Westview News march 2015

WestView News

The Voice of the West Village

MARCH 2015

The Guardian Calls Diller Island “Fairyland Urban Planning”

LONDON CRITICS CALL FOR FAST TRACK INQUIRY: A con-

troversially expensive bridge over the Thames by the same designer doing Diller Island, Thomas Heatherwick, is being questioned by critics for its swift and secretive emergence from the approval process, echoing the well engineered entry of Diller Island via a New York Times article. Image: Arup.

By George Capsis Oliver Wainwright, a trained architect and the architectural critic of the Guardian does not seem to like the so called “Garden Bridge” designed by Thomas Heatherwick. The proposed and partially approved fairytale garden bridge over the Thames is much like the proposed Diller Island (Pier 55) also designed by Heatherwick. On Tuesday, November 18, Wainwright compared the two with lip-biting frustration.

What, asks Wainwright, oh what “makes people want to part with millions” for “ a Disneyfied confection” on stilts—is it the

trees and water and fairytale stories that “allow conventional urban planning to be gleefully suspended”?

But what Wainwright really hates is the design—“It is a vision straight from the set of Avatar—fecund flowerbeds erupting from mushroom-shaped columns, their canopies joining to support parkland above the water…a thicket of 300 fungi rising from [30 to 75 feet] above the Hudson River to form an undulating platform.”

And Wainwright takes a whack at the architectural judgment of Diller and partner Diane Von Furstenberg: “A faceted glass lump…crowns the roof of the Von Furstenberg empire, while Diller is proudly known as the patron of one of Frank Gehry’s worst buildings a few blocks away.”

In another article about Heatherwick’s London Bridge released on November 19, Wainwright says “Critics are calling for a public inquiry into this mayoral project of most unique origins which appears to have been fast-tracked through the system.”

Those exact words could apply to Diller Island.

I read about Diller Island around 8:00 AM in the Times, which recorded that very same day and in advance of the gift that de Blasio gave $17 million and Cuomo $18 million to build a bridge to the island. I mean what if a follower of ISIS flew an explosive drone into City Hall that morning—what if de Blasio was prevented from writing the check for $17 million, which the Times had already reported he had given. Then The New York Times would have lied, and the slick, expensive PR firm that so carefully managed the reveal of the Diller Island plan would have had egg on their face.

$1.00

$137,000 MUSHROOM WestView estimates the cost of just one concrete and steel mushroom pile to hold up Diller Island at $137,000.

6’ Person Deck

Concrete

Water

Riverbed

Hi-Pile

Approimately 300’

VOLUME 11, NUMBER 3

Governor Cuomo Is Stealing From Our Kids

By Arthur Z. Schwartz It was hard not to write this month about Rudy Giuliani and his ongoing rant about President Obama not loving America, and about his attempt to be “relevant” again by appealing to the most racist elements in our country. It reminded me that we spent 8 years surviving under the Mayoralty of a bombastic buffoon—an embarrassment to NYC who got away with some sort of hero label because he maintained his cool during and after 9/11. If you think there are divisions in our City now, they are noth-

ing compared to the divisions stirred by Rudy and his chauffeur-turned Police Commissioner-turned felon Bernard Kerik. But I will resist, because I know that my neighbors overwhelmingly dismiss him as a jerk.

But I do want to write again about our Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Andrew is slicker than Rudy Giuliani, but the two have a lot in common, which may be why Cuomo has refused to denounce Giuliani for his comments about Obama. Andrew Cuomo may characterize himself as the Governor of working New Yorkers, but his campaign contributions show that he

is the Governor of the very wealthy.

Andrew Cuomo doesn’t like to be criticized, and he certainly doesn’t like those who disagree with him. It is well known in political circles that if you cross Cuomo, you may get a piece of your body chopped off. The fear is palpable. Rudy Giuliani actually had a better relationship with public employee unions than Cuomo does. He didn’t see himself as an educator, and actually appointed some good educators to run the NYC school system.

Cuomo spent a good portion of his recent State of the State address talking continued on page 21

Bedrock

A $44 MILLION DOLLAR BOUQUET: the 300

Diller Island mushroom piles will cost $41 million to construct and the Hudson River Park will be charged with their expensive maintenance.

Illustration by Stephanie Phelan

City, State Review Rent Stabilization in June — See Page 4

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2 WestView News March 2015

WestViews

WestView Published by WestView, Inc. by and for the residents of the West Village.

Publisher Executive Editor George Capsis Associate Editors Christy Ross, Katie Keith Design Consultant Stephanie Phelan Photo Editor Darielle Smolian Traffic Manager Liza Whitingv Photographer Maggie Berkvist Comptroller Jolanta Meckauskaite Architecture Editor Brian Pape Theater Editor Irv Bauer Film, Media and Music Editor Jim Fouratt Distribution Manager Timothy Jambeck Regular Contributors Constantine Alatzas Cristiano Andrade Sandi Bachom John Barrera Barry Benepe Irv Bauer Maggie Berkvist Janet Capron George Capsis Barbara Chacour Amanda Davis Philip Desiere Ron Elve Jim Fouratt Mark M. Green Robert Heide Keith Michael Michael D. Minichiello Brian Pape Joy Pape David Porat Alec Pruchnicki Catherine Revland Arthur Schwartz We endeavor to publish all letters received, including those with which we disagree.

The opinions put forth by contributors to WestView do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher or editor.

WestView welcomes your correspondence, comments, and corrections: www.westviewnews.org

Contact Us (212)924-5718 gcapsis@gmail.com

STOPCRIME Don’t Let Your Super Throw Out WestView News!

Correspondence, Commentary, Corrections The Little Paper That Could Dear Mr. Capsis, As a former West Village (Charles Street) resident, I first encountered your little newspaper on the doorsteps of my building. I picked it up and read it that evening and then realized how “Big” it really was. I began to look forward to its delivery, eager to read it. Then, after five years, I moved to Chelsea, as close to the West Village as possible, however, without my landlord’s yearly, unaffordable rent increases at market rate. Not to mention his taking away our lovely garden rooftop (mainly to break the hearts of the rent stabilized seniors who maintained it, while living there for up to 30 years).

With my subscription, I still look forward to it in my mailbox.

This week, I finally decided that I should let you know how much I’ve learned about so many things from reading it. It is without a doubt my favorite publication!

This latest issue had some very good news, which I’d been following monthly concerning Ruth Berk. I don’t know you, her, or her landlord, but I feel close to all of you because of the heartfelt and human personal stories you all write (not to mention the important issues you bring to our attention). These are things we should all be aware of.

How happy I was to see the photo and the caption “Ruth Berk is free (Almost)”.

So, thank you for sharing and thank you to everyone who has helped her.

My sincere thanks to you and all who contribute to it, — Inge Ivchenko PS I hope your knee is feeling better than new.

Cuomo Lets PR Firm Speak for Him

WestView asked Governor Cuomo who asked him to allocate $17 million of state tax payer funds to build a bridge to Diller Island and his press office forwarded our request to a PR firm retained by the Hudson River Park Trust. They did not, of course, answer our question.

George, In response to your questions for the Governor’s office (and you can attribute this to a Trust spokesperson): Statement: This is an unprecedented deal which will lessen the burden on the public to fund the rebuilding of the pier. Fifty-one percent of ticket sales at the theater will be free or low cost. All revenues will go back into paying for maintenance and programming at the pier.

— James Yolles Risa Heller Communications

James, Imagine my surprise when my e-mail— to Governor Cuomo’s press office asking when and how he agreed to spend $18 million taxpayer dollars to build out the embankment on 14th Street so it would more easily accommodate two $17 million city financed bridges to Diller and Von Furstenberg’s proposed concrete island—was answered by you, James, a paid PR person It is a big no-no for journalist inquiries to be passed off to public relation firms.

Unfortunately, James, I spent decades at IBM convincing people that computers wouldn’t steal jobs, and I learned how to argue the question not asked. You might not know that in the Hudson River Park charter, the city and state are responsible for “capital” improvements—building and repairing the piers. The paid management of the park must lease space, like the 15acre Pier 40, to generate the funds to maintain and operate the park.

The formal process requires issuing a Request For Proposal. Over the last 20 years, two such RFP’s were issued causing a bunch of expensive proposals—all of which were turned down by, I guess, the ever-changing nonpaid board of directors.

I think it is safe to suggest that HRPT is running out of maintenance money and that is why they quickly and secretly passed a bill that would allow them to sell the air rights over the piers (hmm is that really legal?).

So, James, when you say, “this is an unprecedented deal which will lessen the burden on the public to refund the rebuilding of the pier,” you have to remember we don’t have to rebuild pier 54. That isn’t in the original charter.

No, the instructions of the original “law” were to find developers that would create something of interest and use to us taxpayers. That developer would then pay a monthly fee to rent the pier, presumably making a profit to cover the cost of building and operating it.

In true PR tradition, you argue a question not asked, by offering “fifty one percent of the ticket sales at the theater will be free or low cost” but, James, the top ticket price is $40 and the term “low cost” doesn’t mean much when so much taxpayer money is subsidizing these “affordable” tickets.

And finally you offer “that revenues will go back to paying for maintenance and programming at the pier” so it sounds like you are telling us that ticket sales will cover the cost of the prestigious staff, the performers and the maintenance so there is no cost to the Diller Foundation or, god forbid, to Barry himself.

But wait—remember what I told you earlier, James—the purpose of inviting developers was not so they could create breakeven for them attractions, but so they might

contribute the millions needed to maintain and operate the five-mile long park.

Diller Island will contribute one dollar a year.

— George Capsis WestView News Editor and Publisher

Size Matters Dear George, Have you noticed what’s been happening at the former St. Vincent’s Hospital site?

The new Rubin condo buildings just keep getting bigger and bigger. Much bigger and higher than the original St. Vincent’s buildings they replaced.

I thought that the Rudin Organization got their special variance to build their new condos based on the St.Vincent’s original variance (previously won) that was an exception to build no higher than was acceptable in this neighborhood. In other words, the Rudin Condos were to be no higher or bigger than the St. Vincent’s buildings they replaced.

Now, I see that the buildings are so much bigger and denser than the original St. Vincent’s zoning allowed that it’s almost unbelievable!

It seems to me that Rudin has more than doubled the height and size of the original buildings. It’s now the highest building in the area and it keeps growing!

It’s a shame that this huge development has to be built in this charming neighborhood.

Who cares what it looks like—as long as the Rudin Organization can squeeze as much money as possible out of this huge monstrosity?

How many more millions will the Rudin Organization make with all the additional space that will be available for sale?

I wonder if this whole thing is part of the bribery scheme that has just come to light with the Department of Buildings and Department of Historic Preservation.

You would think that someone from the Department of Buildings would have noticed by now that the “new” St. Vincent’s development is much larger than the original permit, or were there bribes involved in this? ­— Kay Frost In related news, Crane’s New York Business talked to Rudin Management. To keep WestView News readers posted about the former St. Vincent’s site, here are a few items from their February 18 bulletin. Rudin Management, developer of the Greenwich Lane condo complex rising on the St. Vincent’s hospital’s former site announced that: • 75% of the apartments were under contract • They had recently topped out the tallest continued on page 3

March 2015 WestView News 3

www.westviewnews.org of the five properties— a 17-story building at 155 West 11th Street—and expect to finish the $1 billion development by the middle of 2016.

• The complex is fetching some of the highest sums per square foot ever seen for residential space downtown—averaging about $3,500 per square foot, with some of the best apartments fetching $5-6,000 per square foot.

• One of the five townhouses has gone into contract for nearly $25 million—it has been reported elsewhere that Michael Kors has purchased a 3-bedroom apartment for at least $17 million.

Mr. Rudin also assured Crane’s that, unlike the dubious foreigners investing their ill-gotten gains in the city’s high end residential market described in recent articles in The New York Times, “Ninety percent of our buyers are domestic, and 70% are New Yorkers.”

— Maggie Berkvist

Bicycle Menace!

Ask any neighbor and they will be happy to tell you the difficulty negotiating the Village at the peril of being run over by a delivery bicycle.

I have a solution: How about the City

holding businesses responsible for the reckless endangerment caused by these delivery bicycles ? Perhaps owners will think twice and very quickly give instructions to their employees if they cannot renew their business license until all tickets are paid.

If the City would pass this legislation, the public would breathe a collective sigh of relief.

— Dean Whetzel

Dual Congregations at Village Presbyterian The article on the Village Presbyterian Church, (Feb. 2015) as interesting as it might have been, has two inexcusable flaws. First, an error of fact: The church is not between 5th & 6th avenues, as you might already have heard. It is between 6th & 7th avenues. Second, and even more important, a sin of omission. There is not a mention of the period during which it served both Jewish and Presbyterian congregations—the former for Saturday shabbat services, and the latter on Sundays. The reason for the contentious break-up should have been stated as part of the building’s history and was not, either because the writer did not know of it,

or more likely, because it was an unpleasant, highly charged matter.

I suggest that you or the writer look up the details for accuracy and supply the missing fragment of history in a future issue.

— Mimi Sheraton Falcone It is hard to conceive of a history of the Village Presbyterian Church that omits the period when the space was shared with the Brotherhood Synagogue. That successful arrangement continued for several years until a new pastor took over at the church. There were difficulties—and as a result, the synagogue moved to the former Friends Meeting House (at Gramercy Park South) it occupies to this day.

— Carol Greitzer Hi All, The excellent article in the February WestView News entitled “From Communion to Condo, Part I: Churches Are Born Again as Residences,” by Phil Desiere, leaves out an important part of the story of the Village Presbyterian Church. For quite awhile it served as a Presbyterian church and Jewish synagogue, combined. A plaque affixed to the castiron fence at the front told the story. According to this plaque, the

Greek Revival architecture was chosen for its nonspecific religious connotations. I was under the impression, from reading the plaque, that this edifice had been built specifically for the two congregations, although Mr. Desiere’s article would not make it appear so and perhaps my impression was incorrect. I don’t know how long the Village Synagogue, as I believe it was called, participated in this bold experiment of two different faiths sharing the same building.

The synagogue held services on Fridays, and put up appropriate symbols for these services. The church met on Sundays, with its appropriate symbols in place. I believe Rabbi Irving J. Block, an advocate of interfaith dialogue, may have been involved. The church services sometimes included dance performances and other innovative features.

The plaque proudly stated that here was an example of two faiths in harmony.

During the years I lived on the same block in what was called simply The Evangeline, “a residence hall for young business ladies” (now Markle Evangeline), I often passed this church/synagogue, and sometimes attended church services there. I lived at the Evangeline from 1967 to early 1976, shortly after, as the article states, the church had been sold. continued on page 21

BRIEFLY NOTED Westview Scoops the Times?

Arthur Schwartz reports that a noteworthy Times writer was ready to report about the life and death of former NYC Ballet member Edwina Fontaine and her struggle to survive the Dewitt Nursing Home, as well as the efforts of former opera and cabaret singer Ruth Berk to escape being “imprisoned” in Dewitt by a state court judge, but was deterred by her editors when the stories were reported in WestView.

Seems the Times considers WestView to be “competition,” and the Times doesn’t like being scooped by its competition.

Once scooped, it moves on without reporting. We appreciate the complement, but the Times ought to cover the stories.

— George Capsis

Update on the Whereabouts of Mrs. Green Residents around Abingdon Square are no longer amused by the cheerful “Mrs. Green’s Is Coming Soon!” announcement on the hoarding around 99 Bank Street. More than a year has gone by since the construction of this temporary structure, and the deteriorating plywood covered with layers of flayed advertising posters has become a neighborhood eyesore. WestView News decided it was

time for yet another update on the situation. To spare our readers the usual evasive response from the parent company’s public relations firm (similar to the results of our two previous requests in the August and October 2014 issues), this time we went straight to the source.

On February 6th we mailed a letter to Patrick Brown, the CEO of Natural Markets Food Group, Mrs. Green’s parent company in Irvington, New York, with a CC to the president of the 99 Bank Street co-op board, and asked for answers to three questions: “1. Does NMFG still have plans to open this store? 2. If so, do you have a new opening date? 3. Can you give us reasons for the delay?” and ended our letter with “We hope our paper can assure its thousands of readers in the West Village that Mrs. Green’s will, indeed, be coming soon.”

A polite letter, we thought, making reasonable requests, to which we received no response from either party. After two weeks of silence we then sent an email to the PR man—“Our readers would like to know the reason for the delay, and whether the store will in fact open at all”—and received this response: “We understand that the delays have been frustrating for the community (they are very frustrating for us as well). But things are still moving forward, with the opening scheduled for early summer. No new information beyond that.”

In the meantime, now that we know we’re going to have to look at that shoddy

hoarding for many months to come, do you think it would be too much to ask the coop board at 99 Bank Street, where a small apartment sells for a million dollars, to do a little tidying up?

— Catherine Revland

VID: Johnson Details First Year The Village Independent Democrats held their monthly meeting on Thursday, February 12 at St. John’s Lutheran Church on Christopher Street. There were reports on a variety of local and state political developments by district leaders Keen Berger and Arthur Schwartz.

City Council member Cory Johnson gave a detailed account of his first year in office. He reported that he had sponsored more legislation than any other council member on topics including South Village land-marking, opposition to a private restaurant in Union Square park, low cost fresh fruit delivery, participatory budgeting, and animal care issues.

As head of the Health Committee, Johnson has concentrated on preventing budget cuts to the Health and Hospitals Corporation, Public Health programs, and office of the medical examiner, in addition to trying to make up for unexpected expenditures occurring during the Ebola out-

break. Although he believes that the need for a hospital on the West Side is clear, requirements for a state department of health Certificate of Occupancy and state funds still stand in the way.

The main educational forum for the evening was organized by club member Marlene Nadle and featured Michael McKee from the Met Council on Housing, who gave an extensive account of proposed legislative action which will occur over the next 4 months. High on the list is the desire to eliminate vacancy decontrol which has allowed landlords to transfer large numbers of apartments from rent stabilization coverage to market rates.

The club also overwhelmingly passed a detailed resolution relating to the Eric Garner death, requesting that various elected officials investigate the events further and put policies and procedures in place to prevent similar episodes in the future.

Lastly, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress was addressed with a letter of support for Representative Nadler’s already stated opposition to the speech, and another letter to other elected officials requesting they oppose it also.

The next meeting will be on March 12 at the same location.

— Alec Pruchnicki

Alec Pruchnicki is a member of the executive committee of the VID.

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4 WestView News March 2015

Reform the Rent Guidelines Board New Laws for New Problems

By Council Member Corey Johnson

New York City’s 2.5 million rent-stabilized tenants have their eyes on Albany. And for good reason: our longstanding rent-stabilization laws are once again up for renewal, and they’re in the cross-hairs of Senate Republicans and deep-pocketed real estate interests.

Busloads of New Yorkers who care about affordable housing, myself included, will go to Albany this session to demand that rent-stabilization laws be strengthened—not weakened. It is a battle we must win if we want to keep New York affordable for middle and working class families.

But there is another battle brewing that we must not lose sight of: the fight for reform at the Rent Guidelines Board.

The nine member Rent Guidelines Board, empaneled 46 years ago to determine annually how much landlords can set future rents for rent-stabilized tenants, is in need of reform. It’s hard to muster a kind word about the Rent Guidelines Board. But you’ve got to hand it to them for being consistent: year after year they meet, and year after year they raise the rent on rent-stabilized tenants. Irrespective of how much landlords profit, tenants—many living on fixed incomes—are asked to pay more every year.

This must not continue. To that end, I recently introduced legislation in the City Council that calls upon Mayor de Blasio to reform the process for calculating rent increases at the Rent Guidelines Board. The Rent Guidelines Board uses unreliable data to determine landlords’ expenses. They use a measure known as the Price Index of Operating Costs. One of most important things you need to know about the Price Index is that it overestimates landlords’ expenses by as much as one third. It

also fails to consider the profits that landlords are making.

The Price Index does not measure what owners actually spend running buildings. Instead, it estimates their costs based on changes in the prices for a “market basket” of goods and services that landlords typically use without accounting for changes in behavior or conditions.

There is a better way. The Rent Guidelines Board does receive actual data on landlords’ income and expenses (I&E), from the annual filings that owners of incomeproducing property with greater than ten units must make with the Department of Finance. If the Rent Guidelines Board used this readily available, more accurate data, it would result in decisions that more accurately reflect the costs and revenues accrued by landlords.

The I&E data show that while landlords’ operating expenditures have gone up slightly in the last few years, their incomes have risen much faster. Consequently, their average net operating income has increased in each of the last seven years.

The Westchester and Nassau County Rent Guidelines Boards do not use a Price Index—and they have frozen rents several times, something the New York City board has never done. Instead, these counties require landlords to file I&E numbers every year with the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal. This spring, they will be given I&E data for 2014. New York City should do the same.

The 2.5 million rent-stabilized tenants in NYC deserve a metric that accounts for actual income and expenses—not a method that has been derided since its creation. Tenants deserve a fair shot. These reforms, if adopted, would give them a fighting chance against the real estate industry.

Science from Away:

Single Sentence Science Stories

By Mark M. Green (sciencefromaway.com) Research from the United Kingdom revealed that watching someone scratch an itch fires up itch related areas of the observer’s brain—a contagious itch, the researchers claim— which is more associated with neurotic than empathic characteristics.

As discovered by a team of Chinese and Australian researchers, a horrible looking eight-inch-long creepy crawly “Chinese red-headed centipede” makes a short peptide venom that, at least for mice, is a better painkiller than morphine, adding to the six peptides derived from other venoms which are effective painkillers already approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

An earlier study, challenged by industry, has been reproduced, demonstrating that drinking water in northeastern Pennsylvania within a kilometer of fracking wells is contaminated with hydrocarbons, including methane, at much higher concentrations than water further from the wells.

Academic researchers involved in developing materials to protect astronauts from DNA-damaging radiation in space, which would block setting up a station on Mars in 2030, claim that solving the problem is sometimes just a question of money.

Collaborative experiments conducted at the University of Warwick, Harvard University, Princeton University and the University of British Columbia, demonstrate that the stress associated with money-dependent-decision-making for poor people leads to making poor decisions arising from the “consumption of mental resources,” which is limited in all of us but not used up as quickly when money is not an issue.

Are you surprised by results of research from the London Institute of Fiscal Studies and from the Rand Corporation, reported in the April 12, 2011 issue of the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, which demonstrate that “psychological health disorders” in childhood have a much larger effect than physical disorders on adult capacity to earn money and happiness in general?

Research demonstrates that mother knows best in fruit flies and in monarch butterflies, with adult fruit flies, which have seen parasitic wasps, laying their eggs on substrates with high ethanol content, which is known to protect their offspring against infective wasp parasites, while adult butterflies infected with a protozoan lay their eggs predominantly on milkweed plants containing a toxin retarding the protozoan growth.

Swedish researchers demonstrated that a psychiatric drug, which is an environmental pollutant in waterways, causes unhealthy behavioral changes in wild perch, such as in their feeding and in the social relationships between individual perch, and that the drug studied, oxazepam, even when in minute concentrations in the water, accumulates in the fish muscle to levels causing these changes.

Greatly surprising results of research at McGill University, which appear to be important to a wide range of animal experiments, and perhaps may even have an effect on us, demonstrate that much less pain is felt in the presence of a male than a female experimenter, which is hypothesized to arise from foreign male scent associated with fear and therefore stress, which is known to repress pain.

Infanticide is widely seen in various mammals with the male’s intention to activate the female’s breeding cycle, with the most effective response by the female found to be sexual promiscuity so that no male knows if the infants are his.

By George Capsis Clicking my way through the dial after discovering nothing on 13 or 21, I stumbled on a City Hall hearing about exempting builders from real estate tax for 10 or 25 years if they build 20 % affordable apartments.

The collective conclusion was the law that is up for renewal June 15 should be dropped. According to David Jones, CEO of Community Service, the program costs the city a billion in lost revenue, but killing 421-a would mean the Department of Housing could help 100,000 poor families—many more than the 33,000 it currently supplies with vouchers.

Jones is dead against the continuation of 421-a—which he explains was started back in 1971 when construction had collapsed. By 1980, building had rallied, but real estate lobbies convinced legislators to keep the generous laws. A good law for one decade can occasion inequity in the next.

Recently, I also learned of another arcane regulation evolving from the law that was originally designed to prevent rent gouging of returning GI s. Just as the 421-a law outgrew its original purpose and became a windfall profit machine for builders, rent control and rent stabilization has frozen an aging population in place and has prevented the next generation of young West Villagers from moving in.

It is this group of bright, self-competent college grads and future leaders that I think is being ignored. They make the city great, but the exploding rents are pushing them further out into Brooklyn and beyond—or maybe not even in New York at all.

Recently, Queens Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi offered that city homelessness is accelerating as never before—the numbers are the worst since the Great Depression. Of the present 60,000 city homeless, 25,000 are children, and the numbers are growing at an alarming 20% per year. He calls it a pending disaster.

Right now we spend $1 billion taxpayer dollars via the Department of Homeless Services and “millions of additional dollars by other city and Federal agencies” to house and feed the homeless.

This leads me to ask the question, who really needs to live in New York?

If you are in your 80’s and long for the sun, should you have to stay in the West Village because you have a $500 a month rent controlled apartment? What if you could have a better $500 apartment in Florida?

If we have to spend a billion in tax dollars to house and feed 60,000 or more homeless people a year, why feed and house them in incredibly expensive New York?

We could build and house retirees in Florida for far less, and build communities in up-state New York to house the homeless, with special schools for the 25,000 homeless children.

I propose creating satellite communities in other geographical areas—like Staten Island Park City or Winter Park Florida. We could offer rent-controlled, affordable rates in these satellite communities to draw away people who are staying here because they are stuck.

If the city taxed the jump in rental prices (not simply basing the tax on the real estate value but instead on the increased rental income) as apartments were decontrolled, it could cash in on the trillion dollar real estate boom. And thousands of rent-regulated apartments would become available to find new, lower market rates.

We do not need nor do we want higher and higher buildings, nor denser and denser concentrations of them. We need a city that can accept and provide affordable apartments to the young, bright and courageous.

March 2015 WestView News 5

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Rents Jump, Income Drops Your West Village Real

By George Capsis “My landlord wants me out by March 5” were the chilling words in Carol Yost’s e-mail (below) after decades in a $500 a month rent controlled West Village apartment, and she added plaintively “I have no place to go.”

This spring the city and state will review rent-regulations—probably tightening them to protect the more than onemillion rent regulated apartments in New York and address the growing separation between the global billionaires who buy enormous apartments as investments and the increasing number who cannot make their rent even in Public Housing.

A city study reveals that the median rent for a market rate apartment in 2014 was $1,500, followed by $1,200 for a rent stabilized apartment, $900 for a rent controlled apartment, and lastly $583 for public housing.

As might be expected, aging rent control and rent stabilized tenants had no income increase over the last three years, while market rate rents went up 7.7 %. As the rent regulated tenants get older, they leave the job market and live on social security and pensions—yet 56 percent of renters pay one third of their income for rent and utilities, leaving little for food on a $1000 a month social security check.

With exploding land prices, real estate developers do not build apartments for people on social security or welfare programs, so it becomes the job of government to build for those who earn little or nothing. This is implicit in de Blasio’s 160,000 units in ten years promise.

Hi, All, After a series of deliberate deceptions and the reruns of old issues that had long since been resolved, my landlord's lawyer is telling me I have to get out by March 5th.

First, to be brief, I was contacted by the landlord to make an appointment to check my radiator to be sure it wasn't blocked. I was told all tenants were getting the same request. I had to cancel the original appointment I'd made due to illness. I called

the landlord's office, and said I had just been diagnosed with pneumonia (true); I was told to take my time and call for an appointment when I was up to it. Now, while I am much better but still needing rest, I get a letter from the lawyer saying I had "refused access" to my apartment for an inspection.

The letter mentioned things that had been resolved years before—the number of books in my apartment—after I'd sent 17 boxes of books to storage (in 2008) and, later, had given a lot to charity and recycling. Now I'm told I'm damaging the building and creating a nuisance. This without a new inspection taking place. This was all out of the blue and contrary to what the landlord's office had told me was the purpose of the appointment I was to make.

I have called the lawyer and made an appointment for Wednesday morning at 11:00 for an inspection of my apartment by an employee of the landlord. I have told the lawyer I had never refused access but had been sick. He assured me that if everything was fine as I'd said, "the landlord will be very happy" and supposedly all will be well.

Tomorrow I'll call Legal Aid, possibly the Met Council on Housing, and do some picking up around my home; can't do much. I am trying to keep calm for the sake of my health.

I pay a low rent in a high-rent area; he's tried things numerous times before but always backed down. Why does he even bother? He's saying he will terminate my tenancy March 5th. Believe that? I have nowhere to go. I will persist and, if the inspection doesn't go well for some reason, I'll fight. I've survived worse run-ins with this landlord. He's always given up rather easily, apparently because he doesn't want to go to too much trouble. Boy, does he like to saber-rattle, though!

Any advice or encouragement people have would be welcome. Sorry to bother you with this; I know others have had similar problems. It's an adventure, that's for sure.

— Carol Yost

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6 WestView News March 2015

IS YOUR DATA SAFE?

Our Homeless Neighbor The Black Bag on Charles Street

I recently caught a TV segment on the annual counting of the street homeless—we have 3,200.

Hmm, it is very cold this February, so the question is why would anybody sleep in the street? I mean, it makes sense inside the subway or Grand Central station, and I’ve even discovered people sleeping in my freezing vestibule on Charles Street—but why would anyone choose the street?

At the end of the segment I got the answer: many are mentally ill. Some years ago there was a collective decision to close many mental hospitals and force the dislocated patients to make what life they could in the real world.

This helps explain the person who sleeps in a black sleeping bag in the doorway of the Charles Street Synagogue.

Since you can call 311 and the police are supposed to do something, especially when it is very cold, I was surprised to see the familiar sleeping bag still there when it was a frightening five degrees.

I asked the President of the Synagogue about it, and he explained that he had made the decision to let the transgendered person stay.

That black bag seems an indictment.

I have to imagine that the person inside it is shattered at discovering the utter maliciousness of genetic chance and must display that pain and demand our notice.

Homelessness is not just the lack of money. And that black bag demands that we, who somehow manage to pay the rent, find a warmer doorway for the person inside.

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HOMELESS OR DRIVEN: A familiar sight at the entry of the Charles Street Synagogue

is a black sleeping bag that houses not only a homeless person but also a reminder of our own privilege. Photo by Maggie Berkvist.

March 2015 WestView News 7

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David Carr Epilogue

“We should also appreciate David Carr who did a great job of asking intelligent questions, very calm and humorous, and covering what we all wanted to know and balancing everyone.”

This was the email, from the friend who had been with me, which awaited me on February 12th when I finally arrived home from the Times Talk at the New School that Carr (left foreground) had moderated that evening. The program had given us the unique experience of listening to Edward Snowden (on screen via live video from Moscow), reminisce with Laura Poitras (maker of the documentary on his original revelations about the NSA, “Citizen Four,” which won the Oscar for Best Documentary, and is playing at the IFC on Sixth Avenue), and Glenn Greenwald (the participating journalist) about their first meetings in Hong Kong, and some of the ordeals that followed.

What my friend did not yet know—but what I had learned on my way home— was that, back at the Times, David Carr had died an hour later. So shocking, and so sad. For those of us who only knew him from his lively New York Times commentaries on show biz and the media, the outpouring from his colleagues (see below) left us even sadder—that we hadn’t had a chance to know him personally—and even more grateful that we had been there that night.

The video of the Times Talk program can be seen on http://timestalks.com/laurapoitras-glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden.html

—Maggie Berkvist Excerpts from his colleagues’ quotes : “…. His friends at the Times and beyond will remember him as a unique human being – full of life and energy, funny, loyal and lovable, An irreplaceable talent….”

Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jnr. “… a remarkable and funny man who was one of the leaders of our newsroom. … his undying passion for journalism and for truth will be missed…” Dean Baquet, the Times Executive Editor. “….His prose was a marvel of wry Midwestern plainness, sprinkled with phrases his colleagues will only ever think of as Carrisms ….” A.O.Scott, Times movie critic.

Photo by Maggie Berkvist

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8 WestView News March 2015

Nobody in Charge

By George Capsis

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Bang! Right after de Blasio suggested building 11,250 affordable apartments over the Sunny Side railroad yards in Queens a Cuomo spokesman said—whoa not so fast “the site was unavailable for any other use in the near term.” Hearing this, I thought, “what’s going on here?”

The February 12th Times sort of answered it with a front-page article Allies Perpetually at War: Cuomo and de Blasio.

They reported that, while de Blasio’s people had talked with the MTA and Amtrak, which own the yards, they did not tell the Governor’s office until the night before.

The Times goes on to tell us that “a dozen senior officials with the transportation authority, long scheduled to meet with the city about the project on February 6, abruptly pulled out.” With the suggestion of course that they got calls from the Cuomo people.

The Times then catalogues Cuomo’s ego battles with de Blasio: like Cuomo opposing deBlasio’s proposed upper income tax increases and deBlasio curbing the expansion of charter schools, and, finally, Cuomo’s “expressions of respect for Patrick J. Lynch”—the pugnacious, diminutive police union leader who announced on TV that de Blasio “had blood on his hands.”

If de Blasio and Cuomo were from different parties, or if they both planned to run for President you could understand Cuomo’s hair trigger ego, but I believe we are dealing with a near pathologic ego in Cuomo. (This is the man who stuffed my mailbox with expensive flyers to defeat Zephyr Teachout, a first time candidate with not a chance in hell of winning— how could he be so frightened?)

Though I travel through Sunnyside Yards back and forth to East Williston for Sunday dinner at Doric’s house on occasion and note the waste of 200 acres with a continuous view of the Manhattan skyline littered with construction material between the tracks and only the most aggressive toxin-tolerant weeds, the bigger lesson to learn from this ego tussle is how to get anything done wearing the prickly overcoat of conflicting interests and egos that is called democratic government.

Which brings us to pier 40.

Who, I wonder, would make the final decision to allow a skilled developer to take out a half a billion dollar bank loan and build something on the Pier that would sufficiently attract users and generate enough money to pay off that loan and the millions in lease charges over a 20-30 year time span?

We have 13 HRPT directors—five appointed some time ago by the past Governor, five by the former mayor, and 3 by a Borough President. Unfortunately at least some of them want the job because they are aiding or protecting commercial or private

interests. Most of them are real estate and sports lawyers and Wall Street types that do not appear to live in the West Village, with the exception of attorney Larry Goldberg, who does live at La Guardia Place and takes good care of the La Guardia statue.

Contrast this to the directors of the Central Park Conservancy who appear to all live on or within walking distance of that Park as well as contributing 85% of the operating Park funds.

We here in the West Village certainly don’t have the votes on the HRPT board to say “stop this nonsense and let a for-real, real estate developer come in to save the pier from dropping into the river and at least restore some of the $5 million a year in parking revenue.”

There is simply no reason why the nonpaid HRPT board should stick their necks out and vote “yes” on anything. (Remember that a lawyer’s advice to any question is “no” since if you take it he will never be proven wrong.)

This means there is no mechanism for getting a “yes” decision for inviting a developer to save and develop Pier 40. I don’t even think they have the money or will to get out another Request For Proposals.

Our only hope is default action— that is, if one of the roof slabs fell in on some parked cars and city condemned the pier, requiring all the cars with their monthly parking revenue to be driven off, like what happened when the Port Authority found the steel piles dangerously corroded. Then, the city and state would step in to fire the lot of HRPT management and put up the money to fix the pier.

The proof of this is the proposal made two years ago by Doug Durst—supported by a study conducted at his own expense—calling for a staged development starting with a program to encase the dangerously eroded piles, increasing parking and ending with offices for hi-tech companies wanting to be near Google on 15th and 9th Avenue.

They all listened politely and did nothing.

Durst tried, again at his own expense, to form a Business Improvement District in which buildings and businesses along the five mile park would agree to pay a monthly fee to provide maintenance for the Park.

Then, secretly in the wee hours, Assemblyman Dick Gottfried passed a bill in Albany to sell the air rights and the Park improvement district went up in smoke.

But wait a minute—who REALLY cares if the Hudson River Park is making money? Only the HRPT management—they care if they get their paycheck every two weeks. As long as that is happening, there is no real need to do anything and hence nothing is done.

In the meantime, two leaders who could care—de Blasio and Cuomo—are too busy tussling to see who can get credit for same sex marriage or building a bridge to Diller Island.

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10 WestView News March 2015

Towering Buildings and Tiny Apartments Offered as New York’s Future

By George Capsis In the waning days of the Bloomberg administration, the Times announced that he had lifted the restrictions on how small you could build an apartment so that an experiment could take place to build, off site, tiny pre-fabricated apartments, then truck them into the city, and stack them in place to make a very cheap, instant apartment house.

The Times recently documented the near completion of just such a building at 335 East 27th with many photos and generous copy. The building on 1st Avenue is very near 129 Lexington Avenue at 29th Street, which became our first apartment when we got married 56 years ago and in which we had our first child Athena (as I write this, it is Athena’s birthday today—happy birthday Athena.)

Now these new experimental apartments are small—between 260 and 360 square feet, the size of the walk in closet on billionaire row, but they are not so cheap—$2000 for the very small one and $3000 for the still small but bigger one.

OK our apartment at 129 Lexington was the 2nd floor back half of a brownstone built 20 wide with one bedroom and a kitchenette as you came into the door. We had an Irish bar underneath us and their kitchen roof extended way out under our windows, so we could climb outside and do charcoal cooking (My Greek father who grew up with nothing but charcoal fires wanted to know why we didn’t use the nice new gas stove). Oh, and the rent-controlled rent was $57.50.

This morning when I was discussing the idea of a 360 foot mini-apartment with neighbor Ron Morris over coffee, he surprised me by pointing out “hey, that’s smaller than this room” referring to my 20 by 20 kitchen.

The Times writer tells us that both housing advocates and developers are eyeing this experiment closely. The advocates as a

CITY OPTS FOR MICRO APARTMENTS: Over 30 builders competed in a city RFP to build

this first experimental, mini apartment building on 27th Street and First Avenue. Pre-fabricated mini- and micro mini-apartments—some as small as 250 square feet—may be the wave of the future, making up the bulk of the 160,000 apartments de Blasio is planning to build “taller and denser.” Image courtesy of Monadnock Development.

way of cheaply building for recent college grads wanting their first apartment alone and developers to, well, to do what developer’s do—make money building cheaply off site and buying as little expensive real estate as possible.

Now you have to be careful with the Times, and maybe all newspapers these days, because they have cut way back on editorial staff and buy more and more of their articles. So the writer of an article may, in reality, have been retained by a PR firm to subtly push someone’s interests.

Or, in this case, they may have been swept away by the tiny house enthusiasm that has infected popular culture, represented in a plethora of TV programs such as Tiny House Nation.

For whatever reason, our Times writer, Natalie Shutler is all out for tiny apartments, and neglecting the primary rule of journalism to tell both sides fairly, she cites

only the positive. The city agencies, architects, builders and people living in tiny apartments she mentions are in love with the idea of micro mini-apartments.

There is a longish paragraph on 27-yearold Kelli Okuji, who lives in a renovated hotel room of 313 feet square with a Murphy bed and a rent of $2600 a month.

Okuji is happy because she got away from three roommates. Her one negative comment seems a throw-away—she thinks the bathroom is too small and the sink too tiny.

Shutler does admit that the current zoning that does not allow for tiny apartments goes back to “1987 to prevent a return to the days of the overcrowded tenement.”

But she also quotes mini-apartment architect Eric Bunge, who says the family size apartments built after the war are an “historic aberration” that have influenced “how much space we think we need.”

Interestingly, she does not ask anyone

about what has influenced the size of those closets on billionaire row that could house one or two of these micro mini-apartments.

Shutler goes on to quote Sarah Watson of Citizen Planning and Housing Council: “The many two and four bedroom units on the rental market better respond to the housing market of the 1950’s” when apartments were “designed for families.” That doesn’t match our family’s experience. We had Athena in a one-bedroom apartment, but moved to a three-bedroom house on Charles Street to have Ariadne and Doric, with a garden out back for them to play.

And as I look around my kitchen, I’m not sure I agree that my ideas about space have been unduly influenced by the apartment we outgrew as Bunge suggests.

It is when Shutler cites several authorities as concluding that zoning laws are “old-fashioned” that I think we are getting close to her real argument.

She discusses the “illegal housing underground” that already exists with “widespread flouting of the law” such as apartments occupied by “three people who are not related.” Then she moves on to the story of developer Mathew Baron who wants to be allowed to build two and three-person apartments with 250 feet per person, arguing, like Shutler has, that “people are already living this way.”

In essence, this article is an argument to change the zoning laws so developers can build cheap mini-apartments and get the same rents they could get in the larger legal size apartments that our zoning laws now demand. Believe me, if they were suggesting a return to the $57.50 I paid on Lexington, or truly affordable housing, my opinion would be much different.

If you wondered what de Blasio means when he says that in order to build 160,000 apartments in ten years we have to build “taller and denser” now you know how.

The word taller is pretty clear, but the word “denser” means apartments under 400 square feet.

Hudson River Park—Where Have All the Voices Gone

By Arthur Schwartz There is no question that the creation of Pier 55 was one of the most secretly managed modifications of public space ever accomplished in NYC. It is a project which has been years in the making, and which, when announced, was so far along that the communities it is designed to serve were told “take it or take it.”

The process was horrific. It was horrific because the community played no role in the design of the space, which will probably look hideous from the shoreline, even if beautiful

once inside. But even more so, if the master negotiators, who apparently got the Diller/ Von Furstenberg duo to move from $25 million to $115 million, and possibly more, had consulted the community, there may have been some far more constructive and creative ways to spend all of that money.

I don’t need to rewrite what George Capsis and others write elsewhere in this newspaper, but as a founding Board member of Friends of Hudson River Park, which was founded as an advocacy and fundraising group—and has now morphed into the cheerleading and fundraising arm of the Hudson River Park Trust—it is

clear that a critical voice has been lost. If it weren’t for Friends and the folks who started it, there wouldn’t be fields at Pier 40, there would be garbage trucks perpetually at the Gansevoort Peninsula, and tourist helicopters landing non-stop at the 26th Street Heliport.

The original Friends never feared being critical of the Hudson River Park Trust, forced debate over key issues, made sure that the process of developing the Park was a public process, and, when necessary, sued the Trust to make sure that the Trust enforced the provisions of the Hudson River Park Act. But four years

ago, Friends ousted Al Butzel, its founding President and guiding light, along with most of the activists on the Board, after Trust President Diana Taylor threatened to start a rival group to raise money for the Park. So now Friends has galas which cost oodles of money to attend, and a critical, activist voice has been lost. It is a voice which would be very useful as the Pier 55 adventure moves forward.

Arthur Schwartz is the former Chair of the Community Board 2 Waterfront Committee and a founding member of Friends of Hudson River Park.

March 2015 WestView News 11

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Remembering the Automat

By George Capsis When the not-so-young man behind the counter of the Bridgehampton nursery informed me that a tiny bottle of liquid plant food would cost $11.50, and I said “I could have eaten at the Automat for a month on $11.50,” and then he said “What’s the Automat?” I knew I was old!

Yes, if you are under forty you too may not know what the Automat was, but it was where everybody, rich or poor, ate because the food was so predictably tasty, fresh and cheap.

When you walked in you were met by a matron behind a brownish Italian marble counter whose rubber tipped fingers threw out 20 nickels for your dollar bill with astonishing speed and accuracy.

The word “Automat” came from the wall of small chrome windows that ringed the restaurant, behind which there could be a sandwich, a piece of pie, or a cod fish cake with a little jar of tomato sauce. You inserted the required number of nickels and turned the knob to have the door flip open with a click. (The codfish cake was two nickels, coconut custard pie three, and delicious always fresh coffee just one.)

There was also a long steam table where you could assemble a hot lunch with vegetables perfectly cooked to se-

cretly held formulas. I can remember the tastes even now.

One of my favorites was mashed and pureed sweet potatoes with a visible swirl of brown sugar— delicious but on occasion, when sweet potatoes went out of season, the price would double from five cents to ten, and I would of course hold off till it returned to a nickel.

To write this piece I Googled the Automat’s history and learned, not surprisingly, that it had its origin in a Berlin automated cafeteria that was recreated in Philadelphia in 1902 by Joseph Hart and German-born Frank Hardart. It was always known as the Horn and Hardart Automat (indeed we sometimes would say, “Meet you at Horn and Hardart’s.”)

The Automats were everywhere, with a big one in Times Square which of course became a mecca for tourists, but my favorite was the one on 57th Street, not too far from Carnegie Hall. I would take Audrey there for Sunday lunch for under a dollar (that is for both of us,) then to Carnegie Hall where we could sit in the front row with a one-dollar student ticket, and then I would take her home to Queens on the subway (five cents) for a date that cost less than three dollars.

People with no job or no family, or both, would come in and sit at a table to read the paper, sometimes timidly strik-

FIFTY CENTS FOR LUNCH: for decades the Automat provided New Yorkers a delicious

meal for less than fifty cents and a place to hang out and meet friends over a five cent cup of coffee.

ing up a conversation with the more purposeful transients. Some tables would become theirs unofficially, and they got to know one another while listening to each other’s complaints, impatient to air their own.

If you were really poor you could make a free glass of lemonade by taking out the cut

lemons from the waiting ice tea glasses and squeezing them into one glass with free sugar and water.

So perhaps now you know why I am struck with disbelief when I discover on my restaurant check that I have just paid $16 for a glass of wine, or that 4 ounces of plant food is $11.50.

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12 WestView News March 2015

And the Beat Goes On:

Greenwich House Unveils Community Concert Series

By Joseph Salas After the unprecedented success of 2014’s Café Au Go Go Revisited, Greenwich House Music School has unveiled its new community concert series, Uncharted, that features high-caliber artists debuting first-time performances of new work or new collaborations.”This series is designed to offer a safe place for artists to take risks,” says series curator Jennie Wasserman.

“Every evening we are inviting the audience into the ground floor of the artistic process, which is sure to be a HIGH CALIBER ARTISTS DEBUTING FIRST-TIME PERFORrevelatory experience” Was- MANCES: Dap King Binky Griptite is one of the headserman continued. “Each lines at Uncharted, a new concert series for new music performer was asked to take at Greenwich House Music School. Image courtesy of a chance on a project that Greenwich House. they feel passionate about.

In some cases, performers posed music from Prophetika: An Oratorio. have chosen to play music in the style of Asked about her inclusion in Uncharted, an artist that has inspired them. Some of Younger said she is “thrilled that Greenthese concerts present unlikely duets with wich House is presenting an entire series artists collaborating for the first time. dedicated to new works and new projects.

Others will see the premiere of new al- It’s so rare, as a professional, to be allowed bums.” to step outside the boundaries of what’s

Uncharted artists cover a broad range of genres, from jazz to R&B, folk to pop, performance art to global rock.

The impressive lineup features New York locals and international stars, including Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings lead guitarist Binky Griptite Uncharted artists cover a broad range of genres, from jazz to R&B, folk to pop, performance art to global rock. The impressive lineup features New York locals and international stars, including Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings lead guitarist Binky Griptite exploring the music of the Delta Blues, acclaimed solo artists Marc Ribot and Emeline Michel premiering a piece featuring the music of the great Haitian composer and performer Frantz Casseus, and multi-hyphenate performance artist-actress-composer-musician Cynthia Hopkins’ first look at her new in-progress piece The Alcoholic Movie Musical, among others.

The inaugural season kicks off on March 12 with harpist and Music School faculty Brandee Younger. Classically trained, Younger blurs the line between jazz and hip-hop, having worked with such jazz luminaries as Jack DeJohnette and Ravi Coltrane and well known producers Common and Talib Kweli. At Uncharted, Younger will debut newly com-

expected of you. I can’t wait for this opportunity to try something new.”

As a forum for new music, this year’s Uncharted is also dedicated to the legacy of German Diez, the recently passed chair of Greenwich House Music School’s piano department. For over sixty years, Mr. Diez was a bastion of the piano department at Greenwich House, where he encouraged students to develop their skills and find new mediums for their talents. “With this series of first-time performances, we celebrate Mr. Diez and all the music teachers and artists who seek to find new talent and new skills in previously uncharted worlds,” said Rachel Black, Greenwich House Music School Director.

Uncharted runs Thursdays, March 12 through April 30th. All show times are at 8:00 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $25 dollars and include complimentary beer and wine before and during performances. For tickets and more information, visit greenwichhouse.org/uncharted.

March 2015 WestView News 13

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West Village Original: Salvador Peter Tomas

By Michael D. Minichiello

This month’s West Village Original is opera singer, narrator, actor, and director Salvador Peter Tomas. Born in Pass Christian, Mississippi in 1920, Tomas is an alumnus of The Juilliard School, Trinity College in London, and the Fontainebleau School in France. As an opera singer, his repertoire includes standard bass baritone roles, and as a narrator, he narrated Honegger’s “Le roi David” for over twenty years in recital halls and theatres around the country.

When he was seven years old, Salvador Peter Tomas’ mother—in response to his father’s affair with a local woman and the ensuing scandal—whisked him and his six sisters to New York City. “It was a good reason to leave,” Tomas says.

“We were part of the exodus leaving a South full of violent racial prejudice. I don’t even remember preparing to leave; it was so sudden. The traumatic thing that has colored my whole life is saying goodbye to my father on the train. I said to him, ‘I’ll never see you again!’ That happened to be true.

After that, I was looking for my father all of my life.”

Tomas’ mother eventually bought a house in Queens where they settled down and he could pursue his joy of singing. “I was always singing,” he says. “I was in the glee club, the drama club, and in operettas throughout junior and high school.” After his WWII service in Europe where he was part of the Signal Corps attached to aviation, Tomas took advantage of the G.I. Bill to attend Trinity College in London and study voice and drama. “I was in a graduation performance at Trinity and I was so well received,” he says. “They said to me, ‘We didn’t think you could do it.’ That was a nice compliment! People were always telling me they didn’t think I could do it. It was because I got roles that were not ordinarily assigned to a person of color.”

Aside from having the talent, how did he manage to land those roles? “Because I went into the arts, music, and opera, I always associated with people who are on the better side of living,” he explains. “They have access to more money, more education, and to each other’s help. So they helped me as well.” It was this combination of people taking an interest in him and then using their influence that advanced Tomas’ career. “That’s how I got a scholarship to Fontainebleau,” he says. “And it was the interest of people at Juilliard that gave me the opportunity to narrate almost 100 performances of Le roi David over the years. I made a career just out of that. Don’t get me wrong. There are crappy people everywhere. But that’s the wonderful thing about being a human being. You never know when you’re going to find another fantastic one!”

Tomas moved into Westbeth when it opened in 1970 and remembers a different world. “It was a run down waterfront, just like Marseille,” he says. “A no man’s land. The elevated highway was still there and the gay traffic was incredible. There were bars on 14th Street, lots of clubs and

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Peter Tomas (above) first arrived to the West Village in 1970, “it was a rundown waterfront..a no man’s land.”

Photo by Maggie Berkvist.

a huge multi-level gay disco just a couple of blocks from here. Although the piers were boarded up they would always be broken into and orgies went on in them. Then there were the parked trucks down here where guys would carry on as well. For myself, I never overdid anything, and I mostly kept away from that.”

It wasn’t just the gay scene, though, that characterized the area. “Artists from all over the city came to the Village and to Westbeth in particular,” Tomas says. “They made it a very lively, buzzing place. Many people were able to function, blossom, and realize their own potential without the pressure of earning lots of money. And the landlords left you alone when they thought their property was not worth anything.”

How is it different now? “Suddenly, these same landlords only want people with a lot of money and those aren’t struggling artists. And the landlords won because the story of the West Village—and all New York—is real estate. It’s become a rich man’s paradise.” Yet Tomas still manages to find a vestige of the area he moved into 45 years ago. “It’s great. It’s the Village and it’s New York! People have been able to have a decent life and feel like they’re in a small town. I still love it and I’ve been here a long time.” He pauses for a second. “Although age does not go without retribution from Mother Nature. She’s causing me a lot of problems!” he says, laughing.

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14 WestView News March 2015

Look Up!

By Keith Michael

I’m looking down at the sidewalk, scuffing my feet along the ice. Millie is snuffling beside me taking corgi-steps so small she’s practically moving backwards. She scales the Everests and McKinleys of the snow piles to dodge the salt flats of our morning trek around the block.

The Blue Jays are the first to entice my eyes up above the barren tundra of the sidewalk.

Though it’s really my ears that “listen up,” noticing the falderal of their got-out-on-thewrong-side-of-the-bed braying. Somehow the wrong side seems to be the only side of the bed that Blue Jays ever get out on. One Jay flies silhouetted across the blinding reflection of the sun off of the south Meier tower, and a second follows—both in rowdy pursuit of their morning coffee.

Sparrows are scavenging through an overturned garbage can by the curb, while above, a Mockingbird with his gray-and-white territorial flash chases a Robin through the trees. The guarding of the remaining Callery pears has been fierce this winter—so many got eaten in November and December that very few remain for these hard times of February and March.

Every fire escape, balcony, cornice, chimney and water tower gets my attention as I look for wintering hawks. Score! There. On the gaudy pink top of the Palazzo Chupi. An

AS IF PAINTED WITH THE EXAGGERATED COLORS OF 18th CENTURY PORCELAIN: An

American Kestral looking for breakfast. Photo by Keith Michael.

equally gaudy gentleman American Kestral.

Against the breathtakingly blue winter sky this guy seems to have been painted with the exaggerated colors of 18th century porcelain—russet and azure with dashes of white and black, the sun dappling on the gold leaf filigree. I look down to check the settings on my camera, and by the time I look back up, Mr. Kestral has dived off of his aerial perch and, nearly instantaneously, I hear the startled scream of a Starling under the eaves across the street. For that Starling this morning began and ended so quickly.

Millie, pawing chest-deep in the snow, is oblivious as a dark feather settles beside her with its shadow of mortality. She too is just

looking for breakfast.

To try to cheer myself, I look up to the flagpole at Westbeth. The bronze ball at the top has recently been a perch for a Redtailed Hawk. Not this morning. I like to think that that hawk is one of last summer’s youngsters from the Washington Square nest. Wouldn’t it be nice if the West Village got its own resident pair? Could someone please hang up a shingle: Balcony Available—Red-tails Inquire Without.

As we turn the corner, of course, I’m always looking and listening for the transient Ravens. Since my “nevermore” sighting of that dastardly pair back in August, I have seen a Raven twice again: on a lamppost at

West and Charles Streets as well as a brief flyover at Seventh and Greenwich Avenues.

Nevermore has softened into maybe-more.

Millie pulls around the next corner. We’re on the home sprint now—which means that our forward progression is more of a global warming version of glacial. There’s a merrygo-round of pigeons circling above us. However, they’re not so merry as they go frantically round trying to stay a (literally) lively distance ahead of a tailing long-tailed Cooper’s Hawk.

The Cooper seems to put on the brakes banking a curve; the pigeons disperse and the hawk flies off east on his own—probably to try his luck with the pigeon flock around the 12th Street subway entrance—a familiar drama on my morning commute.

Mid-block we pass the nest, barely above head height, that was home to a Cardinal family. What had been a full-fledged nursery last summer is now barely a pen-andink sketch snagged on a branch.

As we round the final corner, a phalanx of five crows patrols the air rights above Perry Street, and higher, nearly out of sight, motes of gulls disappear into the blue. A Tufted Titmouse across the street complains about the cold as Millie closes the gap between her nose and our front door.

I look down, taking off my mismatched gloves to get out my keys.

For more information about nature walks, books and photographs, visit www.keithmichaelnyc.com.

March 2015 WestView News 15

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Eating on The Upholstery

Voices of Ascension “TWO OYSTERS” IN FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS: Oyster combinations included passion fruit

and seaweed, cucumber and mint, to uni and caviar -- four very interesting bites. Photo by David Porat.

By David Porat Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner and Wallsé have been in the very west village for almost as long as I can remember—seems like going on 20 years. It enjoys a very good reputation as do other outposts including one in the Neue Galerie that attracts afternoon visitors who enjoy coffee and some of the best desserts in New York.

I was naturally interested in checking out their expanded wine bar and restaurant curiously called Upholstery Store Food and Wine, partly due to their predecessor in the space. I visited recently on a quiet Tuesday night which turned out to be more interesting than I had expected.

Shortly after sitting down and meeting my friend Paul Neuman, of Neuman’s Kitchen catering, a gentleman came to the table and asked if he could ask us a few questions. We said sure but the first one was: is it ok to use us in a column in The New York Times called At the Table. I did not know of the column that appears on Sundays in the Metropolitan section. In it, they profile two people eating out, often at a new restaurant, and speak a bit about them, why they came and what they are eating. Sure enough on Sunday Feb. 15 there we were, each getting a bit of publicity—which was a good thing in both our cases. I will now be looking out for this in the Metropolitan section. (Previously I had overlooked it since I read the Times online and don’t always find my way that deep inside.)

Dinner was multi-coursed and well presented, as well as enthusiastically served. We did start with “Two Oysters” in four different ways, each $7 for a pair. Yes, the real way to eat oysters is with very little distraction, but in this case the presentation was impressive, a bit over the top and it made for four very interesting bites to start the meal with.

The oyster combos included passion fruit and seaweed, cucumber and mint and went beyond to uni and caviar.

We followed that with the Lobster Roll and Tuna Ceviche with Blood Oranges and Wasabi Tuile, both were good, neither overly stood out as outstanding. We continued with two items from the “Hot” section of the menu, and they were Shrimp Noodle and Venison. The first was a non-ramen take on the ramen craze, it was again beautifully presented, but was a relatively small portion of a shrimp noodle soup with a “small” egg in it. The venison, a very artfully constructed plate, was tender and rich tasting with a nice mixture of mushrooms and blackberries. We also had the caraway rolls and brussels sprouts.

Started and running for a while as a wine bar before expanding to serve food very recently, wine is taken seriously there. Many are available by the glass as well as other libations including some good beers. Desserts for us included a Chocolate Pot de Creme, an Almond Tart, and a Baked Apple with goat cheese. The apple in particular stood out. It was a half apple, not a big portion— but a beautifully baked half apple that was gently and nicely spiced with a side smear of a soft and tangy goat cheese.

The restaurant has a casual weeknight sort of feel about it; it is off the beaten track and the space is a bit awkward, with a wall separating two halves of the restaurantbar. I had hoped for a more casual feel in the menu and maybe more of an Austrian flavor similar to its big brother around the corner. We were certainly well looked after, in part because we were chosen by the restaurant for The New York Times piece. The menu is hard to pin down, it is a little bit fussy with coordinating prices and yet it has a snack type quality about it with its cold, hot, cheese and snack sections—which was more what I was hoping for.

Upholstery Store Food and Wine.

713 Washington Street.

212 929-6384 kg-ny.com/the-upholstery-store

Mozart Requiem & CoRonation mass Thursday March 12, at 8:00pm Church of the Ascension Fifth Avenue at Tenth Street Pureum Jo, soprano Joseph Dennis, tenor

Teresa Buchholz, mezzo-soprano Joseph Beutel, bass

Dennis Keene Artistic Director Tickets at www.voicesofascension.org or 212.358.7060

Tuesday, March 31, 2015 Metropolitan Pavilion

Greenwich Village’s premier food festival returns with more than 30 top-tier restaurants serving up special dishes from their menus.

www.greenwichhouse.org/taste

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16 WestView News March 2015

Walk About New York:

From Communion to Condo, Part Two Churches Are Born Again as Luxury Homes

Now at a new location, the church would be known as the Washington Square Methodist Episcopal Church. Its congregation was scattered amongst New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Elizabeth, and Hoboken.

Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church, located at Washington Square East and West Fourth Street, was also housed in a building of the popular 19th-century Gothic Revival style. The congregations of the two churches merged on October 9, 1893; the Asbury Church’s stone building was sold, and within two years it was demolished. Money from the sale was used to support charities that both churches favored.

Since its founding, the Washington Square Methodist Episcopal Church was known as a quiet place of worship...

Since its founding, the Washington Square Methodist Episcopal Church was known as a quiet place of worship; the congregation and its pastors were in harmony, as was the church with the community. With the dawn of the 20th century, the church’s reputation would change, by jumping headfirst into politics. The problem of “demon rum” was the first the church would try to solve.

The South New-York Christian Temperance Union began using the church for A QUIET PLACE OF WORSHIP: The façade of the Washington Square United Methodist Church is divided into three bays; four slim pilasters, capped by marble finials, define the side its meetings in 1900. The church’s leader, two. The leafy trees of Washington Square Park can be seen on the on the far right. Automo- the Rev. Andrew B. Wood, served as asbiles of 1920s vintage are parked along West Fourth Street opposite the church. sistant superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League. Rev. Wood believed that prohibiBy Phil Desiere plans to build a new house of worship. tion would improve labor conditions and Shelter Island native Gamaliel King reduce unemployment.

By 1859, Washington Square’s transition (1795–1875) was chosen as the architect.

America’s entry into World War II won from a potter’s field to military parade Mr. King had designed the Brooklyn City the support of the church. It stated that ground to a public park was complete. An Hall in 1845, and would go on to design peace was always preferable, but standing by upscale residential enclave bordering the several churches in the city of Brooklyn. in the face of evil could not be an option. park had been developing since the late He successfully melded Gothic and Ro- Later, the church’s opposition to American 1820s. The merchants and bankers were manesque Revival styles for Dr. Shelling’s involvement in Vietnam earned it the longabout to get a new neighbor. project. White marble was selected to clad lasting nickname, “The Peace Church.”

From only one member in 1842, the Sul- the building’s exterior. With his interior arBy the mid-20th century, Greenwich livan Street Methodist Episcopal Church rangements, Mr. King caused great alarm Village in general and Washington Square had grown to more than 200 by 1859. among the congregants. They feared that in particular had drastically changed in the Larger accommodations were needed for the galleries, the first in New York installed 100 years since the Washington Square this expanding congregation. Its pastor, without visible means of support, would United Methodist Church opened its Dr. Shelling, bought the land at Nos. 133 fall to the ground. They did not. doors The population of the Village was and 135 West Fourth Street, off WashThe church was completed in two years at heavily Italian Catholic, and it had become ington Square in 1859. He put in motion a cost of $80,000, equal to $1.4 million today. the center of New York’s gay community.

Corner Bistro

Landmark Village Bar

$2.50 Mugs of McSorley’s Ale Best Hamburger in New York!

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By 1962 membership had dwindled to only 50, and there was little hope for its future because it numbered no young adults in its small group.

The congregation kept true to its cornerstone beliefs of equal rights and political justice. There was no better example of this than its reaction to its new leader, the Rev. Paul M. Abels. He assumed his position in 1973; four years later Rev. Abels declared that he was gay. The general reaction within the larger Methodist Church was shock; but he had 100 percent support from his congregation. Rev. Abels began conducting covenant ceremonies for gay couples, who were legally barred from marriage.

Abels’s service to the community and the church was outstanding. His critics ignored this fact, and turned instead to the Bible’s admonishment against homosexuality. They insisted that he be dismissed. At the regional New York Annual Conference, the vote favored the minister. The local bishop appealed to United Methodism’s highest court, the National Judicial Council—in 1979 it ruled that Abels should remain as pastor.

Abel flung himself into action, benefitting the church and the community. He launched a $1.5 million building restoration fundraising campaign, and he saw to it that the Harvey Milk School for gay teens could conduct classes in the church. Rev. Abel retired in 1984.

Twenty years later, the struggling congregation could not continue; the church was sold. Because it sits within the Greenwich Village Historical District, its new owner was prohibited from demolishing the building; two years later the pre-Civil War interiors had been gutted and the building had been converted into eight luxury condominiums.

As an example of how much Greenwich Village has changed, let’s consider the threebedroom and two-and-a-half bath penthouse duplex in the former church. The 3,500-square foot apartment boasts a twentyfoot vaulted ceiling with original wood timber beams. The floors are made of Brazilian walnut, and a floating chrome staircase leads upstairs. The kitchen is outfitted with Boffibrand appliances. The socially conscientious congregation, with its emphasis on helping those without, would be dismayed at best to learn what has been done for the one percent.

March 2015 WestView News 17

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The Greatest Evil:

Early History of Tenements in New York (Part One)

By Brian Pape The 1811 Grid.

“The greatest evil which ever befell New York City was the division of the blocks into 25 feet by 100 feet. So true is this that no other disaster can for a moment be compared to it. Fires, pestilence and financial troubles are nothing in comparison, for from this division has arisen the New York system of tenement houses, the worst curse which ever afflicted any great community.”

—Architect and reformer Ernest Flagg, 1894.

By the time Mr. Flagg wrote these alarming messages about tenement housing conditions, there were already 35,000 tenement buildings in Manhattan, and by 1890, there were 43,000, and another 34,000 of them in Brooklyn. In a city where 97% were renters, two-thirds of all residents lived in tenements.

As early as 1833, small building lots, meant for single-family homes and small shops, were seeing the development of taller, 4- to 6-story buildings to meet the needs of the growing city. At a time when only the lower-income classes dwelt in multi-family buildings, these new, taller buildings were cheap to build, cheap to maintain, and utilized space very efficiently. Lacking any zoning laws or uniform building codes, builders were able to fill the site from side to side, leaving only a small backyard for privies.

Tenements were defined as multi-family buildings rented to three or more families, each having independent cooking facilities and sleeping quarters. To maximize space, the typical tenement was laid out with four apartments of three rooms each.

These buildings were truly cookie-cutter

THE FIFTH FLOOR WAS CHEAPER: From the wave of immigrants, starting in the 1860’s, the

classic five-story tenement spread from the Lower East Side up and out to the boroughs.

Developers squeezed in a sixth floor by introducing a staircase to the first. Photo on right

by Brian J. Pape.

structures, perhaps patterned after similar buildings in London, but probably built from stock building plans.

Builders of even limited means took great pride in their accomplishments, and would not think of constructing even a utilitarian building without ornamentation. According to a study by the Tenement Museum, by the time Lucas Glockner built his first tenement at 97 Orchard St. in 1863-64, standardized windows, doors, lumber and trims of sheet metal or cast clay were readily available.

Mr. Glockner was one of the many Germans to arrive in the first wave of immigration and, led by his desire to be a landowner in the new country, built this building for his family with rooms for other renters. He applied the prevailing style of architecture, the

late Victorian or Italianate style, and went on to build other tenements. This style was so prevalent that we can find nearly identical examples throughout NYC. The Immigration Flood

What started out as a response to a growing demand for starter housing had, by 1870, become a social, political, economic, health and safety dilemma.

Many histories and exposés have been written about the slum conditions within tenement neighborhoods, and the historic Lower East Side of Manhattan is the most well-known and well-deserved focus. In the 1890s, the Lower East side was the most densely populated neighborhood anywhere in the world, with a density of

about 1,089 persons per acre.

The first big wave of immigration consisted mainly of German and Irish from 1840 on. Between 1855 and 1890, Castle Garden (New York State’s official Immigration Center, now called Castle Clinton) registered 8 million immigrants. From 1892 to 1954, the federal immigration center at Ellis Island processed 12 million people. In addition, immigrants from the north and south traveled overland to New York City, drawn by jobs and commercial opportunities.

The city was compact, with residences and factories in close quarters. Most immigrants came with very little, and would take whatever jobs were offered, in close proximity to where they landed. The tenements in the city were a vast improvement over the ramshackle wooden houses scattered around the city. For many immigrants, the tenements may have been better than the homes they left in the “old country,” even though most tenements had no running water (until the 1880s), indoor toilets (until the 1890s), nor electricity (until the 1910s).

As George Capsis recalls, “Half a century ago, I visited Jonas and Adolphus Mekas at 95 Orchard Street and witnessed them pull out an ice pick wedged into a cold water pipe in the ceiling to shower standing in a chipped porcelain pan.” This was the primitive bathing arrangement for this “cold-water flat” even in the 1950’s.

Look for Part Two—describing the Fight to Reform and Tenements Today— in the next issue.

The Tenement Museum is at 97 Orchard Street, and their visitors’ center and offices are nearby. Call (212) 431-0233, or visit www.tenement.org for more information.

Brooklyn, I’m Not Mad, Just Don’t Ask Me To Visit.

By John Barrera A few years back I became very resentful of the Brooklyn Renaissance. Besides losing friends to cheaper rents and bigger spaces, it seemed like all the articles related to food and beverage were about Brooklyn. I just felt like Brooklyn was having all the fun.

When I first started writing this article, it was going to be about how Manhattan, particularly the West Village, was losing its creative bent. How the food scene was leaving the West Village because of the high rents and bigger spaces across the East River. The more I thought about the food scene in the West Village, the more I realized I would be selling my village short. So here are a few places that I think represent the creativity and style of the West Village. And I’m sure as you read this article you’ll be thinking of many more.

Sometimes I think Jody Williams is in my

head when it comes to food. Her small plates of high-quality, great-tasting food, along with wine that complements the flavors she’s created, is how I want to eat. From my first bite at Gottino’s seven years ago to the last time I ate at Buvette, it’s like she knows what I want for dinner. Now she has opened Via Carota along with Rita Sodi of I Sodi and, although I haven’t eaten there, I’m thinking about it.

Ramen seems to be all the craze here and in every other borough. On Greenwich Avenue there happens to be a very good place for ramen—Nui Noodle House. Pick up some or get it delivered. The ramen won’t disappoint and the packaging is impressive.

Mighty Quinn BBQ is in Brooklyn and New Jersey and has three locations in Manhattan. The BBQ is excellent, but their wings are the best I’ve ever eaten, period. End of story.

I love a good Bloody Mary and Jeffery’s Grocery does a very good one, but what

makes theirs stand out is they serve it with a small beer chaser. The server told me this is a Midwestern thing, and if you’ve ever needed a Mary on a Sunday morning, the only thing that makes it better is a short cold beer.

BYOB makes for a nice time at Tartine, but have you had the croissants? I was in Paris this past summer and when I returned to Tartine’s croissants, I felt like I never skipped a beat.

Burgers abound everywhere—three come to mind right off the top. Of course The Corner Bistro, what makes their burger special for me is the McSorley’s on tap. I also enjoy the White Horse Tavern burger. But my favorite West Village burger is at Tavern on Jane. Besides the bun and the burgers doing their job, the fries are freshly made and the coleslaw is very good. If you’re going to make coleslaw, make it good.

I know I have not even scratched the surface of all the great dining experiences in the

West Village, but I’ve mentioned enough to prove I don’t have to cross the Williamsburg bridge to find interesting, high-quality and most importantly, tasty cuisine. It was right here in my back yard all along.

If you would like to email me some of your favorite culinary gems in the West Village please do so at johnbarrera8@gmail.com, I would love to hear about them. Please help me avoid Brooklyn.

Food/Wine/Buzz Fact: The name Corned Beef comes from the corn kernel size and shape of the salt used to preserve the beef at one time.

Correction: Last month I wrote the Hamilton Soda Fountain was owned by Matt Coutinho—this was incorrect. The owner is his wife Chrysalis Coutinho and Matt’s name is Matthew Paratore. Stop by, say hi, and don’t miss the egg creams.

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18 WestView News March 2015

The Jefferson Market Courts—A Timeline (Part Two) the same name but with five independent justices appointed by the Mayor. The court was to sit monthly. It could try all misdemeanor cases coming before it from preliminary hearings in the magistrates’ courts except libel.

Every trial still needed three justices.

However, because the court did not sit daily, as did the magistrates courts, a defendant who could not raise bail could be in jail for up to three weeks awaiting a trial.

So in 1915, the state allowed criminal court magistrates to sit on their own as a Court of Special Sessions in certain cases and so relieve congestion. Jefferson Market magistrates began to do so. This practice continued until the courthouse closed in 1946.

In its penultimate year the court processed 1,992 cases as a Court of Special Sessions.

By Clive I. Morrick Part One noted that there were courts at what is now our branch library for 100 years, beginning in 1845. It traced the history of the criminal court (1845-1946) and the civil court (1848-1907).

Part Two looks at the Women’s Court (1910-1943) and the Court of Special Sessions (1915-1946).

Most of the changes described below were the result of New York State laws because these courts were created by statute.

The Women’s Court

In 1907, the City’s first night session of the criminal court opened at the Jefferson Market courthouse. (The Frederick Clark Withers-designed building opened in 1877.) Its purpose was to allow those arrested after court hours to appear in court without spending a night in jail.

On June 25, 1910, night court split into two: one for women at Jefferson Market and one for men as well as men and women arrested in joint enterprises, at 151 East 57th Street.

The Jefferson Market Night Court was named the Women’s Court and it heard prostitution-related cases and preliminary hearings in shoplifting charges. The court opened at 8:00 PM and remained open until at least 1:00 AM. The legislation setting up the Women’s Court required a place of detention convenient to night court. Withers’ prison was right next door.

The driving force behind the Women’s Court was the problem of station-house bond. The police kept women arrested on morals charges in custody overnight at the police station unless they got bail. This led to corrupt deals between arresting police officers and bail bondsmen.

In 1918, the state allowed the City’s Board of Magistrates to change the Women’s Night Court to a daytime court. Night court had become a spectacle with the public treating it as an entertainment venue.

THE WOMEN’S HOUSE OF DETENTION, 1938: Friends and relatives conducted shouting

street-dialogues with the inmates above. Photo: Courtesy of essential-architecture.com

The Women’s Court at Jefferson Market now heard all charges against women. It was located on the second floor, along with the probation office, fingerprint room, judges’ chambers, and a medical office where women convicted of prostitution had to undergo examinations for venereal disease.

For some years a group of six women lawyers provided free representation in the Women’s Court. They included Anna Kross (then Moscowitz), later to become a magistrate of the Women’s Court and later still Commissioner of Corrections, and Jean Norris. In October 1919, Norris became the first woman to be appointed as a New York City magistrate.

She sat in the Women’s Court. She developed a reputation as a caring jurist, often visiting the families of the young women who came before her.

But despite its good intentions the Women’s Court had a checkered history.

One scholar has called it a notorious court, ridden with scandal. Over the next decade rumors about corruption circulated.

In 1930, an assistant district attorney blew the whistle. On West 10th Street, opposite the courthouse, was a “Lawyer’s

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Row” of offices shared with bail bondsmen.

Police would make arrests for prostitution and share the bail (often excessive) with the bondsmen, who in turn referred the women to lawyers. Lawyers shared their exorbitant fees with prosecutors who would present weak evidence leading to acquittals.

The subsequent investigation was the downfall of Magistrate Norris. On June 25, 1931, she was removed from her position on proof that she had falsified a trial record, held an undisclosed interest in a company that insured bail bonds, advertised a yeast product while posing in judicial robes, and convicted a young woman on insufficient evidence.

The Women’s Court remained at Jefferson Market until 1943, when it moved to 100 Centre Street. The City finally abolished it on September 18, 1967.

The Court of Special Sessions

The original Court of Special Sessions, dating from 1800, was a court of three justices who were members of the legislature, plus the Mayor. This court tried most misdemeanors. There was no jury.

In 1895, the state replaced it with a court of

The Women’s House of Detention

In 1927, the Corrections Department began planning a new prison for the Jefferson Market site to house women awaiting trial or sentenced to less than one year’s imprisonment. On May 4, 1929, the last 100 prisoners (all women) in the 1877 prison were transferred elsewhere. By October, demolition of the old prison and the market was underway.

On April 3, 1930, Mayor Walker laid the cornerstone of what would be known as the “Women’s House of Detention at Jefferson Market.” He claimed it would be “the most humane building ever constructed in the City.” The 11-story prison opened on March 29, 1932, and received its first detainees on May 1.

Perhaps Mayor Walker’s boast was just hyperbole. After years of complaints about conditions, the prison closed on June 13, 1971, its occupants moving to the new women’s prison on Rikers Island. Mayor Lindsey struck the first blow of its demolition, wielding a sledgehammer on October 9, 1973. The site became the present garden.

Clive I. Morrick is a semi-retired attorney who has lived in Greenwich Village since 1977.

Kids and Sports a Home Run

By Ron Elve Valuable Super Bowl and sports related educative moments can be created for children with a little thought. Sharing a moment watching a game is a perfect time for bonding. What kid doesn't relish the warm togetherness of watching a game with caregivers? Yes, little ones may fidget, even bounce back and forth, but we shouldn’t ever underestimate their ability to absorb and sense what is going on, even though it may not be apparent. And we shouldn’t just give up if they don't seem to be interested.

Instead, to help pique their interest, we can highlight the heroic persistence of notable players and teams. Babe Ruth had far

more strike outs than home runs, but he didn’t give up.

There also are numerous teachable moments during the course of any game or match. The mathematics and vocabulary of various sports can help children connect what they learn in school to the real world.

Discussing the cooperative team spirit and camaraderie of joint effort offers a caretaker the opportunity to share important social values. Even the final opponent handshake offers lessons on civility and sincerity Step up to the plate, the line, the net, play ball, learn, and enjoy!

Ron (ronelve@aolcom) is tutoring and mentoring in the West Village

March 2015 WestView News 19

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Meet the Breeds:

Bulldogs and Poodles Popular, but Greyhounds Win Hearts

by Leslie Adatto “A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”

—Josh Billings (a.k.a. Henry Wheeler Shaw; humorist and lecturer) “Meet the Breeds,” the annual four-legged love-fest sponsored by the American Kennel Club, teamed up with the Westminster Kennel Club for the first time this Valentine’s Day. On Saturday, February 14, 2015, for seven ecstatic hours, Pier 92 was the ideal place to fall in love–perhaps hundreds of times over. There was so much adoration in the air the endorphin level on Pier 92 that wintry Saturday was almost palpable.

A sold-out crowd of tens of thousands of kids, including those masquerading as adults, visited over 140 breed-specific booths to ogle, play with and learn the subtleties of various breeds, ostensibly so they can make an educated choice when adopting a family dog.

Since West Villagers tend to live in small apartments that are often walk-ups, have neighbors in close proximity who don’t want to hear unnecessary barking, rarely have a fenced yard, and are busy New Yorkers, making this choice can be difficult. Hence the popularity of the French Bulldog and the English Bulldog, the number one and two most popular breeds in the 10014 zip code, according to Hillary Prim from the American Kennel Club. These breeds don’t require a lot of exercise or grooming, and are not known for barking.

The problem with bulldogs is that they have been bred for their disproportionate

FALL IN LOVE: A retired racing greyhound is a loving family dog and great companion.

Photo by Randon Rynd.

body shape with very large shoulders and tiny rear ends, making mating and whelping virtually impossible. According to the bulldog breeder, Laura Aline, artificial insemination for mating and a Cesarean section for whelping is how just about all 21st century bulldogs come into existence. It can be life-threatening for the birth mother to push out the big-shouldered puppies, so for the safety of the dog and her pups, a C-section is routinely performed.

These unsavory facts may make you consider other breeds, just as loving, lounging and bark-free as the bulldogs. Poodles, the

third most popular 10014 breed, are a good choice. They come in all sizes from toy (6-9 pounds) to standard (45-70 pounds) but, of course, require grooming.

At “Meet the Breeds,” a toy poodle breeder adamantly denied the common misunderstanding the poodles are “hypoallergenic,” though it is true they have hair rather than fur, and therefore do not have dander, a common allergen. She also claimed that the lighter colored poodles seem to produce fewer allergens—perhaps explaining the popularity of the fluffy little white dogs you see all over the West Village.

Having a personal penchant toward hounds, I spoke to many breeders from this group of floppy eared dogs that includes the Rhodesian Ridgeback, the fourth most popular AKC-registered dog in 10014. I can personally attest that Ridgebacks are great apartment dogs after age 18 months, as are many breeds that mature at about that age.

However, the consensus is that a retired racing greyhound is a loving family dog, has had enough exercise during his or her racing career to enjoy lazing around the apartment with you, requires no special grooming and is not a barker. As a bonus, adopting one of these elegant retired athletes is a remarkable humanitarian gesture.

Breanna Foister and Matthew MontourisGore live in a small W. 11th Street studio with two greyhounds adopted from Forever Home Greyhound Adoptions in Albany.

Known for screening potential homes carefully, this agency offers purebred greyhounds for $300 with a $150 refund upon proof of neutering. Compare that to the $4,500 price tag of an English bulldog.

In regard to their two greyhounds, 9-year-old Logan and 5-month-old Randall, owner Matthew said, “They’re amazing as far as companionship.” Breanna, their adoptive “mom” chimed in with, “The only cost is couch real estate,” referring to the greyhounds’ longing to be snuggled up next to their masters.

Leslie Adatto, still adjusting to the loss of her beloved Rhodesian Ridgeback, Cecil, is the author of “Roof Explorer’s Guide: 101 New York City Rooftops,” found on amazon.com and in book stores and museum gift shops throughout New York City.

John Barrera’s Weight Loss Journey John Barrera, graduate of The Culinary Institute of America and our Food Editor, wants to lose 60 pounds. We introduced him to WestView News contributor, Nurse Practitioner Joy Pape. Joy specializes in weight management. While John catalogues the triumphs and tragedies of the West Village restaurant scene for the paper, he has also offered to share his very personal struggle to lose weight with WestView readers. Joy has accepted the challenge to team up with John and help guide him on his journey.

By Joy Pape John has lost 10 pounds in the last month.

When we talked last week, he said he had lost 10, but put 2 back on, which was a net of 8. Today he told me he’s taken off that 2 again. He knows why he gained it, and he knows why he lost it again. He gained it because he was eating out a lot which included drinking a lot of wine. He lost it be-

cause he gave up drinking alcohol for Lent.

John’s partially met his goals for last month which were to: 1. Walk his dog for at least 5 blocks, seven days a week.

2. Be prepared by having healthy foods in the house.

John walked his dog as planned, but did not always have healthy foods in the house.

He can’t blame it on the weather or anything other than just being lazy at times.

He realized that, without healthy food available, it’s easier to reach for whatever is there, which isn’t what he knows is best for him. He has also realized the amount of calories and carbohydrates he was taking in from drinking wine would not help him reach his weight loss goals.

We discussed John’s lifestyle. John has always been an “all or nothing” guy. I explained how losing weight is one aspect

of this journey, and keeping it off is the other. People who don’t change their “all or nothing” ways usually gain back their weight, plus some. They think, “Now that I’ve lost my weight, I can go back to my old ways.” What they don’t realize at the time is it’s their old ways that got them overweight to begin with.

We then discussed simple ways to help him change from being an “all or nothing” guy during this period so when he does lose his weight, he’ll be living a healthier lifestyle that will allow him a better chance to keep it off. For example, eating out is a big part of John’s life. He’s a foodie. Nothing wrong with that. He will still be able to eat out, but learn how to eat less. When it comes to drinking alcohol, he wants to stay off during the 40 days of Lent. He will then reconsider if and how much he will drink.

Since John met his goals for walking his dog this past month, it has become a

habit for him. Having healthy foods in the house has not.

His goals for the next month are: 1. Be prepared by having healthy foods in the house.

2. Add a formal exercise program. Once he decides what he will do, he’ll let us know what it is, how often, and for how long he plans to participate on a regular basis.

Although pleased with his ten pound weight loss, John doesn’t think he is losing weight fast enough, but I think John’s rate of weight loss is great. When it comes to losing weight, slow and steady is the way to go. This is not about a “diet” but finding one’s way to a way of eating you can live with. The fact he’s back on track is wonderful. Sometimes when people get off track, they can’t get back on. John is learning. I hope you are too.

20 WestView News March 2015

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Maggie B’s Photo of the Month

ICED COFFEE, ANYONE? Since it sat there on the snowbound bike for days, the

answer, understandably, seemed to be “No, thank you.” The weather forecast implies that the first week in March may be marginally warmer; what a relief, so long as it doesn’t follow the old adage “In like a lion, out like a lamb—and vice versa!

Photo by Maggie Berkvist.

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revive your at CMB in March with 15% Off

March 2015 WestView News 21

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Mushrooms Too Pricy, Repair Pier 40 Instead

By Brian Pape Last month we reported that the “Diller Island” project will initially cost taxpayers $35 million to build two bridges out to the island, and in the long run will make the Hudson River Park pay for the maintenance of the piling structure below the floor surface.

This month, WestView News wanted to explore the size and costs of the proposed project by talking to pile driving firms and researching past projects and studies.

The pilings supporting the island will, according to Diller, vary from 15 to 64 feet above water. In Heatherwick’s design, these pilings, often referred to as “mushrooms” because of the shape of the concrete cap, are essentially very large, very expensive pieces of sculpture. Taking into consideration that the tides change the water levels by more than four feet daily, and these piers are far from shore because they were originally built to dock large cargo ships, the depth of water may vary from 15 to 35 feet in that area.

In addition, the pilings must also be driven far enough into the bedrock to support the structure, and this depth also varies. New York 2000, published by Monacelli Press, states that the Golf Club at Pier 59 has “support piles which were driven 250 feet below the riverbed.” That’s just a little north of the Pier 55 site, and can help estimate the depth necessary.

The typical marine piling consists of H-shaped steel members driven into the riverbed with large pneumatic machines.

Greater depths can be achieved by adding H-piles on top of one another. The drivers are mounted on barges floated, or “mobilized” to the site. The US DOT website gives a typical cost of about $300/foot length to drive marine pilings, plus additional costs for mobilization and de-mobilization.

Above the riverbed, the pilings need to be protected from water and weather. The pilings for Pier 55 would likely have a concrete form poured around the steel, as well as the concrete “mushrooms” at the top to support the deck. In our example, we will use $500/foot as an estimated cost for the concrete.

Given all these figures, it is possible to estimate a piling at 300 feet (80 feet above the riverbed, 220 feet below into bedrock). A piling that size would need about 80 feet of concrete to encase it and create the mushroom. This is just a “schematic guesstimate” but doing all the math (see sidebar) adds up to about $137,000 for just one of these pilings. To build all 300 pilings, that’s about $41,000,000!

Contrast this to a recent engineering study of Pier 40 pilings—done by McLaren Engineering Group and commissioned by the Durst Organization—which determined that only some of the 3,463 steel H-piles there needed to be repaired, lengthening their useful life by at least 30 years with little maintenance.

The recommended repairs involve filling a fiberglass wrapping with grout, from just below the riverbed and up about 17 feet to the cap. Below the riverbed, the pilings don’t require repair. The typical repair would cost somewhere around

Governor Cuomo Stealing from Our Kids continued from page 1

about education. He talked about the school system failing kids because the system didn’t hold teachers up to high enough standards.

He wants more evaluations, based on more testing. And he wants to pull more money out of the system and give it to charter operators, who, he would have you believe, are doing a better job than the City’s Department of Education.

What he didn’t talk about, however, was about what all experts say is the problem with schools in NY State’s urban areas: lack of funding, overcrowded classrooms, lack of resources, and lack of ongoing training.

Nine years ago the New York State Court of Appeals decided a case called the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, in which a judge, after a long trial, ruled that New York State’s school children were not, as a group, receiving something mandated in the NY State Constitution: an Adequate Education. Not a superlative education, just an adequate one. In order to settle the case, and stave off a constitutional crisis where Judges would be ordering the funding of the school budget by the legislature, Cuomo’s predecessors, Governor Spitzer and Governor Patterson, negotiated a deal to bring the funding up to the “adequate” level. The “Great Recession” then hit and along with it went school funding. School funding actually went down and not up.

No one but a small band of diehards in Class Size Matters said anything.

But now the State Budget is flush. Tax revenues are up, and we are running a multibillion dollar surplus. Revenue from the

tobacco settlement is putting millions more in the Governor’s and the legislature’s hands.

But the Governor’s budget comes nowhere near the proper funding level decreed by the Court. The Alliance for Quality Education, a wonderful advocacy group, has created a website to show exactly how much additional funding each school would get if the Campaign for Fiscal Equity levels were reached. The website is called www.howmuchnyshasrobbed.nyc.com I looked up the two principal schools serving the Central and West Village; here is what I found: PS 41 has 764 students—its budget is short $2,037,523 PS 3 has 759 students—its budget is short $2,024,189 Just think how fabulous those two schools would be with an infusion of that much money.

But the Governor’s budget is rigged to require more tests, more teacher evaluations, and more charter schools (which, as a group, have NOT outperformed the noncharter public school.) And the Governor has spent his political capital attacking the Teachers Union, and blaming teacher tenure for the problems with the school system. He says he wants to attract the “best and the brightest” but won’t try to attract them with promises of a stable job, and the prospect of a career. He doesn’t reach out to the teachers and their unions as partners, but treats them as enemies.

Why? We get back to the issue of control. Governor Cuomo wants to be in control, and unions interfere with that. And it’s not just the teachers; all of the State Employee Unions are up in arms about

$8,500 to as much as $12,750 for a ‘severe’ rehabilitation.

Several architecture firms have conducted studies of how the 15 acre Pier 40 could be reconfigured for new uses, raising the floors above flood levels, rehabbing parking spaces, and adding recreation fields as well as commercial offices. It would not be hard to include entertainment performance facilities as well.

WestView concludes it makes more sense to repair Pier 40, which will bring more money and utility to the community, than it does to waste more than $41 million to build piles for this proposed “mushroom island.”

Mushroom Math at a Glance $300/ft. piling x 300 feet of structure.................. $ 90,000 to drive the piles. $500/ft. x 80 feet of concrete......................... $40,000 to pour the concrete Mobilization/demobilization of pilings...............

Mobilization/demobilization of concrete............ $ 5,000 Schematic guesstimate per mushroom .......... $137,000 300 mushrooms ....................................... $41,000,000

the Governor’s anti-labor program.

Now’s where I get to do my monthly shout out to our Assembly Woman, Deborah Glick. She sees herself as a champion of education. Shelly Silver, before being indicted, had just appointed his loyalist lap dog Glick to be Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, which was to be added to her Higher Education Chairmanship. The new speaker, Carl Heastie—who Deborah either didn’t vote for or voted for in the end reluctantly because she wanted Silver to stay—took that chairmanship away.

But without Silver’s foot on her neck, Deborah is now free to champion the increase in

Letters

$2,000

continued from page 3

After a while of sharing the building, according to what I understood at the time, the church and synagogue members had started squabbling. The different congregants became uncomfortable with each other, and it was said there was no longer a feeling of mutual respect for each other’s faith.

I think the synagogue congregation eventually departed, and for a short time a new minister was there for the church.

Then, as we know, the building was sold and converted to condos.

People may also remember that, before the church was sold, there was a small independent theater in this same building, accessible from a side entrance on the right.

There, one evening, a friend and I saw two short African plays in English. One of them, unforgettably, was Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, by Athol Fugard, Winston Ntshona and John Kani, and it featured Messrs. Ntshona and Kani in this two-character play.

It was in 1974.

education funds mandated by the courts. I am waiting to see if she takes on the Governor, if she fights for the millions of dollars which belong in PS 3 and PS 41, and in the numerous other schools in her district. And if she can’t do it, or won’t do it, she should tell us soon and retire to the country house she spends her summers at—with her 35 year pension (City and State service) and lifetime medical. Then we can elect a champion to get the money that the kids in this community, and in all NY communities, need.

Arthur Schwartz is the Male Democratic District Leader for Greenwich Village.

That evening we had dined in an elegant Chinese restaurant to the left of the Evangeline, where we both lived. Then we went to the theater, just left of the restaurant. I couldn’t get over the fact that we had not gone far down the block or even crossed the street, and yet we had had a complete night on the town exactly as if we had hustled and bustled up to the theater district. Each of these places had its own atmosphere, ambience; it was like a different world. That’s one of the wonders of living in New York. It had all happened on West 13th Street.

— Carol Yost It is indeed gratifying to read that my column has prompted three readers to take a walk down memory lane, helping to add to our understanding and appreciation of the neighborhood we call home, Greenwich Village. And they cared enough to write and bring my research shortcomings to my attention. Thank you.

— Phil Desiere

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22 WestView News March 2015

Mekas Committed to Preserving History at the Anthology

By Jim Fouratt Jonas Mekas is committed to making the Anthology Film Archives an archive of International importance.

Mekas was born in Lithuania, fled the Nazi invasion as a teenager, was captured and spent eight months in Germany with his brother in a work camp. After the war he spent four years as a displaced person until finally, in 1949, he arrived in New York.

Two weeks after he arrived, he bought a Bolex camera and was on the front lines of what would be a revolution in film making in the US. Because of Robert Redford and Martin Scorsese, people know of the US independent film movement. But there would be no independent film movement if there had not been first an avant-garde underground cinema in the US. It began to coalesce in the mid-to-late ‘50’s. Cheaper cameras like the 8mm and Super 8 started a revolution in personal filmmaking. In addition to being a filmmaker, Jonas was also a critic and a programmer. He is considered the person

most responsible for the preservation and screening of experimental films in the US. In 1954 he co-founded the journal Film Comment. In 1962, he co-founded the Film-Maker’s Cooperative, and the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque in 1964. A community of filmmakers emerged including Peter Emanuel Goldman (Echoes of Silence), Ron Rice (Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man starring Big Winnie and Taylor Mead), Gregory Markopoulos, Maya Deren, Michael Snow, Marie Menken, Jack Smith, Barbara Rubin, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke, and later Andy Warhol and Carolee Schneemann.

In 1970, Jonas opened the Anthology Film Archives as a film museum, screening space, and a library, with himself as its director. Originally opening at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater, it later moved to Wooster Street, then finally to its current location.

In the late 1970’s, the father of our own George Capsis, WestView Publisher and Editor, negotiated the contract for the old Courthouse at the corner of 2nd Ave and 2nd street where the Anthology sits today.

It has served as the most critical re-

How I Ended up in NYC

A NEW LIFE IN NEW YORK: Adolfas Mekas and Jonas Mekas, October 1949, in Bremen-

haven, just before boarding the ship for New York. Photo courtesy of Jonas Mekas.

search and exhibition space on the American avant-garde/experimental cinema ever since. I remember attending in 1964 a screening Jonas organized in a small space on McDougal Street of Chant d’Amour, a short film by the French writer Jean Genet.

The screening was raided by the police.

Jonas and the projectionist were arrested for showing pornography. Chant d’Amour was like Genet’s writing—a lyrical, poetic fantasy placed in a prison. The case was a censorship landmark.

In 1970 Mekas, along with Stan Brakhage, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, James Broughton, and P. Adams Sitney, began the ambitious Essential Cinema project at the Anthology to establish a canon of important cinematic works. Today it remains an essential archive complete with public screenings and a researcher’s treasure trove.

In his 90’s and still as sharp as a tack, Mekas has big plans to give the Anthology a renovated building with space for a new neighborhood cafe for pre- and postscreening discussions, an event roof, a new bookstore and a gallery space. He also wants to add a floor for a researcher’s li-

brary as well as a secure place to hold all the collections and historical documentation he has gathered—including artists personal papers, filmmaker’s journals, and ephemera. All these items help place events that happened in their proper historical context.

Some of the artists represented in this collection are Harry Smith, Joseph Cornell, Kenneth Anger, Jerome Hill and Marie Menken.

The noted architectural firm Bone/ Levine Architects has redesigned the current space creating a respectful design that blends in with existing buildings and the history of the neighborhood. Mekas has secured some matching funds to kick start the project. He needs to raise six million.

Hopefully foundations and directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and the new tech giants will understand the importance of this kind of preservation and climb on board.

Jonas Mekas has never put down his camera. He is working on his 61st film.

FYI: Please google the filmmakers’ names I have listed. They are the canon of US experimental film. You will be amazed.

By Jonas Mekas

the better. Papers were made for myself and Adolfas, my brother, who decided to join me, to immediately leave for Vienna, which we did. Two hours after crossing the border, the German Army police raided the train and all men of working age were seized and shipped to Hamburg.

There we were put in a forced labor camp together with French war prisoners. We had to work in German war factories up to 14 hours daily. In February of 1945, after an unsuccessful attempt to escape to Denmark, we ended up on a farm where the end of war found us.

After the end of war, we spent four long years in various Displaced Persons camps all over Germany. I don’t have to tell you that the D.P. camps in postwar Germany were not the same as those in Lebanon etc. today, but it wasn’t a Paradise either, I can tell you that much. You can read about it all in my diary book of those years: I Had Nowhere to Go. In late l949 the United Nations Refugee Organization managed to find us jobs in a Chicago bakery and dumped us in New York harbor with train tickets to Chicago.

But we stood there, Adolfas and myself, at the end of the 23rd Street of Manhattan, and we looked at the New York skyline, and we said, No way! We are not going to Chicago! It would be stupid to go to Chicago when you are in New York!

So said, so done: with no money, no place to live, no job, we collected our stuff, and we crashed in a corner of a friend, a displaced person who had arrived before us, and had a place in Brooklyn. Meserole Street Number One, Williamsburg. I was twenty seven.

But I felt that it was on that day and right there that my life had really begun. What preceded was Hell.

I grew up in a small farming village in North Lithuania. I was in the sixth grade when the Soviet tanks rolled in to “liberate” us from ourselves.... I was just given a small still camera, so I ran to the roadside to take the first photo of my life—an image of a Soviet tank rolling along a dusty country road. A farmer boy, dirty, short pants. I snapped it! Even before the sound of the click ended, a Russian soldier ran towards me, grabbed the camera out of my hands, pulled out the film, threw it into the road dust, rubbed it in with his boot, and pointed to the house: run, stupid, run before I... He didn’t have to tell it twice, I ran like I never ran before. That’s how my life in film began.

I was in High School when in l942 the German tanks rolled in and “liberated” us again, this time from the Soviets. Like many other young men of my age in Eastern Europe, I joined the underground that worked against both the Soviets and the Germans. Since I was already obsessed with writing, my job in the underground was retyping the news on German and Soviet activities in occupied countries, written down by hand from clandestine radio newscasts, from BBC and other sources. The typewriter I was using for it had to be strictly hidden since its type face could lead Germans to the source of the publication. But one night my typewriter was stolen from the wood stack where I was hiding it.

I reported this to my underground friends. The decision was made that no chances could be taken: I had to immediately disappear, and the further

March 2015 WestView News 23

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How High Is Up? New York’s Secret, Imperious Upscale Real Estate—A Greenwich Village Perspective

TOWERS OF EMPTINESS: IS THIS NEW YORK’S FUTURE? 80%

77%

70%

69% 60%

58%

57%

40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

One 57 (Billionaire’s Row)

57%

50%

Trump International Hotel and Tower

64%

15 Central Park West

Living in our beloved neighborhood, we like to think that the West Village IS New York. We’re very comfortable with the size and scale, social and cultural life, the day-to-day experiences, and graceful aging of our downtown neighborhood.

But don’t think the uptown New York skyline doesn’t affect our lives.

On June 30, 2014 New York magazine paraded on its cover the feature article Why New York Real Estate is the Next Swiss Bank Account highlighting (or should I say hi rise-ing?) the explosion of shady, secretive economics in the new pencil thin towers of 57th St—there are six planned and in progress.

It chronicled how international shell corporations hide the true ownership of these multi-million-dollar, empty condos. Condos which will, literally and figuratively, dominate the NYC economy, lifestyle, skyline and values over the coming decades. Not only are they primarily global investments, but largely just a place to ‘park’ money. As a rule, people don’t actually live in them. Is this the symbol and prophecy for New York’s future?

Now the horrors of the details are spilling out in The New York Times’ Feb 7-11 five piece series Towers of Secrecy written and researched over the past year by Louise Story and Stephanie Saul. For example, there are more than 200 shell companies representing condo owners in the Time Warner Tower alone—home to CNN, NYC’s two most expensive restaurants, Masa and Per Se, and a global visual icon of the city since 9/11. As Rudy Tauscher, a former manager of the condos at Time Warner, says: “The building doesn’t know where the money is coming from. We’re not interested.”

The emperor apparently has no clothes.

But the real rub is in the criminal collateral of these ownership deals and the pressures this process puts on the rest of NYC rent and housing prices. The series includes examples galore of the unsavory new underworld in highend real estate. And that’s where you and I are caught in

Time Warner Tower

By Bruce Poli

Bloomberg Tower

Meier buidlings a symbol and prophecy for New York’s real estate future? Photo by Suzanne Poli.

The Plaza

WEST VILLAGE TOWERS OF VACANCY: Are the Richard

a real estate and economic web of deceit and misfortune.

It affects us, and it brings back memories of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and The Fall of New York—as the most flagrant socioeconomic division we have seen since the days of the robber barons. It has even prompted the Times to run an adjunct article on February 10, The Logic of an Empty $100 Million Pad written by David Gelles.

I’m certain Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave.

Real estate is by far the highest value economic business in New York City with GMP roughly $1.5 trillion in 2012, dwarfing in capital volume the #2 business (finance and insurance combined) and the # 3 business (tourism with 59 million visitors and $61 billion spent in 2014). Residential properties in NYC have appreciated 26% over the past five years, and properties that sold for more than $9.5 million in 2013 raked in average profits of 32%. No wonder every politician in New York is beholden to the Trumps, the Dursts, the Rudins and all their hydra-like brethren.

If this is the tale of two cities, the contrast is there to see on the uptown boulevards whose buildings darken Central Park.

The five part series tackled by the Times highlights (in order of appearance) the Time Warner Tower as symbol of the boom, A Mysterious Malaysian Financier, A Besieged Indian Builder, Mexican Power Brokers, and The Russian Minister and His Friends.

The Times reports that: “Nearly half of the most expensive residential properties in the United States are now purchased anonymously through shell companies.”

They also report “The real estate industry does little examination of buyers’ identities or backgrounds, and there is no legal requirement for it to do so.” And finally, that “At the Time Warner Center, 37 percent of the condominiums are owned by foreigners. At least 16 foreigners who have owned in the building have been the subject of government inquiries, either personally or as heads of companies.”

It can best be summed up by Kirk Heckles, vice chairman of Stripling & Associates, who says “We’ve become a global piggy bank.” All of this is great for the economy of New York City, but how does this unethical and completely undemocratic socioeconomic housing model financially and socially affect our lives? Welcome to the new face of New York, which is not extending its hand to us.

Percentage of shell company-owned multimillion dollar condos in major towers looming over Central Park

Village District Leader Named Guardian for Ruth Berk!

AT THE COURTHOUSE after Judge Kennedy appointed

Arthur Schwartz the replacement guardian. A tremendous victory, but until those responsible for my mom’s year-long imprisonment are made to pay, it’s not over.

Stay tuned! Ruth Berk (front) with documentary filmmaker Vanessa Stockley and Arthur Schwartz. Photo by Jessica Berk.

As Westview goes to press, Supreme Court Justice Tanya Kennedy, who District Leader and civil rights attorney Arthur Schwartz had sued in Federal and Appellate courts, is primed to sign an order making Schwartz the Guardian for 91-year-old Christopher Street resident Ruth Berk. Two months after promising Ruth that he would end her imprisonment in a nursing home, Schwartz got her released back to 95 Christopher Street in late January.

Now he has agreed to be responsible for supervising her medical care, and perhaps, most important of all, planning her defense against the landlord, who has two pending lawsuits to evict her and her daughter, Jessica Berk, from the penthouse apartment they have lived in since 1959. Schwartz plans to bring in “top guns” to defend Berk, who has been sued 16 times by her landlord over the last 20 years and has never lost.

At a Court hearing on the change of guardian on February 9, Ruth told Judge Kennedy that the day she came home was the “happiest day of my life.” When asked if she wanted Schwartz to become her guardian she replied: “I couldn’t think of anyone I would want to help me more.” The trial on the landlord’s case has been set for April 20—support is needed.

The Lenox Hill HealthPlex is Providing Free CPR Training Classes to the Community.

Classes will be conducted by the staff at the HealthPlex on Saturday, March 7 from 10am-2pm; Tuesday, March 10 from 6pm-10pm; Saturday, March 14 from 10am2pm; and Monday, March 23 from 6pm-10pm Classes are limited to 15 participants. RSVP by calling 347.802.7400.

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24 WestView News March 2015

Submissions Open:

Greenwich Village Film Festival

FIRST GREENWICH VILLAGE FILM FESTIVAL: Antonio Padovan, producer and director

based in the village and judge for the Greenwich Village Film Festival. Photo by Simone Pomposi.

By Antonio Padovan In 1989 in Woody Allen’s film Crimes and Misdemeanors, Cliff Stern (Allen) takes his niece Jenny to the Bleecker Street Cinema, a legendary landmark of Greenwich Village, opened in 1960.

With its foreign and independent film programs, the Bleecker Street Cinema helped inspire future filmmakers and contributed to the cinematic education of film

historians, critics and academics.

The theater is today a Duane Reade.

The village has undoubtedly changed over the last decades. Millions of words have been spent about how Bleecker Street became a surrogate of Madison Avenue.

Bookstores and cafes have been turned into boutiques and restaurants. Hospitals into condos.

Yet, some things never change.

The village artistic legacy and small-

scale architecture still attracts those that seek beauty and a charming place to explore.

Today, Greenwich Village is the neighborhood that every year hosts the highest number of film productions/shootings in New York City. Buses full of movie and TV-series aficionados stop daily at each corner. Some of the most important postproduction facilities in the world are based here, as well as film equipment rental houses, some of the most prolific film schools in the States and an infinity of art communities, like Westbeth, call this neighborhood their home.

This close relationship between the village and movies is behind the idea of Greenwich Village Film Festival. A few years ago, when I first moved here, I used to stand for hours staring at charming corners, spending each free moment I had thinking about scenes that could take place in these blocks.

A couple of short films that I shot in the village back then, like “Perry St” and “Jack Attack” have been selected by more than a hundred film festivals, winning collectively more than forty of them. I am convinced that a great part of the success that these little movies encountered came from having such a beloved neighborhood as backdrop for their stories.

Today I am honored to be part of the

group of people that is making G.V.F.F. possible. Among others, people like the father of American avant-garde cinema Jonas Mekas, filmmaker/producer Alessia Gatti, the voice of the WestView George Capsis, and film critic Jim Fouratt.

The Greenwich Village Film Festival celebrates Greenwich Village as a physical place, as one of the most photogenic neighborhoods of New York City. But, more importantly, it celebrates a creative state of mind born in a specific location that gathered like-minded people together to stimulate individual and collaborative artistic expression.

Its mission is to honor and keep alive this sense of community and creative environment by discovering and bringing together new independent artists and their work— to give visibility to new films and new filmmakers and, at the same time, to honor the village cinematic legacy.

The festival will take place in fall, featuring both American and International films.

Besides the main program, the festival will include a special section dedicated to iconic films that have been shot in Greenwich Village.

Submission will be open from April through the official website. For more information and inquires: www.greenwichvillagefilmfestival.com

Courageous or Crazy? Two Men Cross the Atlantic in a Rowboat

By Stanley Fine It took an arduous search with a blueprint map in hand, in the “potter’s field” section of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood cemetery.

But I finally I found the place George Harbo is buried, stacked along with his wife and daughter. After brushing away the dirt that almost completely covered the 9”X9” forgotten, flat-inthe-ground gravestone, I placed my hand on it and felt pathos, and a moving connection—oblivious and indifferent as the sea, Harbo went from historic success to obscurity.

In 1896, when the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge were still under construction, two Norwegian immigrants decided to give up their unrewarding jobs as local clam diggers on the Jersey Shore and do something extraordinary.

David Shaw tells their story in his book Daring the Sea. George Harbo and Frank Samuelson set out, on the edge of impossible, to fulfill their dreams of fame by being the first to successfully row a boat from New York Harbor across the Atlantic Ocean to Le Havre—a daring 3,000-mile adventure in an 18-foot rowboat.

The New York Police Gazette publisher/entrepreneur Richard Kyle Fox promised them a gold medal and good press if they made it. If they didn’t, he explained, the tragedy and publicity would be disastrous. Undaunted, they proceeded and named the rowboat the Fox. Not since the castaways of Captain Bligh’s Bounty rowed their lifeboats 3,600 miles across the Pacific to Europe had anyone accomplished a similar feat—and never voluntarily.

Prepared with the modern outfitters of the day, the daredevils donned sealskin suits. With confidence, hope, courage and extra oars, they challenged the merciless indifference of the sea. George Harbo and Frank Samuelson dropped oar in New York City on June 6, 1896. The ocean pitched and rolled the Fox for 55 days. In the Atlantic, they weathered stormy winds, 45-foot steep rollers, icebergs and whales. The two sailors fished to eat. They cooked and warmed themselves at night with oil lamps.

They navigated the practically invisible Fox out of harms way as it rolled and pitched through waves. Pulling oar together, they struggled to avoid the dangerous shipping lanes

with huge steamships bearing down on them. Later, a raging storm’s giant wave smacked the Fox over and under, causing her to capsize. Although George and Frank managed to right the boat with the special handles attached under the hull, they lost food, oil and supplies.

After capsizing, the sea seemed intent to drive their bodies and minds to the limit. Several days later on July 1, 1896, the Canadian schooner, Leader spotted them and pulled them onboard. Harbo and Samuelson were numb and exasperated. After a shower, they joined the Captain’s table.

The Captain asked for volunteers to join them aboard the Fox, but all the crew of the Leader declined the Captain’s offer. Again undaunted, the next morning they asked to be lowered back into the little Fox, and they set back out to sea, determined to continue on their self-charted odyssey to reach Europe.

On August 1, 1896, they landed on the Scilly Islands, where a small French crowd greeted and cheered them shouting, “Le petit bateau! Le petit bateau!” On August 7, the crew of two again rowed on to finally dock in Le Havre, France where their Mission Miracle was accomplished.

I tried raising money for a befitting headstone for George Harbo with no luck. I have pleaded with the cemetery to acknowledge Harbo’s proper rank as a daring record breaker, explorer, and outstanding seaman, to no avail. Not even their newsletter would print a story. At least there is is a replica of the Fox at the Sandy Hook Yacht Club in New Jersey as a small mark of their adventures.

Stanley Fine, former Ad Agency Creative Director and CLIO judge, now a freelance writer that has written plays and numerous travel adventure stories. finestan@earthlink.net

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Jim Fouratt’s

REEL DEAL: Movies that Matter OK, let me get my Oscars response off my chest. The New York Times published an article critical of Academy voters for being out of touch with the public and voting for films that only, say, 4 million people had seen (Boyhood) as opposed to American Sniper’s 320 million gross in the US. The Times called the Academy voters elitist.

Well there have been other words used about the voters regarding the lack of nominations for people of color (one answer is not to top load the telecast with un-nominated or former winners of color) but elitist was not one. I want to put in a strong word of support to the Academy professionals who vote, it would appear, based on merit and not box office.

I am not a fan of American Sniper. I do believe the reason it is so popular is because of the graphic images of the brutal killing of noncombatants by ISIS. I believe the media coverage has frightened people and they seek out solutions like the one proposed in American Sniper. And the crafty manipulation of Clint-Dirty Harry-Eastwood and his “stand-your-ground” brand of politics rises to the occasion.

I think Boyhood is a cinematic masterpiece. My favorite movie of the year is Timbuktu. I also suggest you compare the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot with Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything. Redmayne gets the physical component down, but Stephen Hawking—even with extreme disability— was still able to seduce women. This nuancing was missing.

I was glad to see the real world enter into the acceptance speeches and to see less of the thank-you-Jesus speeches.

Yes, I agree there are far too many awards shows being given equal weight with the Oscars. I think we can blame our neighbor Harvey Weinstein for the current awards template. I believe he is, more than anyone, responsible for the new Oscar campaign strategy: hold everything to the fourth quarter and then saturate the playing field with your target pictures; his goal is not the public but the gold statue.

It was Weinstein who elevated the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press who actually vote in the Golden Globes.

These 93 members of dubious credibility are wined and dined and who knows what else all year in attempts to influence their votes. The SPIRIT awards were supposed to be honoring independent non-studio, non-Hollywood films, but if you look at the nominations over the last four years, you will be struck by the same names as most of the Oscar nominations. In some ways the SAG Awards are the most democratic with all paid-up members eligible to vote (48,000). And because they are actors, they vote emotionally. I have to admit the Oscars and the Sundance Jury awards are

the ones that most matter to me.

Let’s Go to the Movies: MERCHANTS OF DOUBT director Robert Kenner

Kenner, the director of Food Inc. which exposed how multinationals have ruined food in their quest for profit over quality, is back with another insightful look at a very prevalent media con game—examining who those talking head experts on Cable news and Network TV are. You know the people—the ones that told you smoking was good for you, there is no such thing as Global Warming, we won the war in (choose your country: Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria.) The ones that say the Taliban are better than secular non-believers or Communists or extol the merits of Stand Your Ground laws.

Kenner based his documentary on Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s best-selling expose of the same title.

Sometimes these people are so absurd that the only way to deal with them is through humor. See it; it should make you pick up your smartphone and call or write CNN, Fox News, PBS or others and say “why the hell do you have this talking head on. He or she is not an expert and should be labeled a lobbyist.”

MAPS TO THE STARS director David Cronenberg

I think this is the most delicious and funny “bad” movie I have seen in years. Cronenberg “does” Hollywood and leaves no secret or shattered mirror in Beverly Hills hidden. A tour de force performance by Julianne Moore as a B-list (and that is kind) actress who is Hollywood royalty because she is the daughter of a Hollywood silent screen legend, it will make you squeal with laughter or perhaps lose control of your bodily functions.

Trashy, intellectual Hollywood insider Bruce Wagner wrote the script and is the reason it is so good. He laser peels Hollywood so deeply that all the toxins push to the surface before being rinsed off with Prada water. Wagner is a successful, New York Times anointed novelist. He rips off

the rose-colored Ray-bans and takes a hard look at the desperate LA people watching their follow spot fade to flicker and trying to tai chi arriving newcomers who would scare the hell out of All About Eve’s conniving wanna be (Anne Baxter.)

John Cusack plays a new age guru con (Dr. Stafford Weiss) and his wife, Olivia Williams, is a monster stage mom of a 13-year-old child star who makes Justin Bieber seem angelic. You might read bad reviews of Maps to the Stars—ignore them. This is a trashy, smart movie that will make you forget the dreary Fifty Ways to Yawn. You will be glad these folks have not yet moved to Greenwich Village.

March is an important special series month in NYC, and here are four must see series.

1: Lincoln Center: Film Comment Selects

MAY ALLAH BLESS FRANCE! director Abd Al Malik

Celebrated rapper and spoken word artist Abd Al Malik makes his directorial debut with a candid account of his early life and artistic awakening—from petty thief to Sufi convert at 24. Must see.

MÉTAMORPHOSES director Christophe Honoré

Honoré forges a contemporary image of Ovid’s masterpiece. It is unlike anything else in the festival. If you saw his 24 Songs a few years ago, it will slightly prepare you for the intensity of both the storytelling and the visual imagery.

SK1 director Frédéric Tellier

Gavin Smith, the Editor of Film Comment—the highly respected journal published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center (http://www.filmcomment.com) —selects a program of films that reflects the magazine’s aesthetics and is guaranteed to cause controversy.

I suggest the March 3 screening of Anarchy (Cymbeline) in the Walter Reade Theater. Michael Almereyda’s noir-ish update of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline reimagined in a landscape populated by a drug-dealing biker gang and corrupt cops in an unnamed post-industrial city. When Cymbeline (Ed Harris), King of the Briton Motorcycle Club and his Queen (Milla Jovovich) face off with Iachimo (Ethan Hawke) over the question of Imogen’s (Dakota Johnson) virginity, sparks fly. Strong stuff, well-acted, and it even includes a Bob Dylan song (Dark Eyes) sung by Jovovich

In this French police thriller, meet a narcissistic psychopath nicknamed The Beast of the Bastille. He killed 7 women and almost got away with it. SK1 documents the police hunt.

2: MoMA: Wim Wenders March 2–17

Marlon Brando, like James Dean, remains as alive today in peoples’ memories and fantasies as when his feet were on the ground. Documentarian Stevan Riley lets Brando narrate his own story. A treasure trove of audio tapes lets us meet the public actor as well as the private man, giving us insight as to who Brando really was. A huge buzz film at Sundance. Book early.

MoMA celebrates German filmmaker Wim Wenders with a major career retrospective. The exhibition, which includes 20 fiction and nonfiction films and numerous shorts, features the North American premieres of new digital restorations overseen

by Wenders, as well as works that haven't been shown theatrically in New York in years. Wenders will intro over 20 films himself.

3: Lincoln Center, BAM and IFC Theater: Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.

Julianne Moore’st identity crisis in Maps to the Stars. Image courtesy of EOne films.

not-miss screening series for me. There are many quality films, but I suggest you not miss the following three.

The 20th Edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and uniFrance Films. It is showing the very latest in contemporary French Cinema at three theaters, and bringing actors, directors and writers here to NYC to participate in Q&A’s at screenings. It has always been a

4. MoMA and The Film Society of Lincoln Center: New Directors/New Films

The always anticipated and adventurous jointly presented New Directors/New Films is the highlight of March. Both MoMA and Film Society programmers have been on the festival circuit looking for the next generation of filmmakers.

More than any other series, I think, ND/ NF can divide a room—meaning the programing has succeeded. Google the whole schedule. I suggest you book early on the following two.

LISTEN TO ME MARLON director Stevan Riley

THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER director Nadav Lapid

With Lapid’s Policeman still lurking in my memory, I watched Lapid ask what can a 40-year-old teacher and a 5-year-old poetry prodigy have in common? He suggests emotions. Teacher is perverse and romantic.

It does not give answers quickly and will make some viewers uncomfortable. Whew!

(cc) jim fouratt 2/25/2015 jimfourattsreeldealmovies.blogspot.com jim.fouratt.westviewnews@gmail.com

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26 WestView News March 2015

Otters Storytime Picture book stories

FEBRUARY EVENTS

for children ages 5-6 at Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. n Tuesday March 3, 3:30 pm: We Do Robotics Students grades 1-3 get to

by Stephanie Phelan of westvillageword.com

wv w

build and program LEGO projects using sensors, motors and LEGO’s WeDo software. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. n Sundays March 8 and 15, 11 am and 2:30 pm: The Magic Forest Penny

for

SPECIAL EVENTS CITYWIDE

Jones and Co. Puppets will perform at WestBeth. 155 Bank Street. Tickets $10 for both adults and children, available at www.pennypuppets.org or cash only at the door 30 minutes before the show.

Recommended for children ages 3-8.

n Through March 6: Restaurant Week A three-course dinner at the best

MUSIC

WestView News

restaurants in New York for $38. Reservations open Feb 2. For reservations, go to opentable.com.

n Saturday March 14, 3 pm: Memorial Service The annual ceremony in re-

membrance of Nick Pekearo and Eugene Marshalik, two brave Auxiliary Police Officers who were slain by a crazed gunman eight years ago. There will be a formal procession from the Sixth Precinct to the corner of Bleecker and Sullivan Streets, where the community turns out every year to honor them.

n Friday March 6, 8 pm: Sound it Out THE NEIGHBORHOOD REMEMBERS The Annual Memorial Ceremony for Nick Pekearo and Eugene Marshalik, the two Auxiliary Police Officers who were slain by a crazed gunman eight years ago, will take place on March 14. Photo by Juan Beltran.

rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. n Thursday March 12, 7 pm: Esther Broner— A Weave of Women Lilly

be given out at transit hubs throughout the city A citywide celebration of Irish literature.

Rivlin’s film profiles the life of Esther Broner, Jewish feminist and stalwart pioneer of the Women’s Rights Movement.

Westbeth Community Room, entrance at 100 Bank Street. Free.

FILM

n Friday March 13, 1 pm: Little White Lie A documentary about racial identity.

n Tuesday March 17, All Day: Irish Arts Center Book Day Free books will

n Monday March 2, 6 pm: Le Jour se lève After committing a murder, a man

locks himself in his apartment and goes over the events the led him to his crime.

Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. n Thursday March 5, 2 pm: My Left Foot Daniel-Day Lewis stars in this

1980 film about Irish writer and artist Christy Brown. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Thursday March 5, 6:30 pm: Kristin Chenoweth—The Dames of Broadway... All of ‘Em!!!! A salute to the

great ladies and scene stealers of Broadway by Kristin Chenoweth Free. n Friday March 6 , 5-9 pm: Cinefest 2015—Hispanic Film Festival The

films featured tonight are Las Analfabetas/Illiterate and Pelo Malo/Bad Hair.

The Auditorium at Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street. Free. n Saturday March 7-Thursday March 12: Rendez-Vous with French Cinema The best in French filmmak-

ing co-presented by Unifrance Films and the Film Society of Lincoln Center at IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue.

For a schedule of screenings and to purchase tickets, go to www.ifccenter. com/series/rendez-vous-with-frenchcinema-2015/. n Monday March 9, 6 pm: La règle du jeu At the onset of World War II, the

Theresa Lang Center, 55 West 13th Street.

Free, but reservations required; call 212229-5682 or email irp@newschool.edu. n Friday March 13, 4-10 pm: Cinefest 2015—Hispanic Film Festival

The films featured tonight are ¿Quién es Dayani Cristal?/Who is Dayani Cristal?, El Facilitador/The Facilitator and Yvy Maraey,Tierra Sin Mal/Yvy Maraey, A Land Without Evil. The Auditorium at Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street. Free. n Saturday March 14, 2 pm: Dear White People A satire on race relations

at an Ivy League College. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free.

n Sunday March 15, 3 pm: ReelAbilities NY Disabilities Film Festival

Award-winning films made by and about people with disabilities, will be screened at Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street.

Tonight’s films: Midfield (short) and The Case of the Three Sided Dream (feature film). For more information on the festival which will play at over 35 venues throughout New York from March 1218, visit ny.reelabilities.org. Free. n Monday March 16, 6 pm: Remorques For Andre and the other

members of the crew of the tugboat Cyclone, their existence is divided between the danger of the stormy seas and the safety of life at home with their patient women. Jefferson Market

Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free.

n Saturday March 28, 2 pm: Lucy a

2014 English-language French science fiction action film starring Scarlett Johansson. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free.

The music of John O’Gallagher Trio at Greenwich House Music, 46 Barrow Street. Tickets $15. n Sunday March 8, 2 pm: Hermes String Quartet Program will include:

Franz Joseph Haydn String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 33, No. 1 ; Robert Schumann String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41, No.1; and Franz Schubert String Quartet No. 15 in G Major. The Auditorium at Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th

n Thursday April 2, 6:30 pm: Sweeney Todd Lincoln Center for the Performing

Arts brings screenings of live performances to Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. A moderated discussion follows. Free.

KIDS n Tuesdays at 3:30 pm: Afternoon Movietime Classic and current movies

for kids ages 3-12. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Wednesdays at 11:15 am: Toddler Time Interactive stories, action songs

and fingerplays for walking tots accompanied by parents or caregivers. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Wednesdays at 3:30 pm: Preschool Time Picture book stories,

songs and rhymes for children ages 2-5 at Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free.

n Wednesdays at 3:30 pm: Seussology— Oh the Places You’ll Go Kids

explore the ideas illustrated in Seuss’s book and create their own three-dimensional landscape using Magic Noodles.

For kids 6 and up. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. n Wednesdays at 4 pm: St. John’s Choristers Free Musical Education Training in music fundamentals

and vocal technique for children 8 and up. Open to kids from all over the city, but is made up primarily of neighborhood children. As part of the program, they sing once a month at a Sunday Eucharist. St. John’s in The Village, 224 Waverly Place. n Thursdays at 3:45 pm: Owls and

BEWITCHING Penny Jones & Company will perform puppet shows at Westbeth on March 6 and 15. Above, a litterbug witch puppet.

Street. Tickets $5-$17.50. n Thursday March 12, 8 pm: Mozart Requiem and Coronation Mass Voices

of Ascension presents this concert at Church of the Ascension, Fifth Avenue at 10th Street. Tickets $10-$75. For tickets, go to www.voicesofascension.org or call (212) 358-7070.

n Thursday March 12, 8 pm: Uncharted—Brandee Younger Prophetika, a

performance piece of newly-composed music for harp and piano with Mia Theodoratus and Courtney Bryan at Greenwich House Music, 46 Barrow Street.

Tickets $10.

n Friday March 13, 8 pm: Sound it Out—Transylvanian Blues Romanian-

born pianist Lucian Ban on piano and Mat Maneri on viola/violin at Green-

March 2015 WestView News 27

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Dublin’s singer-songwriter Éabha McMahon. Proceeds go to benefit the nuns of Kylemore Abbey. St, Joseph’s Catholic Church, 371 Sixth Avenue. Tickets start at $50. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Mary Reed at 914-420-3517.

n Thursday March 19, 8 pm: Uncharted—SLV Latin rock star Sandra Velas-

quez, and her band Pistolera, premieres her new solo album, This Kind with her new band SLV. Greenwich House Music, 46 Barrow Street. Tickets $15. n Saturday March 21, 7:30 pm: Sound It Out—Vinnie Sperrazza’s Apocryphal and Loren Stillman and Russ Lossing

A double bill at Greenwich House Music, 46 Barrow Street. Tickets $20. n Thursday March 26, 8 pm: Uncharted—Marc Ribot and Emeline Michel Haitian Classical Guitar and song at

Greenwich House Music, 46 Barrow Street. Tickets $25.

n Tuesday March 31, 1-2 pm: Mannes Downtown Chamber Music A free

lunch-time performance at Theresa Lang Community Center, Arnold Hall, 55 West 13th Street. Free.

VILLAGE HISTORY n Tuesday March 10, 6:30 pm: Victoria Woodhull—Feminist, Spiritualist, “Mrs. Satan” She started the first woman-run

brokerage on Wall Street, started her own newspaper and was the first woman to run for President. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free, but registration required. Call (212) 475-9585 ext. 35 or e-mail rsvp@gvshp.org.

n Thursday March 19, 6:30 pm: The Immigrant, Radical, Notorious Women of Washington Square A lecture by

Joyce Gold on the women of this neighborhood who included Edith Wharton, VIVA LA FEMME! As part of Women’s History Month, GVSHP will be giving talks on outstanding New York women.

Pictued: Edith Wharton.

Indian Modernism Left Front show-

cases posters, prints, paintings and books by American artists during the Great Depression; Indian Modernism explores the art of India after the 1947 Independence from British rule. Grey Art Gallery, 100 Washington Square East.

n Tuesday March 31, 6:30 pm: Steamboats on the Hudson—The Greenwich Village Waterfront A talk on the history

n Through April 7: Nancy Johnson

of boat traffic on the Hudson. Salmagundi Club, 47 Fifth Avenue. Free, but registration required. Call (212) 475-9585 ext. 35 or e-mail rsvp@gvshp.org.

350 Bleecker Street Lobby Gallery.

Works can be viewed when the doorman is on duty, 4-10 pm weekdays, 10 am-12 am weekends.

LITERATURE

Paul Wirhun’s works on exhibit at Ivy Brown Gallery, 675 Hudson Street.

n March 18-April 12: Under the Sea YES, HE CAN! Blind and paralyzed, jazz legend Rahsaan Roland Kirk is the subject of The Three-sided Dream, part of the Reelabilities Film Festival at Wollman Hall on March 15.

n Wednesday March 11, and Thursday March 12, 6 pm: National Book Critics Circle Reading and Awards Finalists

will read from their work on Wednesday, and the awards will be presented on Thursday. The Auditorium at Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street. Free, but space limited. n Saturday March 14, 10:30 am: The Orphan Master’s Son A discussion of

the critically acclaimed novel by Johnson Adam at Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. n Monday March 23, 6:30 pm: Romance Book Club Archangel’s Legion by

Nalini Singh, and Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare are the books to be discussed. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue.

.

TALKS n Wednesday March 25, 6:30 pm: The Red-Tail Hawks of Greenwich Village and the East Village A talk by Gabriel

Willow will cover the nesting, mating, and hunting habits of these predators. Washington Square Institute, 51 East 11th Street. Free, but registration required.

Call (212) 475-9585 ext. 35 or e-mail rsvp@gvshp.org.

COMMUNITY MEETING

n Thursday, March 26, 4:30 pm: Book Discussion This meeting’s book is The

Circle by Dave Eggers. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue.

n March 25, 7 pm: The 6th Precinct Community Council Meeting Our Lady

of Pompeii Father Demo Hall. Bleecker and Carmine Streets. Open to all.

LEARNING

HEALTH

n Monday March 2, 6-7 pm: A Midsummer Night’s Dream—The Theater of Sleep A free course covering different

in the Fields, 487 Hudson Street., First come, first served. Free.

aspects of Shakespeare given over several evenings in March, April and May at Cooper Union, The Great Hall in the Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues. n Friday March 6, 1 pm: MS Excel 2010 for Beginners Hudson Park Li-

n Tuesdays at 3:30 pm: Yoga St. Luke

GALLERIES AND EXHIBITS n March 2- April 11: Built by Women

Winners of a public competition for women-built sites on exhibit at Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place.

brary, 66 Leroy Street. Free.

n Through March 7: Paintings by Jack Pierson Maccarone, 630 Green-

n Monday March 9, 6-7 pm: Henry V—The Theater of Arms A free course

n Through March 14: Male Moments

covering different aspects of Shakespeare given over several evenings in March, April and May at Cooper Union, The Great Hall in the Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues.

wich Street.

Danny McDonald’s work on view at Maccarone, 630 Greenwich Street. n Through March 15: Creative Epiphanies A group show by the American

Society of Contemporary Artists at Westbeth Gallery, 55 Bethune Street.

n Tuesday March 10, 5:30 pm: Things to Consider Before You File Your Taxes Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy

n Through March 22: The Space Between The works of thirteen artists

n Friday March 13, 1 pm: Advanced MS Word 2010 Hudson Park Library, 66

n Through April 4: Left Front and

Street. Free.

Leroy Street. Free.

n Friday March 20, 1 pm: Advanced MS Word 2010 Hudson Park Library, 66

Leroy Street. Free.

n Friday March 27, 1 pm: Internet for Beginners Hudson Park Library, 66

Leroy Street. Free.

on display at New York Studio School, 8 West 8th Street.

n Through-April 17: Prison Obscura

Aerial views of prison complexes and intimate portraits of incarcerated individuals as well as prisoner-made photographs. Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 2 West 13th Street. n March 14-April 18: Group Show

Maccarone, 630 Greenwich Street. n Through May 23: Prague Functionalism —Tradition and Contemporary Echoes Photographs

of Prague’s functionalist buildings, projects, and drawings at Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place.

n Through May 23: Prague Functionalism —Tradition and Contemporary Echoes Photographs

of Prague’s functionalist buildings, projects, and drawings at Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place.

ONGOING EVENTS OF NOTE n First Saturday of Every Month, 2-3:30 pm: Book Swap Bring books

and/or art you’re willing to trade with others to Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Snacks will be provided, but bring your own coffee.

n Saturdays, 11 am: Hudson Park Book Swap Exchange books

one Saturday each month at Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street.

n Tuesdays at 3:30 pm: Arts and Crafts For kids ages 3-12 at Jefferson

Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue.

Free.

n Thursdays at 5 pm: Hudson Park Library Chess and Games Chess,

Checkers, Battleship and other classic board and strategy games. Beginners welcome. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. People can bring their own games or use what's available at the library. Chess lessons for new learners also available. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Having an Event?

••••••••••

n Monday March 16. 7 pm: Irish Benefit Concert A special concert featuring

Louisa May Alcott, Bella Abzug, Ida, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. The talk will cover these cultural iconoclasts. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free, but registration required. Call (212) 4759585 ext. 35 or e-mail rsvp@gvshp.org.

••••••••••

wich House Music, 46 Barrow Street.

Tickets $15.

If your organization is planning an event or a public meeting, or anything else you’d like us to consider for the Events page, please submit to: westvillageword@earthlink.net by the 20th of the month prior to the event.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• For weekly updates, go to EVENTS at www.westvillageword.com

i n t r o D u c i n g t h e t ow e r r e S i D e n c e S o v e r l o o k i n g h i S t o r i c m a D i S o n S q ua r e P a r k Ten Madis o n S quare We st i s i d eal ly sit uat e d w h e re U ptow n m e et s D ow ntow n . E l e gant ly imag in e d f o r co nt e mpor ary l iv i ng by award - w i nni ng d e si gne r Al an Wan z e n b e rg , t h i s coll e ctio n o f exquis ite t wo to f iv e b e d room c ond om i ni u m re s i d e n c e s i n c lu d e s f o u rt e e n e xc lu siv e tow e r re si d e nc e s. t wo B e D r o o m r e S i D e n c e S P r i c e D f r o m $ 4 , 2 5 0 , 0 0 0 th r e e Be Droom re S i De nc e S Pr ic eD f rom $5,100,000 t o w e r r e S i D e n c e S P r i c e D f r o m $ 11 , 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 S a l e S & D e S i g n g a l l e ry 212 776 1110 | 10m Sw.c o m Exc lu s ivE MarkEti n g & salE s ag E nt Do u g las Elli Man DEvE lo pM E nt MarkEti n g Renderings are for illustration purposes only. Prospective purchasers should not rely upon these depictions and are advised to review the complete terms of the offering plan for further detail as to type, quality and quantity of materials, appliances, equipment and fixtures to be included in the units, amenity areas and common areas of the condominium. The complete offering terms are in an offering plan available from the sponsor. File No. CD13-0040.

Sponsor: MS/WG 1107 Broadway Owner LLC, P.O. Box 1644, New York, NY 10150; Property location: 10 Madison Square West, New York, NY 10010. Equal Housing Opportunity.