Westviewnewsmay2015

The Voice of the West Village

WestView News

VOLUME 11, NUMBER 5

MAY 2015

Will Westbeth be the Next St. Vincent’s?

$1.00

Defy Landlord by Dining at Taste of Lima Attorney Arthur Schwartz Encourages Dining Defiance

By Arthur Z. Schwartz Something is smelly on the corner of Bedford and Christopher, and it’s not the food from the corner restaurant, Taste of Lima.

Taste of Lima was an East Village mainstay until ten years ago when its landlord, Steven Croman, asked them to move to the West Village so he could renovate their old space.

He gave them a ten-year lease at $11,000 per month with a five year option to renew.

Things went well. The restaurant, at 129 Christopher Street, and across from the Lucille Lortel Theatre, got a good review in the Times (see excerpt below), full of words like “sweetly fiery taste,” “superb,” and “perfectly cooked.” And the crowds came, both on theatre nights and otherwise.

But late last year, as the owner, Nelida

ATTORNEY GENERAL STOPS LANDLORD:

In a rare action, the Attorney General signed a cease-and-desist order against an ex-cop employed to harass a restaurant owner. Photo by Maggie Berkvist

Mori, was about to exercise her option for a five year renewal, her landlord, Croman, began to attack. Seems the owner of over one hundred residential buildings has continued on page 4

REVENUE RUNAROUND: A view of Westbeth’s prime commercial luxury space: sweet deal

or a breach of fiduciary trust? Photo: Ramscale.

By Catherine Revland “Quintessential New York location! Spectacular sunset views!” The web site for Ramscale Productions tantalizes wedding planners with photos of its 3,500 sq. ft. penthouse and 1,000 sq. ft. terrace.

How thrilling to have a wedding party in a gorgeous penthouse loft in the hottest neighborhood in town! The artist residents of Westbeth are not so thrilled, however, because they have been subsidizing Ramscale’s bargain-basement commercial rent for going on forty years. While the artists face staggering rent increases to pay more than $10 million in hurricane damage repairs and a major façade restoration, the Ramscale tenants sublet their space for as much as $10,000 a day.

For artists, a low-to-modest income is a requirement for admission, but no such restrictions apply to commercial tenants. Giv-

en the extraordinary circumstances, would it not be prudent to assess these leaseholders to help pay the repair bills? Apparently, this question is not even being asked.

Maggie B’s Photo of the Month

Westbeth Board Sues the Attorney General

From its inception in 1970 the revenue from artist residents has far exceeded that of the commercial tenants, and for decades the Westbeth Board of Directors’ excuse has been the undesirability of the neighborhood. Although this excuse is no longer valid, the current Board refuses to reveal information about the current commercial rent roll. In fact, Executive Director Steven Neil has told the Westbeth Artist Residents Council (WARC) they do not have the right to receive any details about Westbeth’s finances.

In 2013, an attorney for an ad hoc subcontinued on page 8

SPRING AT LAST! And in the Union Square Greenmarket this little boy was as delight-

ed as Wordsworth to discover “a host of golden daffodils.” Photo by Maggie Berkvist

Whitney Opens! See Page 14

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2 WestView News May 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 Whiting Photographer Maggie Berkvist Comptroller Jolanta Meckauskaite Architecture Editor Brian Pape Film, Media and Music Editor Jim Fouratt Distribution Manager Timothy Jambeck Regular Contributors Cristiano Andrade John Barrera Barry Benepe Maggie Berkvist Janet Capron George Capsis Barbara Chacour Philip Desiere Ron Elve Stan Fine Jim Fouratt Mark M. Green Robert Heide Keith Michael Michael D. Minichiello Clive Morrick 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

Correspondence, Commentary, Corrections St. Luke’s Cherry Trees

How Mr. Diller Got His Island

Where have all the cherry blossoms gone?

With bursts of soft pink and white blossoms, the allee of cherry trees that heralded the arrival of Spring each year to the West Village is no more.

As part of St. Luke’s deal with Toll Brothers for the construction of a twelve story residential tower, two weeks ago workers dug up all twenty-two trees and green construction fencing was installed.

Seven trees were shipped to St Michael’s Cemetery in Queens where they await replanting behind a memorial wall that is currently under construction.

The remaining fifteen cherries—Prunus serrulata amanagawa—are to be planted in St. Luke’s gardens and on Barrow Street between Hudson and Greenwich Streets.

— Ede Rothaus

Lisa Foderaro’s rehashing of the many opinions of the proposed construction of Pier 55 (NY Times, April 5, 2015) omits many essential facts.

Completion of the park from 29th to 44th Streets will cost far more than $175 million, since the park terminates at Pier 99 at 59th Street, not 44th Street.

In a last minute amendment to the Hudson River Park act in June 2013 the State Legislature gave an extraordinary gift to the Hudson River Park Trust to sell unused development rights from 550 acres of land above and under water which it does not own.

The NYC Planning Commission has yet to hold hearings on from and to where these rights can be sold. Sale of these rights could provide capital and maintenance funds for the foreseeable future. The three block long Pier

40 shed looming over the park and blocking views of the distant shore, could be replaced by a fifteen-acre park open to the river and sky. We could walk and sit on real grass, not the plastic turf inside the invisible privatized soccer fields which now occupy it. Its income producing parking garage and Trust offices could be moved across West Street as part of the transfer of 800,000 square feet of unused development rights to the St. John’s Terminal and adjacent properties.

In the meantime, we New Yorkers will obtain a gift of a world class landscaped oasis on Pier 55 supported over the water, another great park improvement following those of the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

—Barry Benepe

Mr. Benepe is a retired urban planning consultant who once prepared large scale plans for areas of Manhattan as a planner for the NYC Housing and Redevelopment Board.

BRIEFLY NOTED Shared Guilt is Innocence United States Attorney Preet Bharara has startling white open eyes like a predatory bird excited by the sudden successful sinking of his talons into a startled prey. He even recites the charges with an irrepressible smile of triumph. So it is no surprise that the attorneys for Assemblyman Sheldon Silver argued Bharara’s caws of exhilaration left very little for the presumption of innocence and Judge Valerie E. Caproni of the Federal District Court almost agreed with them as reported in the Times.

In her decision, Caproni wrote: “The US Attorney, while castigating politicians in Albany for playing fast and loose with ethical rules that govern their conduct, strayed so close to the edge of the rules governing his own conduct that defendant Sheldon Silver has a non-frivolous argument that he fell over the edge to the defendant’s prejudice.”

Oh wow, and it would be too bad if we can’t get Silver to explain how he was funneled $4 million for questionable legal services via just two law firms (I mean I would love to see Silver’s invoices).

Silver’s lawyers Joel Cohen and Steven F. Molo repeated the words that they and Silver use all the time—“ultimate vindication.” I went to the dictionary for the definition of “vindication,” which means “to clear of accusation, censure, or suspicion.”

So they don’t want to prove their client innocent of bribery but innocent of the accusation of bribery. If this is what all politicians do anyway, he is indeed innocent.

—George Capsis

Teachout Speaks Out On Thursday April 9th, Zephyr Teachout returned to Greenwich Village and the Village Independent Democrats, one of

several political clubs that endorsed her in her primary challenge to Governor Andrew Cuomo. After happily reporting that she had just been awarded tenure by the Fordham University Law School, she began a discussion of her particular area of expertise, which is political corruption.

As outlined in her book Corruption in America, fear of money in politics caused concern among political leaders as far back as the very founding of the country.

Money and gifts to politicians, such as a jewel encrusted snuff box given to Benjamin Franklin by the King of France, were often completely banned or severely restricted by law. People who wanted to approach or petition Congress would have to do it themselves. No one was allowed to hire someone to do it for them until the Supreme Court ruled that it was permissible.

This ability to hire someone to lobby

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www.westviewnews.org for you was expanded by both politicians and Supreme Court decisions, most notably by the Citizen’s United decision of 2010. The old form of corruption involving envelopes of cash handed under the table to some politician (known well during the Tammany Hall period of NYC government) has been replaced by vast amounts of donations for campaigns, on-going lobbying, political party building and innocent sounding “gifts.”

Teachout voiced her support for making legislation and the budget process more transparent, curbing executive power, achieving a Democratic state senate in 2016 and, of course, pursuing political corruption whenever possible.

The overall impression from her presentation was that her primary run was not just a one-time involvement. We will probably be hearing a lot more about her in the future, and she will be hearing a lot more from The Village as her career progresses.

— Alec Pruchnicki

Teachout and Berman Speak at VID On Thursday April 9th, the Village Independent Democrats held their monthly meeting at St. John’s Church on Christopher Street. As usual, the meeting started with updates by club president Nadine Hoffman and Democratic district leaders Keen Berger and Arthur Schwartz on a variety of city and state political developments, followed by questions from the members.

Zephyr Teachout, the Democratic primary opponent to Mario Cuomo, spoke about her activities since the last election.

These involved a variety of mostly state political issues and legislation, along with a description of her book Corruption in America and a wide-ranging question and answer period.

Andrew Berman, Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, discussed proposals from the DeBlasio administration to change zoning regulations to allow taller buildings in exchange for inclusion of affordable apartments. Berman argued that this would significantly change the nature of Greenwich Village, but not actually deliver significantly more affordable units than what is allowed under present regulations.

There were then updates on club activities including the recent small busi-

ness forum and planned petition drive, the Candles for Clemency movement, the opposition to the Port Ambrose Liquefied Natural gas terminal, the “To Russia with love LGBT update” of the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, and lastly a reminder about the VID awards gala on Thursday April 30 at Tio Pepe’s restaurant. (See villagedemocrats.org for details on all of these.) The next monthly meeting will be on Thursday May 14th at 6:30 at St. John’s.

— Alec Pruchnicki

Alec Pruchnicki is a member of the Executive Committee of the VID.

Cuomo’s Ego Flys the State Why did Cuomo make a thirty-six hour round trip to Cuba? Certainly not to trigger trade with a country where the annual income is not much more than $300 and where he was greeted with signs “Socialism or Death” and shouts of “USA go home!”

No, Cuomo is listening to an intense inner voice—his insatiable ego.

And that ego is running for a place in history. He is still having the Democratic Committee pay for TV ads on his “achievements” as if he is a political candidate in the race of his life, and he stuffed our mailboxes with needlessly expensive glossy mailers running against Zephyr Teachout, who hadn’t a chance in hell.

When de Blasio announced plans to build affordable housing over the train yards in Queens, Cuomo quickly had his people announce “they were not available” because, we assume, he has another use for them or he wants to be the author of the project.

Having a governor blinded with personal ego is wasteful and embarrassingly stupid.

GVSHP’s Business of the Month West Villagers have great affection for their local cafes, florists, wine shops, watch repairers, frame shops, chocolatiers, dress shops and more.

These are some of the independent businesses that have been nominated

Corner Bistro

Landmark Village Bar

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so far in the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s new program, Business of the Month. Anyone can nominate a favorite small business for this honor, which entails a special feature on GVSHP’s blog, Off the Grid, and publicity in social media and elsewhere.

As treasured small businesses are threatened by the city’s challenging business environment and high rents, GVSHP is giving them support by celebrating the special small businesses that are still here, helping to drive business to them, and giving hardworking owners and staff a boost.

The organization encourages residents of all of the Village, as well as NoHo and the East Village, to nominate a small business they admire. The Business of the Month program will continue indefinitely, so there’s plenty of time to recognize all our treasured institutions.

“Local businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods, and many find themselves in an increasingly tough business environment. But GVSHP is committed to supporting the places that help keep our neighborhoods unique— the places that provide a service, atmosphere, or specialty that can’t be found anywhere else,” said Executive Director Andrew Berman.

Make sure your favorite business gets recognized and send in a nomination today. You can find a link to the form at www.gvshp.org/smbus.

— By Karen Loew

Karen Loew is Director of East Village and Special Projects at the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Two Nice Cops Locking my bike before walking into Staples on 6th Avenue and 8th, I became aware of two smiling young police officers talking to an elderly man with a shock of disheveled white hair as he sat on the curb, obviously unable to get up.

By the time I exited Staples, they had him standing, an ambulance had arrived, and they courteously and respectfully helped him get in.

At a moment when police encounters have become super-charged, I was aware of how respectfully these two officers had behaved.

They were Officers O’Mahoney and Sprague of the 6th Precinct.

—George Capsis

ALBERT S. BENNETT Photo by Thomas

Stevenson.

Village Preservationist Bennett Celebrates 90th Albert S. Bennett was born July 25, 1925 and moved to Morton Street on September 1, 1955. Friends and neighbors in the Morton Street Block Association (MSBA) honored the lifetime achievements of this extraordinary man at a gala party on Saturday, April 25.

Albert was a founding member of the MSBA in 1993, and has remained active in varying roles since then—fighting with passionate zeal against inappropriate development in his beloved Greenwich Village.

His love of the Greenwich Village waterfront shines through the 2002 book Maritime Mile, and he even coined the phrase “Maritime Mile” for that stretch of waterfront.

His years-long work to landmark the South Village bore fruit when the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension II was created in 2010. Albert’s eloquent testimony at many a hearing—where his wry humor often brought laughs—was instrumental in the success of this effort At his party, Albert noted that he has had many careers: he served during World War II; he acted; he was on important editorial staffs. But the most satisfying of all, he said, was his career as a Preservationist. That brought a huge round of applause from well wishers, who hope Albert will be able to continue in this ultimate career for many years to come.

—Mary T. Phillips

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4 WestView News May 2015

Defy Landlord by Dining at Taste of Lima a reputation as one of New York’s worst landlords, and is under investigation by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for using strong arm tactics to push rent controlled and rent stabilized tenants out of apartments.

Schneiderman actually won a cease and desist order against one of Croman’s operatives, an ex-cop named Anthony Falconite, who forces his way into apartments, rifles through drawers, takes photos and then deliver’s Notices to Cure conditions which the landlord says warrant eviction.

Seems that Croman could rent her restaurant space for $28,000 per month, and wants her out. So he served her with a Notice to Cure, alleging that she has created conditions which violate the Landmarks Law, including a window the landlord bricked up before she moved in. And he wants her bar removed.

She acted to correct the Landmark’s issue but the property owner needs to sign all applications; Croman has refused. Nelida hired a lawyer and got what is known as a “Yellowstone Injunction,” which keeps her in the restaurant while she fights with the landlord. But she fears that if one thing goes wrong in court (the next scheduled court date is 5/26) she will lose her business. And her legal bills are mounting; she says she has spent close to $100,000 over the last 6 months fighting multi-millionaire Croman.

On April 28th however, a new bat-

I HAVE INCA BLOOD—offers Nelida Mori as

she fights a ruthless landlord who owns 100 buildings. Photo by Suzanne Poli.

Continued from page 1

tle began. Taste of Lima passed its last Health Department inspection in early March 2015 with no violations. But after March she started to receive repeated visits from the Health Department, based on “anonymous complaints.”

At around 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 28, four large uniformed officers, who identi-

Several (officers)stationed themselves at the door, and for the next three hours refused to let patrons in. fied themselves as Health Department Police, arrived at her door and told her that there was a report of raw sewage leaking into her restaurant. Several stationed themselves at the door, and for the next three hours refused to let patrons in. The others combed through the restaurant with a fine tooth comb, looking for violations.

Those patrons who were already there left.

At the end she got a notice that the allegation of raw sewage leakage was “Not Found/False.” But they served her with five other violations, including one which reflected running several cycles of the dishwasher and then asserting that the dishwasher was out of chlorine sanitizer. If found guilty of the five violations, the restaurant could be closed by the Health Department. Then, the next day, when Nelida looked on the web, numerous web listings (Yelp, Google) incorrectly stated that Taste of Lima was CLOSED. For the rest of the week the restaurant was largely empty.

On May 1, on behalf of the restaurant, your correspondent, Arthur Schwartz, wearing his lawyer hat, shot off a letter to NYC Inspector General Mark Peters, asking him to launch an immediate investigation of why the Health Department cops did what they did, saying “The actions of the Health Department Officers appear to be a deliberately planned witch hunts, whose sole purpose was to cause problems for the restaurant and assist the landlord in his efforts to terminate the lease.” Hopefully Peters will investigate quickly.

Meanwhile our community needs to rally to save one of our few remaining, reasonably priced, local restaurants.

Think about going to the Taste of Lima

for dinner, Call (646) 854-6770 for a reservation, or use seamless.com or delivery. com to order takeout. We as a community need to give Nelida and Taste of Lima our support. Big bad Steve Croman, and his thugs, and his possibly paid off Health Department cops can’t be allowed to win this one. It’s our community. Let’s keep this a community restaurant!

Arthur Z. Schwartz is the Democratic District Leader for Greenwich Village and an attorney with the Civil Rights firm Advocates for Justice Chartered Attorneys.

Excerpt from The New York Times review:

But for flavor alone, for the sweetly fiery taste of creamy, light and delicious ceviche tiradito ($11), the place is worth the minor annoyances. It is a glorious ceviche, made of fresh strips of flounder gently marinated with an emulsified lemon sauce stained to a sunset’s hue with rocoto chilies. A thick coin of yam sits at the head of the plate, sweet against the bite. That rocoto, a habanerolike heat device that is not grown commercially in the United States, is worth puzzling over for a moment. It’s an extremely gentle though insistent chili, lemon’s expert foil, and a crucial ingredient at Lima’s Taste: the excellent plain ceviche, which is functionally the same as the tiradito minus the chilies, almost but not quite pales in comparison.

Other appetizers include sweetly smokey shrimp wrapped in bacon ($9) .

More consistent was a simple, delicious Peruvian standby of papas a la huancaina ($6.50) — a perfect boiled potato sliced into medallions and served cool beneath a blanket of peppery yellow cream sauce, white cheese and roasted garlic. Better still are papas rellenas ($7), mashed potatoes deep-fried around a savory filling of beef, raisins and tender onions, and causa ($7.50), a boccie ball of cool mashed potatoes set over perfect chicken salad, with avocado sauce drizzled over the top.

Cheerful clumps of chopped cilantro and loosely scattered sliced Bermuda onion accompany virtually all the appetizers in the manner of bodyguards, and make no exception for the entrees. They are thick across the top of the superb escabeche ($13.50), a browned chicken breast served in a deeply flavored peppery vin-

LANDLORD’S ANONYMOUS PHONE CALL—

brings police to report on sanitation violation, blocking business. Photo by Nelida Mori.

egar sauce over fibrous yucca, and are in many ways a key ingredient in the wet, faintly smoky grilled pork ribs ($15.50).

It’s hard to dope out what, exactly, flavors the lemony, faintly soyish marinade that powers the excellent barbecued chicken ($12). But it’s easy to say what pushes its quality into excellence: it is perfectly cooked. Likewise a fat and flavorful duck breast ($16), cooked in a deeply acidic bath of lemon and pepper, and a sweetly delicious comfort meal of ají de pollo ($12.50), a sort of chicken à la king that is bright with peppery flavor and is served with soft rice.

Better to stick to ceviche, or to abandon lightness entirely in favor of the meltingly flavorful single marinated pork chop ($16). A rich lomo saltado ($14.50), with chunks of steak mixed into a kind of stirfry of tomatoes, onions and absolutely perfect French fries (which sadly appear nowhere else on the menu), is also worth the work to finish its enormous mass.

Desserts are hard to come by; in fact, the restaurant is often out of them, even early in the evening. But a moist and pillowy Peruvian chocolate cake ($4.50) drenched in dulce de leche seems to be a mainstay, and for a reason: it’s delicious.

A good deal of the food at Lima’s Taste is. Despite the smoke and mirrors, sometimes that’s what you want most from a meal.

—Sam Sifton

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Update at St. Luke’s Your West Village Real Estate Resource for buyers, sellers and landlords.

Celebrating 10 Years SCOTTY SCOTTY ELYANOW ELYANOW Licensed Associate Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker Real Estate Broker

of West Village Real Estate

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Long time resident, real West estateVillage expert, neighborhood resident, realadvocate estate expert, and community volunteer. neighborhood advocate and community volunteer.

Member of Auction Committee CONSTRUCTION BEGINS: A rendering of the new apartment tower posted at the corner of

Barrow and Greenwich Streets. Image courtesy of Barry Rice Architect.

By Brian J. Pape March 30 marked the beginning of construction for a new apartment building in the Greenwich Village Historic District, designed by Barry Rice Architects with the Toll Brothers as general contractors.

The rendering posted at the site shows a five and a half story rose-mix brick base hugging the property line sidewalks, and a six-story metal and glass curtainwall tower set back from both street fronts, a scheme that was approved on May 6, 2014 at the City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) hearing.

Thanks to vocal community protests against the over-scaled and complicated original proposal, the current plan for a one hundred twenty-one foot high structure is substantially below the height and mass previously sought.

The LPC approval allows the excavating of the backyards, new landscaping, a new arbor structure and a new storage shed, replacing an earlier garage for the adjacent garden, which remains open to the public. The new tower will help the Church pay for expensive townhouse renovations.

The Church officials have stated to our reporters that Beyer Blinder Belle Architects, historic preservation specialists, and the Environmental Simulation Center Ltd., a nonprofit lab, developed a master plan for the full block to help the church expand while maintaining their historic buildings.

Their plans include doubling the size and capacity of the independent school, while preserving as much of the courtyard and garden space as possible. They say they need additional funding sources to support a fu-

ture mission facility for a senior center or health clinic and to host more community programs.

St. Luke in the Fields was established by the Trinity Church here at the northern edge of the Trinity land grant—215 Manhattan acres granted by England’s Queen Anne in 1705.

Trinity has long used land leasing as a means of capitalizing on its real estate holdings in Manhattan, and St. Luke’s, independent since the 1970’s, has arranged a similar deal with Toll Brothers, who will develop and manage the new apartment tower for their 99-year lease. Although the business terms are not public, typically the developer pays a fixed land rent plus a portion of the apartment rents to the landlord, in this case the Church. At the end of the lease, the land and improvements revert back to the landlord.

Church officials say that 20% of the residences will be “affordable” according to a city subsidy program that qualifies participants by income and uses a lottery for final selection. All dwellings enter the same lobby, which will have a large gathering space adjacent to a terrace overlooking the Church garden.

Green planted roofs will cover the setbacks and top deck. The full floor penthouse gets wrapped in windows to enjoy their private terraces and views beyond, at least the views between the taller loft buildings looming over two sides.

With permits in hand, the project is under construction now.

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Musical Masterworks at Grace Church

A DOWNTOWN MUSICAL POWERHOUSE: Conductor John Maclay, Music Director for

the Choral Society of Grace Church. Photo by Chris Lee.

By Stacy Horn

A reviewer once wrote, “I assumed that this would be a pleasing concert, although an amateur one. I was wrong. It was magnificent.”

“We love working at Grace Church and Grace Church School,” says Maclay. “The awe inspiring interior of the Church, its warm acoustics, and the open door its parishioners and staff provide to the community make it an ideal setting for live performances of choral music.

And it is such a commanding architectural presence in the streetscape that it literally causes Broadway to bend!”

Patrick Allen, current Organist and Master of Choristers of Grace Church, now runs what Maclay describes as “one of the great liturgical music programs in New York City and therefore in this country.”

Allen has also presided over the recent installation of the Church’s new worldclass pipe organ, whose sounds will be woven through the Choral Society’s May 8th & 9th performances of the Duruflé Requiem and will dramatically punctuate pieces by Vaughan Williams and Britten.

The Choral Society offers a great opportunity to hear major works by a magnificent chorus, professional orchestra and soloists at an affordable price right in our neighborhood.

To be enveloped in moving works like the Duruflé Requiem, in one of New York City’s finest architectural creations, one need only follow Whitman’s lead, and stroll along Broadway to 10th Street towards the musical beacon of Grace Church.

For concert information, please go to www.thechoralsociety.org.

When Walt Whitman came upon Grace Church, at 10th Street and Broadway, he was so enchanted by what he saw he described Broadway as a sea, “tossing spray of ribbons and plumes that give back rainbows,” and Grace Church a “ghostly lighthouse,” guiding the way.

Grace was famous for the quality of its music then, and some of the great opera singers of the day sang in a gallery above the front door. But by the end of the 19th century, the opera stars were long gone and the music to which listeners were compelled to listen was described as “altogether too dry.”

By the time Organist and Master of Choristers Frank Smith was hired in 1960, the church had lost its musical luster and the newly formed music committee pinned all its hopes on Smith: “Bring back our days of musical glory.”

Music at the church once again began to thrive. But Smith not only wanted to expand the congregation’s opportunities for singing, he also wanted to extend those opportunities to the community outside the church. In 1974 a community chorus of amateur singers was established, and this outreach was continued under his successor, Bruce McInnes, from 1991-1999.

Inspired by this tradition, the Choral Society of Grace Church was founded in 1999 as an independent, non-sectarian choral arts organization under current Music Director John Maclay.

Since that time, the Choral Society has become a downtown powerhouse of one hundred-fifty auditioned singers who bring concert-hall quality into the envi- Stacy Horn is the author of Imperfect Harronment for which most of their master- mony: Finding Happiness Singing With works repertoire was originally intended. Others.

May 2015 WestView News 7

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Village Apothecary Renovates

FEW NOTICEABLE CHANGES IN 30 YEARS:

Customers outside the popular pharmacy at the corner of Bleecker and West 10th Streets.

In the 2 ½ years that husband and wife Vijay Desai and Mital Patel have owned the Village Apothecary, they have made few noticeable changes. Mital and Vijay, each 31 years old, met at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston. Mital grew up in North Carolina and Vijay in New York City, the son of a pharmacist.

WestView News interviewed Mital about the planned renovation.

WestView News: What can we expect from the renovation?

Mital Patel: Starting from the instant customers enter Village Apothecary, we want to elevate their experience. The point of the renovation is to bring a better connection with our customers as well as the West Village community. There will be no interruption of

service during the renovation scheduled for June-September. We hope customers will tell us which products they want. Our goal is to make customers happy. Note that the last renovation of the store was in the 1980’s.

WVN: How has the business been doing under your ownership?

MP: It is growing—I am happy to say. We enjoy getting to know people in the community. As I said, we welcome their suggestions.

WVN: How do you compete with the national chains?

MP: We are not concerned about competition from them. They cannot match us for customer service. I worked for a chain pharmacy for 3 years. I hated the way they dealt with customers and I hated working there.

National chains actually help our business by sending dissatisfied customers to Village Apothecary. Customers always tell us horror stories of dealing with chain pharmacies.

Our customers take pride in the fact they know their pharmacist by name and that Village Apothecary will take care of their needs.

We are lucky to have retained a loyal staff, including five employees who have been here over ten years.

WVN: Any final comments?

MP: We want to thank the West Village community for supporting Village Apothecary for the past 30 years and look forward to the next 30!

A shining nursery van pulled up in front of my window on Charles Street as I struggled to get out another issue of WestView. Three uniformed attendants got out and began moving elegant plants in elegant containers to adorn the entryway to my neighbors’ brownstone—making my ancient plastic window boxes distorted by winter ice look especially shabby.

But after a new knee operation then another week in the hospital to remove an intestinal blockage, my energy battery was near zero. Even thinking of visiting Home Depot on 23rd Street to purchase an “almost keeping up with my neighbors” new planter left me exhausted.

So I found myself speaking to my son, Doric, who lives in East Williston Long Island, surrounded by a continuous overlapping sea of Shopping Centers (shopping being the chief cultural activity of Long Islanders.) I asked him if he would visit the famous Hick’s Nursery to see if they had classic wood planters and how much they would cost?

He called me from Hicks and the wooden planters were, gulp, very expensive (every-

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Teleported Shopping

By George Capsis

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thing is much more expensive than it was last week) but then, reading my hesitation, he had a thought. “Let me send you a photo,” and he did—he used his iPhone and bang—in minutes there was the wood planter on my machine. I had doubts about the color and contrast of the wood and I did not like the brass bands, but “They have some Italian planters on sale” Doric offered, knowing the word “sale” instantly evaporated my buying resistance.

The photo of the “Marchioro made in Italy collezione” did indeed cheer me, and as I talked to him and viewed the image of the elegant planter, I heard the sales women giving a very informed sales pitch. I asked questions, and it was if I was standing next to my son forty miles out on Long Island.

At that very instant, two women in traditional Southeast Asian dress walked by my window, the first with a baby on her shoulders the second with an iPhone tracking a West Village map—the planet is on-line.

Perhaps one day we will be able to call a store clerk who will walk out on the sales floor as we view what the clerk views and respond to our questions—or maybe instead of a human clerk, we’ll call a robot. From now on, I am going to let Doric do my iShopping.

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8 WestView News May 2015

Will Westbeth be the Next St. Vincents? continued from page 1 committee of WARC filed a Freedom of Information Act letter with the New York State Attorney General, requesting the financial records Westbeth had filed with their office. The AG was preparing them for release when the Board sued the Attorney General to prevent it. This legal stonewalling continues. Why is the Board going to such lengths to keep its finances a secret?

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Westbeth Is a Public Charitable Trust in Perpetuity

Although the Board refuses to provide information about its current finances, an exhaustive survey of its commercial space conducted in 1985 can be used as a benchmark for current commercial rents. At that time Westbeth was in arrears on its mortgage, and an earlier Board had sponsored a co-op conversion plan as “the only way” to prevent a HUD foreclosure. A group of residents [disclosure: this writer was one of them] retained attorney Gustave Harrow to explore an alternative.

Harrow was a professor of legal ethics and art law at NYU who had recently retired from the State Attorney General’s Bureau of Charities and Trusts. At his initial meeting with the resident artists, they learned for the first time that Westbeth was a public charitable trust with special protections under the law that prohibited a co-op conversion. Its charter as a public trust also provided penalties for trustees who wasted or benefitted from Westbeth’s assets, and its mission mandated that artists’ rents be kept low by deriving a third or more of the rent revenue from its 100,000 square feet of commercial space.

In preparing his alternative to the co-op plan, Harrow did an analysis of ninety commercial leases and was shocked to find “an inexplicable failure of prudent management... with repercussions to this day.” Prime locations on the 12th floor and penthouse of the main building had been “extraordinarily undervalued.” The most egregious “sweetheart” lease was for the Ramscale penthouse, locked in for ten years at $4.20 a sq. ft. As the tenants were also living there illegally, without the necessary Certificate of Occupancy, Harrow

could find “no apparent reason why this lease was not being challenged.”

The good news was that the Ramscale lease was one of eighty that would soon expire. Harrow then submitted a “forbearance agreement” that showed how three-year, “extremely prudent” commercial rent increases would resolve not only Westbeth’s current crisis but also ensure a future of “robust fiscal health.” His plan was accepted by the Attorney General, HUD, the NEA, and other relevant government agencies. Whether it was implemented is another question.

Will Westbeth Be the Next St. Vincents?

There are indications that not much has changed: Ramscale is still here, making a killing off Westbeth’s assets. One of the new commercial tenants is the son of a former Board president, occupying an office in firstfloor, river-view space. Articles published in the New York Post and Real Estate News in March 2014 quote an agent hired by the Westbeth Board to broker 70,000 square feet of newly renovated commercial space.

“Rents will be substantially below market.

We could provide someone with a 49-year lease, and they could almost have ownership of a large block of space, with a dedicated entrance.” It seems that history is repeating itself: long leases, low rents, with “repercussions to this day.”

Will Westbeth share the fate of St. Vincent’s—a sudden collapse of a venerable nonprofit institution after years of a Board’s assurance that everything was in order?

WARC president George Cominskie does not believe Westbeth is in the same situation, but he notes a similarity. “The Westbeth Board says we should trust their decisions, but if it is not transparent on fiscal and policy items, how do we really know we are not in the same situation? Past Boards took us to the brink of bankruptcy, twice, and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Catherine Revland is a journalist and historian who has lived in the West Village since 1979.

Finding Purpose in Enjoying Life

By Ron Elve

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Vast numbers of often rambling, even convoluting books and discussions often almost seem to avoid a conclusion. Is enjoyment the purpose of life? Can’t it be simplified so that we can just get on with it?

While enjoyment is crucial, it is important to remember that the definition of enjoyment should contain more “satisfactory” experiences as opposed to mere “fun.” Ideally, in our pursuit of enjoyment, no one, including ourselves, should be needlessly hurt—physically or mentally. And we can get on with life’s purpose!

Previous articles have focused on students enjoying their courses and classes, which can be very motivating. Another article was on finding loves by examining one’s list of “likes.” Both of these articles circle around this idea of “enjoyment” and how it can be useful in reaching our goals.

Most true enjoyment involves work.

Work is usually defined as not enjoyable but required. And, guess what, generally, more enjoyment requires more work. To quote Rousseau, it is the “most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.”

Ron (Ronelve@aol.com) is tutoring and mentoring in the West Village.

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The Lost Cinemas of the West Village The Carmine Theater

By Clive I. Morrick The Carmine Theater stood at 21 Carmine Street from at least 1910 to 1925. Our Lady of Pompeii church now occupies that site. The Carmine showed silent films, in the early days reels no longer than 30 minutes. In its final year, it reportedly had a capacity of 600.

The Carmine Theater opened in an area that still contained remnants of a rough and tumble vice-ridden era, where many immigrant Italian families had replaced the Irish in the late 19th century. In 1911, Mary Heaton Vorse, a journalist and social activist, visited the Carmine Theater and reported in a magazine article that audience members, many being mothers and their children, talked with each other and to the figures on the screen. The film was about a cowboy who stole to provide for his dying wife and the audience noisily debated his dilemma.

In 1925, the City condemned land and razed buildings, evicting thousands—including the Carmine Theater—in order to extend Sixth Avenue south from Carmine Street, where it abruptly ended, to Canal Street in preparation for the new IND subway. Our Lady of Pompeii church, then across Sixth Avenue at 210 Bleecker Street (lately occupied by the American Apparel clothing store) was rebuilt at the corner of Carmine and Bleecker streets. It occupied several plots (now consolidated to one) including the one on which the Carmine Theater had stood. The new church was dedicated on October, 7, 1928.

The Carmine Theater lives on in two paintings by

John Sloan (1871-1951), one of The Eight, a group of Philadelphia artists and illustrators who took on the art establishment when they moved to New York in 1904.

Later, their style became known as The Ashcan School because these artists painted crowded urban scenes.

(The Carmine Theater is the only Sloan painting to actually feature an ash can!)

In 1912, Sloan was living at 155 East 22nd Street and often walked down to Greenwich Village. In his diary for January 25, he wrote “Out for a walk, down

to Bleecker and Carmine streets, where I think I have soaked in something to paint.” The following day he noted “Started ‘Carmine Theatre’ memory of yesterday.”

He had sketched the theater the previous day. In May 1912, he set up a studio in the Varitype Building at 35 Sixth Avenue, which had opened in 1907, and on October 19, he and his wife Dolly moved to 61 Grove Street.

A year later Sloan painted the Carmine Theater again, in a night scene, calling it simply “Movies.” The featured continued on page 11

JOHN SLOAN, CARMINE THEATER, 1912: Oil on canvas,

JOHN SLOAN, MOVIES,1913: Oil on canvas, 19 7/8 x 24

26 1/8 X 32 in. (66.1 X 81.2 cm.) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1966. Photography by Lee Stalsworth. 66.4616.

in. (50.5 x 61 cm), Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio), Museum Purchase,1940.16. Photo by Photography Incorporated, Toledo.

May 2015 WestView News 11

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Lost Cinemas

ontinued from page 10

film was A Romance of the Harem. One of Sloan’s biographers, John Loughery, described Movies as follows: “[It] shows the same theater at night, aglow with bright lights, and the street crowded with more children, couples, and unattached men and women appraising their chances with the opposite sex.”

Another writer, Susan Saccoccia, also noted the extra life in Movies. “Sloan’s painting Movies, 1913, is about the show on the sidewalk as well as the movie parlor.

The sealed-up structure that Sloan depicted in The Carmine Street (sic) Theater, 1912, here bursts into life as a stage set for the pageant on the street: Children gawk, adults flirt, and a few patrons wander into the theater. One man slouches against the wall surveying the scene—perhaps a stand-in for Sloan.”

In early 1916, Sloan exhibited Carmine Theater in his first one-man show, at the Whitney Studio, 8 West 8th Street. The New York Sun’s art critic described the nun as a Sister of Charity passing the cinema with an uncouth stride, glancing at the children hoping to see a movie.

In 1931, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the arts patron and sculptress, turned the Studio into the Whitney Museum of American Art, which remained on West 8th Street until 1954. The Whitney re-opens on May 1st, on Gansevoort Street by the High Line. The original Studio has housed the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, & Sculpture since 1966.

Coda: The leader of The Eight was Robert Henri, who gave life drawing classes at the New York School of Art. In 1906, Sloan took over Henri’s class for a month.

One of his students was Edward Hopper, ten years younger. Later they became contemporaries and mutual admirers of each other’s work. They both painted several cinema scenes.

Ephemeral Images at Jefferson Market

By Matt Whitman As a space of inevitable flux and evolution, the city often seems to exist outside of itself at times. Journeys through the spaces of this city are inextricably bound with memory. Experiences unfold in a place and become part of the history and mythology of that space.

Public mythology like the memory of the World Trade Center. Or private mythology. Remembering the bench where she sat and cried when she received the news of her mother’s death and from then on, quietly acknowledging the power that this bench has as she walks by on her commute.

Memory feeds mythology. And mythology, in more ways than I think we would like to admit, is part of what feeds the outsider’s fascination with New York City. It is certainly what fed mine prior to my journey here.

Time is the continuum in which memory and mythology are synthesized and carried forward. And film, as filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky described in his text Sculpting in Time, is truly the medium of time.

Film is memory imprinted. It is time imprinted. Film is unique in that it creates an index—a lived document of light and shadow—that when exhibited, allows for the experiencing of a memory in actual time. One could say that it is the closest that we might come to re-experiencing a lived memory.

For this reason, the filmic documents that characterize and crystallize our memories of a forever-changing city become crucial waypoints in a study of the way the city existed in past times, but also in how and why certain spaces become imbued with meaning that transcends generations. It is information that we need as we decide and shape the way that the city continues to be remembered and mythologized.

Memory feeds mythology. And mythology, in more ways than I think we would like to admit, is part of what feeds the outsider’s fascination with New York City.

In my course at Jefferson Market Library, Ephemeral New York, Ephemeral Image , we will dive into The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ extensive 16mm film collections as a way of beginning a conversation that surrounds not only the history of New York City, but also how and why these historical documents can (and do) change and reconstruct our perception and remembrance of the city’s pasts and give us insight into how we might conceive of documenting the future.

Matt Whitman is an American film and video artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently part-time faculty at Parsons the New School for Design. Whitman holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design and a Master of Arts degree in Media Studies from The New School for Public Engagement.

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SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER ON ARTHUR Z. SCHWARTZ: Whenever anyone calls on Arthur to do something good, he’s there and he doesn’t ask what’s in it for him and he doesn’t ask how much money there is and he doesn’t ask anything. He just does it. And you know, when you think about it, he is the kind of person who – we use the word with a lot of cliché and it’s overused– but he truly is a great American. You know when the founding fathers set up the country – if you read the Federalist’s Papers, what was their greatest doubt? Well, they had a lot of doubts. There was dealing with this new little beast called democracy in a republic. But the thing they worried about most is whether the citizenry would come forward and stand up to the plate.

You know, for a thousand years people had let someone else run things and they were really worried that the only people who would get involved in their government, whether it be running for office or, more importantly, just working to see that the government worked, were people only of self-interest. And of course we have a lot of that.

We have a ton of apathy, people don’t care. And then it seems like all too many people who get involved are doing it because they’re saying there’s something in it for numero uno. But there are lots of people who are in it for the right reasons. And if you had to pick somebody who sort of –this room if filled with them, that’s one of the nice things about Arthur and his friends– but if you had to pick somebody who symbolizes that, it would be Arthur Schwartz.

May 2015 WestView News 13

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Writers’ Atelier Survives

COAXING THE MUSES: For authors of all genres, the Writers Room off Astor Place offers an

airy loft space every day of the year, twenty-four hours a day.

Photo by Maggie Berkvist.

By Allan Ishac The Writers Room, which calls itself “The nation’s oldest and largest urban writers’ colony,” was founded in 1978 by a group of downtown writers wanting to create a quiet, conducive space in which to coax the muses. The Room is currently located (after occupying three other Village addresses in it’s first twenty-five years) in a large, airy loft space on historic Astor Place.

Donna Brodie, Director of The Writers Room since 1994, recognizes its unique place in the lives of city writers: “We have a few members who were here from our humble beginnings in a tiny office with four desks. They are passionately attached to The Writers Room. But so are the people who just became members last week. Everyone who joins the Room asks, “Where have you been all my life?”

The Writers Room is bright, well maintained, and virtually silent apart from the muted clickety-clack of fingers on keyboards.

The Writers Room is bright, well maintained, and virtually silent apart from the muted clickety-clack of fingers on keyboards. It has large windows facing north and west, with dramatic views of the Empire State Building. It even includes a separate, “talk quietly” kitchen and eating area, as well as a secluded napping room and lounge nooks (must be true about writers daydreaming a lot).

Available to writers of all genres, members have access every day of the year, twenty four hours a day. The membership fees are also affordable—about $1800 a

year—thanks to the financial backing of longtime supporters and private grants.

The Writers Room seems to give writers both structure and a sense of belonging. As one member put it: “I used to waste time at home checking Facebook and calling friends. Now I’m in the company of other writers, in a professional setting, and I get a lot more accomplished. The room gives me all of the solitude I need with none of the isolation.”

Currently, The Writers Room has more than two hundred members sharing fortytwo partitioned desks. But the varying schedules of members (including some who only use the room at night) allow everyone to find an available workspace.

A lot of impressive work is produced here. In the past year, members have published twenty-five fiction and non-fiction books (actor Alan Cummings recently finished his memoir here), in addition to major pieces in magazines and journals. Since it opened over thirty-five years ago, more than one thousand books have been written in the room. That’s a lot of plot twists.

Brodie adds, “When aspiring writers have tried everywhere else—the kitchen table, the cafe crowded with app developers, the annual retreat to a woodsy cabin—The Writers Room is the place where they settle in for the long haul. It has been a home away from home for thousands of writers and a savior of marriages for almost as many.”

The Writers’ Room 740 Broadway at Astor Place, 12th floor writersroom.org 212.254.6995

Allan Ishac is the author of New York’s 50 Best Places to Find Peace and Quiet and creator of the TranquiliCity app. He lives in Greenwich Village. (allanishac.com)

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14 WestView News May 2015

The New Whitney Museum Opens its Doors with a Block Party on May 2

By Martica Sawin The arrival of the new Whitney Museum may be the most exciting event in the West Village since the survivors of the Titanic were brought in a century ago. For several years now I've watched from my window as the ventilating system crowning the new building appeared above the neighboring rooftops, and I occasionally circled the site wondering how an elegant Renzo Piano building would look in that space between the High Line and the Highway, hemmed in on the north by Quality Veal Corp and Weichsel Fresh Beef and Lamb.

It was a challenge architect Renzo Piano was ready for, having designed more than twenty museums in the forty years since he co-designed the Pompidou Center in the Paris market district. He knew better than to put a sleek white box in an industrial neighborhood alongside streets that not long ago were flanked with hanging carcasses above bloodstained cobblestones, where violence along the working waterfront was not uncommon, and where six lanes of speeding traffic today separate the building from the river.

In the four floors of spacious galleries there are no dictatorial sequences of artworks, although the initial hanging—of some six-hundred works from a collection of twenty-two thousand— is loosely arranged by period or theme. A continual shift in scale and medium, encompassing the outsize and the minute, the moving and the obdurately static, creates an enlivening momentum from one space to another.

There are also amenities that the earlier Whitney could not accommodate—an education center, a light-flooded conservation lab, a works on paper study center, and a 170 seat theater that will enable an

expanded performance program.

The new Whitney does not present itself as a closed chapter of American art and architecture, but as a work in progress, a framework for whatever artists may do next. Its very openness invites participation and inspires creativity.

The founder, Gertrude Whitney, started by opening studio space for other artists in connection with her own Greenwich Village studio, then, realizing that an audience was also needed, began to provide exhibition space as well. In the new museum a ground floor gallery, with no admission charge, allows the visitor to start with Gertrude and her artist friends and colleagues as they gathered in the Whitney studio in the first decade of the last century, the forerunners of a spectacular century of American art that unfolds in the new museum.

In the 1990's the Whitney's director, Adam Weinberg, was a young curator on the staff before leaving to become director of the Addison Gallery of American Art. At the time A CHALLENGE RENZO PIANO WAS READY FOR: View of the Eastern exterior from the 7th floor terrace. he put together an unorthodox Photos by Maggie Berkvist show that in hindsight reveals something of his innovative thinking. He the museum in the year 1952 and hung them in their role as filters of cultural survival. It went to the storage rooms in the museum on the walls and in storage racks in the first demonstrated the mutability of institutionbasement where thousands of works hung on floor gallery of the Breuer building. al collections and the potential fallibility of sliding screens and pulled out all the paintThe result, Around 1952, was a fascinat- institutiotns charged with winnowing the ings he could find that had been acquired by ing insight into the operation of museums vast field of contemporary art and channeling it into history. That early exhibition suggests a breadth of view on the part of Whitney director Adam Weinberg, as well as an awareness of the museum's responsibility to past and present combined. This is aptly demonstrated in the inaugural exhibition, America is Hard to See, which will be covered in the June WestView News.

The Museum opens to the public on Friday, May 1. The following day, May 2, there will be a block party, sponsored by Macys, on Gansevoort Street from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Museum hours will be as follows:

Monday 10:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Tuesday closed Wednesday 10:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Thurs – Sat 10:30 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Sunday 10:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.

AN ENLIVENING MOMENTUM FROM ONE SPACE TO ANOTHER:. On the 8th floor, looking out at the terrace, left, and the spacious

Hurst Family Galleries, right .

Advance tickets for admission to the museum can be purchased online at Whitney. org up to the day before their visit. Online ticket buyers will be able to skip the admissions line when they arrive at the museum.

May 2015 WestView News 15

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West Village Original: Peter Harvey

By Michael D. Minichiello

This month’s West Village Original is painter and designer Peter Harvey, born in Guatemala in 1933 of British parents. He was a scenic designer for many years, working on both Broadway and Off-Broadway, as well as designing the original 1967 production of Balanchine’s “Jewels” and the 2004 revival.

Nowadays, Harvey devotes his time exclusively to painting—in both oil and watercolors—in the U.S. and France. View his work at www.peterharveypaintings.com.

After a long and successful career as a theatrical set designer, Peter Harvey finally decided to call it quits in 1987. “I’d had it!” he says. “I went into the theatre because I felt it was an art and one that I loved. However, the love affair was over. After thirty years I found that here in New York it was a very commercial endeavor and nobody really cared if it was art.

They wanted the easiest and cheapest thing on stage that they could get. Someone once suggested my name to a successful director and he responded, ‘I don’t want to use Peter.

He’s too creative.’” He laughs. “That’s a great compliment, but it didn’t get me the job!”

Besides, it was painting that always gave Harvey the greatest pleasure and continues to do so. It began when he first went to

CANNOT DISAPPROVE OF THE WEST VILLAGE: Peter Harvey acknowledges

that all of New York has changed.

Photo by Michael D. Minichiello..

the University of Miami in Coral Gables.

“In those days they were pushing abstract expressionism but I just couldn’t get with that,” he says. “I don’t know why! I just couldn’t think in those terms. You could get a nice effect and pretty colors but I never got any meaning out of it. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in an earlier era and in an English environment. The children’s

books I had were illustrated with naturalistic, imaginative, and painterly images. I guess they had a profound effect on me.”

What is it that he likes most about painting? “I love both the physical and emotional aspect,” Harvey says. “When I’m done I feel at ease, rested, and complete, not at all worried and neurotic. It’s cathartic.” One of his most creative periods was during the AIDS crisis while he was looking after a sick friend. “Robert and I had been partners and friends for 21 years,” he says. “It’s kind of funny and odd and sad to say, but those were the most creative years that I had. I worked all the time and nothing interrupted me. Robert didn’t trouble me at all. There was no medication in those days but he was very strong and brave through it all. And, of course, it had an effect on me so I did paintings of him. After he died I did a big painting of him on his bed with his oxygen mask.

I think it’s the best one I’ve ever done.”

Although he was a frequent visitor to New York before settling here, it was in 1958 that Harvey finally moved into the apartment he still lives in on Perry Street.

What was it like to be a gay man in those days? “I didn’t find it any problem at all,” he admits. “I was not tormented about being gay and once I made up my mind, it was very easy to find mutual friends and people who were interested in the same

thing. There were bars throughout the City so there was plenty of opportunity to meet others. You couldn’t kiss and hold hands on the street like they do nowadays, but there were no problems. Some people may have found it difficult, but I think it depends on how quickly you accept yourself.”

As for the West Village back then, Harvey claims that it was a real neighborhood.

“There were funny little curiosity shops on Bleecker Street because you could rent a store for nothing,” he recalls. “Early in the mornings you could hear the clinking of milk bottles being delivered to the apartment houses.

My building was heated by coal and every few months the coal would rattle down the chute into the cellar. And while the streets are full of trees, many of them were only planted in the 1970s. I remember thinking I would never see them full-size!”

“Now I’m disappointed that it’s become so high and mighty,” he continues. “It’s not a neighborhood anymore. It’s full of tourists. Plus it’s full of nannies pushing baby carriages. The new residents are such a fecund bunch! I can’t disapprove of it, though, because all of New York has changed.”

Then Harvey pauses for a moment and has to admit that he still wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. “It’s still the Village,” he says. “And you love it because you can see the sky.”

KIDS

110 Years of Children’s Arts Education in Greenwich Village • • • • • • • • • • •

Early Childhood Music Suzuki Violin Private Music Lessons Group Music Lessons Basketball Soccer Pottery French Woodworking Photography Architecture and Design Classes

Ongoing registration at www.greenwichhouse.org

The Voices of Ascension Renaissance Concert Our favorite pieces from 25 years of Renaissance Concerts Thursday May 21, at 8:00pm Church of the Ascension Fifth Avenue at Tenth Street

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

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16 WestView News May 2015

House Sales

By Matthew Pravda

There is No Plan

How Air Rights Could Radically Change the Waterfront

TRANSFER OF DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS:

66 Morton Street, a 25’ wide single-

family house located on sought after Morton Street was listed for $13,900,000 in October of 2014. The townhouse has a long list of film making history with movies such as Working Girl, The Night We Never Met, Autumn in New York, and Quiz Kid all being shot there.

The beautiful bow front façade recently traded for $17,000,000— $3,000,000 over the asking price.

Wesley Snipes’ former carriage house at 271 West 10th Street sold on February 15. The 27’ wide building was gutted and sold as raw space for $14,850,000. The Landmarks Preservation Committee has approved a single-family conversion and the addition of a fourth floor. After what will likely be a two year renovation, the home will boast over 10,000 square feet of living space including an excavated basement with grand ceiling height.

Matthew Pravda is a real estate broker at Leslie J. Garfield & Co. specializing in townhouse and small building sales. In 15 years he has had sales totaling over $300,000,000.

Invites You to a Spring Benefit

to fund summer camp for very deserving middle-school students Honoring Walt “Clyde” Frazier Steve Ashkinazy, Pedro Cardi, Michael Fortenbaugh, Virginia Kee and Harry Malakoff

Transferred unused development rights (left) and unused development rights on zoning lot with landmarked building.

By Barry Benepe In the last minute, near-midnight closing session of the New York State Legislature in June 2013, our local Senator and Assembly members pushed through a revolutionary proposal to radically change the appearance of the Hudson River waterfront.

But if the New York City Planning Department doesn’t take action and create a viable plan, this change could transform the waterfront we know into a nightmare like Donald Trump’s Riverside South or Battery Park City.

When they passed this amendment, the legislature authorized the Trust to sell “unused development rights” worth potentially billions of dollars over the next fifty or hundred years to developers overlooking the park.

However, no one knows the location or extent of these “unused” arbitrary rights because they have not been clearly defined.

Presumably, they will be determined using Floor Ratio Area calculations that are based on zoning law. (Floor Ratio Area describes the maximum allowable square feet of building floor allowed in relationship to size of the lot as zoned.)

Local zoning laws will have a huge impact on the final appearance of the waterfront. One important condition contained in this amendment to the Hudson River Park Act that the legislature pushed through is that this change could take place “if and to the extent designated and permitted under local zoning ordinances.”

Since the New York City Planning Department controls local zoning ordinances, that means the ball sits in their court, where it has been sitting for nearly two years. Only they, by creating a clear and transparent plan, can place limits on these “unused development rights.”

There are many essential steps before the waterfront project can proceed, and these steps involve major zoning changes subject to ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure). During ULURP, local community boards can express nonbinding opinions. But that process cannot begin until City Planning does its job and prepares a plan to make its vision clear.

The Planning Department has a once-ina-lifetime opportunity to shape an extraordinary Hudson River District by determining how these unused air rights over the water can be distributed on top of those unused air rights already existing on such properties as the St. John Terminal across from Pier 40.

In Vision 2020, the Planning Department shows a beautiful green shoreline bordering the Hudson River Estuary with boat landings for kayaks, canoes and sailboats. But they don’t acknowledge that green shoreline would be compromised if their zoning laws allow the surrounding area to be overbuilt like Penn Yards above West 31st Street.

Right now there is no plan.

Future articles in this series will explore what the community can do to influence the outcome of the waterfront transformation, as well as examining what type of space would most benefit the community.

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When Horses Ruled NYC A series on historic stable/carriage houses: 129 Charles Street

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF STABLES: This restored building at 129 Charles started as

a stable and single family dwelling for Herman Thalmann in 1897. It is being restored for single family use. Photo by Brian J. Pape.

By Brian J. Pape One hundred fifty years ago, horses dominated all land transportation in NYC. People and freight came mostly by water, but then you walked or you depended on horses.

Streets needed to be paved just to make it possible to get around, or else you sank in the mud and ruts, water mixed with manure.

For those who could afford a horse and carriage, having a place to store and care for them was essential. Therefore, on every block there would be a carriage house in the backyard of homes, or a separate structure nearby for that purpose. The horses needed grooms and veterinary care; the carriages needed drivers and repairmen.

The transformation of the stables to other uses began a long time ago and most have been demolished. The structures that remain have been converted primarily for residences.

As a type of architecture, these former stables now add variety to our streetscapes. Surprisingly perhaps, the stables had distinctive attributes that allow us to still pick them out.

In those days when the mud and sewage in the streets created very unsanitary conditions, no one would think of entering a home, or even a business, from the sidewalk grade; one needed to step up and out of the muck first.

So a large opening at the street level for carriages to enter easily became a distinguishing feature for stable and carriage garages, and that distinction remains today.

The former stable at 129 Charles Street is our first study example. It was constructed

for Herman Thalmann in 1897 by architect Henry Andersen. This four-story vernacular style brick with stone trim structure had its stable on the lower levels, and the Thalmann’s single family dwelling on the upper floors.

The original structure had two stable openings and an entrance door on the ground floor, set between four cast iron posts and under an iron beam. Above the beam is an historic stone plaque with “H. Thalman.” (sic) engraved into it, and there is a horse head keystone over the center third floor window arch.

In an unusual history, the Thalmann’s sold it at auction in 1902, but in 1923 Henry J. Comens purchased the property for his eponymous trucking firm, also residing there with his wife Helen from 1913 until at least 1934. The Comens’ also owned the adjacent federal style townhouse at 131 Charles, ca.1834, from 1925 to 1940. The cornice was removed prior to 1939, and the ground floor was heavily altered. 129 Charles was converted to a garage and machine shop in 1950, then to storage and photo studio in 1972.

Most recently, a new owner has remodeled and converted the building into a single family dwelling with a two-car garage. The new doors and entry framing of cast iron, the windows, and the ornate cornice have all been restored, following a trend in the West Village to respect the original character of its buildings by its new owners.

Stroll around the neighborhood and see if you can pick out other conversions. Next month we will study another historic stable building.

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18 WestView News May 2015

Then & Now

77 Bleecker Street

By Stan Fine

THEN

1900. The twin horse drawn trolley pauses at 77 Bleecker (seen in the doorway) before continuing its route west on cobblestone Bleecker Street. William McKinley was our 25th president. It was Mark Twain’s debut in The New York Times. A “horseless carriage” appeared in New York City’s first auto show as the city’s population jumped to 3.4 million people. Photo: picsamerica.

NOW

2015. 115 years later, the cobblestones are gone, yet we can still see the façade and modified fire escapes at 77 Bleecker Street (seen on the awning) located between Broadway and Mercer Street. Photo: Stan Fine.

May 2015 WestView News 19

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May is the New April

ALL PUNK-GREEN IN HIS AU COURANTE HAIRCUT: A Red-breasted Merganser waiting out

the late spring. Photograph by Keith Michael.

By Keith Michael Yesterday was shorts and sandals weather; today it’s back to sweater and hat. The crocuses, daffodils and tulips in front of my building are arguing about air rights—a familiar street-scene in the West Village, I guess. In a “normal” spring, each of them has their own spin on the dance floor: the crocuses introduce the opening allemande, giving over to the sprightly gigue of the daffodils, yielding to the robust gavotte of the tulips. Not this year. It’s more like a rowdy free-for-all brawl, bumping and shoving and, in some cases, a knock-down fight to get to the sun.

It’s the weekend, so Millie and I are headed to the river for an afternoon stroll. Our weekday walks before work are, more often than not, only a circumnavigation of our block rather than the jaunt to the Hudson that once was our morning ritual. Millie’s just too slow.

Her corgi-nose simply must sniff at every tree or corner or crack in the sidewalk, or she must appraise every person lingering or any punctuating sound drifting from the next block. Perhaps she’s gathering information for writing the next-great-Welsh-novel—maybe it will be a faster read.

Across the street, a White-throated Sparrow is singing his plaintive Oh sweet Canada Canada Canada from the leafingout Norway Maple. He’s fairly lost now within the hyper-green new foliage, and his song sounds fairly lost as well. The trees have nearly caught up after the late spring, but this guy must still be confused whether it’s time to leave for his summer in the Adirondacks or to hunker down here. I know that I wrote about the mournful song of the White-throated Sparrows last month, but they’re still here, in what, for them, is the tropics.

The European Starlings and House Sparrows have been nest-building for weeks—the starlings sneaking in and out of the cornices, and the sparrows brazenly defending every pipe-end of the T-bar supports for the traffic lights. Part of their success as immigrants is that they aren’t fazed by anything—cold, hot, wet, dry, Europe, America—they can adapt. I wouldn’t be surprised to already see a clutch of fledglings fluttering along the sidewalk.

The Callery pears were only about a week behind schedule with their snowstorm of petals outlining the cobblestones in the streets, and the cherry trees are catching up. I’ve been watching my “warbler trees” on Perry and West 11th streets that have welcomed a bounty of migrants in the past several years. A Black-andwhite Warbler with its chalkboard stripes and a rainbow-bibbed Northern Parula have already passed through.

We have the light to cross West Street, but Millie plops down in the crosswalk for a head scratch—the countdown flashes 10, 9, 8, 7—“Millie, let’s go!” We sprint.

Meeting us at the finish line on the other side is a Canada Goose gander strutting on the lawn. I think his henwife (okay, I’m being presumptuous here: perhaps they’re only domestic partners) may finally be sitting on a nest. Three years ago this pair already had goslings

by April 1st.

There’s a Phoebe, usually one of the first arrivals in spring, rhythmically pumping its tail on the budding Juneberry bush. It’s the first one I’ve seen in the park this season, so maybe I’ve just missed their arrival or this one’s still enjoying the cooler air. Sallying out from the branch to catch a bug, it heads north.

Millie pulls me to the railing to do her sightseeing along the river. There’s been a seal splashing around the bay up in In-

wood, a Chuck-will’s-widow roosting in Bryant Park, and a pair of Bald Eagles are nesting on Staten Island (the first eagles that have taken up homemaking in the City in over 100 years!) So I’m on the lookout for newsworthy visitors as well.

Ah, not rarities, but there’s an end-ofwinter pair of Buffleheads still bobbing about the piers, and right below us a Red-breasted Merganser, all punk-green in his au courante haircut, is trying to evade a gull intent on pirating the Mer-

ganser’s next fish. Maybe catching sight of Millie’s nose poking through the railing as well, the Merganser takes a dive— who knows where he’ll pop up next.

The Buffleheads and Mergansers will soon be heading north, and the warblers will be riding winds up from the south.

Goodbye, hello.

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

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20 WestView News May 2015

McNulty’s

THEY HAVE LOYAL CUSTOMERS AND NO PLAN TO CLOSE: Owner David Wong and his father

with the old fashioned scales they use to measure the coffee and tea. Photo by Maggie Berkvist.

By Caroline Benveniste Too often we walk by a long-standing Village store, only to see that it is closing, generally because of rising rent. So I was particularly pleased during my recent visit to McNulty’s, which has been in business since 1895, to hear from the owner, David Wong, that McNulty’s has no plans to shutter anytime soon.

McNulty’s is what one imagines a Village shop would be—old, preserved in time, with friendly and helpful staff. The store has not changed much, if at all, since moving to its

current location in the 1920’s or 30’s from further west on Christopher.

The same sign hangs over the door, the same old-fashioned scales are used to weigh coffee and tea, the walls are covered with the original wooden shelves and bins, the bags are still stamped with rubber stamps, and a wooden card catalogue still holds the names of customers along with their coffee preferences (David produced the card with Katherine Hepburn’s usual blend).

The McNultys were the original owners, and after changing hands a number of times

the Towarts bought it in 1967. David Wong’s brother started working at the shop around 1977, and three years later when the Towarts decided to sell, David’s father, Wing H. Wong, who had been working in a garment factory in Chinatown decided to buy. David grew up working there, starting with weekends in high school. He and his father now work there together, sometimes with two of David’s nephews—three generations working together at the store.

Over the years David has seen a change in coffee tastes. In the early 80’s, medium roast coffee was the norm, with Colombian and Mocha Java the most popular. Today darker roasts are the best-sellers, possibly a legacy of Starbucks.

David himself likes dark roasts because they taste stronger, but points out that with a medium roast you are better able to taste the characteristics of the coffee. Now the top sellers are French Roast Java Mountain Supreme, Italian Roast Sulawesi and Guatemalan Antigua, which is smooth and subtle with low acid.

The coffee prices at McNulty’s are quite reasonable, particularly when compared with other neighborhood options. Most coffee shops offer drinks and food, but McNulty’s focuses only on the beans, making it a better choice for home brewers.

David teaches people how to make coffee, including the correct proportions and technique. His favorite coffee maker is the French Press which, he says, makes stronger coffee, but drip coffee is smoother since the filter removes some of the bitter waxes and oils.

While the overwhelming smell at the store is of coffee, tea now accounts for about 35%

of sales, a percentage that has been going up steadily for the past ten years.

The store has many regular customers, some of them quite eccentric (not too surprising in the Village). Over the years Mimi Sheraton has purchased her coffee there and mentions McNulty’s in her recent book 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die. Overseas visitors come too—McNulty’s appears in many foreign tour books.

The loyal customers are one reason David is optimistic that McNulty’s will be around for a while; the other is that they recently signed a ten year lease—good news for Village coffee and tea lovers. With any luck the store will be around for the next one hundred and twenty years.

My Father’s Greek Coffee

Greeks and Turks drink this style of coffee, usually made on the stovetop in an ibrik (a special metal beaker with a handle). The coffee grind is even finer than espresso.

• 1 heaping Tablespoon coffee (preferably McNulty’s Turkish Blend, special grind) • Sugar to taste (usually about ½ Tablespoon)

Fill a demitasse cup with water. Pour the water in an ibrik (or small pot). Add the coffee and sugar and stir until mixed.

Heat the mixture until it starts rising then quickly remove from the heat. Pour back into the demitasse cup. Ideally there is a beautiful foam on the surface of the coffee. Allow grounds to settle a few moments. Stop drinking once you reach the grounds.

May 2015 WestView News 21

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Turkish Cuisine Comes to the West Village

By John Barrera Have you ever cooked Turkish food? Before I wrote this article I would have had to think about that question. Now, having done some research I realize that if I have ever played with fire, spices and a piece of protein I’ve cooked Turkish. The Ottoman Empire covered a lot of ground for a very long time, and their influence can be seen in the food of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Some would consider it one of the three great cuisines along with French and Chinese. I personally don’t agree one hundred percent with that train of thought. But, that’s for another article at another time.

When I heard Nighthawk Restaurant was going to hire Turkish chefs to cook Turkish cuisine, my interest was piqued. I recently spoke to Fiko Uslu, the owner of Nighthawk, and asked what exactly we had to look forward to with the recent transformation to

more Turkish fare.

Fiko explained that besides some of the Mediterranean dishes doing well on the menu, the new chefs will be adding some kebabs with chicken and lamb and other proteins that are quite tasty and very authentic. The restaurant will also be adding some Turkish meze or small appetizer size dishes that go well in the summer months. These dishes are meant to be combined as a plate with three or four together and to be shared among the table.

Fiko also told me that a breakfast café is coming, and something I’m very excited about—a Turkish coffee machine is being shipped from Turkey as I write this.

So, if I’ve piqued your interest at all, after you stroll along the Hudson River, take a turn at Christopher Street and head east to find something maybe you’ve never had before or something you’ve missed. Either way, support our small gems in the West Village.

A Changing Discourse on Mental Health

By Joseph Salas This May marks the 66th annual Mental Health Month. As a society, the way we understand and approach mental health has come a long way since then. Back in 1949 when Mental Health Month was first established, advocates pushed for asylums to ban the practice of shackling patients suffering from mental illnesses, many of whom had been written off by society as permanently diseased.

Today, mental wellness is widely recognized as being more than an absence of disease. It involves complete mental and social well-being and Greenwich House’s Senior Health and Consultation Center is at the frontline of this holistic discourse on mental health.

Getting older is not easy; as we age there are many adjustments to make including the changes in lifestyle that retirement, loss of a partner or close friends, isolation or physical impairments can bring.

Greenwich House recognizes that these adjustments don’t have to be paralyzing; since 1974 the Senior Health and Consultation Center at Greenwich House has offered a team of psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, medical doctors and home health aides who work in tandem to provide comprehensive wellness care to aging adults in order to address diseases like depression and dementia.

Judy Jones, the Center’s director for over twenty-five years, recalled a former client, Mary, when asked about the importance of Greenwich House and its role in managing mental health challenges of aging adults.

Mary was depressed, facing eviction and living on a small Social Security stipend.

After a fairly successful career as a writer, she began to decline in health after her second novel was panned by the critics. Living alone, Mary had little support during this difficult time, and began to isolate herself from others.

At the Senior Health and Consultation Center, Mary was enrolled in weekly therapy sessions and began receiving primary medical care in her home. The Center’s social workers then helped to negotiate with her landlord to set up a schedule for pastdue payments.

Her Greenwich House social worker also helped secure a private foundation stipend designed to help senior women who worked as artists or writers augment their monthly income in order to pay rent. Mary not only emerged from her depression but began to reemerge as a fixture in the neighborhood.

Jones emphasizes that a combination of therapy, medical treatment and the knowledge that she could remain safe in her home allowed Mary to reach a comfortable state of mental wellness.

For too long, mental health issues have not been framed as preventable and treatable. However, organizations like Greenwich House’s Senior Health and Consultation Center have worked hard to change the conversation and demonstrate that wellness is contingent on neither the mind nor body being ignored.

For more information visit greenwichhouse. org/shcc or call 212- 242-4140 ext. 251.

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22 WestView News May 2015

Science from Away: Several Short Science Stories

SURPRISE DISCOVERY: The pain response

of mice depends on the sex of the researcher near the experiment.

Mark M. Green (sciencefromaway.com) A fundamental mechanism by which cells in our bodies and that of other creatures, large and small, get rid of damaged components is called autophage, which translates to “self-eating.” A membrane forms a lysosome, which could be seen as a container, which takes up damaged cell components and degrades them to relieve the cell of the problems the damaged components would cause. This is autophagy. I’ve seen some literature calling the lysosomes “suicide bags.” A very important component of a cell is the mitochondria, which is the source of the energy keeping us alive.

Damaged mitochondria can do serious harm to the cell so that autophagy can have an important health benefit. Now there is strong evidence that a benefit of exercise increases autophagy or, in other words, that exercise helps us clean up components of our cells that are bad for our health. Get on the treadmill—walk up those stairs. Get going.

A research group at McGill University in Canada had discovered to its surprise that the pain response of mice depends on the sex of the researcher near the experiment and even on the smell of the researcher, as for example by leaving a sweaty undershirt around. If the researcher is a woman, the animal feels far more pain then if a man is around. The explanation offered is that we are seeing a primordial response. The male is more likely to be hunting or in an aggressive mode and therefore it is best not to show weakness. The pain-killing male does not have to be one of us. The odor of a male dog or cat or guinea pig elicits the same pain relieving response compared to a female of the species. The experiment at McGill is not so surprising in being a recent example of something I remember from the late 1960s and onward where one realized that equality does not mean identity. It’s taking awhile for this idea to reach into the world of science and medicine. Only fairly recently has it been widely understood that the pharmaceutical industry must test drugs independently for men and women. Here’s a headline from an article sponsored by the National Insti-

tute on Drug Abuse: “Gender appears to influence biological responses to nicotine, cocaine and alcohol.” In a paper published in the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology in 2011, which was co-authored by National Institutes of Health scientists, the point is made that men and women must be evaluated differently for administration of pharmaceuticals.

Here are some strange observations.

When dogs do their duty, Czech and German researchers looked more closely than we usually do and discovered a tendency for the animals to align themselves along the Earth’s magnetic access. About a year before the finding on dogs published in 2013, the leader of the research, Hynek Burda, who is a specialist in animal “magnetoreception,” discovered that carp align themselves with the Earth’s poles while waiting to be purchased in water filled barrels in the Czech Republic.

In a very interesting article in Chemical and Engineering News on page 24 of the March 16, 2015 issue, we learn that the electrical power industry in the United States had been influencing many State Legislatures to limit the amount of locally generated electricity, including solar power, which can be sold back to the power company. This appears to be backfiring because of innovations in battery technology allowing homeowners and others, such as Walmart, to install solar panels in sunny locations and holding the excess in batteries to be used when the sun is not shining. Their electric bills to the grid are lowered. One force pushing battery technology is Tesla, the manufacturer of the all-electric car, a company now constructing a huge plant in Nevada making lithium ion batteries.

Let’s finish up on a lighter, but maybe important note for somebody reading this. Also in Chemical and Engineering News but in the February 9, 2015 issue, we find short blurbs on chemicals reported to be aphrodisiacs and helpful with erectile dysfunction. The two winners out of six possibilities seem to be Ambrein (from sperm whale’s intestines) and Yohimbine (derived from the bark of a tree in Central Africa). On a wikipedia site I found the Yohimbine to be available via prescription under trade names: Erex, Testomar, Yocon, Yohimar, Yohimbe. There is an Amazon site for Ambrein, so you can make a comparison of your own.

A NEW APHRODISIAC? Yohimbine Bark.

May 2015 WestView News 23

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Capping Tammany Hall (Part Two)

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FINAL APPROVAL: A partially transparent dome designed by BKSK Architects will shortly be added to the roof of this

pseudo-Georgian Boss Tweed building in Union Square . Photo by Maggie Berkvist.

By Barry Benepe

If you missed Part One in last month’s issue, you can read it at http://westviewnews.org/2015/04/capping-tammanyhall-part-one.

Michael Buckley, speaking for the current owner, Liberty Theaters, said at a meeting with BKSK Architects, members of the Union Square Community Coalition and Community Board Five, that they had a long term commitment to theater, but that ground floor retail, with offices above, would best meet the potential of this historic building. While the zoning law would allow an additional 42,000 square feet to the top of the existing 37,000, the architects propose only two partial floors of 11,000 square feet contained under an unusual partially transparent dome which turns up at the edges to admit daylight and views to and from Union Square.

“The concept came to us in a flash,” said the architects Harry Kendall and Todd Poisson. The original Tammany Hall had a statue of Chief Tamanend of the Lenni Lenapi Tribe, the patron saint of Tammany Hall, with his foot on a turtle shell, recalling Venus emerging from a seashell.

Tammany Hall members consisted of thirteen tribes, each headed by a chief or Sachem, who formed the board of directors of Tammany. This shell inspired the dome with which BKSK decided to cap the roof of the two additional partial top floor offices, which would float over the roof edged by a waist high railing overlooking the views.

“When we looked at expansion of this historic building, we looked at its history,” added architect Harry Kendall.

Months of analyses of domed buildings throughout history are shown on scores of elevations, including the Pan-

theon in Rome and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Each shows a complete circle whose center is contained within the facade. The singularity of this revived Tammany Hall is apparent in the power and whimsy of the new dome, lifted off the roof and presenting Union Square’s diverse building styles. Characterized by the Venetian Decker Building along the west side to the Queen Anne Century Book building on the north, to the mammoth Germania Life Building with its massive Mansard roof on the north east, to the Corinthian capitals of the Union Square Savings Bank along the west side by Henry Bacon, (architect for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.,) Union Square has no unity of style or roofline. Instead it is an eclectic chorus of somewhat discordant show-offs. The new Tammany Hall follows that tradition in an exuberant, joyful, somewhat playful manner. We all should celebrate this latest arrival.

At its November 25th public hearing the Landmarks Preservation Commission reached no decision. According to Harry Kendall of BKSK Architects who presented the elegant proposal, LPC Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan “closed with a call for NYC to be as progressive and ambitious as the European cities in which some of our examples were taken. She asked us to consider a rooftop structure that either alluded to hipped roof examples in some way, or to pursue the dome/cap approach in in a simplified form.”

On March 10, BKSK Architects received approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to revise the dome using a more classical approach which still retains the joyous purity of the original concept. The design leaps from the superficial stagecraft of the 1929 pseudo-Georgian Boss Tweed building to a purer, more graceful and functional form.

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24 WestView News May 2015

Mon Beret

By Allyn Freeman Upon reaching the age of seventy-five, I decided to satisfy a many decades desire: to buy—for the first time— an authentic French beret. I had worked in Europe for two years in the early 1960s when these caps were as ubiquitous on Paris boulevards as people carrying baguettes. French men of all classes—Metro laborers in blue denim overalls, or tailored gentlemen in camelhair coats—wore this traditional head covering.

When I returned to Manhattan in 1965, the few New York men I saw in berets in Washington Square Park seemed like aging, Spanish Civil War Lincoln Brigade volunteers, sporting long white hair and knee length, dark woolen overcoats.

Many carried violin, flute, or paint brush cases.

The clear message was that in America only elderly artists donned these imported caps. For a young man of twenty-five (moi) to wear a timeless French beanie would draw accusations of being an affected bohemian, a phony. I was tempted to buy one then, but deferred the purchase of the Gallic chapeau.

Recently, I researched that the classic beret style is the Hoquy Basque model, a circular, flat-crowned hat, woven from wool. The little squiggle on the top center is called a stalk.

Famous European painters—Rembrandt, Monet, Rousseau, and Picasso—wore the cap, but the most famous beret image is the celebrated photograph of Che Guevara. The traditional beret is not to be confused with similarly named military caps adorned with metal badges, and flaunted on the head of soldiers in a macho slant.

In the aftermath of last century’s Great American Hat Extinction, when Fedoras, Panamas, and Homburgs

SATISFYING A MANY DECADES DESIRE: Allyn Freeman

owning — and wearing — a beret. Photo courtesy of Allyn Freeman.

disappeared from men’s fashion, the rarely seen French beret also vanished. As the trend of “Hats No More” spread to France, the number of beret makers dwindled to only one, Laulhère, handcrafting caps since 1840 in the Pyrenees town of Oloron-Sainte-Marie.

Some fifty-years have passed, by 2015 I attained an indifferent style sensibility no longer caring what the

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masses thought of my attire. So, finally, I decided to buy the French beret I formerly craved, discovering I could purchase a Hoquy model online called the Super Basque Anglobasque Premium.

But instead of ordering the cap online, I would visit Del Monico Hatter, my college roommate’s hat store founded in New Haven in 1908, and the last remaining hatter in Connecticut. There, I would receive a personalized fitting, and also remind Ernie Del Monico of the lifetime, roommate, in-store purchase discount proffered in 1957.

Delmonicohatter.com was mounted online in 2002, generating a significant uptick in sales as the hat store was no longer limited to the New Haven/Yale community. The store expanded its inventory, adding, among others, more sizes of imported Italian Borsalinos, and domestic Stetson dress hats. In addition, it also increased the sizes and color options of the Laulhère beret.

The day of my diamond birthday, I took the train to New Haven, wearing a dark, knee length gray overcoat. My head measured 73/8 or 59 centimeters in European sizing. The color choices were black, blue, and dark red. I opted for marine. The beret is 100% Virgin Merino wool, satin lining, leatherette sweatband, and also impermeable, waterproof.

I set the beret squarely atop my head, pausing a moment in front of the Delmonico Hatter mirror. A perfect fit, and comfortable, too. At second glance, I understood why I waited these many decades to buy the cap; my once red hair had turned snowy white, approximating the image of those elder artists in Greenwich Village from a long time ago.

Allyn Freeman is a writer with episodes of “M*A*S*H,” “Hart-To-Hart,” and other TV shows. He wrote numerous business books (Bio of Alfred P. Sloan, the Carnegie Deli.).

He completed a novel and seeks representation. West Village resident of 35-years. Nycallyn@gmail.com.

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May 2015 WestView News 25

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Jim Fouratt’s

REEL DEAL: Movies that Matter Ten days of non-stop Tribeca Film Festival has left me weary (jumping on my Citybike four or five times a day and rushing between 23rd St. and Battery Park theaters), but pleased to have found so much to be excited about—including the discovery of a young filmmaker from Costa Rica.

Her name is Paz Fabrega. Her Godard meets Truffaut is called Viaje. It is a love story as universal as time itself, yet is so much of this particular 21st century mating dance ritual. I also witnessed a very intimate conversation in public between Ava DuVernay (Director of Selma) and Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest (https://youtu. be/4UGMSdbc0Mg).

Here are a few films I was glad I saw at TFF: THE DIPLOMAT director David Holbrooke (HBO)

In this father/son story played out against a background of world crisis, Richard Holbrooke, a career diplomat with an ego and a passion for diplomacy, negotiates peace agreements in oft-thought hopeless conflicts like Bosnia. His son David says he made the film to find his father—who was absent from the family so much in order to make the world safe for other families.

TRANSFATTY LIVES director Patrick O’Brien

(Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award Winner) No, it is not about a pre-op, overweight person! It is about young DJ TransFatty (aka Patrick O’Brien) who is diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). Please don’t turn away as I was tempted to do—I am so glad I did not. It is about human spirit and artistic vision trumping physical disability. TransFatty Lives is about a dying man leaving a cinematic message to his son. It is also about family and the ability of humans to find humor (trust me there are a lot of laughs) in the worst of times.

REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM co-directors: Jared P. Scott, Kelly Nyks and Peter D. Hutchinson THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES director Michael Winterbottom

These two films take on how to save both American democracy and the world from the conquest of capitalism. Requiem features excerpts from a series of conversations with Noam Chomsky alongside almost perfect graphics that excite the eye with their direct illustration of his words.

Emperor’s New Clothes is one of two films about Russell Brand (the other is Ondi Timoner’s Brand: A Second Coming) Brand is a Brit comedian, married for a short time to pop chanteuse Katy Perry, and he self –identifies as a public intellectual. In Emperor, Brand does a Michael

Mosque schools in Pakistan (where their principal education is memorizing the Koran by rote), or the Orthodox Settlements in Gaza, or the home school education of right-wing, fundamentalist Christians.

Among follows one boy and one girl taken from their impoverished families by the Red Mosque. Necessary viewing.

KING JACK Director Felix Thompson SWORN VIRGIN: Amber Heard and James

Franco. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Moore “I am the center of this film” imitation in a whirlwind of actions and insights as he travels back and forth between Wall Street and London’s Fenchurch Street.

Winterbottom edits with the manic energy of Brand and the occupy movement.

As serious as Brand attempts to be, he is also hilarious! Timoner’s film is far superior because it is actually personal. I liked Brand: A Second Coming a hell of a lot more than Emperor. But of the three, Requiem is by far the best because it is Chomsky who soars with his clarity of language and grounded response to crisis.

SWORN VIRGIN director Laura Bispuri

(The Nora Ephron Prize) Italian director Laura Bispuri’s insightful look at how misogyny traps women in no-exit roles. Set in an Albanian village, it concentrates on two women trying to escape the roles they are expected to play.

One swears to remain a virgin to the village Elders and is treated as if she is a celibate man, while the other flees from an arranged marriage.

Sworn Virgin is not just a simple feminist polemic. Bispuri brings a formal eye to a cold and beautiful landscape, allowing the land and the people to inform her story.

Indelible performances and beautifully created. The cold and brutal village life generates emotion despite the cold, grey-feeling hard life portrayed.

CARTEL LAND director Matthew Heineman

On both sides of the border, Cartel Land shows how citizens—rather than government—are fighting the cartels’ drug smuggling, Mexico has a charismatic Che-like doctor and Arizona has ex-military patrolling the border. Vigilantes? Heroes? You decide.

AMONG THE BELIEVERS co-directors Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Naqvi

True believers and religion are an extremely dangerous mix. Children indoctrinated at an early age—when, as the film describes, “they are malleable”—become soldiers of hate, whether they are trained in the Red

Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award Winner Narrative Film Australian ex-pat and NYU Film School Grad Felix Thompson has managed to tell the story of young Jack, who is a sensitive boy—not gay, just different—while also revealing how teenage bullies operate.

We watch him learn to stand up for himself even when it hurts.

It includes star making roles for the two young actors Charlie Plummer ( Jack) and Danny Flaherty (the principal bully, Shane). Flaherty, a regular on the cable series The Americans, was so believable in his role that the audience booed him at the screening I attended. He beamed, showing us he was not the character.

THE ADDERALL DIARIES director Pamela Romanowsky

Just when I was hoping I would not have to see another James Franco film for at least six months, his best work in six years arrived—The Adderall Diaries, based on Stephen Elliott’s best seller. His no-holdsbarred performance is a riveting father/son battle. And his is not the only performance that rises above the sometimes cliché story of a dot-com executive accused of killing his wife.

Franco plays a writer in search of a follow up to a hit novel. Ed Harris lets his inner menace fly, and Amber Heard channels Lauren Bacall. Christian Slater is perfectly cast as the Dot-com executive on trial. It was no small task for a first time feature director to get such nuanced performances from her big name actors, but director Pamela Romanosky knows how to corral talent and be in charge—including in the kinky S&M scenes Franco appears to relish.

Let’s Go to the Movies:

WELCOME TO THIS HOUSE director Barbara Hammer

Our neighbor at Westbeth, experimental filmmaker and festival programing favorite Barbara Hammer’s latest work will premiere at MoMA May 26-June 1st. In her ever-curious quest to reveal sapphic lives, Hammer examines the shadow life of well-known poet and novelist Elizabeth Bishop (1911 -1975).

Hammer posits that the places people live in carry secrets long after they depart and in cinematic silence the camera reveals the memory of life lived in a location. Nev-

er one to be obvious or simple, Hammer speaks to the beauty of the repressed and the erotic passion of lust and love. Bishop lived many places, having affairs with women and the occasional man, and Hammer follows her path out of NYC to places like Brazil and Canada. Go expecting to be challenged by a master cinema trickster— and be prepared to never look at a trysting room in the same way again.

SAINT LAURENT director Bertrand Bonello

Yes, more Yves Saint Laurent. After L’Amour Fou, and the Pierre Bergé “authorized” Yves Saint Laurent by Jalil Lespert, we now have the most scrumptious and decadent narrative bio film of all three: Saint Laurent, directed by bad boy Bonello and featured at the 2014 New York Film Festival.

As expected, the clothes are beautiful to look at with the attitude and style of a French Vogue perfume ad. Free of Berge’s hand, we meet Saint Laurent at the height of his success and discover the man all rich women wanted to wear created everything for his very first and only real model—his mother. Genius that he was, he also was a petulant mama’s boy. Under the watchful eye of Berge, he fell into drug stupor and dangerous promiscuity.

Perfect French high art, it plays with “novella” salaciousness, name dropping like a Fran Lebowitz story. While it is based on actual events, it heightens them in the way a Girodias (Olympia Press) novel would have. Sex, fashion, money, drugs—the international traffic of beautiful, loyal models—hustlers and tacky business people are all in full frontal. Needless to say, I loved it.

The real surprise is just how well Louis Garrel plays Jacques De Bascher—Saint Laurent’s lover as well as the great love of Karl Lagerfeld—bringing alive the sexual tension and desire that kept both Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent vying for his affection by trying to outdo the other in gifting him.

Now that TFF is over, I am looking forward to the film programming at the New Whitney Museum opening in the Meat Market.

(cc) jim fouratt, realdealmovies@gmail. com jimfourattsreeldealmoviesrthatmatter. blogspot.com

SAINT LAURENT: Yves in his Buddha Room.

Photo by Carole Bethuel.

www.westviewnews.org

26 WestView News May 2015

MAY EVENTS

by Stephanie Phelan of westvillageword.com

wv w for

WestView News

n Saturday and Sunday May 9-10, and Saturday May 16, 11 am-5 pm: Westbeth Spring Sale Come and browse

through original art, art supplies, household items, electronics, furniture, books, records and clothing, A children’s corner will have toys, books and clothing. 55 Bethune Street. Proceeds go toward the beautification of Westbeth. For information, e-mail westbethfleamarket@gmail. com or call 212-691-1574. n Saturday May 16, 1-7 pm: Dance Parade and Festival Aerial perfor-

mances, a dance party, free dance lessons, and more starting at 21st Street and Broadway, ending in Tompkins Square. n Sunday May 17, 11 am-2 pm: Westbeth Bag ‘n’ Box Sale The Westbeth Flea

Market ends with the chance to fill a bag or box with all you can fit for $5. Proceeds go toward the beautification of Westbeth. For information, e-mail westbethfleamarket@ gmail.com or call 212-691-1574. n May 23, 24,25, 30 and 31: Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit

Washington Square Park East to University Place and East 12th Street. n Saturday May 30, 11 am-2 pm: Children’s Festival of Flowers Fun, crafts

PARAPHERNALIA AT PERRY-PHERNALIA Antiques, collectibles and oddities from the storerooms of local residents will make for a unique shopping experience on May 10th on Perry Street.

STREET FAIRS AND SPECIAL EVENTS n Friday May 1, 7 pm-7 am: Dawn of Summer Live music, art, activities, exhi-

bitions, conversations, and people, marking the end of the academic year and the beginning of summer, from dusk to dawn at the New School University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue. Tickets $10. n Saturday May 2, 10:30 am-6 pm: Whitney Museum Gala Block Party

The museum celebrates its opening by throwing a party for the neighborhood on Gansevoort Street from Tenth Avenue to Washington Street. The event will have lots of entertainment as well as booths of local American artists showing their work. Free, but reservations recommended go to http:// whitney.org/Events/WhitneyBlockParty. n Friday May 8, 12-5 pm: PEN World Voices at NYU A group of distin-

guished international authors discuss their thoughts on the Diaspora followed by book sales and live music, at Washington Mews between Fifth Avenue and University Place. n Saturday May 9th, 10 am-6 pm: Perry-Phernalia One of the best Spring

events in the West Village, Perry Street residents and local neighbors line the street with tables of wonderful antiques, oddities and useful items from their closets. Perry Street between Bleecker and West 4th Streets.

and entertainment at Jefferson Market Garden, Greenwich Avenue between Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street.

n Sunday May 31: Bleecker Street Festival Bleecker Street from Christo-

pher to Hudson Streets.

FILM n Friday May 1, 1 pm: Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement A

documentary about 83-year-old Edie Windsor, her 45-year-long engagement and 2007 marriage to Thea Spyer, and the Supreme Court overturning of DOMA the defense of marriage act. A poignant documentary at New School”s Theresa Lang Center, 55 West 13th Street. Free, but reservations required; e-mail IRP@newschool.edu or call 212-229-5682.

adapted from the TV series, starring Sam Waterston and Mary Tyler Moore. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Monday May 18, 6 pm: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome Mel Gibson

stars in this post-apocalyptic action thriller. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. n Thursday May 21, 2 pm: Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, Part 2 The film is

adapted from the TV series, starring Sam Waterston and Mary Tyler Moore. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Thursday May 28, 2 pm: Cold Mountain Jude Law and Nicole Kidman

star in this film about a Civil War soldier returning home. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free.

MUSIC n Friday May 1, 8 pm: Len Stern’s African Trio and Surface to Air Green-

wich House Music, 46 Barrow Street.

Tickets $15.

n Tuesday May 5, 1 pm: Mannes Downtown Chamber Music Concert

Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, 55 West 13th Street. Free. n Friday May 8 at 8 pm and Saturday May 9, 3 pm: Grace Church Choral Concert Benjamin Britten’s

Festival Te Deum, Herbert Howells’ Requiem (excerpt), Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge and Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem at Grace Church, 802 Broadway at 10th Street. Tickets $25. To purchase, go to www.thechoralsociety.org. n Friday May 8. 8 pm: Blarney Star Concert Series —Chatasaigh and Newman Harpist Máire Ní Chathasaigh

and guitarist Chris Newman fuse traditional melody and jazzy improvisation at Glucksman Ireland House, 1 Washington Mews. $15 donation at the door. n Friday May 15, 7:30 pm: Without Walls Jazz saxophone meets chamber

music, free improvisation and poetry at Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street. Tickets $20. n Saturday May 16, 8 pm: We Have Had Singing! Schola Singers will

perform Ivo Antognini’s Life is a Circle, Elliot Levine’s i thank you God, Roger Wesby’s arrangement of Sting’s Fields of Gold, and more in a choral concert at St. John’s in the Village. Tickets $25 in advance, $30 at the door. For tickets and information, go to www.scholaonhudson. org or call 888-407-6002. St. John’s in the Village, 224 Waverly Place. n Monday May 18, 7:30 pm: Eric Chernov— An Evening of Chamber Music Greenwich House Music School,

46 Barrow Street. Tickets $15 in advance, $20 at the door. n Wednesday May 20, 8 pm: Folk in Classical Music with New Yorker Ensemble Classical Music inspired by folk

tunes at Greenwich House Music, 46 Barrow Street. Tickets $35. To purchase, go to caffevivaldi.com/event/folkinclassicalmusic. n Thursday May 21, 8 pm: Renaissance Concert Voices of Ascension

performs another outstanding concert at Church of the Ascension, Fifth Avenue at 10th Street. Tickets range from $10-$75.

KIDS/TEENS n Tuesday May 5, 3:30 pm: Bad Kitty Birthday Party Meet Bad Kitty and

n Monday May 4, 6 pm: Bunny Lake is Missing Carol Lynley, Laurence

Olivier star in this 1965 film about a reported missing girl who may never have existed. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. n Thursday May 7, 2 pm: Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Fields won critical acclaim in this 2012 film. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Saturday May 9, 2 pm: The Theory of Everything A film about the relation-

ship between physicist Stephen Hawking and his wife, at Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Monday May 11, 6 pm: Tommy

Roger Daltry, Ann-Margret and Tina Turner star in the Who’s rock opera about a deaf, dumb and blind boy who becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. n Thursday May 14. 2 pm: Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, Part 1 The film is

LONG-AWAITED OPENING The Whitney Museum is opening here on Friday May 1, and will be throwing a street party for the neighborhood on Gansevoort Street from 10th Avenue to Washington Street on May 2. Photo: Maggie Berkvist

May 2015 WestView News 27

www.westviewnews.org HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BAD KITTY

Author

and illustrator Nick Bruel will help kids celebrate the big event on May 5 at Jefferson Market Library.

Nick Bruel, the author and illustrator of the Bad Kitty series. Treats and giveaways. For kids ages 5 and up. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. n Sunday May 10, 11 am and 2:30 pm: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Penny

Jones & Company Puppets put on a performance at Westbeth, 155 Bank Street.

Recommended for ages 3-8. Tickets $10 at www.pennypuppets.org. n Tuesdays 3:30-5:30 pm: Chess Master Workshop Kids ages 6 and up

can learn chess at the beginner, intermediate or advance level. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. n Tuesdays, 3:30 pm: Phreaky Physics Study centrifugal force

and gyroscopes, and become a junior engineer by experimenting with axles, pulleys, levers, gears and wheels. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue.

Registration required in person or by calling (212) 243-4334. Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free. 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. Free. 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 Otters Storytime Picture book stories

for children ages 5-6 at Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue. Free.

LEARNING n Friday May 1, 1 pm: Computer Basics for 50+ Hudson Park Library, 66

Leroy Street. Free. n Tuesday May 12, 6:30 pm: Best Online Editors A conversation with

editors of top online magazines and newspaper sections to discuss how to write and publish your own essays and literary pieces. New School Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street. Admission $5 for non-students. n Friday May 15, 1 pm: Advanced Internet Searching Hudson Park Li-

brary, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Monday May 18, 2 pm: Networking —Turning Business Cards into a Business Network Hudson Park Library, 66

Leroy Street. Free. n Friday May 22, 1 pm: Photo Editing for Beginners Using PIXLR Hudson

Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Friday May 29, 1 pm: Introduction to MS Powerpoint 2010 Hudson Park

Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free. n Saturday May 30, 10:30 am-4:30 pm: The Hundred Days Waterloo Campaign, 1815 The New York

Our Lady of Pompeii Father Demo Hall.

Bleecker and Carmine Streets. Open to all.

NEIGHBORHOOD BEAUTIFICATION

GALLERIES AND EXHIBITS

n Saturday May 2, 9 am-1 pm: Spring Planting Charles Street Association

n Through May 5: Doug Johnston — From Point Zero the Zodiac Signs

interpreted from the origin of the moment of the Big Bang. Ivy Brown Gallery, 675 Hudson Street, 4th Floor. n Through May 8: Matter of Time

Jeremy Hatch’s works in porcelain will be at Jane Hartsook Gallery, Greenwich House Pottery. The opening on April 10 will include an installation where viewers will cast locks in porcelain and attach them to a ceramic chain link fence. n May 2-17: Correspondence Works of 40 artists inspired by letters and postcards written over 50 years. Westbeth Gallery, 55 Bethune Street. n May 7-May 22: Parsons Festival A showcase of students’ work at Parsons School of Design, 63 Fifth Avenue. n Through May 23: Prague Functionalism Photographs of Prague’s

functionalist buildings, projects, and drawings at Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place.

Military Affairs Symposium will present several panels exploring the impact and ramifications of the Battle of Waterloo,1815. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street. Free.

n Saturday May 16, 3 pm: Startling Sci-Fi: Literature, Genre Fiction and Beyond A panel discussion of this an-

thology of literary Sci-Fi short stories, at Jefferson Market, 425 Sixth Avenue. n Thursday May 28, 4:30 pm: Mr. Fox

Helen Oyeyemi’s book will be discussed at Jefferson Market Library, 425 Sixth Avenue.

VILLAGE HISTORY n Wednesday May 20, 6:30 pm: Little Spain—The Spanish Community on West 14th Street A history and slide-

show about the enclave known as Little Spain at the Spanish Benevolent Society (La Nacional), 239 West 14th Street.

Free, but reservations required; e-mail rsvp@gvshp.org or call call (212) 4759585 ext. 35.

COMMUNITY MEETING n Wednesday May 27, 7 pm: The 6th Precinct Community Council Meeting

n Sunday May 17: It’s My Park Day — Golden Swan Park Help with spring

spruce-up and other activities Please contact us at GoldenSwanPark@gmail.com

BENEFIT n Sunday May 3, 4-7 pm: Sunday at LeSouk Open bar with French-

Morrocan cuisine and music, with Eriko Sato playing Bach, and the Jazzharmonic Trio. Proceeds go toward funding of the Washington Square Park Music Festival’s free concerts in the park. Le Souk, 510 LaGuardia Place. Tickets start at $55. To order, call 917-855-4206 or go to www. washingtonsquaremusicfestival.org.

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.

Westbeth, 55 Bethune Street. For information and tickets, go to westbeth.org.

Park.

relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, the Chelsea Hotel and New York City in the late sixties and seventies. Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street.

spring clean-up at Churchill Square Park, Bleecker and Downing Streets. For information, e-mail ChurchillSquareGarden@ gmail.com.

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

n Through May 3: WestFest Dance Festival Martha Graham Theatre,

n Saturday May 9, 10:30 am: Just Kids Patti Smith’s book about her

n Saturday May 16: It’s My Park Day — Churchill Square Park Help with

ONGOING EVENTS OF NOTE

DANCE

LITERATURE

invites neighbors to help bring Charles Street alive with spring plantings. Meet on Charles Street between Bleecker and Hudson Streets. Materials provided.

EMBARKING ON AN AMAZING JOURNEY

The Theory of Everything, the story of Stephen Hawking’s and Jane Wilde, plays at Hudson Park Library on May 9.

n Through May 31: John Dobbs

Oil on canvas works at Westbeth gallery, 55 Bethune Street. n Through June 6: Rosy Keyser —The Hell Bitch Maccarone, 630 Greenwich

Street.

n May 21-June 7: Portraits and Jersey Shore Beachscapes Anthony

Martino’s work at Westbeth Gallery, 55 Bethune Street.

n May 9-June 20: The English Garden

Cecily Brown’s paintings at Maccarone, 630 Greenwich Street. A limited-run artist’s book will be available at the opening on May 9. n Through June 30: Extravaganzas of Obscurity The works of Ken Wade

at Westbeth Project Room, 55 Bethune Street.

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: Yoga St. Luke in the Fields, 487 Hudson Street., First come, first served. Free. 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. n Tuesdays June Through September, 10:30 am: Tai Chi An introduc-

tory class at the High Line, under the Satandard Hotel.

n Tuesdays, April-October: Stargazing The High Line at West 14th Street.

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.