WestView News
The Voice of the West Village
VOLUME 11, NUMBER 2
FEBRUARY 2015
Don’t Build a Bridge to Diller Island with our Tax Dollars By George Capsis On February the 11th the thirteen members of the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) will sit down to accept the offer of billionaire Barry Diller to spend $130 million dollars to build a 2.9 acre, undulating, reinforced concrete island supported by three hundred concrete mushrooms standing 70 to 30 feet above the Hudson. Designed by the British designer Thomas Heatherwick, who delights in clusters of enormous repetitive forms, it will be more a gigantic piece of sculpture than an island or a pier—it will, indeed, be the largest and most expensive such piece of sculpture ever built in New York City and perhaps in the world. The seemingly generous offer will be no surprise to the board. As the park’s Chief Operating Officer, Madelyn Wils, offered in the January issue of WestView News, she approached Diller and his wife, dress designer Diane Von Furstenberg, for a contribution to rebuild the decayed Pier 54 between 14th
and 15th Street some months ago. Both Diller and Von Furstenberg have made the meatpacking district their turf, with Diller building his prismatic glass Frank Gary designed headquarters on 11th Avenue and 19th street and Mrs. Von Furstenberg her headquarters at 874 Washington and 14th Streets. Both have made large donations to the High Line and, now, the new Whitney. There is a difference, however, in the proposed new Pier 55—it is not a private space that belongs to Diller or Furstenberg, but is instead a public space. It will have 3 open-air amphitheaters for performances and concerts. Diller, a former Paramount and Fox CEO, knows how to recruit talent, witness British born Kate Horton—the former deputy director of the National Theater and for ten years the commercial manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company—who will head the events program. Half of the events will be free or low cost and others will continued on page 16
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SAVE MONEY AND SAVE PIER 40: Barry Diller is about to receive permission from the HRPT
to build a $100 million, 2. 9 acre concrete, undulating platform for outdoor paid performances and the city and state have agreed to build two causeways to it for $39.5 million. West View suggests that for $30 million of that $139.5 million the corroding steel piles of the pier can be secured and seating for 800 can be installed for theatrical, music and athletic events. Rendering by Brian J. Pape.
A Call for Integrity By Arthur Z. Schwartz
“These charges go to the very core of what ails Albany—a lack of transparency, lack of accountability, and lack of principle joined with an overabundance of greed, cronyism, and self-dealing.” — U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara January 21, 2015
GUNG HAY FAT CHOY! Chinese New Year (this the Year of the Sheep or Goat) begins
on February 19th. The Chinatown parade is set for the afternoon of Saturday, February 21st, beginning at 1pm. Photo by Jane Barrer.
U.S. Attorney Bharara has said it before, but this time he got the biggest fish, the King of the Assembly. What did he do (allegedly)? •Silver sent State funds to a doctor who sent asbestos cases to a law firm where he did no work, and the firm paid Silver $3 million in “referral fees”. •Silver got another $700,000 in “refer-
ral fees” from a real estate firm to which he had sent two major developers—who happened to have business in front of the State. •Silver actively pushed Governor Cuomo to close the Moreland Corruption Commission after it subpoenaed his outside income information. I am a civil rights lawyer and usually give the accused the benefit of the doubt, but I know the asbestos referral world, and it is rife with money and cute ways to flout both law and ethics. Government should be run by people way above suspicion, not people under indictment who are out on bail. Preet Bharara summed it up best when he asked whether we could be sure that any continued on page 21
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