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The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
January 15, 2015 • $1.00 Volume 84 • Number 33
Praise and excitement versus fear and loathing at Pier55 public hearing BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
D
PIER55, continued on p. 6
PHOTO BY ZACH WILLIAMS
epending on who was testifying Monday evening, Pier55 — the planned $130 million “arts island” off of W. 13th St. — will either be a dazzling new outdoor entertainment venue and park or a colossal disaster waiting to happen, à la the Hudson River Park equivalent of “The Poseidon Adventure.” As required for a “significant action” affecting the park, the public hearing was held to gather input on the proposed lease for Pier55, under which a nonprofit, Pier55, Inc. (or P55), headed by Barry Diller, would operate the pier for 20 years, with an option to extend the lease for another 10. Media tycoon Diller and his wife, the fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg, have committed to contribute $113 to build the new 2.7-acre pier, which would sit out in the river, north of the current Pier 54, connected to the rest of the park by
two walkways. The city has pledged to kick in $17 million for the project. Pier 54’s remaining deck would be removed, though its pile field would be left. A crowd of about 150 listened as, at the hearing’s start, the project was presented and described by Madelyn Wils, president of the Hudson River Park Trust; landscape architect Signe Nielsen, who teamed on the new pier’s design with Heatherwick Studio; and Kate Horton and George C. Wolfe, who will be part of the high-powered team programming the pier’s entertainment. Horton, former executive director of the National Theatre of Great Britain, noted, “It’s a park first — and we’re very mindful of that.” She said that, per Pier 55, Inc.’s mission statement, the performers would be a mix of emerging and established acts. The majority of entertainment, she said, would
One of the 500 people who rallied on Saturday in Washington Square for free speech and against religious-extremist violence.
After France’s 9/11: Drawing a line against fanatic violence BY ZAC H WILLIAM S
C
helsea resident Lawrence Walmsley began his morning on Wed., Jan. 7, perusing the news on his iPad when he came across what initially appeared to be an old story: There was a shooting in Paris. In another part of the West Side neighborhood, Ingrid Jean-Baptiste received a phone call informing her that two masked gunmen had just stormed the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Like people across New York City, they were shocked by the coordinated nature of the attack that left 12 people dead that day, they said. As attacks continued in the subsequent days, the underlying motivations behind the carnage emerged as the world learned that the alleged attackers were two French Muslims inspired by religious zealotry. In the pages of Charlie Hebdo, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi did not see humor in cartoon lampoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
They saw a target. Visual representations of the prophet are forbidden in Islam, but cartoonists Charlie Hebdo did not care. Staff at the magazine have long delighted in printing caricatures of the powerful and the prickly. A predecessor publication was banned by French authorities in 1970 for making fun of the death of Charles de Gaulle. A 2011 bomb outside the magazine’s office followed the publication of an issue CHARLIE, continued on p. 24
300, the Battle Against Charters....................page 4 When cops and protesters clashed...............page 10 Hunk’a, hunk’a burnin’ Elvis map.................page 13 Glick’s N.F.L. playoff picks..........page 27
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