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31-6
<P.12
2017
THE PRESERVATION LAWYER When community groups gear up for a land-use fight, Michael Hiller is often their first call BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Land-use and preservation cases didn’t always dominate Michael Hiller’s caseload. For much of his career, they didn’t make up the lions’ share of the work taken on by his Manhattan-based law firm. As he tells it, the focus of his practice began to shift not because he changed, but because municipal politics did. The number of land-use and preservation cases grew under the Michael Bloomberg administration, he said, but truly exploded when Bill de Blasio took office in 2013. “This is the most developmentfriendly mayoral administration in the history of the city,” Hiller said. In recent years, community groups have enlisted Hiller in a number of notable preservation and land-use cases, including efforts to block the construction condos at a former Underground Railroad site in Chelsea and the former First Church of Christ, Scientist on Central Park West, remove historic stacks of books from the New York Public Library, and oppose the America Museum of Natural History’s controversial Gilder Center expansion plan. The Gilder Center proposal, currently in the city’s environmental review process, calls for the construction of a new museum building that would occupy a portion of Theodore Roosevelt Park. One local group opposing the plan, Community United to Protect Theodore Roosevelt Park, enlisted Hiller to help in their fight. “It was very clear that hiring Michael Hiller was the only possible way forward,” said Bill Raudenbush, a member of Community United to Protect Theodore Roosevelt Park who is now running for City Coun-
This statue of Peter Stuyvesant is the target of a Jewish activist group that is demanding its removal from Stuyvesant Square. A Dutch governor of New Amsterdam in the 1650s, Stuyvesant had savaged Catholics and railed against Jews as a “deceitful race,” seeking to bar them from settling in the colony that became New York. Photo: MusikAnimal, via Wikimedia Commons
Michael Hiller cil on the Upper West Side. “He is hands-down the best land-use attorney and the best voice about developers and development that this city has,” Raudenbush said. “Thank God he’s on our side.” According to Hiller, the Gilder Center plan would amount to an illegal expansion. “What they would be doing is expanding into the grassy green areas of the park that don’t belong to the museum,” he said. “That land belongs to the city and to the people. If the city wants to cede that land to the museum, they have to go through the ULURP process,” the city’s land-use review procedure. “I love the American Museum of Natural History,” Hiller added. “It’s a great place. I’ve been there many times and my kids love it. But the notion that an institution is going to be taking away a public resource — specifically public greenspace — for really no reason at all doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
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MONUMENTAL BATTLE RAGES OVER MONUMENTS HERITAGE Statues, portraits, plaques — and even a tomb — face possible eviction. Will it leave a hole in our history or right historical wrongs? BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
The city is at a crossroads. The face it presents to the outside world could be transformed. The way it views itself may metamorphose into something
else. And the very nature of its past could be rewritten. What’s going on and what is at stake? Mayor Bill de Blasio summed it up when he explained the grand ambitions of City Hall’s latest initiative: “We’re trying to unpack 400 years of American history here,” he said. Exactly. In those 10 pointed words, he synthesized his administration’s controversial plan to conduct a “90day review of all symbols of hate on city property.” Supporters were heartened. The backlash was swift. After President Donald Trump’s 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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equivocating response to the neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic and white supremacist violence in Charlottesville — “many sides” were to blame, he said — advocates demanded a purge of tainted historical figures commemorated in city statues and monuments. A tear-them-all-down movement quickly developed. There’s no defense for totems of hatred and flashpoints of intolerance, the argument went. Start by pulling down the statue of Christopher Columbus from its 76-foot-tall
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AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
CITY’S CALORIE COUNT LAW DEBATED Efficacy of nation’s first such rule is questioned BY JENNIFER PELTZ
As a court fight simmers over New York City’s pioneering requirement for calorie counts on chain restaurant menus, scientists say the jury’s still out on whether giving people the numbers spurs them to eat healthier. The city says that by requiring eateries to tell people that their $4 cheeseburger will also cost them about 540 calories, it’s helping diners make informed choices in an era of rising obesity. New York City’s first-in-the-nation rule took full effect in 2008. It was copied by other cities and counties and a half-dozen states and became part of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul. The repeatedly delayed federal regulation, which extends to grocery and convenience store chain menus, is now set to take effect next year. But plenty of opponents to the idea remain, including some who question its effectiveness. Studies to date haven’t conclusively shown that restaurant-goers, on the whole, actually order lighter foods when the calorie tally is right there. It
appears to influence some people, in some settings, and possibly restaurants’ recipes, researchers say. “What we haven’t seen so far is any sort of dramatic change in the number of calories purchased at the population level,” says Dr. Brian Elbel, a New York University health policy professor who co-authored a 2014 analysis of 31 studies on the subject, some of them his own. But “some people are definitely seeing and using this information.” The National Association of Convenience Stores cited some of that research when it sued to stop New York City from enforcing a retooled rule expanding the calorie labeling requirements to groceries and other small markets, saying the city was forcing businesses to spend thousands of dollars complying with a local rule when a national one is coming. A Manhattan federal judge earlier this month approved a deal among lawyers on both sides that ensures the city will not enforce the expansion before May. The agreement also ensures that calorie counts won’t disappear from chains that have posted them for years. “This addresses the most basic of needs — providing us with nutrition information to make healthful deci-
sions at the time of decision-making,” spokeswoman Stephanie Buhle said this week. About 1 million New Yorkers see calorie data every day, according to Health Department research, and a 2011 Quinnipiac University poll found 79 percent of city voters found the information useful. But if it’s useful, do people use it? At least three research analyses have said there’s no definitive proof it leads to lower-calorie orders for diners and eateries in general, though researchers involved note that they may not have captured small effects. Some scientists feel the research shows the policy falls short. Menu labeling “might not be the proper prescription,” Indiana University medical professor Dr. Aaron Campbell wrote in The New York Times in 2015. But some individual studies have found effects. Some Stanford University business professors’ 2010 examination of over 100 million Starbucks purchases found that menu postings trimmed the calories in customers’ orders by an average of 6 percent, from 247 to 232. In another example, a 2013 study in Seattle and surrounding King County found some calorie-cutting, though particularly by women and customers
The city’s requirement that calorie counts be listed on chain restaurant menus hasn’t significantly changed people’s eating habits. Photo: David Pursehouse, via flickr who said they took menu postings into account when ordering. While the overall evidence is mixed, “I think it’s still reasonable to say that among those who see and use the information, it is helpful to them — and why wouldn’t you want to give consumers information?” says University of Washington medical professor Jim Krieger, a co-author of the King County study. He also runs Healthy Food America, a food policy advocacy group. Krieger and others have also done research that suggests some restaurants offer lower-calorie dishes after
labeling requirements. And researchers note that calorie counts could have hard-to-measure effects, such as helping gradually shift eating norms and expectations. “It’s unreasonable to say, ‘If this one policy doesn’t reduce obesity, it’s a failure,’ because the chances any one policy will do that are incredibly small,” says Dr. Christina Roberto, a University of Pennsylvania health policy professor who’s worked on several studies on menu calorie counts. “We don’t even have the best data yet. And I think there are a lot of common-sense reasons to do it,” she says.
ACTIVITIES FOR THE FERTILE MIND
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Book Launch: Mean Men by Professor Mark Lipton
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 6PM The New School | 55 W. 13th St. | 212-229-5108 | newschool.edu A panel of experts joins the author of a new book synthesizing decades of psychological research that looks at success stories like Steve Jobs, Lance Armstrong, Donald Trump—all known for their meanness—and proposing more humanistic approaches to leadership (free, RSVP required).
Caveat Presents: What Is Life? | With NYT Columnist Carl Zimmer
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH, 8PM Caveat | 21 Clinton St. | 212-228-2100 | caveat.nyc Science writer Carl Zimmer asks fundamental questions, talking to eight experts over four nights about what the newest research tells us about life. Night 1 features philosopher Carlos Mariscal and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker ($20).
Just Announced | The Power of Meaning: The Quest for an Existential Roadmap
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10TH, 7PM NY Academy of Sciences | 250 Greenwich St. | 212-298-8600 | nyas.org An author, a neurologist, and a philosopher come together to question how we proceed amid suffering, and whether we can draw on universal sources to find purposeful existences ($15).
For more information about lectures, readings and other intellectually stimulating events throughout NYC,
sign up for the weekly Thought Gallery newsletter at thoughtgallery.org.
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
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CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG MAN CUT FOLLOWING SUBWAY ALTERCATION At 4:40 p.m. on Tuesday, August 15, a 44-year-old man was walking down the stairs at the Canal Street subway station when another man bumped him on the shoulder, according to a police account. The other man then spat at him, and he spat back. The pair then exchanged punches. As the 44-year-old started to walk away, the other man followed him down the stairs and said, “I’m about to get you.” The pursuer then used a small knife and cut the victim on the left side of his face and left wrist. The man with the knife then fled. Police searched the area but couldn’t locate the knifewielding spitter. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.
JEWELRY STOLEN WHEN MAN PASSES OUT A Los Angeles man was out nearly $20,000 in jewelry and other items when he fell asleep on a downtown sidewalk early Monday, August 14. The 26-year-old fell asleep somewhere south of West Houston Street after having left a local bar with an acquaintance. When he woke up at 5:30 a.m., the bag he had been carrying was missing. The acquaintance told police that he and the victim had left
STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 1st precinct for Week to Date
Tony Webster, via flickr
The Monster bar and walked some ways south on Seventh Avenue. The witness was sure they passed West Houston before turning down a side street heading west toward West Street to return to their hotel when they stopped and the victim put his bag down, as he was highly intoxicated. The witness then saw an unknown individual take the victim’s bag. The witness told police he chased the thief but could not catch up with him. He also told police he had no idea of their exact location at the time of the incident. The stolen items included Birch jewelry valued at $14,000, an iPhone priced at $1,200, a messenger bag tagged at $1,200, and other goods.
The total value of the missing items was put at $19,670.
2017 2016
% Change
2017
2016
% Change
Murder
0
0
n/a
1
0
n/a
Rape
0
0
n/a
11
8
37.5
Robbery
0
1
-100.0
46
40
15.0
Felony Assault
1
1
0.0
53
53
0.0
Burglary
0
1
-100.0
42
86
-51.2
Grand Larceny
14
22
-36.4
627 672
-6.7
Grand Larceny Auto
0
1
-100.0
10
-74.4
MAN SCAMMED OUT OF NEARLY $5,000
GUARD DOWN AT GARDEN BAR At 4:30 p.m. on Friday, August 18, a 29-year-old man from Staten Island placed his bag down at the outdoors Garden Bar at the South Street Seaport. It was gone when he went to retrieve it about an hour later. The items stolen included a Michael Kors bag valued at $400, a laptop worth $1,500, a pair of headphones tagged at $450, a Lexus car key priced at $400, and other items.
Year to Date
An identity thief claimed another victim. During the period between Monday, May 15 and Tuesday, August 15, several fraudulent withdrawals were taken from the account of a 38-yearold man living at 310 Greenwich St. The victim told police that the bad guys had also tried to open several credit card accounts in his name. The total stolen came to $4,800.
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CARGO BIKE STOLEN During the period between 10 a.m. on Friday, August 4 and 6 p.m. on Monday, August 14 someone took a bike attached to the scaffolding in front of 25 Murray St. The stolen bicycle was an Xtracycle EdgeRunner cargo bike valued at $2,500.
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SEPT 8 8 7C XQSuperSchool.org/live XQ Institute and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) are 501(c)(3) organizations.
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Useful Contacts POLICE NYPD 7th Precinct
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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
1 Centre St., Room 2202
212-669-7970
Community Board 2
3 Washington Square Village
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212-736-4536
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70 Washington Square
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AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
EXPANSIVE VANTAGE BY PETER PEREIRA
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
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AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
MONUMENTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 perch in Columbus Circle, critics said. Then, rename the circle. “He’s the biggest genocidal murderer the globe has ever seen,” said City Council Member Jumaane Williams. Yes, it’s a bit over the top, but the Brooklyn Democrat’s view that Columbus criminally brutalized and enslaved the indigenous population has immense popular support. Not so fast, the counter-argument goes. Stalinist, Leninist and Maoist societies purge offending memorials. Democracies should refrain. This isn’t only about booting Confederate statues. It’s about stripping away the past, stamping out knowledge, anesthetizing history to exorcise our demons. “Don’t reopen historic argument that are over 400 years old!” warned City Council Member Joseph Borelli at a boisterous “keep-Columbus” rally on August 24. “It’s a can of worms,” the Staten Island Republican added. “And deeply decisive.” To mix metaphors, it’s also a slippery slope: Defending Columbus in a tweet, Queens GOP Council Member Eric Ulrich recalled one of the dark chapters of World War II — the decision of President Franklin Roosevelt to dispatch Japanese-Americans to internment camps.
The infamous 1940 photo of Marshal Philippe Petain, the French hero of the Battle of Verdun in World War I who became the leader of the collaborationist Vichy France government following the German invasion of World War II, shown shaking hands with Adolf Hitler. Mayor Bill de Blasio has suggested removing a marker on lower Broadway that commemorates the ticker tape parade that was held in 1931 to honor Petain. Photo: New York Public Library collection “When will NYC Democrats call for the renaming of FDR Drive?” he asked. Don’t expect the fate of the Genoan explorer — now a cause célèbre for the Italian-Americans who want to keep him and a rallying cry for the anti-colonialists who want to evict him — to be resolved anytime soon. De Blasio announced the panel on
An April 27, 1897 photo taken at the dedication of Grant’s Tomb in Morningside Heights. It’s unlikely the occupant of the tomb will be evicted any time soon. But President Ulysses S. Grant is now under fire from critics who point to an order he issued as commanding general of the U.S. Army during the Civil War that expelled the Jews from Kentucky. Photo: Circle Century Collection, via Wikimedia Commons
August 16, four days after the white nationalist rally in Virginia shook the nation. But he hasn’t named its members yet, though he said on August 28 he would do so “in a matter of days.” The mayor also seemed cognizant of the firestorm his “symbols-of-hate” agenda had triggered. For the first time, he said on Monday that the disputed monuments wouldn’t necessarily get the heave-ho. Some could receive explanatory plaques adding “perspective” to the flawed historical figures they portray, he said. It should be noted, however, that blue-ribbon panels historically have provided political cover for mayors embarking on controversial actions,
An 1868 campaign poster for Horatio Seymour, a governor of New York who ran a vile white-supremacy campaign against Ulysses S. Grant for president with his running mate, Francis Blair. Their slogan: “This is a white man’s country. Let white men rule.” A City Council member is demanding that a portrait of Seymour on prominent display at City Hall be hauled away. Poster: Via Wikimedia Commons
The city’s statue of Dr. James Marion Sims, on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street along the perimeter of Central Park, has sparked an outcry and calls to take it down because the “father of modern gynecology” was known to have operated on enslaved black women with neither anesthesia nor consent. Photo: Jim Henderson, via Wikimedia Commons so indeed it could lead to mass evictions or dismantling of statues. Still, that won’t become clear until de Blasio taps the “relevant experts and community leaders” who will develop “concrete guidelines for review and removal.” Will widespread removals foster community peace and reconciliation and bring closure to century-old injustices? Or will they arbitrarily purge us of our collective past and incinerate our heritage and history in some Orwellian memory hole? You be the judge. Among the bronzeand-granite items potentially on the chopping block: • The Peter Stuyvesant statue in Stuyvesant Square. New Amsterdam’s anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic Dutch governor, who served from 1647 to 1664, branded Jews a “deceitful race, repugnant and blasphemous,” and initially banned them from settling in Manhattan. “New York, of all American cities, which claims such a vibrant Jewish community, should take the lead in denouncing Stuyvesant’s bigotry” and removing his name from public places, said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who head Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center, a Jewish activist group. • The statue of Dr. James Marion Sims, on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street opposite the New York Academy of Medicine. Renowned as the “father of modern gynecology,” Sims’ scientific breakthroughs came at the expense of enslaved black women, whom he operated on with neither anesthesia nor consent. “We must send a definitive message that these despicable acts are repugnant and reprehensible by removing his likeness,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito at a statueside demonstration. • The 9-foot portrait of Horatio Seymour near de Blasio’s City Hall office. The former governor of New York battled Ulysses S. Grant as the Democratic Party nominee in the presidential election of 1868, running on a whitesupremacy platform with the slogan,
“This is a white man’s country. Let white men rule.” “It was perhaps the most racist presidential campaign our country has ever seen,” said City Council Member Stephen Levin, a Brooklyn Democrat who is demanding the portrait be hauled away. “We should not be celebrating this man’s legacy.” • The sarcophagus of General Grant in Grant’s Tomb in Morningside Heights. While the remains are probably safe, the tomb’s occupant has taken flak from historians who cite General Order 11, which he issued in 1862 as commander of the Union Army in the Civil War to expel Jews from Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. Mark-Viverito said the tomb should be on the review list. Asked about Grant’s fate, de Blasio said he wasn’t familiar with the quickly rescinded order, which was directed at illicit wartime cotton trading in the South. • The granite markers honoring Marshal Philippe Petain and Pierre Laval on lower Broadway. Petain was the French hero of the Battle of Verdun in World War I, and Laval was a premier of France, and both men received ticker-tape parades up the Canyon of Heroes in 1931. Few Frenchmen were to dishonor themselves more. Each collaborated with the Nazis in Vichy-run France, and Petain was photographed shaking hands with Adolf Hitler in a notorious 1940 picture. Both were found guilty as traitors to France, and sentenced to death for treason. Laval was executed by firing squad, while Petain’s sentence was commuted to life in prison. De Blasio said the two markers would be among the first “symbols of hate” the city would remove. Now, it’s your turn: The city may purge some statues and monuments. Will it be appropriately redressing ancient grievances and injustices? Or will it be needlessly sanitizing its past and obliterating the images of its colorful characters? Write Douglas Feiden — invreporter@strausnews.com — and we’ll publish some of your letters.
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
A YORKVILLE MYSTERY SOLVED HISTORY Pieces of a storied tavern’s past resurface in Vermont BY ELISSA SANCI
Lillianna Baczeski was on a mission to find a significant piece her family’s — and Yorkville’s — history. The near entire interior of Wagner’s Triboro Restaurant and Bar, a Yorkville watering hole on Second Avenue near 93rd Street owned and run for decades by Joseph Wagner Jr., had been sold to Columbia Pictures in 1980. Wagner would eventually start to wonder what had become of his bar. And so, eventually, would his granddaughter. But Baczeski knew where to at least begin her search. From an old newspaper clipping kept by her grandfather, she learned that Columbia eventually sold the bar to a Vermont company, Great American Salvage. She was able to locate and then get in touch with the company’s owner, Steve Israel. Baczeski and Israel corresponded via email for nearly eight months as she scoured for clues to the bar’s whereabouts. Although Israel had bought, refurbished and resold the bar more than 30 years ago, the bar’s craftsmanship was hard to forget, he said. “It’s amazing how, in many cases, the memory fades but certain things just really stand out,” he said. Wagner’s bar was among them. Israel, touched by Baczeski’s hunt for the bar, also worked to find its whereabouts. “I loved the idea that she was tracking this down for her grandfather,” Israel said. “We did everything
With all the craziness going on in the world, these are the kinds of stories you want to be involved with, and I’m very grateful to be part of this story” Steve Israel
we could. We called some people, some of the old crew, to see if anyone remembered.” Although he couldn’t nail down the bar’s definitive location, Israel recalled selling the bar locally and told Baczeski it was likely near Burlington, Vermont, not far from where Great American Salvage had been based in the 1980s. Still, despite being able to narrow her search, Baczeski was at a loss on where and how to begin — Vermont is a smaller state, but still has its share of taverns. In early August, Baczeski and her partner Douglas Duhaime found themselves traveling through Vermont on their way to Montreal. They stopped at J.W. Ryan’s Pub in St. Albans, and, nursing beers, began to admire the pub’s wooden bar. “Neither of us had ever seen the bar in real life, so it was like the blind leading the blind,” Baczeski, 32, said, who only had old photographs and her grandfather’s description of a long bar that curved around at one end. “I was fixated on the wooden architectural details, but couldn’t tell if they were the same as in the old pho-
Joseph Wagner Jr. pouring at his Yorkville bar. Photo courtesy of Lillianna Baczeski
tos,” she continued. “To me, it looked like it could be a million bars. I figured the best I would be able to do is photograph this bar and show the new photographs to my grandfather to see what he thought.” Duhaime asked the bartender if the name Joseph Wagner seemed familiar. The bartender pointed to an interior window behind the couple. The pair turned to see two arched windows on which was stenciled “Wagner’s Triboro Restaurant.” “I recognized it immediately,” Baczeski said. “When we saw the window, we both started shrieking because we were so excited and we knew we had found it. It was strangely emotional, like finding a long-lost relative.” Baczeski and Duhaime weren’t the only people excited by the news. “I was elated, really elated,” Wagner, now 91 and living in New Jersey, said. “I never thought she would find it.” Wagner’s Triboro Restaurant and Bar had been in the Wagner family for generations before it was shuttered in 1980, forced out to make way for a high-rise apartment building. Wagner has only fond memories of the bar that his father opened in the early 1930s. After emigrating from Austria in the 1920s, the elder Wagner worked in Ruppert’s Brewery nearby before scrounging together enough money to open his own place. Joseph Wagner Jr. grew up in the bar. He helped his dad from an early age, cleaning out spittoons when beer was only 10 cents a pint. He left Yorkville in 1943 for the Marine Corps. Naturally, once discharged he returned to Yorkville to help run the bar. “I wanted to do it because I grew up there,” he said. “We had three genera-
Joseph Wagner Jr. serving at Wagner’s Triboro Restaurant and Bar. Photo courtesy of Lillianna Baczeski tions of loyal customers, all Yorkville guys, all people I grew up with.” The bar had two levels — the bar and restaurant were on the ground floor, and the basement hosted cabaret, although the band was only allowed to play Austrian music, or “oom pah pah” music, as Wagner called it. It was in the bar’s basement that Wagner met his future wife, Pauline. Although she had been attending the bar’s Saturday night dances for years, the two didn’t meet until Wagner returned from the Marines in 1946. He caught sight of her as she decorated the basement for a wedding. His father eventually retired, leaving the bar in his son’s hands. Together, Joseph and Pauline ran the business. Even after the pair moved to New Jersey, they commuted to Yorkville every day, and Wagner remained loyal to the neighborhood where he grew up. The bar would make appearances in Miller beer commercials as well as in a scene in the 1979 drama “The Bell Jar.” With the bar’s end days in sight, Wagner was approached by representatives from Columbia Pictures,
who offered to buy everything all the furnishings — chairs, tables, fixtures and, of course, the bar. Wagner sold Columbia everything for $9,000. He had no interest in going into business after that — it just wouldn’t have been the same, he said. Instead, he busied himself first with taking care of his aging parents, then babysitting his many grandchildren. In January 2014, Pauline passed away on her birthday. Baczeski suspects that her grandmother would have been thrilled to know they had found the bar to which she and her husband had been so dedicated. Baczeski plans to take her grandfather up to Vermont to see the bar. The Yorkville bar, drenched in history, means a lot not just to the Wagner family, but also to Israel. “What was really wonderful was not only did she bring this back to her grandfather, but she also brought it back to me,” he said. “And I really appreciated that. With all the craziness going on in the world, these are the kinds of stories you want to be involved with, and I’m very grateful to be part of this story.”
J.W. Ryans bar in St. Albans, Vermont, where significant parts of the former Yorkville watering hole Wagner’s Triboro Restaurant and Bar reside. Photo courtesy of Lillianna Baczeski
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AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
Voices
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KEEPING THINGS RUNNING GRAYING NEW YORK BY MARCIA EPSTEIN
For over five months, I’ve been seeing striking workers from Spectrum (picketing in front of the Spectrum store on Broadway and 96th Street). I’ve spoken to these men and women and I am personally horrified by their stories. About 1,700 workers from the International Brotherhood of Electricians/Local 3 have been on strike since March.
These are the guys that keep things up and running, often with old and outdated equipment. They are the heart of what keeps your TV and internet service. Spectrum promised unobtainable WiFi speeds and other services, and they are not only not delivering, they have alienated their workers, left them little choice but to walk the picket line, fight for their futures and that of their families. The workers say their fight is over eliminating contributions to workers’ pensions, wages, benefits
and medical plans. While offered a raise, the workers understandably preferred to keep their benefits. In my own area, we have had three outages in the past month. I was frustrated for myself, but more for the workers whose job it is to see that these things don’t happen. Spectrum is using replacement workers to do the jobs the regular workers did, though of course they call them sub-contractors. All in all, I am disgusted by the treatment of these union workers and my stomach sinks every time I see them still picketing in my neighborhood. My partner, John, was part of several Verizon strikes way back when, and this kind of thing just gets us where
we live. I told some of the men I spoke with I’d write about it, and I’m keeping my promise. Good luck guys! Last week was birthday week. Mine! You’d have to hang me by my toenails to get me to tell my age, but suffice it to say, I am a certified senior citizen. First, I had my annual birthday lunch with a friend who was born 3 days and 7 years before me. She told me how young I was. I told her that I’d eat lunch with her any time. We’ve been doing this for more years than I can count, and now she has to come down from her retirement village in northern New Jersey. It’s always great to see her. Last Friday, another friend took
me out for our annual celebration. I take her out in March, and she reciprocates in August. We had a fine Italian meal at Bella Luna and our usual good, long chat. The next day, my entire family celebrated at a lovely restaurant in Chelsea. It’s always wonderful to have the entire family together. The kids are now 6, 8, 9, and 13. My “kids” are in their 40s but still and always my kids. And so that’s that for this year. Onward and upwards to fall, my favorite time of the year. When my birthday comes, I know that soon it will be time for gorgeous leaves and cider and apple donuts at the farm stand near Middletown. Happy Birthday to all Leos. We are the fierce lions of the zodiac.
FALLING IN AND OUT OF LOVE WITH NEW YORK yourself go. I was late to work again, New York. While I was once charmed by your subway’s 1970s aesthetic, I think it maybe it’s time for a tuneup. I can’t afford to miss my morning meetings, New York. I spend so much money on you. I hate to bring money into this — really, I do! It’s an investment I’m happy to make. But throw me a bone, babe. Please.
LEX AND THE CITY BY ALEXA DI BENEDETTO
In the time that I’ve spent writing this column, I’ve described New York as a place unlike any other — a source of ceaseless wonder, a mecca of opportunity. I’ve meant every word I’ve said; I’m so appreciative of the fact that I’ve spent most of my life here and that, at age 25, I’m still enamored by it. But to say that I feel this way at all times would feel like false advertising. Failing to admit that I sometimes see cracks in the magical portrait of this place would challenge my integrity as a writer. My relationship with this place is comparable to one that I’d share with a boyfriend or girlfriend or close companion. It’s full of love but fraught with small obstacles, made more valuable by the ability to see past them and to rise to the challenge of learning to love the other regardless of his or her flaws. Moreover, I’m only human — a sensitive human, if I’m being honest. A difficult commute truly takes a toll on me, although a large cup of coffee and a sugary bakery treat tend to bring me back to high spirits. Rainy weather
Day 2:
Photo: Richard Khavkine may put more of a (literal and figurative) damper on my day than it should. If New York were my boyfriend, he’d certainly be my type: a man with many layers, vivacious on the surface but complicated and broody underneath. If New York were my boyfriend, I’d have the opportunity to tell him my concerns — I’d sit him down and give him constructive criticism, tell him what’s working and what’s not (over several glassed of wine, courtesy of
him). Since this isn’t an option, I’ll just put my thoughts on the page. Here is a week’s worth of diary entries in which I pour my heart out to the love of my life.
Day 1: New York I love you, but you’re bringing me down. So the song goes, “You are filthy but fine.” I argue that you could use a few adjustments — you seem to be letting
New York, you’re perfect. Don’t, please don’t, change a thing. New York, you’re so full of surprises. I’ve grown so jaded to the bars and the clubs and the pubs, all offering a similar experience in which it’s easy to spill your drink and to be elbowed in the chest on the way to the bathroom but not quite as easy to meet interesting new people. Sometimes the most amazing things happen when you open yourself up to chance and accept vague invites that offer almost no detail. Who would have thought that I’d stumble across an acoustic concert in the backyard of a bakery or receive a last minute invitation to a Saturdayeve meditation in a candlelit space. What a pleasure it is, to be surrounded by people who feel compelled to try something different. Whenever I sink into a state of ennui, you always know how to bring me out of it, New York.
Day 3: New York, I love you. But you’re freaking me out. Is it possible to feel both gratitude and contempt simultaneously, toward the same thing? How could I possibly feel so inspired by you, New York, and also so consistently defeated by you? You’re teeming with creativity, New York – everyone knows it — and yet your competitive nature makes it impossible for anyone to keep up with you. I want to learn from you, New York, but sometimes it feels as though you don’t want me to succeed.
Day 4: New York, I love you ... I know we have our ups and downs. I know that there days when I act as though I’m tired of you, or when I pick out all of your faults. I’m sorry that I sometimes call you a “smelly trash heap” or “soul-draining monster.” No one’s perfect, New York. But at the end of the day, you’ll always be the one I come back to. Why? Because you’ve got more hutzpah than anyone I’ve ever known. More character than any other city has in their left pinky or part of town. More to offer than anyone else or anywhere else. So despite all the things I say, you can be sure of one thing — I’m in this one for the long haul.
President & Publisher, Jeanne Straus nyoffice@strausnews.com
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Associate Publishers Seth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworth Regional Sales Manager Tania Cade
Account Executives Fred Almonte, David Dallon Director of Partnership Development Barry Lewis
Editor-In-Chief, Alexis Gelber Deputy Editor Richard Khavkine
Senior Reporter Doug Feiden
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Director, Arts & Entertainment/ NYCNow Alizah Salario
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
LAWYER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 As a characteristic example of recent development projects he considers irresponsible, Hiller points to 432 Park Ave., the tallest residential tower in the city (soon to be surpassed by the Central Park Tower, under construction nearby on 57th Street), visible from the windows of his Madison Avenue law offices. The tower’s design features two-floor-tall spaces placed at regular intervals up the nearly 1,400-foot-tall structure. The building’s mechanical core runs through the openings, but they are otherwise empty. Popular wisdom at street-level often holds that the gaps are intended to let wind pass through the building’s slender frame. But according to Hiller, the empty spaces — known as mechanical voids in technical parlance — are actually a subtle means by which developers have begun exploiting a zoning loophole to let them build higher. Height limits in the area are based on buildings’ floor area, but because mechanical spaces don’t count toward that total, they can be used like stilts to boost the height — and value — of a tower’s top floors. “It has nothing to do with wind,” Hiller said. “Mechanical voids are often added because developers want to artificially increase the height of the building by eliminating the bulk on those lower floors so they can raise the overall height of the buildings without offending the zoning resolution.” The use of mechanical voids and other tactics for building taller, such as putting higher ceilings on each floor increase overall height, has grown more common in recent years. Developers have been emboldened, Hiller says, by city agencies that have often
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com acted as enablers. “This mayoral administration hands out approvals to developers like hot dogs at the Garden,” he said. One of Hiller’s recent preservation victories ended with the reversal a city-approved plan to convert a landmarked space to a private residence in the Clock Tower Building at 346 Broadway in lower Manhattan. The upper floors that hold the building’s eponymous clock had been designated an interior landmark in 1987 — due in part to the clock’s unique mechanism, which must be wound by hand and is one of the last of its kind still in operation — but in 2013 the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission issued a certificate of appropriateness to convert the space to a luxury condominium and electrify the clock’s mechanism. Hiller, representing preservation groups, sued the city and developer and won a ruling in the State Supreme Court last year that reversed the landmarks commission’s decision. “They would have privatized an interior landmark and excluded the public from it, something that has never happened in the history of the landmarks law,” he said. The case illustrated a dynamic that is not uncommon — financial ties between the mayor and developers with business before the city, which, even if nothing inappropriate has taken place, can create the appearance of impropriety. One of the project’s developer, Don Peebles, had previously contributed (and was later refunded) $20,000 to de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York nonprofit, which was later disbanded in the wake of a federal investigation into whether donors to the fund received favorable treatment from City Hall in exchange for contributions (no charges were filed).
According to land-use attorney Michael Hiller, the Gilder Center would amount to an illegal expansion of the American Museum of Natural History. Photo of the proposed Gilder Center courtesy of AMNH Lawsuits that challenge rulings of city agencies are difficult to win because the standard of review is deferential to the agency that made the determination. Hiller argues that standard is in need of adjustment. “If an applicant or developer has given money to the mayor’s office or to a lobbyist who has contributed to the mayor’s office, there should be no deferential standard,” he said. Hiller says he would be happy to devote more of his time and attention to cases in other practice areas, but for the time being, he feels the issues at
hand in the city’s ongoing land-use and preservation battles are simply too important to neglect. “When city government makes a conscious decision to sacrifice the diversity in architecture and planning — when the city decides to cede parkland and landmark buildings and historic districts to wealthy developers who just happen to have donated money to the mayor and his pet projects — New York City loses part of its identity,” Hiller said. “As we lose the soul of the city in its architecture, its landmark buildings
and historic districts, and its urban planning, we lose our identity as people,” he continued. “I think that is the greatest threat to New York City. It’s not only the violations of the zoning resolution, it’s not only the way it’s bent into a pretzel to accommodate the aspirations of developers, it’s not only the graft and the appearance of corruption. It’s that the City of New York is fundamentally losing in its character. And one day, we’re going to wake up one day and find we’re living in a very different place.”
VILLAGE VOICE TO CEASE PRINT PUBLICATON PRESS Iconic alternative weekly will retain digital presence
The Village Voice’s near ubiquitous newspaper boxes will soon disappear from city streets. The alternative weekly’s owner recently announced the paper would cease print publication.
The Village Voice, the alternative weekly newspaper that has been a mainstay on the city’s street corners for decades, is going digital only and will no longer appear in print. Owner Peter Barbey announced the change last week. He said the newspaper, founded in 1955 by a group of writers including novelist Norman Mailer, “has been a beacon for progress and a literal voice for thousands of people whose identities, opinions and ideas might otherwise have been
unheard.” Barbey said he expects that to continue, with reporting and stories posted on the Voice website. The Village Voice was the country’s first alternative newsweekly. In its prime, it was both popular, with a free circulation of 250,000, and groundbreaking. It covered the gay rights movement from its earliest moments. It was a fertile outlet for some of the city’s better investigative journalists. Its staffers have won three Pulitzer Prizes: awards for editorial cartooning and feature writing in the 1980s and an award for international reporting in 2000 for a series on AIDS in Africa. It has been celebrated for its arts and culture coverage. Like other newspapers, though, it has faced a challenging financial en-
vironment as traditional print ads, especially classifieds, migrated to the internet. It became a free newspaper in 1996 in an attempt to stem circulation losses. Barbey, the president of The Reading Eagle newspaper in Pennsylvania, bought the Voice in 2015. “The most powerful thing about The Voice wasn’t that it was printed on newsprint or that it came out every week,” Barbey said in a statement. “It was that The Village Voice was alive, and that it changed in step with and reflected the times and the everevolving world around it. “I want The Village Voice brand to represent that for a new generation of people — and for generations to come.”
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Thu 31 NY FRIDGE FEST IRT Theater, 154 Christopher St., #3b 7 p.m. $18 individual tickets, $50 festival pass You’re sure to find some special snowflakes among the ten plays premiering at the first ever New York Fridge Festival. Sponsored by the Arctic Group theatre collective, tickets for these quirky plays can be purchased with non-perishable goods instead of money for some showings. fridgefest.org
▲ ‘THE VICEROY'S HOUSE’ IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. 7:30 p.m. $15 Acclaimed Indian filmmaker Gurinder Chadha will present a sneak preview screening of her film “The Viceroy’s House,” starring Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville as Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Q&A with Chadha and actor Tanveer Ghani to follow. ifccenter.com/films. 212924-7771
Fri 1
Sat 2
BOOKS, BOOZE AND BOARD GAMES
CROSSROADS OF NEW YORK TOUR
HousingWorks Bookstore, 126 Crosby St. 6 p.m. Free Play board games and enjoy some great cafe specials, including “Mahjong Day’s Journey Into Night” which gets you a bottle of wine for $20, at this cozy bookstore cafe. 347-473-7400. housingworks. org/events
Union Square Park, meet at the Abraham Lincoln statue near 16th Street 2 p.m. Free Explore the social and political history of the Union Square neighborhood and learn about the people and events that shaped this vibrant historical community. 212-460-1200. nycgovparks. org/events
SHAKESPEARE IN THE OTHER PARK
MONO-WHEEL MADNESS UNICYCLE FESTIVAL
Bryant Park, between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues 7 p.m. Free The past is prologue at this al fresco performance of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” The event features over 100 blankets free to borrow, food vendors from the Hester Street Fair, and beer and wine available for purchase. Performances run Sept. 1-2 and Sept. 8-9. nycgovparks.org/events
Governors Island at Colonels Row Noon. Free Day three of this four-day festival moves across the river to Governors Island, where you can watch world-famous riders display their skills, or try one-wheel riding yourself, if you dare. Activities include races, competitions, and a variety of unicycle sports including hockey and sumo. Yes, sumo. nycunifest.com
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
Sun 3 ROWING FOR ALL Pier 40, Houston Street and the Hudson River Greenway Noon. Free, donations appreciated Get your feet wet at this basic introduction to rowing for first timers. The session includes information on safety, rowing technique and terminology, plus plenty of actual rowing on the Hudson. No experience necessary; held every Sunday through Nov. 12. 212-229-2059. nycgovparks. org/events
DOWNTOWN PHOTO SAFARI ▼ 1 World Trade Center 1:30 p.m. $100 Capture the architectural magnificence of Lower Manhattan in this photography lesson, where you’ll learn the elements of strong composition and the importance of lines and lighting conditions in creating an ethereal effect. Every Sunday until Sept. 25. 718-268-9634. newyorkcityphotosafari.com
Mon 4 MAHJONG MARATHON Bryant Park, between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues 3 p.m. Free If you’ve got skills, strategy and a little bit of luck, then spend
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
your day off by playing mahjong with other gamers for up to four hours. Led by self-styled mahjong maven Linda Fisher. Basic instruction included. 212-768-4242. bryantpark. org/events
MASSIVE ART FAIR University Place, East 13th Street to West Third Street along Washington Square Park Noon, Free The biannual Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit showcases fine artists and craft artisans from around the corner and around the world. Discover watercolors, mixed media, jewelry, metalwork and more.
Tue 5 ‘CRASH OVERRIDE’ Strand Book Store, 828 Broadway 7 p.m. $27, admission & signed book copy, $15 admission and store gift certificate Learn how to deal with online harassment from Zoe Quinn, game designer, activist and founder of the online support network Crash Override. Quinn will discuss her new book, “Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win The Fight Against Online Hate.” 212-473-1452. strandbooks. com/events
‘THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END’ DISCUSSION Barnes & Noble Tribeca, 97 Warren St.
6 p.m. Free, priority seating with purchase of the book Adam Silvera's highly anticipated YA novel, “They Both Die At The End” begins when two men who know they’re both going to die meet through an app called Last Friend for one last great adventure that will change their lives forever. 212-587-5389 stores. barnesandnoble.com/events
Wed 6 TOM BURCKHARDT’S ‘STUDIO FLOOD’ Pierogi Gallery, 155 Suffolk St. 6 p.m. Free Enjoy the opening reception for artist Tom Burckhardt's recent work, a life-size, walk-in installation executed entirely in cardboard and black paint. “Studio Flood” is centered on the timely image of an artist's flooded studio, inspired by damage incurred during Hurricane Sandy. 646.429.9073. pierogi2000. com/upcoming-at-pierog
HARVEST A FULL CORN MOON The Open Center, 22 East 30th St. 7 p.m. $15 If you’re feeling scattered post-eclipse, then this event is for you. Ritual artist Kelly GreenLight explores how September’s full moon can teach us diligence, gratitude, and help us tap into the resources around and within us. 212-219-2527. opencenter.org
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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
THE DUCHESS AND THE CAMERA The New-York Historical Society showcases the photographs of Editta Sherman, eccentric resident of the Carnegie Hall studio towers BY VAL CASTRONOVO
Bill Cunningham, the late New York Times street photographer, anointed her the “Duchess of Carnegie Hall.” Long-time neighbors in the studio apartments atop the famed music venue on West 57th Street, Editta Sherman (1912-2013) and Cunningham can be seen hamming it up for the camera in a short film at the museum’s new show devoted to Sherman’s celebrity portraits. Fittingly housed in the new Center for Women’s History on the 4th floor, the more than 60 works pay tribute to a woman who had to hustle to make a living off her photos in the postwar, pre-feminist era when men ruled the field and female portrait photographers were scarce.
IF YOU GO WHAT: “The Duchess of Carnegie Hall: Photographs by Editta Sherman” WHERE: the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, 170 Central Park West (at 77th Street) WHEN: through October 15 www.nyhistory.org
As curator Marilyn Satin Kushner said: “She became a professional photographer not because she necessarily wanted to, she was raising her five children. But when her husband became ill and had to quit his job, she went out and made money with her husband, in photography. And when he died in 1954, she did it all by herself. She was a woman who succeeded in what she did in a man’s world.” But Sherman was no ordinary work-
Editta Sherman (1912–2013). June Carter Cash, undated. Gelatin silver print. NewYork Historical Society, Gift of the children of Lloyd R. Sherman
ing girl. She was an artist and unabashed bohemian with a big personality—partial to feather boas, large hats and dressing up in vintage clothing, a penchant famously on display in Cunningham’s photo book, “Facades” (1978), in which she poses in period costume in front of the city’s historic architecture. She held sway in Studio 1208 for 61 years, living and working in a sky-lit, 900-sq.-ft. aerie, where she photographed the likes of Tyrone Power, Joe DiMaggio, Marcel Marceau, Christopher Plummer, Carl Sandburg and Jackie Mason—before being evicted in 2010 to make way for rehearsal space and educational programs. Fellow-evictee Josef Astor lived in Studio 845. He made the show’s film, a mash-note cobbled together from outtakes from his 2010 documentary, “Lost Bohemia,” about the gutting of the legendary artists’ enclave, which saw Mark Twain, Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Marlon Brando, Leonard Bernstein, Lee Strasberg and many more pass through. “I wanted this gallery to be full of Editta, which is why we asked Joseph to do this film,” Kushner said. “And I wanted her personality in this space, because I heard so many stories about Editta. I wanted that all to reverberate.” Her voice from the film reverberates throughout the room as visitors eye her glam photos, most black-andwhite throwbacks to the 1940s and 1950s, with women in pearls and men in jacket and tie holding cigarettes and giving off smoldering looks. Stars of stage and screen predominate, but Sherman also photographed writers and editors (Pearl Buck, Betty Smith, Norman Cousins), musicians and composers (Aaron Copland, Donald Shirley, June Carter Cash), and intellectuals, tastemakers and models (John Kenneth Galbraith, Amy Vanderbilt, Veruschka). The pictures were typically used on book jackets and in promotional materials for plays, films and television. Born Edith Rinaolo to Italian immigrants in Philadelphia, Sherman learned to take pictures from her father, Nunzio, a wedding photographer. In 1935, she married Harold Sherman, an audio engineer and inventor. After complications from diabetes forced Harold to leave his job in 1943, the couple set up shop in Edgartown on Mar-
Editta Sherman in 2011, at age 99. Photo: Marco Scozzaro tha’s Vineyard, where Harold courted the clients and Editta took the photos. One of her first celebrity customers was Frank Morgan, the wizard in “The Wizard of Oz,” fresh off his yacht. The Shermans subsequently relocated to New York in 1946 and rented a series of workspaces in Midtown before snagging a penthouse studio at Carnegie Hall in 1949 with a view of Central Park. The Dutchess’ process was a decidedly low-tech affair: she used a large view camera from the 1930s and made prints in her cramped kitchen-cumdarkroom, where she served up pasta to Astor while he filmed her (“It’s delicious,” he said). She charmed the pants off her clients—“my stars,” she called them. And they charmed her. In the film, she cackles about Tyrone Power’s powers of seduction and claims he was quite flirtatious. Astor: “Do you think Tyrone Power had some ulterior motive?” Sherman: “Oh, yes he did. Oh, yes he did. Yes he did.”
Her eccentricity and theatricality are at full blast here. On screen, she boasts of her performance at Carnegie Hall at age 50 of solo ballet “The Dying Swan”—a feat only a tad diminished by the jokey fact that she took the stage when the theater was closed. (Cue guffaws from visitors watching the movie.) More clips of her en pointe dance moves can be seen in a mini-film marking her 100th birthday at the show’s entrance. Sherman’s works are brilliantly lit, sympathetic portraits. As she once commented, “When I photographed an actor like Raymond Massey, or a poet like Carl Sandburg, or a conductor like Leonard Bernstein, I tried to photograph what I admired about them.” She connected with her subjects, so much so that, as the curator said, “These people who sat for her didn’t sit for her but with her. There’s a bit of Editta in every one of these photos.”
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
13
WYMORE RENT DEAL QUESTIONED POLITICS Rosenthal files complaint about opponent’s low-cost Broadway headquarters BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Upper West Side City Council candidate Mel Wymore has made storefronts a signature issue in his bid to unseat incumbent Council Member Helen Rosenthal, holding events at local businesses imperiled by rent increases, conducting a survey of empty retail space in the neighborhood, and vowing to take on landlords who would displace longtime commercial tenants. Now, as the race enters its final weeks before Democratic primary on Sept. 12, the Broadway storefront that serves as Wymore’s headquarters, located in a building owned by a Wymore campaign contributor, has become a source of pre-election controversy. Since June, Wymore has run his campaign from a storefront at 2244 Broadway, between 80th and 81st Streets. As of Wymore’s most recent campaign finance filing, his campaign had not reported making any rent payments for the office, nor was the space listed as an in-kind contribution or liability, as noted in a formal complaint filed Aug. 14 with the New York City Campaign Finance Board by Rosenthal’s campaign. According to the Rosenthal campaign, retail space on that stretch of Broadway generally rents for about $200 per square foot. Wymore’s campaign counters that, due to a unique set of circumstances, the storefront in question currently has a market value of $0, and says that the Campaign Finance Board cleared the arrangement in advance. Prior to serving as Wymore’s campaign office, 2244 Broadway was the home of Birdbath Bakery, a small chain with two other Upper West Side shops. The bakery had occupied the Broadway storefront since 2013, but according to the building’s landlord, George Beane, its continued viability at the location was threatened by a recent downturn in business, due in part to scaffolding that covered the building for much of the last two years. Beane said he lowered Birdbath’s rent
City Council candidate Mel Wymore has run his campaign from a storefront at 2244 Broadway, between 80th and 81st Streets, which he is occupying rent free. Council Member Helen Rosenthal, whom he is challenging, said the arrangement runs afoul of election law. Photo: Michael Garofalo once in hopes of keeping the bakery in the space and avoiding the expenses associated with carrying a vacancy and finding a new tenant, but the bakery’s struggles continued. Birdbath’s owner came to Beane this spring ready to turn in the keys to the store and vacate the premises. “I tried to persuade Birdbath to hold on until the scaffold came down,” Beane said. He offered to temporarily waive Birdbath’s rent in order to keep the business in the space. Birdbath’s owner said that even with no rent he couldn’t afford to stay open. The parties eventually agreed that Birdbath would temporarily close; Beane would allow the store to maintain its lease without paying rent beginning June 1 and Birdbath would reopen in the fall once the façade work on the building was complete. (Beane explained he didn’t know at the time when the scaffolding would come down; it was eventually removed in August.)
Beane explained that it was in his interest to keep Birdbath in the space for a variety of reasons. He would suffer a short-term loss under the arrangement, he said, but even if Birdbath had left, he was unlikely to find a new tenant to rent the space while the scaffolding was up. Ultimately, he was confident that the bakery would see an uptick in business and resume paying rent once the scaffolding was removed. “Birdbath is a good tenant and they had always done well,” he said. With Birdbath out of the space for the summer, Beane said, “the store was worth nothing” and had no market value as a short-term sublet. Based on previous experience, he said, finding a tenant to run a pop-up store for the summer would have been impossible given the short notice. “If there’d been any chance of Birdbath being able to rent to a tenant who would have paid real rent I would have done it in a
second,” he said. Nonetheless, Beane said, he preferred to have a tenant in the space because a vacancy would be bad for the building’s other commercial tenants. Beane knew Wymore was in search of space for a campaign office and put the candidate in touch with Birdbath’s owner. With Beane’s blessing, the parties arrived at an agreement to sublet the space, under which the campaign would pay $616 monthly to cover Birdbath’s utilities and other fixed costs. “Financially it didn’t make any difference to me whether or not Mel went in,” Beane said. According to Wymore spokesman Dan Gleick, the campaign brought the proposed arrangement to the Campaign Finance Board before it was finalized. The Wymore campaign shared communications from a Campaign Finance Board official stating that the space would not be considered an in-kind contribution if
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Beane affirmed in a sworn statement that the space had no market value, which Beane subsequently did. “Before signing on to help Birdbath keep their space, the CFB blessed the idea as completely kosher,” Gleick said. Campaign finance records show that Beane contributed $2,750 to Wymore’s campaign earlier this year, the maximum allowed by law. Were the storefront deemed to be an in-kind contribution to Wymore on Beane’s part, it would be in excess of the contribution limit. Beane also contributed $2,750 to Wymore’s 2013 city council campaign (Wymore lost narrowly to Rosenthal in that year’s Democratic primary). Birdbath Bakery owner Maury Rubin could not be reached for comment. Campaign finance records show Rubin contributed $100 to Rosenthal’s campaign in August, as well as $100 to her successful 2013 campaign. As of Aug. 7, the most recently available date for which campaign finance disclosure was available when Rosenthal’s campaign filed the complaint, Wymore’s campaign had not yet reported making any payments to Birdbath. The campaign attributes this to a delay in finalizing the sublet agreement, which was signed and notarized in August, and said expenses associated with the sublet should appear in a disclosure filing by the end of this week. Beane said that Birdbath Bakery plans to return to the storefront and resume paying rent in October, after the primary election in the heavily Democratic 6th council district is decided. “Unless I was sure Birdbath was moving back in I wouldn’t have approved the sublet,” he said. “It worked out well for Birdbath and it worked out best for Mel,” Beane added. The Campaign Finance Board declined to comment on the Rosenthal campaign’s complaint. Campaigns that apply for the city’s matching funds program are subjected to a pre-election audit process to ensure compliance with campaign finance law before public funds are disbursed. Wymore received $95,095 in public funds in August.
14
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS
Tasty Garden
518 E 6Th St
The Raging Skillet
335 East Houston A Street
Im Star Cafe
19 Division Street
A
AUG 18-23, 2017 The following listings were collected from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s website and include the most recent inspection and grade reports listed. We have included every restaurant listed during this time within the zip codes of our neighborhoods. Some reports list numbers with their explanations; these are the number of violation points a restaurant has received. To see more information on restaurant grades, visit www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/services/restaurant-inspection. shtml. A
Not Yet Graded (28) Appropriately scaled metal stem-type thermometer or thermocouple not provided or used to evaluate temperatures of potentially hazardous foods during cooking, cooling, reheating and holding. 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.
La Maison Du Macaron
132 West 23 Street
Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill
47 West 14 Street A
Rpm
266 Broome Street
A
Black Tap
248 W 14Th St
Bite Of Hong Kong
81 Chrystie St
A
Happy Garden Palace
54 East Broadway A
Fei Teng Restaurant
68 East Broadway Closed By Health Department (72) 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. Live roaches 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 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.
Souvlaki Gr
116 Stanton Street
A
Davidovich Bakery
120 Essex Street
Grade Pending (27) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. Appropriately scaled metal stem-type thermometer or thermocouple not provided or used to evaluate temperatures of potentially hazardous foods during cooking, cooling, reheating and holding. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
Cheeky Sandwiches
35 Orchard Street A
Tarallucci E Vino
163 1 Avenue
A
Grade Pending (32) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. 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.
Sushi Para 88
212 W 14Th St
Grade Pending (27) 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. 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.
Spirit Of New Jersey
Pier 62 West 23 Street - Chelsea Pier
A
Famous & Fresh 99¢ Pizza
91 Avenue A
A
Doc Holidays
141 Avenue A
A
The Crooked Tree
110 St Marks Place
A
Dunkin’ Donuts
266 1 Avenue
A
Ucb East Comedy
153 East 3 Street
A
Proletariat Ny
102 St Marks Place
A
Sake Bar Satsko
202 East 7 Street
A
Chipotle Mexican Grill
55 East 8 Street
A
Domino’s
440 E 14Th St
A
La Cerveceria
65 2 Avenue
A
Atomic Wings
184 1St Ave
Not Yet Graded (27) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. 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.
Hi-Collar
214 East 10 Street
A
Roast Kitchen
27 E 13Th St
A
Union Fare
5-7 E 17Th St
A
Jp Street
52 E 8Th St
A
The Horsebox
218 Avenue A
A
Cupcake Market
74 E 7Th St
A
Starbucks
286 1 Avenue
A
Just For Fen
229 1St Ave
Revision
219 Avenue B
A
Brindle Room
277 East 10 Street
A
Not Yet Graded (50) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Insufficient or no refrigerated or hot holding equipment to keep potentially hazardous foods at required temperatures. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.
Coal Yard Bar
102 1 Avenue
A
Hawkers
225 E 14Th St
Butter Lane
123 E 7Th St
A
C&B
178 E 7Th St
A
Grade Pending (16) 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.
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
15
GOOD KARMA ON 63RD STREET RELIGION Or how a Korean monk opened a Zen Buddhist temple in a jinxed East Side townhouse famed for its 12 failed restaurants — and finally ended a curse BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
There were aging beatniks and younger hippies, acid heads and flower children, radicals and revolutionaries, “freaks” and “squares,” cops and, tourists, ex-nuns and slumming socialites, mendicants and missionaries. The place: Washington Square Park. The time: August 1967. The ethos? Psychedelic drugs and sexual abandon. The required reading? A pair of 1950s novels by Jack Kerouac, “The Dharma Bums” and “On the Road.” Immortalized as the “Summer of Love,” celebrated for good vibes yet marred by bad trips, here was a countercultural cauldron into which stepped a then-25-year-old Zen Buddhist monk from South Korea who had found his way to Greenwich Village after a sojourn in San Francisco. “Haight-Ashbury was my very first cultural shock,” Samu Sunim recalls. “The Village and the park and the hippies would become my second cultural shock.” Orphaned in Korea, Sunim was a seeker of enlightenment and wisdom, salvation and liberation. But he was also a homeless beggar living on the streets, sleeping on park benches, panhandling from passers-by. A contradiction? Actually, no. In that turnon-tune-in-drop-out era, one hardly ruled out the other. It wasn’t long before Sunim realized he needed to earn a living. So he took a night-shift job sorting parcels for UPS. Soon, he’d rented an apartment at 454 West 45th Street, founded the Zen Lotus Society in his home and began his first Dharma practice, which in Buddhism refers to the realization of the teachings of the Buddha in one’s daily life. His initial stay in the city lasted all of five months. He had entered the U.S. illegally, he acknowledges, and was forced to depart for Montreal. Flash forward exactly 50 years. Now, he’s a 75-year old Zen master. And he’s finally come home. After developing and running Buddhist centers across North America – in Toronto and Mexico City, Chicago and Michigan – he has at last built a retreat to serve practitioners and beginners in New York. And after residing in Canada for decades, he now lives in a railroad flat on the third floor of his Zen Buddhist Temple at 206 East 63rd Street. Perhaps the address sounds famil-
Samu Sunim, flanked by two of his followers, in a recent photo. Photo: Zen Buddhist Temple The 75-year-old Zen Buddhist monk Samu Sunim (at center, with red sash over gray robes) surrounded by about 30 members and followers in front of his Zen Buddhist Temple at 206 East 63rd Street. Photo: Zen Buddhist Temple, via flickr iar? The five-story, red-and-beige brick townhouse is a star-crossed building that housed 12 restaurants over a 34year period between 1977 and 2011. Every single one of them failed, collapsed into insolvency or otherwise forced to shut down after money-losing tenancies. The phenomenon was first reported by Gay Talese, the venerable author who lives nearby and used to park his 1957 Triumph across the street. After watching restaurants change like the seasons, he became obsessed with the aspirations and crushed dreams of those defeated restaurateurs. In fact, Sunim says, Talese approached him when he first arrived to scout the building as a possible temple location, briefed him at length about its clouded history — and later, when the place had opened its doors, would pop in occasionally to meditate alongside Sunim. “It’s the Willy Loman of buildings in New York,” Talese has written, a reference to the always striving, ultimately doomed protagonist of “Death of a Salesman.” Talese, a pioneer of socalled New Journalism in the 1960s and 1970s, chronicled the building’s lore in his 2006 memoir, “A Writer’s Life,” and again in a 2011 “Talk of the Town” article in The New Yorker magazine. “Restaurants come to East 63rd Street to die,” Sunim says. “But what is this jinx that haunts the restaurants when they come here? Gay Talese wanted to know. And suddenly, in this place where all those restaurants failed or went bankrupt, he sees this Buddhist monk show up!” Choosing his words carefully, he adds, “I think I can say that the jinx has not hurt us.” There is a brief silence.
Then he says, “Not yet at least.” As the founder and resident priest, Sunim serves as both the spiritual and temporal leader of the temple, where he conducts the meditation service, provides instruction in chanting, emphasizes self-help, and gives the Dharma talk, or the rough equivalent of a sermon. The centerpiece is the practice of meditating, which Buddhists believe is the direct path to freedom and enlightenment, and which Sunim has labored mightily to bring to his small but growing flock of two or three dozen adherents on the East Side. “He has been trying to import Korean-style Buddhism to the West since the late 1960s,” said Ben Henry, a 43-year-old follower from Toronto who has been living in the temple under its residency program. “That is his life’s mission, and he’s been very successful at it.” Henry said members pay $60 a
month, non-members pay a suggested $10 donation for public services on Sundays, and five fifth-floor rooms are available for temple residencies at $1,150 to $1,750 a month. Those prices are modest. The cost of operating in the neighborhood, however, is anything but. And that is perhaps the third cultural shock: “If I had known how expensive the Upper East Side is, I never would have come here,” Sunim says. Is he joking? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But very quickly, you glean the gravity beneath the mirth. “I don’t like this mass consumption culture,” he says. “We tend to think that if you’re poor, you’re miserable and unhappy. But if you have too many things, you can be miserable and unhappy, too. But I also say that suffering is optional.” What triggered Sunim’s flight from Manhattan in 1967? The Summer of Love had come to an end — and federal agents came calling, he wrote in a temple newsletter. As Sunim tells the story, he’d been
Samu Sunim sits in the full lotus position, next to a golden statue of the Buddha, also in the full lotus position, with his followers inside the Zen Buddhist Temple. Photo: Zen Buddhist Temple, via flickr
drafted into the South Korean Army in 1963, deserted to Japan in 1965, entered the U.S. illegally in 1967, and, after a confrontation with FBI agents that fall, moved to Canada in 1968. It was a route well-trod by the draft evaders he’d known in Washington Square Park during the Vietnam War era. For the next 40 years, Sunim was based in Toronto, founding temples and running his nonprofit, which changed its name in 1990 from the Zen Lotus Society to the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom. In 1989, he was paroled for illegal entry into the country, and in 2001, received a U.S. passport. Before long, he began planning his return to New York, and in 2007, after loading a Buddha statue and meditation mats into an old van, he drove back into the city. Sunim established three temporary temples – first in Chinatown, then in Brooklyn, next on West 29th Street in Chelsea – before finally buying the 1907 townhouse on East 63rd Street for $5.6 million in 2011. After three years of intensive renovation, much of it performed by volunteers, the conversion from bad-luck restaurant space to religious use was complete, and in 2004, the temple opened its doors to the public. The mission: Make Zen practice inclusive and widely available to New Yorkers. Present Buddhism as a family-friendly religion. Help Buddhist monks and teachers from Asia settle in America to spread the teachings of the Buddha. “Buddhism is a self-help religion,” Sunim says. “I teach so people can help themselves, and from there, they can be self-empowered, that’s very important, and then, self-awakening.” He adds, “I emphasize peace of mind because until you can establish peace of mind, you cannot make any progress.”
16
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
Business
SERVING FLAVOR 2Doughboyz’s cookie dough pays homage to 90s hip-hop BY CHARMAINE P. RICE
Perched in front of Gansevoort Market is a brand new street cart with an old-school boom box. Passers-by can stop, sample, savor and, perhaps,
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
spring for a scoop (or two) of “edible cookie dough on-tha-go.” 2Doughboyz launched at Gansevoort Market on August 15 and is the brainchild of former hip-hop music executive Matt Maroone. “I worked with quite a lot of artists. I wanted to [create a brand] that was fun, that had an attitude, that had its own voice. A lot
2Doughboyz launched at Gansevoort Market on August 15. Photo: Charmaine P. Rice
Inspired by New York City, 90s hip-hop and deliciousness, music executive Matt Maroone started 2Doughboys. Flavors are named after iconic hip-hop tracks, such as The World is S’Mores, after Nas’s “The World Is Yours,” from his seminal debut album. Image courtesy of 2Doughboyz
of brands nowadays are not fun and they’re scared to talk trash,” Maroone explained. “I thought it would be fun to have a brand that has that New York, hip-hop vibe and not afraid to talk trash.” The fledgling brand leverages social media to get the word out, with an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Each flavor is represented with a faux album cover and named after iconic hip-hop songs. Serving sizes align with famous rappers — “Lil’ Wayne,” is the smallest size, followed by “Fat Joe” as the medium size, and “Big Pun” as the largest serving. The brand’s theme song is
composed by a local rapper, with more songs in the pipeline. Two team members serve on the operations and customer service side. During the interview process, Maroone asks potential team members what their top five albums are. “We’re really lucky to have team members that are excited about the brand,” Maroone said. Maroone and his wife, who is the executive chef, make every batch from scratch daily in Gansevoort Market’s commercial kitchen. Pasteurized eggs and heat-treated flour are key ingredients in every batch. The dough has a shelf life of three weeks when refrig-
ON THE SIDE STREETS OF NEW YORK HOUSING WORKS - 245 WEST 10TH STREET This bright and colorful West Village thrift shop is just one of the many businesses run by Housing Works, a highly regarded New York nonprofit. Housing Works was founded in 1990 by members of ACT UP, an AIDS activist group that is dedicated
to fighting the joint crises of homelessness and AIDS. Their first thrift shop opened in Chelsea in 1992 and 12 more have opened throughout the city since. Their shops not only provide funding for their cause, but also jobs for the community they serve. To read more, visit Manhattan Sideways (sideways.nyc), created by Betsy Bober Polivy.
Photograph by Jasphy Zheng, Manhattan Sideways.
erated and for those who love cookies, popping the dough in the oven for 10 minutes at 375 degrees will ensure further scrumptious snacking. “There was a need that hadn’t been met and the challenge now is keeping up with demand,” said Maroone, who also noted that the brand is now offering on-demand delivery service via Postmates. The seasonal menu currently features four flavors: “Chocolate Chip Hop Hooray,” “Confetti to Die,” “The World is S’Mores” and “Nuttin’ Butter G Thang.” Cue the beats and enjoy the treats in front of Gansevoort Market.
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
17
Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com
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AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
DOG OWNERS SHIRKING DUTY HYGIENE The, ahem, evidence appears to be proliferating BY DEBORAH FENKER
“Are you a dog person or a cat person?” A fairly generic small-talk inquiry, but years ago, I added a third option: plant people. This is not because I do not like animals, but because I simply refuse to gather an organism’s excrement off the sidewalk (or any other surface). Unfortunately, however, so too do many dog owners in our Chelsea neighborhood. Like so many predicaments in Manhattan, this one seems to be increasing exponentially in severity. If there has been a day that I walked my block without evidence of a dog owner’s negligence, I do not recall it. The problem is nefariously multi-faceted. The scoop law (which currently stands at $250 per violation), is virtually impossible to enforce. A violator would have to be caught in the act, and the perpetrators seem to skulk about in the shadowy dark of night, between vehicles, or at least only after a stealthy peripheral scan to make sure no one is witness. There is an insufficient number of police officers patrolling to formulate a matrix that would preclude the offense, and it is, in fact, the occupation of agents of the DSNY who are responsible, not the NYPD. Neither I nor the 3-1-1 agent with whom I spoke could deduce what a DSNY agent actually IS. So, it is doubtful that there are any of the tickets being issued. Certainly, I have personally observed people blatantly shirking scoop duty, but with no viable recourse, the only result of calling people out on their crime has been a scathing retort of re-
taliatory slurs about my own psychological and emotional state, vulgarities included. But it isn’t only my personal disgust for the abandoned poop: in New York, some restaurant deliveries are made on the sidewalk, so the hygiene issue is monumental. And even dog owners should fear that their own pets encounter other dogs’ waste, which spreads disease among the species. Additionally, right or wrong, restaurant and grocery delivery services often unload their trucks right onto the sidewalk, where whether it was picked up or not, residue of canine fecal matter might recently have been. This is the foremost justification of literally curbing animals: hygiene and sanitation. And that’s not the mention the quality of life havoc wreaked by the stench, unsightliness, and hazardous shoedestroying potential of it all. And honestly, whether it is dog poo, chewed gum, cigarette butts, or pistachio hulls — people should NOT LITTER! In a pacifistic moment, it occurred to me perhaps people don’t know what “curb your dog” really means. An ordinance dubbed the pooper scooper law effected in 1978 in New York State avows “it shall be the duty of each dog owner or person having possession, custody or control of a dog to remove any feces left by his or her dog on any sidewalk, gutter, street or other public area.” In 2004, there were 644 summonses delivered (although to uncertain effect). In recent years, I could find no documentation of any. A more popular definition in circulation instructs “that owners cannot allow their pets to soil buildings, nor can a dog make a nuisance of himself on the grass of the parkway or on the sidewalk.” Neither of these specifically mention the curb, although several dog walkers I
A message to dog owners in Chelsea. Photo: Deborah Fenker questioned thought that it meant to make your dog go as close to the curb as possible, and then eliminate the aftermath, which would seem the ideal practice. In fact, every dog-accompanied human I encountered offered a response similar to this, revealing that on the surface, at a least, most do seem to be aware of their responsibility. At the same time, they were all just as aware of the rampant disregard of this instructive, and seemed universally disgusted with the state of the sidewalks. A professional dog walker I encountered posited that he and his work cohorts were the most conscientious followers of the scoop law, since their reputations are at stake. He cited temporary dog sitters and pet-sitting friends as the most culpable offenders, but doubted that those sporadic violators could possibly be responsible for the widespread violations. “Nobody picks their xxxx up. I don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. Well, that makes two of us. He suggested giving the power of enforcement to such ubiquitous neighbor presences such as parking
lot attendants or postal deliverers, which might serve as a deterrent but it is doubtful those parties would willingly participate. An owner of “D” is for Doggy on 22nd Street in Chelsea is probably as big a dog lover as could be, but is just as passionate about her disdain for people who do not pick up after their charges. She sees pee-pee puddles and poo piles mid-sidewalk, fully wrapped and collected waste in plastic bags then discarded right IN her tree pit, and the rusty erosion and urine-burned plants from dogs marking (not their) territory. She has created elaborately crafty “Curb Your Dog” signs for her tree pit, protected with bright red sideboards. Some prior iterations were stolen, but the effort has ultimately proved effective, and the little garden-ette in front of the store is now thriving. The “obvious” common sense notions that dogs shouldn’t go on the plants or in the middle of the sidewalk is not so obvious to people, it seems. Of course, everyone I asked swore they obeyed the law without fail. But then again, who would admit they didn’t? I did, however, sense some hesitancies
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in response time that implied perhaps their record wasn’t 100 percent clean. Only one man refused to talk with me: “Sorry I don’t have time,” and feigned to rush across the street, only to regain his leisurely pace, and then unleash his dog to lope alongside. I guess if you break one law, you might be more prone to break another, and he seemed the type for both. So. What to do? The hope that there was just a misunderstanding of the meaning of “curbing” as the root of the problem doesn’t seem to hold water. Everybody seems to know what they should be doing, but a massive number of them aren’t doing it. Thus, proposing a simple P.S.A. blitz to inform people of their responsibilities would seem insufficient. One would hope that people took more pride in their neighborhood than this kind of thoughtlessness would indicate. If you have taken on the responsibility of caring for a canine companion, cleaning up for him, thoroughly and consistently, is just part of the commitment. Doo ... I mean, do the right thing.
AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 6,2017
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Nothing beats newspapers as the most reliable source of local news in print and online Recent studies show:
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Newspapers led online consumption for local news” Coda Ventures Survey August 18, 2016
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Local newspapers are still the top source of news about readers’ communities, including their branded Web sites and social media channels.” Publisher’s Daily - August 30, 2016
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Residents are eager for news about their own communities, which, increasingly, only local news organizations can provide” Editor & Publisher - June 1, 2016
Politico - September 10, 2016
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YOUR 15 MINUTES
THINKING OUTSIDE THE GRID Founder of ReThink Studio on his aspiration to transform New York City’s transportation systems BY ANGELA BARBUTI
Jim Venturi wants to change how we envision public transportation and created a think tank that aspires to do just that. In 2014, he launched ReThink Studio in his apartment on the Upper West Side. The firm has since grown into an office on West 103rd Street and Riverside, where a team of architects and urban and transportation planners brainstorm and research solutions to the way we commute in New York City and beyond. The venture was born as he worked on a film about his parents, renowned architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. “I was told I could give a presentation on anything, so I had this idea to expand LaGuardia Airport and close Rikers Island.... I wasn’t sure what to expect and got this fantastic reception,” he explained. ReThinkNYC is the firm’s first project, which focuses on the tri-state area, and includes not only those plans for LaGuardia, but also an expansion of the Second Avenue subway into the Bronx, and a contraction of Penn Station to reduce commuter overcrowding.
What is a brainstorming session like at the office? We play with things, frankly. We look at historicals and do a lot of research. We often realize that we have a hunch on an idea and then find out that actually our hunch of the way to solve it had either been proposed or been the previous way that was solved. There’s a person that’s an architect of a system and sees it as such, and then later another generation comes along with a different set of needs and it’s ruined. And it’s not because of anyone’s fault, it’s just the nature of the demands of society. In the context of New York City, that was a twin decline of both popularity of public transportation as the automobile was the new thing and the decline of the city, the fact that there was suburbanization.
What are your thoughts on the Second Avenue subway? The original 1968 proposal for that had it going to the Bronx. The Second Avenue subway is considered very expensive and so a lot of people say, “How can we afford X if the Second Avenue subway with just three stops, costs so much money?” So what you’re looking at is a ratio. You’re looking at what was the cost of the Second Avenue subway and what are the benefits. The benefits are in part diminished because it’s so deep to go down. So if you’re on Third Avenue, most likely you’re going to
go over to Lexington because you can catch a train quicker. Whereas if you’re on Second or First, there’s a greater chance you’ll go onto the Q, depending on where you’re trying to go. So in our view, because it’s expensive and very different from the original, it really can’t be used as a tool to deal with transit deserts, unless they’re in the commercial core, such as the 7 train. It has to have, in addition to the benefits of stops serving customers, a network systemwide benefit that adds to the benefit side of the equation to make the cost-benefit ratio work.
You said that there are many tracks in Penn Station that are redundant. Penn Station is being used today in a way it wasn’t originally designed for. And that is to support most of New Jersey Transit commuter railways. At the time it was built, the Pennsylvania Railroad handled 10 percent of commuter rail in New Jersey. Penn Station was really a landmark station for the Pennsylvania Railroad, which at the time, extended to Chicago and through the South. In other words, its platforms were narrow because it was for long distance trains that were less frequent than commuter trains.... Now commuters want to get to Midtown, so you have overstimulation at Penn Station, so the situation has to be rethought along with the need in general for regional transportation.
As Jim Venturi’s firm, ReThink Studio, envisions it, a more efficient LaGuardia Airport would be fully integrated with an intermodal transportation hub. Illustration courtesy of ReThink Studio
Photo: ReThinkNYC
How do you propose to fix the problem at Penn? Cities such as Paris, Berlin, Philadelphia and London have moved beyond the model where you have a terminal like Grand Central in the center. What they’ve done is built tunnels that connect tracks heading to those terminals to tracks heading to other terminals. And then have service that would run from one side of the region, in our case let’s say Long Island, through to the other side of the region, let’s say New Jersey. That is the more practical way to do it.... ReThinkNYC widens the platforms. By doing that, we’re able to triple the amount of vertical circulation, escalators and stairs and allow people to get up and down and have more space to wait. Because the trains run through and are not terminating, you don’t need as many tracks. You need that many tracks now simply because the trains operate in a very inefficient way. They go into the station and wait for people to get on, so can be in the station for 20 minutes. That’s called a terminal, even though Penn Station is both a station and a terminal, it’s mostly operated as a terminal. This is not a good future.
You talk about how LaGuardia could potentially be the most rail-connected airport in the world. I think the best airport in the world. It has the potential to be really terrific.... The opportunity at LaGuardia via the Port Morris station in the Bronx would be to connect all of Metro North and New Jersey Transit lines directly to a global airport. Which would mean, if you’re in a suburban context, you could catch an Uber, let’s say, five minutes to your train. And get your bags up the stairs, roll them off the train, catch an escalator, check in and take an air train under the East River to check in to take a flight anywhere in the world.... There would be opportunities for a convention center adjacent to the airport, that had been first envisioned at JFK by Governor Cuomo, but in a way that’s much closer to Manhattan and much more attractive. www.rethinkstudio.org www.rethinknyc.org
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