Our Town Downtown July 23rd, 2015

The local paper for Downtown wn GOING OFF SCRIPT, AND SUCCEEDING < CITY ARTS P.12

WEEK OF JULY

23-29 2015

PAVING THE WAY FOR OTHERS Phyllis Gonzalez, a longtime Chelsea tenant advocate, has a street named after her

HUNDREDS ATTEND VIGIL FOR TRAFFIC VICTIMS Families speak out against ‘aggressive’ driving culture, advocate for enforcement

BY HARRISON STEVEN CADE

BY LOGAN HENDRIX

Phyllis Gonzalez was a dauntless presence in Chelsea for decades.

She served as president of a local PTA, as a member of both the Hudson Guild’s Advisory Council and Community Board 4, and as a secretary for the Citywide Council of Presidents of the New York City Housing Authority.

But it was as the four-term president of the Elliott-Chelsea Houses that she had her greatest influence.

Gonzalez, who was 65 when she died in September 2012, fought to improve conditions at the housing project however and wherever she could, friends and family said. She accomplished all this despite suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and congestive heart problems.

“She had wanted to be a nurse, but when that didn’t work out she directed her energies toward helping the community. She just wanted to help people,” Gonzalez’s daughter, Marion, said. “She was bighearted. And she believed that everyone deserved to have what they needed. She just automatically assumed these responsibilities.”

On July 18, under a blazing noonday sun, Gonzalez was given a permanent post in the neighborhood to which she was long dedicated when the southwest corner of 29th Street and Ninth Avenue was renamed Phyllis Gonzalez Way. State Senator Brad Hoylman, who attended the dedication ceremony along

Union Square was a sea of yellow and gray T-shirts in commemoration of loved ones who have died in traffic crashes in the city.

Among them was Amy Cohen, a founding member for Families for Safe Streets, whose 12-year-old son, Sammy, was killed by a van outside of the family’s Brooklyn Heights home in October.

Cohen implored the crowd to start using the word “crash” instead of “accident.”

“The word ‘accident’ suggests something unavoidable and inevitable,” Cohen said. “When we refuse to say ‘accident’ we are insisting that something can be done to save lives.”

Vigil for Vision Zero, which drew hundreds on a warm, humid evening July 14, was organized by Families for Safe Streets and Transportation Alternatives, which is advocating for safer streets for cyclists and pedestrians and stricter enforcement of traffic laws. The event took its name from the de Blasio administration’s pivotal traffic-safety initiative, the goal of which is to eradicate traffic deaths and injuries in the city.

Friends and family gathered on stage holding pictures of their lost loved ones. Denise Baum, held a newspaper detailing the death of her husband, Rubin Baum, who was

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Fabulous upcoming New York State events and must-sees at ILoveNY.com/summer15 and inside!

Hsi-Pei Liao holds a picture of his daughter, Allison, who was killed in 2013.He was among hundreds of others who attended the Vigil for Vision Zero at Union Square Tuesday evening. Photo: Logan Hendrix

Our Take THE FUTURE FOR OLDER NEW YORKERS Never has there been a better -- or worse -- time to grow old in New York City.

This week, we kick off what will be a months-long look at the frustrations, and the joys, of senior citizens in America’s biggest city. We’re beginning this effort by debuting a new, biweekly column on our Voices page by veteran Manhattanite Marcia Epstein, called “Senior Living.” Give it a read and give us your thoughts.

Marcia’s column marks the beginning of a series of stories and investigations on elderly New Yorkers, who, perhaps more than any other demographic group, are feeling the brunt of the city’s transformation.

Think of any of the hotbutton issues in New York today: affordability, crime, transportation, development.

Chances are that elderly New Yorkers are feeling the brunt of them more than the rest of us, either because of fixed incomes, or limited mobility or other vulnerabilities.

For decades, New York City has been seen as a blissful place to retire. The transit was good, the culture untouchable, the chances for social interaction varied. All of those things are still true.

But it’s also become a brutally difficult place for older people.

What is it like to grow old in a city that prizes the new? What can we be doing to make New York a more hospitable place?

Join us in coming months as we tackle these issues, all of us, together.

Downtowner 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

n OurTownDowntow

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Newscheck Crime Watch Voices

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

2 City Arts 3 Top 5 8 Real Estate 10 15 Minutes

12 13 14 18

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JULY 23-29,2015

WHAT’S MAKING NEWS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD HOMELESSNESS IN THE CITY IS AT RECORD LEVELS

Homelessness in New York City has reached record levels. Photo: Elvert Barnes, via Flickr

Homelessness is at its highest point since the Great Depression, with 60,000 people, nearly half of them children, estimated to be sleeping in shelters and one organization is laying the blame at the previous city administration, according to a report in the Daily News.

During the fiscal year that ended June 30, one in 42 children was in a homeless shelter, the paper reported.

“These unprecedented levels of homelessness stem directly from disastrous Bloomberg administration policies that eliminated permanent housing resources from homeless children and families,” the News quotes the campaign Homes for Every New Yorker.

During a demonstration last week, advocates called for 15,000 living units to be built and set aside for homeless families, the News reported. Protesters also called for the de Blasio administration to allocate 10 percent of units that are part of in his affordable housing plan to the currently homeless.

“Mayor Koch built 15,000 real affordable housing units and we think de Blasio should match those numbers,” the News quoted the executive director of the advocacy group Vocal-NY, Jennifer Flynn, as saying.

The protestors, noting that about one-third of homeless families sleeping in shelters are employed, also called for an increase in the minimum wage to $15.

VILLAGE DISTRICT LEADER CHARGED FOR A FELONY Arthur Schwartz, the Village’s Democratic district leader was charged for grand larceny after turning himself in to police, according to The Villager.

Schwartz admitted that he removed five spy cameras that were mounted in a public hallway outside the apartment of Ruth Berk.

Schwartz is the legal guardian of Berk, who lives in the two bedroom penthouse with her daughter, Jessica, The Villager reported The building manager filed a complaint to police about the missing cameras stating the equipment cost $4000, the paper

said. Schwartz said he looked the surveillance cameras up online and found that the cameras were much less expensive. The total price of the cameras was reduced in the formal complaint to $1000, which still constitutes as grand larceny.

Schwartz was released without having to pay bail. If the city’s district attorney decides to prosecute, Schwartz will return to court and sit before a grand jury on Oct. 15.

‘NO SOLICITING’ RULE AT HIGH LINE HASN’T STOP SCAMMERS Men dressed in saffron-yellow robes walk the High Line asking pedestrians for donations, but a major local Buddhist organization deems those ‘monks’ as phonies.

The Buddhist Council of New York told CBS New York that the bogus monks’ approach to asking for money is aggressive unlike traditional Buddhist practices.

The robed men attract New Yorkers with gold cards and then ask for a donation in exchange for a beaded bracelet stating the proceeds will go towards building a temple.

Big things are happening at Bright Horizons.

Bright Horizons is growing in NYC! The TriBeCa, West Chelsea and Chelsea locations are opening soon and will offer Infant - Kindergarten Prep programs.

As the leading provider of high-quality early education and preschool, Bright Horizons empowers children from infancy on to become confident, successful learners and secure caring people.

ENROLL TODAY For more information: www.brighthorizons.com/newnyc

JULY 23-29,2015

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

CRIME WATCH BY JERRY DANZIG

PROTESTS ON GARNER ANNIVERSARY Protesters marked the anniversary of Eric Garnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chokehold death with rallies and marches, echoing demonstrations just after his death that helped fuel a national conversation about policing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re over-policed,â&#x20AC;? said Alice Sturmsutter, who joined about 20 other activists in lower Manhattan as they boarded the Staten Island Ferry for a protest at the site where a police officer put Garner in a chokehold on July 17, 2014.

The protesters headed to the Staten Island sidewalk where officers confronted Garner, who was 43, because police believed he was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. A video shot by an onlooker shows Garner, who was black, telling the officers to leave him alone and refusing to be handcuffed.

Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is white, placed his arm around Garnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neck to take him W

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were no parking tickets pending.

The stolen bike bore New York plates 50SC83.

down. Garner is heard gasping â&#x20AC;&#x153;I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t breathe!â&#x20AC;? 11 times before losing consciousness.

His death, coupled with police killings of unarmed black men elsewhere, spurred protests around the country about police treatment of black men.

Later, some demonstrators roved through parts of Manhattan.

A gathering around Herald Square prompted a message from the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public-notiďŹ cation system that the protests were intermittently closing streets. Police said some arrests made been made during the demonstrations, but the number of arrests and other details were still being gathered late Friday night.

DISARMED ALARM One shoplifter used hightech equipment to snare his booty. At 3:05 p.m. on July 9, a 30-year-old man employed some sort of electronic alarmdisabling device to remove two iPhones from the Staples store at 217 Broadway. The device apparently worked, as no electronic alarm sounded when the robber removed the phones from the storeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s table. The phones stolen were an iPhone 6 valued at $749 and an iPhone 6+ valued at $749, making a total of $1,498. One of the two phones was later recovered, although the police report did not explain how.

CUSTOM JOB Thieves apparently could not resist a motorcycle as expensive as a car. At 11:30 a.m. on July 12, a 54-year-old man from Larchmont parked his gray 2014 Novello Custom opposite 89 South St. When he returned at 3:30 p.m., his regal ride, valued at $25,000, was gone.

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FIRE IRE A man who lost his job attacked a former coworker at the northwest corner of Hudson and Reade Streets, police said. At 3:50 a.m. on July 8, a 24-year-old man was walking to the store in which he was employed when he encountered a 30-year-old man who had E

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formerly been a coworker at the store. The two men started arguing when the 30-year-old said the younger man had been the reason he got ďŹ red. The older man then hit the younger man on the head with a beer bottle, causing him to fall to the sidewalk and hit his face on the pavement, according to a police account. Some companions of the older man began punching and kicking the younger man while he was still down on the ground. The victim lost consciousness when he hit the ground and did not recall anything further. A companion of the victim, a 30-year-old man, ran off and called 911 when he saw his friend being attacked by the gang of four, but the thugs caught him, tripped him, took his phone and wallet, and punched and kicked him. Police searched the area but could not ďŹ nd the attackers.

There is no video available of the incident. The younger victim was treated at Bellevue. The items stolen included $250 in cash, a 3S cell phone valued at $150, a Metro Card worth $31, and a black wallet valued at $7, making a total of $438.

STATS FOR THE WEEK Reported crimes from the 1st Precinct for July 6 -12 Week to Date

Year to Date

2015 2014

% Change

2015

2014

% Change

Murder

0

0

n/a

0

0

n/a

Rape

0

0

n/a

3

5

-40.0

Robbery

2

1

100.0

30

23

30.4

Felony Assault

2

0

n/a

42

36

16.7

Burglary

1

2

-50.0

68

84

-19.0

Grand Larceny

20

16

25.0

516

475

8.6

Grand Larceny Auto

1

1

0.0

11

3

266.7

PHAT RAT Bike thieves can make off with their prey in the blink of an eye. At 2:50 p.m. on July 13, a 22-year-old deliveryman arrived at 26 Broadway. He secured his Track Phat cycle to a metal pole in front of the building and went inside to make his delivery.

When he came out from the building ten minutes later, his ride was nowhere to be found.

The bike stolen was a valued at $1,200.

LIP CLIP A cosmetics shoplifter was taken into custody after

resisting arrest. At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7, a 28-year-old man was seen inside the Duane Reade store at 67 Broad St. removing items from a store aisle. A police officer in the store identiďŹ ed himself, at which the perpetrator ran from the store.

Police said the thief swung at the officer several times. The man, later identiďŹ ed as Anthony Homoui, then ran for two blocks, continuing to ďŹ ght. The property stolen, recovered, and returned to the store included ten lipsticks valued at $156, two lip liners, and two boxes of nail art, presenting a total reported value of $156. Homoui was arrested and charged with robbery.

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JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Useful Contacts POLICE NYPD 7th Precinct

19 ½ Pitt St.

212-477-7311

NYPD 6th Precinct

233 W. 10th St.

212-741-4811

NYPD 10th Precinct

230 W. 20th St.

212-741-8211

NYPD 13th Precinct

230 E. 21st St.

NYPD 1st Precinct

16 Ericsson Place

212-477-7411 212-334-0611

FIRE FDNY Engine 15

25 Pitt St.

311

FDNY Engine 24/Ladder 5

227 6th Ave.

311

FDNY Engine 28 Ladder 11

222 E. 2nd St.

311

FDNY Engine 4/Ladder 15

42 South St.

311

ELECTED OFFICIALS Councilmember Margaret Chin

165 Park Row #11

Councilmember Rosie Mendez

237 1st Ave. #504

212-587-3159 212-677-1077

Councilmember Corey Johnson

224 W. 30th St.

212-564-7757

State Senator Daniel Squadron

250 Broadway #2011

212-298-5565

Community Board 1

49 Chambers St.

212-442-5050

Community Board 2

3 Washington Square Village

212-979-2272

Community Board 3

59 E. 4th St.

212-533-5300

Community Board 4

330 W. 42nd St.

212-736-4536

Hudson Park

66 Leroy St.

212-243-6876

Ottendorfer

135 2nd Ave.

212-674-0947

Elmer Holmes Bobst

70 Washington Square

212-998-2500

COMMUNITY BOARDS

LIBRARIES

HOSPITALS New York-Presbyterian

170 William St.

Mount Sinai-Beth Israel

10 Union Square East

212-844-8400

212-312-5110

CON EDISON

4 Irving Place

212-460-4600

TIME WARNER

46 East 23rd

813-964-3839

US Post Office

201 Varick St.

212-645-0327

US Post Office

128 East Broadway

212-267-1543

US Post Office

93 4th Ave.

212-254-1390

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PROTESTING AN UPTOWN PET SHOP Group targets a Columbus Ave. shop for selling animals

BY MICKEY KRAMER

The signage out front of Manhattan Puppies and Kittens on Columbus Avenue and 87th Streets reads “Pet Boutique and Grooming.” Even inside the store, it’s not obvious they also sell puppies and kittens, which are kept out of sight.

Some locals are not pleased.

Seven people spent a recent Saturday handing out flyers about pet adoption and puppy mills, while politely asking neighborhood residents to boycott Manhattan Puppies and Kittens until they stop selling animals.

Jannette Patterson, a real estate agent who lives a few blocks away, said, “It’s simple, there are too many animals and not enough good homes.

We want to educate people about the thousands of lovely puppies, dogs, cats, and kittens, waiting for homes in shelters” Manhattan Puppies, in business since March, offers the usual collection of dog beds, leashes and collars, and a grooming price list. But off to one side, there are three large cubicles where interested parties can sit with and meet puppies.

While the storefront doesn’t seem to promote its sale of puppies and kittens, it’s a strong

focus of the website. The home page description begins as follows: “Manhattan Puppies specializes in the sale of healthy puppies and kittens from certified breeders, with whom we have enjoyed long-standing relationships.”

Store manager Meghan refused to give her last name and politely stated that she is not allowed to speak with reporters. Numerous emails to the store went unanswered.

Steve Lunny, 40, has an adopted dog, and was surprised to hear from the protestors that the store sells animals. “I thought they just sold supplies and offered grooming. Knowing that [they sell puppies and

kittens], I will not purchase anything from them.”

Mary Atwater pushed her recently adopted senior pug in a stroller and lives around the corner from Manhattan Puppies. “I completely agree with the demonstrators out front.

They don’t have to sell puppies and kittens to be successful.”

Atwater, 25, adds that the store can work with rescues and adoptable animals instead.

Patterson plans to have a presence in front of Manhattan Puppies and Kittens every weekend. “As long as we have at least two people, we can and will keep the pressure up.”

JULY 23-29,2015

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

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JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

HUNDREDS ATTEND VIGIL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

PAVING THE WAY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 with members of Gonzalez’s family, residents and officials, said Gonzalez’s work as a tenant leader and housing advocate served as something of a guiding light. City and community officials could count on her to give “an unvarnished assessment” of the neighborhood, its wants and its needs, he said.

“Phyllis was a real special person because she represented the best of the community.

Her imprint on Chelsea is so deep and permanent. Whether it’s the Chelsea Recreation Center, Elliot-Chelsea public housing, (the community agency) Hudson Guild, she’s done it all,” Hoylman said. “She was a jack of all trades and an expert on so many issues that concerned the community.”

Marion Gonzalez, 34, described her mother’s passion for the neighborhood as a simple desire that she’d carried all of

her life. As well as being a mother to her two children, Marion, and her son, Eric, Gonzalez became a mother figure to tenants, many of whom she considered her second family, friends and acquaintances said. Gonzalez helped ensure the safety of residents, they said, including her moving residents out of Allerton and Martinique welfare hotels and into the Elliott-Chelsea Houses, pressuring the Housing Authority to purchase and install closed-circuit security cameras during a crime spike, and participating in the creation of the Chelsea Recreation Center.

Gonzalez also left an impact on local politics, passing on her knowledge to those who would wield her voice. Hoylman and state Assemblyman Richard Gottfried both credited Gonzalez for being a major influence on their careers and for their later advocacy on behalf of public housing residents.

“Phyllis helped to make sure that for those of us who were in a position to help

always knew what needed to be done. She had a great influence on making sure that local elected officials did what needed to be done. Her job was making sure that we all knew what our jobs required.” Gottfried said.

Councilman Corey Johnson, who was instrumental in getting the street renamed and who unveiled the street sign, recounted a story about Gonzalez that he said defined her character.

“She was told that she couldn’t speak after having a tube down her throat. The first thing she said was ‘We need the turkeys to hand out to the community,’” he said. “That was Phyllis.”

Louis Bertot, a fellow housing advocate and retired labor union representative, said the renaming was apt and deserved.

“I’ve been waiting since 2013 for this,” he said. “I think people are going to be very proud in this community to see her name be used as a model for leadership.”

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killed in 2012 on the Upper East Side. A spinning car that had collided with another vehicle killed Baum as he hailed a cab.

Denise Baum said her husband pushed her out of the way to save her. “I was in total shock and disbelief,” she said.

The core of the event was reading the names of 123 people who have died in traffic crashes so far in 2015. Yellow flowers were handed out, each representing the more than 24,000 injured and people killed in traffic crashes in the five boroughs this year. Single yellow shoe laces were also given to vigil participants to commemorate pedestrians and cyclists killed in traffic crashes.

Hsi-Pei Liao and Amy Tam-Liao shared the story about how their daughter, Allison, was killed by a car in 2013 as she and her grandmother were crossing at an intersection.

“Her death was a result of a dangerous, predictable, aggressive driving culture,” Tam-Liao said. “Ali did not need to die.

She should be playing in the sprinklers with her brother. She should be preparing for kindergarten.”

Sofia Russo also lost her daughter, Ariel, in 2013 when she was struck and killed by an unlicensed driver fleeing police.

“My 4-year-old daughter was not killed in an accident. Her death could have been prevented if the driver had been obeying traffic safety rules,” Russo said. “She should be here right now. She would be 6 years old getting ready to start first grade, reading books to her 4-year-old brother,” Russo said.

Some traffic crash survivors took the stage to promote Vision Zero’s goals. Last summer, Dulcie Canton was riding her bike home when a reckless driver rear-ended her and kept going.

Canton was left with a broken shoulder and ankle and a concussion. “It’s an awful thing to happen and it really shouldn’t,” Canton said.

Cara Cancelmo, hit by a taxicab two years ago, contends with chronic pain from an injury to her shoulder.

“My injuries may not be visible at first glance, but my pain is real,” said Cancelmo, who added that she also has leftover mental trauma. “Many New Yorkers dissociate from the possibility that this could be their life, their pain, their story or end to it.

But those of us here today know the truth: we are all in danger.

“What happened to me was not my fault. It was a terrible failure of the city,” she said.

Jackie Rowe-Adams, founder of Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E, which works to prevent gun violence, equated traffic deaths with those from firearms.

“The pain never goes away. We share the same pain. We share the same hurt,” said Adams, whose two sons were killed in separate shootings. “We wake and we have the loss of our kids.”

The crowd kneeled and held up their yellow flowers for a moment of silence to honor a cyclist who was killed near the Barclays Center in Brooklyn when he struck by an SUV on July 13.

Aaron Charlop-Powers, a founding member of Families for Safe Streets and whose mother was killed five years ago riding her bike in the Bronx, concluded the vigil in a cry answered by the crowd: “What do we want?” he shouted.

“Safe Streets!” the audience responded.

“When do we want it?” Charlop-Powers screamed.

“Now!” declared the crowd.

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718-332-0026

JULY 23-29,2015

7

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

The High Line

PLANT OF THE WEEK: COMPASS PLANT In the grasslands of the High Line between Gansevoort and 20th Street, it’s impossible to miss the compass plant’s lofty stalks and dense yellow blooms. A member of the Asteraceae family, the silphium laciniatum’s impressive height sets its flowers against the sky like daylight stars. A clue to a more substantial relationship to the sun than simply its sunflower-like appearance lies in the compass plant’s name, which has to do with its use as a navigation tool by early European settlers of the Great Plains.

When a new leaf emerges, it grows any which way it pleases; but within a few weeks of sun exposure, it twists clockwise or counterclockwise into a vertical position pointing north, south, east, or west to protect leaves from too much exposure during the midday heat. This results in east-west facing leaves using water more efficiently than those that face north-south, as well as being an accurate compass for travelers. Native American peoples also used the silphium as an edible by chewing the bitter sap, using parts of the plant as tea, and burning the dried roots for protection during lightning. In his classic conservation text A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold dedicates much of the chapter on July ecology to the Silphium and the significance of its slow disappearance from American prairies as an augur of the ascendance of the mowing machine.

“With [the silphium] will die the prairie epoch,” he wrote.

The compass plant is native to the central United States and eastern Canada, and is a valuable food source for sparrows and juvenile livestock. Songbirds find a sturdy perch in the stalks, and eastern kingbirds can be seen scouting the flowerheads for grassland insects. Owing in part to the compass plant’s spreading relatively non-aggressively by seed, it’s endangered in several states, and needs seed stratification to be propagated.

You can see this plant at the Washington Grasslands and the Chelsea Grasslands

THIS WEEK ON THE HIGH LINE

MEDITATION Every Wednesday, June through September, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.

22nd Street Seating Steps, on the High Line at West 22nd Street Join our neighbors from the Integral Yoga Institute, the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center, and two guest appearances by The Interdependence Project, for weekly guided meditations.

Rise above the city streets and start your day focused, centered, and connected with nature. Beginners welcome!

In the event of rain, Meditation will be cancelled.

WILD WEDNESDAY Every Wednesday, July through August, 4:00 to 6:00

p.m.

14th Street Passage, on the High Line at West 14th Street Looking out from the High Line we can see the places and people that make our neighborhood a great place to live, work, and play. Join us on Wednesdays in July and August to learn about the ways animals and plants at High Line Park also make homes, eat their snacks, and help each other and us!

Wild Wednesday is a drop-in program (no RSVP required), and is open to kids ages 4+ accompanied by caregivers.

Wild Wednesday takes place rain or shine, but may be cancelled in the event of severe weather. Check back or follow @highlinenyc on Twitter for updates on Wednesdays by 12:00 PM. Text and photos from thehighline.org

A makeshift memorial for Bubacarr Camara, the 26-year-old shopkeeper killed last month during a robbery attempt at the Amsterdam Avenue store. Three men could face the death penalty for Camara’s killing. Photo: Richard Khavkine

FEDS COULD SEEK DEATH PENALTY IN UWS MURDER Although capital punishment is unconstitutional in New York State, federal charges were applied

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE

The three men accused of killing an Upper West Side shopkeeper last month could face the death penalty if convicted of murder charges.

Although capital punishment was declared unconstitutional in New York State more than a decade ago, the three could still be put to death since they will be prosecuted under federal statutes.

During a conference hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on July 15, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Lenow said officials in the Southern District of New York would confer internally as well as with Department of Justice officials in Washington, D.C., on whether to pursue the death penalty for Stephen Adams, 27; his brother Michael Adams, 29; and Zubearu Bettis, 45.

Following a federal grand jury indictment, all three were arrested July 9 and charged with murder for the shooting death of Bubacarr Camara, who was killed in his father’s Amsterdam Avenue store during a robbery attempt on June 18.

They have pleaded not guilty.

Camara, 26, a recent arrival from Gambia, was killed during what a police source called a “botched robbery” of BNC General Merchandise, on a mostly residential stretch of Amsterdam Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets.

Stephen Adams, Michael Adams and Bettis were charged under the Hobbs Act, a federal statute directed at racketeering and organized crime activities. The statute has been successfully used by federal prosecutors against armed robbers targeting businesses.

Federal capital prosecutions, though, are extremely rare in New York. Only one person convicted in the state is on federal death row, according to the

Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.

Ronell Wilson, 33, was convicted in 2006 of capital murder for killing two undercover police officers on Staten Island in 2003. He was sentenced to death in 2007 and, following a reversal by an appeals court, was resentenced to death in 2013.

His was the first federal death sentence handed down in the state since 1954, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Police said Stephen Adams has seven prior arrests, including for felony assault. He was being sought on strangulation charges for an early June incident; Michael Adams was on parole through May 2017 following a conviction on attempted robbery charges; and Bettis, also known as Michael Bettis, had served time on grand larceny, weapons charges and other crimes.

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JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Voices MEMO FROM THE STREET

Write to us: To share your thoughts and comments go to otdowntown.com and click on submit a letter to the editor.

OP-ED

Senior Living ANOTHER TALE OF TWO CITIES

BY MARCIA EPSTEIN

New York can be a wonderful place to be a senior citizen. It can also be a terribly lonely one.

First, some of the wonderful. It helps to have money. Ideally, a lot of it. Second best is a rent controlled or rent-stabilized apartment. I am lucky enough to have the second. I’ve lived in my Upper West Side neighborhood long, long before it was considered upscale. In fact, it was considered dicey when I first brought my young children to live there. I myself had lived in various places on the Upper West Side since college. When my younger daughter was two, we moved into a brand new Mitchell-Lama building on West 90th Street. In those years, lots of buildings were built under the Mitchell-Lama program to help lower and middleincome people live in affordable housing. Obviously, those days are over. For me, living in a neighborhood that is suddenly fashionable has been a bit dizzying.

I like some of it, but I do miss the old Woolworth’s and coffee shop, and the Red Apple on 100th Street and Columbus Avenue. Now we have TJMaxx and Whole Foods, and I am surrounded by apartment buildings I could never afford.

In any case, I am lucky to be able to remain in my apartment and my neighborhood. Other seniors are not so lucky. Market rents are not manageable on a fixed income, and the seniors we all see on the streets of Broadway are either long-time residents in stabilized apartments, owners of co-ops bought long ago, or people of wealth. But for those of us who are here, New York can be a senior’s paradise. We have handicapped-access buses, elevators on major subway lines, senior discounts to museums and various events, and enough culture to satisfy anyone’s taste.

New York can also be a not so wonderful place for an older person to live.

Loneliness is a problem for people without families or friends. One can become homebound with one fall, one stroke, one heart attack. Even if a person can afford to stay in his or her apartment, if no one visits, it can be spirit-destroying.

Without the ability to go to the senior center, the movies, the activities, a single senior can end up spending long, lonely days alone. It’s true that there are social services agencies, and organizations such as Dorot on the Upper West Side, that are specifically designed to help the needy elderly. But New York is a busy, energetic city, and the elderly can become invisible.

Our invisibility is a recurring topic in my senior women’s group. With the city, and our own Upper West Side, teeming with single young people and families, the elderly aren’t often noticed. But if we are healthy, most of us have learned to occupy our days fruitfully. And if we are lucky enough to have a partner, and families, we will have help and companionship if a disaster happens. That isn’t true for those of us who are alone. One catastrophe, and the known life is gone.

Many New Yorkers don’t know their neighbors except to say hello. Without the activities that sustain us, New York can be the loneliest place in world to be a senior citizen.

So far, I am among the lucky ones. I am healthy and active. I have a family. If something happens to me, I will have loving people in my life. But I know people who live in fear of ending up sick and alone. They have had falls or illnesses and recovered enough to resume their lives. But they wonder and worry about the day when they won’t recover. Who will help them? Who will care? While some are lucky enough to have compassionate neighbors, many know no one in their building beyond friendly greetings.

New York is two retirement cities; one wonderful, one not so wonderful.

Nowhere else has so much to offer the elderly, if they’re healthy and active, have enough money, and know how to utilize what the city has to offer them. For the others, the sick and lonely, New York can be a sad and isolating place.

SEND US YOUR THOUGHTS Do you have an idea for our Senior Living columnist? Write us at news@ strausnews.com

STRAUS MEDIA your neighborhood news source

Vice President/CFO Otilia Bertolotti Vice President/CRO Vincent A. Gardino advertising@strausnews.com

BY CHARLES GROSS

ful.

Summer is has returned to New York City. The birds are chirping and the familiar sound of the Mister Softee trucks fills the streets. The trucks are not the only thing that fills the streets, however. People fill the streets. They walk, they bicycle and they drive. In doing so they often get in each other’s way. Then the trouble begins.

I have at times been a pedestrian, a cyclist and a motorist. I carry a monthly metro card, a Citibike key and a Zipcar card. So maybe, just maybe, I can give my fellow pedestrians, cyclists and motorists a word of advice.

To My Fellow Pedestrians: Are we not fortunate to live in a city where almost everything we need is a few foot steps away? That which is not nearby can easily be obtained by walking to the nearest bus or subway stop. New Yorkers walk everywhere.

We are statistically thinner than our suburban counterparts.

And yet there are snakes in our Garden of Eden. Cyclists who race down our sidewalks or believe that a park path is exclusively theirs and motorists who expect us to jump out of their pathways. Often we may be in the right but we must remember that whether the pitcher hits the rock or the rock hits the pitcher, it’s going to be pretty bad for the pitcher.

Still, we must shoulder some of the blame. If you ask pedestrians if they have ever broken traffic laws, 90% will say they have and the other 10% are liars.

My fellow pedestrians, shocking as it may seem, traffic laws apply to us.

Yet at times the temptation to cross against the red light or in the middle of the road is simply too great. On those occasions please remember to look both ways. If you see a car coming, let it pass. Even if the car is far away, it may slow down when it sees you and miss its light. Remember, when you cross against the light, you are breaking the law and therefore in the wrong, so MOVE IT and be care-

Associate Publishers, Seth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworth Sr. Account Executive, Tania Cade

To My Fellow Cyclists: Do we not live in a golden age of cycling in New York City? More people than ever are riding. Miles upon miles of bike lanes now give us a safe area to ride. Citibike, even with all its problems, allows us to ride around town unencumbered by the need to store the bike when we arrive at our destination.

And yet all that glitters is not gold.

Unlike most cities, ours denies us the safety of the sidewalks. There are those who believe that a bicycle and its rider (average combined weight of 175 pounds) should be treated like a car and driver (average weight over 3,000 pounds). Many motorists are still reluctant to share the streets with us. Many pedestrians, despite a city of wall-to-wall sidewalks, feel the need to converge in our bike lanes.

My fellow cyclists, there may be times when you feel you have no choice but to ride in the wrong direction on a one-way street or find traffic so congested that you take a brief hop of the side walk. On those rare occasions, please slow down and look extra carefully as to where you are going. Remember you are breaking the law and therefore in the wrong

To My Fellow Motorists: Is there a group more despised than we are? We are now the main persecuted minority in the city. Our parking lots and gas stations are destroyed to build housing and offices.

Our street parking is eliminated so cyclists can have protected lanes that tie up already crowded streets. Our mayor wants to balance his budget with hidden speed trap cameras and the slogan of the cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives is not “One More Bike” but “One Less Car.” It is no wonder that most city dwellers do not own a car and many do not even bother to get a driver’s license.

And yet, there is a silver lining in our cloud. Companies such as Zipcar al-

President & Publisher, Jeanne Straus nyoffice@strausnews.com Account Executive Editor In Chief, Kyle Pope Fred Almonte, Susan Wynn editor.ot@strausnews.com Director of Partnership Development Deputy Editor, Richard Khavkine Barry Lewis editor.dt@strausnews.com

low us the pleasure of owning a car— for one hour at a time. They, like us, have realized there are some places that the subway cannot take you.

My fellow motorists, those who despise us will never know the awesome feeling of driving a car. Still, with great power comes great responsibility. Unlike pedestrians and cyclists, we can never flaunt the law. The risks are too great. While not all pedestrians are motorists, all motorists are pedestrians. When we come upon law-flaunting pedestrians or cyclists we must grit our teeth and slow down.

Yes they are in the wrong but do we want to have their lives or injuries hanging over us? The life you save by setting an example may be your own.

Finally, To The Traffic Police: I ask for lenience if in slowing down for an errant pedestrian, a motorist crosses a light that is redder than it was a second ago.

In conclusion my fellow travelers, as the city grows larger there will be more of us sharing the streets. We all want to get to where we are going in a New York minute. While I don’t agree with all of the city’s Vision Zero policies, zero traffic fatalities is a desirable goal. If pedestrians, cyclists and motorists could walk in each other’s shoes or ride in each other’s tires for just a moment, we may yet achieve it.

Staff Reporters, Gabrielle Alfiero, Daniel Fitzsimmons

Block Mayors, Ann Morris, Upper West Side Jennifer Peterson, Upper East Side Gail Dubov, Upper West Side Edith Marks, Upper West Side

JULY 23-29,2015

9

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Chelsea History

THE HIGH LINE, THE POST OFFICE, AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN The Morgan Post Office Annex has deep ties to the former president

BY RAANAN GEBERER

Thousands of people every day walk past the Morgan Post Office Annex on 9th Avenue between 29th and 30th streets.

Probably not that many of them stop to look at a plaque on the 30th Street side that explains how this location, at that time a railroad terminal, was twice closely linked with Abraham Lincoln – the first time at the beginning of his presidency and the second time after his tragic death.

In the 1840s, the Hudson River Railroad, the ancestor of today’s MetroNorth Hudson Line, built tracks down the Far West Side (the lower portion

of this route evolved into the High Line). In 1860-61, a new terminal was built at the 30th Street site, and the first train to use it, according to the plaque, was the inaugural train of President-elect Lincoln.

According to the “Postscripts” blog, the train pulled into the 30th Street station at 3 p.m. on Feb. 19. Lincoln immediately got into a carriage that took him to the Astor House near City Hall, where he met with members of local Republican clubs. The next day, he met with Mayor Fernando Wood (who hated abolitionists and was sympathetic to the Confederacy) and the City Council.

Finally, he held a public reception, where he shook hands with about 30 veterans of the War of 1812.

The second journey was a more tragic one. After the president was assassinated in 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton arranged for the president’s casket to be taken on a “tour” of major American cities so that people would have a chance to mourn and to pay their respects. Lincoln’s casket was ferried in from New Jersey on April 24, and was then taken to City Hall in a procession in which religious groups, immigrant societies, groups of tradesmen and others marched. According to the “Abraham Lincoln and New York” site, the City Council had forbidden African-Americans from marching, but Secretary Stanton intervened, and a regiment of black soldiers marched in the rear with a police escort

to guarantee their safety.

After being on display for two days at City Hall, the casket was taken to the 30th Street terminal where, to the accompaniment of funeral dirges played by a band, it was loaded onto the train that would eventually take him back to his hometown of Springfield, Ill. So, what happened to the 30th Street terminal?

In 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the Hudson River Railroad and incorporated it into the New York Central. Two years later, he rerouted Hudson River passenger trains into his new Grand Central Depot. A local train called the “Dolly Varden” still shuttled between the 30th Street terminal and Spuyten Duyvil a few times a day, and the terminal was also used

as a depot for milk trains. But, as the 1916 “Rider’s New York” guidebook said, “Most bornand-bred New Yorkers don’t

ILLUMINATING A BRUTAL LEGACY A New Yorker’s film, “Shadows From My Past,” documents Austria’s role in the Holocaust

BY LAUREN ROTHMAN

As anyone who has traveled to Austria’s capital well knows, Vienna is a jewel of a city, reflecting its nation’s rich artistic and cultural heritage in astounding imperial buildings, museums chock-full of revelatory central European masterpieces, and palaces still bedecked in the fine furnishings of bygone eras. But such splendor can bely the deeper, more painful histories of this storied city.

“There’s so much tragedy in the streets of Vienna — but you have to look for it, because it’s such a beautiful city,” said Gita Weinrauch Kaufman, an author, educator and Upper West Side resident who co-directed, with her late husband, Curt Kaufman, a Holocaust documentary entitled “Shadows From My Past.” The film, released last year, will be screened Saturday evening at The Actors’ Temple on West 47th Street.

Kaufman was born into a Jewish family living in Vienna in the 1930s, as the Nazi Party tightened its hold on Europe. In March of 1940, shortly before the Weinrauchs were to be deported to Dachau, one of Germany’s

most notorious concentration camps, they received their American visas and left for New York. Many from their extended family, however, were shipped to concentration camps and killed.

“Shadows From My Past” is Kaufman’s inquiry, decades after narrowly escaping extermination, into the lives — and deaths — of those family members.

After fleeing Austria, Kaufman had little intention of ever returning. “It was just too painful,” she said. But when her mother passed away in the late 1980s, a fateful discovery caused Kaufman to reconsider. Stuffed within a drawer of her late mother’s Upper West Side apartment, a ream of letters written in both Yiddish and German and dating to the war period detailed, in urgent terms, her family’s attempts to escape the Nazis. When she found them, Ms. Kaufman said, she was immediately transported back to her early childhood in Vienna.

“Letters meant life, letters meant excitement. But when the war started, the letters stopped,” she said.

Or so she thought. Kaufman’s parents did indeed continue to receive the missives, but shielded their children from their contents. When, decades later, Kaufman unearthed them, she

Gita Weinrauch’s passport, which would allow her passage out of Austria and to the United States in the mid-1930s. was both shocked and intrigued.

“That’s when I really felt the pain,” she recalled. “I was so overcome by them.”

In 1968, Kaufman had married Curt Kaufman, a photographer and videographer who shot stills for films such as “Sophie’s Choice.” At his urging, Kaufman began to consider turning the letters into some kind of artistic project. She started by translating and then digitizing them, with her husband’s help, and through this process connected with Oliver Rathkolb, an Austrian historian and professor with the Bruno Kreisky Archives Foundation in Vienna. In the late 1990s, she was awarded that foundation’s

prestigious award for Outstanding Achievement in Human Rights. Modest prize money and the foundation’s invaluable support network enabled Kaufman to begin work on a documentary film. In 1998, after nearly six decades of exile, she returned to Vienna.

From that year until 2011, when her husband died, the couple worked on the film, making several trips to Austria. Kaufman finished the film after her husband’s death.

“Shadows From My Past” explores the very complicated reality of Austria’s compliance with Nazi Germany and its willing sacrifice of many of its Jewish citizens, and in the documentary, Kaufman interviews many

even know of the existence of this station.”

It was demolished in 1931 for the postal annex.

prominent Austrian politicians including President Heinz Fischer. It’s this point, Kaufman said, that sets her film apart from many Holocaust narratives. While the losses within more prominently anti-Semitic countries such as Poland and Hungary are well documented, the actions of equally complicit nations sometimes get obscured.

“A lot of us are taught about the Holocaust through Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel, but that’s only a part of the story,” she said.

Rabbi Jill Hausman of The Actors’ Temple, where the film will be shown this weekend, concurs.

“People don’t really have a firm grasp of Austrian complicity with the Nazis,” Hausman said. “She had access to very interesting people there.”

While the events that unfold in the film occurred many decades ago, “Shadows Of My Past” remains relevant today, when Europe is experiencing a resurgence of anti-Semitism that, as it did in Nazi Germany, correlates with rising levels of unemployment, Hausman said.

Kaufman agrees.

“There’s a lesson in the film, which is that this kind of thing can happen anywhere if we’re not watching who’s in charge,” she said.

“Shadows From My Past” screens at The Actor’s Temple July 25 at 8:15 pm.

For more information, call 212-2456975.

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JULY 23-29,2015

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Out & About More Events. Add Your Own: Go to otdowntown.com

Fri 24 BUSTER POINDEXTER City Winery, at 155 Varick St. 8-9:30 p.m. Tickets $22 to $32.

Come enjoy Buster Poindexter’s music and entertainment. Sip on a glass of wine while you rock to Poindexter’s classic R&B tunes. www.citywinery.com/ newyork/tickets.html

OPEN STUDIO: TOM BERRY Whitney Museum, at 99 Gansevoort St. 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Free with museum admission.

Families with children of all ages are invited to get inspired through the museum’s exhibition, American is Hard to See, and start crafting. This week artist Tom Berry invites you to create a collaborative cardboard garden.

212-570-3600. www. whitney.org/Events/ OpenStudioJuly2015

Sat 25 Sun 26 ▲ WOMEN’S HEALTH CONFERENCE John Jay College of Criminal Justice, at 860 11th Avenue 9 a.m.-3:15 p.m.

Join more than 200 participants and commemorate the 25th anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act. Come discuss key health issues to women with disabilities, specifically concerning collegeage women with disabilities.

THE ENGLISH BEAT City Winery, at 155 Varick St. 8-9:45 p.m. Tickets $40 to $60.

Enjoy this British band’s music and sip some wine this Sunday.

The English Beat has songs influenced by many genres including soul, reggae, pop and punk. www.citywinery.com/ newyork/tickets.html

NEW SCHOOL JAZZ DOWNTON ABBEY: THE Morgan Library, 225 Madison MUSIC & THE ERA Avenue, at 36th St. Hudson Park Library, at 66 Leroy St. 2 p.m. Free.

Learn about music during the Edwardian period, its arts, social structure, technical advancements and history through pictures and music presented by Dr. Dulais Rhys.

Rhys studied music at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and the University of Wales.

212-243-6876. www.nypl. org/events/calendar

1-3 p.m. Free with Museum Admission.

Eat your Sunday brunch while listening to jazz music featuring guitarist Tal Yahalom. events.newschool.edu/

Mon 27 SUPERHERO ORIGAMI Seward Park Library, at 192 East Broadway

JULY 23-29,2015

2 p.m. Free.

Learn to carefully fold a piece of paper to create 3D versions of your favorite superheroes.

212-477-6770. www.nypl. org/events/calendar

PHOTO EDITING FOR BEGINNERS WITH PIXLR Chatham Square Library, at 33 East Broadway.

10 a.m.-12 p.m. Free.

Learn to edit photos like a pro. Whether you want to add enhanced photos to social media or edit pictures from your last family vacation this hands-on course will allow you to get comfortable with the program PIXLR. 212-964-6598. www.nypl. org/events/calendar

Tues 28 ▼ BOOK DISCUSSION: “HISSING COUSINS”

11

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

and Alice Longworth. Their lives provide a glimpse at the twentieth century.

212-396-7919. http://events. cuny.edu/

IT’S A LONG MONTH: LIVING ON FIXED INCOME

Journalism, at 219 W. 40th St., 3rd floor 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tickets $39.

Learn to create and share content quickly using your smartphone. This hands-on workshop will show you how to use your smartphone to create GIFs and layered multimedia as well as how to record and edit audio and video files. smarterphone.splashthat. com/

Seward Park Library, 192 East Broadway.

6:15 p.m. Free.

Are you living on a fixed income? Learn to budget plan GOOGLE SERIES: and save as much as possible at GOOGLE MAPS this presentation. www.nypl.org/ events/calendar Chatham Square Library, at 33 E. Broadway 1-3 p.m. Free.

This hands-on course teaches you how to navigate using Google Maps. The application not only provides you with easy-to-follow instructions, but also includes interactive map, SMARTERPHONE: aerial imagery of countries, and APPS TO CAPTURE, you can even search by keyword EDIT AND SHARE such as restaurants.

212-964-6598. www.nypl.

CONTENT ▼ org/events/calendar CUNY Graduate School of

Wed29

Hunter College, Roosevelt House, 47-49 E. 65th St. 6-8 p.m. Free.

Join authors Timothy Dwyer and Marc Peyser to discuss their book “Hissing Cousins: The Untold Story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth.” The book is a double biography documenting first cousins Eleanor Roosevelt

Follow Our Town Downtown on Facebook and Twitter

Thu 30 ARTFARM ANIMALS Union Square Park, South Plaza, at E. 14th St. 9:30-10 a.m. Free.

Bring your kids to interact with and learn about animals. summerinthesquare.com/ event-calendar-1/2015/7/23/ artfarm

MOVIE: NAPOLEON 1957 Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy St. 2 p.m. Free.

Enjoy this 1950s French film staring Yves Montand and Erich Von Stroheim. This movie glorifies the life of the French Emperor.

212-243-6876. www.nypl. org/events/calendar

Downtowner

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12

JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

GOING OFF SCRIPT, ON PURPOSE Seven strangers walk into an Upper West Side apartment ...

BY ZEENA SAIFI

For two hours, I was Shaktideva, one of the most promising entrepreneurs in the Terrestrial Coil. I had one mission: to convince six strangers that humanity’s future was within my field, reality engineering. If I could do that, I would obtain the Thousand Worlds Archive.

I was reserved, private and a bit cold.

The first person to speak at the funeral was in tears, but I was more than furious.

Although I had no script and plenty of trepidation, I was determined to play my part.

I had acted in high school plays, but this — LARPing — was something entirely out of the ordinary.

LARPing — Live Action Role Play — is both an innovative art form as well as an interactive theatrical and gaming experience. LARPs generally feature a story with pre-written characters, each with their own disposition, incentives and goals but without a script. Participants interact with each other through improvisation, with the freedom to choose their own actions and dialogue.

Warren Tusk, 30, grew up in Westchester County and has been involved in gaming and theater ever since he was a child. But it wasn’t until he attended Harvard that he had the

From far left and following the LARP circle: The Eudaimonic Integrated Collective, aka Josh Kronengold; The Quicksilver Buddha; Ianthe Scarlet-Moon-Rising, looking like Sarah Judd; SERPENTINE, who resembles John Isabella; Shaktideva; Edward Strephon Davenport, looking a lot like James Mendez Hodes; and Annas of Malacor, aka Alden Strock, wearing black. Photo: Liz Susman Karp

The Quicksilver Buddha, aka Aili Klein, left, and Shaktideva, aka Zeena Saifi. Photo: Liz Susman Karp chance to fuse the two when he joined the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association.

“I didn’t learn about LARPing until I joined this club in college,” he said.

“But it certainly pushed a lot of buttons that I was familiar with, so it didn’t take me long to fall in love pretty hard and fast.”

Ever since then, he’s enjoyed being an author and designer of theatrical experience games, but only on the side. He has a full-time job with the Treasury Department, but would prefer to LARP for a living.

“I think it is a median that needs people to popularize and work on full time,” he said. “But that doesn’t seem to be viable right now.”

In 2006, Tusk put together one of his best-known works to date, “The Dance and the Dawn.” It is a gothic fairy tale that features dancing and the quest for love and draws on sources from philosophy-of-gender thinkers to Japanese anime. It premiered at Harvard and has since been played dozens of times at LARP conventions in Ireland, New Zealand and China.

On July 10th, Tusk hosted another one of his games, “Inheritance,” a tale of strange technologies, property rights and trans-human dreams, at his West 101 Street home.

As I walked up the steps of the house, I thought of Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage.”

The apartment’s décor mixed modern and classic under a very high ceiling. Although a home for Tusk and his wife, Liz Karp, for an evening it became a stage for seven participants, including me.

I had read all the materials and logistics of the game before getting

there, including the suggestion that we dress in character if we wanted to get creative. I chose not to, but all my LARPing colleagues did. I was a bit intimidated, not just because everyone was in character while I was in ripped jeans and sneakers, but mostly since everyone was much older than I, and seemed like they had all done this before. I kept telling myself that it would be alright, that the experience would be singular. But I was stressing.

We were given some time to reread any final points about our characters and their relationship with the others before we began. I felt a bit more at ease. I looked at my character as a real person, and tried to understand her and put myself in her position. Matters would just fall into place thereafter.

“Ladies and gentleman ... take a deep breath, close your eyes, and the next time you open them, you are no longer you, you are now your character,” Tusk said, while roaming the perimeter with his big black cane. “Let the games begin.”

I’m certainly not the first person to have found LARPing a bit strange initially, since, according to Tusk, LARPing is stigmatized as nerdy and weird.

“As things stand socially speaking, it has a lot of strikes against it that I find personally painful,” he said.

Most shut down and decline to participate because they feel self-conscious and shy about acting in front of people they don’t know. But people who initially think they wouldn’t enjoy it end up having a lot of fun, he said.

“It’s not a weird or inaccessible pastime that only particularly unusual people can appreciate,” he said. “The market of people who could enjoy LARPing is the same as the market of

people who would enjoy watching a play or reading a book.”

Take Sarah Judd, 27, for example, a fellow participant of Inheritance who heard about LARPing from her friends. The first LARP she ever participated in was in college, and she played the role of someone’s best friend. Once it was over, she shook the person’s hand and began talking to him as herself and automatically felt comfortable. She felt there was no awkwardness with this person, even though he was a stranger, because she had been pretending to be his best friend for two hours. Since then, she thought LARPing was a great way to learn about other people.

“It’s a lot of fun to get into someone else’s head and play in that head for a while,” she said. “You get the fun out of theater without having to worry about cut-throat auditions; you just get to be someone.”

Before I knew it, I was no longer Shaktideva anymore. The two hours flew by, and I was taken aback with how involved I had become. All of the participants were friendly and welcoming, so much so that my stress had evaporated. And I won! Well, technically, we all did. All seven of us were able to agree on cooperating and sharing the Thousand Worlds Archive. My first LARP, which I had approached with apprehensiveness, had been a success.

Tusk wants to find ways to, well, replicate my experience and to popularize the medium.

“To put it in a pretentious way, I am an artist. I will keep doing what I do, regardless of if it makes money or not,” he said. “I’m just trying to bring this to a wider audience.”

JULY 23-29,2015

5

TOP MUSEUMS

13

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

AC T I V I T I E S F O R T H E F E R T I L E M I N D

thoughtgallery.org

FOR THE WEEK

BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO OUR ARTS EDITOR

N E W YO R K C I T Y

Albert Oehlen: Home and Garden | Contemporary Painting Symposium

SATURDAY, JULY 25TH, 1PM New Museum | 235 Bowery | 212-219-1222 | newmuseum.org The work of pioneering German artist Albert Oehlen inspires two panel conversations on abstraction, one contemporary and one digital. ($10)

THE GENIUS OF GEOFFREY HOLDER

NINE: A Night to Remember

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts celebrates the work of choreographer, actor, dancer and artist Geoffrey Holder with a multi-media exhibition dedicated to his multi-disciplinary career. Born in Trinidad, Holder acted as director and costume designer for the 1975 Broadway production of “The Wiz.”

Museum of Jewish Heritage | 36 Battery Pl. | 646-437-4202 | mjhnyc.org

The Genius of Geoffrey Holder July 23-Aug. 29 New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, at W. 64th Street and Columbus Avenue Library Hours: Monday and Thursday, noon- 8 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Closed Sunday FREE For more information, visit www.nypl.org/locations/lpa or call 917-275-6975

MUSIC

FAMILY

PIANO ICONS: FROM JELLY ROLL TO OSCAR

“PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE” Pee-Wee Herman’s wacky antics hit the big screen in the 1985 film “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” from director Tim Burton. When the titular character discovers that his iconic bike has gone missing, he sets out on a search. Guests are treated to free popcorn at this outdoor evening show at Hudson River Park.

“Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” Friday, July 24 Hudson River Park, Pier 46 West Street between Charles and Perry Streets 8:30 p.m.

FREE For more information, visit hudsonriverpark.org or call 212-627-2020

Pianists Bill Charlap, Marcus Roberts and Jeb Patton perform compositions by Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton and other jazz greats as part of 92nd Street Y’s Jazz in July Series. Patton, Charlap and Roberts, a former member of the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, get some help from bass player Todd Coolman and drummer Willie Jones III. Piano Icons: From Jelly Roll to Oscar Thursday, July 23 92nd Street Y Kaufman Concert Hall Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street 8 p.m.

Tickets $52-$85 To purchase tickets, visit 92y.org or call 212415-5500

FILM

LUNCHTIME HANDBELL CONCERT

ANIMATION BLOCK PARTY

The Bishop’s Bluecoat Anglican High School Handbell Choir makes its way from Chester in the United Kingdom to St. Bartholomew’s Church on the Upper East Side for a free afternoon concert.

These 12 student ringers play a 4-octave set of bells in a performance that includes classical works as well compositions from “Phantom of the Opera” and the film “Titanic.”

Lunchtime Handbell Concert Wednesday, July 29 St. Bartholomew’s Church 325 Park Ave., at 51st Street 12:30 p.m.

FREE For more information, call 212-378-0222 or visit http://stbarts.org/music/summer-festivalof-sacred-music/

This annual animation festival presents ten animated shorts from both professional and student filmmakers at Brookfield Place’s Waterfront Plaza. No film exceeds 14 minutes in length, with California filmmaker Matt Marblo’s “Little Doorman” running just 2 minutes long.

The international roster features filmmakers from France, Spain, Italy, Los Angeles and Brooklyn.

Animation Block Party Thursday, July 30 Waterfront Plaza at Brookfield Place 230 Vesey St., between West Street and the Hudson River 7:30 p.m.

FREE For more information, visit rooftopfilms.com To be included in the Top 5 go to otdowntown.com and click on submit a press release or announcement.

SATURDAY, JULY 25TH, 9PM

Mark Tisha B’Av (a holiday of commemoration) with performances, discussions and candlelit contemplation, running until midnight. (Free)

Binge-Worthy Journalism with the Creators of Serial

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH, 8PM BAM | 30 Lafayette Ave. | 718-636-4100 | bam.org Hear from the two creators of Serial, the podcast investigation into a 1999 murder that’s been downloaded over 78 million times and opened up a new front of longform journalism. ($32)

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

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

SIP. CHECK YOUR BALANCE. SIP. PAY ELECTRIC BILL. SIP. GOSSIP ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS.

Want an easy way to pay your bill, check your payment history and send your meter reading to Con Edison? Download our free My conEdison app at conEd.com/App.

14

JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

RESTAURANT INSPECTION RATINGS JUN 30- JUL 7, 2015

North Village Deli

78 8Th Ave

Grade Pending (26) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.

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.

Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill

47 West 14 Street

A

Legend Bar & Restaurant

88 7 Avenue

Grade Pending (23) 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/ sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies.

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.

Cafe Prague

2 West 19 Street

Grade Pending (21) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.

Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

Google Chelsea Market

75 9 Avenue

A

The Best $1.00 Pizza

171 West 23 Street

A

Fika

180 9Th Ave

A

Chipotle Mexican Grill

149 8 Avenue

Not Yet Graded

Curry Kitchen

40 West 8 Street

A

Gotham Pizza

144 9 Avenue

Ootoya Japanese Restaurant

8 West 18 Street

Grade Pending (26) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.

Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.

Grade Pending (15) Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or nonfood areas. Personal cleanliness inadequate. Outer garment soiled with possible contaminant. Effective hair restraint not worn in an area where food is prepared.

Green Cafe

599 6 Avenue

A

Bar 13

35 East 13 Street

Grade Pending (21) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations. Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan.

Piccolo Cafe

157 3 Avenue

A

Downtown Bakery Ii Mexican Food

69 1 Avenue

Grade Pending (26) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, crosscontaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan.

Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.

Pure Green

60 E 8Th St

A

Intermezzo

202 8 Avenue

Grade Pending (23) Hot food item not held at or above 140º F. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.

Equinox @ 17Th Street

100 10Th Ave

A

Juban

207 10Th Ave

A

Starbucks Coffee

122 Greenwich Avenue

A

Pounds & Ounces

160 8 Ave

Grade Pending (26) Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan.

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.

Tarallucci E Vino

15 East 18 Street

A

Dunkin’ Donuts

110 East 14 Street

A

Pauls Da Burger Joint

131 2 Avenue

A

Asiam Thai Cuisine

259 First Avenue

A

Bruno

204 E 13Th St

Not Yet Graded (2)

Jewel Bako

239 East 5 Street

A

East Village Pizza And Kebab

145 1 Avenue

A

12 Street Ale House

192 2 Avenue

A

The Juice Shop

815 Broadway

Grade Pending (29) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation. Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.

The Grey Dog’s Coffee

90 University Place

A

Nevada Smiths

100 3 Avenue

Grade Pending (24) Food not cooled by an approved method whereby the internal product temperature is reduced from 140º F to 70º F or less within 2 hours, and from 70º F to 41º F or less within 4 additional hours. Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan.

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

Chipotle Mexican Grill

504 6Th Ave

A

Naka Naka

458 West 17 Street

A

Del Posto Ristorante

85 10 Avenue

A

Le Pain Quotidien

124 7 Avenue

A

Slice & Co. Brick Oven Pizza

527 6 Avenue

Grade Pending (24) 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/sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies. 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.

Liquiteria

267 West 15 Street

A

Domino’s Pizza

170 West 23 Street

A

Gustorganics

519 6 Avenue

A

Drunken Horse

225 10 Avenue

A

D.B.A.

41 1St Ave

A

Spice

199 8 Avenue

A

Cellar 58

58 2 Avenue

A

Haven’s Kitchen

109 West 17 Street

A

Chop’t

24 East 17 Street

A

Sushi Para 88

212 W 14Th St

A

Bago

229 1 Avenue

A

JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

15

THE BATTLE OVER SMALL BUSINESS NEWS Group fighting for small business jobs bill targets Brewer

BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS

A recently formed coalition of small business advocates have injected new life into the old cause of passing the Small Business Jobs Survival Act. The standard-bearer for the legislation, which was introduced in the 1980s, has traditionally been the New York City Small Business Congress. But years of stagnation on the legislative docket, coupled with what one organizer said is a record number of small businesses being forced out of their storefronts due to skyrocketing lease terms, has resulted in a renewed push to pass the law.

The SBJSA would allow commercial tenants in good standing to negotiate fair lease renewal terms for the next 10 years upon expiration of an existing lease. If a tenant and landlord cannot come to an agreement, non-binding mediation would occur followed, by binding arbitration if necessary.

Advocates for the bill say that the real estate industry, namely the Real Estate Board of New York, have consistently worked to block the legislation behind the scenes. REBNY President Steven Spinola maintains the legislation is unconstitutional, and that the city council does not have the legal authority to set controls on the leasing of private property.

The new coalition, comprised of Save NYC, a grassroots organizing group, and Take Back NYC, a full-blown lobbying entity, together with the Small Business Congress NYC, say legal arguments against the bill are just a smokescreen.

“We’ve yet to see a single legal document be produced which unsubstantiated the legality of the bill,” says Kirsten Theodos, an organizer with Take Back NYC. REBNY did not return a request for comment.

But the new coalition has also sets its sights on elected officials who they feel are focusing on the wrong solutions, or, much worse, actively shilling for the real estate industry.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who worked on the SBJSA as a member of former council member Ruth Messinger’s staff, has found herself in the unusual position of being criticized for her advocacy on behalf of small businesses.

While in the City Council, Brewer passed legislation limiting the amount of space banks and drug stores could take up on Upper West Side streets.

As borough president, she’s exploring a law that would require landlords

Gale Brewer give commercial tenants a six-month heads up if they’re going to increase the rent. If the two sides can’t come to an agreement, the tenant can request non-binding mediation, or they can opt for a one-year extension with a 15 percent rent hike, allowing them time to find another location.

The idea of the bill – which in its current form is just a rough sketch – is to eliminate the last minute doubling, tripling and quintupling of rents that force longtime mom and pops out of the very neighborhoods they helped create.

Brewer has been holding roundtable discussions with Brooklyn council member Robert Cornegy and the small business community to solicit ideas related to her legislative sketch and also new ideas to ease the small business crisis (Cornegy is chair of the small business committee in the city council).

“The small business roundtables are to get ideas from people about how to save mom and pops, that’s just one example,” said Brewer. “I think the issue is all ideas should be on the table.

We’re trying everything.”

One thing Brewer is sure of is that SBJSA has no chance of passing.

“I wrote the bill with Ruth Messinger in 1985, so I know it very well,” said Brewer. “It’s been sitting there

since 1985, and I can’t wait another 30 years, so I want to get something done.

I don’t think that bill is going to pass.

I’ve been around a long time, I know what’s going to pass and what’s not going to pass. That bill is not going to pass.”

In an op-ed published in this paper in May, Brewer wrote that in addition to the constitutional issues with the SBJSA, the bill’s “mandatory arbitration system applies only to landlords via a right-of-first-refusal for existing tenants. If an arbitrator doesn’t construct lease terms to a tenant’s liking, the tenant can reject the arbitration and suffer no consequences - they stay in the storefront until and unless a new potential tenant can negotiate terms that the current tenant then refuses to meet! This mechanism is wildly inefficient, and will have the additional result of tightening the market for newer small businesses seeking space.”

But pushing for anything other than the SBJSA has earned Brewer the opprobrium of groups like Take Back NYC, who have mounted campaigns to boycott her roundtables and regularly criticize her and her allies in the press.

“They can do their thing. I know all of them, I like them and I appreciate them, I just want to get something done. And we all have the same goal, which is to save the mom and pops,”

said Brewer. “One thing I’m not is backed by REBNY, that I can promise you, and they know that.”

In this Q&A, Theodos talks about her group’s stance and why when it comes to saving small businesses, it’s the SBJSA or bust.

Is Take Back NYC pushing for a city council hearing on the legality of SBJSA? We are not pushing for a public hearing on the legality of the SBJSA as there are no legal issues with the bill.

We’ve yet to see a single legal document be produced which unsubstantiated the legality of the bill. We are however pushing for a public hearing on the bill as a step toward the SBJSA making it to the floor of the City Council for a vote. A public hearing is the right of any introduced legislation to provide an opportunity for the public to weigh in on the merits of the bill.

Why is Take Back NYC so sure SBJSA will pass this time around? For decades, it’s never even gotten out of committee, legality not-withstanding. There seems to be forces aligned against it in the city council, regardless of how much support it has.

If by forces aligned against it in the city council, you mean the real estate lobby, REBNY, then yes, there is defi-

nitely a David v. Goliath situation here.

What’s different today is that while real estate speculation has been going on for decades now, small business closures have become significantly worse as we are seeing record closings and rents which are tripling, quadrupling and in some cases even quintupling. We are past the tipping point, now more than ever action needs to be taken to address this worsening crisis.

We write about small business issues a lot, and are surprised at how aggressively this coalition is targeting Brewer’s legislation and roundtables. Why is she the target and not REBNY? It is our elected officials who are supposed to be making policy for New York City. We would be focused on anyone who was trying to propose a legitimate solution. We hold all elected officials accountable for understanding the severity of this crisis and providing real solutions. So, while it is meaningful Brewer and Cornegy have validated the small business crisis and the need for a solution, what they’re proposing does not address the root of the problem, which is escalating rents, an unfair lease renewal process, and extortion of immigrant business owners.

16

JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Business

< FORMER CONGRESSMAN SENTENCED TO PRISON Michael Grimm, a former New York congressman and FBI agent who once investigated white-collar crime, was sentenced to eight months in prison for tax evasion by a judge who said his “moral compass” needed adjustment.

Grimm, 45, pleaded guilty late last

year to aiding in filing a false tax return -- a charge that stemmed from an investigation into the Staten Island Republican’s campaign financing.

U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen said the crime included exploiting immigrant laborers, including some

who were paid as little as $4.60 an hour.

“He knew what he was doing was illegal, wrong and criminally punishable,” she said. Grimm, “of all people, knew better.”

“Your moral compass, Mr. Grimm, needs some reorientation,” the judge told him.

“I want to apologize to the court for

even being here,” said Grimm, adding that he had cheated on taxes to keep a business afloat.

“I didn’t want to fail and I made bad decisions that I’ll regret for the rest of my life,” he said, prompting the judge to criticize his “belated remorse.”

Prosecutors had sought at least two years behind bars.

In Brief BUDGET INCLUDES MONEY TO INCREASE SPECIAL ENFORCEMENT STAFF Progressive council members recently applauded the allocation of nearly double the amount of funding to target illegal conversions of residential units to hotel rooms, known as illegal hotels, in the city’s FY2016 budget.

Working with Mayor Bill de Blasio, the City Council allocated an additional $1.2 million to fund 17 additional staff members to the Office of Special Enforcement (OSE), the agency that responds to 311 complaints of illegal hotel activity with inspectors from the Department of Buildings, Fire Department, and the Finance Department, according to a press release from council member Helen Rosenthal, chair of the council’s contracts committee.

Her office said OSE will have a total budget of $2.8 million and 28 staff members in FY16. In addition to increasing the number of inspectors, the funding supports a database administrator, who can target the most egregious offenders of the law, and four staff attorneys and a paralegal, who can pursue more legal actions against the worst offenders.

“New York City is in a housing crisis exacerbated by home-sharing websites like Airbnb that account for more than 16,000 illegal rentals in the five boroughs,” said council member Jumaane Williams, chair of the housing and buildings committee. “This is a fundamental problem not just in New York City but across the country that has skyrocketed in recent years. By beefing up the OSE, we will ultimately ensure the Mayor’s Housing Plan does not fall short of its 200,000 unit goal and that New York City remains affordable for all.”

TRUMP DRAWS COUNCIL MEMBER’S IRE Upper West Side council member Mark Levine came out swinging against presidential hopeful Donald Trump after the controversial businessman and reality T.V. personality made negative comments about immigrants during a campaign speech.

“Donald Trump isn’t just a hate-monger and presidential candidate; he is also the owner of no fewer than four concessions in New York City parks -including both ice rinks in Central Park and a high-end golf course in the Bronx,” said Levine in a statement. “As chair of the City Council Parks Committee, I’ve called for each one of these contracts to be cancelled immediately.”

In his speech, Trump called for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out “rapists” and criminals.

Levine’s office said Trump’s racist remarks about Mexicans and immigrants were outrageous even by his already low standards, “and he ignores the facts: evidence shows that there’s no correlation between immigrants and violent crime.”

“Our parks are for everyone,” concluded Levine. “Trump’s continued ownership of parks concessions runs directly contrary to that spirit.”

THE SHUTTERING OF FAO SCHWARZ RETAIL Iconic toy store has had an outlet in Manhattan since 1870

BY LEJLA SARCEVIC

Tom Hanks danced on a large floor piano there in the movie “Big.” Multitudes of children wandered through the aisles over the years, hopped up on sugar from the candy store and wide-eyed with delight at the giant stuffed animals and other toys. And a fair number of parents winced at some of the price tags.

FAO Schwarz on Fifth Avenue, probably the best-known toy store in the world, closed Wednesday night, July 15.

Owner Toys R Us announced the decision in May, citing the high and rising costs of running the 45,000-square-foot retail space on the pricey avenue. Though the flagship store is closing its doors for good, it may reopen elsewhere in midtown Manhattan.

“It’s the end of an era, it sucks. It’s a great store so it should probably remain in its original home,” said Flo Marinez, who, as a teenager, once had a sleepover inside the store.

FAO Schwarz says it is the oldest toy store in the U.S., with a New York City location since 1870. Reported celeb sightings -- Kim Kardashian and Kanye West before they were parents; Moms Angelina

Jolie, Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham --- have helped fuel the fantasy since the flagship store opened in 1986. Nick Jonas stopped by and hopped around The Big Piano in December while singing “Jealous.”

But generations of ordinary families have also reveled in three levels of toys and candy.

Scott Wolfson from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, remembers coming to FAO Schwarz as a kid and today brought his own son to see the iconic store.

“To see it through his eyes, from his perspective, it brought a whole new meaning to me,” Wolfson said.

The Manhattan landmark included a candy store, personal shoppers and three levels of

specialty toy departments.

“The baby department at FAO Schwarz is the ultimate destination when luxury shopping for little ones,” the store’s online fact sheet advised.

When those babies reached “tweenhood,” they’d need specialty skin care products: “It’s never too early to start protecting one’s natural beauty!”

Michael Vartanian, who’s shopped at the store for years, said other stores can’t replicate the FAO Schwarz experience.

“It doesn’t have the same feel, and the same as the name FAO Schwarz. It’s a name, it’s an icon,” he said

JULY 23-29,2015

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Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

FIGHT OVER MUSEUM EXPANSION TAKES SHAPE

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NEWS Neighbors organize to save a favorite park

BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO

On a recent weekday afternoon, summer campers in matching blue T-shirts ran around a pocket of parkland in Theodore Roosevelt Park, which surrounds the American Museum of Natural History.

Young parents pushed strollers while children cruised along the pathways on scooters as the late afternoon sun cast shadows through the tall trees.

For some residents, this familiar scene in a tranquil slice of the park at W. 79th Street and Columbus Avenue is in peril. The 146-year-old museum eyes this section of the park as the site for a new education and research building, while neighborhood residents fear the destruction of a favorite respite.

“This is not just a loss of parkland,” said Sig Gissler, who lives on W. 79th Street. “It’s more than that, because this is such a sweet gathering spot.”

Gissler and other members of the community are contesting the plan. Along with his wife Mary, Gissler started galvanizing the neighborhood in an effort to fight the museum’s encroachment into the park. The museum officially announced its plans last December, but many residents are just learning about the threat to their community enclave, Gissler said. He launched a website for the movement, saveteddyrooseveltpark.org, and a fellow resident started an online petition, now with nearly 850 signatures.

“We consider it as a backyard,” said resident Nadine Gill during one of her frequent strolls through the park with her long-haired Chihuahua, Ginger. “It’s just a big, big loss to everybody who comes here.”

The opposition effort is still nascent, Gissler said, as some residents only learned about the implications of the addition earlier this month when the museum held a meeting with residents of W. 79th Street days before the July Fourth weekend, timing that some found problematic.

Those fighting the location of

Mary Gissler, left, chats with Georgia Steele (and dog Midas) in front of the park. Photo by Sig Gissler the addition question the need for another building on the campus, suggesting that the institution repurpose space in its existing labyrinth of buildings, and construct satellite education facilities in other boroughs.

“If their job is to reach out to the public schools, have they really found out the best way to do that?” said Musa Klebnikov, who lives on W. 79th Street.

Her three children learned to ride bicycles in the park.

Museum officials maintain that they remain sensitive to the new building’s position within the park space.

“We’re aware of the questions and concerns being raised by the petition, and will continue to involve and consult with the local community as we have been doing through a series of meetings and briefings that have taken place,” Roberto Lebron, senior director of communications at the museum, said in a statement.

The new Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation will focus on education and research. The museum hasn’t yet released publicly an architectural plan for the $325 million, 218,000-square-foot building, but it has selected architect Jeanne Gang for the project, and notes that her firm “is well-known for integrating architecture and nature,” Lebron said.

The project has also received early support from council

member Helen Rosenthal.

“I’m delighted to report that my strong support for the American Museum of Natural History’s new science education center resulted in substantial funding for construction: $16 million from the City Council,” Rosenthal said in a statement. While in support of the initiative, she expects that the museum will “have an open dialogue with the community regarding the use of park space and construction safety.”

As a landmark located within a public park, the project requires approval from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Typically, in order to claim public parkland for such use, the museum would need state approval. But some members of the community note that the museum has offered documentation from 1876 that allows for ongoing development by the museum on this slice of land.

“They’re claiming they already have permission,” said Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates. “Which obviously we will be challenging in court if need be.”

Dave and Marjorie Greenberg have lived on W. 79th Street for 32 years. When they learned about the museum’s expansion into the park, they started informing their neighbors and friends about the project, many of whom didn’t know what was at stake.

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JULY 23-29,2015

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

Real Estate Sales Neighborhd

Address

Price

Battery Park City

21 South End Avenue

$635,000

Battery Park City

350 Albany Street

$680,000

Battery Park City

2 River Terrace

$2,475,000

Battery Park City

2 River Terrace

$1,145,000

Battery Park City

2 River Terrace

$2,225,000

Chelsea

148 West 23 Street

$1,085,750

Chelsea

85 8 Avenue

Chelsea

Bed Bath Agent

Downtown Sales Snapshot Number of contracts signed so far in the second quarter

1

1

Re/Max Midtown

$0 - $600k

$600x - $1M

$1M-$2M

$2M-$5M

$5M-$10M

$10M+

STUDIOS

40

35

7

3

1

-

1 BED

31

86

84

17

-

-

2 BEDS

-

31

65

94

15

-

$555,000

3+ BEDS

1

2

6

37

33

11

338 West 19 Street

$522,000

TOWNHOUSE

-

-

-

-

3

1

Chelsea

239 West 19 Street

$1,050,000

Median Sales Price

Chelsea

345 West 21 Street

$479,000

STUDIOS

600,000

Chelsea

300 West 23 Street

$1,980,000

1 BED

999,000

Chelsea

360 West 22 Street

$1,450,000

2 BEDS

1,850,000

Chelsea

221 West 21 Street

$307,242

3 BEDS

4,100,000

Civic Center

165 Park Row

$1,500,000

Civic Center

180 Park Row

$578,000

East Village

613 East 11 Street

$1,500,000

3

2

East Village

99 Avenue B

$1,337,500

2

East Village

504 East 6 Street

$760,000

2

East Village

333 East 14 Street

$575,000

Greenwich Village

24 5 Avenue

$405,000

381 Broome Street

$1,950,100

2

2

William B. May

Source: UrbanDigs LLC

Greenwich Village

23 East 10 Street

$825,000

Charles Rutenberg

Greenwich Village

54 East 8 Street

$740,000

2

Corcoran

Greenwich Village

60 West 13 Street

$1,360,000

1

Halstead Property

Greenwich Village

23 Waverly Place

$900,000

East Village

219 East 7 Street

$550,000

Little Italy

East Village

160 East 3 Street

$750,430

Lower East Side

473 Fdr Drive

$855,000

East Village

123 3 Avenue

$1,275,000

Lower East Side

570 Grand Street

$999,000

East Village

513 East 5 Street

$320,000

Lower East Side

170 Norfolk Street

$520,000

179 Ludlow Street

$1,665,056

1

1

Douglas Elliman

East Village

111 3 Avenue

$669,000

Lower East Side

Financial District

40 Broad Street

$1,300,000

Lower East Side

455 Fdr Drive

$554,000

Financial District

15 William Street

$1,100,000

Lower East Side

345 Grand Street

$3,850,000

Financial District

21-23 South William Street

$1,245,000

Soho

210 6 Avenue

$713,000

Financial District

123 Washington Street

$18,051,901

Soho

2 Charlton Street

$1,235,000

330 Spring Street

$2,400,000

0

1

Douglas Elliman

Financial District

15 William Street

$1,888,853

2

2

Douglas Elliman

Soho

Financial District

15 William Street

$1,241,246

1

1

Douglas Elliman

Tribeca

422 Greenwich Street

$6,058,587

Flatiron

35 West 15 Street

$6,274,161

3

3

Douglas Elliman

Tribeca

1 York Street

$4,100,000

Flatiron

7 East 14 Street

$780,000

Tribeca

422 Greenwich Street

$5,549,462

Flatiron

16 West 16 Street

$675,000

Tribeca

422 Greenwich Street

$5,753,112

Flatiron

35 West 15 Street

$1,955,040

Tribeca

422 Greenwich Street

$5,294,900

Flatiron

5 East 22 Street

$1,428,000

Tribeca

422 Greenwich Street

$5,650,000

Flatiron

7 East 14 Street

$840,000

Tribeca

53 Warren Street

$2,900,000

376 Broadway

$700,000

0

1

1

1

Brown Harris Stevens

Douglas Elliman

0

1

Douglas Elliman

Flatiron

35 West 15 Street

$1,955,040

Tribeca

Fulton/Seaport

99 John Street

$895,000

Tribeca

13 Jay Street

$2,650,000

Fulton/Seaport

111 Fulton Street

$1,900,000

Tribeca

356 Broadway

$2,725,000

3

2

Nestseekers

Gramercy Park

210 East 15 Street

$645,000

Tribeca

53 North Moore Street

$4,130,000

2

2

Corcoran

Gramercy Park

201 East 17 Street

$790,000

Tribeca

200 Chambers Street

$3,500,000

Gramercy Park

305 2 Avenue

$1,608,835

West Chelsea

450 West 17 Street

$1,900,000

Gramercy Park

205 3 Avenue

$425,000

West Chelsea

442 West 23 Street

$2,950,000

3

2

Brown Harris Stevens

Gramercy Park

210 East 15 Street

$438,000

West Chelsea

500 West 21St Street

$2,291,062

Gramercy Park

145 East 15 Street

$955,000

West Chelsea

500 West 21St Street

$5,676,743

3

3

Corcoran

Gramercy Park

81 Irving Place

$482,000

Greenwich Village

13 West 13 Street

$605,000

Greenwich Village

34 East 10 Street

$2,924,000

1

1

Halstead Property

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THE SAGA ON WEST 73RD NEWS How has a building on the Upper West Side been vacant for 30 years?

BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS

Many Upper West Siders are familiar with the rundown townhouse on West 73rd Street, a neighborhood eyesore encased in scaffolding and infested with rats that’s been vacant for at least 30 years.

Why they probably don’t know is the strange and confusing saga of the building, at 44 W. 73rd Street, involving foreclosure in 1975, conflicting property deeds, fraud, and an ongoing court case.

In April of last year, an attorney named Steven Wimpfheimer filed suit against Aviation Distributors, Inc. and other parties that claim to own 44 West 73rd Street. The complaint asks, in brief, that the court recognize the building as belonging solely to Wimpfheimer’s client, a mysterious company named Community Preservation Neighborhood, Inc. In cour t papers, Wimphheimer argues that his client is in possession of the “true copy” of the property deed, which Community Preservation acquired last February from a woman named Lois Voyticky, which Wimpfheimer maintains is the sole heir of the most recent previous owner, Marion Miller.

A lawyer for Aviation Distributors, Solomon Zabrowsky, made a defense and counterclaim, saying they acquired the property from Miller in 1977, and since then have continued to maintain the property and to pay taxes on it. The response goes on to say Aviation recently transferred ownership to an affiliated company named Kojo Global Development, Inc., and accused Community Preservation of engaging in fraud in claiming ownership over the building and filing their suit.

At the center of the dispute is whether Lois Voyticky really did have a claim to the property and was indeed Miller’s sole heir, and was within her legal rights to sell it to Community Preservation last year. Public records indicate a Frances Voyticky, who died in 1988, acquired the property from Jean Rudiano in 1964. Diane Haslett, who is listed as Rudiano’s

John Kojo Zi. Source: LinkedIn attorney in legal documents from that time, facilitated the sale. Haslett surfaces again in 1975, presumably before she was married to Rudiano, when she bought 44 West 73rd Street from Otec Realty Corp.

(Haslett herself was in the news earlier this year, for her involvement in a speparate building, at 118 West 76th St, a similarly neglected townhouse. Haslett finally sold that building last year for $6.6 million after much pressure from community groups and elected officials.)

On West 73rd Street, the City of New York began foreclosure proceedings against the property in 1971, a process that was carried out in 1975, two months after Haslett bought it.

It’s unclear how or why Haslett bought a property that was in the midst of being foreclosed upon. She could not be reached for comment.

According to public records, Marion Miller acquired 44 West 73rd Street sometime after it was foreclosed upon and sold it to Aviation in 1977.

However, the deal seems have only involved the land, and not the building itself. At this juncture, in the mid-70s, it appears as if two deeds for the property were created.

More recently, public records with the New York City Register indicate Lois Voyticky sold the property last year to Community Preservation Neighborhood, Inc. for $205,000.

Aviation initially appeared to have the better case. A title trace commissioned by Kojo Global and carried out by Blackstone Land Title Agency found that Lois Voyticky, while indeed the sole survivor and distributee for the estate of Marion Miller, did not have any legal right to the property.

But this is where it gets weird(er).

In the midst of the case, on Aug. 8, 2014, NYS Civil Supreme Court Judge Carol Edmead granted a motion filed by Wimpfheimer that effectively declared Community Preservation sole owners of 44 West 73rd Street. The default judgement was granted after the defendant failed to appear in court.

And last month, the Manhattan DA announced an indictment against John Kojo Zi, owner of Kojo Global, on charges that he obtained titles to five

A handwritten sign on the front door of 44 West 73rd Street warns people to be on the lookout for John Kojo Zi. Photo by Daniel Fitzsimmons.

buildings on the Upper West Side and Hamilton Heights by fraudulently filing forged deed transfers with the city’s Register’s Office. Among them was 44 West 73rd Street.

According to the DA’s office, Zi, age 53, allegedly filed a fraudulent deed transfer for the property, “transferring the property from its legitimate owner, Aviation Distributors, to his company…” He’s charged with multiple counts of grand larceny, fraud and forgery, among other crimes. According to the Real Deal, Zi’s lawyer is none other than Solomon Zabrowsky.

The DA’s press release goes on to say that Zi told the Register’s Office his father founded Aviation Distributors, and even submitted a forged contract from 1976 showing Aviation’s original purchase of the building for $360,000 cash.

“By filing forged deed transfers and lying on official forms, this defendant allegedly defrauded three Manhattan property owners, stealing five buildings out from under them,” said Manhattan District Attorney Vance in announcing the indictment. “Deed fraudsters use publicly available housing data to target properties that are not actively managed by their owners, including those that are falling into disrepair, or burdened with tax liens and unpaid utilities.”

But the legal dramas surrounding the property have gone largely unnoticed to neighbors of 44 West 73rd Street, and misconceptions about the property continue to abound, such as when a local blog erroneously reported that Haslett-Rudiano had finally put the building up for sale for $5 million.

“She doesn’t own it outright, I know that Diane [Haslett-Rudiano] does not own it,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer told the Spirit recently.

“She lost it a while ago.”

Beyond that, however, Brewer said she does not know who currently owns it. Arlene Simon, the former president of Landmark West who was involved in the campaign to pressure Haslett-Rudiano into selling 118 West 76th Street, told the Spirit last year that even she doesn’t quite understand the history or legal status of 44 West 73rd Street.

“It’s one of those things where you can’t quite figure out the pieces,” she said.

And other mysteries remain.

How was Community Preservation able to buy the property from Lois Voyticky last year for a paltry $205,000? The company was established in late-

44 West 73rd Street. Photo by Daniel Fitzsimmons.

2013, has zero public profile, no website, and the only point of contact in state registration records is Wimpfheimer, who said he wouldn’t comment on the case as litigation is ongoing (both sides are due back in court Aug. 11).

When asked about topics not related to the litigation, such as what Community Preservation does, Wimpfheimer said he’s “not authorized to give out any additional information.”

Calls to a number listed as belonging to Lois Voyticky went unanswered. Zi did not return calls or an email. A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office declined to comment beyond the press release and referred a request for more information on Zi to the NYPD, who said they have no arrest record for him either this year or last.

Zabrowsky did not return requests for comment about Aviation’s ownership claims over 44 West 73rd Street. It’s also unclear why he is representing Zi in court or affiliates Aviation with Kojo Global in court documents prior to the DA’s indictment.

So the mystery endures. If 44 West 73rd Street hasn’t belonged to Diane Haslett-Rudiano in decades, why has it been allowed to languish for all this time?

The biggest and most practical mystery of when and what will happen to the property, which is landmarked, also remains elusive. It has dozens of building violations and complaints, ranging from trash pileups on the roof and rodent infestations to unsafe scaffolding and debris falling off the facade. The last valid certificate of occupancy is from 1986.

Cigarette butts and pigeon droppings litter the stoop. The door is secured by a pair of shiny Master locks that seem as if they were recently installed.

Birds roost in the scaffolding, which is painted red and covered in black netting.

And while most people are in the dark when it comes to 44 West 73rd Street, not everyone is. Adding to the intrigue is a weathered, handwritten sign with what looks like a picture of Zi standing on the top step of 44 West 73rd Street that warns, “We know who you are.

What you are doing is fraud.

The D.A. office [sic] is going to find you.”

It isn’t clear who wrote the sign or how long it’s been plastered to the door with transparent tape.

A parting admonition urges people to “call the cops if anyone sees him.”

JULY 23-29,2015

21

Our Town|Downtowner otdowntown.com

YOUR 15 MINUTES

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

PASSIONATE TO PLAY THE PART Acting since he was 5, New Yorker David Arthur Bachrach has carved a niche on city stages and elsewhere

BY VALERIE KAUFMAN

Ever since he played Hansel in a firstgrade production of Hansel and Gretel, David Arthur Bachrach, 62, has thrilled to the sound of applause.

Born and raised in Maine — and “hooked” on acting at age five — he worked as a radio disc jockey during his teen years. His passion for the stage — which, in his words, “did not start but which started me” — accompanied him from Maine to North Carolina and then, finally, to New York City.

He temped at a Wall Street brokerage house where everyone crowed about the money to be made. His heart wasn’t in it; he was after what he calls the “highest high” — acting.

New York has long been thought of as the concrete jungle where dreams are made. Young people hope they can make it here; longtime residents pride themselves on never having stopped trying. Bachrach, 62, has now been an actor most of his life. Despite the hardships and uncertainties, he said, it’s been worth it. “You only need a will-

ingness to sacrifice,” Bachrach said.

Take his living quarters, which he describes as “a Hell’s Kitchen twobedroom, only one room’s outside.”

The room outside is a garden where potted plants lend a spare beauty to the tiny urban patio. A small bench seats one comfortably, and a café table, rescued from a refuse pile, holds a cold drink on a summer’s day. This is Bachrach’s refuge from city life. The “inside” room features a long, thin bookcase stacked with mostly plays.

The room also holds a few props, which he sometimes uses during auditions. A shelf holds a skull for Hamlet to ponder. Pegs on a wall hold an assortment of hats, which fit an assortment of characters.

Bachrach is tall and lanky, with an animated face, which he might angle to emphasize a point he’s making.

But beneath an intense gaze, there’s also playfulness. Bikram yoga several times a week — in 125 degree heat at a Manhattan studio — keeps him limber and energized.

To pay the rent, Bachrach has what he calls his “most honorable part-time job” at an entertainment law firm, which is flexible if Bachrach needs

David Arthur Bachrach as Bill Malkey with Bill Vaughn in The Christman Bride. Photo: Michael Eric Berube

time off for an out-of-town acting job.

“I ran around like a lunatic for so many years, from one ‘survival’ job to another,” said Bachrach, who studied at the New Actors Workshop and the Esper Studio in the city. “There is no career path in show biz.”

He’s worked as a radio announcer, a church musician and an opera singer.

He’s led a jazz quartet and performed as part of a jazz cabaret in Europe.

“One thing that leavens an actor is life experience,” he said. “Everything interests me.”

Being on stage, Bachrach said, is “a kind of heightened reality. Acting teaches you something important that not many of us do. It forces you to be aware, emotionally committed, and present in the moment.”

Some 30,000 actors live in New York City, according to the website Hollywood Sapien. Bachrach’s acting friends include a registered nurse, a paralegal, an Army reservist, a yoga teacher and a personal assistant.

When not working, David goes to auditions, dubbed “cattle calls” for the sheer number of applicants. There, blink-of-an-eye decisions are made by casting directors. Is he right for the part? Will he be called back?

His most recent acting job was as the lead, Sir Evelyn Estebrooke, in The Singapore Mikado at Brooklyn’s Theater 2020. He’s worked several productions by Gemini CollisionWorks, for which he is currently rehearsing Nord Hausen Fly Robot. The fluid, experimental work is being workshopped on Governors Island this month, with a full production slated for later this year at The Brick in Williamsburg. He recently played the King of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland at the Unchained Festival in Long Island City. He has also acted with American Shakespeare Repertory, The Seeing Place Theater, and the Snowlion Repertory Company.

While Bachrach is proud of having played some great title roles — Cymbeline, Prometheus, Socrates — and estimates that he’s acted before tens of thousands of people, one aspect of his acting career stands out: roles have been written into plays and musicals expressly with him in mind.

“The Elephant Piece” Interlude Anticipation with Bartley Mullin. Photo: Michael Eric Berube Regardless, he’s always looking to improve his métier. “You ask yourself what words or lines you could have done better,” he said. Where were the hits? Where were the misses?

Although he likes acting most of all, Bachrach has time to pursue his other interests, which he believes inform his acting.

A nearby dance studio offers inexpensive, unlimited ballroom dancing lessons. When not working, he rollerblades, tends his garden, makes his own beer. Evenings, he goes to see friends act. A night owl, Bachrach reads scripts and learns lines into the early morning.

He likes having a “real” address, one where he actually lives, unlike actors who constantly travel to jobs around the country. But while Bachrach believes he has more fun than many actors, he feels a certain amount of regret too — for not mailing more resumes to casting directors, updating his website more often and attending more auditions. “Being an actor is a lot like being in sales — there’s always one more call that could be made, one more audition,” he said.

Health insurance, a high income and the social life money can buy — especially in pricey Manhattan — were among the harder sacrifices Bachrach felt he had to make. Among the “easier” ones were choosing to not have children, relinquishing certain creature comforts and foregoing status.

And things could get tougher. Fewer people are interested in theater, audiences’ tastes are less adventurous and fewer shows are in production.

Since moving to New York 35 years ago, Bachrach has watched the theater become decimated by AIDS and, more recently, choked by a reduction in funding for the arts and arts education.

But despite all that, and a surfeit of actors here, New York is the place to be if you’re dedicated to the avocation.

“I have followed my heart,” Bachrach said, “and I’ve had a wonderful life.”

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“I WISH SOMEONE WOULD HELP THAT HOMELESS MAN.”

BE THE SOMEONE. Sam New York Cares Volunteer

Every day, we think to ourselves that someone should really help make this city a better place. Visit newyorkcares.org to learn about the countless ways you can volunteer and make a difference in your community.

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City Department of Parks and Recreation (â&#x20AC;&#x153;NYCDPRâ&#x20AC;?) is issuing, as of the date of this notice, a Request for Bids (RFB) for the sale of food from one (1) mobile food unit near the Washington Square Park Fountain area, Manhattan.

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Hard copies of the RFB can be obtained, at no cost, commencing Monday, July 13, 2015, through Monday, August 10, 2015 between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., excluding weekends and holidays, at the Revenue Division of NYCDPR, which is located at 830 Fifth Avenue, Room 407, New York, NY 10065. All bids submitted in response to this RFB must be submitted by no later than Monday, August 10, 2015 at 11:00 a.m.

The RFB is also available for download, commencing on Monday, July 13, 2015 through Monday, August 10, 2015 on Parksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; website.

To download the RFB, visit www.nyc.gov/parks/businessopportunities, click on the link for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Concessions Opportunities at Parksâ&#x20AC;? and, after logging in, click on the â&#x20AC;&#x153;downloadâ&#x20AC;? link that appears adjacent to the RFBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s description.

For more information, contact Glenn Kaalund at (212) 360-1397 or VIA email at Glenn.Kaalund@parks.nyc.gov. Thank you.

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JULY 23-29,2015