Skidmore, via flickr

ing room of the art-filled penthouse, sipping wine and chatting.

Other prominent candidates have also waded in the Manhattan money pool, including U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, who pumped the flesh at the

home of Marc Lasry, a co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who attended an early June fundraiser at the home of Hamilton James of the Blackstone Group.

“They all come through Manhattan because this is where the candidates get their money,” longtime political consultant George Arzt said.

“They think New York City streets are paved with gold and they want to get as much as they can.”

The latest numbers in New York’s dollar derby surprisingly show New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker with a healthy edge over Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator, with Booker pulling $1.7 million statewide, compared to Gillibrand’s $1.28 million.

The numbers, from the April 15 filings, are itemized contributions of more than $200 in the election cycle

and with be updated in about three weeks — and for the first time will include numbers from Biden and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“I’m not completely surprised that Gillibrand wasn’t first, but I would have thought Harris, [Sen. Bernie] Sanders or [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren would have been more likely to be Number 1,” said political consultant Jerry Skurnik. “I think if contributions under $200 are included, Sanders and Warren might be ahead.”

‘Upper East Side Donors are Holding Back’ Despite the absence of Biden and de Blasio, the early numbers provide a look at where the money’s coming from, and who’s getting it.

“The Upper West Side and the Up-

INSIDE ‘WHITHER THE VILLAGE?’ Alec Baldwin moderates a community forum, P. 8

SPILLING OVER The Whitney’s colorful 1960s paintings, P. 12

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

CREATING A CULTURE OF LIBERATION PRIDE 2019 Author and filmmaker David France reflects on Stonewall, the AIDS epidemic, building walls and tearing them down

BY DAVID NOONAN

“How to Survive a Plague,” France’s 2012 documentary about the AIDS epidemic, won a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Oscar. Photo: © Ken Schles

David France was 10 years old in 1969, when the Stonewall Uprising changed the course of gay life in America. He didn’t hear about the historic event until 1979, when he was a student at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. “I had just come

out,” he recalled in an interview, “so I must have been 20. We started a queer student group on campus, there had not been one, and someone came back from New York and gave a talk about Stonewall and its significance. It was oral history, it wasn’t written. There were no queer history books then. There was no way to find out about this except from passing along stories from mouth to ear.”

Forty years later, France is doing as much as anyone is to make sure that queer history is preserved and read-

ily accessible for future generations.

His 2012 Oscar-nominated and Peabody-award winning documentary, “How to Survive a Plague,” and his book of the same name, capture the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic and the fury of the war that gay activists waged on the bigotry and complacency that made the epidemic that much worse. “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson,” his 2017 documentary, is about the transgender leader and Greenwich Village legend who played a central role in the gay

CHEWING THEIR WAY THROUGH RIVERSIDE PARK The visiting goats have exceeded expectations, P. 2

HEALTHY KIDNEYS, ALL SUMMER LONG Hot weather and dehydration can pose a real threat, P. 9

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Downtowner

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Crime Watch Voices NYC Now City Arts

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Restaurant Ratings 14 Business 16 Real Estate 17 15 Minutes 21

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SPRING ARTS PREVIEW < CITYARTS, P.12

FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE

is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961.

Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice

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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20

2015

In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS

The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam.

Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services.

Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done.

Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate

BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks.

President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits

SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS

A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311

n OurTownDowntow

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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced

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JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

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CHEWING THEIR WAY THROUGH RIVERSIDE PARK NATURE As the visiting goats exceed expectations, residents can vote on which ones should stay through the summer

BY JASON COHEN

It’s been a little more than a month since the goats arrived in Riverside Park. But boy, have they been hungry.

Dan Garodnick, the president and chief executive officer of the Riverside Park Conservancy, said the goats have done what was expected and more.

On May 21, the Riverside Park Conservancy welcomed a herd of 24 goats from Rhinebeck, who are assisting to remove invasive species from a two-acre area of Riverside Park’s woodland. This is part of the conservancy’s ongoing woodland restoration — a chemical-free method of controlling the growth of detrimental species and supporting the ecological health of the park.

The goats are from Green Goats in Rhinebeck.

“The goat project has been a tremendous success,” Garodnick told the West Side Spirit. “We are so encouraged by the progress that they’ve made in clearing invasive plants. You can now stand at the top and see all the way down the site to the tennis courts. Something you could not have done three weeks ago.”

Garodnick stressed that the goats have not only impacted the park environmentally, but have also created quite a stir in the community. More than 1,000 people came to the park when they arrived, including children and elected officials. Since then, numerous people have visited the goats, ranging from kids to adults.

According to Garodnick, the plan is to have the goats in the park for a

month and then four to six of them will stay for the remainder of the summer. He noted that the goats will be fenced in and people are welcome to look at, but not touch them.

He explained with the end of June around the corner, residents will decide which goats stay and go home by voting on the conservancy’s website.

“New Yorkers have really taken to them,” he said. “It has exceeded expectations because not only have the goats done an incredible job, but we have used it as a tool to educate people about the

Skittles. Photo courtesy of Riverside Park Conservancy

NORTHERN MANHATTAN STUDY OF METABOLISM AND MIND

NOMEM The purpose of NOMEM is to learn more about how blood sugar and other factors relate to the brain and mental abilities of persons living in Northern Manhattan. We are seeking your help to conduct this study.

You are eligible to participate if you: x Live in Manhattan or the Bronx x Are between 60 and 69 years of age x Are able to do an MRI and a PET scan of the brain Participation will include these activities: 1. Questionnaires 2. Blood tests 3. A brain MRI 4. A brain PET scan with contrast We will compensate your time for participating in these 4 activities with $350. We will also give you the results of important blood tests.

PLEASE CONTACT US @ 212-305-4126, 646-737-4370, LS960@CUMC.COLUMBIA.EDU

work of the Conservancy and a nontoxic way to control invasive plants.”

Garodnick said the goats will benefit the park and be a really cool thing for people to see. He explained that while this will be the first time goats will be in a Manhattan park, it has been done before in New York.

“Goats being invited to help with horticultural care is not novel,” Garodnick said.

About a year ago the conservancy’s horticultural team was figuring out the best way to attack the woodland area and it was concluded that goats were the best option. Garodnick noted that goats can consume 25 percent of their body weight in vegetation in a day and their fecal matter provides nutrients for the soil.

Garodnick explained that the woodland area, which spans from 119th Street to 123rd Street (nicknamed “GOaTHAM” by the Conservancy), is filled with mugwort, poison ivy and many other hazardous specimens.

“Our gardeners can’t access the area in the way we want to because it has steep slopes and the invasives themselves like poison ivy are not

friendly to humans,” Garodnick said. “Putting the goats to work in GOaTHAM is like taking them to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It’s good for us and it’s good for the goats.”

Once the goats make the land usable, Garodnick said the goal is to put more canopy trees there and replace the invasive specimens with more native ones.

Garodnick told the West Side Spirit that this is also an educational opportunity. The conservancy will provide free public programming about the goats and it has formed a partnership with the engineering and earth science department at Columbia University, where they will use sensors to study the nutrients and health of the soil while the goats are in the park.

“The public education is an important part of all of this,” he stressed.

“We want to educate kids and park users about forest management and about how goats are chemicalfree and a sustainable way of killing weeds. It’s the ultimate farm to table and we want to celebrate this moment.”

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? Email us at NEWS@STRAUSNEWS.COM Met Council is accepting applications for the waiting list of affordable housing rental apartments in our building located at 231 East 77th Street, NY. For one person households, applicants must be 62 years old at the time of application; for two person households, the applicant must be 62 and the co-applicant 55 at the time of application.

Current Rent Range studio: $1049.56 - $1437 Income Range: $44,262.40 - $59,760 (1 person household) Current Range 1 bedroom: $1076.77 - $1542 Income Range: $45,430.80 - $59,760 (1 person household) $45,430.80 - $68,320 (2 person household)

More neighborhood news? neighborhood milestones? neighborhood events? neighborhood celebrations? neighborhood opinions? neighborhood ideas? neighborhood feedback? neighborhood concerns?

Monthly rent includes heat, hot water and gas for cooking. Seniors will be required to meet income guidelines and additional selection criteria to qualify. Income guidelines are subject to change. One application per household.

Applications may be downloaded from: www.metcouncil.org/housing or requested by mail from Met Council: East 77th Street Residence 77 Water Street, 7th floor New York, NY 10005 Please include a self-addressed envelope.

No broker or application fee.

Email us at news@strausnews.com

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

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3

CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG STATS FOR THE WEEK

2019 2018

% Change

2019

2018

% Change

Murder

0

0

n/a

1

1

0.0

Rape

0

0

n/a

6

13

-53.8

your watch and your shoes!” The man started to walk away when one of the teens allegedly opened the victim’s backpack and took a portable phone charger and some shorts before fleeing south on Broadway. The stolen items included a pair of H&M shorts valued at $20 and a cellphone charger worth $80, making a total stolen of $100.

Robbery

4

2

100.0

30

33

-9.1

T-SHIRT TUSSLE

Felony Assault

0

1

-100.0

42

27

55.6

Burglary

1

3

-66.7

59

31

90.3

Grand Larceny

21

27

-22.2

421

458 -8.1

Grand Larceny Auto

0

1

-100.0

9

10

According to a police report, at 4:09 p.m. on Tuesday, June 11, a male employee in the Urban Outfitters store at 182 Broadway saw five men enter the store and, working together, remove items from a display shelf and conceal them in their bags and backpacks. When the employee confronted the men, police said, they pushed him, causing a scratch to the employee’s chin. While attempting to flee, one of the suspects was also said to have struck a 22-year-old female employee on the left side of her face. The suspects then fled north on Broadway. The two victims refused medical attention. The items stolen included five FILA T-shirts valued at $180, four Stussy T-shirts amounting to $144, a Kappa sling bag priced at $45 and eight more Stussy T-shirts worth $288, making a total stolen of $657.

Reported crimes from the 1st precinct for the week ending June 16 Week to Date

STRANGER ENCOUNTER At 3:03 a.m. on Thursday, June 13, a 29-year-old woman was speaking to a stranger in front of 324 Pearl St. when the person grabbed her cell phone and bag from her hand and fled, police said. The victim caught up with the suspect on Dover St. During a struggle, police said, the suspect bit the woman on the wrist before sitting on her and hitting her on the back of her head several times with a closed fist. The assailant then fled east on Dover, then left onto South St., heading toward the Smith Houses. Police searched

Year to Date

-10.0

the neighborhood but did not find the assailant. The items stolen included an Android cell phone, a New York State driver’s license, various coins, makeup and a Barnes & Noble bag, all of unstated values.

BROADWAY MUGGING A teenager was mugged by a gang of younger teens, police said. At 3:35 p.m. on Thursday, June 13, a 19-year-old man was walking in front of the Chase Bank at 222 Broadway when five male teens approached him. According to police, one of them displayed a knife and said, “Give me

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A $3,000 BOWLING BAG? A bowler struck out when trying to retrieve his expensive bowling bag and laptop. At 6:15 p.m. on Wednesday, June 12, a 32-year-old man was attending an event inside the Arlo SoHo Hotel at 231 Hudson St. He placed his bowling bag under a hightop table next to the bar on the rooftop

and forgot to take it with him when he left the location. He later called the hotel and was told the bag was not where he said he had left it and no bag had been turned in. The stolen property included a Burberry men’s bowling bag valued at $3,000 and an Apple MacBook Air priced at $2,000, making a total stolen of $5,000.

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SPEED CAMERAS ARE

WORKING LONGER HOURS! To save lives, New York City is expanding its use of speed cameras.

On July 11th, the City will start issuing speed camera violations from 6 AM – 10 PM, Monday through Friday, year round. The City will operate speed cameras in 750 school speed zones. Expanding the speed camera law is one aspect of the City’s comprehensive plan to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. Learn more at nyc.gov/visionzero.

®

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JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

DAVID FRANCE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 liberation movement before and after Stonewall.

In the Wake of the Uprising France moved to New York in June 1981, after graduating from college.

“Immediately,” he said, “like the next day, to come and find a gay community.” He got involved with the Pride march committee and landed a job at the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, which was founded in 1967 by Craig Rodwell. “I got a job working for Craig at the bookstore, which every gay activist dreamed of doing because that was the nerve center for so much of the political activity that happened in the movement.”

As France sees it, there were two major developments in the years after Stonewall (aka the 1970s).

One was the creation of the “structural foundation” for the modern movement — the building of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) and the diversification of the political movement. “And the second thing,” he said, “was building a kind of culture of liberation, which isn’t the same thing as liberation, but it is a kind of a modeling of it ... What was happening was this experimentation with liberty. And that looked like parties, it looked like gatherings, it looked like dance clubs, it looked like a lot of sexual expression.”

For all that, France notes, the 70s were hardly the glory days of LGBTQ life that some people might imagine.

“There certainly were no laws protecting LGBTQ people in New York,” he said. “It was more likely than not that you would get fired from your job if anybody found out you were gay. And there was the rise of a reactionary anti-gay violence, which took hold immediately after 1969.”

David France, center, in the 1983 Pride march. Photo: Nelson Sullivan

a queer consciousness of any sort, got up and soon as they could and moved.” They created queer ghettoes in New York, San Francisco and cities around the world, France explained, and joined the great, gay experiment that was taking place.

AIDS Arrives Imagining Freedom France has spent years researching Marsha Johnson’s life and studying her impact on LGBTQ life.

While she was one of the principals in building post-Stonewall political organizations, he said, “the role that she played, more than anything, was to imagine what freedom was like.

Freedom from all constraint, freedom from prejudice and expectation. She found a kind of revolutionary joy in queer life, and exercised that in a very strategic and political way. ‘This is what it’s going to be like. We will not have to conform in any way whatsoever.’”

The Stonewall Uprising kicked off what France describes as the largest migration of LGBTQ people the world has ever known. “Huge numbers of people, everybody who had

“That’s why it was such a perfect environment for the arrival of a new retrovirus,” he said. “Very closed communities, all within certain geographical boundaries, all right on top of one another, all involved in the same exercise, which was radical sexual display. And boom.”

It was almost exactly 12 years between Stonewall in June 1969 and the first public reports of AIDS cases, in early July 1981. The disease changed everything. “It just became so urgent that there was no room anymore for infighting,” said France. “And it drew people with more strategic thinking about politics into the movement. It expanded the size of the community tremendously, because it rendered the closets transparent, so people were no longer coming out, they

were just out and there was nothing they could do about it. There were a lot people joining the anti-AIDS movement who had real organizing talent. And that’s when we started getting traction.”

In France’s analysis, the crisis was driven by the more common disease of inhumanity. “The reason that AIDS went from a small cluster of infected individuals to a raging global pandemic was because nobody considered the people who were suffering from AIDS as having basic human rights,” he said. “So what the movement really did initially was to argue for and to establish the humanity of gay people. And it sounds so stark to say it like that, and almost unbelievable, but that’s exactly where we were.” Among the offenses he listed — hospitals were turning away sick people, doctors were saying in surveys that they would not touch an AIDS patient and the ant-gay violence of the 70s surged to new levels in the 80s.

nities to abandon the strategy of isolation that had helped them thrive in the 70s. “[Those years were] about building these ghettoes that were facsimiles of freedom and acceptance, and making them very rich and culturally outré and very productive for arts and thinking and writing. But it was all really about creating a separate space… a parallel universe. We just started doing everything for ourselves.”

When AIDS hit, France said, they tried to do the same thing. They set up their own parallel pharmacists and buyers clubs, peer-review medical journals and drug-trial networks. “And it just became really obvious after a while that there was no way we could do this ourselves.

And these walls around our ghetto that we had built so meticulously over the years, we had to start dismantling. And we had to go back to America and say ‘Look, we need those institutions that are supposed to be responding to these things to actually respond to these things.’”

A New Era, Born of Necessity Ultimately, the AIDS epidemic forced post-Stonewall gay commu-

Clues and Messages With the 50th anniversary of

Stonewall just days away, France shared one final memory from his college days, when, he said, “I felt like I was the only gay person alive.”

One day in the winter of 1979 he noticed that all the parking meters had little stickers on them, on the bottom of the post. “And I got down on my knees to read the writing, and each one was handwritten. They were notices about the national gay march, which had already taken place. And I point this out because that’s the way secrets were passed back then. People left little messages, they dropped clues. That’s the way you found life, and that’s the way you found your community. You really had to keep your eyes open for little symbols that would suggest that larger things were happening.

“That was such a key moment for me, to try to picture somebody writing all those things and putting them there for me to find them. It kind of launched my journey to try to find the community and find the center of things, and that’s what brought me to New York.”

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

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MALONEY’S ‘FASHION WITH A PURPOSE’ HEROES ACT The New York congresswoman has been wearing a custom FDNY jacket in support of the bill to aid 9/11 first responders

BY EMA SCHUMER

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has added a new statement piece to her wardrobe, courtesy of the New York City Fire Department.

The Democrat from the 12th Congressional District has been spotted in photographs wearing an oversized, custom FDNY jacket. On the first Monday in May, she wore it over her bright yellow ball gown at the Met Gala. The next month, she wore it to the ribbon cutting of the renovation of an Upper East Side neighborhood center. And in the nation’s capital, the congresswoman wore the jacket in the audience of comedian and New Yorker Jon Stewart’s impassioned testimony before the House Judiciary Committee advocating for the first responders of 9/11.

Our Town communicated with the congresswoman in an email interview to learn the story behind this jacket, which has piqued the curiosity of many New Yorkers.

This past February, the FDNY gifted the “heroes’ coat” to Maloney as she introduced the Never Forget the Heroes Act — a bill that, if passed, would grant new appropriations to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which provides financial assistance to individuals who suffer from health problems stemming from the 9/11 attacks.

On that day, Maloney vowed to not take the coat off until the bill was passed.

Although the black jacket appears several sizes too large for the congresswoman, it is customized just for her. “CAROLYN” is written above the right front pocket and “CONGRESSWOMAN MALONEY” is emblazoned in neon yellow along the back.

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney at a ribbon-cutting at the Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center, with Council Member Ben Kallos and Gregory J. Morris, the center’s president and executive director. Photo courtesy of Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center

“Fashion with a purpose,” Maloney coined the look. “It helps to raise awareness about the bill and the need to pass it,” the congresswoman added.

When the cameras aren’t looking, Maloney said she still wears the jacket, walking around the streets of New York City or grabbing a cup of coffee.

“It is a great way to start conversations about the bill and has led to other Members signing as a cosponsors,” she wrote.

On June 11, Maloney sat in the audience wearing her

FDNY jacket as Stewart testified before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington in support of the bill. The following day, the committee voted unanimously to pass the Never Forget the Heroes Act. On its path to become law, the bill heads to the House next for a vote.

“I feel so proud to stand with these men and women in the fight for their healthcare and compensation and you can bet I’ll keep wearing the coat even after we pass the bill,” Maloney wrote.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney with firefighters. Photo courtesy of Office of Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

COMMUNITY Actor Alec Baldwin moderates panel on the future of Greenwich Village as the neighborhood continues to face gentrification

‘WHITHER THE VILLAGE?’

BY JADEN SATENSTEIN

Greenwich Village has long been celebrated as a hub of New York City arts, culture and activism. Home to the Stonewall Inn, the neighborhood has played a large role in the fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ people. It is also the place where many musicians, writers and other artists got their start, going on to revolutionize the New York City arts scene.

Many residents now fear that the neighborhood has changed.

No longer affordable for the struggling bohemians and starving artists that once made it famous, the Village has seen an influx of highrise developments and a decrease in small businesses. This transformation poses the question: How can the Village maintain its original magic as it continues to gentrify?

Alec Baldwin (center), with Andrew Berman and Donna Schaper: “Get the whining out of the way first.” Photo: Jaden Satenstein

Opening the Conversation Members of the Village community discussed just that during a panel called “Whither the Village?” at Judson Memorial Church on Thursday, June 20. Moderated by actor and Village resident Alec Baldwin, the panel featured Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Andrew Berman, Dean of the New York University Tisch School of the Arts Allyson Green and Judson Memorial Church Senior Minister Donna Schaper.

Baldwin is a strong supporter of Judson Memorial Church, a beloved institution due to its mission of community outreach and progressivism.

“Judson, long before even Stonewall, was the home for many, many gay people,” Schaper said to Our Town Downtown before the event.

“The congregation is mostly gay, increasingly trans ... Our theology and our practice really says, ‘What’s the big deal how you express yourself sexually?’”

Schaper said that the panel, which raised money for the church through its $20 ticket fee, was Baldwin’s idea.

“It came about because Alec and I were becoming friends,” Schaper said. “I was approaching him about supporting Judson. And he said, you know, ‘I just want to hang out.’ So he’s been coming by and meeting everybody and I said, ‘What would you really love to do for us, because we need all the help we can get,’ and he said, ‘Why don’t I organize a panel?

And let’s do something that’s kind of a thought piece about the Village

and where you all fit in and what’s going on.’”

The Cost of High Costs Baldwin began the discussion by telling the panelists to “Get the whining out of the way first” and express what they see as the challenges currently facing the area.

“A lot of my younger friends, people who are younger than me, they talk about Manhattan like it’s Beverly Hills. ‘It’s all rich, old people in Manhattan,’” Baldwin said, “The needs of the real estate market, the needs of businesses as fueled by investment banking, the needs of municipal unions ... politicians to hold on to their power, both in City Hall and in Albany, these are the things that are the rarely unseen hand that

controls the life of New York.”

Panelists echoed Balwin’s sentiments, noting how the high rents in the Village have caused many of its best community spaces to get pushed out, such as small bookstores and artist lofts.

Is NYU to Blame?

One of the most controversial elements of the debate surrounding Village gentrification is the ever-expanding New York University campus, which many argue has caused the cost of the neighborhood to skyrocket and thus drive out lower to middle income residents.

“The biggest problem is NYU, and the biggest asset is NYU,” Schaper said before the event. “NYU does bring cultural and racial diversity

“We can work in unison”: at the reception after the panel. Photo: Jaden Satenstein

that is wonderful. And they also bring a kind of economic upgrade.

You know, they buy all the apartments, and so we don’t have the kind of economic diversity that we used to have. And whether that is crucial to being the avant-garde place that we have been is a good question. I wouldn’t know. But that’s going to be the question. And what, if anything, can NYU do about economic diversity at this late state in their lives?”

Many longtime Village residents consider NYU to be, as Baldwin jokingly called it earlier in the panel, the “colossus” of the Village, especially since the University announced its 2031 expansion plan, which includes the $1.285 billion 181 Mercer Street Project.

Green, who sat on NYU’s University Space Priorities Working Group when she joined the University faculty in 2012, expressed her belief that the University’s presence has actually protected the Village from even larger transformations.

“When I was on that contentious committee, I was always reflecting upon the sense of the argument that the neighborhood would have somehow stayed the same if NYU had not been here,” Green said. “And it’s my personal feeling that it’s more likely that it would have been an enclave of high rise condos like Midtown and Central Park. I think about, actually, the value of what NYU has brought to staying in the neighborhood.”

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019 Finding Solutions After identifying the positive and negative aspects of the Village’s recent challenges, panelists began to propose possible solutions. One hope for the neighborhood that all the panelists shared was for it to become more pedestrian-friendly, discussing the idea of closing University Place to cars.

Berman noted that in order for the street closure to be successful, its intended use — whether it be for pedestrians, NYU, corporations or public programming — would have to be determined in advance.

“Pedestrianizing more spaces ... is a good thing,” Berman said. “That said, as with any of this, the devil is in the details. Often times when these kinds of spaces are closed down they can sometimes end up getting kind of privatized.”

Although the panelists identified the decline of small, local businesses as a large problem facing the neighborhood, Baldwin proposed a way to take advantage of the growing online shopping industry driving shops out of business: Turning former retail spaces into affordable housing.

“The demand for this retail space is not going to come back because of the online community. Why don’t we start to make some of these buildings into affordable housing?” Baldwin said. “To me, the Village is about open-mindedness. I don’t want to say they’re more humane here than they are uptown, but they’re willing to be more understanding about these conditions, and therefore this is the place where we need to have more affordable housing built in the city.”

Continuing the Fight A reception in the church’s gym followed the panel, during which attendees expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to initiate a discussion on this topic. To lifelong Village resident Susan Meyer, the event was a great way to bring the community together and fight for the place they call home.

“I was born in the Village, I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve never lived north of 14th street,” Meyer said. “And I’ve seen it change, I’ve seen it fall more and more into the hands of big developers who couldn’t care less about what the future of the Village is. So these kinds of forums where we put ideas ... together, where we can create many organizations, we can create various ways where we can work in unison, we might be able to, at least, elect people who will support us, and we don’t have that now.”

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

9

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

HEALTHY KIDNEYS, ALL SUMMER LONG HEALTH Hot weather and dehydration can pose a real threat to these vital organs

BY JOSHUA REIN, DO

Sunburn and sunstroke are often what people fear when a heat wave is coming.

But when the temperatures soar, so does the risk for your kidneys. Recurrent heat exposure and inadequate hydration strains the kidneys, especially if there’s a pre-existing kidney condition. And frequent dehydration, even if it’s mild, may lead to kidney damage.

Research published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology suggests that the increase in heat waves due to climate change may be associated with the rise in kidney diseases detected in outdoor workers subjected to longer hours and days of heat and dehydration.

Here’s what you need to know to give your kidneys the extra care they need as summer arrives.

The Dangers of Dehydration The kidneys cleanse our blood and maintain the normal balance of salt and water. The kidneys conserve water during dehydration, and excrete excess water when sufficiently hydrated.

During dehydration, blood flow declines and is only restored when the body has consumed plentiful amounts of water. However, kidney damage, sometimes permanent, may result from prolonged dehydration.

Heat stress nephropathy is now recognized as a cause of the chronic kidney disease that is seen globally among manual workers in sweltering climates associated with repeated episodes of dehydration. Additionally, summer weather is associated with an increased risk

of developing kidney stones, which can cause severe pain and urinary obstruction.

Adequate hydration prevents kidney stones.

Recognizing the Symptoms The first symptom of dehydration is thirst, which should never be ignored.

The brain activates the sensation of thirst and signals the kidneys to retain water upon the slightest detection of dehydration. Urine becomes concentrated and appears dark yellow or amber in color. Decreased urination throughout the day is also a sign of dehydration. Proper hydration quenches thirst and triggers the kidney to remove excess water, making urine appear clear to pale yellow. However, sugarsweetened beverages for hydration should be avoided, as they may increase the risk for developing kidney damage, and regular consumption of these drinks is a risk factor for developing chronic kidney disease.

Tea colored urine may be indicative of kidney damage from profound dehydration.

Other signs and symptoms of dehydration include increased heart rate or lightheadedness upon standing from a seated position. Loss of consciousness may occur if symptoms are not recognized and dehydration is not treated promptly.

Facts About Chronic Kidney Disease Chronic kidney disease, a long-term complication of recurrent dehydration, is usually diagnosed with a blood and/or urine test, since it’s symptoms are not readily distinguished from the symptoms of simple dehydration.

Among those at greatest risk are people who work outside and have limited access to water for extended periods of time. And those living with diabetes are at even higher risk.

Alcohol must be avoided

to quench thirst, as it blocks the kidneys from retaining water. Over-the-counter NSAIDs such as ibuprofen and naproxen are also prohibited during dehydration, as they can cause further kidney injury. Certain blood pressure medications, such as diuretics, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors) and angiotensin II receptor blockers increase the risk of kidney injury in the setting of dehydration.

In some cases, use of these medications may need to be adjusted during the summer, as directed by a nephrologist (kidney specialist).

Treatment of chronic kidney disease includes dietary and lifestyle modification, vitamins, minerals, and medications, which may stabilize kidney function or slow down the progressive decline in kidney function over time.

Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy Thirst indicates dehydration, so prolonged thirst should be avoided. Water is the best choice for hydration and it is vital to consume enough until thirst is quenched. Increasing daily fluid intake above what the thirst sensation tells you does not offer any additional benefits. Most dehydration can be treated with increased oral fluid intake, but severe cases, especially those associated with strenuous exercise, raise the risk of kidney failure and require intravenous fluids in an emergency room.

So this summer, while you slather on the sunscreen, also try to keep your kidney health in mind. Of course, if you think you may have a problem, nephrologists, trained to diagnose and treat kidney disease, blood pressure, and electrolyte disorders, are here to help you.

Joshua Rein, DO, is an instructor of medicine (nephrology) at The Mount Sinai Hospital.

Prolonged dehydration can cause kidney damage, so thirst should never be ignored. Photo: Emilian Robert Vicol via Flickr

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

ACTIVITIES FOR THE FERTILE MIND

thoughtgallery.org NEW YORK CITY

Under the Bridge: Rebecca Godfrey with Mary Gaitskill

Calendar NYCNOW

SUNDAY, JUNE 30TH, 6PM McNally Jackson | 52 Prince St. | 212-274-1160 | mcnallyjackson.com On the occasion of a new edition of her true-crime account Under the Bridge, author Rebecca Godfrey talks about circumstances that led to seven teenage girls (and one boy) being accused of a savage murder in 1997 in British Columbia (free).

Midnight Society

Discover the world around the corner. Find community events, gallery openings, book launches and much more: Go to nycnow.com

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TUESDAY, JULY 2ND, 9PM Caveat | 21 Clinton St. | 212-228-2100 | caveat.nyc Join a lineup of storytellers as they relate scary stories that have haunted us for generations and the psychology behind them. (The reasons we invent supernatural stories can be more terrifying than the stories themselves.) This month’s theme is “urban legends” ($15 advance, $20 door).

Just Announced | Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in Conversation with Ben Mezrich: Cryptocurrency and the Future of Money

TUESDAY, JULY 9TH, 7:30PM 92nd Street Y | 1395 Lexington Ave. | 212-415-5500 | 92y.org The Winklevoss twins talk about their foray into the ether, Gemini, and what emoney has to tell us about where capitalism is headed. Ben Mezrich, author of Bitcoin Billionaires, joins ($40).

June 27 - July 15 FAITH AND EMPIRE: ART AND POLITICS IN TIBETAN BUDDHISM The Rubin Museum 150 West 17th St 11:00 a.m. $19 rubinmuseum.org 212-620-5000 This exhibit explores the dynamic historical intersection of politics, religion, and art in Tibetan Buddhism.

For more information about lectures, readings and other intellectually stimulating events throughout NYC,

sign up for the weekly Thought Gallery newsletter at thoughtgallery.org.

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Thu 27 ► WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2019 The Whitney 99 Gansevoort St 2:00 p.m Free with online registration Join for a free, guided tour of Whitney Biennial 2019, led by a Whitney docent in the galleries on Floor 6. whitney.org 212-570-3600

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Subculture 45 Bleecker St 10:00 p.m $14 Watch as some of the UCBT’s top improvisers interview an audience member about their love life, and then spin their stories of romantic love and loss into comedy gold. subculturenewyork.com 212-533-5470

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

LIVING COLOR A gathering of artists, each with a distinct style, adds up to a radiant exploration of beauty

BY MARY GREGORY

Sometimes, it’s more than enough for an exhibition to offer an extraordinarily beautiful moment. “Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s” at the Whitney does just that as it radiates with color, line, and exuberance. There are plenty of “isms,” history, context, and voices to connect with, but the overall experience is one of exhilarating, ebullient beauty. Culled from the museum’s permanent collections and spaciously arranged, 18 works by 18 artists fill the top floor’s sunny galleries.

Some have been at the museum for decades; some are new acquisitions.

Some are by well known artists; some are by artists who deserve to be better known.

Frankenthaler the Pioneer Perhaps the best way to see the show is to stand in the center of each gallery and just turn in place. The spilling-overness of the colors permeates the spaces and touches the spirit. Then, there’s plenty of time to step up to each work, look carefully, read the label, and let it speak to you.

Helen Frankenthaler’s 1966 “Orange Mood” has a magnetic charge that draws you from across the room.

Frankenthaler, like Jackson Pollock, liberated paintings from the easel, laying canvas on the floor, and then pouring, pulling, puddling and painting with thinned, vibrant acrylics. Rich oceans of lapis create a channel for a rising swell of warm golden oranges. The “mood” was hers when it was made. Now it’s yours for reflection.

Frankenthaler pioneered the use of poured stains and the genre of Color Field Painting, which resisted a central object, seeking instead to create

IF YOU GO WHAT: “Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s” WHERE: Whitney Museum of American Art 99 Gansevoort Street WHEN: Through August 31st Whitney.org (212) 570-3600 works that transcended the limits of the canvas. She influenced Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, both on view here. Noland’s 1967 “New Day” opens the show, and Louis’s rainbow ribboned “Gamma Delta,” from a few years later, faces “Orange Mood.”

An Early Feminist, and Debuts Miriam Shapiro’s lively geometric abstraction, “Jigsaw,” fits pieces of pure color into an almost-square format. An early feminist artist, her later pieces utilized fabrics, referencing quilts and other fiber arts generally thought of as women’s work. She described the colors in “Jigsaw” as “blinding and highkeyed, enough so as to optically distort the form.” Still, it’s not hard to see an abstract figure, a quilt block, and one of the colored wooden puzzles popular in those days in her bright star-shaped pattern.

Stepping away from abstraction, Kay Walking Stick’s “April Contem-

plating May” is from 1972 (just a bit beyond the ‘60s) and it’s making its debut appearance at the museum.

“It’s a picture of two women in a space defined by color. And they are in color ... I was trying to create space primarily through color,” she says in a video that accompanies the exhibition online. Another figurative work appearing for the first time at the Whitney is “Baby” a 1966 painting

by Emma Amos. Supercharged hues in the background blend with dark blue glasses, a cornflower speckled dress and the brown skin of the central figure, turning the portrait to a kaleidoscopic image. The wall text notes that Amos once said, “Every time I think about color it’s a political statement.”

These works express some of the zeitgeist of the 1960s, with countercultural, political, social and technological undercurrents. While distinct voices sing, there’s a harmony with plenty of grace notes coming through. Optical illusion, psychedelic visions, civil rights, feminism, protest, challenge, abstraction,

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

pushing boundaries, and seeking new visual vocabularies are part of the dynamic energy in the exhibition. “It’s kind of a gathering of different artists,” says curator David Breslin, adding “Color is really the animating factor.”

Undercurrents and Harmony Also making a political statement through color is Frank Bowling’s painting, “Dan Johnson’s Surprise.”

Territories, mapping, whitewashing, borders and color are expressed through three floating outlines of South America on a fluid background edged with red, yellow and blue. The title refers to Daniel LaRue Johnson, a mid-century African American artist who studied in Paris, while the shifting, unfocused shapes hint at continents, borders and nations eradicated or altered by colonialism and the slave trade.

Emma Amos’ “Baby” from 1966 is a recent acquisition making its debut appearance in the Whitney’s “Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s.” Photo: Adel Gorgy

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

13

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

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RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS

Dumpling Kingdom

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Grade Pending (14) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution

Mint Masala

95 Macdougal St

Grade Pending (42) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.

Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.

Old Tbilisi

174 Bleecker St

A

The Up & Up

116 Macdougal St

A

No. 142 Bar

142 Sullivan St

A

Jojo’s Philosophy

169 Bleecker St

A

JUNE 12- 18, 2019 The following listings were collected from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s website and include the most recent inspection and grade reports listed. We have included every restaurant listed during this time within the zip codes of our neighborhoods. Some reports list numbers with their explanations; these are the number of violation points a restaurant has received. To see more information on restaurant grades, visit www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/services/restaurant-inspection.shtml.

Bongo

395 West St

A

Houston Hall

222 West Houston St

A

Dean & Deluca

2935 9th Ave

Not Yet Graded (22) Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/sewageassociated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

SOB’s

200 Varick St

A

Morandi

211 Waverly Pl

A

The Dez

227 Mulberry St

A

Julius

159 West 10 St

Grade Pending (19) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, crosscontaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan.

Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.

World’s Best Cookie Dough

164 Bleecker St

A

3 Sheets Saloon

134 West 3rd St

A

Gonzalez Y Gonzalez

192 Mercer St

A

Uncle Boon’s

7 Spring St

A

Cocotte

110 Thompson St

A

Groove

125 Macdougal St

Grade Pending (9) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.

Laduree Soho

398 West Broadway

Grade Pending (37) Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/sewageassociated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies.

Dig Inn / Matchabar

70 Prince St

A

Coco Pazzo Trattoria

160 Prince St

A

Van Leeuwen Ice Cream

61 West Houston St

A

Morini Osteria Romagnola

218 Lafayette St

A

Saigon Shack

114 Macdougal St

A

St Tropez

196 Spring St

Not Yet Graded (35) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.

Food prepared from ingredients at ambient temperature not cooled to 41º F or below within 4 hours Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Plaza Deli

127 John St

Grade Pending (41) Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.

Coco

1 Little West 12th St

Not Yet Graded (15) Food, food preparation area, food storage area, area used by employees or patrons, contaminated by sewage or liquid waste. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Malaparte

753 Washington St

A

Sweetgreen Gansevoort

32 Gansevoort St

A

Fedora

239 West 4th St

A

Fish Restaurant

280 Bleecker St

A

Burrito Loco

166 West 4th St

A

Sant Ambroeus

259 West 4th St

A

Blenheim

283 West 12th St

A

Wilfie & Nell

228 West 4th St

A

Aria

117 Perry St

A

The Black Derby

310 West 4th St

A

Chumley’s

86 Bedford St

A

Roey’s

1 Perry St

A

Avena Downtown

260 6th Ave

A

Tio Pepe

168 West 4th St

A

Terra Blues

149 Bleeker St

A

Vin Et Fleurs

69 Thompson St

Grade Pending (38) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.

Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations.

Appropriately scaled metal stem-type thermometer or thermocouple not provided or used to evaluate temperatures of potentially hazardous foods during cooking, cooling, reheating and holding.

Personal cleanliness inadequate. Outer garment soiled with possible contaminant. Effective hair restraint not worn in an area where food is prepared. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Housing Works Food

126 Crosby St

A

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

TAN FRANCE ON LOVE, FASHION AND POLITICS BOOKS In a Union Square event for his new memoir, the “Queer Eye” star discussed navigating identity, celebrity and more

BY OSCAR KIM BAUMAN

Hundreds of people assembled at the Union Square Barnes and Noble store on June 4 for a talk by and photo-op with Tan France. France, a designer, and the fashion expert on Netflix’s rebooted “Queer Eye” series, was appearing to promote his memoir, “Naturally Tan,” which was released by St. Martin’s Press the following day.

Prior to the event, the anticipation was palpable; the seating was packed over half an hour prior to the scheduled start of 7:00 p.m., and the crowd erupted into cheers as France walked out. He told the audience that the identity of his interviewer for the evening’s talk was a surprise.

The crowd whooped, while France quickly clarified, “It’s not one of the “Queer Eye” boys!”

Instead, the interviewer was France’s husband, Rob France, whom the former identified as “the original France.” The latter was making his first public appearance since his husband’s sudden rise to fame last year.

France explained how the book came to be and said that he initially “didn’t think I had a book in me.”

However, he remembered why his husband initially encouraged him to take his role on “Queer Eye” in the first place: to provide representation for people like him, as he put it, “brown, British and gay.”

Through both “Queer Eye” and his book, France said that he aims to foster “a real sense of connection with people,” even those “who may hate people like me,” and to hopefully change their views. “I talk to people who have strange views on people like me. I want them to see me and realize ‘maybe my ideas are misinformed,’ he explained.

The talk then turned to the topic which begins the book: France’s youth. The child of Pakistani immigrants, he was born and raised

in Doncaster, a town in northern England. France explained that despite less accepting views within his family and society at large, he “always knew I was going to marry a man.”

Despite this self-awareness of his sexuality, he made the choice to hide it from the world. Growing up in an overwhelmingly white town under the constant threat of racist violence, he “didn’t have room to worry about being beaten for being gay too.”

France explained, somberly, that “It took a long time to get out of that cycle and trust Caucasians when all you’ve known is violence.” Lightening the mood, he then joked, “I married a white man! I turned it all around.”

He advised the audience to “find a community that’s going to love you for everything you are,” pointing out that through social media “you have a community at your fingertips,” something which was not accessible during his pre-Internet small-town childhood.

Photo: Oscar Kim Bauman

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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Free help signing up for low- or no-cost health insurance, regardless of immigration status • Call 311 • Text CoveredNYC to 877877 • Visit nyc.gov/health and search health insurance Message and data rates may apply. Text STOP to quit, HELP for more information. For Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, visit nyc.gov/health

Health

Bill de Blasio Mayor Oxiris Barbot, MD Commissioner

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JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

Business

FABSCRAP IS GREEN AND GREAT ENVIRONMENT Recycling has never been more creative, or glamorous

BY DIANA DUCROZ

Shoppers at The FABSCRAP Shop, a sleek new storefront at 110 West 26th St., are not just finding bargains, they are helping to save the planet.

Bolts of high-quality fabric line the walls above bins filled with fabric scraps arranged by color. Designer fabrics sell here for as little as $5 per yard. “You would never know that all of this was supposed to be on the curb and going to be buried somewhere in a landfill. It’s really beauti-

ful stuff,” Jessica Schreiber, executive director of FABSCRAP, said of the shop’s carefully curated stock.

The nonprofit Schreiber founded three years ago collects, sorts, and redistributes leftover fabric from local fashion houses, interior design businesses and theater costume departments.

Don’t Waste It, Wear It Following a pilot series of pop-up shops around the city last year, FABSCRAP opened its first permanent retail outlet on June 1 on West 26th Street, close to the fashion students who make up such a large part of its customer base.

In her previous job at NYC’s Department of Sanitation, Schreiber often heard from commercial de-

The rainbow dress was created by a member of the FABSCRAP staff. Photo: Diana Ducroz

signers asking for alternatives to leaving their excess fabric out for trash pickup. Although a reuse stream had developed for used clothing, no such infrastructure existed for the raw material, especially in such large quantities.

For a year, Schreiber thought about possible solutions, telling only a couple of people about her idea for a textile pickup service. But then one of them nominated her in 2016 for “Project Runway Fashion Startup,” a one-season spinoff of the hit reality show, and everything changed.

“The most terrifying leap was when I pitched the idea, and then past that, nothing else has seemed as scary,” Schreiber said.

Her pitch to the show’s panel was successful, earning her the seed money to start FABSCRAP in September 2016.

Jessica Schreiber, right, and Camille Tagle at the FABSCRAP ribbon cuttting.

Photo: Courtesy of FABSCRAP

Tons of Good Deeds Since then, the organization has salvaged over 350 thousand pounds of raw fabric otherwise destined for the landfill or incinerator, at a rate of 5,000 pounds each week. The material is housed and sorted in FABSCRAP’s warehouse at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Roughly sixty percent of the stock is then made available to the public for purchase at a bargain price or donated to other organizations. The remainder is shredded and recycled as insulation, carpet padding, moving blankets and mattress stuffing.

Only a tiny fraction cannot be recycled and will end up in the landfill.

Perhaps the most creative repurposing of the scraps is to fill punching bags at local boxing gyms, Schreiber said.

FABSCRAP has grown faster than Schreiber anticipated, and now employs five full-time and two parttime staff. The organization is selfsustaining through service fees paid by the donor businesses, along with the proceeds from fabric resale.

The organization also relies heavily on volunteer help to sort the loads of incoming fabric. In exchange for a three-hour shift, volunteers may choose five pounds of free fabric from the warehouse inventory or five yards from the more select retail stock. Fashion students in particular have been attracted to FABSCRAP, both as volunteers and customers. The fabric stock is “pretty high-quality stuff, but it’s low quantities. It’s affordable,” Schreiber said.

FABSCRAP’s customers also include a diverse demographic of “emerging designers, home sewers, quilters, crafters, artists, a lot of people who just really care about the sustainable sourcing in their work or in their creations,” Schreiber said.

A Business Built On Scraps Designer Daniel Silverstein is not part of the FABSCRAP staff, but jokes that he’s “FAB-adjacent.” Over the last decade, Silverstein has established a clothing design business built on scraps. “I started literally with my own scraps,” Silverstein said. “One day I made myself a shirt out of scraps and my business took off from there.”

It’s fitting then that his company, Zero Waste Daniel, is the first featured designer pop-up shop in FABSCRAP’s new location.

“Daniel is a great example of utilizing the small pieces to make something that’s totally wearable and usable,” Schreiber said. “What ‘reusable’ is is really just dependent on the person’s creativity.”

“As a designer, sourcing materials is a huge job,” Silverstein said. The abundant, affordable and consistent supply, as well as diverse textures and colors, now available through FABSCRAP “eliminated a huge amount of headache and stress for me,” and has allowed Silverstein to expand his production.

The ‘zero waste’ aspect of his designs is a great selling point. To stand out as a designer in a crowded field, “you have to have something original to say,” Silverstein said.

“About 100 percent of the growth of my business and my brand has been organic because people are really genuinely interested and fascinated by this issue, and I think the same is really true of FABSCRAP.”

The Future is Bright FABSCRAP is evolving into more than just a textile recycling business. In coming months, the store plans to hold educational and social events at their new location where the public can learn about topics such as sustainability or hear local designers speak about their work.

Down the road, Schreiber hopes to expand FABSCRAP’s business model to other cities that have a similar nexus of manufacturing, designers, makers, and shredding capacity.

FABSCRAP’s active social media presence is further nurturing a budding community of makers who share ideas and information. It’s a place where people “can share what they’re doing and what their skill or their technique is,” Silverstein said.

“As much as it is a place where I’m getting news about the business, I’m also getting linked to other people who are inspiring me.”

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Real Estate Sales

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JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

POLITICS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

TAN FRANCE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

They all come through Manhattan because this is where the candidates get their money. They think New York City streets are paved with gold and they want to get as much as they can.

Political consultant George Arzt

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Photo: Gage Skidmore, via flickr

Harris is a solid third in the statewide money chase at $914,841, with the rest of the major candidates fighting it out in the second tier: Sen. Amy Klobuchar collected $486,657; Pete Buttigieg $392,596; Beto O’Rourke $317,815; Bernie Sanders $292,656; and Sen. Elizabeth Warren took in $225,179.

The largest chunks of the Manhattan money came from zip codes 10023 and 10024 on the Upper West Side, 10021 and 10028 on the Upper East Side, 10011 and 10019 in Chelsea and Clinton and 10013 in Greenwich Village/Soho. per East Side traditionally are the top areas,” Skurnik said. “It appears from this data that Upper East Side donors are holding back. I suspect future filings will show them getting involved and giving to Biden and Gillibrand.”

“I’ve noticed ... that New Yorkers who usually get involved in Presidential campaigns early have been holding back,” Skurnik added. “At this point in past campaigns, many more rich New Yorkers were on finance committees and many more elected officials had endorsed candidates.”

There haven’t been many early endorsements, but Sanders reportedly has won the support of State Sens.

Julia Salazar and James Sanders, Assemblymember Ron Kim and City Council member Rafael Espinal. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Rep.

Tom Suozzi have endorsed Biden; former New York City Council member Ronnie Eldridge is supporting Buttigieg; Rep. Carolyn Maloney is baking Gillibrand; and Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte is for de Blasio.

July Filings Will Shake Up the Race But let’s get back to those early money totals and break them down a little further.

Booker’s leading donations were $82,729 from 10023; $77,848 from zip code 10024 and $63,917 from zip code 10011. Gillibrand took in $80,607 from zip code 10024; $74,958 from zip code 10021 and $67,100 from zip code 10011.

Harris also did well in 10023, raking in $62,129; she brought in $56,446 from zip code 10011 and $53,275 from 10019. Klobu-

char raised $$48,300 from 10024, $33,500 from 10023 and $32,400 from 10003.

O’Rourke garnered $24,207 in 10013, $21,495 in 10024 and $19,100 in 10011.

Sanders pulled in $9414 from 10025, $9,285 from 10010 and $8,171 from 10012.

Warren collected $21,623 from 10011, $11,616 from 10023 and $11,325 from the 10013 zip code.

Arzt said the second quarter filings, to be released July 15, will shake up the Manhattan money race.

He predicts that Biden will “pick up a lot of money.”

Arzt said some of the likely also-rans won’t do as well: “People are reluctant to give money to candidates who haven’t gained any traction.”

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO LOOK INTO? Email us at NEWS@STRAUSNEWS.COM

Tan France (left) and husband Rob France at the book talk. Photo: Oscar Kim Bauman

While France maintained that the overall tone of his memoir is light and humorous, the interview took a dark turn as he brought up his book’s chapter on the September 11, 2001 attacks.

When visiting the United States in the nearly two decades since the attacks, “24 times,” he sawwid “I was detained by Customs for several hours, asked the same questions,” even as a teenager in the early 2000s.

France emphasized that while honoring the memory of those killed on 9/11 is important, memory cannot be used to justify the racial profiling of all Middle Eastern, South Asian and Muslim people. The longer the paranoid atmosphere fostered by

the war on terror continues, France said, “the longer my people are treated as terrorists.”

Speaking to the audience, but also seemingly to America as a whole, “the people you’re afraid of are the same people we’re afraid of” — that rather than being a potential terrorist, people like himself are also potential targets.

Shifting topics, France then recounted the story of how he met his husband. France was on vacation in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he wanted to experience the city’s dating scene.

Though he wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship, he realized his connection with the man who would be his husband on their second date.

At the end of his talk, France

told the audience to “brace yourself” for the upcoming return of “Queer Eye,” which was filmed in Japan.

The formerly New York Citybased show has since gone worldwide, and shifted filming to different regions of the United States — Georgia, Kansas, and Missouri were the settings of the first three seasons.

Despite this expansion, from France’s choice to kick off his book tour with backto-back stops at the Union Square Barnes and Noble and the 92nd Street Y, to fellow “Fab Five” member Antoni Porowski’s opening of the Village Den restaurant in Greenwich Village last fall, “Queer Eye” remains connected to its New York roots.

More neighborhood news? neighborhood celebrations? neighborhood opinions? neighborhood ideas? neighborhood feedback? neighborhood concerns?

Email us at news@strausnews.com

JUNE 27-JULY 3,2019

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Gay Love. Photo: Mark Ivins

Lesbian Herstory, 1980. Photo: Mark Ivins

ONCE UPON A TIME IN NEW YORK A local photographer captured a microcosm of Greenwich Village gay life in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s

BY MARK IVINS

I was a “Village kid” growing up, it was my neighborhood. I started photographing there when I was 12.

I was 13 when the Stonewall riots happened. After college I worked a summer at a downtown newspaper.

Fred W. McDarrah, the legendary Village Voice photo editor and photographer, called me one day. “Mark, it’s Fred, from the Voice, quit screwing around downtown and come

Morton Street Pier, 1978. Photo: Mark Ivins

work for me here.” Most of these photographs were taken on assignment for him, and The Village Voice These photos were taken between 1977 and 1982. That was an evolutionary time in New York City. People were finding their way with the new freedom.

The Village was a sanctuary for everybody during the day — gay, straight, whatever. It didn’t matter.

It was relaxed. At night, a different scene dominated, looking for anonymous sex was the game.

I always shoot “straight-up, no chaser.” This is what it was like

when I was there, it was weird, beautiful, disturbing, funny. Draw your own conclusions.

It was also dangerous, I always felt that I was in peril, but then I had a camera. Once, while photographing in the abandoned, derelict piers where cruising took place, I was advised by a large body-builder type guy in leather that I might end up in the river if I took a certain picture. I did not take that picture.

TO SEE MORE PHOTOS, GO TO OTDOWNTOWN.COM

Tears. Gay Pride March, Christopher Street & Seventh Avenue, 1977.

Photo: Mark Ivins

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YOUR 15 MINUTES

To read about other people who have had their “15 Minutes” go to otdowntown.com/15 minutes

‘THIS IS MY NEIGHBORHOOD’ The owner of Paola’s Restaurant talks about her history on the Upper East Side — and her plans to open a new family-friendly restaurant

BY EMA SCHUMER

Paola Bottero, 73, is the eponymous owner of Paola’s Restaurant, the family-run, Italian restaurant located on 92nd Street and Madison Avenue. A native of Rome, Italy, Bottero immigrated to New York with her father in 1961. She has been serving authentic Italian food to Upper East Siders since 1983. Bottero runs the restaurant with her son, Stefano Marricino, who has been working at Paola’s since he was 16 years old. In July, Bottero and Marricino will open their second restaurant in Carnegie Hill at 1246 Madison Avenue, between 89th and 90th Streets. Bottero told Our Town about her first foray into the restaurant business, her experience serving Carnegie Hill patrons and her vision for Paola’s Osteria — the new restaurant that is slated to make its debut later this summer.

Where are you from and when did you come to the United States?

I am from Rome, Italy. I came to the United States when I was 16 years old in 1961. My father was a violinist for the Metropolitan Opera and at that time I was the oldest of three

Paola’s in Carnegie Hill. Photo: Ema Schumer

children. We lived on the Upper West Side. I went to school at Long Island University and Hunter College. I wanted to be a teacher at that point.

Do you have a family?

I married when I was 22 years old and I had two boys two years apart.

One of them is in the business with me right now. The other is a cinematographer; he makes documentaries and movies.

How did you get into the restaurant business?

My twin brothers came over to the United States when they were 18 and one of my two brothers opened a restaurant when he was 20 years old. It was very successful. It got two stars from The New York Times. I [decided] I want to be just like my brother. I wanted to have my own place some day.

When did you open your own restaurant?

I opened Paola’s in 1983 on 85th between First and Second. I was there for 10 years and then I moved over to 84th between Second and Third for eight or nine years. The original Paola was a long and narrow storefront. I had no more than eight or ten tables. I had three round tables and then a bunch of little tables on the side. The entrance was nine feet wide and the kitchen was seven feet

wide. I would go to the fish market in the morning, I would get my fish; I would get my meat from local suppliers and then start butchering it; [I would] go home, take a nap, and then come back. My mother would look after my children. You know, they say when there’s a will there’s a way. Paul Newman lived in the neighborhood and he would come to my restaurant. People were so impressed.

What brought you to Carnegie Hill and what has your experience been like in the neighborhood?

In 2009, the landlord [would] not renew my lease because he was making [the space] into offices. One of my customers, who used to come over with his son all of the time, told me he had a space on 92nd and Madison and would I be interested in taking it over. I got very very lucky.

God was helping me I guess, if you believe in God. The best thing about having Paola’s in this neighborhood in the beginning was that my granddaughter was going to school at Nightingale-Bamford so I could meet her on a daily basis and have lunch with her or a cookie across the street. That was phenomenal.

I bought an apartment on the Upper East Side on 91st between Park and Lex. Then the fact that I made friends with people in the neighborhood makes it even more friendly.

Everyone is so very warm and love-

Paola Bottero (right) with her son, Stefano Marricino. Photo courtesy of Richard Cacciato/Blue Iceberg

ly and it makes my heart tingle because it’s like being in Europe. The friendship and comradeship that I have over here I didn’t have at any other place and I love it.

Why did you decide to expand Paola’s and what is your vision for Paola’s Osteria at 1246 Madison Avenue?

We were given advice that the lease on the location that we’re in right now would probably not be renewed because [the Wales Hotel] has been sold. Since we only had two years left on the lease I figured I want to stay in the neighborhood because this is my neighborhood. We looked it over and [found] a space at 1246 Madison Avenue.

Osteria is not a first-class restaurant; it’s more casual. Something we’ve learned is that we have a lot of families; I wanted them to be able to come in with their children and enjoy dinner and not be worried about making problems. We are going to be serving Italian pizza made from a pizza oven. If the kids want meatballs they’ll have meatballs.

But there’s also going to be swordfish meatballs, eggplant meatballs and potato meatballs. We’re going to have a little more varied menu but similar in style to what we have at Paola’s Restaurant. It’s going to be more traditional Italian food [with a] very Roman influence because that’s where I’m from and that’s

what I remember. It will have Arancini, which are rice balls stuffed with mozzarella. It will have different types of fish, [including] swordfish done sicilian style and halibut.

We’re going to have pork chops and a nice, beautiful steak. We hope to be able to be open definitely in the next month.

Do you plan to retire?

I’m 73. I’m not sure I will be able to work again like the way I used to work. My grandchildren are growing and they come to visit, so I will retire, but not entirely retire you know. I’m not behind the stove [but the restaurant] gives me something to do on a daily basis.

Do you have a favorite dish on the menu?

My favorite dish right now is All’Amatriciana. It’s very simple, [made of only] bacon, tomato, and pecorino cheese. We try to keep things at minimal ingredients so you can actually taste the flavors.

It’s very flavorful.

This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

Know somebody who deserves their 15 Minutes of fame? Go to otdowntown.com and click on submit a press release or announcement.

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M I J O U V A Z I C A C V I X

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Abbreviate Adding Affluent Aggregate Aims Altosappear Amber Aquamarine Arable Argumentative Arise Arrange Assiduous Awesome Azalea

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47. Animation platform (abbr.)

B P G O D A A S P Q B Q B T I

46. Abatement

A A A T U G B R J E J F J D U

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43. Beer ingredient

B P G O D A A S P Q B Q B T I

A U L P E U B Z P L R Z G H A

42. Nile bird

Y G L M G S Z I S R G C N I R

J A C D B P A O F S N B D E U

41. Fall off

A W E S O M E A V A W E F A A

Z H F C B N R F X U Q E B D Q

39. Jessica’s sister

D J H T D T L K M E U A E A M

B J F I V S A O P Q D F A A A

37. Knack

A U L P E U B Z P L R Z G H A

T

35. European city that is a musical and artistic center

J A C D B P A O F S N B D E U

L

33. Hill person: abbr.

Z H F C B N R F X U Q E B D Q

I

31. Rug

B J F I V S A O P Q D F A A A

S

30. Turkish money

WORD SEARCH by Myles Mellor

E

55

48. Conger

7

N

50. Really awesome!

51. Depend 52. Bubkes 53. Bar bill 54. Amtrak track 55. N.Y. minutes?

Down 1. Flip pages 2. “My name is ___” 3. “Beetle Bailey” pooch 4. “Got it!”

5. Loud thud 6. Odd 7. Bartender’s supply 8. Burlesque 9. Exclude 10. 100 lbs.

13. Checks for under 21’s 17. Physical checkups 19. Lake sport 22. Screwball 23. My country, ___ of thee 25. Against 26. Fuse 27. Calendar abbr.

28. Concoction 29. Stiff hair

2

52

52 54

4

55

49

51

5

43

L

Across 1. The Lion 4. Adjoin 8. Fox competitor 11. “Dig in!”

12. Vietnam’s capital 14. Clawed foot 15. “___is never finished, only abandoned,” Da Vinci 16. Correction 18. Go smoothly 20. Workbench adjunct 21. Montezuma, for one 24. Water barrier 27. Avoid 30. Baby tiger 32. Primps 33. Catania city locale 34. Have another go at 35. Porch along the outside of a building 36. Constituted 37. Last 38. Long green 40. Be saturated in 44. Homage 49. Atty group

48

42

E

53

47

41

6

I

40

5

G

50

Level: Medium

39

46

4

A

45

6 2

4

37 38

3

1

6

35 36

7

1

33

34

9

N

32

44

26

2

I

29

25

8

R

22

4

54

28

20

Each Sudoku puzzle consists of a 9X9 grid that has been subdivided into nine smaller grids of 3X3 squares. To solve the puzzle each row, column and box must contain each of the numbers 1 to 9. Puzzles come in three grades: easy, medium and difficult.

H

27

14 17

19 21

10

51

18

13

9

B

16

8

B

15

7

A

12

6

A

11

5

F

4

T

3

SUDOKU by Myles Mellor and Susan Flanagan

by Myles Mellor

50

2

CROSSWORD

53

1

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