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WEEK OF NOVEMBER DESIGNING FOR DINING ◄ P.12
8-14 2018
THE VISCERAL VIGNETTES OF VIETNAM NOW
THEN
HISTORY An Upper West Side theater troupe marks Veterans Day by reprising one of America’s most unpopular wars — with a renewed appreciation for the men and women who fought it BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Carmen Quinones, president of the tenants association at the Frederick Douglass Houses in Manhattan Valley. Photo courtesy of Carmen Quinones
GIFTS OF THE MAGI COMMUNITY An uphill drive to bring holiday toys, clothing, teddy bears and Disney characters to the children of the needy families of Manhattan Valley BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Many of the residents of the Frederick Douglass Houses on the Upper West Side simply can’t afford to buy Christmas presents for their kids. Struggling to get by on the
average annual public housing family income of $24,423, they don’t give gifts because they need the funds for food. And that’s where Carmen Quinones comes in: A resident for 43 years, she has long been known as a “one-woman Santa Claus,” neighbors say. For three out of the past four years, Quinones has hosted an annual holiday party. She’s showered the children with presents and love. And she’s paid for most of it out of her own pocket.
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It has been more than a generation since the unspeakable horrors of the Vietnam War last occupied a paramount position in the collective consciousness of New York City. Now, a scrappy little theater company that’s been dubbed the “History Channel on Stage” is revisiting that ugly conflict and plumbing the long-buried memories of its toxic toll. Why now? Veterans Day is Nov. 11. It is a time for remembrance. The combatants, to this day, are haunted by war wounds, both physical and psychic. Yet to millennials, Vietnam is but a chapter in a history book, as relevant to their lives as the Spanish-American War of 1898. Hudson Warehouse is out to change that dynamic. The resident theater company of Goddard Riverside Community Center on the Upper West Side is recounting the real-life stories of seven veterans who served in-country in the 1960s and 1970s in a 70-minute, multimedia theatrical presentation. It’s also attempting a major act of historical redemption:
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Ex-Sergeant Arthur Faiella with Susane Lee, the executive director of Hudson Warehouse, on the Upper West Side. Her theater company is telling his personal story in an upcoming stage production, along with the stories of six other Vietnam vets, set against the backdrop of the long war. spat upon,” she added. “Now, it is time to give them a hero’s welcome, too.” To do that, Lee located seven vets — six men and one woman, four of them New Yorkers — and conducted and transcribed dozens of hours of audiotaped interviews. Much of what she heard was harrowing. There would be no paraphrasing. No poetic license. “I need to honor their words,” she said. So Lee used only verbatim quotes to write, create and produce “Vietnam: Soldiers Tell Their Stories 40 Years Later,” which will be performed at the Goddard Riverside Bernie Wohl Center, on Columbus Avenue at 91st Street, on Saturday, Nov. 10, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free for all veterans. Tickets for everyone else: $10 or $15. The show is built around the seven vets played by seven actors cast to relate their wartime experiences. As they spin poignant, or chilling, firstperson tales of Vietnam, more
Sergeant Arthur Faiella, then 22 years old, in Vietnam about 1967. “After World War II, our soldiers came home to a hero’s welcome, and strangers kissed them and hugged them and embraced them and thanked them for their service to our country,” said Susane Lee, the company’s executive director. “But our Vietnam veterans came home in shame to face people’s anger and belligerence — as if somehow, they had become the bad guys, and they were shunned from society, disrespected, and literally
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WEEK OF APRIL
SPRING ARTS PREVIEW < CITYARTS, P.12
FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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I ALWAYS FELT IT WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY — EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT ALL THE PEOPLE WERE KILLING EACH OTHER.” Former Technical Sergeant Tom Pellaton, Vietnam veteran and Episcopal priest than 250 images of their time in the war, and the places and subjects of which they speak, are projected on a large screen above and behind them. The slides help interweave their personal stories with the historical, political, social and cultural context of the war, as
VIETNAM ON PAGE 6
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