The local paper for Downtown wn A ST. PATRICK'S HOUSE TOUR < TO DO, P.13
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17-23 2016
ANOTHER GROCERY STORE ON THE BRINK NEWS
The closure of a Food Emporium due to bankruptcy sparked protests in Turtle Bay last November, and the eviction of another Associated Supermarket location in Washington Heights was postponed last month after community action. According to Glen Bruno, co-owner of the Associated in Chelsea, the store was informed at the end of January by landlord Pan Am Equities, Inc. that its rent would more than triple, to over $100,000 from $32,000. The supermarket, which has been at that location since 1989, can’t afford to stay, he said. “No one can pay that,” Bruno said. “We
Rent at the Associated Supermarket on 14th Street is set to more than triple BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
In what is becoming a recurring ritual in the city, a crowd of customers, nearby residents and elected officials gathered to protest the closing of a local grocery store, this time the Associated Supermarket on W. 14th St. The Sunday protest was led by Councilmember Corey Johnson, and comes as grocery stores throughout New York are being squeezed by rising rents and competition from national chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.
Photo by Madeleine Thompson
CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
WATER PARK GETTING MAKEOVER $1.5 million capital campaign aims to refurbish Chelsea’s Waterside Play Area BY JEFFREY KOPP
During a recent warm spell, the city’s parks were bustling as New Yorkers shed a few layers and looked to embrace spring’s imminent arrival. The Chelsea Waterside Play Area, long a popular spot in a neighborhood devoid of children’s parks, would typically be among those teeming spots. But with the play area in desperate need of some TLC, the playground at 11th Avenue and West 23rd Street was nearly empty of visitors on a recent Thursday. Its rubbery surface, designed to be safer than concrete, has chunks miss-
ing, and climbing equipment has been cordoned off because it has become unsafe. But with much of the park’s drainage system damaged or blocked, it’s the park’s water features — where children splash around during warm days from spring through fall — that will perhaps be most missed this year. Friends of Hudson River Park, the nonprofit that oversees that park as well as Waterside, has begun a capital campaign to fund renovations. The plan is to completely renovate the play area. “We could do a Band-Aid, quick fix for these problems, but that’s sort of ignoring the fact that the park is already 15 or 16 years old. Or we could just do a full re-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
Much of Chelsea Waterside Play Area is in disrepair. A $1.5 million capital campaign, organized by the Friends of Hudson River Park, is underway. Photo: Jeffrey Kopp Downtowner
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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
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Our Take AFFORDABLE, AND UNAFFORDABLE, HOUSING Good news from oppostive ends of the income divide. As we reported last week, there are finally signs that the market for ridiculously tall, ridiculously expensive superscrapers is slowing. CityRealty, the real estate data firm, says sales at the ultra high end are slowing as the China economy sputters and regulators crack down on the use of the buildings as super-sized money-laundering machines. Two of our elected officials deserve credit: Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has focused attention on the role of anonymous real estate deals in terrorism financing, and Councilmember Ben Kallos led the fight against a skyscraper in Sutton Place on the Upper East Side. That deal fell apart after the developer behind the scheme scuttled into bankruptcy. These types of skyscrapers weren’t just a blight on the skyline, though they are that. They also represent the hallowing out of our city, as neighborhood housing is replaced by lairs for anonymous outsiders. We’re also happy to finally see some progress on affordable housing. The City Council is expected to vote next week on a plan that would require many developers to include affordable units in their plans. The proposal has been sidetracked by arguments over what kind of rent constitutes affordable and what level of income qualifies. A deal now seems in the offing. Finally, we can point to progress in the housing crisis plaguing our city. Neither development will solve our deep divide. But they mark a beginning.
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MARCH 17-23,2016
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
WHAT’S MAKING NEWS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, pictured in 2014, will lead the council’s likely approval of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s rezoning plan later this month. Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority
MAYOR’S ZONING REVISION WINS BACKING A contentious and sweeping rezoning plan proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio is likely to receive city council approval later this month following some revisions, thereby clearing its most significant hurdle, The New York Times reports. Some council members had previously said the rezoning plan as originally put forth would not have provided sufficient and needed housing for poor residents of the city, The Times said. Following revisions, though, council members said the rezoning plan now includes provisions for new construction to include more units that would be affordable to poorer residents. “Our work has resulted in a plan that addresses the magnitude of our city’s affordability crisis by encouraging smart, sustainable affordable housing production,” The city council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, following a city council meeting this week. “The focus of these changes is to provide affordability, one, and two, economic integration.” As originally proposed, de Blasio’s plan was criticized by some council members, as well as at the community board level, the newspaper noted.
The mayor and his allies said the plan would have long and far-reaching impact. “Years from now, we will look back on this as a watershed moment when we turned the tide to keep our city a place for everyone,” de Blasio said in a statement.
MORE CRANE OVERSIGHT WANTED After last month’s deadly crane collapse, lower Manhattan officials are pushing for central construction oversight for the more than 90 building projects within a 1.5mile radius downtown, DNAinfo reported. After 9/11, an agency called the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center was created to oversee the vast amount of construction in the area, the publication reported. After this agency was shuttered in 2013, the Lower Manhattan Commissioner’s Office took over the oversight, according to the news site. However, due to budgetary constraints, this office is now being phased out as well, essentially leaving all downtown construction projects with no coordinating entity, DNAinfo reported. Residents and officials are now urging the city to keep or create a downtown
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ALTSCHOOL TO OPEN NEAR UNION SQUARE A new private alternative school for pre-K through 8th grade, partially funded by tech industry heavyweights like Mark Zuckerberg, is set to open in Union Square in 2017, DNAinfo reported. AltSchool already has a Brooklyn Heights location up and running, and is set to open an East Village location (on Avenue B) this fall, the publication reported. AltSchool CEO, Max Ventilla, worked at Google for over a decade, and bills the company as a hybrid tech company and education startup, DNAinfo reported. The school uses technology to curate each student’s learning process, and allow for real-world, project-based learning, DNAinfo reported. The school borrows aspects from Montessori Schools, using relatively unstructured blocks of times, flexible project learning, alternative hours, and teacher guidance and collaboration models, the publication reported. The Union Square school will be located at 90 Fifth Ave.
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construction agency to address efficiency, safety, and quality of life issues related to these projects, DNAinfo reported.
MARCH 17-23,2016
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG
SMUGGLED STATUE SEIZED FROM CHRISTIE’S Two Indian statues that are more than 1,000 years old were seized from Christie’s auction house after investigators discovered they had been smuggled out of the country, eventually landing in New York. The antiquities were to be part of an auction next week. Both are made from sandstone. One statue called “Stele of Rishabhanata” depicts a cross-legged teacher flanked by standing attendants. It is valued at about $150,000 and dates from the 10th century. The second is a rare representation of an equestrian deity, Revanta, worth $300,000 from the 8th century. Christie’s said in a statement that it would never knowingly offer a stolen work of art and it was cooperating with authori-
ties. “Christie’s devotes considerable resources to investigating the provenance of all objects we offer for sale. This is one of the difficulties the art market faces in vetting antiquities, which is why Christie’s very much values building strong relationships with and between countries of origin, law enforcement, archeologists, and the collecting community,” the statement read. According to a yearslong, ongoing investigation by federal agents and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, the Rishabhanata statue was sold in 2006 or 2007. The Revanta panel contained a piece that had been perfectly broken off to be sold by smugglers after the sale of the main sculpture.
FRAMED The LensCrafters store at 390 West Broadway got hit by shoplifters twice to the tune of nearly $5,000 in recent weeks. In the first incident, a man walked into the store on Feb. 16 and removed sunglasses from store shelves before placing the merchandise inside his sleeves and leaving the store.
He got away with three Tom Ford frames valued at $1,350, one Gucci frame worth $375, one Prada frame tagged at $275 and two Ray-Ban frames worth $318, making a total haul of $2,318. Then on March 4, a man and a woman entered the store and made off with six Tiffany frames valued at $1,560 and two Bulgari frames worth $780, making a total of $2,340.
CLIPPED ON CLIFF It’s scary how fast unattended items disappear on the streets of the Big Apple. At noon on March 1, a 36-year-old man parked his delivery truck in the lot opposite 15 Cliff St. He entered the back of the truck, leaving his backpack unattended on the pavement behind the vehicle. When he next looked for his backpack, it was gone. A search of the area failed to turn up the missing property. The items stolen included the black Adidas book bag valued at $40, a UPS scanner costing $2,000, a US passport worth $150, and a Sean John jacket tagged at $100, making a total stolen of $2,290.
STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 20th district for 1ST PRECINCT - DOWNTOWN Week to Date
Year to Date
2016 2015
% Chg
2016
2015
% Chg
Murder
0
0
N/A
0
0
N/A
Rape
0
0
N/A
2
1
100.0
Robbery
1
0
N/A
9
5
80.0
Felony Assault
1
1
0.0
10
9
11.1
Burglary
1
2
-50.0
22
31
-29.0
Grand Larceny
21
20
5.0
200
145
37.9
Grand Larceny Auto
0
0
N/A
3
2
50.0
PERNICIOUS PAIR Police collared a team of two shoplifters recently. At 4:36 p.m. on March 1, two 24-yearold women working together concealed merchandise while in the Louis Vuitton store at 116 Greene St. and left without paying. Police arrested Addrianna Alcantara and Annel Cruz Santos Ibar the next day,
charing the duo with grand larceny. The merchandise stolen and recovered was a handbag valued at $1,568.
FROM ZARA TO ZERO At 12:30 p.m. on March 7, a 20-year-old woman left her belongings in a changing room of the Zara clothing boutique at 511 Broadway to seek out
other clothes to try on. When she returned just three minutes later, her property was missing. The Find My iPhone app on her cell failed to turn up anything, and a search of the store proved fruitless as well. The items stolen were an iPhone valued at $800 and a Woolrich coat priced at $800.
lower manhattan has many landmarks. but only one hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital. Just two blocks southeast of City Hall at 170 William Street.
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MARCH 17-23,2016
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
Useful Contacts POLICE NYPD 7th Precinct
19 ½ Pitt St.
212-477-7311
NYPD 6th Precinct
233 W. 10th St.
212-741-4811
NYPD 10th Precinct
230 W. 20th St.
212-741-8211
NYPD 13th Precinct
230 E. 21st St.
NYPD 1st Precinct
16 Ericsson Place
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THE NAME OF THE ROSA IN DISPUTE Rosa Mexicano restaurant chain threatens court action against Selena Rosa Mexicana
FIRE FDNY Engine 15
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311
ELECTED OFFICIALS Councilmember Margaret Chin
165 Park Row #11
Councilmember Rosie Mendez
237 1st Ave. #504
212-587-3159 212-677-1077
Councilmember Corey Johnson
224 W. 30th St.
212-564-7757
State Senator Daniel Squadron
250 Broadway #2011
212-298-5565
Community Board 1
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212-442-5050
Community Board 2
3 Washington Square Village
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Community Board 4
330 W. 42nd St.
212-736-4536
Hudson Park
66 Leroy St.
212-243-6876
Ottendorfer
135 2nd Ave.
212-674-0947
Elmer Holmes Bobst
70 Washington Square
212-998-2500
BY BRYTNIE JONES
The proprietors of a Second Avenue Mexican restaurant have been threatened with court action if they don’t change its name, which the owners of an international chain of eateries claim is “confusingly similar” to theirs. In a “cease-and-desist” letter sent earlier this month, a
lawyer for the Rosa Mexicano chain wrote that Selena Rosa Mexicana, on Second Avenue near 89th Street, “unauthorized use” of a trademark is “extremely damaging” and “constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition.” The letter says that the cuisine and drinks on offer at the two restaurants is furhter cause for confusion to potential customers. It demands that Selena Rosa Mexican stop using the name and update websites and social media accounts
to reflect the change. Selena Rosa Mexicana’s owner, Sammy Musovic, who runs the restaurant with his two sons, Sammy Jr. and Johnny Musovic, said that the March 7 letter caught him by surprise and that he is confounded as to why such a “high-end” chain would take such severe action against what he characterized as a “mom and pop shop.” “We have Rosa Mexicano asking us to change our name and we really don’t want to do that because we’re hot right now and we want to continue to stay
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Selena Rosa Mexicana’s owners and management say a restaurant chain’s threatened legal action over the Second Avenuen eatery’s name could cost them $100,000. Photo: Brytnie Jones
in business. We have 30 workers who we want to keep their jobs and be able to support their families,” Musovic said. His son, Sammy Jr., suggested the legal action threatens the eatery’s existence. “We’ve been catering to the neighborhood for a while now. For the last two years, we haven’t had any interruptions in our business, but our recent successes has bought us attention,” said Sammy Jr., whose family took over the restaurant two years ago from its former owner and changed its name from Cilantro to its current incarnation. “We’re hoping we can get through it because it’s putting a lot of us in financial jeopardy. We’re a family-run business but our workers are family as well, and we hope to also keep them happy.” Rosa Mexicano’s flagship establishment, on First Avenue near 58th Street, opened in 1984. There are 16 other Rosa Mexicano locations, including three in New York. Other restaurants under the banner operate in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Dubai and elsewhere. Armando Martado, Selena Rosa Mexicana’s manager, and Cilantro’s for years before that, said the food at the two eateries is very different. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s a totally different name. Your name is Rosa Mexicano and ours is Selena Rosa Mexicana. Very different!” Martado said. The Musovics said it took two years to build their brand and clientele, and to start over with advertisement, menus, logos and a website would be a huge setback. Complying with the letter’s orders would ultimately cost more than $100,000, they said. A lawyer for Rosa Mexicano did not return messages seeking comment. Martado and Sammy Musovic Jr. said they would reach out to their counterparts at Rosa Mexicano to try and reach some sort of compromise that permits them to keep their name. “We have to tell them, “Look, we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re a totally different restaurant,’” Musovic said. “We just want to stay in business and continue doing what we’re good at. We’re following the American dream here, we have a place and just want to run it and be successful.”
MARCH 17-23,2016
5
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE SIGN? STREET LEVEL How inspiration came to a guy on the couch BY BILL GUNLOCKE
Protester Linda Jobe. Photo by Madeleine Thompson
GROCERY STORE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
WATCH THE PROTEST For video of the
thought since we’ve been here supermarket protest, a long time that everything go to our web site, would be a lot smoother, but it www.otdowntown. just doesn’t end up that way.” com Bruno said there was no prior indication that the rent would be so dramatically increased, and that he would do the best he could for his employees. “A lot of these people have been here since we started,” Bruno said. While the area around 14th Street and 8th Avenue is hardly lacking in grocery stores, he noted that several other long-time stores in the area have closed recently, as lower-priced stores are replaced by luxury stores catering to the evergentrifying neighborhood. Bruno said his other location in Stuyvesant Town, the only other store he owns. had seen much better luck with rent negotiations and would continue to serve the community there. Residents that share the building with Associated are worried they could end up with similar increases. Gary, who declined to give his last name due to his own ongoing negotiations, has lived in the building and shopped at Associated for 30 years. “We have no options,” he said. “This is a horrible loss.” Marc Felix, who lives nearby on Horatio Street, has been shopping at Associated for many years. “It’s the closest, and the prices are definitely cheaper than D’Agostino’s and these gourmet places that open up,” he said. The closest alternatives to Associated include a Westside Market a block over, a Trader Joe’s roughly nine blocks away and a Fairway a block from the Trader Joe’s. But those who gathered to protest are loyal to Associated. “I can find things here that I can’t find anymore — that I was eating as a kid,” said Linda Jobe, who carried a large sign with the word “GREED” crossed out. Outside the store, Johnson led a crowd of at least 50 people in chants of “Save Our Supermarket!” “What you will see over and over again is empty storefronts where previous small businesses existed,” Johnson said. “All of these places are vital for the health and well-being and economic diversity of our neighborhoods … This is happening all over the city.” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer also addressed the protesters; “When we lose the pharmacies and the bodegas and the supermarkets, we’re losing the heart and soul of our neighborhood,” she said. State Senator Brad Hoylman and Public Advocate Letitia James were among the other elected officials there to show their support. After thanking the crowd, Johnson encouraged attendees to sign a petition for the store at Change.org and said protests against Pan Am would continue. Pan Am officials couldn’t be reached for comment, as of press time.
There’s a man in a plain London Fog raincoat. The collar’s never up. I see him lighting a cigarette every morning in front of the Dept. of Education Building on Chambers Street where I hold my sign. It’s where he works. It looks like it’s a special cigarette time for him. Like it’s his first of the day. He doesn’t smoke it casually. There’s a delicacy about it. He looks like a quiet doctor. European-born maybe. An introvert for sure. He’s a curiosity to me. Who waits to light up until they get right in front of their workplace, just before entering? You usually smoke on the way to work and then flip the butt out into the street, like you’re heading into an AA meeting. I noticed him for the first time four and a half years ago. Seeing him again today got me thinking about this sign thing I do. I’d for years thought about kids and reading. I loved to read when I was young. Mostly sports pages and sports magazines. Whether at the kitchen table under a warm yellow overhead light enhanced by the white light from the window that the table was right up against or in the big chair in my father’s office where he read from when he got home from work until he went to bed or in my bed with the radio playing on the nightstand and the gooseneck lamp lighting up my pages like a big flashlight. I loved playing sports and was good at them, but when I got to high school, a Jesuit boarding school of all things, I stopped playing them after freshman year. It was during that year that I’d discovered Ray Bradbury. It was a whole new life after that. I couldn’t spend every afternoon in a gym or on a field. I needed time to read and think about things in a new way. The Maharishi says the mind goes to what gives it the most pleasure. Books gave me more pleasure. When I got to college, I spent more time reading books I was drawn to than going to class and reading the assigned chapters of books that didn’t seem as relevant to me as titles I’d found on bookstore racks and shelves. It was the late ‘60s. The racks and shelves were filled with ex-
When I got to college, I spent more time reading books I was drawn to than going to class and reading the assigned chapters of books that didn’t seem as relevant to me as titles I’d found on bookstore racks and shelves. It was the late ‘60s citing books. You could fit a Kurt Vonnegut paperback in the back pocket of your jeans. Fast forward past a young marriage and three children and an early divorce while teaching school to beat being drafted to go to Vietnam, and then running a bookstore, and then starting a weekly alternative paper. I eventually, inevitably came to New York 20 years ago with an idea of starting a national book magazine, like a Rolling Stone for books. I couldn’t make it happen. Too much money was needed. And money was a sport I wasn’t good at. I worked on and off for some weekly papers here. Tried again to start that book magazine. Taught school. Read a lot. Looked for the right thing to do. Five years ago I started this newsletter. It’s the greatest thing for me every month to walk around town with a backpack filled with newsletters and drop off copies at some libraries and bookstores and coffee shops. The theme of each issue has remained the same: The sinful failure of New York City’s public schools to teach the kids in the poor parts of the city to read. And it’s not just my take on things. The numbers on tests show it. Year after year. The numbers are so bad, that the issue seldom gets talked about in the papers. Or on TV or on the public radio shows where they ought to talk about it all the time when they aren’t talking about restaurants. It’s not that schools aren’t talked about. It’s that reading isn’t. And to me it’s the only thing to talk about when talking about schools. Eva Moskowitz and her charter schools here wouldn’t exist if the public schools had been
Photo credit: Bill Gunlocke teaching kids to read. One afternoon six months or so into putting out acityReader an inspiration, what else to call it I don’t know, came. I’m sitting on the couch where I’m sitting now and the image of a sign comes into my mind and it says ‘Why Not Teach Every School Kid to Read Well.’ With a period, not a question mark. I said it once to myself. It sounded right. Exactly right. I emailed the woman in Brooklyn who lays out the newsletter every month and asked her to format a sign with that sentence on it. She did, and I took the design up the street to Kinko’s and they showed me how they could make a sign for me. The next morning I took the #6 train downtown to the end of the line and took the sign out of the big Kinko’s bag and stood in front of the building where the Dept. of Education is housed. This was totally out of character for me. I don’t have a public self. Neither of my hands is a glad hand. But the sign wanted to be held. I would do it. At 64 years of age, I had a mission. I would go there every day. I would hold the sign for an hour from 8:00 to 9:00. One of the people I noticed that first day was a guy in a
trench coat lighting a cigarette, with a match, not a lighter. He looked like an unlikely smoker. I wondered what I looked like to him. The way the light hits the cars that go by me as I stand there on the sidewalk keeps me from seeing in the windows. Some drivers must sense this. They’ll roll their windows down and give me a thumbs-up. Others will sometimes honk their horn a couple times. Mostly the sign is angled so the people walking by me can read it. When my alarm goes off at 6:14, I get up like a kid, eagerly like it’s Saturday morning. I meditate like the Maharishi ‘s followers in Lakewood, Ohio instructed me 40 years ago. Eat something. Throw on some clothes that I think make me not look too bookish or at all like a politician, and grab my sign and head out the door, knowing it’s the best thing I’ll do all day. Who knows what will come of it? I like not knowing. Recently the guy in the London Fog has acknowledged me. In his reserved way. Before he heads into the big building. Bill Gunlocke is the editor of acityreader.blogspot.com, where this story first appeared
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MARCH 17-23,2016
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
Chapter 3
WATER PARK GETTING MAKEOVER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Illustration by John S. Winkleman
EVE AND OTHERS BY ESTHER COHEN
Mrs. Irsael Mrs. Israel, far more proper than anyone else in our building, many of us are would-be jugglers, she even carried a handbag matching her shoes, sometimes navy, sometimes black, never ever brown, Mrs. Israel, her hair from another time and world, although she would never say, exactly, where she was born, always polite, always vague, Mrs. Israel was the first to invite Eve and me into her apartment, for biscuits and tea. We are both coffee types, though not tea adverse. I wanted to be a painter then and envisioned large canvases emblazoned with words. For a while, I even made some: cantaloupe, written in Indigo blue, one of my most successful canvases. Eve intended to be her version of Kim Stanley, an actress who could make any
part her own. We worked, both of us, in any jobs we could. I was an Office Temp, tying my Big Hair into a semi-respectable knot. Unfailingly polite, Mrs. Israel introduced herself in the elevator one day. She even shook our hands. “You’re new,” she said. “Can you both come for tea this Saturday afternoon?” Her voice was as clipped as an English grammar teacher. “Please do,” she added. Our building, ungentrified Upper West Side Ramshackle, has a particular kind of illogical charm. The lobby looks a little like a well-lit subway stop, and the walls are a color that’s almost yellow. Old fashioned grey trim borders the hallways, mild effort at decoration. Walking into Mrs. Israel’s apartment was an unexpected surprise. It’s always hard to tell what’s behind any door but a country cottage studio was not a logical option: floral drapes, a cab-
bage rose couch, painted china tea cups, porcelain tea pot for guests. First she shook our hands, as though we were at a reception, and she repeated her name for us to memorize: “Mrs. Israel.” No hint that a first name existed. Although we had never made what might be called polite conversation before that afternoon, weather talk (she even raised the price of tomatoes – they’d been cheap once, and now they weren’t) there was something reassuring about the back and forth, simple sentences between neighbors. “Tell me where you both were born,” she said. “New England,” I replied. “I’m a Southerner,” said Eve. “Aha,” was all she answered. “And you,” I asked. “What about you?” “My parents,” she paused, maybe to be dramatic, “they came from Eastern Europe.
A while ago,” she said. “But I was lucky enough to be born right here.” “Where’s right here?” I asked. An innocent question, really. “Near enough.” More than that she would not say. Propriety seemed to be her predominant characteristic. Her hair was more than neat. It was an immovable helmet that looked painted on. Ageless, her body was hidden away by an actual navy suit. She even wore a pin on her lapel, a small tasteful flower. We were thrift store ironic. Not entirely unfamiliar. We all sat awkwardly across from one another, a small table connecting us. She had matching sugar and creamer and tea pot, lightly flowered in yellow and pink. She poured with familiarity and grace. “I’ll tell you who I am, “ she said. “But gradually. Don’t think I don’t have my secrets. I do.” She spoke softly. This is the third installment of our first-ever serialized novel. For other installments, go to www. chelseanewsny. For more on Esther Cohen, go to www.esthercohen.com
pair and rebuild the whole thing,” said Greg Wasserman, who cochairs the capital campaign with his wife, Melissa. “Fifteen years ago it was cutting edge and we want to make sure we do that again today.” The campaign hopes to raise $1.5 million, of which Councilman Corey Johnson office has already contributed $170,000 and committed another $650,000. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of parks and playgrounds,” Johnson said in a statement. “Successful cities provide their residents with access to open space, to greenery, light and air, places for human interaction and places where kids can be kids.” Signe Nielsen, the landscape architect for the project and a longtime New Yorker, is in charge of redesigning the park. In January, she and her staff organized a design charrette that drew about 25 residents, including children. Nielsen said the overwhelming sentiment was to keep the water features a central part of the park. “Everyone felt that the fundamental character of the playground and what it’s known for should remain the emphasis of the new design,” she said. But because the park is relatively small, she said the challenge is “balancing fun and imagination and exploration of children with safety,” as well as making sure
that the park is enjoyable during winter, when the water features are turned off. Nielsen and staff are still working on a theme, which would involve both visual elements and objects for children to play on. Eileen O’Brien, a midtown resident who visits the park regularly with her granddaughter, Isla, praised the park and looked forward to when it would be fully functional again. “In the summertime [the water features] are great, it gets so hot and people can really enjoy it,” she said. But she also would like the park to include some traditional amenities. “I wish there were some swings,” she said. More shade for those who aren’t splashing around, such as herself, would be nice too, O’Brien said. Donations to the capital campaign made until March 31 will also be matched by the Philip & Janice Levin Foundation, which has made similar contributions to other city parks, including Central Park and the High Line. “This project is really parents who are taking this on themselves with the guidance of Friends of Hudson River Park,” said Gregory Boroff, the executive director of Friends of Hudson River Park and also a Chelsea resident. “I’m surprised and amazed by the time they’re spending and everything they’re doing – they’re leaving their own jobs to go to meetings and putting so much personal effort into this. This is an opportunity where people are really walking the walk.”
Much of Chelsea Waterside Play Area is in disrepair. A $1.5 million capital campaign, organized by the Friends of Hudson River Park, is underway. Photo: Jeffrey Kopp
MARCH 17-23,2016
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
Photo by glasseyes view via flickr
MASTERS OF THE SKYLINE NEWS The city’s crane operators are riding a construction boom BY VERENA DOBNIK
Tommy Gambardella is a master of New York’s construction universe. Each morning before dawn, he rides an elevator more than 50 stories up the side of a skyscraper growing on Manhattan’s West Side. Then, he steps out onto a narrow walkway with a drop-dead view of the city below and mounts some spiral steps into the glass control cab of a tower crane. There, he’s alone, in silence. From high in the sky, he can see the sun light up Manhattan all the way to the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. He wraps his fingers around two joysticks to bring the crane alive. Gambardella, 49, is at the helm of one of the giant tower cranes sprouting across the city, a prime force in a building boom that is changing New York’s skyline. It can be dangerous work -- a fact hammered home by several deadly accidents in recent years. “Is it a thrill? I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it,” he says after climbing from the translucent
fishbowl of his control cab, atop what will be a 65-story apartment tower. “But you need to have a little more nerve than the average human being, and be a little crazy.” New York is enjoying a construction bonanza following a recession that choked new investment for years. The city has issued permits for about $35 billion worth of both residential and commercial construction in the past year. Fifty-five tower cranes and 26 smaller, “crawler” cranes are now in use, licensed by the city -- about twice as many as two years ago, according to the Department of Buildings. Standing on the sidewalk, it is hard not to be awed by, and a little frightened of, the supertall cranes hoisting loads of steel into the sky. In 2008, a 250-foot-tall tower crane collapsed on Manhattan’s East Side, obliterating a building below as it fell. Seven people died. Just two months later, two workers were killed when a 200-foot-tall crane fell over and struck an apartment building across the street. Last year, seven people were injured when an air-conditioning unit weighing tons came untethered from a crane, plunging 28 stories to Madison Avenue.
More recently, one of the city’s crawler cranes toppled in gusty winds on Feb. 5, killing a pedestrian. That accident has again brought attention to crane safety. Last year, the city hired 50 new construction inspectors for a total of about 450. People’s lives depend on crane precision, because “you can’t have anything falling out of the sky,” says Bobby Cipriano, a veteran operator in charge of crane safety and maintenance at the $4.5 billion Brookfield Property Group development, called Manhattan West, where Gambardella works. “Tower cranes are intimidating, and you have a tremendous responsibility,” Cipriano says. Before the crane moves, his dawn routine includes turning on the generator that powers the electric crane and inspecting cables attached to the boom. He also checks the radio equipment that allows the operator to contact crew members on the ground. Hoisting loads is a matter of trust. From the sky, the men on the ground look like ants, preparing loads the operator hoists skyward on a cable but cannot always see. “You can feel it. You can feel when it comes up and the sig-
nalman says, `Great, that was nice,’” says Cipriano. “There shouldn’t be any `Oh, my God’ moments,’” Gambardella adds. What none of them trusts is the wind. When it reaches 30 mph, “you’re getting blown around, knocked around,” says Gambardella. “It’s very difficult to control the crane, and the load.” All work stops. When it comes to spectacular New York buildings, Cipriano, 57, of Colts Neck, New Jersey, says he’s seen it all. He’s
manned cranes for the new New York Times building, Goldman Sachs’ downtown headquarters and the revitalized Times Square. But his proudest job was working on One World Trade Center, the 104-story skyscraper that replaced the twin towers decimated in the Sept. 11 attacks. He was part of a crew that slid several cranes on rails up the side of the building to the top. “It’s gratifying. You drive down the road and you can say, `I was up there. That’s mine. I jacked the crane on that building,’” says Cipriano, his eyes lighting up. “I don’t think I would want to do anything else.” He remembered one dark night when his crew was installing a crane, “and the Empire State Building is behind
you, lit up in different colors, and Madison Square Garden. It’s like being in a plane, and coming in for an approach and at night. It’s really cool.” At Manhattan West, which will include two new office towers, retail, a hotel, rooftop gardens, restaurants and a public park, Gambardella puts in as much as 12 hours a day. Sometimes the Tomkins Cove, New York, resident is in the cabin for five-hour stretches with no break. Not everyone is fit for the precarious work. “You’ve got to have a certain disposition -- everything calm, no yelling, no screaming,” says Gambardella.
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Voices
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Letter
A scene from the HBO series “Vinyl,” set in New York in 1973
LET NEWSPAPERS POLICE THEMSELVES To the Editor:
The New York State ethics board wants to require public relations employees to register as lobbyists if they talk to newspaper editorial boards, editorial writers, or if they write an op-ed piece about public policy issues. This is outrageous on many levels. Newspapers act as the fourth branch of government – one that is essential to a functioning democracy. The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees press freedom, but carries with it a responsibility to be a watchdog for the people. If newspapers acts as lapdogs to PR hacks, then newspapers don’t deserve the freedoms afforded by the First Amendment. But newspapers by and large take seriously their mission of being the watchdogs and the educators in the communities they serve. And as such, they don’t need PR people to be required to register with the government before they can talk to editorial boards or write an op-ed piece regarding public policy issues. Thank you very much, ethics board, but we’ll do our own fact checking; we’ll talk with our own independent sources, and we’ll make up our own minds on editorial positions. We don’t need the New York State ethics board to put a chill in the air by requiring people to register as lobbyists before talking with their local newspapers about public policy. Influencing public policy by talking directly to policy makers is one thing. Influencing public policy by educating and informing the public in the pages of an independent third-party newspaper is quite another. And if members of the public are then inclined to contact public officials, isn’t that how things are supposed to work? Members of the public (readers) aren’t lobbyists – they are citizens who are entitled to have a voice in their government. Sincerely. Michelle Rea Executive Director The New York Press Association
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REMEMBERING THE BAD OL’ DAYS, FONDLY OP-ED A new TV series takes me back to a scary NYC, which is fine with me BY LORRAINE DUFFY MERKL
Sam Goody stores. Telephone booths with hinged doors. And graffiti that was at once intimidating and mesmerizing. Less than half a dozen episodes into HBO’s “Vinyl,” which is set in 1973, and I’m nostalgic for the dirty, gritty New York City of my youth. No, I am not looking to bring back the good ol’ bad ol’ days, and am relieved that I raised my children in a kinder, gentler Manhattan. But growing up in what I considered my boring outer borough of the
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Bronx, the danger of “downtown” as we called it, only added to its allure. I spent sophomore year of high school (and a few years after that) wishing my life away, anticipating the day I would be old enough -- and cool enough -- to go to Max’s Kansas City, the Felt Forum, and this new club that opened called CBGB’s, which the much older brothers of my friends talked about. It was the year that the World Trade Center changed our city’s skyline, and I took my first walk on the wild side. I went to Lord & Taylor for a cardigan sweater I’d seen in Seventeen magazine. (The rest of the world was a fashion mishmash of vintage, rock, punk, glam, disco, ‘60s holdovers, or preppy a la Ali
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MacGraw in Love Story.) It was also the style of the day – at least in high school – to wear Danskin brand ballerina leotards under pullovers and shirts. The department store’s helpful salesgirl told me there was a Capezio nearby in the 40s on Seventh Avenue, in Times Square. I lost track of how many neon signs blinked GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS, how different the people looked from those in my middle class nabe, and how seedy it was. Yes, I was nervous, but that emotion was eclipsed by energy. That was the most exciting place I had ever been in my life. Before I made my way to Madison Avenue to pick up the express bus home, I
called my mother from one of the aforementioned phones on the street so she’d know when to expect me. If I close my eyes and the room is totally silent, with a little concentration I can still hear the sound of her hysterical voice screaming through the earpiece, “Get out of there now!” She also had a hate bag on for high-crime Central Park, where they had free concerts like Carole King and The Eagles. I wasn’t allowed to go to concerts, regardless of where they were. My mother insisted someone would try to slip me drugs, and even if that didn’t happen, she was sure I’d get trampled by the crowd. I feel ya, mom, now that I myself am a mother. I can pretty much guarantee that back then, though, I rolled my eyes. Her trepidations were confirmed by an upperclassman boy, who wanted to impress me by taking me on an afternoon date in NYC. Since neither of us had any money to actually go anywhere or do anything, he decided to just show me the sights. We got off the D train on
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West 86th Street. The goal was to end up on the Upper East Side so he could point out 1049 Park Avenue, the building where The Odd Couple lived. Today the obvious way to get there would be to cut through the park, but he said it would be safer if we trekked down to Columbus Circle, across Central Park South, and then up Fifth Avenue. We walked and talked all the while, like a couple in a Woody Allen movie, even though at the time I didn’t know who Woody Allen was. A fond memory indeed. Four decades ago, the struggle here was really real; the city was a very unforgiving place, and yet fertile ground for creativity with punk, disco and hip hop emerging simultaneously. To paraphrase Bobby Cannavale’s “Vinyl” character describing how he feels about music, New York City made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, made me want to dance, or go out and kick somebody’s ass. It still does. Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novels FAT CHICK and BACK TO WORK SHE GOES.
Block Mayors Ann Morris, Upper West Side Jennifer Peterson, Upper East Side Gail Dubov, Upper West Side Edith Marks, Upper West Side
MARCH 17-23,2016
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
“THERE MUST BE SOMEONE WHO CAN GIVE MORE KIDS THE CHANCE TO GO TO COLLEGE.” Photo by jennie-o via flickr
THE SENIOR DATING SCENE GRAYING NEW YORK BY MARCIA EPSTEIN
I’ve been wanting to write a column about senior dating, but I haven’t had much success in finding people who are doing it, or at least talking about it. Since I mostly hang out with women, I’ve heard a few tidbits from them I find interesting. Many of my older women friends are widows, and none of them are interested in marrying again. “I already took care of a sick husband” is the mantra I hear most often. I occasionally hear stories about women who’ve unexpectedly found love at an older age, and it usually involves money, nice homes and travel. I do hear stories about women who’ve found fulfilling lives for themselves; women who might like a part-time partner but don’t want to cede their space anymore; and women who opine that the available men in their age group are not appealing and in any case the men want younger women. This last “fact” comes from friends who had tried the dating scene, Internet or otherwise, and found it awful for our age group. The men, no prizes themselves, were dis-
missive and sometimes even rude. There were no call-backs. These women soon went back to their single lives, determined to make them even better than before. I’m sure men have their own stories, but I do have a few male friends and the overall theme is they want attractiveness, youth and the wish for women to cater to their desires and wishes. Needless to say, these men get my hackles up. I find their attitudes hard to tolerate. I know very many terrific, accomplished and delightful older women who may not look like “the girl of their dreams.” I hope I don’t get angry mail for this column, and I admit this is purely personal experience, but none of it is invented. Limited, true, but not made up. I’d love to hear more on the topic, especially from men. Maybe I’m being unfair. If so, I’d sure like to hear about it. Email me at news@strausnews.com. What about sex? Well, some are and some aren’t and some ain’t saying. An older couple I know have “virtual sex.” I assume that means that it’s all in their minds and memories. Some of my older friends have actual sex, but not very often. Most of my really older friends don’t have partners and say
they don’t miss sex. In fact, the idea causes incredulous laughter. The few honest conversations I’ve had have a few themes. No partner, no interest, or much less interest than when young (with some regret mixed in about that). Partnered women often don’t open up much about this. I remember many many years ago when my childrens’ 90-year-old grandfather was in a nursing home. His son (their father) was told that the old man was “still sexually active.” I remember laughing my head off. But I know from a friend who was a social worker in a nursing home that it’s true for many old folks, really old folks. For some, the need and desire for sex never dies. So, as with anything else human, it varies. But, sadly, the urgency of youth does wane considerably, even in sexually active seniors. Hormones wind down for men and women. Menopause causes its own problems. Like everything else with old age, acceptance is the key. I may never snorkel again. I certainly won’t climb a mountain. For others, adventure travel may be over, though a nice beach will still beckon. Sexually speaking, that nice beach may be hugging and affection, or the affectionate sex of a long-time partnership. Or not. Nothing is going to be as it was, and that includes sex. It may or may not disappear entirely from one’s life, but the urgency of youth is gone. Sometimes sex and arthritis or the other conditions of old age don’t mix. Anything good on TV tonight?
Fernanda New York Cares Volunteer
BE THE SOMEONE.
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E, EGON SCHIELSP REBEL ON DI LAY
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ENCOURAGING BAD THEATER
THEAT ER
Alongside comedy writer Wickens starte d a festiva Gavin Starr, this judgment l that is a year. zone” “no submit videos in show busine Minim of shows they’ve ss. People show al selection require the chance ments that brings written for to finally perform surprises with make for a formed in mance slot. or have each front the only selecti of an audience. Considit per- game show Last year, the audience perforBY NICOLE watched a that allotte ering dildo. DEL MAURO chance is quite on requirement is CHELSEA Comed d the winner They also time, this a golden y writer Shawn watched a knows that piece about “If the artist great. dramatic dance some people Wickens the Troma Films, think his work to try,” Wickenis willing to try, we are rican Americ prevalence of HIV in the Afwilling s said. Central have Blue Man Group and is bad. artistic stew an community. The festiva The Bad Theate Comedy all rejected r l, an haven for variou Fest, as it is known his submis Wickens is wrenching, of the outlandish and sions. , is a safe the heart the s types regarding thenot ashamed of this. First time is interesting meaningful and the His actors, playwrof creative misfits. random, becaus to perform matter is simple: when theory ducers call e you never know you’re going ance, nothin it comes the festiva ights and film proto see. what will always g l home. Experi writers take “It’s be someone is universal. There part, enced and totally accepting of is bad. remain tucked too, submitting works that thinks develo the ping artists a thing that O’Neil risks they want to is an opport away in drawers for But Wicken take,” Jonath l, a repeat unity to perform years. It submitter of rejection s also knows the stiflin it, build confi said. to the festivaan performance dence or simply for the heck of g l, face when presen writers and fear York City stage. Starr and work on a New Wicken’s work actors ting their his theater Starr is showin “The festiva is no except peers, he createdwork. So, to assist l is to g a 15 year-ol ion. give people dissolves perfor creativ in college a d piece he wrote a chance to mers’ pressu showcase that find e and be on stage, which be sation . Wickens, who is a solving their with less and re by first weekly improv performer is harder audience’s dis- city,” less small iexpect “It turned into Wickens theaters in to nizing an improv at Magnet Theater, is a festival whereations. orgathe topic skit very low,” Wicken Submissionssaid. of depression for the festival. With the bar is set s said. its within the New York City. are not limited to munity, the comedy compeople shows from Bad Theater Fest is presen in issue long-fashow will be a sort of tribute Washington, ced D.C. and Pittsbuting relevant now in the entertainment to an in the tragic world, rgh supers wake of comed tar Robin Williams’ improv style suicide. Its y is a tribute Bad Theate to the r Fest “I think improitself. v
A comedy writer has created to showcase performance a festival s with no expectations
IMING THE STREET
Bet tma partial n’s latest tirely ly out of coinwork develop out said tha of creativi cidence, but ed sem traits t he plan ty. Original en- in bled in the BY ADEL the ned in beginni Native LE BROD stylized the env iron to shoot ly he Stre Lower Eas ng of Oct BECK et por t tin Bett Brooklyn ment that nat sets. How photogr of hyp - but it between OrcSide on Riv ober the ever ect to man is brin ingt erwas caption tory of urally com , complic the stre ging hisapher Jusstillatio not his hard and Lud on atio e with “It’s bee #Setint first New Bet tma ets of n. new low intentioNew York inte heStree the terrns n inte For his York in-, to see profess n, 23, hasManhattan. projrfered “Studions. how the resting and t. with hisi- man said first set, in iona bee and eve and cou lly for n sho pub space awe would and standing he only inteBrookly n, expect. man saidn added to lic has resp some bia Rec nts Forbes a few yea rsotin g nat I was trying is rea lly exp Since ” nded to Bettonded these magazin ive solv . “Wh now “When briefly. to thin ensive Low sets among ords, ABC leave welcom receiving e,” k of an sitting it sell er East en I did the ,” BettFamily e, Columimage, we were ing feed such pos on my said Bettma alte Side, is scat his clients. shootin set and Hon Stre ing and frie His tere n. “I wasr- ing to people kep dow n bikes on thethere was in the to et work, Betback for his itive and well as d with high artistic resu da not I looked dow nd Gozde Eke t stop g the firs take the ping picture t was “Rather set bec street whoa guy friekeep it goin tman said Set in the r’s roof ing a set personal end -profile wor me wal iced that a n onto the s,” Bet and askcom than tryi aus g with nd. he street took buildin cided k esse tma k as eav the help plans Since peting with e he though Project of portrai “Go “From ntially crea g on the and be coothat for the ng to fight n said. each ts title ors, includhis ” of his in of recl set is enti bike sale t it coll zde [Eker] which bagel d “The there ted a set sideit, futu inte and abo I for Bet s.” made l to leave the re sets it I de- said aimed foun rely from hom a photog tman tradBagel Bet rest ing to thought it wall.” would my pho one in rate on thes I will continu the he m inta d obje comprised wou ld people tma n bui ld ed a tog L.A and eless peo raph and cts, ct run e to fornia. rap . wit hou e,” he said afte sets out be take thei other Bettman into som his com idea tran explain h ple livin a stor y . one Since pan side r own and let oth r I e sfor meded. “And plan on s we have t her, but “I did g in Cali ture pictures er a “Findin g thecomplicatio ions have then the,” stripe his set on all into - didn that peo cha ther bedroom Riv ing it gets doing at leasdone together the furn itur ns. ple had using furn bea ’t wan too cold ton, a e.” find llenge bec t one . We e has ect as i- has r and nigh complete aus pinpiec Bettma t anymor disposed an ong out, but I more before with tedd htag has tstand, together es that all e it’s diff iculbeen of or n’s mos e.” see this oing On an y wor ple Oct t seri arisen for a set, t rece Instagr projk cohesiv to tha aro ober “Ho nt set 6 Bet es.” nk ing pho und tow n among fans am onc wever, ass ” he said. ely was astma n have bee . Peoall the you on his e the embling posted postingtos of Bett Fac furn sup n has ebook capturman iture a por the the bee them on thei ’s creation part of n fairly eas has been sets ningproject and t he has recepage for and r profi fou nd stat buildin ived on to y. The ting les wit eye out work on his ed he was h muc up wallpapg them has hardest next set. beginbee ing roo for a random h mor er Kee e time-co and wallingn putthe stre m, or perhap bed roo p an nsumin . It m, livs bat g then is commutet during you your nex hroom on e. t morning
IF YOU GO
The festival spans over the weeken 17, 24 and Nov. ds on 154 W. 29th1 at Chelsea’s Treehouof the Oct. se Theater, within a 90-min Street. Four or five plays are $15 availab ute time slot each night. are shown BadTheaterFesle on EventBrite through Tickets Pioneers Bar t.com and knock $3 off the website a drink at festival will down the street from the where peoplealso host a Halloween partyvenue. The will compete at Pioneers, the bad costum for e competition. the worst costume in
actors feel red-headed like the step dren of the chilcomedy and theate worlds,” Wicke r ns said. “There improv actors,is, for a very ‘root for the under dog’ mentality, and that’s what we’re all about as well.” Right now, merely fun the Bad Theater Fest is for viewer s The three-y ear old event and actors. ing out its kinks; organi is still irona challenge zing skits is and between sets smooth transitions are never teed. But Wicken guarans said can be seen he hopes it by a pool of untappfuture audiences as ed talent.
otdowntown.com
YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS SOURCE
Thu 17 Fri 18
Sat 19
STREET OF SHIPS: THE PORT AND ITS PEOPLE
BEGINNERS’ MAHJONG BROADWAY LESSONS PANHANDLER BENEFIT
South Street Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton St. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. $12; seniors/ students/military, $8; $6, kids; free, ages 5 and under A showcase of works of art and artifacts from the museum’s permanent collections related to the 19th century history of the Port of New York. www. southstreetseaportmuseum. org/
New York Public Library Tribeca, 9 Murray St. 2 p.m. Free Have you ever wanted to learn Mahjong? Join up for this four-week program for those interested in learning the basics. www.nypl.org/
ST. PATRICK’S DAY AT KIDVILLE FIDI 40 Gold St. 1:30 p.m.-3 p.m. $25; members $20 Follow the rainbow to a party of gold! A legendary candy bar, a concert with band members from the Rockin’ Railroad, a super fun photo booth, jumpy castle play time in the Big Muscle Gym and an art table full of crafts. www.kidville.com/fidi
E-WASTE TSUNAMI – EXHIBITION ▲ The New School, 66 Fifth Ave. Noon-6 p.m. Free Tracing the journey from wealthy desktops to the poorest corners of the world, this multimedia exhibition defines new ways to see and connect the global ecosystems behind the creation, use and disposal of products and services in today’s technologically connected world. www.events.newschool.edu/ event/e-waste_tsunami_-_ exhibition
Broadway Panhandler, 65 East Eighth St. Sat and Sun, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. $12 for three knives The likely last edtion of Broadway Panhandler’s semiannual knife sharpening event, benefiting City Harvest. The cookware store, in business for decades, will close this spring. www.broadwaypanhandler. com
VUYO SOTASHE Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers St. 7:30 p.m. $25 “Monk in Motion: The Next Face of Jazz” presents the second runner-up of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, vocalist Vuyo Sotashe. www.tribecapac.org
MARCH 17-23,2016
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
p.m. Free Architect Robert Davidson discusses the early phases of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site. www.tributewtc.org
NYWIFT PRESENTS: AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY
Sun 20 Mon 21 DOWNTOWN VOICES SPRING CONCERT Trinity Church, 209 Broadway 3 p.m. Free Share an afternoon of musical serenity and reflection with Downtown Voices, Lower Manhattan’s semiprofessional chorus, as they perform two contemplative and ultimately uplifting selections: James MacMillan’s “Seven Last Words from the Cross” and Paul Mealor’s “Stabat Mater.” www.trinitywallstreet.org
PURIM COSTUME CRAZINESS Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place 10:30 a.m. $8 Celebrate Purim with Joanie Leeds — march in a costume parade, shake groggers, and dance along to a lively concert. Enjoy a crafts activity and a mini-museum tour after the performance. For families with children ages 3 to 7, siblings welcome. www.mjhnyc.org
WHY MOVIES MOVE US Frederick Loewe Theatre, 35 West Fourth St. 6 p.m. Free Ronald Sadoff moderates a panel discussion of the powerful effect music has on how we experience movies. www.events.nyu. edu/#event_id/88433/view/ event
POETRY OF EMPOWERMENT: AN OPEN READING Borough of Manhattan Community College 2 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Free Women and power. Hear inspiring poems read in an open mic setting. www.bmcc.cuny. edu/calendar/events. jsp?id=30602#.VubuJxgydox
Tue 22 AN ARCHITECTURE OF HEALING 9/11 Tribute Center, 120 Liberty St. 6:30
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave. 7 p.m. $11; students/seniors, $9 This documentary tells the story of European Jews who escaped Nazi persecution to find refuge in an unlikely destination: Ecuador. Featuring first-hand accounts, family photos, and archival material, the film follows the exiles’ perilous escape and difficult adjustment as they remade their lives in what was for them an exotic, unfamiliar land. www.anthologyfilmarchives. org
Wed 23 PURIM AT THE SETAI CLUB 40 Broad St. 7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Free Join us and celebrate Purim in style! Sushi Buffet – Open Bar – Megillah Reading with multimedia presentation. Come in Costume. 212-335-0613. www.thejle. com/purimsetai
Everything you like about Our Town Downtown is now available to be delivered to your mailbox every week in the Downtowner From the very local news of your neighborhood to information about upcoming events and activities, the new home delivered edition of the Downtowner will keep you in-the-know.
And best of all you won’t have to go outside to grab a copy from the street box every week.
It’s your neighborhood. It’s your news.
‘DUET’: GIBNEY DANCE COMPANY 280 Broadway 8 p.m. $15 Gina Gibney invites audiences into an intimate reflection on her past work in a sequence of restaged and reimagined works. www.gibneydance.org
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MARCH 17-23,2016
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
Frank Stella, “The Honor and Glory of Whaling,” Hollis Taggart Galleries Photo by Adel Gorgy
A haunting woodblock print by Edvard Munch at the Armory Show 2016 Photo by Adel Gorgy
GLOBAL VISIONS, ONE ADDRESS AT THE ARMORY ART SHOW The massive art fair isn’t just for billionaires BY MARY GREGORY
Tired feet were a small price to pay for the chance to see the latest art from 36 countries in one weekend. The Armory Show, in its 22nd year,
filled Piers 92 and 94 from March 3rd through the 6th with over 200 galleries and thousands of works by contemporary and modern artists. For a few days each year, those who make the art world hum come to New York to create new buzz. The Armory Show’s galleries brought blue chip names, breakout artists, and new discoveries to tempt moguls, movie stars, and millionaires (billionaires,
too) and lots of other art lovers. If you missed the Frank Stella show at the Whitney, you had a chance to pick one up here. If you loved the Munchs at the Neue Galerie, there was a whole wall for sale at John Szoke. While the opening night featured glitterati-studded, paparazzi-flooded parties, after that, it was still packed, but sane. Collectors, museum directors and curators make their lists and scout for deals the way many of us shop at department stores. Price tags ranged from under $1,000 well into the millions. Polite, knowledgeable gallerists were happy to discuss artists and works and answer questions. There were cubist faces by Picasso and bold, proud portraits by contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley. Ruth Asawa’s sculptures were delicate and airy. Alma Thomas is an underappreciated African-American abstractionist whose paintings beam with color and joy. One of Alice Aycock’s masterful, swirling sculptures recalling paper caught in the wind from the series that graced Park Avenue in 2015 was presented at New York’s Marlborough Gallery. Stockholm’s Wetterling
Emil Nolde’s radiant sunset “Schwüler Abend” ca. 1946 Photo by Adel Gorgy
Gallery brought a selection of David Hockneys, Robert Rauschenbergs and James Rosenquists. Federico Herrero’s “Barco,” 2015, at Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf, had the simple geometry and muted tones of a Morandi, but inflated to monumental size. You could find gorgeous Morandis at Galleria d’Arte Maggiore. Emil Nolde’s lush sunset in red at Galerie Ludorff drew me from across the room, despite its modest dimensions. So did a pairing of two de Kooning abstractions at DC Moore. Donald Ellis Gallery presented an astonishing collection of Plains Indian ledger drawings that were an eloquent, evocative surprise. There were portraits, landscapes, still-lifes, photographs, sculptures, installations, a pink rocket ship, dolls and political comments made in paint, paper, marble, steel, fabric, comput-
ers and even lint. The Armory Show features a curated section each year; this year’s was a focus on contemporary artists and galleries from Africa. Fourteen galleries and dozens of artists and curators made the journey. Echo Art, from Lagos, Nigeria, presented a series of large photographs by Namsa Leuba that merge aspects of portraiture, dance and fashion into colorful, arresting images. New York is the cultural capital of the world. Every artist on the planet wants to figure out how to get to Carnegie Hall. More than 200 organizations brought their best right to us. If you haven’t been to an art fair, you might think they’re not for you—too elitist, too perplexing. But they’re not. They’re great, condensed ways to see new things, think new thoughts, and enrich your world.
MARCH 17-23,2016
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
ACTIVITIES FOR THE FERTILE MIND
thoughtgallery.org NEW YORK CITY
Please Make This Look Nice | Graphic Design Talk
THURSDAY, MARCH 17TH, 6:30PM The Drawing Center | 35 Wooster St. | 212-219-2166 | drawingcenter.org National Design Award–winner Stephen Doyle speaks about the way non-traditional tools and techniques have made their way into his graphic design practice. (Free)
Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence
TUESDAY, MARCH 22ND, 7PM Nat’l Sept. 11 Memorial | 180 Greenwich St. | 212-312-8800 | 911memorial.org A paint conservator found that the servant bedroom was painted a light blue, perhaps to reflect light in the room, which was without the gas lighting present in the rest of the house. Photo courtesy of the Merchant’s House Museum.
A ST. PAT’S HOUSE TOUR TO DO BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO
For those interested in a taste of bygone city life, the Merchant’s House Museum on Fourth Street offers a glimpse at urban dwelling in the 19th century. Built in 1832, the preserved home was occupied by the affluent Tredwell family for almost a century and is still outfitted with the family’s furniture. It’s also haunted, some say. Emily Wright, the museum’s communications and programs manager, shares the history of the family, the home and the Irish women who worked in the house and are the subjects of an upcoming St. Patrick’s Day tour.
THE HISTORY The Erie Canal opened in the 1820s and it was transformative for New York; it helped turn New York from a small port city into a thriving metropolis. You could send goods up the Hudson and out the Erie Canal to the rest of North America, and it changed the face of New York. It brought a lot more people to New York, and a lot more money. Young men who entered this new merchant class of importing and exporting made a tremendous amount of money. So Seabury Tredwell was born on Long Island and he came to New York as a young man and made his fortune as a hardware merchant. In the 19th century,
hardware meant anything made out of metal. Not just hammers and nails but also things like picture frames or pots and pans, buttons, anything that might be made of metal. He moved his family to Fourth Street here in 1835. A lot of members of the merchant class were leaving the congested seaport area downtown and moving up to this neighborhood at this time.
THE STAFF When New York really started to change and members of this new merchant class began making money, they developed a strong need for servants. Families who just a couple generations before never would have been able to dream of having live-in help all of a sudden could afford to have servants living and working in their homes. The Tredwell’s are no exception. We know from census records that they always had four women in residence on Fourth Street. And the census also tells us that these women primarily were Irish immigrants. It was extremely common to have Irish women working as servants in your home. It was actually so common that Bridget, a traditionally Irish name, became a slang term. Instead of talking about the maids you had in your house you might talk about the Bridgets you employed.
THE WORK The thing that was surpris-
IF YOU GO: Merchant’s House Museum 29 E. Fourth St., near Lafayette Street Museum hours: Thursday, noon-8 p.m.; Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, noon-5 p.m. Admission: $13 St. Patrick’s Day tours included with general admission For more information, visit merchantshouse.org or call 212-777-1089 ing to me in developing the [St. Patrick’s Day] tour was the amount of agency servants developed because there was such a demand for servants. If you were particularly skilled and you had experience, you really had a surprising amount of say in how much you were paid and time off and things like that…Social life in the 19th century, there were interesting nuances. You would have dinner parties and there were specific rules about how you would serve the food, so you needed a servant who was sort of savvy in that way, who was up on what the trends were so when you were entertaining your friends, your servants would be able to carry it all off without a hitch. And so as a servant if you really knew what you were doing that gave you a surprising amount of power.
In the wake of extremist attacks around the world, former Chief Rabbi of the UK and Commonwealth Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks looks at the complex connections between religion and violence, and faith’s place in the struggle for peace. (Free, reservation required)
Cabaret Series: Textile Tests | The Future of Textiles in Design
TUESDAY, MARCH 29TH, 7PM Storefront for Art and Architecture | 97 Kenmare St. | 212-431-5795 | storefrontnews.org Brick, metal and plastic aren’t the only means to forms and spaces. Hear about the future of textiles in design from a panel of experts that includes masters of weaving, 3D printing and 3D embroidery. (Free)
For more information about lectures, readings and other intellectually stimulating events throughout NYC,
sign up for the weekly Thought Gallery newsletter at thoughtgallery.org.
MARBLE COLLEGIATE CHURCH
EASTER 2016 Sunday, March 27 Services at 9:00 & 11:00am For a full listing of Holy Week events, visit MarbleChurch.org
Dr. Michael B. Brown, Senior Minister 1 West 29th Street New York, New York 10001 212 686 2770 MarbleChurch.org
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MARCH 17-23,2016
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS FEB 17 - MAR 11, 2016
Getting Hungry
225 Varick St
A
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 www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/services/restaurant-grades.page.
Rebel Coffee
19 8Th Ave
A
Sushi West
556 Hudson Street
Grade Pending (22) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.
Jack’s Wife Freda
50 Carmine St
Grade Pending (25) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. 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. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
Ramen By Mew
7 Cornelia St
Grade Pending (17) 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.
Sweet Revenge
62 Carmine Street
A
Ready To Eat
525 Hudson Street
Grade Pending (15) 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.
Dunkin Donuts & Baskin Robbins
395 Hudson St
Not Yet Graded (32) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Personal cleanliness inadequate. Outer garment soiled with possible contaminant. Effective hair restraint not worn in an area where food is prepared. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
Blue Ribbon
33 Downing Street
A
Mcdonald’s
208 Varick Street
A
Joy Burger Bar
361 6Th Ave
Grade Pending (48) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.
Kung Fu Tea
73 Chrystie Street
A
Perfect Picnic
81 Allen St
Not Yet Graded (6) Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.
Grade Pending (19) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.
Schiller’s Liquor Bar
131 Rivington Street
A
Homemade Dumpling
27 Essex Street
A
Q & Q Bakery
50 E Broadway
A
Legend Bar & Restaurant
88 7 Avenue
Grade Pending (28) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan. Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
Sticky’s Finger Joint #1
31 West 8 Street
Grade Pending - Establishment authorized to reopen after inspection conducted on 03/03/2016.
Chartwells
118 West 13 Street
A
Complete Body & Spa
22 West 19 Street
A
The Rindside Cafe
28 W 20Th St
A
Donut Pub
203 West 14 Street
A
Spain Restaurant & Bar
113 West 13 Street
Grade Pending (2)
Guckenheimer @ Twitter
245 W 17Th St
Not Yet Graded (18) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.
Auntie Guan’s Kitchen 108 108 W 14Th St
Grade Pending (35) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.
Very Fresh Noodles
Grade Pending (48) Food from unapproved or unknown source or home canned. Reduced oxygen packaged (ROP) fish not frozen before processing; or ROP foods prepared on premises transported to another site. Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. No facilities available to wash, rinse and sanitize utensils and/or equipment.
425 W 15Th St
Murray’s Bagels
242 8 Avenue
A
Gotham Pizza
144 9 Avenue
A
Pinto
118 Christopher Street Grade Pending (25) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. 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.
Arbor Bistro
226 West Houston Street
Dominique Bistro
14 Christopher St
A
Ghost
132 Eldridge Street
A
Pizzetteria Brunetti
626 Hudson Street
A
Blue Moon Cafe
100 Orchard St
Not Yet Graded (4)
Cc’s Cafe
496 Hudson Street
A
Classic Coffee Shop
56 Hester Street
A
Better Being Underground
55 Leroy Street
A
88 Palace Restaurant
88 East Broadway
A
Frankies 570 Spuntino
570 Hudson Street
A
Cafe Petisco
189 East Broadway
A
Rivoli Pizza Ii
131 Christopher St
A
Sammy’s Steakhouse
155157 Christie St.
A
MARCH 17-23,2016
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS Le Pain Quotidien
81 West Broadway
A
Vivi Bubble Tea
226 E 14Th St
Takahachi Bakery
25 Murray Street
Grade Pending (17) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. 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.
Not Yet Graded (38) Hand washing facility not provided in or near food preparation area and toilet room. Hot and cold running water at adequate pressure to enable cleanliness of employees not provided at facility. Soap and an acceptable hand-drying device not provided. No facilities available to wash, rinse and sanitize utensils and/or equipment.
Gnoccheria By Luzzo’s
234 E 4Th St
A
Dunkin Donuts
321 Broadway
A
Domino’s
440 E 14Th St
A
Manhattan Proper
6 Murray Street
A
Hi Fi
169 Avenue A
A
Dunkin Donuts
100 Chambers St
A
Cien Fuegos
95 Avenue A
A
Burger King
325 Broadway
A
Pbd
627 E 6Th St
A
Pret A Manger
179 Broadway
A
Dante’s Gourmet Food
166 William Street
Wicked Juice & Kitchen
88 W Broadway
A
Mariachi’s Restaurant
156 Chambers St
Not Yet Graded (2)
The Patriot Saloon
110 Chambers Street
A
Grade Pending (30) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Evidence of rats or live rats present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Hand washing facility not provided in or near food preparation area and toilet room. Hot and cold running water at adequate pressure to enable cleanliness of employees not provided at facility. Soap and an acceptable hand-drying device not provided.
Little Italy Pizza
11 Park Place
A
Pearl Street Diner
212 Pearl Street
A
Dona Bella Pizza
154 Church Street
Grade Pending (30) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. 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.
Plaza Deli
127 John Street
A
Holiday Inn New York City Wall Street (The Bullpen)
51 Nassau St
A
Mcdonald’s
160 Broadway
A
Subway, Carvel
112 John St
A
Great Taste Bakery
3335 Catherine Street Grade Pending (18) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.
Aroma Espresso Bar
100 Church Street
A
Lupa Osteria Romana
170 Thompson Street
A
Parm
248 Mulberry Street
A
Aroma Espresso Bar
145 Greene Street
A
Potbelly Sandwich Works
127 Fulton St
A
Grade Pending (22) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.
Melt Shop
111 Fulton St
A
Wendy’s
85 Nassau St
A
Giardino D’oro
5 Gold Street
A
The Coffee Bean Tea & Leaf 189 Bleecker Street
Dumpling Kingdom
227 Sullivan St
A
Acqua Restaurant
2123 Peck Slip
A
Dojo Restaurant
10 West 4 Street
A
Bennie’s Thai Cafe
88 Fulton Street
A
Bagel Boss
263 1 Avenue
A
Mika Japanese Cuisine & Bar
150 Centre Street
Souen Noodle
326 East 6 Street
A
Momofuku Milk Bar
251 East 13 Street
A
Upstate
95 1 Avenue
A
Baohaus
238 East 14 Street
A
Elsewhere Espresso
335 East 6 Street
A
Grade Pending (23) Food worker does not use proper utensil to eliminate bare hand contact with food that will not receive adequate additional heat treatment. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred. Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.
L’apicio
11 East 1 Street
A
Smile To Go
22 Howard Street
A
Red House
203 E 14Th St
Not Yet Graded (22) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. No facilities available to wash, rinse and sanitize utensils and/or equipment.
Weather Up
159 Duane Street
O’hanlon’s Bar
349 East 14 Street
A
Dbgb Kitchen & Bar
299 Bowery
A
Grade Pending (21) Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred. Wiping cloths soiled or not stored in sanitizing solution.
The Royal
127 4 Avenue
A
White Street
221 W Broadway
A
Cozy Cafe
43 East 1 Street
A
Little Lions
40 Grand St
A
Puffy’s Tavern
81 Hudson Street
A
Tamarind Tribeca
99 Hudson Street
A
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MARCH 17-23,2016
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
Property In Brief BICYCLE LANES CONSTRUCTION SET TO BREAK RECORD Bike lanes similar to this one could be added to several Upper East Side crosstown streets. Photo: Helen K, via flickr
The Department of Transportation announced that 2016 would see a record breaking number of protected bike lanes built in the city. Protected bike lanes are those that use a barrier of some sort—such as planters, parked cars or posts—to separate bikers from vehicle traffic. The DOT said in their statement that 12 miles of protected bike lanes were built last year, and that more than 15 miles are in the works for 2016 in all five boroughs, as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “new $115 million investment in street redesign and traffic-calming measures on key thoroughfares citywide.” According to WNYC, protected bike lanes average at around $600,000 per mile, bringing the price tag for 15 miles of bike lanes to $9 million. DOT officials said the federal government would be able to reimburse them for much of the cost. The initiative will surely be met with praise by areas like Community Board 7, which has repeatedly voted in favor of a protected bike lane on Amsterdam Ave., but Community Board 18 district manager Dorothy Turano told the Brooklyn Daily that the board would “never, in any way, endorse bike lanes on Flatbush Avenue” due to the dangerous traffic flow. Flatbush Avenue is slated to get a protected lane connecting it to Marine Park.
CITY SEES ALL-TIME HIGH IN JOB GROWTH The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced that 249,000 jobs were added between the time Mayor de Blasio took office in January 2014 and December 2015—the most growth in a two-year period in the city’s history. There are now 4.29 million jobs total, with the strongest employment gains in healthcare and social services. “These numbers reflect what we’re seeing on the ground. More businesses launching and growing here in New York City. More New Yorkers finding good jobs in all five boroughs,” NYCEDC President Maria Torres-Springer said in a statement. According to the New York Times, the 58 percent of the city’s population that is employed is its highest rate in “at least four decades.” The population itself, at roughly 8.5 million, is also at a high, along with the record-breaking 58.3 million visitors of 2015. NYC & Company, the city’s marketing agency, forecast that 59.7 million tourists will visit this year—a 2.4 percent increase.
CLOSING TIME FOR LOCAL BARS NEWS Sports bars, home brewing cuts into business BY JOYCE M. ROSENBERG
Taps are running dry and doors are closing at neighborhood bars across the country. That has left the remaining ones to try to find ways to stay afloat. One in six bars closed between 2004 and 2014, according to market research firm Nielsen. More than 600 close each month, with just 334 opening. The neighborhood bar closures are happening as more people are getting their alcoholic drinks from restaurants, cavernous sports bars with scores of TV screens, brewpubs and at home. Besides the increasing competition, neighborhood bars also are contending with other challenges, including rising costs for expenses such as rent. For instance, when the rent doubled seven years ago at Mumbles in New York City, running a neighborhood bar became more difficult for owner David Feldman. Online reservation and order-taking services took more bites out of his profits. At the end of January, after 22 years, Mumbles closed. “It’s getting harder and harder. The bigger corporate restaurants have tons of money, that seems to be the way things are going,” says Feldman, who still has two restaurants in Manhattan, one of which will now employ one of Mumbles’ bartenders. The number of neighborhood bars has declined as drinking habits have changed, says Lester Jones, chief economist with the National Beer Wholesalers Association, a trade group. Tougher laws on underage drinking and drunk driving have cut into consumption. The growth of in-home pay TV services has also had an impact; when relatively few
homes had cable in the early 1970s, sports fans went to bars to see games that weren’t on broadcast TV. There were nearly 10 million cable subscribers in 1975 and close to 100 million pay TV subscribers last year, including cable, satellite and telephone companydelivered services, according to research firm SNL Kagan. People don’t need the corner bar. When consumers do go out, they have a rapidly growing number of choices. Restaurants including national chains have bars and advertise their beverages as much as their food. They’re also the kind of place where parents can take their kids and have a beer with their meals. And the chains are growing; the number of Buffalo Wild Wings locations has tripled from 370 in 2005 to 1,136 by the end of 2015. Rising costs also have hurt neighborhood bars. Rent increases, in particular, are typical of areas that are trendy or have high real estate taxes. Urban areas where residents have big incomes have
seen the largest increases in rents for retail space, which includes bars, says Ryan McCullough, a senior economist with CoStar Group, a real estate information provider. Rents in those areas nationwide are up an average 9.4 percent since the high they reached before the recession. But in areas where demand for real estate is particularly high, rent increases can be substantially higher. Rents on a trendy stretch of Broadway in Manhattan not far from Mumbles soared 42 percent between the fall of 2014 and this past fall, according to the Real Estate Board of New York, a trade group. Other cities see similar increases: In Miami, retail rents rose an average of nearly 33 percent from 2011 to last year, with rates in the hottest areas climbing at a higher pace, according to Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate services company. In addition to higher rent, neighborhood bars have to contend with other rising costs. Larger companies with mul-
tiple locations can buy beer, liquor and food at lower prices because they get bigger discounts -- the New York State Liquor Authority mandates a 40 percent discount on purchases of 50 cases, compared to 20 percent on five cases. A higher minimum wage and rising insurance costs also sap profits, says Tess Collins, who runs McGeary’s in downtown Albany, New York. But Collins brightens as she talks about McGeary’s customers. The bar draws a regular after-work crowd and people visiting the state capital on business. Families show up on weekends. There are seven TVs in the main bar and two in a back room, but Collins finds her customers are more interested in talking to each other than watching a game. “I have an awesome community here,” says Collins, whose bar is nearby Recovery Sports Grill, a sports bar and restaurant that has 35 screens and is part of an 11-location chain. “Everybody knows each other.”
MARCH 17-23,2016
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MARCH 17-23,2016 At The Caedmaon School, pupils and students use Minecraft as part of math, social studies, language arts and science curriculums.
MAKING A GAME OF LEARNING At The Caedmaon School, teachers and students use Minecraft across the curriculum BY BRYTNIE JONES
“Hi, welcome to Caedmon School,” said Dylan Fingeroot. Dylan, a kindergartner, has been his class’ ambassador at the East 80th Street school for the past few weeks. He takes great pride in that responsibility. Caedmon, a Montessoriinspired pre-school and elementary school where students are made to feel at home and as if they could accomplish nearly anything, is incorporating video games into their teaching — at the suggestion of students. Nolan Crohn, a science and technology specialist, heard about Minecraft from his students. After wondering what they were talking about, he played, and discovered, on his own. After taking a liking to the adventure game, Crohn concluded that it could be a useful teaching tool. Shortly after his discovery, librarian and technol-
ogy specialist Mary Beth Vrazel, who has had less experience in Minecraft, also decided took the challenge of incorporating Minecraft into her classroom. After just two weeks as part of class lessons, the game became the subject of much conversation among staff, students and even parents. Several students are supremely excited about playing the game in school; just as importantly, teachers are thinking through the game’s permutations and how those can be further assimilated into the school’s mission. Crohn and Vrazel hope to become “Minecraft ambassadors” by the end of the school year and, in turn, help teachers incorporate the game into math, social studies, language arts and science lesson plans. “The enthusiasm that the teachers have for it, and the kids clearly have for it, is indication of a true learning experience. I think every learning experience should be fun and there should be joy, and working with young kids is
all about joy and experience and discovery,” Caedmon’s assistant head of school, Lisa Oberstein, said. Oberstein had heard of Minecraft from her nephews, but when she heard about the game’s educational version and the experiences that Crohn and Vrazel had with their students, she became all the more intrigued about the teaching possibilities. “Looking at digital citizenship as being digital leaders and recognizing that when you are doing something online, it’s a real reflection of who you are in real life,” she said. “So, giving kids opportunities to try things out in ways that are not just like Facebook or Instagram ... but really integrating education into something that they’ve already been studying is super powerful because the kids already love it.” Minecraft was created by a Swedish video game programmer in 2009 and eventually grew into a multilayered venture that invites players to work together to create complex, imaginative worlds. Recently, a version of
the game expressly designed for use in the classroom, MinecraftEdu, has provided an educational remix to the already popular game. MinecraftEdu, composed by teachers for teachers, provides already created worlds and lesson plans. But the site gives teachers free range to create their own worlds, lessons and even rules to the game. Some lessons include learning about volume, recreating stories or settings from novels, crisis management and coding, just to name a few. Crohn uses the game during a lesson he created about the Inca. Via Minecraft, students are challenged to inhabit the Inca’s day-to-day lives in the pre-Columbian empire. The students are set assignments and usernames at the beginning of the class, which, depending on the lesson, change often. Fifth-grader Karolina Kocica said that she particularly enjoyed the game’s “infinite amount of possibilities. “ “You’re not just learning, you’re learning about nature and the environment. For example, they take the forest so you can access it in your school and you can learn about it like you’re there,” she said. “I look at it as a white canvas that you can fill with any color and do anything with”. Another fifth-grader, Camille Norman, said she was discovering things about Minecraft she had no idea that one could do within the game. “Mr. Crohn has created a world for us to go and live like the Incas and it’s fun and creative,” Camille said. Crohn says that there are so many possibilities and parallels that match students’ interest in Minecraft that the learning aspect sneaks up on them. During a recent third-grade lesson,
Vrazel’s pupils were hard at work building longhouses to complement their social studies lesson on Northeastern Native Americas when one was set on fire. An initial moment of chaos and panic turned into a lesson in problem solving and crisis management. “Some of the things the kids come up with, it’s like, ‘well, that’s a clever way of doing it.’ It’s really fun. You never know what’s going to happen, it’s sort of like a real life experience in a virtual world,” Vrazel said. The game can provide a sense of community for students, who interact with one another inside the classroom as well as within the game’s universe. It also inspires teamwork, with students taking different roles and responsibilities within their Minecraft worlds. Crohn said that when students leave the Caedmon School and further their education elsewhere, the biggest lesson he hopes that they take with them is about digital citizenship and digital community building. “What you do technologically can effect people just as much if not more as what you do in interpersonal relationships. My hope is that when they are on social media, or texting, or commenting on anything else, that it’s not a faceless or anonymous thing,” said Crohn said. “It’s just like it is if you’re working together on Minecraft, there is a real person behind the computer.” MinecraftEdu proves itself as an easy, fun and exciting learning experience, not only for the students, but for staff. It is a combination of creativity and learning, with few restrictions or limitations. Minecraft could just be the game changing answer to a real learning experience.
MARCH 17-23,2016
Central Park
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE PARK It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Spring! Signs of Spring are popping up everywhere in Central Park, and while what we consider spring technically begins on March 20, meteorological spring started March 1. You can start to see shoots popping up and flowers blooming and hear robins and bluebirds singing, especially around areas such as Shakespeare or Conservatory Gardens. To see which flowers bloom in the Conservatory Gardens check out centralpark.com/guide/conservatorygarden-flowers. Take a Tour: What a great time to book a tour and learn new things about Central Park. Whether you want to rent a bike, or have a tour guide take you around, check out centralpark.com/guide/ tours.
COMING UP THIS WEEK PUBLIC ART FUND: ISA GENGKEN’S TWO ORCHIDS
Isa Genzken’s “Two Orchids,” which rise 34 and 28 feet
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No better way to celebrate spring than by visiting the newest Public Art Fund work: artist Isa Genzken’s “Two Orchids,” which rise 34 and 28 feet and appear delicate and willowy, despite their stainless steel construction. When: through August 21. Where: Doris C. Freedman Plaza, located at the corner of 60th Street and Fifth Avenue. For more info visit: centralpark.com/events
Do you know where in Central Park this photo was taken? To submit your answer, visit centralpark.com/wherein-central-park. The names of those who answer correctly will appear in the paper and online in two weeks.
Subscribe today to Downtowner
CENTRAL PARK ZOO: ICE AGE: NO TIME FOR NUTS 4-D: This fully immersive, high energy show runs 9 minutes. Geared for children ages 6 and up. Location: Central Park Zoo When: Every day between 10 a.m. & 4 p.m. For more info visit: centralpark.com/events
Event listings and Where in Central Park? brought to you by CentralPark.com.
ANSWER TO THE WHERE IN CENTRAL PARK? PREVIOUS QUIZ Located in the park off of Fifth Avenue near 61st Street, the statue of Thomas Moore is made out of bronze, and sits on a Conway green granite base. It was sculpted by Dennis Sheahan. The statue was commissioned by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, and was unveiled in 1880 on the 101st anniversary of Moore’s birth. Thomas Moore was considered the national bard of Ireland in the early 19th century. He was known as a poet and as an author of lyric songs. Congratulations to Gregory Holman, Joe Ornstein and Bill Ferrarini for answering correctly.
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A HOLOCAUST TALE, SET TO MUSIC Q&A How a heroic story made its way to the musical stage BY HEATHER STEIN
Written by and starring Shira Ginsburg - whose day job is as a Cantor at a Manhattan synagogue -- “Bubby’s Kitchen” is a one-woman musical about Ginsburg’s grandparents. The show chronicles their work as resistance fighters against the Nazis as they survived for years in the forests of Belarus during World War II. More than 30,000 Jews emerged from the forests at the end of the war, and the show details their fight against the Nazis, their liberation, and their eventual move to America. Ginsburg talks about the show -- scheduled for the Manhattan JCC in April -- and what it means, along with musical director Rick Bertone and lyricist Jonathan Comisar.
What is Bubby’s Kitchen about? Shira Ginsburg: Bubby’s Kitchen is about the most special place on earth to me – my grandparents’ home and kitchen, a little brick house on a little sweet street. On the outside, it was nothing particularly unique, but on the inside was the center of my world, and the Jewish world of Troy, N.Y. It’s about the journey of learning how to process all of the people, stories and experiences swirling around you when you’re a child and how those things synthesize in you as you figure out how to become your true self. It’s at once poignant, lighthearted, heartbreaking and hilarious. Rick Bertone: Bubby’s Kitchen is a glimpse into the family of holocaust survivors and how that life experience shaped future generations of the Ginsburg family. To me, it is a story of hope, love, and faith set against one of mankind’s darkest moments. Jonathan Comisar: It’s about Shira Ginsburg’s special relationship with the women in her family, emphasizing the influence her remarkable bubby Yudis Ginsburg has had on Shira’s life. As Shira tells us in one of
IF YOU GO What: Bubby’s Kitchen When: April 28 - April 30, 7:30 p.m. Where: Manhattan JCC, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th Street For more info: www.bubbyskithcen.com her monologues, all the lessons of life and love and Jewishness, she learned in her grandmother’s kitchen.
How did the show take shape? Ginsburg: As soon as I decided I would tell this story, it basically wrote itself. Choosing just a few stories to highlight out of the hundreds that I had swirling in my mind was the challenge. Directly after the first performance, audience members came up to me telling me how much it resonated for them, and asked if I would come perform in their communities. In that moment, Bubby’s Kitchen took on a life of its own and has traveled to over 25 communities, entirely on word of mouth. Bertone: I came on board in 2013 with the previous director, a colleague of mine from
“Spamalot” and a classmate of Shira’s from undergrad. Comisar: Shira and I met through the Cantor world. I too am an ordained Cantor. Shira had an inkling that my musical backgrounds and composition style would be good fits for the show she was developing. When Shira approached me and asked if I would consider writing original music for this, I gave her an open-ended response: ‘Let’s sit together in a room with a piano and see if we can come up with something together. Let’s see if the chemistry is there.’ And after we wrote our first song together, we both were proud of our collaboration and realized we were a match.
What message in the show is critical for a New York audience to hear now? Ginsburg: We are so polarized as a nation politically, I think it is crucial that we take time to appreciate that the diversity of our neighbors and our ability to live together in such close proximity of each other in such a peaceful way is precisely what makes us so great. New York City is exemplary in so many ways. I hope we can serve
as a model to our nation of tolerance and unity as we stand at this crucial political precipice. Comisar: New York is a Jewish city, over 10% of the city is Jewish ... And whether you are Jewish or not, Jewish ethnicity, humor, and food are part of the lifeblood of this city. The genre of the musical is a New York phenomenon. New Yorkers of all races and ethnicity can step into the world of Bubby’s Kitchen and feel right at home.
What was most challenging about working on Bubby’s? Bertone: Being raised Catholic, grasping some of the musical styles definitely came as a challenge in the beginning. Now, the challenge lies in having the strength to access these dark moments in history for each performance. Comisar: The most challenging thing for me has been striking the right tone in the creating of the music and lyric-writing. A musical that involves the Holocaust is a huge challenge. How does one write music that touches the darkness without wallowing in it? How to be poignant without crossing over to maudlin? It is a balancing act. And knowing that the show has
moments of darkness, how do we find the right places to bring in comedy and levity.
What part of your own background fed into this story? Ginsburg: I grew up on my grandparent’s dairy farm in Troy, N.Y., and spent every day of my life in their home. It was an incredible gift. As a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, my cousins and I were brought up as if we were siblings. We are an incredibly tight-knit, close, and wildly colorful family that has been brought up to value the bonds and connections to family, friends and community as the most valuable thing in life. Professionally, I have my BFA in drama from Syracuse University and was a professional actress, singer and songwriter here in New York before going back to Hebrew Union College for my Master’s Degree and Cantorial Ordination. I just celebrated my tenth year as Cantor at East End Temple in Gramercy, and I have been traveling Bubby’s Kitchen around the country for the last five years. Marrying my two greatest passions in life and being able to work as both Cantor and actor car-
rying forth the same messages and missions from two different platforms has been more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. Bertone: I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and studied music at NYU. I am a professional musician working in the theater industry in NYC and have played keyboards and/or conducted for numerous shows either here in town or on tour. Comisar: I am not the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, but the stories of the Shoah were hauntingly formative to me in my growing up years. I have distant relatives who were murdered by the Nazis, so the stories of the partisans are not immediately familiar to me personally. But my consciousness of the Holocaust and the imperative of memory and storytelling are at the very core of my Jewish self.
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“I WISH SOMEONE WOULD HELP THAT HOMELESS MAN.”
BE THE SOMEONE. Sam New York Cares Volunteer
Every day, we think to ourselves that someone should really help make this city a better place. Visit newyorkcares.org to learn about the countless ways you can volunteer and make a difference in your community.
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