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Volume 1, Number 28 FREE East and West Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Noho, Little Italy and Chinatown February 3 - 9, 2011

BY ALBERT AMATEAU Preservation advocates gathered

in front of 35 Cooper Square on Friday afternoon demanding that the Landmarks Preservation Commission protect the early-19th-century, Federal-style building by giving it landmark designation.

L.P.C., however, has said the build-ing has been too altered by the addition of a brownstone coating to its facade to qualify as architecturally eligible for historic designation.

For the past decade, the building was the location of Cooper 35 Asian Pub — a bar popular with New York University and Cooper Union students. Last November, 35 Cooper Square and its adjoining space at the corner of E. Sixth St. were purchased for $8.5 mil-lion by Bhatia Development, an orga-nization that intends to demolish the building. Indeed, the Asian Pub served its last drink on Saturday night Jan. 22 and closed for good.

Last Friday’s rally, led by David Mulkins, chairperson of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, or BAN, included Assemblymember Deborah Glick and state Senator Tom Duane, as well as pres-ervation leaders Simeon Bankoff, execu-tive director of the Historic Districts Council, and Andrew Berman, execu-tive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

“This is one of the most signifi -cant buildings on this street,” said Mulkins. “If we lose this building, Cooper Square loses a much earlier sense of its history,” he added. Mulkins referred to the recently built 20-story Cooper Square Hotel across E. Sixth St. from the site, saying, “If we have this kind of out-of-scale, out-of-context development, we will destroy the sense of place that we get in these historic neighborhoods.” He noted that the Bowery was one of the world’s most renowned neighborhoods.

“The Bowery that has been known over the centuries is vanishing before our eyes,” Bankoff said. “At this point we have to say, Stop.

“The Landmarks Preservation Commission said this building can-

not be designated because it has been altered,” he went on. “Of course it was altered, it’s more than 100 years old.”

Demonstrators waved signs saying, “Build Memories, Not Luxury Hotels,” and displayed photos showing the neighborhood as it was at the turn of the last century. Carolyn Ratcliffe, an

East Village preservationist, carried a poster reminding passersby that the poet Diane diPrima and the singer Liza Minnelli once lived in the building.

Jim Power, 62, “The Mosaic Man,” who transformed lampposts all over the

Cooper Sq. at ‘tipping point’as 1825 building faces demo

Continued on page 4

BY JEFFERSON SIEGELMembers of a group

accusing the Continental bar of a racist door policy gathered outside the Third Ave. watering hole again last Saturday night. Despite bitter-cold weather, how-ever, there were signs of a thaw in relations between the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, the protest’s orga-nizer, and the bar’s owner, who goes by Trigger Smith,

but is known to most as just Trigger.

Trigger joined the dem-onstrators on the sidewalk for most of their 90-min-ute protest. At fi rst dancing along to their chants, he also spent a half-hour talk-ing with a woman who said she was previously denied entry to the bar.

The protests grew from an incident last June when

‘It’ll never happenagain,’ bar ownertells protesters

BY ALINE REYNOLDSUnited Federation of

Teachers President Michael Mulgrew is just as fed up with the city’s Department of Education as some Downtown education activ-ists are. School overcrowd-ing, standardized testing and student teacher evaluations were among the union presi-dent’s main talking points at a special forum Community Board 1 held last Wednesday evening at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in Battery Park City. D.O.E., Mulgrew

said, has created and perpet-uated many of the problems that are plaguing public schools in Lower Manhattan and around the city.

“We cannot allow this really unscrupulous, disgust-ing behavior to stop us from being a part of the work that might help us help children in the long run,” Mulgrew told the local parents and activists at the forum.

Mulgrew became union president in August 2009. He previously taught English

U.F.T. prez, C.B. 1:New projects mustfactor in students

Continued on page 2

Continued on page 10

Photo by J.B. Nicholas

Gal Friday helps Ray partyGal Friday gave Ray (standing behind the counter) of Ray’s Candy Store on Avenue A a special treat Tuesday night at his 78th birthday party. She shimmied on his countertop, and stripped down to a fringed G-string and black pasties with tassels — which she twirled expertly. “Oh, beautiful!” Ray said, then twirled her a delicious vanilla egg cream. Speaking of hot, Ray’s latest offering — beignets — are selling like hotcakes, well, mini-hotcakes. “I want to make funnel cake next,” he said.

EDITORIAL, LETTERS

PAGE 14

SCOOPY GOES EGYPTIANPAGE 3

Author comes clean, p. 15

2 Februar y 3 - 9, 2011

four young black women claim they were denied access. On that summer night, one of the women, Shaniqua Pippen, 25 from Brooklyn, pressed one of the bar’s bouncers, who was black, for an explanation.

“Do we need to be regulars or do we just need to be white?” Pippen asked, claiming the bouncer replied, “Your people don’t know how to act.”

Posts on several Web sites have also com-plained about blacks and others arbitrarily being denied entry to the Continental. A Facebook page, “Boycott Continental Bar in NYC,” has gained almost a dozen members in the past week alone. One hundred forty-two members have so far joined that social network site’s wall.

Revelers entering the bar Saturday night did not appear to be dissuaded by the 20 demonstrators holding signs and chanting. A small police presence observed events from a distance.

Shortly after the protest began, Trigger appeared wearing his trademark peaked bamboo hat. He approached several of the protesters, inviting them inside to talk.

“We’re not going to meet with him in his bar,” said protest organizer Jinnette Caceres of the ANSWER Coalition. “He wouldn’t meet with us in our offi ce because he wants a sense of power and entitlement. He wants

to meet with us now because he’s feeling the pressure.”

“Early on, I was willing to meet,” Trigger told this newspaper. “People of all color are welcome here, but there’s a vibe, a style and dress that’s not welcome here.”

As Trigger continued imploring the pro-testers to come in and talk, some cautiously began to engage him in conversation.

“We have a dress code and a door policy,” Trigger told one woman.

She, in turn, asked him to explain, “Who do you turn away?”

“Jersey Shore types,” Trigger replied. Yet, on the Continental’s Web site is a link offer-ing directions to the bar; topping the list are directions from the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, both of which connect New Jersey to Manhattan.

One young woman eventually engaged Trigger in a serious and lengthy dialogue. Ashley Diaz, 22 from Brooklyn, was one of four friends who, with Pippen, tried to enter the bar last June but claim they were denied entry by the bouncers.

“We were four females — nothing over the top — and we got refused,” Diaz said.

“If you come here any night of the week and don’t see black and Asian women here, I’d be shocked,” Trigger told Diaz. “The only thing I can say is maybe someone was drunk. Why would I turn away paying customers?”

Diaz assured Trigger that no one in her group was drunk.

“I’m going to talk to the bouncers. I’m sorry for that, I truly am,” he told Diaz.

As Caceres and Diaz continued to press Trigger on his alleged door policy, he again sought to defend his motives.

“I’ve dated women of all colors,” he said. “I’ve donated money to Obama’s campaign. I had a party here celebrating Obama.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get in,” Trigger again told Diaz, “It’ll never happen again.”

“Your conversation makes a lot of sense,” Diaz replied, “but this could have been done

a long time ago.”After an hour and a half in the cold and

snow, the gap between both sides appeared to have narrowed. Trigger watched the pro-test disperse.

“Hopefully, we’ll meet and everything will defuse,” he offered.

ANSWER had already made a list of demands, including requesting the bar hold multicultural theme nights, offer diversity train-ing to managers and staff, and post a statement of nondiscrimination on the bar’s Web site.

Bar owner, protesters start dialogue on door policyContinued from page 1

Photo by Jefferson Siegel

The Continental’s Trigger, left, talked with Ashley Diaz, 22, who says she was denied entry to the bar last June.

Gay CityNEWSNEWSTM

www.gaycitynews.com

Februar y 3 - 9, 2011 3

FROM THE VILLAGE TO CAIRO: As the world anxiously watches the situation in Egypt unfold, in Washington Square, there’s confidence that opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei will help play a positive role in the outcome. ElBaradei taught as an adjunct law professor at New York University School of Law from 1981 to 1987. He received his Ph.D. in international law from N.Y.U. in 1974, going on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Washington Square News, N.Y.U.’s undergraduate newspaper, quotes university president John Sexton saying of ElBaradei, “We have great faith in his character, intelligence, integrity and leader-ship. We all fervently hope for a peaceful conclusion to events now transpiring in Egypt, and we have little doubt that Mohamed ElBaradei will be instrumental in achieving such an outcome.” Sexton was dean of the law school when ElBaradei was an adjunct. W.S.N. quotes Richard Revesz, the law school’s current dean, saying of ElBaradei, “We hope he will now be able to contribute to peaceful democratization in Egypt.”

ALMOST A WITNESS TO HISTORY: Knowing that West Village political and gay activist Allen Roskoff was recently planning to visit Egypt, friends wondered how he was faring there as the popular uprising against Hosni Mubarak broke out last week. It turns out, however, that Roskoff won’t have any epic stories of being caught up in the dramatic events. “I couldn’t get into Egypt,” he told us in an e-mail. “We are in Eilat and have to return home without Egypt.” Eilat, a port city and resort in southern Israel, is right across the border from Egypt.

FEEL THE BURN (GETTING BURNED): Equinox’s takeover of the Printing House gym on Hudson and Leroy Sts. has gone smashingly — though not as in a smashing success — so far. A tipster tells us that during a recent spinning class, a construction crew came bursting right through a wall next to a row of bikes. As if that wasn’t unsettling enough, we’re told members recently had to endure spinning classes “with no water or the ability to get water — without a door on the gym, so everyone could see their breath while they cycled in skimpy work-out attire. And of course,” our source added, “we have no bathrooms or changing rooms in the class section of the gym, but our fees are still the same.”

SALESALE AT BOOKBOOK: It’s been a year since Biography Bookshop closed in the West Village and opened a little farther down Bleecker St. as bookbook.

To commemorate the anniversary, bookbook will be offering 20 percent off all store merchandise (includ-ing their well-known remainders) for the whole month of February. At 266 Bleecker St. between Sixth and Seventh Aves., bookbook features general literature, art and drama books, New York books, cookbooks, poetry, children’s books and an entire wall of bargain books.

CORRECTION: Our article last week on the Feast of San Gennaro indicated that one of the conditions the event’s orga-nizers agreed to was to move the sound stage around to differ-ent spots during the 11-day street festival. In fact, according to Community Board 2’s resolution, the organizers have agreed to rotate the sound stage’s location each year, so as not to annually inconvenience the same residents with amplifi ed sound.

SCOOPY’S NOTEBOOK

Photos by Milo Hess

On Saturday, about 500 Egyptian and Egyptian-American demonstrators rallied across from the United Nations, denouncing President Mubarak’s regime and calling for him to resign immediately. Some painted small Egyptian fl ags or the word “Egypt” — in red, white and black — on their faces.

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neighborhood with tile mosaics, urged dem-onstrators to employ direct action to preserve the area. Power was also incensed about the city’s proposed alterations that would close Astor Place between Lafayette St. and Fourth Ave., which he fears would eliminate lamp-posts with his mosaics.

Glick, who sent a letter to L.P.C. Chairperson Robert Tierney urging him to reconsider his fi nding that the building does not qualify for landmark protection, told the Friday crowd that, “We are at a critical point. There is a tip-ping point at which this area will no longer have a connection to the past.” Glick pledged not to give up her efforts to save the building, which

dates back to 1825.Duane, whose district includes the build-

ing, said, “There is so little left of our beloved Village, of the history we’re proud of. To risk losing a piece of that, even just one building, is tragic.”

Last fall, City Councilmember Rosie Mendez also sent a letter to Tierney urging landmark protection for the building, located on a site once owned by a member of the Stuyvesant family.

The original address of 35 Cooper Square was 391 Bowery, according to a research paper that Sally Young, a BAN member, sent to L.P.C. The original two-and-a-half-story building, with a gambrel roof, twin dormers and large end chimneys, had a ground-fl oor storefront with a brick arch and decorative cast-iron pilasters added around 1876. The crushed-brownstone stucco covering the Flemish-bond brick facade was likely added around the same time.

Owned by the Stuyvesant family, it was fi rst occupied by a John Snider. By 1867, Herbert Marshall sold liquor out of the ground fl oor, continuing until 1876. In 1900 the building apparently operated as a hotel. In the second half of the 20th century, a painter, J. Forrest Vey, whose works are in the Whitney Museum of American Art, lived in the building. In the 1960’s, tenants like diPrima and Minnelli began renting upstairs rooms in the building. Poet diPrima and her then husband, Alan Marlowe, ran a few seasons of the New York Poets Theatre from 35 Cooper Square. Claude Brown, author of “Manchild in the Promised Land,” also lived there. In 1970, Stanley Sobossek, a painter, ran a bar on the ground fl oor.

In 1976, a woman named Hesae owned a restaurant known by that name at 35 Cooper Square until 1990. She returned around 2000 and ran Cooper 35 Asian Pub until last Saturday.

Photos by Albert Amateau

David Mulkins, BAN chairperson, right, led Friday’s rally. Also speaking were, to his left, Simeon Bankoff of H.D.C. and Assemblymember Deborah Glick.

Neighbors, preservationists,pols rally to save buildingContinued from page 1

Carolyn Ratcliffe quoted poet Diane diPrima, a former 35 Cooper Square resident, on her sign.

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BY DUNCAN OSBORNENew York City has settled lawsuits with

four men who sued in federal court after they were arrested for prostitution by vice offi cers in a Manhattan porn shop and a spa.

The city, however, will continue fi ghting the federal case brought by Robert Pinter, the gay man who blew the whistle on the vice squad busts and the only man among all those arrested to go public.

Three of the men were arrested in Unicorn DVD, located at 27th St. and Eighth Ave. in Chelsea, while the fourth, a straight man, was arrested at a W. 34th St. spa after he went there to apply for a driver’s job.

One of the men arrested in Unicorn DVD received $25,001 in his settlement. The other three received $40,001 each.

Their attorney, Michael Spiegel, got “rea-sonable attorneys’ fees, expenses and costs,” according to fi lings on pacer.gov, the federal courts Web site.

All the arrests, which are seen as false arrests in the gay community, were made in 2008 by Manhattan South Vice Enforcement Squad offi cers.

Altogether, vice offi cers arrested 30 men in six porn shops. Another 11 men and one woman were busted for prostitution in two spas. The same vice offi cers made most of the arrests.

Five of the men, including Pinter, brought four federal lawsuits. Another man sued in state court.

Some of the men who were arrested told Gay City News, the East Villager’s sis-ter newspaper, they were approached by a younger man who aggressively fl irted with them. It was only after they agreed to a consensual sex act that the young man, who turned out to be an undercover offi cer, said he would pay for the sex. Some men said they refused the money or, as in Pinter’s case, said nothing and they were arrested.

The city’s Law Department and the Police Department’s Legal Unit cited the prostitu-tion arrests in separate nuisance abatement lawsuits they brought against the porn shops and spas.

Pinter declined to comment, as did Spiegel.

In an e-mail, a Law Department spokes-person wrote, “Since some elements of the settlements of these cases remain unresolved, we are unable to comment at this time.” The Police Department did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The city has aggressively litigated Pinter’s case from the start, but then the facts in his case are different from the other cases. Pinter initially pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. He later had that plea vacated and the charg-es dismissed. The other men contested their cases, and their charges were dismissed.

Pinter has been a vocal critic of the Police Department’s handling of these arrests. He has organized multiple protests and held meetings with city offi cials.

City settles in ‘false’ porn busts BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

A 45-year-old man charged with attempted robbery and third-degree assault as a hate crime in 2010 incidents in two West Village gay bars said that while he was admittedly involved in a bar fi ght, he never used antigay or racial slurs.

“I just wanted to tell my side of the story,” said Frederick Giunta in a phone interview. “I think it’s only fair because I am facing a lot of time in this case.”

Giunta, who said he is bisexual, arrived in the West Village around 1 p.m. last Oct. 11. He told police he was there to see a friend. He then visited a series of gay bars and drank at each one. By the time he reached Julius’ on W. 10th St. at about 5:40 p.m., he was “really, really intoxicated,” Giunta said.

He allegedly fought with another patron and an employee there after an argument. During the incident, he is alleged to have used antigay and racial slurs.

“[The bartender] then jumps over the bar, grabs me,” Giunta said. “As they are escorting me out to the door, I’m sure I might have said something, but nothing hateful at all. It’s blown out of propor-tion... . I had no intent to do what they are saying I was doing.”

Giunta acknowledged he was involved in the fight, but called it a “bar scuffle.”

“There was one punch that was thrown that I could admit to,” he said. “I never

used words of hate.”Just prior to going to Julius’, Giunta

is alleged to have attempted to steal a wallet from someone near Ty’s Bar on Christopher St.

He denied doing that.The third-degree assault as a hate

crime charge is significant in Giunta’s case. If he is convicted, that E felony will be sentenced as if it is a D felony, and his possible maximum time in prison will go from four years to seven years.

Giunta was already on parole on an earlier larceny charge. In that case, he was diverted to drug and alcohol treat-ment instead of prison. Since he was rearrested, he would likely have to serve at least two years in prison on the larceny charge.

In addition, he has served three short prison terms for drug sales and another larceny since 1991. None were violent crimes.

Giunta could not make his $25,000 bail, so he has been held in the Manhattan Detention Center since his Oct. 15 arrest. He spoke to this reporter by phone after his wife, Judy, approached Gay City News, the East Villager’s sister paper, offering an interview with him.

“A lot of these things are just fabricat-ed,” Giunta said. “I was actually flirting with the bartender... . I’m a very caring, kind person.”

Accused gay basher says, ‘I’m bi’

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BY LESLEY SUSSMANIn addition to unanimously approving rede-

velopment guidelines for the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area at its Tues., Jan. 25, full board meeting, Community Board 3 also voted on the Astor Place/Cooper Square reconstruc-tion design, as well as a plan to convert a lot for use by the Guggenheim Museum.

C.B. 3 gave its approval to the proposed reconstruction of Astor Place and Cooper Square, on the condition that public seating in new open plaza spaces to be created between E. Seventh and E. Fifth Sts. on Cooper Square’s west side be eliminated where it would be accessible to the public 24 hours a day.

The board said seating in “Village Square,” a new plaza to be created south of Peter Cooper Park, should be locked or removed at night, so as not to disturb seniors in the nearby JASA/Green Residence on Cooper Square’s east side.

“Village Square” is planned as part of the larger reconstruction of Astor Place and Cooper Square, to be done by the city’s Department of Design and Construction, with assistance from the Department of Transportation and Parks Department.

The city’s plan calls for almost 8,000 square feet of new planting area, which would include 64 new trees, in addition to the creation or expansion of several plazas. “Village Plaza” would be used primarily for daytime events and provide opportunities for programming by local artists. The plan was endorsed by

Community Board 2 the previous week.Also approved at the C.B. 3 meeting was

the temporary use of an empty lot at 33 E. First St. by the Guggenheim Museum for various cultural programs. Work on the site would begin in April and is expected to be completed by August.

The project drew praise from Robert Graf, president of the First St. Block Association, who said the empty lot was a haven for rodents after dark.

“It’s a rat warren and a plague to this block,” he said. “We’re delighted the Guggenheim will excavate the lot and leave a paved surface that will be used for future cultural events.”

The Guggenheim project would operate free of charge from early August 2011 until November 2011, and will then be operated by the next-door First Street Green Co-Op, which will sponsor subsequent cultural events there.

Susan Stetzer, C.B. 3 district manag-er, also praised the lot’s cleanup by the Guggenheim.

“I’ve been working on the rat problem there a long time,” she said. “After the Guggenheim leaves, the lot will be rat-proofed.”

On another matter, Stetzer said there recently had been an increase of fi res in the East Village, and she wanted more details about why.

“I’ve asked the Fire Department to give us a list — what were the causes,” she said. “A lot of these fi res might have been preventable, and I want to see if there’s been a common thread so we can launch an educational program.”

C.B. 3 O.K.’s Astor/Cooper planBY ALBERT AMATEAU

New York University has received a record number of 42,242 applications for the 2015 class, exceeding last year’s fresh-man applications by 11 percent.

More than 41,000 of the applications were for the estimated 4,800 places at the Washington Square campus, according to a Jan. 24 university announcement.

Nearly 4,700 of the Washington Square applicants asked also to be considered for admission to the university’s new Abu Dhabi campus in the United Arab Emirates. The 1,184 applicants who applied only for the

Abu Dhabi campus represent a 24 percent increase of applicants over last year for the fi rst class of the U.A.E. campus. There are spots open for about 150 students this year at N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi’s World’s Honor College, according to the announcement.

N.Y.U. this year received 7,625 applica-tions from students outside the U.S. to all N.Y.U. campuses and academic centers.

“We’re immensely proud and grateful that so many extremely talented high school stu-dents from around the world are interested in N.Y.U.,” said Randall Deike, N.Y.U. vice president for enrollment management.

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BY ALBERT AMATEAU Community Board 2 has unanimously

called on the Children’s Aid Society to condition the sale of its Greenwich Village buildings so that any new owner would preserve the society’s early-childhood and community programs on Sullivan St. at least until June 2012.

The Jan. 29 resolution, which closely resembles a proposal by SAVE (Save a Village Education), a group of parents involved in the society’s preschool program, also urges Children’s Aid to make a com-mitment to keep current teachers and staff in place on Sullivan St. until June 2012.

Saving the highly esteemed program is especially urgent for parents of more than 400 children, ages 2 to 4, who attend the society’s nursery classes in the Village — the largest nursery school in Manhattan — because school contracts and deposit requirements must be made by Feb. 18.

Meanwhile, a Feb. 1 hearing on a law-suit fi led by the mother of a 2-year-old in the program demanding that Children’s Aid guarantee that the preschool would remain open on Sullivan St. through June 2013 has been canceled.

The hearing in the suit by Viviane Bromberg, represented by her lawyer, Luke McGrath, who is also her husband, was canceled to give attorneys on both sides more time to discuss a possible settlement.

“We really want to talk with Children’s

Aid about ways to keep the early-childhood center and the other programs on Sullivan St. for good after the property is sold,” said Keen Berger, chairperson of the C.B. 2 Social Services and Education Committee.

At a Jan. 18 committee meeting, a Children’s Aid executive told parents and community board members that she could not speak about plans to sell the property because of the pending lawsuit.

The society, which opened its Sullivan St. center in 1892 and started its early-childhood center there more than 20 years ago, was founded more than 150 years ago to serve the city’s poor children.

On Nov. 30, Richard Buery, Jr., C.A.S. executive director, told parents the society was considering selling its property at 219 Sullivan St. and at 175-177 Sullivan St. and closing the programs by June 2012 because a presence in the relatively rich neighbor-

hood of the Village was not in keeping with the society mission to serve children in poverty.

On Dec. 16, the C.A.S. board of trustees confi rmed its intention to sell the Village property, known as the Philip Coltoff Center. Although the society said it would maintain its programs in the Village until June 2012, it added that the programs might move to “a comparable location” in Manhattan if the Village center were sold earlier than expected.

But Heather Campbell, a member of SAVE with two children in the Coltoff center, told the Jan. 18 committee meeting, “We don’t know if they might move the school to 34th St. and Fifth Ave.; it would be a hardship for many parents who have children in other Village schools. ‘A com-parable location’ is a big caveat,” Campbell said.

“It would be like the YMCA saying it would be packing up and leaving the neighborhood,” said Robert E. Lee, a SAVE member and parent of a child at the Sullivan St. center.

Campbell said SAVE is working to put a bid together to buy the property from Children’s Aid. But the group wants the society to give it a preference — in case the group is not the high bidder. SAVE is also asking the society to help fi nance commu-nity acquisition of the property.

“It’s a wonderful program in a func-

tioning school. It would be a pity to tear it down to make way for a condo,” said Alexandra Van Schie, a member of the early-childhood center’s parents com-mittee.

Berger reminded the Jan. 18 meeting that the Village, whose schools are severe-ly overcrowded, needs more educational opportunities for a booming population of school-age children.

C.A.S. has 75 other centers in the fi ve boroughs, including one on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

“There’s not much poverty on the Upper East Side,” said one neighbor who attended the committee meeting. “I think the deci-sion to sell the Sullivan St. property is based on the fact that it has the highest real estate value,” the neighbor said.

The society spokesperson said at the Jan. 18 committee meeting that Children’s Aid had not yet secured a broker, or signed a contract with a buyer.

The community board resolution con-cludes with the recommendation that the society fi nd a buyer who would continue all existing education and community-based pro-grams. The resolution calls on the society’s board of trustees to join with Community Board 2 members, neighborhood leaders and elected offi cials to “work to maintain the educational services now provided by Children’s Aid Society for current and future children of our community.”

Children’s Aid parents might try to buy building

‘It would be like the YMCA packing up and leaving.’

Robert E. Lee

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for several years at a public high school in Brooklyn and has a master’s degree in special education from CUNY’s College of Staten Island.

C.B. 1 Chairperson Julie Menin reiterated her criticism of D.O.E. for failing to plan ahead to avoid overcrowding in Lower Manhattan’s K-to-12 schools.

“We’ve organized this town hall because of the number of important issues that have arisen in our district recently,” Menin said, citing the rise in population and other factors that have contributed to school overcrowding in the area.

Schools are bursting at the seams all around the city, according to Mulgrew, who said he hears “nothing but frustration and anger” from the public school teachers he represents.

“Congratulations. You’re the epicenter of overcrowding,” Mulgrew told the audience.

The problem, Mulgrew explained, lies in the fact that the city lacks a systematic urban planning process. New York doesn’t require developers, for example, to outline potential impacts their projects could have on local neighborhoods, such as creating a population boom.

C.B. 1 passed a resolution last March urg-ing the city’s Charter Revision Commission to enforce standards for developers seeking to build in a community, such as taking into account the effects a proposed development would have on

schools and other local infrastructure.Instead, Menin said, new developments in

the area are routinely approved without atten-tion to school capacity. The city, she said, has “an attendant duty to provide the estimated number of school seats” that will be needed as a result of approving Downtown construction projects.

Mulgrew said he would be pushing the City Council to pass legislation to modify the plan-ning process pertaining to new developments.

“We’re always looking for better ideas, to fi gure out how to move education forward,” he said. “We can no longer go to the D.O.E. for that. That’s really sad.”

Mulgrew accused D.O.E. of misleading the Downtown community by making false promises about new classroom space that was supposed to be reserved for neighborhood children.

Lower Manhattan parents were dismayed by D.O.E.’s recent decision to designate two unused classroom fl oors at 26 Broadway for an unscreened, nonselective Upper East Side high school, rather than open up a second Millennium High School there. The depart-ment also allocated six vacant classrooms at the Tweed Courthouse, on Chambers St., to a char-ter school rather than to a district elementary school the community said it badly needs.

Menin pointed out that, even with the new schools that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s Overcrowding Task Force helped found, the Lower Manhattan area faces severe seat short-

ages in the coming years. The Tweed Courthouse and 26 Broadway, she said, are education spaces the community cannot afford to lose.

“It broke my heart that we lost the space at 26 Broadway,” said Erica Weldon, a Millennium High School parent.

Menin told her and the other distraught par-ents to rest assured that the community board would not remain “silent” on D.O.E.’s recent decisions.

Mulgrew said D.O.E. should focus on fi nding district seats for all public school students before worrying about screened versus unscreened schools. The U.F.T. president took a more neutral stance on charter schools. While the fundamen-tal concept of charter schools is sound, he said, many of them are not working, and some are wrongly casting aside special-needs students who underperform on standardized tests.

“You can’t just open charter schools and not give them support and help in instruction,” said Mulgrew.

Growing class sizes have become wide-spread across the city, Mulgrew reported, and the U.F.T. has taken legal action to try to miti-gate the problem. The union sued D.O.E. early last year for failing to allocate more than $760 million that the department secured from the state since 2007 purportedly to reduce class sizes. The case is currently pending in State Supreme Court.

“The class size at every grade in every level has increased dramatically since the money was sent here,” Mulgrew said. “It’s inexcusable.”

Mulgrew also noted that larger classes are making it more diffi cult for public school teach-ers to do their jobs effectively. D.O.E. did away with its Teaching and Learning Division, there-by no longer offering teachers the structure and support they need.

“Teaching and learning in the classroom is the fundamental main piece we should all be concentrating on,” said Mulgrew. “It saddens me — it makes me feel the administration is getting to the point where it’s pathetic.”

Paul Hovitz, chairperson of the C.B. 1 Youth and Education Committee, remarked that teachers spend “inordinate” amounts of time on test preparation.

“How can we re-create a well-balanced edu-cation for our children?” he asked Mulgrew.

The solution, in part, Mulgrew said, is to modify the city’s student progress report system, which now hinges on English and math test score results. Harvard University recently audited the state’s system, he said, and concluded that the progress reports are useless.

Mulgrew worked with David Steiner, com-missioner of the state Education Department, to craft the state’s application for the federal Race to the Top program, with the aim of using the funds to focus on a more well-rounded cur-riculum, rather than merely teach to standard-ized tests.

Mulgrew said “real learning” doesn’t happen when teachers simply try and drill students to memorize facts for a test.

U.F.T. prez, C.B. 1: Projects must factor in kidsContinued from page 1

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Pigeon as friend, and lunchOn Sunday, in Washington Square Park, a man said hello to his fi ne, feathered friend, who he calls Karma, above. Karma is a wild pigeon that fl ies with a fl ock, but she comes to the man when he’s around. Meanwhile, the previous Sunday, in Tompkins Square Park, a red-tailed hawk, dubbed by some the Hipster Hawk, was dining alfresco on a pigeon that it had caught in midair, below.

12 Februar y 3 - 9, 2011

Sex-assault attempt

Police are looking for a suspect wanted for an attempted sexual assault on a 12-year-old girl in a stairwell of her Hester St. home around 6 p.m. Mon., Jan. 24. The victim was walking to her apart-ment when she heard someone banging on the building’s outside door. She admitted the suspect, described as a white male, between ages 25 and 30, about 5 feet 9 inches tall and 175 pounds, wearing a blue jacket, brown trousers and gray hat, who followed her to the third-floor stairwell where he attempted to sexually molest her, police said. The girl fled and was unhurt, police said.

A bit possessive

A man who made what was believed

to be an admiring “Damn” to a woman walking past him on W. 14th St. at Sixth Ave. at 9:37 p.m. Sat., Jan. 22, infuriated her companion, who pulled a 12-inch knife and slashed the victim on the left fore-arm, police said. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. The suspect, Craig Hutter, 37, was charged with felony assault.

Joint was his downfall

A man smoking marijuana on the southwest corner of MacDougal and W. Fourth Sts. around 11:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 27, swallowed the joint when a police officer approached him. Police found the suspect had a Clonazepam pill — a potent tranquilizer and secondary epilepsy treat-ment — in his pocket, as well as a fake Pennsylvania driver’s license. The suspect, Stephen McCarron, 19, was charged with

possession of a forged instrument.

Stick to decaf

Police arrested Palash D’Cruze, 37, around 1:45 a.m. Sun., Jan. 23, inside Caffe Reggio, 119 MacDougal St., and charged him with criminal mischief after he picked up a chair and smashed the establishment’s front plate-glass window.

Fake credit cards

Police arrested Marvins Pierre-Louis, 20, around 5 p.m. Tues., Jan. 25, after he tried to buy an iPad with a phony credit card. The suspect was found to be in pos-session of a total of four phony credit cards, police said.

Car hits senior

A northbound taxi made a right turn from Pike St. onto East Broadway at 9:39 a.m. Fri., Jan. 28, and struck a woman, 84, as she was crossing from the southeast corner to the north side of East Broadway. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition. Police said both the victim and the cab driver had a green light at the time of the accident and there was no criminality suspected.

Eldridge St. murder trial

The trial of Ricardo Martinez, 25, for the murder of Vincent Cruz on June 24, 2008, on Eldridge St. near Rivington St. began Mon., Jan. 31. The victim, age 17, was shot in the head a block from 40 Rivington St., where he lived. The shooting was over an argument about stolen property, according to court papers.

Fatal on L line

Brendan Mahoney, 24, of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was killed around 5:30 a.m. Sun., Jan. 30, when an L train crushed him after he went onto the tracks to retrieve something — keys, according to one report — that he had dropped from the Halsey St. platform in Brooklyn. Mahoney, a writer and reviewer for Tiny Mix Tapes, a music Web site, had been spending the hours prior to his death at Mars Bar, at First St. at Second Ave., and left after 2 a.m., according to friends. He was formerly an administrative assis-tant with the Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship at New York University.

Schools-protest arrests

Police arrested 24 demonstrators who blocked Chambers St. in front of Department of Education headquarters in the Tweed Courthouse at 4:30 p.m. Mon., Jan. 31, during a protest against the planned closing of 25 failing schools.

City Councilmembers Charles Barron and Jumaane Williams, both of Brooklyn, were among those arrested and taken to the Seventh Precinct, where they were issued summonses and released. The arrests came after an earlier rally at Tweed by hundreds of students from the schools targeted for closing. Demonstrators carried signs saying, “Fix schools, don’t close them.”

Student loses bag

A student at Metropolitan College, at 431 Canal St. at Varick St., told police that she left her bag at her desk around 4 p.m. Mon., Jan. 24, when she went to the bathroom and returned a few minutes later to discover the bag was gone, along with her Ecuadorian ID, 80 euros and $80 in U.S. currency.

Albert Amateau

POLICE BLOTTER

Photo by Jefferson Siegel

Offi cer comforted dying manMonday, Police Offi cer Quathisha Epps, 37, arrived at Manhattan Supreme Court to testify in a murder case in which she responded — both as a neighbor and an offi cer. One night two summers ago, she told the court, she heard gunfi re outside her Eldridge St. apartment. According to a New York Post article by Laura Italiano, Epps placed the baby she was nursing in his crib, then told her three other kids to get into the bathtub. Then, she ran downstairs — barefoot and in her nightgown, carrying towels — to give a last moment’s comfort to Vincent Cruz, 17, who had been shot through the neck and would bleed to death in her arms. She said that, as she pressed the towels to his wounds, “I told him, ‘I’m here with you. … You’re very loved. Just hold on for me.’ ” As she cradled him, Epps called 911, while stretching out her leg to hold her toe against a knife on the ground — a piece of evidence. The next day, according to the Post, Epps realized she knew Cruz, who seven years earlier had tutored her son, then 3, in preschool. “This is a case that never leaves me,” said Epps, a community affairs offi cer at East Harlem’s P.S.A. 5. Ricardo Martinez is accused of shooting Cruz during an argument.

James O’Donnell, dubbed the “International Man of Mystery” by the tabloids, appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court last Thurs., Jan. 27. O’Donnell was arrested early last year on St. Mark’s Place when police found a knife in his belt and a gun with a silencer in his backpack. Police subsequently found more weapons in a storage locker. Prosecutors are unsure if James O’Donnell is even the man’s real name. O’Donnell was brought back to court again last week for a judge to rule on taking a DNA swab. DNA was found on the weapons from the storage locker, and prosecutors want to compare it to O’Donnell’s. Judge Bart Stone asked O’Donnell’s attorney, Howard Simmons, if O’Donnell would provide a swab volun-tarily or if the court would have to use a force order. Without waiting for his attor-ney to reply, O’Donnell spoke out, with a slight Irish accent, “Use a force order.”

The judge said the order would take effect in fi ve days. With DNA identifi ca-tion taking 30 days, the judge scheduled the next hearing on the matter for early March. O’Donnell remains in custody.

Jefferson Siegel

DNA test for a mystery man

Photo by Jefferson Siegel

Februar y 3 - 9, 2011 13

Photos by Clayton Patterson

The revolution will be televisedThree episodes of “Brick City,” the new Sundance Channel show, screened at the School of Visual Art’s E. 23rd St. theater on

Sunday. The documentary series chronicles current-day Newark and its daunting challenges. Clockwise, from above, Marc Levin, “Brick City”’s director and producer, with Caroline Kennedy; Newark Mayor Cory Booker, right, with Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy; Deshaun “Jiwe” Morris, a Newark Bloods gang member, author and antiviolence advocate, left, with Mark Benjamin, an executive producer of “Brick City.” Also attending was former Newark Mayor James Sharpe, who was freed from jail last April after serving 18 months for fraud involving the sale of city-owned property. Last May, in The Villager, documentarian Clayton Patterson wrote about “Brick City” and the Newark Bloods’ and Crips’ foiled effort to have a unity basketball game. “This is one of the few TV shows that they could take and it could be a movie,” Patterson said. The footage is real, not fi ctionalized, he assured. “If you watch ‘Brick City,’ you can defi nitely see dead people in the street after a shooting... breaking into apartments with police. It’s right now — right, f---n’ now, baby.” Patterson added the series has “won a bunch of Sundance Awards.”

CLAYTON’S PAGE

14 Februar y 3 - 9, 2011

EDITORIAL LETTERS TO THE EDITORFestival critics are snobs

To The Editor:Re “Effort to shorten San Gennaro Fest falls short” (news

article, Jan. 27):The San Gennaro Feast was forced to accept vendors

of other backgrounds than Italian and Italian foods and merchandise by the city of New York. That decision was out of our hands. As for public drunkenness, there is abso-lutely no alcohol sold at any of the stands during the feast. Restaurants with liquor permits are allowed to sell alcohol within the confi nes of their stands, which they pay hand-somely for. If any of these patrons happen to act stupidly and raucously once they leave these establishments, how is San Gennaro responsible for that?

I’m sure Nicolas Dutko from Tartinery has seen more than a fair share of stupid behavior from drunken patrons who got that way after drinking at his establishment. Is he going to blame San Gennaro for that during May, June, July and August when the bars and restaurants along Mulberry St. are jampacked? For Mr. Dutko to say that “the people are very rude that come” to the feast is showing his stupid-ity and his biased attitude. How in the name of God can anyone make a public statement like that? Who is he to paint everyone who visits the feast with the same brush? Are all those hundreds of thousands of people rude, yet all the people patronizing his establishment perfectly mannerly and respectful of others? Who is he kidding?

Many of us have dealt with snobs like this who think they are better than the rest of us. That attitude alone speaks volumes about how delusional they are regarding their own importance. And by the way, why is he in business if not to make money? Why is it O.K. for him but not for the vendors of the San Gennaro Feast? As for the boutiques who blame the feast for their lack of business and customers during San Gennaro, how do they explain their empty stores throughout the rest of the year? Why are their businesses empty for 351 days when there is no feast?

Julie Dickson from Fox & Boy hair salon speaks about the feast and “the dangerous element it attracts.” Really, Julie, you’re embarrassing yourself. San Gennaro is one of the most well-known and beloved feasts that exists today. It is a secret to no one that it takes over Mulberry St. for 11 days every September. Rather than have these elitist snobs move in, then try to force us to change for them, why can’t they be good neighbors and respect an 85-year-old neighborhood tradition that they knew existed before they ever moved their families and/or their businesses to the area? I, for one, am a lifelong Little Italy resident.

One more thing I’m curious about: Are any of these bou-tiques participating in the upcoming February Fashion Week

since there is no feast around to get in their way? Just asking.

Emily DePaloDePalo is a board member, Figli di San Gennaro

The Feast of ‘San Generic’

To The Editor:Re “Effort to shorten San Gennaro Fest falls short” (news

article, Jan. 27):They say the feast is for everyone. That’s the problem. A

generic street fair should not get a permit for 11 days. If they made it authentic and local, they might get more support. I haven’t heard Italian spoken in Little Italy since I was a kid.

Davide Gentile

Church was a spiritual oasis

To The Editor:Re “Lady of Vilna appeal goes to state’s highest court”

(news article, Jan. 27):I am the vice chairperson of the Save Our Lady of Vilnius

Committee. I am a second-generation Lithuanian-American whose grandparents were among Our Lady of Vilnius’s fi rst parishioners. It is the mission of the committee to revive the parish. It is our hope that the litigation will lead to a dialogue that, unfortunately, was not initiated by the archdiocese when discussions about clos-ing the parish were begun with the Lithuanian clergy.

Back in 2006 when parishioners were fi rst told about the possibility of closing the church, The Villager published a moving and accurate portrait of the parish, “Lady of Vilnius and ‘Pretzels’ and ‘Provolone’ may lose home” (news article, Aug. 23, 2006).

In their press releases, the Archdiocese of New York has presented Our Lady of Vilnius as a Lithuanian cause. They refer only to the Lithuanian parishioners, and vaguely direct them to the archdioceses of Brooklyn and Newark to worship. They fail to mention those who worshiped there, not because they were Lithuanian, but because they found a community that helped them feel closer to God, feel fortifi ed in their daily lives by His presence and by the support of each other.

The parish was a spiritual oasis and an anodyne to the Catholics and local working-class residents that have not yet been gentrifi ed out of their lifelong homes or workplaces. Our Lady

EVAN FORSCH

Continued on page 23

Fight of San Gennaro Tempers have been fl aring in Little Italy and Nolita

over the long-running Feast of San Gennaro. This 85-year-old street festival — one of the country’s most well known — currently stretches along Mulberry St. between Canal and Houston Sts.

At the neighborhood’s north end — in what not long ago was redubbed Nolita — residents and new fashion boutique owners have organized and are calling for the festival to be cut off at Kenmare St., reducing it by about half. They argue that the neighborhood’s population is no longer heavily Italian, and that the festival has become “generic,” and is an “11-day barricade,” preventing people from getting to their stores.

What’s more, the annual September feast coincides with Fashion Week and Fashion’s Night Out, boutique owners add, further negatively impacting their busi-nesses. Neighbors also complain of public drunkenness associated with the festival.

In response, members of the festival’s nonprofi t board, Figli di San Gennaro — many of them proud, life-long Little Italy residents — counter that the “newcom-ers” have no right to say the festival should be cut back. The organizers note the feast draws about 1 million people a year, many of them tourists, which generates millions of dollars for businesses, hotels and restaurants. The religious-based festival also features two three-to-four-hour street processions and a special Mass.

When the Feast of San Gennaro started back in 1926 it was a much humbler affair. It was a one-day, religious-based event, centered on Mulberry St. between Grand and Hester Sts., where Neapolitan immigrant families owning coffeehouses brought tables out onto the sidewalk in honor of their patron saint’s day. The feast has since burgeoned to 11 days and seven blocks, and is now run by Mort & Ray Productions, one of the city’s major street-fair operators.

Trying to mediate the confl icting interests, Community Board 2’s Street Activities & Film Permits Committee did a good job of reaching some sort of compromise for this year’s festival in September. Past attractions that drew the most complaints won’t be included in this year’s festival, notably, karaoke and “Dunk the Clown” — the latter featur-ing a loudmouthed insult clown who would have made Don Rickles blush. Rock and hip-hop music CD’s and mafi a T-shirts also won’t be sold. Clearly, the organizers have shown they are willing to work with the community.

We did hear, though, that Figli di San Gennaro was almost ready to give up the block between Prince and Houston Sts. this year — so there may be room in the future for negotiating cutting back the festival somewhat.

Two weeks ago, C.B. 2 voted on its advisory resolu-tion giving conditional approval to a permit for the feast. However, the community board strongly urged the city to consider stopping the festival at Kenmare St., “so as not to disturb the emerging business community in Nolita... .” C.B. 2 also pointedly noted that Figli di San Gennaro and the Mayor’s Street Activity Permit Offi ce should “expect that C.B. 2 will continue to negotiate further reductions of [the feast’s] scale and duration for subsequent years.”

Merchants toward the festival’s north end do say that the vendors booths outside their shops and eateries are not of particularly high quality, so the argument can be made that the feast is already overextended, and should be cut back at its uptown end: Quality over quantity.

It sounds like this year’s festival will still run from Canal St. to Houston St. (Figli di San Gennaro members say they already have sanitation contracts in place for the whole stretch.) But future years will likely see changes. We’re confi dent that, with C.B. 2’s good help, the right compromise will be reached.

Februar y 3 - 9, 2011 15

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BY WICKHAM BOYLEJessie Sholl is a hyper-clean, nearly elfi n, 41-year-old

woman who for nearly a decade has lived in the West Village between great bookstores: Three Lives and Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. I met her at a dinner party, also in the West Village, and when I saw that her book was about to debut, I asked if she would indulge me in an interview to discuss this very brave memoir. She suggested Joe on Waverly.

So in the penultimate week of 2010, I peddled my trusty 1968 Raleigh up Sixth Ave. to hear how Ms. Sholl found the courage and words to pen this beautiful memoir, billed as the fi rst by the child of a compulsive hoarder.

W.B.: This book is so kind and loving toward your mother, yet I was in a rage at her by the time you and your long-suffering husband were infected with scabies for the second time. How did you fi nd that enlightened approach?

J.S.: The biggest thing that helped me was that the more research I did into the condition of hoarding, the more I came to recognize it as a disease. When I saw it as an illness I didn’t give her a free pass, but, because she has a mental illness, it put her behavior into a different context.

Also, when I began to talk to her in depth about the book — to which she gave her blessing — I began to see the depth of her horrifi c upbringing. And of course my own therapy helped.

I didn’t want to write a “bad mommy” or “Oh, poor me,” self-pitying memoir. So deciding on this direction gave me the push to regard the good things I got from her as well as the fear, fi lth and shame. I am a minimalist about hav-ing stuff. I consider myself a purger. I go overboard about cleaning when people are coming over, but — unfortunately — not always. I don’t want folks to think, “Oh, look at those dirty glasses on the table, she is on the slide to become just like her mother.”

You also describe in detail many things that happened in your childhood. For me, as the adult child of an alcoholic and a chronic suicide attempter, I know that denial is and was my drug of choice. This means I have intense, but spotty memories of childhood. I could not provide an arc the way you do. Did you always have this clarity of memory or did it come as you wrote?

I decided I wanted to write about this. I told my husband, the wonderful writer David Farley, stories for years, and he encouraged me to write them down. I talked with my agent and I wrote a proposal and she was a huge help at putting the tales in order. Everyone would be surprised at how many memories emerge once you begin writing. It may not be linear at fi rst, but you can reorder and create a timeline after the fact. Writing this was very important to me and it was always my hope that it would be a way for others to unlock

shame and live more transparent lives.

This book is about hoarding but you allude a few times to the similarity between A.C.O.A.’s (adult children of alco-holics), and you clearly state that being able to come clean, if you will, with friends was so liberating.

Yes, I have to say that many of my friends or colleagues have said, “Oh, my Mom was a hoarder,” or an aunt was, so I hope it is freeing in that sense to be able to talk about it. No one is just a hoarder. This condition announces many other problems. Hoarding is a kind of blindness. A “nor-mal” person knows to call a repairperson if the refrigerator breaks. But a hoarder has deep shame about the state of their home, and thus doesn’t call, and this only exacerbates the mess. Many hoarders live in great danger, amid health challenges and the very real possibility that fi res will start and the fi refi ghters will be unable to fi nd their way through the mess. There is also a version of hoarding that involves adopting and often mistreating animals. People have homes or apartments fi lled with fi lthy animals, who are in great distress. My husband and I adopted a small dog that we named Abraham Lincoln, and it felt good to save someone from that life.

How did you come to this project, and are there any things you wanted to write but discarded as too diffi cult either for you or your family? You don’t have to disclose what, but just if that was the case?

I started as a fi ction writer and got my M.F.A. at The New School, and I had been working on a novel for young adults. I began writing health articles as a “day job” and this gave me an entree to think about my own past and to research. I had this “Ah ha” moment as I was doing research when I saw that my mother’s hoarding was also an extreme type of brain malfunction, and I started researching it. When I saw that it was a disease and talked to my mother about the book project, it freed me to be able to use any story, all the stories, as a way to tell where I came from, but also to free others who have held onto this dirty secret.

“Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her

Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding,” by Jessie Sholl, Gallery Books. For more information, visit www.jessie-sholl.com .

An author comes clean about her mother’s hoarding INTERVIEW

Photo by Kate Lacey

Jessie Sholl.

BY DEBORAH GLICKAs someone who has spent nearly my entire adult life

in Greenwich Village, I was crestfallen when St. Vincent’s shut its doors. Not only was the hospital the center for our community’s physical health, it also has been the lifeblood for many small local businesses. Now the health needs of our community have been severely diminished, and the local stores that give our neighborhood its character are withering in silence.

My connection to small businesses goes back many years.

During my formative years, my family ran a print shop in the Far West Village, when operations like Superior Ink actually manufactured ink on the premises and weren’t condomini-ums. I saw fi rsthand how much work it takes to make a small business successful and how few resources exist to assist mom-and-pop operations. Unfortunately, this fact remains as true today as it did then. The city invites small businesses to open their doors but then does little to help them be suc-cessful. It’s hard enough to make it in New York City as it is; so imagine the effect when a 3,500-person operation, like St. Vincent’s, suddenly shuts its doors. The wake of such a

A valentine for Village businesses

Continued on page 23

TALKING POINT

16 Februar y 3 - 9, 2011

BY ALBERT AMATEAUEdgar Tafel, who apprenticed with Frank

Lloyd Wright and designed St. John’s in the Village Episcopal Church and First Presbyterian Church Community House, died Jan. 18 in his Greenwich Village home at age 98.

Tafel was a resident of E. 11th St. between Fifth Ave. and University Place, where he worked and lived for more than 40 years. He was a member of the committee for the 1970 redesign of Washington Square Park, said Norman Rosenfeld, a friend and neighbor who also served on the Washington Square architectural committee with him.

Born March 12, 1912, to Russian immi-grants, Edgar A. Tafel graduated from Manhattan’s Walden School and attended New York University, but left at 20 to study archi-tecture at Taliesin, Wright’s Wisconsin colony.

As a Wright apprentice, he worked on Fallingwater, the private house cantilevered over Bear Run Creek in Pennsylvania, and the Johnson Wax Building, since demolished, in Racine, Wis., as well as Wingspread, home of Herbert F. Johnson, the company’s president, near Racine.

Although a senior apprentice to Wright, Tafel resisted the master designer’s autocrat-ic rule and left in 1941 to work in a Chicago architectural fi rm. During World War II he served in Army photo intelligence in India.

Tafel returned to Manhattan after the war, qualifi ed as an architect and designed 80 houses, 35 religious buildings and three col-lege campuses, among many other projects. In 1960 he designed the First Presbyterian Community House, on W. 12th St. near

Fifth Ave. He later designed St. John’s in the Village, on Waverly Place at W. 11th St.

Another project of his was the Protestant chapel, since demolished, at Kennedy International Airport, and the fi ne-arts building and a residential complex at State University of New York, Geneseo.

Tafel authored “Apprentice to Genius: Years With Frank Lloyd Wright,” published in 1979, and also “About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright,” published in 1993.

His fi rst marriage ended in divorce and his second wife died in 1951, according to Robert Silman, an architectural engineer and close friend of Tafel. A cousin, Joan Scott, survives. A memorial will be held on Feb. 17 at the Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place.

Edgar Tafel, 98; Worked with WrightOBITUARY

Edgar Tafel.

Photo by Aline Reynolds

‘Blackout’ response to girl’s letterTwo weeks ago, Martha Eckl-Lindenberg, above left, a third-grader at P.S. 364 (The

Earth School), at Sixth St. and Avenue B, wrote and hand-delivered a letter to the offi ce of Cathie Black, the Department of Education’s new schools chancellor, inviting her to an anti-charter school rally held last Thursday at City Hall. The letter read:

“New York City public school students, parents and teachers cordial-ly invite you to hear our objections to the D.O.E.’s disastrous policies that are destroying our schools. Come to hear our Real Reforms that can actually improve learning in our schools!”

Black never wrote back to or contacted Eckl-Lindenberg or her school to inform them that she was not going to attend.

ATTENTION ALL ARTISTSOn April 6th, 2011, the 8th An-nual ArtWalk Opening Cere-mony will be held at TD Bank, 666 Broadway, New York, NY (on the corner of Broadway and Bond Street). Artworks will be shown from April 6th through April 19th. Cash prizes for best original artwork! First Place will re-ceive $250. Second Place will receive $100.

Starting Febrary 1st, 2011, artists should bring their work to be viewed, by appoint-ment, to 636 Broadway, Rm 708. Please include a signed, general release form with your art works.

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Februar y 3 - 9, 2011 17

BY TRAV S.D.I started out the new year with a veritable junket of

show going, most of which pleased my cantankerous taste buds. The sole exception was “Gob Squad’s Kitchen” — an empty interaction between a handful of hipster improv comedians and the static mid-60s fi lms by Andy Warhol’s Factory. If there was an idea to be found in this tedious exercise, I’ll eat my Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat. Other than that, though, I pretty much hit the jackpot — catching “Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell” at P.S. 122 (featur-ing a surprise visit from David Strathairn); “Too Late!” in the Under the Radar Festival; “Green Eyes,” an obscure, late Tennessee Williams one-act presented in a midtown hotel room; Theater for the New City’s “Age Out” (about some unhappy waitstaff); and “The Continuing Story of Carla Rhodes” — an autobiographical rock opera pre-sented monthly at Arlene’s Grocery by a multitalented ventriloquist. All recommended. Either someone has put mood enhancers in my Yoo-hoo or I’m walking under a lucky constellation.

The major news to report this month is the sad pass-ing of Ellen Stewart, founder and artistic director of La MaMa E.T.C. The theatre she founded turns 50 years old this year, and the Off Off Broadway movement she helped launch is stronger than ever. Indeed, most of the showfolk who generally wind up in this column owe something to her. She will be missed, but her legacy is ubiquitous. Several shows happening at her theatre this month strike me as particularly exciting. February 3-13, award-winning puppeteer Theodora Skipitares presents her own version of Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata,” mixed with “actual present-day accounts of sex strikes.” Why, it’s un-American! In addition to masks and body suits inspired by ancient Roman circus comedians, the produc-tion boasts the music of way out experimentalist Sxip Shirey. Also of note is “Purge.” The American premiere of a #1 best seller in Finland, it tells the story of a couple of Estonian women forced to make choices as the country makes the tough transition from totalitarian communism to criminal capitalism. Finnish-Estonian playwright Sofi Oksanen was “Estonia’s Person of the Year” in 2009 and is hailed in her country as one of the most important voices of her generation. The show promises to be an important cultural event. It runs February 11-20. Also this month at La MaMa, the movement ensemble Witness Relocation presents the premiere of a new work featuring text by playwright Chuck Mee. The content is unclear but the personnel is impressive. The show runs from February 17 through 27. For info on these and all shows at La MaMa, go to lamama.org.

Meanwhile, across the street at Horse Trade Theater Group, it is time once again for that company’s annual and (aptly named at the moment) Frigid New York Festival (February 23–March 6). Smaller in scale than most of the summer theatre festivals, Frigid New York substitutes quantity for quality, priding itself on a well-run machine featuring 30-odd shows at its three-space the Kraine, the Red Room and Under St. Marks. Standouts this year to these jaded old eyes include: “The Bitter Poet: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Black Box Performance Spaces” starring the hilarious leather-clad Downtown performance veteran Kevin Draine; “My Pal Izzy: The Early Life and Music of Irving Berlin”; “Hi, How Can I Help You?” — which shows how a house of

domination copes with the Great Recession; “Yippie!” (about the eponymous radical political party which once ran a pig for President); and “You Shouldn’t Be Here” by self-described “mock star” Killy Dwyer. For a full sched-ule and ticket info, go to FRIGIDnewyork.info.

We seem to be somewhat in the midst of a Tennessee Williams revival at the moment, as directors and pro-ducers exhume countless obscure works ignominiously scorned in the genius playwright’s lifetime. Not only has there been the above-mentioned production of “Green Eyes” by director Travis Chamberlain, but last year saw an entire festival of such works by Target Margin, as well as a series of revivals by White Horse Theatre Company, and the film version of “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond.” And, now, of all people, Elizabeth LeCompte will be directing the late Williams play “Vieux Carrè” with her company the Wooster Group, running through February. In the this production, this most experimental of ensembles will be taking on an autobiographical work of American realism, concerning Williams’ earliest days as a writer in the New Orleans French Quarter. It’s not the first time the Wooster Group has dared to monkey with a Great American Playwright. They’ve done it with Eugene O’Neill more than once, so the answer to the obvious question “Is nothing sacred?” has already been answered and it’s a flat no. Tickets and info may be obtained at thewoostergroup.org.

In the vaudeville/ burlesque category this month: “Female female-impersonator” World Famous *BOB* will be reviving “One Man Show: The True Story of Miss World Famous *BOB*” at Wild Project, 195 East 3rd Street February 3-5. I caught this show on its original run

at Joe’s Pub a few months back, and can testify that it mixes Bob’s patented exhibitionism with revelations of a deeper sort. Find out more at thewildproject.com.

At Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center, February 4-20 Flux Theatre Ensemble will be presenting Liz Duffy Adams’ “Dog Act.” While that may sound like a mere circus or vaudeville turn featuring trained poodles, we learn from the release that it’s really one of those post-apocalyptic things, one in which a character undergoes “a voluntary species downgrade.” But, really, aren’t we all doing that at this stage in evolutionary history? Tix and info at fl uxtheatre.org.

February 6 through March 6, the Irish Repertory Theatre Company will be presenting “My Scandalous Life” — a play about Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde’s lover who indirectly brought about the celebrated author’s downfall. Normally history remembers “Bosie” (his nick-name) as a superfi cial, unfeeling character, but the blurbs about the current show seem to indicate that (in this play at least) there was more to him than that. How true it is, I can’t say, but at least it will be something new! More info: irishrep.org.

Lastly, Theater for the New City’s 8th Annual Love ‘N’ Courage benefi t will take place at the National Arts Club on February 28. This year’s guest of honor will be the lovely Marian Seldes, with a wealth of presenting stars from both the Uptown and Downtown theatre scenes, including Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Tammy Grimes, Jean-Claude Van Itallie, and many others. A great way to close out an action-packed month, even though this Valentine’s Day-themed event will be two weeks too late for Cupid. See you next month!

Tennessee, TNC and a famous BOBTheater thrives, thanks to the late Ellen Stewart

Photo by Kirsten Kay Thoen

Getting Ready to “Purge”: Jillian Lindig (top) and Larisa Polonsky (bottom).

EASTVILLAGERARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

18 Februar y 3 - 9, 2011

BY JERRY TALLMERJust call them A, B, C, D. That’s what the playwright

calls them — or, rather, that’s what her play calls them.When the lights go up, all four are discovered in a sterile-

looking sort of waiting room/classroom. The younger of the two couples, A (male) and B (female), sit with arms around one another. Not so with the older, more uptight couple. D (male) paces the room impatiently while C (female), his wife, just sits and broods.

All four are waiting to be individually red-lighted or green-lighted as a consequence of certain computer-generat-ed intelligence tests. A deus ex machina simply identifi ed as “Effi cient Woman” is on hand to elucidate the results.

The play is “Selection” — as in Darwin’s “natural selec-tion” — and it is the one I liked best of the four one-acts by four women presented together under the rubric “A Girl Wrote It.” The playwright is Kris Montgomery of Shelton, Connecticut — whose day job, as it happens, is installing computer software.

When the results for A, B, C, and D come in, the green light fl ashes three times, the red light fl ashes once. Now what? Who gets the intelligence test’s thumbs up to bring that baby into the brave new world of the day after tomor-row — and who does not?

The admirably concise “Selection” contains overtones not only of Aldous Huxley and Orwell, but of early and late Albee (“The Sandbox,” “The American Dream,” “The Play About the Baby”) as well as of a scary futuristic Ira Levin novel called “This Perfect Day” (1970) — right down to ID touch pads at every turn.

“This play,” says Montgomery, “has been done a number of places, starting in 1999, and then thrown away, It was rediscovered last fall by my 16-year-old daughter Erin — the

youngest of my three daughters — when she was looking for a one-act play she could direct next year in school. Then I got a notice from the Dramatists Guild about this company, Wide Eyed Productions, that was looking for one-act scripts by women.”

Plays have to get conceived and brought to birth, just like human babies. This one, says its mother — whose three fl esh-and-blood daughters are, as it happens, adopted — was spurred into life “by discussions I used to have with friends about whether some people ought to have to get a license to give birth to a child. Alcoholics, welfare moth-ers, low-IQ’s, et cetera. That’s not exactly genocide, but a gray area.”

From this play, her play, “Selection”:

EFFICIENT WOMAN: This is interesting. The com-puter print out says that this is one of the highest greens we’ve ever had.

A: Meaning?EFFICIENT WOMAN: They almost passed the red

[this particular green’s partner] just because the green was so high.

B: So, why don’t they do that? We want to have kids together.

EFFICIENT WOMAN: They didn’t do it because if they start making exceptions, the whole system falls apart.

Four women wrote this13th effort by Wide Eyed Productions features best of 388

A GIRL WROTE ITFour one-act plays by women

A Wide Eyed Productions presentation by Horse Trade Theater Group

February 3-20

At The Red Room (85 E. 4th St. btw. Second Ave & Bowery. Third fl oor; no wheelchair access)

For tickets ($18, $15 for students), call 212-868-4444

Visit wideeyedproductions.com and horsetrade.info

THEATER

The play is “Selection” — as in Darwin’s “natural selection” — and it is the one I liked best of the four one-acts by four women presented together under the rubric “A Girl Wrote It.” The playwright is Kris Montgomery of Shelton, Connecticut — whose day job, as it happens, is installing computer software.

Photo by Kristin Skye Hoffmann

“The Return of Toodles Von Flooz” — featuring Lisa Mamazza, Colin McFadden & Brianne Mai.

Continued on page 19

Februar y 3 - 9, 2011 19

A: Isn’t that what the Nazis did? You’re trying to get rid of a whole group of people.

B: This is genocide.EFFICIENT WOMAN: No, it isn’t.

No one’s being killed here. We just don’t let everyone reproduce. There’s a big difference….

All the above — indeed, all of “Selection” — represents, to Montgomery “a kind of argument with myself — and it’s my hope that it will elicit discussion and/or argu-ment elsewhere.”

Montgomery, who says she was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, “somewhere in the last century,” and that she is “married to a woman named Lisa,” has an acting/singing career alongside playwriting. She has widely toured as the Eva Peron of “Evita,” and — in nice happenstance parallel to her present Red Room connection — plays keyboard and sings with a band called Those 4 Girls.

Which takes us to another Kris — or, to be more exact, Kristin Skye Hoffmann — the co-founder (with Liz White and Sky Seals) of Wide Eyed Productions. It is Hoffmann who had the idea of putting four short plays together under the heading “A Girl Wrote It,” and is the director of one of those four, Lisa Ferber’s farcical fi lm noir bar room Western, “The Return of Toodles

Von Flooz.”Directing is Hoffmann’s passion, start-

ing back at the University of Northern Colorado, from where she and a number of

theater-minded pals came straight to New York to try to do their thing. Wide-eyed is what they knew they were.

Her directing of an exciting 2007

“Medea” for the Hudson Shakespeare Company was rehearsed “for a really long time,” but got “only four performances — all outdoors, all free — which seemed a pity to me.”

Perhaps it could be done again, and better, and indoors. “If I do it again,” she said to her buddies, “will you guys stick with me?”

Yes, they said, yes.After much search, she found “a very

nice man named Richmond Shepard,” who made his East 26th Street theater available to her without a deposit — and a second “Medea,” again starring Amy Lee Pearsall, was on its wide-eyed way.

“Everybody lent us stuff, and somehow

we even managed to come out in the black. This is now our 13th production and our second evening of one-acts. In all 12 of those shows, we had never done anything written by a woman, and I thought that was crazy.

“We did a call for scripts by a woman, posted it all over the place. Received 388 submissions, and I read all 388.” This was chopped down to 50, and then to the four at Red Room: “Clementine,” by Lynda Green; “Plight of the Apothecary” by Elizabeth Birkenmeier; “The Return of Toodles Von Flooz,” by Lisa Ferber; and “Selection,” by Kris Montgomery.

A, B, C, D. Red light, green light. Stop and Go in The Red Room. Keep your eyes wide open.

Photo by Kristin Skye Hoffmann

“Selection” features, L to R: Tom Carman, Lucy McRae & Mim Granahan.

Continued from page 18

“Everybody lent us stuff, and somehow we even managed to come out in the black. This is now our 13th production and our second evening of one-acts. In all 12 of those shows, we had never done anything written by a woman, and I thought that was crazy.”

Four women wrote this

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THIRD ST. MUSIC SCHOOL SETTLEMENT: “STRING ‘STRAVAGANZA”

Some things in life should happen more often then they do. But for now, you’ll just have to be satisfi ed with the fact that this is a semi-annual event — and the fact that February 2011 means you’ll have the oppor-tunity to attend Third Street Music School Settlement’s “String ‘Stravaganza.” More than 150 violinists, violists, cellists and bass players will perform a concert comprised of diverse selections from “The O’Connor Method — A New American School of String Playing.” Give these young musical artists credit for their ambition: The program begins with the most diffi cult composition, calling on all students who have mastered it to stand up and play together. That piece is followed by the second-hardest piece with more students joining the fi rst group of players, and so on until the program has progressed to the easiest pieces and the group of players has grown to include students from 4 to 18 years old.

The performers will be joined by mas-ter violinist and creator of The O’Connor Method, Mark O’Connor. That method, according to Third Street, “exposes students to a variety of North American fi ddle and violin styles, including traditional tunes and O’Connor originals. The method attempts to establish a concept of what American music

is, providing examples in composition, litera-ture and teaching.” Will the students become the master, or at least give him a run for his

money? The latter is a sure bet. The former is anybody’s guess. Find out for yourself on Sat., Feb. 5, 10am, at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery (10th St. & 2nd Ave.). FREE. For more info, call 212-777-3240 or visit thirdstreetmusicschool.org.

GENTRIFUSIONRed Fern Theatre Company’s latest project

charged several playwrights with the task of exploring the “different truths” surrounding the gentrifi cation of New York’s neighbor-hoods. The short plays of “Gentrifusion,” we’re assured, will reach beyond the cli-chéd ideas of gentrifi cation to explore how imposed changes on the place where you live both improves and diminishes the commu-nity. What they’ve found out already is that “both long-time residents and the new crop of gentrifi ers benefi t and suffer in different measures and different ways.” The roster of short plays are supported by projections cre-ated from photojournalist and documentary fi lmmaker Dennis Ho (dwho.com). Through Feb. 13. Thurs. at 8pm, Fri. at 8pm, Sat. at 8pm, Sun. at 3pm (Super Bowl Sun., Feb. 6, at 2pm). Additional performance on Mon., Feb., 7 at 7pm. Running Time: 120 minutes,

with intermission. At LABA Theatre at the 14th Street Y (344 E. 14th St. btw. First & Second Aves.). For tickets ($25), visit red-ferntheatre.org or call 866-811-4111.

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF THE ARTSExplore painting, collage and sculpture through self-guided arts projects. Open art stations are ongoing throughout the after-noon — giving children the opportunity to experiment with materials such as paint, clay, fabric, paper and found objects. Young minds can be great minds — and great minds, as they say, often think alike. See for yourself when you view “Art Within Reach: from the WPA to the Present” — on display now through June 5. This intergenerational exhibit connects the artistic and intellectual dots between those who grew up in NYC during the Great Depression and those who are growing up in the city today. Regular museum hours: Wed.-Sun., 12-5pm; Thurs., 12-6pm (Pay as You Wish, from 4-6pm). Admission: $10. At the Children’s Museum of the Arts (182 Lafayette St. btw. Broome & Grand). Call 212- 274-0986 or visit cmany.org. For group tours, call 212) 274-0986, extension 31.

Just Do Art!

Photo by Christina Limson O’Connell, Courtesy of Third Street Music School

Third Street’s littlest string students, accompanied by the school’s most advanced, make beautiful music (at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery).

Image courtesy of the Children’s Museum of the Arts

“The Train Station” — by Alyssa Ramroop, Age 11 (watercolor & gouache on paper. 2010. 22.5in x 15in). See “Children’s Museum of the Arts.”

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Februar y 3 - 9, 2011 21

L.M.C.C.’s “Access Restricted” provides insider’s insightLecture series to make seldom-visited spaces accessibleBY ALINE REYNOLDS

“Revitalization” has become the buzzword to describe post-9/11 Lower Manhattan. Amid the mushrooming high-rises and rapidly evolving technology, one Downtown arts organization is directing the spotlight on the area’s rich cultural history.

In a series of lectures this winter and spring (organized by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; lmcc.net), humani-ties scholars will present histories of Lower Manhattan that slipped out of the pubic consciousness or were overlooked from the get-go. The lectures, based on archival research and local lore, span architecture, urban development, social justice and the environment.

“Looking back on the artistic historical material allows us to appreciate different historical layers present in our neigh-borhood and think about our changing neighborhood today,” said Erin Donnelly, curator of the lecture series and a special projects consultant at the L.M.C.C. — a nonprofi t organiza-tion that secures grants, artist-residencies and other services for artists.

“Lower Manhattan Revealed,” the name Donnelly chose for the 2011 program, “had a nice ring to it — thinking about this year being 2011, a year when our district is being memorialized, and its future being dis-cussed.” Another purpose of the annual lecture series “Access Restricted” is to make accessible Downtown spaces that are rarely visited by the public. Venues used during this year’s series include the Woolworth Building, 7 World Trade Center and 195 Broadway (the former AT&T building).

Next Wednesday, architecture and urban studies writer Jeff Byles will interview architecture professor Michael Sorkin (director of City College’s graduate urban design program) about the building boom that has occurred Downtown in the past decade. The discussion will also be about “rethinking open and green spaces…and what it means to reclaim the city from an environmental perspec-tive,” according to Donnelly.

On March 9, John Kuo Wei Tchen — co-founder of the Museum of Chinese in the America (at 215 Centre Street; mocanyc.org) and an associate professor of social and cul-tural analysis at New York University — will be speaking about the history of the South Street Seaport. The lecture will take place in the attic of the Seaport Museum, the site of the former Fulton Ferry Hotel.

Nineteenth-century Downtown, stretching from Chinatown to the South Street Seaport, was lined with lively outdoor markets that bustled with activity. “It was

much more intermingled in terms of different groups of people, different classes and all that,” he said. “For me, it’s an important example of the way in which the port itself created a port culture.” Tchen hopes to attract some longtime Seaport residents to the L.M.C.C. lecture who will be willing to share their perspectives on how the area has changed, and talk about aspects of its history that have gone under the radar (although he wouldn’t com-ment on the forthcoming redevelopment of the Seaport).

Tchen has also extensively researched the history of Chinatown. When he founded the Museum of Chinese in America (on East Broadway in 1980), Tchen uncovered cabinets and other relics of the past in dumpsters sur-rounding Chatham Square. “[The stores] had 99-year leases, they were coming to expiration, and their histories were just being dumped,” he said. “This kind of shocked me.” Artistic and historic community groups must be formed in Chinatown and elsewhere, Tchen said, in order to establish cultural diversity and help preserve the neigh-borhood’s’’ unique histories.

Tchen believes that business improvement districts (BIDs), such as the one proposed for Chinatown, are too narrowly defi ned and often lead to cultural homogenization rather than diversity. “Culture doesn’t emerge from monocul-ture,” he said. “It emerges from these vital mixes.”

On March 23, art critic Douglas Crimp will be showing four 1970s fi lms shot in Tribeca and on the Lower East Side, that demonstrate how fi lmmakers utilize the city as performance stages and templates for their work. Crimp writes for a variety of international and scholarly journals, and teaches art history at the University of Rochester.

Crimp selected the fi lms he thought were the most resonant with and representative of the era. The L.M.C.C. event, he said, is an opportunity to show a new generation of NYC artists a sampling of lesser-known artworks of the period. “It’s an example of how artists were able to use this neighborhood while it was undergoing transforma-tion,” he said. Today’s generation of artists, Crimp said, can be inspired by 20th-century fi lmmaking. “There’s a way in which contemporary art is not only attentive to its

present moment, but to earlier art.”Artists continue to use the metropolis as a performance

stage – for example, choreographer Trisha Brown, Crimp noted, is recreating Roof Piece, a dance from 1971, on rooftops in Chelsea and the Meatpacking District this spring.

Crimp plans to give a brief introduction about the exhibition he co-curated at the Reina Sofi a in Madrid last summer, which serves as a wider context for the fi lms he’ll be presenting at the March 23 screening. The exhibition, entitled “Mixed Use, Manhattan” focused on how artists from the 1970s to the present experiment with urban space. He will also offer the L.M.C.C. audience a tour of the Cunard Building at 25 Broadway, a landmark building from the 1920s that was the original U.S. headquarters of the Cunard Line, an Anglo-American shipping company that dominated the seas in the early 20th century.

“Lower Manhattan Revealed” will close with an April 13 lecture given by Native American scholar and curator David Oestreicher at Pershing Hall on Governor’s Island. Oestreicher will talk about the history of the Lenape, a Delaware Indian tribe that was reportedly the earliest group to inhabit Lower New York.

L.M.C.C. created “Access Restricted” in 2006 to satisfy the curiosity of those wishing to penetrate Downtown’s untold history. Participants of the series’ fi rst season got a special tour of the old City Hall subway station, which is now closed off to the public, and the Surrogate’s Courthouse and the New York Hall of Records on Chambers Street.

This year, Art International Radio, a Downtown-based online radio station, is partnering with the L.M.C.C. to audio-record the events and store them in their online cultural archive.

The events are free, but RSVP is required since space is limited. For more information, visit lmcc.net or call Marisa Olsen, external affairs coordinator, at 212-219-9401, ext. 105. The fi rst “Access Restricted” recording is scheduled to launch on A.I.R.’s website (artonair.com) on February 7.

Photo courtesy of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

L.M.C.C.’s lecture series gives you access to restricted Downtown spaces.

Another purpose of the annual lecture series “Access Restricted” is to make accessible Downtown spaces that are rarely visited by the public. Venues used during this year’s series include the Woolworth Building, 7 World Trade Center and 195 Broadway (the former AT&T building).

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Februar y 3 - 9, 2011 23

of Vilnius was the “old country” to my family. My father and aunts were working too hard to commute to Mass there every week, but it was where they would have been if they could man-age it. It was a place to go for important feasts and momentous events like baptisms and funer-als. It was our St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Our Lady of Vilnius was not an exclusively Lithuanian parish. The Villager’s inaugural article spoke of “Pretzels” and “Provolone,” not “Kugelis” and “Cepelinai.” I am urg-ing anyone who loved this place to jump onboard — all of you Hallorans and Dolans with no Lithuanian heritage, all of you Piros, Passarellis, Tangredis and DeLorenzos with Lithuanian grandmothers, all of you who were strengthened for your workday by Father Sawicki’s noon Mass, all of you sitting in your cars waiting to get into the tunnel who are heartened by the sight of Our Lady of Vilnius as a symbol of God and old New York — we are trying to reconstitute this place so that it continues to inspire.

Christina Nakraseive

Praying for a miracle

To The Editor:Re “Lady of Vilna appeal goes to state’s

highest court” (news article, Jan. 27):

I hold fond memories of Our Lady of Vilnius Church. I was baptized there and regu-larly attended Sunday Mass. It is a beacon for the faithful. It feels good to see the church as I come home each day. However, I am inevitably reminded of the callous manner in which its doors were suddenly shut, without consid-eration for Father Eugene Sawicki and the church family; without notice, without a care.

Many of Our Lady of Vilnius’s displaced congregation regard its closing as a heart-less undertaking. Throughout the past four years, the Lithuanian supporters remained undaunted in their goal to worship at Our Lady of Vilnius Church, albeit, outside on the church steps. In rain, snow and sunshine, they practice the Roman Catholic faith with song, candles, words of scripture and prayer. The service always culminates with delicious Lithuanian homemade food and inspirational discussion. The spirit of the faithful remains, to love and serve the Lord.

There is still a strong parish here, and the parishioners remain steadfast with their goal of reclaiming their church. Miraculously, St. Brigid’s Church was saved. The hope is that a similar miracle can happen here, too.

Linda L. Sousa

Teen torn by church’s loss

To The Editor:Re “Lady of Vilna appeal goes to state’s

highest court” (news article, Jan. 27):It’s religion. People should respect

that. The church should be considered a landmark, not only because it’s been here a long time, but because it’s here to serve people of faith. People now and in the future could learn to respect the efforts of a dedicated community in their effort to preserve their church and to practice their faith.

I was baptized at Our Lady of Vilnius Church 14 years ago. I don’t want to only keep the church’s “memory” in my mind, I want to see the structure and its beauty — not only on the outside, but inside, as well. I yearn to enter Our Lady of Vilnius because I would be surrounded by histori-cal, sacred walls. People who have a say-so in these matters should respect that.

Lauren J. Sousa

Missing Grandpa Bruno

To The Editor:Re “Olindo Bruno, 88; Worked in the

garment industry” (obituary, Jan. 20):Thank you for writing this about my

grandfather. We miss you very much, Pop! Rest in peace.

Anthony Bruno

Soho’s zoning is failing

To The Editor:Re “Non-artist residents feel like ‘crim-

inals’ in Soho, lawyer says” (news article, Jan. 27):

The real issue as I see it is live-work space for actual working artists. Soho inspires the heart of the artist in many ways. The low roofline and the large windows create a neighborhood awash in light. The legacy of art in Soho is impres-sive, to say the least.

Yet it seems as if the link between civic and artistic is not as strong as it needs to be to meet the real needs of living, work-ing artists. Not many career artists can afford the space rates, and so they are forced to move their studios elsewhere.

Sadly, it is clear from this article that many of the live-work spaces that were once set aside for artists are not housing artists at all. With all the creativity at hand in Soho, it amazes me that a more effective plan has not been generated to assure the continued existence of artists and their neighbors in Soho. Since suc-cessful art district plans have been devel-oped in other neighborhoods in other cit-ies, one must wonder why it is that Soho cannot get it straight.

Lawrence White

E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to the East Villager, Letters to the Editor, 145 Sixth Ave., ground floor, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The East Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. The East Villager does not publish anonymous letters.

LETTERS TO THE EDITORContinued from page 14

closure has been harsh and swift. The closing of St. Vincent’s has been a

devastating blow to the Village and just as devastating for the businesses that depend-ed on St. Vincent’s for survival. Many busi-nesses have already closed, while others are struggling to survive. To help confront this problem, my offi ce invited the Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, Community Board 2, Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, Borough President Scott Stringer, state Senator Tom Duane and Council Speaker Christine Quinn to par-ticipate in a Valentine’s-themed shopping extravaganza on this Sat., Feb. 12, enti-tled, “Love the Village,” with the goal of supporting businesses that have been adversely impacted. The event will kick off at 10 a.m. on the northwest corner of Seventh Ave. and Greenwich Ave., across the street from Roasting Plant Coffee. On the weekend before Valentine’s Day, we want to show local businesses how big our hearts in the Village really are.

“Love the Village” will be a daylong shopping extravaganza that will encour-age the public to engage with businesses in the immediate vicinity of St. Vincent’s.

Participants will be given a map of busi-nesses on Greenwich Ave., Sixth Ave. and Seventh Ave. and, after shopping at these businesses, they will have an opportunity to exchange their receipts (that value at least $10) for raffl e tickets on the fi rst fl oor of the Lesbian and Gay Center, at 208 W. 13th St. between Seventh Ave. and Greenwich Ave. between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Multiple raffl es will be held through-out the day with the chance to win prizes donated by local businesses. To show Valentine’s Day appreciation, giveaways will include locally designed “Love the Village” T-shirts for the fi rst 100 people to participate.

Although a one-day event may not save a business that is teetering on the edge, it may help introduce people to businesses that they might pass every day without ever entering. If we do want our neighborhood to be more Jane Jacobs than Marc Jacobs, a good fi rst step is by stepping foot inside an independently owned local business. I look forward to seeing all of you on Feb. 12. Now, more than ever, we need to come together as a community and help those businesses that are in need.

Glick is assemblymember for the 66th District.

A valentine for Village businessesContinued from page 15

The Lower Eastside Girls Club is in the running for a $50,000 award if it wins the DVF Foundation’s “People’s Voice” online vote, which started Monday. Actress Rosario Dawson nominated the club for the competi-tion. Four other organizations are also on the ballot — though these are national groups, unlike the girls club, based in New York’s own East Village. Voters can also enter their names to win a free trip to New York City and a DVF (Diane von Furstenberg) shop-ping spree — only one person will win. (If a New York City resident wins, hopefully she or he will get some other perk since no travel is required.)

To vote for the girls club, go to www.girlsclub/vote, and click on the “Vote for Lyn” button above the YouTube video of Lyn Pentecost, the girls club’s director.

The DVF Awards were created in 2010 by von Furstenberg and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to recognize and support women who are using their resources, commitment and visibility to trans-form the lives of other women. Honorees receive $50,000 in support of the nonprofi t, 501c-3 organization with whom they are affi liated to further their work. The last day of voting is Feb. 15.

If the girls club wins, the money will go toward construction of their new

Avenue D clubhouse and for their con-tinued employment of local teenagers, Pentecost said.

“It’s really a vote for localization and a sustainable community,” she said. “It’s about keeping it all in the neighborhood.”

‘Vote for Lyn’; Help club win $50K

L.E.S. Girls Club members want your vote.

24 Februar y 3 - 9, 2011

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February