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S3, Number 21

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YdfefServing Greenwich Village. Soho, Tribeca and Lower Manhattan

Vitlaftr photo ty Mary AiUn

REBIRTH; The gates surrounding Peter Cooper Park, Just south of the Foundation Building, have been locked for quite a while. But now Cooper Union, with the Parks Department, has cleaned up the park, reset cobblestones and planted shrubs, bulbs and perennials. And the park is being opened from noon to 2 P.M. on weekdays. Cooper Union’s director of Institutional relations Beverly Wilson, left. Cooper Union President John Jay Iselhi and Manhattan Borough Parks Commissioner Patrick Pomposello stopped by recently* ^Tn the past, students had been relegated. In nice weather, to sitting on the front steps of the Foundation Building,” Iselln said. ^The park offers a pleasant alternative to them and to our neighbors.”

Plan to convert townhotise for ex-prostitiites debated

By Claude SolnlkA doctor's plan to m ovcoutof her Village

townhousc home andoffice and turn the building into a residence for former prostitutes was praised for its concept but caused a small furor at a crowded meeting last week.

The building at 266 W. 12th St., where Dr. Joyce Wallace lives and runs her practice, very much blends in with the block. But she has asked die city to fund a program that she would set up there, moving her home and office out. She would, according to the proposal, turn the $950,000 building into something she has tried to set up elsewhere: a residence for former prostitutes.

Results o f The \iUager*s Photo Contest: Page 7.

50 cents

“For four years now. I ’ve been aying to house cx-prostitutes." she said. “I still want to house them."

Wallace, founder of the Foundation for Research on Sexually Transmitted Diseases, originally wanted to set up the residence on Houston and Allen Sts. The project won Community Board 3 approval, but lost funding, changed and finally opened in June as housing for people with AIDS.

Last week, after saying she had tried and failed to sell the building where she lives at 266 W, 12th St., she told a packed house at ameeting she wanted to move out and turn the building into the residence.

"I don’t mind dealing with the issues. What I didn’t expect was the hostility,’’ Wallace said. “I expect people to be alarmed and aware, but T expected them to be Greenwich Village

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about traffic ^ in V3l^;e

Finduig a way to ease the flow of traffic through Villagestrccts brought dozens of people to the first meeting of Community Board 2 's newly formed subcommittee on traffic strategies. Those present talked about everything from bicycles to buses, cars to regulations and signs to othersolutions.

‘̂I think it boils down to people want to know what can be done about traffic," said Norma Leavey, a member of the West 10th St. B lock Association, which stretches from Fifth to Sixth Ave. "It’s going to require a study."

The session, at St. Vincent’s Hospital on Sept. 19. was held4n part as a reaction to the uproar caused when a block of Washington PI. was closed to traffic. It has since been reopened, but broached the issue of ways to change traffic flows in the Village. A City Planning study later recommended closing many streets around Washington Square Park to traffic.

"Obviously, there’s a problem with traffic in the Village." said Andrew Berman, a spokesperson for CouncilmemberTom Duane, who spoke with Transportation Commissioner Lucius Riccioonthc issue recently. "We need to look at this problem for the whole and come up with as comprehensive solution as we can."

S evera l p eo p le re fe rred to w hat Assemblymember Deborah Click has called "piecemealplanning,"sayingthatclosingsu-eets simply shifts cars. Police personally have closed a suetch of Eighth St. at night. And while some people still supported the Planning Department’s proposals to close streets, most saw that as premature and requiring a broader view.

“Mos t people were against that, because of thcoverflowontoother streets," Leavey said. “If it is done, it has to be done on a more scientific basis."

Many people pushed for regulations regarding vehicles. Some said cross-town trucks could be restricted to larger streets, while others said tour buses tended to head down the same streets.

"I don’t think it’s a problem to have some big truck going down Sixth Ave. orHudson St.," said Pamela Jarrett, o f the West N inth S t. B lock Association. “But to have dozens of crosstown trucks? W edon’t want to impede deliveries. But there definitely can be a better plan for having them get through and around the Village that doesn’t interefere with the lives and the scaleof life in the Village."

Cyclists talked about ways to make the Villagemorcwclcomingtothem. Butcriticism of cyclists who ride on sidewalks or the wrong way on the road drew salvos of applause. Two bills in the City Council, one that could allow police to confiscate bikes on sidewalks, focus on cycling in the city.

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Inside2 Scoopy's Notebook 8 Editorial, Letters

13-18 Villager Guide 10 Showcase looks at

today's poetry19 Holly Near: Lpoking back,

not in anger

8 0 Eighth Ave. New York 1 0 0 1 1Oopyr%M O IM S CiMn SMa Ooip.

yUla%trphoia by Jack MitchtU

AgnesdeMille, dance legend, dies at age 88

By Doris DlethcrAgnes dc Mille, noted choreographer,

writer and lecturer, died in her Greenwich Village apartment last Thursday, at the age of 88. A prolific creator of dance for both dance companies and Broadway shows, an author of at least a dozen books, and a speaker much in demand on television and the lecture circuit, she had been involved in all aspects of dance, and was especially associated withdance with American themes.

Bom in Manhattan m 1905, she grewup in a theatrical fam ily. Her paternal grandfather, Henry de Mille, left the pulpit to write plays and became the partner of producer-directorDavidBclasco. Herfather was William Churchill dc Mille, a successful playwright and director of such fihns as "Craig’s Wife" (1928) and "Emperor Jones" (1933). And her uncle was the famous film director Cecil B. DeMille. On her mother's side, her grand father was Henry George, the noted economist and “single tax" advocate, who lived for years on 17th St. and often lectured at Cooper Union.

Dc Mille began her dance career in 1929, giving small recitals in New York and later in London, where she studied at the Ballet Club with such fellow students as Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, Hugh Laing and M argot Fonteyn. Her first major choreographic assignment was for the Norma Shcarcr/Lcslic Howard 1936 film "Romeo and Juliet."

As a ch arter member of Ballet Theater (now The American Ballet Theater), she created her first ballet, "Black Ritual," in 1940 using black dancers. The following year she created "Three Virgins and the Devil" for them, a ballet still performed today. Her ballet, “Rodeo," was created for Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942, and she danced the leading role at the Metropolitan Opera House in October 1943, receiving 22 curtaincalls. One of herbest-known ballets is "Fall River Legend," based on the famous Lizzie Borden case in Massachusetts.

It w as in 1943 that dc M ille choreographed the Broadway musical "Oklahoma," a work generally credited with changing the history of musical theater by making the d ances an integral part of the plot rather than incidental interruptions. In the same year, de Mille married Walter Foy Prude of Texas, at that time an officer in the

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