The Voice of the West Village
WestView News
VOLUME 11, NUMBER 6
JUNE 2015
$1.00
Why You Never Get a Bill from the Hospital By George Capsis
WHO PAYS FOR SANDY? Westbeth artist residents want the commercial tenants to share in
the cost to restore Westbeth, but management refuses to reveal the rents. Photo by Maggie Berkvist.
Westbeth Board Sues to Conceal Numbers By George Capsis “I always thought that the basic tenet of Journalism was to get both sides of the story” was the bristling challenge from sixtyone year-old Executive Director, Steven A. Neil of the forty-five year-old low rent artist enclave, Westbeth, in response to the May cover article by historian and Westbeth tenant, Catherine Revland, who repeated the tenants’ attorney’s accusation that Westbeth management had “extraordinarily” undervalued leases to commercial tenants—one as low as $4.20 a sq. ft. for ten years. Accepting Neil’s criticism, I asked Neil to meet with Ms. Revland, but he dismissed this because he did not want to get into a heated exchange with her. We compromised—I would send him a list of Revland’s questions before meeting with him and then, to ensure accuracy, tape his answers. On Friday the 14th after gorging myself on the expensive pastries and savories
of young French chef Dominique Ansel in the Chelsea Market kitchen of Sarah Beth with David Porat of Chelsea Market Basket, I walked down to 55 Bethune Street for our meeting. A bearded Neil ushered me into a large, first floor converted apartment now serving as an office. Joining us in the conference-tabled room was the Senior Vice President of LAK public relations, Richard Edmonds. (It is very rare we get a PR man at such interviews, and it always suggests they are very nervous.) As I took out my tape recorder and a copy of Revland’s questions, Neil said quickly “I will send you my answers tomorrow…no tape recorder,” so I did not tape the interview. The battle (and it does seem to be a battle) is that after the millions of dollars in damage by hurricane Sandy (the basement was flooded) the tenants who have been paying one-third to one-fourth of market Continued on page 4
“Knee replacement, or knee arthroplasty, is a surgical procedure to replace the weightbearing surfaces of the knee joint to relieve pain and disability.” –Wikipedia After 87 years, the cartilage separating my left leg bones had eroded, and the leg went off in unexpected directions (I could be mistaken for an old man). I considered knee replacement, but like any normal person I put it off and off. “Use my doctor” was the repeated refrain from the ever-increasing number I encountered that had already had it done—by 2030 it is projected that 3.4 million in the US will have had this increasingly popular operation. I took advantage of my position as WestView publisher and called the PR office of the Hospital for Special Surgery (I mean this is THE hospital for this kind of thing) and got the name of Doctor Geoffrey Westrich, the First Vice President of the Eastern Orthopedic Association. (He
DID THIS COST $66,731.00?: That is amount
billed, but Medicare only paid $15,949.81, illustrating the Alice in Wonderland character of US medical billing practices.
obtained a degree in engineering at Tufts before switching to pre-med, so he knows the knee both mechanically and surgically. He is listed in New York Magazine’s Best Doctors and is a very good surgeon—probably the best.) My operating room was the very last in the long corridor that wrapped around Continued on page 6
Stonewall Landmark
HONORING A MOVEMENT: The Landmarks Preservation Commission will decide on
Tuesday, June 2 whether to consider the Stonewall Inn for city landmark status—making it the first landmark honored for its significance to the LBGT community in New York. According to the Times, a yes vote by the committee will almost assuredly lead to “eventual designation as a landmark.” Photo Courtesy GVSHP.
End Graffiti and Fund History Trail see page 10